Food! My most favorite subject.

I swore to myself last time that I would keep up with this. And I just can't. I have always had a hard time focusing on anything for any length of time and on top of that, I have a hard time keeping still. If you were to ask Johnny, he'd tell you how I can't even sit down when I'm at home until I've completely exhausted myself. I'm sure I drive him absolutely bat-shit crazy. Enough about my weaknesses, lets focus on my strong points!

Like, getting everything done that I want to when it comes to food. I'm sure it's because I'm getting old, but over the years I've grown a real love for cooking. Especially grocery shopping. I can spend hours in a market, and spend lots of money too! But since we're "starving students" now, I have to be a little more careful of my spending. Before, Kelly (my BFF and old roommate) and I used to grocery shop together. Man! We could really do some damage! The checkers would even open up a lane just for us because they wanted to be able to see how much we could/would spend. And since we were shopping at VON'S, we'd wait to enter our member card until the very end and see how much we saved just for shits and giggles. I think the most we ever spent was like $1200. We'd usually save around $200-$300. No shit.

This was usually basket #1 of 2.

As long as we were buying fresh and healthy stuff, we didn't much look at prices. Split between three ladies for a full month of food (eating all three meals and snacks and not going out to eat), it isn't really too bad. It's a sickness that has carried on to my ways of shopping here in Laramie. It's a sickness I tell you! I blame Kelly. Even though it was probably all me.

Now that I don't make mad amounts of  money anymore and we're solely living off of Johnny's GI bill. My budget I set for myself is about $300 a month and that serves three meals a day for 2-3 people. Sometimes we'll even feed others since most of our friends don't eat too many home cooked meals very often. Knowing my budget when we first moved here, I ran to Sam's club and $1500 later, I stocked our house to the brim! Some may call it hoarding, I call it being prepared. Sam's club is still my bestest friend. So, cooking strategies were going to have to be thrifty and I was going to go further into the "made from scratch" world of cooking. Challenge accepted! Seriously though, how did we get so busy in this world that people stopped cooking from scratch and just started buying pre-made food instead? Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on others, I just don't see the cost effectiveness of it. Not to mention, the shit they put in food is just awful these days! I've experimented a lot over the last few years, and by experiment I mean: I've fucked up a lot of meals and doughs.

 

Here's a "cake" that I made, but instead of cake, it was a watermelon. Looks pretty right?? Well, I pre-cut it so it'd be easy to serve. BIG MISTAKE. It juiced everywhere like it was bleeding for a good day, day and a half. How can watermelon have so much damn juice in it?? My refrigerator did not appreciate it at all. Neither did I once I dragged myself to clean it all up.

 

And then there's the altitude problem. It really is no joke. You have to change a lot of what  you know in the cooking world. It's quite humbling, and infuriating if you're trying to make nice stuff. Like this German chocolate cake I attempted to make for Johnny's birthday last year.

 

All made from scratch, and all down the trash bin. I even bought some expensive ass chocolate and melted it all down to be part of the batter. I also learned the parchment paper is not supposed to reach up to the brim. Inside that cake, was mush. Inedible, ugly mush.

 

Which is why today I'm going to talk about my successful (so far) pie crusts instead. I swear, I CAN cook!

 

On my small budget, I still manage to buy unbromated, unbleached flour. Flour is seriously like the holy grail for me. Look at it in all it's spectacularness!!

 

 

I won't cut flour out of our diets, but I can at least choose a more healthier option. God I love flour.

I found this recipe on Face book, and I've really liked it so far! I'm sure I'll stray away from it and find another, but this is what I use for now. (Erica- you should try this one)

Here's the dough, all mixed. And I left in the pastry cutter to show my mother in law my appreciation for this gift. Seriously, such a life saver.

So there you have it folks. Within 20 minutes or less I had ten pie crusts made and in the freezer, waiting for me to make something delicious.

In case I haven't proven my case enough, check the price of a box of pre-made crust, and look at the ingredients. I'm not a health freak, and I realize my crust is made with shortening, but if I don't know what one of the ingredients are, I'm not happy with the product as a whole. Plus it's just plain cheap to make! I don't always have a lot of time either, but I can spare 20 minutes a day to stock up on whatever I need and most of all, save money so we're not on a Top Ramen budget. You can totally make $300 a month budget work if you're willing to put in the time.

Before I end, here's a cute picture of Johnny getting dinner ready one night. Potatoes on the bottom, veggies and meat on the top. Zucchini, bell peppers, onion, and chicken sausage. Season it, cover it up, throw it on the grill and 30 minutes later, wonderfulness that is called dinner.

 

Here's another picture of Johnny.

 

Happy Thursday everyone! Thanks for listening to my nonsense!
Next time I'll talk about starting my second attempt at a garden. I'm sure I'll manage to fuck that one all up too like last years crop.

 

 

 

Does Anyone Even Read/Write Blogs Anymore?

 I feel like an ancient dinosaur reviving this blog again. I'm not even sure what possessed me to come back to it after all these years, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with my new obsession with the Pioneer Woman, who is a chef on a ranch in Oklahoma. She has an awesome blog of cooking, her farm, family, photography, restoring old buildings etc, and I just love her. She writes about everything I love. And then I remembered, I once wrote a blog. So, I logged on to this old thing and I sat here and ignored my school work as I laughed hysterically at my previous stuff. I encourage you to go back a few stories and read at least one from our (Kelly and I) camping trip. I'll be funny. Man, I do miss those days of craziness with Kelly aka- My Kokie Lee. There really is no such thing as a replacement for your best girlfriend. But lives do move on and change is always happening in every ones lives. Thankfully, she has no choice but to keep loving me because we are totally each others person, so I am more than sure that we will have more ridiculous times to share on this post. Sorry man, you just aren't getting rid of me that easily.
Also, on a previous blog, this was the guy I was thinking she should totally hook up with a few years back.

Turns out, he ended up being my husband to be instead. At that point, the three of us would have never believed that, but it is definitely true. We were all oblivious to what the future had in store. Thank every star out there that they never hooked-up. Can you say - Awkward!!!!
Fast-forward: It's no surprise to anyone now, that I had met my future husband and moved to Wyoming to fulfill both our dreams. Yes, I quit my job that I was terrified to leave (I still hate that place to this day) and started going to school full time!
                                 Biggest. Dream. Ever.
On top of that, Johnny got to start working on his dream and go to school full-time as well! Winning! But seriously, I never imagined getting married. It was always a nice idea in theory, but I did not believe that I would ever find someone that could just run wild with me. Someone that would still love me after I was totally cranky, sleep-deprived, "get me my coffee and no one gets hurt", crazy self. And someone that could slow down when I wanted to stop running wild, and then speed back up again with me when I needed wind in my hair. He totally does that. Amongst all the other wonderful things that he does, and is. He didn't even run when he met my crazy family. Score! But since I'm about to barf from all the mushy romantic stuff, I'll move on.
We moved to Wyoming, and back to the country life that I love so much. Santa Ynez had totally ruined me, and I could never get the country living out of my blood after that.
So here we are. Poor, filling our brains with more info than we could ever retain, and trying to make a go of our lives. At least we're happy though. It totally sucks being away from our families, but I took the advise that my mom gave me (that woman really is smart! Of course I would have not agreed when I was 13), and set out to the unknown.
"There are planes, trains, and automobiles. If we miss you that much, it's easy to visit. You go out, get away, and do what you've wanted to do."
She once lived in Montana, and I can still see the gleam in her eyes when she talks of it. And since I've had dreams of living in different states, (Montana being #1) that's exactly what we are doing!
I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog. Last time it was an attempt to try new things to get my life going again. And while that was fun, I was the WORST at keeping up with it. So, for now we'll keep it as a way to keep my family and friends up to date without boring everyone else on Facebook. Sometimes I want to post things that I don't feel all of FB should know, so I'll keep it here. I'm sure I'll have cooking stuff on here, garden stuff, school stuff and such since that's basically my life, but I'll try to remember to post my most funny stories too. Here's one that still makes me laugh:

My first garden. I have about a 5x3 foot garden bed that I tried to plant vegetables in, by seed, organically, non-gmo seeds, for my first time. I put in a lot of hours revamping this area since no one ever took care of it.

 

All was going well, I even named them my "babies" and cared for them more than three times a day. I raised the seeds in boxes and planters until they were ready to be planted. They were so happy!

 

 

Helpful advise from my neighbors was that we had a SHORT growing season and you had to be quick! So July 1st, they were ready (2 months into my 4 month growing season I learned about too late) to be planted and it hailed. HARD! So hard, it killed half my plants. Leaves were broken, the manure was pocked with holes, and my babies were holding on for dear life! We were out there tarping plants and getting nailed with relentless hail. I had two tomato plants, 3 zucchini, two lettuce, and about 6 spaghetti squash plants left (yes, I planted them wayyy too close together). Then a shit head rabbit came in, got past the barrier Johnny had built, and ate my last two lettuce plants. Two weeks later, it hailed again!! I lost 1 zucchini and 2 squash plants. August came, and so did the squash bugs.
                                 WTF are squash bugs??

4 spaghetti squash plants left. Thankfully, those still flourished and did beautifully!

 

 



Before you know it, it was September 1st. And the frost came. Then it snowed 2 minutes afterwards. Everything died. EVERYTHING. My squash was now the consistency of baby food. However, I managed to salvage about 4 individual squash and hid them in my garage. 3 turned to mush anyway, and one was left. I brought it inside and hid it until we were ready to eat it. My one sacred squash I had worked months for. We planned to make "spaghetti" and meat sauce so I threw it into the oven. Sweet victory, we could eat the fruits of our labor! Celebration time!

 

Well, staying in my usual character of delirium and excitement, I got distracted and forgot about the squash in the oven. My ONE squash! In.The.Oven! Needless to say, I burned the fuck out of it. It tasted burned and was not good. Completely over steamed and overcooked. So there I was. Almost in tears because I was down to the last of my garden and I totally blew it. I blew it! All those plants gone. All those months of watering and loving my babies. I still laugh at myself because of the luck of it all.

What are the freaking odds???

So, here's the last picture. My burned and discarded squash on the left, and the beautiful Mac-N-cheese with broccoli dinner Johnny made so that we could eat and so I wouldn't cry about having to make two dinners that night. What an experience for my first year of gardening.