Runaway October

Yep, you heard right. My plain jane kitchen has had a facelift.

Here she is before, look­ing pretty… neutral.

And after! A cou­ple wash­ings with TSP, a cou­ple coats of Valspar Jaunty Green, and doesn’t she look so pretty? To the left of the fridge is where the chalk­board wall will be. I’m excited to get that done. But first I need to fill in the knock­down wall tex­ture and slap on some thick coats of primer before even THINKING about start­ing that endeavor.

Rowan’s being coy.

I didn’t paint the wall with the win­dow and sink in it because it’s one con­tin­u­ous wall the goes into the boys class­room. I don’t think I could han­dle THAT much bright green.

Oh hey! Why yes, yes I am wear­ing only under­wear, a hoodie and Ketchup.

If you look closely at  the first after pic­ture there is a very small space above the upper cab­i­nets that’s use­less still unpainted. I think I’ve decided it needs to be painted too, even though the only thing small enough to fit up there are the cats.

So there ya have it. My other color thoughts for this room were an aqua (but that seems to be my first thought for every room) or a smoky pur­ple. What would you have done?

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Please don’t for­get to vote for me daily, if you would be so kind. Thank you!

I have a hard time cook­ing for my brood some most days. Some don’t like mush­rooms, some don’t like any­thing spicy, some don’t like food that requires work (such as chicken wings), some just don’t like any­thing like lit­tle Rowan. It can get frus­trat­ing when you’re flip­ping through a cook­book list­ing off deli­cious recipes and every­thing gets vetoed by one per­son or another. It’s also frus­trat­ing when you give up and choose some­thing and it doesn’t get­ting eaten quickly enough to not grow slimy in the fridge. I know. It’s hard to believe that hap­pens in this house.

Matt, the boys and I stopped by a Half-Price Book store the other night, and I res­cued a cou­ple beat up low­fat cook books for a dol­lar a piece. Can you imag­ine the groans that caused? “Low­fat? You mean ‘Fla­vor Free’ right?” Etc etc. But there are actu­ally quite a few recipes that I think will end up being keep­ers. This recipe is one of them.

Seafood is not some­thing we nor­mally eat. I’ve never been huge fan, Matt doesn’t see what the hype is about, and kids will be kids, right? My brother on the other hand… We made a dou­ble batch and picked up a pound of shrimp on sale for less than 5 dol­lars. Every­thing else I pretty much had on hand.

Even a large serv­ing of the dish comes in under 350 calo­ries. The pasta makes it very fill­ing, and the broc­coli gives you lots of good vit­a­mins. Am I the only mama blessed with kids that gen­er­ally love vegetables?

Par­don my bad pic­tures. The sun had gone down before I started din­ner. Oops!

Pasta in Gar­lic Sauce with Shrimp and Broccoli

Adapted from The 99% Fat-Free Cookbook

This clear, thin gar­lic sauce is a note­wor­thy change from the heavy mound under which pasta typ­i­cally is buried. It lends both a per­me­at­ing fla­vor and a gloss to the pasta, set off by flecks of seafood and veg­eta­bles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingre­di­ents:

• 10 gloves garlic
• 1 cup 99% fat free, reduced sodium Chicken Stock
• 8 ounces uncooked thin-strand spaghetti
• 2 table­spoons water
• 1 pound broc­coli flo­rets (About 1 large head)
• 1/2 cup sliced white onion (About 1 small onion)
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp (About 24) peeled, deveined, and halved
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1/8 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes
• Salt and Pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

• Put the gar­lic and stock in a small non­re­ac­tive sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes, until the gar­lic is soft and eas­ily smashed with a fork. Trans­fer the con­tents of the pan to a food proces­sor or blender, and purée until smooth. Set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir­ring to make sure the strands don’t stick together, and cook over high heat to desired ten­der­ness. (3 to 4 min­utes for home­made or other fresh pasta, 8 to 10 min­utes for dry pasta.)
• Mean­while, put 1 table­spoon of water in a non­stick fry­ing pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Add the broc­coli and onion and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 3 min­utes. Add the shrimp, dill and the remain­ing table­spoon of water. Stir, recover and cook for 4 to 5 min­utes more. Remove from the heat.
• When the pasta in done, drain it in a colan­der and return it to the pot over very low heat. Add the gar­lic purée then mix well to coat the pasta. Add the broccoli-shrimp mix­ture and the sea­son­ings. Toss together until well blended and serve immediately.

Nutri­tion info:

• Calo­ries  316.1
• Total Fat 2.5 g
  • Sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
  • Polyun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.9 g
• Monoun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
• Cho­les­terol     110.5 mg
• Sodium     613.3 mg
• Potas­sium     416.4 mg
• Total Car­bo­hy­drate     49.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber 4.8 g
  • Sug­ars 2.1 g
• Pro­tein     22.2 g
• Vit­a­min A 30.0 %
• Vit­a­min B-12 14.1 %
• Vit­a­min B-6 15.8 %
• Vit­a­min C 115.2 %
• Vit­a­min D 0.0 %
• Vit­a­min E 7.2 %
• Cal­cium 7.8 %
• Cop­per 9.1 %
• Folate     39.6 %
• Iron     25.0 %
• Mag­ne­sium 10.6 %
• Man­ganese     18.5 %
• Niacin     30.3 %
• Pan­tothenic Acid         6.3 %
• Phos­pho­rus         14.5 %
• Riboflavin     22.1 %
• Sele­nium 36.7 %
• Thi­amin 36.0 %
• Zinc     8.8 %