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Wordless (ish) Wednesday: Stray gifts

Thus pleasure is spread through the earth
In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find

-William Wordsworth

This is my brother.

(And my SIL, ain’t she purty?)

This is a peacock.

This is a rogue peacock in my brother’s backyard.

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I found out about it on Facebook.

When I inquired as to when I might receive my peacock, my brother wrote:

Animal control said it could be aggressive.

I don’t need to show up to job interviews with a shiner I got from an angry stray peacock.

My brother had a peacock in his backyard and he called animal control instead of me. When clearly the universe intended that peacock as something my brother could give me as THE MOST AWESOME SURPRISE EVER.

This is how I feel about that.

I’m changing the number saved on his phone; next time he goes to call animal control it will dial me instead.

It’s a necessary precaution should this ever appear in his driveway.

One ought not give away stray gifts.

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In related news I saw this tweeted by the Social Media Bitch (@The_SMB) today.

My average post runs about 1400 words. This one is 195.

God help me, I’m trying REAL HARD.

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March 30, 2011
Menu Plan Monday

One of the very nicest things about life is the way

we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing

and devote our attention to eating.

-Luciano Pavarotti

So, inspired by my recent reading of Pretty Neat, I’m trying to get my life organized in all kinds of ways. I’m pretty good about matching up coupons & sales and forming a loose menu plan in my head, but then what often happens is, I’ll forget to do the early prepwork one day so I have to shift everything around and it all falls apart.

So here’s the plan for this week:

Monday: I have some burger rolls we need to use up, so North Jersey Onion Burgers made from free-range, grass fed beef. That link takes you to a video; I haven’t had the greatest success with burgers on the stovetop so I’m hoping this new technique will make a difference. Salad on the side.

Tuesday: Kids’ turn to cook; Jake will slather some country ribs in BBQ sauce and stick ’em in the oven when he gets home from school, and Mav and Cass will slice & season some oven-baked sweet potato fries. Organic tri-color peppers were on sale this week, so somebody will slice those up too (my kids will only eat raw peppers).

Wednesday: Turkey chili. This is my first time using dried rather than canned beans, wish me luck. Since the meal itself is effortlessly cooking in the crock-pot, I’ll be baking two loaves of bread for scooping purposes and for Thursday’s meal. Finish off salad.

Thursday: Roasted chicken stuffed with rosemary, garlic and lemon; cube leftover bread from night before to use for stuffing (I always use the Joy of Cooking recipe). Baked potatoes and corn (frozen, Green Giant veggies were $1 a box this week).

Friday: Leftovers; thinking that I can probably layer the chili, potatoes, corn (and throw in a package of peas) for a kickass Shepherd’s Pie.

Saturday: Kids’ turn again. We have some pepperoni sausage from Maiale and when we bought it at our farmer’s market, the dude suggested slicing it thin and adding it to grilled cheese sandwiches, dipping into red sauce, to make Super Awesome Grilled Pizza Sandwiches. So after a day of two soccer games and one flag football game, this should be easy and filling, along with a bowl of Wolfgang Puck’s Potato Soup (which is really good for a canned soup, way better than I’ve managed fresh). I’m thinking that maybe another loaf of homemade bread would probably serve well here, so I’ll make that Friday night. Look how nicely this menu planning is working out!

A little light on the green veggies this week, will have to think about some green-intensive recipes next week to compensate.

On a somewhat related note, some recipes I tried for the first time recently that were really well-received:

BBQ Cabbage & Sausage Stuffed Sandwiches. There was a lot of initial resistance to the very idea of cabbage, but the smell of the onions, sausage (wild boar sausage, also from Maiale), and cabbage simmering in Famous Dave’s Rich & Sassy sauce had everyone watching the timer for dinner to be done. The recipe calls for a no-knead bread that you can start in the morning and have ready to form at dinnertime, but I went with American Bread Rolls from our cookbook bible, the The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, since I’m pretty good with those and I figured, stick with what you know. [NOTE: that is an affiliate link which takes you to Amazon. I tried to find the actual recipe on the America’s Test Kitchen website but it wouldn’t load!] Anywho, these were delicious, reheated wonderfully, and got bonus points for their resemblance to Hot Pockets (which the kids often covet at the store and I won’t let them buy).

Potato Gratin with Rosemary Crust. I liked this because it used both regular & sweet potato. The kids and Jeff thought it was OK, so I’m happy to have an acceptable potato dish other than fries or smashed in my pocket. I liked it a LOT and ate it as a veg alternative on some nights when everybody else had steak (I’m not so big on the red meat these days). Prep seems really intensive but wasn’t such a big deal with a food processor; however, it seemed like it filled the dishwasher all by itself.

Broccoli with Cheetos. We had to try it once we saw the recipe. This is basically parbroiled broccoli in a gouda/parmesan sauce which is freaking DELICIOUS. I can’t say I thought the Cheetos added anything, other than a bit of crunch, but that small addition (and we’re talking about one Cheeto per serving) caused the kids to SCARF down their broccoli and ask for more. Well worth it, I think, every once in a while. Sorry, no picture of this one.

No-Bake Boston Cream Pie Strata. This was great, for about three bites. It’s SO sweet. I would make this again, but cut the sugar everywhere by half. The kids loved it, of course. Jeff and I each had a slice and then couldn’t eat any more of it, our sweet tooth (teeth) satisfied for a whole week.

What’s cooking for you this week? What was a recent success?

Whole lotta inspiration over at Org Junkie— over 200 bloggers linking up their Menu Plan Monday posts at the time of this writing.

March 28, 2011
Seven for Saturday: News You Can Use 3/26
Off to IKEA today. Say a quick prayer for impulse control, for the sake of my wallet.
1. Genes tweaked, cows will now give ‘human milk’
  
  Chinese scientists have engineered a herd of genetically-modified cows that produce milk with the characteristics of human milk. The Frankenmilk will allegedly be available for purchase in two years, and on supermarket shelves within a decade.
  
  While I get that this is probably backlash from all those melamine-tainted cans of formula, wouldn’t it make more sense to provide support for more humans to produce human milk? Aren’t most Asians lactose-intolerant anyway?
2. The Dangers of ‘Nerfing’ the World for Our Kids
  
  “Getting the Chicken Pox, having a runny nose, and making mud pies are a part of any healthy childhood. Short of wrapping your offspring in cellophane and foam rubber, there is no way to prevent every single misfortune that may come along. The only thing we will succeed in doing is making sure the common cold becomes a killer.”
  
  Well said.
3. Calif. P.E. Flops With Only 1 In 3 Of Kids Passing Fitness Test
  
  This is hardly surprising; the article also reports that “the World Health Organization found last year that kids everywhere are too sedentary, with only 25 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls getting enough exercise.” Depending on school P.E. classes to fix the problem of childhood obesity, however, is just not going to cut it.
4. Stink bug population spreading across USA
  
  The video claims the epicenter is in the Mid-Atlantic, but I’ve got photographic evidence that the epicenter is actually in my attic. Researchers at the University of Delaware are investigating whether introducing killer wasps, the stink bugs’ natural predator in China, into the population will create its own set of problems.
  
  (The video is interesting, but I will admit I think it could be so much better with the Honey Badger treatment.)
5. Facial expressions, weight may sway kids’ eating
  
  A French research team found that kids were more likely to want a food they dislike, if presented with an image of someone enjoying that food. But, seeing a person “disgusted” by a food— even one they already like— turned them off to that food.
  
  The lesson here: kids are picking up on everything you do, including wincing when eating your veggies.
6. The power of lonely: What we do better without other people around
  
  This article on the benefits of solitude has been sitting open on a tab in my browser since it was published 3 weeks ago. I touched on this subject a while back in a post titled Alone, and I don’t think I have enough new material to warrant a whole new post. But I wanted everyone to revisit the question of whether our kids get enough alone time.
7. The Godmother of Chick-Lit
  
  Francine Pascal is back, and Sweet Valley Confidential picks up a decade after Sweet Valley High left off. Diablo Cody (who wrote Juno) is working on a Sweet Valley movie. I’m not sure what to think of the re-emergence of the Wakefield twins and their matching gold lavaliere necklaces; even as I devoured the books as a tween I recognized the fact that they were fluff drivel. ADDICTIVE, HUGELY SATISFYING fluff drivel, but still. Did they need to come back? Doesn’t this generation deserve mass-produced, committee-written, cliché-laden “literature” of its own?
  
  As an aside, I once told a girl that she looked just like Jessica Wakefield— she totally did— and she had no idea what I was talking about, which made me feel about 80 years old.
Bonus:

This video about the creation of an animated pop-up book, a 3-D effect brought about by projecting images onto a pop-up “world,” is one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I have seen in a while.

The Ice Book (HD) from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.

Have a lovely weekend!

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March 26, 2011