Grumpy old Man Vacuums, curses at Xbox 360

Rage! Rage! Stupid Xbox can’t read the stupid disc of the game I want to keep playing! Oh, wretched consequence of enabling my boy to switch the dvds by himself (and also my own normal slovenly disc care). Oh well, less game for me means more blog for you.

All of humanity functions on two basic assumptions:

1)I vacuumed last time

2)It’s someone else’s turn to vacuum.

Even solitary bachelors can cling to the illogical belief that the floor will be vacuumed by someone else. Maybe vacuum fairies. And so the floor gathers a building pile of detritus and filth until someone finally loses their mind with dirt rage and cleans in a frenzy. I learned this pattern of delay and disgruntled cleaning from my friend and old roommate Matt, so I know who to thank when I am muttering and vacuuming up the kitchen right before bed. Is most of the mess mine, since I do all of the cooking and I am a slob when doing so? Yes. I am aware of the mess being my unacknowledged second child, but I still don’t like cleaning it.

Well, at least the floor is clean(er) and the Xbox is behaving more. Also, my unstoppable addiction to cashews has led to a week-long binge. We bought over a kilo of the delicious salty nuts last Saturday, and it is almost gone. For those keeping track of my dietary intake, that means I have consumed about 9 days worth of dietary fat in 5 days, and that’s assuming the rest of my diet has been fat-free. Damn your large sizes, Costco! You eliminated scarcity from the cashew consumption equation, and now I’m over-salted and greasy. Well, more so than usual.

Whoops, there goes another post.

(sidenote: do the kids today even know the song ‘high hopes’? Other than the Phillies fans, who sing it every time the team wins. Am I officially old by cultural standards?)

There’s no great conspiracy that prevented this post from existing yesterday. I was going to do it, and then I forgot and had a snack and went to bed. Simple! To apologise to you the reader, I present my latest dinner success: veggie burritos!

First an admission: these would more likely be called soft tacos, not burritos, but I like the sound of burritos more.

The inspiration for this meal came from the metric ton of  romaine lettuce hearts I bought from Costco to make a giant greek salad. Even after making said salad, I had an armada of lettuce heads to use. The solution was to use them in place of the tortilla. I still have 2 and a half heads left, but at least I put a dent in it.

Ingredients:

bean filling:

mushrooms (about a pan full, after slicing)

Can of black beans, rinsed.

Cumin, cinnamon, salt,pepper

hunk o’ butter (you could replace with vegetable broth, if you really wanted to)

salsa:

4-5 Roma tomatoes, diced

1 onion, diced

generous handful of cilantro, diced

1/2 a bell pepper, diced.  (use a spicy pepper if you’re so inclined)

1 clove of garlic

lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste

along for the ride:

rice

romaine hearts

avocado slices

Cheese and/or sour cream  if you’re so inclined.

Bean filling:

Start by sauteing the mushrooms in the butter until they gain a healthy golden brown colour. Add the beans and spices and fry for a few more minutes until the beans start to fall apart.

Cook some rice (I used basmati, but your rice is your business) while the sauteing is going on.

The salsa is easy:throw the ingredients together and taste. Is it delicious? If yes, success! If no, add more seasoning. (in the case of too much salt, add more tomatoes until you get back to a sensible place)

Dismember the romaine hearts into their composite leaves. Put a layer of rice in the middle of the leaf, followed by bean filling, then salsa. top with a couple of avocado slices, and cheese/sour cream  if you’re using it. Each person should get 3-4 portions. These burritos fall precariously between appetizer and full meal, due to their limited storage capacity. Don’t try to make huge gonzo burritos and then come crying to me when the toppings end up in a pile on your plate.

 

Go Go Speed Poster!

Ah! Too many things! Must post quickly!

-NaNoWriMo is going well. Word count is a little behind but the chapter by chapter approach is going great. My primary success metric is posting a chapter every second day on the other blog, and so far, so good.

-you can only ask a two-year old to handle so much stuff in a week, so don’t be surprised when they go into an atomic meltdown by week-end. And since he was really tired, we got a nostalgic reminder of his old night terrors. But he slept in today and was back to his wonderful self, so no harm done.

-I am growing a moustache to raise awareness of prostate cancer, as well as just to grow a moustache. I don’t know if I’ve ever really grown one before, having been a goatee dude, with an occasional beard occurence. It’s going well, except I drifted off while shaving in the shower and accidentally shortened one side, forcing me to match the other side too. It’s not a hitler ‘stache, but it’s uncomfortably close to the Stan Laurel. I will disguise it with general stubble for the next few days until I can return it to its intended shape.

-Does it seem wrong to anybody else that the kiwis we buy at the grocery story come from Italy? I have no grasp of geography or botany, but aren’t kiwis a tropical fruit? Italy’s not tropical. Kiwis are frequently one of the fruits in a ‘tropical blend’ juice or a ‘tropical’ fruit salad.