On the Road Again!

Mom, Dad, and I are on our way to Minneapolis for the weekend to visit Caroline. I have never been to Minnesota before, save for connecting flights in the Twin Cities. But we will have a few days to see what we can of the Caroline's current city. Ironically the last time Mom was in the city was when she and Dad met. Unfortunately Val is not able to accompany us, as she has both physics class and work at the bilogical station. I am writing this from Mom's iPhone in the car, which means I have no pictures to post... Soon though! There are great photos including some delicious meals and our splendid adventures last weekend. My Friend I met at a summer camp five years ago has family in Kalamazoo and stopped by on her way from her hOme in Detroit for an overnight. We ran the cheetah chase 5k Saturday morning. In fact running is how we have stayed in touch. She also attended a small catholic school and ran cross country, so we saw each other at the state championships a few times. What a small world! Saturday night Valerie's roommates Lynne and kylie came over for the night. Kylie happens to also be from battle creek, although they didn't now each other before meeting up in their first writing class at MSU. Another small world story! Valerie's friends are great, and it was lovely to hang out with them. I do miss my Pittsburgh friends though! Four months is a very long time to be away from the burgh... But class 4 nights a week really prevents me from traveling too much. Speaking of Pittsburgh though, I was able to switch living accommodations for the fall. When housing was assigned for the fall, the Only available spaces were single dorm rooms. And while the majority of my friends were in the same situation and this we were all in the same building, I really wanted a roommate. Partially because I haven't ever really had a roomie--mine was rarely around this year-- and partially because Valerie has had a fantastic roommate experience. But when I learned that my friend Laura's roommate had decided to transfer schools I asked if I could replace her spot. Laura agreed, and we just had to get approval from the housing department. A eek or two Ago I got the call and have been thrilled ever since. It will be great to have someone to share my popcorn and cookies with! I have be daydreaming lately of Starting a restaurant someday. It has been a seam of mine for quite some time. Valerie and Caroline have agreed to helP whIch is wonderful news. We are thinking possible Michigan themed cuisine. I would prefer to do a restaurant over a bakery because there is more versatility. And we can also have desserts. Bu I would love to serve Great Lakes salon with Michigan green beans and a quinoa salad! Or a locally made tempeh patty served up with roasted root vegetables and fresh bread. My mouth is watering already! Any other dishes you would like to see on our future menu? Comment below and we will start practicing :) Mom needs her phone back... Look for photos to be posted soon!

Food Photo Dump

I always forget to take photographs of the delicious food I have been making. Like tonight's Tofu with Spicy Brown Sauce (a delicious version of stir-fry taken from Good Housekeeping's Simple Vegan! cookbook). It appears that somebody else beat me to it and posted a photo on their blog. Mine was similar, but I used carrots and snow peas fresh from the farmer's market, as well as red and green pepper and onion. 
Some of the other meals I have made--that I remembered to take photographs of are posted below.

Mango Salsa

Asparagus and Cheese Omelet

US Senate Bean Soup

Lemon Cornmeal Scones with Dried Cherries

I absolutely love the farmer's market! I picked up beets (four large ones for a dollar!) and two enormous sweet potatoes in addition to my three gigantic carrots and snow peas. Today it was bustling with about a dozen vendors, and crammed with shoppers eager to fetch good deals on produce, honey, baked goods, and cheeses. Someday I would love to get the majority of my produce from local farms, but right now it is not feasible. I don't have the time and tools to can tomatoes, fruit, clean, chop, and freeze vegetables, etc. We also have lots of prepackaged canned and frozen vegetables to use up. In truth, I should attempt to phase out the canned vegetables and such by using them up and not replacing them, but they are a) so convenient, and b) Michigan's fruit crop was all but decimated by a warm spell this spring that didn't last long.
However, last week I did snatch up a good buy (not local, unfortunately) at Meijer off their clearance produce rack: 27 colorful peppers for $5.88. Yup. You read that right. Colored peppers that are normally 3/$5 were reduced to the equivalent of about $0.22 each!! That is ridiculous. They were a teeny tiny bit wrinkly, but nothing else was wrong with them. So I sliced half of them and diced half of them, and divided them into 8 freezer bags for later use. I threw one of the diced bags into chili on Monday. It was great! It added a lot of color and nutrition for very little cost and time.
Last Friday I had a cooking party with Melissa, a friend from elementary and high school. We made Jamie Oliver's Indian Carrot Salad using beef instead of lamb and mint chocolate chip meringue cookies.
I hopefully will have a chance to cook more this weekend (and remember to take photographs), so look for another post to come soon.

Long Time No Post

I can't believe more than three weeks have passed since my last post! How did that happen? Actually, I do know: school, work, cooking, sleeping, and such. I am taking anatomy and physiology at the local college this summer to catch up on coursework I missed before I transferred into nursing at the semester. That is every night Monday through Thursday for 2-4 hours each night. I come from work three days a week, so that makes for a pretty long day! Luckily I seem to be faring pretty well in terms of managing the workload. My experience working at the nursing clinic has really come in handy!
Work at the clinic is going well also; I work on their Mobile Clinic both taking blood pressures and handling paperwork. The Mobile Clinic is a relatively new (spring 2011) addition to the clinic's already wide array of services. The Mobile Clinic brings some of those services into the Calhoun County community, particularly the homeless at the Share Center and those in rural areas such as Tekonsha and the Homer Amish community. Traveling to the Amish community last week was a great experience!
I have been cooking a bit lately, although it has been more assembling as of late due to my classes coinciding with dinner time. However, there have been some winners--Thai Curry Tofu, a chili utilizing McCormick's Santa Fe spice blend, and a simple beet salad with sweet onions and red wine vinegar. Perhaps I can dig out some photographs tomorrow and post them on here!