Friday, Jan 5, 2006

Good morning! well, update on yesterday: Lunch was a nice piece of lasagna taht my brother made, and mint tea

Dinner was home made chicken cacciatore over spaghetti. I do a lot of home cooking; its fun for me, and I can control what goes into what I fix.

To fix the cacciatore, I grilled up 4 chicken thighs on the George Foreman grill

While those are grilling, I use my electric wok that I bought from the local thrift store, and I put a couple of tablespoons of butterinto it, add a medium chopped onion, 3 cloves of chopped garlic, a a chopped sweet green pepper, let that cookuntil the onions are clear, add two cans of salt-free tomatoe sauce, a can of diced salt free tomatoes and a can of Italian stewed tomatoes, and let that start to simmer.

The chicken thighs should be done by this time, so pull them off off the grill *careful, they will be HOT!*

let them cool a bit, then peel the skin off of them and and cut the meat from the bones and chop it up, and add to the tomatoe sauce base. Turn the wok to simmer and get a glass bowl and add water to it, add the spaghetti to it, and nuke it in the microwave for 10, 15 or 20 minutes, depending upon your microwave wattage and how long it takes to get the spaghetti to al dente stage.

When the spaghetti is done, drain it, BUT DON'T RINSE IT. You want it hot, and you want the starch left on the noodles as this makes the sauce stick to the noodles.

Serve the spaghetti up on plates, ladle the sauce on top, and serve. This is a GREAT dinner!

If you have any sauce left, (a rarity in this house, as hubby LOVES this recipe,and he is the world's pickiest eater!) and can't use it up right away, it freezes well.

I use small electric appliances for cooking because I do not have a stove at this time. I have a small countertop oven , my GF grill (I use the GF grill for almost all of my meat cooking; in fact, this is my second GF grill over the past 7 years, so I get good use out of my cooking utensils), my electric wok, a nice hotplate, and my microwave. PLEASE do NOT innudate me with posts about how bad microwaves are! I have read all the reports, too...and its like anything else...everything in moderation.

I had a bedtime snack of PB&J sandwich and milk.

Hubby and I wandered of fto bed around 9:00 p.m. and he read for an hour while I worked on my best friends scarf on the purple KK loom. Looks like this might be a new bedtime ritual for us, to calm and settle before actually sleeping.

However, I slept through the alarms this morning.... :( ...that is NOT normal for me....hubby woke me up just before he left for work, and that was NOT good because that means he left without breakfast...made me feel bad beacuse I wasn't up to fix him something to eat. He isn't awake enough in the morning to fix breakfast that involves actual thinking....and I am usually together enough when I get up that I can either whip out toast and milk or scrambled eggs and juice before he heads out the door.

Because we had such an...interesting...time the past few months when it comes to employment and money, my larder is really low. I did go looking after he left and found some instant oatmeal stored away, so I am going to put the packages into a glass gallon jar and put it on the counter next to the electric tea kettle so he can fix himself some instant oatmeal when I can't seem to wake up....I am going to go look for my iron supplements today...I'll be I am anemic again...

Anyway, I was so tired that I didn't wake backup until 9:00 a.m., and that is LATE LATE LATE for me! Breakfast this morning was oatmeal(regular) and milk. Excercise will once again be housework (a note here -- we are re-arranging task areas in the house, so when I say housework, that involves switching boxes of stuff from one part of the house to another), and since I ate my oatmeal at like, 10:30 this morning (yes, I have been slow this morning), I may skip lunch and eat dinner with hubby today when he gets in at 3:30. I am thinking steak and taters with corn and peas mixed. I am also thinking of making a cake, too. Of course, he could want spaghetti and the rest of the cacciatore tonight, too.....

What's on my looms? The scarf for my best friend on the purple KK loom, ( I should have that finished tonight) and I am starting a pair of slipper socks on the blue KK loom. These are being done in a steel gray,(I call it silver), from my stash...this ia a heavy acrylic yarn from my stash that was on a mill end spool. I may be able to make a couple of pairs out of this yarn, as it seems that it isn't taking as much as I thought it would to make slipper socks. I also have a nice green that is a knid of wither green, is a very heavy acrylic, and that I think that hubby will like as slipper socks as well. I also have a nice heavey rug yarn in black that MIGHT make a pair, but I don't think there is enough to make a pair out of. I'll probably have to see if I can match it.......if not, I'll use it for something else.

Next project for the purple KK loom is a turquoise and eyelash silver scarf for an online friend-- I have her hat done already, and when I get the scarf done, I will take pics and post them before I send them to her...

The next project after that is to make myself a shrug on the purple KK loom....I seem to have a problem with staying warm these days....and I nee dto make something for myself besides a hat...*G*

next project for the blue KK loom is baby booties to go with the baby hats I made out of RedHeart Soft Baby SportWeight 3-ply 8009 Shaded Rose Twinkle yarn....this is yarn from my stash that I have had forever......when I get these done, I will see how much I have left...if I have enough, I will make more hats and booties...these are donations for the neonatal units at our local hospitals...I will also check and see if they need outfits donated for the babies who don't make it, as sometimes, the families don't have funeral outfits for the little ones that Pass the Veil. My mom can sew up the gowns, and I can make the hats and booties for matched sets.

Well, that's part of our plans for this year.....will post more laters!