Weekly Round Up: So Easy, So Good

 

A weekly round up: eats, watches, workouts, and reads.  This week I'm here to tell you about a cookbook called So Easy So Good plus this n'that.

Eats

The big news of this week is that my library hold for a cookbook called So Easy, So Good came in.  I've followed the author's Insta account for a good long while.

Verdict: I am going to buy the book.  I cannot remember the last time I bought a cookbook, but it's an easy bet that it was back in my single days on Birchwood Street.

So what I did make you might ask?  Well, at the top of this post you are looking at Sriracha Honey Tofu bowls.  Naturally I air fried the tofu instead of pan frying it.  IMO that results in a better taste and air frying is hands free so I can use the time to prep the rest of the ingredients, so it's win-win.  I did not coat the tofu in cornstarch because I feel that the air fryer does fine without it.  Otherwise I pretty much followed the recipe!

I was very intrigued/challenged by a recipe called spicy rice paper omelets.  It looked good, but I didn't understand how it was supposed to work.  You place a dry rice paper in a skillet, top it with chili crisp, scramble an egg on top of it, top the egg with cheese, spinach, green onion, sriracha, and mayo.  Every time that I've made anything with rice paper it always involves soaking the rice paper first.  Was she just punking me?

The only reason that I tried the recipe is that I have a habit of coming across interesting recipes that use rice paper, finding out that they are not all that, and I'm stuck with the rest of the package of rice paper until it becomes a nuisance and I finally throw it out.   No sooner do I throw out the elderly pack of rice paper than I come across a hot new rice paper recipe, and so the cycle repeats.  However, I had not yet thrown out the very old package of rice paper from the last round of this cycle so it was easy enough to give it a try.

 

Verdict: yes yes yes placing rice paper in a skillet and following her very easy instructions results in a very unique, tasty, and filling breakfast.  So it's my new obsession and I have a feeling that rice paper will now be a regular purchase.

While we're here, I would like to poke the bear and tell you how I feel about two Food Controversies:

• I love spicy food, but I don't think sriracha is All That.  Sambal oelek, which is a spicy sauce made by the same company with the same peppers is what floats my boat. However, the reason that I know it's the same company/same peppers is that when there is a sriracha shortage there is also a sambal oelek shortage, so now I care very much about the sriracha supply.  
• Most overrated ingredient for Asian/Mexican food?  Green onions!  The first few times that I made the omelets I didn't have any, but I later got some to get fancy.  It's not that I don't like them, but I don't really notice them either way. 

Workouts

Work is really stressful right now, so I've gotten off track with my pushups/baby pull up endeavors.  My neck and shoulders are extra tense right now. 

Luckily hiking doesn't care about my neck and shoulders, so that's going full tilt.

 Watching

The Pitt!!! 

For those of you who are living under a rock, it's about an ER in Pittsburgh, and each episode covers one hour in the day of an ER doctor's shift.  I'm up to episode 6 of 16.  If the lead actor looks familiar, it's because he was in ER, which I never saw back in the day.  FWIW I had a strong dislike of ER when it was on because I was in college at the time, and Organic Chemistry was my do or die class.  Halfway through the semester the professor got the George Clooney haircut, and I still feel a bit of bile in my throat every time I see George Clooney to this day.  I got a D in that class, which was good enough for the degree, and I will forever be grateful.  But enough rambling, I am fully hooked on The Pitt, and I feel like I might want to check out ER now.

Also worth mentioning - I am having the hardest time figuring out how to fit watching one hour of TV into my schedule.  My nightly routine is: end the workday in a fit of stress, eat dinner, walk the dog, collapse in front of the TV with my laptop...and then somehow it's 9:00 which is when I like to head upstairs to read in bed.  I have no idea what I do between the hours of post-dog walk to 9:00.  YouTube videos get watched, but fitting in a one hour show just feels so hard.

Somehow it never feels hard to catch an episode of Seinfeld with Hubs and Doggo.  We're still somewhere in season 8.

 

Reading

Last week I was headed into a book club for a book that I DNF'd.  Good news!  The book had very mixed reviews, and the setting lent itself to listening and not participating.  The group is fun.

The book club's next meeting is in July and the book is Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is one of those books that everyone loved that for some reason I just never got around to.  I have a feeling that I will not be DNF'ing this time around.

I'm trying out another book club next week, and the book for that is Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo.  The book is very short, so even if it was terrible there would be no chance of a DNF.  And it is not terrible!  The author is a Native American who grew up 1950's Oklahoma.  So far I can tell you that four kids in to her parents' marriage her mom figured out that divorce was a great way to stop spousal abuse. I'll fill you in on the rest as soon as I read it.

I'm still working on The Coast Road by Alan Murrin, and I still like it well enough.  It's set in Ireland, it's moody, and it's the 90's.

Werk

I'm going to try my best to write a few coherent sentences about my work situation.  If you're new here, I have not liked my job for a long time, and that's after switching employers a few times.  Financially I can afford not to work for a while and/or for the rest of my life.

There is a behind the scenes reason why it's convenient for me to have a job for the next few months, so I'm not rushing to quit.  But also I wouldn't mind if the company made that decision for me, so I took the liberty of removing myself from a couple of tasks that were very stressful, that I was not good at, and weren't related to my regular work.  My boss said yes, her boss kept asking me for updates on the projects for the longest time, so it kind of feels like my boss doesn't talk to her boss.  In the meantime they fired a couple of people who really needed it, and a good person quit, so that's basically our entire department.  When performance reviews came around I got a good review and a raise.

Anyways we have started a special project, which is kind of my jam, but also very stressful.  The project will wrap in July, and it would be interesting to hang around for a few more months to see how it pans out, but "a few more months" takes us into fall, which takes us into winter, which means a cutback in travel so I might as well work a few months into 2026 and then make a break?  Back in January when my goal was to stick it out until May I wasn't sure that I would make it.  If you're confused about what I'm doing, welcome to the club because no one is more confused than I.  Eventually I will stop working at this job, and then I will decompress and hopefully be able to 'splain myself.

FWIW the economy doesn't have any effect on my early retirement plans.  Yes my portfolio has taken a hit, but I will only be withdrawing small amounts of money each month, so it doesn't really matter what shenanigans the current administration is up to.

Peace Out!  See you soon so that I can tell you about the trip I took this month!  I got distracted by nipples and state flags.