Crabby Casserole TND

Argh....Unfortunately, I received bad news on the foot front last week. It turns out that I stress fractured the cuboid bone in my foot. So, I'm stuck in a removable air cast for six to eight weeks. *Sigh* Apparently, since the flimsy walking boot did not completely isolate the foot, I need to start from scratch and the cuboid heals especially slowly. I also found out on Thursday that I over-pronate and my arches and my legs are uneven. It floored me to realize that for all these years I bought shoes using the wrong criteria and nobody told me about all of my foot's flaws. Obviously, I wish I knew all this information earlier so that I could have prevented this injury, but I suppose the silver lining to this whole thing is that I will be able to avoid more foot problems in the future. *Fingers crossed*

Okay, enough about my damn foot, I'll move onto the food. So, last weekend, I made cranberry-date bars for Chester's birthday. I don't usually do bars, but I gotta say, they came out pretty well. Following my bone scan on Monday morning (I don't reccomend one unless you truly need it), I set the kitchen on fire (literally) while making Taste of Home's Sea Shell Crab Casserole. Luckily, the casserole came out unscathed. I added some canned artichoke hearts, spanish olives, and a nice layer of monterey jack to the recipe (I also used real crab..oh la la).


Jessika contributed a wonderful tomato-based crab soup to Tuesday night. Wes and Ben brought lovely marinated shrimp and Andrea brought Great Harvest whole-wheat and pumpkin bread to our feast (best bread around!!). Poor Anders brought a salad, but who wants salad with so much bread and seafood?! MmMMMmMmm....It was a truly delicious and decadent Tuesday!!

Bonus pic- My smiley face cottage cheese sandwich lunch

Chowhound chicken TND and rainy day sloppy joes

Alas, still no stampeding allowed for Little Rhino. The good news is that the Sole Doctor did not see any fracture on my x-ray on Monday. The bad news is that I need to get a bone scan next Monday because it could be a Jones fracture (I'm soo peeved it's the same metatarsal I broke in 2004) which is pretty awful. Pleassssse wish me luck!! Rhino misses her running and feels rounder by the day. Arrrrr-gh!
Thankfully, I can still put together a tasty TND. This week, I made some super easy honey mustard chicken from chowhound.com and smoky chipotle cornbread (not bad..but not cornbread enough for Miss Rhino). Along with Andrea's homemade guacamole, a joint Anders and Elizabeth salad, and Wes' AMAZING coconut pie, it was a very very tasty Tuesday.
In other news, this week I started cross-training with a different division at work. Honestly, so far I've done hardly anything other than going on a field trip to view UnAmerican Activities Commission Records in the stacks and reading the NARA Guide Book on the Records on the House of Representatives. Hot stuff.

The cross-training also lets me work my own hours. So, I'm saying goodbye to NARA nights for a while (unless I'm offered OT) and I can eat dinner at home (!!). Tonight, after a cold and windy day, I cooked up a sloppy joe dinner. It probably could have fed two people, but it only fed one Rhino. Rhino may be out of the running, but her appetite is still going strong. Oh dear, my waistline better watch out!

Up next: cranberry date bars for Chester's birthday (my co-worker not my sister's dog)

Bratwurst and Butternut Squash Stew TND

This summer when I felt down, I kept telling myself that at least I still could run and cook. Well, now all I have is my cooking and the thought that I may want to be a pirate for Halloween. ARRR, MATEY!!

Anyway, since the official start of Fall, I've been itching to fit Fall foods and butternut squash in particular into a TND. I browsed many sites and finally decided that Aida Mollencamp's stew on chow.com fit my autumn comfort food criteria perfectly(with my white bean and spice add-ons). So, I chopped up veggies like crazy on Monday afternoon, cooked up a massive mound of stew that night, and then lobbed my dutch oven into my fridge for the next night.

TND, I popped that sucker on the stove, turned up the heat, and voila! Bratwurst and butternut squash stew!! Mmm..mmm.mmm...At least I can still cook!

When Life Goes Bad, I Make Roasted Vegetable Pasta and Brownies

Rhino hurt one of her hooves last week, so she's not too happy. At least, I can still cook. For TND, I made a HUGE pot of roasted vegetable pasta using five containers of tomatoes, three squash, three zucchinis, and three pounds of pasta. It was big and delicious.

Later in the week, I doctored up some Betty Crocker brownie mix with semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips and heath bar chunks for a co-worker's birthday. They went so fast the next day that I never got to try them and I never told people about the "help" I got in the kitchen ( ;