Someone You Should Know

You all know that I LOVE Instagram.  I am finding so many cool people to follow.  Not surprisingly, I do follow a lot of chefs, famous or not.  Some who are going through culinary school (#jealous!) and Chef’s like Graham Elliot, who actually takes a lot of pictures of his wife and says stuff like “I can’t believe this hottie married me!”  Aw, so cute!  Sometimes I have no idea how I stumble upon new people there, but several months ago, I started following Catfish with Ketchup.   Elizabeth grew up with a sister who had Downs Syndrome, and her name is Leanne.  Growing up with Leanne inspired Elizabeth and her husband to adopt a daughter with Downs Syndrome.  Then Josie became part of the family, then six months later their own biological daughter was born Merryn.  Merryn is considered the Mother Hen even though she’s six months younger than her sister, she wants to do everything for JoJo – brush her hair, help her get dressed, help her up and down the steps.  And then this past May they had their third daughter Lydia, who seems to be smiling all the time.

Leanne somehow calls her niece Josie “Catfish with Ketchup” hence the name of her Instagram page.  You can check out her blog here too – she has such an amazing perspective on life, and it just makes me appreciate that our kids were healthy growing up – I can’t imagine the day to day struggles she faces while raising a child with not only mental, but physical difficulties as well.  She has an awesome sense of humor – start following her in Insagram.  I promise you won’t regret it.  Josie LOVES Taylor Swift and likes to give performances on a whim which her Mom shares on Instagram – too cute!

So yesterday I ate the last piece of quiche for breakfast (I did share 1/4 of the quiche with my boss earlier in the week) and decided to have a Chobani with it.  I don’t know about you guys, but I am. . . well, I am a refrigerator pusher person.  Meaning I just push stuff in the back to make room for more shit in the front.  Every other week or so I’ll clean it out, pull something out of the depths of the back of the fridge and say “shit, I wish I remembered that was there, I would have eaten that!” and then tossing it straight into the garbage.  My keen eyes spotted a Chobani in the back – score!  I threw that in my bag with the rest of my food and headed to work.

Except, what was that??!!

Dammit!  The expiration date was September 16.  I put that on Instagram and asked “would you eat that?!”  The overall consensus?  Throw it out.  So that’s what I did.  But sadly, I had already taken insulin anticipating eating that, so when lunch rolled around, my blood sugar was only 138.  Then one of the secretaries went to lunch, then the other one did, and when I thought I might eat and then go out walking, I actually had work to do, so I never went.

I ended up bringing leftover black bean soup that I made using Courtney’s Mom’s recipe.  If you need to feed a crowd for Halloween – this one will do the trick!  I think I still have seven containers in my downstairs fridge!  On the side I made a whole wheat quesadilla with mozzarella cheese and spinach.

Look at that cheesy goodness!

When I got home from work, the new flyer for Sur La Table came in the mail.   I puffy heart that store.  I mean, just look at it!

I can’t afford much in that catalog, but one thing did catch my eye – the fruit and vegetable spiral slicer – it’s only $35!  But I need another kitchen appliance like I need a hole in the head, but I still want it.

I realized I had ground beef that either needed to be cooked, or thrown in the freezer, so I decided to make a taco salad.  Tony wanted just rice, so I took my portion of rice and tossed it with cilantro and lime, and the taco salad started coming together.  You can’t see it, but there’s chopped spinach on the bottom, then sliced jalapenos (supa spicy!), cucumbers, shredded carrot, the cilantro lime rice, 2 ounces of ground beef taco meat, and about 1/4 of an avocado chopped.  Some taco sauce, and after the pics were taken, I put a bit of ranch over the top.  On the side a few tortilla chips for dipping.  That was so tasty, I am having that for lunch again today!

You can’t really ever go wrong with taco salad, am I right?!

My friend M.J. messaged me on Facebook last night to a link to a recipe – Dill Pickle Soup!  I haven’t been to Noble Pig’s site in a while, and must have missed this recipe.  I am super intrigued by it – I think M.J. said she’d try it too – it not only has diced up dill pickles in it, but also pickle juice!

Go check it out and tell me if you’d make that or not.  I think Tony just threw up in his mouth at just the thought of this soup!

Alright, time to get this show on the road – I made pizza dough last night, so I am using 1/4 of the dough to make breakfast pizza – just enough time to make it, throw it in the oven and jump in the shower while it bakes.

Happy almost Halloween!  Make it a great day!

UPDATED:  Thanks for the reminder Teresa – please click here to vote for my Honey Roasted Almond Shortbread Bars!