Mini Meatballs for One

All day yesterday felt like a Monday to me at work since I had been off for four days.  Even though I could have still taken the day off since it had already been approved, I figured why waste a day when I may need to more next week or down the road.  And it worked out because one of the other secretaries had a family emergency, so I was really busy.

As I was putting my food together for the day, I was just making due with what I had on hand.  One of my favorite pantry items?  Canned potatoes!

These are Aldi brand and they cost .59 cents a can.  They are peeled and fully cooked, so it can make a great breakfast hash.  I used 4 of the potatoes and cut them in half.  I put my skillet on medium high heat, added a touch of olive oil and placed them face down to brown.  I had three lonely asparagus in my veggie bin, so I chopped those up too.  After the potatoes cooked for a few minutes, I tossed in the asparagus, cooked them only a minute before adding an egg to scramble with everything.  I brought along Cabot cheddar cheese, and the leftover steak from the night before.  Once I got to work, I put the egg mixture on the toaster oven tray, added the chopped steak and cheese and put it under the broiler for a few minutes.  Topped it with a little guacamole salsa hot sauce and breakfast was served!  So filling and delicious.

I of course hadn’t been to the gym in a week.  I am a week behind in my strength training program, so I just ended up doing a 5k on the treadmill.  I went low and slow to begin with – only 4.5 mph pace.  But by the end my final minute sprint was at a 7.5 pace – which is the equivalent to an 8 minute mile!   My time isn’t too shabby either.  And Kym, check it out – people were working out with me yesterday!

So if you follow me on Instagram (mybizzykitchen) you will know that I had 15 minutes left before leaving work, and I decided to make mini meatballs to go with my pasta for lunch.  It didn’t even matter that I wasn’t even dressed yet or my coffee wasn’t made yet!  Loads of time!

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I ended up using the last of my spicy arrabbiata sauce and some mosticolli noodles.  Added a touch of shredded mozzarella and it was a delicious lunch.

I texted Tony later in the afternoon if he had a taste for anything.  He said he didn’t.  I said I didn’t either, because at the time, I was still full from lunch.  When I didn’t hear anything back from him, I made a judgment call and picked up . . . PIZZA!  Ha, I will try to sneak in a party pizza Friday whenever I can.  I still need to make up Alton Brown’s overnight pizza dough, but as I was driving home, while I very well could have made my no rise pizza dough, I was thinking that I’d have to make up a pizza sauce, we didn’t have that many ingredients to put on it, and we were low on cheese.  I swung by CVS and picked up a pepperoni DiGorno pizza for $5.50.  Done!

I did accessorize it though – I added one Italian sausage, just took the sausage out of the casing and dotted it across the pizza.  Added a handful of mozzarella and a handful of cheddar cheese, and a sprinkling of bacon bits.  I had the beer while the oven got to temp and while the pizza cooked.  Had a glass of pinot grigio with the pizza.

While we both liked the crust, the sauce was too sweet for us.  Luckily I added hot sauce to balance the sweetness, but we each had two slices, called it a day, and I threw the rest out.  I also made us two salads on the side.

I was looking for some paperwork last night and came across my old creative writing journal.  OMG, the stories are hilarious!  Starting next Thursday, I will be doing a Throw Back Thursday and will share some of these stories with you.  These stories are from 1978.  I was 10 and in the 5th grade.  Mrs. Knowles was my teacher.  Tony still can’t believe that I remember all of my teachers names!  Um, turns out I was quite the sticker whore – both the inside and outside of my spiral notebook are littered with stickers.  I especially love the one where I declare myself “terrific and best.”  And it’s true, I cannot tell a lie – I love pancakes!  And in case you are wondering, I did have a Bionic Woman sticker too.

I also got an email from Foodie Blogroll that my blog is one of their featured five blogs for the week!  Pretty cool!

Tony is doing okay for now.  Still tired, and I know he is worried if he’ll have to have open heart surgery again.  He remembers the recovery after the first one in 2007.   We are still doing to try to conference call with our Mayo liason on Monday to find out if the cardiology appointment can be done by phone, if in fact surgery is the next step.   I was glad I worked yesterday because I cleared a bunch of stuff of my desk, so hopefully it won’t be too bad if I have to take off work again next week.  I still have 2 weeks of time left for the year, which is good.

So my plan is to make up a bunch of meals and freeze them in case we do need to go back to Mayo next week.  I’ll be a little bit more prepared this time, and I will try not to bring everything but the kitchen sink this next trip!

Have a great weekend – see you Monday!