Shopping when hungry

These jumped into my cart. As if I needed any encouragement to eat more chips (I'm a salty snacker, not a sweet snacker).

Let's see how long it takes me to finish over a pound and a half of chips.

Maybe I'll hit gold someday

A couple years ago, I finally broke down and registered a Starbucks gift card I had purchased. Since I was averaging three Starbucks purchases a year, usually when I was with my scrapbook friends, I had no reason to buy a gift card and leave my money languishing on it. I finally bought a gift card because I liked the design on it (I guess that means their marketing magic worked).

Over the years, I slowly added a few dollars to it, usually when there was some sort of deal from Living Social or Groupon. I figured I would never reach the coveted Gold status, which required 30 stars in one year. Usually, it is one star per purchase so at three purchases a year, I wasn't making Starbucks rich. I guess Starbucks finally figured out that I don't make too many purchases (I don't even get my birthday freebie some years) and sent me an incentive: reload my card with $25 and get a $10 bonus. Now that I could get on board with.

Then this weekend, I hit the star jackpot. Mr. Fix-it and I went out for coffee before running errands and we had the barista ring up each of our purchases separately (yes, we're troublemakers that way, but there was only one person in line behind us and three cashiers). So for three items, I got three stars. But there was a bonus star for every purchase through March 5 (I don't know if it applies to everyone or only to those who received the email) so I received three more stars for six total. But wait, there's more! There was also a three star bonus for purchasing a flat white, which we both had, so six more stars. Woo hoo, 12 stars! Then I got an email asking me to rate that location, which garnered me another star. So, 13 stars, almost halfway to Gold, and the visit was practically free if you count my previous $10 bonus.

The lessson is, sign up for the email alerts and pay attention to the bonuses. I think I'm starting to figure out the system, lol.

Latte

No, I don't have an expresso machine at home. But a little leftover whipped cream sure made my morning coffee feel fancy.

Oh Christmas Trees

We made a couple of Christmas trees to contribute to Christmas eve and Christmas day dinners. Of course, these were inspired by Pinterest. The trees are an easy way to present a small appetizer. My platter is around 10x12 inches. I used about 4 oz of pepper jack cheese, 6 oz of sharp cheddar, and less than a pint of tomatoes for each tree.

The trees I saw used grapes, but I liked the idea of a more traditional red and used cherry tomatoes instead. The tree trunk and fronds were leftover from a fennel dish we made for Christmas eve. Dill or another herb would also be a nice touch, or leave off the fronds all together. The stars were cut from lemons.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy New Year! It is the year of the snake and I have no idea if that's good or bad, but if there's any bad, I choose to ignore it, lol. I didn't go home and feel a bit of guilt for that, but Mom is pretty understanding. Since it was only the two of us at home, I didn't cook up a storm. Here are some of the ingredients soaking for jai. For the curious, starting at the top left, you see bamboo shoots and mushrooms in the bowl under the bamboo shoots, lily buds, wood ear fungus, and chestnuts.

I made just three dishes: jai, pork with lotus root, and gai lan. I told Mr. Fix-it to pretend it was nine, lol. But there's enough for another few meals so maybe the year of the snake will be a year of abundance.

No more CSA

Last year, the company facilities manager arranged to have our workplace become a CSA dropoff spot. Since I had always wanted to join a CSA, I was one of the first to sign up. At first, I was a little disappointed in the amount of produce for the price and it wasn't all organic. But, as it turns out, the produce really was fresher, tasted better than what I got at the grocery store or farmer's market, and lasted longer.

So every other Monday, like today, I would go down to the mailroom and pick up a box of produce. Usually, there were carrots and I'd cut the tops off for my coworker's rabbit. And there would be a small crowd as we played "guess the vegetable."

Unfortunately, the schedule was inconvenient for me. We do most of our grocery shopping on the weekend and I plan our meals for the week. It just didn't work out to have a full fridge on Sunday and then more produce on Monday. We never knew what would come in the CSA box so sometimes, we'd end up three heads of lettuce or five pounds of apples or more than we could use of some other fruit or vegetable or herb. Plus, the cost ($23) was a significant portion of our grocery budget every other week and I had trouble adjusting the budget. I felt bad cancelling the CSA since I want to support local farmers, but it just didn't work out.

With spring coming, I hope that produce will come down in price, plus I hope to eat from my garden all summer. It was a good experiment while it lasted.

Three pounds

After a week-long cruise, filled with all-you-can-eat buffets, plus lunches and dinners that included appetizers, first courses, and desserts (definitely multiple on the desserts), I am happy to report a mere increase of three pounds. As it turns out, I didn't exercise as much on this cruise. Last cruise, I made a huge effort to go to the early morning exercise classes and spent time on the treadmill. This cruise, the yoga and Zumba classes didn't burn off what I ate. Ironically, I don't think the food was as good this time around, even though it was the same cruise line. So why the weight gain? Can I blame it on old age? Hopefully, healthy eating habits will get rid of those three pounds (and more!).

Frugal tip: banana treat

A quick tip if you have some overripe bananas and don't feel like baking banana bread: frozen banana slices. They make a yummy snack and don't have that overripe "bite" or mushiness. Of course, you can't let them sit around, otherwise they do get mushy. If you make smoothies, you could probably add them to the blender, like frozen berries. Sometimes, I have a few slices after dinner instead of ice cream.
Simply slice the bananas and place them in a single layer on a pie tin, baking sheet, or other freezer safe flat surface. Place in the freezer for a hour or more. Store in an airtight container in the freezer.

Sweet!

We didn't have anything for dessert so Mr. Fix-it took the mini banana muffins I made and frosted them with almond butter (and yes, he also sliced them in half and added almond butter between the layers). Yum!

Noodles

If you're tired of turkey and aren't quite ready for Christmas feasting, here are some links to interesting noodle dishes from some of my favorite food blogs:

I love handmade noodles; this blogger even included a video; I'm going to have to try this some day.

Here's another video on handmade noodles. I also like the shaved noodles.

I always order pad see ew when we go out for Thai food at lunch. Hey, I know it is a funny name, but it is tasty.

This post about sweet potato noodles was interesting, except for the pig intestines part.

La Fuji Mama (love the name) shows us how to make handmade undon noodles. I don't think I'm up to it.

Lest you think I only read Asian food blogs, here's a homey dish I want to try some day.

Hope you enjoyed this little recipe/blog round up.

Soup!

Mr. Fix-it has been under the weather this week and I think he shared it with me. Must be love, eh? So I made some soup tonight with some homemade broth and mirepoix, plus some frozen veggies and pastina. Good thing I have a well stocked freezer and pantry.

Table for one

I finally understand when singles say that they hate to cook for themselves. When I was single, I didn't mind. But maybe it was because I knew I didn't have a choice since I couldn't afford to go out to eat.

Mr. Fix-it was (is) gone for a week and I really struggled with what to eat. The fridge was pretty empty and I didn't feel like grocery shopping and I didn't feel like cooking either (long days at the office will do that to you). I ended up buying a two-item combination Chinese take out because I knew I could stretch that into a couple of dinners and lunches with the addition of more rice and vegetables. We got lunch at work two days this week; otherwise the Chinese food wouldn't have lasted so long and I would have had to think more about food. Here's what I ended up eating.

Day 1: Bunco, so no need to think about food (thank goodness!).
Day 2: Made an omelet and took half for lunch the next day.
Day 3: Bought Chinese takeout.
Day 4: Leftover Chinese takeout.
Day 5: Made potato broccoli chowder and had a friend over (having company was so motivating).
Day 6: Turkey sandwich.
Day 7: The last of the Chinese takeout. I actually bought lunch at work intending to eat it for dinner, but I decided I should finish the older food in the fridge first.

Thank goodness Mr. Fix-it is coming home tonight. I think we'll have homemade spaghetti sauce.

No more brown bagging it

Got myself a new lunch bag. I've been coveting these Built bags for quite a while and when I saw this one for sale, along with a turquoise version, I couldn't resist.

I had been using a Lean Cuisine/Susan G. Komen lunch bag (it looks like they aren't selling them this year), a gift from my friend V for a few years and was ready for a change.

I like how the bag squishes down when it's empty. My coworker throws hers in the washing machine every once in a while so I know they're easy to clean.

Dessert

Leftover cornbread, warmed in the microwave and covered in half and half. I would have used milk but we didn't have any. And I resisted pouring maple syrup on top. So this was the semi-healthy version, lol. On the other hand, since when is dessert supposed to be healthy?

What's for lunch today?

As many of you know, my favorite lunch is leftovers. I'm not big on taking sandwiches to work (although I don't mind eating them freshly made) and prefer a hot lunch to a cold lunch. So last night, I packed up some leftover chicken and rice and topped it off with some cabbage that I had stir-fried. The rest of the cabbage went into another Tupperware container.

As usual, my coworkers went out to lunch and of course they invited me and of course I declined since I had my lunch. I decided to spend my lunch time surfing the net so after I heated up my lunch, I came back to my desk and started some mindless browsing. I'm eating, not really thinking, eating some more, wondering where the chicken and rice are...and you know where this is going, right? Yep, brought the wrong container to work. So I had to go downstairs to get something else for lunch since I didn't think a lunch of just cabbage was very appetizing or filling. Sigh. On a brighter note, at least I know I have lunch prepped for tomorrow.

I passed on the blueberries

We love blueberries around here. They're the one fruit that we never get tired of. But if that were to happen, I could always turn them into a chaflouti or muffins so they're still a treat. Right now, blueberries are relatively cheap, but they're all from South America. While I'm not a locavore, I do see the absurdness of buying food that was shipped from thousands of miles away.

But some foods, I can understand buying the foreign. I'm pretty sure that some of the teas I drink can't be grown here, and I've never seen some of the ethnic preserved and canned foods I buy with US-made labels. Would I buy them if they were made in the US? Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm used to a certain taste and I'm not willing to give that up. But not buying blueberries today was a small step in the right direction, I think.

Breaking the budget

After having the same lunch for four days in a row (leftovers, we cook in large quantities, lol), I decided to go out to lunch today, you know, just for a change of pace. $7.59 for crappy taquitos, lukewarm rice, and medioce salsa. Too much money and too many calories was wasted on that meal. And then there are two lunches planned at work next week, one to try a new restaurant (gourmet sliders), the other for a dim sum lunch (that I'm organizing, I hate organizing group events, BTW). Three days of eating lunch out within the span of a week? That's six times more often than I usually eat out, way more money that I usually spend, and way more calories that I usually consume. But hey, sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I can exercise and cut the budget somewhere else.

So much for after Christmas shopping

We braved the mall for a couple of hours and ended up not buying a thing, though we were in the minority. Not that there weren't things we needed (okay, that I needed. Like dress shoes and dress clothes for work. And heck, I could even use a couple dresses. I need a new LBD (little black dress) and I wouldn't mind some dresses for work. But the crowds really turned us off so we decided to not boost the economy. The parking lot was full and there were people waiting for our spot when we left, even though it was on the outskirts of the lot.

We ended up at Target where I finally remembered to look for these:
Can you believe I was going to pay FULL PRICE WITHOUT A COUPON for them? Not only that, but I bought two(!) packages. Must mean I was really excited to find them or was depressed that I didn't get any new clothes or maybe I didn't want to make another trip to the store. Lucky for me, they were on sale so I saved a couple of dimes on each package.

They aren't as good as I remembered. The one and only time I've had them was on our flight to (or was it from?) Hong Kong; they were the real thing, made by Arnott's. Maybe my memory is faulty. But I still like them. I think the milk chocolate version is better than the dark chocolate, even though I am a dark chocolate fan. If you're interested in trying Tim Tams, they're only available until March.

Photo 125/365 There's no accounting for taste

Sometimes Mr. Fix-it's food tastes astound me. There was some leftover Yu xiang eggplant (pork, eggplant, bell peppers in a brown sauce) and baked potatoes so he had that with some avocado (you can barely see the avocado in the photo). Honestly, it was so weird to me, I wouldn't even taste it.

Photo 118/365 Sweet!

What to do with raspberries that are too tart? Make a clafouti. It was gone in a flash!