Crap! I haven’t blogged in so freaking long!  It’s been weeks!  Let’s just say that I don’t handle stress very well and these last couple of weeks have been very stressful.  That’s why I usually try to keep my life as stress free as possible. 

Let’s see if I can recap the last couple of weeks to get myself up to date here…

I had 4 tests last week, one of which I made a 105.97 out of a 106 possible points!  Weeeee!!  I felt like the smartest person alive when I saw my grade!  What else happened?  Oh yea!!  The 9 story building I was in during class on Wednesday last week caught on FIRE while I was in it!!  No freaking joke.  On.fire.  And I was on the 8th floor.  It took us about 15 minutes to get out of the building because we had to go down the stairs and we didn’t know it was a real fire until we got outside and saw the billowing clouds of smoke.  *gulp*  No one in the building was hurt though.  They said that it was an electrical fire and the building will be closed for a couple of weeks.  Crazy!

That’s just about all of the interesting stuff that’s happened.  The rest of my life has been consumed by projects, homework and STUDYING!

Now I’m on Thanksgiving break enjoying my week off (we don’t technically get the whole week off but all but one of my classes was cancelled for the week and I didn’t think it was worth it to drive that far just for one class).  I did lots of relaxing this weekend, which I needed because I’ve been so sick.  I have been trying to get over bronchitis for about two weeks now.  I think I’m finally getting somewhere since I got to rest and recuperate a bit this weekend.  Thank goodness- I needed it so bad!

Today I cleaned.  The poor house has been so neglected since school started in August and hasn’t had a good scrub since this summer.  It’s been driving me nuts but I’ve been having to put school stuff first and the husband has been trying the best he could, I don’t think he has the patience to clean the whole house, lol.  Poor fella!  I scrubbed the kitchen, the living room, and the guest bathroom today.  And I am tired!  Tomorrow I’m going to hit our bedroom, bathroom and the office.  The kitchen was in the worst shape though.  I found tomato sauce splatters pretty much everywhere in the kitchen!  It was awful! 

Enough about my slovenly ways…

My fun project for the day was making ROLLS!

Last week we did yeast breads in my food prep lab and I’ve been wanting to make rolls ever since!  And with Thanksgiving coming up I figured this would be the perfect time to perfect my bread making skillz. 

So I did two batches of rolls.  One with regular bread flour.  The other with 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 bread flour.  (I’m sure you already know this but if I had used all whole wheat flour they would have turned out very flat and dense.  This is because the whole wheat flour has the whole wheat kernel- except for the husk in the flour mixture.  And with all the extra fiber and nutrients it makes it more dense than the AP flour.)  I used bread flour because it has more protein in it so it develops gluten better resulting in a better rise in your bread and a nice fluffy product!

Here’s the recipe I used (straight out of my food prep lab manual, LOL.  But honestly it’s the best roll recipe I’ve come across.  Seriously.  All the recipes in my betty crocker cookbook called for milk and other weird stuff.)

Yeast Rolls

1 pack active dry yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1-1/4 cups warm water
4 Tbsp melted butter
4 cups AP flour  (or whatever combo of flour you want to use)

1. Combine sugar and salt in large bowl; add warm water to dissolve.  Add yeast; let sit a few minutes until frothy.
2. Melt butter and allow to cool to lukewarm
3. Add 3 cups flour and melted butter to yeast mixture.  Stir to combine.
4. Lightly flour surface with some of the remaining flour.  Turn dough out and begin kneading, adding remaining flour as needed, until no longer sticky.
5. Spray another bowl lightly with cooking spray.  Place dough in bowl; spray top of dough lightly with cooking spray.  Cover with a damp warm cloth and place in a warm place to rise (about 1 hr) until doubled in size.
6. Turn out dough and knead lightly 1 to 2 minutes
7. Using a sharp knife, cut dough into 16 equal pieces and shape into neat, even-sized rolls with your hands.  Arrange rolls in a baking pan that has been sprayed lightly with cooking spray.
8. Cover loosely with plastic wrap that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray
9. Allow rolls to sit in a warm place to rise (about 30 mins) or until doubled in size.
10. Bake in a 400 degree oven aabout 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Here is my batch made with bread flour…

And here’s the batch that was 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 bread flour…

And of course I had to taste test one of each!

They were both mmm mmm good!  I did favor the whole wheat a little more though because I just love the nutty flavor of whole wheat.  I think I’m going to make some herb butter to go along with them and I’ll be set for my Thanksgiving rolls!  yay!

And now I’ve got to go get dinner started.  We’re going to have some sort of chicken, not sure what I’m going to do with it yet.  And roasted Brussels Sprouts! mmmm! 

Oh and it’s slapsgiving 2009 on How I Met Your Mother tonight! hehehe!

My grocery budget isn’t $20.  I don’t think we could actually live off of that and eat healthy.  This week was the $20 grocery budget.  This week only.  But we actually ended up finding a little extra money in the budget so I got to spend $40 at the grocery store this week!  That’s much more do-able.

So I met my $40 limit with lots of beans in my cart and I also got an extra $10 surprise in my shopping trip.  As soon as I stepped in the door of the Super Target someone asked me if I wanted to participate in a market research survey, and that I would get a $10 target gift card out of it.  I was like heck yes!  So they put a little camera on me and asked me to just do my grocery shopping as usual.  So I went about my way picking up what I needed, checked out, and came back to give them back their camera and they handed me a giftcard!  SWEET! 

Anyhoo- $40 was doable but I hope the business at Justin’s work picks up soon so that I can spend more money on food.  I’m sure I’ll get tired of beans pretty soon! :)   That’s the definite downside of working on commission.

The more you eat the more you….

I’ll let you fill in the blank on that one- I’m sure your remember it from grade school!

So the food budget around here is pretty tight right now.  Business is down at Justin’s job and since he works on commission his checks have been down too.  The gas for my commute is killing us too- I have to fill my tank twice a week!  It will get better next semester because I will only be driving to school 3 days/week, so that will only be about a tank/week.

So my task this week is to spend around $20 on groceries for the week.  Yoinks!  Say what?  I’m used to spending about $100!! 

How the heck am I going to do this I’m wondering.  Well, honestly since we stopped eating meat the grocery bills have gone way down.  Nope, we haven’t become vegetarians.  I stopped eating meat (except for the occasional piece of chicken or ground turkey) for personal reasons. (I actually find cows and piggies to be quite cute and it breaks my heart to think of them being slaughtered and some of the practices at slaughter houses that I’ve learned about recently makes me even more sad).   I’m not going to label myself as anything though- I feel like that just sets me up for failure.  Why label yourself, ya know?

Anyhoo- back to the task at hand!

Twenty dollars.  What to do?  Beans to the rescue!  It helps that I have some black beans in the pantry already and some ground turkey in the freezer.  So what am I going to do with this stuff?  Black bean burritos, pinto beans and cornbread, and white bean burgers will all be coming into play at some point in the week.  Will I make my budget?  We’ll have to wait till tomorrow to see!!

While you’re waiting here’s some info on the musical fruit! 

Why eat beans?

Well, they’re awesome for you!  We discussed beans in my food prep class just last week and I learned all kinds of awesome stuff about beans!  Chock full of fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, low in fat, cholesterol free.

If you don’t eat meat, beans are an AWESOME substitute!  Just remember that they’re a limiting amino acid (incomplete protein- they’re missing an essential amino acid that make proteins complete- in the case of beans the limiting AA is methionine) so you need to complement them with another protein source so that you get that complete protein.  It doesn’t have to be at the same meal- that isn’t necessary.  Just at some point during the day.  What can you eat that will compliment them?  How about a whole grain?  Rice, whole wheat bread, corn to name a few. Don’t stress about it though- you don’t need as much protein as you think you do.  Only about 10% of your daily caloric intake needs to come from proteins.  Someday I’ll go into my rant on the people I call “protein pushers”.  That’s another story for another time though! lol

Cooking beans

Dried beans require soaking before cooking.  Either cold water overnight or hot soaked- place in cold water, bring to a boil, boil for two mins, take off heat and soak from 30 mins to 1 hr.  (lentils don’t need to be soaked FYI and they have a short cooking time)

They need considerable time to cook (cooking makes the proteins more available, destroys any toxic substances, and partially gelatinizes the starches in the beans).  Plan to simmer the beans for several hours or put them in the crockpot on low and let them hang out all day.

Acids slow the cooking of beans- so leave out any acids and salt until after the beans are cooked!

Toot toot!

Oligosaccharides in beans is what causes flatulence.  Overnight soaking them can help cut down on that if you’re worried about it.  (make sure you toss the soaking water) Or go buy some bean-o! 🙂

Brown Rice and Lentils

(Print this recipe!)

Ingredients:
1 T Earth Balance 
1small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup dried lentils (2 oz), sorted and rinsed
1/2 cup uncooked brown rice
1can (14.5 oz) vegetable broth
1/4 cup water
1 t hot sauce (I didn’t measure my hot sauce- I just glugged it in until it was spicy enough for my taste.  And I ALWAYS use Franks Red Hot!!!)
1 medium bell pepper, coarsely chopped

Directions:
Melt earth balance in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat.

Cook onion and garlic in butter for about 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender.

Stir in lentils, rice, broth, water and pepper sauce.

Heat to boiling; reduce heat.

Cover and simmer about 50 minutes, adding water if necessary, until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.

Stir in bell pepper; sprinkle with cheese if you like.

I kid you not when I say this is my new favorite dish!!  I might could eat this every day and never get tired of it.  The only downside is that it takes almost an hour to cook.  But if you can get past the time factor, it is totally worth the wait!  It gets really creamy and smooth and it’s just amazing.  This is going to be my new go-to dish for comfort food- move over mac and cheese!!

Two thumbs up!

I saw this pumpkin pie flavored yogurt at the grocery store this weekend and I couldn’t resist trying it.  Sadly I was disappointed.  I’m not gonna lie- it tasted NOTHING like pumpkin pie!

I don’t typically like the flavor of the Stoneyfield products anyway, so I should have known better.  Another reason I don’t typically like these types of yogurts is because of the sugar content.  TWENTY GRAMS of sugar in this little cup!  That is seriously way too much sugar- it’s not worth it.  I normally eat plain greek yogurt, which only has 7 grams- much more reasonable! 

Anyway.  I doctored up the flavor a bit with some sliced banana and 2 T granola.

Then I dropped the Harley off at the vet.  Poor baby has mange and has to have weekly dips. Then off to school from there.

I think I’ve got my schedule for next semester figured out.  I’m only going three days/week.  This 5 day/week driving is about to take its toll on me and I need a break from it or I’m going to lose it (my drive is anywhere from 1 hr 20 mins each way to 1 hr 45 mins each way depending on traffic)

So I’m going to have a SEVEN hour lab next semester!

*faints*

yup, that’s right.  Seven hrs!  And the best part is that the lab starts at 6:00 am.  Yipee!  That means that I will be getting up somewhere around 3 am in order to get to school on time.  No joke. 

My schedule is going to be…

Tuesdays-
Quantity food lab (that’s the 7 hr lab)
Quantity food lecture

Wednesday-
Organic Chemistry

Thursday-
Organic Chem lab
Quantity food lecture

And then I’m also taking an online class- Culture and food. 

I love that I’ll have two days “off” during the week.  I use “off” because it won’t really be off- I’ll still be working on school stuff, I just won’t be driving on those days.  It’s still better than sitting in the car for three hrs a day!

So this morning was Statistics and Chemistry.  Then I headed straight over to the library to study for my test on Wednesday- food prep.  It’s all really straightforward, so no problems there!

While I’m blogging I’m munching on some lunch.  An Ezekiel 4:9 wrap.  Stuffed with some chicken breast, cheddar, lettuce, and a Tablespoon of light honey mustard.  Yum!

There’s also an apple running around in my lunchbox somewhere but I think I’m gonna save that for later.

Okay, better get to work!

Later skaters!