Balsamic-Rosemary Vinaigrette

I don't know what it is about Wednesdays. After dinner all I want to do is lie down and go to sleep. And today's no different. It's like I hit a wall or something. Tomorrow I'm leaving early from work because my family bought tickets to the circus.

It could be lame, but you know, I haven't been to the circus in ages. The last time I went I was maybe 10 and I couldn't see anything because I needed glasses. I didn't know it at the time, of course. I just remember my sister pointing out some vendor walking up and down the stands on the opposite side of the arena and I couldn't see the person — looked like a sea of blobs from my viewpoint. I thought she was crazy, especially since she was claiming this guy looked like Santa. My sister would have been 6 or 7 years old at the time, so these were matters of great importance. Santa selling cotton candy at the circus was a huge deal and the fact she saw him, well, that's something to brag about. I probably told her to stop making things up.

Last night I met an old friend to play arcade games. I'm pretty terrible at video games. I never really got into them. So when I beat someone who's as in to them as my friend is, well, it's time to gloat.

I didn't have much time to make dinner last night. I was late getting out of work, traffic was bad, and I didn't leave myself enough time cook. I managed to heat up the grill, cook some chicken I had put out, and make a salad inspired by this dish. It had the main components of the actual recipe — grape tomatoes, goat cheese, pecans, spinach. But the rest I kind of just tossed in just because. I also made the Balsamic-Rosemary Vinaigrette.

That was one of the best parts of the entire salad. I love making my own salad dressings. They come together quickly and taste better than most of the bottled varieties. Plus, with a basic pantry, I can make a different vinaigrette for every salad. Whatever the mood strikes me. And when I make my own, I know I'm hitting Weight Watcher's healthy oil requirement because I know how much oil I'm getting per serving. If you make a standard vinaigrette you have to watch the serving size because they're caloric, but if you choose a strong one like the balsamic one, a little goes a long way.

It was a pretty good salad and a great meal for a warm, sunny spring evening.

Cinco de Mayo... well.. not quite

I won't be in town for Cinco de Mayo — so it has been a fiesta of sorts at my house all week. Monday. DBF and I made chicken enchiladas, refried beans, and a mixed greens salad with mandarin oranges, red onion, and honey vinaigrette.

The refried beans were from Food Network's show, "Healthy Appetite." I've made several of her recipes and liked each one a lot. I learned a good way of making hot chocolate from her. It's in my very first post if you're interested. Seriously, these beans are MUCH better than canned.. and take about 10 minutes to prepare. I'll be adding some leftovers to a baked potato later this week. The enchiladas aren't the best recipe out there, but they make a decent enough weeknight meal. I would make my own enchilada sauc next time, though, so I can save the point. Canned enchilada sauce just isn't worth it in my opinion.

I'll take that to go, please

I work two jobs. I have a day job, which I refer to as job #1. In my day job, or what I also call my "real" job, I am a professional writer/editor for a trade publication. I'm a stronger writer than I am an editor, that's for sure. I'm almost positive that my posts are grammatical messes, but I don't really care. I did, however, have one of my interview subjects make grammatical corrections to a story I sent to him for fact checking purposes. Awesome. Nothing like a sales manager correcting your grammar to make you feel good about your job performance.

In job #2, I am a sales associate for a department store. Right now it's really stressful and typically not all that enjoyable, but I'll thank myself later when I can afford my own home and get married credit card debt-free. In the mean time, I have to answer questions like, "Do you think these buttons will go through airport security?" Seriously. I'm not kidding. Someone actually asked me that. I think I told her that I have never worn that particular shirt to the airport, so I had no way of knowing.

All of that adds up to 60-75 hours per week on average. I tell job #2 I can't work more than 20 hours per week, but somehow it always ends up being more than that. Either I take a shift b/c I don't know how to say no to people, or they over schedule me because they are trying to kill me. I then have to remind them that if they kill me — I can't work. I'd be deceased.

That leaves very little time for cooking, or really, eating in general. Most of my meals are eaten out of Tupperware® knockoffs. Today's lunch was a fajita salad, and tonight's dinner is leftover chicken and broccoli stirfry with oyster sauce. The salad was lettuce, pinto beans, cheddar cheese, green pepper, red onion, tomato, and Cilantro-Lime Sauce as the dressing. If you need me to tell you what's in that stir-fry.. then you need more help than I can give you :)

Tomorrow, sadly, will probably be canned soup and a frozen meal. Boo.

A glimpse of spring

Today almost feels like spring. It's sunny and actually kind of warm. It made me crave a salad. A nice big one, too. Luckily, that was in the plan for today. It was romaine lettuce, red pepper, green pepper, carrots, and alfalfa sprouts with jerk grilled chicken with a balsamic dressing.

The chicken is rubbed with a jerk spice blend leftover from when I made the jerk pork tenderloin. I just rubbed it on boneless, skinless chicken and grilled it in the grill pan. Yum.

The dressing is one of my favorites from the Cooking Light Complete Cookbook.

Balsamic Dressing
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup minced green onion (I sometimes sub dried chives if I don't have these on hand)
2 tbsp dijon mustard
1 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp fresh or 2 tsp dried parsley
1 tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dried tarragon
1 tbsp water
1/8 tsp black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced (I use the garlic press)

Whisk together all of the ingredients in a small bowl and chill.