Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Recipe: Eggplant Cacciatore Subs

For this I combined two of my go-to meals; Eggplant Parmesan Subs and Chicken Cacciatore Subs.  Eggplant parm is a go-to during Lent when I've had to much pizza and Chicken Cacciatore Subs are a Rachel Ray recipe that is one of my dad's favorites.  I wanted to use some air baked breaded eggplant slices that I had in the freezer.  My first thought was eggplant parm, then eggplant parm subs, then but there should be more veggies, then I can do chicken cacciatore and substitute eggplant for the chicken. So these were born and I think they will be a go-to in the future.

Recipe: For 2

Ingredients
3 Large Slices of Eggplant Air Baked (instructions below)
Half package Baby Bella (Crimini) Mushrooms sliced
Half medium onion
Half bell pepper
3/4 small jar marinara sauce
2 Ciabata Rolls
4 slices Provalone cheese
Olive Oil

Instructions

  • Pre-heat your oven to 375.  Over medium low heat, cook mushrooms in a covered saute pan until soft.  Add olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan, then add onions and peppers.  Increase heat to medium and saute vegetables until the onions are soft.  Add sauce and decrease heat to a simmer, this is the cacciatore.  
  • Coat a small frying pan with olive oil and heat to medium.  Use thing pan to re-heat your eggplant slices and brown the crust. Once the eggplant is golden brown and re-heated, remove from the pan and cut in half.
  • While the eggplant is re-heating, slice open your rolls.  I like to slice them so that only two sides are open making a pocket, this way the subs much less messy to eat.  Spread a little sauce in the roll.   Place three eggplant halves in each roll, top with the cacciatore then cheese. Your fingers will get a bit messy because the roll is not all the way open.  Cover a sheet pan with tin foil place subs on it and stick it in the oven.  Bake at 375 until the cheese is nice and melty. 
Air Baked Eggplant:  Slice and Salt your eggplant.  Dredge in egg, then bread crumbs (flavored as it please you).  Place a cooling rack on a sheet pan and lay your breaded eggplant slices on it.  Bake at 350 until browned.  
To Freeze: Place cooled, air baked eggplant slices on a sheet pan. Freeze.  Once slices are frozen they can be collected into a freezer bag.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Thoughts of Spring

Around the end of January I got a little excited about ordering supplies for seed starting. As you can see a litte ment eighty five dollars and a shopping cart so big that I had to take two screen shots to show everything.
Fast forward to two weeks ago.  Time to start the peppers. Gather your supplies
Label the tray! This helps you remember what is what and where things are planted.
Plant your seeds as directed.  This year I picked Go Green seed starting kits and instead of the plastic dome cover it came with a plastic wrap~ish cover.
Next realize that the basement should be declared a disaster area and that the spot that your grow table was set up last year is full of crap and in the dead center of the basement. 
"Interview" Prospective areas for the grow table
Tidy your chosen spot.

Then; Setup your table, hang your light, dig through Christmas boxes to find a light timer, string an extension cord through the rafter supports, plug in timer, plug in grow light, set timer and put your seedlings under the light.
Realize that this year it is sixty degrees in the basement this year because the heating pipes have been insulated. Freak out because this is to cold for seedlings to grow and order a heat mat, get your head back right before you pay way extra for rush shipping.
The heating mat arrived at the beginning of last week and by the weekend I was doing the happy dance because everything had sprouted! 

Friday, March 8, 2013

My Favorite Apps

I've had my iPhone for a solid year now and out of my 106 (hangs head in shame) apps, these are my go-to apps.
1-4: Facebook, Instagram, WeatherChannel and Twitter After my email the first things I check in the morning.
5: Audible Audio books.  I have a $15 per month membership = one audiobook monthly, I do a lot of independant projects at work and this is a life saver.
6: Pandora Internet radio, also a life saver and great for dancing in the kitchen.
7: NPR We use this to stream the BBC every night as we're going to bed and in the car on long drives.
8: Tap Paradise Cove I'm totally addicted to this game, I think I'm on level 25
9: HomeRoutine This is a household chores check list with AM, PM, daily and weekly lists; it also gives you a focus zone every week for deep cleaning areas of the house.  It has been so helpful reminding me to switch the laundry and prep dinner.
10: BodyBot "Personalized" workout routines, I like check-off lists and it is cheaper and less embarrassing than a trainer.
11: GroceryGadget A checkoff shopping list.
12: GasCubby Keeps track of MPG's and how much you are paying for gas.  Great for new SUV owner!
13: Blogger Good for writing posts on the go, also helpful for uploading iPhone photos.
14: TV Guide Easier than the guide on our TV, also the search function works amazingly
15: PicStitch Quick and easy photo collages
16: Bank of America Do I have enough for this super cute thing from Target?

These keep me entertained and organized and if you don't have them you should!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Lent Week 3

We're still going strong.  Even with a growler of BBC in the fridge softly calling Christine, Bruce come drink me.  We were super carb heavy this week, I won't lie I was being a bit lazy and we discovered a new pizza place near us. I finally got back into my groove Sunday night cooking.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter Balsamic Sauce

What We Ate:
Wednesday: Pizza
Thursday: 3 Bean Chili
Friday: Pizza
Saturday: Chili Nachos

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Master Style

Looking back, our bedroom has come a long way.  Here you can see what it looked like when we bought the house.  Gross walls and curtains straight out of the seventies. The closet looked just as gross as the walls.
Before I started working in November of 2010 I painted the closet and bedroom, purchased new curtains, bedding and accent pillows.
Here is where we stand now.  We've always had the dresser and hamper, the bedding was on our wedding registry (West Elm discontinued).  We are still using a footstool and a storage cube for night stands and the duvet cover is busy so we need a few solid accent pieces for the bedding.
Still To Do:
Night Stands
Paint the "holidays" on the ceiling.
White Curtains
New Accent Pillows
Paint Fountain (on the dresser)
Art on the Walls
Customize Closet
New Shade for the overhead light

Monday, March 4, 2013

Weekend Update

If you're not hearing the SNL weekend update music, go to NBC, watch a Weekend Update, and come back, I'll wait.

We went to the home show and got a couple of good leads on contractors for the second floor modifications and one to refinish the hard woods.

We watched movies and snuggled with dogs, we're dog sitting for my parents while they are on vacation.
Bruce fixed the gauges in the Envoy.  It will be nice to how fast I'm going finally. The speedometer gave up on the way home the day we bought it, so I haven't known how fast I have been driving since December.
I learned how to do a fishtail braid, worked on some crafty projects, went food shopping, ran errands, and tidied the house.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Closet Floor: Located.

My parents are going away next week and borrowing our medium suitcase.  We have a luggage set that lives like a set of nesting dolls in our cedar closet, which is a cozy arrangement until you try to use them and the cedar closet vomits all over the office. Like so.
In preparation for this eventuality, I had purchased a new hanging closet organizer and drawers for it at Ikea. Full disclosure my plan was to assess the cedar closet when we were cleaning the office weeks ago but the blitz clean for the appraisal side-tracked me.
I separated the mess into piles: travel supplies, beach towels, summer clothes, Bruce bathing suites, Christine bathing suites and cover-ups, hats, purses, blankets, Bruce bags, Christine bags and TOSS.  "Bags" think backpacks and duffle bags.
Then I loaded up the new organizer, complete with an empty drawer; re-folded everything and loaded up the shelf; all of Bruce's bags went into his snowboarding bag and all of mine went into my largest duffle, duffle stacked onto snowboarding bag on the closet floor. Done.
It is wonderful, don't you love a good Before and After?  It makes me want to put things away and I made a point to show Bruce where everything now lives.  This way he can find things when he is packing and put them away when he's unpacking (he's so much better at unpacking than I am, when I packed for last weekend I had to unpack things from Christmas travel!!!!)  Now, which closet to take remaining summer clothes out of bedroom or cedar ? ? ?