1000 Awesome Things and my fridge clean out idea

Have any of you read this book?

It is amazing.  It is based on the blog "1000 Awesome Things".  He has since had it published and it rocks! I have one in my bathroom and read a few before bed each night.  They always make me smile :) I highly recommend it.  No brain needed.  No "hard-to-read-must-pay-attention" about it.  My brother was having a rough day a few weeks ago and I read him a few and had him smiling by the end of the conversation.  There is actually a second one on the market now too! As soon as I am done this one? I will be buying it.

Reason I am posting is because you have to read what was posted today.

1000awesomethings

Seriously.  Go read it.  Hilarious and so true.  Anyways, if you need a little pick me up? Go spend a few dollars and smile at least once a day on me!

This weekend is odd.  I will spill the news finally.  We are trying to buy a house and are not sure it will work out for us.  We own a house still in our old city but because I am self employed (yeah!!) it is stinkin hard to get a mortgage these days.  We are renting now and want to own again sooooo bad.  The biggest reason? The duplex we want would be $900 less for the mortgage than what we are paying in rent.  Can we just all note how crazy that is??? We are working with the bank though and should know by Thursday.  We were supposed to know last week but we are still trying to pull it off.

Husband has been gone now for almost a week and I am lonely! One of the things I struggle with when he is gone is eating.  I remember to eat every day but I make some really odd things.  I don't do the soup or toast or cereal thing.  Have you seen my last two posts? 

Yesterday I had:

• Breakfast: WW tortilla with peanut butter and coconut wrapped around a banana and coffee
• Lunch: Salad.  This is one of my favorites.  I made it with less quinoa this time though and butter lettuce instead.  I eat this often.
• Dinner: hash browns and scrambled eggs doused with hot sauce

I also had some water and a couple cups of butter toffee coffee!

So now we are at Easter weekend and I am alone.  I know.  The pity.  Husband might be back late tonight or tomorrow but we won't know until just before he comes home.  This makes me not want to make a big dinner for the holiday.  We might have my in laws here on Sunday but won't know until Sunday morning 2 hours before they arrive.  So I sit with a fridge full of odd things and don't know what to eat! For curiosity sake, here is what is in my fridge.  Not EVERYTHING,  but the main things I could easily see.

• cottage cheese
• cooked quinoa ( I try to keep this cooked and ready to go all the time.  Super easy to throw into salads, soups, eat on its own and is super healthy and filling.  If it is not made in advance? It slows me down when I am hungry and I won't make it)
• left over sauce from the haystacks
• shredded chicken (again, I try to keep this in there most of the time.  For the $8 it costs for an amazing rotisserie chicken at the grocery store, I have about 4 cups of shredded chicken that I can throw into anything! Usually takes 10 minutes to tear apart and get in the fridge but lasts me at least 4 or 5 days.  Or I bag it and freeze it for later)
• veggies galore: lettuce (3 kinds), tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, onions, red onions, cilantro, thyme, red pepper, celery
• black beans rinsed and ready to eat
• corn
• pineapple in two forms
• chicken broth
• 1/2 an avocado
• sour cream
• eggs
• condiments like crazy! Pretty much anything you could ever want to cook with
• tortillas
• pesto
• 15 varieties of cheese.  No joke.  I may have a problem.

And my fridge does not seem full! I tend to not have anything instant in my fridge.  I wrote this list down earlier as a challenge.  Could I come up with something cool out of what is in there? Something unique? So this is what I am thinking.  Keep in mind my brain works in mysterious ways and I have no idea if this will taste good or not.

Take the leftover sauce, add some pesto to it and some more chicken.  Heat it up.  Make mixture of corn and beans and maybe some salsa or cottage cheese even and mix that.  Add an egg.  Layer it in a casserole dish with lasagna noodles.  This could be an interesting mix of Italian and Mexican.  Add some finely sliced red onions and a few kinds of cheese (I actually counted.  Pathetic.  But we love cheese!) and bake it like a lasagna.  I am going to do this.  I will photograph it and let you know how it works out!I also have a jar of green enchilada sauce in there somewhere that I might add to the mix.  Maybe that instead of the pesto? Nah.  I want to try the pesto.

Here's to hoping it tastes amazing! If so? I will add it to my recipe book.  Or just my blog for you guys to try.

I should go though.  I need another cup of amazing coffee and decided to go on the hunt for some boxes today.  Not sure anything is open! But I will look.  We will be moving in the next 3 months anyways to a cheaper place so I may as well start looking into this!