hungry?

Dinner tonight: Pork roast with mashed sweet potatoes and a quick black been, corn, and jalapeno salad. I marinated the pork overnight in a mixture of bitter orange juice, olive oil, cumin seed, oregano, annatto seed, minced garlic, and black peppercorns. Roasted it at 425 degrees for 30 minutes, then reduced the oven temperature to 350 and cooked it 25 minutes longer. It was perfect, and I was happy. The sweet potatoes got mashed up with butter, chipotle powder, salt, and pepper. The salad is black beans, fresh corn, jalapeno and red chiles, and cilantro.

The night before: Andouille sausage with white beans, celery, onions, and peppers. Seasoned with thyme, paprika, and bay leaf. Served on rice.

Chicken cutlets in a poblano-mushroom cream sauce over polenta.

♥

another post where I just give pictures of food with captions!

Lasagna, and my best one to date, too. It only takes a few minutes to make a bechamel sauce, and it really makes all the difference in a lasagna. To anyone who think that it's just meat, jarred sauce, and noodles layered with cheese: Just stop.

Chicken cutlets with porcini mushrooms, roasted fingerling potatoes, sauteed green beans. Simple and fabulous.

Farfalle and chicken in a spicy tomato sauce with capers.

Salmon and asparagus. On the salmon is a... sauce? I guess? Not really a sauce, I think it could be considered a salad of sorts? I don't know. It's diced red, yellow, and orange bell peppers along with eggplant. It was delicious, but yeah, I have no idea what to call it.

Crispy chicken thighs with a lemon-thyme pan sauce served with arugula and risotto with fresh peas.

i have awesome friends who make me smile ♥

Call you up in the middle of the night,
like a fire flower miles away,
you were there like a blow torch burnin',
I was a key that could use a little turnin'

So tired that I couldn't even sleep,
so many secrets I couldn't keep,
promised myself I wouldn't weep,
one more promise I couldn't keep

It seems no one can help me now,
I'm in too deep theres no way out,
this time I have really let myself pull stray

Runaway train never goin' back,
wrong way on a one way track
seems like I should be getting somewhere,
somehow I'm neither here nor there

Can you help me remember how to smile,
make it somehow seem all worth while,
how on earth did I get so jaded,
last mystery seemed so naked

I can go where no one else can go,
I know what no one else has known,
here I am just a drowning in the brain,
with a ticket for a runaway train

Everything seems judded inside,
day and night earth and sky,
somehow I just don't believe it

Runaway train never goin' back,
wrong way on a one way track
seems like I should be getting somewhere,
somehow I'm neither here nor there

Want a ticket for a runaway train?,
like a madman laughin' at the rain,
a little out of touch little in the brain,
its just easier to deal with the pain

Runaway train never goin' back,
wrong way on a one way track
seems like I should be getting somewhere,
somehow I'm neither here nor there

Runaway train never comin' back,
runaway train tearin' up the track,
runaway train burnin' in my veins,
run away but it always seems the same

potato

I miss my sister. She's my best friend and I love her, and I hate living so far away from her. I wish we could hang out every day!

♥

I see you!

SLE

I know that I posted something on here about my alopeica areata, so you all know about that. Along with the hair loss, I've been having some pretty bad joint pain in my wrists, ankles, and elbows, a very strange rash on my face that looked like patches of shiny, dry skin, and the worse fatigue I've ever had. The fatigue and joint pain have been going on for years, off and on. I always attributed the joint pain to working in a coffee shop, and anyone who's operated a manual espresso machine for a week straight can attest to that.

Long story short, I finally had some (read: a lot) of blood work done and had an appoitment on Wednesday to get my results, and it looks like I have systemic lupus.

Awesome.

A co-worker of mine heard the news when I got back to work on Wednesday, and on Thursday morning I had this note at my computer. It made my day. =)
I've had all of my tests plus a few more re-done, and I'm waiting to see if these show the same things, then it's off to a lupus specialist.

If you don't know what lupus is, read about it here.

As if your day wasn't already exciting enough!

Another reason why my new job is awesomespice

OMG