Friday, February 3, 2012

I'm really a model...


So I go downtown today after work to see my friend's tattoo progress and say hey to my pal Dave at Bluetile skate shop. As I'm walking into the store, I hear this guy behind me calling "excuse me!" which means, of course, that he only wants money or sex, because what else do people on sidewalks downtown want? So, being the streetwise broad that I am, I saunter into the store and head to the back to shoot the breeze. A few minutes later, here comes the sales guy to say that the sidewalk man has followed me into the store because his girlfriend really wants to know where I got the shoes I was wearing. Wow!

  1. What a great dude. (I felt like a jerk for not stopping earlier. I'm sure he didn't want to have to shoe-stalk me into a store)
  2. What a great boost to my craptastic day at work
  3. What a great story since the answer is...
The clearance rack at K-Mart. That's right, Blue Light Special time. (Ok, they weren't true blue light specials, but close enough.) K-Mart is not my usual source for shoes (or really anything for that matter), but I happened to be in there and see said cute shoes for $19.99 . I'm always one for a bargain and I never like to pass a shoe aisle without stopping. Here's how I wore them today (clothes are approximate. I do not actually own $325 sunglasses):




What I wore today


Uniqlo v neck t shirt
£4.99 - uniqlo.co.uk

Bird by Juicy Couture cotton blazer
women.fashionbeans.com

Ankle pants
$65 - thelimited.com

Open toe shoes
$25 - kmart.com










Sunday, January 29, 2012

It slices, it dices, but wait...there's more!

Product review for the Microplane Herb Mill


I got this for Christmas and somehow didn't try it out until two weeks ago (and am just now getting around to blogging about it...shameful.) Anyway, I'm already a fan of my Microplane Zester/Grater  (no house is a home without one) so I had high hopes for the Herb Mill...but not too high. I grow a lot of herbs and use them pretty regularly in cooking. Chopping them is usually a pain in the ass. I chiffonade my basil and sage when I feel like it and whack them in to irregular pieces with the kitchen scissors when I can't be bothered. I was hopeful the Herb Mill was going to make the herb chopping part of my life easier but I envisioned the blades gummed up from wet parsley or blackened bits of bruised up basil flecking my pasta. I figured it'd be mediocre at best but since it was a Christmas gift (thanks, Mom!) and I wasn't shelling out for it, I figured what the hell.

Well, Microplane did not disappoint. I've used this a grand total of three times now (and would have used it a lot more but there was a rash of soup-out-of-a-box dinners this week) and have been giddy each time. "The secret is in the hundreds of tiny scissors"...ok that's my words, not theirs. (Though Microplane does claim that the device has "hundreds of tiny scissors.") According to the Microplane website and instructions for fresh herbs, you should start with clean, dry herbs. I always wash mine (especially since Rearden enjoys adding nitrogen via whizzing on my garden) and though I have a small salad/herb spinner for drying I'm usually a little, um, lazy, in that department and either shake or halfheartedly paper-towel them off. Being me, I didn't really read the instructions prior to use, and crammed some slightly soggy parsley into the Herb Mill. And while my chopped herbs came in out in damp clumps, they still came out far better than I expected.


Once you've put the herbage in, you twist back and forth (sort of like a pepper mill) and the blades chop/slice/dice everything up without massacring your leaves.


The gizmo is easy to put together and disassemble (once you've read the instructions) for cleaning. It's dishwasher safe (should your life be so fancy... hand washable for the rest of us). They do recommend rinsing the blades, etc. off and not allowing the herbs to dry on the blades. This is, of course, not a problem for us as we are scrupulously clean, do not own a dishwasher, and never leave dirty dishes laying around for more than a nanosecond ... but really, it's pretty easy to give them a quick rinse. I've done it three times now!

See all of that finely chopped greenery? Food taste better! Dishes look fancier! The air smells cleaner! (Well, at least like parsley, in this case.)


[Oh, and that's quinoa with chickpeas, peppers, zucchini and tomatoes. Just in case you're wondering what we crazy vegans are eating. And yes, also pictured is an unintentional peak at my vintage (original to house) push button stove (circa 1961.) It'll go up on Ebay one day when we renovate to add the Custom Imperial Frigidaire Flair that is currently living the in the garage...don't hate.] 

And so, I recommend to you the Microplane Herb Mill. I've used it successfully now with parsley, cilantro, dill and thyme. Can't wait for summer, when I envision grating fresh basil on anything that will be going into my mouth.


Fin.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Delicata Squash Adventure

Like any good couch-dwelling, internet-surfing, lazy vegan, I read more about cooking than I usually end up doing. I like to read blogs and cookbooks about lovely and elaborate dishes and then go microwave a Tofurky dog to eat while staring into my open refrigerator and drawing a blank on what you can make with grape jelly, cilantro and a 2 year old can of Coors Light that someone left at your house. 

Ok, not really. I do cook pretty often. And I bake even more. And I really do read even more. One of my hands down favorite cookbooks is "Vegan Yum Yum: Decadent (But Doable) Animal-Free Recipes for Entertaining and Everyday" by Lauren Ulm. Yes, the same Vegan Yum Yum from the blog. I adore the blog and the book and I have the iPhone app...Obsessed? Maybe. But if you follow Lauren's work, then you understand. I haven't tried one single recipe that has let me down or come out less than amazing. Her recipes really are doable and decadent. And usually all of the ingredients are readily available at the local stores...except the illusive Delicata Squash. 

The Vegan Yum Yum book and blog have a couple of recipes with delicatas, which I'd never heard of or seen in the flesh. According to Ms. Yum Yum it's an heirloom variety with a thin skin and, therefore, not mass-market and cross-country-shipping friendly. I tucked "delicata" into my memory bank and went on with life until I happened into our local health food store one day and came eye to eye with live, perfectly striped, lovely little delicatas looking for a good home. 

I decided to whip up the "Delicata Squash Stuffed with Cherry Apple Almond Couscous" on page 55 of the book, which promises to be quick and easy. Since we had a pear on hand and no apples, and quinoa on hand instead of couscous, it got tweaked a little. (I later found this similar tweak on  ieattrees.com). I halved and roasted the delicatas while I got busy on the stuffing. 
The pears and cherries simmered and smelled lovely while the delicatas did their thing. Note: I only had whole almonds and the recipe called for sliced. I pulverized mine in my Magic Bullet and everything came out fine: 
After you simmer the fruit, you drain the liquid and use that to cook your couscous or quinoa. While that got underway, I prepared the dressing which is agave nectar, Dijon mustard and salt. The combination of mustard, fruit and squash gave me pause for thought, but Ms. Yum Yum has never let me down, so I plowed on. 

The delicatas came out of the oven smelling and looking lovely: 

I mixed everything up and packed it into my squash boats. Finished product (photo not as lovely as ieattrees.com or the one in the cookbook, but my mouth was watering at this point and I really didn't give a damn): 

The combination of the sweet fruit, nutty quinoa and almonds, buttery squash and slight tang of mustard was spot on. Everything really came together in a unique, but not overpowering, way. I had extra quinoa since I only bought two delicatas (original recipe calls for four) and it was very nice on its own as a side dish. Overall, this was easy, quick and delicious. I saved some seeds from my delicata in hopes of growing my own (and I plan to look online for backup seeds as well.) If you can get your hands on a delicata, I highly recommend. It's soft and mildly sweet and just damn cute. Who doesn't want to eat cute squash?