Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

Hard to believe that I’ve been married for a month already!  I’m positive it was the fastest month ever.

Things I’ve learned (food related) during my first month of marriage:

1. I don’t have to do it all myself: This week’s menu is probably the one I’m happiest with yet and a large part of that is due to the fact that I asked my Man what he thought we should have.  He really is full of good ideas (eggplant parm being one of them) that just don’t occur to me.
2. All my cooking doesn’t have to be perfect: My husband isn’t opposed to eating vegetable tetrazzini that didn’t come out just right or curry that doesn’t take like much.  If it’s food, its probably edible.  Takes a lot of the pressure off of me.
3. Food shopping as a couple keeps us out of a lot of trouble: We’re perpetually talking each other out of items we don’t need.  The supermarket is a very tempting place, but usually one of us has enough sense at any given moment to talk the other out of whatever unhealthy/overpriced/unnecessary item the other is considering.

To celebrate our first month, I decided to bake a lime pie for my Man.  He’s really into key lime pie, so when this recipe for Key Lime (Or Not) Pie appeared in my Reader a couple weeks ago I had to find an excuse to make it.  I used regular limes (and actually cheated by using lime juice from a bottle for half the juice).

It was a little bit of a risk, as I’ve only made one pie before and never with a graham cracker crust.  In the end however, the pie turned out great, though a little yellower than I expected.  Still, it tastes really lime-y (the green flecks are lime zest, in case you were concerned).

The only imperfection in my pie (I think…my husband may have other opinions) is that the crust is really crumbly:

The theory is that the crust just needs more butter.  We don’t mind crumbly crust though…it still tastes really good.  Overall, this pie was really easy to make, though it does take some time, since the crust has to be baked at least 1/2 an hour before the pie filling can be added.

Another cool part of this pie:  I used the egg separator that came with our measuring cups to separate the 4 yolks I needed from their whites.  It was one of those things that we didn’t expect to ever use, but sure enough, it came in handy.  See what a good job it did:

Updates and Confessions

Two and a half weeks into my new life as married woman, Massachusetts resident (though technically not official yet) and head cook of the household, I’m not doing as well as I thought I’d be.  I have a couple legit reasons for this and a lot of mediocre excuses.

I haven’t been eating very well.   Lunch has generally remained vegetarian (though not necessecarily healthy: I had tortilla chips with cheese and salsa as my entire lunch the other day) and I’ve had some vegetarian meals for dinner, but I feel like more meat has appeared on our plates than I intended.  But meat is easy: you only have to heat up a ham steak or a keilbasa.  Anything involving vegetables or beans or most grains requires more prep than that.  And sometimes I don’t feel like cooking.  (Side note: My Man does, has and will cook if I ask him to…or if I’m asleep at dinner time, which has happened…but I’m supposed to be the one all excited to do so)

I didn’t expect planning meals and cooking to be as draining and difficult as it is.  I was so excited to cook a week’s worth of meals, but it’s so much more work than just cooking one dish and eating it for lunch all week.  It’s a lot of effort to pour throught the supermarket fliers and try to find the best deals.  I have a small collection of cookbooks I love and a binder of miscellaneous recipes I want to try.   Yet it’s easier to make things I’ve made before or that I know my Man likes than to try something new.  Actually, that’s a pretty lame excuse.

I want to cook.  I want to maintain this blog.  I want to eat healthier than I have been.  I need to start working out…at least walking…again.  I think it’s primarily a matter of getting into routine: finding out what works, what doesn’t, what ingredients are great but not too expensive, remembering that I really do love cooking and being in the kitchen.

Goals:

-Find more quick, easy, delicious and healthy (because a big pot of pasta every night is not healthy) vegetarian recipes

-Make recipes using the ingredients we already have

-Limit dinners with meat to once or twice a week

-Go for a walk every day

I’m Married!!!

To address any concern you may have had, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I got married (though I’m sure in the minds of some people, those events are equivalent)!!!  At any rate, the ceremony was last Saturday, the only nice day in Maine since forever and we had a wonderful time.  It was perfect and everything I dreamed it would be.  A week later, my Man and I are getting settled into our apartment in the Berkshires and starting our life together. Finally.

I love my Man more than words can express. I’m so glad we’re finally married and together, instead of doing the silly long distance thing we maintained for 2 years. My Man has innumerable wonderful qualities, but one of the ones I’m most excited about is his willingness to let me be myself in the kitchen. He’ll eat pretty much anything (or at least try it) and though he still wants to eat meat on occasion, he’s totally cool with the healthy, flexitarian/vegetarian, homemade lifestyle I’m pursuing. Such a refreshing change from home, where “beans”, “vegetarian” and “different” are sometimes dirty words. And we’ve got a plethora of new pots, pans, dishes and cooking gadgets to encourage me in my culinary endeavors. It’s very exciting.

It’s also thrilling to be living in a place with several decent supermarkets in town. No more driving half an hour because our local store doesn’t have what I need! I’ve promised myself (and my Man) that I will shop more purposefully than my family does at home, which sometimes results in going to the supermarket several times a week.  I made a list, planned a menu for the week and staked out deals in the supermarket fliers last night. We ventured out to the store this morning at which point I made a very sad discovery.

Food costs money.

Clearly this is not really news to the rest of the world, but now that I am living on a budget and seeking employment, we’re trying to limit the amount of money we spend on groceries every week.  A sad reality for my cooking dreams, given that I used to not give a thought to spending $20 on the ingredients for one meal when I was living at home. At any rate, it adds to the challenge and I’m sure will work out once we get into a routine, have more staples in the cupboard, and I get a job.

Meanwhile, I’ve subscribed to the following blogs (because I obviously didn’t have enough others to read) with the hope that they’ll help me cook good food while saving money:

5 Dollar Dinners

Fat Free Vegan

Closet Cooking

Thanks to another great blog,  Cheap, Healthy, Good, for the links!

Thoughts on My Impending Nuptials

First of all, I really didn’t think that was how “nuptials” was spelled.  But that’s not the point of this post.

In just a few weeks, I’ll be living in Western Massachusetts, finally married to my Man after an 18 month, long distance engagement.  It’ll be a big change from living with my parents, but it’s one I’m very much looking forward to.  I’m so happy to be marrying him.

As a married woman, I plan to cook a lot more than I have been recently.  I’m looking forward to only having to run my meal choices by only one person, and he’s pretty much agreed to try anything once (he even loves beans!).  My plan is to only eat meat once or twice a week, which is going to take a ton of thinking ahead.  But it’ll be delicious, healthy, fun and hopefully result in a lot more blog posts!  That said, don’t expect much in the way of posts for the next couple weeks…things are busy here at wedding central!

My Man is much more into working out than I am.  I was pretty good about getting to the gym when I was in college, but since moving home my exercising has been sporadic at best (though I have been taking yoga and loving it since this winter).  I’ve been feeling guilty about my lack of activity lately, so it’ll be great to live with someone who already has an established routine.   My Man has grand plans to walk frequently, possibly join the gym and act as my workout conscience.  It should be really good.  I’ll keep you posted.

I was surprised by not one, but two, bridal showers this week.  Wonderful presents came my way, the most remarkable of which are a set of pots and pans from my parents and a KitchenAid stand mixer from my future mother-in-law (she must love me!), and half of our requested place settings of Fiesta dishes.  We also received cutting boards, glasses, a Crockpot, aprons, and a lot of other wonderful things that I’m not trying to reduce in value because I’m not mentioning them, but I suspect the world at large doesn’t need to know every gift I unwrapped.  I’m really excited to get into my kitchen to use all my new stuff.  Cooking is even more fun when you’ve got shiny new toys to do it with.

If there’s one thing on my registry that I really want though, it’s a Cuisinart food processor.  I realize it’s not the most frugal gift request, but I use my mother’s all the time and I can’t imagine creating some of my recipes without one.

What’s your most essential kitchen gadget?  Any last minute must haves to add to my registry?