It is getting a little wild around here - and I am not talking about the awful wind storm we had last night. The painters were here all day yesterday, painting Lisa bedroom and sitting room walls. Beautiful! The contractor came today and finished-up the last few things and the bathroom remodel is finished. As soon as I buy some towels, I will post photos of the completed bathroom. John is bringing a professional photographer to the house to capture the bathroom remodel for his company website, and I will be able to borrow a few of these shots for this website.
I must have a great publicist.
In our spare time, we are readying the house for weekend guests - Dave's college roommate and his family will join us for the USC game - and on Monday DT and I will head out for a week or two in the RV! (Please note: this website is called "RV GODDESS"... so I thought it might be a good idea to actually use our motorhome.) Tomorrow afternoon, we will take a whole buncha stuff to the Magna Peregrinus, so we won't have to load anything except ourselves into the RV before driving two hours to Autzen Stadium Saturday morning.
Game time: 5p pacific. ABC. Be there! Snow is predicted.
Today, after meeting with the contractor, I went to the post office. The liquor store. The bank. Trader Joe's. Lunch with Lisa's Godmother. National chain supermarket. Drugstore. Salon. Then to our new fabulous neighborhood New Seasons Market. Then I came home and started cooking.
This is why I had to go to three grocers. One market does not carry exactly what I need for my very popular snack mix: Trader Joe's Sesame Sticks, Corn Nuts, cocktail peanuts, honey roasted peanuts, cheddar goldfish and pretzel goldfish. Nothing very healthy here. Nothing "low sodium".
When mixed together, the six relatively-small packets of foods produce about 15 cups of snack mix. No cooking required. Okay, so now you have one of my most popular recipes. Pretty freaking gourmet.Next I made a lasagna for our dinner Monday night. As you may remember, we have a tradition of lasagna on our first night on a RV trip. Usually I make it ahead of time (using a recyclable aluminum pan) half-bake the casserole, freeze it and vacuum-seal the entire lasagna.
This time I made a super low-fat lasagna. Don't tell DT, but instead of ricotta, I used fat-free cottage cheese. We will see how this goes over... especially since I did not use any mozzarella at all, but only a teeny handful of grated parmesan over the top.
I suspect it will taste about the same as it always does.
And, I suspect DT will be so tired after a long day on the road, he will eat anything I place in front of him will enjoy the meal. But just in case, I will make sure he has a big glass or wine first.While the lasagna was partially-baking, I whipped-up a batch of Crunchy Roasted Chickpeas from the Umami Girl website. (Carolyn cracks me up.)
What could be simpler than putting two cans of rinsed and dried garbanzo beans in the oven for 45 minutes, tossing them with a little oil and spices and then roasting them for a few more minutes? Crunchy and so incredibly healthy.
And (for me) I kinda really followed her recipe... I tossed the chickpeas in 1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil with ½ teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon Kosher Salt and ¼ teaspoon garlic powder.These nutty snacks just call out for a cocktail. Jack Daniels? But I did not!
No!
No?
No!
I baked cookies instead.
An experiment, using Biscoff Spread instead of peanut butter. Then I rolled the dough into balls and coated them with ground-up Biscoff cookies before baking.
A product of Belgium, Biscoff Spread - also known as Speculoos - is similar in consistency to peanut butter, and contains ground-up Biscoff Cookies. It is really sweet.
So really all I did was make cookies out of a spread that is made of ground-up cookies. I'm fairly sure there is some method to my cookie madness.
I think.
Then I served DT a delicious Chicken Caesar Salad (that I bought ready-to-go at New Seasons because I'm not as wacko as I may appear).
Then I went to bed.
Until my next update, I remain, your nutty correspondent.