I just won an Eve 6 CD off of ebay for $2! (plus $3 shipping.. still pretty cheap). Man I love online auctions.
See what I made for dinner this weekend on the new Queen Motifa website!
My roomie Anne was gone for the weekend, so I was left to cook all by myself! I decided to be a little more experimental than we have been (we’ve tended toward things one of us already knew how to make). So, here are two easy and tasty recipes for cooking alone!
Easy Chicken Cacciatore (Probably not true to the original!)
You need:
2 chicken breasts (or one for single serving)
64-oz can crushed tomatoes (or smaller for a single serving)
1/2 bag spiral pasta
Spices to taste (basil, oregano, garlic, sugar, parsley)
And it’s easy!
- Cut the chicken up into 1″ cubes and brown in a frying pan in a little bit of oil to prevent sticking.
- Drain the fat if necessary
- When your chicken is done, start boiling water for the pasta.
- Add the crushed tomatoes in with the chicken.
- Stir in spices (I used 1 tbsp basil and oregano, 1 tbsp crushed garlic, 2 tbsp sugar to eliminate some acidity)
- Simmer the sauce on low.
- When the water for the pasta boils, add and boil until soft.
- Once the pasta is done, so is your sauce! Drain the pasta and serve with sauce. Lup lup!
Today at Lowe’s I found this neato stuff – World Harbors Marinade in Bombay Mango (It was $2.19 at our grocery store – near all the barbeque sauces). All I did today was throw some leftover fairly untasty “Japanese” stir fry that we had gotten frozen in a bag, some leftover noodles from yesterday, and 2 tablespoons of the marinade in a frying pan and stir fried till bubbly. It was extremely easy and delicious- just like eating at an Indian restaurant! Plus, these World Harbors things come in 5 or 6 different flavors – score. What an easy way to add a little ethnic spice to any dish!
*Dramatic twirl and hat toss!*
No, really. I do feel like Mary sometimes! Here are the exciting things that have happened lately:
Listening to some serious customized internet radio lately. (My radio station is a good one! haha) I would just like to comment that after playing clarinet for so long, I feel the need to search it out in any song I listen to.. especially broadway-type music. “Oh! there’s the clarinet!” I just realized a Matchbox 20 song (Back To Good) has serious bass clarinet in it. It’s fun to pick out, but at the same time, I would like to be able to just enjoy songs instead of analyzing them all the time. I wonder how people that play things like guitar or percussion must feel! 
Here’s a little tip to use the next time you blanch your vegetables. Put them directly into boiling water–not warm or simmering, but downright bubbly. Watch for them to change color a bit and get a little softer. Then remove them and Immediately dunk them into a bowl of ice water. This stops the cooking process, so the veggies don’t get overdone and–amazingly– preserves and enhances their color. Ding! This is a little trick used by the top French chefs and you can use it in your kitchen too!
Allan found this interesting article about making a water garden with a Beta fish and thought of us. Haha. I thought you might find it helpful.. Maybe a little fishie will make your water garden a little less murky
This article explains the type of software I’m writing documentation for! It’s actually very interesting stuff.
I’m trying to work on this baby! Though it doesn’t have much of a motifa for a Queen Motifa weblog now does it? I’m definitely going to have to whip up some graphics for this baby soon!
I totally forgot an exciting part of the Franklin St. experience yesterday. We were in a boutique and that fabric on my splash page was made into a DRESS! Why do I keep seeing this extremely hot fabric in muy expensive clothing items? Does it really need to torture me that much? I would have really enjoyed the purse I saw on ebay. Either way, what-ever! Last summer I had cherry print on my website and now cherries are EVERYWHERE! Will this be repeated with this motif? I’m such a trendsetter. 
lol.
Hello Hello. Today included a pilgrimage to the famed Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. It was very nice, a typical college-sort of street with lots of trendyish stores and lots of coffee shops and pizza parlours. Not that we have anything like that in good ‘ol Troy, but I’ve seen such locations rumored in other areas (I’ve actually witnessed such places at good ‘ol SUNY Geneseo and SUNY Brockport.. apparently I haven’t been to enough other campuses to know). I suppose that computer geeks wouldn’t get much of a kick out of hippy stores and consignment shops, no?
Then I had a meatball sub with meatballs that were cut so they were flat! It was very strange. I feel that I am still trying to get over “culture shock” what with the divided highways and flat meatballs.
Today there was a monsoon. A hurricaine of sorts. It came on suddenly and the trees outside our window looked as if they were going to fall at any moment. The golfers ran in shock with their golf umbrellas for cover. It was generally humorous. Now the putting green is all flooded. Tragic.
