2013 Goals and Resolutions

Oh Calvin.  You get me.

But seriously, I have such a hard time with goals.  Meeting goals, that is.  Making them is fairly easy.  I get distracted.  I unprioritize and reprioritize.  I get lazy.  I don't wanna read x amount of books, or write x amount of sonnets.  Let's see how this year goes, then, when I make goals that are less easily measured.

1. Talk on the phone more, and in doing so, defeat my fear of the thing.
2. Stop saying the word "annoying", and in doing so, be less easily annoyed.  (It's good in theory.)
3. Do not complain, whine, or gossip.  Ever.  (Except maybe to Kevin.  That's basically like talking to myself.)
4. Finish all the books I left half-done in 2012.  There are quite a few of 'em.
5. Read more fiction.
6. Read more classics.
7. Play and teach piano.  (Seriously.  This one is happening, and I'm a bit nervous about it!)
8. Take voice lessons again.  (Yikes!  If I can find the time for it, I wanna make this one happen!)
9. Move into a house!
10. Be a better wife and friend.
11. Support and encourage Kevin.  (Sometimes I forget he has to verbally process and dream.)
12. Write more letters.
13. Spend more structured time praying and in the Scriptures.
14. Be more assertive.
15. Stand up straighter.
16. Be more active.
17. Cook more, and learn to bake.
18. Be spontaneous.
19. Watch less TV.
20. Don't take short-cuts out of laziness.

FAVORITE MEAL EVER!

All right, guys.  Here it is.  The recipe you've all been waiting for, drooling for, dying for....
(not at all dramatic - you'll understand when you taste the heavenly goodness that is this curried chicken!)

Anna's Curried Chicken with Rice
(I always approximate measurements... but I'll do my best to standardize it for ya.  Feel free to mess with amounts to your taste)
Serves Four
Ingredients:
2 Cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup (the smaller ones, not family size)
3 Tb Curry Powder
2 Tb Cinnamon
Honey
Handful of Raisins (super specific, haha)
2 Small-Medium Sized Yellow Pears (the best are the almost mushy ones)
Rice for 4 Servings (depends, I guess... and I use Minute Rice, because it's so dang hard to cook rice up here at 7500 ft.)
4-6 Chicken Breasts (defrosted, obviously)
---
1) Heat cream of mushroom soup over medium heat, stirring in 1 cup of water (do not follow instructions on the can!)
2) Stir in curry powder and cinnamon as directed (or to taste).  Mix thoroughly so there are no chunks of mushroom, etc.
3) Stir in honey.  This is an optional step... I love love love the honey added, and usually put in quite a bit.  Use your discretion.
4) Let sit on low heat for 10 minutes, stir in raisins after the 10 minutes are nearly up.
--Preheat oven to 375.
5) Dip defrosted chicken in flour and place in medium-sized (glass) baking pan.
6) Cover chicken with the mushroom soup/curry/honey/cinnamon mixture.
7) Slice pears (I like them to still have the shape of the pear when I slice it... but I'm not sure what the technical term is for that... so... do what you want, just get those pears on those chickens!) and place on top of the chicken and soup-mixture.
8) Place in bottom rack of oven, let bake for ~30 minutes.

Then... just make rice as you see fit.  You don't even need to eat it with rice, but it's so so good to let the rice soak up the soup-curry sauce.  Highly recommended.

Serve each chicken breast with at least one slice of pear, and plenty of sauce.

Enjoy!  Let me know what you think, or if you have any additions/suggestions to this already near-perfect recipe!  :)

Here are a couple pictures for inspiration!

Before Baking

After Baking

(this picture is from a different batch... sans raisins)

Spiced Beef Patties with Couscous

My current favorite site for all things DIY, Bohemian Revolution, had a page of 150 recipes for dishes with couscous... and since I love couscous and love trying my hand at 'exotic' foods, I thought I'd give one of the recipes a go!


Based on what I had in my cupboards, I decided to go with the Spiced Beef Patties.  And it was a lot easier to make than I thought it'd be!  ...Suspiciously easy.  Next time, I'm going to have to try something a bit more complicated.  And authentic.  Haha.


Basic ingredients:
1 1/3 pounds ground beef
1 large onion, minced (about 2/3 cup)
3 tablespoons water
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 package plain couscous
chopped cilantro

Combine the beef, onion, water, oil, pepper, cinnamon, cumin, and coriander in a large bowl.  Unfortunately, I had the cumin and coriander... but not ground.  I improvised with a make-shift mortar and pestle (a small Pyrex mixing bowl and the round, hard end of a spatula) to grind it myself.  Needless to say, the 'shells' added a special crunch to the patties.  Not bad, but not perfect.  : P

Heat the skillet, and spray with non-stick stuff so the patties don't... get... stuck.  Shape the meat mixture (haha, ew) into patties, about 3/4 in thick.  Cook till done (everyone's different - Kevin favors meat as raw as it can be).  

While the patties cook, make the couscous by - FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS ON THE BOX!! - filling a medium saucepan with water (maybe 3 cups?) and a bit of oil.  Bring the water to boil, and stir in the couscous.  It'll be done in about two literal minutes.  


Arrange the patties on a platter and dump as much couscous as you and a friend can eat in the middle.  Sprinkle liberal amounts of cilantro on top of the whole thing.  Then, enjoy! 

Kevin wasn't such a fan.  He said it was too dry.  Maybe it was... could've used a gravy or something.  Alas, no beef broth in the house.  Plus, he doesn't like onions.  Even for their flavor.  No fun.  I, however, thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the dryness.  I think adding cinnamon to the meat was an inspired move.


A fun and easy meal - approx. 20 min!  Please try and let me know how you love it!

smoky smokey smokie

Our apartment smells an awful lot like bacon. Emphasis on the “awful”, please and thank you.

We made breakfast-for-dinner again. Growing up, and even until this very point in my life, I hated breakfast-for-dinner. Now, I realize the appeal. Not only are pancakes, eggs, and bacon (and whatever the heck else you want to make that is considered breakfast fare) delicious at any time of day, it’s all super easy and way convenient to make. Kevin texted me from work saying, “What’s for dinner?” And, Stepford wife that I am, I responded, “Well, what would you like, dear?” I gave him some options and he chose one… but then as I was looking up the recipe, I groaned at some of the work I would have to put in to that particular dish. There’s got to be something easier, I thought to myself. Then, lightbulb! Breakfast!

I hadn’t started when Kevin came home, but instead of having him man the bacon station like I had originally intended, I let him relax on the couch for a while watching Lie to Me. Great show. Halfway through the bacon and pancakes (which I was making simultaneously on the stove - because I can multitask like that), our smoke detector went off. And I mean, really blaring. Kevin jumped up off the couch to wave a pillow in front of the over-enthusiastic alarm. I turned on the fan above the stove, and Kevin sat back down to enjoy his show. Not a minute later, the alarm was going off again. Kevin’s getting stressed out, I’m trying to finish dinner so we can just turn off the stinkin stove and the good-for-nothing fan…

At the end of the whole ordeal, Kevin has opened both windows, turned on the fan on the A/C in the living room, is still waving a pillow in front of the smoke detector, and I am making a mess of the kitchen. I spilled bacon grease on the kitchen table, burnt my thumb a little bit, and dropped the eggs in the oven. Mmk so maybe breakfast-for-dinner wasn’t the most convenient option for this evening… but… it’s another story, right? And we’re getting the smoke alarm and the fan above the stove checked out on Monday. Seems like they’re not really doing their jobs well.

breadcrumbs

So I’m getting into cooking. I mean, I look at recipes and get excited about trying to make them (trying being the operative word). Tonight, I made chicken croquettes.

Having looked at the recipe yesterday before Kev and I went shopping for the next two weeks’ worth of groceries, I thought I was completely prepared for… everything. Come to find out, I don’t have breadcrumbs. It wasn’t listed in the ingredients. (COME ON! Way to set me up for failure, cookbook!) Is that just an understood, then? That every cook EVER in the entire world obviously has breadcrumbs, might as well not mention it until the second to last step in the recipe? Regardless, I soldiered on. Psh, I can make my own breadcrumbs! How hard could it be?

First, I tried crumbling up some bread into a bowl. …Nah, didn’t look right. Next, I utilized the toaster and then crumbled it up. Hmm. I added the first “batch” to the second and threw them all onto a pan and stuck it in the oven with some seasoning and a little bit of oil. I thought that was foolproof. Till I got distracted. Luckily, the smoke alarm went off to alert me to the fact that my breadcrumbs were… done. I picked out - from among the burnt-beyond-recognition tidbits - the morsels of bread that could still be used. Meh. It’ll have to suffice.

Next, the white sauce (“flour + milk + butter” sounds simple enough, right?) took me three tries to get just right. On the third try, I realized I just needed to wait maybe two minutes longer before giving up on it thickening. Haha.

The end result, I’ll have you know, was quite delicious! Even if you just chalk up the success to Mrs Dash and more chicken than was necessary, I am pretty pleased with myself. Pretty pleased indeed. :)