Dilettante

I started to write a whole post about me and my interests, a little get-to-know-me post with bullet points.  But I found myself writing way too much to explain each of the bullet points, so I am planning to explore each on in its own post.  The most important part to know is that I am something of a dilettante  (a person who takes up an art, activity, or subject merely for amusement, esp. in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler. )
This is a term I learned from a dear friend and I think it explains my personality nicely (and sounds much better than scatterbrained or indecisive).  I have a lot of interests, but not a ton of time. So I dabble.

Here in a non-exhaustive list of my interests.  Details will come later.






• I am somewhat green.  We are part of a CSA, we reduce, reuse and recycle whenever we can and I am always interested in learning more about natural living.



www.themoxiemomblog.com/.../cyber-garage-sale



• I love to buy second hand. Garage sales, thrifting, you name it.  
• I hate to pay full price for anything. It really bugs me and I rarely do it.
• I love to scrapbook.  I am not terribly original. I scraplift alot, but I so enjoy it anyway.
• I also make cards.  This is a nautral progression out of my scrapbooking. 

                                          

• I LOVE coffee but find it hard to finish an entire cup.  I reheat alot.
• I love all manner of ethnic foods and cook much of it at home.  Favorite are Thai and Indian.

                                                    

• I love to cook.  My husband loves to eat. It's a good match.
• I do not like to bake.  It's too precise.  With cooking I can wing it...with baking, not so much.
• I am teaching myself how to sew.  So far I've made a handful of super-cute bags and some coasters.  I'm by no means prolific, but I am learning and I love it!
• The most important thing about me:  I am a follower of Jesus Christ.  Redeemed by His grace and grateful for it!

                                                  

There's more to me, of course, but this is a good start!

A change of plans.

I had a list of things I wanted to get done today.  I was working my way through it when I opened the door of my refrigerator and saw this mess sitting in the bottom:

This is mostly vegetables left from last week's CSA share.  And I needed to pick up more today.  Sigh.  My plans for the day changed as I realized I would need to deal with all of these veggies before I could hope to fit in more.  So here's what I did.

 I had this leftover chicken breast and some leftover white rice, so I decided to make my Chicken Rice Casserole and use what I had on hand.

I diced up a head of bok choy, some celery and a half an onion and sauteed it in olive oil until it was all tender.  Then I added the vegetable mixture to the rice, the diced chicken breast, a can of cream of mushroom soup, about a cup of sour cream, a couple of large handfuls of cheese and some assorted spices and herbs I thought would go well:

When it was all mixed together I put it in a 9 x 13 pan for dinner that night. I later cooked it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes and it was delicious.  Meanwhile, I turned my attention to the rest of the veggies.

I chopped up 2 heads of romaine and a half of a head of leftover raddicio and placed it in some water to "revive" a bit.  When it was nice a crisp I spun it and placed it back in the bowl to put in the fridge for quick salads (with the lid on, of course).  Then I moved on to the 3 green peppers and the bag of hot peppers I had on hand:

The green peppers I chopped small and put in the fridge.  I plan to use them to can salsa this weekend.  The hot peppers I minced as small as I could get them (wearing gloves...I highly recommend that!  No sense in suffering painful burns as evidence of your industriousness).  I placed them in a pint comtainer and will use them for salsa and possibly a batch of my hubby's famous jalapeno jelly.

I buy organic carrots from Costco in huge bags and was at the end of this one.  They were getting a bit funky, so I peeled, cut and placed them in water with the rest of the celery.  They will crisp up nicely and will serve me well when my kids are begging for a snack at 5:00.  A little ranch and they're happy campers.

Because I am crazy and get a ridiculous amount of joy out of using every last bit of my food, I took the non-funky carrot, onion and celery peels and pieces and put them in a ziploc bag in the freezer.  When I cook a whole chicken I will grab a couple of these bags and throw them in a crockpot over night with the carcass and have instant chicken stock.  Sigh.  It's a beautiful thing.

This is what I had left to put back in the fridge.  Much more manageable!  And I even took those two zucchinis and made marvelous zucchini bread tonight.  I used my Mother-In-Law's recipe and just substituted melted coconut oil for the 1 cup oil.  It is delicious (oh, and I added some chopped milk chocolate...I think that helped a bit! )

Barbara's Yummy Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

2 C. Sugar

2 C. shredded Zucchini

3 C. Flour

1 t. Baking Soda

1 t. Salt

3 t. Cinnamon

3 T. Vanilla

1 C. Oil

1/2 t. Baking Powder

1/2 C. chopped nuts (optional)

Blend all ingredients.  Fill 2 buttered loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for one hour.

Enjoy!