devin_chain | Cooking.

Spent several hours deep cleaning the kitchen yesterday for cooking today. Used the glass cleaner on the stove top, the stainless steel cleaner on all the appropriate appliances. The granite reflects light again. My kitchen sparkles. It never sparkles.

Bought $260 worth of food last night with the goal in mind of cooking all of it plus what's in the freezer and fridge. Sick of eating out because I'm too tired to cook for three when I get home from work. I wanted to make enough to get to Spring Break, but this probably won't last more than a week or two the way my family eats. Not sure it's worth it. However, the cooking feels luxurious.

What I've made and stashed in the freezer so far:
Pot Roast
Pakistani Chicken
Tortilla Soup
ETA: Minestrone
ETA: Tomato Basil Soup
ETA: Baked Mustard Chicken

What I have yet to make today:
Greek Lemon Soup (May eat it right away -- worried it won't freeze well. Does anyone know how it freezes?)
Chicken Cacciatore
Coq au Vin
Shrimp Ettoufe
ETA: Giada's Artichoke Soup

Don't know what else I'll do. I have plenty of vegetables, shrimp and chicken to work with plus what's in the pantry I haven't even considered.

I'm having a ball, btw. I love to cook when it's like this -- on vacation, when there's time to enjoy. When it's zen, not forced. The house smells amazing.

***

On a different note, I gave daughter my Lush bath jelly -- the white one that's meant to smell like Mimosa. It smelled like furniture polish on me. Surprise! It smells fantastic on her. Body chemistry. Huh.

ETA: For those who don't know, the luggage arrived. It speaks Portugese and complains we brought it back before Carneval, but it's here. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sounds delicious! For the future cleaning, I recommend Trader Joes green all purpose cleaner, I don't know if that's the exact label, but it's a plastic spray bottle with green liquid in it that says Trader Joes on it. No harsh chemical fumes, and it cleans really well.

Trader Joe's cleaner. *nods* Will do.

The minestrone is perfect, even if I do say so myself. :)

My mouth is just watering at all the food you've just described. It sounds delish!

Thank you. I had some of the Tortilla Soup for dinner. It is indeed delish. :)

I just had a very Brady accident. Tried to puree too much of the hot Tomato Basil Soup at once. Soup spewed out of the blender like champagne on New Year's Eve. But I saved enough for one good container in the freezer. That's fine. I'm the only person in the house who eats this one anyway.

LOL! That reminds me of the year I was spending Christmas with my mom and the whole family (about 20 people) was there. I think I was about 16 or so. Mom put me on salad detail and I'd never seen a salad spinner. So me being me, I became curious as to what it looked like going round and round and naturally I pulled the lid off. WHOOSH! Lettuce everywhere. Thankfully she found it as funny as I did and we laughed until our sides hurt.

That's hilarious. :P

Fortunately I had no witnesses. Everyone's out at a party.

A party sounds like fun. Then again so does a cooking marathon.

Champagne Snow Showers, right?

I was confused for a minute, because over here mimosa is a flower, and I was thinking 'the hell? it smells of oranges, champagne and brandy!' and then I remembered that y'all call buck's fizz (champagne and orange juice) mimosa, so that's probably what you meant.

My favourite shower jelly is Sweetie Pie, with fresh cherries in. Mmmm.

Champagne Snow Showers -- exactly. Yes.

Haven't tried Sweetie Pie, but I'll keep it in mind. They sent me a sample of The Joy of Jelly. Hated it at first -- cloyingly sweet -- but then I used the tiniest bit and fell in love. So many Lush products behave that way. I've learned to use small amounts of many.

Here's what I have/have tried so far:

Wiccy Magic Muscle Massage Bar -- favorite Lush product
Amazonian Massage Bar - don't like it, but I bought it at the store where the scents around it may have contaminated it. Not sure. I may shave off the outside to see if it's better underneath
Bath Bombs: Black Pearl and Butterball - both smell nice, but I haven't used them yet
Sunny Side for daughter - she loved it
Trichomania Shampoo Bar - smells good in daughter's hair, but she won't let me near to try on my own
Jungle Hair Conditioner - same story
Dream Cream - good for winter dry skin
Ice Blue Soap - sample I'll have to buy. Fell in love.

This Lush mania is all your doing, my Lush-evangelist friend. ;)

Oh, I *love* Joy of Jelly. Jasmine is such a powerful (and expensive!) oil - you're right, you really don't need much of it.

Amazonian is a weird one - it's really made mor for its size than anything else, as the other massge bars are pretty small. But once you have it on - like you said in your recent post, it makes all the difference to have the product actually on your skin.

Sunny Side makes me spend forever in the bath because the glitter moves with the hot water currents and it's so pretty!

And Dream Cream is pretty much my favourite thing ever. I have one in my room, one in my bag, one in the car, and one at Omni's. I cannot be without it! It solves all manner of ills - eczema, bites, heat rash, allergic reaction - I love it. *evangelises some more*

The Amazonian revelation came when I used it on my eczema and dry feet -- areas upon which I wouldn't normally use a "luxury" product like the Wiccy bar. My Dream Cream was upstairs, I was downstairs, and I didn't think I liked Amazonian so it wouldn't be a big deal to use it on these areas. Wow. Same instant relaxing sensation on my feet and same instant soothing sensation on my eczema. And then the transformation of the smell as it met my body chemistry.

It's almost a waste to have used it this way. I won't want it on the rest of my body now. But now I know I like it, so actually not a waste at all. :)

Cooking.

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