Come Monday, I’m always tired from the weekend and I’m actually excited to have at least one night a week where I know I can be at home.  The other thing that I love doing on Monday nights is trying one of the Gourmet Everyday recipes from Gourmet.  I’ve got a few staples that make the rotation quite often.

Spinach-Pesto Stuffed Salmon

I don’t know when I came across this little gem, but it has a lot of flavor and it literally takes 15 minutes beginning to end. This is when I wish I was a food photographer. 

To throw this recipe together I picked up a mild salmon filet from Alaska Family Salmon.  I took 5 oz (1/2 a small package) of thawed spinach, mixed in about 1 T of pesto (tonight I used a tomato pesto) and mixed in a few pine nuts.  Season with salt, pepper and a little garlic and toss in the oven.  About 10 minutes later I serve it with green beans.

Aztec Roast Beef

This one is a crock pot recipe, but the prep time is almost nothing and the result at the end of the day is so good.  What I like about this recipe is that the levels of flavors is really rich.

To prepare this round roast, I use onions, garlic, red potatoes, 1 c strong coffee, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 T orange zest, 3 c beef broth, salt, pepper and garlic to taste.  Put in the crock pot on low for 8 hours for a 3 lb roast.

Let me know if any of these work out for you.

PC

Have you picked up your Care Card yet? It’s a discount card that saves you 20% at select retailers like Anthropologie, Artifacts, Lucy, Pottery Barn, restaurants and more. The cards are part of a fundraising effort for Junior League of Phoenix and The Phoenix Board of Visitors. The card will only cost you $50 and you’ll be amazed at how fast you’ll save more than that.

Last night I ran by Fashion Square to start working on my fall uniform. Wait. Do you not know about my “uniforms.” I suffer from a very serious condition it’s called Ohmygodidontknowwhattowearitus and I have to be careful or an attack can hit at any moment. So, to cope with that I buy uniforms. That’s 3-4 britches and 4-5 shirts that all go from run around casual and can convert into cute going to have a drink wear. So for each season, I get a new uniform and that way when I get an attack ohmygodidontknowwhattowear I go, “Hey Kee, just stick with the uniform. Back to the savings, I saved $60 at Lucy (which covered my Care Card purchase and there’s more to go. I still have 2 pants and 3 shirts to look for.

If you want to get one, shoot me an email or you can contact the Junior League office www.jlp.org.

Happy Shopping

I don’t know. I missed something.  Is the name of my blog, “Prissy Camps?”  Let me check.  No.  There it is, “Prissy Cook.”  Then why did I find myself sleeping in the back a Denali in the mountains having to find facilities outside.

I went camping this weekend for the first time in 20 years.  I did it mainly to be a thorn in my friend’s side.  The conversation started something like this:

Vic- “Hey guys, we’re going camping this weekend, do you want to go?”

Hubby- “Oh, man, I can’t I won’t get back from NJ until Monday.”

Kee- “Oh, Oh, I want to go.”

Vic- “No.”

Kee- “Oh yeah, I’m going camping.”

Vic- “No.”

Kee- “Hubby, Tell Vic I’m going camping.”

Hubby-  “Shrug.”

Kee- wide eyes

Vic- “No.”

Let’s see who won…

Crown King, AZ looking over the summit.

Mmmm. Breakfast Burritos.

Crown King Saloon.

Camping Croquet.

See that Melati, croquet while camping.  I’m gearing up for next year…Watch out!  To see more pictures of the camping trip, you can see them here, camping photos.

It’s not often, that you get a second to slow down and enjoy, the life you’re busy living.  “Wow, that’s deep,” is what I thought as the words just fell onto the page, “and useful only if you have time to slow down.”  That’s how my weeks usually end up, I’m too busy to take any time to slow down.  The problem is I don’t know what I’m so busy doing?

Hubby is out of town, I’m sure coming up with some cool (I mean technologically sound) strategy to keep all those hackers ( I mean those network sabotaging bastards) out of his infrastructure.  When he’s gone, I rush to do all the things that I usually don’t do when he’s here. 

1. Not only do I do the laundry.  But I fold it and put it away as I go.
2. I use the restroom in the middle of the night without fear, that  Hubby used it earlier and left the seat up.
3. I TiVo Oprah.  (so WHAT, I like Oprah, get over it)

Switching gears for a second, a colleague suggested a  restaurant in the ‘hood this week, Cherry Blossom Noodle Cafe.  As I drove home from work (another 11 hour day), I started my round of phone calls, when I thought, “Remember when you’d go to a restaurant, by yourself, and just be with your own thoughts?”  Thinking back to that, I made a command decision, no more phone calls, no running by the house, I was going straight there and enjoy my freaking thoughts.

This little noodle house is cute, and the whole staff was very inviting.  I couldn’t help but notice the menagerie of desserts in the case as I was walked to my table.  Let me just name a few- cinnamon bread, banana nut bread with blueberries, citrus cake, curry bread, homemade cheesecake and pumpkin everything!  So, dinner was great, service was wonderful, yadda, yadda, yadda.

“Keesha, that’s great but did you say, pumpkin everything?” 

“Yes, I did.”

I went straight for the gut, pumpkin puree.  The waitress was an older lady and you could tell she had it all figured out.  You know, one of those people, who are insightful and kind.  When I asked for dessert, she said, “I’m going to pack it up for you, so you can eat it at home.  Some place where you can be comfortable.”

So, now I find myself, taking a second to just slow down.

I’ve got my dawg, my Oprah and a great pumpkin puree.

Check out Cherry Blossom Noodle Cafe.

You’ll recall that I proposed a theory earlier that blogging causes weight gain (see archives). I have more evidence of that and it hit me while I was eating a piece of toasted banana nut bread with butter and a diet Coke.

One of the down-sides to not having any family in town is that I am constantly trying to pawn my weekend baking adventures off on my colleagues. If you combine this with the fact that I work with Super Wife, who also bakes, it’s a disaster.

In any given week, there can be cupcakes, zucchini biscuits, cookies and muffins all rotating between our office. And because we’re sabotaging girls, we like to hang out while the other one eats our treats and exclaims how yummy everything is. That way be both know that the other one is consuming the same amount of calories as the other one.

So back to that banana nut bread with a diet Coke. Super Wife found a new recipe that called for sour cream, instead of milk or butter milk in more traditional breads I’ve made. Maybe we can get her to post the recipe, but that would require more than a monthly posting (burn, yo!)

I know, you’re thinking, “Keesh, you’re good at everything” and that’s usually the case.  But if you can believe it, I’ve never played croquet. 

I’m assuming that you’ve read about my unfortunate incident on Saturday morning (that’s all I’m going to say about it) I’m enjoying a fluffier version now. I was really doubtful that I was going to have a good day. 

Upon arrival at the tourney, I was warmly greeted by Melati and all my apprehension melted away.  Before I knew it, my generally shy Hubby was like, “Make sure we’re on the list to play.” 

Here’s what I learned:

1. Anytime you can pull off a dinner for 50 people, appetizers, drinks and two outfits per host (Meltai, you looked beautiful both times) then you’ve really got it going on.
2. My husband is in love with a hairy being named Roman.
3. If you’re going to play croquet, don’t let the opposing team sabotage you with a midget mallet (umm, I mean midget in the most politically correct way possible).
4. You can really get into a philosophical discussion on what warrants a mallets length.
5. I’m really, in my own mind really good at croquet.

 We had a great time and it was a bummer we had to leave early.  Thanks Melati for a really great Saturday.  It was awesome to meet everyone!!!

Today is TSCT and I nervous. 

Melati authors Tequila Stakes Croquet, she and her husband host a tournament each year and we’ve been invited as part of the blogger group.  I think there will be four of us (The PMA, African Kelli, Feasting in Phoenix and myself).  So this should be a moment for me to put money where my mouth is.  I’ve been blogging about all this food I’m cooking, I’d dare say that I bragged about some of it.  AND I HAD A FLOP!

I tuck away recipes that I want to try and I’ve been saving this ginger carrot cake gem.  To keep all the details short, I was having a really great baking day.  You know, cleaning the dishes as I go, got the oven preheated just in time, had the right type of cupcake liners.  But I had a voice in the back of my head going, “Keesh you really need to look over that recipe again.”  I did.  “Oh, toast the pecans first.”  I did. 

The batter is mixing, sometimes I steal a taste off the beater, but I wasn’t so inclined.  But it didn’t look like enough batter for 24 cupcakes.  So while I’m putting it into the cake pan, a little gets on my finger and it doesn’t taste right, but I just think that maybe my taste buds aren’t registering everything.

25 minutes later, they look like little, I don’t know, crumbly palvarones.  I take a bite and they taste just as bland as the batter did.  I rush over to the cookbook and the first line, how could I miss the first line “2 c. sugar.”

So, I’ve got about 30 minutes to hop in the shower and figure out what to wear, gawd, I hope it isn’t going to be one of those days!

I am now officially useless on Thursday nights.  I have at least four TV shows that I must watch.  So my routine so far this evening has been, to do my evening tasks (laundry, dishes, sort mail) all in between the commercials.  That means that I’m running, running, running and sit. Running, running, running and sit.

In the middle of all this I still had one yucky, sticky dish waiting for me in the kitchen.  They had butternut squash on sale at Sprouts and I made a squash macaroni from Martha Stewart. I hate dishes anyway and this one made one arse of a baked on mess.

My MooMoo (that’s Texan for Grandmother) read in a Southern Living once, that if you have a really baked-on dish, that if you put a dryer sheet with a little water in it for 15 minutes, whatever is baked on will come right out.

Her little trick worked for me again.  By the time, My Name is Earl was half way through, I was able to get that dish cleaned and put away in less time than a commercial break.  Efficiency people, that’s what I’m shooting for.

Oh, and before I get suggestions on the invention of the TiVo, I have one.  But Hubby is out of town and I have issues with home electronics.  I’ll explain my Roomba issues later.

There’s a fun little franchise that’s started in Fayetteville, Arkansas called Bath Junkie.  What’s really ironic is that such a foo-fee-doo-fee place came from the town where I learned how to do a hog call.  Yes, people, you didn’t read wrong, a h-o-g (hawg) call.  But I digress.  Bath Junkie is a place where you can mix your favorite smells and they’ll put them in different body washes, lotions or oils. 

I got a mehndi tattoo over the summer and I was obsessed with the smell, that lemonony, eucalyptus smell was intoxicating. With that in mind, I set out to mix it up and to come up with a smell that was reminiscent of that henna.

All good things have a name, and the name came to me almost immediately “Indian Summer.” The final mix was Lemongrass, Green Tea and Sandalwood and it is yummy.  I lather this stuff on so thick that I’ve made my eyes water.

Enjoy Bert and Ernie’s first appearance on Sesame Street.

I’m officially a year older and I’m feeling it.  I had a great weekend in Texas, but I think I maybe went at it a little too hard.  I knew I was getting close to “that age,” but I didn’t know it would hit me the next day.  I have a fever and I feel achy (this is where you go “aww”).

At work today, feeling achy and feverish (aww), I tried really hard to look pretty.  I wore a fun outfit, actually shaved my legs (TMI?) and put on some perfume.  But, I think that when you’re chasing Tylenol with DayQuil, it sorta takes the novelty out of dressing up.  I was fixing to go home sick, when my crew came in and asked if I wanted to go to lunch at Crackers & Co.  I LOVE Crackers and I thought that if I got the spicy chicken tortilla soup, that the spicy would knock out whatever it was that was messing with me (this is where you clap for me if you believe).

The soup was good, it was actually really good, but it didn’t quite hit the spot.  Then the extra gooey warm chocolate cake with sprinkles came out.  And because I’m not a normal sick person who loses their appetite and loses the standard five pounds, I had to have some.  But that did me in, I left and came home shortly after that.  I had 100 temperature (”aww,” that’s right you’re catching on).

I had promised Super Wife that I would be her model at her MAC interview if she couldn’t get anyone else…I got the call this afternoon.  So, 100 degree temperature, a year older and achy (”aww), I had to try to find something that looked halfway presentable and get to the mall by 5:00 PM (”clap”).

I took another dose of Tylenol (”aww”), hopped in the car and headed over.  Can I tell you, that even feeling bad, she did such a great job.  I think I looked very pretty (”clap”).  About half way through, I think I broke my fever (hey little girls, being pretty does make everything better).

Afterwards, we were recapping how awesome she did on the application portion of her interview and we remembered that PB Loco was in the mall and be bee-lined over. She had a PB Pina Colada and I had a PB, Nutella and Banana Sandwich (”clap”).  It was there that I realized that I didn’t have my wallet.  I left it at work, next to my DayQuil, Tylenol cocktail (”aww”). 

Now I’m at home, I have a bit of a headache, no fever and have my wallet (”clap”).  Good night.

Restaurants mentioned:

Crackers & Co

535 Iron Drive
Gilbert, AZ 85210

PB Loco

Scottsdale Fashion Square
7014 East Camelback Road #2276
Scottsdale, Arizona 85251