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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Odds & Ends

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1. I know Valentine's Day was a week and a half ago, but you have to read this story in the St. Louis Riverfront Times Gut Check column....the columnist basically pranked a bunch of fast food restaurants, asking ridiculous questions about making a reservation for her boss and his Valentine. The responses from the poor workers were hilarious!


2. I'm glad my odds & ends posts are totally random because I need to geek out on you for a second and share Mint with you. Ryan and I have a pretty good financial system in that I track the day to day, month to month expenses and he takes care of our long term finances, investments, etc. A few years ago I created my own spreadsheet to capture all of this, but it was kind of a pain to have to enter all of the transactions and add up different areas of the budget. A friend told me about Mint and I finally decided to give it a try....SO MUCH BETTER! You automatically link your various accounts to it so there's no manual entry involved. It manages your budget, emails you when you're over, and has a ton of other super helpful features. I also downloaded the app which I actually prefer to the online interface. 

3. Looking for meatless meals for Lent? I have a huge list of them, but a few of my favorites are creamy vegetable and edamame risotto, grilled fattoush (salad...with bread!), mushrooms, caramelized onions, and spinach over goat cheese polenta, and pesto berry balsamic flatbread with goat cheese (pictured above).

4. Any guesses for tomorrow's Oscars? Normally I could care less, but this year I've seen several of the nominated movies (Les Mis, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, and Argo) so I'm a bit more interested...especially since I liked all of those movies! I have a few guesses for some of the categories (Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor, for example!), but I have no idea which movie will win Best Picture. Anyone have any thoughts?
One Year Ago: Almond & Coconut Macaroon Granola
Two Years Ago: Spicy Chicken Sausage and Vegetable Stew (in the crockpot)