morning time.

i am a morning person. not an early morning person, but i tend to wake up around 8ish without the aid of an alarm clock. this is assuming that there has been no debauchery the previous evening, and now that i'm nearing my 30's my debauchery has been limited to cooking and crafting with a glass of wine before hitting the sheets at midnight (or ten-thirty). i go out (like out-out, to a show or out of town) maybe once a month. and now that i think about it, i feel a little depressed that i only do things like that twelve times a year. but not depressed enough to give up my cozy nights in with my boyfriend and kitty-love. i have truly fallen in love with age. with the exception of my body not bouncing back with it's usual youthful elasticity, i have found growing up to be a gift. bridget bardot said "it is sad to grow old, but nice to ripen." i have to agree.

back to all this morning person business, i am also currently unemployed, which i may have repeatedly mentioned. that means an excess of free time and a strong tendency towards going insane. i think the only thing that keeps my on the good side of the asylum walls is the fact that i have a few hours of quiet time in the mornings. my boyfriend sleeps until noon (or later if i would let him) so the mornings are all mine and zed's. this morning i ate cherries, worked on my valentines that will be finished by next saturday, discovered pandora.com (i may have mentioned that i'm slow to catch onto things sometimes), and nursed two bigs mugs of earl grey with soymilk. this is why i haven't flung myself off the roof of my house yet.

a few things that i have learned over the past week or so:

-do not make a 9x13 pan of lasagna when you only have two people in the house that eat it. i have eaten lasagna for breakfast more often that i care to think about.

-the beauty of yo-yo's. they reminded me of country crafts (ew) for so long, but i have a feeling i can make something lovely and modern(ish) with them.

-the flaw in looking for flaws in your own work. (oh, irony. you taunt me.) you truly are your own worst critic and it rarely gets you anywhere but scrambling through the bathroom cabinet, searching frantically for those last two xanax saved from some dental procedure 8 months ago specifically for an occasion such as this. sigh.

-you can tell the age of a whale by how many layers of ear wax it has. really, it's like the rings of a tree.

speaking of trees, i have fallen in love with these pillows. fabric woodiness? fabulous! if only i could crochet. and read some dearoldlove.com for a shot of vengeful or wistful nostalgia. just in time for valentine's day, right?

simon says suck it up.

in times like these (times of destitution, of sinusitis, and of undesired weight gain) i try to find humor wherever i can. i may have mentioned that most of my reading material has consisted of books on food ethics and nutrition. they are informative, provocative, and challenging; but sometimes all i really want is to read something that would make me laugh at the trials of life and remind me things aren't always as serious as they initially seem. kind of like the literary version of teen wolf or romy and michelle's high school reunion. i picked up a copy of ant farm, by simon rich, a year or two ago and loved it. i was on the floor laughing at the soon-to-be-divorced man who comes up with the names for crayola hues. or the man who tries to impress a girl when he lists his three desert island items and then wakes up to realize he was hitting on a government researcher who puts him to the test. most of the stories are between one and four pages, so it is the sort of life intermission that won't deter you for too long. i passed ant farm along to a friend who needed it more than i did at the time, and he returned the favor by picking up rich's second collection, free-range chickens for me as a christmas gift. it's the same sort of dark humor; concise, relevant, and hysterical. i finished it the same day he gave it to me, even after a few too many lively pints at the bar (he lives in alaska and we rarely get to see eachother anymore). there are a few excerpts on the ever watchful mahschpace for your previewing pleasure, but i have a feeling that you will not be disappointed.

and my musical ear says that the new dungen album 4 is not nearly as good as ta det lugnt. more pansy, less psych. i'm not digging it. but on a bright note, goblin cock will be coming 'round next month! huzzah!

and also, today was my kitchen triumph day, yes. and triumph i did with my homemade enchilada sauce. and again, yes, i forgot to take pictures. but i will be posting the fabulous recipe soon! and keep your fingers crossed for me tomorrow, i have a job interview. i even dyed my hair back to a normal color so i don't look so much like a gutter punk.

it's good for you.

i'm going to refrain from getting too schmaltzy and mushy here, but this is a bit of a personal blog which just means you get to know that i am more that an amazing cook who is handy with a pot of glue (ahem). i made a lot of new year's resolutions, keeping up with this blog is among them. so is learning spanish, paying off specific bills (you know who you are and i'm coming for you!), and writing a letter to a friend every sunday. also, perhaps the most difficult, is to try to rebuild my relationship with my mother. you may think that the reason that i haven't spoken to her in over 6 months is because one or both of us are horrible people. not true. my mother is ideal and has always been there if i needed anything. our problem lies in an eternal personality conflict. put us in a room together and there is instant friction and usually we end up ignoring eachother in an awkward silence. so, when i got pushed into a pool over the summer and my phone was destroyed, i simply got a new one and never gave my mother the number. i am a horrible daughter. fast forward through six months of guilt and intense internal and matriarchal conflict. i knew i should get in touch, but with every month it just seemed harder and i kept putting it off until tomorrow. you know how that goes. but the moral of the story is: don't put it off. so i sent my mother an email (yes, a coward's way out) apologizing and letting her know that i hoped we could see eachother soon. i realized how much i missed her when i got her reply and immediately cried and snotted all over my boyfriends shirt. she said i was always going to be her favorite daughter (nevermind that i'm the only one) and that she loved me. so i'm going to work very hard on having the kind of relationship with her that she deserves and learn to let our (many) differences complement eachother rather than do damage. and the second moral of the story is this: make an apology you've been putting off, or forgive something you need to let go of. even if nothing comes of it, i promise you will feel better. enough sap for one day, who needs a drink?

the beautiful demon that is coconut milk.

ahhh, thai food. what a glorious cuisine. everything is so rich and brilliantly colored and flavored. and did i say richie rich milky coconutty richness saturated fatdom? because yes, that's what it is. 48 grams of fat per cup? and practically 90% of that is saturated? damn. don't get me wrong, i'm not big on going without edible luxuries. i love decadent full fat cheeses, real chocolate, and good wine when i can get them. but this is something i absolutely cannot justify, so i set out to find or create a substitute. and it worked! phenomenally!

i wanted to make a variation of the yummy tom ka soup, but thicker and more like a meal over rice. because i am a little nervous about too many experiments at once i went to the asian grocery and picked up a packet of tom ka paste (a complete bargain at 89 cents!). i know it's got some additives and way more sodium that i would prefer to be in there, but i'll try to make it homemade another day. this is the time for fat attack! i figured that some coconut flavored milk should do just as well as the real thing. and coconut flavored vanilla soymilk would be even better. so i whipped up a little batch, threw in some veggies and poured it over brown rice. so good that there are no pictures of it because we ate all of it. quickly. vague instructions below!

stuff:
1 can coconut water
1 cup(ish) vanilla soymilk (regular if you want, but i like the additional sweetness it gave)
2 tsp corn starch
1 packet tom ka paste (to serve 4)
a hoopla of veggies, tofu, or meat (i used cauliflower, edamame, tofu, red pepper, spinach, and carrots)
brown short grain rice to serve 4

do:
-pour about 1/2 of the can of coconut water and 1/2 of the soymilk in a pot with the paste and bring to a very low boil, just enough to melt the paste.
-add the tofu or (pre-cooked) meat and simmer for about 5-8 minutes. make sure you stir every now and then, soymilk can get that filmy thing on top.
-mix your cornstarch in with the rest of the soymilk and some of the coconut water (i still had a little coconut water leftover after i was done cooking) and add to the pot.
-throw in all your veggies and simmer until they are at the tenderness you like. i like mine pretty friggin' crunchy, so i left it on only for about 7 minutes.
-pour it over some cooked rice and it's a super delicious, way reduced-fat version of one of my favorite thai foods ever.

the only thing to keep and eye on and use your discretion in is the desired thickness. mine was still a little soupy, but the rice soaked most of it up by the end of my bowl. throw in some more milk or coconut water if you want a soup or use less if you like something thicker. good luck and clear arteries to you!

jenkies. it's a jewelry thingy.

only lately have i become a fan of cheese (whereas the maiden fan in me has been alive for quite some time). mostly soft, mold covered ones like brie and camembert...and i know you can't get the real thing here, but these impostors just whet my taste for the creamy softness that i read about on the cheese blog that i adore so much. one of my favorite things about these cheeses is the cute packaging. i'm a sucker for neat things that hold other things. mostly because i have a lot of stuff and containers make me feel organized. sadly, my cheese boxes have begun to pile up in a not-so-attractive heap in the kitchen because i refuse to throw them away. solution: upcycle. i made a few of these little bejeweled (be-buttoned, really) little treasure chests, and i really like them on the dresser; in the bathroom; or wherever you may have spare change, bobby pins, or perfume samples that you pilfered from macy's. the buttons add a nice weight to it, so it doesn't feel as flimsy, and it's super easy!

needage:
a strip of fabric long enough to wrap around your lid, cut to the proper width
buttons of any variety
spray paint
mod podge
e6000

doage:
-i spray painted the lid of my cheese box, so any color showing through the spaces between the buttons would be uniform.
-use a brush (or your finger, which is what i always end up doing) to apply mod podge to the outside rim of the container, brush some more on the back of fabric and wrap it around, making sure you press firmly all the way around and let dry.
-grab your trusty e6000 and glue buttons all over the top. i started with the bigger ones as a base and did two layers to cover some of the bigger spaces between the base buttons. i tried doing a mosaic picture with my first one, but it didn't look as good as i had hoped, and i like the randomness of the colors better anyway.




so easy and cute. i think everyone may get one of these for their birthdays this year, assuming i eat enough cheese. who are we kidding, though? everyone's gonna get two of these!

the not-so-swedish chef's not-so-borscht.

i have recently discovered the beauty of beets, thanks to one of my favorite food blogs, www.noteatingnoutinny.com. they are vitamin and fiber packed and stain your hands (and anything else porous) the most brilliant shade of magenta. i've taken to roasting them, but when i saw the pre-chopped parsnips at the grocery store the other day i instantly began craving a Pretty Hot And Tempting bowl of borscht. which in turn always flips the swedish chef switch in my head and i want to sing jovial mock swedish nonsense as loud as the boys in the house will let me, but change the ending to borscht! borscht! borscht! moving on...

i ran into a few roadblocks along the way but since i don't really use recipes improvisation isn't really a problem. when i went back to the store they had thrown away all the parsnips (!), their excuse being that since they were closed for christmas they had gone bad. i was tempted to ask if they could go back and fish the plastic tub out of the garbage and just give them to me, as i was going to use them within the hour, but i refrained from looking like the desperate parsnip lady. i spied the rutabagas on sale for 99 cents and decided a substitution could be made. i grabbed a baking potato and some carrots and was out the door, remembering halfway home that i had forgotten to buy dill. despite my love of lists, i rarely make them and often forget what i'm doing, where i'm going, and what i need.

at home, my roommate is still asleep as i begin to quietly chop, bang, and mash my way to purple nirvana. as i said, i don't use recipes, so all of these measurements are estimated, but i think all food should be made to suit the people eating it. if you don't like cabbage, leave it out. lots of borscht recipes call for diced tomatoes or tomato paste, but i skipped it. my favorite part of being in the kitchen is not having to listen to anyone tell me what to do, i'm a bit anti-authority. but in case you like a little direction, here is a vague description of what happened in my teeny kitchen between 8 and 11 this morning.

whatchoo need: (this makes enough for around 4 generous servings.)
2 medium beets, scrubbed and the greens chopped. (save the greens!)
1 baking potato, cubed.
2 large carrots, chopped.
rutabaga, peeled and cubed. (i matched the amount of potato i had.)
chicken stock, homemade if you have it. (veggie stock would work just as well).
allspice.
3 cloves garlic, finely diced.
yellow onion, diced. (i used about 2 slices.)
1 cup red cabbage, chopped or diced.
beet greens, stemmed and chopped.
olive oil.
sour cream.
DILL! it makes a difference, i promise.

whatchoo do:
-wrap the beets in tin foil and toss in the oven at about 350 for an hour or until soft.
-after you take the beets out of the oven, ope up the tin foil and let them cool while you boil/saute the potato, carrots, and 'baga in about a cup of chicken stock until they are soft enough to mash. (i like my borscht chunky, but if you prefer the smooth kind then you can skip the mashing and just toss them in a blender.)
-once the beets have cooled a bit, the peel should be easy to rub off. chop the top and bottom off, dice them up and toss them into the pot with the other veggies. then mash, mash, mash! (or blend! blend! blend!) until it resembles cranberry sauce, or perhaps the manic panic color "deadly nightshade"; silly, yet accurate.
-in a saucepan, saute the onions, and garlic until they are translucent. if you want to save dishes then you can skip the sauteeing and just throw them in the pot, but i think the flavor is much better when you make them sweat a bit (much like a first date).
-add the onions, garlic, cabbage, beet greens, and enough chicken stock to get the consistency you prefer. the allspice is up to you, i used just a pinch and wouldn't really recommend much more. i added tons of black pepper, because i like it that way.
-let it sit on medium-low, covered, for about 45 minutes,or whichever temp keeps it at a slow boil or simmer.
-serve with a little sour cream dill and you're done. bork bork bork.

the men in the house tend to live off of indian food and cheeseburgers, and shun anything from the ground unless it's covered in curry. as i was having my sample bowl of borscht before i put it in the fridge for dinner (and lunch and another possible dinner tomorrow), my boyfriend stepped out of bed in his robe and described it as looking like "what they used for guts in zombie movies before they got the color right". so if it looks like technicolor innards and tastes like heaven, you've done well.