Milestone for Jeanne.

I've did it. I've really did it. No, it's not that I've received an acceptance letter from pharmacy school. It's that I'VE HAD SANDWICHES FOR TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT! If you know me at all, that's a huge accomplishment. It sounds so high-maintenance, but I can't even eat the same kind of meals for three days without gagging. I start avoiding it long enough for it to spoil, so I would have a legitimate reason to throw it out. Bizarre, I know.

I haven't had sandwiches for every meal, of course. That would be silly. ;) What happened was that I made similar sandwiches to the ones I posted the other week for a couple of days, but somewhere along the way, I remembered that I didn't like tomatoes all that much, and it made me avoid meat-filled sandwiches for a while. During that time, I made sandwiches with Ralph's Hazelnut spread and Ralph's Natural Crunchy peanut butter for breakfast/lunch. I remember getting tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches really easily, but for some reason, the peanut butter and hazelnut spread combo has been working for me. Half the jars are gone! And I've finished one whole bag of bread!

The other day, after my PSYC 1 midterm, I decided I really wanted to try making a risotto-inspired dish so I could use up the terrible American rice I bought from Ralph's. I stopped by Henry's Marketplace to buy a small can of tomato paste and chicken breast slices (and grabbed 3 pears, 3 oranges, and 2 onions while I was at it for total of $6!) Gathering rice, tomatoes, butter, canned corn, organic chicken stock, and some lactose-free milk, I worked at it for an hour or so before giving up. I couldn't get some of the rice to fully cook, and naively thought if I put it into my rice-cooker, it would solve the problem. That ended up doing nothing except making my "risotto" into a more porridge-consistency. But the good thing was that the dish smelled really good (probably because the chicken I haphazardly marinated turned out great) and I packed it up into my glass containers to bring to school. Had some yesterday and the occasional crunch of uncooked rice was quite nasty, but I think once I solve that problem, this recipe is a keeper.

Early this afternoon, I made tomato egg drop soup to finish off the remainder of the chicken stock. Sadly, I covered the bowl with saran wrap and left it in my room, only to come home and discover that a fly flew and DIED in it. I googled to see if it was safe to eat the soup, and found mixed opinions. I decided I was too grossed out anyway, and dumped the soup and instead made myself the two lovely sandwiches you see above. =D I sautéed some onions that I had pre-chopped from the failed-risotto day, and added it to the turkey, egg, monterrey jack cheese and buttered toast sandwich.

Also, I stopped by Trader Joe's today to pick up some prepackaged Rotisserie Chicken Slices, Chicken and Vegetable Potstickers, Spinach Tortellini, and a can of Turkey Chili (I tried a sample of the chili dogs they had and it was delicious!) Stopped by Ralph's to get more bread(!), and picked up two jars of spaghetti sauce. Also got fresh green beans for $2 from the farmer's vendor right next to Trader Joe's. I spend too much time at the market. :( Need to come up with better schedule.

Lastly, I've decided I'm going to try eating Trader Joe's frozen foods instead of keep wasting time making dishes that turn out terrible. The ones I picked up today were just $2 apiece, so 5 frozen meals for the week will just be $10! I figure if I combine that with sandwiches for lunch, I won't wear out my tastebuds. Will update y'all on how that goes!

Jeanne discovers bread.

So ok, total lie. I haven't been living under a rock for so long that I haven't seen bread until this week. But recently, I've been eating so infrequently that I suppose my brain subconsciously has an orgasm every time it sees any image of food online. Ok, more lies, not just any image of food. My palate is too delicate (read: I'm too picky) to fantasize about just any dish. ;)

This particular dish I came across last week wasn't some concoction that's recently rocked the culinary world. In fact, every kid in America has probably had it at some point or the other. What the frick is this dish, you say? *drum roll* The cheese sandwich.

Maybe because I've been stressing over school so much lately that I find reason to get distracted by the littlest thing, but holy cow, as soon as that scrumptious snapshot on All Recipes registered in my visual association cortex, I knew THAT MEAL HAD TO BE MINE.

So yesterday, I stopped by Ralph's and got Van de Kamp's Honey and Oat Bran bread, Land O' Lake's Monterrey Jack cheese, Challenge Butter's Spreadable Butter with Canola Oil, and some Roma tomatoes and spinach. I wasn't satisfied with the collection of deli meats at Ralph's, and I vaguely remembered that the Trader Joe's next door had some pretty delicious-looking stuff, so I stopped by there next. My plan was to buy this huge chunk of pre-cooked Rosemary-infused chicken breast they sell for $5, but when I got there, I realized I probably wouldn't have time in the morning to keep slicing that thing up to make sandwiches (read: I remembered my laziness) and decided to check out the pre-sliced pre-cooked deli meat instead (God, I'm lazy.) That turned out to be the better deal, since there was a wider selection of meats and the ingredients seemed mostly natural. I grabbed the Peppered Turkey Breast because it had 2% more Iron. Well ok, the actual reason was that the ringlet of pepper on the brim of the slices were pretty, and I'm a sucker for visual stimulus.

That night, I buttered up the bread before frying it on the stove and piling sliced pieces of turkey, cheese, tomatoes, and spinach on top. In that order. (Ask the boyfriend; he'll tell you I'm very particular with my sandwich arrangement.) I didn't get around to eating it until late this afternoon, and had to reheat it in a toaster oven at work. By the time I actually sat down to eat it, however (had to walk from workplace to student center), it had gotten cold again! But one bite into that mighty thing and ohhhh my gooodnesss, that didn't even matter. I usually don't eat tomatoes, but the ones I picked were firm enough that my usual gag reflex to fresh tomatoes didn't kick in. Unfortunately, the spinach was a whole other story. It tasted like bad dried seaweed! I stomached it for the first half of the sandwich, but when I got to the second half, I decided I didn't want the pieces ruining an otherwise perfectly good meal so I picked them all out. I asked the boyfriend, Master of Eating Veggies, whether spinach was supposed to taste like that and he said no...so either I picked bad spinach, or it's just me. :( I've seen recipes where people use spinach in omelets, so I might try that out to use the rest of what I have...

After that success, I spent the remainder of the day zoning out in class, thinking about what other combinations of sandwiches I could make. By the time I got home, I decided that I wanted to make the one pictured above (a turkey, tomato, cheese and egg).

Lesson here is sandwiches are so easy to make! Who knew?! It's so nice not having to slave hours making meat entrees to eat with rice. I'm going to try making them more frequently so I don't have to buy lunch at school, but as Allison said, I really should be careful to not overdo it because I tend to get tired of repetitive meals very easily. ^^;; And God forbid I get tired of this; it's going to save me so much lunch money!