Thank you for the mini keg, you rocked my weekend.

My 4 tomato plants have magically turned into 7. Miracle Grow is making them explode. Anyone want tomatoes in about a week?

I used my new burger patty maker. Look at the perfectly formed burgers. I know you’re jealous.

As always, Monty is more upset we’re taking photos instead of playing.

I stopped the live updates from the Cabbage Diet Day 2 because a) it was all starting to sound the same, and b) I had a near death experience from the lack of food. I cracked on the 1st full day and ate a salad WITH DRESSSING!

Day 3 dawned full of the prospect of milk & bananas all day, plus the super extra tasty awesome cabbage soup I made. Hell yeah! I cracked by noon and had a Panera sandwich. When I got home at 7pm, Christa was also done with the whole thing. So what would any diet-crazed half-starved human being do? We had Taco Bell.

How do you spell Cabbage Diet?
S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-A-R-F-A-I-L-U-R-E

Christa said she lost 3 pounds by Thursday. I managed to gain 1.
Never again.

Live updates from cabbage diet day 2 – fruits, veggies & cabbage soup only…

8:04am
Just got to work. I’m starving, and I haven’t had a coffee. No one better talk to me or I’ll bite their head off. Trying to stave off hunger pains by eating celery stalks. Who eats celery for breakfast?!

8:53am
I’m still hungry. The celery lasted 20 minutes. How are vegetarians not hungry all the time!!!?

9:21am
Good thing I’m at work. My bowels are very upset with me right now. At least my colon already feels cleaner… Snacking on some grapes now.

10:37am
Some serious mind over matter shit needs to start happening soon. I’ve never been this hungry in my life. I ate all of my celery sticks, baby carrots, and grapes that I brought for breakfast. I’ve drank my entire 1 liter of water.
<sarcasm>I can’t wait for lunch when I can eat cabbage soup.</sarcasm>

1:18pm
The soup is good. It filled me up decently, but I am having this overwhelming urge to raid the vending machine at work. Even the unidentifiable pastry looking green “Lucky Puffs” are looking delicious.

1:44pm
Hungry again. I sent Christa an email explaining how I feel like a starving kid from a third world nation. She was not amused.

3:32pm
There is an eerie calm in my belly right now. I just ate an apple and finished off my 2nd liter of water today. Round 2 of cabbage soup starts once I get home, but for now I’m out of food.

Let me just preface this by saying, I like food. I like to eat, and I like to eat food.

That’s why when I was notified today that I would be taking part in the 7 day cabbage soup diet with Christa, I was less than amused. As a matter of fact, I was a little ticked off.

But, as we all learn sooner or later, marriage is all about compromise. That’s why I’m going to be taking part in the new and improved condensed version of the cabbage diet (since we only have 5 days to do it to “prepare” for the wedding).

We skipped right to day 2 and had a nice salad & baked potato for dinner tonight. I’m in the process of making the soup right now to have over the next few days, and so far I’m pleasantly surprised. I’ve added some extra special seasoning and the soup smells downright good now, though I’m fearing what an update 2 days from now might say.

Stay tuned…

As a follow-up to last week’s rant about pet food, I found a company from Midland, MI (Wysong) that produces all their pet food locally. Its twice as expensive as the stuff I used to buy, but at least there is some confidence in the product, and I am supporting a local company.

The ingredients for the can I gave my dog and kitty last night listed:

Contains rabbit; no grains, no fillers, no artificial preservatives, no synthetic vitamins or minerals, no artificial colouring, and no no artificial or synthetic anything else. Just rabbit.

Both the animals went ape for it, so I bought another can to give a whirl — this time turkey.
It’s ingredients?

Turkey, water sufficient for processing.

Not only do both animals love it, but Mister look-at-me-wrong-and-I’ll-puke Bailey has gone an entire week without regurgitation. Simply amazing!

There was a whole package of uncooked bacon left over from the other night when we made bacon-cheeseburgers for dinner. I really wanted to get it cooked up since we have a habit of forgetting about stuff like that and finding it 4 months later as an unidentifiable blob of viscous goo, so we thought “what better to go with bacon than even more red meat!” and whipped up some Rouladen. We found a recipe from Foodtv.com which sounded good, and modified it to our liking.

I wish I had taken the time to take a picture of our handiwork, because it was damn good.
(more…)

I made C an awesome belated Vday dinner last night. If anyone is interested here’s how i did it.

2 top sirloin steaks (~1lb)
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper
celery salt
parsley
1/4c red wine***
1 large shallot
1 Tbsp butter

Heat a cast iron pan on medium high & add 2 turns of the pan of olive oil (~2 Tbsp). Oil should be smoking. Salt, pepper the steaks to taste both sides, sprinkle a dab of celery salt & top with parsley. Cook 7 minutes to side (5 would be medium rare). Remove from pan & tent the steaks w/ foil. Add shallots and brown for 2 minutes. Add 1 Tbsp butter & 1/4c wine, scrape all the steak goodness off the bottom of the pan, & cook the wine down about 1/2. Pour wine sauce of steak & serve w/ steamed broccoli.

***Note: A Cabernet would be a good choice of wine to use. I used a Shiraz and it turned out just a little fruitier than I would have liked.

Some of you have been over and had the Matt-burger-experience.
Here’s the delicious secret:

1 lb ground sirlion
1/2 red onion, diced
palmful of Montreal Steak Seasoning (to taste)
2-3 Tbsp red wine vinegar (to taste)
2-3 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce (to taste)
splash of lemon juice

Mix the ingredients in a bowl until all of the liquid is absorbed. Form into 3 patties. Grill 2 minutes per side on high heat to sear in juices, then ~3-6min per side on low heat to cook to desired doneness.

I love to start projects. And though I’m not that great at finishing them, starting them is always a blast. My latest project involves one my favorite things: food.

Usually, we make a weekly menu for all our meals and go to the supermarket once a week. We then buy all the produce, pastas, and breads that we’ll will need for the coming week. Sometimes this works out well, but most of the time, we stray from the menu, either by eating at a restaurant or by deciding late in the week that we really don’t feel like what we planned for after all. This results in another trip to the store, an expensive trip to a restaurant, and/or wilted produce and unused items.

Now, we don’t have a big kitchen. In fact, it’s tiny. Matter of fact, one trip to Costco and we’re busting out of the cupboard seams for storage.

So Christa had a brilliant idea last weekend to use an empty area under the stairs/back door landing in the basement as a place for a pantry & additional storage.

Currently the area is filled with random boxes, leftover crap, stuff not touched since we moved in, and 4 inches of dirt, dust, and leaves/pine needles from all the shoes walking downstairs from the back door.

So I plan on tackling this project in a few steps:

1. Clean, sort, and toss anything sitting untouched since the move that is still under the stairs
2. Close in the steps leading into the basement to prevent the dirt/grime buildup in the pantry area
3. Curtain or close off one side of the stairs to hide all the junk from my office area
4. Decide on purchased pantry storage unit that will fit the area or build shelving

Step 1 should begin within the next few weeks. I’ll try to stay updated with pictures as I go along.

Before | 12/19/06