Italian Sausage Spaghetti "Stroganoff"

In continuing efforts to save money, or perhaps because of sheer laziness, I again decided to forgo following an actual recipe, or even following good sense.

Thought process:

I have spaghetti. Might as well save money and use it.

I will buy ground Italian sausage for my spaghetti. Yum yum!

Oh, merde, I have forgotten to buy red sauce for my spaghetti and sausage.

Hm, well, I have this sour cream, and sour cream is oh-so-yummy. Plus, the sausage will be slightly spicy, so cream will offset it!


Aren't I brilliant? Except for the part where I burned some of the spaghetti. And then overcooked the spaghetti. Other than that, it went pretty well. And guess what? It's actually tasty!! (though sour cream on spaghetti is a bit weird) I'm so pleased with myself!

Ah, sour cream, my love! Snacks, entrees, desserts; is there anything you can't do?

Spiced Couscousmeal with Artichokes

Tonight on "In the Kitchen with Kusems," Kusems accidentally invents a new couscous dish:

Start with dry, instant couscous. Follow package stove-top directions to a T, resulting in wet, mushy couscous. Put in storage container and store in fridge for three days.

Cook frozen artichoke bits on stove-top. Drain, and add extremely mushy couscous. Warm over medium heat in vain attempt to get rid of some of the water. Realize how dumb that is, and that you're actually accomplishing the opposite. Add 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. Continue to heat, making couscous ever mushier until it is the consistency of cornmeal, oatmeal, or malt-o-meal. Decide that couscousmeal might not be so bad. Serve in festive bowl!


Verdict: 1 tastebud

Actually tastes like oatmeal, but with random artichoke bits. Next time, leave out artichoke and add more cinnamon. Or perhaps cook couscous properly, so it's normal, but mix spices in beforehand, when it's still dry.

Oh, well. It's nourishment. It's a fair balance to the combined six strips of bacon that I ate for breakfast and lunch, plus two more strips in last night's delicious BLTA croissants (by John). Plus, I had scrumptious Dick's burgers (and fries! swoon!) on Saturday night. I'm sure if I had tried to eat anything tasty for dinner tonight, my tongue would have overloaded from all the concentrated yummy-ness. Gotta be careful to avoid that!

Still, I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with my brain that made me think this would be a good idea. And why can't I plan ahead so I'm not still deciding what to eat at 7pm and then I don't have time to go to the grocery store before my body goes into starvation mode? And why does it do that so readily, anyway? I'm petite, but there's enough fat on my body to last a couple days at least! And it's even located on my stomach, so my stomach can't complain that it has to travel too far to utilize that fat. Sheesh.

Mmm...yummy

Recipe Cards

Mmm, what a lovely, lazy Sunday. I slept in way too late, and now I'm lounging around in my pj's reading magazines (you rock, Becky) and discovering AMAZING things on the internet.

Back story: I tried to find cute recipe cards for a gift for a friend, and I looked ALL over U-Village. I started at Williams-Sonoma, an upscale cooking store.

"No, we don't have them. You could get index cards from Office Depot."

Index cards?! Does she really think that Williams-Sonoma customers would settle for index cards in place of recipe cards?

I next went to Crate and Barrel, a home store that has a large kitchen section. They recommended I go to Williams-Sonoma. I tried a few other, non-cooking stores, including Barnes and Noble, then went to a smaller cooking store. Finally, someone with recipes cards. Except that they were the most boring recipe cards possible! Argh!! Do people not write out recipes anymore? I consulted Martha Stewart (dotcom), and she told me to print my own! Even Martha couldn't recommend a place to get cute recipe cards.

In the end, I went with some cheery, red index cards (le sigh), embellished by me with some sticker borders (which were also surprisingly hard to find! Am I just clueless? Actually, I know the answer to that question is "yes.")

But I just did a search for recipe cards (well, a few searches), and the almighty Internets have smiled upon me this once, and blessed me with this and this:





















SO CUUUUTE!! MUST OWN!!

That second website led me to this website, where I found these:


















And of course, now I'm very upset that I don't have enough money to buy all the amazing, adorable things in the world that I want.

Le pout. ):0(

I stink. Must shower.

The Focus Necklace

Yeah, I could use some of that: Focus Necklace, by Made With Molecules.

Why, WHY hasn't anyone made a good DNA necklace or bracelet? Double helix or molecular? Is DNA just too commercial? You know, you can buy paternity tests at RiteAid now. The commercial for it is appalling and tragic. A woman talks about how she and her husband have piece of mind. Piece of mind? You're not upset about the fact that your husband couldn't trust you enough to believe the child was his? Or perhaps I have it wrong. Perhaps you slept around, and you weren't sure who the father was, and your husband knew. So now he's happy to know the child is his and can forget that you slept with someone else??

But yeah, they should totally make a DNA necklace.

SNOW?!?

GAAHHH!!! I'm supposed to MOVE today!! Who gave permission for it to snow?

I friggin' love snow. LOVE it. This has to be the first time in my life that I'm unhappy to see snow that is sticking. I mean, snow NEVER sticks, here. It always melts as soon as it hits the ground (which is usually wet from rain). But on the day I'm supposed to move, it snows and sticks.

Granted, it's probably less than an inch (so far! it's still going strong), which would be a joke to Midwesterners. But this city all but shuts down for half an inch. Probably has something to do with the fact that the Midwest is flat, and we are nothing but large hills around here. As icing on this snowy cake, my tires are nearly bald and I haven't had the money to get new ones. Yay for driving in snow with no traction! I think I must have done something to upset The Big Man Upstairs.

On the other hand, it's so pretty! I really do love snow. Everyone else in this city hates it, which I've never understood. They're all Grinches. I guess now I'm a Grinch, too.

I'm moving to the city, and I'm REALLY excited, but I'm also nervous in a "girl who has lived her whole life in suburbs" sort of way. Seriously, I'm 25 years old and I've only ever lived in suburbs (even in France), except for a three-month period when I lived in a tiny town on an island (three bars, two grocery stores, one bank, no fast-food chains). Actually, I didn't even live in the tiny town; I lived just outside of it. Basically, I'm totally soft. Should be fun! I should probably try to get comfortable living in a relatively safe city before I up and move to London, right? I thought so.

Oh, it stopped snowing! (for the moment) Maybe it'll all melt in a couple hours! (I can't believe I just said that...)

"On The Radio"

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe

Until their dying breath

Leave It To Beaver

I've never watched "Leave It To Beaver" before, and I stumbled upon it today.

I don't think I'll watch it again.

Here are the old-fashioned family values I learned from the 15 minutes that I watched:

1. It's perfectly okay for mom and the kids to lie to dad. What he doesn't know can't hurt him.
2. It's perfectly acceptable to answer the telephone in the middle of dinner.
3. A man is well within his rights to sit comfortably in an easy chair and read his newspaper while his wife frets over a missing child, and then passive-aggressively question the way she is raising their child.
   

Here is a quote I found particularly amusing:

Beaver: “What if you and mom had a fight, what would you do?”

Ward: “Why, Beaver, you know your mother and I don’t fight.”

(My eyebrows are raised at this point.)

Beaver: “But what if you did, what would you do?”

Ward: “Well, I’d probably stay at the Y until she came to her senses.”

Ah, yes. There's that old-fashioned male-chauvinism. A minute later, Ward says, "I'd apologize, even though I was probably in the right." I would assume the writers were trying to be funny, but the laugh track didn't come on and the actor looked serious.

Ah, yes, the world was so much more wholesome back in the 50's, when women knew their places, men were never wrong, and racism was totally acceptable. Those were the days...

Lazy Day

I'm really excited. I applied to be a volunteer at a local organization for refugees, and I went for a tour and informal interview yesterday. I'll be volunteering with an after-school program for kids aged 10-16 or so. It'll be like study hall, and I'll be there to answer homework questions and stuff. I start next Thursday! Yay! I can't wait!

Oh, I just looked down at my kitty (cuz he sighed very sweetly) and he is actually sleeping on the pet pillow that R and S got him! That's like, the first time, ever, and he's had it for nearly three months.


Websites I've been reading today ('cause, let's face it, that's all I ever do):

I've never done this before, but I've actually started my Christmas shopping in September. I'm a little ashamed of myself, to be honest. Anyway, there were tons of awesome artist booths at Bumbershoot, and I've been checking out some of their websites.

Etsy
"Your place to buy and sell all things handmade." I like the idea of buying handmade stuff for several reasons, but a big one is that I know there won't be any sweat-shops or child labor involved, which is scary stuff. The problem is, this stuff tends to be more expensive than the sweat-shop J.C. Penney's t-shirts I'm accustomed to buying. But this website features all sorts of products that are great gift ideas. There's even a virologist who crochets HIV viruses and gives a portion of sales to Blood:Water Mission (see below).

ex libris anonymous
What do you get when you take the covers from an old book and bind them around blank white sketchbook paper, with some pages from the original book mixed in? The best idea ever! I wish I'd thought of it...and had all the tools necessary to make these journals.

Non-profit sites:

Blood:Water Mission
They ask everyone to donate one dollar. One dollar provides enough clean drinking water for one African for a WHOLE YEAR!

Lifelong AIDS Alliance
The Pacific Northwest's leading AIDS service organization.

Ashes, ashes, we all take a bath

When I got home today, I was greeted as usual by my darling kitten, who is, may I say, quite the porker. He had acquired, while I was at work, some new spots. Grayish ones, in fact. Someone has been frolicking in the fireplace, again! Which of course means, someone gets to take another bath! Oh, how he loves baths! No wait, what's that other word that sounds like "loves" but means the opposite? Oh yeah, loathes. Well, that'll teach ya to go exploring in ash-filled caves.

Displaying his manliness


Displaying his kittenliness

Saga

Hey, who's sick of Kusems whining about her sleep disorder? No one? You sure? Alright, then, let's proceed.

Oh, let's recap. Back in March, I went for a sleep test to figure what the pho was wrong with me. Apparently, I have sleep apnea. I'm still not convinced, and here's why: my doctor put me on a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine (ce qui pumps air into my lungs while I be sleeping). It's icky. I think I look like an elephant, but I don't know for sure because I refuse to look in the mirror while wearing it because I'm afraid of what I'll see.

Anyhoo, machine is supposed to keep me from choking during sleep (supposedly, I stop breathing once a minute during REM sleep). Because I'm not choking anymore, my sleep isn't being interrupted, and therefore, I wake up feeling refreshed and energized. Right?

Wrong! I've been using the horrible machine for two months, and haven't felt a blasted thing. Not even a minor improvement in either sleepyness or tiredness. So I went back for another overnight sleep study, complete with traumatizing cup-peeing incident. Haven't received the results back yet, but I don't even care anymore what they'll say. I think I've decided to explore other possibilities. The internets must make doctors' lives harder, because now they have all their patients coming in saying, "Are you sure it's not this other thing I read about on the Internet?"

Last week, I had a second-opinion appointment with a new doctor, and he said, "They've followed the right protocol and there's nothing I can do that would be different." Thank you, sir. Fifteen dollars down the drain. Of course, that's nothing compared to the $800 I'll be spending to pay for all these doggone sleep tests. Arrrgghhhh.

*Happy Place time*











Ahhh, much better.