30 Minutes to Dinner: What Misguided Act of Domesticity Will You Attempt?

It seems that pasta is an art, and like most forms of art, a certain amount of skill and preparation are required. I was running low on noodles, so I figured, hey, how hard can it be to make noodles? The website I found said it was relatively simple. They recommended a pasta sheeter, but said a rolling pin would also work. Ta da! I have a rolling pin collecting dust in the pantry. I can do this! Little did I know.

Picture in your mind a funnel cake. Now put your hands in that funnel cake and break it all to pieces. Now throw those pieces in boiling water and you have a perfect picture of what my noodles looked like. Not pretty, is it? Needless to say, we didn't eat them. I found a half empty box of farfalle in the back of the fridge that saved dinner.

The moral of the story: pasta making is not for the faint of heart or for just any old house frau with a rolling pin.

Get Your Veggies on the Cheap

I neglected to post last week, and somehow Publix knew that. They are continuing their 99 cent sale on zuchini, squash, green beans, and okra through this next week just so I would have a chance to blog about it. Maybe Publix isn't so bad after all.

But you may want to also head to Target if you're of the berry-eating persuasion. They have been so kind as to put their Driscolls on sale for 1.99 for a decent sized carton of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries.

A recent discovery, the lost art of roasting a chicken. Well, it was lost to me. You can buy a whole chicken for way cheaper than you can buy the white meat. And the instructions are written on the bag, which takes all the mystery and excitement out of it, but you get a cooked bird so it's a fair trade. The next night I took the leftovers, or carcass as my grandmother would say, and made soup. So it was about two dinners and two lunches worth of food, and I got the pioneering satisfaction of using every last hunk of meat. Yay, cheap food!

Publix is Trying to Kill Me

Have you looked at the Publix circular this week? The Publix brand ice cream is 2/$5.00. This would be a good thing if I hadn't just bought the Breyers ice cream on the same sale last week. I am displeased. I love ice cream. But, in particular, I love Publix ice cream.

A few months ago, a stock boy, God love him, let me in on a little secret. Publix ice cream is actually made by Breyers. And I thought, well, that explains it. Breyers was my favey. And the Publix brand is just as good, only they have the most kicking ice cream flavors in the whole world, our personal standouts being Lemon Sugar Cookie and Blackberry Cobbler. I am told they also have the only peppermint candy flavor available all year.

Now I am presented with a conundrum. Do I eat my weight in the Breyers that I bought in hopes that we will run out before the end of the sale, or do I admit defeat and wait until next time. The fighter in me badly wants to plant myself in front of the TV and eat ice cream from the Today show through Leno, but alas, it is summer and I still have a few pounds of baby weight to lose. You win this one, Publix.

Scenes From a Kitchen

Oh, there are so many things I could write about today.

I just got wine in the mail. I know! It's fantastic! I used a Groupon and got $75 worth of wine for $28. I am so excited!

So anyway, the kitchen.

Meatless Mondays are still going strong. My plan for lentil burgers was shot down by - you guessed it - the Big Guy. So I did the only thing I knew to do, made macaroni and a truck load of veggies. I used the new Kraft Homestyle Macaroni or something like that. It wasn't bad, except to make it casserole style is a little involved and required me to use my own cheese. I would have felt slightly ripped off except I bought it with a coupon and got it for free.

The standout veggie was fresh okra that I steamed in the microwave with a half a can of stewed tomatoes. I love okra. Deeply.

However, what I don't love is my "I'm a Mom without a Brain" moment. I'm eating on the couch, minding my own business, when the pre-tot run-crawls over, pulls himself up and demands a bite of something, anything. So, idiot me, I fork him a tiny tomato. It's too hot and he spits it on the carpet. Nice. And then the Big Guy looks over at me with the "How do you survive without me all day" look and asks how to get the spot out. But I earned a little Mom-cred back when I knew how to get the spot out. The moral of the story is eat dinner at the table.

It's the End of the World, and I Helped

I have never been a person who enjoys Wal-Mart. If you do enjoy it, then you're just plain sick. Nothing says fun like waiting in line with the dregs of society trying not to make eye contact or contract an illness. Kind of like the line at the methadone clinic. One might say I hate Wal-Mart.

I also believe Wal-Mart is the downfall of the free market economy, capitalism at its worst. Goodbye, Mom and Pop shops of yesteryear, we got us a Wal-Mart. The only thing that can compete is another superstore, a better superstore, free of creepies and slightly more expensive. I love said superstore, for it is not Wal-Mart.

That having been said, I had to truck out to Wal-Mart for something or other yesterday and had to eat my words. I found tank tops for $3.50. The tank tops I had been wearing were left over from my preggo days and were way to big. So I got three new, seemingly well constructed tank tops for $3.50 a piece. And since at that point I was going to hell anyway, I bought a few pairs of shorts for $10 each. So if you need clothes and happen to find yourself in the armpit of the universe, stop and take a look.