Gingerbread [vegan]

    With Christmas fast approaching, I thought it would be appropriate to veganize some of my favorite holiday desserts, though I have admittedly been putting off the endeavor because I like fitting into my pants. Oh well. Merry Christmas.

Winter Kale Avocado Salad

Hello again, blogging.

As perhaps most amply evidenced by my nearly two-month absence, life has been very busy lately. I’ve had little time for cooking and less time for blogging, but I have taken some pictures along the way and can perhaps cobble together the hardscrabble culinary path of the past weeks.

If you’re impatient I’ll just say this salad is pretty heavy-handed with the calcium, the protein, the magnesium, and the B-6. And it tastes amazing. There, you can skip to the end.

Pumpkin Biscuits: hello, Fall.

 It’s fall, and there was a sale on canned pumpkin at the local Food Lion. You can probably guess what that means: pumpkin on pumpkin. Pumpkin in EVERYTHING.

Sausage! [vegan]

Despite recent efforts to live my life less online and more in reality, my best culinary and creative inspirations often come as a result of browsing the net. This recipe was the catalyst of my most recent adventure. It really hadn’t occurred to me that you could do a vegan spin on breakfast sausage without labor-intensive, expensive, or otherwise complicated ingredients like TVP or seitan.

Salted Caramel Mocha Frappe: Pt I

Around the time the other half and I were jaunting around the Boston area for my aunt’s wedding, Starbucks did their thing and released their usual fall flavors: pumpkin spice and salted caramel mocha. Many factors, such as its revolting, distinctly un-vegan ingredients and the fact that the barista/snob in me generally hates the sort of individuals who come in frothing at the mouth over the flavor, abbreviating it to PSL as if pumpkin spice latte crosses some obscure threshold of tolerance is just too much of a mouthful to actually say, rabidly snapping celebratory iPhone pics of their decidedly run-of-the-mill beverages fated to be over-sentimentally hashtagged and posted and reposted to the point of exhaustion, have made me refuse to order the ever-popular pumpkin spice. This is pure pigheaded- and meanspiritedness, because I actually love it.

    My one choice when abroad, therefore, was to suck down as many salted caramel mochas as possible before returning home. This left me with such a spoilt, salted caramel lust that I actually drove to a Starbucks after leaving my job—again, at a coffee shop—to get one of said drinks. It was pathetic, and I was in my uniform still and the Starbucks and I kept exchanging knowing but confused looks. So I staged an intervention. For myself. 

And yes, I know I'm just the salty cousin of all those pumpkin spice hags.

Mom's Banana Bread

 Blogging is a unique opportunity to craft the life you want the world to see, to make everything seem as neat and hip and filtered as Taylor Swift’s Instagram account. And while that’s cool and everything, I’m not so much about that. Mostly because the effort it takes to make things seem pristine and hipster-approved seems like a lot of work to me.

Chocolate Pie [vegan]

This Thursday, I'm thirsty for chocolate. Pie, to be specific.

That's code for "this isn't a drink recipe."

Cake is the accepted standard American birthday dessert of choice. But, as food blogging is increasingly drawing to my attention, I was a petulant, picky child. First I vehemently disliked frosting, then, in a vividly-remembered episode of cake-eating at my paternal grandparents’ house, I discovered that frosting is actually delicious and gave up cake eating in favor of its less healthy topping. Or maybe it was the other way around and I abandoned frosting-eating for cake, all I’m really sure of is that frosted cake in its entirety is something I have long viewed askance.

Beet + Walnut Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing

I’ve been making various incarnations of this salad for almost two years now.

The salad I usually keep very simple: this is actually the most toppings I’ve ever added—the beets and walnuts stand alone, flavor-wise, so if you don’t have any other vegetables on hand, don’t worry.

The dressing I’ve also altered: sometimes I do a simple olive oil and vinegar vinaigrette, often I use Dijon mustard instead of regular, but this time it was the old yellow because I am out of Dijon.

However you spin it, its almost impossible to go wrong as long as you have the foundation of this salad: greens + canned beets + walnuts + dressing.

Beet + Walnut Salad

Serves one as a meal, or two as a side salad

2 cups chopped greens

½ can (or so) beets      

1/8 cup walnuts  

    

Other suggested toppings:

¼ green pepper

½ onion, sautéed in olive oil

2 small radishes, sliced

To assemble:

Prepare toppings, and arrange on lettuce as desired. If you are making ahead of time, do not add nuts until ready to serve, as they will get soggy, and don’t add the sautéed onions until they’re cooled or the lettuce will wilt.

Dress and serve.

Honey Mustard Dressing

2 tbsp mustard of choice

1 tbsp honey

2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar

1 tsp olive oil (optional)

Salt, pepper, and onion powder to taste

Whisk ingredients together. Adjust seasonings as needed.

Friday things: la familia, etc

We've been jetsetting lately. I'm actually in Boston right now.

But here are some snapshots of other goings-ons.

 Jack and I both had birthdays. He gave me a haircut and massage appointment for mine. This is my before hair picture. There is no after.

 I went to see my family: this is Max. Max is mad.

Pomona Green Juice

 I’m having a bit of a green moment, obsessed with this particular shade.

I’m also having a bit of a trying-to-be-healthier moment. Or I was, the morning I made this juice. Which, by the way, I plan on drinking for or adding to my breakfast for the remainder of this week.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Smoothie

This Thirsty Thursday, I'm taking a step away from my usual coffee beverages to bring you a quirky smoothie. Yes. Quirky. 

It's like Zooey Deschanel in a cup.

End-of-Summer Greek Pasta Salad

 It’s happening: the end of summer is approaching. We had a week of chilly mornings and evening here at the beach—basically just enough to get everyone unpacking their sweaters and reawaken unwelcome memories of pumpkin spice madness and Uggs—followed quickly by two weeks of muggy days with temps reaching into the upper 90s. I’m not complaining though, these last throes of summer have found me kayaking on river and sea, getting my money’s worth out of my swimsuit, and stuffing my face with this delicious salad.

Breakfast Enchiladas [vegan]

My handsome sidekick and I recently had several weeks off of work and school. You'd think I would have used this time to do a lot of cooking and blogging, but that wasn't so much the case: we stayed pretty busy with getting settled into our new apartment and procrastinating.

But we did cook some things. It was actually Jack who conceived of these delicious enchiladas. They were inspired by my vegan breakfast scramble, another Hard Times-prompted creation that Jack will actually deign to eat, even in all its healthy/vegan glory. With our recent (accidental) discovery of green enchilada sauce was just begging to be adapted for breakfast, scramble-filled enchiladas were the obvious step.

old apartment memories + moving + life + other stuff happens

We are in the middle of moving and finishing classes and summer jobs and other fun grownup-but-not-completely-grownup stuff.

Life is pretty crazy right now.

So I've had less time for cooking, writing and blogging and related things, but I hope to pick up the pace when we get settled into our new place.

We've been living in an area of Wilmington that makes people raise their eyebrows and gasp when we tell them where it is.

One of my coworkers' reaction when I revealed the location - immediately after he had been talking about growing up in the ghetto - was to raise his eyebrows and tell me,

    "Okay, sweetie, I'm going to need you to do my a favor: don't get shot, okay?"

So far, so good.

Mint syrup + iced coffee

    I’ve been extremely busy the past few weeks, moving to a new apartment, trying to settle in, finishing up my summer class, working, and running countless errands, but there is always time for coffee. Always.

My original plan for Fridays, if I ever really had any, were to have a sort of random collection from the week.

That might still happen. But not today. Today is all about reptiles. Because that's just what I want.

Cuddly reptiles. (That's right: these two are clearly cuddling).

Hiding reptiles.

Sleepy reptiles.

Reptilian bathing beauties.

Look! More cuddling! Aren't cold-blooded squamata the sweetest?

All right, enough scales. Other than creeping on snakes, this is the other thing that has been going on in life recently: moving.

That, and listening to and watching this music video. Literally over and over again. I'm obsessed with the video, which is something like a whimsical, twisted -up salad of Wes Anderson, David Lynch, and tropey 60s horror films.  I sing it loudly every morning at work, which admittedly probably ruins a lot of people's mornings.

Speaking of repeatedly watching music videos: Sia's "Chandelier". The dancing is just splendid, it's been truly enjoyable with each viewing. Yes, I have probably watched it close to a dozen times. Don't judge.