Lucky Seven

7 years ago, a wee, mysterious being appeared in our lives.  At first glance, he appeared to be a forest sprite.

We quickly discovered he had the voice of a banshee, the appetite of a zombie and the sleeping habits of a vampire.

With a firm, decided grasp, he rapidly took over our hearts.

And our household.

And our pocketbook.

However, in his household account of debt to us, he is firmly in the black.

And perhaps, Manoj and I are the ones in the red.

Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude: Cheater, Cheater Pumpkin Eater

Note: Fridays of Intestinal Fortitude is a weekly(ish) feature about food, food and more FOOD. No, I am not an expert, but I do enjoy talking about food prep, cooking food, eating food and making sweet love to food.  Okay, maybe not the "sweet love" part. After all, this is not meant to be an homage to 9 1/2 Weeks.

Recipe Index can be found here. 
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After a really weird week of where nothing has gone right, I have a FUN day planned for us.  Team Chaos is out of school and I am letting them choose what they would like to do.  Thus far, they are choosing to hang out in their pajamas.   Since I am nursing a cold (and I have TWO 5ks this week that I will now probably have to walk.  Sigh.), I am totally on board with a Pajama Day Plan.

In the meantime, in lieu of a real post, I would like to share a few food-related links.

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Courtesy of a recipe from Dad Cooks Dinner, I made slow-cooker chicken stock and my world?  Has been officially rocked.  HARD. I had bought a rotisserie chicken on Wednesday for dinner and when we were done with it, I stuck it in the refrigerator.  Yesterday morning, I threw the carcass in the slow cooker, chopped up a bunch of green onions, minced FOUR cloves of garlic and threw in some dried parsley for good measure.  I covered the whole mess with water and let it cook cook on low for 8 hours.  It was SO easy and the stock smells AMAZING.  I feel silly buying canned stock all of these years.  The rotisserie chicken cost $6 AND I made over 4 cups of stock from it.  I poured the stock in baggies and stuffed them in the freezer (I am going to invest in some freezer jars, though)  Chicken stock in the slow-cooker - what a great idea!

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I have been in a cooking rut lately -- I pulled up the All Recipes Dinner Spinner app on my Kindle Fire and this Spicy Garlic Lime Chicken popped up.  And it was a WINNER.  I had a few tenderloins left, so I am chopping those up for the Curried Chicken Divan I am making tonight. 

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I am still playing around with my slow-cooker and cannot wait to dig into some of these slow-cooker recipes courtesy of Receipe 4 Living.

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Budget Bytes posted a round-up of pumpkin recipes and asked for more suggestions in the comments.  Of course, I could not resist linking to my own pumpkin curry recipe since it is my life's mission to expose people to the wonder of curried pumpkin.

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As I was digging through food blogs while on the hunt for new dinner ideas, I stumbled across US Masala.  Holy cow -- this site should come standard with an appetite suppressant.  Each recipe comes with lovely photography and simply stated instructions -- in particular, I cannot WAIT to try the Garlic Masala Baked Potato Wedges.  Enter this site at your own risk on an empty stomach.  You have been warned.

My Kid's Homework Ate Today's Food Post

For the most part, the homework situation here has been reasonable.  Anjali's homework consists of practicing her writing and Arun's homework involves math and reading.  Subjects they both need to work on anyway.  We don't need to do homework every single night, but it averages to about 30-60 minutes when we do have it.  

Last night, Arun started working on his homework while I was cooking dinner, helping Anjali with HER homework and serving as the resident Bellhop for the cats and dogs and their relentless, soul-crushing need to go in and out and in and out of our goddamned house. (Foreshadowing: There are many, many more curse words coming your way, Gentle Reader.)

And then, Arun showed me this:

THREE FUCKING TICKETS

THREE FUCKING RIDES

ONE STUPID FUCKING LITTLE GIRL

Oh, and a chart of some sort that looked like something drawn by a carnie who had too much time on his hands (and too many blunts in his pocket).

Yes, for some reason, this threw me for a permuted loop.  I mean, not to brag, but I do hold both a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree in Accounting.  And according to the State of Missouri, I am fit to practice accounting as a licensed CPA (trust me, I am just as surprised by this as you are.)  While the onions on the stove burned, the rice boiled over and the eggplant dried up, I managed to scribble out a start of the pattern.  Then, I decided to leave the rest for Manoj.

This is a good place to point out that my baby daddy is not only an Indian Institute of Technology grad, but also a Dartmouth dork.  And since we are all about fulfilling stereotypes around here, Manoj is an engineer and scary with math and numbers. Yes, the same man who constantly loses his keys, laptop and shoes INSIDE OUR HOUSE possesses a frightening recall of facts and figures.

When Manoj walked in the door, I thrust the paper in his face.  He took a look and shook his head.  Yes, he figured it out, eventually, but agreed that the lack of directions seemed a bit much for a 1st grader.

Since Manoj was the one to actually figure it out, he is now endlessly mocking me about the fact that I struggled with our 1st grader's homework while steadfastly denying that he also struggled with it initially.

And now I am off to Google to search for creative poisoning methods.