Nevada has been in a drought for years. When we bought the house in 2012 the lawn was dead and we put in a high quality Astro turf made for dogs to use it. Last year when we sold the house the buyers thought it was new. People say it gets hotter than grass but ours didn’t. It was the best solution for this climate. With dogs we couldn’t xeriscape.
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Ry really wants to get high quality astroturf. The previous owners of our house ripped out the front yard and covered it with mulch. Unfortunately, we still have trees so leaves and sticks blow onto it and it’s difficult to rake that stuff up without taking up the mulch too. The wind and snow this winter has caused it to move around as well and there are big bare patches where you can just see the plastic tarp stuff they put under it.
I’m tempted to pull it all up and try to plant grass, but I think the easier solution will be to buy 20 bags of mulch to just dump on top. Ry wants to have turf installed but I think it might be too expensive for this year.
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Just some meal planning stuff
Taking things super easy this week and leaning heavily on food I have in my freezer since I’m sick AF. Works fine since I need to clear a ton of stuff out anyway. I’ll also space out the prep as much as I can, which shouldn’t be too hard. Whenever I feel sick and have to cook I always think about how awful it must have been pre-appliance and freezer, like daymn. Anyway here we go, I spent $102 for Aldi pickup, which husband got. I’m also doing a lot of separate food and part 1/part 2 this week partly to clear things out (mostly due to quantity issues, not enough for the full week).
DH Breakfast: Frittata with Spinach, Onion, Pepper, Cheddar
My Breakfast: Spicy Rice + Soft Eggs
DH Lunch #1: Freezer Corn Chowder + Oyster Crackers
DH Lunch #2: Freezer Mini Pizza Crusts (Pepperoni + Mozzarella)
My Lunch #1: Aldi Salad + Bacon
My Lunch #2: Freezer Chili + Sour Cream
Dinner #1: Arabic 7 Spice Chicken Drumsticks, Seared Halloumi, Freezer Naan, Zacusca/Ajvar
Dinner #2: BBQ Ribs and Mashed Potatoes
Dinner #3: Burritos (refried beans, corn, pepper, tomato, rice)
But here is a picture of a lawn if you are not interested :
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Sat - tomato shashi chicken/paneer on sweet potato
Sun - udon with pork belly
Mon - breaded chicken, lemon-spinach sauce, roast bell peppers with bocconcini (walnuts?)
Tues - pork belly, grilled zucchini and peppers with gochujang
Wed - zucchini fritters
I’m suddenly very aware of the amount in our freezer, and that it needs to be eaten so new things can go in and we don’t have a ton of quality loss due to freezer burn.
lunches:
https://www.mondomulia.com/2020/04/01/ottolenghi-lentil-salad/ using more of the bocconcini as the cheese
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I hope you feel better soon!!!
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Thank you <3 decided to cheer myself up with food and made this late last night
Sometimes as a treat I like to make something just for myself and that’s exactly what I did.
About the food
I’ve been obsessed with this method of making eggs lately, which I learned from Kimono Mom on YouTube (so I know it’s a common method in Japanese cuisine but I’m not sure it’s exclusive to it). You whisk together a couple of eggs and add some sugar (! I was surprised by this, but they add quite a bit, a healthy spoonful, and it turns out sweet eggs are fucking delightful) and chili sauce. Heat your pan and coat it generously with oil, when it’s just right you pour the egg into the oil and it just simmers away. I flip mine when it’s like 80% done and then when it’s all the way done you roll it up and cut it. IT’S AMAZING. So good and makes eggs feel very fancy to me. In Asia they have specific pans for this, which are square or slightly rectangular (and you can buy in Asian imports stores here) so the shape of mine is a little off, but you can totally do it in a circular pan too. Side veggies are brussels sprouts and peppers.
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Meal plan:
Beef and broccoli
Orange juice chicken (double batch, freeze)
Roast vegetables baked ziti (double batch, freeze)
Tot waffles, eggs, bacon
Plus whatever Mr Meer is making Edit:
Fajitas
Red bean and rice
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Sugar in eggs is actually classic - as I discovered reading Dorothy Sayers’ Strong Poison
"The final course was a sweet omelette, which was made at the table in a chafing-dish by Philip Boyes himself. Both Mr. Urquhart and his cousin were very particular about eating an omelette the moment it came from the pan—and a very good rule it is, and I advise you all to treat omelettes in the same way and never to allow them to stand, or they will get tough. Four eggs were brought to the table in their shells, and Mr. Urquhart broke them one by one into a bowl, adding sugar from a sifter. Then he handed the bowl to Mr. Boyes, saying: ‘You’re the real dab at omelettes, Philip—I’ll leave this to you’. Philip Boyes then beat the eggs and sugar together, cooked the omelette in the chafing-dish, filled it with hot jam, which was brought in by Hannah Westlock, and then himself divided it into two portions, giving one to Mr. Urquhart and taking the remainder himself.
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Fascinating! I didn’t know that! Also that book looks very up my alley 
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and it is available free in Canada (since this is the money saving mindset thread). Can you access it? - Strong Poison, by Dorothy L. Sayers
If not, I’m sure your library has it.
I really like the slice it gives of 1920’s London culture.
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Meal planning after spendy spendy spendy grocery run that WILL last us 2 weeks, goddamn it:
- chickpea salad on whole grain bread
- burrito bowls to use up rest of black beans
- spicy veggie wraps
- roasted red pepper creamy pasta
- roasted veg pasta
- the rest of the lentil curry in the freezer
- something involving the tofu I forgot about which hopefully has not gone bad? Hm. Green curry tofu? Spicy tofu and veg in peanut sauce?
- eggs and potatoes
- avocado tacos
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OH MY. I love sweet eggs because that’s basically custard. Can you link the video? If not to hand then I’ll find it myself because, uh, YUM.
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Yes! 
Oooo cool. Thank you!
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Have you tried honey and soy sauce? It creates something close to the tamago sushi
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I don’t think I have! For some reason I confused it in my head and thought it was sugar and chili sauce not sugar and soy sauce, so what I made technically…wasn’t anything, lol. Also mine way too overcooked. But I have made teriyaki sauce a lot, which is sugar and soy sauce so it makes sense that it features in tamago!
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That video is great.
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All of her videos put me in the best mood.
ETA: Also after rewatching this I realized my brain combined this video with a different video on how to do eggs for Chinese style fried-rice and I sort of combined both methods, lol. That’s why mine looks so different 
I blame cold medicine, but it was still delicious! But just, if anyone wants to learn how to make them properly, disregard what I said and watch this video, lol. And if anyone wants the recipe for fried rice style eggs I can post that too.
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Food lately!
Pics
This is my favorite breakfast right now! Rice with sesame oil and soy sauce and hot sauce with an egg on top. I feel like it gives me the perfect combo of protein, carbs, and fat all in one perfect warm little bowl. So quick too, since I can batch cook the rice and eggs! Not pictured is husband’s weekly frittata, but it exists, I swear!
Dinner for the week turned out well and was really low maintenance since I didn’t make the bread or zacusca. The other thing on the plate is seared halloumi, which is one of my favorite foods of all time! The chicken turned out really well, just coated in spices and oil and cooked in the oven, easy peasy!
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Tuesday - chipotle steak tacos with corn salsa thanks to the half priced steak we picked up this morning Grilled Chipotle Steak Tacos with Charred Corn Salsa
Wednesday - breaded chicken with baharat seasoning, lemon sauce with onions, grilled zucchini
Thursday - sausage crumbles, cabbage and bell pepper slaw, gochujang peanut sauce
Friday - eggs?
Saturday - salmon cakes
Sunday - chicken eggplant coconut curry
for lunches I actually have lentils made, so https://www.mondomulia.com/2020/04/01/ottolenghi-lentil-salad/ is more plausible. But I do not regret the miso-butter green beans with pickled red onions I’ve eaten the past 4 or 5 days
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