This is most an ingredients household rather than prepared food, though there are exceptions. Yesterday I had a sweet potato-white bean-chipotle burrito for lunch. And then another for dinner. Because I did not feel up to cooking. I also had crackers that I'd bought at Trader JOe's as a special snack, and that is good with cheese.
But now I'm on to cooking for the week, or at least the planning of it. I'd gone to TJ to get ingredients for lasagna as it's a good place to get pretty good ingredients for pretty good prices, but still it was expensive - $26 for cheese and such. I did just pull zucchini to use for it so that saved me money and they look good. It'll also have spinach so it's a pretty healthy vegetable dish despite the cheese. And I'll use cottage cheese instead of ricotta because I prefer its texture sometimes.
Other things to cook this weekend: kale white bean soup, as I bought sausage for it and that needs to get used up soon. And then something with tofu and green beans and zucchini (I don't have enough green beans alone). I also want to make a big batch of sweet potato burritos since I ate up the last and I have sweet potatoes (which is unusual for me, and I need to use them up). I just need to get tortillas for that.
All that cheese and such put me over budget for spending for the month but not egregiously so. I was going to spend excessively for some lion's mane creamer that I saw on sale, but then I looked at the actual package and saw that even though the serving size that made it seem healthy enough was 3/4 tsp, they were actually giving instructions of using at least a tablespoon. That would be like almost all my saturated fat allowance for the day, no thank you. Anyway, I'm fine with warm milk in my coffee. No need to be fancy.
I need to get out and pick some pears before it gets even warmer, but I'm dragging. Friend is at work today but she plans to help me with that tomorrow, but I should get a headstart in case I feel even worse tomorrow.
Then I might actually go out to do some errands, we'll see.
I'm rethinking my pear plans, considering pear sauce instead of making pear juice to can pears in. I could use the pear sauce like I do applesauce, for baking, to replace sweetness and fat.
And I really need to remember that I don't want to grow tomatoes. I'm so unpleasantly allergic to the plants and I don't really enjoy eating them much. I could just buy them at hte farmers market if I want fresh (rarely) or buy canned tomatoes. They grow well here, even though I'm not watering them, but itchy.
Went out and grabbed some sweet green plums; they're so good. Shared most, only keeping what i can eat soon. We'll pick more tomorrow. I'll probably cut down some branches that are heavily laden, for ease in harvesting and because they're going to get hacked back by the electrical company contractors soon, and that's better a two-person job. I took some pints over to the community refrigerator, which was stocked well. There are some good distributions going on there now, though it never stays stocked for long. A man was there rummaging through the little free pantry and I offered him some plums and cucumbers. "Hell yeah! I mean ... heck yeah."
I signed up for a new bank account that comes with a bonus because I realized the amount I'd make from doing that (and having my direct deposit salary go there for several months) is more than I would make from working the day after Thanksgiving. I've volunteered for that the past three years, and this year I want to enjoy the four-day weekend. The first year I did it, it was great, I just sat in the office for four hours and got my work done, but then they changed the rules and i have to justify the work I'm doing and I have to do other people's work and be on call but only paid for two hours and it just all got weird. So, fuck it. I'll get my banking bonus instead. I also cashed out a week of vacation pay, which we can do each year. I kept running the numbers on it and didn't actually mean to submit it, I was just checking out the system. but it's ok. My boss has to approve it, and she'll probably try to give me grief and I will tell her to fuck off because taking a vacation in this job is shit - the work just piles up and I have to work such long hours before and after. I'm covering for a colleague going on vacation and she put hours into preparing the work for the day, and if she hadn't then I would have to and that's not fair. That's why I always volunteer to help her, unlike some of my other colleagues who don't do the prep. We have a colleague who has been out on FMLA more than working, and it's really a burden on us. I wish her the best and good health, but I still get to be frustrated at how much extra work I have to be doing. The thing about cashing out vacation time is that I can't travel now because of the dog, and while sometimes it's nice to take days off just to be in home, there are also occasional slower times and I can just work partial days then and that's just about as restorative for me.
Though to be honest, I'm just constantly short-tempered. My boss asked for me to cover a big project for the person out on leave and did all this justification - first, that I have special skills with an aspect of it (I don't know that she's ever complimented me before - and it was probably just bullshit), and also that she's trying to be fair and that she did assign one project to the person who has worked there a year and never done one. OK, whatever. I don't really have a choice. She also laid it out almost like a threat, because she mentioned getting coverage for another project on a date on which I've been scheduled for months to be out. I'm taking a week off for my birthday because I'm tired of really shitty work things happening on my birthday. Maybe I'll do a little trip, but probably not, because dog.
Yum, those plums are good. I'm going to resist the urge to dehydrate them because even though they're tasty that way, I rarely eat them and there are still containers in the freezer. I'll just harvest all I can fresh and share what I can't eat. It's a banger year for plums in town, I've seen plenty of people putting them out to share. My trees are recovering still from a bad aphid infestation last year.
**
Oof, I was up much too late last night trying to figure out new auto and home insurance. When I first got here I got State Farm and then they jacked their prices up so much that I went shopping with a broker. But I got a letter last month that the homeowners wouldn't be renewed (she said the company is leaving the market), and the auto increases are higher than I think they should be just for passage of time. I gave it a couple of weeks and then emailed the insurance broker, and she said she'd get back to me within the week. That was a month ago. So I went to the Geico website last night and it's been a weird loop without sufficient info and it's been tough to make any edits to the request and it won't let me "bundle", and I input my email address multiple times but no promised information emailed. Just really weird. Maybe because it was Saturday night, but there's still nothing in my email this morning.
Anyway, now I'm tired and have a lot to do. The dog has been hassling me since too early to get up and walk her, which violates the terms of our agreement so that is annoying (she is not supposed to hassle me for walks). I do feel a little better, thankfully, so hopefully can power through the cleaning/laundry/basic chores, and cooking. Plus Friend is coming over to help harvest pears and plums. And I need to water the garden. All the things.
But first, I shall enjoy this nice cup of coffee while I do other administrative tasks such as request the repair kit for the recalled attic ladder I had installed a couple of years ago. I'm glad it's just repair of bolts and such, hopefully something I can do myself and won't have to hire someone to do like I did the install.
Scale says I'm down 1.4 pounds, but when I reweighed it kept coming up with different (higher) numbers, so I'll just take the first number. I keep bouncing down to this number then back up. I'd aspirationally like to keep losing, but at this point I'd like to just maintain.
**
Oowee I'm whupped. We just picked what I'm going to guess based on how many flats and how full - about 150 pounds of pears. And there's still more on the tree but I couldn't keep going even though I wasn't the one on the ladder for most of the time. Processing is going to be so much work, though I think if I just cut out any spots and cut in half to ensure no issues, that I could cook them, food mill them, and make pearsauce and/or juice for canning, and then the pears that are in the best shape can be canned up 4-5 jars at a time (what my canner will fit, and also my energy and focus). The pears will need to be checked each day but if I don't have time that day I can put the ripe ones in the fridge. Hopefully I can also be disciplined about going to bed early and getting up early to do chores and/or start work early so that I can actually end right at 5 pm.
**
Well, the lasagna was a lot of work and pretty disappointing. It's very soupy so I'm spooning off liquid, too cheesy, and not really that flavorful. The zucchini was fine, the best part of it really. But if making again I'd do it very differently (half the mozzarella, more seasoning in the sauce). Unfortunately Friend from Grad School can't eat mushrooms so I couldn't share with her. Think I'll freeze most of it.
Also got a low-sugar sweet potato pie cooked. The sweet potatoes look very peaked and I needed to use up a lot of them. Just have a few more to get through now. The pie also freezes well. And once I'm done watering the front yard, I'll roll up the sweet potato burritos and freeze them, and feel quite accomplished for the weekend, which is something because I'm so tired it's painful.
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