Miscellanea Exotica

So, it's about 7pm, and it just kind of randomly occurred to me that: dude, I live in Pittsburgh. We have the Carnegie Library system, which kicks all kinds of ass. They must do some great book sale for the holidays, right?

So I trundled over to the library website, and discovered that they do indeed have a big book sale for the holidays.

It was today.

It's all about timing, I tell you.

*slams head against desk*

And now, I must proceed to bake a cake. I suppose I could have done it earlier today, but that would have meant delaying my gratification with regards to my marathon Skyrim session.

I gloriously fail at time management. \o/

Today, I made chicken marsala and pumpkin spice cake from scratch.

I find this equally hilarious and awesome. A couple of years ago, I could not even have conceived of being able to make anything from scratch. For chicken marsala, I'd go to a restaurant. For the pumpkin spice cake, I'd either look for a mix at the grocery store, or wait for someone else to bake it. I would have been horrified at the idea of having to deal with flour, and eggs, and cooking wine. Today? I had some chicken breasts that I wanted to eat, and I searched till I found a recipe where I had almost everything I needed, and I just made it. As it happens, it came out tasting a little odd, but not bad. Certainly edible, and a lot cheaper than a restaurant. As for the cake? It doesn't even occur to me anymore to look for store-bought mixes. I spent about fifteen minutes in the baking aisle last night, and I don't think I even looked at them.

The pumpkin spice cake in question is an experiment for Thanksgiving. Since Aunt D makes dinner, and is forever stressing out about it, I try to help by providing dessert. Last year's pumpkin dump cake was a total flop, so I'm looking for something different. Pumpkin in general doesn't seem to be all that popular with this particular Thanksgiving crowd, but it's traditional, goshdarnit. So, I'm trying out recipes. This particular cake is pumpkin, but it's at least as much spice cake, with a healthy dose of chocolate. Hopefully it turns out. I'm going to see Aunt D tomorrow, so I'll be taking a couple of pieces with me, and see whether she thinks it'll work. If not, there a few fruity cakes and cobblers I can try.

That last sentence makes the me of a couple of years ago shake her head in amazement.

Oh god, I love apple juice not from the concentrate. Can you have a foodgasm from juice?

As part of my ongoing weight-loss thing (which I am very deliberately not calling a diet), I've been trying to eat at home a lot more often. However, my culinary skills consist of: spaghetti, sloppy joes, chicken quesedillas, Hamburger Helper, and stuff that you throw in the microwave for 1-5 minutes. And I can bake a mean cake. Out of a box.

Not what you'd call the most healthful stuff in the world.

I have, however, acquired a very handy cookbook, of the quick, easy, and healthy variety. And I have been making stuff out of it. So far, I've made four of the recipes, and while I have had mixed success, all of it has been tasty. And different from what I've been eating night after night after night for... um, ever. My father made dinner for most of my childhood. His culinary skill looks a lot like mine. No coincidence.

Tonight, I had chicken sausage in wild mushroom sauce over angel hair pasta. It was pretty frickin' good, if I do say so. And I still have enough for three more meals. Yuuuuuuuuuuum.....

It hasn't exactly been cheap, but I would bet that if I plotted out how much I've been spending on some combination of Chipotle, Quizno's, Taco Bell, and McDonald's almost every day... it'd come to significantly more per day that the at-home meals. And not nearly as good for me. With the possible exception of Chipotle... I mean, I always get the steak fajita burrito, and that's just rice, steak, green peppers, onions, cheese, pico de gallo, and lettuce. Not so very bad.

Anyway, this has all just been to say... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

And now, back to my most recently acquired addictions. Why did no one tell me that Sims was actually fun? (Don't answer that...)

So, who's eating a whole coffee cake while on a diet? Yeah, I'm bad. But it's not my fault.

So, I was in class on Tuesday. The Business School building shares its bottom floor with a Panera. I have a three-hour evening class, and half-way through, the instructor gives us a fifteen minute break. Not surprisingly, a lot of us make a bee line for Panera. I wanted something sweet, and the thing I thought looked best in their bakery was the coffee cake. So I go and order a piece. And the girl says, "You want the coffee cake?" And I say, "Yeah." And it's late; I've already been sitting through over an hour of truly mind-numbing accounting fundamental concepts. I'm zoned out. So I don't actually pay any mind when she charges me six bucks. Then she says, "You want it in a box?" And, still thoroughly zoned out, I say, "Yeah." Well, she then proceeds to take about three minutes putting this box together, and I'm still zoned out and thinking, "Huh. Why did she want to put it in a box in the first place? I'll have to remember not to agree to it next time. My little piece of cake isn't worth all this, and my that's a big box for a little piece of cake." The girl then picks up the whole cake, and I think, "Oh shit."

So, now I have a whole coffee cake, which is quite delicious, but which I should not be eating by myself. But I'm not seeing anyone I can foist it off on till Saturday. By which time it will be either stale or gone. Probably gone, the way I keep sneaking "just one more piece." I'm trying to be serious about this diet, but it's being sabotaged... by FATE. Or me. I can't tell.

Aside from getting a hold of a copy of The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, which my professor recommended, and which is so far surprisingly interesting, the coffee cake incident was the most exciting thing that has happened all week. This says something about my week, I think.

Back to laundry.