Tag: cooking

A Wonderfully Ordinary Wednesday Evening

Posted on by jplatt27

Last night was a really good night.  It may seem like it’s nothing special because it was just a Wednesday night at home but these kinds of nights are kind of out-of-the-ordinary for me. So, this ordinary, run-of-the-mill Wednesday night filled with normal things and with a blend of relaxing and productivity is very special to me.

Warning: this post is full of digressions and small details.

I got home from work and immediately sat down at the computer to do some writing.  I even sat there with my jacket on for a little while.  Usually I come home and change my clothes first. thing. But I was motivated and wanted to jot my ideas down while they were fresh so I did.  I wrote for about 20 minutes or so until Mike got home.

I greeted him: “Hello! What are you doing?”

He responds: “Just walking in the door.”

Me: “Why are you laughing?”

Mike: “Because I just walked in the door, that’s what I’m doing.”

Riight.

Usually we get started on dinner right away but I suggested we get in bed for a bit. I took off my skirt and cardigan and climbed into bed in my underwear and blouse. It was one of those ahh, this bed is soo comfortable feelings where you just melt into the bed and your stress falls away. Mike changed out of his work clothes and joined me and had the exact same reaction until he said “can you move over? I’m not liking this…” I readjusted.

We basked in the glory of our comfortable bed and our little reprive. Mike said “My feet are cold, let me get in here” as he put his cold feet between mine.  We snuggled in together.

I was about to doze off when he asked me how my day was.

“It was good,” I said sleepily.

“Now’s not a good time to chat?”

“No, I’ll chat.  If I want to chat at all I better do it now since the Flyers are on tonight and you won’t be available then.”

I told him about my day, a small accomplishment at work. Then, he shared about his day.  Then…

“Do I still have that thing in my nose?” I ask holding my nose open and pointing.

“What thing? I don’t see anything.”

“Like right there. I can feel it, it hurts kinda.”

“Close your nostril.”

We stayed in bed for a while chatting briefly and cuddling.  This 30 minutes in bed was such a nice break from the usual.

I volunteered to make dinner while Mike relaxed on the couch. He was excited when I offered and I was happy to do it.

While making dinner I boiled some eggs, something I’d been meaning to do all week.  And when I cracked them for breakfast this morning they were perfect.

Here’s the method we used from Real Simple. Yes, we had to Google because neither of us knew the right way and when I called my mom she didn’t answer.

It’s funny–that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I imagine my mom not being here anymore and me wanting to call her for something. That I won’t be able to call her to tell me how to boil an egg. And I never wanted to Google it because of that. But as I was thinking about this last night I’m like I Google a million other things. It’s fine to Google things there’s a method for.  What will be really sad is when my mom isn’t there for me to call when I’m sick (like I did every day I was sick last week–she’s probably glad I’m better) or when I’m upset or need help with my future kids. It’s fine to Google how to boil an egg.

We watched an episode of Modern Family while we ate BLT’s.  We’re watching from the beginning on Netflix. It was the Valentine’s Day episode in the second season.

Then I hopped up to do my project: make chocolate chip cookie dough peanut butter cups for book club on Friday. Mike did the dishes quick while I read through the recipe and collected the ingredients.

I worked happily on these little gems, squealing with delight as they started to come together. Mike was yelling in anger at the Flyers.

In between the three phases I wrote a blog post and did the dishes. I finished the peanut butter cups, finished the dishes, finished the blog post and got in bed to read.

Lights out at 9:55. Good. night.

I’d love to know:

What’s a great Wednesday night for you?

What are some things you call your mom for?

 

What's for Dinner? Wednesday: BLTs

Posted on by jplatt27

We hosted some friends for a small brunch on Easter Sunday. I think it was the first time we’ve hosted that we were actually ready for the guests when they arrived. We had a minor spat and were super flustered prepping for our Super Bowl party, and when we hosted a Christmas party a few years ago we were rushing to finish homemade spanakopita triangles as the start time drew near. Oh, and we had friends staying with us at the time that witnessed this stress. Nothing like getting frustrated with your spouse in front of a friend.

Though this was a huge victory for us, being ready in time wasn’t the only way we prepped for success. We  invited a great group of friends. We planned a full menu: blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs, bacon, porkroll sandwiches*, homefries, and dessert pizza. We also told our friends exactly what to bring: stuff for mimosas and a fresh fruit platter.

Breakfast turned out great and everyone had a nice time.  I love hosting friends (hence my resolution to host once per month), I love feeding people. It was a good day. [I intended to have pictures taken at brunch so I could post about it.  I delegated this task to Mike.  He didn’t take any pictures and I totally forgot while the brunch was happening. Working on that.]

How does this relate to What’s for Dinner? Wednesday, you wonder. Well, we had about a pound of bacon leftover. So when we made our grocery list and menu for this week, Mike suggested we have BLTs.

A classic American sandwich, the simple BLT has a nice combination of flavors and textures.  You have the crunch of the lettuce and toast, the juicy tomato (must add a touch of salt to truly bring out the flavor), the crisp, salty, meaty bacon, and that special something that mayo adds.  And yes, you must use real mayo. [No, Hellman’s did not sponsor this post.]

Mike gobbled these sandwiches right up.  And then ate a third of my sandwich that I didn’t want. He now has a stomach ache.  I’m not sure if that’s from the 2.33 sandwiches he ate or from the mayo that was “best before Jan. 24, 2012.” Oops.

*Porkroll is a breakfast meat common in SE PA and Southern New Jersey. It’s like ham but much better. When we moved to DC we realized we had friends that had never had porkroll and we wanted to share the goodness. Oh, and this is my specialty.

Talk to me:

What’d you have for dinner?

Have you ever had porkroll? If you came over for breakfast, would you try it?

What's for Dinner? Vegetarian {Giveaway}

Posted on by jplatt27

While Mike was away, I had to fend for myself when it came to meals.  (I realized how much I rely on Mike for things like meal planning, grocery shopping, and laundry. Boy, I am grateful.) Without meaning to I ate vegetarian for Monday through Wednesday lunch.

Instead of eating pancakes for every meal like I usually do when Mike’s out of town, I took this opportunity to make a meal that Mike doesn’t really care for: black bean soup in the crock pot.

This soup is super easy, super cheap, delicious, and filling. It makes a ton and yields leftovers. (Believe me, it’s better than it looks in the picture!)

Enjoy!

—————————–

Crock Pot Black Bean Soup

4 cans of black beans, rinsed and drained

2 14.5 oz cans of vegetable or chicken broth

1 cup of salsa (not pico de gallo)

optional toppings: monterey jack cheese, cilantro, lime

Combine beans, brother, and salsa in crock pot. Cook on high for 2-4 hours or low 4-8 hours. Puree with an immersion blender. Top with cheese, cilantro, lime juice.

——————————

My First Giveaway!

In honor of my vegetarian meals, I’m giving away the cookbook How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.  I’m giving away my copy so it’s slightly used (slightly just because we don’t often cook vegetarian) but it’s in very good condition and is a great resource for people looking to make vegetarian meals on a more regular basis.

There are three ways to enter:

1) leave a comment telling me your favorite vegetarian meal

2) Tweet about the giveaway and leave a comment telling me you did “@thingsafterings is giving away a vegetarian cookbook. I want to cook vege!”

3) like Things After the Rings on Facebook and leave a comment telling me you did

I’ll pick a random winner on Sunday at 6pm.

Our "first" Valentine's Day

Posted on by jplatt27

Our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple was probably our best yet.  Ok, definitely our best yet.  Considering I asked Mike to brainstorm some past Valentine’s Days for a post on 2/14 and neither of us could remember what we did last year.

This Valentine’s Day, Mike had a sweet idea: to try to replicate the dessert pizza from one of our favorite DC restaurants and have dinner at home.  I’d been wanting to recreate Matchbox‘s dessert pizza since we started making our own pizza months ago so I loved this thoughtful idea.

Mike let me choose what we had for dinner so we made this amazing lasagna. We made this lasagna over a year ago and hadn’t been able to find the recipe since. But with a little searching, Mike was able to find it. (Click here for the recipe.)

I had the sauce for the lasagna working when Mike got home from work. And he quickly got to work on the dough for the pizza. We had the Pandora love songs station going and were totally in our element.

After the lasagna was in, the dough was rising, and we had some dishes done, we sat down at the island for a little appetizer.  (I can get grumpy when I’m hungry so I this was a precautionary measure that turned out sweet.) We had the rest of that delicious bread leftover from dinner on Sunday, dipped in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and some wine.

I was so happy. We were chatting, reminiscing about past Valentine’s Days, and kissing and I got really emotional and started to cry happy tears.

The lasagna turned out delicious and we ate on the couch while watching an episode of our new show Modern Family. I later thought that it was odd that we ate in front of the TV instead of at the table on Valentine’s Day but we were in the kitchen for so long prepping the meal and washing the dishes that we probably both just wanted to relax on the couch.

Then it was time for the dessert pizza.  We did a little “recon” on Friday night by going to Matchbox and ordering dessert pizza.  OK, we planned to go out to dinner that night to catch up and we hadn’t been to Matchbox in quite a while and chalked it up as “research.” But I’m so glad we did.  Our server was able to shed some light into the icing which we would’ve never gotten close otherwise. We were also able to focus in on some of the flavors to make sure we didn’t forget anything.

Well, the pizza was a success! All the flavors were there: cinnamon, sugar, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, mint, and balsamic reduction.  The dough was very chewy and we’ll probably make some changes to that next time but overall the dessert hit the spot. We were so proud of ourselves. We ate our pizza on the couch while watching another episode of Modern Family.

Honestly, this was a perfect evening. We talked, we laughed, we cooked, we ate delicious food.  We were really connected and really enjoyed each other’s company.  It was different than a normal night because we were technically on a date and neither one of us was expecting to do anything else other than be with each other.

Neither of us wanted the night to end. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I was bummed that it was all over.  I wanted to stretch the date and stay in our happy, relaxed, connected state. You know, like a long weekend that you just don’t want to end.

Definitely the best Valentine’s Day yet.

our first pizza!

Posted on by jplatt27

i love pizza.  like love.  it’s definitely one of my favorite foods. i used to think it was really stupid and unoriginal when kids in middle school said pizza was their favorite food.  i mean really? everyone’s favorite food is pizza, it’s hardly even a meal people.  pick something like chicken or meatloaf for crying out loud.  but now that i’m older and wiser and have had many different pizzas—greasy takeout pizza that you fold in half and the oil drips down your fingers, fast food pizza like domino’s or pizza hut, fancy pizzas, frozen pizzas, dessert pizzas—i can say that pizza is in my top 5 favorite foods.  it may even be my answer to the question “if you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?” even though i hate that question. yep, i just love pizza. 

today, my pizza world expanded just a little bit.  or maybe significantly.  probably significantly.  because today, we made our first homemade pizza with our new pizza stone.

.

we made the dough and everything. it was super easy and delicious!  the only tricky part was transferring the pizza from the cutting board we prepped it on to the pizza stone. we made two different pizzas: margherita and white with turkey sausage and peppers. 

they were really really good. especially the margherita which you wouldn’t think would be so great because it’s so simple.  but it’s probably the simplicity and the way the flavors of the buttery fresh mozzarella, sweet tomatoes, basil and garlic go together that make it so tasty.

i’m thinking pizza making is going to become a regular thing in our apartment.  maybe a sunday afternoon/dinner thing.  it was so fun, easy, tasty and filling.  i’m excited to try out some new variations.  our next one will be a toss up between meatball and trying to recreate the fresh fruit pizza from matchbox.

oh, and with these pizzas i accomplished one of my august goals. making a big weekend lunch from scratch, feeding people i love (amanda was here), sharing a delicious meal with friends, pizza, red wine, and completing a goal.  does it get much better?