Sunday, September 8, 2013

Weird Al taught me it's weird to eat marbles.

What happens when you go a little too long without going grocery shopping? You end up eating up most of what's in the fridge and freezer and make a nice dent in the cupboard, too. And then, you go grocery shopping and BUY ALL THE THINGS! Observe:


This was after making dinner and shoving things around to find room for leftovers. I may have went just a teensy bit overboard! Now the goal is to use it all up before it goes bad. As far as cupboard space went, I stocked up on coffee since it was on sale, got some of Trader Joe's variation on Wheat Thins (a little more healthy!), and my new favorite snack: pretzel slims with goat cheese.


Oh. My. Gosh. These. Are. So. GOOD. They are basically flat pretzels that aren't too salty and in a flattened shape that makes plopping toppings (hee hee, plopping toppings) on them super easy. Almost too easy, because I ate like half the bag and half a log of goat cheese in one night. OMNOMNOM.

So besides snacking, we've had a couple Cara-made meals that weren't exactly gourmet but still edible and tasted okay! HALLELUJAH, I didn't wreck the food! I guess it wasn't too hard when I used a lot of pre-made stuff, but for a cooking noob, I like to cut myself some slack. I found pre-packaged bags of ready-to-make chopped salad at Harris Teeter, then tossed them with spinach and romaine to bulk it up. This one was actually good enough that I'd buy it again if I were in the mood for it:

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It came with a mix of veggies, then a packet of dry ingredients - this one included sliced almonds and fried wonton noodles - and a packet of salad dressing. I got the southwest variety as well to try since they were new-to-me and I adore chopped salads!

Next up: homemade pizza! Well, I made it at home, so it counts. I found some of these funky flatbreads that are perfectly sized for a sheet pan and as thin as a tortilla. The package suggested using them to make pizza, and of course the grocery store marketing was genius by putting Boar's Head pepperoni right next to them. Okay, okay, I'm easily suggestible when it comes to food! So I made that tonight but thankfully there are plenty of leftover ingredients to try again, because - note to self - with a crust that thin, you need to go skimpy on the toppings! I loaded that thing with mozzarella slices and pepperoni like a crazy woman and the poor pizza was all kinds of floppy. But, the flatbreads had good flavor, from what I could tell amongst the overwhelming flavors of the toppings, anyway. There are 3 more in the package so I'm looking forward to making more pizzas!


I guess it's so thin because it's meant to be rolled? Ah well. Turns out this brand has specific flavors to use for pizza, but they didn't have any at my store. These will do for now! I'm thinking I might try some kind of baked pizza spiral-y wrap or something. But, if I were feeling ambitious, Trader Joe's makes some great ready-made pizza dough I've used many times in the past. This, however, is a good option for when you don't feel like spending the time to mess around stretching out the dough, or don't have time to let the dough come to room temperature. It's good to switch things up once in awhile, anyway.

I've realized that I'm so good about taking pictures of all the incredibly delicious food that Ian makes for me, but when I make something I forget about the camera and just dive in like a hungry hungry hippo starving for marbles. So instead of pictures of salad and a sad looking pizza, I will leave you with a photo of my cat sleeping on his face.

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