Head Rehab

As many of you know, my husband and I live on a sailboat. The last 3 months, though, we have been house sitting at one place and dog sitting at another...it's about time to get back to the boat! While we've been on land we've used the opportunity to rehab our bathroom, also known as the Aft Head. (As opposed to the Forward Head- we actually do have 2 bathrooms on the boat!)

I am an artist and I work in glass, so we thought it would be appropriate to do a glass mosaic on the countertop. It took a LONG time to fit all the right pieces together...not to mention adhering and grouting...


The walls were kind of a band-aid color, and I really wanted to them paint cobalt to match the glass. T was hesitant..."don't darker colors make a space look smaller?" Well, the space is literally 3 feet by 4 feet, so we really aren't fooling anyone! Yes, our bathroom is 3 feet by 4 feet.

T has a little bit of wood work to finish up still, and a second coat of a neutral color in the bottom half, but so far a great improvement! Here's the before, bathroom totally stripped:


And after, almost finished!

Anyway, we went over budget this week for the first time in weeks! We spent $120.30, but the budget is $105/week, or $15/day. Monday was ravioli and ginger soup, Tuesday we had a pizza, Wednesday was soup and salad, Thursday was fish tacos (T caught a huge permit!), Friday some friends too us out to dinner to thank us for dog sitting. I had lamb lolipops, which were wrapped in a puff pastry and really delicious. Saturday, T made a deconstructed stuffed cabbage dish, and Sunday I made a Moroccan vegetable stew. The new budget week started yesterday, and I made a shepherd's pie with a side of beets and only spent $5, so the week starts out well!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Octopus Brains

Well...that's one more thing that I don't need to try twice! Husband and I went out for happy hour a few days ago to our favorite restaurant, Craig and Sally's. They have great wines and a menu that changes everyday, but we like to sit at the bar and order tapas (which also change everyday). We ordered a couple different plates: chicken/pork pate with dijon mustard on a baguette, brie on crostini with honey and guava jelly, meatloaf sliders, and octopus salad.

Oh, the octopus salad. The bartender warned that it might be a little...intimidating...but we were game. I think I was expecting some sore of salad with rings of octopus legs, sort of like a calamari. What we got was a mound of bright red mini octopus. I sliced the legs off one for my first taste...as T put it, "rubber bands covered in hoisin sauce"...I thought the taste and texture was ok, but I couldn't get over what it looked like. Whole, two to three inch long, octopuses! My next bite was the round, grape-shape, which even though T reminded me is the body and not the head, I couldn't get "brain" out of my brain. I bit into it and the braininess squished around my tongue and that was it for me!

On a less adventurous note, we did great on the budget this week, mostly because I bought a whole chicken and we had that twice for dinner and twice for lunches. Buying the chicken whole costs about $6.50, and if I buy just a boneless breast it is about $5. On the boat, our fridge is not big enough to hold a whole chicken, but we are still house sitting this week. I spent $56.86 this week, so $48.14 into vacation fund!

Menu this week: Monday was a big salad and baked potatoes, Tuesday was steak with a salad and stuffed mushroooms, Wednesday was falafel with tomato soup, Thursday was Brick Chicken, a recipe from Bon Appetite that has become my new favorite. You remove the backbone so that it lays flat,

then cook it 45-60 at about 400 with a weight on it. You are supposed to use a brick wrapped in foil. Last time I used rocks, and this time I used a very heavy glass pan with a cast iron pan inside of it.
It is falling-off-the-bone tender when finished! It's cooked with a rub of grapeseed oil, lemon, and rosemary, but anything you used would be good.

Anyway, Friday was the octopus night (T paid so this does not come off my budget), Saturday was chicken wraps with tomato soup, and Sunday was stuffed squash with soup and salad.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Mahi Mahi Mahi

Yep! We had one BIG fish three times this week! Husband caught a gorgeous Mahi Mahi earlier in the week and we were able to get two dinners and a brunch out of it. We were also given an avocado from a neighbor's tree that was gigantic...we had avocado with almost every meal!

Quick note about the fish- I do not eat a lot of fish as I got fish poisoning a couple times in the last few years. I don't think I had the very severe ciguatera, which can be fatal...but it was bad enough. I have also heard that if you are poisoned by one type, say snapper, you can eat snapper again and your body thinks it's poisoned even if it's not! So, very hesitant on the fish eating. But since T caught this himself out in very deep water (reef fish tend to be more dangerous), I decided to brave it. And it was really good fish.

Monday was avocado tacos with black beans and rice, T added fish to his. Tuesday was avocado salad and sashimi mahi (raw sushi style), but I admit I couldn't get past the texture and spit mine out over the balcony. Wednesday was spinach salad with turkey bacon, tons of veggies, and avocado, of course! Thursday I made my very favorite Tofu Parmigiana from AR. Friday was mixed vegetable quesadillas, and Saturday was fish again. T grilled it with a black bean garlic sauce and we had steamed broccoli and peanut satay. Sunday brunch was one of T's favorites, fish and eggs. We had run out of stove propane so the fish was grilled and I made microwave scrambled eggs.

If you've never tried eggs in the microwave, they are very fluffy and very easy. Scramble up your eggs in a microwave safe bowl, add a splash of water and a pat of butter. Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring the cooked edges in to the middle. I did 5 eggs and it took about 4 minutes total.

Sunday night I made turkey burgers sans buns, along with a broccoili pasta salad. Overall, a pretty healthy week and I only spent $69, so $36 into vacation fund!

Hope everyone has a great week!