Wednesday Wise Up: Farewell Food Funk

I think I am finally out of my food funk. For a while, Matt and I have been subsisting mainly on homemade burritos, fish sticks and ragu spaghetti sauce for dinner. I just haven't been inspired to work in the kitchen and create tasty dinner dishes. 

Monday marked a changed cook in the kitchen. I made poppy seed rolls at lunchtime to eat with sandwich fixings. For dinner, I made a creamy garlic & spinach sauce to go on top of fusilli pasta. Afterwards, I fixed up a chai spice concentrate to put in my tea. On Tuesday, we enjoyed a late lunch of sage-rubbed chicken with roasted butternut squash & pecans. That night we enjoyed hot buttered rum while I tried my hand at making yogurt.

Today, I haven't the time to create anything special but I am plotting deliciousness in the near future - chocolate pumpkin spice cake with caramel sauce and spiced wine. Oh how I love food! Just in case you want to cook and bake along with me, I have the recipes and links I used listed below.

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Poppy Seed Rolls from French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

Makes 12

1 egg

1 tbsp water

1 1/3 cups plain yogurt

4 tbsps olive oil

2 1/2 cups unsifted flour

2 tbsps sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together egg and water. Reserve. Whip the yogurt and olive oil to a smooth consistency. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Make a well and pour the yogurt-oil mixture into the center. Using your fingertips, mix into a smooth dough. Make 12 round rolls and place on baking sheet. Brush with egg/water mixture and top with a sprinkle of poppy seeds. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the rolls are golden.

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Creamy Garlic & Spinach Sauce

Makes about 3 cups sauce, good for 1 lb of pasta

3 tbsp olive oil

4 - 5 cloves garlic

1 bunch spinach or about 2 big handfuls

1/4 - 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (or more to taste)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

pinch of crushed red pepper (or more to taste)

1 cup heavy cream

1 1/4 cup milk

3 tbsp flour

1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus more to top the pasta

Saute the garlic in the olive oil. Add the spinach one handful at a time and cook until just wilted, seasoning with the pepper, salt and crushed red pepper. Then add the heavy cream and 1 cup of the milk to the pan and heat until boiling. While that heats, whisk together the flour and remaining milk then slowly add it to the sauce, mixing all the while. Reduce heat to a simmer and let thicken, stirring occasionally. Once thick, add the parmesan cheese and stir until it is a homogeneous mixture. Serve over pasta with extra parmesan cheese on top as desired!

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Chai Spice Concentrate

Makes about 28 cups of Chai

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

pinch freshly ground black pepper (optional, but I prefer the concentrate with this additional)


Empty the condensed milk into a jar or plastic container with a tight-fitting lid that you will want to keep the concentrate in. Stir in the sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. Store in the refrigerator. Mix 2 - 3 tbsp into 1 cup of black tea (preferably Assam or Darjeeling tea). Sip and Enjoy!

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Rubbed Sage Marinade (a recipe from the McCormick Rubbed Sage bottle)

Enough for about 2 or 3 lbs of chicken

3 - 4 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tbsp rubbed sage seasoning

1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp garlic pepper

Mix all the ingredients and spread over the entire surface of the chicken pieces, including under the skin. Cook chicken as desired.

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Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese by Nigella Lawson
Serves 8 as a side dish


4 1/2 lbs butternut squash
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 stalks fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup pecans
1 cup crumbled Roquefort or other blue cheese
Salt and pepper to taste


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Halve the squash, leaving the skin on, and scoop out the seeds, then cut into 1 inch cubes; you don't need to be precise, just keep the pieces uniformly small. Put the squash into a roasting tin with the oil. Strip the leaves from 4 stalks of thyme, and sprinkle over the butternut squash. (If you can't get fresh thyme, use dried.) Roast in the oven for about 30-45 minutes or until tender. Once out of the oven, remove the squash to a bowl and scatter the pecans and crumble the cheese over it, then toss everything together gently. Check seasoning and add the last of the thyme, torn into small sprigs to decorate.
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Hot Buttered Rum from Full Circle's Holiday Recipe eBook
Makes about 8 drinks


1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
pinch salt
24 oz dark rum
boiling water

In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Refrigerate until almost firm. Spoon about 2 tbsp of the butter mixture into a small mug. Pour about 3 oz of rum into the mug and then top with boiling water.
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Homemade Yogurt

This recipe is a little lengthy, so I will just link the post at The Frugal Girl blog whose recipe I followed exactly. The jar of yogurt I opened this morning was perfectly set and tasty! I can't believe I have let big companies make my yogurt for so long when it is so easy.
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Wednesday Wise Up - Work & Weather

With no real topic in mind to write about this week, I have only to update y'all on the basic going-ons of life here. The Halloween holiday came and went without making much of a blip on our radar. We went out the weekend prior to a Halloween party where we dressed up as ninjas and attempted chainsaw pumpkin carving (forgot to take pictures, sorry!). On Halloween, we were planning to attend a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show but I ended up being too sick this entire weekend to go anywhere. Instead Matt stole treats for us from the bowl of untouched candy the neighbors put outside their door and we watched movies.

What we're into this week:

• Matt is playing Dungeon Defenders on his pc and reading Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien in his spare time.
• I'm reading two books
•  The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman in an attempt to keep my career-type knowledge and skills from rusting.
• Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love by Betsy Prioleau which is mostly an anthology of mini-biographies of interesting women such as Mae West, Veronica Franco, Wallis Simpson and Catherine the Great. Very fun read!

This week I started my first of six days of training to become a server at a nearby restaurant called Olga's. Olga's isn't the establishments true name but that is how I want to refer to my place of employment on this blog in the interest of not getting fired for writing unseemly things about the patrons, my fellow team members, or the company (not that I anticipate doing so). 

Olga's is a full service restaurant (not just a bar or buffet) so tipping is the normal 15% - 18% of which I am expected to tip out 3% - 5% to bussers and bartenders. This is all very typical and similar to working in a restaurant in Texas except for the fact that even with the tips I take home, I am paid $8.67 per hour (WA minimum wage) instead of $2.15 per hour (TX minimum wage for servers). I am very pleased by this change in server minimum wage though it comes at the higher cost of living here in WA.

At present, my search for a meaningful job opportunity has halted. I have decided to take a few weeks to adjust and become excellent at the job I do have before I begin searching for a second job. This will also give Matt and I the opportunity to enjoy the downtown Seattle scene more without worrying about our dwindling savings account or the school loans I am obligated to begin repaying in December. 

As for Matt, I believe he is enjoying working full time as a geek. He has risen to an unofficial second in command role in his division which increases the stress level of his job, but will hopefully lead to advancement opportunities in the future! Matt and three of his co-workers were selected to attend a series of "Pre-Leadership" meetings with the management team that he has been enjoying and will hopefully give him an extra boost.

In other news, the weather has turned interesting here. Yesterday morning our car windows were covered in a layer of ice and today there was so much fog Matt could hardly see the road. The mornings are chilly (in the 30's) and the afternoons warm up a bit (to the 50's). This morning, we turned on our apartment heater for the first time to warm our Texan fingers and toes. My mother will be so pleased!

That's life!