Scheduling dinners around my awesome sporty after work activities has been difficult lately. This spring I've added on Monday night concert band rehearsals, attempted to jump back into the swing of things with dragon boating, and started teaching some aforementioned dragon boaters how to swim. I love my fast-paced schedule so much that I rarely long for a free night, but if I need one they arrive right on time on Fridays, which are often followed by beautiful weekends.
I knew time was going to be limited this week. I went shopping two nights prior at Trader Joes, for the sole reason that I took the Green C line home because it came first (twss). The prices were more reasonable than I expected, but boy is that place an adult candy store. I guilted myself into buying only one candy type item - vitamin C gummies. Yeah, I'm good.
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| Caitlin made some delicious spaghetti squash. |
Anywho, the only free time I had this past week was about an hour and a half before taking a pole dancing lesson with Hannah (I'll touch on that later). So I had to reduce my normal 2.5+ hour prep time down to what became an iron chef style prep time. The ingredient for this episode was zucchini, which I may or may not have used in my New Year's Day ratatouille recipe. I followed two different recipes of zucchini gratin at once, which surprisingly worked out just fine. One recipe called for grating the zucchini and adding it while another called for thinly slicing zucchini and tomatoes and placing them atop rice. I did the whole kitten caboodle (anyone know the origin of that saying? Kitten caboodles sound fantastic). I layered the zuc and tomato slices on top of the shredded zuc and spinach atop some rice, and it all went in the oven for about half an hour, which is a rough estimate for the time between when I popped it in before I left and forgot about it until about a minute before pole dancing class started. Thankfully Caitlin is a doll and turned off the oven shortly after I left the house. If you didn't know it already, I'm clumsy and forgetful sometimes.
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| In the oven, right before Hannah and I left for pole dancing and we forgot it was in there. |
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| New iPhone = nicer pictures. Aren't you lucky! |
Pole dancing was a hoot. It was a pretty rough workout for the abs, and it left bruises on my shins and hips from digging the pole into my skin as I clambered up. It was a fast hour and a half and we're debating getting a class package and going again!
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| All you need to make some incredible thin mints (shortening not pictured) |
The pole fitness (the mature name for it, I guess) studio is about two Boston-sized blocks from our apartment. My cooking bug was not satisfied after the earlier hour and a half, and I had just found a recipe for Girl Scout cookies in the HuffPo a few days earlier, in lieu of Girl Scout cookie season. Even at 11PM, I was determined to churn out a batch of cookies before simmering down for bed. The recipe for thin mints only used four ingredients: shortening, peppermint extract, chocolate chips, and RITZ CRACKERS. I know, I was skeptical too. I bet you can guess how the ingredients were mixed (maybe with the exception of shortening, which was combined with the melted chocolate to prolong its fluidness. After ten minutes in the freezer, the cookies were tasted by all Linden st #1 inhabitants, except rachael who probably couldn't eat it. They tasted exactly like the real deal. Unbelievable. Go make them yourselves right meow!
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| YUM |
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