Breaking the habit

When I get a new album, I can't help but listen to it over and over. Which brings me to my title, I need to break that habit. I'm on day 3.25 of listening to the same album and I need to stop before I get sick of it. I just can't help it!

Today was a day, let me tell you. I tried leaving for work early because I needed to take my car to the shop (an ordered part finally came in). Well, my typically quick exit from my wonderful street parking "spot" was not so kind to me. All in all, it took me 20 minutes to get my car out of the freaking ice. I guess there was quite the deep freeze last night...which had then cemented my tires to the rest of the snow/ice on the side of the street. It was a mess...I was incredibly aggravated...sweating...put a big scratch in the car from the shovel...bad start to the day. Luckily, it did get better as the day went on.

Dinner. In my efforts to use all the ingredients that I have purchased for the week, I was forced to think up something creative. I had an extra package of mushrooms that I had planned on putting into the risotto, but decided to just make half. So, my thinking of mushrooms led me to gravy. I was thinking a little mushroom gravy over mashed potatoes...with some other randoms on the side. Maybe a piece of toast to use up the bread before it is a rock. I didn't have any potatoes on hand. Side note: I typically keep whatever I'm going to be using for the week on hand, as I don't like for things to go bad on me. This past week I bought a 3lb bag of Honeycrisp apples (best apples ever!) and that was a stretch for me. I think I should get more familiar with buying in bulk? OK, back to dinner. Since I didn't have potatoes, that led me to the bread that I have leftover. At the end of my wickedly annoying thought process, I decided to make a spinach/mushroom open faced sandwich of sorts. Done.

It was actually kind of decent. I'm not saying that I would make it again...but it served the need for dinner and tomorrow's lunch. Here's what I did:

2T olive oil
1 small onion
4oz wild mushrooms
2 small tomatoes
3oz baby spinach
1T butter (earth balance)
1T flour
1C almond milk (unsweetened)
1/2C water
1t Kosher salt
2t black pepper
1/4t cayenne pepper
bread (toasted)

In a cast iron skillet, add 1T olive oil and saute onions until caramelized. Remove from skillet and add 1T olive oil and saute mushrooms until cooked. Remove from skillet and set aside with onions. In same cast iron skillet, add butter. Add flour and whisk together, making sure the mixture doesn't burn. Slowly add in your milk and water. Add spices. Return onions and mushrooms to mixture and heat through. Remove from heat and add spinach. Let rest until bread is toasted. Scoop over bread and garnish with chopped fresh tomatoes.
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Well, there you have it. Not sure what I'll be cooking up this weekend. I'm making another batch of granola (sans fruit because I have some fresh berries that I was to use in the morning) to add to the batch that I made yesterday. Turns out its a fun snack, so I thought I would start making batches every so often just to make sure I don't run out. I had it for breakfast with a little almond milk and it was tasty!

Later gators.