Cookbooks my new love.

Could I be the next Julie and Julia?  Probably not.  Will I try maybe.  Will I blog about my experiences cooking everything from my new favorite cookbook? No, but I will write up this blog and say really great things about the recipes I have cooked so far!

   I bought this cookbook Nom Nom Paleo Food for Humans for a few people thinking they would really like it.  Both of these people wanted to start eating healthier and also wanted a good sense of some GOOD if not GREAT and easy Paleo recipes.  So being a follower  FANatic of this Michelle Tam's Website by the same name (Nom Nom Paleo) where they is a wealth of recipes I have used over and over again.  She also has an i-Pad app which is filled with wonderful recipes as well.  The i-Pad has been my go to cookbook since I have only found a few that I really like.  Mostly I have been taking recipes from older cookbooks my mom had when I was growing up and modifying the recipes to my specifics.  That is another thing I just want to tangent on: Cookbooks.  I love to be able to just open up to a recipe and follow it.  Michelle's coobook allows me to do that, the ingredients are for the most part easy to find (I had to search for a few things, but I know where to look, plus she tells you where ONLINE you get buy them!)  I have used other cookbooks in the past and the America's test Kitchen Family recipes and Quick recipes have both been a life saver.  As a child I cooked out my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook and also a few "potluck" cookbooks.  You know the kind for a fundraiser or something like that, potluck stuff really.  Point is I am slowly collecting recipes to put into my own cookbook of recipes that I can give to my children.  I am not sure if they will be original or "borrowed" or a mix of both, but I think mostly a mixture of modified from a cookbook.


From this book I have been able to make recipes I would not have even thought of cooking.  The one below is a recipe which is so simple, but so good, eggs and asparagus.  Luckily the first asparagus is up and fresh and we were able to get some semi-local asparagus (NJ vs Peru).  We were missing one ingredient, but I found it so the NEXT time I make it it will come out yum-tastic! The nice thing about this cookbook is HOW SUPER EASY the recipes are, really for some of them its the temp of the oven or the pan that I need.  Everything else is just throw it in the pan easy.  Literally, pan-heat-asparagus-eggs-seasoning-oven-eat.  These are the types of recipes I love because I come home sometime at 5 and know what I am going to cook, just don't always want to cook it.  These recipes make it easy and healthy to boot!

I have made her Khalua pig recipe MANY times and that is so easy it's a crockpot recipe so I turn it on at night, go to work and it is DONE!  Then we have shredded pork for different recipes!  I haven't counted the recipes I have cooked in just the three or so weeks I have borrowed the book BUT I can say I am close to a quarter of the recipes.  That includes the one I have cooked previously.  Some are on her website or the i-Pad app.  One of the "classiest" meals I have cooked felt so "sunday dinner" or made brunch.  It happened to be on a day that was drizzly and yucky and I needed some homestyle and that made me feel homey.  Something pasta like but NOT pasta. (I think that last BOWL of pasta I had was when I ran the marathon, whenever that was, 2011 maybe?)  Anyways, I digress.  I wanted something yummy.  I will be the first to admit I could eat "breakfast foods" for any meal. I could eat eggs, bacon, sausage those types of foods anytime anywhere!  I love those foods, they fill me up they god with anything and they are just yummy.  This recipe calls for eggs and sausage.  I made it OF COURSE!  It felt some homey and yummy and made me feel happy.  It reminded me a little of sausage and peppers, but with an egg!  I may have to serve it to some guest because it looks classy too!

I must say sometimes my cooking doesn't always come out great and I will admit it.  Sometimes it's the recipe (if I miss something or a step) sometimes its just me.  Anyways in the case of the crispy smashed chicken, something was not right, I followed the recipe and I did not get crispy chicken...I got kind of soggy chicken.  Oh well, we ate it, Jeremy said it was fine.  I will be making these magic wings for a party coming up so that should be fun!

I just really wanted to say how EASY Paleo can be.  I think a lot of people think BOOHOO I can't have bread or rice or corn or blah blah blah.  Really once you stop eating them for a length of time, you stop craving them.  I have eaten foods that I use to CRAVE and cave in to my Cravings and then I would eat them and realize it was gross, or it didn't do anything for me.  BUY THE BOOK, its worth it and follow her on the Book of Face, and all that jazz!  She always posts some great recipes from else where as well.

IT'S FOOD LOVE!

How do you make a friend as an adult?

How does one make a friend?
I feel like in the past I was told you would loose most of the people you were friends with in High School during college and then you loose those college friends after you graduate. So what happens when you didn't have many friends in high school and you commuted to college after spending a year at away at a different college? Then attend a grad program where you commute? Then take a job that is a work at home job? What if you live in an area that after four years is still foreign?  What then? How does an adult make friends?

Bars? no
Online? no
The Gym? no
Maybe join a social group or a church? tried a few times and was crushed each time.
Meet up groups? no

What if you don't want to meet friends? What if over the years you have spent time trying not to make friends for no reason?

What if as I get on with life I am starting to realize how my father felt. As a teenager I don't remember him having any friends.  He had one friend who happened to be our neighbor, but he passed away suddenly and my father was heart broken because he lost his friend.   Maybe he had sporadic friends who he saw every other year.  They went hunting and fishing together.  That is what I remember. I remember him coming home and watching TV and then falling asleep down stairs.  I don't remember him going out much.  Am I turning into him? I feel like I don't have those close friends who I can go hunting with (if I wanted) or fishing with.  How does a grownup man make friends?

Welcome to 2014 and sobriety for now.

In the new year I would like to post a little more its hard with work and toddler and cooking and stuff.  Writing is soothing and I just need to do it.  I do it more for me then for the readers since according to stats I have only a few. Anyway off too it now.
So after thanksgiving I got an idea from a friend.  He decided that his drinking had finally caught up with him and I am sure for other reasons, he decided to give up drinking.  Since this is a friend I love very much and have known him for a long time I decided to take a look at my own drinking and take stock of when and why I drank.  I didn't and don't consider myself an alcoholic, but am I?  My father was an alcoholic and they say Alcoholism can be genetic. I asked myself a few questions and some of them I had to grapple.  One big one, could I cut myself off before it was too late?  I answered it honestly and said sometimes no.  There would be times when I would buy the box of my favorite wine because it was "cheaper" then buying two bottles.  The thing is that that box was equivalent to FOUR bottles of the same size.  I wasn't doing myself a favor.  I had also got into bourbon and whiskey.  While not a bad thing I think it was.  I have on occasion gotten frustrated with people and have been told to calm down and lower my voice I have gotten out of control.  I never hit anyone, got into fights, was arrested or drank at inappropriate times.  This is honestly the first time I have written anything down about my drinking.  It has only been about a month since I made a conscious decision to stop drinking without a starting back up again point.  I have stopped for a month or so at a time with the idea of having a drink at the end of the month or something like that.  This time was different.  I think because the two times I drank heavily before I stopped were bad, very bad.  I believe I blacked out one time and woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck or train and then the truck backed up back over me again.  The next time I was out of commission most of the next day.  It sucked. SO I decided to stop without an end in mind.  I said, MAYBE I will have a drink on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, and I didn't.  I said MAYBE I will have a drink on New Years Eve and I didn't.  I then had a planned work trip this week where a lot of my work colleagues will go to a local bar for drinks and said I think I will have a few drinks while out there.  Needless to say the trip was canceled for crazy weather related reasons.  I am not having a drink this week.  I have a vacation planned for February and said I will have a few drinks while on Vacation.  I am still not sure. My birthday? I don't know.  I am liking not spending 40-50 dollars on wine and liquor only to not drink it in one night.  So for now I am sober.  How long will it continue I am not sure.  I am taking it one day at a time.