thumbs down

The excitement of our week has been Mikey practically lobbing off his finger. He managed to do this while chopping some onions for dinner. Now, he's completely paralyzed or so it seems. No dishes, no house work, no mowing the lawn, little to no cooking... poblacito Mandy! Once again, I want to wrap him up in bubble wrap for life!

The other fun thing that happened this week is that Anna learned to swim in the big Lake and retrieve sticks last night. We had an absolute blast with her on Park Point. We were so proud of her (I know, it's like she's our kid). She's quite shaggy right now so the wet dog smell lingered in our house for hours while she dried off. Our plan was to totally exhaust her so that she'd stop driving us nuts. Result: failure. She sprung out of her kennel this morning with gusto and got her morning howls in. It's ridiculously funny.

We have a "date" planned tonight (aka, we're both going to be home in the evening). I'm hoping Mikey conjures up something fun.

bake-a-rama

I came home yesterday and found this on our front porch:

We have no idea who dropped it off hence my hesitation to actually try it. It looks like it may be from one of the neighbors but we've never met this person. However, it did inspired my dinner idea. We have like zero. zilch. nada. nothing. in our cupboards right now. It was Wednesday so we got our weekly produce delivery. This week we got carrots for the first time! I managed to find an old box of currants in the cupboard as well.


So, I did an epicurious.com search for currant pancakes and it came up with a zucchini and currant pancake recipe. Rats! No zucchini. I decided to check out the comments about the recipe and one person substituted carrots for zucchini. Voila! Problem solved. I used 1/2 whole wheat flour in place of all white flour, used applesauce instead of oil (because that's all we had), and was able to use up our buttermilk powder. They came out pretty good. A little on the bland side, but definetly a nice hearty pancake. I never use syrup on my pancakes. Just eat 'em plain.

Continuing with my kick to use up any random groceries, I found 3 apples in the fridge and an old package of dry milk powder. I pulled out my trusty old fashioned cookbook and found a recipe for apple muffins. Again, I used a 1/2 whole wheat flour mixture, used up the last egg, used up some of the dry milk powder. I topped them with a dusting of cinnamon & sugar. Sorry, no pics of the final product. I pooped out around 10pm last night and barely had the energy to do the dishes.

So, you know what I'll be eating for breakfast and lunch the next 5 days. We haven't been grocery shopping since the end of June! Wonder if we can make it all the way to August? That would be pretty amazing, wouldn't it?

We have NO PLANS this weekend! Mikey works and I haven't decided what I'll do yet. Maybe soak up the sun (if there is any).

summertime bliss

Yesterday I did this:

And this (back porch):

Oh and this too (side entrance):

I feel so energized on my Mondays off from work. So, I tend to tackle a week's worth of projects in one day.

Mikey and I got to spend a Sunday together... imagine that?! We slept in, went for a 2 1/2 hour walk around D-town and then went to a work soiree. I got to try Mint Ice Cream malted milk balls- YUM and they didn't even make me sick! Here are my two loves out on our walk:

On Saturday a crazy thing happened... the purple monster ate the green monster:

I LoVe blueberries!

Our CSA delivery this week consisted of more cabbage, bok choi and green onions. So, we now have a big ol' batch of cole slaw fixins' for the week. It paired well with a brewski:


It's a short week of work for me. We're off to see The National at First Ave on Thursday night.

GM's & Whole Foods

A couple of you have been asking me more about Green Monsters. I thought you might enjoy a newly developed website devoted to Green Monsters:
http://greenmonstermovement.com/

Also, I want to share another great website I discovered today:
The Whole Foods Market Blog
The reason I LOVE this site is because they take common recipes (zucchini bread-YUM) and tweak it so that it is still tasty while being healthy.
Eat up!

july 4th recap

Lots o' changes happening in the M&M house. The theme of this summer has been House Madness. We're close to wrapping up our painting project. I finished painting the last side of the house on Monday and now we just have some last minute caulking & trim work to do. My eyes & ideas have been bigger than my muscles can handle. I've been nothing but a blob of soreness all summer. Still on the agenda: more mulching, more paver installation, more shelves hung in the basement... oh, and more outlets added to the basement. Oye!

We've managed to fit some fun into the madness. Mike's parents were up last week. We of course had good eats and drinks. My favorite food from the week: Crab Cakes with a Lime Aioli.

Anna & Timmy did a great job pre-washing the dishes. It was fierce competition:

We made a trip to Bayfield last Friday. Made the usual stops at Eckels Pottery, Stones Throw & got pecan & cashew turtles at the candy shop. It was a beautiful day and so we also enjoyed a beer on a deck overlooking the lake & Madeline Island (sorry, no pics). Mike's 'rents also handed down their "old" TV to us. It's quite the upgrade for us. It's a bit of a design challenge to get it to "fit" in our living room. I repurposed a dresser for the time being:


The only catch with repurposing the old dresser is that now I have a big opening in the dining room:

My vision for this little nook is a small wine bar cabinet. The one I had in mind at Crate & Barrel is no longer stocked! Bummer!

Be sure to check out the Duluth Dish blog for a nice shout out to Chester Creek Cafe.