Things I've Been Making

Chicken & Broccoli Casserole
Turned old car key chain into an ornament
Put together a live tiny tree
Fish Tacos
Made a feathery cat toy
Chinese food four course dinner
Sugar Cookies
Earrings
Gift tags
A holiday flower arrangement
Pie
Chocolate Scotcheroos (but I left out the sugar and they were just as good)
Potholders
Sweet Potatoes with Pecans, Goat Cheese, and Celery
An ornament for Nathan's stocking
Orange Oatmeal Bread
Cloth napkins
English Toffee

Ingredients You Probably Don't Have in Your Kitchen But Should

Almonds
Not only are they great to snack on when you just need something crunchy, but they're a tasty addition to pretty much any baked good. Plus, sometimes you can even grind it up really well and add it to flour if you're running a little short for your recipe.

Capers
Capers come in a pickling solution, so they keep practically forever in the refrigerator. Do not make Chicken Picatta without them, and they add a great zing to pasta or potato salads.

Cream
Not only do you never know when you might need to whip up a chocolate ganache, but there's really no substitute for being able to add cream to pasta sauce for an amazing depth of flavor. An unopened carton can last a surprisingly long time (I've managed to keep it for a month at least before, though don't count on that during the summer.)

Dark Chocolate Chips
Like with the cream above, you never know when you might need to whip up a quick batch of ganache to use as frosting, cookie or ice cream topping, or truffle center, not to mention nothing is better in chocolate chip cookies than Ghiradelli's 60% cocoa chocolate chips. Nathan also eats these frozen by the handful, so I try to have them on hand for a quick chocolate fix.

Kosher Salt
Especially during grilling season, I prefer this to sprinkle on grilling meat or seafood because the bigger flakes adhere better and last through the whole cooking process better.

Lemongrass
You really can't make any sauces taste authentically Thai without lemongrass. It also adds a really nice flavor to stir fry, and don't even think about Tom Yum Soup without it. Usually you can find it in the produce section of the grocery store, but luckily we can get it already chopped and frozen from a local Asian grocery store.

Lemons/Limes
Fresh lemon or lime juice is much more flavorful than bottled. There are a ton of ways to use slices, zest, or the juice of lemon or lime. Just to name a few, we throw them in with fish and vegetables on the grill, add them to pitchers of water when we're sitting outside on a hot day, use lemons in Chicken Picatta, and limes with black beans or mango salsa. They keep very well in the fridge so you really just need to use them within a week or two of buying them. (I do have bottled juice as well, but only as a backup if I need more than I can get from the fresh lemons or limes I have on hand except when it comes to lemonade-just use bottled juice and throw in some lemon slices.)

Good Olive Oil
While it is not cheap, there are some things that justify using a really good olive oil. For one, any homemade salad dressing tastes much more amazing with good olive oil. My favorite is hojiblanca, which has a peppery bite to it. Yum!

Fresh Parsley
If you keep it either completely dry (wrapped in paper towels) or with the stems in water, parsley will stay fresh a few weeks. Fresh parsley really makes a difference in everything from lemon vinaigrette to pasta salads, chicken and fish dishes.

Pine nuts
Pine nuts can be pretty expensive, but you don't have to use a lot in any dish. One cup of pine nuts can go a very long way (I store unused pine nuts in the freezer). First of all, you absolutely cannot beat the taste of fresh pesto. There has never been a jar of pesto that tastes even half as good as homemade. It's really easy, and you can freeze it into multiple containers so you have enough for just one meal at a time. (Freezing the pesto doesn't change the taste at all.) Also, pine nuts are really great as a substitute for regular nuts in cookies or toasted and thrown in a salad.

Shallots
There are two dishes we make relatively often that require shallots. One I've mentioned recently, and the other is a citrus salad with a warm vinaigrette from the In the Kitchen with Rosie cookbook. Even if you don't have a go-to recipe that calls for shallots, however, I find myself using them when I make fish or even vegetables like spinach or green beans. They have a slightly sweeter, more delicate flavor than an onion. That difference is really noticable, which is why I don't just use onions instead every time.

Sparkling Water in cans
I've started drinking La Croix instead of soda for those times when I just really need the fizzy burn, and I've noticed how handy it is to have sparkling water on hand for other things. Flavored or unflavored, you can use it to make pretty much every mixed drink tastier. Plus it keeps for practically forever as long as it's unopened. Sometimes I substitute this in for the water in lemonade, and it's delicious. But best yet, Pimm's Cup is my current summer afternoon adult beverage of choice, and you can't make it without it.

Images (via flickr) from left to right, beginning in top left corner:

Roasted California Almonds; Capers; cream is good; Blueberry Papaya Cucumber Juice and Chocolate Cake with Ganache;
kosher salt; Olive oil, lemon, both Golden; Lemongrass Stalks; Olive Oil;
Parsley; Toasted Pine Nuts; Mixed Shallots; La Croix

Get You Through It Mix

 image via the drop

This play list will get you through your next workout or your next bad day. Especially good for pepping you up for projects that you really really don't want to do.

This is the New Year                                              Ian Axel

The Book of Morris Johnson                                    Zee Avi

Such Great Heights                                The Postal Service

Titanium                                            David Guetta feat. Sia

Invincible                                                                OK Go

Stronger                                                          Kanye West

Pursuit of Happiness                                                 Lissie

Shake it Out                                    Florence + the Machine

Mama Said Knock You Out                                   LL Cool J

White Knuckles                                                       OK Go

Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)                    Kelly Clarkson

Bulletproof                                                            La Roux

1901                                                                      Phoenix

Dog Days are Over                          Florence + the Machine

Feeling Good                                                 Nina Simone

Why I Should Never Have a Reality Television Show

I very rarely win my fights with Nathan. No one needs to see that. Least of all me.

I say horrifying things that would make my audience hate me. For example, when I was in college studying abroad in Italy, I was flashed by a man in an alley in Florence one night. I was (justifiably) disturbed. However, I ACTUALLY COMPARED HIS UNWANTED SEXUAL EXHIBITION TO RAPE. Out loud. Yes, I was that girl. I shudder every time I remember those words being let out into the world. Can you imagine if they were actually on tape? And you know they would use that in promos.

I eat entirely too much for television. Not only do I actually eat sandwiches and whole plates of pasta, but I have *gasp* dessert. Sometimes at both lunch and dinner. Not usually at breakfast though.

According to Nathan, I criticize him. All. The. Time. So apparently, I'd look like one of those harpy wives bossing him around and always rolling my eyes and being sarcastic to him. I like imagining that I'm the victim here. I don't need video proof that it's the other way around.

I have been known to smack my cat. But guys, he totally deserved it. He was meowing, and meowing, and meowing, and meowing, and meowing. Still, that would not go over well with PETA, I'm sure.

My sassy gay friends are all 40+ and wouldn't dream of getting into screaming fights with me. They'd rather sit around in the backyard drinking wine and talking about NATO (or DWTS).

I wouldn't dream of paying someone to be my fashion stylist, wig stylist, cat stylist, makeup artist, nanny, cat walker, housekeeper, chauffeur, psychic, pet interpreter, groundskeeper, or husband wrangler (well, I'd consider paying someone to do that last one).

I am a terrible actress. When I was in fourth grade I managed to say my lone line in the class play as "Fish fly in the sky, birds swim in the sea." If someone told me I needed to reenact a conversation I'd had so they could get it on tape, it would be awkward and wooden and...wait, I guess that's not really a deal-breaker for those reality TV shows. Never mind.

Things I Am Really Embarrassed to Admit

I ate 1/3 of a watermelon for lunch last Thursday.

Sometimes Nathan and I talk to our cat about his "mommy" or "daddy," and we are REFERRING TO EACH OTHER.

The other day I watched a homeless woman being evicted from the vestibule of the building across the road. An hour later I checked our vestibule to make sure she hadn't moved into ours.

Once I hit my head on the dryer door so hard that I had to lay down on the floor for awhile until I was sure I wasn't going to pass out.

In my fourth grade spelling bee, I got out in the first round because of the word barracks.

I am guilty of rage tweeting. Over a burrito. (Was going to link to them, but I'm pretty sure I deleted them out of shame.)

I was heckled by a small child hanging out the window of his apartment building during a recent tennis lesson. He was right, my swing did suck.

Once, on a day when I worked from home, I didn't brush my teeth until just before lunchtime.

I have used the phrase "kids today" to complain, in all seriousness, about an intern.

I spent a crazy long time trying to figure out what was wrong with our DVD player before finally realizing that I was trying to play a BluRay disc.

I am knowingly and voluntarily a part of a pyramid scheme.