Fresh air

Ravings: What is it about being at your parents’ house that is just so peaceful and homey? Or maybe it’s just my dad’s house. Everything just feels cozier. I had such a great weekend, just hanging out with my dad and my sister. We did a lot of chatting, some driving around the country, played a poker tournament, and watched a lot of Storage Wars! My sister had never seen it and my dad and I couldn’t stop talking about it, so we had to introduce her! I’m totally addicted to that show, and now my dad has me watching Auction Hunters also! I’m turning into an old person. I even broke out the crocheting stuff yesterday! I think it’s hopeless at this point.


Does that fact that my sister and I played a video game for about 5 hours Sat night make me any younger? Probably not, since it was Donkey Kong. It was on the Wii, however, not like an old NES system. Does that get me any cool points? My sister and I both love playing video games, but we never get to do it, so we plan these video game weekends. One of my favorite times with my sister was a weekend at my dads, doing absolutely nothing but playing Ape Escape. We were house-sitting at my dads, and gathered up the snacks and the dogs and planted ourselves on the pullout couch in their basement. We left the basement, only to get food or go potty, and we played almost non-stop for 2 days. I’m not even sure we slept! And we had a blast!

Here is the view from the back porch. Tell me that’s not peacefull!

Cravings: We didn’t end up doing as much cooking as I had planned and hoped. Friday we ate a late lunch out so none of us was hungry for a full meal by dinner. We just ended up grazing, mostly candy! Sat, we made a thai veggie stir fry. My sister joined a CSA this summer and has been overrun with unusual produce, so we planned a stir fry to use as much as we could. This didn’t work as well as I had planned, since the only veggie really belonging in a stir fry was the napa cabbage. I will try to recall all the veggies we put in, but it’s a stir fry so you can really just use what you have. Napa cabbage, carrots, turnips (this really didn’t belong), onion, peppers (red and green), and maybe something else I can’t recall at the moment. I sautéed it all in some sesame oil, then added freshly grated ginger (you can keep this in the freezer and just grate it as you need it), ¾ can of coconut milk, couple tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, tablespoon of sriracha, about ½ cup of soy sauce, and about ½ cup chunky peanut butter. Then just let the sauce thicken up a bit. We also boiled some rice noodles, which only take about 10 minutes total, and served the veggies on top of the noodles. Even my meat and potatoes dad liked it! And that was with the turnips.

Sunday was leftovers day and yesterday I was sick so Jason made boxed mac and cheese. So much for not eating gluten. I’m back to being on top of my diet today though and plan to hit Whole Foods for my weekly produce since I didn’t make it to the West Side Market yesterday. Let’s think yummy crock pot thoughts and maybe a breakfast for dinner meal. Who knows, I’m sorta winging it this week!