Last nite

Posted on October 4, 2007 by chatty

Bad moods. We walked to Metro market but nothing looked appealing, so we turned around and walked home. Instead I scrounged up what I could and made some ramen. I believe the husband had chocolate ice cream.

Oh, the ramen noodles. Half a packet of seasoning; frozen dumplings; leftover veggies from an earlier night and an egg, swirled into the mix at the last minute. That’s my secret ramen noodle recipe, by the way. The one I said I would offer you so many weeks ago.

Take note of the birthday card sitting on the kitchen table. I love those little puppies. I gave this card to the husband this summer. Sometimes I am the puppy on the left, with his tongue hanging out. Sometimes I am the puppy on the right, grimacing through the photo shoot of life. Last night, I was the grimacer.

Soup’s on

Posted on October 4, 2007 by chatty

Tonight: Healthy grilled cheese. Fremont Sourdough bread from Essential Bakery. Toasted with Tillamook cheddar cheese (the whole milk type). The healthy part was adding tomato, avocado and cucumber (I admit, I took the cucumber off the sandwich and ate it later). On the side, Butternut Squash soup, from the same company that makes the roasted red pepper and tomato soup from earlier this week.

The other white meat

Posted on October 4, 2007 by chatty

I’m catching up again on my dinner pics … This was from 10/2:

Wow. See that steam. Pork chop (the husband and I split one, since they were so ginormous), roasted root veggies (yukon potatoes, baby carrots and sweet onions); steamed veggies and a leftover biscuit from the previous night. Sorry, the biscuit is a bit washed out due to the flash of my camera. Really tasty. The chop was incredibly juicy. Oftentimes the husband brines it for hours before cooking it. Yum.

I take back what I said. Well, most of it.

Posted on October 1, 2007 by chatty

I’ve mentioned this before, I think. That what I’m wrong I’ll admit to it. So, here is correction number 2.

Desperate Housewives. The DH. I wondered out loud if this was going to be a waste of my time, despite my intention to watch it this season because of my man, Nathan Fillion. I watched the preview scene online and groaned. Oooooh no. This was going to su-uck. I envisioned watching it on the DVR and consistently hitting the 30-second jump button until I found Mr. F on the screen.

So, imagine my surprise when the husband turned to DH last night. I decided to watch a bit and got semi-hooked. Eva Longoria Parker – reasonable comic timing. Marcia Cross with Kyle MacLachlan have a quirky stick-up-your-ass kind of chemistry. I had no doubt that Felicity Huffman could pull off even a reasonable script and she didn’t fail me. Teri Hatcher – meh. Nicolette Sheridan – no way. But 3 out of 5 ain’t bad.

One thing about Mr. F, though. What’s with the plaid shirts and pleated cream pants? Hmmm. And when does he get to show off his comic prowess? Good thing he’s so likable.

So. I’ll still be watching. And won’t be groaning half as much as I thought I would. Perhaps will only need to use the 30-second jump every fourth scene or so.

Homemade and Semi-homemade Comfort Food

Posted on October 1, 2007 by chatty

As we get deeper into football season, we get on a roll with the pizza. Last night’s dinner:

Olive-oil based; Maple chicken sausage; crimini mushrooms sauteed; shredded parmesan sprinkled sparingly, for taste. We bought a sweet onion, but then forgot to saute them. Ah well. Nice and simple, the way a homemade pizza should be.

Tonight’s dinner: Salad first, then our favorite biscuits (heart-healthy) and organic roasted red pepper and tomato soup. One of those nice warm dinners that’s meant for the fall. While everyone loves the taste of a homemade meal, you can do a lot with packaged pantry helpers. Just keep an eye out on sodium levels and preservatives.

Print this page (no, don’t really)

Posted on September 29, 2007 by chatty

We recently purchased a new printer. It’s not just a printer, though. It is the HP Photosmart C6180 All-In-One Printer. It copies, scans, faxes. Slices, dices, chops. Oh, yes, it prints, too, of course.

Installing the software took a bit of time. The first mistake we made was connecting the device before turning on the laptop. The laptop was so confused it hurt. Unplugged, restarted, then plugged and all was good. Installed the software, and was able to print pretty much right away. The printing time is fast, relative to our old ink jet printer. I printed a one-page calendar created in Excel and it took just a few seconds (according to Amazon, printing time is 32 ppm. Not too shabby). Print quality is good, though I haven’t tried printing out an image yet.

My next experiment was scanning. I attempted to a few times and the printer (which, really isn’t a printer, buy sca-cop-fax-inter is too difficult to say. AIO for short). wouldn’t talk to the laptop. So, restart the laptop and suddenly everything is hunky dorry. Scanning quality is decent, for its purposes. Take a look:

Cake! What else would I show you? Our wedding cake. Don’t ask me what kind of cake it was because I can’t remember. Neither can the husband. Different tiers were different flavors, but that’s all I remember. But I digress.

So, scan quality is not terrific, but does its purpose.

HP software offers image editing but I probably won’t bother since I already own a couple of other ones. One of the cool things about the AIO is that you don’t require the PC to operate it. You can scan and save to a memory device (i.e. USB flash drive). You can insert a memory card from your digital camera, and the AIO accepts all sorts of cards, including CF (compact flash), which is what our old Canon PowerShot uses. Yay!

Initial verdict: I like it. It’s pretty intense, lots of features. Now that the initial installation is over I see it is fairly intuitive, as you’re able to control it either at the printer or from the laptop.

Haven’t tried the fax yet. That’s next up. Will report later.

Big bite brownies. Just plain big cookies.

Posted on September 29, 2007 by chatty

By far, this is the favorite dessert photo I’ve taken since I started this project:

Four “Big-Bite Brownies” stacked. Courtesy of Metropolitan Market and their fabulous “free with coupon” offer to Bryant shoppers. Look for yours in the mail! Except for E., who for some reason does not receive the coupon.

At one time they were called “Two-bite Brownies”. I don’t know what marketing maven decided to change it from two normal bites to one big bite.

Whatever the decision, it didn’t really change the flavor. They are good, but not overwhelming. I am more excited about getting the bargain than about the brownies themselves.

I picked up the brownies yesterday. Then, this morning, having forgotten we had brownies at home, I picked up a couple of cookies while at PCC after rowing. Of course, I remembered on the way home that I am trying to avoid cookies in the first place, nevermind that we had a small tub of brownies at home waiting for me. Ah well. Tough life.

One peanut butter chocolate chip cookie, and one ginger snap cookie. Both vegan, both from PCC, as I mentioned earlier.

I’ve had them before. I know they are gooood. I bought the PBCC for the husband. I personally enjoy the spicy molasses of the ginger snap (which is chewy, not crunchy, by the way).

Working it with the Moms

Posted on September 29, 2007 by chatty

This isn’t meant to be a journal of my workouts. So I don’t want you to think that I report on every one. I don’t. I have a pen/paper journal where I record everything, and I mean everything. Each erg workout, cardio workout, lifting workout and each practice. Which means it’s also quite obvious when I haven’t been working out, as the dates get further apart on each page. Here, I tend to report on workouts that stick on me. Days when I’m so frustrated or so elated that I feel the need to get it down in words.

Yesterday morning I lifted (another circuit-like workout focusing on pull-ups (assisted); dead lifts; push ups and Yates rows. And then of abs/core (crunches; side-to-side rotations w/a 10 lb medicine ball; leg lifts). Which meant that this morning I woke up slightly sore. Generally after dead lifts, my hamstrings are tight. I’m also feeling it in my abs, and a little bit in my pecs. Where it should be. I never think a circuit is going to be hard, but I was sweating the entire way.

Anyway, this leads to this morning’s practice: Kate put out 2 even 8s, and we did 3 – 4 minute pieces against the Martha’s Moms at varying rates, specifically vs. their Charles boat. Pieces weren’t great. Water was rough until we hit the Canal, and rowing 6 across in the Canal is a terrible idea, thus tension mounted and oars crashed.

Our final piece, 3 minutes at a 34, ended well, which made me feel better about some poorer pieces earlier. I, personally, was having problems getting my hands away. I have scratches and red marks on my legs, which is an obvious indicator that my legs were coming up way early. Bad bad bad.

The Moms are tough cookies. Lynn mentioned afterwards as we were waiting in line at Peet’s for coffee that they appreciate having us sit next to them and put the pressure on. They are racing (I suspect) a 50+ boat, and while we certainly did put on the pressure I had hoped we could have walked through them more quickly and consistently, considering we were several years younger. On the other hand, our boat lineups were not race lineups, but more mixed, meaning the more advanced racers were combined with the less-experienced. So, we held our own against what is potentially the best and brightest of the Moms. So, in all, decent, but wished it was better.

Bad practice or good, the coffee talk following a Saturday morning practice is always worth going all out on the last piece. See Mr. Ginn’s post on a very similar ritual.

Friend me! But only if I know you

Posted on September 26, 2007 by chatty

Great piece from Slate today, about the etiquette of Facebook. On occasion (it’s happened to me twice), I’ve been given a friend request, when I don’t know the person. Especially if they do not add the personal note, reminding you where you know each other, what is a girl to do? I’m pretty specific about my friends. I’m glad to see I followed the writer’s advice, even though this story came out just recently and I was faced with this dilemma sometime ago.

Similarly, O’Reilly Radar presents “Social Networking Invitation Etiquette” (via Lifehacker ). Useful tips from a tech guru, with plenty of social networking contacts, offers ways to get noticed. Again, sending the invite blindly, without a reminder of how you might know each other is the not the recommended route.

Having lots of fun on the Facebook. See you there.

Perfectly simple salmon

Posted on September 26, 2007 by chatty

My huge fan base has requested more photos of dinner, so I’ll oblige. I didn’t have the camera around for tonight’s dinner (though if you were to take a look at this pasta dish, you can get a sense of what we ate tonight).

Last night: Baked salmon seasoned with salt and pepper, a little bit of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon. On the side, pear and gorgonzola ravioli; plus a garden salad with Metropolitan Market croutons, and dressed with Paul Newman Sesame Ginger Dressing (Low-Fat). The salmon was perfectly cooked, and tasted delicious. The husband purchased the fresh wild-caught variety.