Lunch: Flatbread Monday?

So, for lunch today, I decided to do some spicy Thai mussels. Yum. No recipe... just went along.

Coconut milk, a whap of panang curry paste, and a quartered lime....


Bring that to a simmer, dump in a package of frozen greenshell mussels....


Mussel dishes require bread. REQUIRE, I say. You need something to gop up all the lovely sauce.

How about some flat bread (AKA "flutbread" if you happen to be a no-talent host on the Food Network) to go along with it, since you happen to have extra pizza dough leftover from Friday??

Smeared the dough with a little garlic-chili paste, threw it in the oven and ta-dah.......



Mmmm...... back to the mussels...



Very tasty (gotta remember how well mussels go with coconut milk). And very easy.

Pizza Friday: The Veggie Pizza I Want To Marry

I think I'm getting pretty good at this pizza thing.

Today, I was originally going to eat leftovers from last night's Taco Night for lunch.

Aaaaaand when I woke up this morning, I saw that I left the taco meat out on the counter all night. Go me.

So, decided to use up some tomatoes I had on hand and go for a nice veggie-tastic pizza.

I started out my crust, and I actually tossed the plain crust in the oven for two minutes before topping it, since I was working with some pretty wet toppings.

Partly cooked pizza crust, topped with tomatoes went in for another two minutes.



Add some canned/drained artichokes, and some garlic. A tomato/garlic pizza has been on my mind... I don't know if it was last weekend or the weekend before, but it was the Printer's Row Book Fair downtown. I was about 12 or 13 when I went there with my friend from church, Erin. Erin lived in our neighborhood, but she went to school in Chicago. It was quite exciting that we got to take the train downtown by ourselves, no parents, and then walk over to the book fair before having lunch at Uno's. And Erin ordered us her favorite pizza... tomato and garlic. And it was good.



Oh yeah, add cheese. Without cheese, it's just flatbread. I also added some oregano from the garden.



Out of the oven.....



For a meatless meal, I sure liked this. A lot. I considered marrying this pizza, until I decided that I'd rather just finish it off. Urph.

Why'd you have to go and be all helpful????

So, when my elliptical busted on Tuesday, I called the extended warranty folks. Actually, I tried to go to their website first, but it apparently got poached and it is now a Jesus site. Doesn't inspire confidence.

I didn't write down the name of the dude I talked to on Tuesday. For further purposes of this tale, we'll call him "Crackhead". I had to tell Crackhead my home phone number three times and I had to correct my cellular number twice when I gave it to him.

I was supposed to get a call from the company that would be doing the repair to set up an appointment for today.

Today came and went, no phone call to set up the appointment, no one stopped by.

I am an unemployed woman right now. I have nothing better to do than make sure that they take care of this for me.

I spent a part of the day stewing, working myself up to a proper frenzy to call this company back and give them hell to make sure they knew it'd be easier to just take care of my problem quickly rather than drag their heels.

I finally did make the call, and unlike Crackhead, Sarah was quite helpful.

Even though Crackhead didn't enter my home number correctly.

Or my cellular number.

Or my home address.

Thankfully, even after I took the hubby's last name, I was lucky enough to get something fairly uncommon as a last name (my maiden name was better... I think the only people in the US with that name are related to me and can be tracked back to some family member). When someone like Crackhead gets all your other information wrong, it's at least easy to say "search W-R-O" and have the nice person find your name without too huge of a hassle.

And from how Sarah handled the call, apparently Crackhead was supposed to give me the claim number (he didn't) and the name of the company that would be doing the repair (c'mon... what do you think? Of course Crackhead did not give me that!). Sarah was even nice enough to contact the company for me while I waited, to give them the CORRECT phone numbers and contact information, and I should be expecting a call from them tomorrow. And she even told me that if I don't hear from them by noon to give them a call, and gave me their number.

I was really, really looking forward to getting majorly mad on the phone. Then I had to go and get some actual good service. There went that plan.

I've worked customer service lines before, and I fully understand when someone else mucked something up, it's usually not the fault of the poor person that gets the follow up call. So I remained kind and polite with Sarah, trying to be as gracious as I could for her assistance. Wasn't her fault that Crackhead was... well... a crackhead.

So, Thank you, Sarah!

Cram it wherever your species traditionally crams things*, Crackhead!

Hopefully that will be the only drama about getting this elliptical fixed. Even though I suspect it won't be.


* That'd be one of my favorite "Futurama" quotes ever.


Update! - Wow, the power of the last name! Repair dude actually called me tonight, and after he correctly pronounced the last name (which, even my own mother can't do) he asked if I was related to so-and-so with the same last name. And, why yes, I am! Turns out repair dude know hubby's cousin. I'm oddly optimistic right now.

I think I should have used a bigger pot....

So, awhile back I made a tamale-lentil casserole thing. Loved the filling, was not as fond of the cornbread topping. IMHO, it needed something less-sweet than the usual boxed cornbread mixture.

But, I still liked the concept. And I started to crave it again.

Why not use the general concept to make some lentil chili-type thing?

And, rather than the 1 1/4 cups of lentils, why not use the entire stinkin' bag so you're not left with 3/4 cup of lentils? (I hate recipes that leave you with amounts of an ingredient that you can't easily use for another purpose. HATE.)

Sauteed some onions and garlic, added a bag of red lentils, about 5 1/2 cups of water, a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes, a can of Rotel, some leftover tomato sauce, a drained can of corn, and a packet of taco seasoning.



Yes, it bubbled over and there is currently a mess on my stove. Yay.

But, a nice low-fat, fiber filled chili means one thing... bring on the toppings!



Oyster crackers, cheese, low fat sour cream. Yum. Thank goodness we're in unseasonable cool weather and not pushing 90 degrees.

Afternoon activities in these parts is actually doing some sewing. Woooo fun.

So, many years back, I feel in big-time love with the Ralph Lauren Aragon bedding. Leopard print. Loved it so much, I bought an entire extra set - including comforter.

A million years later (ok, like 10) both sets have seen better days. I blame the hubby's toenails. I swear, those things could cut glass when he lets them get to long.

There is currently a nice little tear right where I grab the covers to pull them up every morning after the first alarm goes off. So every morning for the past week, I am reminded that I should really sew that up. Great way to start a day. A nice reminder that I'm not working so I can't just drop it at the cleaners to have them fix it, or shell out mucho bucks for a replacement comforter since RL apparently decided to finally stop making this print a couple years back.

Going through the linen closet, I found my "box-o-sewing-stuff and various junk leftover from other craft projects" and found, among other things, a half-done and abandoned hairpiece I was working on more than several years back...




Weee! Fun with fake hair.

Now we'll see if I manage to get around to the sewing, or if I decide to play with fake hair for the rest of the afternoon.

Lunch for One

For the second time since I bought my elliptical, a workout was halfway interrupted by the stinkin' thing breaking. This time, apparently a nice crack in the metal of the left handlebar.


Ugh.

Last time it broke, it was still under the manufacture's warranty, and it wasn't too bad to get them to send parts and a repair dude after I sent them a copy of my receipt.

This time around, it's under the extended service warranty. I was highly concerned when I went to their listed website address, the URL is apparently now owned by some Jesus-y website. Not the warranty company.

So, I had to call them, but after repeating all of my information three times, they were more than happy to schedule me for an appointment at my latest inconvenience. So, dude coming by on Thursday to likely go "Yep, that's a crack!" and then wait for them to try to get parts.

Looks like I might have to look into talking some walks around the local forest preserve to get in exercise for the next few days.

But, at least lunch cheered me up.

I love fish, the husband hates fish. I also love balsamic browned butter, and the hubby also hates that. And I love green/yellow/purple beans. Any guess on the hubby's opinion on those?? Yeah.

So, put that all together for a lovely lunch...




Mahi mahi filet, the sauce, and some beans that I steamed. Tres yum.

Now, I just need to figure out what the heck to do with the chicken legs I bought for dinner tonight.

Pizza Friday (And Saturday.... on a Sunday)

Bad blogger, reporting for duty!

Howdy there folks... apparently my particular little case of the blahs leaked into this week. Hurrah? I had posts I wanted to do, but little motivation to do them.

Add in me pulling one of those "mucho important" muscles in my neck while cleaning on Friday, and I've been trying not to move too much since. I was even feeling better this morning, and a bout of laughter did me in again. I finally buckled today and went out to get one of those "heat up in the microwave" warmer things and can move my head again. Yay?

Anyway... I continued with the new tradition of Pizza Friday around here. Found a slightly modified pizza crust recipe and had a go with that.

I actually halved the dough so I could try and get a thinner crust. Worked out pretty well.

Pizza crust, topped with fresh mozz, tomato confit and some diced raw tomato since they were about to go south, and some oregano and basil from the garden...



Out of the oven.... mmm.... tasty....



Overeall... a little "meh" but still good. I might have actually preferred some aged mozz on it. I donno.

We woke up early on Saturday 'cause the hubby unit was going in early to work. When he got home, it was lunch time, and I just so happened to have the extra pizza dough in the fridge.

More pizza, anyone??



This was actually some pizza sauce with some extra garlic, salami, a mix of fresh and aged mozz, sprinkle of romano and parm, and oregano from the garden. I left off the basil and just added some to my pieces at the end... hubby is NOT a basil fan.






Mmmmm... bubbly crispy done.

I might have to look into finding myself an ungalzed quary tile (cheaper than a pizza stone). The parchment paper actually does a fair job of wicking away some moisture to get a crispy crust, but I'm curious about stone, now.

Hopefully, I'll be more motivated during the upcoming week. I still need to get my post about French Toast done.

Best Thing You Ever Ate

So... while I had Food Network on over the weekend, they had an ad for some "Best Thing I Ever Ate" show, that is apparently a rerun. I guess I pay far less attention to Food Network than I used to.

For some reason, the thought got stuck in my head.

I asked the hubby last night, and being indecisive as he tends to be sometimes, he had to throw things into categories. Surprisingly, as he went through his list, some of my food actually made the list (yay!). Chili and ribs. Oh, and my meatballs. Even if she was not my blood grandmother, I don't think you can have an Italian grandmother and not know how to make a good meatball.

It took me a little while to think about it, but I easily came to one answer. Beef tartar and pommes Dauphine from Guy Savoy in Vegas. Hands down. No question.

I've tried to find a picture, but Google image has failed me. Sorry.

I can tell you that the "small bites" portion you can get in the bar is three spoons, one half of each filled with pommes Dauphine, the other half filled with the beef tartare.

And it's seriously like the best beef/potato combo you'll ever have. Really.

Cool beef tartar one half, slightly crispy and warm potato on the other. Perfect ratios. Perfect blending of the textures, the warmth and cold.

It has seriously ruined me for any other beef/potato combo in the world. Ever. A ButterBurger and Chili Cheese Fries from Culvers don't even compare anymore.

So... what's yours??