I made a quick run to our co-op on Monday to buy compost, and I left with two giant bags of compost plus a pound of coffee, a quart of maple syrup, and a chicken.  I’m a bit of an impulse shopper (the last picture on this post is a perfect example) and find it nearly impossible to step inside the co-op without buying a container of strawberries and a wedge of some variety of cheese, but I still consider that trip a success (no strawberries, no cheese!). When I got home from work on Tuesday, I immediately prepped the chicken, seasoning any and every surface with some combination of salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon, garlic, and butter.  Once it was resting in a big skillet, I surrounded the chicken with a few chopped carrots and potatoes, and about 75 minutes later we had a Sunday dinner on Tuesday.

On Wednesday I had a hot lunch date that involved my roommate and the lobster roll truck.  So much more exciting than sitting in the break room eating a salad from home while paging through Facebook and Google Reader.

That night I made a quick peanut sauce, boiled a big handful of soba noodles, and repurposed most of the leftover chicken and the remainder of a bunch of green onions for a peanut noodle dish that went from good to great with a big handful of fresh strawberries.

On Thursday I celebrated two days in a row of not spilling coffee in my purse.*  Remember when I pulled this move a few months ago?  Well, I did it again.  Instead of swearing off transporting coffee in my purse which also holds my iPod, Nook, wallet, cell phone, and, on Tuesday, my passport renewal application, I bought a fancy vacuum-sealing travel mug and continued with my old ways.  As I was putting my Nook away in preparation for transferring buses I realized that the strong smell of coffee that I’d been experiencing was not a result of a particularly well brewed pot, but rather it was a result of an imperfectly sealed mug that had ended up horizontal in my purse.  I took comfort in the fact that standing in a crowd of people at the bus stop, pulling a wad of damp, brown kleenex out of my purse and pouring coffee onto the sidewalk while testing my mug’s seal (or lack thereof, as it turned out) would probably be the low point of my day, and everything that the universe threw at me from 7:15 on would be bearable, with the possible exception of those people on the bus that think they’re doing everyone a favor by blasting a steady stream of R&B hits on their iPod/phone.  They are the second worst variety of bus riders and are only narrowly beat out by those who brush their hair while using public transportation.

Finally, road trip supplies.  Coffee not included.

*This comment came back to haunt me a few minutes after writing it when a large glass of water showered my laptop, but it miraculously works again today.  TGIW(wasn’t)C(coffee) and TGIF!

Leftover pizza, fresh salad, and pinot noir rosé

Crab cake benedict

Cinnamon roll with a pool of sweet, sweet frosting

Inches upon inches of rain led to a leak in our bathroom ceiling, and I’m really hoping that the bright side of this is new paint that is not orange.

Orange is better suited for jellyfish at the totally lame aquarium at Mall of America.

“I was born with two left feet.”

This sign was the second most entertaining part of the aquarium.  The winner was a couple who was having a long, heated argument right next to the sting ray tank.  If there’s one place to work out your relationship issues, it is most certainly at the MOA aquarium on the rainy Saturday of a holiday weekend when it is packed to the brim with families.

We then decompressed with people-watching outside of Build-a-Bear (so good!) and then booked it to Uptown for buttery popcorn, contraband sweets and theater full of Norwegians at a late afternoon showing of Headhunters.  Worth it.

Saturday night pickle delivery

Prepping orange-cinnamon french toast with Tartine whole wheat bread

French toast with a side of herbed eggs and orange wedges

Vegetables and strawberries from an ambitious trip to the garden center

Refueling with a spoonful of melted dulce de leche stirred into iced coffee

Wine, cheese, and dinner prep

Mediterranean spread plus potato salad

HOMEMADE CRUNCH CONE!!!!!!!!!!

Leftover french toast and a bowl of strawberries, mango, and cherries

Planning the planting

Hey, slug.

More plotting after laying compost

Squeezing everything in and crossing my fingers for edible greens

Banana chocolate chip cookies

Leftovers on lettuce

In case you were wondering, it is quite possible to eat salad for dinner while still keeping it totally unhealthy.  Just throw some bacon, blue cheese, and ranch dressing on it, and serve it with garlic bread that’s pretty much garlic-infused butter with a side of bread.

In case you were wondering, you can put tofu in a taco and totally enjoy it.  Dip slices of pressed, firm tofu it in some kind of sauce or marinade (I used soy sauce, lemon juice, agave syrup, cumin, chili powder and garlic powder <- laziness), broil it for about ten minutes on an oiled pan, and then wrap it in a tortilla with lettuce, radishes, feta, and salsa.  Feta, tofu, tortillas, and hot sauce are the future.

In case you were wondering, it wasn’t until my twenty-ninth year that I cooked a chicken breast, slipped it inside of a sesame seed bun, and called it dinner.  Why have I never thought of making chicken sandwiches for dinner before?  What America am I living in?

In case you were wondering, paying a few extra bucks for downtown parking instead of standing in heavy rain at the bus stop is sometimes worth it, as is getting to work in a fraction of the time that it takes on the bus, enabling you to leave early and get home with plenty of time to make pizza dough and still eat dinner at a reasonable hour.  And cheese pizza always wins, especially when there’s smoked provolone involved.

In case you were wondering, shaved asparagus pizza is a great way to use one pound of asparagus after you’ve made the arguably irrational decision to buy three pounds of asparagus because three pounds was a better value than one pound.  A decent sprinkling of good parmesan is clutch.

A birthday dinner at WA Frost

Birthday dessert at FreeStyle Yogurt

Egg, cheese, spinach, and chimichurri sandwich with fruit

Runny and garlicky

Girls’ night beers, Cheetos, and gin rummy

Hot sauce shopping at El Burrito Mercado

Farmers’ market finds: pea shoots, mixed lettuces, green onions, asparagus, and rhubarb

Post-shopping replenishment

Another batch of awesome cookies to celebrate our neighbor’s master’s degree

Oyster mushrooms from the market

Homemade fettuccine with pea shoots and oyster mushrooms

Catching my reflection