food

Normally I don't really make New Year's resolutions. I don't like them. I feel like by the end of January I'm already not doing any of the things I vowed to do for the whole year and that just makes me feel like a failure, and who wants to feel like a failure, right?

Regardless, this year Braed and I made some "goals" for the new year. I know I know, that's basically the same thing, BUT our goals are just for January, then we'll re-evaluate for February, etc. That way they feel much more attainable and are less of a commitment. Whatever works, right?

One of our goals for January was to make more food at home (which also tied in to one of our other goals: to take control of our budget and eat out less). One of the hardest parts of eating at home is deciding what food to make and having the ingredients to make it. To help with that I planned out a menu (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for every day of the week for two weeks at a time. I designed the menu so Sunday-Thursday dinner left-overs could be used for lunch the next day, too.

To make the menu I pulled out all our cookbooks...and then just used recipes I'd found on Pinterest. Somehow along the way I discovered this food blog called Budget Bytes.

Every recipe we've made from her blog has been AMAZING. Every. Single. One. Basically, I don't know why we go anywhere else for recipes. Some of them look a little fancy, but they are all really affordable (she breaks down each recipe into total cost and cost per serving so you don't have to take my word for it) and they're all actually really easy to make.

Here are some of our favorites:

$1.95/serving

$2.03/serving
(we've also made this with salsa instead of
 Rotel and it was maybe even better)

$1.16/serving
(we used rice instead of bulgur and it was great!)

$1.29/serving

$1.35/serving

So...yes. Go. Go make some delicious food of your own. And you don't even have to thank me for it. ;)

dinner and a mattress

Exciting things happened today! I had the missionaries over for dinner and made a delicious Spinach Chicken Pasta Salad and for dessert, my favorite!, Chocolate Zucchini Cake! The recipe is as follows:

1/2 c. margarine
1/2 c. oil
1 3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 c. peeled, seeded, & grated zucchini (1 large, or 2 small zucchinis)
2 1/2 c. flour
2 t. vanilla
1/2 buttermilk/sour milk/yogurt
4 T. cocoa
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder

Mix um all together, pour into ungreased rectangular baking pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes. Let cool, ice with chocolate frosting (or flavor of your choice) and enjoy!

So I have a dining room table that I got for 8 buckaroos at Stuff Etc when I was here in July, and I loff it but don't have any chairs to go with it. Yes. So I improvised. It turned out pretty well. Here's the table:

Looks pretty good, huh? Don't worry, the chair you can't see at the far left side? It was the piano bench.

I also cut some leaves and flowers from the jungle back yard to make the center piece, inspired by the one and only Martha Stewart.

It's pretty green, but I think it turned out alright. The missionaries were impressed with the size of the leaves. Haha. Oh boys. They're just little guys.

Additionally! I got a mattress today! A real one! With box springs and everything! (Insert arm swing, here.) On Saturday Jared had to leave the film festival thing early to help someone move, and that someone just happened to be getting rid of their mattress and box springs, so Jared scooped them up for me since he knew I was in search of a real mattress (I've been sleeping on a blow up one since I moved in). Since he came over with the missionaries for dinner tonight (they have to bring someone with them since I'm a single girl living alone) all three of them helped move it in. PLUS they got rid of the couch I was just going to take to the dump and instead are going to bring it over to a family that just moved here from Peru and doesn't have any furniture. Win win win.

It actually looks like a real room now! (PS Can you see the striped pillows behind the polka dot ones? Does that pattern look familiar? It should! I used the flat sheet from that same set for the table cloth at dinner. No big deal.)

I even like that I don't have a bed frame, since that's how my bed was at home before I left for college: I like being close to the floor, and it keeps me from hiding things under there that should really be put away.

So basically it was an amazing day today. My plan for tomorrow? Yard work. Yay! Be excited. My neighbor Aaron so helpfully did some intense weed-wacking for me the other day, totally under his own volition (ok, so maybe his mom asked him to do it...) and that uncovered all kinds of things, like stepping stones and even stairs that I didn't even know were back there! Who knows what other treasures lay hidden amongst the foliage?

Oh! And PS, my dear freshman year roommate Whitney called me today and it was a lovely surprise and made my night even better that it already was (which is pretty impressive seeing as it was clearly going incredibly well).

while the parents are away

So my parents are out of town for 10 days. There! I said that one thing that children are never supposed to tell strangers: I am home alone. Well, I'm not really home alone, my 3 brothers are here with me and they could totally beat you up if you tried to break in! Two of them are black belts in Tae Kwon Do, you know. Just sayin'...

While the parents are gone I am in charge of making dinner and so far it has been a breeze! The first day we all just snacked so when dinner time rolled around no one was hungry, then Saturday night we got invited over to a friend's house, then today at church someone else invited us over! The fates have been smiling upon us (well mostly me, I suppose). But seriously, how nice of people to invite us over! They totally didn't have to, didn't necessarily know that our parents were gone and we had to fend for ourselves, but they listened to the spirit and went outside of themselves to offer some service. Pretty great.

Tomorrow my friend Katie, who I haven't seen in for-ev-er, is coming over for dinner and she is going to help with the cooking of...whatever it is I decide we're going to have. Garrett is going to show us how to make corn on the cob by cooking it in bbq coals and I am pretty excited about it. I love corn! Also Katie.