Tendencies

Lately I've been living off of sea salt and vinegar potato chips. And by living off of, I mean I eat enough that they're probably contributing in a significant way to an early death. A year or so ago, I decided I want to live to be 102, but unless I move to Osaka or become a Seventh Day Adventist this may not happen. The treadmill belt is going faster and faster.. and I refuse to give up whole milk cafés au lait.

Anyway. My other tendency, other than to cut the inside of my mouth with edibles so salty that my tongue literally burns for days afterward, is sitting at my computer and staring at the images from this sfgirlbybay blog entry. I'm moving in four weeks and I'm going to have to buy some furniture to fill the space (oh! the horrors of middle class living) and hang up curtains to cover the landlord's interesting choice in wallpaper. Now I know there is a name for all the ideas that float through my head. Well, perhaps those aren't all covered in a blog about home design.

I don't have a recipe, again. I think I meant to, but my tabbouleh kind of sucks, so let me instead recommend eating at Java. Apparently I am surfer-chic meets predominantly-Muslim countries. I'll have a housewarming party, you'll see, we'll watch Hideous Kinky and Lost in Translation and then plan a trip to see Hearst Castle.

As promised

Update on the post-sugar rehab life:

I bought a thing of Oreo cookies. Ate 4 for breakfast, one day. They were great, but the idea was so. weird. Lately, my only dessert has been of the fermented, liquid kind, and I haven't really missed sweets. But I did dream of pancakes the other night. I'm still losing a few pounds here and there, from the ten miles I walked last weekend maybe, or the I'm-so-stressed-out-I-can't-eat times my life is apparently in, so ladies, you know that awkward stage when all your pants are too big or too small? I'm there. But better than them all being too small. FOR ONCE.

My goal for May - Zen Habits Challenge style - is to not eat out. At all. I'm guessing my pants would all be at my ankles if I hadn't, for 90% of my meals in the couple weeks, eaten out: there was pizza, bad Amexican, good Amexican (that's Taco Bell and Chipotle, respectively), macaroni and cheese from the Whole Foods buffet, and chicken strips that made me puke for three days. I won't tell you where they're from, because I hope that someday I'll forget and be able to eat at that restaurant again. My idea of cooking since we hit spring (also known as: Even More Snow Than January, Am I Right) has been microwaving a can of Amy's black bean chili. Which is amazing, at least.

But if there's one place I'd break my homecooking rule for, it'd be Saffron. Last night I went there with some friends, all of whom I was grateful were there, because they saved me from revealing that I don't know the slightest thing about kinda-fine dining, and told ridiculous stories that should not be told at kinda-fine dining places, and if you know me, I am a terrifically good sport about those stories. I can vouch for all of the following (And no, I'm not just saying all this because the bartender brought us free glasses of Cristalino Brut. But I like having pretty friends.):

Marinated feta, Artichoke tagine, Kofta meatballs, Carrots and sweet potatoes, Eggplant dip, beef kubbeh, [deep breath] Beef carpaccio (raw! beef! tastes like milk), Scallops, Leek and sheep's feta tart, and the tart-pancakey Parisian gnocchi.

What else? I was going to tell you about my favorite wine. But my favorite wine is whatever finds its way into my glass, and even I am above giving $4 recommendations. So instead, you recommend one to me, how's that sound?

Revisited

Happy Birthday Emily, originally uploaded by Mave Images.

Here's a much better picture of the food, showcasing both my vegetable chopping abilities and my awesome friends.

I've been meaning to update y'all on the post-sugar rehab life, plus my goal for May, PLUS the amazing restaurant Saffron, and alllllso my new favorite wines for spring, so stay tuned. In the meantime, think about buying yourself or me this book.

Who loves produce? Yes we do

Monday was my birthday, and even though it was only 45 degrees outside, we grilled out. I only have one photo here of the food:

Grilled zucchini, yellow squash, red onion, and asparagus sliced and tossed in a bit of olive oil, then skewered; Korean barbeque chicken; a potato salad that tastes like the clouds in heaven; chocolate and peanut butter cookies, strawberries, and chips and hummus. It was the perfect meal, and nicely complemented by the 85 bottles of wine on hand.

If that were my life, everyday eating food crisped over charcoal, people singing to me, getting chastised the next morning by my boss for even coming in on time, I could deal with that very, very well. At the least, it was a special day, and I'm sure we'll all vaguely remember parts of it forever.

On the business side of things, it's almost May, which means packing up my tiny apartment to explode into a bigger one, and hopefully, cutting back on my grocery shopping by getting a CSA share. A lovely girl at work told me about Harmony Valley Farm, which has many things going for it: it's in Wisconsin (but has pickups near my current and new digs), is organic, and has an amazing selection of veggies, plus fruits, beef, and cheese, if you want. I'm hoping to sign up for it soon, and if you're looking for a CSA, I've heard nothing but moans and drool drips hitting the floor over these folks.

If you have a CSA you love, or hate, or if you have advice on making that box of arugula and sunchokes lasting for two weeks, leave a comment below! If we do it, or if I end up winging it at the Mill City Farmers Market all season long, I'll be posting some recipes and notes soon to celebrate the reawakening of the soil and my brain.

Infestations, all sorts

I'm cat-sitting for a friend, which in part explains why I haven't posted in the last few days (see also: laziness, Sick of Internet disorder, and various physical ailments that prevent me from typing or sitting up without swearing). You know what? I'm not a good Cat Mom. I don't find the smell of the litterbox tolerable because of that face. One of my new favorite things is to swing a red feather around and watch the cat slide and slam herself into my armchair. And I let her poke her nose in my glass of wine, and was mostly concerned whether she got fur in it.

There's no use telling you about food this week, because all my meals - and my skin, clothing, tables, even this keyboard - are covered in soft little gray hairs. I touched my eye yesterday, and it puffed up like a Ballpark over a hot grill.

Attacking me instead of mice

Although if you're hungry and in the Twin Cities, Colleges Against Cancer is doing a thing in Minneapolis at various University-area restaurants - today at Qdoba, next week at Noodles and Jamba Juice - where the restaus are giving a percentage of their profits to cancer research, and they'll give an extra dollar if you mention the Relay for Life when you check out. AWESOME. And way easier than actually participating in a Relay for Life, which is a seven in the evening to seven in the morning festival of pain. All to help out lovely people like Kate, though. And my grandfather, my boyfriend's father, and one of my best friends from college. If you want more info or would like to donate, let me know.

That's all for this week, I think. I've got taxes and essays and work evaluations to deal with, but there might be a guest post coming along soon... so stay tuned.

Over the hump

Baby artichokes. So tender.

Ahh, hello. It's been awhile - only two weeks, I guess, but it feels like a lot longer. I've been to Milwaukee and to Mankato (just because I only like cities that start with M....), I've completely broken the dessert habit, gotten over a cold (or the flu. Who knows? But it was bad.), and just now overcooked my tomato soup.

The sugar rehab project is going well. I cheated: a few bites of ice cream, mango mochi, two tiny bits of dark chocolate, and last night, a shake from McDonald's. When I was vegetarian, one of the few things I wouldn't give up when the opportunity arrived - which wasn't too often - was a good gyro stuffed with cow and lamb meat. I know. So when I break my no-refined-sugar rule, I'm also going to break my no-McDonald's rule, which is basically: 'Have you seeeeeen Fast Food Nation?' I'm not sure what flavor the Shamrock Shake is. It's shamrock-flavored, which means if I ever find a clover with four leaves, I'm going to make a wish and then eat it.

But overall? Sweet things, like that ice cream, taste strange. It's kind of hard, sometimes, to see all that chocolate as I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, but my basket is full of bananas and strawberries - finally! - and I'd rather wait for a Big Cheat now and then. I think it's been successful, not just because I'm not constantly craving sweet things, but because I snack a lot less. I'm not sitting at my desk at 11 in the morning every weekday thinking, oh God, how am I going to make it for another 90 minutes? I'm not scrounging for cookies after I've brushed my teeth and slipped into pajamas. And of course I've lost weight. YO.

If you're interested in learning more about why sugar, and specifically its more processed cousin, high fructose corn syrup, has crazy effects on your body, and how to break the habit, check out this Wiki article. I'm glad I only had a medium shake...

Three, count 'em, three links for you

An article about local food growers being penalized by the federal government that I found on The Kitchn. I read the New York Times because I'm white.

I just bought plain yogurt.
I want some chocolate.
And to go back in time and get myself a flu shot, even if whatever microscopic beasts are currently ravaging my body say they've got that old vaccine beat.

That is all.

Sugar rehab

I think of myself as someone without much of a sweet tooth, but the last four months beg to differ. Every week a friend and I get together to make crafts, watch movies, and eat - and lately I'm the one to count on to bring dessert. Increasingly, there are always cookies, muffins, or pastry in my kitchen. And now I'm almost out of sugar.

So for the rest of the month of March, I'm going to cut out refined sugar as much as I possibly can, and see if some of the ill effects, which, until today, have gone mostly unnoticed by all but the buttons on my pants, reverse themselves.

These are the rules:

1. The lump of chocolatey dough in my fridge is going to get passed off to someone in Minne in the next few days. Or getting tossed. The gelato in the freezer, the hot cocoa mixes (which just about outnumber my digits), and the jar of Nutella do not, functionally, exist.

2. I can finish the two fruit-flavored Wallaby yogurts in my fridge. But tomorrow, when I stock up for the rest of the week, I switch to plain.

3. Some honey or agave is okay. I really dislike plain yogurt, for now, and those blueberries in my fridge are not going to sweeten themselves.

4. This is building on my current March Challenge of avoiding the vending machine at work. I more often go for the chips in that thing, so it's a bit of a double whammy. But I have just as many nuts at home, and they don't cost me 65 cents to bring to work.

5. No cookies, no pastry, no chocolate milk (my heart just broke), no ice cream, no iced mochas, no cake, no muffins. Just fruit, cactus sap, and whatever my body can suck out of probiotics and coffee creamer. But only for twenty-nine days.

6. I'm not going to go all crazy and read the label on every loaf of bread or something; this is more about common sense. No fruit or vegetable is off limits unless it's inside a cake or dried and sweetened. Although, yeah, it'd be a good idea to stay as far away from Taco Bell as I can (sigh).

I think this is going to be hard, but I have a definite advantage from never getting used to the taste of fake sweeteners, never drinking soda, and already trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup. More on THAT later.

Spring fever

No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I'm just thinking, musing, and considering what to do with this space and how to expand it beyond various sets of instructions. For the past month I've been hunkering down, eating all the cookies and trying to convince myself to walk down the block to yoga here and there, and until it STOPS SNOWING I don't see much change.

But as for what to expect when I get back to this - oh, I'd tell you a couple weeks, but right now that feels optimistic - is more focus on design and images, and sometimes long descriptive stories about things that frustrate me. We'll see.

In the meantime, stay warm, maybe try some peanut sauce and veggies, or puff pastry with fruit, and my all-time favorite, turkey bacon.


Arugula pesto, trust me you can make it up yourself

Chard with garlic. Like Christmas for your mouth

Go to Spoonriver. Now.

Here's the deal

I wanted to regale you all with tales of a healthy (yet stuffed-face worthy) Superbowl, full of vegetable dips made out of vegetables, how to cook a miniature ham, and Rocking Icebox Cookies. But the cookie dough is not user-friendly and will be presented after I get around to tweaking it. And here's what we ate on The Day The Music Died for ...that one angry guy who coaches the Pats. Cook? Ha. Why cook when you can buy colorful labels?*

1. Rotisserie chicken (take it home, stick it in the fridge, then put in a pan, cover with foil, and reheat at 350 for 45 minutes)
2. Steamed broccoli
3. The party-platter hummus quadrant from Trader Joe's with home-fried pita pockets, cut into adorable little triangles
4. Meatballs, yes the frozen ones from Trader Joe's, thrown in with chili sauce, Worcestershire, onions, and GRAPE JELLY, which is wrong and yet somehow not awful
5. Cookies and cream cake from the cake cooler. You know, the one behind you at the deli counter in Ye Olde Monolithe grocery store
6. MGD, which tasted better than I remember. Handy, but frightening. So long as I don't forget about Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale. I love everything Dutch.

The cookies I made were based on a recipe at Chow, Meyer lemon and black pepper icebox cookies. I promise, it's not easy like they say, but here's a picture:

They look shy, don't they?

Light and fluffy, perfectly sweet. I'm going to be making many more of these in the future. Stay tuned.


*This, like lager beer, goes against my personal code of ethics. I like my foods to have one ingredient. But 90% of the time this just does not happen.

One Egg Wonder

Last night I made a frantic phone call: "I've got one egg, a can of dulce de leche sauce, and I want to make a dessert. In the next half hour."

One Egg Wonder Caramel Cake

Feeds 4-6 people who just ate a good dinner

1 loaf pan, greased
1/3 C sugar
3/4 C AP flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 T butter
1 egg
1/3 C milk
2 T Nestle 'La Lechera' or any other dulce de leche or caramel sauce you fancy

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and then mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Anything a teaspoon or smaller I never measure, and this cake is not fussy.

Melt the butter, meanwhile cracking the egg into a bowl and beating it a bit before adding to the butter. Pour in the milk, and mix. Combine wet and dry ingredients.

What I started out wanting to do was layer the dulce de leche, but the sauce I have is the consistency of margarine, and I didn't have time to thin it out with heat. You can, if you want, or do as I did and stir the sauce into the batter (lumps, sweet sugary gooey lumps, will remain) and then pouring it into the pan.



Bake for 20 minutes. It will be gooey if you test it, from the caramel, so watch for the top to remain firm instead of jiggle when you pull out the oven rack. Let cool, slice up, and eat with your fork or your fingers.

Note: the recipe does make a rather small cake, but if you're doubling it and putting it in a regular round or 9x9 cake pan, 20 minutes in the oven should still do it.