I am, in fact, alive.

So I am back after a bit of a blogging hiatus. I had intended to make a post on Wednesday, but came down with a pretty bad case of nausea/severe headaches/overall malaise on Wednesday and pretty much just stayed in bed for two days. I'm not really sure where it came from ( I hardly ever get sick) but I have my suspicions. There was a plastic sandwich container lid left on our oven with the oven turned on. Needless to say, I grabbed it as soon as I noticed but by that time, some of the plastic had already melted onto the stovetop burner. I turned the burner on high to burn off the remaining plastic, but didn't bother to open a window. Shortly afterwards, I started developing a pretty stong headache which led to everything I mentioned above. It left me feeling pretty blah for two days straight so I have stayed away from the computer. Except of course to google 'smelling burning plastic'. NEVER google medical related things. There is so much conflicting information, you don't know what is right and what isn't, and all it does is leave you even more paranoid in the end.

Moving on, the grocery situation in the Power/Smith residence is bleak once again (getting groceries this week) so it's been experimentation use up all leftover food week. Tuesday, I heated up some Jillian Michael's black bean chilli for myself and Randy. When I made it, I made an extra batch to freeze for those times when you just don't want to cook or you don't have a very inspiring fridge and pantry.

I love the colours! So tasty and so good for you too. All that red nonsense is the Frank's Red Hot (Xtra Hot) sauce I doused mine in.

I spent all day Wednesday in bed (and for once, was thankful I didn't get any calls for subbing) and was in no mood to cook. Even the thought of popping a slice of toast in the toaster seemed like too much effort. I recruited Randy to pick us up some Mary Brown's and we ate it in bed. I only have two very blurry pictures that I will save you the pain of viewing - I was hungry and sick and cranky and in no mood to photograph my food. I ate a Big Mary with medium taters (which I found to be reallllllly salty) and a butt load of Apple Juice.

Thursday I was feeling a little better and managed to haul my butt out of bed to make some sweet and sour meatballs. I combined a little over a pound of extra lean ground beef with about a cup of breadcrumbs, one beaten egg, 1/2 cup milk and a bit of salt and pepper. I fried this up in a skillet until they were browned but not fully cooked:

I put all these in a casserole dish while I made the sweet and sour sauce. I combined a cup of ketchup, 1/2 cup water, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, and four tablespoons each of worcestershire sauce and vinegar. I brought it to a boil and then poured over the meatballs.

I put these bad boys in a 325 degree oven for an hour. Seems like a long time considering they are already half cooked, but I found this to be the perfect time because it lets the meatballs soak up lots of the sauce and makes them more moist in the end.

I made some brown rice and served these on top of it:

These were great! Very filling and I even had enough leftover to have for lunch for me and Randy the next day.

Friday, Randy had offered to take me out for supper. We were both working that day and neither one of us was in the mood to go to a fancier place and wanted to have a pint of beer with our meal, which in Grand Falls leaves you with two options: Don Cherry's or Jungle Jim's. He let me pick and I opted for Jungle Jim's because it had been awhile since I was there. I am really not a big fan of Jungle Jim's. The menu is huge and overwhelming and I usually find that no matter what I order, it all tastes pretty much the same. But I was in the mood for brick in your guts type food so I figured it would be the right place for that. We got there and ordered a pint of Coor's each while we perused the menu. The mug came frosted and the beer was so cold and delicious (and well-deserved after my day subbing in a Skilled Trades class, I might add!). I decided to order the Safari Wrap with fries and Randy ordered a Cajun Chicken Salad. My wrap and fries came to me like this:

It was okay. The wrap had chicken, bacon, cheese, lettuc and mayo in it. I was starving and in the mood for junk so this was pretty  much what I had in mine. Ordinarily though, I probably wouldn't order it. A little boring, and a little bland, but it was good for what I was in the mood for.

This is an off-centre (good photography skills, Babe! lol) picture of Randy's salad:

I asked Randy to give his two cents and all he said was it was "fine". So when I asked him to elaborate, he said "the lettuce was lettucey, the sauce was saucy, and the chicken was underflavored. It didn't have enough Cajun seasoning".

While Randy paid the bill, I meandered into the bookstore adjacent to Jungle Jim's and found a 10 dollar legal write your own will booklet. I'm pretty intrigued and will probably go back and buy it. I don't think it's a full-on "this is where my possessions will go" will package (as I'm fairly certain you need a lawyer for that) but it is a booklet where you can let your thoughts on life support for yourself and whatnot be made, legally binding. I know it may seem a little morbid for a 25 year old, healthy woman to be thinking about this, but I think it's important! The last thing I would want is my family to have me on life support as a vegetable, unable to move on with their lives. So if I ain't pullin' out of it, I want something that can tell my family to pull the plug.

Earlier in the week, I had watched an episode of Rachael Ray where she made a grilled chicken and bacon macaroni and cheese and I could not get my mind off of it. I decided to make it yesterday, minus a few ingredients that I didn't have. I won't post the whole recipe, but you can find it by clicking on this link:

http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=3868

Holy crap, was this good. My alterations to this were:
- No chicken stock (didn't have any on hand)
- Marble and pecorino-romano cheese instead of gruyere and sharp white cheddar cheese
- 1/2 a red onion instead of one whole onion

This recipe was so good! I wouldn't recommend doing what I did and using too much Pecorino-Romano cheese  - it is a little salty and in high quantities, can overwhelm the food. Still, it tasted pretty damn good.

This is me grating the cheese for it:

I won't post any more prep photos because I'm not including the recipe. But check out the creaminess:

Yum. Served with a dinner roll, of  course. And...

Yay, leftovers!

That's about all for this entry. I haven't changed the poll yet because of a lack of interest; I may get around to doing it later but we shall see. A snack that I have been loving lately is two Breaktime chocolate chips cookies with a  tablespoon of light frozen coolwhip between. Two cookies only has 70 calories and the cool whip is low in calories as well. Voila! Homemade (light) ice cream sandwich.

Shoutouts from the past six days go to: homemade ice cream sandwiches, fat cheesies, and justifying bites of cheese that are "too small for the grater"

Sebastian passed out from too much tube