30 April 2006
perfect
Midnight juice-making.
Brunch on the patio, in the shade with a breeze. Legs up, lean back, fabric on skin, it's soft, comfortable. Flex the foot. Pierce the fruit. Then yoga with Hannah this afternoon. Dinner at the Havana Cafe with the family. Gloriousness!
29 April 2006
patience
The weather today was perfect; it was the kind of beautiful sunny day where, if you lived in Paris or New York or a little village somewhere, you would not be able to resist the idea of taking a walk or bicycle ride into town to shop or go to the farmers' market for produce or buy a treat from the bakery. Sadly, in Scottsdale this means it is the perfect weather to... drive with the windows half-down.
This won't mean anything to you, but I don't want to forget it. I very much enjoy the stories my grandma digs up from her memory about my deceased grandpa (as grandparents generally reminisce, a lot). So... after they were done having children and wanted an effective method to prevent any accidental births, my grandpa - an obstetrician - suggested she get a hysterectomy. "But I don't want a hysterectomy!" my grandma replied. "Why not? Let's get rid of that cancer-bearing organ."
Today is my mom's birthday (and tomorrow is my dad's) and because my parents had a pretty nice meal for supper, I made an elaborate one for myself to match theirs. I borrowed The Voluptuous Vegan from the library a few weeks ago and it's totally my kind of cookbook. All the recipes are voluptuously amazing and she makes thoughtful menus by creating recipes using traditional foods from a certain country or region, grouped together to be made at different times of the year. However, the menus she creates are really more for special occasions - not things I could whip up regularly at 6 o'clock at night, or at least not yet. So I spent some time this morning thinking about what food we had in the house and what I was in the mood for, and after much contemplation (a chili + cornbread casserole was vying for my attention too) I decided to make a light spring/summer meal: paella, a traditional Spanish dish of rice, meat and vegetables (sin carne, por supuesto). The different parts flowed perfectly from one to the next so I was always doing something but never rushing. I turned on some music, rolled up my sleeves and made some chai tea. First, I roasted tomatoes, onion, garlic and a jalapeno pepper on one tray and califlower and chickpeas on another tray, all in the oven. At the same time I steamed some cut-up tempeh and then poured a soy sauce mixture over it and then baked it as well. The tomato tray was then blended in the food processor into tomato sauce. I cooked some brown rice - admittedly, I didn't notice the directions calling for a tomato paste thing for the rice until after it was already simmering, so to improvise, I added some salsa and crumbled some saffron threads into the rice. I chopped up some veggies (onions, a carrot, celery, a bell pepper, yellow squash and peas) and sauteed them gradually, then added the chickpeas, cauliflower, tempeh and fresh kalamata olives, and finally the rice. The only spice I had added (other than salt and pepper) was saffron into the rice, so I sprinked in some oregano, thyme and basil which did the trick. Ladle the tomato sauce onto a plate and top with some paella.
Fabulous.
Then I had the brilliant idea of pouring hot melted dark chocolate (72%!) on top of chocolate soy ice cream. Hardens in seconds. I was going for the Hershey's syrup approach but this could somehow become the new thing...
And however frustrated she may be at the lack of responses from any worthwhile colleges whatsoever... yours truly has secured a summer job that promises to be more exciting than making photocopies and printing labels: a hostess at a swanky Scottsdale restaurant! Classy.
28 April 2006
om
Tonight I wanted to make something a bit different... a variation on a theme, if you will, and it felt like the right time to use the cookbook Vegan Cooking for One. It's written by an English woman so for me, her recipes have a nurturing, nostalgic feel. It's obviously for one person so there are no leftovers, and she makes these handy week-long menus (dinners only) where you buy a set list of ingredients at the beginning of the week and each recipe uses only things from the list and at the end of the week, you should have used up everything. Also, there's a Spring/Summer section and an Autumn/Winter section so you eat with the seasons which I am attempting to do. I made Mediterranean Noodles.
The sauce was made first. I sauteed garlic and onion in a bit of olive oil (which I do every time, without fail), and added the denser chopped veggies (tonight it was mushrooms, a red bell pepper, some broccoli, carrots). Then I added some torn spinach, a little vegetable broth and a few spoonfuls of tomato paste as well as some dried oregano, fresh basil, salt and pepper. Let it simmer for a while and that's it! I cooked some spinach fettuccine, added a pat of vegan (non-hydrogenated) margarine and a tablespoon of nutritional yeast flakes to give it a little flavor (more nutty than cheesy, though, which is good - trying to replicate the flavor of cheese is futile) and then topped the pasta with the vegetables/sauce. I apologise for the saucy interior of the bowl, but it's called "tossing" for a reason.
Both my dad and my (really cool) grandma, who is in town for the weekend for my dad's birthday, tried it and liked it, so that's good. I tend to be nervous and apologetic when people try my food. I shouldn't, though, but I want people to like it! But yes, it was really good. Right now my grandma is reading Vegan With A Vengeance, an unbelievably entertaining cookbook sprinkled with lots of fun anecdotes along with the best vegan recipes ever. So even though my grandma lost about a hundred pounds on the Atkins Diet a few years ago (and kept the weight off), she's politely curious about veganism and I love answering her questions. She's such a hip lady.
So I bought unlimited monthly classes at AOY, and last night I went to Deep Stretch and this afternoon I went to Flow. I've had three different instructors and they've all been wonderful. Today's guy was so funky - we listened to Elvis Costello and in an exuberant voice he exclaimed "Beautiful!" at the end of every pose. Ahhhh I love yoga.
26 April 2006
eyebrows
Okay, okay. So tonight I got home around 6:30 and I just wanted to make a good, hearty, heathy dinner kind of quickly. Basically, that means lentils. Lentils are awesome. It's sad that lentils have this negative image in the eyes of many people; I know I thought lentils were for weirdos until I went vegan (for the first time) last summer and had to learn about food. So I put some lentils in a saucepan with water and let them simmer for half an hour. As they were finishing up, I got to work cutting up on onion when Danielle called. It was quite interesting talking with my head clutching my slippery little cell phone against my shoulder while wielding a knife and chopping things, but I was able to make dinner and talk to an old friend at the same time! So I heated a bit of olive oil in a wide pan and poured in some mustard seeds and cumin seeds. I chopped up half an onion while waiting, and when the seeds popped I threw in the onion too along with a few cloves of garlic (minced) and some chopped fresh ginger. Mincing garlic is one of my favorite activities. We have a small silver garlic press (not this ridiculously expensive one) - you put one clove of garlic (peeled) into the little "basket" and push a thing into it and the garlic and juice squeezes out through tiny holes but the outer skin remains in the basket. It pushes through all at the same time after a lot of pressure, kind of like popping a pimple. It's so satisfying! I add lots of garlic to everything just so I can use the presser more. So yeah, I added the garlic and ginger. Oh, and I shook some turmeric into the almost-done lentils at this point. Then... I chopped up a tomato and put it into the pan of stuff, then a few chopped carrots, lots of torn spinach and some chopped mushrooms. I should have put the carrots in earlier because they were still pretty crunchy but I was talking, cooking, stirring... you know how it is, these thoughts sometimes don't manifest. After each addition I shook in some curry powder too, and stirred well. So after the spinach wilted and cooked way down, I added the now-done lentils to the pan and let everything mix together for a few minutes. I realized that I needed a grain to eat it with, because I've learned that not eating any carbohydrates at dinner leaves me pretty ravenous for oatmeal in the morning, so I'm working on having a grain, a protein and obviously vegetables for both lunch and dinner, with fruit liberally sprinkled throughout the day. I was thinking about couscous for a while but we only had regular (white) couscous and I'm staying away from all refined carbohydrates because they do nothing for you. I'm really sticking with whole grains because they love me and I love them. I had some leftover quinoa from last summer (it was stored well; it doesn't go off! Like pasta, rice, etc) so I brought it to a boil and it was ready really quickly. Did you know that 1 cup of quinoa has more calcium that a quart of milk? Pretty cool. It's a supergrain. Texturally, it's kind of like couscous but it has a slightly nutty flavor. So I had my lentil stew over quinoa and it was really, really good. I was surprised that the lentils tasted so good because I did just completely make it up as I went... and that's pretty sweet. I realize that most of the pictures I put up here look the same - like sloppy stew curries with stewy vegetables. I like stews, ok? There are actually a lot of non-stew non-curry recipes I want to try, in time... just so you know.
This is quinoa (pronounced keen-waaa):
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. Harriet Van Horne
I tend to think about things for a long time, and then all of a sudden completely immerse myself in my decision. So it goes with yoga. For several weeks I've been planning my return to yoga, and yesterday I actually returned. I went to a Flow class at At One Yoga (AOY) for an hour-and-a-half last night and it was so wonderful to do again. It was a pretty active class; the room was heated to 85 degrees and there were about 20 people. I got nice and sweaty but not the smelly, unpleasant kind, just the sweet, detoxifying kind. The instructor was awesome; she played a great mix of music - a bit of soul, jazz, rap, and folk - and during savasana I felt so... pure. It is a challenge for me to get my mind to not wander. I find it hard to push all my thoughts and concerns aside for too long. Today I'm sore in a lot of different places but it's a great, accomplished sore. I knew I'd be sore because you use muscles in yoga that you often never use in every-day life and because I have absolutely no upper-body strength and we did a hell of a lot of downward dogs. I was contemplating about going again tonight but all in good time: I worked out (at the gym) Monday night, so today is a good day to rest. Tomorrow night I'm planning to go to another class at AOY and buy a package of classes. I really want to do yoga regularly for the rest of my life.
My parents are talking about moving the futon back into my bedroom! I'm so excited to possibly get out of this old, short bed that I last slept in when I was a little six year old girl in England. The futon, which I had in my room at the old house for the last year we lived there, is queen-sized, amazingly comfortable and can be a little couch too. Perfecto.
Something Julia said in her blog a while ago about iTunes Party Mix has stayed with me. She said that you should just yield to the power of the party mix and let it play what it wants to because it often is just the right kind of music for you at that moment. I like doing shuffle in the iTunes Library (for some reason) and tonight it's completely right. Every song, in the right order, with a balance between genres and styles. So love to music and Julia.
24 April 2006
sky
Lately, it seems that all I want to do is stretch. Do you know how wonderful it is to be on the floor? For the rest of our lives, we are either standing or sitting in chairs. I just feel this powerful need to stretch my legs, sit crosslegged, do the lotus (I can do part of it), lie on my back and hug my knees, bend over, kneel, it's so nice. I need to start doing yoga again. They offer it at my gym a few days a week but I like flexibility; I think I'm going to buy a few classes at At One Yoga once school and finals are over. I've been getting frustrated with running; I've hit a plateau and I'm getting a shin split in my left calf. Let's hope I heal quickly and don't fall too behind with my progress.
I'm on the way to getting a job for the summer - this weekend I applied to a few restaurants to be a hostess or server. I really really don't want to work at the job I have now for the next three months, so hopefully one of the restaurants will hire me.
I only have six more class days and then finals, two of which are take-home papers. I can't wait for school to be over but it feels so early! My siblings don't get out until early June and it's going to be an interesting summer sharing the car with my brother as we'll both be working. But: going to Europe for two weeks with my mom and sister will be incredible, and I'm excited to continue working on my health and wellbeing with running, yoga, and further cooking explorations!
23 April 2006
pancakies
Wahhhhahahaha!
22 April 2006
sabrosa
Mmmmm tonight was fragrant and fresh and three small parts made up the whole. First, I made chana masala (from Orangette). I can tell from the way she writes that her recipes will be fabulous and I was right. This was the best Indian recipe involving chickpeas that I've ever made.
The sauce was on the stovetop longer than I usually keep it there but it was one of those processes that you take the time to do because you know it will be worth it in the end. And it was a very simple recipe, with few ingredients and the perfect amount of spices and seasonings.
The rice surrounding the chana masala is Spanish rice; rice cooked in watered-down salsa, some cut-up onion, a bit of olive oil, cumin, chili powder and s+p. It was kind of odd at first to taste Spanish flavors with those of India in the same bite, but they actually complemented each other well.
I hadn't eaten any vegetables before dinner and I knew I wanted to incorporate them in my meal. There is a drawer in the fridge full to the brim of vegetables, and this "recipe" drew me in. My veggies post-roast didn't look quite like Karina's - I roasted them for a very long time but they still tasted beautiful. My dad, who tried all three parts of my meal, said the vegetables were the best. We had fresh basil, too - I love fresh basil. Take any vegetables you want (I used mushrooms, zucchini, carrots and red peppers), put them into a bowl and season with sea salt and pepper, then toss with olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, and herbs (I used basil, rosemary, marjoram, and thyme), and roast in the oven. I spread them out well; perhaps next time I should cluster them more closely in a smaller pan. Whatever, they were very roasted and very, very good - soft, smoky and sweet.
.
The weather tonight is perfect. The sun may be burning brightly during the day but it's still early enough in the year that the nights are perfect. The windows and back door have been open for hours illuminated by the fairy lights that encompass the patio. While I cooked, I listened to the Frida soundtrack and drank orange juice from a wine glass.
21 April 2006
africa
Tonight was the night that I made Ethiopian Spicy Tomato Lentil Stew, courtesy of Isa. I cut the recipe by two-thirds but used more lentils, tomato paste and spices, which was good because it wasn't really that spicy to me. However, I am known for having a fiery taste so perhaps to normal people it is spicy. Nonetheless, I wanted a real stew, not a watery one, so the extra lentils and tomato paste thickened it up well. I don't think I've ever cooked onions for ten minutes, but patience was rewarded in that the onions were perfectly smoky and fragrant. It was honestly one of the best meals I've made in a while... although that's probably not a huge surprise.
Remember the chapatis I wanted to make yesterday? I was correct in presuming that today would be the right day to make them, and chapatis are so easy. The recipe was from The Yoga Cookbook. Mix together whole wheat flour and water (and salt, although I've come to really not like salt so next time I'll leave it out), then knead the dough for ten minutes. Let it rest for an hour (it won't rise, obviously (no yeast) but the gluten will work its magic) and then knead once more. Roll by hand into little balls, flatten, then use a rolling pin to roll each one out to 1/8-inch thickness. Heat an ungreased pan over very high heat, and cook the chapati (one at a time) for a few seconds on each side. Remove from the pan, brush with a little olive oil if desired, and create a stack of them wrapped in a damp cloth until you are ready to eat. Mine could have been a little thinner because the few seconds they were in the pan was not long enough to completely cook through, but they were fine.
So instead of using traditional injera, I scooped up my Ethiopian stew with homemade Indian chapati. I reminisced about the Ethiopian restaurant where Ali and I ate supper one night (actually it was late afternoon) a long time ago (at least it feels so). I'd like to get takeout there sometime.
I'm about to watch Frida, one of my favorite films. Ethiopia, India and Mexico all share the stage tonight.
20 April 2006
india
Mmmmm, finally tonight it became possible for me to make a real supper, and I wanted something comforting and simple. The answer is dal. I used a recipe from The Yoga Cookbook, published by the Sivananda Yoga Centres. It's a really good book full of healthy and balanced recipes with lots of information about yogis' relationship to food. Yogis believe that excessive spice is a rajasic food so the dal was a little less spicy than I like, but it was actually refreshing to have a meal that wasn't very hot for once.
I simmered red lentils, a bit of turmeric and a bay leaf in water for twenty minutes. Meanwhile, I sauteed mustard seeds and cumin seeds in a bit of olive oil until they popped open. Then I added two small chopped tomatoes and ground coriander (actually we were out of ground so I mortar-and-pestled it up with whole coriander). After a few minutes I stirred the mixture into the lentils, added fresh pepper and a dash of salt, and then it just glowed. I had it over the brown rice I cooked last week... but I don't think I'll keep brown rice around that long again; it was kind of bleh.
My mom bought lots and lots of fresh vegetables on Tuesday and I just can't let fresh vegetables sit in the refrigerator for days without feasting on them in their best, freshest state. So I made Vindaloo Vegetables as well, minus the kidney beans (had them on my salad for lunch, and we didn't have any anyway) and carrots (ditto) and I used a bit of olive oil instead of the water Susan suggests. The spices were bold and fragrant; I loved that the cauliflower turned yellow. It just screams "I am Indian food". It was perfect.
I would have made chapati if I had had the time. Perhaps tomorrow.
My god, work today went by the slowest it ever has. My co-worker was getting on my nerves like no other; I just wanted to work in silence... but by the end I think she got the hint from my increasingly-more-terse mood. Sometimes I want to shoot myself for having to perform the most mundane and repetitive tasks and be thought of as just an ignorant, undergraduate twit who only knows how to run the photocopier. "I'm so much more than this!", I want to say.
I'm really proud of Ali for making her first homemade hummus! After discussing hummus at length with her every few weeks at Pita Jungle, and learning that she is really picky with store-bought brands, I encouraged her to get friendly with a food processer, so she did. I was granted a bit of her olive hummus to try, and it was delish.
20 April 2006
silk
I'm so happy: Silk is offering a $1-off coupon! Silk is my favorite brand of soymilk but it's not that cheap... so if you like soymilk, stock up!
19 April 2006
interlude
This week has been a nonexistent cooking week so far, because I've been getting home from school around 8pm the last few days. I have to be sufficiently hungry, awake, and free from obligations to make dinner so late. Because these three factors have definitely not been present this week, I haven't been eating meals - just grazing throughout the evening on beans, hummus, veggies and fruit. I don't like grazing because it's not really satisfying, but tomorrow I hope to get home around 5:30, leaving ample time to make something. It's quite the anticlimax every afternoon when I look at the clock and my homework situation and realize that I won't be cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I have started a recipe collection in Word for all the recipes I want to make, and every day I wonder, "Perhaps tonight will be the night when I make the Spicy Ethiopian Lentil Stew or Chana Masala!"
I have been wanting to eat a lot of fruit lately. A LOT. For dinner yesterday I went to Pita Jungle with Ali and I got the fruit salad for dinner. At Pita Jungle, home of amazing everything. Fruit. I think this might be stemming from eating dairy on Sunday. Come on, it was Easter; we ate brunch at one friend's house and supper at another. But man, Monday comes around and I feel yucky, sick, tired, and I broke out for the first time in a while. These side effects have only just started to subside, but since Monday I've been wanting to eat so much fruit! And fresh vegetables, but to a lesser extent. When I go through a day without eating much "fresh anything" (i.e. oatmeal for breakfast, curries or soups with cooked vegetables for lunch), by dinner all I want to do it eat a raw red bell pepper and a banana. It's pretty cool, actually. So yeah, lots of fruit. Right now I'm eating a bowl of strawberries, a banana and kiwi. Look at these:
They are enormous! Strawberries do not grow like this in nature. It's ironic that even the foods that are supposedly from the earth and natural and good for us are being mass-produced and genetically engineered to be the size of babies' heads. Does this bother anyone else? Currently my mom buys most of the fruit in our house, and I generally don't buy organic because it's really expensive and it's not feasible living with four other people who don't care if their food is organic or not. When I live on my own, I will buy the organic version of certain foods that are more pesticide-ridden (strawberries (eek), lettuce, apples, spinach, to name a few). I'm very interested in food production so I always read those kinds of articles in the New York Times, and recently there have been several concerning manufacturers toying with the idea of creating super-food, so people won't have to eat an orange to get vitamin C; their Tyson chicken will already have the RDA. I'm trying to find the article online; I'll link it here when I find it. Scary stuff. We'll have cucumbers the length of our arm but people will eat a multi-vitamin McDonald's burger instead. If the world gets to that point, just so you all know, I will be eating the cucumber that I grow in my garden.
17 April 2006
stretch
What is this?
These puffy hippopotamus/phallic-looking things are mochi, pronounced MO-chee (although for some reason I have this inherent tendency to say 'MO-kee'; I think it's because of learning romance languages). They're little Japanese rice cakes - brown rice that has been pounded and molded into a dense, hard square about 1/4-inch thick. You cut the slab into little 1-inch squares and bake in the oven for eight minutes... they puff up tremendously and grow appendages and this is the result. The outside is kind of crispy (but not oily) and the inside is soft and moist and chewy, with a "brown rice" taste. I love love love brown rice on its own, but with mochi you generally dip it or fill it. I picked it up randomly at Whole Foods the other day and I was looking for a reason to make it and since I had no concrete plans for dinner, I threw together one of the most uncoordinated meals ever - the above three pieces of mochi, some canned baked beans (that I microwaved for too long and subsequently some of the outsides came off...? Kind of weird but it tasted fine):
and a few pieces of marinated portobello mushroom from Vegan With a Vengeance.
In a pathetic attempt to make the three things actually coherent, I scooped some baked beans into the mochi, and then immediately ate a piece of mushroom. Hmmmm. In general, the foods really didn't mesh together at all. Brown rice, vinegar, and beans? Katherine, wtf? The mochi was the creative-fun-novelty-weird food, the baked beans were the comfort food and the grilled portobello mushrooms (made with balsamic vinegar, a splash of olive oil and a hint of garlic) were the elegant, sophisticated food - but they were incredible and really simple. All in all, it was kind of a schizophrenic meal, one I don't think I'll ever repeat (meaning with these foods on the same plate) ever again.
Today:
(-) I had to get up at 5:30 a.m.
(+) At lunchtime, I sat cross-legged under a tree in the shade reading a book for one of my classes, and it was breezy and gorgeous and perfect.
(-) The bread on my sandwich for lunch (from Einsteins) was old and kind of stale.
(+) My grade in Calculus is higher than I expected.
(-) I had to have a pelvic ultrasound at 6:45 this morning, which comprised of an abdominal one and a girly one. But at least I had a female doctor.
(+) I have cinnamon raisin mochi with which I plan to make waffles soon!
(+) I talked to two good friends on the phone today, and they both made me laugh.
(+) And there are only two more weeks of school (until finals)!
15 April 2006
thaithai
I made granola. People get warm and fuzzy when the smell of sweet spices and honey* pervades the kitchen.
*Yes, I know that vegans don't consume honey. I do, occasionally. Whatever.
The real star of the day, though, was supper, and the pieces fit together perfectly. I had been looking for a reason to open the sodium-reduced soy sauce I bought. Today I went to Whole Foods (for several reasons I avoid shopping there but today it was convenient) and I wandered into the right aisles and bought wide udon noodles, sunflower seeds, a package of tempeh, mochi, and a Thai cookbook called Buddha's Feast. My mom got peanut oil for me. There was almost a full can of coconut milk in the fridge, a jar of Thai red curry paste tucked away with the spices, and a bag of fresh cilantro in its last hours. Hmmmm - soy sauce, peanut oil, curry paste, and coconut milk? It was the right time to make a Thai curry. I didn't have a specific recipe in mind, so I looked up a few for inspiration and then created my own. I've never made a Thai curry before and I'm really happy with the result. The picture doesn't quite do it justice but the white noodles looked so pretty before being touched.
Thai Red Curry with Tempeh and Vegetables
1 tablespoon peanut oil
1/4 cup onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, diced
1 cup of coconut milk
1/2 cup of water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons red curry paste
a handful of cilantro, chopped
four ounces (or more) of tempeh, cut into small cubes
1-2 cups mixed vegetables, chopped (I used what was in the fridge: broccoli, portobello mushrooms, zucchini and green beans)
Wide udon noodles, however many you wantPour the coconut milk into a saucepan and add the water. Stir, and turn up the heat to high. Add the red curry paste, brown sugar, and soy sauce, and blend. Add cilantro. Bring to a boil, then simmer. Add any dense vegetables to the curry.
In a pan, heat the peanut oil. When hot, add the onion, and a few minutes later, the garlic and ginger. A minute later, add the tempeh. Turn over to brown all sides. Remove from heat when done.
Add any less dense vegetables to the curry. Stir well. A minute or two before you want to eat, add the pan of tempeh and its contents to the curry.
Cook the udon noodles according to directions. Drain and rinse. Pour the curry on top of the noodles, and serve.
Serves one very hungry person or two normal people.
My curry had a little too much liquid in it, so I reduced the amount above to what I believe would be right. I'm still trying to master the technique of making only enough food for one person; it's tough. You could also serve this over rice instead, or another kind of noodle. Traditional Thai curries are cooked with homemade curry paste, which I will make one day. Regardless, it was delicious.
14 April 2006
glee
Becoming vegan has made me, among other things, suddenly adept at making smoothies. When I was vegetarian, I'd ogle my sister's (albeit unhealthy) daily masterpieces while mine always had too... too much orange juice, too little yogurt, too little flavor. I'm not a huge smoothie girl so I stopped trying; I do enjoy eating fruit whole most of the time. However, spring means berries and mangos and kiwis and melon and finally, a break from the dense, hard apples and pears that defined winter. So this morning, despite being so full of natural sugar that I was hopping around for several hours, I whipped up the best smoothie I've ever made.
1 banana, cut up and frozenNext time I'll add another banana... all the berry action left the banana pretty weak.
2 kiwis
6 fresh strawberries
about 1 cup of frozen berries
about 1 cup of soy milk
1/4 teaspoon of almond extract
If you find yourself with bananas so ripe that they are too mushy to enjoy eating, cut them up, put the pieces in a ziploc bag and freeze it. When frozen, they add wonderful creaminess to smoothies. Alternately, you can (not freeze them and) use them to make banana bread - which I also did today. (We had a lot of bananas.) I used The Post Punk Kitchen's recipe but cut the entire recipe in half, cut down the margarine to 1 tablespoon and added about 3/8 cup of applesauce to compensate, cut the sugar down slightly to 1/3 cup of brown sugar and 1/3 cup of raw cane sugar (since I'm a snob and avoid regular white when possible), added a bit more vanilla, added 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract because I'm obsessed with almond, left out the allspice because we didn't have any, and added more cinnamon to compensate. I'm finally getting the gist of using a recipe as the starting point and adjusting it to my liking without being scared that the end result will suck. When I was younger, I followed recipes word-for-word, and if I accidentally added baking soda instead of baking powder, I panicked. My mom always came to the rescue and fixed whatever I'd done "wrong" with a calm, collected voice and a smile. It's nice to be more like her now - relaxed about cooking. In general, if you use common sense, whatever you're making will turn out fine. My main rule is: when in doubt, add more herbs and spices.
So that's what I did when I made up the weekly batch of hummus. I followed the recipe from the Candle Cafe Cookbook, but of course, adjusted it a bit.
Sometime I'm going to add sundried tomatoes and basil. Cilantro. Eggplant. Hummus is my life!
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/3 cup tahini
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/8 cup lemon juice
about 1/2 teaspoon each of paprika, cumin, and cayenne pepper
a pinch of sea saltMix together all ingredients in a bowl. Transfer to a food processor and pulse a few times. Add about 1/4 cup of water, blend, scrape down the sides, and then blend even more, adding more water if necessary, until desired consistency is reached (I like it smooth and fluffyish). Taste and add more of whatever you want (tahini, garlic, spices, etc), if your tastebuds demand so. Blend again. When it's perfect, refrigerate for at least one hour.
Yield: A bit more than one cup of hummus.
I was going to make Chana Masala for supper tonight, but in a rare display of flair, my parents are ordering Indian food. Once in a blue moon am I able to have someone else cook for me, so I'm getting Vegetable Biryani and I'm psyched.
13 April 2006
ovaries
I find it ludicrous that I have not had one federal holiday this academic year. At CC they don't observe any holidays (my first day of class was on Labor Day) because you can't just skip a day on the block plan, it messes up the whole schedule. And this semester ASU has not observed any at all! Not even President's Day, the day that we remember all the ugly leaders of our country. So tomorrow I've decided that I'm not going to any classes in observance of a holiday I don't celebrate (Easter) but that brings me yummy chocolate. I don't actually know if anyone is going to bring me yummy chocolate... but I must be home to open the door, just in case.
You know when things just fit together so perfectly, without even trying? Presenting, my fruit.
Today my two classes, Human Event and Econ, both made me think so much it hurt. I love that.
I talked to nicole my bowl on AIM today. I love and miss my bowl! We haven't talked in a while, and I never go online anymore but for some reason, today I did. I'm trying to fight the fate thing, but it might apply here.
K: ...third, if i don't get accepted anywhere, I'm just gonna take a year off and teach english in tibet.
N: wow
N: that would be amazing
K: i know.
N: WOW
K: I think I would love it
N: that would really be amazing
K: I know! you should do it with me
N: maybe i should
N: i would love that too
K: postpone college another year, come eat dim sum in a bowl with me
N: a lot
N: YEAH
N: fuck yeah
K: FUCK YEAH!
N: i am a bowl
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N: remember casey
K: casey casey...
K: he turned into this like popular pimpin guy
N: wtf
N: is he going out with stacy?
N: is he captain of the football team?
K: he and stacy like had a thing for a while, i think... and he got more confident and got this group or whatever
N: omg
N: i was totally kidding
N: that's hilarious
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K: I'd like a boyfriend
N: me too
N: not yours though
K: thanks
N: a different one
N: sure
K: good idea
K: twin brothers
K: that'd be cool
K: ....?
K: wtf katherine
N: HAHAHA
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N: my right ovary hurts
K: my left one hurts
K: we should switch
N: my left one never hurts
N: maybe it's lazy
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N: you'll probably turn into marilyn monroe
N: you'll wake up platinum blonde in a white dress
K: I wouldn't mind that
N: with HUGE
N: eyes
K: did she have huge eyes?
N: i was making the boob joke
N: she did have huge ones of those
K: she did. i like my boobs though, they're nice and small and manageable
N: yeah, we'll be the last to sag
K: sag? what? you and me are gonna be perky for life
N: did you know they have vaginal rejuvenation surgery
N: or at least i heard it on tv
N: so it must be true
K: hahah
K: to rejuvenate... the labia?
N: it's for women who had kids
N: so they're...stretched out..
N: wtf nicole, this time
K: HAHAHA
Her screenname is her full name backwards - and it reads as an actual, slinky, fluid word. How can you be any cooler than that?
12 April 2006
sweet
This is going to be quick because I have kind of a lot of work to do!
Today has been a great day. I love it when I have days like today. I made the effort to wear something summery, the weather (at least when I was walking around between 11 and 1) was gorgeous, probably 75ish degrees, blue skies. It got to be like 90 by 3 or 4pm but I was inside at work then. I had a nice big salad for lunch and a wonderful iced green tea. I've been wanting to eat lots of bananas of late, and apples too... kinda weird but I'm going with it. The internet was down for two of the three hours I worked today, and it's funny how everything just stops when the internet isn't working. It's incredible how much we depend on it. All the faculty left, and Erika and I had a good time talking. Ali and I went to our favorite Pita Jungle for dinner and I had hummus and a really nice pesto pita pizza - a pita with vegan pesto and tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach on top. I spread a bit of hummus over the veggies on the pizza too. Mmmmm. Then I got "the buzz" - the workout kind - so I went to the gym and now I feel so good. Showered, clean, love.