I
bought a car!!! Well technically I didn’t
buy it, BakerRisk (my company) bought it.
But hopefully come Thursday it will be mine to drive around. Before I left for the UK, my boss and I had
discussed how I would get around over here.
He brought up the idea of buying a used car and got it approved by all
of the big wigs. Some of you may be
thinking, why on earth do I need a car over here?! Well I don’t need it on a daily basis but it
is nice to have if I want to go places on the weekends. Or if its pouring down rain outside and I don’t
want to walk to the gym. Right now, I have
a rental car from the weekend and it was raining this morning and this
afternoon when I went to the gym so it was quite nice not to be poured on while
walking home.
And
what kind of car you ask…It’s a Voxhaul Corsa.
Im excited that it’s a car you cant get in the US and it’s a pretty
small car which is great for trying to parallel park or getting around on the
narrow roads. Rob (the UK manager) and I
went car searching last week and went to a couple dealerships. The goal was a used car for under £6000. We found out quickly that was harder than it
sounds. We first went to a Ford
dealership and test drove a Ford Fiesta.
Man that thing was pathetic on the inside. It felt so cheap and tinny that I was so
thankful when Rob said he didn’t like it either. We went to the Voxhaul/Chevy dealer next and
found two cute little Corsas. One was a
Silver ’08 with a manual transmission and the second was a sky blue ’07 with a
semi-automatic transmission.
Semi-automatic being it doesn’t have a clutch but you can shift up and
down if you want a more fun or just put it in automatic mode and drive. We test drove the automatic and it seemed
quite nice! After thinking about it, we
figured that less than half of the people that would be coming over here could
drive a manual. Rob gave the approval
and we decided that we would wait until Bill (my boss) came in over the weekend
to get his approval. He came in on
Saturday, gave it a test drive and we bought it Saturday afternoon. I just have to wait for all the paper work to
go through but hopefully I will have a car on Thursday afternoon.
Now
to the next big piece of my life….im going to try to become a vegetarian. When Bill was in town on Saturday, we spent a
good amount of time talking about a new book he read called the China
Study. Its all about eating habits of
the different classes in China. It found
that those who were in poverty had typical diseases associated poverty. People who had minimal funds and lived off
the fruits, grains and vegetables of their land were very healthy, small
amounts of cancer, heart disease, etc.
Finally, people who had loads of
money and could afford all sorts of meats had high levels of cancers and
diseases. I havent read the book yet but
after doing some small research, I have decided to try being a vegetarian. We will
see how long it lasts since I have to make sure I get enough protein in my diet
but im at least going to try it for a week.
I just need to find good vegetarian recipes. If anyone has any suggestions, id love to
hear them!!
I made my first veggie meal tonight and it was pretty good. It had lentils, onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach and an indian dahl sauce. It was pretty good for me making some substituions (didnt have veggie stock so i used water). I did almost kill myself cutting up the red chili peppers since i rubbed my nose and thought my face was going to fall off. Overall, I was pretty impressed with myself though!
Well
that’s it for me for now, im going to go yell at my neighbors to turn down
their bass and then head to bed.
Corn and Quinoa Jambalaya!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! Vegetarianism is an exciting and ambitious undertaking. I was a vegetarian for the entirety of 2009 and not to discourage you, but I am happy to be eating meat again! I recommend keeping eggs, dairy, and fish, otherwise your hair and skin may start to look less than beautiful (trust me). This is my favorite home made vegetarian dinner, now I make it as a side dish. It is pretty flexible, you can add or substitute anything you think might be good (shrimp!), but for the base you'll need:
1/2 - 1 yellow onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 - 2 jalopenos, diced (dont touch your face!!)
1 - 2 celery stalks, chopped
1 - 2 cloves garlic, crushed
2-4 Tb butter or olive oil
1 pack frozen steam fresh sweet yellow corn, cooked in the microwave
2 c quinoa, cooked
Season to taste with:
salt
black pepper
cayenne pepper (or Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning, adds more flavor but also more salt, so go easier on the salt)
parsley, dried or fresh
brown sugar, if desired (complements the corn)
I think that's everything. Saute the onion in the melted butter/oil over med-low heat in a medium sized pot, as much butter as you need to coat ALL veggies during the saute. Start with the onion and cook until they become slightly soft/translucent, then add the celery, cook a little, followed by the green pepper, jalopeno, and garlic. Saute until all the veggies become soft. Add a little of the seasonings to get a base flavor. Add the dried parsley at this time if you are not using fresh. Add the corn (steamed in the microwave already, dont put frozen corn in the pot). Turn the heat way down and stir everything to get a good a coat. Now, cook the quinoa according to the package, it shouldn't take long. If you are using fresh parsley add it right before you stir in the quinoa. As soon as the quinoa is ready just pour it in the pot with the veggies and mix it all up. Season more if you'd like with the salt, pepper, tony's, and sugar. Enjoy! Stay safe!