bread & honey : a food blog.

now you know where to find me!

2011-11-10T21:16:00.001-08:00

final death rattle

2011-08-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

good bye food blog! i am tired of you!

raspberry summer

2011-07-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

my friends let me pick berries in their AMAZING BACKYARD the other day

spy the beehive behind the currant grove:

this backyard is totally like the most epic secret-garden-perfect-backyard ever, totally overgrown (despite jeff's constant pruning and work- i've seen him! he works all the time back there!) it's exactly the kind of yard i fantasize about but would never, ever, have the energy to keep up on.

here are some awesome cakes that my friend sammy decorated for the bakery!

she's really into geometric patterns and mathy art and cool universe stuff and YACHT and cool things like that, haha! i thought these cakes reminded me of cool 70's sweaters. they all sold really fast!

speaking of the bakery i get these weird faces on the bottom of my naked portafilter a lot:

i don't know if i have it in me to explain a naked portafilter to non-coffee nerds but basically there is NO WAY for me to force a face to show up, it's a drip pattern that happens ALL BY ITSELF and it happens at least a couple of times a day. sometimes i get a perfect little smiley face, too. it's really weird/awesome. the only embarrassing thing is that if you ARE enough of a coffee nerd to know what this thing is, then you know that the only way i could get a face to show up is to not clean out my portafilter long enough for the drip pattern to dry on the bottom of the basket. SHHHH.

HERE IS THE WORLD'S MOST PERFECT SNACK:

dried black mission figs, raw almonds, a hunk of raw milk cheese, and a macchiato.

i have been drawing a lot and doing more tattoos.

speaking of tattoos i went ahead and started a special tattoo blog where i will post some of the tattoos that i do! http://alicetattoo.blogspot.com tadaaaa!

the last few days have been cool and i'm hoping it will heat back up. give me muggy or give me death! i want to really look forward to october, you know what i mean?

distilled

2011-06-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

despite my natural tendency to make fun of gingers (the gingervitis episode of south park DESTROYS ME, hahaha), i am constantly surrounded by gingers that i LOOOOOVE.

case in point, one of my very close friends, heidi.

heidi is basically family to me, and our kids are bffs so we like to spend some time together now and again. tonight we spent some time together of the drinking variety and at some point we decided to do some DISTILLING. long story short, recently she and her partner made some delicious smelling rose water by distillation process, and as she described it to me it, occurred to us that we could do any sort of fragrant plant and see how it turned out, so tonight we experimented with some fresh herbs that were growing in my backyard.

we started out with a bunch of thyme but as it was going, it smelled pretty gross, honestly. after we chilled the distilled liquid it smelled better, though. (wait i bet you are all like HOW THE FUCK DID YOU MAKE THIS DISTILLED LIQUID!!!! but stfu i'm getting there!)

after all the thyme got fucked up we decided to switch to sage because i'm growing both and that shit came out way better.

OKAY probably by now you are really mad that i haven't described this process to you. the simplest way to describe it is that you are boiling shit with a lid on it and collecting the drops of water that form on the inside of the lid. but trickier because you use a little bowl inside the pot and you put ice on top of the lid to form even more condensation than normal.

here is a link to describe it better than my drunk dumb ass could at one a.m.: http://tipnut.com/how-to-make-rose-water-4-recipes/

i don't know if that is comprehensible to you, but my friend showed me, which is good because i am a dumbass about following instructions without pictures.

i will say that with the thyme, i trimmed off whole sprigs and the resulting concoction smelled dirty and musty as it boiled. first i brought the whole thing to a boil and let it simmer, and i think it was gross. with the sage, i picked JUST THE LEAVES, no stems, and i brought the water to a mild simmer before adding the leaves and then covering. i don't know if the methods made any crazy difference but i will say that after chilling, the thyme water smelled really good, different than when it was hot. and the sage smelled delicious the whole time.

speaking of pictures, here is my new bike that i haven't named yet, i love it:

well anyway, friendos. hope you all are well.

pre-gaming for summer.

2011-06-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

here are some things.

coworkers rolling out tart dough:

a really cool thing just happened to me. i got the opportunity to guest-barista for the stumptown cart, backstage at the sasquatch festival! my mind is thoroughly blown. i can barely even talk about it because i try to play it cool and then all the sudden i'm just like GUSHING. i think it is safe to say that it is one of the COOLEST, FUNNEST THINGS I HAVE EVER GOTTEN TO DO:

the craziest part was that the rock stars were so stoked to see US! they were like OH MY GOD, STUMPTOWN IS HERE. YES. I AM GOING TO DRINK LIKE 300 LATTES. i made espresso for the dap kings right before they played! it was awesome!

apparently it was the 10-year anniversary of the festival, so the organizers hired the ace of cakes people to make a sasquatch cake!

the only part of it that's actually cake is the little lumberjack guy- the rest is wood or cardboard or something. it sat around, pristine, for like 2 days, and then the singer for the flaming lips smashed it on stage and threw chunks of cake into the crowd. my son was so bummed, he REALLY wanted to eat it. i didn't have the heart to tell him how gross fondant really tastes.

the only reason i got to to go the festival is that my husband drove up the coffee cart and installed it. he tricked out the la marzocco linea that we were working on with LED spotlights in between the group heads and it was really cool!!!

in other news i drink a lot of espresso nowadays.

and finally, i am very slowly learning to tattoo and it's really cool. here is the second tattoo i've ever done on another person:

i think it came out pretty good! #3 is coming up soon. i don't have a lot of time to make appointments with people so i haven't gotten to practice much. but it's cool, it is really fun.

anyway today was the first 80 degree + day we've had all year and i don't know wtf i am doing in the basement. i bought a BIKE yesterday and i rode it to work this morning! and now i'm going to go into my backyard and pick a bunch of mint for the mint-cucumber-yogurt-avocado salad i'm about to make to go with the lamb we're about to grill.

summer 2011 KICKOFF STARTS NOW!

oh, and-

2011-05-04T23:52:00.001-07:00

by the way, poached eggs in red sauce (just a little bit of a jar of marinara) with a pinch of cayenne pepper, served over lightly steamed spinach for breakfast. would have highly benefited from a chunk of crusty bread to soak up some of the juices but otherwise flawless.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

instead of updating my food blog

2011-05-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

instead of updating my food blog, i have been:

watching white fang play in the nude:

taking every scrap of sunshine i can find as an opportunity to eat outside:

tattooing citrus:

catching up on my art history with my son:

watching my my friends' business grow:

getting super emotional over rainbows:

giving myself bad, unsanitary, shitty-looking tattoos:

eating girl scout cookies by candlelight with my son:

listening to the new electric wizard lp:

crushin' springtime:

connecting with old friends:

A+, NO COMPLAINTS

living the dream

2011-03-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you go to a wild-game-burger cart and you bump into a friend who is hanging out with his friend from Seattle and she sees you and is all "OMG! I READ YOUR BLOG!" before even extending her hand to say hello and introduce yourself. And you are like, MAN THAT IS HILARIOUS and then you take a picture of her and put it on your blog.

Sometimes your friend gets his personal catch phrase tattooed on the palm of his hand:

Sometimes you wear the same band tshirt to work as your boss:

Sometimes you go to the Asian superstore to buy another fermentation jar and you come home with a cute little $1.49 teacup

Sometimes you spend your day-off mornings in coffee shops with your son, drawing and drinking americanos.

Sometimes you decide that since you make kimchi differently every time you try a new batch, that you're too lazy to ever post a recipe on your food blog, but you heartily recommend the book Wild Fermentation as a resource:

I wish I could be all posi in here like I always am and be like OH GOD LIFE IS SO RAD I AM JUST TOO BUSY TO UPDATE MY FOOD BLOG! EVERY SECOND RULES AND I AM JUST TOO BUSY HAVING FUN TO DO ANYTHING ELSE! But actually the last few months have been kind of rough for us just in terms of illness and general grumps and feeling like THE WORLD IS ENDING A LITTLE BIT and then that stupid fucking supermoon came and made everyone I know crazy and grumpy for DAYYYYS. And so all that sucked.

But, the good news is, I woke up real chipper this morning and I am feeling pretty goddamn great about things now. So, hello again! JK everything totally does rule!

stuff i eat

2011-03-03T21:42:00.001-08:00

dear food blog, here are some things i ate:

eggs, salsa, raw milk cheddar, avocado, spinach, whole wheat and flax tortilla, yogurt.

whole wheat toast, goat cheese, chopped almonds, dried black mission figs, honey drizzle.

avocado, scrambled eggs, whole wheat and flax tortilla, homemade kimchi.

a bunch of people got all excited when i mentioned making homemade kimchi and a couple people were like 'i can't wait to see your recipe!' which kind of made me laugh. hello, i am a boring white girl from oregon. obviously, i googled a recipe. and even though my first attempt was edible and even sort of delicious, i certainly wouldn't consider it good enough to be like "INTERNET! DO EXACTLY AS I DO! I CHECKED OUT A BOOK ABOUT FERMENTATION FROM THE LIBRARY AND I AM NOW A KIMCHI EXPERT!" i will post about it soon but don't get your panties in a wad expecting a spectacular recipe or any kind of secrets. if you're interested, just google it like i did. or actually here, let me google that for you: http://drbenkim.com/how-make-kim-chi.htm

there you go.

HEY here is a question. any of you portland people have a hot tip on a high-maintenance hippie chow burrito shop place that ISN'T laughing planet? MAN i am tired of that place. i just want brown rice and whole wheat tortillas, is that so wrong? i know cha cha cha has whole wheat tortillas and i go there sometimes but i want 5 dollar pretend-healthy dinner from someplace else. i'm about to start doing the whole bowl thing but maybe there is a HIPPIE SECRET that i don't know about. PORTLAND. HELLO. also please feel free to begin making portlandia jokes. it's the right thing to do.

perfect snacks

2011-02-25T22:27:00.000-08:00

three almonds shoved inside of a dried black mission fig. I COULD EAT THIS AS AN ENTIRE MEAL. Actually the other day, I did. For lunch I just ate a big handful of almonds and an even bigger handful of figs. It ruled.

I recently made my son a bird in the hole for the first time. He's not super sold on it but he's more of a scrambled egg kind of kid. You know, that ingrained OCD that all toddlers have. OH MY GOD IT'S MORE THAN ONE COLOR!!!! I CANNOT EAT IT IF THE COLORS ARE TOUCHING BUT NOT MIXED TOGETHERRRRR!!!!

shooters of ethiopian honey (brought back by a friend) and water & apple cider vinegar:

a pretty jar of dried spirulina at my sister's house:

i've been drinking a lot of green kombuchas. i had some at dinner tonight and my husband told me it looked like i was drinking my paint water. he was totally right, haha. i need to get some spirulina to have around for smoothies.

lattes and drawing, almost every day.

2011 is off to a weird start and is it already march? what the hell? i haven't planted ANYTHING. it snowed yesterday. (i've heard people jokingly refer to it as 'snow-verreaction 2011.' the closed the schools and everything for a lousy 2 inches of snow.)

let me tell you about what i had for dinner tonight, it was brown rice with roasted vegetables (daikon, broccoli, yellow squash, zucchini, carrot), fried eggs, and homemade kimchi. with sriracha. and a small glass of green kombucha. WHAT'S THAT SMELL OH IT IS MY HAIRY STINKY HIPPIE ARMPITS NO BIG DEAL. I ATE BAREFOOT WITH MY LEGS CROSSED AND A LOOK OF SMUG SATISFACTION ON MY FACE, WHY DO YOU CARE. ISN'T THAT WHAT HIPPIES DO?

oh yeah and for lunch i had a whole grain english muffin with avocado, ham, and raw milk cheddar.

...

shit like THAT is why i stopped posting recipes on here, for the most part. tastespotting does not give a shit about my sloppy hippie chow (EVEN THOUGH IT WAS DELICIOUS). however, did you notice the part where i said "homemade kimchi?" yeah, i made some. i'll probably go ahead and post about that later this week.

at the bakery

2011-02-11T20:50:00.000-08:00

I work in a bakery/cafe as a barista, but I'm an enthusiastic spectator of the production bakers. One of them picked up this rad apron the other day and every time I see it, it cracks me up. P.s. see my rad latte? I love lattes.

some things

2011-01-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

cappuccinos at fresh pot mississippi with an old friend:

which segued into a makeshift deli picnic at the pastaworks down the street- salami, pickle, mozzarella balls, a few dolmas:

awesome coworker making pate a choux cream puffs:

awesome looking apple almond tarts at work:

me holding a chicken so you know i'm all slow food and earthy and shit:

NEW BLOG NEW BLOG NEW BLOG

2011-01-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

1 HOUR DRAWINGS!!!

Hey did you guys know that I eat the same things almost every day now? My life is really boring. I work in a bakery now and I BAKE NOTHING AT HOME EVER. Which is hilarious because I have this blog that has a shitload of baking recipes on it.

a first

2011-01-11T06:03:00.001-08:00

i think this is the first time i've posted a youtube video on here, but AHAHAHAHA

this is a really good way to start your day.

we can all give bruce a big hand for sharing this with me, thank you sir.

dope dope dope

2010-11-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

life has been way too awesome to spend every day blogging. like the other day i was standing in front of a bar texting my no-show friends and shivering in the cold all like "BOO HOO NOW WHAT?" and another friend just happened to walk by. he was like, "dude what are you doing right now? there's a free red fang show at the tube in five minutes, we're walking there right now!"

so... that was fucking sweet.

it's supposed to snow tonight. it's been really cold and wet.

(you can tell because i posted this picture of RAAAAIN. it like, sets the mood and shit.)

also i have been making lots of soups because it's been really cold:

i have been slowly making my way through this soup cookbook:

it has a bunch of cool techniques and hints and stuff, like enriching your soup by stirring in a knob of butter at the end (I RECOMMEND THIS!!!!) or how to rescue a too-salty soup (cook a whole potato in the soup and then remove it). i love this book! thank you, library!!

this year we are hosting a small family thanksgiving at our house for the very first time. we already ordered our stupid hippie free range turkey (only like 10 cents more a pound than the crappy supermarket turkeys! it better be good though, i want to feel really smug about it.) and i've been pre-gaming by making lots of stock and freezing it, and the other day i finally roasted off the pumpkins i grew:

I mashed it and swapped some of it at a food swap, and the rest i'm saving for a pumpkin pie. now i have to decide if i want to do a streusel-top pumpkin pie. i know that i would love it but i think my family might get weird.

also been taking beautiful walks on beautiful days with beautiful friends.

if i were the jesus-y sort i'd probably sit here talking about how blessed i am by the lord but instead how about i make a joke about satan (SATAN RULES!) and just give out a general vibe to the universe- THANKS UNIVERSE. thanks for the free red fang show, awesome friends, good food, health, family, and a roof over my head.

time flies

2010-11-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to come right out and blab about where I work on the internet (that's weird!), but here is a nice little behind the scenes moment from the other day. This is one of the lovely bakers from the back of the house, frosting a cake. The bakery is set back a little from the street and there are only a few points during the day that there is really direct sunlight hitting the windows but when it does, it's really magical and nice.

The other day I made a large pot of soup:

I'd planned to make chili but I accidentally added too much liquid and the tomatoes I used were stewed plum tomatoes with basil, and it smelled so good when I added it that I decided to just go full-on tomato soup instead of chili. I froze some to save for an upcoming food swap, I'm looking forward to it.

A few months ago we visited the bay area to see my in-laws and I got a fortune from one of those little mechanical machines at the Santa Cruz boardwalk:

It told me to wear onyx, so I got some:

I think it's a good thing that it already feels really natural to be wearing this ring all the time. I'm a big fan of psychosomatic good luck, and little talismans, and any kind of power object that makes people feel better. I mentioned to a friend that I take fortunes sort of seriously because I figure that it can only help or do nothing, but it definitely won't do anything negative. She pointed out to me that people with OCD exhibit similar thought patterns and I was like DUH HAVE WE MET.

Also my halloween was raaaaadddddd:

At work I dressed as a zombie waitress (or alternately, green secretary from beetlejuice or hot blue star trek lady, whatever the mind settles on) and then I took my son trick or treating with friends:

And yes, I let my son eat candy, but no- not that much.

I don't want to jinx anything, but I have a meeting on Tuesday with my favorite store I've ever been to, they are opening a branch in Portland and I'm hoping to consign some of my original drawings on wood there. Wish me luck!

oh, hey dude, hey.

2010-10-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

hello.

This morning, I was lounging on an oversized chair in a sunlit corner of a busy cafe, reading a book to my son and sipping on an americano, when a woman I've never met walked briskly toward me, leaned over and said in a confidential tone, "I just wanted to say that I love your blog! I miss it!" I thanked her as she walked away, and just like that I was like, OH HEY. I kind of miss it too.

Here are some things I've been up to:

Baking apple tarts for friends. (Martha Stewart pie crust, apple slices, chunks of butter, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, and a pinch of kosher salt, then into the oven til done.)

Unsuccessfully ripening my meager haul of green tomatoes from the garden in a paper bag with a ripe apple. I guess they were technically "ripe" in the sense that they smelled really bad after turning brown in the bag, but it's not really what I was going for. (I can't be the only person who has made this dumb 'ripe' joke about their tomatoes, right?)

Snacking on breakfast radishes from a small patch in my only garden plot not currently fouled with cat shit.

Eating poached eggs on top of kale that has been sauteed in olive oil, then tossed with grain mustard and a splash of cider vinegar.

Staying up late in my office, drinking wine from coffee mugs and half-assedly working on art projects.

And to the lady who approached me in the cafe this morning, (and the other small handful of people who have actually come up to me in person to say they liked my blog) HELLO! I hope you're having a good day.

2010-10-15T21:51:00.001-07:00

2010-09-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

boo.

2010-09-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

dude seriously

2010-08-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

i can't believe how many people commented on that other post who seriously thought i would name my new blog "alternative mom zone"

WTF

okay WHAAAAAT

2010-08-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

okay seriously though, should i start a new blog or should i just start rambling here all the time? i just can't think of a name for the new blog. it feels shitty to just use this blog to blah blah blah about my own crap all the time since i started it with summer and she did all the promoting in the beginning and that's the only reason i have a bunch of readers ANYWAY and she doesn't even BLOG HERE ANYMORE.

i keep meaning to like start a new artsy-life-foody-whatever blog, but i've been really busy!

playing kickball with friends in the park:

sniffin on beeswax:

taking my kid to the park:

AND WORKING ALL THE TIME. Sometimes I'll stumble in the front door, exhausted and low on the ol' blood sugar at like 6 p.m. after working all day and then picking up my son from daycare, and I'll think about all the shit I used to spend all day cooking and then blogging about, and I wonder how many working moms would read that shit and be like HAHA ASSHOLE, SURE I WOULD LOVE TO SPEND 2 HOURS MAKING INDIVIDUAL PITA BREADS, THANKS FOR THE RECIPE! OH YEAH I TOTALLY LOVE HOVERING OVER MY CHICKEN STOCK FOR 4 HOURS AT A TIME!

But whatever. Life is what it is, and right now it's fucking dope as hell, so as much as I'd love to lament that I don't have the energy- mental or physical, to keep up with a bloggity blog, I'm too busy getting drunk at the park and falling on my ass diving for a red rubber ball, or singing my son 10 million bedtime songs, or falling asleep on the couch with my husband, or whatever else.

BUT I still want to make art and take photos and yap at the internet about food I love, so I still want to start another blog. I just don't know what to call it. SOMEONE COME UP WITH A GOOD NAME PLEASE. MY FRIEND EMILY SUGGESTED "ALTERNATIVE MOM ZONE"WHICH I AM LEANING TOWARD, BUT COME ON NOW.

Also I think that I regretfully contributed to the now-irritating trend of ___ and ___ blogs, so let's just not do that again, shall we? NAME IT. I'M LAZY.

garden progress

2010-07-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a jumble of things that are growing in my life right now- cucumbers, sugar pumpkins, burgundy beans, lots of lettuce. Tomatoes aren't doing spectacular but I'll take what I can get.

On another note, I think I'm coming to the end of this blog, honestly. I've gotten a lot of comments and even some emails pointing out that my tone is getting less pleasant around here and that I don't seem as interested as I used to, and you know what? Y'all are right. I've already officially 86'd my drawing blog and to be honest, I was just using this as a high-traffic blog to get people to look at my art that I was trying to sell. I mean, I love photographing food and talking about food but I'm not really interested in being a Food Blogger- or maybe I am, I don't know. I do know that I have been addicted to the internets since I was like 11 years old so it's not like I'm going to up and disappear, I'm probably just going to start some new project and hope that some of my readers from this blog will come check it out.

For what it's worth, anyone who has complaints about my tone probably doesn't know me in real life at all. If you had any idea how much time I spend saying the word "fuck" you'd probably either not want to be my friend or you'd think I'm hilarious.

So anyway, I'll update whenever I get my shit together on something new. I'm just feeling totally uninspired right now, which might have something to do with working full time or it might just be a normal dip in the ol' creativity, whatever. IT'S BEEN A GOOD RUN, BREAD AND HONEY. Shit's about to get real, tho. :P

fridge pickles.

2010-07-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Now, the plan is to get to canning some pickles at some point this summer, but my garden hasn't been providing the epic bounty I've fantasized over for so many months. We're getting handfuls of vegetables here and there, but it's nothing to go bonkers over. My bush beans are starting to flower so I'm hoping for enough to do some spicy pickled beans.

I'm not going to post a recipe for fridge pickles, you can spend 5 minutes googling until you find one that will work with all the ingredients you have on hand, and then the next 10 minutes assembling the prep and making the pickles, because it's a really simple process.

I made one jar that is multi-colored carrots, striped beets, and beet stalks- all grown in my garden! Woot! And one jar of pickled onions with a generous teaspoon of yellow curry powder thrown in and that shit is pretty dope, let me tell you. I like curry pickles.

When I *DO* get around to canning pickles, I'll probably be a dogg and post a real recipe, but what is the point of showing you what I found on google in the first place anyway? Do some homework, kids. It's not that hard.

dinner party

2010-07-03T06:11:00.000-07:00

One of my good friends has a birthday on the 4th of July that he rarely gets to fully celebrate, what with all the barbecues and fireworks and loud people. He's a pretty low-key dude and he loves food, and since him and his lady are awesome and our kids are basically bffs, we had them over for a delicious festival of grazing.

We had really epic snacks, lots of fresh fruit and berries and amazing salami and bread and some kind of gooey cheese that I don't remember what it was called, and olives, and what else- oh yeah, PIEEE.

Y'all, this is my first pie ever. I know you're thinking, WTF DUMB FOOD BLOGGER, YOU HAVE MADE ABOUT A MILLION PIES. I'VE SEEN PICTURES. Those pies were all made by Summer at her house! I know that at least ONE of you lovely readers took umbrage with me calling people dummies for skimming posts and ignoring facts but man, it's pretty funny how many people used to completely ignore which post was made by which person when Summer and I were blogging together. I've gotten a lot of emails asking for specific baking advice that I cannot really give, I'm not really a baker. I've even made whole posts explaining the whole Summer/Alice dynamic- i.e., I am a photographer, she likes to bake. BUT, that's beside the point.

The point is I MADE MY FIRST PIE. I just took the epic pate brisee recipe by Martha Stewart and subbed out 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour, and used all lard instead of butter. Now, I'm not going to go off on some tangent about shit I've been reading about lard, but I think most people know at this point (I hope?) that lard isn't actually all that bad for you. HYDROGENATED stuff, which a lot of lard is, is terrible for you, but if you go to a butcher and buy freshly rendered lard, nutritionally it's not a whole lot different from olive oil. The calories are the same, and it's over half monounsaturated fats, so a lard crust isn't going to give you an instant heart attack and it tastes really good.

I wanted a savory pie and I wasn't 100% sure how I wanted to do it, but I mentioned it to one of my bosses at work and she told me about the savory pies they used to make, with a ricotta/egg type filling, and I was like, SOLD! I'm picking up ricotta on the way home. I caramelized onions and fennel bulb together in a pan, mixed up a bowl with a tub of ricotta, the (cooled! they were cooled first!) onions & fennel, some fresh basil and some chopped fennel fronds, and 3 eggs, and a little bit of parmesan. Spooned into the middle of a rolled out crust and then folded up around, baked on a sheet pan for what, like 40 minutes? This was definitely a "just keep an eye on it" sort of thing because I had no idea what I was doing.

Anyway if you use the Martha Recipe, and hippiefy it if you want to or don't, it's a perfect recipe all by itself, and then use one of those little pint tubs of ricotta, 3 caramelized onions (and a fennel bulb), 2 whole eggs and one egg yolk (reserve the white to brush on the crust) this will make you 2 large savory pies. Add anchovies if you want. I was going to but I gave mine up for the potato salad, which actually might warrant its own post, if my husband will give up his recipe. Potato salad secrets: tarragon and anchovy.

BYE DUMMIES

growin stuff

2010-06-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

I grew some carrots, and then I roasted them. I grew some greens, and then I put them on a BLT. Then I made a salad with store bought greens (how much do you want to bet that at least 3 dummies are gonna skim this post and then post a comment like "YUM! THAT SALAD LOOKS GREAT I BET IT FEELS GOOD TO GROW YOUR OWN LETTUCE! CHECK OUT MY BLOG!") and I put chunks of fresh mozzarella on it, and topped it with some of my friend's strawberry-ginger-rosemary jam mixed in with some balsamic and olive oil. It was really good.

Today I took a bike ride with my friend and we rode our kids to the park, watched them play, took them out for ice cream, and rode back to her place. It was awesome and now I'm pining for a bicycle. I am officially saving my pennies for one. Then should I do a trailer, or a kid seat on the back? I think trailer, probably, because then I could store shit in it.

HEY DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS A CATASTROPHIC OIL SPILL AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE? Yeah, I knew that too. But at least I had a pleasant day off from work.

portlandia

2010-06-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

Monster noodles are back on our regular meal agenda, with one small addition. I don't often have quite enough ingredients on hand (despite shopping for things specifically- it's easy to dip into stuff that's meant for something else) to complete a big bowl of pesto, and lately I've been doing this thing to stretch my pesto that is making my life pretty goddamn awesome. KEEP IN MIND, that if you are a pesto purist, this is an abomination unto the lord, but I find it seriously delicious.

Take your normal pesto recipe, (which should be something like, basil, one clove of garlic, olive oil, parmesan, some nuts like walnuts or pinenuts, lemon juice, and salt & pepper) boil your noodles, and then spoon about half a cup of plain whole milk yogurt into a bowl. Scoop a small amount of pasta water out after the pasta is done cooking, dump it in with the yogurt and use it to thin it out a little, then dump that into the pesto and mix it around, and TA DA. Creamy pesto. Picture me, the super hippie, with small woodland creatures nesting in my armpit hair as I dig into my bowl of whole wheat spaghetti with creamy yogurt pesto, made with fresh basil, kale, and some chard from my own garden. DON'T HATE, PLAYERS. It tastes really good.

Speaking of my garden, I was looking up information about growing carrots last night when I realized I have not been thinning my carrots nearly enough. They were practically growing on top of each other so I pulled up a bunch of wee little babies to make room for the big carrots to grow.

I ate a couple of the bigger ones and they were delicious. I am transported by homegrown carrots, y'all. That is the #1 garden treat that I remember from my childhood, second only to fresh green beans off the vine, but it's too early in the season for those yet. Snap peas don't really compare. I'm thinking about taking all the thinnings and pickling them whole. I'll get back to you on that.

Additionally, I came home to this on my dining room table today:

This Frankie's Spuntino cookbook made its way home with my husband today, and tomorrow night we're going to some kind of fancy book release event as part of our date night? I actually am not 100% sure what the event is all about, but it's at my husband's job and it sounds like it's going to be cool. This cookbook is glorious, by the way. I think it's styled after vintage field guides, and I'm really into the illustrations and just the size and cover and gold leaf, it's really a beautiful book. Fuck you, Kindle. Books are pretty and they smell good. And don't give you cancer.

Finally, we had dinner with some old friends tonight, and the served us up (among other things) some nice little cookies. I thought they deserved mention because they're a recipe taken from another blogger, Soule Mama.

I think it was this recipe and the general consensus was that they tasted more like gingersnaps or graham crackers than coffee, but they were good and I enjoyed the texture, they reminded me of these.

Anyway. Portland was beautiful today, I've been eating really amazing food, seeing really amazing people, and this week marks the first consecutive 2 days off I've had since I started my new job, so I feel pretty goddamn rejuvenated right now. I HAVE TO GO START A LOAF OF NO-KNEAD FOR A SWAP TOMOMORROW (I'll be getting some strawberry-ginger-rosemary jam from a friend & I'm bringing her a loaf in trade).

Good night.

(p.s. yeah, I had a couple of glasses of wine tonight, by the way)

quick

2010-06-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, did you know that Portland is having like, the wettest spring on record or something like that? The 10-day forecast can seriously suck a fart out of my butt. My tomato plants are languishing, frozen in place by shitty weather and turning black from too much rain.

On the up side, my peas are doing awesome, I have carrots going crazy, and maybe someday it will stop raining for more than a day or two at a time. I keep promising that I'll stop complaining about it but SERIOUSLY WHAT THE EVERLOVING HELL!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!? IT IS THE MIDDLE OF JUNE AND I STILL HAVE MY HEAT ON.

the zombie apocalypse is upon us

2010-06-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, okay. My kitchen is operational. (We still need to put in the hood.) Would you like to hear the mind-blowing, totally fantastic, OUTSTANDING meal we made as soon as everything was ready to go?

It was spaghetti with classico sauce, y'all. And some roasted broccoli. WE HADN'T GONE GROCERY SHOPPING YET! JEEZ. Saturday, we paid some bills and then went shopping with a meal plan for the first time in a few months and it was AWESOMEEEE. Then we roasted a chicken.

And hey, i don't want to toot my own horn but this was the best chicken I've ever roasted. I don't know if it's because the heat is more evenly distributed in my new fancy oven, or if it's just that it's been awhile, but it was so perfectly cooked, omg.

Uhhhh anything else? Sorry if this is really boring, I'm distracted by the sound of my kid and my 2 nephews tearing my basement to shreds. They seem to be having a good time, but HOLY CRAP, little kids make a lot of noise.

Also, my garden is doing pretty well. I have lots of snap peas and even though I keep finding slugs all over everything, stuff seems to be growing. So, hooray for that.

Also I just had a conversation with my friend Josh about the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse and honestly y'all? This shit kind of bums me out. I can try to ignore things as much as I want (OIL SPILL OIL SPILL OIL SPILL OIL SPILL OIL SPILL) but the reality is that I spend pretty much every day practically vibrating with anxiety and consumer guilt. I have to spend a huge portion of my time shoving thoughts out of my head because I am so freaked out by life in general. Like WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT OF BEING ALIVE WHEN HUMAN BEINGS DO SO MUCH FUCKED UP SHIT?! WHY DID I HAVE A KID IF HE IS JUST GOING TO GET EATEN ALIVE BY ZOMBIES ON MY 29TH BIRTHDAY (my 29th birthday will be 12/21/2012, fyi)?!?! WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE! I AM A BAD PERSON BECAUSE I HAVE A DISHWASHER AND ALL THOSE LITTLE GIRLS IN "BORN INTO BROTHELS" HAVE TO SCRUB THEIR PANS WITH FILTHY OLD WATER!

I could go on, but I won't. The truth is I don't have a clue what to do with this type of energy. I grow shit in my yard, I teach my son to be a good person, I cook all my meals at home in an attempt to be healthy, but I wrestle with feelings of "WHAT'S THE POINT" pretty much all day, every day. I just keep making shit- art, food, friends- and hope that things turn out okay. Even complaining about these bad feelings makes me feel like a dick, knowing that somewhere else, like some Guatemalan kid is like, "ORLY, ALICE? YOU'RE STRESSED OUT BECAUSE YOU FEEL GUILTY ABOUT HAVING A NEW DISHWASHER? WELL THERE IS A SINKHOLE THAT LITERALLY REACHES THE PITS OF HELL IN MY BACKYARD, SO STOP WHINING. I get it, I know that I am like the epitome of White Kids With Problems. Poor me, I have college debt but I own a house in a beautiful city where most people have the same political ideals as I do. Hard knock life, y'all!

I don't know where I was going with this. Just know that I am incredibly thankful for what I have.

green

2010-06-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I quit drinking coffee, because I am a very high strung person and I thought ditching caffeine would help me relax. I don't know if that helped, but I no longer rely on it to function, so I consider that a win. But, I've been a barista for most of my food service career, and my husband works for a large local roaster (ahem ^^) and so, we're a coffee family. We have a coffee tree in our windowsill (a housewarming gift from Alia and Jason) and I'm finding myself drinking coffee more often these days. OR MAYBE IT'S JUST BECAUSE IT'S STILL SO GODDAMN DREARY HERE, I AM TRYING NOT TO GO ALL SYLVIA PLATH ON EVERYONE.

I know I'm always BOO HOO CRYBABIES, THE WEATHER ISN'T THAT BAD! I like rain! It's nice! Scarves are cute! Forget everything I said. Nonstop rain (okay, like 3 or 4 days of random sun breaks stuck in there) through June can S my D.

I'm paranoid about my plants, but so far the tomatoes aren't dead yet (knock on wood) and the peas really like it.

And finally, an obligatory kitchen progress shot. We are SO CLOSE.

It looks so much better than I even imagined it would. It feels weird (wrong?) to have a brand new shiny kitchen because I've never owned anything this NICE before. Is this being a grown-up? Paying bills and working and being stressed out about shit isn't fun, but I guess I can hang with it if it means I get a new kitchen out of the deal.

START MAKING BETS ON THE FIRST THING I'M GONNA COOK! (I'm leaning towards roasting a chicken, but I might just end up poaching some eggs for breakfast as the first thing.)

farmington army and good company

2010-05-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

Our kitchen is still a large empty room (but with trim! and a grouted floor! and beautiful green walls!) and we are so goddamn tired of washing dishes in the bathroom that we're taking everyone we know up on offers for dinner parties in between our own jobs and obligations.

Last night we met up with some friends who made us fresh pasta and served us homemade pickles and giant trays of olives- oh man, I ate myself to death, it was awesome.

Add to that a pizza party at another close friend's house earlier in the week:

And taking a visiting friend to one of my favorite taco trucks:

It's been a good week for eating. (A shitty week for taking care of my blood sugar, but who's keeping track, right?)

I also finally popped back into Josh's farm to take some photos, and you can find the full update over here.

My husband anticipates that the kitchen might be done within the next 2 weeks. I CANNOT WAIT.

home stretch

2010-05-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

It feels like I don't have much to report, but you know- stuff's getting done. The kitchen is in the home stretch (tiling is done! walls are done!), I've still been eating a lot of take out (taco truck mmmmmm), and slugs are eating the bejesus out of my radishes. Jerks. Tomatoes are in the ground, bush beans are sprouting, peas are over a foot high.

Hey by the way, something just popped into my head. If you are planning to leave a comment that looks like this:

"Great post!!!!

<3 ~*~Alice~*~
http://bread-and-honey.blogspot.com"

Don't. You're a dumbass.

cherry blossom & green tea kitkat.

2010-05-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well hey. Remember my new food blog buddy/penpal Sunday Williams?

No? Oh, I guess I was too much of a dumbass to remember to post about it. Well, long story short, I sent her this partially eaten candy bar in the mail so she could taste how weird it was. She sent me back a goofy package of mailing labels and it was all like WHEE! FUN!

Then she had a random drawing to win a GREEN TEA AND CHERRY BLOSSOM FLAVORED KIT KAT BAR and I inexplicably won, which is funny. I never win random drawings.

But I mean, it's funny, right? Given our previous history.

So anyway I got this guy in the mail today.

I opened it up, not really expecting anything, and was really blown away by the lovely green color, haha:

My husband was a willing guinea pig, I broke him off a piece, HA HA HA. OH GOD, HAHA. Ha.

Anyway, I felt like it had a sort of bizarre, nostalgia-inducing flavor that I still haven't managed to put my finger on, but my husband was just like, "Uh, it tastes like white chocolate to me, basically." And he was right, that was the general flavor. I think I might go have another piece just to see if I can get my brain to confirm what the weird memories are that I have attached to the flavor. I DON'T KNOW, MAN. Like olfactory memory but like, in your mouth.

Anyway, we still don't have a kitchen and I am SO OVER TAKEOUT, dude. We have walls and half a floor now, so that means it's kind of all downhill from here, I hope. I can't wait to post finished photos and also I CANNOT WAIT TO COOK AGAIN. REAL FOOD.

Good night.

same shit, different day

2010-04-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm a reasonably patient person, but my radishes are starting to get pretty good sized, and I keep sneaking one here and there, even though they're still tiny. They taste good! Like uh... radishes. In case you're keeping track, our kitchen is still a pile of debris in the backyard, but it's slowly, slowly being pieced back together. My husband has pretty much done 100% of the work himself in small spurts after work and on weekends (when I'm either hanging out with our son, or working, respectively) and I am amazed at how much he's done by himself. Although, let's be fair- this is a man who got impatient when we were redoing our bathroom and PICKED UP AN ENTIRE BATHTUB BY HIMSELF AND INSTALLED IT IN THE BATHROOM. Like, dude- you don't think you could have waited a day for me to be able to help you carry the bathtub in the door? It's not like it was a clawfoot tub or anything, but jeez.

So the garden has been keeping me busy, aside from drawing, and my day job, and my family, and my house. I kind of have a lot going on right now. It's awesome! Overwhelming is kind of how I roll, it suits my personality just fine. (Until I start freaking out.)

Adding to that, I've started a new blog project, that I hope some of you will be interested enough to follow. Updates won't be as frequent as this blog or my drawing blog (obligatory link, haw haw), but what I am doing is following a friend throughout the growing season at his small urban farm.

He has access to a plot of land, and to be frank, he's essentially preparing for the apocalypse. I mean, I'm kind of more of a "Aw, won't it be fun to grow some stuff? Maybe I'll can some of it for later!" kinda gal, and he's more like, "WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN, YOU GOTTA BE PREPARED." It's awesome, though. He's all about self-sustaining living, and he's given me full access to his farm to photograph the process of turning a vacant lot into a fertile field, and I'm pretty stoked about it. Check out the blog, here. I'd just go ahead and add it to your feed so you don't have to remember to check it regularly, because it's not like I'm going to show up every day and take a picture of the same row of peas waiting for them to sprout or whatever, but there will be an evolution of the land through photographs throughout the rest of the growing season, and I'm looking forward to it.

Soon I'm going to be able to cook with more than an electric skillet and a camp stove, and I can't wait. I'm going to eat poached eggs every morning for breakfast (instead of peanut butter toast or cereal) and I'm going to roast a big fat chicken- I really miss roasting a chicken for dinner. I am so lucky that I get to redo my kitchen, WOO HOO!

EDITED TO ADD: HEY DUMMIES, IT'S NOT A DICK TATTOO, IT'S PART OF A MOTH. BUT YES, IT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE A DICK. IT'S MY TATTOO. SHUT UP.

catch-up jumble.

2010-04-18T22:39:00.001-07:00

Here is a photo of a 3 year old girl kissing a chicken:

SATISFYING.

Anyway, somehow I manage to keep myself really busy, which I appreciate- being the youngest of 4 kids I crave constant stimulation and attention and I get bored really easily. Maybe a little ADD mixed in with my OCD, who knows? This is part of the reason, I think- that being a stay at home mom has never agreed with me much. WHAT? SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET ADMITTED THAT BEING A STAY AT HOME MOM SUCKS DOG BALLS? Whatever, dudes. Babies are BORING. I'd rip out my fingernails with pliers for my kid, but if you want to pretend like staring at the same 4 walls all day while a small person screams at you while crapping their pants is the best thing that ever happened to you, be my guest. Now that he's older and more independent, things are going really well for all of us, I think.

So anyway, I'm working a lot more now, and art things are keeping me busy too.

My good friends over at Darling Press & Stationers just bought their very own printing press!

It is a beautiful old machine (the patent stamp is from 1899!) and it's almost ready to run. I'm so excited for them! Click through to their blog to see some more photos I took of it and to read the story of how they got it. I'm hoping that someday soon they'll teach me to use it and I can offer prints instead of just original drawings over at my drawing blog.

OH BUT WAIT, THIS IS MY FOOD BLOG, not my complain-about-motherhood-and-ramble-about-my-art-projects-blog.

Look at that! The same buddies who got the printing press also got one of these bad ass water storage tanks. They are officially apocalypse-ready, what with their old-timey machinery and clean water receptacles. This is a 330 gallon rain water storage tank, and I really really want one. I'm meeting with the guy who hooked them up with this tank tomorrow to discuss some business- he runs an urban farm near my neighborhood, and I am going to take some photographs for him, and maybe draw a logo, and then maybe help him get a blog going so he can get the word out for his farm and CSA projects. And then I don't have to have a skyrocketing water bill this summer to water my garden.

Also, I was just reading Angerburger, a food blog that is funnier than mine, and she had a goofy list of some previous jobs.

Because I am bored, and as previously mentioned, attention-seeking, here is my list of funny/dorky/lame jobs:

1. Farm Worker, age 13. This lasted for a month or two, the summer before the 9th grade. I had to pick green onions and radishes, and I hated every second of it. I wish I could point to this job and pretend like it gave me some much-needed structure, or that it taught me how to work hard, or whatever- but really I was a total asshole the whole time I worked there, I complained the whole time, and I treated it like an extended study hall, goofing off and wasting time. Spoiled rotten white kids for the win, I guess. In hindsight, though- I'm glad I have even a tiny bit of experience with the way farms work. '

2. Burger Joint Waitress, age 15. There is a diner in Oregon City (where I grew up) which employs almost exclusively high school kids and the few stragglers who uh, still work there. I started working there after dropping out of high school, and sometimes kids I'd previously been going to class with would pop in around lunch time and give me a hard time. My boss was kind of crazy, but she's since passed away from cancer and I can't bring myself to make fun of her on the internet. There was a cook who worked there that I loved, and he passed away a few years ago, the only funeral I've ever been to. This job was definitely a pretty formative experience in the food service industry for me, and it was one of those on again, off again jobs that I'd go back to when I couldn't find work anywhere else.

3. Summer Camp Cafeteria Lady, age 16. This was a quick job, only a few weeks at the end of a summer when one of the staff cooks bailed on short notice and they needed someone, and my sister happened to work there as a nature guide already. Have you ever seen Wet Hot American Summer? It was actually kind of like that. I fried 400 burgers in a row for an outdoor picnic, and ruined my favorite tank top with burger grease. I loved that job!

4. Discount Cigarette Store Employee, age 18: I had a couple of jobs between these 2, but they were boring. This one was hilarious. It was one of those shitty "Cigarettes, Cheaper!" stores in a strip mall in Oak Grove, a crappy Portland suburb. I worked 4 shifts a week, each 12 hours long. I had a coffee pot, I was allowed to smoke inside the store, and I spent the majority of my day sitting on my ass chainsmoking and reading Harry Potter books over and over. I'd pass the time doing stupid shit like hiding a whoopie cushion under my cash register and stepping on it when I went to pick things up, just to see if the customers would say anything.

Other than those jobs and a couple of other odd ones, I've been a barista at various cafes since I was 19 and it's something I alternately really enjoy and really hate (because people are so stupid, but whatever).

ANYWAY.

Hope y'all are having a good night.

electric stir fry

2010-04-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

It feels like we're making no progress on our kitchen, but that's probably because my husband is doing all the work. He's just in the process of rewiring some electrical stuff, moving plumbing down the wall, patching rotted parts of the subfloor. These are all projects that he's doing in the hours immediately after he gets home from work, too. I can't believe how hard he's working.

We're all getting over a cold and we're all REALLY tired of takeout but cooking in our living room can be such a drag, especially if we have to bust out the camp stove on the porch. But then, a revelation! My mom reminded me that she owns a huge electric skillet!

My mom has had this thing my whole life, but I completely forgot about it. She used to bust it out on occasion when I was a kid for random dishes, and it comes in handy when you're cooking for a lot of people and your stove is all filled up.

Anyway, it feels awesome to eat home cooked food, even if it's just a simple stir fry with eggs and vegetables.

And Sambal. Oh hey, I do like soliciting the opinions of my readers. What's your favorite chili sauce? I like the Sambal Oelek but I want recommendations for other stuff, especially stuff you can get at Asian markets, I live right down the street from a huge one.

sin dawg

2010-04-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Oh my god, have you HAD ONE OF THESE?!??!?!

I already love Dave's Killer Bread because it's tasty and good for you (even though it's like double the price I usually like to pay for bread, but I mean, this is GOOD BREAD y'all). And I love it because their packaging illustrations are all done by my friend (and penpal) Ryan Alexander-Tanner.

Anyway this is basically like a long skinny cinnamon roll. You really want to slice it up because the whole thing has like 1600 calories so even though you WANT to shove the whole thing down your gullet, you uhhhh, probably shouldn't. But it's all whole grains and no refined sugar and blah blah. It satisfied my sweet tooth today. Actually I might have another piece of it right now.

lemon curd.

2010-04-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Wait, what IS lemon curd? Oh. That's what it is.

Hey, this stuff was delicious! Alia made it. I was at her house the other day and she let me try some. She spooned up a jar full of it for me but I forgot to take it home.

New Seasons (a local hippie grocery chain) prints out tons of recipe cards and keeps them near their sample counter. I grab them all the time but never remember to make them. Alia remembered, though. I am so lazy, I photographed the recipe card, haha!

If that is too small for you to read, click here. Sorry this post is lacking in witty banter, my kid came home from preschool today with pink eye (a delightful remnant of Easter weekend, when my sister brought her kids over to play when they were recovering from the dread disease.) and my kitchen is still in shambles so it's been all takeout burritos and whatnot around here for days. How about Y'ALL entertain ME for awhile? Post links, recommend books to read (just picked up McGee's On Food & Cooking on the advice of the cook at my new job), tell me a story about your day, tell me I'm stupid, whatever.

WELLLLL HOWDY

2010-03-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

Well man, a lot has been going on in the last few days and the vast majority of it is awesome stuff, like transitioning out of a job that stressed me out into a job that rules, putting my son into a preschool/daycare type of situation that he really loves for 2 days a week, and the beginning of my kitchen remodel. This is pretty Big Stuff for us, but I'm fighting as hard as I can against my doomsday nature and trying to just roll with how awesome it is, and enjoy myself, instead of stressing out about everything going wrong at the last minute (BECAUSE IT ALWAYS DOES!!!! PICTURE ME ALL CLENCHED UP! THIS IS HOW I FEEL!!!)

But, the other day I was visiting my dear friend Alia, you remember Alia, from Darling Press? And she handed me a homemade graham cracker, and it was tasty. And then she said, "It has whole wheat flour! I'll email you the recipe!" And then she did. Pretty cool story, right?

Here is the recipe as she emailed it to me (I like imagining that the name of the recipe is "Makes About 3 Dozen 3-inch Crackers):

"makes about 3 dozen 3-inch crackers"
Time commitment: about 1 hour
From "jam it, pickle it, cure it and other cooking projects" by Karen Solomon

Ing:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup honey
1/4 blackstrap molasses
1/3 cup plus 4 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Inst.
In a bowl or food processor (food processor worked like magic for me), mix or pulse the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, salt, and baking powder. Cut in the butter or, if using a food processor, add the butter and pulse until the dough is the consistency of course crumbs. Add the honey, molasses, and the 1/3 cup sugar and combine. Then add the milk and vanilla, bringing it all together into a stiff dough

Lightly oil 2 baking sheets. On a work surface, cut the dough in half. Shape the first half into a rectangle and place in the center of a sheet of parchment paper. Lay another sheet of parchment paper over the dough. Roll, trying to keep the dough as rectangular as possible. The dough should be 1/4 inch thick, and about 12 by 15 inches. Lightly prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork. Sprinkle evenly with 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and roll the sugar gently onto the top of the dough with a floured pin. Using a knife or a fluted pastry cutter (for the cute wavy edges), trim the edges of the dough rectangle to yield neat crackers (next time I make these, I'm going to use cookie cutters). Cut into approximately 3-inch squares. Using a spatula, carefully transfer the crackers to the prepared baking sheets, leaving a little space between them. Repeat the process with the second half of the dough. Freeze the crackers for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F.

Bake the chilled dough for 18 to 22 minutes, until just a little browned at the edges. Coll completely and enjoy.

Storing: Store an an airtight container, up to 2 weeks. You can also freeze the crackers for 2 months, allowing 2 hours to thaw before eating.
Variation: Add 2 teaspoons cinnamon to the 4 tablespoons sugar, and sprinkle evenly over the dough before cutting the crackers.

WOO HOO!

These were REALLY GOOD, by the way- hence the bite taken BEFORE I managed to get a good picture.

Drawing by Alia Hoffman

Anyway, after you make these crackers (well, cookies, let's be honest) you should seriously check out Alia and her husband's blog, where I will occasionally be writing posts. I spend a lot of time at her house, where we work together on different art projects (we met in art school, actually!)- me for my 10 Dollar Drawings blog (which you should go check out to see details about my upcoming art show, opening Friday April 2nd, at Skeleton Key tattoo here in Portland!) and her for her burgeoning letterpress company, Darling Press. Our kids play trains and dolls and whatever else they feel like doing, and we hang out and draw, and sometimes cook. I showed her how to make no-knead bread, chicken stock from scratch, and she's giving me lessons on how to raise chickens and grow plants. It's a pretty good arrangement.

OH! And, so- since we are beginning our kitchen remodel, we're about to live without an oven for, well, just about as long as it takes for us to get the new oven installed. Considering we have to rip up the old floors and remove some water-damaged drywall (mmm, mold. and lead paint. wish us luck with that.) and replace those before we can even put in the new stove, not to mention moving some plumbing for a new sink- it's probably going to be a month or two. It's not a huge deal in the scheme of things, but we cook almost every meal at home, so we're planning to use our crock pot and we might even break down and buy a cheap microwave at the goodwill. I'll keep you updated on the progress and hopefully soon I'll get to unveil a lovely new kitchen. And yes, we are on a super limited budget, so it's basically going to be an Ikea model kitchen. Don't make fun of us.

A preview.

2010-03-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Pardon me while I use this space to show off my little seedlings. I can't help it, we're proud of ourselves! We have no idea what we're doing, and based solely on the advice on the back of the seed packets and some lazy google research, we're planting our first garden. I grew up with a huge garden patch and I remember being sent out to weed or pick things, but it's been such a long time since I lived in a house where I could plant things. I've certainly never had my OWN garden.

Even before I had my son, I knew that if/when I had kids, I'd want to have a garden. I'd do anything to make it happen. I remember pulling carrots out of the ground, rinsing them off with the hose, and gnawing on them with the tops still on, doing my best (which was pretty lousy) Bugs Bunny. I remember how much I loved eating fresh green beans. I remember pulling huge ugly weeds and tossing them in a giant pile off to the side. It was awesome. We weren't a total prairie family or anything, but there were 4 kids so my mom was all about free or cheap food, so she grew as much as she could. Even though my yard is a lot smaller than the one I grew up in, even though my son's not surrounded by siblings, I still want to give him that experience and I can't believe how lucky I am that I get to make it happen.

Anyway, here are some of the sprouts that will soon become my garden. Nothing special- some tomatoes, some sugar pumpkins (for pie! and curry!) and my over-winter garlic and shallots actually seem like they're doing okay despite the fact that I stuck them in the ground and then COMPLETELY LEFT THEM ALONE for the last 6 months. Apparently I'm just supposed to wait until the tops die and then dig them up?

Anyway. Busy times. We're also about to redo our kitchen, so things are going to get a little hairy around here. We knew we'd have to redo the kitchen when we moved in, and taxes are done so it's time to start ripping everything out. Wish us luck.

false spring.

2010-03-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

I've lived in Portland pretty much my whole life. I know, I don't count as a "native" I guess, because I was born in Ohio, but we moved here when I was still a baby and if you don't count the few weeks I lived in San Jose when I was pregnant (Homesickness + hormones, that move didn't last long), I've been here all along. That's why listening to people alternately complain/marvel about the weather here kind of drives me CRAZY. It's always like this, you guys- every year. It always hails in the spring time. The weather is always erratic and weird during the changing of seasons, so early spring and fall are always punctuated with bursts of cold rain between lazy sun breaks. Some days it will go from dreary to cheery and back again in 10 minute intervals. It always pays to wear layers, and umbrellas are for pussies. Get with the program, y'all. Welcome to Portland.

Yesterday was cold and bleak, lots of rain. I know it annoys people to say things like, "Oh, I love the rain!" but whatever, I do. I like the way it smells, I like wrapping myself up in thick swaths of fabric before I leave the house, I love hot tea. I mean sure, I love hot weather too. But being raised in the Pacific NW, I tend to feel really at home when I'm holed up in my house, watching rain splatter outside. So, yesterday was a, "we need to use this chicken broth" day, and I made a big pot of soup. Using whole, bone-in legs in my chicken soups has changed the way I look at soup FOREVER. I'm never going to stop doing this. This was a really simple soup- diced carrots, red bell pepper, onion, shallot, and zucchini. I sauteed all the veggies (except the zucchini, I sauteed that separately just before the soup was ready and added at the end to prevent mushiness), dumped in some broth (I don't know how much, I think I only had 4 cups or so), and then added 2 whole chicken legs with the skin mostly removed. I added some more water until the chicken legs were covered and simmered the whole thing until the meat was cooked, then I removed the legs, shredded the meat, and returned it to the pot. After salt & pepper was added, it really didn't need any seasoning at all. Lemon zest would have been nice, but neither of us felt like running to the store for a lemon.

I had started a loaf of no-knead bread that morning, and for the first time ever, it occurred to me to throw a head of garlic (in foil, with olive oil) into the oven while I baked the bread. Kind of a no-brainer, right? I don't usually bother roasting garlic because it seems so stupid- HUGE OVEN! TINY HEAD OF GARLIC! But since I already had the bread in the oven it was like the natural progression of things. After the garlic cooled a little, I squeezed it into a bowl and mashed it up with some butter for slathering all over the bread.

So, yes- I am a little over it as far as the weather goes- I bought some really cute dresses that I want to wear and I want to go berry picking and we finally have a backyard so lets do some damn grilling already- but I still have it in me to enjoy a cool evening. And at least this way I don't have to water my garden.

chx/starch/veg

2010-03-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, and while I'm sitting here, I will update with my dinner, too. When we do our meal plan every week, we try not to go too crazy on meat. We don't eat much meat to begin with, because it's expensive (or rather, because we choose to buy expensive meat for a variety of reasons.) but we get tired of chicken so we try not to get one more than once or twice a month. (More during soup season, though.) When we get a chicken we break it down into breasts & whole legs, then use the carcass for stock.

Because the breasts are boneless and can't stand up to long cooking as well, we almost always use them as just a grilled or baked protein, with a side of vegetables and some kind of grain. I am fine with straight up brown rice, but my husband gets really bored with that (and I know that he misses fluffy white jasmine, but whatever dude- it's for the greater good) so this week our meal labeled "CHX/VEG/WHATEVER" became CHX/VEG/POLENTA.

Because I'm lazy and also because it's DELICIOUS, the vegetable is usually just something roasted in a pan in the oven. I can start it before I start all the other stuff, it's low maintenance, and DUDE HAVE YOU EVER HAD OVEN ROASTED BROCCOLI? Olive oil, salt & pepper, 425º til it's done. Do it right now. Let the edges get crispy. CRISPY BROCCOLI.

You'll notice that my chicken breast looks sad and skinless. This is not because I am restricting my calories, which I am- this is because chicken skin is DELICIOUS and I ate it immediately after it came out from under the broiler, while it was still really crispy. It was awesome. Chicken skin only adds something dumb like 50 calories, you guys- and you're eating DINNER so just eat the extra 50 calories. It tastes good. And it keeps the chicken moist.

When I make chicken breasts I just salt & pepper it, pan fry it on my cast iron on either side until it's nicely browned, then I pop it into the oven (which is already hot because I roasted some vegetables, remember?) skin side up until it's done, usually 10 or 15 minutes, I think? I just keep an eye on it and I also use a meat thermometer because I'm a little weird about cooking meat. Right before it's ready to come out, I turn the broiler on high to crisp the skin back up. Then I immediately gobble the skin because that's the part that tastes good.

Tonight's polenta might have been my favorite I've ever made. We like our polenta on the soft side, not molded or whatever. I got it started before I started the chicken, actually. I sauteed finely chopped celery, carrot, and garlic in some butter and bacon fat until they were very soft, and then I dumped in a cup of polenta and mixed it in until it coated all the veggies. I toasted it in the pan for a minute or two and then dumped in 3 cups of heated chicken stock and turned the heat down to low and stirred it often until it was just barely stiff.

I love dinner like this. And I love that it's light out long enough to take natural light photos of my dinner. Time changes in a week or so, right? AWESOME. The more daylight, the merrier, please.

honey tangerines.

2010-03-08T21:48:00.001-08:00

I am kind of a sucker for the word "honey." I think that's kind of obvious. You know, I didn't like honey at all for most of my life. I was raised on high fructose corn syrup and citric acid, basically- so getting used to things that are mildly sweet was a process for me. I think my turning point with honey was the time a friend of mine presented me with some amazing local honey- actually, it came from his next door neighbor's backyard. It was mild and a little spicy, and it had a depth of flavor that I never even realized was possible.

ANYWAY. I saw these not-very-attractive tangerines at the store (Fred Meyer) recently with a tag that said "Honey Tangerines!" They're kind of expensive, I can't remember how much per pound, but I do recall the checkout lady clucking at me and saying, "Ninety-five cents for a tangerine?" and I wanted to be like "LADY, PLEASE. I know you're not judging my produce choices right now." I only bought ONE of them. Some people spend 95 cents on candy bars, I spent 95 cents on a tangerine. Get over it.

Anyway, the verdict? The mildest, sweetest tangerine I've ever tasted. If it weren't for the stinging open wound on my finger when I was picking it apart, I'd wonder if it had any citric acid at all. On the other hand, the membranes are ridiculously tough and the thing is FULL OF SEEDS, like 4 or more seeds PER SECTION, which is insane. After I spent 15 full minutes picking the thing apart, I devoured it in less than 30 seconds, but it was pretty tasty. A fancy treat for when I feel like blowing ALL MY CASH ON EXPENSIVE TANGERINES.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh satisfying.

2010-03-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well, my laptop is pretty much dead (we'll get it fixed eventually, but it's 6 years old and it was time for an upgrade anyway) so today I dropped a fat wad of cash (and by cash, I mean credit) on a new iMac and I feel like I'm driving some futuristic pimp car. Seriously, going without a computer for a week or so was kind of heart-wrenching, but my husband has an iPhone (shut up, shut up! he's on a work plan!) so I could still check my facebook and be a douche on the computer like normal. But using the iPhone to replace a computer is kind of like grubbing around in public ashtrays and stealing all the tiny remnants of unsmoked tobacco from cigarette butts and then rolling them up into a new cigarette- it gets you through the day, but you're not proud of it and it's kind of awful to boot. If you're cringing and shuddering at the very idea of this, you can blow me. Don't front like you've never done something disgusting to feed your habits. LEAVE ME ALONE I WAS LIKE 14 AND NOBODY WOULD BUY ME CIGARETTES. I DON'T SMOKE ANYMORE, OKAY?

Anyway, subsequently, plugging in my new iMac and watching it light up was not quite like finally getting a fresh cigarette after a week of desperately puffing old crushed out butts, but more like SHOOTING UP WITH HEROIN IN A GERMAN UNDERWATER DISCOTHEQUE WHILE GETTING A BACK MASSAGE FROM 2 SEXY MERMAIDS AND EATING BEN & JERRY'S KARAMEL SUTRA AT THE SAME TIME. In a word, the most ecstatic feeling ever. Okay, okay. I'm overdoing it. But it's a pretty cool computer. And I'm trying not to shit my pants about how much I just dropped on my credit card, but whatever- if I shoot a few weddings this summer, it's covered. So hey, if you're in Portland and you're getting married, drop me a line- I have a machine to pay for.

ALSO HEY THIS IS MY FOOD BLOG, I FORGOT. Look up there! Sometimes I loathe cooking on grocery night, because by the end of the week, we're inevitably not as excited about what's written on the list as we thought we'd be, we have a dwindling supply of wilted veggies leftover from the previous week, and we just want to eat something super quick so we can bust out shopping before we put our kid to bed. Such is life. But, sometimes I have everything I need to make something delicious at the last minute, and sometimes I feel like a bad ass if I can pull a handful of crappy veggies out of the crisper and make something tasty out of the whole deal.

I got a copy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything from the library last week and I've been perusing it off and on. I haven't committed to making any specific recipes, but a few things caught my eye, and one of them was Pasta with butter, parmesan, and sage. FYI, that's the whole recipe. Pasta? Meet butter, parmesan, and sage. His recipe is slightly more complicated (melting the butter first? something to do with whole dried sage leaves? Whatever.) but basically I boiled noodles, put some butter on them after I drained them, sprinkled them with sage and crumbled parmesan, a little salt & pepper, and a handful of crushed walnuts. It was amazing. For a vegetable side, I just did some pan roasted vegetables, but on a whim, I made some breadcrumbs (by toasting the heels of my bread, then chopping them in my food processor with a little bit of salt and some more dried sage) and sprinkled them on top of the veggies just before they were finished, then tossed the whole thing under a broiler until the top was crispy and brown. I mean, a pan of roasted vegetables is awesome enough, but if you have a little bit of stale bread to get rid of, you should just do this- it was really good.

And god, I love technology. Holy crap.

Oh yeah also seriously, about the wedding photography- here's a portfolio.

Wah wah

2010-03-03T19:40:00.000-08:00

Duuuuuude my laptop is deaddddddddddd

mom food.

2010-02-24T22:56:00.000-08:00

First of all people need to lay off giving me a hard time about updating this blog, ZACH. And PAULA. Whoever the hell you are. (Well dude, I know who Zach is. But PAULA, REALLY NOW.)

I got up at 6 a.m. today, went to work, picked up my kid from my mom's house, ran some errands (I got a bunch of dope junk at the craft store today on clearance WOOOO) and by the time I got home I was dragging ass so hard. This weekend I had to work kind of late one night and by the time I was done I had missed dinner with my family and I got a burrito across the street. No tragedy there, there's no food shortage in my life. I'm a lucky lady! But my husband and son had a nice little spaghetti dinner without me, and ever since that night I've had this POWERFUL CRAVING FOR AN OLD SCHOOL PLATE OF CRAPPY SPAGHETTI AND MEAT SAUCE. It's one of those things that tastes so good no matter what, but it's always going to be a little weird because it reminds you of cafeteria food, kind of.

Anyway, I have been placing all these high maintenance dietary restrictions on myself lately- whole wheat everything to control blood sugar, blah blah blah. GUESS WHAT, I HATE WHOLE WHEAT PASTA. IT IS AN ABOMINATION. Actually okay, let me backpedal a little bit- whole wheat SPIRAL pasta is an abomination, which, up until tonight- was the only kind I'd ever tried. I was so put off by whole wheat spiral pasta (CHALKY! GRITTY! TOO BROWN.) that I actually started experimenting with gluten free pastas to avoid the evilz of refined delicious semolina. Actually I've been meaning to ask the internet- and let me see if I can spit this out in the LEAST CONVOLUTED MANNER POSSIBLE: Is quinoa flour refined the same way wheat flour is? Or is it a "whole grain" flour? None of the packaging I've checked out indicates either way, and obviously if I'm avoiding refined wheat flour, switching to a different kind of refined flour is kind of stupid, right? OH, PRIVILEGED PEOPLE AND THEIR SILLY PROBLEMS, HAHAHAHA. :/ I'd been eating quinoa pasta and it's pretty tasty, but come on.

Anyway my awesome coworker Emily (DOUBLE SHOUT OUT) pointed out to me that whole wheat SPAGHETTI noodles are far less offensive to the sensibilities, so I decided to stop being such a baby and give it a try. GUESS WHAT? It's totally acceptable, and if you dredge it in meat sauce it's almost possible to forget that you're eating ridiculous hippie food.

God, I can't even tell you what a douchebag I feel like even spitting all this crap out. "Boo hoo you guys, I can't eat regular pasta because I have crybaby blood sugar 'issues' and I need special fancy pasta! It's so hard to be American! OMG!" Good lord. I want to slap other people when they talk like this. Anyway, long story short, whole wheat pasta with red sauce and hamburger and that crappy crumbled parmesan made me REALLY HAPPY tonight. And now YOU CAN BE HAPPY TOO because I updated my blog. Zach.

"alice, update this shit!"

2010-02-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

My coworker who reads my blog just commented to give me a hard time about not updating for a long time, and because I loooove her, I am going to go ahead and do it, except- que? Where is all the food, bro? Let me set a scene for you right now. It is about 9:30. My son is finally quiet in his room (knock on wood), my husband is back at work doing some crazy install stuff that would make coffee nerds have a wet dream (paddle groups fed by individual pumps? nerd?) and I am sitting at my dining room table between cups of chamomile. Picture me hovering over the glowing red burner of my stove, melting a square of 72% dark chocolate from Trader Joe's, and sprinkling it with kosher salt before popping it into my mouth. That's as close are you're going to get to a recipe tonight because HOLY BEJEEZUS I HAVE BEEN BUSY.

First of all, you probably know that I do 10 dollar commissioned drawings (CLICK HERE) which I have gone from sneakily attempting to mention to full-on shameless blatant promotion, because let's be honest- I have 702 followers for this blog and like 100 for the other one. And I like paying my bills. And if you didn't know that, you weren't paying very close attention, but hey! Now you are. What's up! And so this is like my "night" job, doing these drawings- because during the day I am mom/barista/babysitter galore, and these things take up a lot of my time. I like doing these things, so it's not a big deal.

Sometimes I feel like just checking this blog off my list of shit to do and giving up on it all together because DUDE I EAT BURRITOS LIKE 3 NIGHTS A WEEK AT THIS POINT. You don't want any more of my stupid burrito recipes. ALSO, I have found a really amazing outlet for my OCD and body issues, and that is counting every single calorie I eat and keeping track on a chalkboard in my kitchen, which I've previously mentioned. If you're not already doing this, I totally recommend it. For one, it totally scratches that organizational itch of mine, considering that I don't have a whole hell of a lot to organize beyond my crappy day job and being a mom. For another thing, this morning I weighed 6 pounds less than I did on my wedding day and that's a pretty goddamn big deal for me. I know that part of the awesome weight loss is that I'm losing a lot of muscle tone from being too lazy to go jogging in the morning (I bought a pillowtop bed when I moved and HOLY SHIT, I WAKE UP IN A PUDDLE OF MELTED FLESH EVERY MORNING. I am completely incapable of bouncing out of my pimp-ass bed the way I did with my crappy one from before.) but really I'm just being SUPER conscious about what I'm eating. I don't even know why, at this point- I'm at a pretty healthy weight, I feel really good about myself because I'm taking care of myself, I think part of it is that it just sort of feels like magic- OMG! I EAT LESS FOOD, I AM SLIGHTLY LESS FAT! IT'S LIKE A MIRACLE OF SCIENCE! All that means I haven't been very creative with my meals, which in turn means that my food blog has become a totally lame pile of garbage. No more cupcakes for you, loyal readers! Seriously, it's funny- because I started this thing with a close friend who bakes all day every day, and I just wanted to take nice, Martha Stewart-y photos of pretty food. But because I am pretty passionate about food, my ideals about what I want to post about have sort of changed over the year and a half or so that I've been doing this. I'm just in a totally different place. I don't give a shit about salted caramel cupcakes or pretty cinnamon rolls or any of it. I just want to take care of myself and my loved ones. I'm totally turning into "that mom" and you know what? Fuck it. My nephew complained to my sister that he doesn't like coming over to eat dinner at my house because I make yucky food, haha! I remember when I was a kid I hated eating at my friend's house because she had hippie parents who cooked nothing but beans and rice. She'd come over to visit us and gorge herself on sweets until she felt like she was going to puke. I'm trying to find a happy medium of indulging myself and my son- yeah, I'm sorry I'm the jerk who feeds him brown rice and makes whole wheat pizza dough with roasted broccoli on top, but I still take him out for ice cream, I still buy popcorn and pretzels at the grocery store.

Today I spent some time expanding my small garden plot in the backyard. I planted these overwinter shallots and garlic bulbs in October and I have completely ignored them so I have no idea if they're going to be worth eating or not, but that was mostly a whim and now I've begun to officially plan my garden. My fireplace mantle has become a dumping ground for seed packets. We have planter boxes waiting for fill dirt, I want my yard to be overflowing with FOOD, PLEASE. We found out our neighbors are cool with (even excited about!) the idea of us having chickens, so that's on the plan for spring 2011. My husband just got back from a work trip to Costa Rica where he stayed on a bunch of coffee farms and met a bunch of awesome people. He was telling me about how fresh all the food he ate was, and watching him be so pumped about it was awesome. He was like, "It's amazing, everyone has chickens and a cow in their backyard- if they need eggs, they just go grab some from outside." He brought me some honey and bee pollen from a small farm he visited, and they smell AMAZING.

Anyway. Here's your update, Emily. Sorry it's so convoluted and ranty, but I have a feeling you're probably used to that by now.

P.s. while I'm rambling about totally random crap, you should all go listen to this song because it's stuck in my head about 90% of the time.

ONE LOVE, HIPPIES.

because i get more traffic here.

2010-01-24T22:02:00.000-08:00

I know you're here for the food, blah blah blah, but I have so many more readers over here than I do at my 10 Dollar Drawings Blog (which you're more than welcome to link on your own blogs, dudes. holla.) and I really want people to see my friends' work and I think it's something my readers would dig, so behold- Darling Press.

Jason and Alia Hoffman are close friends of mine, and they've started their own stationery press out of their little homestead (which is only a few miles from my own little homestead). All of the cards are printed by hand (using letterpress!) on really lovely paper, using sustainable materials wherever possible, and packed by hand. They pay me in fresh eggs and cards to take pretty pictures of their goods. I really love their work, and I'm so happy to see them putting things out in the world. You should get one of those Valentine's cards while there's still time!

p.s. the other day Alia gave me a taste of her curried sweet potato and wild rice stew and it was awesome. Recipe pending.

day in the life.

2010-01-18T21:22:00.001-08:00

Because I'm boring, but these pictures came out nice, here's what I ate today, in order:

Breakfast was whole milk yogurt drizzled with local honey, a piece of wheat toast with butter, and some clementines.

And, because I realized that I haven't really shared my new living space here (mostly because the kitchen sucks) here's where we eat now:

My husband still isn't 100% sold on having the front room of our home as a semi-formal dining room, but there's nowhere else to put the table and I think it looks AWESOME and I'm not going to move it, so suck it up honey- there's a couch and a tv in the basement. Plus we can play LP's (when the needle on the record player isn't broken) without getting up from the table.

I had a banana for a snack but I was too lazy to take a picture of it.

For lunch I made this salad, and then trucked around with it until I got hungry enough to eat it. This bowl is a Martha Stewart pyrex bowl that comes with a fitted lid- I just carry it around like regular tupperware most of the time. This is one of my most treasured kitchen items- I can bake in it, use it like tupperware, freeze stuff in it, store things in the fridge. My mom (who bought it for me as a wedding gift, in a set with other sizes/shapes) and sister both have the same set, and if we ever bring food to a family function in the dishes, we always make a huge deal about getting ours back.

I didn't eat much after lunch- just a heart thrive bar- those things kind of suck but they sell them at my work and they're handy, and low glycemic index hippie business, blah blah, so I eat them when I'm hard up.

I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of my dinner until I was almost done eating it:

A black bean burrito with lightly sauteed spinach, avocado, sour cream, cheese, and salsa. After dinner I had a few squares of dark chocolate, and just a few minutes ago, at like 9 o'clock, I had a piece of toast with peanut butter. REALLY EXCITING STUFF, RIGHT?

I posted all this garbage for 2 reasons- first, I thought the photos were nice, haha. Second, I wanted to illustrate what it looks like to eat on a limited number of calories. Since I got all gung-ho about calorie counting, I've sort of invested all my OCD energies into it and I'm like measuring all my portions with little cups and tablespoon things and the whole thing feels kind of ridiculous, but I feel like I'm teaching myself how to eat less, and that's a pretty valuable lesson to learn. It took me almost a full week of eating like this before I wasn't COMPLETELY STARVING TO DEATH ALL DAY but it's been over a month of diligent calorie recording and I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping track of everything, I think. I have a chalkboard in my kitchen and I just jot down the calorie amounts of everything I eat all day. If you care, the final countdown of all this stuff I posted is 1701 calories. I don't count grams fat or carbohydrates and shit like that, I just try to balance out what I'm eating so it's not all the same types of food all day. One thing that I'm really trying to stay away from is falling into the trap of "Low Calorie Dieting." I see it all the time, and I think it's the worst way to live.

A good example, since I'm a barista- is the NONFAT LATTE DRINKER. I'm not going to go on a tangent about my customers, (nobody wants to get dooced) especially knowing that at least a few of them are readers (hey dudes!), but I think it's safe to say that nonfat latte drinkers fall into the same category as diet coke people, or really anyone who is so afraid to eat LESS than they normally do, they'll find any way to fill themselves up on lower calorie junk. You can totally lose weight this way- I've seen people do it, but it can't FEEL good. Nobody ever looks happy when they spit out, "NONFAT MILK, please." (But the lady who comes in and asks for heavy cream in her drip coffee- she's always pretty smiley. And she's skinny, too.) The thing that's funny about it is that the calorie difference when you remove fat is usually pretty negligible. For instance, the yogurt that I buy (Nancy's) comes in different fat contents. I buy the plain whole milk yogurt, because it's thick and satisfying and creamy, but it's like 180 calories per cup. One day my husband accidentally bought the lowfat version and it's still like 150 calories per cup. NO THANKS, GUYS- I'll take the fat and the 30-calorie hit. I only eat it a half a cup at a time anyway.

Anyway- I'm rambling. Blah blah blah, smaller portions of more satisfying food, live long and prosper, etc. (By the way I've lost 5 pounds since Christmas! WOO HOO.)

grilled flatbreads

2010-01-14T23:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like I go on these kicks where I can't stop posting about the same crap. If that's annoying, uh- sorry. Like when I post about eggs all the time, or soup all the time. Or, in this case- that stupid pizza dough I'm always rambling about. But, whatever. A little bit of pizza dough never hurt anyone.

That recipe actually makes a pretty fair amount of dough, like more pizza than my family of 3 can ever eat in one sitting- so usually I portion it out and save some in the freezer. That way, when I'm feeling lazy, I can just pull it out, thaw it, and make a little pizza for my son or whatever. I had one ball of dough in my freezer the size of a large fist, leftover from a previous pizza night. I knew it wouldn't be enough for a decent-sized pizza, but this idea popped into my head to roll it out really flat and grill it on my cast-iron skillet.

Remember last time I posted about pizza and I was all, "Oh hey look, my kid lost my rolling pin, so I used a wine bottle! Aren't I clever?" So, tonight I had all my crap out, I had like 3 pans of crap going on the stove, and when I turned around to roll out my dough, I realized I'd recycled all my damn wine bottles. WHOOPSIE DOODLES. I was all butthurt until I remembered this weird little dough-stretching tip. I don't know if I saw it on tv, or maybe it was in that page of goofy 'kitchen hints' in Cook's Illustrated, but hey- if you don't have a rolling pin or a bottle of wine, you can easily stretch your pizza dough over the base of a bowl. It worked really well!

I heated my cast-iron for a long time on medium-low. I did a little test piece but it got black too fast before it cooked all the way, so I lowered the heat to like 3 or 4. I sauteed some kale in bacon fat, because IT TASTES REALLY GOOD THAT WAY, and hey did you know that a tablespoon of bacon fat only has like 113 calories? I APPROVE OF THAT. Also, cooking my kale in bacon fat makes my kid devour it like crazy. Do you know what is music to a mother's ears? "Mmm, this is really good kale!" Whatever, don't get all crybaby about my bacon fat- when's the last time you heard a 3 year old compliment you on your kale cookery?

For some reason, when my brain jumped to "grilled flatbread," I mentally placed a poached egg on top. I had this image of a piece of nice chewy flatbread with some warm greens and runny egg- just thinking about it is making me hungry again, actually.

So, the final tally was:

Grilled flatbread (the piece of dough I used was 1/4 of the original pizza dough recipe, further divided into 3rds. That means the pieces were pretty small, and stretched really thin before being grilled.)
Sauteed kale (use bacon fat! and salt!)
a sprinkle of parmesan
some chopped walnuts
one poached egg

Before anything, preheat your griddle. Saute kale, and put it aside. roll or stretch out your dough, and grill each side until brown. Place in the oven to keep warm if you want while you get your eggs ready. Poach eggs, then assemble flatbreads. I did a drizzle of olive oil over the base to keep it from being dry- then topped with kale, parmesan, walnuts, and egg.

They were not very big, so I made salads to eat on the side as well. The only thing I think could have improved it would be a squeeze of lemon, but I didn't have any. I'm definitely going to make this again though, it was awesome. EGGS. PIZZA DOUGH. STORY OF MY LIFE.

vital wheat gluten: addendum.

2010-01-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

Works great in whole wheat no-knead bread! (This is 2/3rds whole wheat, with 2 tbsp. of vital gluten added.)

vital wheat gluten.

2010-01-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

Dude, I cannot believe I haven't brought this up yet. Not very long ago, I was at the store, skimming over the bulk bins in the hippie aisle (where I buy my flour, granola, polenta, lentils, etc.- because it's cheap AND I AM A HIPPIE) when the tag for vital wheat gluten caught my eye. "Add 1 tbsp. to heavy doughs for a lighter loaf."

Being a former vegetarian, it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the concept of wheat gluten. Good lord, wheat gluten (seitan, mock duck, gimme gimme) was my favorite faux-meat product, to be sure. But, the idea of adding a bit to my bread dough seemed kind of weird. So, I googled it a little bit, and then I started keeping an eye on the ingredients list of the sandwich breads I was buying, and I realized that almost all whole wheat breads have vital gluten added. Which is probably why, when I bake whole wheat bread, it's often gluey and dense, and why store-bought wheat bread is fluffier.

Let me say that I've almost completely given up on 100% whole wheat bread at home. I got some kind of bread bible from the library, I've tried tons of different loaves, and I've never had a huge amount of success. I satisfy myself by baking 2/3 whole wheat loaves, and now I add vital gluten in addition to that, and the results are totally different from what I was getting before.

Tonight was yet another pizza night- and let me just come right out and say that this geeky picture of me holding a lump of dough is really an excuse to show off my new tattoos, because they look nice in this picture.

So, behold: my new semi-official pizza dough recipe, only very slightly modified from my old standby.

Pizza dough for hippies:

(actually, this is not pizza dough for hippies, THIS is pizza dough for hippies, but whatev)

1 cup of water
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
2 tbsp. vital wheat gluten
1 1/2 tbsp. honey (use a mild honey, for your sake, like clover. I only had orange blossom and it's kind of overpowering for pizza.)
1 tsp. salt
1 packet of instant yeast
2 tbsp. olive oil

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, wheat gluten, and salt. In another bowl, combine one cup of warm (just barely warm) water, honey, yeast, and olive oil. Let it sit for a second and get foamy, then dump into the dry combination and stir starting from the middle to form batter-like dough, adding more and more from the sides until you can handle it. Knead for 5-10 minutes (although you'll notice immediately if you bake bread often enough that the vital gluten changes the texture of the dough almost immediately) and then let sit in an oiled bowl, covered, for about an hour. Punch down, (SATISFYING SENSATION) and knead back into a ball until no longer spongy. Let sit for 10 minutes or as long as you want while you prep all your pizza goodies, then roll out.

"Roll out? Oh crap! I don't have a rolling pin!" Oh, you don't? Me neither, my kid stole mine and lost it. He was pretending it was a steam roller. WHERE DID IT GO? Anyway, just cover a wine bottle with plastic wrap (or don't, if you're not a germophobe) and use that instead.

We're too lazy to get a pizza stone so I bake my pizzas on a cast-iron griddle in my oven at 475ºf.

I don't know if adding vital wheat gluten to your bread is any more or less healthy (I'm guessing LESS, but whatever, it's only a tablespoon per cup of flour) but it makes the bread a lot better if you're using whole wheat, so I say go ahead and experiment with it. I will certainly continue to do so.

hot cocoa!

2009-12-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

Portland was hit by an unexpected snow storm today- and while my initial reaction to snow is usually something along the lines of, "DAMMIT! I hate being stuck in the house!" I decided to suck it up and enjoy myself. I took my son for a walk in the snow (click through the photos to my flickr if you're so inclined- he's a pretty cute kid) and when we came home, we shook the snow out of our hair and settled in to make some hot cocoa.

I pretty much always have a pack of these on hand:

They come in a pack of 3 for like a $1.79 and I just like to have a nibble or two throughout the day to satisfy my sweet tooth without going nuts on a candy bar. I melted the chocolate in a metal mixing bowl over a pot of boiling water:

I tossed in a small chunk of coconut oil for flavor and to make the melted chocolate a little easier to mix with the milk- I was inspired to do this by a cup of hot chocolate I had recently that BLEW MY MIND. It was when I was tabling at the Icon Holiday Fair selling my drawings, another booth was selling COCONUT HOT CHOCOLATE. I think it was just coconut milk and melted chocolate and some spices, and it was so amazingly rich and thick, I could barely drink more than 4 or 5 sips before I felt totally satisfied. I didn't have any coconut milk on hand, so I just used some coconut oil hoping for a similar effect. Obviously, it wasn't all thick and frothy, but the flavor was nice- very subtle. I'm not a coconut person but as I've mentioned before, I'm trying to force myself to like the coconut oil and it's become kind of an acquired taste for me- I like it in my oatmeal, I don't HATE frying my eggs in it, and I also like it in hot chocolate, apparently.

I briefly heated some milk in a separate pan, but quickly got impatient and dumped it directly into the bowl with the chocolate mixture. I seasoned it with a pinch of nutmeg and a sprinkle of cinnamon, and even splashed in a few drops of vanilla extract. I whisked the whole thing together over the boiling water until warm, and then poured into cups for my son and I.

I have to be honest- the end result was not unlike those swiss miss packets of hot chocolate. It was a little gritty, not as frothy as I'd prefer (but I work at a cafe and I steam milk for my warm beverages all the time- I'm all spoiled on foam. I like my chai to be almost all foam.), but it was rich and warmed me up. One chocolate bar, a small chunk (like a teaspoon or less) of coconut oil, a drizzle of vanilla extract, and a pinch each of nutmeg and cinnamon mixed with about 16 oz. of warm milk, ended up being way more than enough for the 2 of us. It was rich enough to satisfy me after drinking about 1/4 of a cup, and I only served my son about half a cup, because- well, because I'm a jerk, haha. I'd say serve it in half-cup portions, so this would be enough to make 4 people perfectly happy.

It made us happy!
The verdict was: DELICIOUS.

on healthy eating.

2009-12-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

The holidays are just about over, and I'm happily done with indulging in my mom's food, sugary treats, and booze. Okay, maybe I'll stick with some booze. I HAVE JUBELALES IN MY FRIDGE, GUYS. They aren't going to drink themselves.

Recently I went bonkers and decided that I was going to count my calories- for a few reasons. First, I was just curious. I wondered how many calories I was eating in an average day, and it turns out that I was eating a LOT MORE than I thought I was, even though I was eating pretty reasonably healthy. Secondly, I want to lose some weight. I guess I don't really have to start my sentences with "let me be frank" anymore because most people who know me, or who read this, know that I'm a pretty straightforward person. After I got pregnant, I got pretty fat. I mean, a lot of other shit happened to me when I got pregnant- preeclampsia, bed rest, undiagnosed thyroid issues that have caused problems for years, postpartum depression, pulmonary edema, a leaky valve in my heart caused by excess water retention, MAN THIS SOUNDS PRETTY CRAPPY IF YOU LIST THEM ALL TOGETHER LIKE THAT, HUH? Having a kid nearly killed me, but as much as I'd love to blame my spawn for all my problems in life, having DAILY MILKSHAKES for 9 months probably didn't help my situation much, either. Nor did my daily shuffle to the bodega 2 blocks from my apartment for a fix of Sprite & Twix. Having abandoned my primary vices, booze & cigarettes, I became an eating machine, with a sweet tooth like I'd never had in my pregravid state.

I started my pregnancy at a decidedly non-scrawny 155 pounds (I'm about 5'5") - the results of college binge drinking and lousy eating habits. (Hey! Vegetarians! Bread on top of bread is a bad idea. Put DOWN the wheat gluten.) The day I gave birth I think I tipped the scales at about 245 pounds. HEY GUYS, GUESS WHAT? GAINING NEARLY 100 POUNDS IN 9 MONTHS IS EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE. A good 40 or 50 pounds of that was water weight from the preeclampsia, which was taken care of with medication after I nearly suffocated on my own body fluids (awesome!). The rest was all milkshake. After teaching myself to exercise and forcing myself to stop eating so many goddamn cookies, I've managed to lose all but 5 pounds of that, but my body still feels all out of whack.

The last 3 years have been a huge exercise in trial and error in trying to figure out what was wrong with my body and then trying to fix it. I've learned to treat food like medicine, and so when I occasionally indulge in something I know I shouldn't be eating, it does feel a little like a crack binge, to be perfectly honest. Which is to say, TOTALLY AWESOME FOR ABOUT 15 MINUTES, and then totally shitty for the next few days. I mean, that's what I assume a crack binge is like. I swear I don't smoke crack, don't listen to what my sister says- she has no idea what she's talking about.

Anyway, I guess what I wanted to say was, here's to a new year- a new decade. I've made huge lifestyle changes over the last 3 years, and this next year won't be any different. I have PLANS, guys. I just want to take care of myself.

AND HEY WAIT- before you get all butthurt and start asking yourself shit like, "Oh crap, if *I* want to be healthy, does that mean I don't get to eat fried sausage on toast for dinner? Because that looks pretty good!" Consider the following: This awesome pork sausage fried in bacon fat tops the scales at about 310 calories- that's adding in the minute amount of bacon fat that probably got absorbed by the sausage. The bread, a piece of dry whole wheat toast, was like 90 calories. The beans were drizzled lightly with olive oil and roasted in the oven for a little while, probably a total of 30 calories, tops. So this dinner was a pretty respectable 430 calories, dudes. Don't get all weird about the fat, either- bacon fat, while being made up of about 40% eeeee-vil saturated fat (which, according to some sources, isn't all that evil after all) is also about 60% monounsaturated fat. THAT IS THE HEALTHY STUFF IN OLIVE OIL, GUYS. That means that more than half the fat in bacon grease is "healthy" fat. So get over it. Drop a teaspoon of bacon fat into your pan and fry some sausage. Just don't eat like 5 of them and you'll be all set. BUT WHAT THE HELL DO I KNOW? I'm just some jerkoff who writes a food blog. If you're really interested in what you're eating, start doing some reading. Read labels on your food, read books about good health. Learn to view dietary fat as an ally and not an enemy. Cut your portion sizes. Get up off your ass and move around. Don't use synthetic oils or fake butter or any kind of "replacement." Lay off the damn sugar.

Have a good night.

(And hey, dudes roasted green beans are awesome. Next time I'm gonna leave them under the broiler until they start to crisp a little more.)

tollhouse chocolate chip cookies.

2009-12-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

Let me be frank: I don't screw around when it comes to cookies. I pretty much don't ever bake cookies, and I didn't even bake these- my husband did. But when it comes to chocolate chip cookies I'm not going to go hunting for some fancy-pants blogger's recipe. I'm just going to use the one on the package of the goddamn chocolate chips. And you know what? THEY ARE THE BEST COOKIES ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET. DON'T FRONT LIKE YOU DON'T THINK SO. I don't want a single, "Well, actually- I think they're too sweet." Or whatever boo-hoo crap. YOU KNOW THEY RULE, THEY ARE THE UBERCOOKIE, SO GET OVER IT.

My husband and son banded together in the kitchen this evening to bake a batch of cookies for Santa:

We even wrote Santa a note (oh yeah, the carrot is for Rudolph):

And no, I'm not going to post the recipe here. (wait, haven't I posted about these before?) Just go buy the dang chocolate chips and make some cookies already.

OH YEAH, MERRRRRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Also, on a semi-related note, I'm incapable of drinking celebration ale without getting, "It's a celebration, bitches!" stuck in my head. Grab a drink, grab a glass. After that I'll grab your ass.

In all seriousness though, take care of yourselves, eat junk food unrepentantly for a least a day or two, and be nice to your family, if you can.

ned ludd, i love you.

2009-12-19T23:46:00.000-08:00

My birthday's on Monday, y'all! I'm gonna be 26 years old, how... moderately exciting? 26 isn't a very rad birthday, what can I say. Anyway- last year we had plans to visit our friend's restaurant, and we got SNOWED THE HELL IN FOR LIKE 2 WEEKS. Then we got the flu. Then we got a STOMACH VIRUS. We had to wait until freakin' January before we finally managed to go out. And when we did, it ROOOOLED. Since then, it has become our favorite fancy date spot, and by that I mean we've gone back like 2 other times, haha. (We don't go on very many fancy dates.)

We almost went someplace else because there's just SO MUCH TO EAT here in Portland, it's hard to want to do repeats at the same restaurant when you could be trying something new, but what it really boils down to is friendly faces and ridiculously awesome food. We did snacky plates and shared a bunch of stuff- the pickles were amazing (PICKLED APPLES? The pickled mushrooms were my favorite), the cheese plate was awesome, we got a MEATPIE, the chef sent us out a bratwurst on a bed of red cabbage that BLEW MY MIND, and I imbibed the Love & Squalor Riesling, mostly because it was delicious, but again mostly because I'm a huge dork. The best thing we had though, was roasted winter squash with date molasses and bits of thick-sliced bacon. THE BACON TASTED LIKE A CAMPFIRE. IT WAS AMAZING. And the squash was all caramelized around the edges, it was awesome. I wish I had a picture of the face my husband made when he took his first bite. For dessert we got a local chocolate sampler! I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant that has something like this on their dessert menu but I thought it was awesome, because I was STUFFED, and it was just small bites of really excellent chocolate. (Note to Jason & Ben if you're reading- the chocolates were awesome, but you need to get some Lillie Belle chocolates on that tasting menu! They have good shit.)

Uhhhhhh anyway. We had an awesome meal, went out for a movie, and now we're sitting on the couch like lazy old people because I have to work in the morning. A+ pretend birthday!

pea soup, slightly improved.

2009-12-17T13:01:00.000-08:00

The other night I made a pretty boring pot of split pea soup. It didn't even have BACON in it. I just wanted something cheap and healthy for dinner, so vegetarian pea soup it was. It was... ok. I mean, it wasn't the best soup I've ever made, that's why I didn't bother posting a recipe.

I put the leftovers in the fridge, planning to eat them for dinner last night, but when dinner time rolled around I was like, "Ugh, dude- really? I'm NOT in the mood for pea soup, I don't know." But, laziness trumps appetite so I warmed some up on the stove anyway. Then, a stroke of not-quite-genius, but still pretty rad, I scooped in a couple of dollops of massamun curry paste that I had in my fridge.

Here you can see me cleverly hiding the date I wrote on it when I opened it- it's been in my fridge for awhile, but if you're curious, the brand is "Thai and True," it's made locally, and it's pretty tasty! I like the massamun the best. Normally I just put this into a can of coconut milk and pour over a stir fry for more like a thai style curry, but stirred into leftover pea soup, it tasted just like indian food!

Anyway. I uh... thought you all might be interested. Sorry, last night was my husband's company holiday party and I got drunk and made an ass out of myself doing karaoke, so I'm just gonna sit here in a cozy sweater and try to sleep things off, if you don't mind.

kale chips.

2009-12-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

Dude. If it wouldn't take 8 billion years, I'd eat my weight in kale chips. I mean, you can't really go wrong with hot crunchy salt in any form, but this is my new midnight snack that I want to eat by the BUCKETFUL.

All you have to do is tear up some kale, drizzle it with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle it with coarse kosher salt, and bake it for 10-20 minutes at 350º, keeping a close eye to make sure they don't burn. PRETTY IMPOSSIBLE TO FAIL AT.

Let's talk about coarse kosher salt for a minute, by the way- we were on a sea salt kick for awhile, but we ran out and I grabbed a box of coarse kosher to replace it, and it was like OH HI OLD FRIEND, HOLY CRAP YOU TASTE DELICIOUS. Screw sea salt, seriously. The best part about the coarse kosher is that you barely use any, but everything you put it on is magically transformed by the crunchy salty goodness. You can drop hella bucks on those silly fancy finishing salts at the gourmet groceries, but I just have a deep love in my heart for the old school stuff, what can I say? God, I love salt with texture.

thanksgiving leftovers.

2009-11-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

In an effort to clear out my refrigerator, I dumped most of our remaining thanksgiving leftovers onto some homemade pizza dough last night. I didn't even have any mozzarella, so you're looking at a turkey cheddar pizza, and roasted peppers, broccoli, & cheddar, respectively. We used what we had, and what we had was some leftover turkey, and one of those big gnarly vegetable trays with mini sweet peppers, carrots, broccoli, etc. (And a big bucket o'ranch in the middle. I considered doing a white pizza with the ranch but remember, thanksgiving traumatized my gut, so I'm attempting to eat a little healthier.)

HEY! On a completely different note, since my readers are such a fountain of good information- I recently picked up a huge jar of unrefined coconut oil, having been convinced by the hippie legions on the interwebs that it's like, super good for you and stuff. (Not going to lie, secretly I'm just hoping that if I eat coconut oil every day I'll just lose 10 pounds without even trying) PROBLEM: I DON'T REALLY LIKE COCONUTS. I mean, I just am not that into it, and the oil definitely tastes coconut-y. So far, all I've been doing with it is throw a chunk or two on top of my rice when I have stir fry, and I've had it on toast (it's spreadable at room temperature, if you're confused about why I might be putting OIL ON MY TOAST) with a pinch of salt, but otherwise- YUCK. The package suggests putting it into a smoothie and HOLY HELL, WAS THAT EVER A TERRIBLE IDEA. There were huge solid chunks of it throughout the smoothie and the texture was just appalling, to say the least. UGH UGH UGH.

So, if any of you are hippies who incorporate coconut oil into your diet, what do you do with it? The suggested "dosage" is like 4 tablespoons a day- how do you choke it down? Do you just eat everything with a hint of the tropics in it? Will I have to just force myself to like it, pretty much like I forced myself to like shit like brown rice and nuts and drinking water? (I USED TO HATE DRINKING WATER. I drank a coke for breakfast every single morning from age 8 to like age 20) Is it really a health tonic? Are you all svelte and crap from eating it all day? Information, plz. Thx.

guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

2009-11-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

Dude.

Dude.

First of all, let's talk about my bullshit blood sugar. I don't technically follow a Glycemic Index diet, but I probably should. The longer I pay attention to what I'm putting into my body, the more I realize I just can't eat shit like white potatoes, white bread, refined sugar, etc., because it makes me feel like TOTAL CRAP. It's the day after thanksgiving and I'm walking around feeling all trembly and shitty like I'm getting over a bout of food poisoning, when in reality all I did was gorge myself on green bean casserole and potatoes all night. And pie.

So, that doesn't mean I'm going to turn into some persnickety high-maintenance eater who shows up at a diner asking for gluten and soy free pancakes, it just means that after last night's excess, I fully understand why I have been working so hard to be careful about what I eat.

WITH ALL THAT SAID, THESE MAPLE & BROWN SUGAR GLAZED SWEET POTATOES WERE THE BOMB.

I was at Trader Joe's the other day (HAW HAW) and they were giving out free samples of some prepacked version of this stuff, and I thought it was tasty, so I decided to try to make it myself. It was really easy, dude.

In a small saucepan on low heat, warm up a generous glug (about 1/4 of a cup?) of maple syrup, a whole stick of butter (melt it in the syrup, duh), a good sized handful of brown sugar, a really conservative pinch, really just a little dusting, of cinnamon, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Toss over some cubed sweet potatoes and roast in a pre-heated 425ºf oven until fork-tender. (note: I didn't roast these potatoes in the dish shown above, although that is an oven-safe dish. I roasted them in shallow cake pans so they'd cook evenly. I just transferred them to the pretty container for serving.) Top with some toasted pecans if that's your bag (as you can see, it's mine) and serve on the side of a deliciously gluttonous meal that is guaranteed to make you feel like shit in the morning.

I MEAN SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS, I DIDN'T EVEN DRINK ANY ALCOHOL.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go whip up my recovery dinner- lightly steamed vegetables over brown rice with a poached egg and some lemon wedges. Leftovers be damned. (J/k I had a leftover turkey sandwich for lunch already, duh)

stir fry.

2009-11-17T18:46:00.000-08:00

Dude, do you remember when I was all, "blah blah I'm going to write about all our standard meals and talk about our grocery list and blah blah" and then I think all I did was post about spanish rice and then I got distracted and did something else?

We eat stir fry like twice a week. It's funny, because everyone makes stir fry and everyone has their own little way of doing it. Sometimes it's nice to have someone else cook for you, but doesn't it seem like if you eat someone else's stir fry, it's just kind of wrong in a way? It's like doing laundry at someone else's house and realizing your clothes all smell different. Or, it's like when you're a kid and you go over to your friend's house and they have DIET COKE instead of REGULAR COKE. Or worse- PEPSI.

The ingredients to our stir fry that never deviate are: onion, garlic, carrot, celery, broccoli, zucchini, soy sauce, a tiny splash of fish sauce, served over long grain (basmati or jasmine) brown rice.

The ingredients that sneak their way in when we're feeling fancy are stuff like, asparagus, green beans, bell peppers (expensive!), maybe snow peas if I'm feeling CRAAAAZY. Mushrooms, sometimes. I've been on a huge mushroom kick. I blame Zach.

I used to throw in tofu every once in awhile, but some of us have problems *ahem* digesting it. Without protein, I get hungry almost immediately after eating, so I've started adding scrambled eggs. When we have cashews on hand, I dump some of those in too. I love it with cashews!

Tell me about your stir fry, please. It's like sneaking into someone's medicine cabinet. I'm snoopy.

Get Better.

2009-11-15T21:08:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I've managed to forget posting about this here, but I've been taking some photographs for my friend Zach's blog. He's really interested in nutrition and superfoods that prevent cancer and stuff like that. You should read it!

http://nomoresickfriends.blogspot.com/

ham & noodles.

2009-11-14T16:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've been sitting on this for a few days because 1. I'm lazy, and 2. I kept forgetting to ask my husband for his recipe. When I finally sat down to blog about it, I asked him for the recipe and he started to prattle off crap about bechamel sauces and stuff, and suddenly I remembered that my culinary-educated husband knows a lot more about cooking than I do and I didn't even feel like dealing with it.

Being married for a little over 4 years, and together for coming up on 7, my husband and I have had plenty of time to dissect the childhoods of one another, and we've frequently discussed the home cooking we grew up with. One thing my mom used to make when I was a kid that I loved without question was something she just called "ham & noodles." We had a few random dishes that were really comforting and delicious to me, and a lot of them were "____ & noodles." My mom's ham & noodles was, if I remember correctly, basically just a bowl with cubed ham, cooked egg noodles, some butter, sauteed onions, and caraway seeds.

So, being totally awesome, my husband busted out (without even telling me in advance, which was an even BETTER surprise) this homage to my mom's dish, combined with a the hearty amazingness that is mac & cheese.

But- yeah. My husband used his fancy skills to make some fancy bechamel and then did a bunch of other crap, I don't even know, and so the result was this gooey creamy sauce and I have no idea how he did it and when he started to explain I just waved my hand in front of my face. If I were you, I'd just start with a good solid Martha Stewart recipe for mac & cheese. Then, once you have it all put together you can add the good stuff. Just lightly caramelize some onions in a pan, throw in some cubed ham (my husband actually just went to the deli, asked for ham sliced as thick as they could do it, and then chopped it up) and stir it into the mac & cheese before you bake it in the oven. Then, make a breadcrumb topping by toasting some bread and throwing it in a food processor with some whole caraway seeds, and top your noodles with it before going into the oven.

That's pretty much it. Thanks for the inspiration, Mom.

two very different snacks.

2009-11-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

Late night, post-drinking, run-through-a-downpour to hang out under a soggy tent at midnight snack- poutine from Potato Champion:

Mid-afternoon, after work, before errands, powering-up for the rest of the day snack- Lightly steamed asparagus with poached egg and a slice of whole grain toast:

My husband made me an epic pan of macaroni and cheese last night, and as soon as I wring the recipe out of him, I'll post it here.

love & hate.

2009-10-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

how to get small children to hate you:

attempt to feed them quesadillas stuffed with quinoa, green chiles, and sauteed zucchini. (this earned a, "I don't like this food. I want to go home and eat MY food!" from my friend's daughter who was hanging out at my house for the day.)

How to get small children to love you:

Make people out of food. I served these with chips covered in melted cheese (which my son rejected in favor of plain chips- WHATEVER, KID.) and unbelievably, my son still only ate half his dinner and then begged for a snack immediately after. (which he does basically every night. WTF IS THAT CRAP? 3 year olds. psh.) A snack!? WE HAD SNACKS FOR DINNER, DUDE.

edited to add: by the way, the quinoa snacks were for lunch earlier in the week, and I DID make them eat them, hahaha! my son actually ate his fine, though he complained. he actually ate less of the refried-bean face than he did of the quinoa quesadilla! he didn't want to screw up the eyes and ears on his face. can you tell which face is which? i made bean versions of our family. :)

oatmeal with egg.

2009-10-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

The handful of people I've mentioned this to have reacted in a variety of ways. I was all, "Oh man, I had this oatmeal this morning that was so good! I put a whole egg in it and stirred it in!" Then I heard reactions like, "WHOA DUDE, THAT IS GROSS." Or, "Why are you always trying to put eggs in everything?"

First of all, Renee, (Uh, Renee is my older sister.) I always try to put eggs in everything because THEY TASTE GOOD. And they have protein. And lots of other vitamins. GAWD. Second of all, why is it so weird to put eggs in oatmeal? It makes perfect sense. It's not like chunky egg bits, it gets stirred in at the last moment to make the oatmeal all silky and rich, almost custard-like.

Anyway, by request, here is a post about my oatmeal with egg. It's really straightforward, I just use the 5-minute Quaker oatmeal because it's really cheap and because I don't actually like the texture of the fancier, (and healthier, oh well) slow-cooked oats. Sometimes I am a lazy-ass, and so I eat the cheap-o oatmeal. But, because I'm a yuppie and I have like, PRINCIPLES and shit, I don't get the 1-MINUTE stuff, I stick with the 5-MINUTE stuff.

Anyway, I cook it as per the package directions, throw in a splash of milk, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, a drizzle of vanilla extract, and stir it all together. Then, keeping the oatmeal on low heat, I crack in one egg and immediately stir as fast as I can without making a mess. The egg is quickly incorporated and it doesn't really leave any chunks at all. I keep stirring for almost a full minute to make sure it's all the way mixed in, and then I spoon it into bowls, with an extra pinch of brown sugar on top and a little bit of kosher salt to bring out the flavors. This is my new favorite cool-weather breakfast staple and I plan to eat it all winter.

sugar skulls.

2009-10-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

You might remember my friend Ivonne Carley and her skulls from her guest post last year. She made more skulls this year, and she's listed them in her etsy shop, which is great because I just ordered one this morning for my fireplace mantle. You should get one too!

Click on the picture to visit her shop! They're only 10 bucks and they will last year after year if you take care of them.

And, by request, tomorrow I'll try to make the oatmeal with egg for breakfast and post about it.

Edited to add: these are for decoration, not eating, btw- even though technically they are "edible."

cazuela(?) - maybe just call it a chicken stew.

2009-10-11T22:48:00.000-07:00

Ah, new kitchen. Actually, my kitchen kind of sucks. I've slathered like 30 coats of paint onto every surface (literally- I even painted over the gross, cracked, misplaced linoleum squares.) in an effort to hide the flaws- a temporary fix, but we plan to use our sweet 8k tax credit on a nice kitchen remodel next year. (Yes, I know I can file an amendment and get the cash now. We aren't even done with our bathroom yet, leave me alone, haha!)

But! I've got all my crap put away and I'm back to cooking at home, which is comforting on a really deep level. I was really, really tired of takeout. So, last night I made a big pot of stock, and today I made this chicken stew. I got the recipe from this goofy 1950's cookbook I picked up, The Peasant Cookbook. I flipped through it and felt inspired by a lot of the recipes, so I bought it. It's been really good for giving us dinner ideas (we're having another recipe from it later this week!) but the recipes themselves are kind of hilarious.

What kind of hilarious? First, each recipe has a small paragraph describing the food (with adorably dated, sometimes xenophobic-sounding comments about the culture), then a small menu telling you what to pair with the dish, and then the recipe itself. Here's what the book has to say about tacos:

"Tacos (Mexican)

This is the Mexican equivalent of a sandwich and like much Mexican food is highly seasoned. It is best when approaching Mexican food for the first time to season gently until your taste buds become used to these fiery foods. Also beer or milk should be drunk with it to ameliorate the hotness. Tom Gullette, who grew up in Texas and wandered back and forth over the border, says that tortillas taste much the best when made by a beautiful and very young Mexican girl whose hands have not been washed very recently. (Editor's note: WHAT THE EVERLOVING HELL?) However, he has been known, when far away, to buy them from a Mexican restaurant or store or else, when the blue corn meal that is traditional was obtainable, to make them himself with clean hands, being neither very young nor very beautiful, using the same proportions as in a crepes Suzette recipe.

Menu: TACOS BEER
RHUBARB PIE
COFFEE

1 medium-sized onion, chopped
1 fat clove garlic, minced
bacon fat
1 pound ground beef
chile powder (5 or 6 chile pods well crumbled for those who are used to it)
lettuce
tomatoes
1 dozen tortillas
lard"

Uhhhhh... Anyway. HA!

So, given that most of the recipes seemed 'dumbed down' for American palates, I decided to just go ahead and alter the recipe to the best of my ability, and what I ended up with was very tasty. I can't say it was distinctly Chilean- I don't think I've ever had Chilean food but what I came up with was your pretty standard chicken soup with some extras that made it more fun.

Cazuela- Adapted from The Peasant Cookbook

Whole legs from a chicken
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
handful of fresh parsley
handful of green beans
1/2 lb green peas (frozen is fine)
1 cup white rice
a few large potato chunks (or small whole potatoes)
large handful of peeled/diced pumpkin (or any sweet squash. i used a regular pumpkin and it would have been better with a sugar pumpkin or something sweet.)
2 ears corn, cut into 2" pieces
1 raw egg
4 cups homemade stock
1 onion
couple cloves of garlic

In a separate pot, heat stock with thyme, oregano, and parsley. In your soup pot, saute diced onion and garlic until they begin to soften, then brown each chicken leg in the bottom of the pot. Cover with homemade stock (if using store bought stock, consider using some diced carrots and celery along with the onions, just for added flavor) and throw in a cup or two of cold water just to make sure the chicken is all the way covered. Bring up to a nice simmer, then throw in potatoes. After about 15-20 minutes, throw in the beans & pumpkin. After about another 15 minutes, check to see if your chicken is about done. If it is, remove it to a cutting board and let cool so you can pick the meat off. Stir in the rice. Let it cook for about 10-15 minutes longer, then toss the chicken back in and dump in the peas. At this point your potatoes, rice, and pumpkin should be fully cooked. Stir in the whole raw egg very quickly to thicken the broth into a sort of gravy. Stir as quickly as you can to incorporate without getting big chunks of cooked egg (but don't freak out if you get some white bits.) Toss in the corn and heat through, then spoon into bowls.

This is exactly what I did, and it was a really hearty and rich, but it didn't really strike me as being South American, and since I didn't use a sweet pumpkin it didn't add much to the soup. If/when I make it again, I'd probably use some cilantro instead of fresh parsley, and maybe squeeze in some lime or something for a big of acid. Overall, though- this was an awesome and I really enjoyed it. My son got a kick out of the corn, too. Hooray, soup season! This is actually my second soup of the season, I started off with some lentil soup the week before we moved, but I was too busy to write about it. Uh, it was really good, though. I put a raw egg into it, just like this recipe! I got the idea from reading the book and now I kind of just want to stir whole eggs into everything. This morning I actually stirred a whole egg into my oatmeal, and I think I might do that from now on. It was an oatmeal masterpiece! Whole egg, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and a pinch of kosher salt. I am having it for breakfast as soon as I wake up. The egg just thickens the liquid and makes everything silky and rich, plus they're so good for you.

So, back in the swing of things. The weather is chilly, my kitchen is full, no complaints. (Okay, I have complaints. I MISS MY DISHWASHER. BEW HEW, FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.) Also, shout-out to the cute chick who recognized me at Target tonight. Haha, HELLO.

progress.

2009-10-09T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well dudes, you can imagine why I'm not posting much- right now my kitchen looks like this:

And, conveniently, I started coming down with a gnarly cold THE DAY WE STARTED MOVING. So, mostly I've been nursing myself back to health the best I can, and organizing a tiny bit at a time. It looks messy, true- but here's what it looked like when we first got the house:

Eesh. Anyway, regular posting to resume as soon as possible. Cough, cough.

ahem.

2009-09-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

Whoa dudes, it's been quiet around here! Mostly because we've been eating a lot of boring food and a lot more takeout than we're accustomed to. No more pussyfooting, WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOUSE. Tonight we got our keys, and we celebrated by chowing down pho from nearby Pho Van in the backyard.

Things will probably stay on hiatus here for a few more weeks as we remodel and move into our new place, but then it's fall, my favorite season for cooking, and I picked up a new cookbook today that I can't wait to go through. It's called The Peasant Cookbook and it has comfort mom-foods from around the world, all through the lens of a snarky 1955 food author. It's pretty hilarious, although some of the commentary borders on xenophobic, despite the content. Some of the recipes sound kind of gross, and some of them sound REALLY tasty. I'm looking forward to trying some out, especially this one with potato slices and anchovies and beaten eggs all baked together and this other one, a Chilean stew with corn and pumpkin.

Anyway. HOORAY! HOMEOWNERSHIP! This is pretty much as terrifying and exhilarating as having a child, except hopefully I won't have a hormone crash after we move in and feel like shooting myself for a full year afterward, HA HA HA. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. HOORAY.

soft boiled eggs.

2009-09-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about my friends Jason and Alia is that they're the type of people who feed you. I'm a big feeder- if I have guests, I start offering snacks and tea pretty much right off the bat. I don't know where this type of hospitality comes from, but it's probably rooted in the fact that I'm always hungry, and food is a good ice breaker. Anyway, I was visiting my friends recently and I spied some tiny egg cups on the counter. I mentioned I'd never had a soft-boiled egg, and hey- they have a backyard full of chickens! How convenient.

I'm not going to lie, this might be too finicky for me to bother with on a regular basis, but it was cute and fun. Tiny cups! Dipping! It's like, so dainty, y'all. Basically it's just a poached egg still in the shell, when you really think about it.

Her eggs are dinky (bantam chickens) so we had to improvise with some cute bottles instead of egg cups.

I'd go ahead and post a recipe for soft-boiled eggs, but come on- you can find out by yourself.

I also got to try one of their fridge pickles (homegrown cucumbers and everything!) and they were delicious. I plan to snag that recipe as soon as I can. Anyone have any favorite fridge pickle recipes? I like garlic, and I like spicy.

tomatoes.

2009-09-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

After being subjected to dozens of "Summer on a plate!" posts on tastespotting, I sort of cringe whenever I see a blog with a post about insalata caprese. I mean, it's just 3 things slopped together On A Plate®, it's not that big of a deal.

But then I remember that there was a time in my life, not too long ago (okay, it was like 10 years ago) that I not only didn't know this combination existed, but I actually almost REFUSED TO TRY IT because I was stupid and kept telling myself I don't like tomatoes. Look, tomato haters- I'm not going to argue with you. I went my whole life picking tomatoes off of stuff, saying things like, "I only like tomatoes IN stuff, I don't like PLAIN tomatoes." INSANITY, Y'ALL.

But, I remember the moment the clouds parted and angels started trumpeting and all that crap like it was yesterday- I was 16 years old and working as a cafeteria lady at a summer camp. It was the last week of the summer's camp sessions and the kitchen staff decided to cook a big fancy dinner for all the counselors after all the kids left. We spent like 2 days prepping, coring little button mushrooms for stuffed appetizers, and SLICING ALL THESE GODDAMN TOMATOES. We must have made what seemed like 20 huge trays of perfectly sliced, neatly laid out insalata caprese, and despite all my protesting, "No, I don't like tomatoes. No thanks. No, thank you- I don't like tomatoes." I was eventually goaded into popping a bite into my mouth. WHAT?! SERIOUSLY? THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT I DIDN'T LIKE? It was a seriously mindblowing moment. (Hey auto spellchecker- stfu, "mindblowing" is TOO a word, because I say it like every 30 seconds.)

Anyway. I'm not going to pretend like I'm a huge ass tomato connoisseur or whatever, because I am still pretty picky when it comes to eating them. For instance, I don't care much for cherry tomatoes- I don't know, they're just too... wet. Haha! And, I always seed my tomatoes, something about the seeds really grosses me out. That's probably my only beef with heirlooms, the seeds are scattered in all these tiny little pockets so you can't seed them. Once, I was watching Iron Chef, and some douchebag served "tomato caviar" as part of the dish, and it was seriously a tiny bowl of tomato seeds. I almost vomited, seriously. WTF?! And trying to make it all fancy and shit by calling it 'caviar' is just ridiculous. It wasn't even the kind of weird nitroglycerin balled up shit in gelee like some people make on there, it was just fucking tomato seeds. SORRY, SORRY- I will stop ranting about Iron Chef now. GOD, I miss having the food network.

Where was I?

Uh, anyway. Tomatoes are delicious. This is my favorite thing to do with perfectly ripe, garden fresh tomatoes. Using out of season, crappy store bought tomatoes is a travesty for this, I only eat it a few times a year and I always wait for people to start unloading their good tomatoes on me.

If you've been living under a rock or if you can't figure out what's going on in the pictures, allow me to provide you a recipe- a 3 ingredient recipe that takes like 10 seconds to complete.

TOMATO.
BASIL.
FRESH MOZZARELLA. (The kind that comes packed in water.)

Slice tomatoes. Stack good shit on top of them. EAT. OMG, It's like, SUMMER ON A PLATE.

Some people like a drizzle of balsamic and olive oil, personally I stick with a small pinch of sea salt & call it good. I could just gorge myself on this. The only thing keeping me from grabbing the other huge ball of mozzarella out of the fridge and wolfing down another plate of this is feeling guilty about not saving any for my husband. That, and eating 8 full ounces of cheese for lunch probably isn't very good for you.

Okay dudes, get to it.

midnight snack.

2009-09-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

When my husband goes out of town on business, like any lovely husband, he brings back goodies. Usually it's a cupcake or two from Cupcake Royale, one of the accounts he works with, but tonight he came home bearing a big fat salami. Uh, from Salumi, dumdums. Don't get all excited. A few slices on a plate with some grapes, and a sliced and salted heirloom snagged from my buddy's garden- you can't go wrong. I wanted crackers but had toast instead.

Speaking of buddy's gardens, thanks for the goodies, mom:

She sent me home with a few bags of stuff from her garden and my son is in heaven with all those cherry tomatoes. I love those petite little onions she grew, I can't wait to grow my own onions & garlic.

not a recipe.

2009-08-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

Today I was checking out a location for a wedding that I'm shooting in a few weeks, and it was located at a gorgeous farm on Sauvie Island.

Blue Heron Herbary is a sprawling family farm, dotted with lavender bushes and flanked by corn fields. A hen house greets you as you walk out towards the fields, and we got to meet their flock.

I asked the dude showing us around if they sold eggs, hoping to pick up a dozen, and instead he gifted me with 14!

I don't have any exotic plans for these guys yet, but I am sure looking forward to poaching some for breakfast in the morning. And getting to meet the chickens who provide you with eggs is always super awesome- it just brought back my itch for my own backyard flock. I even have the breeds picked out- what I really want is a big fat Black Orpington to sit on my shoulder. My goth spirit guide, the fat black chicken.

the stacy

2009-08-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Installment #49418475 in which I improve leftovers by throwing an egg on top, I give you half a leftover Taqueria Los Gorditos steak burrito ("The Stacy" on the menu, if you're in town- you won't regret it. I got mine dairy-free to avoid gut-bombing myself), turned inside-out, fried in a hot pan, and smooshed together in a toasted flatbread with 2 fried eggs.

That, combined with the hamburger that I had for dinner, has fulfilled my meat quota for the next 6 months, holy crap.

relaxing

2009-08-17T21:58:00.001-07:00

Hey, did you know it's tomato season? This dude came from my mom's garden. If all goes as planned, this time next year I'll be harvesting hella tomatoes from my own backyard plot, keep your fingers crossed.

I've been way lazy (well, busy) lately and I haven't had much to say about food. It's summer, I've been eating a lot of salad, a lot of burritos, and not much else. I even thought about calling it quits on this thing officially, or starting a new blog with more of a photo focus and less recipes, but I'm too flaky to do anything official on the internet. Call it a small break, call it what you want. I don't want to jinx anything, but as far as I know, in a few short weeks, you might be seeing photos from a whole new kitchen. The other day, during a short spell of cool grey days, I hunkered down in my favorite sweater, sipping chamomile and daydreaming about what I've come to lovingly refer to as "soup season." I want THIS really bad, and this. And holy crap, this.

Just look under the 'soups' tag, actually- god, I love soup. I love huge bubbling pots of stock, I love being able to smell the fragrant broth from outside, I love leftovers for lunch, I love taking a travel mug of hot soup to the park on a cold day. Winter in Portland is just so beautiful, as much as I love summer, I can't help but pine for scarves, adorable jackets, and mugs full of hot stuff.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Today was gorgeous, and I spent the day park-hopping with my son, listening to the breeze ruffle through the trees. I ate nothing exciting, though. I guess comfort foods are my forte. I'll still be around, don't worry.

holla.

2009-07-31T15:38:00.000-07:00

So, I just pulled the ads off the sidebar. Aside from them not generating much revenue (which I expected), I was feeling a lot of pressure to keep this thing updated as much as possible and the sad fact is I just don't have that much to say, haha! Anyone who is paying attention (and that isn't very many people, considering how many emails I get asking for baking advice) might have noticed that my former blog partner, Summer, is pursuing her own blog full time, with ads and fancy stuff like that. It's her job, I guess- but the thing is, this blog is NOT my job, and it probably never will be. I have a "real" job, working weekends at a small cafe, I'm a full-time mother, and I do a shitload of freelance work, which means I'm basically working all day, every day. (Oh yeah, I babysit, too.) So, if a week goes by and I realize I haven't updated this thing, I don't want to feel weird about it, like I should just throw something up to keep my hits level so I keep generating ad revenue- that's wack. Plus, it's an ad network so occasionally I get these emails asking me to contribute to some weird Betty Crocker website with like, "Your favorite Bisquick recipes!" and I'm all, "BISQUICK? Bitch, plz." I don't cook like that, sorry. My focus here has always been on making shit from scratch, because it's more fun, more interesting to read about, and better for you. The more focused I am on my health, the less interested I am in eating stuff from a box. So, as pumped as I was to be invited into a fancy ad network, I'm wussing out.

Anyway. I'm making sushi later. You'll probably hear all about it.

asian noodle salad

2009-07-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying that WHENEVER I make/eat/see something that is like, "ASIAN BLAH BLAH BLAH!" I can't help but think of Margaret Cho's 'Asian Chicken Salad' bit and it cracks me up. It does seem kind of silly to just throw a blanket over your dish by calling it "Asian," since Asian food varies so greatly from region to region, but once I start breaking out the fish sauce, it's certainly not my Aunt Margaret's pasta salad.

So, OH HEY! Did you know that it was 105ºf here in Portland today?! Yeah. So, this morning, when I woke up (to my still-sweltering hot apartment, WTF?!) I cooked a big pot of noodles in preparation for tonight's dinner, so I could have them cold and ready to go without having to turn on the stove at all.

Dumping of many condiments and chopping of many vegetables later, I had this bomb noodle salad that my husband and I sucked down in moments, relishing a cold but filling dinner on such a gnarly day. Even my son had some, and he's sort of picky about what happens to his noodles.

So, you should make this tomorrow because it's supposed to be over 100 again. PFFFT!

Aaaaaasian Noodle Salad?

About a pound of spaghetti, cooked and chilled. (I know this is a no-brainer but rinse it with cold water to stop the cooking process or else the noodles will get mushy.)
1 large carrot, grated
1 small/medium zucchini, grated
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 or 2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
1 whole bunch of scallions
a handful of chopped fresh cilantro

For the dressing:
(I actually measured this out while I was making it FOR YOUR BENEFIT.)

2 tbsp. sesame oil
3 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. rice vinegar
1/4 tsp. fish sauce (you can use a little more if you want, but I usually go easy because it's so high in sodium)
juice of one small lime (my lime wasn't very juicy though. maybe like half a lime?)
drizzle of honey
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
1 chunk of fresh ginger, finely minced (like a tablespoon or two's worth?)
1/2 tsp. sambal olek (chili sauce)

Mix together in a small bowl with a fork, and taste to make sure it's delicious. Adjust as necessary. Mix all the other stuff in a large bowl, then dump the dressing over it and combine. Top with toasted cashews and more chopped scallions, and try to pretend like your ass hasn't melted into your chair.

Finish with a trip to the gelato shop down the street, and eat the leftovers at 11 p.m. in your underwear. Ta daa!

garden fresh.

2009-07-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

Let me be blunt. I am melting into my chair right now. I mean it's wicked hot in my apartment, I got up at 6 a.m. and worked a long busy shift, came home, jumped around my living room for 20 minutes (what was I thinking?!) then spent several hours this evening wrangling my nephews along with my sleep deprived, sweaty, grumpy toddler. 3 sweaty, hot, grumpy little boys, and me. (And my poor husband- who was probably thrilled to be hanging out with 3 tiny grumps and one giant one.) SO ANYWAY.

My mom gave me some cucumbers from her garden the other day, and while snacking on a few slices, I thought to myself, "This needs something." So I put something on it.

OH, YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I PUT ON IT? Rice vinegar, a pinch of sea salt, and some toasted black sesame seeds. It's as close to 'cooking' as I'm going to get in this wack-ass heat, and it's satisfying in sort of the way salty potato chips are, without like, giving you cancer or whatever the hell it is potato chips do these days. And also it's cold. Did I mention it's really hot outside? It's supposed to be really hot all week. Expect me back here, in the same spot, continuing to complain about it, at least one more time this week. Tschau, hundz.

morning beverage of choice.

2009-07-23T21:38:00.001-07:00

It tends to come as a shock to people who know me when they find out I don't drink caffeine. I'm a pretty high strung individual, I guess you could say I'm kind of hyper. I'm also a morning person! (Right now, most of you are probably mentally punching me in the face, like "SCREW YOU ASSHOLE! YOU GET UP AT 7 A.M. AND THEN DON'T DRINK COFFEE AND STILL GO ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS?") I know. It gets even more irritating though- I'm a BARISTA- I have been for over 6 years now. I get up at 7 a.m. and then I go MAKE OTHER PEOPLE COFFEE. On top of that, my husband's in the coffee business as well. I'm worse than a bald barber- I'm like a barber that just shaves her head for the hell of it, because WHY NOT? WHO NEEDS HAIR? NOT ME!

But seriously, caffeine wacks me out and makes me jittery, so I don't drink it. Sometimes I get decaf (but people kept asking me if I was pregnant, augh!), or I'll grab an iced americano, sip about a 3rd of it, and then give it to my husband when I'm done. Lately in the mornings, I've been eating pretty light breakfast, and it isn't quite enough to keep me going until my mid-morning snack, so I've been making myself smoothies. The best part about this is that my son thinks he's getting milkshakes for breakfast and he goes NUTS.

Everyone has their own smoothie preferences, but mine are totally infantile and weird. I have a ton of dumb texture issues, because I'm a recovering picky eater. I can't handle it if my smoothies are too runny, have giant chunks in them, or aren't very cold. I know, I'm like a 3 year old. Actually, I'm worse than a 3 year old, because my 3 year old doesn't give a shit, he just chugs it down like it's the nectar of the gods no matter what I put in it.

I used to be way too lazy to make smoothies for a really stupid reason- my blender sits way back in the far end of the cabinet and I'm too lazy to drag it out, use it, clean it, and put it away. I mean, that's pretty dumb, but not as dumb as when I realized that this whole time, I've been pulling out my CUISINART, moving it out of the way to remove the blender, then putting it back, then using the blender, then removing the cuisinart AGAIN, etc.- when OBVIOUSLY YOU CAN JUST USE A GODDAMN CUISINART TO MAKE A SMOOTHIE. AND IT DOES A SUPERIOR JOB. I don't mean to freak out, but how could I have not noticed this? Our cuisinart was like the holy grail of our wedding gifts (Thanks SO MUCH, Jason's old coworkers at The Paradox, for providing us with quality kitchen equipment.) and it is the second most-used kitchen gadget in our kitchen, sliding in close behind the rice cooker. That means it's always front and center and IT ALSO GOES IN THE DISHWASHER, so what the hell? My cuisinart is now also my smoothie-maker.

Anyway, because I'm a giant picky baby about my smoothies, they MUST have the following to be delicious: 1 or more bananas (maybe 2!), frozen berries, plain yogurt, and honey. I will deviate from this formula only to add additional fruit, like if I have a nectarine lying around, that basically makes it perfect. Then I blend it into oblivion and chug it as fast as I can because it's delicious. I wish I was drinking a smoothie right now, instead of this crappy white wine I picked up at Trader Joe's for 5 bucks.

Sorry you got such a boring post out of me, I've been eating nothing but salads and hippie chow, in response to the warm weather and also because I'm on yet another health kick. Good vibez, y'all. Wooooo, hippies!

Also, speaking of hippies- what raw foodies refer to as smoothies are actually just disgusting babyfood, y/y? Kale blended with water and ice? AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!

oh, holla.

2009-07-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to pop in and say I'm not dead, haw haw. I shot a wedding this weekend, and I make it a general rule not to take any new photos until I'm done editing what's in front of me, which, in this case, is like 400 photos that each need to be edited individually. So, I'll have something exciting in the next few days. And by "exciting" I mean "marginally interesting."

barbecue & noodle salad.

2009-07-15T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight our friends had us over for a lovely mid-week barbecue. On one of my favorite food blogs, the hilarious Sunday Williams wrote about not understanding the big deal about bbq. Let me lay it out for you, homegirl:

Cheers. Nothing compares to kicking back in someone's backyard at 6 o'clock on a weekday, sitting in one of those fugly fold-up camping chairs with the cup holders with a boozy cool beverage in one hand and a sloppy plate of something in the other. (Can you tell I was picking at roasted beets?) I mean, in this case- we really didn't even need to fire up the grill. Jason and I were coming off a week of some heavy meat dishes and neither of us were in the mood for something meaty, and one of our buddies is vegan, so the only thing we actually grilled was slabs of fresh-picked zucchini and some heads of garlic.

It's not about the food, although everyone knows that almost anything tastes better licked by flames and smoke, carcinogens be damned. It's about relaxing and talking smack with people you like and enjoying beautiful summer weather.

Also, look at this rad plate:

Anyway, as usual, I hustled around my kitchen trying to think of something nice to bring, and of course, I fell back on a delicious noodle salad. It just seems so RIGHT when you're eating a plate of something grilled to have a cold pile of noodles on your plate. I managed to cobble together this salad from a bunch of stuff I had on hand, and it came out awesome!

It's just cold cooked noodles (like 1/2 a bag), chopped tomato, cucumber, parsley, and roasted red pepper (actually, it was an orange pepper). I added a can of kidney beans, and then I made a dressing with a large dollop of tahini, thinned with lemon juice, a splash of apple cider vinegar & some olive oil. There are a lot of tahini dressing recipes online (I did a quick google search before I made it to give myself an idea of what I wanted to do) and they all thin the tahini with water, but I decided to use olive oil because I wanted the noodles to stay coated with the sauce, and I figured if I used water, it'd all soak in and they'd end up gummy and dry. Finished it off with a bunch of salt & pepper and it was awesome, mega stoked.

pizza pockets!

2009-07-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

Oh, hi. Here I am, grimacing in my somewhat cramped, (well, large for an apartment at least!) messy, humid kitchen. Today was a stupid day to make pizza pockets from scratch (like 85 degrees and humid, ugh) but it was on the menu and it sounded good, so I did it anyway. I fortified myself with a good afternoon snack (HA) and set to work making my pizza dough using this recipe.

Last time I made pizza, I made of spur of the moment decision to make a calzone, and it came out pretty darn delicious. This time I decided to make little hand-sized pizza pockets, mostly for fun, but also because this pizza dough recipe always makes way more than we need, so I knew I'd have enough to make extras to freeze for another day.

Making pizza pockets is pretty straightforward, but it kind of takes a long time, so I recommend two things: get your stuff prepped as far in advance as possible, and try doing it on a day that you don't mind having your oven cranked up to 500ºf- we're still recovering. Like, the middle of July might not be the right day for making pizza pockets. OR MAYBE IT IS, WHO CARES IF YOU GET SWEATY?

I made the dough according to the recipe, and then rolled it into a rope which I divided into 8 portions. I rolled out each little ball into a nice oval, like so:

and filled it halfway with the stuffing, which was a mixture of finely chopped cooked chicken, roasted broccoli, and roasted red peppers, stirred together with pizza sauce and some chunks of fresh mozzarella (grated probably would have worked better, though). I chopped everything pretty finely because I didn't want to run into the problem of taking a nice bite only to get a huge chunk of some searingly hot chicken or pepper or something that is too huge to fit in your mouth and then it just plops down in front of you and you're going FUHFUHFUHFUH trying to cool off your mouth- god, that sucks. If everything gets chopped up, you can take reasonable bites without hurting yourself. (They do get really hot, though.)

So, I made 8, split 6 of them between the 3 members of my family and popped 2 (uncooked) into the freezer for a day that I'm feeling too lazy to make lunch. Win-win situation, in my opinion. I baked them in a 500 degree oven on a cast-iron skillet (dusted with cornmeal!) for about 5-7 minutes, then I flipped them so the tops would get a little brown and let them cook for another minute or two. Next time I might use some sausage or ground beef, because let's face it- what I'm really trying to do here is replicate those ridiculously terrible/delicious pizza pockets that you get in your middle school cafeteria for like 50 cents. I lived off of those things in the 8th grade, even when I was "vegetarian" and i'd just bite off a corner of the pocket, squeeze all the sausage out, and then eat the cheesy, saucy bread. That stuff is the bomb! And I love the idea of basically having homemade hot pockets in my freezer, because I'd never BUY something like that (ew ew ew) but I secretly love to eat stuff like that. (because I'm still mentally like 10 years old.)

OH, and today, a good friend of our family and longtime graphic designer (he is the friend who helped me design my book of photographs), Hank Schmidt, sent out a preview of some cupcake wrappers he designed with a friend. I loved the idea and told him I wanted to design one, and he sent me the template! If you're familiar with my drawing blog, you'll know that I do freelance illustration, so I'm totally bubbling over with ideas for something to slap on a cupcake wrapper. Feel free to leave a comment with something you'd like to see wrapped around your cupcakes! You can see some of his existing designs here. (although I'm trying to convince him to open an etsy shop for these, I think it'd sell in a heartbeat.)

in defense of snacking.

2009-07-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't been up to much the last week or so- I was laid up with a snuffly cold (that I think I'm finally getting over) and then friends had birthdays and I had a wedding to shoot and phew- wasn't 4th of July fun? God, I love hot dogs and setting stuff on fire.

Anyway, uh... SNACKS! The virtues of snacking have been lost on me over the years. Having a kid has dramatically altered my eating habits in a variety of ways, but the most important has been that I've finally learned the importance of snacking. Not like, sneaking a candy bar on your lunch break, or "Whew, I'm hungry! Let's pop into Taco Bell and get like 3 soft tacos!" but like, the kind of snacks that sustain you between meals and don't make you feel like garbage.

I'm a self-diagnosed hypoglycemic. I know that most people wah-wah-wahhhhh at the words "self-diagnosed," but whatever, I don't need to have blood sugar monitoring in a doctor's office to tell me that I become a complete basketcase when my blood sugar plummets, it's really, REALLY apparent to the people around me. You can ask my close friends, my coworkers, my poor, dear, unbelievably understanding husband- any of them will tell you to shove a cookie in my mouth and run screaming when I start freaking out.

It starts innocently enough- usually I won't even realize I'm actually HUNGRY- I'll just start to feel weird. Then, when I start to get a little shaky and realize, "Oh shit, I need to eat, like RIGHT NOW." I begin attempting to formulate some kind of snack idea, but I start getting flustered and suddenly NOTHING SOUNDS GOOD, and I CAN'T EAT SOMETHING IF IT DOESN'T SOUND GOOD, AND OH MY GOD I NEED TO EAT RIGHT NOW AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON! In really dramatic instances, I start to get chills and I get really dizzy- I've even convinced myself that I'm coming down with the flu (my hypochondria might be the subject of another post) because I felt so sick, only to feel perfectly fine about 15 minutes after eating my first bite of food.

So, you get the idea. Needless to say, when I was pregnant, (and hungry EVERY SECOND OF THE DAY) I was not very fun to be around. Eventually, I had my kid, slowly weaned myself off of junk food snacks, and learned to keep my house stocked with healthy stuff. I started carrying a jar of almonds & raisins with me in my purse EVERYWHERE I GO, and I learned that my son turns into a cranky pile of crap when he doesn't snack, either. So, my day goes sort of like this:

8 a.m.: Breakfast!
10-10:30 a.m.: SNACK!
12ish: Lunch!
3p.m.: SNACK!
5-6ish: Dinner!

and then usually another small snack around 8 or 9 if I stay up late.

The morning snack is usually just a handful of crackers, a piece of fruit, or some nuts and raisins, but the AFTERNOON SNACK is the most important snack of the day for me. The afternoon snack can MAKE OR BREAK me by dinnertime, seriously. If I don't have a nibble around 3 or 4, by the time my husband gets home from work around 5 or 6, I'm usually flying around the kitchen, on the verge of tears, trying to figure out how to get shit done in time to eat dinner, and it is NOT pretty. There are so many times that he has had to pry a frying pan out of my hyperventilating grip, steer me away from the kitchen and quickly pull together dinner, it's not even funny.

So anyway, keeping nuts, fruit, and cheese in the house at all times saves me on a regular basis. It keeps me from freaking out and running to the store for a candy bar or something gross in a package, it keeps me from losing my shit on my poor unsuspecting family, and I feel like almost everyone could benefit from a good afternoon snack.

Keeping it under control, y'all.

summer salad.

2009-07-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

This will be brief, as I'm currently languishing on my couch in a pile of self pity, struck down by some weird cold/allergy combo that is keeping my eyes nice and puffy and my chest somewhat rattly. The other day, when I was feeling 100% awesome, I called my parents to hang out and they invited me over for a nice little summer barbecue. They always tell us not to bring anything, but it always feels better to show up with a side dish, so I threw together this weird little experimental sardine/noodle-y/salad whatnot.

I have never been really into those giant buckets of mayonnaise-drenched noodles and tuna that sometimes show up at barbecues. It's not that they don't taste good, and they get bonus points for being familiar and nostalgic, but for some reason my brain screams, "FOOD POISONING!!!!" even though I know that it's not that dangerous. Anyway, on a hot day I don't really feel like chowing down mayo, so I like the lightly dressed salads with oils & vinegar.

Sardine & Noodle salad:

1 half a cucumber, seeded & diced
1 carrot, diced
1 or 2 celery stalks, diced
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1 small shallot, diced
a handful of chopped fresh basil (parsley would be good, too)
1 tin of sardines packed in olive oil (or water, if that's what you like)
olive oil, a splash of vinegar (this day, I used apple cider, but if I'd had rice wine vinegar I probably would have tried that, to match up with the fish better)
salt & pepper to taste
cold cooked noodles

Mix it all together in a bowl, dress it with oil & vinegar until it tastes good, and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to eat it.

I made another batch of this yesterday for dinner, but since I literally could not smell or taste a thing all day yesterday, I cannot tell you if it was worth my trouble to make a small amount of garlic paste (made by smashing garlic up with some sea salt) and throwing it in, or if using a small amount of balsamic vinegar instead of apple cider made much of a difference. I am like 80% sure it was delicious, but alas- I could not taste it.

The reason I use tinned sardines instead of cans of tuna is that sardines are lower in mercury and considered generally more 'sustainable' than tuna. Plus, I just like them. They aren't fishy and weird, they aren't salty like cured anchovies, they just taste like flaky, slightly tuna-y canned fish. And, there's 26 grams of protein in one package, isn't that crazy!? I've been on a big sardine kick lately- they do an awesome job of keeping me full and happy for a long time, which is a really big deal for someone who is hypoglycemic and experiences blood sugar crashes pretty frequently.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sip hot chicken broth and stare out the window at the beautiful weather, hopefully I'll be feeling better by this weekend.

southern-inspired polenta.

2009-06-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, our menu told me it was polenta + veg day. Usually when we have polenta, I just cook it according to the package directions, and serve with roasted vegetables and some kind of sauce, like pesto or red sauce. Last night, I just wasn't really in the mood for that.

I poked around in my cupboards aimlessly, trying to find some point of inspiration. Since it was Thursday- the day before we go grocery shopping, the pickings were getting pretty slim and I didn't want to cut into the burrito stuff for the following night, so I had to be careful. I rummaged around our spice cabinet and my hand came out holding a bag of filé powder. (sounds like feeee-lay. like those stupid-ass mcdonald's commercials.)

Suddenly, I got a craving for gumbo, but we didn't have any meat laying around to make it taste good. (YEAH, MEAT IS WHAT MAKES IT TASTE GOOD.) Then, the pieces all fell together in my brain and I realized I had enough stuff laying around to make some semblance of southern food- although I have to call it 'southern-inspired' so nobody kicks my ass for making hippie chow and calling it southern. This was basically just a pot of sauteed veggies with some bacon fat & some southern spices, served over polenta.

What's that? OH YEAH, I said BACON FAT.

Remember? From the other day when I fried hot dogs in it? Oh god. On Father's Day, I made my husband bacon & eggs for breakfast (and some pathetic, soggy, useless 'hash browns' but we'll talk about that another time) and I finally decided to save the bacon fat and use it for something else. I've been slipping it into stuff all week, not just my hot dogs, haha! It has recently come to my attention that lard is actually pretty good for you, compared to some of the alternatives. It's about half monounsaturated fats, which- if you're keeping track, are the "flat belly" fats that everyone is freaking out about in olive oil and dark chocolate and nuts. I plan to research it some more, but for now I'm using lard sparingly in my cooking, somewhat secure in the knowledge that my arteries aren't hardening as I type. And anyway, having some bacon fat around yesterday MADE MY DINNER, I can't lie. It would have tasted so boring and crappy without the bacon fat.

Oh, do you want a recipe instead of listening to me ramble? Fine.

Polenta with southern-inspired vegetables:

1 or 2 bell peppers- I had half a red one and a whole yellow one laying around so I used those. Dude, bell peppers are expensive, sorry. If you live in Portland, you should be shopping at Limbo anyway for a number of reasons, but one of my favorites is that they always have cheap-ass bell peppers. These were 75 cents, but sometimes they're like 50 cents, which is a lot nicer than the buck fifty or two bucks the regular store tries to charge.

1/2 a red onion (or white onion, whatever)
1 carrot
2 celery stalks
1 or 2 small zucchini
1 small yellow squash
some broccoli
a clove or two of garlic, although I have to admit that I forgot to put any in and I didn't even notice. But if I weren't cooking in a hurry next time, I'd add some. Because garlic is delicious.

2 tablespoons, more or less, rendered bacon fat. (Start keeping some in your fridge! Have BLTs for dinner and save the fat in a jar, it's worth it.)

1 can of tomato sauce

some chili powder, a couple generous pinches of filé powder, garlic powder, a bay leaf if you have it, (I didn't have any and it was fine) salt & pepper to taste.

In a large pot with some hot oil, saute onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and bell peppers until they begin to soften, then add zucchini and squash and whatever else. (I waited to add the zucchini & squash because there's always so much water released from cooking it, I didn't want the other vegetables to get soggy.) Stir in a tablespoon or two of bacon fat and inhale deeply, thinking to yourself- "GOD, I LOVE BACON." Add the can of tomato sauce and season with a pinch of chili powder (I didn't go crazy on chili powder, just a generous sprinkle will do), some filé powder (a tablespoon? 2 tablespoons? I don't know.) garlic powder, and salt & pepper. Taste, and adjust seasoning to your liking- I ended up adding more bacon fat towards the end so it'd have more of a smoky flavor. Allow to simmer for awhile.

For the polenta, you can just cook according to the directions (we buy Bob's Red Mill, and it's like 3 cups of water to 1 cup of polenta- just bring water to a boil, stir in polenta, and simmer, stirring frequently.) or if you're feeling fancy (like I sort of was) you can saute some veggies in the pan (I did finely chopped carrot, celery, onions, & shallot) and then add the water, bring to a boil, then add polenta. When the polenta got really thick, I stirred in some cheddar cheese- I was going for a cornbread type thing. Spoon into dishes to cool, then turn out onto a plate and serve with veggies in the tomato-y gravy.

I was so pumped on this because I usually fail miserably at weird, improvisational food, but this came out pretty awesome. I blame bacon. Normally I try to offer an idea on how to make something vegetarian, but honestly, the smoky flavor of southern cooking comes from cured/smoked meats, sorry guys. You could probably just add liquid smoke, but for some reason the idea of liquid smoke really grosses me out. If you don't have bacon fat handy, you could just pick up andouille sausage, and then it would just basically be gumbo. Yum!

holy meatball.

2009-06-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

This isn't the first time I've posted about meatball sandwiches. Frankly, it might not be the last. Dude, have you HAD a meatball sandwich lately? God, they're so good.

This post is here mainly to talk about this bread. Have you ever had banh mi? These sandwiches have only recently been brought to my attention, and now whenever I have the chance, I like to stop into a local bakery that sells them at lunch time and meet my husband for a few bites of awesome spicy pork. Yesterday we were lucky to both be free at the same time, and when we stood there chatting with the hilarious little girl who works behind the counter, I reminded him that we had meatball subs on our menu for dinner. He snagged this bag of rolls, the same ones they use for their sandwiches, and brought them home.

He stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up some ground beef and some pork sausage, mixed them together in a giant bowl with bread crumb, fresh basil, diced onions & garlic. (AND THIS REVELATION: HE SAUTEED THE ONIONS BEFORE ADDING THEM TO THE MEATBALL. WHAT?! THIS SERIOUSLY NEVER CROSSED MY MIND BUT IT IS QUITE CLEARLY THE ANSWER TO SUPERIOR MEATBALLS. They were lightly caramelized and perfect when he mixed them in, and as a result the meatballs were moist, the texture was flawless, and I am never adding raw onions to meat again. He also admitted to me that he picked up this tip NOT from his fancy culinary education, but from a certain, slightly douche-y tv chef that I will not name who may or may not be Tyler Florence, hahaha)

Mush the meat together in a bowl with all the other stuff, then form into balls and fry in a pan with oil, adding a splash of red wine halfway through. Brown the balls on all sides, then put a lid on the pan to steam them up and help them cook faster. When they seem to be nearly done, dump in some pasta sauce and turn the heat down to a low simmer.

Here's my son screwing around with my plate. Do kids ever stop TOUCHING EVERY SINGLE THING THEY SEE? I know the answer is no, but I felt like begging the universe for an answer anyway.

I mean, the meatballs were obviously the star of the show- mixing in pork sausage keeps them moist and adds tons of flavor. I like it when the pasta sauce cooks down into that dark, sludgy red goo, streaked with grease, not gonna lie. But, aside from all that goodness, these banh mi loaves held up FANTASTICALLY to all that messy goodness, while still being fluffy and lightly crisp on the outside. If you have a Vietnamese bakery in your neighborhood, see if you can get your hands on these loaves, they're a mixture of wheat & rice flour that makes them so light- I've even heard people describe them as "shattering" when you bite into them. It's amazing to me that they manage to hold that much sauce without falling apart, but you don't have to tear them to death with your teeth to get a bite, either. Oh, and that bag of 5 loaves cost 2 effing bucks, WHAT THE HELL? Portlanders, get thee to An Xuyen, order the pulled pork (or pork with lemongrass, or meatball) sandwich for a whopping $2.75 (or was it $2.25? either way, under 3 bucks) and grab a bag of these bad boys. And a steam bun. And chat up the little girl behind the counter, because she's my new best friend.

exactly what it looks like.

2009-06-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Why yes, I did just have hot dogs fried in bacon fat on toast (fried in bacon fat) for lunch. Thanks for asking.

burrito night.

2009-06-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

So, in keeping with my previous post about weekly dinners, here's our #1 standard dinner. It's cheap, easy as hell, and filling. Duhhhh, burritos! As we get terrifyingly closer to buying our first home (no jinx! no jinx!), this will probably be on the menu like 3 times a week. BEANS AND RICE 4 LYFE, SUCKAS. All my adorable mumbo jumbo about budgeting is going to get thrown out the window when we buy a house, because our rent is basically going to double no matter what- good bye, fancy eggs! We are lucky to have found a really cheap apartment a few years ago and the rent hasn't really gone up with the rest of the neighborhood. BUT, whatever- we're here to talk about food.

First of all- "Burrito night." I know it's dorky, but along with enjoying family meals at the table, I like to keep a sense of order and consistency in my kid's world by referring to dinners like, "Burrito night! Pizza night! Noodle night!" etc. I feel like it will give him something to look forward to when he's a little older and give him a sense of family stability and BLAH BLAH BLAH- I am totally over-thinking this. So, burrito night, it happens every week. We usually time it so that it falls on a night that I babysit, which means that my friends probably think we eat NOTHING BUT BURRITOS, since I always drop their daughter off in the evening with the sendoff, "She had a burrito!" The reason we time it this way is that burrito night basically = opening a bunch of cans and rolling shit up in a tortilla. I'm not gonna lie, this is the laziest night of my week. The only way we could get lazier would be to go to an actual burrito shop, which we occasionally throw up our hands in exhaustion and do, (we're only human!) but why pay 15 bucks for 3 burritos when the basic elements of this meal total up to like 5 dollars?

A recent phone call with my mother revealed that she doesn't know how to make spanish rice from scratch. I can't fault her for this- I didn't know either until I met my husband. I feel like this is one of those things everybody should know how to do, like boil an egg (hey, I learned to do this last year!) or like, wipe their own butt. We make spanish rice from things that we always have around the house. Look, I'm not even going to bother looking up a recipe for this or pretending like I know anything about spanish rice, so spare me your "MY MEXICAN GRANDMA DOES IT LIKE THIS, AND YOU ARE DOING THIS WRONG, BLAH BLAH BLAH." I don't care- this is how we make it, it tastes good in our burritos.

More moments of confession: I am a sloppy-ass cook. I don't really measure anything, I eyeball everything, and if it doesn't come out just right, I eat it anyway. I kind of apply the same logic to cooking that I do when I cut my own hair- YOU JUST HAVE TO BE COOL WITH THE IDEA OF SHAVING YOUR WHOLE HEAD, AND THEN YOU CAN GO AHEAD AND CUT YOUR OWN HAIR. In short, if you screw it up, it's not the end of the world. Deal with it, or start over.

Sorry, I just have a lot of pictures to show off. I used 2 cans of beans last night because I wanted leftovers for lunch today.

ANYWAY MAKE SOME SPANISH RICE:

about a cup of rice
1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes (these are so good! i know i'm all boo-hoo-no-processed-food but sometimes you need some damn canned tomatoes.)
1 onion
some garlic
handful of chili powder
smaller handful of cumin
bay leaf (i didn't have any yesterday, bummerrrr)
a little water

In a large pan, saute onions and garlic until they begin to soften. Dump in the rice and spices, and toast for a minute or two. Dump in the can of tomatoes, stir it around, and then dump in like a can's worth of water or so. You just want to make sure the rice is covered with liquid, but err on the side of a teeny bit more, because overcooked gummy rice is preferable, in my opinion- to crunchy undercooked rice.

Stir it around and put a bay leaf in, then drop a lid on it. Stir a couple of times to make sure it doesn't stick, and in about 20 minutes or so you have a big ass fluffy pan of spanish rice. You can also use stock instead of water but it's not a huge deal. It does taste better, though. THERE- stop using a box now, mom. You don't need all that sodium in your life. OH YEAH speaking of sodium, make sure you remember to salt your rice. I always forget and then my husband is all, "UGH, PASS THE SALT."

Anyway, oh hey- do you know how to fold a burrito? Sure, you could just do tacos, but there's just something about the meal-in-the-palm-of-your-hand that is a burrito that is so dang satisfying. I worked at some crappy local taco chain when I was a teenager, rolling burritos all day, so I like to think that I'm pretty darn good at it. I tried to do a little photo essay describing my method, but damn if it isn't a pain in the butt to try and photograph yourself ROLLING A BURRITO ONE-HANDED.

Basically, you tuck in the sides first:

And then you grab the end closest to you and fold it over so it touches the other end, and then tuck it under.

Then you just kind of keep pinching the sides in and roll the whole thing up, it's really satisfying, okay? This method works really good with spring rolls, too.

Heat up the tortilla on a cast iron skillet, dump some food inside, (CHEESE. BEANS. RICE.) and roll it up. TA DA. Burrito night.

Sometimes if we're feeling ritzy we'll buy sour cream or avocado, but usually it's just beans, cheese and rice, because come on- what do I look like, a millionaire?

HEY SPEAKING OF MILLIONAIRES- I got an inquiry about joining an ad network owned by General Mills. If I can figure out how to deal with the fancy sign-up website, I will probably throw some ads onto the sidebar there- but if it doesn't pay more than google ads I'll probably just dump it, because in case you noticed the google ads I had up there- I was literally raking in PENNIES A DAY. Like, one or two pennies a day, literally. What a waste of space! That had been there for months and months, and I still didn't have enough racked up for them to cut me a check, because they have a minimum. Whatever! Don't hate on my corporate sponsorship, y'all- I have to pay for my kid's Nike Airs somehow, and this 8 dollar carton of eggs isn't going to pay for itself.

2009-06-19T12:31:00.001-07:00

dicking around with my template, please disregard. D:

a week of dinner.

2009-06-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

Okay first of all, let's talk about how I had this big idea about how I was gonna post a week's worth of dinners and talk about my budgeting and grocery list and How We Live® and blah blah blah. I tried to remember to take pictures of dinner every night, but then I did a lousy job of keeping track of them. I worked late one night and had leftovers for dinner and forgot to bring my camera- the whole week was kind of a clusterfuck of obligation and I was BUSY! Baby-sitting for friends and family, extra shifts at work, meeting with photography clients, spring cleaning in the apartment- it's Sunday and I'm wrecked. In a good way, though- the kind of wrecked you feel after getting a lot of stuff done.

So I guess what I'm saying is, like everyone else- we are pretty disorganized. But, we try to make time for dinner together every night, because it kind of glues us all together. I'm pretty old fashioned when it comes to stuff like that, I really feel like every family, if they have the ability, should join each other for dinner, and cooking it is half the fun- even when you're stressed out and short on time. Whenever I throw together dinner after a crazy day, and my low blood sugar is making me snap at my family and I get frustrated and burn something, and then something else is undercooked when I got to put everything on plates, and I get super pissed but then it somehow all comes together in the end- it's just so satisfying to sit down and EAT IT.

Of course, all that said- I'm lucky enough to have a husband who cooks. We'd be totally screwed if it was all on me, because come 5:30 p.m., if I am not close to sitting down to a full meal, I turn into a loopy wreck who cannot function. That's just the time of day that my blood sugar plunges and I turn into a cranky, confused, useless lump. I do about half the cooking around here, probably. Maybe a little less.

Anyway, the whole reason for this post is to answer some of the questions I get asked on a regular basis about our dinners and our shopping budget and all that crap. I feel like every time I mention that eating healthy doesn't have to be expensive, someone on the internet finds it necessary to yell at me (isn't that what the internet is for, though?) that I'm being insensitive to whatever lifestyle or cause or the destitute or whatever. All I can do is speak from experience, though- and my experience says that when I was eating lots of junk food, I got fat, miserable, and I was spending way too much money. We forced ourselves to start writing out a meal list every week, set a grocery budget and we stick to it as closely as we can, and I made a few lifestyle changes to lose some weight. Now I feel better and we're on track paying our bills, and that's enough anecdotal, one-sided evidence for me, thanks.

I recently posted on a local community asking if anyone had a good hookup for pastured eggs besides the farmer's market or the few specialty stores that I know of who carry them. There's ONE booth at the farmer's market who has them for 5 bucks, and everywhere else they run about 7 dollars a dozen, which is way, way more than I'm willing to spend, even though I'm happy to throw down a few extra bucks to support local farmers. Someone got on my case about the "morally offensive" idea of Five Dollar Eggs and suggested that I was a huge jerk for being willing to pay that much. When people think about eating healthy, I think they need to consider a few things. Yes, some unhealthy foods ARE cheaper- because you can buy huge portions of them. But you don't need to eat a GIANT BOWL of sugary cereal if you have a reasonable portion of oatmeal with some butter, it's just as filling. You don't need to eat extra portions of your frozen pizza if you take the time (5 minutes?) to make a salad. The reason we can afford to buy 5 dollar eggs every once in awhile (and I do mean "every once in awhile," because they really aren't in our budget) is because of the things we DON'T buy. We don't buy paper towels, we don't buy pre-made, frozen dinners. We don't buy candy, we never buy soda and we don't really buy juice, either. We drink (OMG) water. Consider how much paper towels, soda, and juice cost for a moment. When I was a kid, we had ALL of these things in the house at all times- we always had a backup 12 pack of coke in the garage, waiting to be guzzled. I tried to look up the price of a 12 pack of coke, and then I realized that I have never bought my own 12 pack of coke in my entire life. I think it's like 4 or 5 bucks, right? I think paper towels are like 3 or 4 dollars for a package of 2 or 3. And a big container of juice is at least 3 dollars. So, added all together, just NOT buying those 3 things that a lot of families consider to be staple items means that I have almost 15 dollars to spend on other stuff. That's how I feel okay about paying 5 dollars for eggs every once in awhile.

Now, what we DO buy. Every week we sit down and write a list- first we pick out what we're going to eat each night for dinner. Last week it was hippie chow, pizza, chicken, vegetables, and polenta, pesto noodles (which we stretched over 2 nights), burritos, and then something else that I've already forgotten, haha. Our list this week says:

Sat- salad rolls
Sun- Kennedy School (We had a catered party to go to. Free dinner, woo hoo!)
Mon- Couscous + mezza
Tues- Alice at work- sandwiches?
Wed- Burritos
Thurs- Polenta + veg
Fri- Burger?

The way we make our list is pretty straightforward. We have a lot of standard dishes that we choose from, and we try to keep the stuff that uses the most fresh vegetables towards the beginning of the week, and then whenever we're going to have meat, we put it towards the end of the week so we can buy it fresh that night. That's why "burger?" has a question mark after it- if Friday rolls around and Jason hits the grocery and steaks are on sale, maybe he'll buy steak. Or maybe we'll be more in the mood for fish by then, who knows? Fridays are always kind of a scramble to get food in our bellies because that's when we go shopping. After we have our meals written down, we write down the ingredients we need for all our crap, and then we throw on whatever we're going to have for lunch- sandwich stuff, salad stuff, whatever.

Here is what we consider to be stuff we must ALWAYS BUY, every week, regardless of what is on the list:
Lettuce
Carrot
Celery
Onion
Garlic
roasting vegetables, like zucchini, squash, brussels, etc.
Tomato, usually
Apples
bananas
Grapes if they're on sale
Almonds (I buy a pound of almonds every other week or so, it takes me awhile to go through it, but I carry almonds in my purse with me everywhere I go. It's to keep my blood sugar level.)
can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
can of beans
at least a little bit of pasta
eggs (not 5 dollar eggs, haha)

And this is where I get thrown off when people say that you can't eat healthy when you're poor- usually the produce portion of our weekly grocery bill doesn't exceed 40 dollars. Vegetables are CHEAP, you just need to learn to cook them.

Anyway, I hope this wasn't just annoying information overload, like "OOOooOoOOh, good for YOU. You have your fancy stupid grocery list, WHO CARES?" I get questions about stuff like this a lot, and it seems like people are more interested in the more 'normal' stuff that I eat instead of waiting to see if I bust out something fancy. Over the next few days, I'll be posting recipes for staple items in our kitchen, like our spanish rice recipe, what we do on mezza night, stuff like that. Also I made pizza the other night and I made a little mini-calzone that blew my mind, so I'll probably post those too. And feel free to ask any questions you'd like. PEACE OUT.

hippie chow.

2009-06-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

Oh HEYYYYY food blog, what's up? I almost forgot about you. On our budget, we eat a lot of the same crap, so we don't do anything too fancy on a regular basis. I've mentioned this to a few people, and they seemed interested in the same-shit-different-day approach that we have, so pretty soon I'm going to do a week of our meals, and you can see how we eat on a daily basis. It's boring food but we try to keep it healthy. Until then, dig this hippie chow!

Look, I love to make fun of hippies. I can't help it, there's just something so funny about being like, "Shut up, hippie!" When I see some goofy hippie walking down the street, I say stuff like, "HAHA, HIPPIE!!" to whoever I'm with. If someone I know is doing something to make their lives more "green" or whatever, I'll jab them in the ribs and be all, "HIPPIEEEEE!" It's not that I have anything AGAINST hippies, I just love saying the word, and I also love making fun of people. Not to mention, I'm a huge-ass hippie. I didn't wear a bra for like 10 years (ah, those were the days), I was vegetarian for almost half my life, I even have one of those goofy stickers on my car shaped like the state of Oregon with a green heart in the middle. I shop at the farmer's market, I like eggs from backyard chickens. What's up, HIPPIE!?

So anyway, my husband and I are always making cracks about how hippies can't cook, and how all their food is just junk in a bowl, so whenever we decide to eat a pile of crap in a bowl (FAILURE PILE IN A SADNESS BOWL? I THINK NOT), we call it hippie chow. Hippie chow can be anything- back in the day when my husband was vegan and living in punk houses with tons of ~~hippies~~ punk rockers, hippie chow was toasted TVP with red sauce on whatever carb was laying around, or rice with condiments, or dumpstered vegetables (Yes, I have engaged in dumpster-diving for pleasure. Sorry, Mom. I have a job now.) thrown together in a sauce pan with some spike or something. Hippie chow is whatever the hell you want it to be! In this case, however- as our tastes have refined over the years, our hippie chow was hella delicious.

HIPPIE CHOW FOR GROWN-UPS:

quinoa (I don't know, 2 cups? a cup? If you don't have or don't like quinoa, get brown rice. It's not hippie chow if it doesn't have a whole grain, so no cheating with white rice, haha)
2 medium-large beets
2 large carrots
1 bunch of kale
a few zucchini and yellow squash
a potato or two
garlic & onion
Whatever other vegetables you have lying around- broccoli would be good (IF IT DIDN'T MAKE ME FART SO MUCH), or green beans, or asparagus. Try to think "RAINBOW." Because you're a hippie.

Cook your quinoa- you can just put it in a rice cooker and cook it exactly the same way you would rice. Or like, cook your rice in the rice cooker, if you're not enough of a hippie to want quinoa- but you know what? Quinoa is really good, and supposedly it's really, really good for you. Go out on a limb, hippie.

Chop beets, carrots, and potatoes- then toss them with olive oil & roast them in a pan at about 400ºf until tender. When they're getting close to done, saute garlic & onion in a pan with some butter or oil, until glassy, then add the rest of the vegetables, which presumably you have chopped up already (don't add the kale until the end, or it'll get overcooked. I put it in and then put a lid on it to steam a little, but only for a minute or two, I still like some crunch to my greens). Season with salt & pepper, throw in some fresh herbs if you like (I think Jason added basil) and then, in the immortal words of Patton Oswalt, pile it all in a single bowl. Top with a poached egg, if you're feeling fancy (we totally were), then mix it all together. If you're a real hippie, you'll add ketchup and/or hot sauce, like I did. Ta da! You just slummed it like a hippie. No seriously, though- I love hippies. Please don't send me any butthurt emails. I love the Earth, guys! I love hugs, and rainbows, and kittens, and Nag Champa, I really do! The sad part is that I sound sarcastic, but I'm really serious, just like when I tell people that my favorite movie is Legally Blonde and they don't believe me. Whatever, that shit rules.

Oh hey, you know what's more awesome than hippie chow for dinner? HIPPIE DESSERT.

My ~~husband~~ eternal soul partner came out of the kitchen bearing these little bowls- vanilla ice cream topped with slices of fresh peach, a drizzle of local honey (hippie!) and some warm, freshly toasted almonds.

And, now I can stop making fun of hippies. One love, y'all!

kid food, cool attitude.

2009-05-27T21:45:00.001-07:00

Most of you probably know that I have a 2.5 year old son. I'd love to lie and say, "Oh, he just eats whatever we eat! Ha ha ha! I rule at parenting!" but the cold reality is that no matter what I cook for dinner, the little ~~turd~~ angel begs for cheese. I know that, like most parents- I harbored asinine ideals about parenthood before I actually had a kid. "Oh, my kid is going to eat whatever I serve him because I'm only going to offer him HEALTHY CHOICES! Ohh, my superior parenting skills are going to prevent my kid from having tantrums!" etc.- of course, now that I'm in the thick of the "terrible twos" (whatever dude, newborns suck so much more than toddlers- give me a 2 year old over a caterwauling 2 month old any day of the week, thanks) I fully understand how stupid I was being. Duh, my son is a human being. A human being who wants to survive solely off of cheese and Trader Joe's honey whole wheat pretzels. ("Cratzels!")

So, imagine my delight when I came upon the realization that I could combine 2 of my son's favorite things- dairy products, and Shrek- and convince him to devour MONSTER NOODLEEEESSSSSSSSS. It's just noodles with pesto, duh- but you'd think I laced it with crack rocks, the way he gobbles it down. The only way I could get a better reception is if I gave him a heaping plate of noodles drenched in butter and parmesan cheese- but we reserve that for special occasions. (like when I don't feel like cooking real food.) Anyway, now my kid loves monster noodles and I really like pesto, so it works out for everyone. Plus I am stoked when he eats it because I add spinach to my pesto, (an absolute abomination, according to some, but what the hell ever!) so it's basically one of the 2 green things he'll eat. (Sometimes he'll eat broccoli.)

Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I wanted to make a point- I've flipped through those "sneaky chef" type books and I have to say- in general, I am not a fan of lying to kids. I'm not going to sneak blueberry puree into my son's brownies and pretend like they're healthy, in fact, the whole "puree" thing seems like a ridiculous ploy, to me. Teaching your kids to prefer babyfood-style, overcooked, mushy vegetables doesn't seem like a very good idea. But, that doesn't mean I'm not above sneaking in vegetables wherever I can. I don't do it to trick my family, I do it because they taste good and I want to be healthier!

Anyway, this simple dinner consisted of:

Half a package of spiral noodles
A few scoops of fresh pesto
Chopped vegetables- zucchini, summer squash, bell pepper, and tomato (added raw at the end) or whatever you can find in your fridge that sounds good

To make the pesto, just throw pretty much all of a package of fresh basil leaves, a large handful of spinach (SHUT UP, EMILY. IT'S GOOD FOR YOU. AND I LIKE SPINACH, OKAY?), a few handfuls of grated parmesan, 1 clove of garlic, a large handful of walnuts, and a huge glug of olive oil- all into a cuisinart (Thank you, wedding registry. It's been 4 years and every time I use all the awesome crap in my kitchen, I think to myself, "God, I love being married.") or blender. While blending, drizzle in olive oil until the consistency is smooth, and add salt & pepper to taste. You can spread it on sandwiches, throw it on noodles, dip veggies into it.

I like to either roast or lightly saute my chopped vegetables, then I just toss everything together in a large bowl. I add the pesto, throw in fresh chopped tomatoes, and then I inhale it while my son showers me with praise. He even ate a few of the vegetables, woo hoo!

I wish I could say I had tons of leftovers, but my husband came home from work late and inhaled the rest of the bowl. Luckily I still have some leftover pesto in the fridge.

a simple sandwich.

2009-05-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had a pretty delicious combination of stuff laying around- brioche buns, freshly made pesto, heirloom tomatoes, avocado. The solution seemed pretty obvious.

Sorry my food blog has basically devolved into the occasional update of food porn, haha! I keep sitting here trying to think of something witty to say, but I've got nothing. Brain fried, y'all!

just a quick reminder.

2009-05-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

This photo is just here to remind you that Ned Ludd still rocks my socks. We popped in for dinner for a second time last night, and I annihilated this trout stuffed with sorrel, lemon, and fennel. Jason had lamb, we shared cheeses, and I sipped on a glass of riesling from these guys, because my inner geek cried out to me when I saw the name on the wine list.

On another note, STAR TREK WAS AWESOME, NO JOKE.

loafwich

2009-05-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

If it seems like I've been absent- well, I have. I've mostly been hard at work, drawing like a madwoman whenever I get the chance (for instance, right now my son is conked out on the living room floor after a particularly raucous morning at the park- so as soon as I'm done here, I'm heading straight to my "desk" - the dining room table.) for my other blog, 10 dollar drawings. I'm amazed and super psyched on how well it's taken off- it seems I've been a steady 20 drawings deep on my list ever since I started at the end of February. That's a LOT OF DRAWING, GUYS. That doesn't mean I haven't been eating delicious food- far from it. It just means I've been eating some our old standbys, which doesn't make for very interesting blogging. I even come back to my own blog for recipes- haha! A few weeks ago, I made this cream of zucchini & leek soup and it was awesome! I even froze some and saved it, which was great for the cold I battled all this week.

Last night, my husband made an awesome meat loaf, something I normally would have jumped on to blog- but I was out shooting a feature for my friend Lisa at Pigeon Toe Ceramics. Keep an eye out for a studio tour in the next coming weeks, my photographs will be featured. It was so rad to get a peek at how each piece is handcrafted, it really takes a lot of time! Anyway, when I got home, my husband was just wrapping up my dinner to pop in the fridge, so I wolfed it down without even looking at it. Then, at lunch time today, I realized I had a hunk of meat loaf leftover, so I had to eat it. First, I sliced 3 thin pieces, and fried them in some olive oil until they got brown and crispy on the sides. Then, I dumped a little bit of red sauce over the top and heated it up. Then, I just fried some bread in butter (what? IT'S DELICIOUS.) and then smushed the whole thing together, and it was ABSOLUTELY TRANSCENDENT. We like to use a combination of ground beef and pork sausage for our meat loaf, and we had a few pinches of fresh oregano from our buddy's garden, so it came out pretty delicious. SORRY IT LOOKS SO MUCH LIKE DOG FOOD.

Anyway, visit my other blog, keep yourself occupied. Check out Pigeon Toe Ceramics for some awesome handmade porcelain, and then eat some damn meat loaf.

leftovers for lunch.

2009-05-06T20:33:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, you know what's hella awesome? A giant poached egg on top of a bowl of leftover roasted vegetables! Best 5-minute lunch ever, thanks.

enchilada sauce.

2009-05-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

I've been really lazy about putting this recipe up, so I'm forcing myself to do it before bed- if it's not now, it's never going to happen. It's nothing too exciting, but still sort of mind-blowing to a girl who grew up with the absolute knowledge that enchilada sauce comes from a can. I'm not on a diet, and I'm not 100% strict with my eating habits, but I am making a pretty decent effort to avoid nasty foods, (hydrogenated oils, refined shit, etc.) just for overall health reasons. That doesn't mean I'm not going to have a salt bagel when I go to work, but it does mean I'm reading labels even closer than I was before, and if it's something we can whip out in a few minutes, why not make it at home instead of buying a gnarly can of mystery liquid?

My husband gave me the recipe after we had dinner the other night, and I keep staring at what I've written down, thinking- "Really? That's it?" It seems so simple, but OKAY DUDES- here you go. You want to make some enchilada sauce from scratch? Here's what Jason did:

Enchilada Sauce

1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
3 seeded & soaked California chilies. (they're the ones that are about 4 inches long. you can find them in the Mexican aisle at the grocery store.)
1 clove of garlic
2 tbsp (more or less) chili powder
cumin "to taste" (I'd say a tablespoon or so?)
salt
a generous glug apple cider vinegar
1 can of tomato sauce
IMPORTANT EDIT!: my husband was just looking at this post and said, "Oh hey, you forgot to put down the corn starch." apparently it's pretty crucial for texture- just add about a tablespoon to the cuisinart and mix it in.

Seed dried chilies (it's easier to get the seeds out when they're dry) and soak in cool water until pliable. Combine all ingredients in food processor and taste periodically until, you know- it tastes like enchilada sauce. TA DAAAA. You made enchilada sauce. See? Now you understand why I keep second guessing myself and thinking I've forgotten something. This made about half a Classico jar of sauce, so like, 2 cups? A little less than 2 cups. It was enough for what we needed.

For the actual enchiladas, we just rolled up some corn tortillas with some grilled chicken that had been mixed up in a big bowl with cheese and the sauce, then topped them with more cheese and sauce, and baked them until the cheese got all melty. Jason went easy on the sauce because he was afraid he'd run out, but there was plenty, and I ended up just dumping all the leftover sauce on top of the uneaten enchiladas, to soak in for the next day. I was seriously blown away that this just tasted like enchilada sauce. I keep comparing it to what it must be like to taste homemade ketchup for the first time- which is seriously inspiring me to make some homemade ketchup. I'm on a roll, you guys. Homemade condiments? Why not?

salted caramel cupcakes: a guest blog.

2009-05-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

I know that some of you, people who have been reading since Summer & I first got this thing going, are probably jonesing for something sweet. Since I took over the blog, it's been pretty much devoid of confectionary treats, mostly because I don't eat much sugar, but more importantly, I don't really bake. It's hilarious, people are always asking me questions about baking that I can't answer- I'm just a photographer, guys! An enthusiast for sweets, at best. But, the other day I was chatting with one of my mom buddies, designerIvonne Carley, and she mentioned she was making SALTED CARAMEL CUPCAKES. I got the sweet tooth just looking at them. She lives in San Diego, so I didn't get a chance to taste one of these beauties, but she's sharing the recipe she used and these lovely photographs that she took. (You might remember Ivonne from her sugar skull post.)

photograph by Ivonne Carley

Ivonne writes:

"I have never been a "baker". The truth is, I have always been a "from the box" kind of girl, 'cause I am always afraid I am gonna jack it all up. Baking is like gardening. It takes a lot of components to make something successful and- well, I suck at gardening. There is no bigger blow to the ego than failing in the kitchen, so I always bought the box and package stuff, 'cause success was important. The problem is I am a cake snob, I love me some baked goods and things from a box just never scratch that itch in a good way.

Lately I have been finding myself riding the ever-trendy cupcake train. Cupcakes are the new black in the baking world, and who can pass up the cute and tasty dudes all wrapped up in a little paper cup? I know I can't. On a mission for something better than The Box®, I have been trolling around for recipes online because I said I to myself, "You know Ivonne, this from-the-box shit is amateur! You need to make these babies from scratch." Then I found this recipe on The Brooklyn Kitchen: Beer Geek Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel. Chocolate? Beer? Carmel? SALT? I am not a beer lover (editor's note: I AM!!!) but I will never pass up on the chance to throw it in food. Heaven.

This recipe is a little labor-intensive, and a tad more complicated than just "mix and stir," but the end result is fantastic and worth the extra hoop jumping. I made a couple modifications to it and still had no problems.

Cake:
1 cup flavorful dark beer - I used Young's Double Chocolate Stout for mine (ed's note: I'd probably go for the Laguniatas Imperial Stout, or- to keep things local, the Deschutes Obsidian Stout, a personal fave.)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa - I found a very good one at Whole Foods by a French company called Valrhona
2 cups dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder - I used instant coffee cause honestly, I couldn't find the espresso whatnot. (ed's note again, haha- "espresso" is simply a method of preparing coffee, so any instant coffee should work just fine, or even some finely ground, high quality beans, if you have a grinder at home.)
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

The mixture will look more like brownie batter and will be pretty thick. I managed to make about 23 cupcakes with this batch but I like mine to have a dome on them, I am sure I could have squeezed out a couple more if i didn't want them to rise past the brim of the cup. One thing the recipe doesn't mention is that you bake them at 350ºf.

I made these for a birthday party and did everything the night before, decorating the day of the party so the frosting would hold up. I always jack up the frosting and it comes out too runny. This recipe is spot on for some really tasty frosting. Really, it's a bowl licker for sure. I found 4 cups of confectioners sugar was more than enough to get it nice and firm. Sifting the sugar in made all the difference from my last frosting-making debacle which ended up a runny-ass mess.

Frost, drizzle with some of the carmel, add some coarse sea salt on the top. I found these toffee covered espresso bits dipped in dark chocolate at Trader Joes and they make a cute little garnish.

The "from the box" girl in me is gooing herself over the fact I was able to make these babies from scratch. Not to toot my own horn but they rock.

I cannot take credit for this awesome recipe by any means, and it's a long one so if you are interested in the sweet & salty goodness, check out their site for the whole thing."

http://thebrooklynkitchen.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/best-in-show-the-prizewinning-cupcakes/

photograph by Ivonne Carley

Another note from the editor- in my new favorite book, Nina Planck details why cake mixes from a box are so effin' bad for you. In short, powdered eggs are an atrocity and can damage your body. I found it fascinating, because- like Ivonne, I've always gone for the powdered mix whenever I need a cake or whatever. I don't eat many cakes in the first place, so whenever it's a birthday or something, I just buy something cheap and throw it together. Since I've been reading this book, (studying it like a bible, more like) I've been inspired to stop being so damn lazy and actually put some love into my baking, so next time I have to make a bake (I'm guessing in September, for my son's birthday, haha) I'll definitely be going the "from scratch" route. In the meantime, enjoy this small offering of a sweet treat. Back to savory goodness tomorrow, when my husband makes a giant pan of enchiladas using homemade enchilada sauce. (WHAT?! To me, that's like making ketchup- I'm blown away that you can actually DO it, I don't know why.)

a day of food. (discovering sardines, 10-hour chicken soup.)

2009-04-28T08:45:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I woke up at 7 a.m. and broke down a chicken. My husband and son are recovering from a bout of the sniffles (NOT SWINE FLU, THANKS) so I wanted to make a big batch of chicken soup to fortify their souls. I needed to get it going before my son woke up and demanded my full attention, so I was in the kitchen bright and early, shoving my hands up a chicken, slicing it apart, and starting a big pot of stock.

Because I'm a huge weirdo about leaving things on my stove when I'm not home (I even called my mom the first time I used a crock pot to verify that it was REALLY OKAY to leave it plugged it when you leave the house. Duh, that's the whole point.) and because I find myself having to constantly adjust the temperature on my stupid range to keep my stock from bubbling too much, I sat around the house with my son yesterday for like 4 straight hours while I made stock. I drained it and chilled it around lunch time, and made myself a snack.

So, everyone knows I'm trying to be more health conscious and blah blah. I'm still in the process of losing all my 'baby weight' (or maybe should I call it "daily milkshake binge" weight, because let's be honest- Eli didn't hold me down and force feed me all that Mike's Drive-in while I was pregnant) and I get really bored eating the same crap all the time. I first got the idea to start snacking on sardines from The 10 Cent Designer, and as it weaseled its way into my noggin, I started picking up tidbits here and there about how sardines were like, the only sustainable seafood, and how they don't have a bunch of mercury and blah blah blah. Awesome! I don't particularly like canned tuna, and I'm freaked out by all the warnings about mothers/children consuming too much, so I like that I can sit and polish off a tin of sardines without DAMAGING MY BRAINZ.

But, I'm also broke-ass. Student loans: NOT A GOOD IDEA. Just sayin. So, tins of sardines are the logical choice for someone who wants to enjoy the health benefits of those lovely omega-3's, not melt their brains with mercury poisoning, and only spend like 2 bucks. I bought this package of Moroccan sardines packed in olive oil at (duh) Trader Joe's for less than 2 dollars (I think. Maybe they were 2.50, I don't know.) and they were pretty tasty. I guess I have no idea what canned sardines are supposed to taste like, but I keep hearing horror stories of fishy little bites packed in slimy tomato sauce or whatever, so I guess I lucked out for my first try.

All I did was mash them up and throw them on top of a green salad- not very creative, I know. A friend of mine told me, "Try making a fennel slaw with some heat to it and putting the slaw and sardines on a soft roll." which is exactly what I plan to do next week when I go grocery shopping again.

Oh, but wait! I still have soup to make! So anyway, after lunch I had to run out for parsley (and I just needed to get the hell out after the whole 4-hour stock wait) so I did. Then I got home and realized I only had 1 tiny carrot, so I ran back out for carrots. Then I started the soup!

If you've invested enough time in this post to get to this point, I guess I should reward you with some kind of recipe, but let's be honest- I put like 10 hours of my day into this soup. Unless you're a stay at home mom with no life like I am, I don't expect the same level of commitment out of you. Go ahead and use store-bought stock, or make some in advance, I don't care.

For my sick family, I knew I wanted a traditional, don't-screw-around chicken soup. All that went into it was fresh homemade stock, 3 small carrots, 3 celery stalks, 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic, a handful of chopped parsley, and 2 chicken legs. I sauteed the vegetables, added hot stock, let it simmer for a few minutes, and then added 2 whole chicken legs (bone-in) with most of the skin removed and let it simmer on low heat. After the legs were cooked through (about half an hour later) I pulled them out, shredded the meat off the bone, and added it back into the soup. I seasoned it with salt and pepper, and served it to my family with wheat toast and butter.

I don't think I need to tell you that it really fit the bill for MOST PERFECT CHICKEN SOUP EVER. Maybe it was just that I devoted my whole day to it, maybe it was the quality of the ingredients, but it was hella good and I think it helped everyone's immune systems tackle this bug that's going around. I'm going to eat the leftovers today for lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich.