Bonus Delicious -- Orange Ginger Shrimps

In one of my Martha Everyday cooking magazines, there was this most delicious looking picture of shrimp andouille, with grits and roasted tomatoes.

I showed it to Ian and he said he could make it without the recipe. When we were at the grocery store picking out the shrimps, he was sooooooo excited. "I haven't had shrimps in [calculating how long we've been dating] over three years!" This post isn't about that meal, but it's what has opened the door to the occasional shrimp dinner.

Orange ginger grilled shrimp on a well laid salad.

I tend to avoid shellfish and bottom feeders. "But they're all so delicious" Ian says. [I tried his catfish Po'Boy at lunch before grocery shopping the other day and I did not like it. "Why," Ian asked me, "It was this funny kind of chewy" I said, "yeah, chewy and it tastes a little like dirt" "YES! That's exactly why I didn't like it!" "That's why it's so good!" he said.) I usually say I'm allergic to shellfish (which I am, a little) otherwise people always want to know WHY you don't eat something and "It's a preference," is never a satisfying answer. Also, I'm too old to say "Because I don't like it." I'm in a definite "I'll try it" phase. Gotta test those old automatic answers and I still haven't met an eggplant I liked to eat. Look at? all day long. . . eat, not really.

But back to the delicious at hand.

My recent Martha cooking mag has these three glazes all with orange marmalade, that are just mouthwateringly tempting. I finally remembered to get marmalade at the store so it was time to try one!

Orange Ginger glaze:

1/4 c. marmalade*
1 1/2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger**

*(we use the Simply Fruit brand because it uses good 'ol sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup)

**(we bought a giant delicious hunk of ginger eons ago, broke it apart, put it in a freezer bag and froze it. Anytime something calls for fresh ginger I just take out a little hunk and grate it on a cheese grater)

Just mix the three ingredients together in a small bowl and wait for the grill to get going. The recipe also shows beef and pork and says brush glaze on two minutes before the meat is done cooking and then again right after you take it off the grill. Because shrimps cook so fast, Ian laid the skewers of shrimps on the grill, and then brushed both sides with the glaze. We ran out of glaze, so no "after the grill" bit which was okay by us.

Also when we grill and have peaches in the house, we always grill a peach. Warm peach, if I hadn't eaten it first, I wouldn't even have wanted dessert.

duh duh duh yummmm!

You can see the tasty little shrimps on top. Also attending the fiesta, sliced red pepper, sprouts, carrot slices, shredded beet ( left over from the Pretty Beet and Carrot ) and a sprinkle of sliced red cabbage, all on a bed of torn romaine hearts.)

P.S. I LOVE the color of shredded beets. It is the most perfect purplish red ever. I even love the way it stains my hands. I feel like a kid after finger painting. 

I love beet color.

Accomplished! Goal 100-- Make a skirt

I've wanted to make a new wrap-around skirt for months. I've had the fabric for months sitting patiently stored away for that spare time. Finally I stopped waiting for spare time and just went for it!

I used my favorite skirt (a pass-a-long from my bestie Sarah Rubin) as a basic pattern and added a few inches to each panel so I won't have to safety pin it closed.

Three favorites, a favorite pair of earrings, favorite shirt and new favorite skirt!

I even added a pocket with honeycomb bias tape!

The only piece missing is that I would like to applique a design onto the front, I just don't know what to put on it! Any ideas? (The inspiration skirt has a green polka dot and pink lilypad and flower on the front, very fun)

Goal 47-- 11,12,13/52 BOOKS IN A YEAR

While I'm still working on no. 10 ( an organizing work book of sorts ), I have finished book 11 (My business course text), am working on book 12 (Self-Employed Tax Solutions) and have forced myself to finish no. 13 (Little Bee).

Book no. 11/52 -- My Business Foundations course text, a binder full of exercises and readings to show you what makes up a business plan. A very excellent resource while I actually write my bizplan.

Book no. 12/52 Self-Employed Tax Solutions -- As recommended by Chariti in my Business Foundations course, this book is a plain-english, demystifying, goodness-filled resource for any small business owner, or individual considering opening their own business. It requires attentive brain effort and therefore did not satisfy my book desire when I found out...

my flight from DTW to DFW was delayed over 2 hours, would cause me to miss my connecting flight to PDX, and I might end up with a comped hotel room in Dallas to leave bright and early Tuesday morning instead.

I needed a book to keep me occupied. Nothing too thinking oriented, just a light hearted story that could pass the time. Unable to remember any of my GoodReads titles that I had marked "to-read" I mosied on down to the bookstore in the airport and browsed their shelves for a title I could then download to the Kindle I was borrowing from Ian.

Bonus Delicious --Pretty Beet and Carrots

I am encouraging summer to come back by making cold veggie salads, the kind of thing you want to eat when it's hot and balmy and your skin is sticky. Even though Portland is dim and gray, looking at these plates of goodness makes me feel like I'm getting ready to go to a summer picnic!

Ian's plate. The buffalo chicken wings are the color of carrots!

Rachel's plate. I don't eat fowl so my little nuggets are Quorn. Soy free!

Goal 101-- 7/12 COOK A NEW DISH EVERY MONTH

¡Como una fiesta en mi boca! After talking about my grandfather's cooking yesterday, I had a hankering for some Mexican delicious. You may be amazed, but I've never made Mexican Red Rice before. The red comes from pureed tomato and chopped red pepper.

My new dish for this month, Mexican Red Rice boiling before the lid goes on.

 The rice all cooked up. Next time I'm adding Saffron.

One thing I've been practicing as I make these new dishes is to actively NOT make excuses about the food.

For instance: "I burned the garlic, so it might taste a little like burned garlic" Ian's typical response to this would be "No matter to me, I like burned garlic, you know that" (this is just an example, I cooked the garlic perfectly this time. )

Goal 74--Do something I'm afraid of

With Ian working 11 days in a row (approx. 10 hrs a day), to cover Clinton's trip to Iceland and Aaron's trip to his home state of NY, I'm on my own to get our groceries this week.

(Just as an aside, no more summer vacations for the mechanics at the bike shop... I know it's the traditional time to take a vacation, but c'mon we're a bike shop...the summer is havoc and busy and chaos and when we make all the money that will see us through the dead winter. When someone takes a vacation it requires the other four or in this case three mechanics to work extra days which means they end up extra exhausted.)


On normal Wednesdays Ian and I would wake up late, drink coffee, lounge around in his office while he plays games or checks email, or searches craigslist...until I get my pad of paper to start the week's grocery list. Then it's mostly me making the list with intermittent comments from Ian who is still searching craigslist and checking email. Eventually I say "Hey! Listen to me! Just turn around for five minutes and this will go a lot faster" and Ian saying "huh? But I am paying attention!"

Somewhere between making the list and leaving the house we have to clean out the fridge. Although it's usually Ian's gracious chore to take care of the turned veggies and left overs, since I'm solo this week, I got to do that too. Might I just throw in here that we didnt' go grocery shopping last week because of my trip to Michigan and when I got home on Monday night we both commented on the VILE smell emanating from the kitchen a la the fridge area.
Ian said "I took the trash out yesterday thinking it was that" and I said "No, I think it's in the opaque Yelp bag, which I know was a bad idea..."
"Yeah, why did you put something in the fridge in an OPAQUE bag?"
"Um, I think... um, laziness?"
"What was that even from?"
"The thai beef salad?"
and then there was a mutual silent uh-oh as we tried to remember how long ago we had that. We're talking on towards a month. I know! I know! Disgusting!

Also let me mention in here that amidst all my eco-conscious practices, sometimes there is a plastic tupperware full of something just so disgusting you don't even feel bad throwing the whole thing away. If only, IF ONLY, that were an option. Why wasn't it an option? Because in my eco-conscious practices (and after seeing how pretty they are when Paola would bring them to work) I bought a complete set of glass Pyrex with lids. And it was in the small rectangle Pyrex that what used to be a thai beef salad had sat for weeks. You can't just throw away your Pyrex!

So today, I get to cross off 074:Do something I'm afraid of because got the garbage bag ready on the deck, kept the sliding door open for the dash and then took a deep breath (and held it), opened the fridge, took out the opaque yelp bag, removed my pyrex, dashed to the deck and dumped what used to be a really delicious meal, but had turned into a slimy mess of rot, into the trash bag. I gagged, oh did I gag as I had to go back into the house and get a spoon to scrape the sticky bits into the bag and then rinse out my prized pyrex. Gag. gag. cough. gag. close the trash bag. But not after I took a picture! Look look at the gross mess! It's like when someone tastes something and says "blegh! gross! try this!" So stop reading here if you just ate or have a week stomach.

A bonus anecdote: As I took the trash bag to the apartment door to take it down to the dumpster imagine my horror as I felt something drip onto my foot, and then onto my pant leg. uhhh. I was ready to throw up. Then I looked down and never thought I'd be so relieved to see splatters of the papa john's garlic butter sauce all over my pant leg from the pizza boxes I was also carrying.

Now I need to:
change so I don't get sick stomach from the smell of garlic butter
make the list so I don't wander aimlessly around the grocery store
and go to the food store so we won't eat out every night this week because of lack thereof.

 

Posts to come--hold me to it!

I still need to post about Goals:

088: Attend a Conference (I attended the Summit of Awesome in June!)
005: Return to MI (I just got back from a FANTASTIC and short trip to Michigan)
027+ 028: Pay off Credit Cards and Student Loan
080: Figure out good self present for Birthday. (I hope to fly my mom out to Portland for crafting and sight seeing in September, and David will come too!)
082: Work for someone who pays what I'm worth (I just designed and sewed 60 custom tool rolls for bartender's tools!)
020: Go back to school  (I've been practicing by signing up for my current business class, and I'll be taking a Spanish Class next!)
002: Be Fluent in Spanish (First step is signing up for a class, I did a bunch of research months ago, and now I have the capitol to pay for the class!)
014: Sell Tool Roll to every state (I will count how many states are marked on my map... 31! That's more than I thought!)


and more to come...