Amateur Malcontent

INGREDIENTS/DIRECTIONS

For the crust:
2 cups cooked brown rice
1/4-1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese (original recipe used cheddar, but I think parmesan works better)
1 egg
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 450. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, then transfer to a greased pie pan and pat into and up the sides. Place in oven and cook 7-10 minutes until golden and egg has set. Set aside to wait for filling and cool down. Turn oven down to 375.

For the filling:
2 Tablespoons butter
1 large onion, sliced
3 large handfuls of fresh spinach leaves
1 large broccoli floret, chopped
1/2-3/4 cup grated smoked cheddar
salt to taste
pepper to taste
Italian seasoning to taste
4 large eggs (I used 2 whole eggs and 2 egg whites)
3/4 cup milk

In a large skillet, put in butter and sliced onions, a pinch of salt and cook until they are starting to caramelize and turn golden, about 20-30 minutes. Add the broccoli florets, a little more salt, and continue cooking until broccoli is tender. Add the fresh spinach, a little more salt, pepper to taste and continue cooking until spinach has completely wilted. Remove from heat and let veggies cool down a bit. Mix in grated smoked cheddar.

In a bowl, beat eggs and milk together until well mixed, adding salt and pepper and Italian seasoning.

Take the cooled crust, put the veggie cheese mixture into it, then pour the egg and milk mixture over it. Place in the 375 oven and cook for about 40-45 minutes, or until egg has set and top is light golden.  Remove and let cool down a bit before slicing into it and eating.

So Ryan had a craving for donut holes a little earlier, and I was feeling well enough to accompany him to the grocery store (Because if he doesn’t have someone there to question his purchases, he winds up coming home with 20lbs of meat.  Or a giant sheet cake that feeds 40 people. The fact that we were able to walk out with half a small round of cake tonight is what I consider huge progress!). there’s nothing too special about me feeling better, I mean my eyes still look awful—I look like I have smoked fatal amounts* of pot, but at least they’re not also producing disgusting goop like they were yesterday—but wearing glasses and not looking people in the eye** help with that.

But where was I? Oh yeah, so we went to the store together to get some donut holes and stuff to make salads. He parks the car, we get out and walk into the entrance area of the store. For some reason I turn as he walks into the store and I see his reflection on the big glass windows and my brain tells me that he’s actually walking outside. So I wait. And I watch him appear to walk up to another car and stand next to it. I think to myself “Is he talking to some strange ladies or something??” and I walk out the glass doors to see what’s going on. When I didn’t actually see him outside at all, I was super confused. I walked back inside and turned around. I saw him in the glass again and then all of a sudden I realized it was just his reflection and that he had actually walked inside the store and had been standing there staring at me the entire time, wondering what the hell I was doing! I made him wait until we were past the cashier before I told him what had happened because I was so embarrassed!

*I know there’s no real fatal amount, that’s my point!

**Which feels shifty to me, but it just can’t be helped right now. I’m really not thinking about creating creepy taxidermy exhibits, I swear!

There’s so much for me to look forward to this year, so I was really excited to start 2013.  There’s the whole award season (Super Bowl, Grammys, Oscars, etc), I started going to Knit Night again, which means once it gets warm enough I’ll be enjoying knitting in the rose garden at Manito Park with a bunch of super cool ladies, plans to visit my parents in Eugene, awesome plans for ToadWorks, plus I turn 40 in June.

Three weeks into my new year, I got hit with what was probably a severe cold or maybe the flu. Since I hadn’t been that sick in 7 years, I was completely taken off guard. I had no medicines in my cabinet, no tissues, nothing. I didn’t even remember how to treat any of my symptoms! But with the internet’s help and several trips to various stores, I was able to stock up on tissues with lotion (the only way to go if you want to avoid a red, crusty, dried out tender nose area), medicines, and oranges even though I felt weird for buying stuff I thought I’d just wind up using once or twice, then throwing out. I was SO wrong.

Fast forward to today, and so far by my calculations, I have now been sick 37% of the first two months of 2013. 37%! My original sickness came back mildly for a few days the second week of February, and then on the 21st of February I was completely taken out with a whole new illness. It was swift, and it cut my legs out from under me in no time. One minute I was feeling great, and an hour later I was wearing a coat to bed, trying to warm myself up and not being successful. Since then, it has turned my head into one giant, pulsing container that leaks fluids and gunk out of just about every orifice. It’s not pretty, it feels terrible, and although I am thankful that I no longer have a high fever or body aches, this sinus, throat, ear (I haven’t had an ear infection since I was a child!) and eye infection can fuck right off about now.  I’m so tired of missing out on cool activities with my friends, of being so frustrated at how awful I feel that I just start crying, and I’m tired of my foggy brain not letting me articulate my complaints properly and coming off as a super cranky, irrational bitch.

The way my symptoms are, I know I won’t feel much better tomorrow, but here’s to hoping that March will be the month I sink back into the happy groove I know is waiting for me in 2013!