About my New year's resolution...

There is a post on resourcefulness on moneysavingmom.com that I really like and has everything to do with resourcefulness. Click here to check it out if you are interested.
The Brazilican Learner

The sweet experiment - Resourcefulness resolution

As promised, here is the experiment that won't gross you out.

For my American friends this is probably not something new, but it was to me as a foreigner. Still trying to follow my resolution I came across the ingredients to this cute "acorn" in my cabinets: Nutter butter mini bites, chocolate frosting, Hershey kisses with almonds and chocolate chips... and that is it, only four ingredients!

Here is the recipe for my Brazilian friends: Spread the frosting on the mini cookie (and I wonder how peanut butter or nutella would work) and, on one side press on the Hershey kiss and on the other the chocolate chip! Simple, easy, cute and yummy... way better than the soupy Spam :)

The Brazilican Learner

Eating from the pantry in January - Resourcefulness resolution

Good January, y'all!

Here I am to show you some of my experiments that came from my New Year's Resolution. In case you missed it, read about it here.

So, I thought about my New Year's Principle Resolution and I decided to start in the kitchen in January... by eating from what I already have at hand in the cabinets, freezer, fridge and pantry. So yesterday I searched there and this is what I found:

Cottage Cheese to expire, half a box of Couscous, half a can of Spam (my dad bought it when he was here and ate only half of it), 3 packets of noodle soup mix, one whole wheat tortilla and half a bag of tortilla chips... (the porcupine is there just because he is cute). So, what to do with them?

The noodle soup reminded me of ramen noodles (Miojo for my Brazilian friends) and the cottage cheese of laughing cow cheese wedges (Polenguinho) and I like to eat those together (I know, my husband always tells me about my weird combination with food) so why not cook the soup mix and couscous together?

 And then we can cottage cheese... It can't be that bad, right? (It turned out awful, but we'll talk about it later)

And then I thought of carbonara pasta, which is basically an Alfredo Sauce with bacon and then you know Spam and bacon are of the same color when cooked so....

I fried it in olive oil, cut it and added it to the mix (at this point my husband was saying Nooooooo with the "what in the world are you doing?" expression on his face) :

And that is it... ready to eat, but...the taste was DISGUSTING!!!! You know when you can still taste the starchy water from the noodles and then the grease from the Spam together... yuck!
Soooooo, to cleanse my palate (yeah, right!), I did the one thing you can do to dignify a tortillla...spread Nutella on it and... well, you know :)

In conclusion, my experiment was a disaster then. Later on I made it edible by adding Queso sauce and some Cheddar cheese to it. At this point you may be wondering if I have burned all my tastebuds, but it did actually improve the taste, plus I got to use something else I did not want to go to waste (although my husband would disagree that Queso or cheese would be wasted LOL).

The bright side of it is that I am following my principle resolution! No waste! It feels great!

Now, for those of you who got traumatized by this experiment, I promise that the next post will be about something sweet that won't gross you out (unless you don't like peanut butter or chocolate).

The Brazilican Learner

New Year's Resolution: Resourcefulness

Every year is the same for some of us, we make a bunch of empty promises of how our life will be different just to realize by February that nothing has changed. Or, if you are like me, you don't even bother to make resolutions. That can be because you are actively changing your life and not waiting for a certain date to start, or because you don't think you can change your life. If the latter is true, life is the same and the same mistakes are made over and over again.

In order to actually do something different, this year, instead of trying to do a list of resolutions, I decided to have a "principle resolution", based on Crystal Paine's idea. The idea is simple, choose a word that will guide how you act throughout the year. I want to experiment with that, and so my word for this year is RESOURCEFULNESS. I want to develop the ability to use and/or make the most of what I already have at hand.

I have been following some blogs and been amazed at what people can do with certain "useless" things and keep thinking "how do they come up with that?". And then it dawned on me... first you have the need for something and then, instead of going shopping, you look around your house and see what you can do with what you already have.... sounds simple, huh? But...not to some of us.... sooooo I will try to do that this year, I will try to see how I can use what I already have at hand. And I will be carrying you guys along the way, posting about how I am doing, or asking for your opinion on what to do with the "useless" stuff I have around the house. After all, this blog is about lessons, right?

I would love to hear from you, too! What are your New Year's Resolutions? Would you like to join me in a "principle resolution" challenge? If so, what word will you choose?

The Brazilican Learner