Eggplant Parmesan Pizza & D.H. Lawrence

OURS IS ESSENTIALLY A TRAGIC AGE, SO WE REFUSE TO TAKE IT TRAGICALLY. THE CATACLYSM, HAS HAPPENED, WE ARE AMONG THE RUINS, WE START TO BUILD UP NEW LITTLE HABITATS, TO HAVE NEW LITTLE HOPES. IT IS RATHER HARD WORK: THERE IS NOW NO SMOOTH ROAD INTO THE FUTURE: BUT WE GO ROUND, OR SCRAMBLE OVER THE OBSTACLES. WE’VE GOT TO LIVE, NO MATTER HOW MANY SKIES HAVE FALLEN.

D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

I'm reading the book Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, and I'm on her chapter about sentences.  I even like the word "sentences."  Reminds me of The Phantom Tollbooth, and eating words off of a plate, twirling sentences like strands of spaghetti.  It was very important in Dictionopolis to pick delicious words.  This is an apt lesson for life.  I started running through my book collection reading first sentences after finishing Prose's chapter on decadent sentences, and came across this.  D.H. Lawrence was a sexy, sexy, man.  The Sea in Sardinia was my first Lawrence discovery in high school.  I wish I had read more, earlier.  Even his prosaic sentences made me feel warm, and I hadn't even discovered the likes of his brand of erotica.

Speaking of Sardinia, Twilight in Italy, and what-not, it's appropriate that one of my first meals from my new box was an eggplant and Parmesan pizza on whole wheat pizza crust.  Whole wheat pizza crust is one of the easiest things to make, and as I crave Pappa John's, but won't let myself have it, weekly, I make a lot of pizza.

For the dough:

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 package yeast
2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
1tbs sugar
1 cup warm water
Flax seed - I always mix some in for extra hippie points.

1) Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl.
2) Add the wet ones.
3) Mix until all combined.
4) Spread on an oiled pizza stone.
5) Top and bake for 20-25 minutes at 375.

Eggplant Parmesan Toppings:

1 sliced eggplant
1 cup bread crumbs (make toast, then pop in a mini-processor to crumble)
2 eggs
Parmesan cheese (the real kind!  Ground up in a mini-processor)
Tomato sauce
Mozzarella (again, the real stuff you have to slice)
Mild pepper, chopped (I also used a jalapeno, because I love heat)
Black olives
Basil leaves

1) Mix the breadcrumbs and eggs in a bowl.
2) Coat the eggplant slices in the mix.  Pop on a greased cookie sheet and bake in the oven at 375 for 10ish minutes.
3) Top pizza dough with sauce, toppings, and eggplant.
4) Bake according to dough instructions.

Veggie Mexican Spiced Soup

Today I picked up a new CSA box, so last night I had to find a recipe that used as many of my veggies left from my first box, circa two weeks ago, as I could.  Cooking almost every night, I still had a few zucchinis, lots of hot peppers, a few onions, a couple of sweet peppers, and a few other stragglers I'll have to integrate this week, (if you know what to do with a bunch of mint, shoot me a message, please!).

I found a recipe for "Garden Veggie Tortilla Soup" on the Johnson's Backyard Garden recipe forum , and changed it up a bit to suit what I had on hand.

Here is the recipe I followed:

Ingredients:

Olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
1 cup assorted mild peppers, diced
As many hot peppers as you can stand
3-5 tomoatos, diced
1/2 cup chopped broccoli
1 cup sliced zucchini & summer squash
1 cup sprouted mung beans
1 cup corn (fresh is better, but I had a can sitting around taking up space)
3-5 cups vegetable stock
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs chili powder
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
sliced avocado
shredded raw cheddar cheese
Cilantro & lime for garnish
Nutritional yeast & chia seeds - just because I toss these on everything

Instructions:

1) Pour a few tablespoons olive oil into a stock pot set on medium heat.  Add the onions and garlic, saute until tender.
2) Add the peppers and cook until tender.
3) Add the tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are pulpy.
4) Toss in the zucchini, corn, and mung beans, stir until tender.
5) Add in the vegetable stock and spices.  Let simmer 20-30 minutes.  Season to taste.
6) Top soup in bowls with avocado, cilantro, limes, and cheese.  And if you like to toe the line of being a crunchy like I do, toss in that nutritional yeast and those chia seeds.

This made enough for Mike and I to have an overflowing bowl each, plus a tupperware container full of leftovers, (lunch for this weekend!).

I just unpacked my new CSA box into my fridge.  Time to start planning for the next few weeks of meals.

Taco cat enjoys the box immensely:

Shrimp & Couscous with Ginger-Orange Sauce

I love Cooking Light, (which is why I should probably renew my subscription), and when I was in college I made this delicious recipe that, four years later, I'd been hankering to try again ever since.  The recipe is for crunchy shrimp with couscous and ginger-orange sauce.  It has a semi-long ingredient list, but the actual preparation is not difficult, and Lennon has been not-so-subtly hinting that I should make it again ever since he got a taste.

Here it is, with notes on the few modifications I made:

Ingredients

Sauce:

• 1  cup  orange juice
• 1  tablespoon  chopped fresh cilantro
• 2  tablespoons  reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 1 1/2  tablespoons  chicken broth (I used veggie broth)
• 1  teaspoon  grated peeled fresh ginger
• 1  teaspoon  fresh lime juice
• 1/2  teaspoon  ground cumin
• 1/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  ground red pepper   

Couscous:

• 1  cup  uncooked couscous
• 1 1/2  cups  chicken broth (I use veggie broth)
• 1/2  cup  orange juice
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/3  cup  chopped green onions
• 2  tablespoons  sliced almonds, toasted
• 1  tablespoon  unsalted butter

Shrimp:

• 20  jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined (about 3/4 pound)
• 1  large egg white, lightly beaten
• 1/2  cup  panko (Japanese breadcrumbs - I used whole wheat bread crumbs)
• 1  teaspoon  chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/2  teaspoon  grated peeled fresh ginger
• 1/8  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1  tablespoon  canola oil
• 2  cups  trimmed watercress (I used spinach)

1) Thaw the shrimp!  I forgot to do this in advance and practically had to boil the shrimpies in tap water while I prepped everything else.

2) Grate the ginger, chop green onions, cilantro, etc.

3) In a saucepan, bring 1 cup orange juice to a boil over medium-high heat; cook until reduced to 1/4 cup (about 10 minutes). 

4) Remove from heat; cool completely.
5) Stir in 1 tablespoon cilantro and next 7 ingredients (through red pepper); set aside.  Note: I may have reduced the orange juice too much, but Lennon and I both agreed that more sauce would have been better, because it's delicious.

5) To prepare couscous, place couscous in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; cook 3 minutes or until toasted, stirring constantly.

Lennon in the middle of peeling mostly thawed shrimp.  We are cheap and bought the kind with exo-skeleton still on.  Quote: "I LUV SHRIMP!"

6) Add 1 1/2 cups broth, 1/2 cup orange juice, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 5 minutes. 

7) Fluff with a fork; add onions, almonds, and butter, stirring until butter melts. Keep warm.

Peeled and thawed shrimps. 

8) To prepare shrimp, combine shrimp and egg white in a large bowl, tossing to coat. Combine the panko, 1 teaspoon cilantro, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, and black pepper in a large zip-top plastic bag. Add shrimp to the bag, and seal and shake to coat. (I did not do this, I just stirred it all in a bowl).

9) Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; arrange shrimp in a single layer in pan. Cook 2 minutes on each side or until done.
10) Place 3/4 cup couscous on each of 4 plates; top each with 1/2 cup watercress and 5 shrimp. Drizzle each with 1 1/2 tablespoons sauce.

In the words of Julia Child, and many French people: bon apetite, (unless you're a shrimp).

Addendum: "This is the Lennon's favorite dish that Amanda-pants has made."    -- the Lennon.

Triptychs & Mango Lassis

I had a mango I didn't use from a recipe I made the other night, so I saved it to put into a mango lassi for breakfast.  I used this recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped mango (peeled)
4 teaspoons sugar, to taste (I used agave nectar)
A dash of ground cardamom

Directions

Put mango, yogurt, milk, sugar and cardamom into a blender and blend for 2 minutes, then pour into individual glasses, and serve.  Sprinkle with a little cardamom.  The lassi can be kept refrigerated for up to 24 hours and makes about 2 cups.

Other than the fact that I need a better blender, it's sweet and bright and perfect for a rainy morning, (especially a morning where I should really be rushing out the door as opposed to making fancy smoothies and then posting pictures of it online).

As I haven't put on my pants and wellies to brave the wet weather outside yet, here is another boots outfit that I wanted to share.

First picture: my hard core neck tattoo!  (does a Frida Kahlo element count as hard core?)
Dress: from Little Rock boutique two years ago
Tights: Target
Cardigan: Target
Boots: Steve Madden
Necklace: from my step-momma
Standing on a stool: I have no idea why

How To Have an Awesome Morning: Eat Awesome Food

Not long ago I made a recipe called Italian Eggs and Polenta.  Making the polenta from scratch, I doubled the recipe and set some aside in the fridge for later.  That later came in the mornings that followed for the remainder of the week, because I made super delicious Mexican Breakfast Eggs and Polenta!

This is the container I refrigerated.  It's sort of like cold cornbread before heating it up.  

I don't feed the boys for breakfast - one egg just for me.  And maybe I'm crazy, but I think the eggs are adorable in this little egg fry ring.  I got this yellow one in a four pack from Williams-Sonoma, but sadly I lost the pink one in a move :(

These things were supposedly non-stick, but I find if I don't spray them down prior to cooking, then I have to dig the egg off the edges. 

I also made salsa from scratch the other day.  While it wasn't the best thing I've ever made, it was still pretty darn good and great for use in dousing my polenta.  I have my low fat plain yogurt that doubles as sour cream at the ready.

Hello Heaven: thy name is egg yolk, salsa, cream, (yogurt), cornmeal, and cheese.

Mexican eggs, grapefruit, and tea.  This was indeed an awesome morning.  Having just failed miserably at making rice for my dinner (it's the simple things that I find the most difficult), I'm now salivating at the memory of this.  Oh, and picking crunchy rice from my teeth... lovely.

Nuclear Salsa!

When I left Naval ROTC at the George Washington University and moved back to Fayetteville to attend the University of Arkansas, I missed out on a huge component of starting university as a freshman: meeting people.  Most of my high school friends were gone at out of state universities, I did all of the freshman orientation get-to-know-your-neighbor shenanigans at GW, (and made some of the best friends of my life - I love you Mitchell Sixers!), and worst, I committed the cardinal sin of transfer student life: I moved into an apartment instead of a dorm, even though I was only a sophomore.  Being painfully shy, (more so then), I went through the next three years without knowing scores of people... more like five people, with close friends passing through town on holidays to keep my social candle barely aflame. 

In retrospect, I wouldn't have had my college years any other way for one main reason and one sub reason.  While Lennon had quite the crazy college experience, and sometimes makes me envious of his stories of dorm parties, wild exploits, etc., I could not change anything about how my low-key, knitting to Billy Holiday CD's and shopping at the organic Co-op because my parents still paid my credit card bill and staying in weekends experience played itself out, because if it had been different I wouldn't have been with my mom the last year she was alive.  She got so sick she had to leave the house in Texas to stay with my aunt and her family in Fayetteville, which meant I got to see my momma on a near-daily basis.  If she'd been in Killeen, TX, still, or I'd been at George Washington or any other school, I would have maybe seen her twice that year - she died in May.

So that's the huge reason I don't regret my quiet college years.  The secondary reason is that I learned how much I love to cook and make everything from scratch.  The only thing that stands in my way most of the time, is, well, time.  On my 20th birthday I didn't have anywhere to go so I stayed home, watched a movie, and made myself green Thai curry, cutting up every vegetable and using a cookbook I had bought the previous summer while living with Joanie & Julia (my girls!) on Martha's Vineyard and working at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore. 

Ok, all of this back story to say, what exactly?  To talk about making salsa from scratch.  Without a recipe.  So am I going to sell these instructions as the world's best salsa recipe?  Heck no, I confused serrano peppers with poblano peppers at the grocery store, I didn't peel and seed the tomatoes, and I listened to Lennon (BAD IDEA) and put in two jalapenos and burned the crap out of my mouth. 

But we made it together, it was fun, and after sitting in the fridge overnight, it came out spicy and tasty.  Next time, though: no poblano.  Expect this to be the first of a series of salsa posts, I'm a tad obsessed with the stuff, as well as recipe tweaking.

Nuclear Salsa: Take One

Ingredients:

Roma tomatoes

Jalapenos

Green onion

Poblano pepper (don't use it!)

Cilantro

Garlic

Chop everything into little bits!  The seeds in the jalapeno make it extra hot.

It's time for a quiz!  Amanda is doing the following:

        a) taking the world's most flattering picture
        b) wearing a poblano pepper stem as a hat
        c) doing my best Alton Brown impression complete with sea salt
        d) all of the above

Tricky, eh?  If you need the answer, you can email me at: dishevelledstars@gmail.com, but that's cheating!  Remember integrity is important when making salsa.

Blenders are also important.  Put everything in one.  A food processor also works.

Oh, oh!  It's quiz time again!  Lennon is:

      a) competing with Amanda for world's most flattering picture

      b) drinking the glass of red wine beside the giant glass of beer

      c) about to blend together all salsa ingredients before putting it on chips and in a mason jar

      d) answers "a" and "c" only

Again, feel free to email me for hints.

So while this salsa was a bit pulpy, it was certainly good!  Be prepared to see it make an appearance in a few more recipes I have waiting in que for an appearance on this blog.

Polenta Under Italian Eggs

Coming home semi-early most of this week, Lennon and I have settled into a cozy routine of cooking dinner and then settling down to watch Chuck DVD's that our friend Elizabeth from church loaned us.  It feels nice to just be "existing" and not focused on working towards something: graduate school, moving out of state, some giant project - it almost feels like vacation.

I've had a blackboard over my "desk" (antique kitchen table) since we moved in, but didn't buy chalk until last Saturday.  I can finally keep menus and grocery lists at an easy glance - no more sighing and buying $2.50 Tony's pizzas or opening a box of HEB mac n' cheese (no offense to those amazing and frugal food products) when I am unmotivated to find a recipe and cook.

First up on the roster this week was a recipe from Cooking Light, which I love and always does a vegetarian feature.  I found Polenta + Italian Eggs (they list it as a breakfast food, bah) on their website.  They recommended buying a tube of polenta from the grocery store as the base, but anything that comes in a tube is de facto questionable.  It's too easy to make polenta from scratch to submit to the campy, mega-mart Americana that is tubed-food. 

Easy-Peezy Polenta

Ingredients: 

5 cups water

1.5 cups cornmeal

1 tsp salt

2 tbs butter

1) In a two quart saucepan, stir together water, cornmeal and salt until there are no lumps.

2) Bring to a boil over medium/high, stir continuously.

3) Reduce heat, simmer, stirring constantly until the polenta leaves a clean path when you scrape the bottom of the pan.  Not gonna lie, this can take an hour.  I camped out by the pot with my copy of Julie Powell's Cleaving (also have to admit, as a vegetarian, that book makes me squeamish).

4) When thick, add butter and stir till melted.

5) Spread into a pan and let cool.  Voila.  I mean, "bon appetite!"  Actually, don't eat it yet, it's better with sauce, kind of like chips. 

This pan is only half of what the recipe makes.  I split it into two pans and stuck one in the fridge to eat later.  For this pan, I had big plans:

Italian Eggs With Sauce! 

(recipe for 4, I made for 5, but served two eggs to the boys)

Ingredients:

Pat of butter
2  cups tomato-basil pasta sauce
1  (6-ounce) package fresh baby spinach
4  large eggs

2 cloves minced garlic
1/2  cup  (2 ounces) shredded Asiago cheese

1) Heat stove up to broiling.

2) While stove heats, pour sauce into a large sauce pan and bring to a simmer over medium/high heat.

3) Stir in the spinach and garlic and cook until spinach is wilted, stirring all together.

Gratuitous shot of delicious cheese

4) Make four indentions in the top of the mixture using the back of a wooden spoon.

5) Break one egg into each indention, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until eggs are done to taste.

6) While eggs heat, spread a bit of butter on top of the polenta and broil  in the oven for three minutes.

7) When eggs are finished, scoop them out, along with sauce, and arrange on top of polenta on a dish. 

8) Sprinkle cheese on top, and serve! 

Both of my roommates highly approved.  The next task, aside from joining a CSA, is to tackle is learning to make my own pasta sauce - I haven't tried it since college when I stewed tomatoes all night long and made enough sauce to last a semester, (all night studying? pfft).  I'm all about the trial and error, as the salsa making adventure I will share in the near future will attest. 

Does anyone else cook by the "maybe a little of this, little of that" method, or do most people adhere to recipes?  Sometimes, I definitely wish I'd adhered to the recipe!  But what is life without a little experimentation...

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And don't forget, if you haven't entered my giveaway for a song bird necklace, be sure to do so before Monday night!  You can enter here.

World's Easist Vegetarian Pot Pie Recipe

On Saturdays I am lazy, and on Sunday I am productive.  I feel as though getting up early for church and then coming home ready to get busy with cleaning, writing, etc., makes all the difference in the world.  I even cooked lunch for Lennon and me today after getting home, in what Lennon calls my "little house on the prairie look."  He better not be dissing on Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I attribute my love of poetry to her, ever since I found this snippet in her book These Happy Golden Years:

In the starlight, in the starlight
At the daylight's dewy close
When the nightingale is singing
His last love song to the rose

In the calm, clear light of summer
When the breezes softly play
From the glitter of our dwelling
We will gently steal away

Where the silvery waters murmur
By the margin of the sea
In the starlight, in the starlight
We will wander gay and free

(J.E. Catpenter)

I wrote those lines in a pocket sized green notebook I carried around with me in the third grade, after finding the segment in the Harker Heights Elementary library's copy of the book.  Being a pack rat, I still have the notebook.

So safe to say, I don't mind embodying the look:

Dress: Chili Pepper from Beyond Cotton

Tank top under: Old Navy

Cardigan: Target

Belt: no clue!  from Elle boutique

Boots: Steve Madden, on clearance right now

Necklace: birthday present, origins Etsy

Keeping up with the Little House theme, I made a vegetarian pot pie when we got home from church.  It is the world's easiest recipe:

Ingredients:

• Frozen pie crust
• 1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can Veg-All
• A handful of shredded cheddar cheese
• Vegetarian chicken strips
  
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

1) In a bowl, mix soup, Veg-All, cheese, salt, pepper, and "chicken" strips snapped into smaller pieces

2) Fill pie crust.  If you would like, put a top on it with a second pie crust.  I left it open.

3) Sprinkle a little cheese on top

4) Fold over edges of the crust.

5) Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Voila!  So easy, and much healthier than Marie Callendar's. 

Smoked Gouda Macaroni & Cheese

One of the great things about holidays is the extra time for things that get neglected when I'm stressed and busy - like cooking!  Since it's actually been cold in central Texas, I wanted to make something familiar and filling.  I usually cruise Vegetarian Times or Cooking Light when I'm not using one of my cookbooks, and in my searching I found Smoked Gouda Macaroni and Cheese.

I followed the recipe exactly, but next time I would add more cheese, and skip the brown rice bread crumbs I accidentally bought in favor of real, crunchy ones.

This recipe was easy:

Ingredients

• 1  (1-ounce) slice whole wheat bread
• 1  tablespoon  butter
• 1/4  cup  thinly sliced green onions
• 2  garlic cloves, minced
• 2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
• 2  cups  fat-free milk
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
• 1/2  cup  (2 ounces) shredded smoked Gouda cheese - but I'll be using more next time
  
• 1/3  cup  (about 1 1/2 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
• 5  cups  coarsely chopped fresh spinach
• 4  cups  hot cooked elbow macaroni (about 2 cups uncooked)
• Cooking spray

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 350°.
2) Place bread in a food processor, and pulse until coarse crumbs measure 1/2 cup.  (or just buy a canister of bread crumbs).
3) Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic; cook 1 minute.
4) Add flour; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add milk, salt, and pepper, stirring constantly with a whisk until blended.
5) Bring to a boil; cook until thick (about 2 minutes).
6) Add cheeses; stir until melted.
7) Add spinach and cooked macaroni to cheese sauce, stirring until well blended.

 8) Spoon mixture into a 2-quart baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until bubbly.

Lennon also suggested sprinkling shredded cheese on the top with the breadcrumbs.  Basically, we are of the philosophy: "the more cheese the better."

I like it when I feel like I'm getting my vegetables without having to make a salad.  Although, the leftover Gouda cheese would be delicious cubed and added to a salad.  That is, if you can refrain from eating all of it before you're finished making the recipe.  I love Gouda cheese.  I also like that it comes wrapped in red wax just like all the cheeses in the Netherlands, and I used to live there. 

1960's Housewife

Of course I looked just like this while cooking - wearing a sparkling white apron with my wedge espadrilles in a sizable kitchen and my size 2 waist.

Ok, so I'm lying.  My kitchen is a size 2 and my waist is the thing that's becoming sizable, but at least that's a testament that my food is good.  Lennon almost ate the whole two quart dish of pasta, and I had to stop him so I'd have leftovers for lunch the next day.  Let's hope he and I never have sons, we'll be broke.

Useful Procrastination

This weekend, my church's choir appropriately sang Rutter's Requiem on Dia De Los Muertos, along with a winds accompaniment, which makes me wish I still played the clarinet.  No one ever told me that my clarinet could be so much cooler than a marching version of Louie Louie would allow.  Afterwards, having spent thirty minutes before the service trying to secure a parking space downtown, (always frustrating), it seemed wasteful to just go home, so Lennon and I walked towards the capital to see the Texas Book Festival.  It was warm and the tents were crowded, so I didn't stop to explore books or talk to authors like I would have liked, but it was a beautiful day and I was eager to go home and find a sunny spot to nap.

Sunday also marked the kick off of NaNoWrMo.  Being the world's worst procrastinator, I didn't open a word document until 11:33PM, after which I only wrote 600 words, a bit short of the 50,000 goal.

So, in case anyone out there has similar procrastinating problems, I thought I would point out a few of the ways in which procrastinating can be productive.  Thus, I offer up the following list of useful procrastination tasks, and yes, reading the list counts as one:

1) Start a blog.  Seriously... picking your favorite template, finding pictures for your banner, all set up a perfect blank canvas on which to project your ideas.  And if you already have a blog, then go post in it.  Writing a few paragraphs for a blog is much easier than trying to think up a thrilling novel plot, with instant publishing gratification.

2) Clean.  I can't work with the apartment in a certain degree of messy.  And while I may not categorize the memorable moments of my life as the ones I spent vacuuming and cloroxing when I'm on my death bed, those moments certainly make all of the others more pleasant.  So do vanilla scented candles.

3) Build your perfect modern author outfit on Polyvore - then post it to your blog!  If you're procrastinating writing, you could also build outfits for the characters you create - then post it on your (new) blog!  Visual stimulation helps spark my muse. 

4) I've always wanted to take a few lessons in vocal harmonies.  Now seems like a good idea to go research if classes like that are offered around Austin, and then consider signing up for one.  Or maybe there's a massage therapy class, or ceramics.  Can't hurt to check...

5) Write a poem in the voice of one of your characters.  Preferably a spoken word piece.  And then come read it at the Independent on Wednesday.

6) Go about making plans the old fashioned way.  Get some index cards, brightly colored pens, tell the dog not to step on you, lay on the floor, and jot notes on the cards.  Then rearrange them to make different stories until you find one you like.  Feel free to doodle on the cards.

7) Cook!  Urged on my procrastination, I made dinner for the first time in two weeks tonight.  So, for your culinary pleasure, here is my procrastinator-perfect Broccoli Rice Cheese Casserole:

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked rice (I like to mix white and brown)

1 stick of butter

1 yellow onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 broccoli crowns, chopped and steamed

1 can fat free cream of mushroom soup + 1 cup fat free sour cream OR 2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese

salt & pepper to taste

                              

1. Cook rice with 1 part rice to 1.5 parts water for fifteen minutes, covered while oven preheats at 350

2. Chop onion and mix with garlic, sauté in butter

3. Steam broccoli

                              

4. Mix rice with soup and sour cream in a large bowl

5. Add onions, garlic, broccoli, and most of the cheese

6. Spread into a large casserole dish, top with cheese and bake at 350, covered in foil

7. Take off foil, and keep baking for ten more minutes.  Then, yum!

      

Now that I'm fed, have tidied up, and watched several reruns of House on DVD, I should pull out my index cards and get back to my non-existent novel.