Journal

2018 - Week 15 Cooking Results

A couple of accomplishments this week.  After some questionable previous financial decisions, we have finally consolidated our house debt into a single loan (at least it will take effect very soon) and have plans to accelerate the pay down a bit, but also free up general monthly income.

We're continuing to aggressively (but not overly aggressively, as to continue to enjoy life) go after things we need vs not.

We have also been slowly re-organizing and cleaning the edge locations of the house.  Donate or give away things we don't actually use (camping is out, per my sleep apnea), then fill that space with things we do, or at least one of us does.  We free up space, then organize space then free up more space.  Some decisions are just things we have put off doing, but now do, cause it is what is next (some / most of this is probably on me).

As my mental state has generally stabilized in what I suspect is an acceptable normalish range, I think a lot of this is more possible and things are generally easier to do.  I do not have to work through getting myself motivated to do a thing, but generally can just get started.  I still spend an excessive amount of time analyzing my thoughts because I suspect they will be unreasonable, but more often then not, now, they are not.

Roasted Chicken Thighs Salad

While cleaning the kitchen yesterday, I simply roasted some chicken then let it cool and refrigerated it.  Then combined it with a some mayo, sour cream, mustard, celery, a bit of diced pickles and pickled jalapenos.

Thai Style Red Curry Chicken with Vegetables

I followed this for the most part, and served it over quinoa.  This added a nutty underlying taste to it, which I thought was nice.

N'duja With Eggs on Flatbread

Little spice, little fat, little eggs.  Good stuff.

Pizza

Delayed until today.  I took the dough out already to do the final rise

Taco Salad

Another easy choice.  I may need to stop eating very spicy salsa.

Turkey Torta

Buy Torta rolls from CostCo, Make tortas, easy peasy.  This worked out pretty well.

Analyzing Emotions

With the loss of Moonshadow, it has been challenging.  I try to take a perspective that I need to analyze all the responses that come up, as my brain doesn't work quite right in its responses.  Admittedly with the increased dosage, this has become quite a bit easier.  So with normal days, the things that come up are relatively easy to judge.  But with this loss, I'm sitting here wondering if this is the appropriate amount of response (to much or to little being the option).  So I'm still thinking about her and thinking in general.  Luckily I have a monthly therapy appointment in a couple of days and I can work out my thought process a bit more.

Miss Moonshadow

We went through a number of hoops to initially get Moonshadow, Initially for a short period of time, but as she settled into the house, the situation changed and she became our cat.  She has bounced through several members of the Kurth family over the course of her life due to situational changes.

She was definitely set in her ways, which created a bit of a rough edge between her and our other cats.  But she was generally polite and understanding for people.  She would sit on my lap in the morning which actually changed my morning routine.  At night, she liked to sleep between my legs, and as I am getting older, she politely would move to the other side of the bed as I got up to relieve myself.  Then settle back in shortly after I did (unlike our other cats who are more like, screw you I'm comfortable).  Eventually she allowed Loki to sleep near her, Freyja and her just kept their distance.  And well, Mani...he was being Mani and being a bit dickish as he is (trying to become dominant kitty in the house) so they didn't get along at all (Probably a similar relationship that she had to Tor).  We'll miss her a lot.

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2018 - Week 3 Cooking Results

This week was shortened a bit by a trip up north to see The Killers, I learned something in discussions with my long time friend, one of which, we clearly need adult supervision (thanks to both our wives for a. allowing us to be us, and b. keeping us enough in line to not get into to many shenanigans).  Thursday evening, I was still recovering, Shannon brought home dinner.  Thanks to to my friend for taking me along, lets do it again (after our livers have recovered a bit).

Sloppy Sammy's with Gorgonzola

Yeah...this really is good.  You should make it.

Pork Cutlet Cuban Sandwich

I used tortas as the buns, it was pretty good.  I had mine with the orange mustard sauce, Shannon not so much.  Pretty good sandwich.

Bourbon Mac & Cheese

I added a bit of Gorgonzola, reduced the bourbon a bit (knowing that Shannon wouldn't want to have to much of a flavor of bourbon) and swapped out potato starch for corn starch.  Not to bad.  Easy stove top mac and cheese. 

Spicy Black Bean Burgers

I skipped this one, I'll re-judge if I'm going to re-add it.

Taco Salad

This really isn't the same way twice, but I'm starting to see it as an excuse for me to buy jalapeno salsa and eat it.  Which well, a good chunk of my GI track doesn't support.  That being said, I do enjoy it as I eat it.  Later...maybe not so much.

Positives and Negatives

So as my mood slowly faded down, with a correction here and there, but the eventual decline.  My morning routine changed.  After my walk, instead of sitting down and eating breakfast and flipping / reading through my subscribed to cooking magazines, I spent quite a bit of time with cat lap time.  So this me sitting on a chair, flipping through the news on my phone, drinking my cold brew coffee with 2% milk and I'll usually be joined by Moonshadow, sometimes Mani, and occasionally Freya (sometimes two at a time).

Frankly I like this as a start to the day. 

Even after the cloud of misinterpretation has cleared, I realized that most of these magazines don't make sense.  Cook's Illustrated / Country, I subscribe to them online ($), so getting the paper copy doesn't really make sense to me.  Food & Wine turned into the direction of Saveur (more travel, more wine and a bit of food), which is why I let Saveur lapse a while ago (though Lucky Peach's extra time has re-subscribed me to Saveur).  Food & Wine also has an over saturation of ads, making their website obnoxious to use.  Bon Appetit, I'm debating on keeping that, I kept the renewal card from the most recent magazine, but I'm going to call amnesty on the stack of issues and just donate them for re-sale. (hopefully a quarter a piece for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland).

So on the other side of the cloud, I can see that some of the spending was wasteful (we're trying to cut back quite a bit), so it doesn't make a ton of sense to keep paying for them.  Others, I just don't enjoy enough to justify the cost.  Sure I'll pick up the Thanksgiving issues probably, but beyond that...

2018 - Week 3 Cooking

Last month, I had a medication change, which is starting to settle out into a good normalcy.  I have been inspired by the Hilarious World of Depression to be more open and honest about my struggle with my own brain.  The medication change was like taking off a filter of awfulness off the world (which, well is extra awful lately).  One of which is to be more open with Shannon about what is going on in my brain, because frankly, my shutting myself off is one of the first signs that things are starting to go downward.  At some point, I'll probably write about how the last year has gone, and how, looking back on it over the years, it's effected me, but I'm not quite ready for that.

On a separate note, I keep seeing in my Facebook memories about putting Gorgonzola on a sloppy joe, so uh..that's gonna happen.

Trying to change a pattern

As I struggle with my brain, I want to take a chance to publicly thank my partner in life, Shannon, as she keeps up the behaviors and requirements that make us successful participants in society.  Even though I've not been not very helpful, she keeps on and I really do appreciate it.

I have started to enact a plan, where I will use my phone or laptop to take notes throughout the week to make writing the notes on cooking more accurate and recently thought about and also take notes about what to cook for the next week.  This will also reduce the burden and time commitment on Sundays.

 

2017 - Week 46 Cooking Results

It was nice to shop at the Winter Market yesterday.  It seemed like such a general positive after sliding emotional state of the past...well...long while.  We took a little break at Sidebar, then continued shopping.  We picked up a Beaverdale map from DSM Foundry.  It kind of just drew us in.  From the people I had a chance to talk to, it was a very busy winter market.  I hope everyone did well.  Afterwards, I headed over to get a blowtorch.  I've wanted one for a while, but it's hard to justify as it has a limited set of use, however, Thanksgiving being special, it pushed it over, plus I had a Lowe's gift card which paid for almost half of it.  I've got the custard made, I have the sugar, now I just got to test it.  That being said, there are a lot of instructions for handling a blowtorch, for how relatively easy it is.

Elizabeth Street Cafe's Chicken & Rice Soup

This was quite good.  Perhaps plan on not having leftovers.  The rice eventually soaked up all the liquid to turn into a semi-risotto type dish (still good, but not soup).

Smoked Cheddar and Ham Toasties with Fig Mostarda

Did I perhaps use an excessive amount of prosciutto in these?  Like $7 / sandwich?  Maybe.  Was it delicious?  Absolutely.

Hot Dogs

Om nom nom.  I found a stash that I believe I may have intended to use when the family was here this past spring, and didn't for some reason.  So All pork hot dogs will continue for a while yet.

Chipotle Meatballs

Not that these would've been hard to make, but on Friday I wasn't feeling great, so I simplified it a bit and followed the ingredients, sort of, and made taco salad.  It was good.

Baked Mac & Cheese

Half a box of elbow macaroni left, what else would I do with it?  Shannon was pleased.

Sloppy Joes

Not as spicy as I would normally make things, but good none the less.

That point where you know you have been spoiled rotten on sourdough, and lesser ones just don't taste right.

We used a locally produced "sourdough" bread to make grilled cheese and Salame Rosa (which was a wonderful suggestion from the Cheese Shop.  The sandwhich was good, the bread in and of itself was lack luster.

A bit of a personal side bar.

So this month has been rough.  On top of the external stressors, my work Grandma (Judy / Juju) passed suddenly.  I think she had been retired for just under a year.  It really hit me hard.  Then this past Tuesday, I had already processed the loss of my Grandma (dad's mom, also my last grandparent), as she has become less and less there and even said so in my therapy appointment, however when the seriousness of her condition started to get expressed around my family, my normal reflection time took on a very emotional connotation as the songs playing at the Cheese Shop reminded me of the past (Time in a bottle really pushed me over the edge).  So I held back and pondered and became more and more morose.  Decided I wouldn't be able to cook, and with some texting back and forth with Shannon ordered dinner to take home.

I then became a blubbering mess.  I fell asleep at some point and eventually made it upstairs to go to bed.

I think Grandma is really the source of the Food is Love in my family.  Making sure there were always good food to share and eat and cookies in the cookie jar.  A lot of our fond family traditions revolved around the food she made.

I'll miss my grandma, but I feel that she has left a strong desire in my to have people around me enjoy the food I make for them.

2017 - Week 31 Cooking

I'm starting to let me cooking magazines fall by the wayside.  I don't get as much enjoyment out of them as I used to.  I'll let then go as they expire.  I still plan on keeping up the digital subscriptions I have.  I have a stack of magazines I haven't even cracked open.  Maybe cause I've been worried about other things?  Who knows.  Maybe I'll make a different call later.

Tomatoes this time around are from Grade A Gardens.