Polish Post: OPI Banana Bandanna + Weekend Plans

Despite the fact that the weather is calling for thunderstorms for the next 2-3 days, I wanted my nails to be cheery and bright. I wound up choosing Banana Bandanna (which it turns out IS the correct spelling of that word. The more you know.) by OPI for my fingers and Ahoy! by China Glaze for my toes. While I'm fairly certain that no more than 3 people read this blog and they all have very healthy attitudes toward feet, I'm hesitant to post a picture of my toes on the internet, because, well, you know. The internet has probably led to an amazing boost in the quality of life for those who are a little too into feet. Anyway, here are my nails.


There are several indicators that this was an early polish purchase for me. First, it is an OPI polish. Because OPI polishes run $8-9 per bottle and are almost always lacking in the quality I would expect for that price (China Glaze is about $5 and is invariably much better quality), I tend to pass on OPIs unless the color is outstanding. Second, I have gotten much better at knowing which polishes will or won't be sheer just by looking at the bottle, and I avoid sheer polishes. Still, I chose this polish over the similarly colored China Glaze Lemon Fizz for two reasons:

1. Lemon Fizz reacts in a weird way with my top coat of choice. After a few days, the tips of my nails darken to a pale orange giving an undesired, though not altogether unappealing, ombré effect. Side note, why does spell check refuse to believe ombré is a real word?
2. I'm trying to work through all of my unworn polishes and I'm fairly certain I haven't done a full manicure with this.

I like that this shade is a little warmer than Lemon Fizz but the formula is horrible. It's runny, streaky and takes at least 4 coats to reach opacity. Three coats is pretty much my limit. Overall, I like the color for spring but I don't know how often I'll reach for this polish.

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In other news, the weekend is upon us and Steven and I have exciting plans. The River Run Film Festival is in town for the next week and tonight is the big kick off. Rather than attending that, Steven and I will likely go to Barnes and Noble for Tina Fey's new book and maybe stop at the grocery store. But! We are going to see two things on Saturday. First is a compilation of animated shorts and then later that evening we're seeing Meek's Cutoff. Look at me, immersing myself in local cultural activities.

Our other big plan for the weekend is making pickles. Do you like pickles? I sure do. It's hard not to like a tart, vinegar-y incarnation of one of my favorite vegetables. Steven and I made two jars of pickles last week and we have eaten all of them already. The brine is ridiculously simple to make and discounting the fresh cucumbers, you likely have all the necessary ingredients in your kitchen. The hardest part of the whole thing is the 2 day waiting period in which you are forced to look at your pickles every time you open the refrigerator, knowing you can't eat them yet. Here's how to make approximately 2 jars of pickles:

You will need:
3 cups water
8 tablespoons vinegar (I used cider vinegar)
2 tablespoons kosher salt
Garlic
Dill
Coriander seeds
Pickling cucumbers (I imagine you can also use regular cucumbers, but they will probably need to be cut in half)

Combine the water, vinegar, and salt in a pitcher or bowl, making sure to mix everything well. Slice the cucumbers according to preference. Spears, halves, chips. Do you, baby. Place the cucumbers in the jars with a good amount of garlic, dill and coriander seeds. No specific amount. That's why I like this recipe, it's so free form! Pour some brine into each jar until it is full. Put the lid on the jars (duh) and shake to combine everything. Refrigerate for 2 days before eating. Steven made sure to turn the jars from time to time to compensate for the seasoning falling to the bottom. This may or may not be necessary.

Voila! You have pickles that are tastier than the ones at the grocery store, and they only contain ingredients that you can pronounce.

Party of two

When "The Office" came back from winter hiatus, Pam tried to foster a happy office environment by starting a New Year's Resolutions chart. Andy, who is routinely spurning by romantic interests, resolves to master cooking for one. After my mental chuckles subsided, I thought to myself, "Damn, too true." The world (at least the world of groceries) seems designed for families of four, and cooking for one or, in my case, two is a challenge.

Last week I made Pineapple Salsa Chicken for dinner (should that be capitalized, as it is the title of a recipe? Who knows) and I had to cut the recipe down from 6 servings to 2. There were problems from the get go, as I didn't have the requisite slow cooker, but I felt confident after googling some conversion times. I wound up using 2 chicken breasts, figuring that there were 2 of us so a breast a piece sounded fair (har har har). Not so. We ate no fewer than 3 separate meals from those 2 pineapple-d salsa-ed chicken breasts, and it could have been more had we not been desperate to finish it off in the third sitting.*

That said, I'm working on it. On Friday we ate our first meal in which nothing needed to be put in Rubbermaids and stuck in the refrigerator. Oddly enough, it was meatloaf. I have a bit of a thing with meatloaf. As a child, I ate it happily, devouring meaty slices on a bi or tri-weekly basis. Then recently I became seriously grossed out about it, and the fact that it was literally a loaf of meat. Just a ball of ground up beef. I am grimacing as I type this, by the way. Anyway, I saw this Nigella recipe online and it came highly reviewed, so I thought I would take a chance.

• 1 lb sausage meat (I went with sweet Italian)
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 C quick-cooking oats, not instant oatmeal
• 1/3 C A.1. steak sauce (or store brand, you know, whatever)
  
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 t Worcestershire sauce
• 1 t kosher salt or 1/2 t table salt

Preheat the oven to 400. Combine all of the above in a bowl, mixing really well with your hands or a fork. Divide the mixture into 12 balls, then shape them into mini loaves. Set the mini meat loaves on a foil-lined baking sheet with a little space between them. Cook for 30 minutes.

I cut the recipe in half, and wound up making four mini meatloaves.

While those were in the oven, I made some roasted corn and a brown rice medley from Trader Joe's to go with it. And, voila! A perfectly portioned meal for two.

The mini loaves were flavorful, moist, and supremely tasty. Steven said that, for whatever reason, there is something much more appealing about eating a mini (heart shaped) loaf than a slice, and I think I agree.

In non food related news, I went to Sally Beauty Supply yesterday. I had run out of base coat and the polishes that I have been wearing lately started to peel after maybe 2 days of wear. Unacceptable. So I purchased Orly Bonder, which is a rather unappealing shade of orange in the bottle but I can assure you it applies clear. My bottle of Seche Vite had also gotten rather thick (such are the perils of using an ultra fast drying top coat) and I noticed a coupon entitling the purchaser of a bottle of Seche Vite to a free China Glaze nail polish. Score. I scanned the racks before narrowing it down to "Secret Peri-winkle," which looks just like you might think, or "Unplugged," a bronzy, rosy, brown shade. Here is what I chose:

It's brighter than it looks in the picture, and I really love it. I have picked up this color dozens of times but always put it back because I felt like I owned something similar. Wrong. I have nothing that sits right in the middle of blue and purple. The ultimate blurple polish. All in all, a very successful trip to the store.

* All complaining aside, the chicken was very delicious and the leftovers made excellent quesadillas.