Book: The reviews for “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” by Marie Kondo are quite amusing. Here are the major points of the book. I like how they are highlighted in bold. That way I can just read the bold font and skip over the rest 🙂
Let’s start with one of the funniest lines. The rest isn’t too bad. But page 70 is where she really gets me: “If you are a woman, try wearing something elegant as nightwear. The worst thing you can do is to wear a sloppy sweat suit.”
Oh, and make sure you don’t “ball up your socks.” They need to rest and breathe. Seriously. I couldn’t make this stuff up myself. Seriously, the book has some good points. Here are some from the first half:
page 16: “If you tidy up in one shot, rather than little by little, you can dramatically change your mind-set.” (I do agree with this one… tackle it once and get ‘er done. Otherwise it feels like I always have something left to do.)
page 22: “A booby trap lies within the term ‘storage’.” (I thought this was interesting. Anyway, it is the irony of buying and obtaining more stuff (organizing storage) to store more stuff. Not that it is wrong to store things. But I like the reflection and the thought process behind whether it is important to keep it to begin with.)
page 23: “Putting things away creates the illusion that the clutter problem has been solved.” Hmmm…
page 25: “Tidying up by location is a fatal mistake.” (Again with doing it in one shot, you don’t have to buy things you couldn’t find because they were in another location.)
page 41: “…we should choose what we want to keep instead of choosing what we want to get rid of.” (Ahh, the priorities game…Does this apply to family and friends? Ha ha. Just kidding!)
Check out this workshop!! There are few that I would LOVE everything in it and this is one of them. It is a Wildtree Freezer Meal Workshop. I provide the shopping list, the labels for the bags, extra ingredients and the kitchen. You purchase the food bundle and get ready to party! I used to do freezer workshops and loved them, but I would have loved it even more to take home some of the extra ingredients which you get to do here. Email me or Facebook on how to get on board. If you don’t live in the area – that is fine! I send the bundles out all the time and email you all of the recipes, step by step shopping lists, and workshop checklist for your freezer full of meals.
Which reminds me the kids are going to school soon. I’m going to miss my buddy 🙁 At least we will have some meals ready to go!
Recipe: This is another weeknight recipe from Food Network Magazine (Jan/Feb. 2014). It is paired with BBQ chicken or taste great all on its own. The cauliflower used is 3 cups or 8 ounces – I bought a whole head of cauliflower and used half of it. The pasta is a typical elbow macaroni, but you could substitute your own favorite shape or even a gluten free variety. Trader Joe’s carries a brown rice and quinoa pasta.
- 6 oz. elbow macaroni (1 and ¾ cups)
- 3 cups chopped cauliflower florets (about 8 oz/half a head)
- 1 cup low fat milk
- 1 and ½ cups shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese
- 1 Tb. grated Parmesan cheese
- In a large pot, on medium high heat boil the milk and cauliflower together.
- Put on the lid, turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 8 minutes. The cauliflower should be tender and a fork should pierce through it easily.
- Put everything in the pot into a blender or food processor and turn it on until the mixture is smooth. Pour back into the pot and add only 1 and ¼ cup of the cheddar and all the Parmesan cheese.
- While the sauce is cooking: In a medium pot, boil some lightly salted water. Add pasta and cook 6-7 minutes (or what the package says). Keep about ½ cup of pasta water and drain the rest.
- Add cooked pasta to the cheese sauce you made. Add a little of the reserved pasta water to the sauce or as much or little as needed to make the sauce to how thick you want it. Heat through over low heat. Top with the rest of the cheddar cheese.
Recipe from Food Network Magazine Jan/Feb 2014
The hubby and kiddos all ate it. I try to tell them about halfway through what is in it because I’m mean like that. Plus, I do offer them regular cauliflower when we have it. They don’t like cauliflower roasted/steamed/cooked/raw, but we’ll keep trying. I don’t agree with”hiding” vegetables in kids’ food for every meal, but this added interesting flavor and texture. Plus, I don’t need to cook a separate vegetable because it is already in the side dish! Two for one! Woot woot!
