Indian food

On Tuesday my friend Erin brought home some dinner from India's Cafe & Kitchen Inc. This is a little Northern Indian place on Ridge Rd. in Parma.

Last night I was on my way home from work (starving) and thought I would drive by to see if they were open. I walked in about 9:45pm and they were happy to whip me up some some very fresh samosa, chicken pakora, vegetable curry, shahi paneer and cucumber raitta. I could hear them chopping up the vegetables! Reading the menu I realized that they actually closed at 9pm. How nice of them to not turn me away!

Another Indian place I really enjoy is Udipi Cafe. It's Southern Indian food and completely vegetarian. Their lunch buffet is a really great.

rotting wood

Over the past few weeks there has been a team Amish men running around our house tearing stuff down, hammering, sawing and nailing thing back up. It's been pretty exciting coming home each day to see how far along they've gotten. Here's a few pictures of the progress.

This is an example of why we needed a new front porch.











Some demo.














Nothing between the two floors!














The beginnings of new ceilings.

2006 Raspberry Jam

I just finished making jam this morning. I picked the berries on Monday at Rosby's and crushed them yesterday. Now I'm listening to the sweet sound of the jars popping as they cool. I love it!

Turkey Soup

I started my new additional part-time job last week. It's super busy there and I don't have much time to eat, check my email, surf the net or write blog entries while I'm there. Very different from my other pt job.

Working 3 nights a week and every Saturday is forcing me to use all my free time for laundry and cleaning the house. Boo! In an effort to get some healthful food into our bodies during the week I am going to try to use my more crockpot and find some make ahead recipes that I can freeze.

Last week I made some turkey soup and split pea soup. The recipes came from Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly.

The turkey soup didn't turn out exactly as I had expected - there's not much broth for it being in the soup section of the book. But it was easy to make and a satisfying dinner and lunch the next day. One thing to note about this book is that all the recipes are for different sized crock pots - 4, 5 or 6 quarts. I have a 6 quart-er so there's some math involved in adjusting recipes. User beware! If the crockpot is not filled up at least half way, the food is likely to dry out or burn.

Ground Turkey Soup

1 lb. ground turkey
1 c. onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
15 oz. can kidney beans, drained
1 cup carrots, sliced
1/4 c. rice, uncooked
1 quart low-sodium diced Italian tomatoes
2 cups green beans
1 tsp. parsley flakes
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf
3 c. water

1. Brown turkey in a large skillet.
2. Combine with remaining ingredients in a 5-6 quart slow cooker.
3. Cover. Cook on low 8-9 hours.


Just before cooking...

The tiniest fun

I think the small things inside the card catalog drawers are the biggest fun at Big Fun...

cupcake gum

I read an article in Time Magazine called Cupcake Nation - it's about how obsessed the "yuppie-under-40 set" has become with designer cupcakes and places like Magnolia Bakery and Sprinkles. In the article the author said "when no one was looking, I'd shove the paper in my mouth and chew it like cupcake gum." I didn't know other people did that too!

So where are the designer cupcakes in Cleveland? When I'm at the Market the vanilla and chocolate ones at the Cake stand look pretty good.

Please say hello to the Sprinkles breakfast cupcake...

Life has been good!

The past few days have been uncharacteristically good!

Last weekend was the Polish Festival at Saint John Cantius. We happened to run into some friends there and enjoyed a few Polish beers and pierogies. Oh, we also nibbled on a small bowl of cabbage & noodles and split a kielbasa & sauerkraut sandwich . The rest of the evening was spent at The Treehouse and revisiting the kielbasa. So much garlic! And someone real nice bought me this souvenir.

















What else happened the last few days? A babyshower, my nephew's 5th birthday, a Labor Day picnic at my folks' house, my friend got engaged last night and I started a new (additional) part-time job today!














Congratulations Erin & Matt!!!