yoga, books, movies, tv and WAY too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
Anyone who knows me knows that I hate housework. “Loathe” wouldn’t be an exaggeration. When I was working part-time I managed to come up with a system that worked and kept the house tidy. When I started my holiday job (in addition to the part-time job) I was working 60 hours a week and pretty much didn’t touch a broom for two months.
Now that I’m down to 40ish hours, I’ve been re-evaluating the system. When I work afternoons (leaving the house at around 1pm or later) I find that I’m actually MOTIVATED to clean in the mornings. I get up, put things away, wash the dishes, et cetera. When I work mornings, though, I get up at about 4:30 am so that I can leave the house by 5:30 and let me tell you there is NO HOUSEWORK HAPPENING. If you’re lucky, I remember to clean up after myself so that there aren’t clothes strewn about the house and makeup all over the bathroom countertop.
The problem with working mornings is that when I get home I’m TIRED. It’s typically been a full 8 hour day and my shifts involve physical labor- not just standing at a cash register. I get to decompress on the drive home (45 minutes, more or less) and then by the time I’m at the house, I want to lay on the couch. Alas, dinner needs to be made and let’s face it, Spouse is the breadwinner no matter HOW many hours I work. I’m cool with the cooking and cleaning being part of my job, I just don’t LOVE it. The cooking is generally a nonissue but when I get home from work, there are invariably the dishes from Spouse’s breakfast (cooking and eating) sitting there, as well as the clean dishes from the night before and probably clean dishes in the dishwasher too. Not exactly INSPIRATIONAL.
This week I decided to do an experiment, since last week’s cleaning BEFORE work went so well. I’m still not going to clean at 4am but I thought I’d do something to help with an afternoon energy boost – enough to pump me up for cleaning and then I could cook and relax. So after I got home from work, I let the dog out and got on the treadmill. It turns out that a nice solid 30 minute run (intervals of some sort usually) gives me enough energy to beat the midafternoon tired slump and then I could clean with the music cranked up. Once I get the dishes done (one of my least favorite things) I put laundry in (once a week) and did a quick run of the floors (every other day). After that, I start dinner and clean up as I go. Once dinner is done, I’m all about the couch – at least until about 9 (when I have to pass out or risk not hearing the alarm for work).
So far I’m optimistic about the new system working. It looks like my morning schedule will be more regular and the run has the added benefit of making me feel good (in addition to keeping me awake).
In my ‘Newest Music’ playlist this month: MoZella – Belle Isle, Ben Folds – supersunnyspeedgraphic, Chin Chin – Chin Chin, Hurray for the Riff Raff – Young Blood Blues, Ladytron – Velocifero and the Glee Soundtracks.
We drove to Glenwood Springs (at an ungodly dark:30 this morning) because we thought Husband had a meeting. After we arrived, we discovered that he did not. So we drove back, with a brief stop at a consignment shop at Pier One on the way. The stop at Pier One was mostly driven by a need for tealights but they had Halloween stuff on clearance, so I bought my FINAL Halloween decoration: an 80″ spooky lighted tree. It’s made of black wire, threaded through with orange lights, and has some cobwebby looking stuff hanging off it. It was 75% off so I got it for $25! Very excited.
I also discovered an additional gallon of Bittersweet Stem in the garage, so I’m going to finish painting the bathroom and possible do something to one of the guest rooms. Because I’m a glutton for punishment.
I never used to like cranberries, so apparently my tastebuds have evolved. After the great plum sauce I made earlier this summer, I wanted to try a homemade cranberry sauce (The jellied kind skeeves me- I loathe jello) for use at Thanksgiving and maybe throughout the year.
Coincidentally, in order to make room for a large turkey in my freezer I had to thaw several pieces of meat (steak, pork chops) and figured pork chops love applesauce- why wouldn’t they love cranberry sauce!? Golden opportunity. As a last minute addition, I used some refrigerated breadsticks and Steamfresh Roast Potatoes and Green Beans in Rosemary Butter Sauce. I can’t say enough nice things about the Steamfresh vegetables. They don’t overcook the veggies, which is a HUGE deal for me. What can I say- I’ve got texture issues.
So. Pork Chops and Cranberry Sauce.
Pork Chops, Cranberry Sauce, breadsticks, roast potatoes and green beans.
Cranberry Sauce Recipe
1 bag (12 oz) fresh cranberries, washed/drained
3/4 c sugar (I used white)
1/2 cup plus a dash Tawny Port
1/2 cup orange juice
1tsp (ish) grated ginger (I used the store-bought-in-a-jar kind)
juice of 1/2 a lemon
Place cranberries, sugar, port, OJ, ginger in a pot on med-high heat. You want the berries to boil for about 10 minutes, so once they got to the boiling stage I turned down the heat and stirred constantly. In fact, I didn’t realize until I was already started that I didn’t have OJ so I actually put the other ingredients in the pot, turned the heat on low, and made a quick grocery run. No harm, no foul. When I got back, I added the OJ and ginger. Basically I used the ‘cook until they pop’ theory – waiting until the berries got so hot they began to burst their skins.
I very nearly forgot the lemon juice- important because WITHOUT it the sauce was almost too sweet. After the sauce is done, transfer to a fridge-safe dish. Add lemon juice on top of sauce DON’T STIR. Refrigerate. Most recipes say to cool at room temp before placing in fridge. I didn’t do that, it worked out fine. Then, stir sauce just before serving. It was a perfect balance of sweet and tart. Two thumbs up.
Baked Pork Chops
Heat oven to 350. I sprayed a pan with nonstick spray and placed the chops in the pan. I dusted with salt, garlic powder, and pepper just by eyeballing it. Then I flipped the chops and dusted the other side with poultry seasoning, paprika, and then added breadcrumbs. I baked them for about an hour (high altitude- for those below 10,000 feet it would probably be closer to 40-50 minutes). They turned out JUST right.
I also took pics of yesterday’s cheesy bread appetizers.
Martha Stewart Savory (non-pumpkin) Puffs
The recipe is here, just in case. The background looks a little weird because I cooked them on parchment paper.
And then I realized that my headphone jack is too big. Damn and blast.
Tonight’s dinner is London Broil with Roast Potatoes. Husband hasn’t been feeling well and came home early, so I made these cheesy pastry appetizers as well. I got the recipe from Martha Stewart’s Halloween magazine this year (great stuff!) and just opted to make the big rectangle (albeit sliced bar-style) without digging out a cookie cutter. I’ve never made a London Broil before so I’m interested to see how it turns out.
I also installed Calibre to help manage my Kindle – it lets me mark things as read and add my own tags. Not only that, it will automatically search out news feeds and add them to the Kindle so that I don’t have to subscribe through Amazon. Alas, I should know better than to not read the instructions. I simply uploaded all my new metadata to the Kindle, which added all my books a second time (grr) and then when I took off the ones I hadn’t recently updated, it lost my place in East of Eden. Whoops. I suspect all my bookmarks are gone as well, but as I don’t make them very often it’s no big loss.
One of the few sites that sends a really good newsletter is Real Simple. They’re good enough that I read every single one of them, even though I’m conditioned to delete as spam. The reason I keep reading them is that they send recipes like this Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin with Cherries. I am not generally a fan of pork but I’ve found a few recipes in the last year that have sounded tasty enough that I had to make them. This recipe was tonight’s dinner and it was AMAZING.
First, it used things I had on hand. A few weeks ago at the grocery store they were having a sale on pork tenderloin – the massive tube of pork loin kind. I figured I’d cut it in four, make one and freeze the rest. This recipe made me get the first piece out of the freezer. I already had the dried cherries from a previous recipe so the only things I had to buy were parsley and bacon. I didn’t have current preserves (and couldn’t see a need to EVER have them) so I used the apricot preserves I have on hand from another recipe. I totally forgot about the whole grain mustard, but used the dijon mustard already in the fridge. All the substitutions worked fantastically and the recipe got two thumbs up from Husband. Not only that, it was SUPER FAST and super easy to make.
I also made some refrigerated breadsticks I already had in the fridge and a microwave steamer bag of roast potatoes and green beans.
