Pinterest "Board"

I'm a big fan of Pinterest, always finding new ideas and creative projects on there, and was very amused to find this display in our local mall.

Small Projects

I was also happy to be around my craft tools once again. My knitting needles and yarn, and my stacks of burlap waiting for some creative use. My first attempt was this fun cowl that I loved the final result, soft and thick around my neck. It was also easy to knit for my first attempt on circular needles. The yarn gave me some trouble, but eventually sorted itself out and it is very soft. I found a pattern here that was relatively easy to follow with lots of youtube supplementation.

The burlap came in when I decided I needed some way to store my earrings in an easy to see display. I took a rectangle of cardboard off the back of a pad of paper, wrapped the burlap around it, sewed strips of colorful fabric along the top and bottom edge, and then glued the flaps down in the back. I've loved looking at the final result up in my bathroom shelf.

Cooking like Crazy

After nearly 5 months away from home traveling, it was with immense joy that I returned to my own kitchen. All of the recipes on Pinterest and on blogs that had tempted me in late night bouts of homesick web surfing were finally within my reach. I went on a rampage stocking up on ingredients, picking out recipes to try first, and then diving into my stacks of pots and pans and favorite utensils. It's been a busy few weeks, trying some out on my husband that I had perfected last year while away from him, then trying out the new ones, then my family arriving for the holidays and pulling out more. Here I will catch you up on the ones I managed to snag photos of before the item was tastily consumed.

One of the attempts involved my first try at ravioli from scratch. I probably won't repeat this again without proper equipment, but Talea has encouraged me to try again, so maybe I will. I made up a butternut squash filling instead of this recipe's recommended filling of pumpkin. The filling was tasty with only goat cheese. They turned out too thick though and didn't cook through, ending up soggy and hard.

I've always been tempted by the smell of those roasted nuts in malls and decided to make my own for the holidays, based on this recipe. They turned out very tasty and no one could stay out of the container.

Today I needed something extra to go with our left over soup for lunch and decided to try out this tasty recipe for garlic buttermilk biscuits. I had buttermilk left over from earlier breakfasts and about to expire, and garlic is always a hit in our home. I loved how they flaked and fell over in the oven while baking.

When I asked my sister what one dessert she would really like to have for Christmas, I couldn't convince her to any pies or fudges, traditions in our family, but we finally agreed on chocolate macaroons, tasty lumps of coconut with lots of chocolate stirred in. Because of the coconut's fineness they turned out more like no-bakes than light and chewy macaroons, but once again, that container kept opening up again and again while my family was here.

One of the biggest hits was a recipe my mom recommended from her cooking club, a curried red-lentil soup with dried cherries. This ended up being our Christmas lunch with my parents and it was very tasty with some toasted sourdough bread and sweet potato fried patties. I don't like chunky stuff in my soups so I ended up pureeing the whole batch with a hand blender, excepting the cherries.

Much tastiness!

Hibiscus!

When I approached my designated spot in the community gardens in my apartment complex, I found I'd inherited several plants started by my predecessors in Garden Plot #32. The bamboo stand was immediately recognizable, though dried out and faltering. Other plants remained a mystery, including this bush, which with some water started to show green sprouts on its dry twiggy branches. Friday, one of the small red buds finally burst into action and I was extremely pleased to find myself the caretaker for a hibiscus bush. There are two other mystery plants left in the garden, including some kind of bramble twisted up with the hibiscus and a taller vine-like plant. Some kind of green leafy plant is not a complete mystery, with bright orange flowers that attract hummingbirds, I just don't know its name. I've planted bulbs and greens and carrots in the garden, and will update with pictures here as they finally grow into existence!

Winter-time yard

Cucumber sorbet

It all began with a cookbook given to me by C & K. My mom kept urging me to try a recipe, so I picked the easiest one: cucumber juice. As you'd expect, the recipe involved pureeing cucumber with some lemon juice and water. It came out pulpy (the seeds don't blend well) but tasty. I began to imagine a smooth cucumber-lime ice cream. I couldn't help myself, so, given my mom's antipathy to cream and dairy products, I tried this recipe for cucumber sorbet. I'm still not sold on the texture, but I love the fresh cucumber-citrus-basil flavor. Delicious.

Plum-nectarine tart

Today I tried out this tart recipe. We have some nectarines that are juice-oozing ripe, so I used mostly nectarines with some plums. 

Kale (part 2)

I've been experimenting further with kale (there's soo much of it in the garden--I feel it's my obligation to use it, somehow). My aunt informed my mom on the phone that she's obsessed with this new kale chips recipe. It sounds a little wild but I was just out at the dehydrator and I have to say, these are pretty good. So, if you're in the mood for kale...you can try this one out:

Ingredients:
Several bunches of kale (I filled a large bowl--not sure how much it was)
1/2 c. walnuts
1/2 c. cashews
1 clove garlic
1/2 - 1 c. water
1 tsp. lemon
2 Tb. olive oil

Blend everything but kale together. Pour over kale (torn into bits). Place in dehydrator for four hours, or oven on low heat.

The texture of toasted kale really is nice. It has a strong flavor but the "dressing" covers it up pretty well. All in all, I'll claim this experiment as "successful." :)

Kale chips

Today I made kale chips. First I tried baking the kale tossed in oil, salt, and maple syrup. Then I tried them with only salt and oil. They are quite crispy when baked. They're interesting--perhaps less promising than hoped, but with maple syrup, surprisingly nice (I think the sugar helps cover up the "green" flavor). My parents have an entire row of kale plants in the garden, so consider this experiment #1...perhaps more to come.

Birthday Daffodils

Mansaf

For awhile I'd been dreaming up sharing a traditional Jordanian recipe with my friends here. Last year we'd done a potluck and I'd brought kusheri, a traditional Egyptian recipe. This time it was Jordan's turn. I had made mansaf once before with Matt to celebrate passing the two-year review, but now I wanted to make it for my roommates and close friends so I followed the recipe from here fairly closely for amounts. I used a thick Middle Eastern yogurt from the grocery store (labnah) and some lamb chops and put together a small feast with the help of my friends. One was tasked with the Egyptian fatoosh salad (chopped bell peppers, cucumber, and tomato drizzled in a garlic, lemon, olive oil, and salt dressing). One couple brought soft and fluffy pita bread and lemonade. My roommate helped me with the baklava (a somewhat-combination of this recipe and this recipe) which I had a few setbacks on but overall it ended up tasting amazing (and I'm about to go for a piece...). Everyone arrived, we laid out the feast, washed our hands, and then dug in. It was stupendous, we ate ourselves into a stupor, and then sat around trying to conversate. :)

The Italian Cravings

So having happily tried my fingers at Indian food I moved on to give in to some serious Italian food cravings. First stop, after reading a chapter about lasagna from Duncan's The Brothers K, I decided I needed to try my hand at vegan lasagna again. I had tried this awhile ago with a recipe from my mom but had grown tired of it after several potlucks. I searched the web and ended up creating my own recipe based on the experiences of several other chefs. I present it to you here:

Monique's Vegan Lasagna

9x9 pan (deeper is better)

Box of noodles (I used non-boil ones)

1.5 jars of tomato sauce of choice

1 onion

1 zucchini

1 yellow squash

1 bell pepper (I used yellow)

1 bunch of spinach

1 package tofu

1-2 garlic cloves pressed or finely minced

Optional: Small amount of vegan pesto mixed in with tofu, see pizza recipe link below

1. Dice onion and fry in skillet with olive oil. After starting to turn clear add diced zucchini, squash, and pepper, then garlic and fry until soft. Remove from skillet and place in separate bowl.

2. Crumble tofu into the same skillet and fry it a bit to soak up the flavors from the vegetables and dry out a bit. Add any spices you want for flavor.

3. Remove tofu and then lightly saute spinach very briefly (30-60 seconds?) in same skillet. If you want the spinach more fresh, skip this step.

4. Follow directions on back of lasagna noodle box for layering, or place 1 cup sauce in bottom of pan, then layer of noodles, then 1/3 of vegetable mix, tofu, spinach, and repeat two more times. Top off with noodle layer, remaining sauce and sprinkled layer of (fake) cheese if desired.

5. Cover pan with tinfoil and bake at 375 F for 50 minutes. Remove tinfoil and bake another 5-10 minutes. Let sit 10-15 minutes before cutting.

I produced this magnificent lasagna that I consumed throughout the week and then promptly made another with the pesto leftover from the pizza venture (described below) the following weekend.

It held together surprisingly well and the layer of rice cheese on top was the perfect touch. According to my dairy-friendly roommates, you couldn't really tell this didn't have ricotta because of the tofu texture and the flavors from the vegetables.

A couple of nights after my first attempt I decided to give a vegan pizza recipe a try that combined a cashew cheese with vegan pesto. It turned out amazing, but was much better fresh and not so great the days following. I used my regular pizza crust recipe but it's a basic recipe so I'm sure the one on this blog would work fine.

 Pre-cooking, the lemon slices really added a nice flavor

 Post-cooking, so amazing

All the fixings!

Food!

Catching up on some of my baking activities over the past month or so I have to start out with something I didn't actually make but found quite by accident and immediately fell in love with. I introduce to you the lactose-intolerant-yet-ice-cream-loving person's best friends:

Almond Dream makes some of the best non-dairy ice cream around, and now they make ice cream bites!! I was beside myself when we had a heat streak in mid-March and I just happened to find these in Treasure Island's frozen food aisle. The LaLoo's goat's milk ice cream is also superb. The chocolate version has a bit of a goat taste to it when you first try it but you soon forget about it altogether. I've recently tried the vanilla version and don't taste goat at all. Maybe it's just me, but this is the texture and creaminess of real ice cream and I love it.

Sometime in late March/early April I found on sale and purchased The Everything Indian Cookbook for my kindle and tried out a couple of the recipes that caught my eye. The recipes were really easy to follow and called for ingredients I could find and had you built from a paste combining serrano peppers with garlic and ginger, adding on other ingredients as desired. I tried a potato recipe, a salmon recipe, and a five dahl delight recipe. It was a delight, all three were actually. The dahl turned out looking like green pea soup even though it contained yellow and red lentils as well as mung beans and pigeon peas. It was pretty tasty and inspired a twin pot soon cooked up by my roommates. We had a lot of dahl, to say the least.

Salmon 

Potato

A few days later I wanted to try making samosas and not finding anything by that name in the cookbook, I decided to try the parathas. I completely forgot Talea's experience with this ridiculous food item and so repeated the same near disasters. :) Not my favorite food ever and we ended up throwing out some of the last of it after both myself and my roommate-who-likes-my-food-experiments couldn't take anymore.

In all, it was a fun time with Indian food but I was done with that cookbook for awhile and my taste buds turned to other things...

Springtime

Blooming Tea

I remember falling in love with the concept of blooming tea when Matt and I were strolling through stores registering for our wedding and we ran across the Tea Posy line. My aunt bought the pot and tea for us and we tried it out that first year together. I remember distracting myself from my homework by pouring the hot water over the small green balls and watching them unfold into the most bizarre yet delicate "flowers". Recently a package arrived in the mail from my grandmother, who had run across flowering tea at a friend's house and thought I'd love it. She immediately packaged one up and shipped it off to me. They had come out with new flavors since I'd tried it five years ago, with vanilla, pomegranate and acai berry beside the standard jasmine. I do like the vanilla quite a bit and this morning I was in the mood for some flowering inspiration as I worked on yet another draft of my dissertation proposal. Without my tea pot I used a tall blue glass and I loved the underwater feel this gave the whole scene.

Mint-Mango Zucchini

I scrolled to this recipe and I had to try it. I'm not a huge fan of "raw" food, but it looked intriguing and I just had to know how mint, mango, and zucchini could possibly all exist in the same recipe. I rushed into Freehling Pots & Pans right as they were locking the door and bought a pretty green juli peeler and then dashed home to try it out. I have to say, it was much better than expected. Not particularly filling but it served as dinner two nights in a row. I loved the mint and mango sauce with the spice of ginger thrown in, and the julienned zucchini was actually pretty fun. I don't know that I would make it again but it gets points for creativity and a very healthy meal.

Sweet potato with roasted grapes and goat cheese

I was fascinated by the concept of this twice-baked sweet potato recipe that I found. Instead of regular cheese it called for fresh goat cheese stirred in, along with cinnamon and nutmeg, and then topped off with more fresh goat cheese and roasted grapes. What??? Roasted grapes??? The blogger went on in delirium about the amazing taste of roasted grapes and I had to make it. I originally wanted to try this for my birthday dinner, but the thought of it turning out very badly kept me from trying it on a crowd at my mercy. So Friday night I made potato-for-one. It turned out okay, actually. I forgot about the grapes and only the keener smell and hearing of my roommates saved the grapes from certain charcoal-y oblivion (which some had already achieved). Some of my goat cheese (from three weeks ago?) was turning weird colors and so I only had a small chunk on the inside that I could use. So no fresh goat cheese sprinkled on top. And I didn't drizzle the honey. In the end, it didn't look much like the picture at all, but the taste was there, I believe. And while it wasn't sublime or "luscious", it was pretty tasty. I think it definitely needs the fresh goat cheese on top to balance out all the sweet, however.

Buttermilk Leftover Pancakes

I started with this basic buttermilk pancake recipe (had buttermilk leftover from biscuits last weekend!) and then added leftover homemade from-last-Thanksgiving cranberry sauce and dried out peanut butter on top. Made a delicious, though slightly overwhelming for one person, breakfast. :)

Moroccan Quinoa Salad

Our own humble attempt at this delicious recipe - didn't turn out too bad! Almost the bee's knees on both parts!

Moroccan salad

Creamy Curried Cauliflower Soup

I picked up this recipe for a Creamy Curried Cauliflower Soup on Wholefoods' recipes page the other day and decided I needed to try it. I don't really like cauliflower at all, so I'm not sure why this appealed to me. Maybe it was the cream-free creaminess of it, or the chance to use our new milk maker on some almonds, or the curry and onions already on my shelves. Somehow I decided this was something I had to try and so I went and bought my cauliflower (I'd recommend somewhere cheaper than Wholefoods, where the wrong scales in the produce section left me with twice the amount of expensive organic cauliflower I needed!). I set the almonds to soaking last night and this morning my husband put them through our handy-dandy Soyabella and we had tasty almond milk ready to go.

The whole recipe came together fairly easy, taking only a few minutes to chop everything up and throw it in the pot and then let it simmer awhile without much supervision at all. The end result was actually fairly tasty. Blending it takes away any textural issues with cauliflower and the curry spices it up nicely. I added some salt and pepper (on second thought I would have left the pepper out, it fought against the curry) and served it up in our colorful square bowls. With some buttered toast and a picnic blanket in the sun it made a delightful break in our day!

Drawing Challenge Day 5

My Best Friend (seriously, only one guess this time)

And you'll forgive the fact that I cannot draw people and capture the love and whimsy in this drawing! :)

Drawing Challenge Day 4

My favorite place (you get one guess)

(And I'm back to Google Docs with only the trackpad on my laptop to draw...)

Peonies Popping

My little peonies are climbing towards the light. Last night I transplanted them from their initial grow-pot and they weren't happy about that at all, were sagging to the four corners of their pot. Today they've perked up considerably and are reaching once again for the sun!

Drawing Challenge Day 3

My favorite food [I don't really have a favorite food so I drew the favorite dish I made for my birthday, a baked salmon packet with veggies!]

(and yes, we're on to pencil and paper now!)

Drawing Challenge Day 2

My favorite animal

Still google docs but now I don't have my drawing pad so these are going to get harder. I might have to go old school and draw with paper and pencil and then photograph it for the blog.

Drawing Challenge Day 1

A drawing of me

[These are done with a drawing pad and Google docs]

A Very Fishy Dinner

I needed a meal fit for a birthday girl. (Incidentally, that birthday girl was myself.) I searched and searched for some delicious way to prepare salmon that I hadn't tried yet, and finally found an enticing recipe through my Pinterest account, linked to this fun-looking website. I did some shopping, enticed my roommate into joining me in the effort, and we set to chopping, slicing, and wrapping.

We carefully overlaid the fillet with lemons, kalamata olives, and surrounded it with red peppers and zucchinis, laying a final sprig of thyme on to finish the flavoring.

All the packages wrapped in parchment paper and tied with oven-safe string were then set out on a baking tray and placed in the 350 F oven.

The recipe said one fillet would take 12 minutes but with seven fillets we ended up waiting half an hour before declaring the fillets cooked through.

The final product was tender and very tasty, with the fat from the salmon flavoring the vegetables. 

Friday