Yes, I am cranky today. I didn’t get very good sleep last night, because of the wine.

• I have arthritis in my kneecap, and take glucosamine for it.
• I frequently lose my sunglasses…on my head.
• I can’t remember anything anymore.
• I go to bed at 9 most days, and get really mad when I don’t.
• I get up before the sun comes up.
• I don’t like places that are loud, smoky and overpriced.
• Getting out the door requires multiple trips to find missing items.
• I have become obsessed with the luminousness of my skin (or lack therof).
• Consuming more than 2 drinks means I will wake up at 2am.
• When I want to leave, I do.
• I invite people over rather than going out.
• I wear earplugs to bed.
• I get angry when I don’t get a good night’s sleep.
• I crave a good night’s sleep.
• I mix up my dogs and call them by the wrong names.
• I will switch topics mid-conversation.
• I grow herbs so I won’t have to buy them.
• Change makes me cranky.
• Lack of sleep makes me cranky.
• Hunger makes me cranky.
• Eating too much makes me cranky.
• Basically, any minor discomfort makes me cranky.
• I no longer try to lose weight. I try to maintain the weight I am.
• I make lists of ways I am old.

• How to have a dinner club with 8 adults and 1 tiny child
• What’s in my purse, and how did it get there?
• On Being a “Strong Person”
• How can I eat the cheese and still lose weight? How, I ask you?
• Poached eggs make everything better, amiright?
• Dinner Club evolution and introductions
• Who are you and what do you want from me? Sorry, that was mean. I meant, hello! What would you like me to read?
• On Responsibility – Who is responsible and legally responsible
• How to Review a Restaurant (Or, Don’t Yell Hey Lauren When You See Me at a Restaurant, In Case I’m Reviewing It)
• What I’ve been eating lately – restaurants, blogs, food recaps – short recaps
• I bought a new bra, and that is apparently cause for celebration
• My dentist is a perfectionist, and my wallet is paying the price

Random, I know. I guess what I’m saying is that I want to blog about the things I want to blog about, not just food. More just…everything in my life. Do you like that? Do you want to read that? Ah, who am I kidding, I don’t really care. I’ll write about it anyway. Hope you stick around, weirdos!

Hey, oh hey! I didn’t even realize you were there, you’re so quiet. I’m just gonna go ahead and pee, mmmkay?

Hey, why aren’t you peeing? You were in here before me, but you’re not peeing. You’re not…oh…

You have to poop.

Look, I get it. Women are brought up to be ashamed that we poop. Women don’t poop, right? We don’t poop or fart. All of our waste drifts into the ether and gets reincarnated as butterflies and rainbows.

But it’s not true. We do poop!

Since we’re so ashamed of the fact that we poop, we don’t like other people hearing us poop. That’s why you’re over there, shuffling your feet, clearing your throat, unrolling more toilet paper (as if you’ve done anything to need it right now).

Maybe you are actually OK with pooping as long as no one can hear. But it’s hard to cover up that telltale plink of a turd hitting water. You can cough all you want, I know you’re a poopin’ fool over there.

And I just want you to know it’s totally cool. Really. I talk about poop probably more than most people, but I like to think we’re all OK with it. We all do it.

So poop away, fellow woman professional! I know it’s what you want to do. And trust me, you’ll much better once you do. I always do.

Cheers,

ohmypuddin

Then came college, where ramen became a meal unto itself, perfect for when you can’t move off your bed (for whatever reason). Water was boiled in a electric tea kettle and noodles were eaten while reclined on a bed.

Now, ramen is for sick days and cold days and days when I can’t seem to get myself to the store for more food. These days, ramen can get fancy.

This ramen was born out of a need to eat and also not leave the house. It was a cold evening, and we were both feeling sniffly, and neither one of us wanted to venture into the howling black night in search of sustenance.

Ramen! With some chopped sautéed chicken breast, carrots, cilantro, and curry powder, it makes for a well-rounded meal. This is called beefed-up ramen, but that’s beef in the “make mo better” sense, not beef in the moo cow sense. Use whatever protein you like. Or don’t, won’t offend me none.

Beefed-Up Ramen Noodles

For a cold and windy day

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of ramen noodles
• Meat of your choice
• 4 carrots
• A bunch of green onions
• Cilantro
• Curry powder

1. Cook that meat! However you want, really. Maybe sautee it? Or grill it? Or maybe roast it? Whatever. Just don’t overcook it. Do what you want! Be free like a bird! Set aside.
2. Cut up your carrots into the sticks or coins or whatever. Hey, maybe toss in a few other veggi
3. es you have around, like some broccoli or cauliflower or leeks. Whatever! Sautee/grill them all together.
4. Boil a pot of water with a couple tablespoons of butter and a couple tablespoons of olive oil in it. When it’s boiling, add the noodles and remove from heat. Stir. Stir those noodles. Get your back into it. Get those noodles cooked, but just so. Al dente. For reals. Toss in some curry powder, I don’t know, maybe a couple teaspoons. Taste after each teaspoon. Don’t like curry? Then toss in whatever spice you like, weirdo! I’m not the spice police. You just want to spice it up so it’s doesn’t just taste like ramen. Maybe some cumin or lemon pepper or mustard. Whatever! Live your life!
5. Toss your noodles and broth together with your mea
   t and veggies.
6. Voila! Beefed-up ramen!

Yeah, so this is kind of a throw-it-together, any idiot can do this kind of recipe, which is to say it’s not a recipe at all. It’s more of an idea that was born of desperation and hunger and serious lack of ingredients. Which is where the best ideas come from. And since it was a good idea, I thought I’d share. Plus, the last post I put up, I totally forgot to put in the recipe, so now I’m paranoid about the recipes.

I’m pretty sure that we all know that we should eat less, eat better and exercise more. That’s not news to any of us, right?

So blah blah, eating better, blah blah healthy cakes. Whatever. It’s a new year, and yet another chance to eat better.

I’ve been making these quinoa cups for breakfast. One or two does the trick. They’re essentially mini frittatas, with quinoa subbed in for some of the egg. I mean, there’s egg in it. But there’s an assload of quinoa too, which is magical and is made of unicorn tail or something. Whatever. It’s good for you! And definitely better than eating a stack of pancakes or bacon, which is what we really want to be eating.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about restarting my diet and tastebuds. Less cheese and carbs, more yogurts, proteins, produce. Bon Appetit does a great food lover’s cleanse every year, and the idea is to keep it healthy and flavorful – use more good fats, less carbs, and more seasonal produce. The salmon breakfast sounds interesting and easy to me, I’ll probably try it out. Essentially, it helps you reset your palate by eating more good foods and fewer bad foods. Which is what we should all be doing anyway.

So this is a start. A healthier start.

Between everything happening with my home life last year, I gained a fair amount of weight last year. Not a huge amount, but enough to go up a few pant sizes. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s time to get back to where I was before – exercising, eating less and better, feeling better about myself.

I started a new job in December at Rackspace, where John works, so this is a great opportunity for me to get back on track with a lot of things. Blogging, eating, everything. Hopefully, I’ll make writing a bigger priority this year. In the meantime, I’ll probably be eating a crapload of quinoa.

Quinoa Cups
Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked quinoa
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 onion or green onion, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook the quinoa. Let sit for a bit.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Spray a muffin tin or line with liners. Put mix in the tin, and top with cheese if desired.

NOTE: Put whatever you want in this recipe. In this version, I left out cheese, but used pancetta. You can use sausage, leeks, cauliflower, really anything. Use cumin if you want to. Red pepper if you like it spicy. It’s a good way to use leftover produce. You really just want to make sure you have enough egg in there to bind everything together.

Because I am both lazy and a food snob, I require my holidays to be filled with varying and differing foods. Yes, we cooked an enormous turkey, but does that mean I have to eat turkey sandwiches for three straight lunches? Ugh.

Growing up, we usually made a fried rice with our leftover meats. Easter ham became crispy and delicious mixed with rice, egg, and green onion. Thanksgiving turkey seems to moisten and soften when sauteed with soy sauce.

This Thanksgiving, we made a leftover sheperd’s pie. It’s not a traditional shepherd’s pie, for it doesn’t have lamb, but it’s more of a concept dish.

A shepherd’s pie is usually a diced meat with veggies and a meat gravy, covered with mashed potatoes and some cheese, and baked.

The beauty of making a shepherd’s pie of your holiday leftovers is that you can adapt it to what you have on hand. The stuffing can be used to fortify the filling, sweet potatoes can substitute for russets, and if you’re really brave, the cranberry sauce would make a delightful topping on the potatoes. It’s all about using your leftovers in a different way.

This Thanksgiving, we had two turkeys, so we had A LOT of turkey left over. We also had dumplings with a really good gravy, so we used some dumplings, gravy, turkey gravy and turkey for the filling. We tossed in a few chopped carrots and celery for some veggies. All of this went into a casserole dish. Topped with mashed potatoes and a layer of cheddar cheese, this pie is ready for the oven!

What you really want from this dish is for everything to get really hot. Everything in this dish is cooked already (it’s leftovers, after all) so you mainly just want that cheese to melt and the filling to get hot. 40 minutes at 375 degrees should do it, with a couple minutes of broiling at the end to get the top crusty.

Voila! Holiday leftover shepherd’s pie! Recipe is below, but really, it’s mostly just a casserole, greased with gravy and topped with potatoes. Anyone can put this together, and it makes a nice change after seven straight meals of sandwiches.

I recently got into the autumn spirit by attending a Fakesgiving celebration. Fakesgiving, like all the best days, is a made-up holiday, wherein one celebrates Thanksgiving on a day that is not Thanksgiving, with one’s friends. It’s decidedly less formal than Thanksgiving, and there might not be any football. It’s a fun day! We celebrated at our friends’ apartment and we all brought something, potluck-style.

Fakesgiving table

I brought this fantastic Brussel sprout salad. Or a slaw. Whatever you want to call it. It’s easy and delicious, and I wanted to share it with in preparation for the holiday season. If you’re hosting a holiday meal or bringing a side, this is the perfect dish.

Because I am not the best at this blogging thing, I didn’t get a picture of the salad by itself, so you will have to look at my whole Fakesgiving meal.

Brussel Sprout Salad

Adapted from Pinch of Yum

1. Cook and crumble the bacon.
2. While bacon is frying, use a food processor to chop the shallots. Or mince them by hand, if you like doing things the hard way. Dump shallots into large bowl or pot.
3. Juice the lemon and orange into a small bowl while bacon is still frying. (Bacon should be fried low and slow. Takes a lot of time, kids.) Get a whisk. Slowly pour the oil into the juice, whisking, whisking, whisking to make a dressing. Put aside.
4. Chop the ends off the sprouts. If you have a food processor with a slicer insert, use it. Or slice the sprouts by hand. Don’t worry about being precise – you want basically sprout shavings. You can use a mandoline if you want, but I fear mine.
5. Put the sprouts and shallots in the large bowl. Add almonds, blue cheese and bacon. Toss. Toss! Taste. Salt and pepper. Taste again. Add half of the dressing. Taste. Don’t let it get too soupy, but it’s OK to add too much sauce.

I love the versatility of this recipe. Prefer pecans over almonds? Use them! Don’t have bacon? Use pancetta! Hate blue cheese? Try pecorino, or parmesan, or a mild cheddar. Make it what you want! I’ve also been toying with cooking the sprouts a little bit after slicing, and adding the blue cheese to create a creamy warm sauce, so it’s more of a warm side. Sounds pretty good right? I’ll try it sometime and post it.

So here’s a roundup of things that have happened that I haven’t written about, and may not write about, but that happened:

• Went to the HEB Food Truck Face Off and tasted some delicious food from the DUK Truck, Where Ya At and Johnny Hernandez’s catering company. It was yummy, and HEB gifted me a cool dutch oven and goodies to take home. Read Average Joe’s recap of it.
• Went to the SA Cellar Classic Grand Tasting on Saturday, after winning tickets from Yelp! I neglected to take photos, but had one taken by the San Antonio Current with John and fellow Yelper Ardella. Proof I’m always telling John that I am very important and know many people, and he laughs at me, until we go to events and I know 14 people there.
• The Brooklynite opened, and I was there. So was everyone else cool in San Antonio. Why weren’t you there? I have no idea. You’re cool too, right?
• I went to Napa and Sonoma and San Francisco like a month ago and have yet to blog about any of it. I ate and drank all the things, and climbed up steep hills, and enjoyed beautiful weather, and drank the wines. It was glorious, and aspects of it deserve their own posts, so we will leave that for another time. I PROMISE.
• I went to the Dos Equis Most Interesting Academy. It was CRAY, y’all. I can’t even describe how bizarre and awesome it was. I saw a log rolling competition, quicksand, edible bugs, fencing, people on stilts, dancing, falcons, burlesque sketching, collage making, henna tattoos, and a barber shop. I also ate an eight-course meal and saw Girl in a Coma. Crazy! Average Joe took better notes than I did, so read his recap.
• I cooked with Waspy Redhead. But you knew that.

Do you feel caught up? I hope so. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram  as ohmypuddin to find out what I’m up to and what I’m eating. I tweet and Instagram lots of things I don’t put here. I also write Chisme y Chicle for the San Antonio Current every week.

Because we are friends, and because this sounded like awesome blog fodder, Waspy Redhead and I got together to cook some food.

Cooking for others is always a pressure-filled situation. Will they like it? Do they like the same foods I do? Do they like spicy food, or lots of garlic?

We tossed all reservations aside, with the help of champagne, and dove right in.

We had an array of vegetables, grains, and meats at our disposable. We stared at them for many minutes, confounded.

We started by roasting some broccoli, peppers and okra with some lemon zest, salt and pepper. While it baked away, we took some cherry tomatoes and decided to make a sauce, which evolved into making eggs in purgatory, a spicy tomato dish with eggs baked in it. We sauteed garlic and tomatoes, squishing them to get the juices. Then we added tomato sauce and proscuitto, and let it cook away.

For grains, we cooked a pot of quinoa. Once the sauce was done, we cracked some eggs in there and let them finish in the oven.

Voila! Eggs in purgatory over quinoa with roasted vegetables.

I love a runny yolk.

That’s it! It was a healthy, filling dish. The roasted veggies were tender, the eggs were nice and runny, the sauce was hearty and a little spicy, and the quinoa helped soak everything up.

People ask me sometimes about what they can quick for a quick dinner. This is a great example of something you could cook with foods you probably have in your house. It took maybe 3o minutes total to cook. One of the keys of cooking is knowing how long things take. The roasting and the quinoa took the longest, so we put those on first. That helps, so that we weren’t waiting for veggies to finish so we could plate.

This Sunday, I made a pork stir fry using this Vietnamese pork recipe, and I made a crock pot baked potato soup. I’m not sure why I made this much food. The noodles are almost gone now, but only after we ate it for Sunday dinner, Monday lunch, and Tuesday lunch. The soup will last us all week, and we’ll probably have to freeze some of it.

I realized while I was cooking for five hours that I sometimes cook because I’m stressed. Stressed and feeling like I can’t do things right, I turn to cooking. In cooking, I can get it right, or right enough. I can add things to make it delicious. Bacon, butter, cheese, etc. There’s a beginning, middle and end to cooking. I like setting everything up, getting my mixing bowls out, the pans on the stove, the cutting board on the counter and the knives sharpened. I like the roteness of mise en place, mincing a cup of garlic, cleaning mushrooms, dicing potatoes. I like to multitask, starting the pasta while the sauce reduces, toasting bread while the bacon sizzles. I like to see all the ingredients and know that I’ll turn them into something good in the end. I even like to wash the dishes and see them clean, the aftermath of a satisfying meal. I like to put all the leftovers away and anticipate them for lunch the next day.

You see pasta. I see a massively stressful day.

When life gets overwhelming for me, I turn to cooking. With cooking, I know how to make it right, and I know that in the end, I’ll have something to show for it. On those days where you feel like there are so many wrong answers and not enough right ones, too many ways for things to go wrong, knowing your soup will be delicious can be comforting.