Quesadillas and a Breakdown

Well I had my first mild freak out yesterday. Trying to complete like "exit counseling" for my federal student loans, I lost my mind, yelled, and may have cried a little bit trying to get the website to work. "You must click on all the tabs and fill out all blanks before you can move to the next section. There is an error on this page." Well, I could not find the error on the page and got myself thoroughly worked up trying to do so. This wasted about an hour of early morning time. Of course, it didn't help seeing all those loan numbers thrown in my face, making a required monthly budget around payments I'd have to make, and having the federal government suggest I get a job that pays around $116,000 a year- oh really? Yeah, no big deal, I was planning on doing that. All of this after I was so proud of myself for getting up at 6:30am and studying early and getting really jacked up on coffee. Turns out, the only problem was that you have to put something besides $0 in the blank for "Monthly Income." Sorry I was trying to be honest, goverment.

Anyway, I got all this figured out eventually after I calmed down. It was a real waste of time though. I finally looked at the Bar Points book that I've been neglecting [at least the part on Contracts] which surveys the important parts of the law and distinguishes NC law. And then I actually did all that the damn syllabus asked me to do: lectures for Real Property, 33 contracts multiple choice questions, and [even after dinner, which is unheard of for me. Who does work after dinner?] I completed a NC essay on contracts [and didn't do half bad, thank God.]

Needless to say, Charlie cooked dinner. He takes instructions very well. These quesadillas were already planned. All I had to help with was the [mini cuisinart's] chopping of the red and yellow bell peppers and onion. He sauteed those and cooked the chicken, as well as some rice and black beans. We each made our own quesadillas to our own preferred specifications once all that was ready. They were really good and relatively healthy [what with the whole grain quesadillas, chicken, black beans, a lack of grease used, and whole grain rice]. I did not make a whole lot of effort with these pics, mostly because I was so hungry. Then, when Charlie let me make mine first and I started taking pictures, he said, "Oh I forgot you had to do all that. I should've gone first." So I was rushed hurried.

Some well-seasoned chicken cooked in a pan with spray olive oil.

Shredded peppers and onions on the right.

Before folding the tortilla.

Many Sauces
From left to right, more of that chipotle-Greek yogurt sauce, Cholula, Gunslinger hot sauce, Walmart brand hot salsa.

Final Meal [plus maybe another half of a quesadilla that I made later] Seriously, not a good picture. Sorry.

 

Then I traded my normal 100-calorie Klondike bar for a Miller Lite. It was a hell of a day.

Pasta Photo Essay

So maybe I didn't make this homemade pasta today, on a Tuesday, after finishing up the Contracts portion of the first few weeks, and finding out I am terrible at remedies and damages and third party beneficiaries... BUT last week, I made these noodles from a frozen ball of dough and took tons of pics. Today I made a sauce and thawed out some really-overdue-for-eating meatballs from a bag. Hey, it can't all be done by hand after a long day of studying.

The finished product, plus a few Instagram effects.

The dough is just all purpose flour and eggs. About 3/4 of a cup of flour per egg. You can add a little water or olive oil if it is too crumbly and dry. The Kitchenaid mixer makes this process a hell of a lot easier. It also makes it simpler if you have a huuge batch of dough and freeze the leftover in balls for later.

Mash the ball of dough semi-flat (you don't even need a rolling pin) and pass it through the machine after you turn it on and make sure it's on the widest setting.

Continue passing the dough through the machine, slowly decreasing the width of the setting [make it thinner].
Eventually it will get hard to manage and you may have to cut the dough in half [if, like me you started with a rather large ball of dough]

Yeah, you MAY have to cut it in half. It can get pretty long.

After running it through the cutting tool on the machine, you have the noodles! Sorry for the blur, zoomed in on the pasta.
Grandma gave me this pasta maker and it is a real gem. And so fun. And easy.

Toss the pasta with flour so it doesn't stick to itself. Let it dry on the counter [or a pan or a plate if you're cleaner than me].
You can then cook it OR freeze it for a while in ziplock bags.
[I'm not sure for how long it lasts in the freezer. You can probably Google it, but after 3 weeks it's still tasted good to me].

Salt your water really well and boil until it tastes right.
Usually no more than 5 minutes when I make my pasta on the thinnest setting, but keep an eye on it.
 

For the sauce this time, I chopped onions and garlic, sauteed them for a while in a combination of butter and olive oil [not much of either! not trying to get fat], then put a finely chopped red bell pepper [food processor fine] in the pan too and cook for a little while longer. I added about a can of petite diced tomatoes or a little more. Normally I would've made the sauce from [more] scratch, but in the interest of weeknight cooking, I added a generic brand sauce in addition to these ingredients [but not too much!]. There might also be some white wine in there. Yeah, there definitely is. Along the way, to keep the sauce from getting too thick and to build the flavors [like Anne Burrell does in her bolognese recipe], I added water and let it reduce several times. I threw in the partially thawed [though already cooked] meatballs to cook in the sauce. At the very end I added some pasta water and let the sauce simmer until it was the right consistency for my liking. Instead of tossing the pasta in the sauce like I would normally do, I just put this concoction on top, mostly for aesthetic purposes of these pictures. Before I ate it, I tossed it around of course. The cheese on top is a three cheese Trader Joe's blend, but clearly there's parmesan in there.

The completed sauce! PS: 3 meatballs = 200 calories [of this brand]. They were pretty huge.

My incredibly staged photo of my bowl of pasta.

Just heaped up there in a mound to make it beautiful.

Like I was only gonna have one meatball...

Not gonna ruin it with your average Parmesan shake cheese.

All in all this was a pretty delicious meal. I wouldn't typically taint homemade pasta with a jarred sauce, but since this pasta is so easy to make now, I don't care as much. The addition of vegetables, lots of seasoning, and wine really helped it out. It was definitely pretty and tasted good to me [and Charlie, but he'd eat anything]. Next time though...