Friday Fragments- June 24, 2011

It's Friday! Time for my boring fragments!

• My new vacuum sealer broke the second time we tried to use it. I'm not blaming that on the first person who used it and it may have actually been a blessing in disguise because it wasn't actually that handy to use.


• Have you been following The Apprentice on the BBC? We like to watch it and cringe at the things people say. The quote of the week was "Are the French very fond of their children?"


• I hopped on my bike to go to my volunteer job today and it started sprinkling a little bit so I ran back upstairs to grab my rain poncho-esque thingie so I wouldn't get wet. That proved to be a rather futile effort because it was raining SO HARD by the time I was halfway there that the water had soaked through my poncho. My shoes were squishing as I was pedaling and THEN it started to hail. Lucky for me they have white nursing shirts that they keep on hand for the nurses and I could borrow one (which didn't fit very well because I don't think most Dutch people have hips but at least it was something). My shoes were squishy and my pants were soaked but at least I had a sorta dry shirt... Now I'm on the hunt for a good water proof fabric to make myself a less useless poncho.


• Every now and then I think of something and then I realize how European I'm becoming. Case in point: It's supposed to be in the high 80s and low 90s (F) next week and I'm trying to figure out ways of clearing out my fridge and living in there for the duration. When I lived in Utah I scoffed at these Euro-weenies who were dropping like flies when it was in the 80s. I could survive well into the 100 degree weather without dying! I'm not so European that I don't believe in central air conditioning though. I seriously wish it would catch on sometimes!


• I somewhat successfully made corn tortillas this week. I borrowed someone's electric press/griddle and had a bit of a hard time getting them so they weren't see-through-thin at first but they still tasted good. I'm going to keep experimenting because I really do like corn tortillas better for tacos, enchiladas and the like and the corn tortillas here are flour tortillas with a scoop of cornmeal... which I say BOO to!

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Go visit the amazing Mrs. 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time for more Friday Fragments Fun (oooh alliteration) I hope everyone has a fun weekend. I think I will!

Menu Plan Monday- June 20, 2011

The only new recipe from last week was the fish tacos. I used corn tortillas instead of lettuce to wrap them but they were pretty amazing. I loved the cabbage in them!!

Casselrib (a type of smoked pork) with green beans and tomato salad-- we got some goodies from my mother in law which makes a very easy night of cooking for me!

Mexican Pizza on cauliflower crust-- we both really liked this last time and it's actually pretty quick to put together!

Tamales-- I've never made these before so it might be a little bit of an adventure.

Grilled Chicken and Quinoa Apple Salad with Curry Dressing

Shrimp Enchiladas Verde

I'm having Mexican food cravings. Can you tell?

Mushrooms for Sale...

Today I bought some mushrooms...

...from a VENDING MACHINE!

Sometimes it's really hard being so far away from home but then I do something like this and realize how much I do actually like this country.

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Be sure to visit Unknown Mami for more Sundays in My City.

Friday Fragments- June 17, 2011

It's been AGES since I've done Friday Fragments. I need to get back into the habit!!! I've been missing my fragmenty friends.

**I booked our flights to the US. We're headed westward on September 7th. I'm very very much looking forward to seeing my family and friends! We're planning on a road trip through Wyoming and South Dakota into Minnesota. I would like to drive the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway (Needles Highway) and stop at Mount Rushmore for sure, but after that the plans are still a work in progress. If you have any amazing insights on MUST SEES on the way I'd love to hear them!

**I bought a vacuum sealer the other day. Mr Jummy decided he needed to test it out.

He claims Joey just "fell in" but I think he's up to his usual naughty tricks!

**Don't you think the name Benedict Cumberbatch is the perfect name for an actor who plays Sherlock Holmes? If you haven't seen any of the BBC Sherlock series you NEED to! I love it.

**Speaking of the BBC. I think they need to not have evil mid-season breaks of Doctor Who anymore. I'm too addicted to keep having these months-long interruptions.

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Enjoy your weekend and make sure to swing by Half Past Kissin' Time to visit the other Fragmented Folks!

Daring Cooks Challenge: Slimmed Down Potato Salad

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

After browsing through some of the other freaking amazing recipes people came up with this time around I think my Daring Cooks recipe is rather undaring but it did taste good!

1 kilo (2.2 lbs) small potatoes, quartered (use red or white or a combination of both)
1 head broccoli, cut into small florets
4 hard boiled eggs
1/2 cup greek yogurt (I used 0% Total)
1/4 cup mayo (if you use yogurt mayo you won't need to add any sweetener as it's rather much sweeter than normal mayo)
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp sugar or sweetener of your choice
1 tsp ground mustard
1/2 tsp horseradish powder
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 small red onion, diced
1 small sweet onion, diced
3 celery ribs, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, diced
1 large yellow bell pepper, diced

Place the potatoes in a pan and cover with salted water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 12 minutes. Drain and cool for a half an hour or so.

Chop up the hard boiled eggs. You can leave out the yolks if you want to slim the recipe down a little more but I like to add them in.

In a large bowl whisk together the yogurt, mayo, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and salt. Add the potatoes, eggs, and veggies and toss to coat.

Chill in the fridge for about a couple of hours and serve cool.

Menu Plan Monday- June 13, 2011

Last week went over pretty well.

• Everyone at the potluck liked the Thai Minced Chicken Salad.
• The Mexican Pizza on cauliflower crust was quite tasty. It's not -really- pizza but it's close enough to make me feel quite happy! This would be a good one to turn vegetarian by leaving out the chicken since it's still pretty filling without.
• Now the Seafood Stuffed Peppers... I substituted quinoa for the rice and they were good but a little bland. I think if I were to make this one again I'd add some seasonings in to jazz it up a little.
• I didn't really follow the recipe for the almond crusted fish but I did make it! I really like using almond meal to crust fish... I ought to do it more often!

For this week:

Lettuce Wrap Fish Tacos- This came across in my Google Reader yesterday and I knew I had to make it. It looks so so tasty. Plus I can try grilling fish on my snazzy new contact grill.

Asian Inspired Slaw- Since I'll have leftover cabbage from the fish tacos I thought this would be a good way to use some of it. I think a head of cabbage is like the gift that keeps giving... and giving... and giving... and giving. I'll toss in some chicken for some added protein to make it a main course.

Pork Sate- It's been ages since I made this and I think it will probably taste good with the leftover slaw that will inevitably be there!

Since today is my birthday (yay me!) we're going to the in-laws for dinner and I don't have to cook (yay!).

Menu Plan Monday- June 6, 2011

Last week:

I loved the grilled eggplant. The Fusion Chicken was okay but I felt like it was missing something so I probably won't make it over and over again.

The Chicken Rollatini with Spinach a la Parmigiana was tasty but MESSY to make and looked a bit of a disaster on the plate. I used almond flour to crust it instead of breadcrumbs and that worked pretty well.

I didn't get the Almond Crusted Fish made so it'll move over into this week.

This week:

Thai minced chicken -- One of the guys in Martijn's dinner group made this for us last week and it was really good! I plan on taking it to the NAWC potluck on Tuesday so I'll just double the recipe, save enough for dinner, and take the rest.

Mexican Pizza on a Cauliflower Crust-- I've been having wild cravings for refried beans so I think this'll be extra tasty.

Seafood Stuffed Peppers-- I have oodles and oodles of bell peppers in the fridge. I thought this would be a yummy recipe to use some of them.

Almond Crusted Fish-- Carryover from last week because I didn't get to it.

New template is live!

Out with the old:

and in with the new:

I also made a new blog button!

If you want to snag it the code is over yonder in the sidebar -------->

I also updated my recipe index. Everything has a thumbnail photo to go with it, so be sure to take a peek there too!

I'm pretty psyched that it's done. Please let me know if you run into anything that's not working.

Under Construction

Remember back in the good old days of the web when everyone had a poorly designed Geocities or Angelfire personal webpage with horrible loud colors, blinking fonts, and the like? I think there's a good possibility that 99.7% of those good old personal webpages also had at LEAST one "Under Construction" animated graphic. Well, I thought I'd bring some of that nostalgia back today.

Today I'm installing my new web template that I've been working on and off on for quite some time. Hopefully all will go well but you know how things go. If things look slightly deranged for a little while be patient and come back in a few hours. If you're reading this via RSS on a reader, boy aren't you lucky? You don't have to witness the carnage in person!!


P.S.
This is an interesting read on Geocities and archiveteam.org's attempts at saving and archiving things before Yahoo nuked the service in 2009. I snagged my Under Construction graphic here.