Dinner Together

I love having dinner with Craig. It feels so much nicer to just make dinner, and sit at the table together enjoying the food, drink, and conversation. I grew up eating dinner with my family every night, though, so maybe that's part of why I enjoy it so much. Unfortunately, it gets hard to find time in our busy (and most of the time conflicting) schedules to make a nice dinner and enjoy it together. Tonight was a night when we were able to do that. We didn't make dinner together--Craig went to get a workout this evening, so I prepared dinner so it would be waiting for him when he got home. Here's what was on the menu: Goat cheese stuffed chicken breasts with rice, salad, artichoke, and baked vegetables topped with Parmesan cheese. It was really good, but I spent a good amount of time making it.

The chicken was really easy--I made the goat cheese filling with plain goat cheese, chopped basil from the backyard, lemon juice, and lemon zest.















The beautiful artichoke--haven't had one of these in so long! It reminds me of my Aunt Jane.


Here are the mixed veggies that I stuck in the oven--it's a mix of potatoes, onions, and zucchini with lots of garlic and some sesame oil. I topped these later with parmesan cheese to get a nice golden crust!


The final result: Too much food for two people! Huge plates of delicious food. It was awesome!

Weekend

I probably should have been studying...but when you've got two days off, it's just so hard to do! Today was more productive than usual (which is not saying much)...I just haven't felt like doing much of anything lately. I cleaned up the apartment a little today, which felt nice, and have been doing laundry all day. I also tackled something I've been wanting to try for a while--making healthy, high-fiber energy bars. I didnt measure ingredients, but here's kind of what I did:

threw dried dates (pitted), sunflower seeds, and almonds into my magic bullet. Blended them until it made a course, sticky mess.
Then I added all of this to my stand mixer with bran flour, oatmeal, applesauce (a great replacement for oil in any recipe), one egg, and a little water. Mixed it all together, and then pressed it into the bottom of a square cake pan.
I baked it for about 15 minutes on 425 until the edges were brown. That's it! They don't have any added sugar, salt, or fat, so they're not sweet, but the applesauce and dates added a little sweetness. For the second batch, I added a little pumpkin pie spice to the mix. I'm definitely going to try this again, and maybe add apples to the mixture--yum!









Craig cooked a huge cut of pork in some home brewed brown ale last week, which tasted amazing, and saved the broth for later. I decided to use it up today since I had nothing but studying to do. I threw it into a crock pot with celery, carrots, potatoes, onions, and tempeh. Looking forward to trying that as well--it smells so good! No meat in this one (except for the broth).

It's been a while

I think I'm going to have to do something about this not-posting business. I've had to make another blog for an elective class I'm in...yay. I guess the good thing about that is that I'm forced to write at least once a week...for an audience of peers and professors. Anyways, it's spring term of my 2nd year of pharmacy school. The year's flown by. We had an IM volleyball team this year (we were awful), have had tons of modules of drugs I hope to remember, counseling experience in pharmacies, the Apothecary Ball run by yours truly, and many other things. I'll soon be moving to Portland for my 3rd year at OHSU, which should be fun and stressful all at once.

Anyway, I had to write something to end this dry spell. I'd been looking at this blog and thinking that I should write, but didnt know what to write about since it'd been so long. Well here it is. the post that ends the dry spell. No more excuses.