But why really I should be wide awake, when the only thing I want to do is crawl in bed. This post will thus be a brief one.
On Friday we went to a classical concert in La Jolla to listen a french pianist Helene Grimaud perform a series of Bach pieces. It was amazing. I have heard CDs of her before but I think seeing her hands on the piano was just from another world.
The concert was preceded by a really nice chilly dinner at the "top of the cove" where I had a cocktail and a glass of wine in 45 minutes. This contributed to me nodding off several time to my dismay during the concert. The audience's average age was 65 and I surely didn't look the age but felt it :)
This week end we dove into the reality of economical crisis. We left "yuppy hell" on Saturday morning to drive to Palmdale which is East of LA. This town which 40 years ago had all the mystery associated with cool stealth military technology with Lockheed Martin is now for the part I saw run down town with gang and criminal activity. Beyond the scary part you see who is touched by the economy downturn. People in our neighborhood who are getting foreclosed on are usually people who bought beyond their means. I truly believe that people who foreclosed in the neighborhood we went to are just trying to put a roof over their families head.
It was still good to see family. MEC was running after B's auntie little white dog which renamed Brownie instead of Frannie. MAC had a great time with legos and transformers all residual toys from his second cousin T.
We were glad to be back to San Diego since we travelled two week ends in a row.
Tonight I was faced by a wasteland of a fridge. Not wanting to pull the frozen dinner (potstickers, pirogis, raviolis or tamales), two nights in a row I had to improvize. I perfected one of my easy pasta discovery:
- Pancetta, prosciutto or bacon
- 2 Onions
- White wine
- Thyme
- Sour cream
- Pasta
Saute the pancetta/prosciutto/bacon
Remove the fat and the put on the side
Add a little olive oil
Saute the onions
Add thyme sprig
Cook until tender
Add cup of white wine
Let simmer for a little bit, add the sour cream (1tbsp), and the bacon
Add to the pasta
Sprinkle some parmesan cheese.
My other one which is not of my creation but is super easy and good is Tuna pasta
- 2 cans of tuna
- 1 lemon
- Olive oil
- Fusili pasta
- Basil, cilantro if wanted
Squeeze lemon juice in a serving bowl
Add olive oil just enough so that the sauce isn't too lemony
Add the tuna
Cook pasta and add to the sauce when done.
Add cut herbs if wanted.
Again I truly believe that a healthy weight comes with regular excercize, balanced diet. This means eating a little of everything and first and foremost cooking from scracth as mush as possible, eating as little processed food as possible and drink as little soda as possible even the diet, zero calorie kind! Sorry I needed to add my little propaganda in this email!
Sorry Bunny I really really suck at posting pictures but I hope you enjoy the recipes eventhough I haven't been good at delivering the weekly meals!
We still have to trim the fabric at the seam, iron it and remove the basting thread. I hope to post pictures of it next week finished and back to its spot! I'm pretty pleased I have enough fabric to recover the IKEA chair as well. I am also a bit bummed because the white duck fabric is more see through than I expected! Especially since I bought the heavier weight! I'm hoping that a bright colored pillow will distract the eye! Then I will be allowed to purchase a bit of fabric to make two accent pillow and a bed throw. For a complete post let me put down the recipe of what I threw together for lunch! It is a morrocan/tunisian spin of the shepherd pie... - Ground beef - 1 egg - 1 cup Couscous - 5 yellow squash sliced - Cumin - Tumeric - Paprika - Balsamic vinegar - Olive oil - Cilantro In a bowl, mix the ground beef with the egg, the spices (cumin, paprica, tumeric) salt and pepper. For the spice mixture adjust for the flavor you like. I tend to use about 1tbsp of cumin, 1 tsp of paprica and 1tsp of tumeric. You can probably also add coriander etc... Cook in a pan and break it as you cook it. Slice the yellow squash marinade in olive oil 2tbsp and 2tbsp of balsamic vinegar, add some cumin to this as well. Sautee in a pan at high heat so the squash carmelize a bit. Cook the couscous, add bit of olive oil at the end. Once everything is cooked, in a low rim serving bowl put the meat at the bottom, then the squash and finish with the couscous. Decorate with some spices sprinkled over the couscous and some chopped cilantro.
