Rest in peace, Sir Cilantro

Yes, my cilantro plant did not make it, sadly. We're trying to revive him by placing his roots in water, but I think he's toast. He was looking pretty poorly the other day and we thought that maybe he wasn't getting enough sun, so we stuck him outside for a few hours. Apparently the Texas heat wave was too much for him, and he bit the dust.

Oh, well. What can you do? I thought about taking him back to Wal-Mart, but P said they'd probably blame me for overwatering or something. Yeah. All my OTHER plants are doing awesome! So far, we haven't really cooked with any of them yet except for my chive plant, not that I haven't wanted to...I made egg salad the other night and cut up 2 tbsp of fresh chives for it. It really was delicious...gave the salad a nice oniony flavor without being overpowering, and now my chive plant (since his haircut) looks MUCH better and much healthier! I just don't have enough of the herbs yet for my recipes. Like parsley...I bought some for 60 cents at Target the other night because a handful of parsley would have killed my parsley plant for sure. And tonight, I'm buying fresh cilantro because...well, you know why. Poor little guy.

So far, at the end of the second week, cooking has been a success, although we're going to have to keep an eye on our grocery bills. It doesn't seem like we're spending much on the things by themselves that we need for dinner, but when you throw in a can of formula, kitty litter, cat food, avocadoes to mash up for McKenna, or makeup that I felt the need to replace after watching Tyra Banks' show the other night on the dangers of keeping makeup over six months, it's not quite the cheap trip that I envisioned. It's like I won't buy things if I have to make a specific trip, but hey, while I'm at Target, let me pick up this and this and this. I think it's going to be evenly tempered by the fact that we're not eating out very much at all anymore, but only time will tell.

This past week we made the following:

Monday: prosciutto, garlic and herb cheese-stuffed chicken and wild rice (that was P's and it was AWESOME!)
Tuesday: egg salad sandwiches and chips
Wednesday: London Broil, buttered potatoes and caramelized zucchini and mushrooms
Thursday: we just did our own thing...I made eggs and hash browns and I think P had a sandwich
Friday: homestyle turkey and stuffing casserole with a side of watermelon

I had a request for the cheeseburger and fries casserole that P made last week, so here's the link: Cheeseburger and Fries Casserole. Be warned though...it's not low-fat by any means!

The things I'm learning though about cooking, and I know it's going to come with time, are hard-learned. Things such as doing all prep before I start cooking. I don't know how many meals I'm going to get close to throwing out because I wasn't prepared before I learn this lesson. Last night with the casserole, I didn't see the part that said that the veggies had to be cooked before baking, and that was a slight panic. And I'm having to learn how to operate a Santoku knife, which is not nearly as easy as the cooking shows make it look. I am using a garbage bowl though, and that's helping a lot by cutting down seconds that I spend walking back and forth across my kitchen to the garbage can. The London Broil night, I just couldn't get that parsley chopped fast enough!

Not much really is going on at the moment. Work is keeping me very busy, and I was in the field every day last week cleaning up messes from other adjusters that just transferred to other departments. Blah. But it's all over now and I think I'll be in the office all week next week. We'll see how THAT goes. And my application is in to start the management training, so hopefully that'll get going in a few weeks.

Have a great weekend!