officially winter

Okay, so we've been playing at winter here for a while--some cold, some flurries, our winter coats and hats and gloves. But, it finally hit for real. The roads are bad, and intermittently scary, there's real snow (I think I had about 5" at my house by yesterday afternoon). I even got to leave work early yesterday! What does all this mean to you? It just means that I'm planning on using it as an excuse for not blogging for a few days. That, and my uterus has been playing games (not fun games) with me for nearly a week now. I am a cranky, bloated, tender, crampy, uterachey, crompy monster. But, that said, I'm real glad to be back to bloggin'!

First of all, the vegan-flavor cupcakes for Kramer's birthday celebration. I ended up making a sort of "almond joy" type of cupcake. I made the coconut cupcake recipe from this blog. As for the frosting, I made a chocolate-almond flavor, and I just kinda winged it like she suggests. I used powdered sugar, Earth Balance, a little hemp milk, some cocoa, some vanilla and almond extracts, and just kept beating it and tasting it until I was happy with it. Then I topped them with the toasted coconut and slivered almonds. They were yum--and cute! Here's a close-up, and one of Kramer blowing out her candles.


"blow like you've never blown before"


Also, Taste of India was pretty tasty, but I don't know if there's a place that can unseat Udipi from the top seat in my heart for Indian fare in the 'Burgh.

Saturday Barbara (PYT) made a little light dinner and hung out and played Skip-bo with me while I complained about my uterache. Obviously, I am a big bowl o' fun around this time of the month!

Couscous with garlic and veggies:


The next morning we made a big breakfast, and it was magically delicious! Sunday Brunch is my favorite meal of the week. She made her famous tofu scramble and some veggie sausages and coffee. I made some roasted dill potatoes, peanut butter-n-jelly french toast (from a recipe that came from a kid's cook book that my brother and I had when we were little), and some fresh-squeezed oj. So tasty and perfect for a chilly morning.


Sunday afternoon we went to a Baby Party. It was for her niece Violet's first birthday. However, I mistakenly thought that it meant [Dress Like a] Baby Party, and showed up in a diaper and bonnet. Boy, was that embarrassing for the first meeting with her extended family!

[Just kiddin', folks. It was a really cute baby party with delicious cake, and hilarious baby antics.]

In other news, my sandwich addiction this week is egg salad with fake bacon. I had an "Egg Salad BLT" at Hoi Polloi last week, and had been thinking about it since. Also, E-dawg and I had been talking about subbing all or most of the mayo in egg salad for greek yogurt, and then Heidi posted another egg salad recipe a few days ago. So, I gave that a whirl. I used 4 eggs, 1 T. mayo, 2 T. fage 0% greek yogurt as the base. But, it just was a little too tangy, and not enough mayo-y for my liking, so I'll likely switch back, or at least flip-flop the mayo to yogurt ratio. So, to off-set the tanginess I added some minced sweet gherkin, some parsley and salt and pepper. It was good, but not perfect. Adding the fake bacon helps, though.


Night before last I threw together a pasta dish with broccoli and a bastardized alfredo-type sauce. I didn't use a recipe, just threw some stuff together--a little half and half, a little marsala, a little parmesan, a little freshly grated nutmeg, a little garlic and onion, a little butter, some salt and pepper. It turned out pretty good!


Tonight I'm doing some shopping for tomorrow's valentine's dinner with Barbara (aka PYT). I'm going to try the recipe that's on the cover of the new Vegetarian Times magazine for a vegetable wellington. Sounds deelish!

back in action!

Woah. It's been some week. Delirious highs, staggering lows. And, I'm serious about the delirium. I was dog-sick all week. I was off Thursday all day from work, and took off early Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Phew! I'm still coughy and a bit tired, but I'm starting to be able to breathe through my nose and move around without getting dizzy and sweaty again. That is progress.

Also, I went car-shopping again today, and I'm cautiously optimistic that I may've found a car. I'll give details when/if it actually materializes. But, today I looked at cars being sold by individuals instead of dealers, and it couldn't have been a more different experience than the one I had last weekend. These people were nice, helpful and genuine. What a refreshing change!

And, then I came back home to find a box sitting on my steps. It was from my friend Alex, and contained one of these:


If you don't know what that is, it's an XO laptop. You've probably heard something about this program over the past couple of years on NPR, the news, and the like. The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to give children in the developing world laptops to give them educational opportunities they may never otherwise have. A quote from their site is "to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege." It's pretty amazing. And, they're currently running a promotion that if you donate the XO laptop, then you can also receive one for "the child in your life". I am the child in Alex's life. And, I'm so, so grateful that I am! This little machine is totally amazing. Alex is totally amazing. She's at it again, being generous and doing good deeds, all the way from Poland. (Annnnd, after some, uh, to-be-unnamed slacker never got a care package in the mail to her. d'oh.) You can find out more about this amazing organization, including donation information, here.

So, yeah. It's been an action-packed week. I also paid a visit to Hoi Polloi a couple days ago, paid up from the dine-n-dash incident (my not-so-secret shame), got some delicious cream-of-mushroom soup, a grilled cheese and some hot tea. And, some fantastic service from Hoi Polloi fella, Daniel.

And, the queer book club had our holiday meeting and gifty book exchange meet-up extravaganza this week, too. We'd read Kate Bornstein's Gender Outlaw, and had a great discussion (seriously, the best/most literary book club I've ever been involved with), exchanged our book-gifts, and picked our next selection--Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children. It sounds like a good one. (If you're interested in joining the book club, send me an email and/or post a comment with how to email you).

Peeps, life is good. Sometimes I forget that, and often I lose focus, but I do believe it. I'm lucky to have wonderful friends, a fantastic family, a good job, and now all the little things are starting to fall into place. I'm looking over the last year, and see that I made some significant progress, had some setbacks, learned a lot and am grateful for it all. Sometimes I get to feeling really low and small and frustrated and embarassed at feeling that I've fallen behind my peers in this ol' game of life. But, it's all interesting, it's all, ultimately, good. And, I'm trying, really trying, to opt for personal growth as I can. I want to recommit to the commitment I made to myself at the start of 2007. I'll post more about this soon. I'm still pondering. But, the overall feeling is that, indeed, life is good.

dine-n-dash

Oh, dang.

Well, last night E-dawg, Mags and I went to Hoi Polloi to check out the space, get a cuppa and a snack, and see how Sandra and Jessica were doing on their opening day. We'd all been there for a Halloween party when the space was still very much in transition, so I was pleasantly surprised by how finished everything looked! The gals looked a little exhausted, but were fantastic hostesses, along with Jessica's younger brother Daniel who is working there for them (and such a polite young fella!). (oh wow, just was checking the link I added above for Hoi Polloi, and see our picture's on their site already!). It's a really warm and inviting space, has a good mix of simple, wholesome offerings on the menu and it's in the North Side! woot!

I had a decaf coffee, a currant scone, a garden salad (which was truly beautiful) and a grilled cheese (which was perfectly cheesy and perfectly grilled). I can't believe I didn't think to take my camera to snap some pics for the ol' blog! Ah...next time.

In fact, we got so caught up in chatting and eating and enjoying that we left as they were closing, and uh, E-dawg and I accidentally dined and dashed. Sheesh. But, we promised to show back up for more good times and to pay up soon, and they promised not to send their henchmen out after us.

(Actually, they haven't actually emailed/called me back yet, so the henchmen are possibly on their way).

I only dine-n-dash friends. Awww...

Aiight, have a good weekend, peeps. TGIF!

simple is as simple does

Okay, so I was trying to come up with a title for today's post about simple food and preparations, and that's what I came up with. And, then I realized that I'm calling myself simple. Ah well.

Anyhow, I was just thinking about ways to make really quick, healthy-ish, tasty dinners. When I get home from work I'm often ravenous, and if I don't have leftovers for the day before I sometimes find it hard to have the patience to take the time to cook up something good. Tuesday night was one of those nights. I got home, walked the dog, pet the cat, and found myself staring blankly at a ridiculously over-stuffed refrigerator and pantry shelves thinking "I don't have anything to eat!". And, that was half-true. I didn't have anything prepared to eat, but I did have (do have) tons of food with lots of kinetic meal-stuff stored up inside 'em.

So, I first made a snack to tide me over until dinner was ready. Some of my leftover biscuits with jam. (have I mentioned that I love these biscuits?)



Then I scrubbed up a couple of sweet potatoes, poked them with a fork a few times (to let the steam escape), wrapped them in foil, and baked them at 350 for an hour. When they were done, I opened them up, and decided to make them into sorta twice-baked potatoes. So, I scooped out the flesh, and mashed with a little maple syrup (3-4 T.), a pat of butter (you could easily leave this out or use Earth Balance to make this vegan, unless you're a maple syrup-eschewing vegan, that is), a shake or two of cinnamon, ditto for cayenne, cumin/coriander (I have a spice blend that has both). I topped them with chopped pecans, and stuck them back in the oven for a bit while I was making my greens.

A couple weeks ago I had some really fantastic sauteed greens at Leslie's. I can't remember exactly how she did them, but this was an homage to that meal, and also because I love the word "garlicky".

Garlicky Sauteed Kale
(you could sub any green leafies for the kale, makes 2 big servings)

1 bunch kale, washed and chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, minced and mashed to a paste with some coarse sea salt
1-2 T. olive oil
red pepper flakes
malt vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Heat a skillet of medium heat. Add the olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper flakes, and cook for a few minutes, but don't brown the garlic. Throw in the greens, and stir around to get all the leaves coated in the olive oil. Cover, and cook about twenty minutes, or until tender but al dente (time will vary if you're using other greens). Splash with a few shakes of malt vinegar. Enjoy!

It was exciting to have this really beautiful and easy meal with very little effort!


What are your favorite last minute or lazy evening meals?

Oh! Oh! Oh! Big news!

My pals Sandra and Jessica just opened their cafe, Hoi Polloi, today! Check out a great article on Pittsburgh Dish here.
They're serving coffee, veg food, smoothies and good times. It's at the corner of Galveston (if you want to fit in as a true NorthSider, you'll pronounce that: gal-VES-ton) and North Ave. North Side represent! And, it's walking distance from Zeke's house, so whenever I'm there, I'm, like, totally there!

Speaking of Zeke's house, he and I just decided that we're going to host a little New Year's Eve soiree. Just a small thing, but hopefully fun! Now, I need to figure out what kinds of snacks to make. And, what I can make early and freeze... That is what I call fun!