Lukewarm: Day 1: Avocados and Leftovers

DAY 1: DINNER

Raspberry Avocado Salad w/ Honey Raspberry Vinaigrette
http://www.avocadocentral.com/avocado-recipes/view/21771/Raspberry-Avocado-Salad-With-Honey-Raspberry-Vinaigrette

Why did I choose this? We'd bought a bag of avocados from Costco the past weekend, and no one was eating them, so I looked for avocado recipes that weren't guacamole and looked easy to make. The prices were I had to buy and what it cost at that time at the particular location I shopped.

Salad

• 2 ripe, Fresh Hass Avocados, peeled, seeded and diced
• 1 (5 oz.) package spring mix salad [$3.49]
• 1 (11 oz.) can mandarin oranges, well drained  a few peeled clementine oranges soaked in sugar and hot water (I was trying to mimic canned oranges. It kind of worked, though mom walked into the kitchen while I was happily pouring hot water on bowls of oranges, thought that was our dinner, and was horrified.) 
• ¹/₂ cup glazed walnuts, coarsely chopped pre-packaged, made for salad, honey roasted almonds. [$3.99] (I was ready to substitute with some pistachios that I found in a jar in the pantry, but mom wanted almonds.) 
• ¹/₃ cup sliced green onions (I've never ever noticed green onions in my salads.)
• 1 cup fresh raspberries (I know it's a raspberry salad, but there were already plums in the house.)
• Pepper to taste (I have a slight aversion to pepper.)

Dressing

• ¹/₄ cup extra virgin olive oil
• ¹/₄ cup raspberry vinegar balsamic vinegar
• 1 ¹/₂ Tbsp. honey
• ¹/₂ Tbsp. Dijon mustard (I don't like mustard.)
• ¹/₄ tsp. salt

Note: I wasn't sure what 'vinaigrette' meant exactly, so I looked it up. It's a salad dressing, particularly "oil emulsion" While the recipe calls for equal parts oil and vinegar, I found a number of websites (http://culinaryarts.about.com/od/oilvinegardressings/qt/vinaigrette.htm, and Wikipedia) that claimed that the ratio should be 3:1 oil:vinegar (and apparently honey helps with the mixing, and don't put the dressing in the refrigerator). So I excitedly whisked up a batch of dressing, and then later I found a bottle of store-bought raspberry vinaigrette in the fridge.

In addition to the salad, I also microwaved a bunch of leftover Chinese food from lunch, and a little chunk of salmon from the dinner from the night before.

Reception: 
Brother: "Microwaved food and salads are not cooking. The avocados look gross. Are you trying to kill me?" He finished off the part of the Chinese food that I had not microwaved.
Mom: She ate some salad, some leftovers, and then inexplicably made herself some ramen noodles.
Dad: He ate some salad and leftovers.

A Day Filler

I was milling in front of the television one day when my mother said: You need something to do. How about you cook meals for family?

Me: Really?

Mom: Yes.

Me: YES!!!!!!

Mom: I'll give you a budget of $40 a day, and you figure out what to cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Me: $40? That's kind of a lot.

Mom: Well...seafood can be expensive.

Me: Okay. I GET TO CONTROL THE FOOD!!!

So this is how, a few days ago, I came to be in charge of cooking for my family. I'm not saying this pridefully, as if an eighteen year old cooking for a four person household is some kind of revolutionary genius. In fact, for a summer-after-freshman-year-in-college, friends-all-having-jobs-or-activities, jobless me, this is really the main motivating factor for doing something productive. That, and chauffeuring my brother (but classifying that as 'productive' is a bit of a stretch).

I figure that with me being marginally productive, I should try to double it and type up the scribbled/copied (from the internet) recipes, how I altered them, and any problems I came across. Just in case any of my peers (or anyone else) gets a budget and a cooking mandate from their mother.