Film: It's Complicated - a good laugh

I saw this movie with some girlfriends on Friday night and was so pleasantly surprised. I admire Meryl Streep and always laugh when Alec Baldwin is involved, but it was even better than I expected. Streep’s character is beautiful to the core. Leaving I found myself wishing I were more like her – maybe that is because as a little girl I always wanted to open my own bakery, so I’m a little jealous, BUT I assure you it was much deeper than that. I love a woman who is beautiful and is found very attractive by the men in her life even though she's not the typical Hollywood perfect. Steve Martin in endearing like his Father of the Bride character and Alec Baldwin is your classic high-powered man who let himself go, but still has his charm. It’s light-hearted and will provide you a good laugh if you are looking for one, so I want to send my recommendation out into the world.

Watch the trailer

Recipe: White Wine Sage Chicken and Parmesan Cous Cous

This came out REALLY well and smelled fantastic while cooking. I came up with this trying to use up the extra fresh sage I had some my last big dish. I should have used drier wine, but I didn’t want to go out for it.

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts thawed, trimmed, and halved

3 T. Butter

20 Sage leaves fresh, whole

1 cup dry white wine

S & P

½ cup cous cous

2 T. Parmesan grated

Recipe:

1. While making chicken, cook cous cous according to recipe on box. When cous cous is done, mix in parmesan

2. In medium saucepan, melt Butter, then add Sage leaves and Chicken

3. Brown chicken on both sides

4. Add half the wine

5. Once wine reduces, add other half

6. Chicken should cook in about 8 minutes

When done, serve chicken over a bed of the cous cous and top with jus from the pan.

Recipe: Farfalle with Roasted Butternut Squash, Sage & Brown Butter

A friend gave me a recipe for dish similar to this (thank you, Kendra :) ); I tinkered with it a bit and it turned out fantastically. It's super easy and fast. Serves 4 – 5.

Ingredients:

1 lb. butternut squash, ½ inch cubes

12 oz. Farfalle pasta

4 T. butter

15 leaves fresh sage

1 T. olive oil

salt

Parmesan to top, optional

Pine nuts to top, optional

Recipe:

1. Toss the cubed squash in olive oil and salt. Put spread out in a pan in the oven to roast for 20 minutes on 400 F, until golden brown.

2. While the squash is the oven, boil the pasta as directed on the box with 1 t. salt.

3. In a small sauce pan over low heat, warm the butter and the sage leaves with minimal stirring. Warm until butter browns slightly and sage becomes brown and brittle, kind of like well-cooked bacon.

4. When everything is ready, toss it together. Salt and pepper to taste.

5. Serve topped with parmesan. You can also top it with pine nuts lightly roasted – it’s just not a preference of mine, but others love it.

Recipe: Black Bean Soup

I told you I’d start cooking and today I made a pretty killer black bean soup. It’s simple, quick, vegetarian and GREAT for you.

Ingredients:

2 cans black bean, undrained

½ can vegetable broth

½ can corn

1 carrot, chopped

½ red onion, chopped

1 T. Chili Powder

½ cup salsa

Recipe:

1. Mash one can of black beans with a potato masher.

2. Put both cans of black beans, the chili powder, ¼ of the can of corn and ¼ can of the vegetable broth in a medium pot and put on low heat uncovered.

3. While that’s starting to heat up, put the salsa, the chopped carrot, ¼ cup of the chopped red onion, ¼ can of corn, and ¼ can of vegetable broth in a food processor or blender. Puree.

4. Add the blend and the rest of the chopped onion to the pot and bring to a rolling boil. Lower to a simmer and cover at that temperature for 10 minutes.

Let cool before serving. I didn’t put anything on it (it doesn’t need anything!), but it would be great topped with shredded cheese, sour cream, chopped onion and or cilantro.

New Year’s Resolutions

2010 - a new year. A whole different kind of year that I've ever encountered before. I know I'll say things that may never come to pass, but intentionality is important and I want to held accountable for these ideals I'm aiming for. So here's what I've got:

1. Contentment – I want to work on being happy with me and with my life as it is. Of course ambition is good and I think I was born with more than a healthy dose, so I want to be happy in my current state with myself, with others, with my work, with where I am and what I’m doing.

2. Cooking – I watched Julie & Julia just the other day and it reminded me of a time I saw cooking as more of a hobby than a chore. As of late, I’ve been eating a lot of cereal and hummus and carrots. I used to LOVE cooking and I want to get back in touch with that. Step one – develop a good black bean soup recipe. When that’s settled, I’ll be sure to let you know.

3. Running – For Christmas, I got a new pair of sneaks and a new ipod. My running habits have been a bit on and off for the past couple of months; I want to buckle down and form good habits that I stick to week to week. These new shoes need to see some miles and my body needs some consistency.

4. Selflessness – As my resolutions thus far show, my world looks like it revolves around me, but I firmly believe that it ought not. I want to work on seeing others more important than myself and using my time to give with no benefit to myself.

This is what I have so far and already pretty lofty. These will probably be things I’m working on for the rest of my life, but hey, let’s start making strides today.

Tales of a Weary Traveler

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m alone in my apartment in Connecticut. There are a lot of things to blame for this unfortunate situation – the vibrate setting on my phone, traffic, Continental, traffic again… many many things. It’s a good story, really. If you’ve seen planes, trains, and automobiles, this may sound quite familiar to you.

Yesterday, 12/23, I was supposed to catch a 6:15am flight out of Newark to Cleveland. I was going to drive to a friend’s and she was going to drive me the airport. When I didn’t show up, she called me – no answer. So she called another friend to get my roommate’s number. She called my roommate who came and woke me up. O crap, I’m late. I jump in my car within 10 minutes and head straight for the airport. Going along just fine, but then standstill traffic getting over the George Washington Bridge. I make it to the airport at 6:30am, 15 minutes late. OK, so there’s no hope and I need to check in to get moved onto another flight. I ask one Continental rep what line to get in, she tells me go up to the 4^th floor. OK, 4^th floor rep, ‘no, no, you need to go the 2^nd floor door 5. OK, 2^nd floor rep, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about, you are supposed to go up to the 4^th floor’. Awesome – NO ONE knows who to talk to about relocation. I get in a special accommodations line – the one for unaccompanied minors and handicapped. What the hell, right? When I get to the desk, the lady is like why are you here? Thankfully, she helped me anyone – tells me I’m on standby for the 9:45am flight (it’s like 7 now). It sounds hopeful so I’m keeping my composure, but boy, was I wrong.

Waiting for the 9:45am flight, I found out they’ve oversold the flight by ten seats so some people who bought a ticket for this flight in particular may not even make it on. Thank heavens they do and one person on standby gets on the flight. Probably 3 Continental employees walk up casually and take 3 seats that DEFinitely should have gone to standby with such a long list. They announce everyone on stand by has been rolled over to the next flight at 2:10pm.

I waste 4 hours somehow and thank the Lord for such an entertaining book. For this flight, they post the stand by list; it’s about 40 people long now and I’m number 2. That sounds promising, right? So MORE Continental employees walk up and get tickets on the flight, no sweat. I’m furious. Then 2 girls from Venezuela are trying to get home and they walk up the desk. It turns into a ‘You don’t f***ing care that I’m trying to get home for Christmas?’ and the attendant gets pissed about the profanity. But then the girl starts balling and right before my eyes I see standby #1 and 2 go to these 2 girls. Damn, that’s frustrating.

I get in line at Customer Service to see if I can get guaranteed a later flight; someone had already made an announcement that nothing was available until the 26^th. I stand in that line for 2 hours and never actually make it to the desk because a friend decides it would be better if I just try to take a bus instead.

I’m convinced and abandon the losing fight with Continent to catch the 5:15pm bus out of White Plains. I should be able to get there in 2 hours, right? Not at all. Traffic is a DISaster and then I get lost for a good while in Yonkers; I don’t get to White Plains until 7. And on the way, I’ve gone through so many toll booths, I’ve run out of money. So I get the opportunity of getting to the booth and telling the guy I don’t have money. He proceeds to fill out a long-ass form while the build up of cars behind me honk like I’m intentionally holding up the booth. Humiliating.

While I was in the car, I called and found out there was another bus at 11, but I’d have to transfer my ticket at the box office at the station. They neglected to tell me that office closes at 6; they have a TON of buses after 6 – how can they just up and close like that?? At this point, I am DONE but I’ve never been to White Plains before so I haven’t the slightest idea how to get home. Dad helps me figure it out and I head home in tears to forget about the terrible day I can’t believe I just went through. No plane, no bus, and no money for the tolls on the road to places that didn’t get me anywhere.

I’m now booked, as in NOT standby, for a flight Christmas morning at 6:15am. I’ve lost all faith in myself to wake up on time so I’ve added some others to assist in the process and I’m leaving so early I could walk to the airport and make it, I think. If I make it home tomorrow, I’m going to be more thankful to be there than I have ever been in all my life. Merry Christmas!

I've Been Away

I know there's been a big gap in my posts on here. Sorry. Want to see where I've been??

San Francisco, a buena vista