Carrots! And Stuff!

This month's challenge is carrots. I love carrots. They're versatile and can pretty much be added into any dish.

Carrots works fantastic for me, because I am trying a new Lunch Thing.
It's only new to me, there are a gazillion recipe examples online. And I encourage you to try it!

To find any of those recipes just look up Salad in a Jar.

I only took two pictures of this recipe. Mostly because it's so damn simple.


Step one: Identify what you want on your salad.
Step two: Procure/prepare those things.
Step three: Sort those things by lettuce and Wet Things.

I built four salads in a jar to take with me for lunches for the next week. And every one has...Carrots!

Here is one in the preparation stage.

I said this was easy. But I didn't say it's not messy. Mess. Y.

And here they are done! They look so beautiful! Each one is different. I'm taking extra lettuce with me tomorrow because I didn't feel like I got enough lettuce to make a true salad.

Four little piggies went to the market. Or something like that. I had a terrible childhood.

I have cooked so many things today. I made homemade protein bars. And lunch. And dinner. I am tired of cooking!

For lunch I had an awesome shake. I usually don't like protein shakes. they always taste powdery to me. But this one is 2 cups of kefir/siggi/yogurt/milk and two chopped bananas. Add a tsp of ground allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg. Add some ice if you like it super cold.
Blend. Enjoy. It's amazing! And I was full for hours.
It tasted like eggnog and pumpkin pie combined. I might try to add some pumpkin into it tomorrow morning.

Now it's time to watch Walking Dead, light a fire, and have some warm tea.

Lazy LAZY girl chili

Hello readers :)

I didn't think I would be doing this month's challenge, which is "CORN" and was selected by the lovely Keira, but I happened to have a can of corn in my cupboard AND Michael told me that it would be good in chili...so here I am. Let's begin!

Here are my intrepid ingredients. Two kinds of beans, because variety is the spice of life. This fire roasted tomato product that I like. The spice mixes in a convenient envelope. The baggie had leftover chopped onion from the eggs I made yesterday and it was stinking up my fridge so in it goes. I also added some salt, garlic, and some chipotle chili powder. My spell checker is telling me that should be spelled "chipolata" but I'm pretty sure it's drunk. Maybe that's where the vodka I was going to use in my recipe went - see what I did there? ;)

Hmmm...It looked like I randomly dumped some beans into my crockpot, I could see NO liquid so I added 1/2 can of water. I have no idea if that will help or make everything too watery. Here is the finished product.

This is how long until I find out if my dinner sucks or not.

I call this photo "Good god TOO MANY beans! Don't open another one!"

PS I panicked and added some taco seasoning and more salt so...wish me luck!!

Lemony Non Snicket

So the recipe challenge is

Leeeeemmons.

There is nothing better than the smell when zesting lemons. It's majestic.

Also, I play a lot of Fruit Ninja. Especially during Important Work Conference Calls. And Fruit Ninja told me that warm lemons produce more lemon juice. And I thought...Hmmm. Okay. Lemons it is!

So I went to Costco. I wasn't hungry, but still spent $100 more than I wanted to spend. I have a love/hate relationship with Costco. I love it, but would be internally cheering if it burned to the ground. So would my checking account. So I have changed my motto from Never Costco Hungry to Never Costco with Money.

I also forgot to get lemons. But thankfully King Soopers (dumbest. name. ever.) sells them.

So here they are. Being warmed. Next to a pot plant. Hey it's Colorado. legal and whatevs.

I suddenly want Doritos.

I choose to make two recipes. Mostly because I needed a side dish for my entree. And I King Sooper'd Hungry and may have bought 4 too many lemons.
Lemon Trout Recipe
and
Marinated Veggies

I started out using tilapia, because I am a rebel. A recipe rebel. I mixed all the ingredients together, then read the reviews where it said use 1/6 of the flour. So I scrambled to pull out as much flour as I could. Here is the final product.

Plastic wrapped fish slices. Like fish sticks. Except less plastic.

I discovered that I don't like zesting half a cup of juice. It sucks. 10 minutes of mindless zesting. Zest zest zest. Then zest. So I enlisted some help juicing. Five lemons later, I had my required amount of juice.

Zesting is much harder than juicing. Just saying.

Here are my fish filets, swimming in their zesty juice.

Pre-Ceviche

 

 

Also...inspiration

The cheap one is mine. Because I don't have 'standards' apparently

I added some rice to the rice cooker, with some lemon juice to make the rice all lemony.

I did not turn out lemony. I turned out like white rice with no flavor.

So after the 60 seconds in the lemon juice I threw them in the pan and let the fish fry begin!

It turned out deliciously crunchy fish looking. And made my whole house smell like fish. YAY FISH.

I am stinky. Deliciously and stinky.

At this point I threw the marinated veggies into a pan and begin the frying process. The recipe calls for way too much oil. The veggies were soaked in oil and soggy.
They also tasted like LEMON. LEMON VEGETABLES WITH LEMON.

Would you like some oil? I have some. I have a lot.

Here is the finished product.

Ignore the picture in the background. It's aliens. Aliens in bad 80's hyperwear.

Honestly? The lemon was FANTASTIC. It tasted just right, the lemon flavor wasn't overpowering at all. 
I ate all the vegetables but I won't make them again. Mixed with rice they were just okay.
The fish made up for it. Just writing this made me want to make it again.

Except I won't. Because of the zesting.