Salad Wars: The Strawberry Strikes Back

Tonight's Salad Wars won me my first victory - for my first Salad Wars submission!  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.  Even David liked this one the best, and he's not usually a fan of sweet salads.  Here's what I used:

Glorious strawberries!!

Almost done...

...et voila!

I used mixed greens, mandarin orange sections, sliced strawberries (used an egg slicer to do those - turned out quite well in the end!), candied pecans, goat cheese, raspberry vinaigrette dressing and some chicken sauted in bouquet garni and minced garlic.

It was pretty glorious, but I have a few notes.  Number one, you could also substitute apples in place of the mandarin oranges for less calories, but the oranges are pretty glorious.  Number two, you could probably also substitute plain pecans for candied ones to cut the calories as well - the candied ones I found were a huge calorie bomb, and still not as tasty as the ones they use in restaurants, so I can only imagine what the nutrition information on those looks like.  You could also substitute another mildly sweet (or slightly salty) crunchy things - you just need to keep something crunchy.  Number three, the chicken could definitely have been better - I should have grilled it or done it with salt and/or salted butter - it just wasn't fabulous, probably because we realized at zero hour that it was past dinner time, I hadn't started dinner yet, and the chicken was still in the freezer.  We had to microwave-thaw it, which works in a pinch but which I do not generally recommend.  Number four, I kind of wished I'd used a sweeter dressing - this raspberry vinaigrette was not at all sweet, and we have a raspberry walnut dressing that I'd have much preferred with this salad.

However, all that said, I am currently winning Salad Wars, and I definitely think it's justified!  It was absolutely delicious, and the perfect antidote to my extremely stressful day of volunteering today!

Product Reviews: Ikea mattress and kitchen cart

On Sunday, my husband and I picked up the Bygel kitchen cart by Ikea, found here, as well as a new mattress... more on that part later.  The kitchen cart was sort of an impulse buy, though we have needed something like that for a long time.  We chose the Bygel because it's the cheapest model, and it looked sturdy enough to last a year or so, possibly more.

The long and short of it is that despite what a pain it is to assemble, it's a good little cart that'll hold a decent amount of stuff for its size.  I think if you're willing to economize on a kitchen cart, this one is definitely worth the thirty-dollar price tag.  For us, it has allowed us to free up our one kitchen drawer, turning it from a catch-all to a place where we can keep our nice new flatware.


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The mattress we picked out is the Sultan Hanestad, found here.  We previously had a lower-end Ikea mattress than this one, and it had been with me for six years, two of which were comfortable.  We had been sleeping miserably on the old, worn, bent-out-of-shape mattress.  When one of us moved, the other was awakened.  I'm pretty sure that on this new mattress, I could jump up and down without disturbing my slumbering husband.

This mattress is seriously fantastic for those who enjoy a firm mattress.  Now, I haven't gotten a full night's sleep on it yet as it's only just arrived, but the darned thing is just so comfortable!  No sagging, no big holes to roll into, just wonderful support!  I will report back in the morning and again in a couple of weeks regarding the quality of my sleep and how my back feels about it, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of images of our overly-Ikea-clad space (yes, that's an Ikea mattress, bed frame and dresser in one frame.  Missing in this photo are the coordinating 2nd dresser and night stand in other parts of the room - you might say I like Ikea):

How cute is the little "Sultan" tag??




As a quick sidebar, the Ikea in the South Hills of Pittsburgh is alright, though I prefer the College Park, Maryland Ikea, which is larger and seems to have twice as many employees as the Pittsburgh location.  That was one thing we ran into in the Pittsburgh location that irked me - while the sales staff in the bed and mattress department was awesome, helpful and proactive, a few staff members in other departments did not seem to take an interest in customer service or, in some cases, were the only employee working on a two-man job.  I know Ikea has to keep costs down, but the Pittsburgh store could use a few more good people.  Nothing to dampen my love of Ikea, my happy place, from whence half our furniture originates (the other half is random antiques picked up when possible via Craig's List).

This is my first product review, so I hope it's been helpful but really don't know - please leave feedback to help me improve?  Pretty please?  I might even throw in a semi-burned peanut butter cookie - and after all, who DOESN'T want one of those??

Epic baking fail

So when I posted my BEAUTIFUL (if I do say so myself) Caprese salad of the other night, I did NOT post the other item created that evening.  Mainly because it was burnt to a crisp - some of it was totally inedible.  Did I mention that this item was supposed to be for the neighborhood party?  It's why we ended up bringing a gorgeous yet slightly rushed Caprese salad instead.

I tried to make peanut butter cookies with our glorious new Kitchen Aid mixer.  Here are some shots of the cookies-in-progress:

The real problem here was neither the recipe nor the Kitchen Aid (which, by the way, is AWESOME), but the fact that I am so inexperienced in the baking department that I kept burning them.  I need to stop worrying about them being undercooked; I'm obviously leaving them in there more than long enough.  I'm going to keep at it, of course; though I think my next Kitchen Aid project will be cake (or cupcakes!!) and frosting from scratch.  Stay tuned!

Salad Wars: Return of the Vinegar

So one of my husband's, well, quirkier habits is that he likes to brew weird things like kombucha or homemade vinegar in our fridge.  Generally, I don't love it - ok, I flat-out hate kombucha, it's like drinking rancid mold - but I live with it, because it makes him happy and the vinegar sometimes makes awesome salad dressings.  Which it got to do this evening in Round 2 of the Salad Wars.

My husband got another chance at making the awesomest salad ever this evening.  Here's his creation:

It's sort of a regular mixed-green salad underneath with a diner-style smothered chicken dish on top (chicken, mushrooms, cheese).  My husband loves this type of combination, though I'm a wee bit more set in my ways about what constitutes a salad, so I ate the two parts separately.  What I will say is that each of the individual parts was excellent.  And it was super-awesome that one of his salads was made using the vinegar he's been brewing (or whatever it is that you do with vinegar - let it sit in a cool, dark place, from what I can tell).

With it, I had a Woodchuck hard cider, which I personally believe is about the most delicious alcoholic beverage around:

It's quite tasty, and seems to be taking off, which is awesome to see.  I have been a fan of cider ever since studying abroad in Brittany, the region of France where they have... and I don't want to oversell this here... the BEST cider on the PLANET.  I'm psyched to see Americans jumping on the cider wagon more than we have in the past.  It's good stuff.

So tomorrow's episode of the Salad Wars will likely be a chicken/strawberry/sugared pecan/mixed veggie/cucumber/feta salad with a light raspberry dressing.  Or a chicken Waldorf salad.  I haven't decided yet.  In the immortal words of Basil Fawlty, "Sorry, I think we're fresh out of Waldorfs..."

After Round 2 of the Salad Wars, his Burmese salad is in the lead.  I have two nights in a row to defeat it before his next salad creation.

Well played, husband... well played...

Today proved to be quite an eventful day despite an impending cold (sniff, sniff).  We had a particularly thrilling trip to Ikea.  More on that when my camera is up and running...

Tonight was Night One of the soon-to-be-legendary Salad Wars.  I really think my Caprese salad of last night should count...

I mean, it's basically the prettiest Caprese salad ever!  But I digress...

We're doing the Salad Wars in an attempt to get healthier around here, and we're trying to cut back on our meat consumption.  Not entirely, mind you, but salads are a great opportunity to load up on the veggie part and use the meat sparingly.  Pasta salads are allowable under the rules, but only if there are TONS of veggies - we're talking 1/2 veggies, 1/2 pasta.  It's tough to lose weight in a city full of pierogis and Primanti's sandwiches, or where a cheeseburger omelet is a valid menu option, but we're determined to do it.

So far, my major annoyance is how goshdarn expensive produce is.  For years, every time I've done my weekly grocery run, I've always thought to myself that it's no wonder we're so overweight in this country.  It would be cheaper to buy your own house with a large backyard so you can start a garden than to pay these exorbitant produce prices.  Possibly more frustrating is how much more expensive the local, organic, ethical choices are.  More on this another day...

Tonight, my darling husband put together a remarkably delicious Burmese-style salad:

Sorry about the quality of today's photos; I'll charge my phone tomorrow so I can post better photos for the rest of the Salad Wars.  In any case, he used chopped cabbage, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, chicken, tofu, sesame seeds and little garlic crunchies, as well as the tomato, basil and lime you see on the side there.  The dressing involved oil that had had some garlic and onion cooked in it and then removed, tahini, lime, salt, pepper, and perhaps one or two other things, as well as some fish oil in his dressing.  Delicious!  Even better, he made me a gin and tonic to go with it!  And while I didn't really drink much of it (tomorrow's a work day, after all), it definitely won him extra points!

So tomorrow I'm really going to have to bring my A game...

Welcome to the Wife Pages!

Yes, it's a silly play on words, and no, I don't see my main identity as being "wife."  But as a newlywed, I am enjoying this whole intro to married life.

We were married July 2nd in Maine, in the perfect wedding - I'll add some photos later.

Since then, we enjoyed a mini-moon, a family reunion, and our return to Pittsburgh, where we are now back to reality - ugh.

One of my goals before we take the crazy, far-away step of having kids is to come up with a fantastic repertoire of healthy and delicious recipes (we both want to lose weight, so healthy is key here), as well as pick up some other improved domestic skills.  I mean, I can do a mean load of laundry, but when it comes to maintaining a comfortable, tidy existence... I'd really rather be reading a magazine.  And the same applies for my new husband, who also wants to work on those skills (or else). 

We are also super excited to be married and really enjoying the renewed energy that no longer having to plan a wedding has given us.  We're trying to pour that energy into having the best-ever first year of marriage; everyone says it's the hardest, so we figure, let's set the awesomeness bar pretty high for subsequent years.  So in here, I'll chronicle the quest to improve our cooking, tidiness, dating, decorating, what we learn about married life, and whatever else feels relevant to being a newlywed.  The goals are, where applicable, healthy, cost-effective, fun, and meaningful.

And now we're off to the supermarket to pick up some hideously fattening ingredients to make goodies for the ever-delicious block party this weekend.  After which we'll pick up some deliciously healthy ingredients for next week's battle of the salads.  I will report back on our adventures both in baking and in salads.