Adventures of a Hungry Ginger

Blueberry and banana smoothie for breakfast

Leftover Enchiladas Suizas for lunch

Curry for dinner

I am trying to eat more healthfully, which includes not skipping breakfast and making sure that I have a snack in the afternoon so I don’t gorge myself on chips when I get home. I am also going to try to drink less.

We will see how this goes…

Tomorrow: Salmon and lemon risotto with brocoli!

We went down to Portland a few weekends ago. Andy drove down to Mount Hood to catch some EPIC POW and I took the train down to meet time. We ate, we drank and we discovered the BEST breakfast sandwich in the UNIVERSE. Check it out. Pine State Biscuit is awesome!

For the past, oh, three weeks or so we have been trying to move. Not to a different house or condo but just downstairs. It might as well be accross the country though. Inspired by a new chair and couch that we bought for the living rooms and had to have hoisted up through the balcony by movers, we decided that while thet were here, we would move our bedroom downstairs and the office upstairs. It isn’t a big deal, we thought to ourselves, once we get all the big pieces moved, we will just have to move our clothes downstairs and teh computers upstairs and voila!

How wrong we were.

First, the bookshelf downstairs had to be dismantled which meant all the crap that was in it, that we had forgotten about had to be moved as well. And the walk in closet where our clothes would eventually go had to be organized just so we could move everything. I won’t bore you with the details but two trips to Goodwill and one trip to the junkyard and three weeks later most everything is moved but our foyer is filled with old computer detritus and the bedroom floor is still littered with Goodwill bound crap. Sigh…

On a brighter note, I made Entrecote Beaujolaise Paul Blanc and Gratin Dauphinois last night and it was delish! Nothing reduces the stress of moving like steak covered in red wine pan sauce and potatoes cooked in butter!

Is it cheating to use canned soup in a dish? I have always looked down on the practice but the Paula Dean recipe for Beef Stroganoff that I used last night called for it. It was with great trepidation that I scooped the globules of cream of mushroom concentrate out of the can. It felt a little less like a culinary cop-out because I did use fresh mushrooms and beef stock as well and sautéed the onions and mushrooms in the meat drippings, making a roux with a sprinkling of flour and a few pats of butter. Still, though, the soup did give it a generic quality. I think the fact that I couldn’t control the seasoning as much was also a negative. It was good but not great which I guess is not too bad for a quick weeknight dinner.

This past Sunday Andrew was invited to go mountain biking with a friend. We had to clean the house (after several month’s accumulation for kitty hair, my hair and other detritus) and take the Christmas tree to the dump (yes we waited until the end of January…) so, outdoor exercise was once again put to the wayside. What better way to make up for not practicing personal fitness than eating the weight of a small cat in butter and cheese sauce? Croque Madames are magical things. Rustic bread slathered with tangy dijon, encasing ham and nutty Gruyère and topped with a cheese sauce of whole milk, butter, flour, parmesan, Gruyère and a pinch of nutmeg and finished with a perfectly cooked egg, sunny side up. so simple yet so delicious and a great way to kick off a day of toilet scrubbing and stair vacuuming.