Friday I had the EGD that so far showed nothing…I slept the rest of the day and then made dinner because I was starving.  At that point I hadn’t been able to eat and keep very much down.  So I wanted something pretty easy to eat but pretty flavorful.  Also simple.  I felt weird because of anesthesia.  I picked a Sweet Potato Frittata with Tomato Salsa.   

The eggs were light and fluffy, the sweet potatoes were creamy and rich and the salsa, made with a good bit of sesame oil was sweet, spicy and smoky.  The perfect complement to the eggs.  Certainly something I’ll make again.

 Saturday we took advantage of the beautiful spring day and drove down to check the Waco Mammoth Site. Was sort of a let down, apparently they’ve found 24 whole mammoths there.  But for some reason they’re only showing 3 skeletons…the rest are in storage at some Baylor owned museum. More would have been better. More might have made the $7 price of admission worth it. More certainly would explain why they think they can become a National Park. Right now the place is sort of a let down and it’s sad that they see enough of a desire to keep some of the bones there but the majority are in storage and not on display.

I will say that it’s a very nice set up…over the main dig site there’s a very nicely done shelter with a catwalk over the. Very easy to see everything. Afterwards we went for ice cream. 

 So the ice cream went down easy…like a breeze and I’d feel more guilty but it was the first thing I was able to eat all day. So my calorie count for the day may actually be normal. Let’s not talk about fat and whatnot.  At least I picked the low sugar Butter Nut Crunch. It was really good!

 We headed home soon after, did the grocery shopping, picked up the fancy new rug shampooer then Ben took me out for dinner. Such a good Fiance!

 Today I stuck near the house…I felt pretty sick to my stomach and pretty tired all day. So I didn’t do much other than laundry. I did of course make dinner…

Tonight I made Wild Mushroom Soup with Polenta. Such a warm and filling meal! I was thrilled at Whole Foods to find a multitude of dried mushrooms, I think this soup had about 10 different varieties of dried mushrooms as well as fresh shiitake mushrooms.  LOVE mushrooms.  LOVE soup. This one is a winner!

Since I didn’t go out I also made a little dessert, Lime Mousse:

When/If we register we’ll be getting some prettier plates and dishes I think.  These are cute, but other than the ramekins (which I’m bored with) my only other option was wine glasses.

 This week I’m on spring break and am looking forward to a mostly quiet week at work because I won’t be running out the door every afternoon at 4:45 or panicking at 4:15 when I realize what time it is and how many things I have left to do. 

 Food wise I’m making Spiced Pork Chops, Salmon and Quinoa Stew and Lamb Ragu.  I’ll probably also make the potato and ham gratin that I made a few weeks ago because that?   Was perfection!

 I almost forgot to add, thanks to the stomach issues I lost 10 pounds this week!  Brining my total up to 16 pounds since Lent started.  Kinda awesome and kinda scary!

 This weekend’s recipes came from Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite and The  New Soup Bible.

All of it was truly amazing. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed cake so much, or the last time I made one from scratch. And the peas? Who knew a shallot, a little butter and some stock would transform frozen peas so well. So good. The chicken dish was fantastic, I did over cook it again, and actually the next time I make it I’m using all dark meat. Ben and I aren’t really into white meat. But it was lovely. Very basic, but very wonderful.

Gordon Ramsay Food from this weekend:
· Persian Style Onion Soup.

I’ve made it before, and it was just a glorious as the first time round.

Whole Foods Adventure:
· After seeing how excited I got about needing and finding a few ingredients last weekend at Whole Foods Ben suggested we switch to shopping there. I balked at it a bit because of the price difference between that and Wal-Mart and the fact that we’d still need to go somewhere else for toiletry items but he said we’re already make 3 or 4 different stops since we stopped buying meat at Wal-Mart and started going to a proper butcher and have had difficulty finding things like parsley at Wal-Mart. So we tried it out and….the price was about the same. Which was amazing. What’s better is that the only item I really felt like I spent way too much on was baking chocolate…they only had one option and it was $5 for 4oz. It was good stuff mind you, but I would have been find with the $2 Baker’s variety even though it was a chocolate cake. Even the cashier noted how well we did considering how much (volume) we bought. The only thing I can attribute it to is that I tend to cook from scratch and don’t buy processed foods very often if at all. So that’s our new grocery store. And probably where we’ll be having lunch before shopping because their deli counters smelled pretty awesome.

In other news:
· Our water was off for a few hours because of a leak in another apartment in the building. I HATE apartment life for that reason because we totally freaked since it was right during dinner prep time (ever try to make a cake AND chicken with no running water in a tiny kitchen?) AND about the time that we both needed a potty break. Not cool. They could have at least return one of our 5 calls to the emergency maintenance line and told us they knew and were working on it. The only way we figured that out was by walking around the building and seeing the carpet crew out there-who told us what, was up. Yesterday they called Ben back and told him that they would have notified us but the fire department was in control. Um…we were outside and no fire trucks or fire personnel were there-if they were in control they would have been until the water was restored at nearly 9pm. If you’re going to turn off water at 5pm on Saturday, to an entire building because of one single apartment at least own up to it.
· My engagement ring broke around Valentine’s Day…we took it in to have it repaired. Which sort of ticked me off. The band actually broke. No damage or accident I literally looked down and it was snapped about halfway through the band-and upon further inspection it really looked like it had been soldered in that same spot once before. We bought the protection plan but that only covers soldering…not actual band replacement. Which is odd because if the ring is stolen or I lose it…that’s covered for total replacement. So we dropped it off to be fixed even though I know that eventually it’s going to break again. Two weeks later we go to pick it up and…it hadn’t left the store. So they sent it out again saying it would be done in 3 days. And we went back on Saturday to find it not in the store, and the jeweler who had it not answering their phone. To say I freaked and started talking very loudly goes without saying. This morning I picked it up and I’m pleased, but know that it’s only a matter of time before it breaks again. Ben is bummed because while we didn’t pay a whole lot for it we certainly thought it would hold up past 6 months of wear. The next time it breaks we certainly won’t be taking it back there…we’ll take it to a private jeweler and have the stones reset in a different band altogether. Probably will cost more than the ring did to begin with but 3 weeks for a repair that’s only going to break again…just not worth it. So disappointed with that store right now.
· My stomach has been upset for weeks now. On and off throughout the day. Nights have been plagued with either heartburn or vomiting blood. Ick. So I went to see a specialist who told me to stop eating white starchy foods and beans and lentils and set me up for further testing. We’ll see how that goes, but I swear since I went to the Dr last week, every day has been worse than the last. Not feeling good about the situation at all.

In store food wise this week (even though eating has begun to be quite the ordeal for me):
· Gordon Ramsay Lime Mouse, actually bought the stuff this weekend, but didn’t make because the cake was so awesome and plentiful.
· Julia Child hamburger patties with some sort of sauce and served with more peas and possibly the garlic mashed potatoes I’ve been drooling over for a few weeks.

I’m Learning:
School is proving to be a bit challenging this semester. Which I’m ok with. It should be right? I’m a bit sad because I “only” made a 90 on my last test. But then I missed two classes because I went on some fancy cruise vacation, and I wasn’t exactly diligent in my studying. So I’ll take the 90 but that’s going to be the absolute lowest score I make on a test.

I’m improving:
Lent is hard. Ok, I may have over done it. I can usually manage to get up when the alarm sounds…but I haven’t been able to do it at the pre-determined times. Which I’m ok with. Every day is a struggle but also a great way to learn. So while I’m not quite sticking to the Lenten aspect of it I’m improving myself somewhat. That still counts too? Right?

I’m stalling out:
Weight loss is ok. Kinda hard, either my stomach is in deep revolt or something is seriously wrong because my Dr thinks I may have an ulcer. We’re for sure that I’ve progressed from regular GERD/Reflux to…actually throwing up blood. What’s odd is that it’s only at night. What’s also odd is that instead of actual pains I’m typically completely nauseated until about 3 pm. Then I feel normal and can eat normally until about 8pm. Then either reflux, heartburn or pain sets back in. Nice, eh? So today I go see a GI specialist. We’ll see how that goes.

What I’m Currently Reading:
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson. Ok I haven’t started it yet. I finished up “Room for Improvement” by Stacy Ballis. It was ok. Typical chick lit. But ok. Sadly one of those books that I finish, but for the life of me I can’t really remember it. This is telling I suppose. And am supposed to start The Girl soon for the virtual book club I’m in.

I have pre-orders in place at Amazon for Laurie Notaro’s new book (yay!) and Jen Lancaster’s! Can’t wait for either. Both hopefully will be awesome.

I have plans:
Tonight we’re going to see an advanced screening (NOT at midnight) of Alice In Wonderland that’s been organized by one of our vendors. Which should be nice as it’s at Studio Movie Grill and dinner is included. Yay! Alice is one of my most favorite books and from what I’ve seen this is much more true to the books than the Disney version (shocking I know that Disney would not do the most true to book movie!). I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a long time now. Tomorrow we’re going for another session of the wedding prep stuff with our sponsor couple. Yay!

This weekend:
I’m going to have Ben take me for a burger that comes with Foie Gras, brie and I think truffles. At a restaurant that I can’t quite remember the name of. I’ll take pictures and do proper telling of it though.

I *think* that’s it.

Suzanne Kwarciany
Test Engineer 1, Mobile Device Technology

2250 Lakeside Blvd
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My Coach Addiction:
Last week I bought myself yet another Coach purse on EBay. This one was about 60% off the retail price, how do I know? It had the tag on it still! And it also came wrapped in Coach tissue. AND had the gift receipt so I could return it for store credit if I ended up not liking it. This brings my total up to 4 purses, the leather one that I ruined and resurrected. A second leather massager bag that is pretty old but in awesome shape-it’s a tan colored pebbled leather solving the smooth scratch magnet problem I have with Formally Chocolate Stained purse. I haven’t mentioned it before because it’s pretty new but it’s the perfect size for both my Kindle and my Netbook. Also, it was $40! A small signature (the fabric with the “C”s on it.) handbag, which was about $50. And now this one, a black signature gallery tote for just over $100. So cute!!! Total EBay/Coach spending: $308. Not bad at all considering this one (the new one pictured above) cost (according to the tag) $368! I’m feeling very proud of my thrifty-ness as these prices often are slightly better than the Outlet that’s near here. Also I don’t get roped into buying other stuff at other stores because I drove all the way (10 miles, LOL) out to the Outlet stores. But mostly because instead of Bought, EBay tells me I WON the item. Much more fun to hear in my opinion.

I’m Learning:
School is proving to be a bit challenging this semester. Which I’m ok with. It should be right? I’m a bit sad because I “only” made a 90 on my last test. But then I missed two classes because I went on some fancy cruise vacation, and I wasn’t exactly diligent in my studying. So I’ll take the 90 but that’s going to be the absolute lowest score I make on a test.

I’m improving:
Lent is hard. Ok, I may have over done it. I can usually manage to get up when the alarm sounds…but I haven’t been able to do it at the pre-determined times. Which I’m ok with. Every day is a struggle but also a great way to learn. So while I’m not quite sticking to the Lenten aspect of it I’m improving myself somewhat. That still counts too? Right?

I’m stalling out:
Weight loss is ok. Kinda hard, either my stomach is in deep revolt or something is seriously wrong because my Dr thinks I may have an ulcer. We’re for sure that I’ve progressed from regular GERD/Reflux to…actually throwing up blood. What’s odd is that it’s only at night. What’s also odd is that instead of actual pains I’m typically completely nauseated until about 3 pm. Then I feel normal and can eat normally until about 8pm. Then either reflux, heartburn or pain sets back in. Nice, eh? So today I go see a GI specialist. We’ll see how that goes.

No I am not pregnant.
But thanks for asking…or even thinking it.

What I’m Currently Reading:
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson. Ok I haven’t started it yet. I finished up “Room for Improvement” by Stacy Ballis. It was ok. Typical chick lit. But ok. Sadly one of those books that I finish, but for the life of me I can’t really remember it. This is telling I suppose. And am supposed to start The Girl soon for the virtual book club I’m in.

I have pre-orders in place at Amazon for Laurie Notaro’s new book (yay!) and Jen Lancaster’s! Can’t wait for either. Both hopefully will be awesome.

I have plans:
Tonight we’re going to see an advanced screening (NOT at midnight) of Alice In Wonderland that’s been organized by one of our vendors. Which should be nice as it’s at Studio Movie Grill and dinner is included. Yay! Alice is one of my most favorite books and from what I’ve seen this is much more true to the books than the Disney version (shocking I know that Disney would not do the most true to book movie!). I’ve been looking forward to this movie for a long time now. Tomorrow we’re going for another session of the wedding prep stuff with our sponsor couple. Yay!

This weekend:
I’m going to have Ben take me for a burger that comes with Foie Gras, brie and I think truffles. At a restaurant that I can’t quite remember the name of. I’ll take pictures and do proper telling of it though.

I *think* that’s it.

Oh here is a shot of the new purse….

It’s cute isn’t it?

Next time I plate dark blue sauce with the intention of taking a picture I'll use a white plate.

I pressed the sauce through a sieve though because I hate blueberry skins. 

So that was dinner on Sunday.  Up this week is semi Julia Child (I’ll explain if I can rememeber to document it) Gnoochi with a Mornay sauce.  andI think that’s it. 

Have a great week!

But Idigress slightly while searching for a celery root I spied a package of baby artichokes and snapped them up.  Not quite sure what I’d do with them I picked up a big lemon and drooled over the cheese counter and olive bar but mostly stuck to leaving the store. 

Today it’s a bright sunny day but I’m exhausted from a long (but exciting) week at work and really just need a lazy day of laundry and spot botting the carpet.  So for lunch I opened up the artichokes  

So cute! Some were a little beat up looking and dark around the edges, but sadly with baby artichokes you clean off a little less than half. Seems like a waste but it's worth it in the end.

Ready for cooking

As I cleaned, I quartered I tossed them in a bowl of water with  lemon slices because it’s kinda time consuming and they’ll turn brown.  In fact some of these started turning so it’s possible I didn’t use enough lemon or didn’t work fast enough.  Or both.  It’s also a good idea to snap the tough outter leaves off rather than pulling.  Pulling may remove part of the delicious heart. 

Then I drained and seperated (not before turning for one last lemony coating) and tossed into a large pan with about 1 cup of boiling water with vegetable bouillion (I actually made 4 cups of “stock” with 2 cubes, I’m making a lentil soup and figure it will be a nice addition.  Also I bought Telma brand instead of Knorr and I’m much happier with it, instead of a big cube of salt it looked like salt, flavoring as well as little bits of veggies in it.  Anyways…I turned the heat back up bringing it to a nice steamy boil and put the lid on it.  I shoke the pan pretty hard every couple minutes and once the water had evaporated  the artichokes were tender so I added a small splash of broth, a splash of wine, a few crushed garlic cloves some salt and freshed cracked black pepper, then some dried parsley and tarragon as well as a good sprinkle of red pepper flakes. I continued to sautee until all the liquid was gone and then drained a little to shake off any extra liquid.  

I had toasted a little garlic rubbed italian bread and then sampled a bit and felt that I needed something creamy to balance it out.  So I mixed some parmasean and ricotta then spread a good bit on each slice of toast.  Topped it off with the artichokes and voila:   

A little of the artichokes, a little cheese a nice crusty toast. Yum!!

In retrospect I could have added a touch more salt and a touch more red pepper, in fact I did when I went back for a 3rd slice and it was fantastic!   

What  a lovely lunch for an almost lazy Sunday.

I tried to cook a batch of Vanilla Panna Cotta but forgot the very simple, but very crucial step in which you cool the very hot vanilla infused milk before added the very cold yogurt.  Which proved to be an excellent way to waste $9.00 worth of vanilla beans.   

 Sadly while I did check out my not so new camera’s manual and figured out how to take pictures of food without them coming out all odd looking…I didn’t capture any of this.  During the week it’s a bit hard for me to keep up with cooking and documenting.  More honestly I’m lazy.  

  Some pics:  

After simmering for 3 hours

As the sauce simmers on it's own, the sauteed mushrooms and braised onions are added to the beef and mushrooms.

The final product. Yum!!

Tonight we picked Fondue de Poulet a la Crème, the choice was that or Coq au Vin but chose this one as it required wine, not Cognac which would require a trip over to Addison-totally not something either of us wanted to do.  Fondue de Poulet a la Crème translates into Chicken Simmered with Cream and Onions. For a side we couldn’t decide between the recommended veggies (buttered peas, or baked cucumbers-both of which seemed great to me, but not so much to Ben) so we settled on the plain steamed rice it also suggested.  The book calls it Riz a la Vapeur which just makes it sound much fancier than plain steamed rice.  Lacking the veggies means it’s not the healthiest meal but taste makes up for it. 

Once I had all the prep and ingredients gathered I started cooking  

I bought a new cast iron Dutch oven as it’s become clear that I can put it off any longer. I’ve been eyeing the Le Creuset line for far too long-what cook wouldn’t?  However it’s just not in me to shell out $200+ for a single item of cookware. Perhaps when I’m settled into a home and kitchen of my own I’ll make the investment but for now it just doesn’t seem prudent. So I ventured to Wal-Mart where I found that Lodge Logic makes pretty decent versions for under $100 but I still wasn’t really sold on the idea. So I bought a plain, non enameled cast iron Dutch oven for under $40. And having used it once I’m freaking sold. It was so much easier to regulate the heat on it. Also next week I’ve got something in mind-which is why I bought it actually that requires a stove to oven transfer so having the Dutch oven is key. Once it was going I started the rice, or Riz. Which went smoother than any other rice recipe I’ve ever attempted. And the rice came out light, fluffy and perfectly cooked.

The end result…

Doesn’t look like much of anything. Cooked chicken with a sauce and some rice but the flavor was perfect. Not too heavy, not greasy (considering when I started there was a BUNCH of butter, and the chicken had skin on it still (which I ended up removing piece by piece when it was simmering) when I started sautéing and simmering. I have to admit though that I ended up with about 4 cups of sauce…which seemed odd.  And there was no fat to skim off even though the recipe stated I would need to do that. I think it might be because I really could have used a bigger pan to cook it in as there wasn’t much surface area when I was supposed to be reducing and simmer down the liquid it didn’t go as far as it was supposed to. But it did thicken and it did taste wonderful so that’s what matters right? Also I ended up straining the sauce through a fine mesh strainer because it seemed rather lumpy as it contained great bits of chicken, chicken skin and cooked onions. Not a bad thing, as I’m sure that’s where the flavor was it just didn’t look right. So that’s tonight’s food. It was totally worth the effort-and really it’s chicken, onions, cream and a small amount of wine and spices. It would be an excellent dish to entertain with if your watching your budget. Also pretty easy to put together.

Anywho…

After I dragged myself out of bed this morning I went over to the scale which I proudly resisted hopping on top of all week long to see if I’d lost any weight…and I’m down 5 pounds.

What a nice thing to hear first thing in the morning. Especially considering that last night I tried another recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking…Rapee Morv Andelle (you’ll have to excuse me, I can’t figure out how to add accents into French words. It’s a new Netbook without MS Word on it. Sorry) or Gratin of Potatoes with Ham and Eggs and Onions. Once again the prep took longer than the actual cooking :

 I did one thing a little differently I poured it into a pre-baked pie shell that I’d liberally basted with butter (the recipe says that you can do it with or without crust-but then states that you should melt butter directly into the pan before adding the mixture so I figured with a crust, basting it would be the best compromise.

I was right, the crust was tender, flaky and buttery and the total result was really quite exceptional. Slightly smoky, lots of onion and creamy with a hint of swiss cheese.  I’ll certainly make that again. 

I didn’t take a picture of the final product, well I did but I don’t like the way it came out. Also it looked exactly like a Quiche so it wasn’t surprising at all.

On tap for today…looking at the user guide for my camera to figure out how to turn off the flash…grocery shopping…dog grooming.  Cooking wise I’ll be making some cupcakes…one of two Julia Child chicken recipes, and a Gordon Ramsay noodle salad that I’ve had my eye on for a while.  Hopefully I’ll figure out my camera so pictures of all can be shared.

I had no idea how much of a hold that snooze button had on me.

Day 1: Ash Wednesday

Ben wakes up, gets ready for work and leaves around 5:20. I contemplate getting up then but decide to wait. Ash Wednesday mass is at 7am. I live about 10 min away so I’d like to leave at 6:30 in order to get a seat at church. Getting up at 6? Means I’m getting up at the last possible moment. At 5:55 I remember that Ben wanted to go in the evening…so I reset the clock for 7am and went back to sleep. FAIL. Although at 7am I did get out of bed without hitting the alarm…even though it was mostly out of guilt.

Day 2: Thursday

Ben wakes up, gets ready for work and leaves around 5:20. I contemplate getting up but decide to sleep a bit longer. As I sleep I dream about resetting the alarm. Then I wake up at 7:15 to my alarm going off as I apparently didn’t only dream it. Epic

FAIL.

Day 3: Friday.

While Ben sleeps peacefully I spend most of the night getting up to throw up. As I’ve mentioned there’s an issue with my lap-band and it’s causing my GERD to really act up. Every now and then if I eat late then go to bed without waiting at least 5 hours I’m sick most of the night. It’s bad. I finally stop being sick around 6am, but decide to email my bosses and let them know I’ll be in at 10 then sleep till 8 and get up then, no snooze button but still big FAIL. Even though I was technically sick in bed.

It seems that while I apparently didn’t rely on the snooze button I certainly relied on resetting the alarm a whole bunch. I’m considering putting the alarm on the other side of the room. But I’m really not sure that would be enough deterrent for me. Onward though, right? I’ll try again tomorrow…it may take the full 40 days to get this down!