This is serious.

Netflix is down. No instant streaming.

I had no Desperate Housewives to entertain me while I cooked dinner.

I had no Family Guy to distract me while I washed the dinner dishes.

And just now, I had to put in my DVD of Arrested Development by hand.

BY HAND.

What is this 2009??

Sauced

Last night, I made broccoli to go with our chicken. But despite the raisins and garlic I added, it just wasn't quite right. So, inspired by the recent cooking class Tony and I attended two weeks ago with my parents and siblings in Portland, I decided to try my first pan reduction sauce.
Should you wish to make such a sauce yourself - and I suggest you do, they are delicious! - simply follow this step-by-step guide (use whatever amounts are appropriate for the number of servings you need):

1. Brown, and thoroughly cook, your chicken. Remove to a plate.

2. Add garlic and cook until fragrant.

3. Add Madeira.

4. Allow the wine to release the brown bits.

5. Deglaze the pan.

6. Simmer until reduced to a syrupy consistency.

7. Add tarragon.

8. Reduce heat and add cream.

9. Stir to combine.

10. Cook to desired consistency and remove from heat.

11. Drizzle over chicken and broccoli and ENJOY!

Spring Break (woo-hoo!)

You know how when you're in college and you hear the words "Spring Break" (WOO-HOO!) you think bikinis, pina coladas, and body-shots (!).

Well, no one tells you but when you get older "spring break" means yard work

home-improvement projects

The closet in the office finally has door on it!

and the thrill of getting a full eight hours of sleep at night.

Kinda makes you think, what happened to my life...?

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Every morning Tony and I start our day with a glass of freshly-juiced vegetable/fruit juice; we call them "greens".

And today it seemed so nicely festive. Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!

You know your yard is out of control when...

animals are actually dying because they can't escape your bushes.

Murphy

This is Murphy.

He is two years old.
Well, we actually don't know how old he is, so I decided to give him the same birthday as Tessie so I could remember it.

Incredibly, Milo and Sadie much prefer him to Tessie.

Murph and Tess are great pals.

But his best friend is Tony.

And, yes: we are done with animals. The next addition to the family will be a baby, but that will not be for quite some time.

Wine and Cookies

We have made it through the dreaded Second Quarter. The one everyone says, "If you survive second quarter, you'll survive all four years." Tony did wonderfully and actually managed to raise his - already stellar, if I may brag a little - GPA; despite missing a week of classes while he was in New York City at the mid-winter meeting of the American Podiatric Medical Students' Association (APMSA). Have I told you he was elected to be his class's APMSA delegate for their four-year careers as medical students? Well he was - to brag a bit, again. He's also head of the Public Relations Committee for the entire APMSA and president of the Practice Management Club, but I digress.

Having reached this milestone, some of you (okay, it was just my dad) have asked us about the differences between law school and medical school. Both require endless hours of studying, are extraordinarily stressful, and leave you with a continuous, nagging feeling that you just haven't done enough and you are not going to pass. So, at least for Tony and me, the difference between our doctoral programs boils down to our coping mechanisms.

Well that and the fact that Tony came home on a weekly basis reeking of the dead people he dissected that day. I will not miss his Gross Anatomy lab.

At the end of a tough day of law school, you know - the ones where you were the student called on to answer the professor's questions for the ENTIRE lecture while the rest of your class breathed a sigh of relief and started shopping online...oh I loath the Socratic method - all I wanted was a glass (bottle?) of wine.

For Tony, as some of you may recall, it's my homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Being unemployed, I started the school year happily whipping up batch after 40-cookie-batch...only to have Tony eat three cookies and leave us with 37 that we didn't really want (and everyone knows that cookies are really best fresh out of the oven). Thus, though I love my husband to distraction, I grew weary of incessant baking.

Necessity being the mother of invention (and yes, it turns out, freshly baked cookies are a necessity in medical school) I tweaked my recipe slightly so my cookies freeze in dough form and bake directly from frozen - in only eight minutes! Now Tony can toss just a couple frozen cookies into our toaster oven, usually at 2:00 in the morning it seems, and have warm, freshly-baked, homemade cookies on demand.


This one accomplishment is pretty much all I have to show for the past eight months.