the city looks like it's been sprinkled with powdered sugar

I like this kind of snow. Everything looks lacy and beautiful, but it's not painfully frigid, and the roads aren't bad. I approve. Let it be so. This weekend is supposed to get uber-cold, but I have lots of chillaxin' planned with my gal, so let it snow, y'all!

I actually had a comfort-related close call this morning. I woke up to a chilly apartment, and discovered that while the furnace was kicking on, no air was blowing out. This is what qualifies officially as A Bummer. Luckily, it wasn't too terribly cold, and I was able to get my landlord on the phone at the cracka. I just called my upstairs neighbor, and it's fixed! The heat is on!

And, now I can't get this song out of my head:


Other contributing factors to me feeling like the heat is somewhere on the horizon is that I just scheduled my annual girls' beach trip with my peeps! We've been doing this for years, and it's my favorite week of the year! Unfortunately, I'll have to leave a couple days early, but I'll still get in some great time with my beach babies! Woot!

Here's a few of us:


Tonight is Kramer's b-day shindig. I made some tasty vegan-flavored treats, but I can't tell you about them until Monday 'cause I want them to be surprisy.

Have a fab weekend, my peeps! TGIF!

p.s. this has nothing to do with anything else today, but it's amazing. Check it!

back in bidness

Well, quite often during my beach week I remembered to photograph the food, but sometimes I forgot and sometimes it was too good for me to get up and grab my camera. I took a couple old standbys with me--Heidi's wheatberry salad and otsu. Always good. We ate the otsu in the car after picking Dra up at the Philly airport, and ate the Wheatberry Salad right after arriving at the beach and settling onto the back deck. But, everyone there was a talented cook, and a couple of them are honest-to-god chefs, so believe me when I say we ate like queens.

I held strong with sticking to my vegetarian ways and didn't eat any seafood even though it looked and smelled dreamy. Seafood was always my favorite. I considered just making an exception for that week, but then I opted not to go the route that would ensure guilty feelings. So, no fish for me, but I'm including a couple pictures with seafood because it looked so good.

What I made: otsu, wheatberry salad, mesquite chocolate chip cookies, lemon soup, zucchini-feta-herb salad, crepes w/ lemons and sugar and/or berry-rhubarb compote, veggies burgers (based on the sprouted garbanzo burgers and a bunch of extra stuff throw in), fresh rolls, Heidi's Yucatan street corn, marinated tofu filets, and, um, that's all I can remember.

wheatberry salad on fresh greens (based on Heidi's recipe from Super Natural Cooking):

lemon soup (Molly Katzen's recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest):

corn and fixin's (crema w/ lime zest, queso blanco and limes dipped in chipotle chili powder):


fresh rolls with spicy peanut sauce and mango relish:

crepes with lemons and sugar and cherry-strawberry-rhubarb compote:

marinated and grilled tofu filets with grilled veggies:

veggie burgers with nowlzie's remoulade sauce and the best gaucamole in the world:


And, here's a sampling of food my friends made:
Dra's famous Caesar Salad with Dina's famous croutons:

Dra's famous "fancy boli" that we like to call "The Dra" (half with procuitto, half without):

Dina's potato cake:

Schwatts's clam extravanza:

Schwattzie-Bear's lobbie madness:

Also, some highlights not pictured: Doggie's effing amazing raw dairy whole grain waffles with raw cottage cheese, fresh strawberries and maple syrup; Dina's famous lobster bisque; Schwatts's famous bacon-wrapped scallops; Schwatts's awesome potato chowder (and seafood chowder variation); Dina's chicken salad and faux-chicken salad; hardshell crabs; Dina's bananas foster bread pudding. I know there was more, but that's all I can think of right now. If you would like any of the recipes, lemme know and I'll hunt them down and post 'em up. But, suffice it to say, we had a fabulous week--and not just the food. These are some of my favorite peeps on earth. And, look how happy they are!
Scwatts:

Doggie:

Dra:

Nowlzie:

Dina:

Me:


p.s. Doggie gave me starters for both kombucha and kefir. Stay tuned for more about this!

i'm baaaaaaaack!

I'm back from vacation, and that was a-okay until I realized that I'm outta money for the month (getting paid once a month is for suckers) despite my, I thought, careful scrutiny of the ol' finances (I've really, really, really trying to do better, but it appears that I've, in fact, done worse), and then my car windows froze in the down position (and I can't fix them due to the aforementioned being-broke problem), and then I came into work today and had a really nasty email from a co-worker. What the bleep? Can't I have a few days of easing back into the real world before it all comes crashing back down on me?! Plus, even though I remembered my little camera card thingy to download pics, I forgot to bring the downloading thingy so I have no pictures of my fabulous beach treats for you--yet. Tomorrow is another, hopefully better, day, right?

But, on the up side, my pal Marsha found a *free* bike for me! A friend of hers is giving it away, and I will be the proud recipient! Hooray! So, that rocks and I will now commence to stop the bitchin'. Plus, I had a great Pride all day and night on Saturday and that is super.

I will just say a couple things, and then I'll be off until tomorrow.

1. My beach babies freakin' rock and I adore them and it is a gift from the universe that I have such wonderful friends and get to spend a fantastic week with them once a year.
2. We ate like queens, even though it was very, very hard not to eat up a big ol' mess of seafood.
3. confession: I smoked at the beach, and smoked three cigarettes on Saturday night at the Pride In the Streets thing, but now I'm going smoke-free again.

ttfn!

oh man, oh man, oh man

I become a nervous wreck before trips. I don't know why. I think it's because I'm a freak for a plan and there are just so many unknowns or something. But, that said, I'm always willing to try new things, but still. I don't know. But, I do know that I haven't even packed yet! So, I just announced that I'm leaving work at noon today so I can do that because I have this meeting/training thing this evening, and then I'm getting up at the cracka the ungodly hour 3:00-ish a.m. to hit the road to York, PA to meet up with my lady Schwatts, then we head on to Philly to scoop up our lady Dra, then to the beach!! We should be there by 3:00 p.m., and I'll already have some good lady-time under my belt by then.

But, all my big plans of making a buncha food in advance did not happen. The only prepared thing I'm taking is the raspberry vinaigrette, I think. Maybe I'll whip something up this afternoon if I can pull myself together. Phew!

Last night Mags came over for dinner and dish-doggin' (my god, this is the best arrangement of my life!). I made a big salad with lettuce and the most tender baby greens ever (thank you, CSA!), broccoli, orange bell pepper, radishes, strawberries, red onion, basil (fresh from Ani's garden and delivered in the most beautiful packaging ever--all basil should get this kind of a treatment!), cucumber, avocado and the lovely raspberry vinaigrette. We had that with a beans-n-greens dish that I based around a Heidi recipe.



Giant Crusty and Creamy White Beans with Greens
(from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking, p. 152)
serves 6 to 8 as a side dish

1/2 lb. medium or large dried white beans, cooked
3 T. clarified butter
fine-grain sea salt
1 onion, coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
6-7 big leaves chard, preferably rainbow chard, leaves cut into wide ribbons and 1/2 stems cut into 1/2" pieces
freshly ground black pepper
extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
fresh grated Parmesan cheese, for topping

Drain the beans, then heat the butter over medium-high heat in the widest skillet you've got. Add the beans to the hot pan in a single layer. If you don't have big-enough skillet, just do the saute step in tow batches or save the extra beans for another use. Stir to coat the beans with butter, then let them sit long enough to brown on one side, about 3 or 4 minutes, before turning to brown on the other side, also about 3 or 4 minutes. The beans should be golden and a bit crunchy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside. Salt to taste, then add the onion and garlic and cook for 1 or 2 minutes, until the onion softens. Stir in the chard and cook until just beginning to wilt. Remove from the heat and season to taste with a generous dose of salt and pepper. Drizzle with a bit of top-quality extra-virgin olive oil, and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan.

Heidi's note: I've tried this recipe with canned beans of different varieties, but I always ended up with a mushy pot of bean mash--tasty, but not what we're after. Ther freshly cooked dried beans manintain their structure much better during saute-ing. Giant corona beans, cellini beans or white cannellini beans are the best choice here.

Okay. So, I changed this a bit. For one, I didn't have any big white beans, so I used some great northern beans. I soaked them overnight, then cooked them for about 45 minutes with a piece of kombu and some onion (also Heidi tips!). I didn't take the time to make the clarified butter, so I just used 1/2 butter, 1/2 evoo. I also didn't have any chard, so I used spinach. And, I left off the parmesan and evoo drizzle. They were still amazingly delicious!

For dessert I had some of yesterday's vanilla frozen yogurt. I set it out to thaw on the counter for about an hour before I could scoop it, and in the meantime I squished some strawberries with a tiny bit of sugar (like 1/2 t.?) and some minced fresh mint and let it sit while the fro-yo was softening up. It was some seriously tasty stuff. That fro-yo is amazing. It's hard to believe it was so simple to make! It's just got this incredibly creamy texture and the taste is really tangy and just slightly sweet. Man, oh man!



Okay, I'm sorry, but I don't have time to do the recipe calculations today, but here's today's breakfast and lunch!


Okay, I won't have internet again until...the 18th? Maybe before that, but probably not. But, when I get back I'll have lots of good eatin' to report. Two of the beach babies are chefs, and the others are all great cooks!

Mwah!

counting down days

Yes, I am counting down the days until I'm going to the beach for my All Gal Beach Extravaganza 2007!!! We go to Stone Harbor, NJ, every year. Schwatts' dad has a house there that he generously lets us use for a week each summer and it's just a little slice of heaven. Half a block from the beach, two decks, lotsa bedrooms, lotsa mac-n-cheeses (what Katherine calls the bright orange throw blankets). And, we just get together once a year to chill, catch up on our lives, do workshops for one another, make and eat some tasty food, play in the ocean and bake on the beach and generally just have the very best week of the year. I'm chomping at the bit!

So, this weekend I went grocery shopping at the Co-Op, Trader Joe's, the farmers market and Reyna, (and Family Dollar for a cooler!) and stocked up with ingredients for some recipes I'd like to make in the next couple of days to take down with me. I think I'm going to make otsu, sprout burgers, wheat berry salad, crunchy/creamy beans-n-greens, chile de Arbol sauce and some mesquite chocolate chip cookies. But, I really only have one free evening until we go, so that's the goal list, and it'll probably be a little smaller than that actually, but I can take the other ingredients with me--'cause now I have a cooler! Guess whose recipes those all are? I'll give you one guess. Her name rhymes with Meidi Mwanson.

And, speaking of Heidi, I was reading her blog today and she gives a link to the Elastic Waist website because they have a video up of one of the contributors making the Straw and Hay Fettucine Tangle with Spring Asparagus Purée recipe from Heidi's Super Natural Cooking. I haven't made this yet, but Nowlze and I were just discussing alternative pestos last week, and I mentioned this one. It looks so good!

This weekend was a good time. You may or may not know that I like a good time. Friday was Gist Street (one of my favorite evenings of the month). I again did not win the eggs in the raffle, but maybe my luck is just saving itself up for a week when the chickens go crazy and make One Billion Eggs. I think that must be it.

Saturday morning the K-Bear and I met up with Zeke (my dog-sit friend) and his mom at this really beautiful dog park in Aspinwall/Fox Chapel. You can tell it's where the richies live 'cause it's super clean and unspoiled and just generally awesome. Lots of trails, a creek, biodegradable poop bags. Caleb and Zeke were thrilled to see one another. They get especially excited when things are out of context. I wanted to snap some pictures of them but they were way too busy sniffing stuff to pose. Here is a picture of some wildflowers, though.


I spent the rest of the day on Saturday doing some grocery shopping and napping. And, then Kara came over in the evening for an ice cream and game party (for two)! It all started when we were emailing back and forth about recipes, then ice cream recipes, and then we had to have some homemade ice cream! We both made a base in advance and got our ice cream machines ready, and then the plan was to play some games while the ice cream was freezing. Which was a perfect plan except that Kara's ice cream maker bit the dust. We noticed that it hadn't really frozen at all after nearly an hour, and so it had instead been actually warming up instead of freezing. Her maker was a really nice automatic Krupps one, but evidently something had gone horribly wrong with its freezing power. So, after I made mine, we tried using my maker, but the combo of it having just been used, my refrigerator not being an optimum temperature (due to all the new groceries) and it having been warmed and whipped for an hour it just never did sit up that night. But, the next day? Woah! She left it in the machine at my house, and that is like hitting the jackpot! Her ice cream flavor was avocado (and it's even raw and vegan!). Hot damn. The flavor is really...green. Like, it tastes a little like just under ripe bananas (which are my favorite fruit, but only when they're not quite ripe) and like avocado and like goodness. It's a little bit icy, but I'm thinking that might be because of the prolonged freezing process. Oh my god, it's good.


I made a rose petal ice cream. I got the recipe by googling one billion rose petal ice cream recipes and settling on the one that sounded most reasonable and rich. It's from the Border Grill:
Ingredients:
3 fragrant organic roses, petals only [E note: use organic here for sure!!!]
1/2 cup milk
3 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup granulated sugar, separated
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup rosewater (or to taste), available at Middle Eastern stores
3 drops red food color, optional

Directions:

Wash the rose petals in cold water and pat dry. In a heavy, nonreactive saucepan, place petals of 2 roses, milk, cream, and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Place over medium heat and heat to just under boiling. Let steep about a half hour to infuse.

[E note: there's a misprint with this recipe because they never tell you to add the rosewater. I added it when I added the rose petals.]

Combine the egg yolks and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar in a mixing bowl. Whisk until thick and pale yellow. Bring the rose/cream mixture back to a near boil and whisk 1/4 of the warm mixture into the egg and sugar mixture. Then pour all of the egg mixture into the rose milk and place over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Strain into a bowl and chill on ice. Pour into the ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer finished ice cream into bowl and add the torn petals from the remaining rose. Fold into ice cream and pack into freezing container.

Due to do the temperature issues described above, we ate it as soft serve (or, soup). It was really rich and deelish.

This is what it looked like the next day:


Sunday morning I was supposed to go to WV to visit a friend, but she wasn't feeling well, so I stuck around the 'Burgh and met a Hurd for brunch at the Quiet Storm. We got two of the specials and split them: Avocado-"Bacon" Frittata with Smoked Paprika Aoili and Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Honeyed Ricotta. (and I got some grits and she got some roasted sweet potatoes--just to make sure that we were in pain). Oh, golly. Those were good. Especially the frittata. Dang.

For dinner I made a salad that was inspired by a sandwich that Bozena brought to the after-kayak picnic. Her sandwich was avocado, hardboiled egg and argula on whole wheat. My salad was spinach, basil, hardboiled egg, avocado, sauteed pea shoots with egyptian onions in a tad bit of toasted sesame oil. The dressing was just fresh-squeezed lemon juice with sea salt and pepper. I made the same thing for lunch today. Yum.


Okay. I've also come to a hard realization, too. It is that I lost 40 pounds by eliminating the processed crap out of my diet, but now my body has acclimated to that and it's just not enough anymore and I still have 60 pounds to go. I've been just thinking (aka justifying) that as long as I'm pretty much making everything I eat from scratch then that'll do it. Because it is all good for me, but it isn't all good if you're trying to lose weight. So, I need to kick this stuff up again. I did the whole first part of my diet with pretty much only changing the way I eat, but then got lazy. So, now I need to make a commitment to exercise at least three times a week and to drink at least eight glasses of water every day. I do best with this stuff when I actually write everything down. It helps me to be aware of what I'm doing and I always enjoy a good spreadsheet. So, dear friends, help keep me honest, and that means that if I say that I think it's a good idea to get those white chocolate chip and raspberry chocolate cookies from Sand Hill Berry Farm at the farmers market, you punch me in the throat.

please see my office hours

Yesterday evening I pretended that I was holding office hours at the Quiet Storm. It all started because yesterday was the first day that my CSA subscription started, so I was going to pick it up, and meet my friend Jen at the QS to divide up the booty and get her half of our payment (we're sharing a "small share" from Kretschmann's). I was to meet her there around 6:30 p.m., so I didn't want to go home, then have to turn around and come right back to Garfield, so I decided I'd just go after I picked up the veggies and read. But, then I made a plan to meet up with my new pal Jenn for coffee in the meantime (to take our palship from virtual to real world). She's a peach! So, we hung out for a bit, Jen came by to get her veggies and hung out for a minute, then Mags and her dad, Ani and Carol came to meet up for dinner. I wish my office was the Quiet Storm every day.

And, speaking of the QS, I had an amazing dinner there. I ordered the special: "crabcake" sandwich with macaroni salad and choice of green salad or soup. I chose the chilled green pea and mint soup. First of all, the "crabcakes"? Freakin' fab! Man, oh man! Better than many "real" crabcakes I've tried over the years. And, crab is one of those things that I really miss (along with toro and bacon). I emailed the owner/chef to see if I could get her recipe or a tip and begged her to add it to their regular menu. So tasty! And, the chilled green pea and mint soup was fresh and delicious, too. All in all, one of my favorite meals recently, for sure!

And, as for my CSA box. This week we got: romaine lettuce (or leaf?), butter lettuce (?), spinach, mixed baby greens, pea shoots (I've never tried these before and can't wait!), radishes, sage, rosemary, egyptian onions (look like big green onions with flowers like scapes), rhubarb and a loaf of multigrain bread. YUM! Picking up the CSA box and seeing what we get that week is one of my favorite things ever. I love surprises, and this is the best kind of surprise!


Since I had dinner out last night, I didn't do a whole lot with my veggies last night except admire them. But, for lunch today I made a green salad and an eggsalad sandwich. Eggsalad is one of my favorites, but I haven't made it in a while because I normally put a TON of mayo in it, so it's totally not healthy. But, I made some up last night that is definitely better for me than the old-style kind. I used five organic, free range eggs (these were from the Polish Hill bee guy, Deron Johnson) and hard-boiled them, then added about 4 T. of vegan mayo (I used Heidi's recipe from Super Natural Cooking--below), 2 T. real mayo, 1 t. yellow mustard and sea salt and pepper. I like my eggsalad straight up--nothing fancy, not too mayonnaise-y. I had it with a bunch of the butter lettuce and some of the multigrain bread (lightly toasted). I tried to wait until lunch time, but I ate it around 11:00 a.m. I could not help it.

Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Mayonnaise
(makes 1 1/2 cups)
[Super Natural Cooking, p. 200]

8 oz extra-firm tofu
2 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 t. fine-grain sea salt
1/2 t. dijon mustard
pinch of cayenne pepper

Wrap the tofu in a few paper towels, then press and gently squeeze to release excess moisture. Combine the tofu, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, mustard and cayenne in a food processor and blend until very smooth, 30 seconds or so. Thin with warm water to reach desired consistency.
[Ehrrin's note: this is a great base for any flavor you want to add. I've used it to make aioli, miso mayo and wasabi mayo. So easy and so good!]

Tonight I have a work dinner at LeMont. Ellen's going as my date, and we will be hooking up some serious old-skool "fancy". I've been there once before (for another work function, different job), and the view is magnificent, the decor bizarre, and the food was very much so-so. I already know what I'm having tonight because I had to pick my menu items last month: salad, pesto pasta (the token vegetarian meal) and creme brulee. It should be interesting. This will be the first time that my worlds have collided with work peeps and friends. And, my work peeps are...let's say...odd. They're all computer genius types, so they have various levels of social skills. I find them to be endlessly fascinating, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them all fanced-up.


I need to start brainstorming some recipe ideas for my upcoming beach trip. So far I'm thinking:
-find a good recipe for veg "crabcakes" (QS wrote back, but skipped the part where I asked for the recipe. darn.)
-Heidi's recipe for "Yucatecan Street Corn with Lime, Chile Powder and Grated Cotija"
-Heidi's recipe for "Wheat Berry Salad with Citrus, Toasted Pine Nuts, Feta and Spinach"
-SarahGrams's mom's crepes with some interesting fillings/toppings
-fresh rolls
-veggie sushi

Anyone have any other good (and impressive) recipes for my 9th(?) annual all-gal beach extravaganza?