love love LOVE these guys.

Thai Chicken and Vegetables

So, I just finished making this crock pot recipe, and I have to say, it's cooking right now and looks absolutely superb. I got it from a crock pot recipe book, but modified it quite a bit. Here it is:

5 Chicken Drumsticks
1/2 Can coconut milk
Fresh Green Beans
1 bag matchstick carrots
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup salsa
1/2 rough chopped onion
1 1/2 cups extra crunchy peanut butter
Juice from 1/2 lime (about 1 tbsp plus 1 tsp)
2 bags quick cook rice
Scallions

Take your chicken out and place them in a bowl. Pour 1/2 the can of coconut milk over the chicken legs.

Next, while those marinate, mix together 1 cup of peanut butter with the lime juice, soy sauce and salsa. Place the chicken legs in the crock pot, pouring the extra coconut milk over the chicken.

Add your peanut butter/salsa mixture to the crock pot,as well as your chopped onion. Cook 1 hour and 45 minutes on high, or until chicken looks cooked on the outside.

Once the chicken is starting to appear cooked on the outside, add in your green beans, and allow to cook for 30 more minutes.

Next, add your matchstick carrots, and cook until the chicken is completely cooked through- probably about one more hour.

If you want to do this while you're at work and can't be adding things at different times, set the crock pot to low, cook the chicken for 8-9 hours while you're gone, and then once you get home add the veggies and crank it up to high for an hour.

Serve over rice, with fresh scallions on top.

I'll post pictures when I serve it!

Update

They say once you do something for 21 days in a row, it becomes a habit. I don't know who 'they' refers to (there's a really funny Paul Reiser bit about that, actually), but I do know that it seems logical to me. To succeed for almost a whole month at doing something every day would probably form a habit for me.

So, I'm using http://habitforge.com/ to try to form the habit to write in my blog every day.

I'm totally bogged down with lesson planning and grading papers and all of that right now, but I should be able to come up with some little tidbit from my day every day, I would think. We'll see.

When you sign up at Habitforge, you'll be sent an e-mail every day asking you if you did whatever your goal was the previous day. You click yes if you did it, and no if you didn't. And that's that.

Maybe I should also start one for going to the gym...

I'm about to do that now, actually. I've lost 16 pounds in the past couple months, but I've been stalling, and it's because I've not been going to the gym as regularly as I was before. So, here goes!

NYC weekend

Spent this past weekend in NYC, visiting Beth, and it was great.

It's a long hike for me- I travel out of Boston by bus, which is about 5 hours each way with traffic, 4.5 without, but we make the most of the weekend and it's totally worth it.

This weekend, we biked around Governors Island, which is such a strange, intriguing and unique place.







You can rent nice pretty blue bikes for cheapo money (15$ per 2 hours, 25$ for four hours), and bike around the island.


(Me on said pretty blue bike)






The weather was beaut, and there was a nice breeze- biking around an island that looks like downtown Portsmouth (except with a view of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and some mighty big buildings) with the wind in your hair...just awesome!


(Doesn't it look like Portsmouth?)


That night, we had dinner at a cute little cafe called Penelope, and saw Le Cage aux Folles, with Kelsey Grammer, who looked FAB and was singing and dancing and all of that jazz.

Great weekend! :) Trying not to get down on the fact that I watched what I ate and biked 6-7 miles and gained a pound this week :( ... I'm still down 12 total, though, which I have to remember.

My Name is Sam...and I'm a tea addict.

While moving out of my old apartment, I had a shocking revelation. I am addicted to buying tea. I don't even think I'm as addicted to drinking tea as I am to buying it. I mean sure, I drink tea almost every day in the winter and fall months...but I own so much tea it is ridiculous. A filled a whole staples paperbox with tea..and still had more tea left over that didn't fit.

I have flavored teas, black teas, white teas, green teas, herbal teas. Lots of Yogi tea, loose tea from TeaVana... I've got it all.

I definitely have enough tea to last a lifetime.

Still more rain here in Salem. It has rained all day for the past 2 days, and it's not supposed to let up any time soon. 2 out of our 3 main parking lots here on campus are completely flooded- cars were towed today. This is what the main lot looked like today (got this pic from a friend, don't know who the crazy girl is, or who made it)

So yeah. It's a lake. And I'm unhappy. I hate being wet.

Spring bugs me sometimes

I'm happy that it's spring, for sure. We've had some nice weather, there are crocuses in our front yard, and I've already spent a nice day out reading in the sun.

However, springtime makes me uneasy, too.

I hate rain, and it's supposed to rain all week. Rain makes me cranky. I hate having the bottom of my pants wet, and I can't sit through 4 hours of class in my rain boots. It makes me not want to walk to the gym, and all I want to do is curl up on the couch with hot chocolate- and both of these things do not help me toward my weight loss goals.

The rain sucks.

Also, with the rain and nice weather come those lovely friends of mine, the house centipede. I had a house centipede problem last year when I first moved in to my current apartment, and I'd take spiders any day over these suckers.

If you don't understand what all of the fuss is about, watch this and then try to tell me I'm a baby.

These disgusting bugs are fast, they can crawl on walls, and they hang out in the place where you're most vulnerable- the shower.

And they love it when it's warm and wet out. Hopefully I move the hell out of here before they come back.

Also, i have a twitter account now, and I'm trying it out for fun.

www.twitter.com/skliggamon

Ahh what has happened? I abandoned my blog for a while. And I'm doing so again, right now, because I need to go study for a Geology exam.

But, alas! I shall be back more frequently, I hope.

This might turn in to my journal as I keep track of my calories and exercise, as I'm trying to lose 40ish pounds by May.

I'll be bahck!