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I've been meaning to post this really good recipe for homemade chicken caesar salad, which we had on Monday. I think it's so much better than what you get at many restaurants. It's from our Everyday Food recipe book, and you can bring up the recipe by clicking here. Oh- and we do not add the anchovies. Ick! The salad makes for good leftovers too (no mushy croutons!). We add shredded Parmesan cheese on top, because, in our opinion, what's a caesar salad without that?!
It's time for the website of the week!
This week I'm featuring the Trulia real estate search, a site I learned about at a housing seminar I attended a few weeks ago. This may be one of those examples where I was the last to learn about this great resource, but I thought I'd post it in case there are others like me who had not heard of it before. We're probably a ways from buying a home here in Chi-town (I'm still waiting for that distant great aunt I've never heard of or met to bequeath me a large sum of money for our down payment and am hoping she does it SOON before home prices go back up). I am starting to sniff around in hopes of becoming somewhat decently educated on the subject before plowing into something that is way over our heads.
I think this should help out! I'm starting to learn about the features that come with the free account. For example you can save the houses you view that you like, and can ask Trulia to update you on similar homes for sale. Each listing provides the local schools with parents' reviews, the recent price reductions, pictures, links to the realtor's website, etc. You can also search for open houses if you've got a lazy Sunday on your hands. AND, there's a pretty neato iphone/ipod touch app for Trulia that allows you to view all this stuff while you're out and about.
If you are planning to go out and buy a house, Trulia is a great place to start. Good luck :-)
See this man? Thanks to him, I was able to come home from work, run the dishwasher, get our dinner started, and receive all my groceries at my door as my chicken cooked on the skillet. The timing could not have been better, and now thanks to Peapod, we have a stocked fridge. This man must have sent his friend to our place instead today, but I was still more than happy to receive any Peapod employee this evening.
In buying from Peapod and comparison shopping, there are a few things I have learned. Peapod is great for when you need basic interchangeable food items and can do most your shopping from their weekly specials list (which, be forewarned, runs from Wednesday-Tuesday, not Sunday-Saturday like most stores. I found out the hard way when I saved an order on a Tuesday night only to log in on Wednesday to find everything back to regular price). Outside of weekly specials, Peapod's prices can be a bit on the steep end, especially for meat and name-brand items like Nabisco crackers, etc. We've even come across some fruits and vegetables that we feel are expensive, whereas other produce items have come at a great price. Speaking of their produce- I've not once been disappointed. The bell peppers we've received have been gynormous (yes that's a word), and everything we've purchased has arrived very flavorful and fresh. Tonight we received some blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, cucumbers, zuchini, squash, apples, oranges, nectarines, and peaches, and they all arrived looking stellar.
Peapod also has weekly specials on non-food items, and (FINALLY!) they ran a special on a facial cleanser for which I also had a manufacturer coupon. You just give your friendly Peapod delivery man the manufacturer coupons when he arrives, and the next day you receive an email with your adjusted total. The first few times you use Peapod you're eligible for some good store coupons (like $5 off your first order and super amazing things like that). As much as my husband and I have googled " Peapod coupon codes," nothing has come up that is legit for us to use any longer. So, alas, no cheating with coupon codes.
And, let's please not forget one of the best parts of ordering from Peapod, which is the convenience factor. Good God there's nothing better or easier. For me, when I have what can be called a "Peapod kinda week," the $7 fuel and delivery charge is worth every penny to not have to get in the car, slowly inch along Diversey or Wrightwood for 30 minutes, to then weave through 500 other people at the grocery store at its busiest time (which, when you don't get home until 6pm most days, is basically any time you're not at work). I have to say, that while you need to be cognizant of some of the pricing, I feel that you save oodles using Peapod because there are no impulsive purchases that have tempted each and every one of us, without fail, while walking past the display at the grocery store (ahem Scooby Doo toy in the cereal box!).
So, my vote is two thumbs up for Peapod. If you live in the Peapod-less 'burbs, I am sorry. It is a terrific benefit to have this option. However, you folk can usually zip to the store and back while reaching speeds of greater than 30 mph, which from a city dweller's viewpoint, is comprable to having super powers. Who needs grocery delivery with that?!
mmmmm yummy! Homemade chicken enchilada with rice.
Eh never mind. Who am I kidding? This is a Lean Cuisine. For several years I have prided myself in the fact that I have not caved in to having a frozen meal for dinner. Don't get me wrong- I am a big proponent of using a frozen meal for work lunches. And frozen pizzas for dinner I'm all about (especially Newman's Own, California Pizza Kitchen, or Gino's East frozen pizzas. Even Digiorno pizzas with the self-rising crust are good). Yet individual frozen meals, in the little plastic containers with the separate sterile side dish holders, don't exude the warmth of the social dinner experience that I so enjoy.
Sadly, this week that all fell apart. With my husband away at a music festival last Sunday, I found myself with a newly organized bookcase but no plan for dinner. And so I heated up this meal that you see above. And yes, I plated it because doing so made me feel like less of a slacker. Now, I can forgive myself for this, but it happened again last night when my husband was off chasing President Obama around Lincoln Park. For the past few weeks I have fallen into a meal planning slump. Yes I posted the Jerk Chicken recipe last Friday, but that was a true anomaly compared to how I've felt for most of my dinner plannings. Heck, we even went to the grocery store a couple weeks ago WITHOUT A LIST. We walked around with my coupon book, and actually did pretty well on our produce, cereal, yogurt, and other staples, but no true meal planning was had.
I guess it's been one of those months. I've been swamped at work, and that's even with having a fairly routine clinic and no complicated patient issues this week (thank goodness). In attempts to prioritize my work load, I came up with 4-5 options that all tied for the top. Wednesday evening rolled around and in considering my "to do" list I thought, Oh no, how can it already be Thursday tomorrow?! We had family in town earlier this week, and I didn't even have munchies to set out for them!
It gets worse. I laid on the couch contemplating a nap until 8:30 this evening, when my husband and I decided that, indeed, we needed to eat. While getting ready to head out to the Mayan Palace, Dateline NBC came on with Keith Morrison. "It was a happily ever after ending...or was it?" he squeaked. We looked at each other and decided, yes, we would rather spend our Friday evening on the couch watching an investigative report on a man who may have killed his family rather than sip margaritas on the rocks in a room full of jovial and energetic Friday night-Chicagoans. Absolutely.
And so this was our dinner tonight:
Recently I encountered a sad fact- my body is no longer the spritely being it once was. Now, I know by saying this, many of you are thinking, "what in the heck is she talking about? She's still in her twenties! Silly girl!" But please let me explain. Growing up I was always in some type of a dance class or another and competed in highland dancing in my teens. It was great fun, and still to this day I spontaneously go into some highland step while stirring risotto on the stove or brushing my teeth (my husband's gotten used to the sudden thumping from the next room, and I'm sure our downstairs neighbors love it). Back in March of this year, I started taking lessons at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Irish dance, a new style of dance for me that is similar to Highland in some respects but also very different (and at least my arms get a break). New steps! New dance shoes!
Well, at dance 3 weeks ago, I pulled a muscle. Badly. It wasn't too sore afterward, but a few days later I irked it further by whatever goofy way I got up off the couch (typical) and OWIE it hurt like crazy! I tried jumping on it and just couldn't, and as a result had to miss 2 weeks worth of classes (which I paid for in advance, so it's painful in more than one way). Anyways, my realization is that I probably should no longer be doing random highcuts without stretching first. I am slowly becoming the tin man, and need extra oiling.
It's time for another website of the week!
Today I am featuring a food blog called "chik n' pastry" which is written by my friend Heather.
I met Heather over 2 years ago at our weekly Chicago genetic counselors board exam study group (man those nights were hoppin'!). Shortly afterward, we ended up working at the same institution (she doing pediatric genetic counseling, and me doing prenatal). Heather began to get a little tired of the "go to work go home" routine, and took an amazing leap into culinary school. She is now a genetic counselor by day, student chef by night, which I think is just an awesome feat. If that wasn't enough, she recently switched jobs and is now doing cancer counseling. She's organized our super-fun Iron Chef parties among a group of local genetic counselors and friends, which I'll make sure to blog about in the future.
I hope you enjoy her blog as much as I do. I've been able to taste her cooking firsthand at our Iron Chef parties and it is yummy. Check out her chocolate basil cake and strawberry pizza recipes. Mmmmm!
Enjoy!
Battle Coconut!
Heather's pizza from Battle Strawberry
I've always loved beautifully organized bookshelves. Bookshelves are such a focal point in a room, and as a renter, rearranging your bookcase is really the biggest decorating outlet you have (without risking losing your security deposit!). Quite a while ago, the Red Eye Chicago featured a "how to spruce up a small space" article, and one of their suggestions was to color-coordinate the books in your bookshelf. I've been strongly considering it ever since and this afternoon decided to take the plunge! Come to find out through doing a Google search that this is a newer trend and a lot of people have done some really cool bookcase makeovers using this technique. My friend Kim didn't think she could do it because her collection is so large and she likes organizing her books by topic. I can definitely see where this technique wouldn't work for those die-hard book fans. My husband and I don't hang on to every book that we read (it's rare now for us to buy books from the bookstore instead of getting them used or from the library) and recently in an effort to de-clutter, we rid ourselves of many of our books, which honestly felt great! Some people have told us that they could never get rid of their books. I think I felt that way once upon a time, but living in a teensy space for this long has prompted me to try to shed as many of our possessions as possible (don't get me started on my husband's magazines!). Perhaps after we've moved into our mansion we'll work on building up our library again :-)
Here is the before:
Here's the after:
When people ask me how I use manufacturer coupons to find such good deals, I tell them that I imagine myself as a cheetah crouched patiently in the grasses while waiting for a gazelle to go happily skipping by. As you can imagine, this description is frequently followed by an "Okaayyy..." and a hasty shuffle to a different corner of the dinner party. But I mean what I say. I collect the coupons each week from the Sunday paper that I think I'll eventually use, and then I just wait for a store, be it Walgreens, Target, or a grocery store, to feature that same item as their weekly store special. And that's when I move in, using both the store special and the manufacturer coupon to buy our toiletries, cereal and other groceries, and household items for dirt cheap. Mind you, this waiting game can take a few weeks, but I promise you, the majority of the time it works. You just need to be patient and pounce when the heavens find you a match.
For example, last week Walgreens had a special on Colgate toothpaste. Regularly $2.99, they had a special where you received a $1 coupon back for the purchase. Plus, there in my coupon booklet (from The Container Store) was a $1 off manufacturer coupon. So, in essence, we got the toothpaste for less $1 (even though the $1 off Walgreens coupon will be used at a future visit).
If you think through these things, you can create similar scenarios for all the daily items you use. Hair products, toilet cleaner, Glade scented oils, Uncle Ben's Rice, frozen food, etc etc. Yes, it takes some time, but it really is quite quick and easy, especially if you keep your coupons organized. I'm also big on convenience, and doing this has to be conducive to your daily grind. Last week there was nothing else I needed from Walgreens, but it was still no big deal to run in there just for toothpaste since it's literally on my walk home from work. If I lived outside of the city, and had a minivan full of kids, this probably wouldn't be as feasible. And I get that.
I am getting a little off track from the reason that I initially sat down to do this post, which is that I think that Walgreens is beginning to grow smart to people like me. The past few months, their store specials have not been very impressive at all, and have rarely matched with recent manufacturer coupons. For 2 months now, I've been waiting for Walgreens to have a special on face cleanser that matches a manufacturer coupon, and there has been nothing! I have manufacturer coupons for Dove, Olay, and Noxema facial cleansers, and Walgreens has not run a special on any of these (nor has Target, for that matter). It's to the point now where I'm down to my last few uses of my current Biore cleanser, and I may have to drag myself to the store to get a cleanser using just the $1 off manufacturer coupon and no store special. It's enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. Especially when I know that next week, after I've been forced to go out and make this sub-optimal purchase, Walgreens will run the special that I need.
Don't #*&% with me, Walgreens!
I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I tally up the items we have in the fridge and pantry and find a recipe in our stash that can connect the dots. In taking inventory a few days ago, we had frozen chicken breasts, greens onions, pineapple, orange juice, and black beans, and this brought to my mind a Jamaican Jerk Chicken recipe that I cut out of an issue of Real Simple over a year ago. When we made this before, we bought a jar of jerk sauce (we got the Target Archer Farms brand) which was also still chillin' in the fridge. So, in the end, all I had to do was pop into Marketplace on my walk home for a chunk of ginger and some brown rice (which we were out of somehow!).
This is a really yummy and flavorful dish and I was thinking about it all day. Ironically, my favorite part of the meal is the part that really involves no recipe at all- the rice and beans! I could probably eat rice and beans for every meal. The jerk sauce makes the chicken incredibly flavorful. Don't worry if you're not into spicy food. Just take the chicken off the skillet and don't spoon any extra sauce on top- it'll still have a great taste with less heat. If you like the spice, go to town and pour the sauce all over. The pineapple really complements the kick.
While we sat on the floor and ate this dinner off our coffee table, our cat Major sat in between us and wanted nothing else but a piece of chicken passed down to him. He surely did not understand that jerk sauce is really not something that a kitty should mess with. We made the mistake of giving him some pork chop bits a while ago and it was a bad idea. He has a very good memory. At first he looked all cute, and as the minutes passed he got the biggest look of disgust on his face as he realized his chances were becoming slimmer and slimmer. We got a kick out of it.
This was when he started to realize things weren't going his way.
And then he just got pissed.
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