all stocked up

(An alternate title to this blog could read: ‘On why I might make an OK mother after all’)

Andrew and I are flying to DC this weekend to spend the holiday with my family, and we enlisted Abigail to come stay with Hadrian instead of kenneling him.

My first thought was of all the goodies I could have out for our houseguest. I can’t help it. It’s the pineapple in me.

(Hadrian is also all stocked up on toys, too.)

However, between all of the Layers being on ‘diets’ (some more strict than others), and my unwillingness to buy what I call ‘crap,’ (gosh, that sounds harsh) you won’t find Combos or Cheetos or anything of that nature lurking around here!

Bananas, apples and oranges, as well as a selection of pseudo-healthy cereal bars and things (just about anything is ‘healthy’ in moderation, I think), and some crunchy things like Quakes and multigrain tortilla chips.

In the fridge Abigail will find celery and baby carrot sticks, as well as strawberry yogurts and 100% juice boxes.

There are even goodies in the freezer!

I walked down the frozen section in search of acceptable popsicles, when I came across all these Skinny Cow treats ON SALE. I tell you, it was like the White Mint bars were CALLING to me. And I know one of Abigail’s favorite flavors is cookies and cream, so I had to get both. Of course. I threw in some lemon sorbet bars thinking Andrew would like that flavor as well.

And, not to out-do myself or anything, I included a selection of the things I’ve made with the abundance of overripe bananas we’ve had on hand: strawberry-banana muffins, my banana bread with coconut and walnuts turned into muffins, and King Arthur Flour’s Chocolate-Chip Banana Squares.

In making my favorite banana bread into muffins, I decided it needed to be even healthier! One and a half cups of sugar just seemed WAY. TOO. MUCH–even for two loaves–so I slashed away…again. Here is my updated page with the recipe. The muffins baked up nice and high; this is, hands down, the BEST banana bread recipe EVER.

I’ll also be putting out some of Andrew’s butter-flavored microwave popcorn bags, some of my favorite mac and cheese in a box (Annie’s!) and coffee pods.

I’m sure Hadrian will have a ball with Aunt Abigail (she calls him ‘horsey’), and we’re happy to have her come stay and keep the animals company. I just hope she doesn’t think all my ‘health food’ is too weird…

i had an idea…

…and it was a yummy one!

A couple days ago, as I was packing Andrew’s lunch (yes, just one of the gazillion things I said I’d never do) all I had left in the bottom of the Julio’s chips bag was a bunch of crumbs.

And immediately, I thought of a mexican breakfast/egg dish kind of thing. Why? No idea.

I held onto the bag of crumbs and finally made my concoction this morning, sauteeing onion and red bell pepper with the eggs, and added leftover chorizo (score!), some salsa, avocado, green onion and monterey jack cheese. All this atop Julio’s seasoned chips. Just delightful.

I kept it light be serving just these on the side:

Strawberries and half an orange. Just delightful 🙂

Happy Wednesday afternoon! I’m making some King Arthur Flour’s Banana Chocolate Chip Squares (another blogger was nice enough to type up the recipe) to bring to the co-op‘s first annual meeting (!!!!) tomorrow night, and will be continuing The Hunger Games.

Oh, and do any of you like radishes? I admit I’m not a huge fan, but after writing my latest ‘Eat This’ column for the co-op’s blog, I think I might give them another try.

Does life get better than an afternoon of baking and reading, all after having had a great workout and painting my toes?

but i thought i WAS being spontaneous…

So, on Friday Andrew calls to ask if I want to go camping with some of his friends on Saturday night. As in, the-next-day-Saturday night. Less-than-24-hours-later Saturday night.

Of course, I said no.

No, because I wanted to RELAX during my first weekend free from school. I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I didn’t want to worry about organizing and packing (much less locating) all our camping gear up.

What’s that you say? Camping IS relaxing? Yes, camping is relaxing ONCE YOU’RE THERE and unpacked and the weather is perfect and SOMEONE ELSE did all the planning for you.

Well, once Andrew offered a little more information, like that he knew where our camping stuff was, and that the campsite was only a 30-minute drive and that we didn’t have to go until dinnertime on Saturday, and that another female had already taken care of much of the food planning, I started to warm up to the idea.

So we went. And it was fun. The location was actually the giant parcel of land (100 acres, maybe?) belonging to the family of one of Andrew’s co-workers. There was a tiny ‘cabin,’ but it was all but useless. Apparently it’s being remodeled/renovated later this summer…

Disclaimer: it’s looks a little red-neck, and maybe it was. I mean, there were dirt bikes for pete’s sake! At least they were all Moog engineers, (except me–a student–and the friends’ fiancee–a teacher) which really just means that the bikes were NICE and in good shape. I don’t know why, but that fact made me feel a bit better. I mean, we were in the sticks.

Hadrian had a blast. Actually, that would be understatement. He’s never had so much fun in his life. He’s still sleeping it off…

Dead trees were cut down with a chainsaw for firewood…

Bananas were sauteed in butter as appetizers… Amazing! Slice some up and throw them in a skillet with butter–I dare you not to love them.

Dinner: corn, beans x 2 and burgers (note Andrew’s cheese-less patty). Sahlen’s hot dogs and brats were next, as well as some surprisingly good Wegmans pre-made potato salad. I’m not usually into pre-made “tub” salads, but this one wasn’t bad at all. Actually kinda good. Must be the camping talking.

We set our tents up in row on the makeshift driveway. Thank goodness for air mattresses–I don’t care that it’s not hard-core camping; I value my sleep, AND my back!

Plus, there was NO TOILET. It was trees and thank-goodness-I thought-to-bring toilet-paper–tell me that’s not hard-core! I mean, even our boundary-waters trip up in Minnesota and Canada in which we had to CARRY OUR CANOES (wish I’d been blogging then!) came with holes in the ground at each campsite…

Not surprisingly, I was up before 6 a.m. the next morning. Between the birds and other woodland creatures, nature is just deafening at sunrise! I did, however, come prepared:

I paired a banana and some peanut butter with my Bible study and enjoyed some peace and quiet before people started stirring around 7:30.

Also brought running gear in case the opportunity presented itself. (It did, of course.)

I took Hadrian with me for a loop I think was about 2.5 to 3 miles. HUGE downhill one way, HUGE uphill the other. I dropped him off at the campsite and did it again myself, this time in reverse once I got to the bottom so I could run the middle, more shaded, less hilly length twice on the second go-around. Fifty-four minutes later, I was pooped!

We ended our short stay with Andrew giving one of the dirt bikes a try. He had fun, but I don’t think he’s itching to go buy one any time soon… That’s the problem with having lots of single male friends–they all have expensive toys!

Oh well, he has a (hot) wife 🙂 Or at least that’s what I keep telling him.