Stuff, stuff, and more stuff

What a fun-filled weekend. Yesterday I accomplished grocery shopping (bought lots and lots of veggies at WF)! I've been watching WAY too much BBC America, including "How Clean is your House" (hmm, not very) and "You are what you eat" (hence lots of new veggie friends in our life!). I've bought rutabagas, bok choy, some weird Odwalla-like green drink that has spirulina and broccoli in it (along with mango, banana, and apple juices), red and green cabbages, and beans and lentils. I've tried to incorporate two vegetarian dinners (well, at least no meat as the main protein, I'm not diligent about checking the ingredients I'm using) into my weekly menus. I've even bought tofu!

Last week I tried a roasted red pepper pasta sauce with roasted red pepper and silken tofu. It wasn't all that great; the blandness of the tofu overroad the taste of the red peppers. Maybe it needed more garlic or a higher red pepper to tofu ratio. It wasn't bad, just bland. Last night I made mushroom quesadillas, with mushrooms, diced jalapeno peppers, onions, and cheese (Tillamook, which is vegetarian cheese), guacamole and sour cream, and whole wheat tortillas. They were excellent; mostly because I didn't follow the recipe too closely (I have a new vegetarian cookbook that's 5 ingredient easy vegetarian meals - sometimes the recipes need more than 5 ingredients to sing). I spiced the filling up with some cumin and chili powder! Major yums!

I really need some easy non-soup bean and lentil recipes. I am going to try a Spanish lentil rice recipe later this week. We'll see how it goes. I also bought an immersion blender for homemade smoothies. I'm not sure how often I'll use it, but maybe I'll get lots of ideas now that I have it.

On the topic of food, this morning I made crepes for breakfast with chocolate and banana filling. It reminded me of the crepes I had when I was in Paris - except the crepe was a little crispier than I remembered my Parisian crepe to be. C'est la vie. They were still so yummy - I swear I was having foodgasms. Tonight I am making stuffed peppers with a black bean and corn stuffing. This recipe is from my new America's Test Kitchen cookbook. That's the cookbook that's given me my new fantastic pan-fried salmon cakes recipe which I am desperately in love with. We'll see how this one goes.

In other interesting news... I've also fallen in love with the UK version of "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares." I just find the stories very compelling, and the insights very interesting.

Today I washed my car! Yes... it's only 45 degrees outside, but my poor car was so, so dirty I couldn't stand it. I was almost in tears every time I looked at it. Now it's all shiny and new looking, and I'm very happy. The cleanliness should last another 2 days, I figure.

And in still more news... just when we thought it was safe to clean out the room DH's father was staying in, DH's brother (yes, the one with the new baby and wife who hates me and didn't invite me to the baby shower or have DH as one of his brother's groomsmen in her 6 bridesmaid/5 groomsmen wedding) called to ask if he could stay with us for 4 weeks while doing some work in Rockville for his company. "No" is of course not an option. He's a smoker, though, so I am going to require him not to smoke anywhere near the house (I don't want nasty cigarette butts in my flower beds or lawn). Nevertheless, I acknowledge that the house is going to smell like cigarettes when he's here. I'll have to find a good solution to that. So that's something to be annoyed about.

Finally, the job posting for the office in which I desperately want to work closed on Thursday. So we'll see if I can clear the technical hurdle (which I think that I can) and then on to the true test: does that deputy director want to hire me? Argh. So frustrating.

Tonight I am going to settle down and watch the third and final part of the BBC/A&E version of "Pride and Prejudice," so that should be a nice way to close out the day.

It was a truly remarkable weekend!