the giraffe life

Time for a goals update! Financial   •  Save $300 per pay  - Yes! Easiest goal ever because this was automatically deducted from my paychecks! Personal   •  Attend more than 67 yoga classes  - Nope! I stopped attending yoga classes in June because I was modifying so many of the poses to accommodate my growing belly that it seemed silly to pay to take a class that I wasn't fully participating in. I couldn't find any local prenatal classes so I switched to DVDs from the library until the very end when just cooking dinner felt like a work out. How do pregnant women who already have children do it?? •  Read 52 books  - Yep, a total of 70 . It was a banner year for reading actually, considering almost all those books were read before September. Now baby girl and I listen to audiobooks (electronically downloaded from the library to my cell phone) during some daytime nursing sessions when I want to read something. Plus I read a kids book to...

Usually my meal planning is fairly laid back. I look over the sale ads, pick out 2-3 meals I feel like making this week, and try to do as much of the cooking as possible on Sunday so we can ride out the work week on leftovers. But this does sometimes lead to dinner ruts or accidentally making two very similar meals super close to each other (tacos and enchiladas a few days apart).  I figured keeping track of what we're eating for longer periods would alleviate the dinner ruts and help us remember some of those recipes we just haven't made for a while.  I saw this idea on pinterest and liked it immediately, but it's taken me seemingly forever to just DO IT. I gave up on making it pretty like the original and that made all the difference.  Completely fictional menu plan to give an idea of how it will look - I don't cook nearly this much, considering there are only two of us to consume all the food. And don't mind Monkey's tail, the turkey sketch, or that I f...

One of my goals for 2015 was to cook six new recipes with my husband, roughly one every other month. We hosted a big family dinner last weekend (well, large for us - twelve guests) and decided to give tiramisu a whirl. I find family parties a great time for a dessert trial run - I get honest opinions and there are plenty of people to share with so I don't end up eating 86 cookies by myself. We used the recipe from  Chop, Sizzle, Wow   because it was the most straightforward one I found. There are plenty of super complicated ones that estimate it'll take you eight hours start to finish. Hmm, no thanks!  Regardless, everyone was impressed (I think they had that eight hour extravaganza in mind) and kept saying things like, "It tastes like regular tiramisu!" which made me laugh. And I have a newfound respect for restaurant presentation - this was the best I could do! Would you cook a new dish for guests? I know some people only make their tried...

2015! It feels like a good, round number for some reason. I'm excited to share my goals for this year - a couple familiar carry overs and some new ones. Financial   • Save $300 per pay - Continued from last year . And to make it easier, I'm having it automatically deducted from my paychecks.  Personal   • Attend more than 67 yoga classes - Super random number, right? Last year I attended about 67 yoga classes (can't be 100% sure because I didn't start keeping track until late July) so I just want to beat my previous record. I'm going to use this daily goal calendar  - black Xs on days I do any kind of exercise (probably a walk), purple Xs for yoga, and left blank for no exercise. This method is quick and very visual so I think it'll work for me.  from the make29 shop • Read 52 books - A book a week (or so). Aiming for 50 books pushes me to make reading a priority without pressuring me to choose short books to inflate my numbers. So I just ...

To celebrate my dad's birthday, we took him to a live  America's Test Kitchen  event. It was a behind the scenes look at the TV and radio program by the same name. My dad has enjoyed the show for years (Mr. G and I don't watch it, so we were clueless). We learned that the test kitchen's mission is to help everyone cook great food at home, and they try to help people accomplish this by testing kitchen equipment, comparing food products, and perfecting recipes.  The TV and radio show's host, Christopher Kimball, was also our host. He was excellent! So funny and a great storyteller. He highlighted different parts of the show for us (a relief for this newbie) and they did some live demonstrations of the show's typical parts.  One such part was a recipe experiment. The match up was between burgers made with store-bought ground beef and those made with freshly ground meat that is immediately cooked. They found the freshly ground meat was superior in ease of cook...

Sometimes I shy away from recipes with unfamiliar ingredients because I don't want to waste time or money on something gross. But this Hello Fresh recipe tempted me because the new ingredient was just a type of cheese. Grilling cheese to be exact. I'm so glad I took a chance on this one because it's delicious.  You cube the cheese and pan fry it, so it has a slight crust on the outside and remains gooey on the inside. Mmm!  It also calls for sprinkling pumpkin seeds over the top (which I never would've thought to add to a pasta dish), and I loved it. Adds a nice crunch :) Hello Fresh says the recipe serves 2, but we each ate this for dinner, plus I got a lunch out of it. If you try it, let me know what you think! :) Do you like to cook with new foods? linking up here and here

My mom's birthday was close to Easter this year, so when I set out to make her birthday cake, I thought a duck-shaped one would be cute and festive. The pan was a little difficult to work with, but Mr. G and I didn't have any major issues until he tried to take the cake out of the pan. He whacked the back of the pan and the head flew out! In an effort to attach the head back to the body, I used some of the icing as a glue (I added extra powdered sugar, but it still came out runny). Unfortunately, it just ran down the front and back of the duck's body. So I accepted defeat and poured the rest of the icing on the duck. At least it looks like I did it on purpose, right? Maybe this duck prefers to swim in yellow ponds? haha My mom got a great laugh out of this whole experience. :)  Once the icing hardened, the cake was almost like a doughnut - light and fluffy inside, but with a hard shell of icing outside, so all was well. And tasty!  Click here if you'd like to ...

When we bought our house, there were plenty of things Mr. G and I didn't notice because we were inexperienced homebuyers. One of those things was how shallow our sink was:  Here it is in use . It's nearly 6 inches deep (about 14 centimeters). That's not terrible, but coupled with the low faucet, that left an 8 inch (20 cm) clearance for pots. Which is a huge problem for me because I love soup and make a big batch almost every weekend. Cleaning huge pots is already a chore, and fighting with the sink didn't help matters. (And just so you don't think I wanted a new sink just so I could easily clean a soup pot once a week:  It was also irritating to clean tons of other things - skillets, cake pans, serving trays - anything larger than a dinner plate basically.)  So I started plotting to get a new sink. And by plotting, I mean searching on craigslist (a website similar to the classified ads in the newspaper) for a deeper sink. Luckily it worked out and I found a ...

My family always makes cookies for Christmas. It's one of my favorite traditions. This year, we ended up baking 5 batches of cookies - peanut butter, chewy chocolate chip , Black-Eyed Susans, oatmeal (minus the raisins), and chocolate chip . While that's certainly not setting any world records, we had fun without the stress (which is what happens when we try to make 12 batches in one day). My ever-present inspector I thought I'd share one of my favorite cookie recipes - Black-Eyed Susans (I also love  the plant ). They're made with peanut butter and chocolate so this is just the perfect recipe for me. They'd be great for spring parties too. Aren't they adorable?! Black-Eyed Susan Cookies • 1 stick melted butter (1/2 cup) • 1/2 cup sugar • 1/2 cup brown sugar • 1 egg • 1 1/2 tablespoons warm water • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • 1 cup creamy peanut butter • 1 1/2 cups flour • 1/2 teaspoon salt • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda • chocola...

Welcome to December! :) My on-going goal (since August) has been putting extra money toward my mortgage principal, and here's my final tally for 2013: I am thrilled to have been able to send an extra $1550 to the loan company, especially since that exceeds my original goal of $1k! Now, let's talk about November: Yoga : This one's complicated. I found 4 nearby yoga classes. But two of them cost $5 for the hour-long class, and the other two are $15 and $20 for an hour-long class. Easy choice, right? Between the two $5 options, there were 5 classes in the month of November (the class schedules were cut short by Veteran's Day and the week of Thanksgiving). Then two were cancelled! I decided not to fret. I could've gone to one of the more expensive classes, but why spend $20 on one class when I could just wait and use that same amount for four classes next month? So, technically, I failed for the purposes of this goal, but I'm counting the 3 yoga cl...

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the US, and I thought I'd share what I ate. (I usually get a lot of comments from meat eaters about what I can actually eat at Thanksgiving.) As an appetizer, we had tortilla chips with salsa and corn dip . I was little worried making the dip because it looked nothing like the recipe picture, but it turned out just fine. Everyone ate it so fast I didn't even think to take a picture. For dinner, I had carrots, vegetarian stuffing , basmati rice, mashed potatoes, corn, vegetable soup (not pictured - but it had vegetable broth, peas, lentils, carrots, and barley), a roll with butter, and cookie dough truffles . My truffles also turned out nothing like the pictures, haha. At least they tasted good :) Yum! I definitely didn't feel deprived by not eating turkey. I had plenty! And probably too much starch now that I look back over the pictures . .  How was your Thanksgiving? Anyone going out today for Black Friday shopping? My husban...

At the grocery store, I buy mariana sauce rather than traditional pasta sauce because usually the pasta sauce is flavored with meat or added cheeses and I can't be sure it's vegetarian. To compensate, when I'm heating the sauce, I add an Italian seasoning blend to give it a little more flavor. No complaints yet ;)   So when I ran out of Italian seasoning the other day, I didn't want to run to the store in the middle of heating my sauce. I starting wondering if I had to buy more or if I already had all the spices on hand to make my own (found a recipe here  if you're interested). I was close! (no basil or rosemary)  It got me thinking, what spices do you keep on hand? We go through Italian seasoning, black pepper, parsley, onion powder and Old Bay easily, but what about all those other spices in the pantry? I usually buy specifically with a recipe or dish in mind, but the Garam Masala and Montreal Chicken seasoning were gifts from my parents. (I love edible gift...

Dottie apparently wanted to help us make spinach dip - I only turned for a second! haha linking up for Wordless Wednesday

Happy Friday! Since August, I've been challenging myself to put extra toward the mortgage every month, so here's visual look at my progress: I think this graph was the best thing I ever did in terms of encouraging myself to put a little extra down each month. The goal's always been in mind, but I felt like I did it more often than it was actually happening. I started tracking it in July, and I'm very happy with my consistency since then. :) And now for November: Attend yoga classes : Yoga is my kind of exercise - methodical, doesn't require anything too fancy, can be done solo or in a group. I used to only do yoga with my Wii , until I was spoiled by a yoga instructor coming to my work to teach a class. Sadly, she has moved on to other opportunities, and now I'm looking for a new class. I've found a few leads. My plan is to attend four local classes this month and figure out which one I prefer. Internet-free days : Everyone needs an internet br...

This series, wherein I feature recipes from other blogs that I've made and enjoyed, is an idea that I completely ripped off from Kiersten at ohmyveggies .  She does one every Friday. I originally saw this over at cleaneatingveggiegirl . I didn't have bell pepper, so I used celery; I didn't have chili powder or cumin, so I used cayenne (whew - and I paid for that choice with a burning tongue!); I didn't have vegan sausage, so I added an egg at the very end and it turned out kinda like vegetable fried rice. All those changes - and it was still delicious! (Oh, and when I ate my second helping, I poured tomato sauce over the top, and that took the heat down a notch.) Uhh, tomato sauce and some vegetables? Okay, you caught me - this isn't really a recipe. But it was yummy and I figured this is as good as place as any to include it. These were leftovers - pasta, corn, carrots, green beans, and tomato sauce - but so good, and a great way to use up all those rand...

I'm not a huge fan of zucchini. Sure, I'll eat it hidden in treats like zucchini bread, but I've never been one to enjoy a side of zucchini. This recipe changed my mind. I think the difference is that the seeds are removed (which vastly improved the texture over the watery zucchini dishes of yore) and that the zucchini is cooked separately from the filling.  This is also a really quick meal - about 30 minutes in all - so I'm a little biased. I liked it so much I may plant zucchini in my garden next year (although I've been warned it'll take over even worse than the cucumber vines). So basically, it's zucchini combined with all kinds of good stuff - basmati rice, corn, onions, tomatoes, black beans. Then I topped mine with cheese and cilantro, while Mr. Giraffe went the cheese and sour cream route. Customizable toppings make everyone happy!  But that's enough blabbing, check out the recipe for yourself (it's easier than all those steps make it lo...

Mr. Giraffe and I hosted a family gathering at our place a few weeks ago. You may have seen the  dirty dishes  :) My main contribution was homemade macaroni and cheese. This is my grandmother's recipe, so I may be biased, but I think it's delicious. Rich, cheesy, and creamy. In other words, not a health food, but scrumptious! It was gobbled up and raved about, so I thought I'd share the recipe here.  Homemade Macaroni and Cheese • 2 1/2 cups pasta • 2 tablespoons butter • 1/4 cup flour • 1 teaspoon dry mustard • 1 teaspoon garlic powder • 1 teaspoon onion powder • 1 - 2 teaspoons pepper • 1/2 teaspoon salt • 1 - 1 1/2 cups grated American cheese • 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese • 1/2 cup half and half (feel free to use milk) • 2 cups milk Directions Preheat oven to 375º. Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions. Put cooked pasta in a 9x13 baking dish. Over medium heat, melt butter and add flour to make a roux. Cook for 1-2 min...

serving dishes not pictured ;) linking up for Wordless Wednesday

Kristen over at Oh My Veggies likes to share her favorite recipes from other bloggers on Fridays, and I thought I'd copy her idea today. Or, as the author calls it, Spaghetti Omelet ! (Not sure why I was so confident that this recipe was called fried spaghetti pie - I even made the above picture without fact-checking first. I should probably learn a lesson from this experience, but I actually like the ring of fried spaghetti pie and will continue to call it such.) Served with a big side of steamed broccoli, this was a really filling, really quick dinner. I upped the pasta to 2 cups and the eggs to 4 because that's what I had on hand and it still came out great. I love that this dish is so flexible. Cookies! I found this recipe over at Averie Cooks and used it because it makes far fewer cookies than a traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe. Even still, shared among six people, we managed to finish the whole batch in two days ;) Sorry for the super yellow p...

When I first moved out on my own, I had plenty of cooking experience with rice, pasta, vegetables, and cookies. But cooking meat? The best I could do was microwave sausage links or heat up chicken nuggets in my toaster oven. I've never liked the look or feel of raw meat (especially anything with a bone or a shell, because it reminded me that whatever I was holding used to be alive). So I just avoided it.  The one exception? I'd buy ground beef and use it to make Hamburger Helper. My favorites were the regular Cheeseburger Macaroni and Crunchy Taco. Of course, when I started paying more attention to the foods I was eating, Hamburger Helper hit the chopping block. But I missed the ease and comfort-food-ness of the cheesy dish. So I jumped on   this recipe  over at Iowa Girl Eats and modified it a bit to be vegetarian.  Homemade Vegetarian Hamburger Helper • 1 pound ground beef, soy crumbles, or chopped vegetables (or a combo) • 1 tablespoon cornstarch...