Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Further Preparations

Well, in the interest of being able to bake things in the future, I decided last night to find out what was wrong with the bake element in my oven. It hasn't worked since about November, and I have been unmotivated to fix it, as I have a toaster oven that works great for baking and broiling the smaller things, like frozen pizza.
However, for the larger things, I am going to need a functioning oven. So, with 30 minutes to spare before I had to crate up the furballs for their vet visit, I decided to pull out the burner and troubleshoot.
2 bolts held the burner plate to the back of the oven, so I removed those and pulled out the burner. And immediately found the problem.
One of the wires had broken. So, I pulled it out as far as I could to take a good look at it. It was a little charred around the end, and had broken loose from the crimped end.
At which point I had to stop, to take the kitties to the vet.
When I got back, being fairly good with manipulating metal, I removed the screw holding the end to the element, and cleaned it up. Then I cut the broken wire back to nice clean wire, stripped it, reattached the crimped end as tight as I could pinch it with my pliers, and then reattached the end to the element. Then I reassembled the oven, plugged the stove back in, and turned on the oven.
And the element heated up to a nice cherry red, just like it is supposed to! :)
I am excited about the oven working, however I am going to do some more research on oven wiring to be safe, but my repair appeared to have worked, and was stable at 350 degrees.
So, being tired after this, and having homework, I am afraid dinner was chips with cheese and salsa, with a Mexican beer.
This morning was yogurt again, and I brought leftover pizza for lunch, as I was in a hurry from having to give one of my kittens an antibiotic this morning, and had to resort to the frozen pre-prepared stuff as I ran out of time.
Dinner, however, will have something to do with eggplant! I have three of them that need to become something yummy.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

A Shiny New Blog, And A Resolution

I have had several online journals in the past, and have had problems with posting anything but food. My Facebook account is riddled with pictures of dinner, of lunch, of tasty food I ate when I was insert name of place here.
I love food. If I was a little skinny girl, no one would care if I loved food, other than to say "Good for you!"
But I am not a little skinny girl. I am a big girl, with lots of jiggling when I get crazy enough to jump around in joy!
And you know what?
I love food!
So, I made a resolution at New Years this year, that I would eat more vegetables, more fresh things, and try to eat out less. So far, my success has been middle-of-the-road. Some days I am successful! And other days, I fail horribly.
So, I made another resolution. This time I made the resolution at the end of June, almost 6 months into my Eat More Vegetables resolution. This time, I am resolving to not eat fast food. At all. Until Thanksgiving.
So, here I am. Day 1.
Today has been a good day so far. I had some strawberry yogurt and a cup of coffee for breakfast, while making my lunch of cucumber and cream cheese on wheat roll sandwiches for lunch. I tossed in some extra cucumber slices, as I had cut too many, and a banana. I got the cucumbers yesterday at the produce packing house just down from work. They are interesting cucumbers - they actually look more like small melons than cucumbers, being more round than long and thin. They made great sandwiches.
I also picked up some other vegetables yesterday. I purchased three shiny purple medium-small eggplant, some regular cucumbers, some bell peppers, and a cantaloupe, which is not a vegetable, but is the only fruit they grow.
After wards, I stopped at Walmart and purchased my groceries for the next several days. I picked up Horizon Organic whole milk, which I purchase due to it's longer shelf life. I dring a half-gallon of milk in about 2 weeks or more, which is usually too long for standard milk to still be viable, while the Horizon milk is ultra-pasteurized and has a shelf life of a month or longer. I also picked up eggs, some sliced cheese, some cream cheese, some plain Greek-style yogurt, two types of whole wheat rolls, some bakery raisin bread, and some carrot juice as a treat. As a result, I had an Egg and Green Pepper sandwich for dinner, as I had the three necessary ingredients - namely eggs, green peppers, and bread. I learned this recipe from a YouTube series called "Depression Cooking" or similar - some interesting recipes and stories! :)