Here's the post where I talk about blog conferences

Haha!  Just kidding.  Fuck that shit.

Monday Meal Plan: easing back into meat

Here's the full plan with recipes and a shopping list if you're interested.

• Shrimp and Grits
• Chili
• Falafel, pita, brussels sprouts
• Chicken Tandoori, peas
• pizza
• Spaghetti

Lunches will be leftovers, soup, and yogurt.  The chili I have on the menu is coming out of a bag (no scary ingredients on the list though).  Hopefully it won't suck.  I got the majority of ingredients on sale.  All the grocery stores around here have chicken on sale B1G1 so I guess we'll be stocking up.  I'm aiming for one meat meal a week.  I'm not sure how much of a meat eater I will continue to be in the future.

Review: Goodbyn lunchbox

I snapped up a Goodbyn on one of those deal sites a few months ago and got a crazy good deal on it.  I think it was $7 plus shipping.  I sure as hell wasn't going to pay $25-$30 elsewhere for the thing.

I've been trying to find a good lunchbox that can stand up to being tossed around in a bag and taken in public transportation.

This is not the one.

I know this is silly and minor, but I ordered a purple one.  This particular shade of purple is closer to the brown/maroon end of the spectrum.  Not cute.

I have two big gripes.  One is the lid: it's very hard to close.  Because it seals around each individual section separately, you have to be damn sure you've got everything sealed up properly.  After going through the top rack of the dishwasher it seems like it takes three times the effort to seal now.

The other big gripe is the size and shape of the sections.  They're all really deep.  And that tiny section in the middle next to the beverage holder?  Unless you've got chopsticks for fingers you're not getting anything out of the bottom of that thing.  The rest of the sections are huge.  Way too huge for lunch portions.  The key to good lunchbox/bento packaging is being able to really cram stuff in there so it doesn't shift around and get broken or mixed together.  Unless you're packing lunch for an entire class of first graders, that's not happening with the Goodbyn.

Also, the stickers are fugly.  Just saying.

So I might use it again, but more than likely it's going to end up on Craigslist.  If you want it, let me know in the comments and it's yours for the price of shipping.

lolwut Paleo Diet

I have been looking at the Paleo Diet recently because I've been hearing a lot about it (fad diet blah blah blah) but this is one of the few diets that actually looks like it sort of makes sense. 

So hey, why not, right?

Not wanting to buy the official Paleo Diet book or drag my ass to the library, I popped over to Paleo Plan to check out their sample meal plan and see what sort of food we would be in for.  Wow... that sure is a lot of meat.  And no cheese.

Going from a meatless January to a meatstravaganza in February would be strange enough, but going without cheese for a month is just unacceptable.

But I'm willing to try just about anything for a week.  I did have reservations about the sheer quantity of meat, though.  How much would that cost?  We have a pretty strict $100 weekly budget for groceries.  I went over to Coborns Delivers to start pricing this sample menu out.

I didn't even get past the meat.  That alone was $90.  Ha!  Surely they must be joking.  I bet by the time you got through all the nut butters, milk substitutes, and specialty baking ingredients you'd be looking at around $300 for the week.

I looked around at other sample Paleo Diet meal plans and came up with similar findings.  How could anyone afford to eat like this? 

And, more importantly, how could anyone not eat cheese?

Foodblogging: Szechuan Eggplant and Tofu

This is a recipe from Moosewood.  It came together really fast.  I'm happy every time I get to take our glorious oldschool steel wok out of the cabinet.

Ooh, I used a full-spectrum lamp to photograph this one.  Marvel at my rice grains.

The verdict: it was all right.  I think I would make some changes next time even if it would mean more fiddling and more cooking time.  I would fry the tofu for a bit to get some texture on it.  I wouldn't cook the eggplant quite so long.  It's a fine line between mushy and tender and I crossed it.  I'd like to see some more color in there too.  Red bell pepper would be a very welcome addition.  Maybe a whole szechuan pepper thrown in there for flavor too.  The 3 tablespoons of cornstarch was a bit of overkill too, and let to a slightly pasty mouthfeel and dulled the flavor.  Vegetable broth instead of water would bring a lot more to the party.  The cilantro was key to the whole thing though.  Without it this dish would be a total flop. 

It's always strange when the garnish carries a whole meal.

I'm eating it for lunch so we'll see how it holds up on the second day.

Monday Meal Plan

Meal plan with shopping list and recipes

• Suki's Spinach and Feta Pasta 
• Broiled Shrimp tacos, refried beans, rice
• Huevos Rancheros
• Pizza with artichoke hearts, olives, onions, and bacon
• Spaghetti
• Szechwan Eggplant and Tofu, rice

I'll probably eat leftovers on Thursday before D&D.  We're having eggs & toast as usual for breakfast with some oatmeal thrown in there occasionally.  Lunch will be soup, sandwiches, and homemade yogurt.

Mama Thursday: My Little Kimchi

I don't know that I'd cut it as a stay-at-home mom.  I just plain don't know what you do with a toddler all day, every day.  I had Monday off and I was determined to provide some kind of structure to our day, even for just a little while.  We're used to just doing things off the cuff and this usually results in Lily dragging me from toy to toy.

So we made oobleck.  At first she was a little squicked out by the texture but soon she was flinging it around the kitchen floor with abandon.

This is her "concentration tongue."
  

Later I made some more Korean food because I'm really on a roll here.  She wanted to eat nothing but kimchi for dinner.  With a spoon.

 Every now and again she'd find some spicy pocket in the kimchi, scream her head off until we gave her milk, then go right back after it again.  She was really upset when I put the jar back in the fridge.

The daycare lady let us know that she pointed to the alphabet on a toy and said, "A B C" last week.  I tried to get her to do it all weekend long but she clams up around us.

My mind is too feeble to grasp

So here's what nearly stopped me in my tracks in the middle of the Skyway on the way to work this morning.

What is the opposite of quantum?

What if we are something else's quantum level?

I wonder if I should could minor in physics.  I'm almost certain I'm not smart enough.  But damn, it would be a fun ride.

Foodblogging: Pescado Encocado and Coborns Delivers

I tried out this pescado encocado recipe last night.  I even did the fancy rice mold thing.  But I was super distracted by an irate, whiny child so I managed to overcook the fish and completely forget about the cilantro (you can see it in the bag in the background by the lime).  But it was good anyway.

 

After I marinated the fish I couldn't bear to throw all that lime/orange/garlic goodness out.  So I simmered black beans and corn in it and had that as a side because I wasn't able to get plantains delivered through our grocery service.  

Oh my, doesn't that just sound fancy -- our grocery service.  But seriously, we use Coborns Delivers because it's amazing and the prices are reasonable and the $5 delivery fee is totally worth not dealing with all the degenerates at the grocery store.  

Tangent alert

That reminds me, I have a long overdue story to tell about how amazingly awesome Coborns Delivers is.  It was the weekend of the first big Twin Cities blizzard and I had put in a grocery order on Friday for delivery on Saturday.  We were pretty much down to the bare pantry shelves at this point.  This was during our Great Bad Period of 2010 and was shortly after the Great Refrigerator Fiasco of 2010.  So the blizzard happened and the state of Minnesota pretty much shut down that weekend.  Saturday came and went, and no groceries arrived.  We got an email saying the roads were shut down and Coborns couldn't do any more that day.  Fair enough.  But Sunday also came and went and no groceries arrived.

I was scraping and scrounging around trying to come up with meals.  We had no eggs, no milk, no bread, very little flour.  Husband had to make the trek out to the store to get the essentials so we didn't have to resort to plain pasta and freezerburnt whatever from the chest freezer.  So that was more money spent out of our razor thin budget that we really didn't have.

I posted to the Coborns Delivers Facebook page wondering what the hell was going on with our order.  I sent a disappointed email to their customer service address.  I basically asked why on earth the canceled Saturday orders didn't take precedence over Sunday's orders.

Monday arrived and we were going down to visit Husband's family for one reason or another and I was at home just waiting for Husband and Lily to pick me up.  Our groceries had shown up that day (hooray!) and I had just enough time to put them away.  Husband and called and said he was on the way.  I opened the front door to look for our truck coming down the road and there was a man standing there with two very large gift baskets.  I think I may have said, "Uh, you're not my husband." 

He introduced himself as the general manager of Coborns Delivers.  He apologized that they somehow had a wrong phone number for us on their end of the system even though it was correct on my end.  They had tried to call at some point but obviously never got through and by the time they realized what the problem was I had already emailed.  So he left us with the large, expensive gift baskets and he stuffed our grocery totes into his small car and went on his merry way.  I was left standing there dumbfounded and in awe of such stunning customer service.

Coborns is employee owned and it shows.  Any time you have to speak to a customer service person it's like talking to a family member.  The delivery drivers always appear to be in a great mood and are always willing to help you get your groceries into the house.  Our last driver even managed to chip out a pile of totes from beside our garage that I was sure were going to be there until spring.

So that's why I will gladly pay $5 per delivery.  This has been my completely unsolicited product endorsement of the day.

And by the way, I just noticed that if you're interested in trying it you can get $20 off your first order of $70+ if I refer you.  And I get a $20 credit -- yay!  So leave me a comment with your email if you want.

tl;dr: Get your groceries from Coborns Delivers, you dingus.

Foodblogging: Portabella Bulgogi

It's still January, which means we're still pescetarian in our house.  Do you know how hard it is to find meatless Korean food?  You pretty much have to make it up as you go along.

I've made bulgogi with seitan before.  It's pretty good but your seitan has to have good flavor to begin with and I just haven't found the right recipe for it yet.  So here are some action shots of the portabella bulgogi and various banchan I made last night:

 

 Simmering away in the skillet.  If I were to do this over the only thing I would change would be to sear the 'shrooms in oil before adding the rest of the sauce.  It was still amazing this way.

 

 Clockwise from 1:00: bulgogi, rice, homemade daikon kimchi, regular kimchi, potato (I make them very simply by boiling them in water, soy sauce, and sugar), sigeumchi namul (spinach side dish), and kongnamul muchim (bean sprout side dish).

The recipe for the bulgogi sauce can be found in my last Monday Meal Plan.  I don't remember the last time I used a recipe to make bulgogi sauce.  I thought this one was a little on the sweet side so I added more soy sauce.  Usually I just kind of wing it.  

Speaking of wings, if I start eating meat again I'm going to break out the deep fryer and make bulgogi chicken wings.

Mama Thursday: Some rare toddler strife

We ended up staying over at my parents' place on Saturday night because we were drunk engaged in conversation and it was late.  I'm not a big fan of doing this because:

• The guest bed is a full sized mattress, which is juuuuust too small for the two of us.
• The mattress is also firmer than I prefer so I end up tossing and turning all night.
• There is a grandfather clock right outside the door that chimes EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE so I can't sleep because of that either.
• We only live 20 minutes away.

Lily usually doesn't have a problem sleeping in her Pack-N-Play.  Last Saturday, however, was awful.  I don't know if it's because I set up the P-N-P in a different part of the room or if she was as irritated by that clock as I was or what, but she would. not. sleep.  I put her between us in the bed and she'd lay there for maybe five minutes before she decided she was wide awake and needed to be up and talking.  So it was back and forth between the bed and the P-N-P for hours.  I begged and pleaded with her to go back to sleep.  At one point I was on the floor and she had my whole half of the bed.  She'd lay her head down and ten minutes later: DING DING DING DONG, DONG DONG DING DONG.  And she'd be awake again.  I gave up at 4:30 AM and took her downstairs for some food and water.  We watched an episode of the Twilight Zone (who knew it was on at 4:30 AM) before we gave sleeping another shot.  Oh, and all this time Husband was sleeping like a baby through the entire night.  I don't remember what happened after we went back upstairs but Husband got up around 8 or 9 and I handed Lily to him.  "For the love of god," I hissed, "I only got four hours of broken sleep.  TAKE. THE. CHILD."

Mercifully I was able to sleep until 11:00.

Lily was a ball of cranky all day on Sunday.  That awful night made me extremely grateful to have a child who has slept through the night with very little problem since she was 8 weeks old.

Iron Mountain: your site sucks

I have the, um, pleasure of using Iron Mountain's SecureSync website to process our backup tapes every day.  A few months ago they "upgraded" the site and since then it has been much slower and a bear to use.  Today it kept kicking me back out to the login screen and randomly clearing date fields that I had already entered.  I'm absolutely certain that I'm going to hear from them about something I screwed up today as a result of this tomfoolery.

Since they obviously don't care to do any kind of QA on their site with people who actually would use it, I'm offering this as a bit of customer feedback.  FWIW I'm always using the latest public release of Firefox.

RESCHEDULING SERVICE FOR HOLIDAYS
First of all, this should absolutely be an opt-in thing, not opt-out.  Common sense says that the vast majority of businesses are not going to be open on Federal holidays and if they are, they're not going to want to pay extra for Iron Mountain to come out on that day.

But since it's still opt-out, we have to slog through it.

HOW IT WORKS:

1. Use the ludicrous Menu button and go to Request | Reschedule Service.  Oops, moved my mouse too fast and the menu closed.  Try again.  Oops, went one pixel outside of the imaginary boundary when opening the Request submenu and the menu closed.  *Very slowly and carefully* maneuver mouse to Reschedule Service.
2. Choose the Original Date: 5/30/2011.
3. Choose the New Date: 5/31/2011.  Oh, I see I have to select the month again because it didn't auto-populate.
4. Submit.  Get confirmation message.
5. Have to do the dates for the rest of the year.  Start over from step 1.  Mess up the mousing again.
6. Repeat for second account.
7. Did I forget a date?  I have no idea because there is no way to see a full list of all the reschedules.

HOW IT SHOULD WORK:

• My theory with the stupid Menu button is that some manager's nephew wanted to show Uncle Bigwig his new mad Web coding skillz and wanted to replace the sane, reasonable, functional menu bar with this horrible abomination. 
• After choosing the Original Date, the New Date calendar pop-up should default to the actual month the Original Date is in.  Saving a few mouse clicks here and there saves SO MUCH time and aggravation. 
• The confirmation message is great, but why can't that go on the top of the screen where you enter the dates so we can enter more than one without having to navigate back to the page?  The back button is useless, as you know.
• In addition to the confirmation message, how about a list below that shows all of the previously rescheduled dates?

OTHER STUPIDITY

• I cannot fully express how awful the Menu button is.  Please bring back the menu bar.
• Really, the SecureSync logo at the top of the page doesn't directly link back to the home page, but rather uses some Javascript command that sometimes takes you to the login screen (ARRRGH), sometimes takes you to the home page, and sometimes doesn't go anywhere at all?  What?  Did Uncle Bigwig's nephew code that too?
• The account changer dropdown has disappeared from the home page but is still present in other places.  It has been replaced by an infuriating Change link that opens up a new window and takes FOREVER to load.  WHY?
• I have no way of knowing what kinds of containers Iron Mountain has.  There are no pictures or descriptions anywhere.  I spent about half a day Googling and searching through the labyrinthine PDFs on the main Iron Mountain site.  After calling customer service I finally confirmed that such a thing does not exist.

Your move, Iron Mountain.  I'll accept my consultant fee in the form of Amazon gift cards or booze.

EDIT: Oh sweet honey crusted jesus it gets worse:

Quest for the Perfect Dress

It's been nearly three years and I still haven't found the Perfect Dress yet.  Even with the rise of Mad Men and vintage styles being all the rage this dress does not exist in stores.

But look!  Here's a pattern!

I think I'd like to tackle this.  I'm notoriously bad at sewing clothes (the seam ripper is my friend) but I really want to give this a shot, especially since we carved out a little sewing nook in the basement a couple of weekends ago.  I want to find a sturdy black cotton that can make the skirt not so floppy like it is in the picture of the red dress on the site.  Maybe I would also have to line it with satin.  Ooh la la.

Unfortunately the shoes I had previously bought to wear with dresses like this don't fit my post-pregnancy feet anymore.  Anyone interested in a pair of size 7 hot pink kitten heels?

Monday Meal Plan

I'm actually on time with a meal plan this week!  Here's the whole thing plus shopping list in case anyone is interested.

• Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad
• Pescado encocado, plantains, rice
• Portabella bulgogi, rice, seasoned bean sprouts, seasoned potato, seasoned spinach, kimchi
• Pizza for Dada-Daughter Night, frozen palak paneer for me before D&D
• Crock Pot Black Bean Enchiladas

Yup, more Korean food!  I think for lunches I'm going to make a big batch of tomato-basil soup and I'll spice it up a little differently every day.  Some brainstorming:

• Rice and bean sprouts
• Black beans, Mexican spices, and cheese
• Spinach, Manterey jack, and a sprinkle of nutmeg
• Broken up spaghetti and Parmesan

Monday Stats

• Number of people I have smashed into because they were walking on the wrong side of the Skyway while going around a blind corner: 3
• Number of resulting panic attacks: 0.  Go me!
• Amount spent on 5 Lean Cuisines and 5 fat free yogurts for the week: approx. $10
• Number of times this week I'll try and convince myself that a Lean Cuisine and a fat free yogurt is enough food to get me through the work day: Eleventy thousand.
• Number of people who have called me by the shortened form of my name that I despise: 1
• Number of people who I have possibly made to feel terrible about using the wrong name: 1
• Number of new spam Twitter followers over the weekend: Only 1, surprisingly.
• Loads of laundry I intended to do this weekend: 6
• Loads of laundry I actually did this weekend: 2
• Number of pictures of Andrew-Lee Potts in my cube: 2

I guess we're in 2011 now

I don't really care to do any kind of review of the last year.  Last year was kind of a wash.

I started a new organization system at work yesterday to keep me more focused.  It's based on Zen To Done.  I've tried all kinds of systems like the DIY Planner, Hipster PDA, Outlook tasks, and a simple pen and paper. I don't separate Big Rocks and MITs.  I'm keeping it as simple as possible and focusing on one day at a time.

So now I have a little form that I print off and staple to the top of my 8"x5" notebook pages.

I don't start a new page every day.  I just staple the new template over the old one until the page is full.

Next week I'm going to start setting weekly goals.  Then I can connect the dots on the Big Rock that is related to that goal.

Foodblogging: Daikon, where have you been all my life?

I have a small batch of daikon kimchi fermenting away on the counter.  I can hardly wait until it's done.

This week was the first time I've bought fresh daikon.  I've only ever had it in that neon yellow pickled form (단무지 or danmuji) or in kimchi.  Danmuji is good in small amounts on its own or in kimbap, a sort of Korean sushi roll.  But I worry about the yellow dye commercial danmuji makers use so I'm not wild about buying it since it only seems to come in gigantic packages that we'd never finish.

But fresh daikon -- now here's something really special.  You know how a regular round radish has that spicy bite and a harsh pungency?  But how it has such a satisfying crunchy texture?

Now imagine that texture and a mild, sort of sweet pungency without the kill-you-hotness.  That's what fresh daikon tastes like.

I'm not sure why I've never had it until now.  I can imagine all sorts of applications for this.  Salads.  Stir fry.  On top of tacos.  Shredded on top of guacamole.  Mixed into mandu or bao filling.  Chili topping.  Mixed with broccoli and raisins and lightly tossed with vinegar, oil, and sugar.  Empanadas.  And oh my, doesn't this look tasty?

On women's pants, part II

I am still annoyed by the lack of pockets on women's pants, and apparently so are the women of Reddit.  I feel vindicated.

Bonus: I get to use the "pants" tag a second time.

Foodblogging: It's Korean week!

We're returning to pescetarianism at least for the month of January after a year of what might be described as hedonism.  It's time to crack down and start eating healthy again.  And because I can't ever get enough Korean food, it's Korean week in our house.  We started off New Year's Day with a Korean feast. 

Dduk gook (rice cake soup), sigeumchi namul (spinach side dish), dubu buchim yangnyumjang (panfried tofu with spicy sauce), kimchi, and kongnamul muchim (bean sprout side dish).

The dduk gook was a vegetarian version from The Kitchn and it was..... not so great.  It really needed some depth of flavor from a broth.  I think using vegetable broth or even dashi stock instead of plain water would have been much better.  We had a carton of beef broth leftover in the fridge so I added that afterwards and it's much more palatable.  So we're not entirely pescetarian on this one.

I used a different recipe than I normally use for the kongnamul muchim.  Maangchi is usually right on, but her version was WAY salty.  There's just no reason to boil the sprouts in super salty water in the beginning.  I had to rinse them off and go easy on the sauce and they were still really salty.  Husband and Lily didn't mind, but I'm pretty sensitive to salt.  I'm going back to my original recipe with sesame oil, sugar, and just a splash of soy sauce.