A Dinner Out and a MoFo Wrap-Up

It looks innocent enough.

When I first realized that not only were some of my childhood food allergies back, but that I had also gained some new ones, I considered going raw. I was thinking that, particularly in the case of gluten, raw might really work for me. But then I contemplated that 50% of raw recipes contain sesames or tahini and wondered what it would be like paying $3000 a month for produce in the middle of winter. I quickly abandoned that plan. I still enjoy a good raw meal from time to time, though, which is why I was kind of excited that my friend wanted to check out Bonobos for dinner last night. That, and because if you have a brownie for breakfast you have to do penance at dinner by eating nothing but vegetables and fruit. (You didn’t expect me to freeze them all did you?) I quickly selected a nutmeat patty on a nice platter of veggies and some coconut water.

Raw vegetable goodness.

I Could Live Without It

Fall scramble with butternut squash, sage and mushrooms.

Every time I am faced with the horrible hypotheticals that limit my food choice (deserted island, last meal, etc.), I never say tofu scramble and yet it is probably the food item I eat most often. Sometimes I eat it out of necessity. It’s commonly the only gluten-free option on a weekend brunch menu. Who am I kidding. Restaurants that normally make nothing but vegan food during regular hours (with the odd bit of soy cheese with casein here and a little cow’s milk for coffee there), suddenly become such egg pushers during the brunch hour that the scramble is frequently the only vegan option (yes, Bliss, I’m talking about you and I don’t care what that reviewer “Joshua” said, the scramble there is just a’ight).

Chocolate and Blueberries

I had to have a little taste.

I love to bake, but I have to admit I hate having baked goods in my house. You know that trigger that exists in your head, the one that says “Stop Eating”? Baked goods turn mine off for some reason. I’m not the only one. Whenever my mom would make a Company Cake, the minute Company exited our front door, my mom would throw what remained of the Company Cake into the trash can. I’m not as strong as my mom. I have to flush remaining Company Cake down the toilet.

Things You Don’t Say to a Knitter

I’m going to pretend that it didn’t hurt a little when I wound “Deeper Shade of Soul” into this cassette tape yarn ball.

There are things I keep because they remind me of events or people, things I keep because I think they’ll be useful one day and things I keep because I don’t want them to end up in a landfill. Three bags packed with cassette tapes that I’d collected over the span of a couple decades had become a bit of all three. I haven’t had a cassette player in years, yet I couldn’t convince myself to throw the tapes out. I kept telling myself, despite the fact that I was sure the sound quality would be subpar, that I would buy the necessary equipment to turn them into mp3s. Or that I would, at the very least, get nicer storage units for the tapes and a player so I could use them again. But, truth be told, they’d been languishing under my former couch for a couple of years now. I decided it was time for them to go. But when I told my friend that I knew that there was a service that would recycle unwanted CDs and CD cases, but that I didn’t think there was a parallel service for tapes, he said: “Why don’t you turn the tape into yarn?” I’m sure he was kidding, but then he noticed that far off look on my face.

Long Weekend Wrap Up

I never contemplated how difficult it could become to do weekday MoFo posts while at work because, well, I never contemplated that I might have to do things at work. So, predictably, I’ve fallen behind and my crafting posts have been relegated to mere captions on flickr. But there really has been a lot going on both cooking and crafting. This post will just be cooking, though, because I don’t have enough time to cover crafting today.

The obligatory Thanksgiving meal (part 2) money shot. The rest were blurry. Blame the bottle of syrah and the brandy. I bought the brandy for figgy pudding, although the hard sauce did not happen. More on that to come.

Obligatory re-use of Thanksgiving leftovers. Here I manage to whip together some beanballs, some horrifically common but always divine butternut squash-sage risotto (I really do need to find another risotto that screams winter, though) and dandelion greens. I’m trying to like the bitter greens, but they aren’t growing on me even when they’re overly sauced. The leftover part? I used my cranberry relish in place of grape jelly in that old omni meatball favorite recipe.

I’m playing with making fake omelets that I can eat. This was good. It crisped up on the outside only. It was deliciously creamy on the inside. I served it with some nice balsamic mushrooms and faux cottage cheese. I don’t think the omelet or cottage cheese are quite there, but they were pretty tasty.

Brunch, part 2, wherein I try to be healthy by grilling baked potato slices rather than frying them in copious amounts of oil. As seen with a caper-dill “yogurt” sauce. Creamy was very satisfying.  I’m still craving home fries, though.

I’m testing for FreckleFoot and managed to make her spicy yogurt marinade on frozen tofu right before Thanksgiving. Phenomenally good. And really spicy if you grind your own chili powder from dried Thai bird chili peppers.

I think the scariest part of this entire post is the fact that I took the first shot in my own apartment and I can’t even figure out where the set up took place.  I live in a one bedroom apartment.  I clearly hit the brandy bottle one too many times.  I’m glad I decided not to roast those chestnuts . . .