Thai Basil + Sweet Chili Tofu

When I cook, it is completely made up.  What I mean is, when I cook I hate to use recipes.  I prefer to simply tweak something until I like it.  For many months now (6+) I have made a point to cook freezable meals for Tony and me to take with us to work and school.  My favorite one to make is some sort of grain or pasta with stir fried tofu, veggies, and a spicy sauce called Thai Basil + Sweet Chili.

Start with a package of Extra Firm Tofu.  Slice the block of tofu in half and cube it.

In a tablespoon of olive oil, stir fry the cubed tofu until brown (will take longer than you might think).

While the tofu is stir-frying, slice an entire zucchini and set aside.

When the tofu is finished cooking, add another tablespoon of olive oil to the same pan and add the zucchini.  Stir fry the zucchini until it's somewhat translucent and starting to brown.

While the above is happening, cook the pasta of your choice (shown here is whole wheat penne) per the package's instructions and set aside.

After the zucchini is cooked, spray the pan with Pam and quickly cook a splash or two of Egg Beaters (just scramble them) and set aside.

After all ingredients have been separately prepared, combine all in the same skillet and add the sauce.  Turn the burner off and stir everything together.

Separate the meal into multiple microwavable containers and let cool.  Then put them in the freezer and you have meals for the week!

The Thai Basil + Sweet Chili Sauce from Passage to Thailand is available at select Publix grocery stores.  I have never seen it at Bi-Lo.  It's in the Indian/Thai section.  This meal is spicy and is wonderfully delicious!

I'm back!

Let's see... it's been 21 months since we left Louisiana for our current adventure - living in Upstate South Carolina while Tony pursues a Ph.D. from Clemson University in Planning, Design, and the Built Environment.  The past (almost) two years have FLOWN by if you ask me, while some things seem like they happened very long ago.  So why, you ask, haven't I been blogging this whole time, since we've been doing so many things?  Well, we live with his grandparents and there is no internet at their house.  That is until a few weeks ago when I acquired the Verizon Wireless Fivespot:

And, voila!, we have internet now!  Well truly we have internet wherever we have Verizon signal!  Hooray!

So I've decided, since I do have some things that I am involved in that are interesting and having a blog to contain all of the websites that I want to remind myself to check, and that links to my friends who have blogs, here I am once again.

Hopefully this will become a regular hobby... we shall see!

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I'm doing a lot of cleaning up around the house today and I'm thinking about taking Remy on a little walk on the Swamp Rabbit Trail.  Stay tuned for an update on that :)

Love.

Downtown Loft?

So I found out today about a loft for rent in downtown Anderson. It is located on E. Benson Street, just above a shoe store called Caton's. It looks perfect, but we are waiting to hear about what it looks like on the inside - or rather to see pictures for ourselves...

Here is what it looks like on the outside, from Google's amazing Street View feature:

I hope this works out. It would be so great! The total of two leads that I currently have for jobs are both located in Anderson. For my Louisiana friends out there, Anderson is located about as far away as Lutcher is from our house here, Tony says. Between Lutcher and LaPlace apparently :) Does that even explain anything? Haha.

I will post an update of course as soon as I have something to update, but for now this is as close as we've come to finding our next home.

Love.

Stained Glass

My good friend Jen and I participated in a stained glass class that our friend Danny taught at First United Methodist here in BR. It was a very intense class, only 4 weeks long. Danny had a few patterns for us to pick from but I ended up designing my own pattern. It ended up being a fleur-de-lis with a grid behind it. I learned my lesson from a few of the tiny pieces but all in all I was really happy with it.

My pattern!

My piece soldered but not yet framed.

Each piece is numbered the whole time so we don't lose track of where it goes on the pattern.

Finished piece!!!

Here it is in the sun. I love it!

I think Jen's cross is going to be beautiful in the sun :)

Adam came to NOLA!!!

Our dear friend Adam Heieck from Clemson came to New Orleans this past weekend from California for a conference. We were able to pick him up from the airport around 8:00pm on Saturday. We made reservations to eat at Cochon (www.cochonrestaurant.com) in the Warehouse District at 9:00pm. It was delicious. We introduced Adam to fried alligator which he loved, and we all had something yummy. Then we moved on to the French Quarter. We parked right by Jackson Square so he could see all of the sights as we walked to Bourbon Street. Any first timer to New Orleans has to get a hurricane from Pat O'Brien's and walk around the streets with it. My favorite part about the hurricanes is the rum-soaked cherry and I didn't get any in mine :( Should have stolen Tony's! Below is a picture of Tony and Adam's hurricanes resting while they...

...ate pizza by the slice in the tiny little space between two buildings on Bourbon :)

No they are not drunk, they are just smiling happily and silly. Although I suppose it looks that way...

We had such a great time that Tony actually went back the next day and they went to a Hornets game that night. We're so glad you came, Adam!!!

Moving

At last the long awaited update have arrived. At the end of May/beginning of June, Tony, Remy, and I will be moving home to Upstate South Carolina!!! (For my Louisiana friends, yes, that is what we call the area...) Tony is going to be starting in August at Clemson working on a Ph.D. in Planning, Design, and the Built Environment. We don't yet know where I will be working or where we will be living. All we know is that we're going and we know those things will all work out. In the interim, we have his grandparents and my Mom to stay with for as long as we need to. Now, ideally this wouldn't necessarily be the case because we will be moving some furniture of course and I have no idea what we would do with it for more than two or three days in the trailer and truck bed. Either way - SC here we come.

That being said - saying goodbye to Louisiana is going to be harder than any of us has thought up to this point. I have had an incredible 4 years here. I have made some lifelong friends, that's for sure. Tony has too, and we have together. Remy even has a best buddy Calvin who is moving to New Hampshire this weekend for good :( So I guess it's Remy who will be sad first! He can tell Mommy and Daddy how to cope with it when our time comes.

I'm not going to write anything more about moving right now. I'm going to spend the next few posts updating on a few things we have been doing around Louisiana over the past little while.

Love.

A New Look

OUR blog now has a new look. I have decided to start blogging again, because I have a reason to. More on that later and NO I'm not pregnant... :)

Until I get a chance to do it, hopefully tonight at home or Wednesday night at home, enjoy the new blog layout.

Love.