The end of the month turned out to be great. I made sure not to participate in Halloween this year. Until I am away from the college environment, I do not want to take part in the holiday. I hate the overly sexy, drunk mindset that most college students see as Halloween. I was telling friends on twitter that my idea of Halloween is the trick-or-treaters running up to my door, the crisp air, the warmth of my house from my mom making chili all day, and the voices of the black and white horror shows and movies that my dad would be watching. It was such a great experience. Memories that obviously will carry with me my entire life. So instead of dressing up and getting drunk I went apple picking with a friend. It had rained pretty hard the days before, so the farm was really muddy and of course a greedy goat somehow skidded mud all over my pants The farm was going to charge us 40 dollars for the apples and wouldnt let us get smaller sized bags, so we just walked around the farm. But being with a good friend and laughing a storm was enough of an adventure. We ended up going to the outlet stores and even going to the neighboring state for dinner. So much fun.
I am kind of in shock of where the year went. We have two more months left until 2010. The year that I have been waiting for since my high school graduation in 06. I will be graduating from university. It is pretty insane, but it looks like I will most likely still be in school and my applications for grad school are still a work in progress.
For the past 3 weeks I have pretty much had 5 fresh things on my shelves. Was out of bread, bagels, juice, all fruit, and almost every frozen meal I could possibly make. In other words, my meals came from Subway, Qdoba, and mixture of horrible junk food. I am so excited to have gone shopping this past weekend and finally have some fresh produce and more of my beloved Amy's frozen goods.
The first thing I made after I got my stash was actually a meal that I already had all the ingredients for. I figured I still had a little bunch of kale left, so I would make the recipe that had called for kale. And it was Joshua Katcher's White Bean Pasta with Garlicky White Wine Sauce. Simple pasta dish that consisted of red onions, garlic, white beans, kale, white wine (i used veg broth), a little nooch, and a little spice. Just had to brown the onions and garlic, add the beans, nooch, and spices, pour in the broth and kale and allow to simmer. Not much work at all, and the sauce was ready by the time the pasta was perfectly al dente. It was so effing delicious, I even licked my work spoon off before putting it in the sink. It was a perfect meal after a great relaxing day and again today when I had such a long day, plus still extras for lunch tomorrow (and I swear I made a half recipe). I will definitely be making this again, and think I might even make it for my family next time I go home.
Another meal that I ate for days and days without thinking of it as leftovers was Jenn Blumberg's Quinoa Veggie Soup. I made the full recipe of this soup, since I can easily have soup for lunch and dinner for days and days on end. How many times do I even have to tell you guys that I am madly in love with soup? All of Jenn's recipes are brilliantly organized and with amazing instructions for new cooks or cooks experimenting with new vegetables. This recipe had detailed instructions how to prepare a leek (which was really helpful to me) and showed how to cut kale correctly. The soup consisted of the leek, kale, carrots, celery, onion, okra, corn, and quinoa all in a delicious 'chikn' broth. I actually had the fake chikn broth from my whole foods adventure, and it really made it taste like a soup my mom would make for me when I was sick. So many flavors and textures, with just the right amount of starch from the quinoa. I fell in love with this soup every single time I ate it. And I of course added mounds of sriarcha sauce to my broth to make it nice and spicy. Was highly satisfied and this recipe as well has been added to my soup rounds.
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