The New Most Popular Meal in My Life

It's fast, it's easy, it's bland, and it has been one of the only things I could/can consistently stomach for the last 2.5 months. Drum roll......

Special K

Skim Milk

See, I did have a legitimate one month long stomach bug. Then followed it up with the first trimester of our new pregnancy. We've got a new baby coming this summer! And I'm so excited that I've made myself sick over it. Or something like that. I'm hoping at 13.5 weeks I am on the other side of this badness. The absolute worst of it was around weeks 7 and 8. But I still had Special K for dinner 3 out of the last 7 nights of the week. And since I sometimes have it for breakfast too, I'm feeling pretty special. 

Today might be a turning point... I was home with L, we had an appt in the morning with her prospective preschool 2s program (seriously? I know. I had no idea.), and hit the grocery store this afternoon. Then I made dinner and semi straightened up the house before S came home. Things like this have not been happening lately. AND I think I might eat the dinner I made and just say no to my special friend. Progress. 

L has no idea what is about to hit her. She is just busy being busy and getting SUPER excited about the littlest and most fantastic things. What she is not excited about is the "I'm a Big Sister" book she got for Christmas. I now have about 30 pictures of her ignoring the book. Here are a few.

"Please take this away while I look at my owl book with no pants on."

This one took about 2 minutes of asking her to come see me and then asking her "where's the baby?" After she pointed to the baby she threw the book on the ground and ran away.

In a last ditch effort I set the book up like this and tried to get one of her walking up behind it. Out of absolutely nowhere, she did a somersault and I captured her mid flip. This was the winner.

So here we go! I'm hoping my cooking is going to pick up while my deathly ill feelings die down. We are really looking forward to meeting the fourth member of our family. Pregnant with a toddler is REAL LIFE. Wow. But I'm in it to win it. 

-RT

Hurricanes, Tropical Storms & Shrimp Stir Fry

Gulf Coast living is the hurricane life. Most of my hurricane seasons growing up were spent just 70 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico. Then I decided to go to college in New Orleans, located on the gulf AND below sea level. Maybe I just love a good Hurricane Party. Well, there is really no maybe about that.

My first hurricane party was actually a Tropical Storm party. It was pretty appropriate since I was only seven when Tropical Storm Allison came to Texas. This party involved a sleeping pallet in the closet under the stairs. Pretty much the coolest thing ever when you are 7. 

Hurricane Lili headed toward Louisiana in the fall of 2002 and we bought as much alcohol as we could find, stocked up at Whole Foods and had a giant sleepover at 900A. FANTASTIC. We watched the weather channel until the power went out and didn't go to sleep until the eye passed through. It was a cat one. Nothing to worry over. 

This is what a hangover looks like.

In 2005, one month after Katrina (a serious hurricane that is not to be made fun of), I was living in Texas with E (she's a BFC member) and Hurricane Rita was heading our way. Everyone lost their freaking MINDS. People in Houston kind of forgot that we weren't a city below sea level that was surrounded by levees that could breach. Subsequently, every single person in the fourth largest city in the United States, tried to GET OUT. JJ (who is the same person as E) and I just decided to make some Hurricanes with rum and everclear, take a little nap, and then head 40 miles north to my parent's house. Those 40 miles took about 4 hours. THEN we had another more formal hurricane party with Mexican Martinis and dinner at the dining room table. Our apartment in Houston never lost power. 

Best Friends' Club. BFC por vida

In aught 2008, the year of my marriage, Hurricane Ike was upon us. S & I hosted a hurricane party at our place. This was an amazing party.. we fired up the grill, had friends and neighbors empty their freezers and bars and head on over. And it was FANTASTIC. The next day at 7pm we lost power. Then the storm came through. THEN we didn't get power again for 9 days. So the party served its purpose since we had to empty out everything else that was left in the freezer and the refrigerator and migrate around town to different guest rooms and movie theaters to keep cool. Two trees fell on my parent's house (thankfully no one there was hurt) but we knew plenty of other people who were hurt. Having a hurricane party isn't making light of a hurricane and how dangerous it is, it's a way for people who are going to ride it out to come together and make the best of a serious situation. I'm not pro hurricane, but if there is going to be a hurricane anyway, why not have a party?

Now here comes Isaac, but he's not going to be a Texas mother.. shut yo mouth! Hopefully he will be kind to my dearest Big Easy, but he is not so tough and I know NOLA can handle that. I think back on all of the Hurricane/Tropical Storm Parties in all of the different stages of my life and I'm pretty sure if I had one now it would look a lot different. Hurricane supplies now include things like powdered milk and toddler appropriate food. If we stay up all night grilling venison and drinking wine, Landon won't get the memo. She doesn't like sleeping in.

So if anyone is over in NOLA (and I know they are) waiting on Isaac today, grilling up some freezer goods and drinking bloody mary's, just know that I'm a little jealous of the good times had before the storm. I am not at all jealous of the after storm experience. Don't be idiots and you should be just fine.

In honor of the gulf coast and swirling winds, I'm going to talk Shrimp Stir Fry.

I had about a pound of 20 count shrimp. I took it out and brought it to room temp in a bowl while marinating it in  the juice of 1.5 lemons, and the zest of one lemon, plus some soy sauce, fresh ground pepper and kosher sea salt.

Shrimp Marinade Items

Marinade and Shrimp Combined in the bowl.

 I let the shrimp sit out in the marinade for about 30 minutes while I prepped the rest of the items for dinner.

Vegetable are good for you

I washed the broccoli and cut off the florets. Then I put the stir fry pan on the stove over medium heat to warm it up. Since the broccoli takes longer than the shrimp to cook, it went in first. I sliced a few cloves of garlic and chopped half an onion and threw it in with some grape seed oil. After about a minute we added the broccoli with some sesame oil and oyster sauce.

Action shot

While the broccoli was cooking I put some Japanese buckwheat noodles (soba) in to boil. When the broccoli started to get the bright green color, we added in the shrimp and covered the pan. 

Yamaimo Soba

These noodles take just a few minutes to cook.

Bright green - ready for shrimp.

Shrimp and broccoli, stirring and happy together.

 The shrimp just takes a few minutes. You can tell my the consistency when it is ready. The tails will become more pink and curl. Then you'll want to pull it off the head so they don't get too tough. Overcooked shrimp = tough and chewy. Noodles in the bowl, shrimp and broccoli on top. It's just that easy.

Here is the way I do it.

Ingredients:

2 head of broccoli

1 lb of shrimp

3 cloves of garlic (sliced)

1/2 small white onion, chopped

2 lemons

soy sauce

oyster sauce

sesame oil

grapeseed oil or EV Olive Oil

Soba Noodles or brown rice

 Remove shells, tails, etc from the shrimp and marinade them in two tablespoons on lemon juice, the grated rind of one lemon, pinch of sea salt and a small pinch of fresh ground pepper. Let sit and come to room temp or if already at room temp, marinate for 10 - 15 minutes. 

Put your stir fry pan on the oven to warm up. Wash your broccoli heads and cut the florets off. Make sure the broccoli is dry before you use it. Put a couple of teaspoons of oil in the pan to coat the bottom. Next add in the garlic and the onions and cook for 1- 2 minutes over medium heat. Add broccoli and oyster sauce and sesame oil to taste. Cover and let cook, stirring every so often. 

Once the broccoli begins to turn bright green, add in the shrimp and stir together. Then cover for about a minute following by stirring until the shrimp is ready to come off. 

Cook and prepare noodles or rice according to package instructions and put the stir fry on top.

This is a very simple and straight forward meal. Once you learn how to tell when ingredients are cooked and what they look like when they are in the different stage of cooking, it's much easier to cook at home. You can time the food with your eyes. It takes some trial and error, but that is the only way you will really learn. 

For all of you party animals, here is a recipe that makes 10 - 12 servings of Rum Based Hurricanes. Share with your friends. Then you can all feel awful together the next day. 

 Good luck to everyone riding out the storm. Especially my beautiful sister K and all of my wonderful friends. Love y'all! 

-RT

When Reckless Cooking Goes Wrong

I was trying to think of a word the way I cook. Besides "reckless" or "unusual", I was at a loss. If you think of something cooler let me know. Although being reckless is pretty cool. Maybe I'll go buy a van and put a mattress in the back. I totally would, but then where would I put my car seat? Uh, mo babiez mo problemz. 

I got 99 problemz but a snack ain't one.

In the interest of honesty and keepin' it realz (sorry, that's enough Zs for now) I am going to show you an at home try that didn't go so well. It wasn't the end of the world. It's not like I burned a $40 cut of meat or something. It just WAS NOT good. It was even kind of bad.

Here's another fun confession... I still don't know exactly what my ingredient was. I was trying to use a white squash that we had gotten in our farmhouse delivery. I looked up what I thought was information on it online. Most things said it was very mild and very bland. Grilling squash was getting really old so I decided to try and bake it. I was also doing some roasted green beans. That turned out just fine.

Mystery squash and my bag of green beans.

 I decided to slice the squash and layer the slices in a loaf pan drizzling EV Olive Oil and grated Parmesan in between the layers. It started out like this:

Then went on to look like this:

 I hat lots of trial and error figuring out how to slice them and cut them and getting annoyed with this stupid white squash. Those times looked like this:

I'm sad to say this is where the photo story ends. I layered them and put them in the oven at 400 degrees and cooked them for 30 minutes or so. I really only did one thing wrong that caused a whole bunch of other wrongs... I didn't know my ingredient. This squash was not the one I had found online. While it did have bland flavor it also had very tough skin and I probably should have scraped the seeds out before cooking it. The seeds didn't cook to a soft enough consistency as they usually do in other squashes. But then again, maybe if I had cooked it longer the skin wouldn't have been so tough AND the seeds would have been softer. I have no idea.

This was a mess to eat because of my mistakes. The skin was just too tough and it was a mess cutting around the skin and the seeds to find the meat of the squash. In reality, when I actually got down to the meat of this, it was still not that great. It is just a really, really bland and flavorless squash. 

Here is what happens when you screw things up: you LEARN... Wait, what? I know. Write this stuff down, it is life changing information. 

Every once in a while everyone gets a nice kick in the a$$ reminder. My reminder was to really find out what I am cooking before moving forward. I think winging it is fine and easy, if you know your ingredient. That's when reckless cooking is the most fun. THAT is why I LOVE cooking recklessly. You have the basics down and you are just playing with flavors and styles of cooking. When you don't know your ingredient you end up chewing tough skin and swallowing something like a pumpkin seed. Yum. Who wants to come over and eat now? 

You know who else learned something? Whoever made the bottom half of these cupcakes.

Sorry kids, mommy killed cookie monster. He melted in her oven.

My squash tasted awful, but at least it looked pretty. That, my friends, is called optimism. We're all about the bright side over here.

There are big things coming up for RT... stay tuned this week to catch all of the amazingness. It's going to be a good! 

- RT

Strange Fact: Life Causes Death.... now get over it

As Syrio Forel once said, "fear cuts deeper than swords." If you get that reference you are such a nerd. Like me. Congratulations. Unfortunately, a sword can slice your head or arm off, and that's pretty scary as well. I'm not sure when the world decided to make people scared of EVERYTHING but I'm pretty over the nightly news. I'm sure if "the one thing I must know before getting in my car again" was that important, it would be breaking news and not a teaser for the news that comes on in 3 hours. 

The BlackBerry thumb will kill you, followed by iPhone brain. News at 11.

 Here's the thing about living with certain fears... the end result of life, is death. Everyone will eventually die, unless you plan to live in hologram form and go on a concert tour following your personal end. (Good for you weirdo.) 

MJ's hologram reads this blog.

 I have recently come to a sad conclusion while delving into health information and worrying about what L is eating... When it comes to local news and the internet everything "causes" cancer. By "causes" we mean, contains an ingredient, mutation, or hormone that has been shown to be a carcinogen. Lunchmeat causes cancer, soda causes cancer, heated hard plastic causes cancer, water bottles cause cancer, sugar causes cancer, the sun causes cancer, and also breathing, something none of us can seemingly avoid, causes cancer in various ways. These statements are all huge reaches, but for some reason, news media in various forms is trying to scare the crap out of us. Also, this propaganda is causing young people to be fatalistic about cancer. None of that is good.

By the way, this doesn't end by me saying "eat and drink whatever you want, smoke 20 packs a day, and renew your tanning bed membership because you are going to die anyway!" It's just a point where I had a realization that released me from a lot of fear. Instead of trying to do everything in a way to be the best and most healthy, and really stressing myself out, time would be better spent making intelligent choices about what I'm putting into my body, while enjoying life enough so that if the world ended tomorrow I would be satisfied that I had lived and tasted and wined and loved and gotten high on sugar, and sunburns, and wine. This is where I realized that you just try your best, you know your limits, but you still push them when you need to, and enjoy your life. Cancer is awful, death is sometimes a scary thing to think about. Most things we don't know much about are. In the instance of the opening quote, cancer/sickness/death could be the sword. Living your life in fear of death or sickness is basically giving in to that fear of sickness and not living at all. Done preaching, now on to more light hearted fears... like the fear of kitchens and raw meat. 

When appliances attack.

 I get it. Of all the comfy rooms in your house, the kitchen is by far the scariest. It has knives, ovens, stoves, fire, sharp edges, and the air of possible cooking failure hanging in the air like early morning fog. None of that stuff ever scared me. I usually fail at cooking things daily, if not a few times a week. Overcooking eggs, undercoating pans, and most of this is because I often cook without a recipe. It's how I learn best. 

I'm a raw chicken breast, and I'm here to kill you.

When I first started to cook, the things that scared me most were raw foods. The instillation of this fear can be directly attributed to media and pr, as it was not put in me by my mother. The people hacking their antibacterial products like to play commercials with pictures of germs writhing around on your counter tops. I'm not saying you should pick up raw chicken and lick it, I'm just saying Julia Child NEVER washed her hands in the kitchen. She was a cross contaminating machine. If you don't believe me, go watch any of her cooking shows. When this fact came to light, it helped me realize that any time I touched raw chicken, I probably wasn't going to die. (Whew!) Now the only reason my kitchen is evil is because the stove is electric and from the early 90s.

Queen Julia tells salmonella to eff off.

ATTENTION: Full circle moment. Just as you should not let fear rule your life, don't let fear of failure keep you out of the kitchen. Cooking at home is the BEST way to know what you are eating. It is proven time and time again that if you want to weigh less you need to cook MORE and eat out less. Cooking at home isn't the scary sitcom fodder that it used to be. Get a subscription to a great recipe magazine like Cooking Light and follow along. Or use the internet for free recipes and cooking techniques. Spend your time in the grocery store in the produce section, at the butcher, and in dairy for your milks, yogurt & cheese. And your eggs, even though they aren't dairy. That's just where they live. Then GET OUT while you still can... Grocery stores are evil.

The candy section.... MWAHAHAHAHA.

If you want to eat out intelligently and maybe don't have a cook at home option, arm yourself with information and knowledge. If I had only KNOWN that my precious drumsticks had 300 calories a pop, I wouldn't have an extra 3 lbs hanging around that I now have to work and deny wine to get rid of. Knowledge is power. Pick up one of the Eat This not That books. That will fill you in with a lot of information to make healthy decisions when you eat out.

What's the Ramona Pinot calorie count? 666 per glass.

I came up with some wise words all on my own to sum this up: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, y'all. And holograms of dead people.

Let it be,

- RT

"T" is for Toddlers and Tantrums and Trying to Survive. It is.

"T": it's not just for timeout anymore. Word.

 Remember when you first found out you were pregnant and you couldn't talk about it with anyone who was a real female person so you talked about it with the Internet? (Oh, did I forget to say this is a post for people with lady parts? It is.) When you first get the double pink line, or the cross, or the digital pregnancy message, or your dr's office calls after you go in for a blood test and is like "by the way you are pregnant" (wait, what?) this might be the first step in your relationship with babycenter.com. After surviving my 1st trimester of silence, I was pretty sure that pregnant women didn't ever need to ask the internet questions. And you know how much I love to do that. When you are pregnant internet questions go something like this:

Q: I'm pregnant and I have a cold. Which medicines should I take?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I thought I had a cold. Turns out I had herpes. Go get an STD test.

Q: I'm pregnant and feel like I might be sick. Is this just morning sickness?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I felt sick. It turns out I had cancer. Call your doctor immediately.

Q: I'm pregnant and want to have some coffee. Is that ok?
Internet: Once when I was pregnant I had coffee and then my baby had three legs and one nipple. Drink water and only water.

Q: I'm pregnant and accidentally had some alcoholic punch. What should I do?
Internet: OMFG YOU ARE GOING TO HELL AND YOUR BABY IS COMPLETELY F&(#ED!! I'm calling social services.

The Google Devil will eat your unborn child

 Seriously. When it comes to health, the internet is not your friend. You know who is your friend? Your doctor. BUT anyway, before I went off on yet another tangent, we were talking about the center for babies, also know as BabyCenter.com. (Stay out of the chat board things. People are crazy.) They send you these fancy weekly emails when you are preggo talking about how your baby is the size of a Nordic Autumn Fruit (right) and growing fingernails inside of your stomach. Or uterus. Whatever. 

Where does this baby grow??

 What I didn't know when I signed up for these is that they keep going. You get weekly updates about your baby and now I am the lucky recipient of toddler updates. (I know, don't get too jealous.) Ever since L reached 15 months, the theme of most of these emails is tantrums. The timing is spot on. Girlfriend is all about frustrated communication and having an opinion. 

What? The cat doesn't want me to pet it? TO THE FLOOR!!!!

I'm not going to tell you how to fix toddler tantrums. I am in no way qualified to do so. But you know what is an even bigger joke than my upcoming tantrum techniques? The advice babycenter gave me today. 

"My 15 month old, week 4".....When your toddler throws a full-blown screaming fit in the middle of the grocery store, you may want to hide behind the toilet paper display – but rest assured that other parents feel your pain. The most useful response is to take your child out of the store (even if it means leaving a cart full of food behind) and sit with him until he finishes crying. Staying calm and offering lots of hugs and kisses can help. 

The first part makes sense. No toddler in the middle of a full blown tantrum is going to be able to calm down in an overstimulating environment like the grocery store or a restaurant. It's the next part that gets me. In my 6 weeks of tantrum boot camp, I have found that hugs and kisses are like gasoline on the tantrum fire of life. Here are the helpful photos provided:

Love me through it... GET AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!

"Leave me alone you stupid Mommy!"

 Actually, almost anything I try to do does not fix the tantrum. Well, unless the reason for the tantrum is because she wants to be picked up. We all know the final solution to that. Sometimes it is not available. The last two weeks I have employed a different strategy. I talk to L like she is a grown adult, and let her know that she needs to go to her room and have some emotional time to herself. It's kind of hilarious, but I don't laugh. I pick her up (while she thrashes) and bring her to her room. I find a soft and safe place on the floor (she likes to writhe around during tantrums) and put her down. Then I let her know to come find me when she is ready and I walk away. Also, I am not under any illusion that she understands a word I am saying. I just have to say SOMETHING and so I might as well say that.

The thing is, it works like a magic trick. Tantrums are SO much more fun when someone is watching. Like magic unicorn rainbow fun. When someone is not watching.. eh, not so cool. She finishes her cry, then gets up and comes to find me. Like a new little baby who had her emo time and is ready for something else.

This is a tantrum when someone is watching.

It's like a whole new two weeks. Now when a tantrum is near, I just walk away, out of sight. Change of focus, change of direction, baby follows. This has become especially effective when we have to come in from outside. It's 101 degrees outside with 90%  humidity. I can't breathe, but for Landon, we might as well live in SoCal. When we come inside I become the worst person she has ever met in her very short life. But then I walk away and you know what is cooler than being outside?? Finding mommy. 

Really, who the hell knows anything? My life with baby has been trial and error. When I figure something out, it only takes a few weeks for it to stop working or for something new to pop up. That's why "T" is also for Trying to Survive... Kids or not, isn't that what we are all doing on some days? 

The following also solve Landon's tantrums when I don't have time to be a good parent and take her to her room: Elmo, the cat, going back outside, Elmo, the wagon, Sesame Street, the ipad, and especially Elmo's world. Just a quick little 10 minute Elmo break and toddler is good as gold.

By the way, the internet and I made up after Landon was born. We agreed to never talk about SIDS, but we chatted about baby baths, sleep training, rules for breast milk, switching to formula, and our newest BFF diapers.com lives on the internet, so we've all started drinking from our matching mugs again.

You know who got this for me? The internet.

Right now, O is for the Olympics and G is for Gymnastics. Hopefully, T is really for Tantrum free Tuesday with a Toddler. Check it.

-RT

Guest Blog: Move Over Martha.......

And Ina, and Sandra and dare I say Julia...?  Ok that last one may be a stretch.  Inspired by my 5-day holiday weekend for the fourth (don’t hate me because I’m well-rested), I decided I needed to get creative in the kitchen and cook something healthy to combat all of the Fourth of July temptations as well as keep the healthy streak going before I go on a little vacay.  We all know vacations are a license to splurge.  

 

I'm taking over...

 Thanks to RT, I have a subscription to Cooking Light.  Every month I peruse the pages, scanning for recipes that are 1) easy 2) quick and 3) will work for both my husband and me.  While he will eat pretty much anything, I have what we’ll call a discerning palate…who am I kidding, I’m picky.  I hate ketchup with a passion (blasphemous to some, I know), get skeeved out by texturally weird foods (ex. grapes, except in wine of course, duh), and could go without the existence of tuna in a salad form (I’m talking smelly, mayo based stuff—yuck).  So when something catches my eye, I usually tear it out and keep for my recipe collection.  What I love about Cooking Light is that they offer the “light” versions, but you can also make substitutions easily.  I am one of those “chefs” (I’m sure my husband is laughing his tail off at that one) that needs to follow a recipe.  I had an unfortunate incident during my childhood years that taught me this lesson, that's up next.  Back to Cooking Light.. I do not live and die by what it recommends, but I do think it is a good source for those trying to ease into healthier eating, or who need something good on the fly.  

 To understand how far I’ve come, let’s rewind.  Growing up, I don’t think anyone in my family would have guessed that the Susie home-maker gene was ever going to surface in me.  From a young age, I was never one to jump at the chance to help out in the kitchen.  I was perfectly content on enjoying the fruits of someone else’s labor.  There would be flashes of interest, but they would usually pass just a quickly as they came.  Until the infamous cookie incident.  When I was in middle school, I decided that I wanted to make my grandmother’s famous snickerdoodle cookies.  I’m sure everyone’s family has their own version, but these are cinnamon-sugar deliciousness.  So I shunned any help from my mom or sister and got to baking.  I was cracking eggs, mixing, scooping, and preheating the oven, all in the hopes that I was producing the best snickerdoodles anyone had ever tasted.  I couldn’t wait to try my culinary masterpiece.  I kept imaging that first bite and how blown away everyone would be.  Well they were, but not for the reason I thought they would be.  Apparently, I had forgotten a couple key ingredients, most importantly sugar.  Who the eff makes cookies without sugar?  That little incident kept me out of the kitchen until college, where I baby-stepped my way back in.  

Sugarless Snikerdoodle victim. News at 11.

 These days, while I do love cooking and trying new recipes, during the week I’m looking for quick and easy.  If it were up to me, I’d probably just eat a bag of steamed veggies with brown rice, but my husband is not really down with that.  This is where Cooking Light makes things a little easier.

 While I was doing my typical scan, I came across a zucchini and squash galette.  I am a huge fan of The Barefoot Contessa, aka Ina Garten on the Food Network, and seeing her effortlessly make tarts, gratins, chutneys, mousses, and anything Provencal, I am always amazed and envious that she makes it look so easy.  Of course, most of her dishes are not exactly on the healthy side, but for this French apple tart, I think I could spend some extra time in the gym.  So when I saw the picture of the galette, I immediately thought this could be my Barefoot Contessa moment without consuming 2 sticks of butter in the process.  

 The recipe was really easy to follow.  Besides making the dough ahead of time and letting it chill, there weren’t many steps.  The dough was really easy and actually tasted great, even without the addition of butter which is standard in any pie recipe I grew up with.  (The dough consisted of flour, salt, baking powder, olive oil and water.)

The filling consisted of skim ricotta cheese, fresh garlic, fresh thyme, Parmesan cheese (you can do regular, non-fat or low-fat here depending on what you like), and lemon zest and lemon juice.  I thought the lemon zest really brightened it up and made it very refreshing.  Once you roll out the dough and add the ricotta filling, the last step before baking is to cover with the squash and zucchini slices.  Next time, I will add more slices because I thought I was running out of room, but didn’t take into consideration that they will shrink a bit in the oven.

Here is a picture of my final product:  (I realize this looks a little crispy, but it’s just the camera.)

 The one thing I didn’t do that the recipe called for was add fresh basil leaves after it came out of the oven.  I forgot to pick those up from the grocery, but I still thought it tasted delicious.  So did my husband, who come to find out (after the fact of course) doesn’t even really like squash.  I couldn’t help but give myself a little pat on the back.

 Of course, no cooking experience with me would be complete without a cocktail (don’t judge, I usually only have a cocktail with dinner on the weekends, otherwise I’d be asleep before dinner is out of the oven).  As Sandra Lee would say, “It’s cocktail time!”  I have dipped my toes in the Skinnygirl pool of products a few times before with mixed reviews.  The margaritas are great, the sangria not so much, but I have not yet tried any of the wines or spirits.  Enter Skinnygirl Vodka with cucumber.  Vodka is definitely my go-to as of late, and this did not disappoint.  Mixed with soda (Seagram’s has a new line of flavored soda BTW), this was refreshing and delicious with half the calories of other mixed drinks.   

I definitely recommend having your own Barefoot Contessa moment by trying out the galette and the cucumber vodka, but if you just make it to the vodka, that is just fine with me.

Until the next time RT lets me hijack her blog…cheers!

-JJ