M. Suzanne Terry

Today marks the end of Week One (Keep) of my Getting It Together summer project.

The Food:

The three planned recipes for the week were Mom’s chicken salad, black bean and pepper fajitas (vegan), and ratatouille (farmers’ market).  Two of the three actually happened.

Until very recently, I didn’t have a chicken salad recipe, because until very recently, I hated mayonnaise. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.  Apparently.  My brand new favorite way to make chicken salad is with rotisserie chicken – which is 1) almost as inexpensive, 2) far less disgusting, and 3) way less work than roasting my own – with grapes, apples, dried cranberries, celery, pepper, and two parts mayo to one part mustard.

For the vegans in the audience, this recipe is also delicious if you sub Vegenaise  for the mayo and chopped up Chik’n nuggets (I think they’re made by Boca?) for the chicken. This also makes the expensive faux chicken nuggets go further, which makes my bank account happy.

The chicken salad that I grew up eating, however, is simpler.  For my mom’s recipe, I used one chicken breast (baked and chopped into pieces), two boiled eggs, one half cup of mayo, and a couple of spoonfuls of mustard.  Mom usually seasons with just salt and pepper, but I added a little parsley, basil, and oregano. It’s not the healthiest meal, but I got five sandwiches out of it, making it one of the least expensive meals I’ve had in a while.  Throw a few carrot sticks or an apple on the side, and you have a nice lunch.

The vegan  recipe I managed was black bean and pepper fajitas. In a skillet, I sauteed some onions and garlic.  Then I added cumin, roasted red peppers, and black beans.  I let it all cook together for a while (about 15 minutes on medium low).  Then I spooned the mixture into some tortillas, spritzed it with lime juice, and that was it.  It could not have been easier. It was good the first time, but the leftovers – after everything had hung out and marinated in the fridge overnight – were amazing.

The ratatouille will have to wait for a week when I actually make it to the farmers’ market.  Turns out, it’s hard to get inspired by the farmers’ market when you don’t go.  Ahem.

I totally forgot about making bread.  I almost threw together some beer bread today, just so I could say that I made bread this week. But the plan was to make baguettes to go with the ratatouille…and neither of those things happened. I bought a day-old (i.e., half-price) loaf of sourdough at Ravelin.  That’s…not even close to the same thing, but at least I didn’t pay full price?

The Home:

I called this week Keep because “maintain” sounds so boring.  Maintaining is going about my workaday life, just slugging along.  It reeks of stagnation. Keep, on the other hand, sounds more nurturing.  I’m keeping a home.  I’m keeping my space livable.

 My cute coffee nook

You might be thinking, “What does it matter what you call it?  Just do it.” But that’s what I learned this week – it matters to me.  In fact, how I view this habit might just be the primary determinant of whether I keep doing it after summer’s over or go back to the way things have been.

Some things I learned this week:

• Fifteen minutes hardly feels like any time at all.  I was surprised by how quickly it went by every day. The daily fifteen minutes in the kitchen was usually over by the time supper had finished cooking, so that didn’t seem like a big deal either.
• I can do a lot in fifteen minutes.  I wanted to see if such a small amount of time would make any difference, and I also wanted to avoid getting burned out on my first week, so I stuck to the time limit pretty rigidly for this first round.  After only a quarter of an hour in every major area in the apartment, it looks ten times better than it did last week. I definitely cleaned up more than I messed up.
• I don’t feel like I’ve spent any time cleaning this week.  This is the big one.  I am very protective of my schedule. If something seems like it’s going to take a lot of time, particularly long-term, I’m unlikely to stick to it. This even translates to people. The first sign that I’m really into a guy? When I don’t mind that he takes up a lot of my free time. So it’s important for a new habit to fit easily into the schedule without upsetting my daily flow.
• In reality, I have spent a lot of time cleaning this week.  I have spent a collective three hours cleaning and organizing, which is about two and a half hours more than I usually spend.  But dividing the time up in a day-to-day process takes away the feeling that it’s some grand imposition, and that’s going to be what makes this new habit stick.

Overall, I am pleased with the week.  Now onto Week Two.