All About The "Yum" and Other Comforts

Our last few days have been quite cool and overcast.  Ohio Weather we call it.  (evil grin)  A nice taste of fall.  Don't get too excited though.  We'll be back in the mid 80's in a few days.

Since the weather has been cooler,  SM asked me to make some stuffed green peppers.  Sure!  I always have leftover meat, so I also made meatballs.

Funny thing.  You know how you use rice in the meat of your stuffed peppers?  Well, I love meatloaf and meatballs and since I went gluten free, I've just been opting out on using the breadcrumbs in the recipe.  It made for a denser, dryer texture (particularly with the ground turkey)...but whats a girl to do?

Well, the meat (and meatballs) with the rice in them were so moist and light, they were out of this world.  A true light bulb moment!  I used ground turkey and a roll of Jimmy Dean pork sausage (ground beef too if you want), 1 egg, katsup and Worcestershire sauce (and lots of it).  And from now on I'll be adding rice too.  I don't really measure anything, I just mix it all together.  It'll be really really loose.  But it firms up and stays moist after cooking.  Yum.

SM also finished off the banana bread (see post from last week) and wanted more cake, so I used the same basic recipe and substituted apples and walnuts and doubled the cinnamon and also added some apple pie spice.  TaDa!  Apple Spice Cake!

I noticed that it didn't need to cook as long as the banana bread (less moisture in the apples) but SM reports that it's still moist and "Yummy".  I expect that I can use this basic recipe and make carrot cake too.  I'm curious what will happen with chocolate.

SM was in Hendersonville (in the mountains of NC) a few days ago and picked me up a few more apples straight from the orchard.  He has no idea what they are but they taste great so who cares.  $8 for a peck.  What the heck is a peck anyway?  No leaves turning yet, though.  He's also loving the new car.  (drives great.)  A neighbor teased him the other day saying that SM "didn't look like a mini-van man to him."  Oh well...hauling kids or hauling crap...you're still "hauling".

The cooler weather made me check out my winter clothes situation.  I wear scrubs to work so that's easy but my "at home" clothes were falling apart.  I haven't bought new clothes in several years.  My sweat pants (and "sleepy" pants) that I hang around the house in, have holes around the waistband and I'd already tossed a pair of jeans that had to be 6 years old at least.  And now that I'm older and my waistline has become one with my hips (freakin menopause) so my whole shape has changed. 

So I NEEDED to go shopping.  And I hate clothes shopping!  I have to be IN THE MOOD.  You know what I mean.

A friend told me that Kohls was having a big sale Saturday, so I dragged my sorry carcass over into the melee.  I don't bother shopping at malls anymore (they don't make clothes for the mature, tightwad woman) so Kohls has become my "go-to" department store.  I can usually find stuff there.

WOW...were they busy!  Women and clothes EVERYWHERE.  I mostly needed pants so I concentrated on that.  Kind of a search and destroy mission. 

I found 2 pairs of jeans, 5 pairs of "sleepy pants/ active wear pants", 1 pair of shorts from the 1/2 off rack.  (When did shorts get so "short"?)  I also bought a couple of shirts and another super soft "throw blanket" for this winter.

Quite the haul, if you ask me.  I spent 1 1/2 hrs in there and walked out with my mood intact and a back seat loaded with bags.  I noticed a lot of women buying kitchen stuff so I think there was a lot of Christmas shopping going on.

When the price is right, people come out in droves.  Even me.  

So food and clothing has been taken care of.  Now what about shelter?  We're investigating window "repair" rather than "replacement".  We've got a guy coming out tomorrow to give us an opinion on the sorry state of our windows.  More on that another day.