Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts
Rotting Pears~
So about a month? three weeks? ago i bought a box of little cute snack sized pears. By a box, i don't mean boxes that may or may not be offered in grocery stores (do they sell pears by the box in grocery stores? I'm so out of touch with produce actually sold in stores because now that i'm a super apple/pear snob at this job of mine.... hehehee) but the box that i speak of is a wholesale sized box of pears. yeah. 158 pears nicely wrapped and packed in a pretty little case ready to be added to 48 other little cases stacked together on a perfect little pallet ready to be shipped on a semi truck with 19 other pallets full of the same cute little pears.yup. i have 158 of these suckers to eat however i can. When they were less than ripe they were perfect for the juicing- oh my. delicious! a little tangy and a bit too tart with granny apples but a nice balance of acidity with beets and celery. yumm.
fast forward three weeks later. They're ripe now. Oh how they're ripe. they're almost to the mushy point. So juicy, so many pears, so little- no- NO time!!! i'm handing these babies to my little dog like it's christmas every day. the greedy sucker thinks the treats will end so he keeps hiding them and then i have to find them and toss them before they rot!! argggghh!!!
My mom and i eat like 7 pears a day.
ok, that's a lie. my MOM eats 7 a day. i look at 7 and guiltily don't eat any. Why?
I'm not all that partial to pears.
True story.
So why did i buy a case of these bastards?
Meh- i was getting super hyped about the juicing :) and they're super cute. fits right into the palm of my teeny little hand teeheheheee..
After giving about 25 of them to a friend, and another 25 to another friend, and consuming about 40 in the last week and tossing a few of the bruised and rotted ones, we're down to about 40. My remedy is to just smoothie and salad the CRAP out of these guys..
Just found a recipe for an oats and pear smoothie. sounds DELICIOUS.
ingredients
ripe pears
milk
6 oz yogurt
1/4 cup oats
5-7 ice cubes
ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
directions
blend all the shiz together until smooth.
I'm thinking breakfast tomorrow instead of my juice. in fact, i'm thinking breakfast every day until i get rid of these damn pears. I'll be using raw milk and probably subbing ice cubes for frozen bananas and leaving out the yogurt for a little bit more milk.
For dinner? That's right!! pear mixed with some pear, garnished with slivered pears and topped with a healthy dose of pear!! wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
No dinner is more like kale salad with pear, cranberries, Gorgonzola and some white wine vinaigrette and a side of roasted brussel sprouts and pears. Chicken will have to be involved as my brother is going to be involved :) I'll work it out... lots of pears!!
I'm thinking maybe a pear and Gorgonzola pizza for tomorrow night. prep the pizza dough tonight as there is no gym with this month long flu. blech. so over it already.
Come Boot Cha!!
WHAT IS THIS!?
it's a beverage. actually spelled Kombucha.
I shun this drink because this pretty little bottle full of VILE tasting fermentation is $4 a pop!! ARRGGHSHSH!!??!?!
This I told my long friend Crooz as she was describing how her babies were molding. (wtf??!?)
That's right. I thought, (WTF?!?!? BABIES?!? MOLD!?) but articulated aloud, "Ugh I tried komucha when I lived in New York and I think it's a silly fad that is completely overpriced for it's pretty little jar."
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yeah, this crap. |
DAMMIT ME!! another case of super quick judgment call. this time- i was wrong. From my one HORRIFYING experience with store bought kombucha, I had condemned all the wonderful bacteria that had never even met my belly or done me wrong!
I am shamed. and I know better now.
Kombucha is a kind of sweet tea that has been fermented. It has been around forever even before the pretty labels. I was referring to it is the name of the company that rapes peoples' wallets for vinegar tasting fluid (see above). But the reality is that Kombucha can taste wonderful and be ridiculously good for your daily probiotic/bacteria intake and it'll make your tummy smile!!
So, guess what?
My friend, as your friendly neighbor DIYer, I'm gonna make myself a nasty looking little Scoby at home to start my own batch of kombucha!! And it will be delectable!! and it will make my tummy giggle!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
I have since apologized and explained to Crooz my idiocy and ignorance. We are planning to make babies together of the scoby kind! we're very proud.
The Maltese Falcon
So I finally finished reading Trainspotting (Irvine Welsh) that I'd been reading for an inordinate amount of time and then.... well basically I was in shock for a while. Yes. The book was horrifying in the most ordinary way and so i followed it up by watching the film. While the film was jarring and visually assaults the audience attempting to do justice to the novel, the monstrous images that grow in your mind from the words you are forced to read cannot be visually portrayed because everyone knows somebody like what is described, or has heard of someone like whose story you're witnessing, in real life. But everyone knows Begbie to look differently. Everyone has heard of a Mark but he doesn't necessarily look like Ewan McGregor....Next adventure: The Maltese Falcon. The path I took to discover this mystery novel was a little odd and took many months to get there though i didn't know i was going there at the time. I re-purposed my super movie watching mission and added several more films to the list- one of which was the movie Brick (2005). I loved the style of the film so much that i went to the director's site to learn more about his inspiration and reason for stylizing it the way he chose. Then through a forum, I was led to more reviews and more discussions of this film. Which led me to the vocabulary words "film noir," "hammett," "chandler," and a few others that I have chosen to study a bit of. Researching "hammett" in conjunction with "film noir" led me to "Sam Spade" which led me to "The Maltese Falcon" which happens to be on my Ultimate Reading List as WELL as one of the additional lists of films to be watched and categorized. Bam and bam, wheeeee!!
As you can imagine, i've been knocking several things off of many lists and that makes me abundantly happy (see "wheeeee" above).
What does not make me happy is that The Maltese Falcon story was very much less exciting than I had hoped it would be based on my exciting and fruitful journey that led me to that end. Perhaps it is that being written in 1930, and I being of very late 1980's, I just expect a different kind of mystery novel. However I will say this I have never read a mystery novel that has so much mystery and such precise development and plot revelation as this novel. There were so many details that just never led anywhere and i guess having details like "i'll ring the bell four times long short long short" and then not ever having it occur or come to light is what confuses me. I've read most of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries and I've been spoiled by the champ at tying up every loose end and seemingly detached detail. This novel seemed a little loosely created and very quickly twisted to come to a clean ending where Sam Spade is bad ass private detective of the century.
And boy is he!
When I finished reading The Maltese Falcon the next logical step was obviously to track down the original film rendition of the novel and hellooooooooooooooo Humphrey Bogart :)
Well. The film was no different. Which speaks volume of the film for being so true to novel without making a mockery of film or novel. But the sense of unfinishedness and "wtf" was also still there from the novel. And Humphrey Bogart was very bad ass as Sam Spade although.... kind of short? Strange. Either way watching this film some deem the first of the film noir era and watching the novel come to life in a time that I have never seen for myself was definitely something for a Sunday afternoon.
my problem is...
I always stop and obsess over recipes that are dips or casseroles of some kind! Why why why!? there's only two in my house who will eat anything i make therefore considering dips are not adequate sources of nutrition and sustenance and casseroles require multiple days of eating the same thing or multipe people of eating it once, neither kind of recipes are practical choices for me.I just wanna be a foodie~
Is that too much to ask for? I want to read about food, look at food, definitely make the food, then eat the food, then talk about food, and take pictures of food, and write about food! I want to do all of these things! WHY? WHY WHY?! It's just... that I don't have to time to devote to being a total food junkie.I don't even have time to be an anything junkie. I just... can't be a junkie of any kind. I consider this a huge failure and a gaping hole in my life. sad.
Decisions and more decisions
I have to rein in my life and get a handle on my shit for the next couple of months. Like my garden, my life is out of control right now. I've got too many things going on and a ridiculous number of ideas and wants and craziness just stockpiling in the back of my over cluttered, already exploding, little brain.Laundry!
Yesterday was my home-maker day. I found a recipe for making home-made laundry detergent and decided I must try it. First of all, as all of those who ever posted about home-made detergent will say, it is RIDICULOUSLY cost effective to make it yourself. My house pays on average between $20-30 every month and a half for a Costco sized 75 load container. Of course, the estimated load number varies greatly depending on who is actually doing the laundry but $25 for 70 loads is a good estimate. Simple math says we pay about $0.36 every load of laundry that we run. Or, if we are doing sheets or a particularly large loads (like every single one of my brother's loads) then we double or triple the amount of detergent to spend almost $1.10 per washing! Why is this relevant?Because I made approximately 150 loads worth of home-made detergent yesterday for about $9.75. What does that MEAN, math-challenged friend?! That means we're now spending $0.07 per load of laundry. That's still less than a quarter even for every superload of laundry that we do!
Ah, how petty, you're thinking. Why cry over 75 cents (per superload), a dollar's not all that much to pay for laundry.
Au contraire mon ami. Let me show you- I feel up to some calculating today.
$25 for 70 loads every 1.5 months lands you at about 560 loads a year costing $200.
Rounding the number up to assume that my household does 600 loads of laundry a year, the formula that I made yesterday costing $9.75 will make 4 batches of 150 loads worth of detergent. Follow? So that will cost a total of $39 to make. Which means.....
$161 of saving money on SOAP. What a small number yes? False. There is no such thing as a small amount of savings because that is money that you would otherwise be spending when you don't actually HAVE to. And the best part? It takes about 15 minutes to make. What is the start-up cost for all this {you squint your eyes in suspicion)? Ready? $8. Use any bucket or container you have laying around your house to put the detergent in, buy a rotating cheese grater. That's it. If you buy one of those standing cheese graters, your start-up will be $4. If you live in a giant city, your soap will cost about $0.50 bringing your ingredient cost down to $7.75....
How can you say no?
excuse me while i go dance a jig. WINNING!
Home-made Laundry Detergent
Step 1-
Mix in a bucket:
2 parts grated commercial grade laundry bar soap (I.e. Fels-Naptha, Zote)
1 part Borax
1 part Washing Soda
Step 2-
Save money!
Unbelievable. Isn't it? Some people say use a cheese grater to grate the soap. Great idea, if you're super strong, never tire, and have that kind of time. I say cheese grater is an AMAZING idea... if you use the superfast rotating kind that Olive Garden uses. $8 Walmart. Purchase once, save hours.
Recipe #1 : Idaho Sunrise
Yum and yum again!!So, finally beginning with the recipes aspect of this bucketlist, I have created a monster!! A delicious monster! It is eggs, potato, brocoflower, tomatoes, onions, feta, and best of all~~ butter!
As I write this, I await what will be a best brunner ever. You heard right, "brunner." That means breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now, a photo will be uploaded when I publish this post, but be aware that I am writing this before the yolk has fully cooked in its nice little nest of veggies and spud. My stomach is awarbling, my mind is aflutter, and my fingers are jittery from the anticipation. Thank goodness I figured out how to work the stupid gas oven. Well, since I have a few minutes I may as well tell all.
I had some potatoes, sprouting grossness out of its eyes from much neglect by my old roommate. However amidst the monstrosities, I found two beautiful Idaho potatoes. Twinkling as they angelically breathed my name. Now, of course I don't need two potatoes, for I am a small asian girl with a teeny stomach on shy days and only half a man's appetite on my more tenacious days. However tell me this! How can I accessorize and beautify and bring to the prime of existence ONE spud and not its sister?! That is like splitting twins and birth and never telling them that they are not one but two. No, that is like splitting twins after ten years and never telling them where the other is!! I could never. No, sir. Two spuds it is - if for decency I must sacrifice my tummy, heh heh.
The recipe requires baked potatoes and done the right way that would take three hours. Your humble narrator has neither the time nor the patience at this present state of hunger to do anything the proper way quite at the moment so please forgive my lack of decorum as I recall to your horror that I threw these magnificent spuds straight into the old microwave and called it a hard night's work. When finished, I casually sliced off a thin layer off the top, gutted the beauties and dropped into the little nest, some butter, chopped onions, diced broccoli, split cherry tomatoes, a whole egg in each, with a garnish of some feta cheese. Into the oven it goes for about ten minutes as I wait for the egg to become tender and nutritious, all the while preparing my dish of leftover gutted potato (for I am never wasteful) and a nice little salad to go with the fancy tots. I peak in the oven and what do I see?? The feta has browned, the egg has colored and the veggies have the flushed color of joy. Heaven awaits.
And now? I eat. The only thing that comes to mind is.... MMmmmmmm. Not in the Campbell's way, but in the way of a night well spent in a bathtub surrounded by soft music, candles and that really great book you never seem to fall out of love with.
Thank god I made two! Recipe #1 = success.
Politics and stuff
Happiness #13 : The ability to abstainToday an old acquaintance came into my workplace and as is usual of their highly irritating habit, they began loudly showcasing how much they know about past and current political affairs drawing the eyes of those who were hearing such passionate statements being made in a seemingly intelligent manner. Hmm... sounds like... well, me.
HOWEVER! I am proud to announce that today, it was NOT me! and furthermore, I am proud to announce that while I asked a few very general surface questions, I did not ignite and I did not provide the opposing team of what could have been a very controversial, frustrating, and offensive scrimmage. Usually all of the debates I enter, which is usually ALL the debates I am presented with, end that way.
Perhaps I am giving myself too much credit, because when this individual comes along, I cannot deny that I am vehemently repelled by their didactic more-knowledgable-than-thou method of delivering their information, and I very rarely involve myself in a discussion with said individual. So perhaps I was just exercising my usual approach to this person. And yet, I'd rather like to believe that I am becoming more adept at.... how do they say.... "picking my battles."
Instead, I clearly took the "I would like to abstain, thank you" stance, looked over at my co-worker and proceeded to joke inanely about being "swole," making faces, and laughing about how certain supposedly intelligent people were making the most ridiculous and ignorant comments. For me, I think it was a crisis averted. Score: me = 1, political frustration resulting in aggression and anger = 0.
Challenge #2 : Good Samaritan
Super easy challenge. "Solve one person's problem today." Well, I went to work with that challenge in mind and I asked around... luckily, nobody wanted to take up my offer and open an ugly can of worms. For that I am SO so grateful because while I never cringe from a friend who wants to open up, I don't know if my somewhat meh mood was up to the challenge of listening to somebody whine and whine. And usually serious life issues... well, not really serious, but "dire" and dramatic life issues, cannot be resolved within a 6 hour time frame, so it all worked in my favor. But then, as I walked home from work, I realized I had yet to resolve an issue for somebody and there was nobody that I was going to see for the rest of the night except for my roommate.
Uh-oh. Let me just say this: my roommate's greatest tragedies in life consist of very few things.
1) He's broke, or broke relative to how much he would LIKE to have, which is millions, meaning he'll always think he's broke until he hits it BIG;
2) A girl is... and this other girl is... I don't know, because there's this other girl who's really cute.... I just want to be her friend... and that one girl thinks.... and yada yada yada;
3) I'm hungry / I'm so fuckin' tired...
and considering I am beyond the point of broke even more than HIS point of brokeness, I can't really do much for him there. I mean who has millions just laying aside.... and I have tried and tried to help him through his female calamities, but unless I just switch off his brain and pull a wire, that issue is unlikely to be resolved until his testosterone drops below female and even then it's questionable whether his women dilemmas will be over. and I'm not his cook, nor his bed so that sucks for him.
What's a girl to do?! 'Lo and behold. SURPRISE!! at home then, my darling roommate surprises me with a NEW issue that must be resolved! This is my chance- wooot wooot!! What is it you ask? Well, it's not the most impressive issue to resolve, however our kitchen trash had been gathering and gathering for almost two weeks and it was not only smelling up a dead body, but it was overflowing into a sidekick trash bin. As he was cooking and needing to fill up the trash bin all over again, he told me that I could resolve his issue by taking out the trash while he cooked his food. Quite a gender role reversal if I may say so myself, however I was ever too happy to complete my challenge and call it a night! Don't think it was easy! I'm just glad I didn't have rotten fluid mix from two weeks worth of food leaking onto my foot! Blech.
Challenge complete! Next?
Recipes #1, 2, & 3 :
Tempeh Macaroni and Cheese, Quinoa Burgers, Vegetable Tian
I have chosen the first three recipes that I will try. Now I have had to pare down the recipes to try due to my new animal-conscious and environmentally friendly outlook on meat. I am stuck in the middle between wanting to stay healthy and consuming good proteins, and wanting to be less morally reprehensible and less anthropocentrically minded. However, I have come to a few recipes to begin working on other aspects of my bucketlist to jumpstart my life as it is a bit mundane and I am fundamentally and absolutely against mundanity.
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photo taken from thehazelbloom.com |
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photo taken from Linda at eatingwelllivingthin.wordpress.com |
The second recipe is something I am really stoked about: QUINOA BURGERS!! Take the golden food and turn it into something super yummy, easy to store, and reheat and I'm sold!
Just look how yummy it looks!
I cannot wait to try it and believe me I'll let you know all about how scrumptious it is!
photo taken from Pam at fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com |
Recipe links and my own photos will be coming soon I think... I can't wait to start cooking... whenever will I finish everything else?? Ahh.. but that's what keeps life interesting right?
The Bucket List....
I am changing the nature of this blog. Whatever it was, is no longer.As of today, I am setting out on a mini-journey that will only exist insofar as I record it here for the next three years. What is the mission? To accomplish. Things. I guess "accomplish" may not be the appropriate term as some of these really have very little point other than occurring for the sole purpose of me selfishly being able to answer "yes" if anybody ever asks if I've ever ____.
I'm having a thought: Maybe life would be simpler if you do something just for the sake of doing it and attribute a meaning to it after-the-fact instead of trying to find a purpose in order to determine whether or not to do it. Maybe...
So yes. Grand gestures and deep meanings aside, this list was developed in the course of two hours at a menial part-time job, being paid $8.25 an hour to hang out with two aspiring actors, in NYC, at the (nicer) gym offered by my jailer institution NYU, approximately one month after entering the 22nd year of my life (and incidentally, approximately one month before my pseudo-freedom of graduation), just so that by the time I am 25, I will feel slightly more adequately equipped for life because I have these specific "stuffs" under my belt, than I would have had I not guilted myself along for three years to do them. <<< most exhaustive and yet informative single sentence. ever.
So what is this "stuffs" you ask?
1) Knife-throwing
Honestly, I have always felt that once I perfect the art of knife-throwing, my life will be 50% complete. Without sounding too ambitious, I would like to kill a fly by knifepoint. Needless to say, countless hours will show me ludicrously throwing sharp objects at a wall with more clattering noises of knives dully dropping on the floor than the satisfying "thud" of the point embedding nicely into the wall... but we'll see who's ludicrous when I'm able to school anybody in a knife-throwing showdown one drunken night when I'm out with some friends. Three years of preparation for that one night is a completely reasonable justification. Totally.
2) Date a British/Irish/Scottish boy
Well, ok. This one is completely superficial because I want to just spend some time being washed in any one of these accents conversing for hours on end. I will be realistic though. Most likely I will not be washed in the accent because I'll probably be talking so much they won't have room to show off the accent but whatever. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Because we will get there....
3) Be mysterious
Some say an impossibility. I say, catch me on a day when I'm seriously traumatized and there is a tiny possibility that I can fake it. Mystery = Hidden/Secretive/Enigmatic and let's be real. I'm none of those. But perhaps, I will have my day when I am spacing out and in that brief accidental silence, somebody sees me and thinks "wow, she's so mysterious..." Note to self: develop an effective formula for creating "shroud of mystery" and apply until successful.
4) Get a small tattoo
Despite the "oh sure, be like everybody else and get a tattoo, skank" attitude that freely floats around out there in this wonderfully kind world... I don't see the harm in this. Given, the tattoo will need to be well placed and well planned. Tramp stamp is not what I am going for so I feel the skank factor reduces significantly at that point. I have an idea, but as this will be on me forever I give myself three years to truly contemplate. However at the end of three years, the decision will not be "to tat or not to tat" because as you can see by the subheading, it is to actually get a tattoo therefore by three years, I will have had to figure out what image will grace my body for the next 60 years of my life. No pressure.
5) Be in a film
Now you're really scoffing. Hear me out. Nowhere does it say a "famous" film. So shut your disbelieving negative mouth. I figure, I'll just make an appearance in a friend's mini film project and it will forever be out there in the universe. Particularly awesome because it will be in my prime, before I start getting all old-people haggy. I think it's a pretty excellent idea {pat self on the back} yeah....
6) Become certified for scuba-diving
The motivation for this is simple. I want to be somewhere with piercingly blue waters, for long enough to hang around all day in the water looking at awesome fish, and have somebody sign a document stating that should I ever want to purchase a ridiculous amount of equipment and take it with me every time I go on vacation, I am able to go exploring abandoned pirate ships without a babysitter. Like I said, simple.
I have compiled an ultimate reading list that I shall post at a later date. It consists of a little over the titled "250" and is comprised of literature from throughout history ranging from the classics to all-time popular favorites. Most are guaranteed to be tedious and extremely difficult, but that will make the easy reads all the more sweeter when I cross it off the list. I'm thinking I'll emerge out of my 24th year as a kind of Genius. Yes, with a capital "G."
8) 100 days of Happiness
No, this is not me being "rainbows and sunshine." That's actually the end-goal. I am challenging myself to blog everyday for one hundred days documenting one thing about that day that I am grateful for and happy about. This is my deliberate attempt to stop from being such an aggressive and cynical human being. While I love myself no matter how I feel, I tend to love myself exponentially more when I'm in a loving mood. So it'll be a kind of "Where's Waldo" game with myself where everyday I'll have to actively look to see "Where's the Happiness" from that day. My hope is that by the time I can tick this off my Bucket List, I will be able to take notice of everything I am happy about and grateful for like second nature.
9) 300 days of new recipes
One day I will be so adept at cooking and mixing flavors that I'll come up with 300 new recipes but it won't be in the next three years. This is just to make a habit of getting in the kitchen and truly indulging in a favorite, yet underdeveloped, hobby of mine. So the challenge is to find 300 different recipes and make an active effort of cooking all of the new and interesting recipes in three years. That shouldn't be too bad... if I count desserts. I haven't decided on that yet....
10) Learn a new language
Of course everybody has this on their Bucket List. So what makes me think I'll be able to do it when so many people fail? Three words: Pirated Rosetta Stone. That's right, when I've got a copy of the most successful language teaching software at my fingertips in 26 different languages for free, I figure I'm at a huge advantage compared to those who put this on their Bucket List, realize it's going to cost them a pretty penny and change their minds. The only difficulty will be to remain diligent and keep up. But that applies to most of these "stuffs" so therein lies the challenge, and the point of this blog.
So there are the "stuffs" that will be consuming my hours when my hours are not being consumed by eating, sleeping, and earning money somehow to facilitate the eating and sleeping. "Too difficult" you cry! "Impossible" you shout! "You'll burn yourself out" you warn. You may be right, but then again, you really don't know me very well do you?
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So..
you've stumbled into my head have you? Well good luck finding anything worth keeping!! But if you do find something.. may it bring a smile to your face, or a thought to your brain~
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