I love my Ducks?

Friday, my husband said he needed to bring “yellow and green snacks” to work today.

It’s the BCS championship game today.  Seems when a team from your state is playing, it’s kind of a big deal.

Being from Washington, I am not used to local teams winning, so it’s all new to me.  (The only college football game I’ve been to was at WSU.  There’s a reason “coug it” is a phrase-sorry Genesis!)

In an effort to make something that’s not sweet (doesn’t it seem like “bring something” translates to 90% of people as “bring cookies”?) we bought yellow and green veggies

THEMED VEGGIE PLATTER YO.

To go with the veggies I made hummus and ranch.

(I did this while making my dinner with jarred pasta sauce.  Balance my friends, balance)

Forever ago I posted about homemade ranch, and Amanda asked about my recipe.  Months later, here it is.

This is probably not good for you.

But it is good.

Homemade Buttermilk Ranch:

• Equal parts mayo and plain yogurt (greek is fantastic, but other stuff works as well).  I generally use about 1/3 c of each
• Salt and pepper to taste
• dried parsley-about 1  t
• garlic-either minced or powdered, spoonful of minced or 1/2 t of powdered
• Buttermilk-enough to reach desired consistency (this can totally vary depending on what you like, but I’d make sure I had at least 1/2 a cup)

In a bowl combine yogurt and mayo.  Mix well.

Add in black pepper.  If you’re me, this is the best part.  So you add a ton.

Add in garlic and then parsley.  I add parsley cause it looks prettier.  If you have none, you can leave it out.  (And fresh parsley, finely chopped, would be extra pretty I bet)

mix it all up.  It’s super thick

Introduce buttermilk to your dressing.

I love super thin ranch on salads, so homemade is great because I can control that.  Since this was for dip, I went thicker.  Whatever way you like, add a little buttermilk at a time until it’s the right consistency for you.

Taste test and add more spices if desired, and salt.

(Taste it on something.  Mouthfuls of ranch start to taste weird fast)

It’s pretty quick to make, and if you’re picky on ranch like me, it saves you from buying bottles of weirdness and throwing them away. This is tangy, peppery, and easily adjusted to what you like.

And it lets you feel like a way better wife than you would sending your husband with a bottle of Hidden Valley.

Go Ducks?

No Mine Own

My niece has taken to doing her darndest not to share.  If you try to she’ll say “No, mine own!”

She used to just say “no me” so I mean, at least her vocabulary is improving, even if her social skills aren’t.

I’ll be honest though, I’m not always a champ at sharing myself.

I made biscuits and gravy this weekend with the intent of feeding my husband with the leftovers.

But today, I found myself looking at them and I realized I wanted mine own.

Come on, could you say no to that?

I realized the only way to make homemade biscuits better is to add bacon

I made a lot of bacon, so I could share.  But turns out bacon really wanted to just go to the party in my tummy.

Then I realized I had homemade jam from my mommy

(Fun game with the baby:  “That’s my mommy”  “No!  Me grandma!”  “No she’s my mommy too!”  “No!  ME GRANDMA!”)

Clearly, I needed mine own biscuit with jam too.

It happens.

I do share sometimes.

Like last night, when we wanted to see if the kitten would go in a pumpkin?

Totally let the husband wrangle that one

(turns out Takeout has no desire to be Cinderella)

And when I make things like my lunch today if the husby is around I offer to share

(That’d be carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes, apples, onions, and acorn squash.  Oh what’s that?  My husband won’t eat squash or onions?  So sad.  Mine own then!)

But if he asks if there are any Reeses left over from Halloween?

No, mine own.

So what are you bad at sharing?

I can’t share bacon.  I can’t.  I try and try but the bacon all wants to be my friend.

Keeping him happy

I like to make my husband happy.

And while I would think doing things like making this lovely arrangement with the pumpkin he got me would make him happy

Really, he’s happiest if he’s well fed.

And I like to keep him happy

Because if he’s happy he doesn’t get as annoyed with some of the less loveable things I do.  Like when I make him watch iCarly.

Or when I mange to turn myself into a burrito with the blankets at night, leaving him freezing.

Or when I’m PMSing like whoa and start sobbing at him because we’re out of coffee creamer.

Or (and this is the meanest thing I do) I make him do things on the weekend.  When there is FOOTBALL on.

I’m clearly a horrible horrible wife.

So I do my best to make up for it.  Last week, when we had Indian he LOVED it.  And I only made enough for dinner, not leftovers for his lunch.

Like I said, horrible wife.

So this week I made it again.  And took pictures to show you guys

I like the rice that comes in the burlap bags.  It feels more authentic.

See!  It says authentic right on it.  Costco sells brown basmati.  Basmati is my favorite rice ever.  After I had it at an Indian friend’s house in high school I may have demanded my parents buy me a whole bag of it.  No shame.  For a long time I could only find white in the fun bags.  I got possibly too excited the first time I found this.

I also use curry powder that has writing I can’t read on it

Authentic.  (I got this at Barbur World Foods-any random ethnic grocery is an awesome place to buy spices.  I think it was under 4 bucks for this giant thing of curry)

A lot of curry recipes have absurdly long lists of spices.  I’m not fancy* so I use these

Cinnamon (yeah that bottle is deformed.  I still keep refilling it), garlic, the curry powder, red pepper, and cumin.

Plus a tomato and some purred roasted hot peppers (my parents gave me an absurd amount of peppers, so I roasted them, then put a few in the magic bullet with some water to use for this meal.  So friggin good)

I put cauliflower in a big pan with some water, curry powder, cumin, and the purred peppers (Normally, I’d just use crushed red pepper).  I covered it till it was softened, then added a ton of spinach

And let it cook a few more minutes.  I’m always amazed at how spinach shrinks.  This is what we ended up with

We also had some dal

Which I made with purred peppers, tomato, curry powder, cumin, garlic, and a touch of cinnamon.

For the chicken, I got really authentic and busted this out

Trader Joe’s makes some good sauces, let’s not lie.

The sauce also had a splash of this

Because heavy cream is fantastic.

All together

And there were leftovers!

Which is good, because I have lots of things I want to happen this weekend. Things that aren’t beer and football.

Do you ever make Indian food at home?

What are your weekend plans?  We’re going to a beer fest tonight.  Which means I deserve to go shopping for new jeans I think.

 

*if you’re wine tasting and they try to give you white wine before you taste red and you say “it doesn’t matter, I’m not fancy” they judge and mutter things about “killing your pallet”.  Guess how I know.

It’s WAR

So, it seems today is the Civil War (Oregon State Vs University of Oregon)

Didn’t realize that till yesterday.   The fiance didn’t either, and he likes football.

I think sometimes the fact that we’re from out of state shows.

So we had this

with dinner.

Pasta (with browned cheese!) and roasted garlic green beans

The sauce was yummmmmy.  If you put meat (we usually do ground turkey) in your pasta sauce, cooking it with tasting things makes it 10 times better

I do it with garlic, onions, and a little oil.  Plus some red pepper.

We had beer with the game

I honestly don’t know the last time I had beer from a can.

And, Oregon won the game.

(Did you know if you just say “Oregon” it means University of Oregon?  The fiance said he wanted Oregon to win, and I thought he was being sarcastic.  Turns out, not so much.)

I’m hoping this doesn’t mean facebook will be solid I love my ducks until the Rose Bowl

Because really, I’m just kinda indifferent about my ducks.

Your state football rivalry-do you care?  I always am confused about why everyone is in collegiate gear when the game comes.  I don’t keep up on this stuff.

Hummusssss

Sometimes I get one thing stuck in my head, and dinner gets made around it.

Last night, I was stuck on the hummus I had made.  So I cooked up some chicken and couscous, and made this plate of veggies

Add in some toasted pitas?

Heaven.

I eat a lot.  But I rarely eat till it pains me.

Last night, I was loving dinner so much I didn’t realize I should be done till the fiance (who is almost a full foot taller than me, and therefore can eat a lot more) said he was stuffed, and I was trying to get another helping.

Whoops.

Worth it.

Today I taught over at the private school I sub at.  Was kinda spacy on the whole “making breakfast” part of the morning and ended up with this

Breakfast of champions?  And I found almonds in my bag (I use the same bag every time I sub, and keep important things like aspirin, snacks, and stickers in it.  They alllll come in handy)

When I got home (I was only there till 12:30ish) I made… Well, I have no idea quite what it is.  It’s food, in a bowl.

From bottom to top it was spinach, couscous, green beans, olives, and parm.

Whatever it was, it was tasty.

The green beans btw are from a giant costco bag-they sell 5 lb bags of frozen organic veggies for 5.99 there.  Which is a better price than good frozen green beans would cost, regardless of if you care about organic or not.

And, you know, I may have had one or two of these

Question:  So, last night I felt super compelled to heat up the pitas for dinner, so that it was a warm dinner, I think cause in my head warm food = dinner.  Cold food feels more like lunch.  Is this a weird me thing, or does anyone else feel that way too?