"When you make a plan, anticipate bumps"

So my grand goals of Monday have already fallen apart by weeks end.

The 'no shopping on weekdays' rule went out the window on Tuesday, when I realized we had no milk. I hit the grocery on my lunch break, otherwise known as time when I am hungry and really shouldn't grocery shop. Ended up adding avocados and most of the makings of coconut milk soup to my basket. Whoops.

In spite of that, I'm doing okay on the pantry challenge. Met the 'eat-in dinners during the week' goal, and used up some of the frozen food I had. I have A LOT of frozen bacon. Probably the result of forgetting that I have frozen bacon and buying more. And MrCatbird doesn't like bacon. I mean, I can sneak it into a sauce, and fry stuff in bacon fat, and he'll eat it. But strips of bacon, totally unappealing to him. Which means, I have A LOT of frozen bacon that is primarily up to me to eat.

I also messed up the no shopping rule today. A lunch break stress-induced jaunt to Claire's Accessories and their 10 for $10 sale. Cheap earrings are a very nice pick me up, but stress shopping is a bad habit I'm trying to break.

Oh, and that stress I mentioned, is from work. My own personal client from hell only will tell me he needs something a day before it's needed. No matter how far in advance he probably knew it was needed. So the graphic that was needed for the trip to Texas on Wednesday (no doubt planned weeks or even months ago), I was informed of on Tuesday. I was already full up at the beginning of the week with a project due today, so it meant working late. So that schedule I made went out the window. I skipped my daily workout yesterday, I haven't gotten in studying since Monday. Not cool.

The January Issue of Real Simple magazine has a nice article on actually meeting your new years resolutions. Their first suggestion: "When you make a plan, anticipate bumps". Which is something I didn't do. But now I'm going to.

So, for no shopping on weekdays:
- I'm going to try to anticipate my needs for the week on those weekend grocery trips (something I didn't get to do coming up with these ideas on a Monday). I'm sure there will be occasional needs for midweek runs, but I'll try to keep them to a minimum and I won't shop hungry.
- If I'm tempted to stress shop, I'll go to the park instead. Or go home if the weather is bad.

As for my schedule, I've come up with an alternate if I work until 7pm:
7-7:30 go home
7:30- 9 dinner, relax (I'm going to work on having some quicky meal options ready for the rough days)
9-9:30 workout
9:30-10 study
10-11 tidy up, get ready for bed.

Also, The Small Object has this super cute free progress board for things you want to do daily this year. I'm gonna make one for not shopping weekdays, one for workouts, one for dinners at home, one for studying. Go me!

Whoops, late for my workout. G'night!

Eat from the Pantry Challenge

I'm digging this Eat from the Pantry Challenge. And it's booktailing with something else I'm thinking about doing this year - limiting shopping to the weekends.

I've talked about getting into routines before, but I've been all talk no action. So, I actually wrote down a schedule today.

9-5 work
5-5:30 go home, get settled
5:30- 6:30 exercise or gardening
6:30-8 make and eat dinner
8-9 veg, crafts
9-10 study for my architectural licensing exams
10-11 tidy up, get ready for bed

I have no idea why I haven't written a schedule before. And I have a feeling it's gonna shift and evolve over time. But I gotta start somewhere, and what better time than the new year for new beginnings.

This schedule doesn't give time for one of my habits, which is stopping for errands on the way home. I figure the only way to make my week work better is to limit shopping to the weekends. And meal planning, to make those weekend grocery trips count. And getting better about using my pantry. And about cooking ahead, and freezing, and such. Thus, the Challenge.

My goals:
1. Use up what I got.
2. Plan meals ahead and get groceries on the weekend.
3. Eat in dinners during the week at least. We eat out all the time, and we really should cut back. Better for the budget, healthier foods and portions. Maybe eventually I can work my way up to packing lunches. But dinners in during the week seems like an achieveable start.

Wish me luck!

Finished Projects: Christmas Cards

I'm sending out Christmas cards for the first time this year. The newsletter option seemed weird since my list is all people who I see regularly; photo cards seem to be more for showing off pictures of your children (and we don't have children yet); and just a regular card seemed a bit impersonal.

So, another project, and handmade card incorporating an ornament on the cover. The ornament is made with glitter foam shapes from Joann (like the Halloween bats), glitter glue, and ribbon. Super easy.



The inside has stamps of a wreath and "Season's Greetings". All in all, pretty happy with how it turned out. Simple, fast, and personal.

Salty

Remember what I was saying about the coolness of salt? Well, Alton Brown (for Diamond Crystal Salt) has a Salt 101 website. There are periodic pitches for Diamond Crystal (it is after all a rather elaborate ad at its heart), but a lot of good info as well. Just in case you want to know more about salt, or if you have an Alton Brown crush like me.

Easy Ways to Improve Your Cooking - 2

Another of the first tips that comes to my mind for better cooking:

2. Know your herbs, spices, and sauces.

Sure, fresh herbs make a difference. But while that might be helpful when working with a recipe, it's not so important in the broader alchemy of cooking.

As a start, get to know which flavors go with which cuisines. They're the herbs, spices, sauces, and other ingredients that will come up over and over in recipes from the same regions. A few generalizations off the top of my head:
-Italian = basil, oregano, garlic
-Southern food = thyme
-Japanese food = soy sauce and ginger
-Thai food = coconut milk, cilantro, chili sauce

Once I developed a sense and confidence in flavors, it opened up a world of creativity to me. Because those flavors can transform the same basic ingredients. Saute veggies with garlic, basil, and thyme, and toss with spaghetti, and you have italian. Saute veggies with soy sauce and ginger, and toss with udon, and you have a completely different, Japanese dish.

And realizing the importance of key flavors transformed the way I read recipes. When I read a new recipe, I'm looking for new flavor combinations, new staple ingredients to add to my arsenal. That or new techniques...but that's another post.

Easy Ways To Improve Your Cooking - 1

10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Cooking. A title like that always intrigues me, so when I spotted that article in my google reader I was excited. Excited, because I love learning new kitchen tricks and techniques. Excited, because I forget that such articles often are a disappointment.

And it was. David Lebovitz's list can be summed up thusly: upgrade your ingedients, and buy some nice cookware. Sure, it's nice advice, but I've heard it before, a billion times.

And then today, this article showed up, and it actually had an easy way to improve my cooking. Or, at least my salad dressing. Which is, make it in a blender. It's the same technique I use - whisk together vinegar and dijon mustard, then continue whisking while drizzling in oil - except replace "whisk" with "blend". Simple, brilliant.

So, all this got me thinking, what are the things I know that have most improved my cooking. So I'll be posting about that in the next few posts. My first tip:

1. Add more salt

I used to think that you added salt to make things taste salty. So I often omitted salt from sweeter recipes, like cookies. But while saltiness is one reason to add salt, there are others. Salt is a flavor enhancer, it brings out flavors in food, so adding a bit of salt to things you don't want to taste salty can actually make them taste better. Like that pinch of salt in every cookie recipe. Or salt on fruit - really good. Salt also pulls out moisture, so a bit of salt helps your onions break down to caramel goodness in a sweat, helps your oven dried tomatoes get all dry and sweet. Salt acts as a preservative as well, and probably has a bunch more qualities I'm forgetting about.

When my father taught me to cook, I never knew how much salt to add to a finished dish. He had me pour out the salt in my hand rather than using a salt shaker, since it gave me a better visual of how much salt was going in. (I got good at eyeballing teaspoons and tablespoons in my hand as well - certainly not the precision needed for baked goods, but when a recipe calls for a tablespoon of salt or any herb or spice, I don't have to bust out the measuring spoons). My father would have me add salt and taste, add salt and taste, until I got a feel for how much salt to use. Sometimes I over-salted a bit. But I learned.

I used to use regular old table salt. I now use sea salt, and while there are things I prefer about it, I don't feel like it was as significant in making me a good cook as those lessons from my father, and my development of a better understanding of what salt can do.

One last tip: if you change the type of salt you use, you might have to relearn how much to use. I use more sea salt than I did table salt, and had to salt and taste until I got used to it. Not that you should ever not taste your food when cooking, even if you think you know how much salt to add.

Finished Projects: Halloween

The Halloween Party was a blast, with tons of candy, pumpkin seeds, bloody marys, orange jello shots, dirt-and-worm cupcakes and a baked potato soup bar, none of which I remembered to photograph. I did manage to document the crafts though.

I made the tablecloth out of $3/yard clearance fabric, mitered corners and everything. I was hoping to find some black fabric, but ended up with the crazy black and white stripes. Perhaps less useful for other holidays, not that black would really get that much mileage - I'd probably bring it out a few times a year and ultimately reject it as too gothic, but I still like the idea. But the stripes, they had impact.

The manzanita branch was from our wedding. I hung it with little party-favor pumpkins topped with LED tealights. The branch candlesticks I also already had. Pumpkins and green apples filled out the yummy centerpiece.



I went a little tealight crazy. Or rather, I am - I have a bazillion tealight holders. Which I decorated with packing tape transfers. Seriously, such a cool project, I love how about orange.



They were pretty cute on this big glass candle cube too.



I also made some googley-eyed tealights, inspired by the ghoulish goblets in the Value Village Halloween crafts. The eyes were in my craft stash. I adhered them with zots.



I made tootsie roll pop ghosts too. This was a craft I remembered from my childhood. Back then we used kleenex, now I used white fabric scraps from my stash. I wrapped floral foam with halloween scrapbook paper and punched it with a skewer to make the stands. Best part, I can totally reuse the foam.

The masks were from Joann Crafts, in their seasonal section. Their stuff was pretty cute this year, and I got a bunch of little foam cutouts.



I especailly liked how well the masks fit on my giant My Little Pony plushies. Yes, I'm a grown woman who collects My Little Ponys.



The bats were from Joann too. I hung them off the chandeliers with some burnt orange ribbon from my excessive ribbon stash.



I particularly liked the effect on the stairway. Oh, and I managed to hang up some art while I was at it. The carved wood panels were a Goodwill score, and I made the dress, from a book of the complete works of William Shakespeare, when I was in college.

Speaking of my excessive ribbon stash...



...here's a close-up of that stair rail. More burnt orange ribbon, with a baggy of plastic spiders from Target stuck on with zots. Cute as it is, I do not recommend this if you have cats. Cats are far too fond of plastic spiders, and I don't think there's a strong enough adhesive in the world to keep the kitties from littering the floor with spiders.



Another foam project - I cut the ravens out of a couple sheets of black foam, and hung them in my bird cages (another wedding leftover). Some plastic greenery from my stash on the bottom of the cage, plus more LED tealights, and another fun accessory.



And, the porch decorations. One of my criteria for holiday decorations is, can I store it easily? Wreaths do not fall into the category of easy to store, but I think they're so festive. So I picked up a grapevine wreath from Joanns, and wired on some extra ribbon, extra pumpkin favors, extra striped fabric. And now that the holiday is over, I've snipped the wires and am transforming it into a thanksgiving wreath.



Finally, the pumpkins, a cat and mouse. Super cute when lit, but my camera skills weren't up to snuff and the photos came out all blurry. I was inspired by this pumpkin for the cat, the mouse was all mine. I also did a polka-dot pumpkin with a drill, forgot where I got the inspiration from, and of course, forgot to photograph. Total win for easiest way to trick out a pumpkin though. Next year I'll have to remember that the cheap knives were best for pumpkin carving, a little flexibility in the blade made things much easier that my fancy knives.

And that's my Halloween roundup!