A Few Ingredients for Infinite Dinner Options

Maybe infinite is an exaggeration, but this summer I've discovered that with a relatively small group of ingredients you can create a relatively huge amount of entrees. In later posts I will share the backbone recipes which can be altered in dozens of ways to make all sorts of options. By keeping to a small but flexible group of ingredients you cut down on size and frequency of shopping trips and cost of groceries. You also get to avoid planning a meal schedule before shopping.

Meat:
  -eggs
  -chicken (I use boneless chicken breasts)
  -bacon

Dairy:
  -sour cream
  -shredded cheddar
  -shredded mozzarella
  -grated parmesan
  -butter (not margarine)

Starches:
  -potato
  -bread
  -pasta
  -rice

Vegetables (I don't know yet what the best options would be in the winter time):
  -onion
  -green bell pepper
  -tomato
  -(frozen) broccoli

Sauces and Their Ilk:
  -marinara sauce
  -Italian dressing
  -soy sauce
  -vegetable oil
  -salsa

Spices and Seasonings:
  -rosemary
  -oregano
  -thyme
  -basil
  -cinnamon
  -black pepper
  -salt
  -garlic powder

By adding a few more less-often used cooking ingredients, you can expand your options even more (mostly to include breakfast for dinner, which I happen to love).

Extras:
  -lemon juice
  -brown sugar
  -white sugar
  -flour
  -milk
  -maple syrup
  -baking powder
  -baking soda

It is important to note that this list of foods is not a comprehensive list of what foods/ingredients you want to have in your kitchen. Note the absence of coffee, for instance. This is merely a list that will set you up for cooking dinner. You'll need to choose your own economical and tasty snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and beverages.

Finally Some Apartment Pictures

It's another Thursday, and so another free day. I've already cleaned and whatnot, so now I get to finally upload some pictures. Later I'll mail some long-delayed letters and paperwork and head to the local libraries and a little used bookstore to look for Dune. I may add another post for those adventures if they prove noteworthy. Our tour will begin outside...

Here's the building.

the door inside

Up the stairs...

It's my door, Apt. 6.

As we enter, the first room is the kitchen.

Here's my awesome fridge.

The dining table with a slowly dying
Margot.

A sliding door leads to the
sunny balcony.

But first we stop to see my
little makeshift terrarium of
new plant friends.

My hammock gets to be loved again!

Here's all but one of my full-
grown, not-dying plant friends.

From this balcony you can also
see some chairs on pavers
arranged like an awkward sea
turtle without back legs.

If you turn right coming
through the front door, you
see the living room.

A better view of said living room.

This is an extremely comfy sofa. You can't
see it in the picture, but above the sofa
are some pictures of artifacts and ruins.

End table #1 houses Nigel, the
armadillo, the little squishy pig
thing, and some other friends.

End table #2 has some writing
utensils, a lamp, and my
favorite of my sculptures.

The center table is decked
out in cribbage, coasters, and
a happy-smelling candle.

Across from the sofa is Elaine, my
circle chair, and the leasee's huge TV.

Off of the living room is the shady
balcony. It just has a chair.

As you can see, it was rather windy
this morning.

Past the living room is my bedroom.

Storage area with rapier stuff, music
stuff, art stuff, books, and miscellany.

The bedside table has earrings, another
happy-smelling candle, and various
other things.

As usual, my clothes are
arranged chromatically.

Yoda watches over Harold,
Millie Mae Maude, and I as
we sleep.

The creepery mirror and shelf used to
hang on the wall, but they fell. I still
need to fix the mirror frame.

The last room is the bathroom. It's not
very exciting. The shower is out of the
picture.

The nicely organized sink doesn't stay
nicely organized for long.

That's it. I didn't post every single detail of the interior, as that would have been a little tedious, but this is a pretty thorough overview of my summer dwelling. I'm loving living on my own. After these months, I'm not going to be looking forward to going back to the dorms. I'm excited about eventually having my own place long-term. There are so many thing I'd love to do that just aren't practical right now, like more extensive decorating and growing my own herbs and vegetables. I guess I'll just have to wait another year or two. With as quickly as college is flying by, that won't be long at all.

Free Day #2

Today my accomplishments included dressing cute to go grocery shopping, making homemade granola, starting plant cuttings of eight plants, oiling and polishing my sword, and finishing my first SCA garb skirt. I highly doubt that this exact to-do list has ever been assembled before. I also did normal things like sweeping, vacuuming, and laundry, and later I'll do normal things like exercise and watch a movie. But I'll be doing as much of that as possible in my SCA garb of a full skirt, makeshift chemise, and borrowed bodice. That's unusual.

Update: it is now later, and I have made a normal dinner, cleaned up like a tidy girl, and sat down with a bag of popcorn and the newer version of the movie of "Pride and Prejudice" to wait for Josh to get home and skype. All in all a good day.

As you may have noticed (I'm not sure who "you" even is at this point, if they exist), I changed my blog background again. I'm rather fond of this whole new realm of font options. I'm just waiting for the day when uploading your own background actually works. But that doesn't matter much if I can't salvage my thousands of pictures that I lost when I destroyed my hard-drive not too long ago. This theme is a summery one, because it's becoming summery outside. Yes, it's going to be less than 50 Fahrenheit when I go to work in the morning, but it will be 90 on Sunday. But I digress and ramble. Hopefully within the next few weeks I'll have interesting things to say about my first real SCA event, my brother's graduation, and work, along with posting some of the many reviews I've started. Who knows? I may even finally get around to taking good pictures of my summer apartment and posting them.

Current view of blog for future reference: