Yesterday was the busiest and most physical day since my surgery.
We went to breakfast early, Denny's, we both got value slams. With our AARP discount, the total bill for food was $8.50. Brian left a three dollar tip. (We had a little discussion when we left the house. He gives me money, it gets put in my wallet and when he needs money, he takes it out. We laugh about it, "I'm just holding it for you.") Yesterday morning, he took the two twenties he'd put there earlier in the week. When I grabbed my wallet to put it in my pocket, I asked him if he took that money.
"Yeah, I might need it for breakfast."
Really? Where are we going?
"Denny's."
Hey, if we need forty bucks for a breakfast at Denny's, we're done with Denny's.
Anyway, the money has not reappeared in my wallet yet.
So, after breakfast, we headed over to Smart & Final to get groceries. It's been a while since I'd been there (last year) and I had been adding items to the shopping list. Unfortunately, these items came to mind while laying in bed Friday night and afraid that I'd forget them in the morning, with each remembrance, I'd get out of bed and go write it on the list. Made for a crappy sleep. (I haven't been sleeping well this past week, sleep for an hour or so, then am wide awake, but that's another story.)
I loved being in the store again. We need this and this and this...I had big plans for the day yesterday, preparing for the coming hot days. Since the weather this weekend is mild, I wanted to cook up a bunch of dinner meals, the casserole types that freeze well. Portion them out, wrap in foil, freeze them and then just pull one out in the morning, put it in a crock pot and let it reheat all day. I wanted to make lasagna and enchiladas to start with. So, I needed cheese. Monterey jack (for an enchilada casserole type recipe), pepper jack (for the enchiladas), a block of parmesan (for the lasagna). Oatmeal (my last box of oatmeal was so old it had bugs in it and I had to use the little plain oatmeal packets for my recipe) and bread crumbs (for meat loaf - Brian likes the oatmeal, I prefer the bread crumbs, so I use both, compromise is good for marriage...lol). Enchilada sauce. Sliced peppers. Black olives. Paprika (the paprika I had was smoked paprika and has a different flavor than plain paprika). So many things to get.
When we got home, Brian brought the groceries in and I put them away. Then I gave my legs a break and sat down for a while.
Boredom setting in, I did the permanent etching templates for the Curio and engraving blanks I'd started on a while ago. The new mats I ordered Thursday (after realizing I'd originally ordered embossing mats and not the cutting mats I actually needed) arrived on Friday, so I got those all figured out (I hope). Then I sat down, thinking all this cooking was going to be a lot of work and I'm tired and I checked the weather forecast, gee, nice all week, I don't need to do this today.
Nothing on television, don't feel like reading, nap ain't happening, not for lack of trying, so I got up and headed to the kitchen, thinking maybe I'll just get the cheeses all grated.
Well, I ended up making the lasagna. Cooked up the sauce (made a lot, the recipes all call for 9" x 13" baking dishes - add one cup of sauce for the first layer - one cup? that does not cover the bottom), grated the cheese, and before I knew it, I was done. Wow. I covered it in foil and put it in the fridge. I cleaned up the mess I'd made.
While I was finishing up the prep and starting on the cleaning, Brian walks in. "What's for lunch?" Not feeling particularly thrilled with the idea of figuring out "what's for lunch" when I had two counters full of stuff that needed cleaning, the sink full of dishes, I made it pretty clear that lunch wasn't on the menu at this point and his timing was pretty bad. He grabbed the bag of flavored tortilla chips from the top of the fridge and sat on the sofa, eating them. BON APPÉTIT!
I had a fair amount of sauce left over, so I cooked some spaghetti noodles and when they were done (way past al dente
), I added them to the sauce. Usually I would just freeze the sauce and heat that up and cook noodles for the meal, but the idea here was to make something I could just put in the crockpot with minimal preparation for the full meal.
Finished up with that, sat back on the sofa, flipped through the channels, played a little Candy Crush Saga, then my mind went back into the kitchen. Okay, I can at least get the cheese grated for the enchiladas. But first, let's get the olives sliced. I get out all of the ingredients. Okay, Brian said he eats three enchiladas, I'll eat two, that makes five per meal. I can probably get fifteen in the pan, that will make three meals. I count out fifteen corn tortillas, put them on a plate, which I put into the microwave to store. I slipped the rest into a freezer bag and put them in the freezer (the last tortillas we got never got frozen, so food wasted). Pepper jack cheese grated. The last of the cheddar cheese block, grated. Mind says "what the hell, let's get this show on the road". A big sheet of aluminum foil placed on the counter, a huge pile of mixed cheese (pepper jack and cheddar) at the top. The enchilada sauce I'd warmed up to dip the soft tortillas in, ready.
I got the pan to heat the oil to soften the tortillas (they need to be softened so they don't split when rolled). I had my little line going, fresh tortillas on the left, dip into hot oil, flip, heat the other side, place on paper towel to the right of me, put a paper towel over the greasy, soft, hot tortilla and start the process for the next tortilla. Now comes the fun part. And I mean that. I love doing this.
Warm enchilada sauce on my right, tortilla stack above that, foil in the center, baking pan on the left. Grab a tortilla, dip in sauce, put on the foil, grab some cheese, put at the bottom of the tortilla, then roll. Into the baking pan. Repeat fourteen more times. Fifteen fit! Eleven in a row and four at the sides. Pour what was left of the warmed enchilada sauce over the enchiladas, poured the rest of the can of sauce over, sprinkle a lot of the cheese mixture over that, and then drop all the olives over the top of that.
So, for dinner last night, I put the lasagna in the oven, a half hour after that had been cooking, I put the enchiladas in (burned my hand, damn it) to cook and it all worked out nicely.
My legs aren't really happy today, so an easy day. I'll split the meals up (I'll get at least enough for six dinners for the both of us). And maybe, use the potatoes I cooked in the crockpot on Friday to make potato salad. But today, I won't push it.
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