Full Fridge

There’s nothing better than those first few meals post grocery store visit.  Except I generally don’t know where to start.

Here’s one.

Cheddar, Turkey, Apple Samich.

And another.

Sick of frozen veggies, I piled as many fresh ones on a plate as possible last night.

Mixed greens with funny little mini squash and zucchini, tomato, very roughly chopped almonds, lemon wedges (like Gram does), parsley, edamame hummus, and goat cheese.  I used to hate goat cheese and now I can’t get enough of it.  All topped with raspberry walnut dressing.

This morning I scrambled up an egg and some whites, topped toast with strawberry jam and threw a few red potatoes in a skillet with tomatoes, peppers, s&p, chili powder and red hot.  I wilted some greens, too.

And last night when I was avoiding writing a paper, I prepped some slow cooker chicken noodle soup.

May I interrupt your regularly scheduled programing for a snippet of the paper — a personal essay for my magazine class. Made me miss Australia, even though our house got pretty disgusting.

…Sand coated the floating wood floors along with a stratum of glass shards.  The boys blew out a window with a rugby ball just days before — the same rugby ball that left peacock blue and green smudges along the white walls of our bowling-ball-alley of a hallway.  Mike’s Shakeweight and men’s Ugg slippers served as our resident trip hazard in the way of the door.  Onionskin thin rolling paper lay scattered along the coffee table next to a small plastic pouch of pot, pursed open with its contents spilling into a neat little mound.

I gazed at the army of cereal bowls containing small pools of rancid milk and oversaturated puffs, situated between empty metallic wine sacks, and silently prayed the mess concealed the illegal sight that would easily pass for an anti-drug PSA with the slogan, “Pot depletes your cereal supply.”

Our hexagonal 5-gallon fish tank, the one Garrett snatched from the side of the road, sat fish-less on the corner of our clutter-ridden kitchen table.  Directly in front of the tank, our goldfish Skippy hovered along the surface of a murky-water filled jar.  Dead.

And having just traversed the Uggs, the owners of our beachfront home stood inside, taking in the damage of the 8 filthy mongrels that occupied it.

Their eyes darted from my sweaty face to Liz’s beet red one, back to the dead fish, and then across to the busted window.  The Aussie Carmen Sandiego look a like, with her shiny blown out dark hair, black pumps and red lipsticked lips, rattled off a series of questions about the property, while the significantly shorter man kept his eyes glued on Skippy, who had clearly been belly-up for days.

Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner popped by unexpectedly to check on the alleged leaky roof.  They claimed they “were in the area.”   We had no choice but to grace them with our sweaty, smelly post-run bodies, in our smelly, dirty home, that was really theirs.

They asked to see the kitchen.  Above the sink, laden with crusty dishes and stagnant water housing scrambled egg buoys and cooked pasta boats, hung a sign reading “Thank you for keeping this kitchen spotless at all times.”

Artificially colored pre-workout powder dusted the top of the microwave.  Strands of spaghetti that Garrett flung at the wall weeks before dried into the plaster.  Wet grass and mud sat in clumps along the gray tiled floor, tracked in from Marcos’s rugby cleats.

Miss Glamazon and her debonair counterpart scanned the indecent warzone.  “May we see the bedrooms?”….

Back to beach-less Syracuse.

Here’s my funny crock pot I got for free by transporting a friend’s friend’s furniture in my old truck.

Last night I tossed cut up chicken breasts, onion, carrots, celery, parsley, dill, meyer lemon wedges and an insane amount of pepper into some chicken broth and water, and popped the vat in the fridge overnight.  Then this morning I let it sit on the counter while I went to the gym before I put it on heat (I’m always afraid I’ll blow something up or break something if I stick extreme cold next to extreme hot).  It cooked on low for about 6 hours.  Once I got home I cooked up some noodles to toss in.

Panera “you pick two” style, I had a salad with red beans, mustard and goat cheese with a bowl (or two) of soup.

Then for dessert I melted down some hershey’s dark chocolate and almond butter and topped it with cereal.  Odd but fantastic.

Tomorrow I HAVE to eat CAKE for work.  (We’ll pretend I didn’t ask my editor if we could feature a dessert in the paper).  Death by chocolate in mah belly.