I shouldn't complain, because I do have this computer, and even without it in this amazing world of technology, my phone can take the place of a computer in a pinch, and I also have my school laptop that I can use as well. But a desktop computer is nicer, so I am glad to have this one, but it still has its limits because it has nothing on it, and runs on a different operating system. Sigh again.
And I start with this rant because I will be putting pictures on this blog today... that I was going to make a nifty slideshow with, but the slideshow function on photobucket requires Adobe Flash, which this computer apparently doesn't have, and to download it, we need a password to grant administration rights... which we don't know. So... it can't be downloaded. I could go downstairs, powerup my school computer and probably do it there, let's face it, its not worth that.
Rant aside...
We had lime week last week! As previously mentioned, we had a plethora of limes sitting in our cupboard from many weeks where I didn't use as many as we got (it should tell you something that even after lime week we probably have 8 more limes in there...) so I decided to plan the week around using limes. Here are the different things I came up with (captions below)
Using the most in a single recipe was this key lime pie. No, its not your computer, it looks pretty yellow. This is due to the fact that our limes were not key limes, but the recipe said you could use equal parts lemon and lime juice for it to taste similar. Very tasty by itself, even better with strawberries.
Favorite of ours for years: Enchilada Casserole. Actually uses very little lime juice, but an amazingly tasty dinner that makes enough for our lunches for the week as well, and tastes as good for leftovers as it does the night you make it.
This was a great light salad. It had some great name, but I don't remember it at the moment. It was a citrus and avocado salad though, with a poppyseed lime dressing, and I liked it so much, I plan on duplicating it for my lunch next week when I'm at home.
Cilantro lime pesto. Very simple, but a nice spin on the classic pesto.
This actually turned out way better than I expected. It's shredded beets sauteed with a lime butter sauce and green onions on top. Huge plus of this variation on beets was that they cooked really fast, unlike the usual 30-40 minutes it takes to boil or steam them.
Cilantro lime soup. This one needed the tortilla chips that were not listed in the recipe but thankfully existed in the house, and really improved the soup. Even so... truthfully, I didn't even finish the leftovers. It was fine, and I had more than one bowl the first night, but it just wasn't spectacular.
This one is less obviously lime, but there is lime on the salmon, and the couscous has cilantro, lime and green onion mixed in.
Sad but good thing about lime week was that by the end of the week, Blake could no longer enjoy the different lime dishes, or the key lime pie. The reason this is a good thing is that his doctor figured out what was making him having trouble swallowing, and giving him immense chest pressure at night (thus making it so he couldn't sleep)... he has acid reflux (there is a longer name... but that should suffice).
It makes a lot of sense... we love all the foods that cause it- citrus, tomatoes, spicy things, coffee, etc. Not to mention that he was under a lot of stress lately between his other issues and the Ireland trip and that can trigger it as well. So, when that was diagnosed, he learned that he needed to really cut back from all those foods, at least for a few weeks. Quite the way to wrap up lime week (and no... I didn't cause it :-) it existed before lime week did). He is also on medication so that his body produces less acid. He has been feeling tons better since those changes have been made though, and we are both really hopeful that he will be back to 100% by the time we get to Ireland.
Random stuff:
I love baked goods, I really have a weakness for them, and enjoy them in my lunches. So last week, I was thinking about this desire for baked foods, and thought it would be great to have some muffins. We look in our cupboard/fridge and decide that strawberry banana muffins would be good, then we look up the recipe, and make some! One of the things I love about being an adult is that if you decide you want strawberry banana muffins and have the ingredients for them... you can just make some. Here is a picture of these beautiful muffins:
Also, our raised bed is doing really well, and the Swiss chard in there is taking off! So we recently had to harvest some, and I wanted to show off our beautiful bouquet of chard:
Oh, and this was just too cute, I had to take a picture, and I had to share it. We get strawberries each week from my parents in these boxes, and Lily saw this on the ground, and decided it would be a good place to hang out:
Isn't she cute!
Other random news:
I got the walking tour I really wanted to go on, but wasn't available when we were first going to be going! Yay! Also, Blake gets two free days in Ireland with me, because it is a public holiday the Monday that we are there. We are hoping to book a private tour... if it isn't too expensive (mostly because public transportation that day is really limited because of the holiday schedule, and we aren't renting a car).
One week from today we are flying out as long as there are no future changes... fingers crossed!
The weather in Ireland is terrible rite now, your best of going somewhere thats actually good
ReplyDelete