Bear Season

I took literally everything out of my freezer recently.

Why?

I’ve said it before-I’m finding that I’m part bear.

Because of this I have an intense need to prepare for the winter.

(I know it feels like winter outside… but technically it hasn’t started, so I’m not behind.)

I had to clean up the freezer to better hold my winter supplies.

Because winter makes me do things.  Things like buying six pounds of cheese

And shredding it.  And freezing it in nice little 8 oz baggies.

(Thankfully, I can successfully use a food processor.  Unlike an immersion blender I am capable of using a food processor without making myself bleed.)

And acquiring things like sixteen pounds of beef bones!

(One of my older brothers told me over thanksgiving “Kalin I have some beef bones if you want”.  That’s a normal conversation you have with your siblings right?)

Carting those home made me feel a bit like Dexter.

I roasted them

And made into stock.
My freezer isn’t just cheese and bones though. 
I also paraboiled sweet potato cubes and froze them.  And made mashed sweet potatoes and froze those too.

And I horde vegetable scraps like it’s my job

My husband will try to toss those and get yelled at “I’m saving those for stock!”

Not weird at all.

There might also be a 20 pound turkey in my freezer. But we’re all going to play a game called “not judging” and act like that’s normal.

I do use what I put in the freezer though, so we don’t need to call Horders quite yet.

The other day I grabbed out some chicken, breadcrumbs (I put the ends of loaves of bread through the magic bullet then throw them in a ziplock in the freezer.  Is that weird?  I honestly don’t know.) and a bag of sweet potatoes.  I stuck them in the fridge to thaw before I left for work.

Post work I mixed up spices

Added breadcrumbs, and coated the chicken.  Into the oven with the sweet potatoes

And dinner is ready in like 20 minutes.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Is anyone else a freezer horder?  I swear, outside of eggs, milk, and spinach we could go for months without grocery shopping.  That sucker is PACKED

Good and Bad by Baby Brother

Hello again, I have gotten increasingly bad at ever blogging, but we are all good at some things and bad at others.

EatingMachine is good at breaking cameras. I swear she goes through a camera a year!

This is not true.  It’s more like every year AND A HALF.

Our parents are good at attempting to get on the tv show Hoarders.

Sunday cooking dinner my dad broke the webber grill, so being the hoarders they are, they had an extra grill in the shed.

Cause everyone keeps an extra laying around, right?  My mom always said anything you could need we have two… I am starting to realize this is true.

Oh, and this is in addition to the gas grill.  Which our parents also have.

I am good at liking animals

[my awesome pet rooster]

but i am bad about choosing which ones to make friends with…

i met this nice guy out on my run yesterday. i was thinking i should catch him so EatingMachine would have a nice pet… (I would like him!  The fiance on the other hand would have about three heart attacks if you brought that over.  Unless you hid it in my bed, like you did with the worms.  And the frogs.  That wasn’t nice Baby Brother.) but decided that was a bad idea. and speaking on running, i am actually STILL running! and i signed up to run a 5k in portland next weekend. i even conned someone into running it with me!  (not me!)

and oh, did i mention the 5k is sponsored by JESUS! …er… Vitamin Water.

I am good at drinking coffee…

I am bad at drinking coffee in moderation…

[stars = i went to starbucks that day. there is a chance they know me by name there.]

yeah, i know, I’m good at wasting money.

Another bad thing: i live in “nowhere, washington”

but the good part is i live in nowhere, washington according to Miranda Lambert, who liked nowhere, washington enough to come here for a concert!

Hey Baby Brother, remember when you lived in a REAL city?  Remember that?

Some people might think my snack choices are bad

but odwalla and a quart of ice cream sure seemed good to me!

Yesterday on the phone mommy told me how you drink “this gross green stuff from Costco”.  Then she said she feeds it to baby too.

now i think it is time to make this bad mess of a desk look good and clean.

what was good and bad in your day?

oh and ps, a little birdy told me EatingMachine was coming to surreal america this weekend. hmmm sounds like there could be an easter vlog in the near future…

Spring has sprung?

It’s Spring break here in Oregon.  And amazingly enough there have been some days that actually felt like spring.  Madness!

Our yard is producing some gorgeous stuff

Plus, I have seeds sprouting!

Seeds make me nervous, because you have to wait to see if they’re going to show up after you plant them.  I am not good at waiting.  But I also have some indoor seeds sprouting!  Yay for not killing things.  (the picture is peas)

In addition to spring in the yard, we’ve had spring cookies

I adore Beaverton Bakery’s cookies, because they frost with CHOCOLATE.  no screwing around here.  Chocolate.

There’s been actual food in our house too of course.

We had polenta with sausage and tomatoes

Plus spinach on the side.  The fiance will now eat spinach raw AND cooked.  It makes my life better.  Except when we’re almost out and I have to share.

We had sweet and sour meatballs

The frozen meatballs at costco?  They are one of the best things ever.  Just don’t read the nutrition information.  Trust me, don’t.

Speaking of Costco, the fiance had a Dr appointment on Wednesday, so he worked from home, and guess what we had for lunch

Buck fifty sausage and soda.  Can’t beat it.

And we used more of the polenta for dinner last night

Creamed chicken + polenta = heaven.

Fatty heaven.

Which really, is the best sort of heaven.

Is it Spring where you live yet?

He’s a keeper

I’m done with my week of teaching!  I’ll be back to that school in a few weeks to do a full week for another teacher though… they’re going to be sick of me!  🙂

The school is kinda on the edge of downtown, and street parking has a 2 hour limit.  So teachers park “hobo style” (I was told that when I asked where to park when I started) under a bridge, down the street from the school.

Sometimes, there are people sleeping on the grass.  Makes life more exciting.

God did not want me to have a smoothie today (we were out of milk, barely had any yogurt, almost out of spinach, out of protein powder… )

But I won.

POM (which makes delicious smoothies!), frozen raspberries (grown by my parents!), the last of the yogurt, spinach, flax, chia seeds, ice.

And, um.

Coffee creamer.

Whatever, it tasted good.  (And my creamer has a whole 4 ingredients so it’s not the crazy chemical stuff)

Last night for dinner, the fiance cooked!

When we first started dating he made me dinner.  He cooked up some ground turkey and added a packet of taco seasoning.  And put it on a pita.  When I stared he added salsa.  No veggies, no sides.  Just a pita full of taco meat.

(He still maintains that was an excellent dinner)

He feels bad that I do all the cooking though (he does the dishes, so I’m more than ok with cooking-I hate dishes!) , and wanted to make dinner at some point.  I introduced him to a friend of lazy cooking

I adore the crockpot.  And it’s hard to screw things up, or burn them.

He browsed through the crockpot blog and decided on Pesto Chicken with Sweet Potatoes

And because I have to make something I made us salad

(If you add some fresh squeezed lemon to a caeser dressing it’s way tastier, and less oily and fatty. win win)
It was yummy!

And he STILL did the dishes

He’s a keeper!

And I thanked him by making milkshakes for bed dinner!

(That one’s mine-it’s vanilla ice cream with POM instead of milk… So good!  Also, if you look carefully, it’s all stuck up top cause I made it thick-it’s not nearly enough to fill the mug.

Do you use a crockpot?

Me: 2 Mother Nature: 0

I’ve been doing yard work like crazy lately*.   I love it-getting a killer workout + making our poor yard nicer?  Oh yeah.

The only problem with all this yard work?

I’m totally allergic to outside.

Like, all of outside.

So I’ve had some mornings where this is all I wanna do

But, I finally stopped being stupid and realized I have allergy meds for a reason.  (yes, I have a masters degree.  and yes it still took me several days to realize “allergy meds help my allergies”)

Now I’m kicking my yard’s butt.  It’s too dark to take pictures right now, but seriously, I showed Mother Nature who is boss.  You’ll see.

I’ve been doing some eating too

Smoothiessss

We had a taco-y soup for dinner on Monday

(leftover pot roast + black beans + peppers + onions + corn + brown rice = yum!)

I topped mine with my favorite source of probiotics

Sour cream is my lovahhh.

We had an amazing dessert too

Yeah, that’s toast with jam.  It was dessert.  And it was sooo good!  (Homemade whole grain bread!)
I’ve also been all about the cheesy rice.  So freakin’ good.
And last night we did roast chicken, green beans, and quinoa

Plus a salad, but it was just spinach, do I figured you don’t need a picture.

Last night, we did something new!

Yoga!

I wanted to go to the gym.  The fiance?  Not so much.  But he said he’d do yoga with me on the tv (exercise tv on demand!).  He’d never done yoga-ever-and was amazed at how much of a workout it was.  He liked it I think-he said we can do it again.  I’m proud of him for giving it a try.

Do you work out with someone else?

*allergy meds give me a nice little disconnect from reality.  So um, sorry if this seems like I’m a lil manic.  I am.