Definitely a keeper!

With all the time spent on the elliptical (yup, it's still my bitch), I've been finding time to read the magazines I am subscribed to. So I'm slowly catching up. Lately, I've been bringing at least one Real Simple to the gym with me and yesterday, before I donated it to the Y, I ripped out a page with a recipe on it. I really liked what was in the picture so I decided to try it out. 

I did that today. I took a break from the el...bitch tonight and went shopping for both groceries and gifts for my Sharing Tree people. Then I cooked. And I have to admit I did something pretty weird - I followed the recipe.

Ok, for the most part. I adjusted the quantities again, a little bit, but did not change any ingredients. Odd, yeah, I know. The recipe said it was going to be a twenty minute meal and it really was. Very easy to make.

Here are the ingredients:

fresh skinless salmon

fresh zucchini

fresh dill

shallot

rice vinegar

extra virgin olive oil

salt

black pepper
 

I had 380g (0.8lb) of fresh wild Atlantic salmon, which was a really good pick. No more frozen stuff for us, despite the price. (Okay, it is debatable how fresh the fresh one really was, but it looked good and was really delicious.) I used two medium sized zucchinis (400g, also known as 0.9lb). These need to be cut into thin sticks. I left the peel on, like I always do, even though this time I didn't have organic produce. Oops. Zucchini are thrown into a skillet with some hot olive oil in it and they need to be cooked until tender (add salt at some point, if you care for it). Toss them frequently, but make sure to get at least some of them slightly browned. Man, does that taste good. 

Salmon is thrown onto another pan with hot olive oil and cooked for a few minutes per side. Or however you like it. I used only one tablespoon of oil per skillet, if even that much. I rubbed the fish a little bit, prior to cooking, with a dash of salt and some freshly ground black pepper.

The remaining ingredients need to be mixed into something that looks like dressing. Chop the shallot (I used my tiny food processor/chopper thingie because I hate the smell of onions and garlic on my hands) and throw it into a bowl. Add some rice vinegar, probably about two tablespoons or maybe a little bit more. Chop the dill and throw it in as well. Pour in olive oil - 1 teaspoon in my case. Add salt and pepper. Still and leave it be while the rest is cooking (actually, this is the first thing I made). 

Once everything is done, serve right away. The dressing-like thing goes on top of both zucchini and salmon. And it's good. Really good. It doesn't even stink and/or taste like onions. I have to admit that the shallots made us cry, though. They were that potent. 

The final product was really, really delicious and there is none left. Okay, except for a bite or two of fish. 

Only 880 calories for the whole batch and it feeds two, with a tiny chunk set aside for tomorrow. Woohoo! We'll be eating this again. I'm keeping the recipe. Or, well, I don't need it anymore. This is more than just easy.

Bučnica

Today is one of those quick recipe days. Bučnica is something I absolutely love and it's really easy to make. Especially when you have the ingredients, of course.

Well, I do not. I have eggs, oil and sour cream. Everything else I work with are just replacements. It took months of trials and errors before I even knew which brands and/or varieties to shop for.

First of all, I can't find the right pumpkin. I mean squash. I've talked to several different farmers and been to several different markets, yet nobody had a clue what this particular thing was:

So I had to make do with what I could find. Zucchini. Yes, I understand they are the same family, but no, they are not the same. The real thing is shredded the same way Americans shred their cheese. Actually, it is grated. Grated zucchini, however, turns into mush. I've learned my lesson and now I take my time to dice it all. It takes forever to get them to be small enough to cook evenly, yet big enough to still keep at least some of their consistence. 

The real thing I don't have.

Fake things I work with.

Then there's the dough. It can be made at home, but I don't do that - I have yet to advance to that stage. Back home in Zagreb, I'd just walk to the nearest farmer's market and buy some. I'd show you a picture, but I couldn't find any. Of course, I had to find a replacement, or something that at least remotely works. Athens Phyllo Dough works, but it's far from the real thing. The sheets are to thin and absolutely tasteless. Actually, they are pretty similar to paper and often are hard to work with. But when there's nothing better... you get the point, right?

Next thing is cottage cheese, also known as fresh cheese. There are plenty of tubs here that say exactly that - cottage cheese. No fat, yes fat, random fat, low fat, this, that... but none of those actually contain what I need. Hell, what I want. Most of them are full of gum and other weird thickeners that disintegrate when heated. If baked or warmed up in any way, your so-called cheese turns into whey and strings. Actually, it often resembles glue. It's disgusting, to be honest. In the beginning, I gave up on any and all meals that called for cottage a.k.a. fresh cheese. But then I found Daisy.

Oddly enough, and unlike other brands, Daisy cottage cheese is made of - milk. Well, mostly milk. There is still sour cream in it (yes, I do understand that sour cream is, in fact, milk) and salt. And some vitamin. But at least there is no gum of any sort and no sugar either. I don't like the taste of this product on its own, though. It's not even close to the cheese I know. But it works every once in a while when I need it for cooking. I also buy Daisy sour cream. Not the light version of it. All other sour creams sucked.

Here is what I greatly miss and I really would settle for any variety:

These gorgeous guys do not contain any salt, gum or weird things one could find in a tub. So far, I have found something kind of similar only once, at a small Eastern-market-oriented store in Minneapolis. It wasn't too good and it was more than $7 for a tiny little package. It was still better than the tub of curds, that's for sure.

I could complain about eggs, too, but I won't. (LOL) I'll just say that I pay almost twice as much to have my eggshell be brown and or a sliver of hope that the yolk will be anything than pale pale pale yellow. It never is, though.

So, uh, yeah. Recipe. And I even said it was going to be quick, huh?

Get some zucchini. Needs to be washed, peeled and diced. It's actually ok with the peel on, too, but in that case I'd go with organic, I suppose.

Get some eggs. I'd say four, especially if they are brown (they come in extra small sizes, pretty much). 

Get the Athens Phyllo Dough, or make your own sheets.

Buy some Daisy, both sour cream and cottage cheese. Do not go for light versions, as they are not for people.

Also needed: oil, salt.

Beat two eggs, throw in the cheese, add zucchini and sprinkle some salt. Even though there's salt in the cheese, it won't be enough (and this is coming from someone who is not a fan of salt). 

Spread out two sheets of phyllo at the time and smear some oil all over one side of them. Add the mixture. Roll. Put in the baking tray.

Beat the other two eggs, add some sour cream and pour all over the rolls. Stuff into the oven (360-ish F) and bake until it's done. It's done when it turns brown and when the entire house starts smelling really good. This is the final product:

The whole tray has about 1700 calories and safely feeds four. Or more, if this isn't the main course or if it's served as dessert. I'd offer it with some yogurt.

Long story short - this is a very good meal. Especially if you've never had the real thing.

Unfinished... everything?

I am the master of unfinished... everything.  It's kind of hard to keep track of everything I think of. Or things I start. Things I think about starting. Things I start thinking about. Or even of one small part of any of the above. Sometimes I wonder if I have some sort of ADHD-like issues. 

And that, I might.

Now... what is she trying to come up with, again?!

Over a year ago, we bought a house. Way bigger than what we need(ed). It was back then when I decided I was going to have a studio. My own studio! A craft room. So I picked the smallest of rooms, this one here:

Nobody died in there - that was just a pile of furniture hiding under the blanket. A year or so later, I finally redecorated the room. I admit - we paid someone to paint the walls. I was going to do it myself and then I didn't. Oops. I did pick my own colors and I bought them too. Dragged them all the way home. Or, well, I drove.

And here is the final product, at least in terms of color. Everything else is still in the works. I add, remove, change, reorganize, disorganize, erase, draw... I suppose the whole room is just an ongoing process and might never be done. This is what my (non)creative mess looks like:

Things are just lying around, I know. Some I know where to put, some I have no clue about. Some probably don't even belong in this room. What I am really proud of, everything in it was really cheap and was collected at random clearance sales. I suppose that's another thing that adds to the whole ongoing process story. And that's also the reason the room is, at the same time, sensical and nonsensical. It's probably my little girl room I never really had. For some things, I guess, it is never too late.

This could be one of the few finished projects in the room - a cheap shelf I found at Target, some random little figurines of bugs and two plush toys from, possibly-maybe, Walmart clearance sale:

Unfinished project #1 - a puzzle. I put it together, but never mounted onto a wall of some sort, or even the panel it is resting on. Oops. 

Then there are things with unfinished frames or unfinished... layout ideas:

Mini Trikky do-it-yourself doesn't seem to be doing himself at all. I suppose he, too, is waiting for my magic touch.

And then, finally, another thing I did finish. Curtains. I measured, cut, designed... did everything myself. They were hand-sewn because I am sewing machine impaired. Or, well, I never bothered to learn how to use one. That needs to change, too. Eventually.

Kittica enjoys sneaking into that room and exploring all the junk. I bet she does. But this is kind of how she feels about it:

There is yet another thing I thought I would love doing. Actually, I am pretty sure I would. I just can't seem to start. It's a book I bought about a month ago, during our trip to Des Moines/Kansas City. I found it at a small local gift store. Or some sort everything store. There was a hyperactive girl in it and she tried hard to start up a random conversation with me. I admit, sometimes I am a sucker for those, but it didn't really work out with her. I left with this book and, sadly, it's still lying around... just as blank as it was when I first got it.

Soon I will tackle this one, I promise. (Hm. What happens if I don't?)

And here is another (ADHD-like) confession to make: I signed up for (yet another) project tonight. Yup. Thanks to Petra from Bag of Pretty, I stumbled upon a website - The Sketchbook Project: Limited Edition. And then I signed up for it. I have to admit I have no clue when, exactly, the deadline is (perhaps April 30th?), but it did let me sign up and it did say they were going to send me my notebook. Whee! I mean, okay, even if I am late for this year, I suppose it would still work for next year, right? Or, if it all fails, I guess it's still a nice donation to something really cool.

Either way, there just has to be something that will make me start drawing again. I must be getting very rusty.

Another random creation

There was not much time and there was absolutely no desire to go shopping for food. And there's a meal to be had tomorrow, of course. So I made do with what was lying around. I think it's pretty good, while Derek considers my reasonably tasty creation just food. He's too used to junk. Ha. He got a pile of ravioli with cheese yesterday, so now it's my turn to choose.

I cooked a risotto. With no rice. I used barley because it's healthier and because I had some lying around. The rest of the meal consists of butternut squash, champignon mushrooms and shallots. And half a Knorr cube of that chicken non-goodness (bouillon) because I had to quickly come up with something that would add some moisture and wouldn't be water.

So here's the recipe of today's goodness:

1 small box of champignon mushrooms. If I recall correctly, those are about 225 grams, or around 8 ounces for the metric-challenged.

1 small butternut squash, diced (mine was around 400 grams / 14 ounces) 

2 bigger shallots. Or at least I believe the two I used were big.

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 tablespoon of white truffle oil

1/2 buillon cube dissolved in about half a cup of water. Or more. Or whatever.

3/4 cup raw barley

Some salt, pepper and dried chives.

Chop shallots, throw on a teflon pan along with olive oil. Add the squash. Cover. Stir. Add mushrooms after  a while. Stir every now and then. Cook barley separately - boil some arbitrary amount of water, add salt, add rinsed and drained barley. Cook until satisfied, whatever that is. Drain, set aside. (If you're me, weigh the pile, too. You can never be sure, right? My pile of cooked barley weighed 260 grams, just for the record.) Check the main part of the dish. Stir. Add chives. Add some of the buillon. Stir. Add truffle oil. Try some. Decide if it's good; if it isn't - adjust to taste. Eventually mix barley and the vegetables together. Pour in more buillon if it seems dry. Take a photo. Throw back into the pot. Put a lid on. Save for tomorrow.

Easy, right? 

It feeds three, I think. We'll have nothing but this, though. If served as a side dish, it could be for four or even five people. 905 calories in the pile. Around 300 for a meal... not bad. Actually, probably not even enough. Oops?

Burn. Burn. Buuuuuuuuuuurn!

Nah, I'm not turning into a pyromaniac. I've just been bored. And fat. So I've decided to go back to the gym and kill some boredom by burning some fat off. I've not gained anything since I quit daily exercise, but I've not lost anything either. And that is teh suck.

Cyanide and Happiness is one of my favourite things ever!

I think I've already complained about how there's not much for me to do here in our little town. I think I've already complained about how there are no exercise classes for me to take, unless I quit my job and start attending pilates at 10 in the morning, or perhaps noon. 

Remember the cycling class I mentioned? Well, that didn't work out. I was excited to go and when I finally got there, I became excited to leave. I actually jumped off the machine and walked out after about 30 minutes. It made no sense. Two of us were new, yet the instructor couldn't care less. She showed us how to adjust the seats and that was about it. The rest of the class she kept using abbreviations and some weird lingo only an experienced cyclist would figure out. Oh well. I could barely hear her anyway because she had some lovely Guns N' Roses from the '90s playing in the background. Uh, yeah, sorry. It was not the music, it was us in the background. They also had six huge fans running and there was not a single spot in that little exercise room where you could hide from the tornado they were making. So I left. What really sealed the coffin for me, on top of all other things that were wrong, was the darkness of the room. Yup. She turned the lights off, too. What for? Well, that I do not know.

After the cycling fiasco, I had to sit down and think about my exercise life. So I did. 

I've been dragging my big butt to the Y every single day for about ten days now. I've not gone twice, but both days I got more than enough exercise raking the lawn and cleaning the house. So that counts for something, too, I suppose. I've also signed up for this thingie and made it my slave. Yup. It does the hard work for me, which is what I used to do by myself for a long, long time. Well, okay, it does not really do all of it, but it's still pretty good - it has issues with homemade meals, of course, since it was developed in the Land of the Box. But I still like it and we might be best friends... forever. Or for as long as it takes to get the remaining piles of lard shaken off my ballerina body.  (Yes, you do have the right to die laughing here.)

It's been fun and I'm glad to see some progress already. It seems I've lost about 1.3 kilos (2.9 pounds) in 9 days. Good enough, or actually pretty damn good, considering the fact that I put .5 kg (1 pound) a week as my goal. Yup, I know it will slow down in just a few weeks and I know I'll once more get frustrating counting the loss of centimeters and no progress in the weight department, but oh well. 

No stopping until my butt gets back into Levi's size 29.

(Okay, okay. I will settle for 30, but that's only because I wore 29 when I was 17 for the first time around. I still weighed a ton, but that's just an unresolved mystery. :LOLZ; :ROFLZ: :LMAOZ: :MEOW:)

P.S. Tonight I made friend with one of the gym's ellipticals (a.k.a. Orbitrek). About time. I am so proud of my disorganized limbs. That's one small step for my today's workout, one giant leap for the future of it. Yes, I just felt like being pathetic. :drumroll:  (I'll make you my bitch, Elliptical. Just you wait.)

P.P.S. Yes, shoot me if, say, all of a sudden I start running. :insert_a_big_lol_here:

Tonight I made up a meal and it was good

I actually planned to write about something else, but this meal I cooked tonight deserves an entry. If anything, I wish to keep the recipe and, at this point, I still remember what I mixed together.

The whole deal was nothing but one of those random let's clean the fridge kind of moments. So I did. I picked out a bag of frozen shrimp (yeah... shrimp that would make those from the Adriatic shriek in horror), a zucchini, steamable broccoli florets and some other leftover things. And then I decided I will somehow cook it all together with some quinoa. So I did.

Here are the ingredients, in case someone is willing to experiment as well. Or, well, recreate this light and refreshing masterpiece. It is, in fact, a summer meal, but summer in Minnesota doesn't last long enough, ok?

Aha, ingredients. Here they are:

300 grams of shrimp, which is, for metric-impaired, 10.5 ounces

1 medium zucchini, sliced, diced, whatevered, with peel of course

4 small and thin green onions, sliced

about a handful of steamed broccoli florets

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

some chopped parsley (regular, for European people; Italian for Americans)

juice from about 1/2 of a lemon, freshly squeezed

1 tablespoon of butter

3/4 of a cup of quinoa (both regular and red)

50 ml of Redwood Creek California Chardonnay 2008 

1 big clove of garlic

The whole deal equals about 1220 calories and feeds, I'd say, four people. 

I prepared the quinoa first. I brought about a cup of water and some of that wine to a boil, threw in the grains, simmered for about 15 minutes in a covered saucepan. Added some salt; quantity unknown.

Meanwhile, I chopped what had to be chopped and tossed it in a non-stick pan, along with the oil. So here came the garlic, green onions, zucchini and parsley. And then they cooked. For a while. I never pay attention to time (unless I am in a hurry, of course). I added the broccoli, as well as the shrimp. And then lemon juice and the remaining wine. Quite possibly some salt and freshly ground peppercorns. Something was missing so I threw in a tablespoon of butter. Unsalted butter, of course. And that was it.

Once I decided this was cooked, I mixed it with the quinoa. Voila. Excellent meal. I would suggest trying this at home.