perspicacious.org

[Giada's nutella wontons, for Valentine's Day.]

I'm fresh out of new pics for you, sorry. It's been hectic around these parts. I had a plan for this weekend, some of which I accomplished.

Some things I didn't do this weekend:

• bake bread
• clean the bathrooms
• bake something special for R
• prep (by labeling a jillion things) for my new student starting tomorrow
• start on next week's assignment for my research class

Some things I did do this weekend:

• write a cheese powerpoint for my multimedia class (I did follow the rubric, though)
• finish this week's assignment for my research class
• plans meals for two weeks and buy groceries
• 5 loads of laundry
• grade a 4 inch stack of papers
• make a fabulous pizza using this recipe for crust made in the food processor

I guess I did OK. Back to it again tomorrow. 2 weeks 'till spring break, though!

Here are some linkies for you to peruse. Enjoy!

cooking

• How about some lemon artichoke pesto on homemade ravioli for dinner tonight? (I'm waiting for R's vote here.)

• These cornish game hens are darling and could not be easier.

• The kitsch factor makes this icebox cake so appealing to me. We were going to have one for Valentine's dessert, but ended up making these instead. (With homemade raspberry syrup, which I highly recommend.)

• I did end up making this no-knead bread in the dutch oven. It takes ages, but is very easy. I substituted whole wheat flour for one cup of the white, and I only had active dry yeast instead of instant, so I had to proof it a bit. It turned out lovely, though.

things to make and do

• Turn basically any paper into a gorgeous perfect-bound journal.

• Love this clever idea to make up some silly one minute sculpture cards ahead of time and play with your kids when the mood strikes you. Keep your camera out!

• Gread read on children as consumers and how to (hopefully) raise children who can make informed choices about what they buy and why.

• Pretty and easy marbelized paper.

Happy Presidents' Day to those of you in the US. I don't get the day off, but it is child-free because I have conferences. My last conference is a 1:00, so I'll have the afternoon to work and plan.

R made cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning.

She also put chocolate hearts all over the house for me to find. (Or did the Valentine fairy come? I'm not sure.)

We went last night for dinner (generously covered by a Christmas gift card we'd been saving). Today we're going to watch movies have some wine and bread and cheese. Sounds just perfect to me.

Happy Valentine's day to you! How lucky are we to have a whole Valentine Saturday? I am going to bake this bread. I'll let you know how it goes.

Almost forgot– go now and look at the gallery of unfortunate valentine cards. Hilarious.

We did a lot of fun stuff at the museum yesterday, but this hissing cockroach was by far the kids' favorite thing. Anyone who wanted to could touch and hold it. How much do you love the defiant arms crossed? Not to mention that she's wearing a Fruit Loops shirt and has marker on her arm. Little kids are awesome.

I learned that hissing cockroaches use their backs to hiss. There are small holes along the sides of each of their body segments, and you can make them hiss by gently pressing on their back. It's not a warning noise, but a way they communicate with other roaches. Too weird.

There are no cockroaches in Alaska, so the whole thing was sort of novel. But I'll continue to be glad we don't have roaches here. What's the Alaskan equivalent? Moose? Bears? Mosquitoes?

R and I both have class on Monday nights, so we've designated Monday crock pot night. Through trial and error I've developed a system for making crock pot meals super easy and ready just on time.

Here's what I do:

• I prepare all the ingredients the day before (chop veggies, precook anything that needs it, etc.)
• I set the crock pot up like in the photo above, with a timer set to turn on around 11:00 a.m. or noon the next day.
• I keep the actual crock in the refrigerator overnight.
• R puts the crock into the crock pot before she leaves for work, and turns it on to low.
• The meal starts cooking around noon and is ready at 7:00 p.m. when we get home.

I much prefer this to the crock pots with built-in timers. I leave for work at 7:00 a.m., so it doesn't do me a lot of good to have a meal start cooking at 7:00 and finish 8 hours later at 3:00 p.m. This way the meal is hot and fresh when we are ready to eat. Which sounds like a fast food jingle.

Do you work long hours? Do you have any tricks to manage mealtime?