42 (2013) the Jackie Robinson story

New thing today, watched 42 (2013). It's the story of Jackie Robinson as the first black baseball player in the American league. I enjoyed it! It was a little slow and dramatic - but overall an excellent story and overall good. I recommend it! Maybe 3 or 4 stars total. It focuses a lot on the adversity of the first black baseball player and all the work that went behind the scenes making sure he could play. I liked the way it told this story and helps you appreciate bravery!

Delivery Man (2013)

New thing today, watched Delivery Man (2013). A lot sappier and dramatic than I thought it would be. Cute overall. It's like a predictable but comforting movie. Eh. Not a buyer though. Cute moments. Nice and heartwarming.

Portos - Horchata

New thing today, tried a Portos Horchata. Amazing! My new favorite drink. Wow!

My New Favorite YouTube Video - Lake Tahoe Adventures by Kai Staal

New thing today, found an awesome video - my new favorite. It's a compilation by Kai Staal, Lake Tahoe Adventures. We were researching Lake Tahoe and I absolutely love this! Great work!

Medium Season 7 - The Devil Inside & How to Make a Killing in Big Business

New thing today, revived and watched Medium, season 7, and the multiple episodes in The Devil Inside & How to make a Killing in Big Business. I watch a lot of TV. I've been trying to kick the habit, but it's a tough habit. Anyway I managed to start watching these and was fairly productive overall even while watching it. They're really good episodes. Overall I'm coming back to Netflix and enjoying the non-commercials. Love it! Anyway, here's to guilty pleasures.

Confetti Yeti Paper Monster August

New thing today, finally got my August paper monster created and put up. Just in time for Labor Day weekend. Happy Monday!

First Label!

New thing today, made my first label! So cool.

Top Chef Husband

New thing today, tried a beautiful dish by my husband, worthy of Top Chef prettiness. It was plated beautifully! A slow roasted tri-tip over a corn and hominy mix. Delish!

Pepper Plant - Chunky Garlic

New thing today, tried this stuff on my breakfast - Pepper Plant - Chunky Garlic hot sauce. Delish!

LabelWorks 400

New thing today, go my label maker! I had batteries, played with it, but haven't decided what I want to print out as my first label. Gotta christen it with something interesting. We will see. :)

Top Chef All Stars Season 8

New thing today, started Season 8 Top Chef All Stars. Pretty awesome!

Jalapeño Burger

New thing today, made and ate a jalapeño burger. I saw commercials for it and was curious and hungry, so I decided to try making it. We already had cooked patties, so I just cut up jalapeños (also a first) and just put it on top. Overall I found it a bit bland. Next time I will chop them into the burger patty before cooking it. Just "ok" tasting this time. But I had fun making it.

Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza

New thing today, made Pillsbury thin crust pizza. I had a Wich Wich lettuce wrap muffelatta that I didn't like because I wasn't in the mood and it didn't have cheese. So I had it leftover and turned it into the pizza. Got the Pillsbury thin crust ready made stuff, sauce, cheese and my chopped up leftovers. I left 1/3 of the pizza cheese for the husband. It turned out really yummy!!!! I sprinkled some chopped lettuce on the top too.

So good! Yeay cooking! I'm finding I like the process of cooking sometimes just as much if not more than actually eating :) mad scientist!

Label Makers

New thing today, nerded out over label makers. Am researching a purchase for my volunteer work at the parish library. We don't have a working computer and we have low funds and the need to create catalog cards and things. I think a label maker would be a great tool for the library. Anyway just checking it out. Nerd! *snort snort.

Brown Rice Banana Pudding

New thing today, made brown rice banana pudding. I had some leftover ripe bananas and wanted to do something with it. Looked in our cookbooks for recipes and found this. I love rice pudding and was excited to make a healthy one - it's from my Weight Watchers recipe book. So I made it and it turned out phenomenal! It was super easy. Just took awhile with cooking the rice and cooling it, but otherwise it was totally great. I'm so glad I made my first rice pudding and it was successful. I will have to look up other recipes for rice pudding! It was so good and so easy!

Come as you are

New thing today, went to a friend's party as I was. Not that I don't usually show up to things as a different person, but some part of me always wants to impress people. I'm usually anxious before going to social events because I have this weird expectation of how things will be. I dread it because of the energy it takes to be there and be social sometimes. Anyway this time I just went. No expectations, no trying to impress, just a mindset of being more comfortable in my own skin and trusting my friends will like me just fine as I am with nothing exciting, witty or impressive going on. And it was good and I had a fun time and all was well.

I don't know how to explain it, but this is a first. To go to a social occasion and just be, instead of trying to be. Night folks.

Goat cheese burger

New thing today, had a goat cheese burger. It's Friday and I defrosted some burgers and had some crumbled goat cheese and decided to put that on my burger. We cooked the burgers. Then I put the bun sides up, sprinkled goat cheese, toasted it, then put my burger in it. It actually tasted pretty good. I didn't put any mayonnaise or anything else - just goat cheese and burger. No photos, but Excellent! Happy Friday!

DogTrekker and Mother Nature's Inn - Lake Tahoe

New thing today, booked a hotel room to stay in Tahoe City. We want to travel with our dog so we checked out the DogTrekker website and researched some vacation areas, hotels and cabins. We decided to go to Lake Tahoe and I called and researched a few places. I finally decided on reserving a room at Mother Nature's Inn. It got great reviews and seems really cute and cozy and the right place for us. Crossing fingers and hoping we have a good trip. This is a good start I hope!

Corn & Green Chile Frittata

New thing today, made a corn and green chile frittata. Recipe was from the Weight Watchers Momentum Cookbook - also a first I think. It was really easy and I shopped for ingredients this weekend. I thought it looked and smelled amazing. It tasted a bit bland though. I did add ketchup and salt while eating it and it was better. Should be a healthy breakfast I can eat over the next few days. Overall ok final product, but I really enjoyed the process of making and trying something new :)

Spirit Animal & Purebred

New thing today, I think I found my spirit animal and I think I found out the breed of our dog.

First thing - dog breed. I found an exact twin of my dog on our walk today. We have a stray so a lot of people comment or guess what she is, but we're really not sure. We think she's definitely part shitzu, but overall it's a lot of guessing. Today I found a pretty much twin of our dog, same size, shape, look and everything, except the coloring. I asked what dog breed the dog was and they said purebred shitzu, and I told them our dog was a stray and they said she looks like a purebred! I think so too - it was pretty uncanny how exactly alike they looked. So - we have a stray purebred! We shouldn't have had her fixed - she would have had the cutest puppies! Oh well.

Second thing - spirit animal. I think it's the turtle. There's a lot of reasons why I think so. I started writing but then erased my paragraph because it sounded silly. Anyway I think it's the turtle, for lots of reasons, and it's sort of fun to think so. Anyway I think I've found my spirit animal! Wooooo!

So I have two maybes - but they're good maybes :)

Custom Melt - PB&J Bacon

New thing today, had the PB&J Bacon sandwich. It also included cheese in the sandwich and whipped cream. Yum! Wow the cream was amazing and the sandwich was bomb. It's on the dessert menu but I thought it was savory enough to enjoy as a regular sandwich. I'll be getting this again. It could be a favorite too.

Top Chef Hulu

New thing today, found out Top Chef playing first 10 seasons on Hulu - marathon time!

Bang Bang

New thing today, another new song I liked - Bang Bang. Catchy with a good dance beat!

All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor

New thing today, discovered a new favorite song - All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor. This is rocking! Love it!

Olives - Chili & Garlic

New thing today, tried these Chili and Garlic Olives from Fresh & Easy. Tastes just like Monday - yuck! Happy Monday folks!

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

New thing today, watched Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). This was really fun :) Heard a lot of good things about it and visually it was interesting and was a delightfully different flavored sci-fi summer action blockbuster. A lot of music, a bit of soul, some comedy and some original different moments that skewed from the usual. It's a little funky in a good way I suppose. I didn't love it, but I would probably buy this movie and watch it over and over. Good stuff. Will probably become a classic.

My First Lasagna

New thing today, made my first Lasagna! I used the Joy of Cooking recipe. I made tomato sauce and meatballs from scratch which was pretty cool and easier than I thought it would be. The only downside is it just takes a really long time. Next time I will also know the better ratios for stuff since it was all new and I wasn't sure if it was enough or looked right. 

A few lessons learned.

In reading the recipe ahead of time, they mention "Cooked Sausage" but provide no amount of sausage so I wasn't sure if it was optional or required for the recipe. I figured it was optional, and in making the lasagna, it instead looks like it should have been in there. I left out the sausage on the grocery list and only made the lasagna with the meatballs since it looked like that would be enough meat. In making the lasagna I started thinking thinking it would not be enough. Instead it turned out alright and descent amount of meat in the lasagna. Final thought - add the cooked sausage in.

There was a phrase "1 medium onion, halved" which was confusing. I ended up choosing the interpretation, 1 medium onion that is cut in half and put in the food processor. Although it is very confusing... eh.

Anyway the other issue I ran into is not enough sauce. I thickened it too much, and it seemed like it wasn't enough. Luckily I had some tomato sauce in a jar, and added it at the end on top, since it looked way too dry when I finished layering. In the future I will make more from scratch tomato sauce and use it for the lasagna.

Math. I've never cooked with lasagna before. Since we were baking the noodles, I wasn't sure how long to boil them before putting them in the casserole dish. Also I didn't count the slices before starting to layer, so I wasn't sure how many to put in each layer. I ended up miscalculating and having to re-do a few layers, and having an extra lasagna noodle with no home. Eh, future - will plan it better. 

The Good News

It feels super risky cooking something from scratch having never made it before. It's a lot of food and I hate wasting, but I got over it. I also hate making mistakes, so I made a few, but the food still ended up edible and descent. I still would have liked to taste it without the canned sauce, but at least it was there and I didn't end up with a dry lasagna. 

Meatballs and tomato sauce were way easier than I thought it would be. I think I love this tomato sauce thing and may start making it from scratch from now on. So cool. I used canned whole tomatoes, and would totally be ok doing that in the future. A healthy and easy new food I can do a lot of things with! Yeay tomato sauce!

I'm excited to try this again and it's one of my husband's favorite foods so that's pretty cool. 

Verdict - yum :) Relatively healthy too! Really glad :) 

As a side note - I ended up watching The Godfather while making the lasagna - awesome. 

Bee in the Car

New thing today, found a little bee in my backseat. I reparked my car in the afternoon for some shade and cracked the windows so it wouldn't be so hot. When I came back a few hours later I noticed a little bee was sitting in my back seat - probably wandered in and couldn't get out. I opened the car door and it started to stir and groggily fly up. Then it found my open car door and swaying wandered and flew out. I'm glad it didn't suffocate and die from being in the heat in my car. I talked to it a bit to coax it to get out. It wasn't aggressive or mad. I think we were both glad the little guy made it out ok. That was a cute new thing. Save the bees!