Day 38 - One Perk, One Drawback

Last night we discovered an unexpected perk to our little experiment. Because all convenience foods are off limits, we have to plan meals in advance and I tend to plan meals that will result in extra servings as leftovers are this year's "convenience foods." Last night I had planned to make the mushroom & fennel dusted pork roast, which made it possible to have some friends stay for dinner. The impromptu dinner party was great fun AND to make it even better, Andy found a legal chocolate martini!

For some reason, alcoholic drinks don't have to list ingredients, so we've been left to researching liqueurs and beverages on the internet. Andy did some searching on Kahlua, and found only one questionable ingredient, "cane spirits." A little more research discovered that "cane spirits" would be "rum" in most of the world, which is acceptable. So last night we had chocolate martinis with 1/2 vodka and 1/2 Kahlua. YAY!!!!!! A "legal" chocolate martini will make entertaining SO much easier!

Today on the other hand, I was out running errands just before noon and in other circumstances, I would have called Andy and said I would pick up something for lunch. Today I couldn't think of a single thing I could pick up that would be allowable. So I came home and dug out a jar of the Indonesian Satay Sauce that I canned this summer and which we hadn't yet figured out what to do with, and made a chicken/rice/vegetable stir fry using the sauce.It wasn't bad, really, though I don't think this is the sauce's intended use or anything. Still, we're now thrilled when my experiments don't turn out green.

Tonight Andy is trying a baked brown rice something or other with roasted red peppers. We're assuming the odds of it being green aren't all that high, either, but you never know around here.......