Suzy Q Homemaker

This egg sandwich is delicious. It probably isn’t the most healthy of breakfasts, but it sure hits the spot. Does any one else have particular cooking habits? I like to make things in exactly the same way. When I cook a quesadilla, I use sliced cheese, broken up into perfect triangles. Egg sandwiches are harder to execute in a perfectionist’s manner, but I at least have some control over prepping the toast.

I used to make them with mustard, not ketchup. One day when I was pregnant and we were out of mustard, I used ketchup instead. I’ve been hooked ever since! Jamie puts ketchup on his scrambled eggs.

Tell me about your bizarre cooking habits! Or eating habits. Note here or link me to a blog post about your peculiarities and I’ll draw names for a special knitted dishcloth.

EDIT: C’mon guys! I’ll draw names on Friday for the dishcloth. Tell your friends!

(picture by reptifish)

We have one of these guys living on and around our porch right now. We see him almost every day! Today was the first time Aiden got to see him puffing out his little red neck and he found it to be quite amusing.

Today Jamie and Corey planted azaleas along the side of the house so it can be pretty there, too. I love all this gardening! It’s making our home more homey.

I tell you. These ‘roids have got me all edgy. When Jamie left this morning for his Friday meeting (at 10 till 6), I couldn’t get back to sleep! And that is incredibly not like me. I stayed in bed long enough to make sure Simon was sleeping and then I just got up and went into the living room to fart around on the internet.

Tonight Jamie is going to our friend’s Senior Recital. I really want to go, but we couldn’t get a babysitter. So the boys and I will hang out. I don’t know what I want to cook for dinner. We have a whole freezer full of chicken prepared in various ways from Angel Food, but we had chicken last night. I’ll figure something out.

You know what?

Boys eat a lot.

I’m eating the most delicious soup I’ve had in a long, long time. It’s a recipe from How to Cook Everything (yes, I checked it out AGAIN!). See, we bought a load of veggies so I could cook up some vegetable stock and I had a few parsnips, carrots, & mushrooms leftover. Not knowing what to do with all of them, I flipped through the book and found a soup recipe that called for those exact veggies plus a couple more ingredients I had on hand. So, I had a yummy lunch! And I’m totally going to eat another bowlful…

We’re going “non-traditional” this week with our meals. At least, for us. I made the vegetable stock so I could cook up some yummy bean dishes I found. We’ll be eating lots of beans, rice, & soups this week. The kids may protest, so I’m prepared to make them grilled cheese if I have to.

So parsnips! I’ve never had them before but they taste awesome in this soup. The author of the book I mentioned above was right on when he said they are overlooked. I mean, they’re basically a white, sweet carrot. If you get big ones, you have to core them, but it’s really easy to do. I have one parsnip left and I’m going to attempt a puree that’s supposed to be tasty.

Oh my, I wish you could taste this soup. It’s so good.

Anyway.

I’m glad it’s finally soup weather around here. We haven’t had to turn the A/C on all week; we’ve left the windows wide open day and night, and it’s so cool in the morning that Jamie commented on my actually being under the covers when he wakes up. I get so hot so easily that I’ve usually kicked all the covers off by morning. Simon’s the same way and I’ve been surprised at his not kicking the covers off either.

I could totally take a nap right now.

Image by Dave Walker

I’ve had an eyelash or something in my eye for about an hour now and it’s driving me insane. Insane, I tell you!

So remember how I’ve tried three different times to make my own refried beans? Remember how I failed miserably every time! Well, yesterday I was determined to succeed and I totally did! Want to know my secret? I didn’t use a recipe. Fancy that! In studying various recipes on the internet, I concluded that refried beans need only a few basic things: onion, salt, cumin, and coriander. I also added some garlic salt for the hell of it.

Here’s what I did:

Soak a bag of pinto beans for roughly six hours.
Drain and rinse beans.
Put beans in large pot and cover with water.
Simmer.

Chop up an onion and saute until tender.
Add the onion, cumin, salt, garlic salt, and coriander to the beans.
Cover and simmer until the beans are mushy (about 2 or 3 hours).
Get a potato masher and squish up the beans until they start looking like refried beans.

Now I have a lot of leftover refried beans to deal with. Not that I mind. I freaking love refried beans. We just don’t have anymore tortillas. Or chips. I’ll figure something out.

For the beach this weekend, I need to remember to get some film for my camera. I haven’t taken any “real” pictures since Simon was tiny. I also have a roll of film that needs to be developed, though I need to find it first. It’s probably in my camera bag, wherever that is…

I haven’t written about my orchids lately. I was concerned for a while that the phal I saved from Lowe’s was dying because it dropped two leaves. It looks ok now, and it has some really strong-looking aerial roots poking out. I lost one of my dendrobiums because I got lazy and under-watered it. One of the remaining ones now has a keiki on the top of one of its canes! How exciting!

I also discovered that using a peri-bottle to water my orchids is a lot better than the watering can I was using. It’s a lot more gentle and it doesn’t flood the pot. I still have yet to have my orchids rebloom, but now that I’m starting to get the hang of basic orchid care, maybe I can see some in the next couple years!

Tonight I am cooking up some St. Louis Style Ribs. This wasn’t something that just came to me. On second thought, the ribs came to us via Angel Food Ministries (I’m forever grateful for our anonymous donor). I’ve never made St. Louis Style Ribs before, so this is an adventure. I hope they are delicious!

The state of our house is this: I vacuumed the day before yesterday and it only took a day for the carpets to be covered in the crumbs of Spiderman Cheese Nips, Beech Nut Banana Cookies, and Butter Cookies. And that’s just the living room. Our bathroom is the eruption of Mount Laundry and the kitchen is half-clean, thanks to my speedy pre-dinner-making cleanup. I actually folded clothes straight out of the dryer a few minutes ago, so froing is my reward.

I’ve been helping my sister a little with getting her house unpacked. It’s going to take awhile because her MIL moved in with all of them (her + husband + 2 sets of twins + MIL = ????). They are going to have one hell of a yard sale when it’s all said and done. Just today I helped unpack two kitchen boxes and managed to cram a whole bunch of spices into one cabinet. My motto was “Unpack now, organize later.” I mention this because my sister’s MIL has been unpacking that box since Friday and she told us all at LEAST 10 times that she had a little carousel “somewhere” that we could use in the spice cabinets. I was tired of looking at the half-unpacked box, so I took the liberty of emptying it for her. I don’t envy the unpacking process of her moving AT ALL. I am glad, though, that they are finally living in a house that has enough space for all of them.

Speaking of organizing, Jamie got rid of one of the end tables in the living room because it was a hot spot for junk. Really, the only use it had was to put the ice cream bowls on it when we were done so that Lucy couldn’t get to them. We realized the other night, though, that Lucy still found a way to contort her fatness from the futon to the table and lick the melty drippings out. My poor, fat kitty.

Simon is really into containerizing these days. Right now he’s putting a pez dispenser in a cup and carrying it around. This is unrelated, but yesterday I held a Batman action figure in front of him and sang, “duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh, BATMAN!” Then Simon took the Batman from me and sang, “DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH, etc.” He’s such a copycat. I love him so much.