What is a Cordial?

After walking around the neighborhood, Sus came in to chat for a bit.  As any good German would do, I offered her a drink and spouted off a whole slew of things to call this drink.  One of the words that came to mind was a cordial and when Sus asked what it was, I realized that I didn't actually know what it meant.  So dictionary to the rescue...

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cordial

The drink of choice was Trader Vic's Macadamia Nut Liqueur so according to Websters we were definitely having a cordial.  It was served over ice and man did it hit the spot.  Luckily for Sus it isn't a dessert (even though it tasted like one) so it was on the allowed list.  She described it as tasting like a nut butter, but in drinkable form.  I have also served it with a splash of milk or cream before which is also nice.

Perhaps it will become the next marshmallow experiment?

Bean and Millet Patty

This doesn't really count as a recipe and I am not quite prepared to photograph my food yet so it is just a description of my dinner last night.  Steven is always amazed with my thought process on how I decide on what I am making so I feel I should start documenting the madness.

It all started with a thought that I wanted to have the can of re-fried beans that was in the pantry that I had just purchased last week.  Since it didn't seem like the best idea to eat just a plate full of beans I went through the mental list of items in the fridge that needed to be eaten before it went bad.  Items in the fridge:

• Roasted veggies
• Plain Millet
• Cheese and Parsley Millet
• Spinach
• Parsley
• Spicy Pepper Cheese
• Plus quite a few staples that are always hanging out in the fridge

At this point I was overly tired of the roasted veggies because I had been eating them for lunch all week on top of a salad or in a wrap.  That is when it struck me that the millet was something that I could mix with the beans to make a patty (one of my favorite ways to eat food) out of to get some starch in there so off I went.  

Half a can re-fried beans

3/4 a cup cooked millet 

1 Tbsp ground flax seed

1 tsp ground pepper

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Mix everything together aside from the panko.  Make a small ball out of the mixture (the smaller the better so they are easier to manage) and place it in the panko. Flatten it out a bit to make a patty.  Coat both sides with panko then place them in a skillet over medium heat that has a little oil in it.   Cook both sides until golden brown.

I chose to top them with the previously mentioned spicy cheese after flipping them so it would melt and be delicious.  Then once they made it to the plate I topped them with some chopped fresh spinach for a bit of green.

Variations

These patties didn't really have much structure to them so if you aren't careful they can easily fall apart.  Perhaps next time I would add some flour our an egg to help bind everything together.  If I had some onion, garlic or peppers those probably would have been tossed in as well.  Unfortunately, the parsley did not make it in the patties, but that would have been lovely.  As with any of my dishes, the spices could be mixed up depending on your mood for the day.  Adding some curry powder could be a nice addition.

Booty Camp Sep 27 2011

The workout was one of the toughest I have been to yet. Ethan really had it in for us. Unfortunately because of a wreck on 75 I was 10 minutes late, but jumped right in. They were doing a circuit...

100m Sprint

100m Side Shuffle

100m Sprint

Up the Bleachers 10 times

100m Side Shuffle

10 Push-ups

10 Dips

20 Squats with weight of your choosing

20 Lunges with weight of your choosing

20 Curls with weight of your choosing

20 Military Press with weight of your choosing

Rinse and repeat 3 times, no breaks.

We then spent 15 minutes on our abs. Susan and I decided to walk around the track afterwards to get caught up on life and ended up walking about two miles. The best part was seeing a group of young football players (perhaps 10 years old) go over to the fence to relieve themselves. The only problem was that they were on the other side of the fence peeing towards us instead of away from us. Their coach missed the crucial instruction of turning away from the crowd and not just peeing towards the fence. Boys will be boys...

Welcome

It is an unfortunate joke, but to those that know us it is fitting. My husband and I are both nerds that program (of sorts) for a living and instead of "Just Married" being written on our cars we were "Just Integrated". These are my trials and tribulations as someone that is not terribly gifted at writing, but would like to document some of my exploits in the kitchen and life in general.