Recipe: Amazing Shrimp Pasta w/Sun Dried Tomatoes

Now, I’m not exactly a chef. If for no other reason than pure laziness as its easier to request a meal from the H than to actually put the effort in making one. Especially when the H exists on a carnival diet,* its not exactly a pleasure to make cuisine that will meet his strict dietary restrictions. He was however at band practice and after a shitastic day I had a bag of defrosted shrimp I needed to do something with. So I did. And it was fucking fantabulous.

Even better was the fact that Bear loved it especially the lobster (what apparently he thinks shrimp are).

I started with Nigella Lawson’s Nigella Express recipe for Spaghettini with Shrimp and Chile and quickly realized that other than shrimp I didn’t actually have any of the other ingredients. So I improvised. I come from the school of thought of recipes being a dash, dab and dollap so I apologize for no actual measurements. I will tell you however what Nigella said to use and how much in parentheses.

1. Drain the shrimp and leave to the side (1.5 cups of frozen cooked peeled shrimp defrosted)

2. Put salted water onto boil and then add handful of spaghetti (8 oz spaghettini)

3. In large pan with olive oil with minced garlic (2 tablespoons garlic infused oil) fry finely sliced white onion (1/4 cup finely sliced scallions) add red pepper flakes and chili powder (1/2 teaspoon crushed chili flakes) . Then add 1/2 a chopped roma tomato and a bunch of cut sun dried tomatoes with their oil (1 cup sunblush tomatoes in seasoned oil).

I let these simmer for quite some time mostly because I was still pulling things together.

Then add the shrimp.

4. Add handfuls of roughly torn fresh basil and lettuce (1.5 cups of arugula) and stir until wilted a little.

5. Add a spill of Reisling (1/2 cup white wine or Noilly Prat) till it bubbles up.  I then covered it and let it simmer for awhile.

6. Strain pasta when ready and then toss into the shrimp pan and stir.

I added another dollap of olive oil and some more pepper flakes at this point and stirred thoroughly.

7. Sprinkle with parsley flakes (1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley)

and serve!

*- The H’s diet consists of foods that may be purchased at a carnival for example: fries, pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, corn dogs, chicken nuggets, etc. This is also quite similar to a child’s menu at a major restaurant chain. Its also a pain in my ass.

What it Costs to Feed a Family of Four

As I constantly debate about whether or not I should be a stay at home mom the main thing it comes down to is money. Because as always in life everything is about MONEY. I seem to always go over budget when it comes to food, so I’ve started to wonder if its not really just me, but if my budget itself is out of line. Which upon consulting twitter it appears as though it is my budget. $200 a month for four people (well 3.5) is pretty damn unreasonable. And that’s supposedly including my weekly Chipotle at $10.01, so obviously I always exceeded it by a lot.

I was directed to this MSNBC article by @PolPrairieMama which was helpful and referred me to the USDA breaks outs for a thrifty, low cost, moderate or liberal food plan and updated with prices as of April 2011. Basically my monthly costs would range between $530-$1030 for a family of four dependent on the plan. Which is soooo much closer to what I actually wind up spending monthly ($500ish) and also not remotely what I was expecting. I can’t believe food costs so much!

This also must be what The H is always talking about with the kids being expensive. They don’t seem expensive, but I suppose we do need to feed them and apparently that costs a lot of money, who would have known!

This is the link to the PDF of the USDA breakouts:

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2011/CostofFoodApr2011.pdf

Nothing Tastes as Good As Skinny Feels

Actually toffifee, double stuf oreos, coke, BBQ ribs and wings, garlic mashed potatoes, baked potato soup, cheese fries and hamburgers,  and I could probably food associate for a long time of things that I love to eat more than I like to be skinny.

But

I still miss being skinny. Remember 2009? When I spent the whole damn year exercising, dieting, and complaining but in the end lost 25 lbs and wore size 4 jeans? Remember when I bought this dress at White House Black Market:

Damn, I was thin for a glorious six months before I decided to get knocked up. Hey, better to get knocked up at my thinnest then my widest though. From my thinnest to my widest is a difference of 46 lbs. That’s almost 50 lbs people, FIFTY. People on Biggest Loser lose that much on the ranch (like that annoying Elizabeth who I really hope doesn’t get to the final three).That’s a lot for a normal unmotivated trainerless person to lose.

However, a lot of that was actual baby weight so when Bella and her habitat came out I lost a bunch. In fact now at the end of my leave I have 15 lbs to lose which is much more manageable than forty freaking six. But the thing is I’m no where near as motivated as I was in 2009. I hit rock bottom when I decided I wanted to try and lose weight. When I went to Chicago for my 24th birthday and watched a fashion show of my friends trying on my clothes and looking so much better than me in them that was a punch in the gut. Or when I sat in my car outside the Uptown VFW sobbing before a friend’s  birthday party because I was too embarrassed to go inside because of my appearance. Yeah, that was awful. Probably as bad as when I stood in the bathroom licking the tinfoil of some now forgotten food. Those were rock bottom instances. I don’t feel anything like I did then. I feel lazy and unwilling to put in the effort I know I have to put in to lose the weight.

I’ve had a gym membership since September and have only gone 12 times. Nine of which was in November and three of which are this week. Which means all of September and October my membership sat dormant, unused and charging me $42 a month. This month I hope to go the required 12 times to get my Medica reimbursement for $20 making my membership a more feasible monthly charge of $22. That will be however tough considering all next week my friend B is going to be in town and Christmas weekend is sort of out of the question.

Yesterday, I went to the BodyFlow class for the first time in way over a year and I loved it. This was why after all I got the membership since I do technically have a treadmill downstairs I could be running (really walking with a slight incline) on. The problem is that when its actually time to go to the gym I never feel like it. When I’m there I almost always enjoy it and am glad I went the trouble is actually getting my ass off the couch my hand out of the cookie jar and outside to the gym.

Then, of course, my other stumbling block is food. God only knows how many Oreos I’ve consumed the past week. A lot. They are my kryptonite. And people who know me can attest I don’t like desserts/sweet things/cookies/etc. This was of course until I discovered Halloween Oreos and now Holiday Oreos. I tell myself (and the H) that after this box we will not buy anymore (even if they’re on sale) and we won’t buy any coke either which I have become completely addicted to and MUST HAVE.  Maybe if I cut these things out of my diet and actually go to the gym I’ll be able to wear that black dress to my friend’s wedding in June. We’ll see.

For the record: Lots of food tastes as good as skinny feels Kate Moss. Though I’m not going to deny how wonderful skinny feels.

Chicago Recap

This past weekend I ventured home to Sweet Home Chicago for a baby shower that my friends were throwing for me as well as to leave Bear with my parents for the week (they will be returning him Friday when they come up for the 4th).

We (my friend L, Bear and I) left on schedule at 10 am on Friday morning. However after 60 minutes into our drive (L was driving) a random tire part flew towards us and smashed into the windshield cracking it badly on the drivers side and a big crack across the whole thing.

So we pulled over in Eau Claire, WI. I spent approximately 45 minutes on hold, being transferred, being disconnected, recalling, being on hold, being transferred, etc with Allstate trying to figure out exactly what I’m supposed to do. All the representatives were very nice, but the fact that the whole calling thing took 45 minutes pissed me off. Luckily, it was covered at 100% with no deductible so we were able to call someone to come out the parking lot we were in and fix it. Problem was that they wouldn’t arrive until 1pm and the car wouldn’t be drivable until 3pm putting us at a 4 hour delay hanging out in Eau Claire.

Luckily due to my ingenuity and the  kindness of strangers we asked and were allowed to go swimming in the Eau Claire Hampton Inn pool that we happened to be stranded next to. So for an hour we took Bear swimming and then had lunch for another hour and then hung around the hotel while Bear built a rock castle waiting for the windshield to be done.

We finally got to Chicago close to 8pm, a full 10 hours after we departed. After dinner with my parents we joined my good friends B and A at my favorite restaurant, Tapas Barcelona, for drinks, dessert and late apps. We wound up chatting at a nearby park until way past my bedtime.

The next day was off to my baby shower hosted by the bf and A and it was wonderful. They did a fabulous job. I got lots of cute things for Isabelly definitely more clothes and books then the practical things I actually registered for. But cute things are still nice! After the shower I napped since I did not sleep well in the non air conditioned sweat lodge that is my parent’s place. It also did not help that Bear was sleeping with me and he likes to turn a full 180 degrees throughout the night. We then went back to Barcelona with 3 of my good friends and filled up on super yummy food. Then we met up with my male friends for bowling at some hole in the wall by their house. It was actually quite a nice little bowling alley it just happens to be above an abandoned hardware store. I did not bowl my best. It wound up being another late night, and due to the baby in the belly we declined to go out to the 4 am bars with the boys.

Sunday morning we woke up to a giant thunderstorm. It had to be one of the loudest I have heard in recent years, but after 2 hours of downpour it completely cleared up to a nice sunny day so we went with my dad and Bear to the pool. He quite enjoyed hopping about in the water like a goon and playing sea monster and other silly things. I remembered my love of swimming (and of not being ghostly white as I got some sun). After the pool we met up with friends at Bar Louie for a late lunch and then went to see Grown Ups at the theater before dashing off to meet my parents for dinner at Coalfire Pizza. It had to be one of the best pizza’s I’ve ever eaten. It was delicioius. We had the margarita, pepperoni and prosciutto pizzas. After dinner we re-met up with my friend’s at BAP’s place for cards and general hanging out. It was fabulous getting to see my friends all weekend and being back in Chicago. Like K says, Chicago summers are just really fabulous.

Monday we went to the pool one final time with Bear and my mom and then left at 1pm to be Minnesota bound (an hour past schedule) but got detoured stopping at Crate & Barrel and Starbucks at the local mall. So actually left Evanston at 2pm. Only to arrive at the outlet mall at 3pm and shop at the Coach and Guess Outlets until 4pm. Both L and I got matching Coach purses (because we’re ridiculous human beings) and I finally replaced my broken Coach sunglasses that I’ve had since 2004 (they still sort of functioned). So really we got on the road at like 4pm.

Once when I was driving I passed a car with a zillion antenna’s but no other sign of being a police car, unfortunately it was. However nicely the guy turned on his siren for a moment to alert me of his presence but then let me go about my way without pulling me over. Which basically meant that I drove behind him and not ahead of him for the next 20 miles that we were going the same direction.

We stopped at my favorite gas station/petting zoo and this time the goat did not try to eat our ice cream

We did see a rather pissed off Peacock who was in the same pen as two wild miniature horses who seemed to be engaged in some rough housing

Then further along our trip while L was driving she actually did get pulled over. It was super awkward when the Officer Bentley asked about what was in the bottle in the back seat and I momentarily panicked before realizing it was the leftover cider from the baby shower. I pointed to my belly and explained that we were not drinking. I think a combination of Isabelly and L’s breasts got us out of that speeding ticket because he went back to his car, ran her license, but returned empty handed and sent us about our merry way.

We finally arrived back in Minnesota around 9:30 pm.

It was quite a great weekend.

In Conflict

You see I’m always in the same situation, because I never really change. I go in these cycles of being really good about not spending money and then I spend money and then I don’t and then I do and I think you get the picture.

Lately this has been the conundrum almost entirely about food. We’re really not spending beyond our budget in any other category but every single month we blow through our food budget and I often wonder how in the world do 2.5 people eat so much food? But yet we continuously do. And while of course on May 31st I said “June will be different” it obviously wasn’t. Last week I ate out every single day for lunch and we went out for dinner three times!

Today I’m sitting here having a ridiculous moral struggle because its taking all of my willpower not to email my coworkers “Chipotle?” and I know I shouldn’t but its much more than just I want a burrito (because I am famished) or that I want to gossip, its that I need to get away from here. That’s really what the issue has become lunch is the opportunity escape from this hellhole for 45 minutes. And its blissful. The concept of actually having to be here for another 7 hours straight without this middle of the day respite is going to put me into a panic. I hate being here. Today I was almost on time for work, and I realized I didn’t want to be here for that extra 15 minutes so I took a little more time getting ready to insure that I wouldn’t arrive punctually at 8:00 am, but at my usual 8:15 so as to spare myself those 15 minutes of twiddling my thumbs.

Its more than just the fact that its ridiculously slow right now and I’m practically begging for work. Its the fact that merely being on the same floor and often in the same room or cubicle as my boss sends shivers down my spine. I make it a game to see how long I can go without actually looking at him. I look all around but never directly at him, I try to avoid him like the plague, but his favorite thing is to sidle up to you and pop in with a question. I should start counting how many times a day he does this.

I realize my previous post, where I contemplated staying at home, I mentioned what a close call it is between how much I make a month and how much daycare for 2 kids will be (granted we do send them to an expensive daycare, but their care is not something I’m going to scrimp on) but when I factor in parking and how often I eat out, plus my mental health I think staying at home outweighs working here. The problem is, I’m not a quitter. And what I really want to do is fight to kick out the vermin who have infiltrated my department and have made this such an awful place to work. I shouldn’t have to leave, they should.

***Edit: I decided about halfway through writing this post that in fact it could kill me to remain here for 7 hours and have in fact created an dancing burrito art project to entice a co-worker to have Chipotle with me today. My sanity is worth $8, easy.