Slightly Psychic Paper…

This is my first foray into the posting from the future options on WordPress. Scoob and I will be celebrating his Wiccaversary tonight (12/9/09), so I’m putting last night’s “dinner” up to keep the blog flowing. Soooo….

Being that last night was “Taco Tuesday” in my mind, I was in the mood for Mexican-esque food. So far on my “Taco…” nights I’ve used potatoes, mushrooms, rice, meat-subs and chili peppers. Most of these have been used as fillings for burritos/tacos, but my favorite, refried beans, seems to always get left out. Most of the time it’s because I already feel guilty enough for stuffing myself with taco fixin’s and sour cream, so I opt to leave out the massively calorie heavy beans. Last night though, I’d decided that my beans were coming off of the “fatty and delicious” list and making their way into “Taco…” nights.

Most refried beans recipes call for lard and bacon as cooking/flavoring agents. I must admit that any recipe that uses lard makes my stomach roll a little bit. In general refried beans aren’t super complicated, but can be time consuming. My recipe that I threw together last night is not only super simple but very low on the end of the time-consuming spectrum. Instead of using pinto beans, I chose black beans and used mine as a dip rather than a side (though they’re pretty much the same thing).

I ate all of my dip before I thought to take a picture, so here’s a hand-drawn rendition of it :3

What You’ll Need:

• 1 16oz can black beans, drained
• 2 cloves of chopped garlic (I minced mine in a blender/food processor to get it really tiny)
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 2 tbsp Tofutti Better than Sour Cream
• 1/4 c Chipotle salsa
• salt to taste

1. Empty the beans into a microwave safe container/bowl and pop them into the microwave for about 2-3 minutes, just to get them softened up.
2. Once the beans are warm and soft (read super freaking hot!) take them out and either use a potato masher or a blender and mush the beans up into a rough paste. I excluded about 2-3 spoonfuls of the beans to add some texture and keep the dip chunky.
3. Add in spices and garlic and mix well. No need to blend it again, just mix enough to get the spices evenly distributed throughout the dip.
4. Mix in the sour cream and salsa and you’re done!

I figure this can be used as a side or a dip or a spread or whatever you’d like really. It’s super quick and simple to make and insanely delicious (in my opinion).

So, I’m a horrible person at keeping this up on a regular basis. :/ I think I’m going to investigate this idea of writing a blog before hand and letting it post on a schedule, you know, for when I get busy at work or with the new Super Mario for Wii.

I think the last posting I have is from Taco Tuesday, and in the rest of the week, I really didn’t cook too much. We had tons of leftovers from Tuesday, so Weds was “OMG delicious nachos” night paired with Animal Crossing and the rest of the week was a bit slapdash, really just throwing whatever we could find together.

Saturday morning Samu, Scoob and I woke up to snow/rain.

Samu scuttled off to work early in the morning, leaving Scoob and I to languish around the apartment all day, sleepy and generally unmotivated to do much more than watch ‘Legend of the Seeker’ on the 360 and drink tea. I did, however, have a tiny spark of inspiration when I first got up to fix scrambled tofu. Scoob had talked about it and we’d been talking about how vegans use tofu and cumin to recreate eggs, at least in scrambled form, so I was curious to test this out, as is my nature.

So Saturday morning found me cracking open a few tins of veggies and whipping up some delicious Tofu Scramble.

What you’ll need:

• Extra firm or firm tofu (either can work, but you’ll just have to squeeze more water out of the firm tofu)
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• 1 tbsp Cumin (makes the egg flavor)
• 1 tbsp Tumeric (gives it a neat egg color, really has very little flavor, so you could omit if you don’t have it on hand)
• pinch of paprika
• 2 tbsp of Dijon mustard ( I use the squirty bottle of Maille)
• 1 tiny can of black olives
• 1 tiny can of mushrooms or a handful of freshly chopped mushrooms
• Olive oil
• Sea salt
• Pepper
• A little grated Follow Your Heart Mozzarella

1. As with most tofu dishes, I started with squeezing out the water from my tofu. I just kind of mushed it between my hands since I was in a hurry and it was supposed to be all chunky and not uniform, unlike most times when you see it in cubes in soups or dishes.
2. Heat the skillet (you might want to get a slightly deeper skillet or even a low pot) and olive oil and add the onions, garlic, olives and mushrooms. Let those cook for a little bit until the onions are tender and clear. (Make sure not to burn the garlic since it’ll make everything taste like roadkill if you do.)
3. Add in the spices to the skillet and mix it up. I save the salt and pepper till the very end and do it to taste usually.
4. Add in the Dijon and mix it around. You could use more or less, I just kind of squirt it in and taste until it’s got the right amount of flavor.
5. Once everything’s good and covered in spices and softened, add in the tofu. Just crumble it in with your fingers, making medium sized chunks. While you’re stirring it, try not to blend, just move it around so that you don’t break the chunks up too much. You may want to add a little water to the pan once it gets cooking to keep the tofu from sticking.
6. Stir and let that cook for about 15 minutes or so, until everything’s covered and soft and tastey. Tofu should be a dull yellow color now and pretty soft.
7. Remove your skillet from the heat and plate your “eggs”.
8. Sprinkle some of your cheese on top and serve!
This makes a TON of food, so I’d make the full recipe for at least four people and maybe a half recipe for two. Doesn’t reheat that well sadly.



So, I’m super behind on this so I’ll post tomorrow about my black bean dip and Saturday night’s spaghetti and meatballs.

by NeedToDestroy | Posted in Breakfast | 1 Comment | RSS

So, I’ve started to schedule my weekly meals so that I have some semblance of structure during the week and can shop during the weekends with a pretty good idea of what I’ll need for everything during the week. Since Samu and I love tacos and Mexican food in general, I’ve made an effort to establish Tuesdays as “Taco Tuesday” with lots of taco makins and various other Mexican-esque foods.

Sadly, last night Samu was working late, so it was just Freedom, Scoob and me with the taco festivities. Normally I’ll Julliene some potatoes, fry them up and have a potato faux meat mixture stuffed inside of a shell or tortilla but I’d been dying to try a Chiles Rellanos recipe ever since I had a veggie one stuffed with Mexican mashed potatoes at Viva in Richmond. Since the mushed potato filling was a little mushy and less than super flavorful, I decided that I’d tweak the general recipe to just include some of my favorite Mexi-Veg food/filling.

I looked up a few recipes online for Chiles Rellanos, which is a pretty common Mexican dish. It normally involves cheese and ground meat stuffed into a skinned chili covered in cheese and tamatillo salsa, so I would just be subbing the meat and cheese portions.

According to the internet, the key to the dish food is blistering your chilies correctly, so that the skin comes off easily but the chilies don’t burn. Blistering chilies kind of sucks if you’re like me and almost guaranteed to touch the side of the outrageously hot baking dish that you’ve put your chilies in. Other than that, not really a difficult dish to make. I’ll break it down in ordered steps so that you don’t have to watch two bits of the recipe at once and risk burning something or someone.

What you’ll need for blistering:

• Baking dish (casserole dish/cookie sheet/anything to put the chilies on close to the broiler)
• TIN FOIL!!!!!!!!! (If you don’t cover whatever you’re blistering the chilies on/in with the foil then you’ll end up with this black/brown liquid from the chilies exploding from the heat that is neigh impossible to get off of your cookware. Took Scoob and me aprox 10 mins scrubbing with a steel wool pad to get most of it off.)
• Pablano chilies (or any other type of big green chili pepper you’d like)

1. Move your oven’s wire rack pretty close to the top broiler. Make sure that there’s enough space to get the chili vessel in and out of the oven without you having to risk your hands, as it will be scorchingly hot.
2. Grease your tin foil once it’s in place on your cookware and arrange your chilies on the foil. Nothing special about the arrangement.
3. Set your oven to broil and let that preheat for a few moments. Once preheated, stick your peppers in on the rack close to the top.
4. Keep an eye out on your peppers to make sure that they’re not on fire. When you can see or hear the skins cracking and popping and they’ve got charred spots on the skins pull them out of the oven and flip them over with either tongs or some kind of kitchenware that’s not your hands, as the peppers will melt your fingers off at this point.

*I was told online to flip the peppers and let them blister on both sides, but mine were pretty blistery on both sides, so you may not need as long on the other side. I’d say that the blistering process took about 20 mins total, but every oven is different.

5. Once the peppers are good and blistery, wrap them in a moist paper towel or cloth and let them sit for a few moments. You could also stick them in a plastic baggy to let them steam themselves a little bit.
6. When the skins seem to come off pretty easily, pull them out of the bags and start peeling. (The skins get a little sticky and the peppers will probably still be hot and possibly still full of liquid, so be careful.) The peppers might start splitting on their own, which is fine, I just made a little pepper sandwich for the ones that had split into two parts.
7. Once you’ve skinned the peppers, slice them open lengthwise and cut the top bit with the seeds off. Clean out all of the seeds and ribs inside and set your peppers aside.

What You’ll Need for Pepper Stuffing

• 1-1 1/2 cups of rice
• 1/2 16 oz can of black beans
• 1 16 oz can of diced tomatoes
• 1/2 onion
• 3-4 cloves chopped garlic
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 2 tbsp (to taste) Goya Adobo seasoning
• 2 bay leaves

1. Prepare the rice. Normally you’d do 2 cups of water to every cup of rice, boil, use.
2. Chop and saute the onion with the garlic in a medium sized pot.
3. When the onion and garlic are tender add in the tomatoes and beans. No need to drain the tomatoes.
4. Add the bay leaves and spices, stir and bring to a boil. Should be slightly soupy, if not, add a little water to allow the ingredients to simmer and exchange flavors.
5. Let this boil for a few moments before removing from heat and adding in the rice. Mix the two together.

At this point you’re pretty much done with the recipe components. For the topping I chose (vegan) Follow Your Heart Monteray Jack Cheese and shredded about half of a block and a green tamatillo salsa that I found at the local international grocery.

Assembly:

1. Grease a cooking dish and preheat your oven to 350.
2. Fill your peppers with the rice mixture and lay them in the dish, trying to close the edges of the peppers to make them into little pockets.
3. Cover with shredded cheese and a little bit of the salsa and pop them in the oven for about 20-25 minutes or so.

*I had some trouble getting the cheese to melt as regular cheese would, but that’s common with the vegan cheese options. From here I’d plate and serve them. They were a great addition to tacos and nachos. They reheat pretty well for work lunches as well.

That’s really it. It seems like a lot of work but it didn’t seem like it to me. The most intensive part was the chili blistering. We had lots of delicious Mexi-Veg food and played Trivial Pursuit and Animal Crossing for the rest of the night. Overall, pretty delicious and satisfying night.

So the GBC #2 turned out kinda meh. I didn’t make this one vegan, due to time, cooking and cost restraints. Whipped it up in the morning and cooked it. Turns out Swiss cheese, the real kind, doesn’t melt for crap and didn’t really blend very well to add to the flavor of the casserole. Turns out the fondue mixture Swiss Cheez that I made earlier in the week blended much better and gave it so much more flavor. Yet another mark in the, “OMG turns out my vegan food tastes amazing” column.

Scoob and I went Black Friday shopping today and pretty much wore ourselves completely out. Throughout the day we attempted to eat and stay fueled since we’d had about 4 hours of sleep total. Our bagels after many hours of shopping only served to tide us over for a few hours. We stopped by the awesomely delicious Sticky Fingers bakery in Colonial Heights, DC and had sweets and “Tuna” melts.

Once home, we had Christmas trees to assemble and shopping days to recover from. I caught the wild hearty soup hare and finally showered and pulled myself out my funk. De-funking required the making of this soup. Pretty simple with super accessible ingredients and maximum rumbly belly pleasing.

So here’s my “Everything in my cabinet” soup.

Cabinet Soup

Ingredients:
1 small onion chopped roughly
olive oil
4 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of water
1 16 oz. can of kidney beans, drained
1 16 oz. can of black beans, drained
1 32 oz. can of diced tomatoes
2 cups of frozen mixed veggies
3 peeled and chopped carrots
1 cup uncooked barley
couple of shakes of Italian spice mix (thyme, rosemary, basil, oregano, marjoram, garlic)
2-3 Bay leaves
sea salt to taste
pepper to taste

Saute the onions in the olive oil. Once the onions are tender shake in your spices and add your broth. I used the Knoff’s bouillon cubes, so I added 4 cups of water and let that boil before I added my cubes.

Add in bay leaves and all the canned veggies and barley. Bring everything to a boil and cover the pot. Let everything simmer for about 15 minutes or so before adding in the frozen veggies. Cover the pot again and let everything cook for another 15 minutes or so.

Soup should be done by this point, just salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot. Enjoy :3

Shy

My new goal for the next few months will be to yet again work on keeping a blog afloat. Not sure what I’m gonna put here yet. Probably more ramblings etc. We’ll see…

So far on today’s commentary:

I’ve battered John’s TV
listened to old chinese people yell upstairs
listened to John’s grumpy noises as his alarms went off and he slept through them.
Attempting green bean casserole #2. In my new found ability to cook and figure out recipes that don’t taste like ass, I’ve been mostly successful, so I plan on moving forward yet again.

So far I’ve mastered:
vegan cookies, vegan pumpkin bread, vegan mac’n'cheese, made-up spinach and artichoke alfredo (also vegan), vegetarian tacos, vegetarian polish sausages and peppers, spaghetti, veggie cuban sandwiches, vegan stuffed shells and tons others and now the green bean casserole.

Tuesday’s GBC attempt was pretty interesting. I made this one vegan as well so that my roommate Scoob could help me taste test it. Started out with having to make a Swiss Cheez to add into the casserole. I found a recipe online from the Uncheese Cookbook and used that as my cheesy filler. I had to edit the recipe a bit, but it wasn’t bad at all, wasn’t swiss cheese exactly, but pretty damn close and pretty damn delicious. I’m finding that I can properly use cooking sherry nowadays and so my food’s not tasting like an old lady’s sitting room smells.

Once we had cheez in hand the rest of the recipe was pretty simple and straightforward. All I had to do was mix and bake. Originally the recipe was a non-vegan creation that sounded pretty good, so I just had to substitute the sour cream for Tofutti Sour Cream, the Swiss cheese for Swiss Cheez and 1/4 a cup of Earth Balance rather than straight up butter. After I mixed everything and stuck it in, Scoob and I sat back with a documentary for about 30 mins until the casserole was done.

Turned out great! So great in fact that I took some to work for lunch on Weds and ate it as soon as I got to my desk >.<

Today's endeavor will be non-vegan since it's hard to find the Tofutti sour cream outside of a Whole Foods and I didn't have the cooking space or equipment to make the Cheez at my Samurai's place. So his family will just have to deal with the normal flavors and higher fat content. I'm sure they'll be quite let down >.>

Anyhow, I think I might start posting some of my successful recipes with photos… really depends I suppose. I’ll have to figure out how to make hoverbox work with word press since I dearly love that website feature, but I might just settle for normal pictures.

Today is mah birfday.

Pirates tomorrow and Saturday.

Friends comin in from everywhere. Costumes and awesomeness.

Haunt starts this weekend, but I’ll be there next Friday. I’m excited^.^

I’ll just throw a few up to catch you all up. You all being… well all 3 people who know about my blog.

6/6/09

Went out to Fburg to see Puck get a tattoo that I designed for him. Had kind of planned to get a tiny one for myself behind my ear… but time did not permit. Also I’m a little dubious of the artist’s ability.

Puck’s chest with my art.

Zaftig ladies LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE body modification. Stacking tattoos and piercings like they’re going outta style.

Seriously, what’s the point of getting a tiny butterfly on your ankle if your ankle’s as wide as my thigh? No one wants to see that insect mural.

Went into DC/MD area later that night. Had foods and movie watching. Saw an extremely late night 3-d showing of UP.

Most. Depressing. Movie. EVAR.

Sunday: 6/7/09

Woke up after a night of drunken stumbling through Georgetown and watching UP. Apparently drunk sleep me enjoys contorting my arms into positions that are not possible sober.

I had some delicious cheesy eggs and toast with GDubbs and we decided to make the 15 minute trek to Six Flags MD/DC.

Got on the wrong side of 495.

Managed to travel on six forms of the 95 roadways. Seriously. Who the fuck designed this shit????

Eventually dashed the idea of Six Flags and decided that the Baltimore Aquarium was a much better idea, in both price and interest.

Baltimore was beautiful and sunny and very nice to be at. The aquarium was freaking expensive. The boats were expensive. Everything was expensive. Even the dragon paddle boats were expensive. wtf.

GDubbs picks up a few movies and we head back to DC. And take the wrong 95 again.

We’ve officially driven 5 hours worth of road today to complete a trip that should average 100 miles tops.

Went home. Slept. Eventful weekend I suppose.

I woke up feeling pretty awesome yesterday.

Sasquatch did not call, so eff him.

In my pleased state, I decided that I would shed my dreary and morose wardrobe and instead wear a lovely white dress and red polka dot shoes to work. The dress makes me feel better since it’s a sz 2 and fits…. except over my butt and hips, but I’m used to that by now. Freedom approves of my dress selection and suggests that I pin the straining buttons at the bottom of the dress to keep the fabric from flashing my junk.Whilst pinning, I stab the ever loving shit out of my thumb, hitting an artery apparently. When I decide that my thumb is good and staunched I go back to arranging myself, including smoothing my dress over my bum. As I go to fix a stray hair, I see that my thumb is covered in blood. As is my ass. So now I have bright red blood on my pristine white dress, and oh, look it’s dripped onto the button area right on top of my crotch.

I manage to get the blood off of my ass but have no time to take care of the stray droplets on the crotch, but blood be damned, I’m late-ish for work and they’re small anyhow.

They are not small, everyone notices my blood crotch. And comments.

Day goes by reasonably uneventfully. Work trudges forward.

The frigging sky opens up and pours its wrath down upon DC around 3.30pm or so. Freedom and I decide to go grocery shopping in the downpour. Freedom is almost run down by a shiny black Mercedes. She wacks the back part of the offending car, which unleashes a short and angry black woman who then hits my car >.> The second end of the grocery shopping endeavor ends at Trader Joe’s were we find that they’ve been robbed, or something. We went for veggies and our selections were as follows: bag of onions, watermelon, bag of lemons. Period.

Dinner with Samas goes well. Delicious faux General Tso’s. On the way home,  the downpour starts again, this time I have to run from my car to the awning in the parking lot. In my thin white dress. As we walk into my apartment, drenched and some of us spattered in now day-old blood, I am shot death glares by old women, probably because I’m now wearing a transparent dress. As I close the door behind me the electricity ominously goes out.

Hurray for wet, chilled, bloody and dark.

Aperture Need,
She’s cute, because she is,
For the good of all the boys…except the ones that are gay…
-Xano

So things have been interesting in the last 72.

Sat: I came to the realization that I’m not cool with this whole serious relationship thing with Sasquatch. Being at Busch Gardens kind of clicked it all into place, as I watched every couple combination that the Heavens could possibly imagine kissing and cuddling and ooh-ing and ahh-ing. As Freedom agreed, seeing people do cutesy things when you cannot makes you want to stab them. A lot. Anyhow this planted the notorious “Seed of Doubt”. And so I began to mull.

Sun: Slept. All day. Seriously. Well except for a 2 hour period in which I woke up, got a waffle, retrieved my new parking decal, attached my license plates and then went back to sleep.

Mon: I wake up in a fantastic mood. Could be all the sleep I got the day before. Who knows? I send cute and endearing messages to Sasquatch. I get nothing back.

Get to work; the day is looking pretty good. Boss is in a good mood and I actually start to accomplish a lot. Still nothing from Sasquatch. Now, he has professed his love to me for the past 3 weeks, which in and of itself is creepy and a little presumptuous since he’s only seen me once in the past 3 weeks. So I figure someone who loves me so desperately, could at least send me a smiley face or something.

As we all know, Bitches love smiley faces.

By noon I’ve spoken with my counsel and it has been decided. Sasquatch and I are parting ways. I need attention and he has no time to give it. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, just a busy one.

Anyhow, on the way home Freedom and I talk about the issues at hand and decide that I am too young and cute to be tied down with someone who makes me wait around all the time with pretty much nothing to show for it. I put in the text that we need to “talk” and through a series of texts and a very short phone call where he hangs up on me (>.>) the relationship is over. Now I feel bad because I had to hurt someone’s feelings.

To combat feeling bad I decide that I will take GDub up on his offer of drinking and movie watching. Half a bottle of Goslings and three eps of X-Men later, I’m smashed and it’s time for me to sleep it off.

I wake up at 6 a.m. on the bloody dot. I contemplate going back to sleep but realize that I feel like crap and so I cannot. I leave the sleeping GDub and take Arcci to work.

Upon getting out of my car, around 6.30 a.m. I’m hit on by a homeless man. Within 5 minutes, I’m hit on by a wandering youth as I enter my building.

I see my reflection in the elevator as I ride up, and honestly I wouldn’t fuck me. But hey, maybe purple hair sticking up at odd angles and a haggard expression is just what the mens are looking for.

Yesterday was pretty much great.

Found Hedge food at Petsmart. Pew does not like it :/

Got my nails done at a wonderful salon in Alexandria. $90, but I got nails, pedicure and eyebrows. And the woman was super nice so, bonus there.

Saw Wolverine with Puck. Theater for some reason figured that the 5p showing of the movie wouldn’t bring anyone in, so they put it in the tiny room… so we got to enjoy the show from the very front row >.> I wound up laying down in my seat with my legs stretched out into the front aisle. It was that or vomit from all of the close up movements.

Drove into DC and played “where the fuck am I?” with the GPS for about 45 mins. GPS haet round-a-bouts.

Show up to the Place and help set up. Snag some foods and wander about the party talking to people I know, meeting new people. Crazy Jaw boy attempts to flirt with me at the door. I’m obviously not interested, so he goes and sulks at the bar. 15 mins does not go by without someone telling me how photogenic I am. Apparently, I’m photogenic :/

Hung out with DJ Rex from London… Very cool guy. We spoke alot about English stuff since I don’t really know what else to talk about… but he didn’t seem to mind, since he’s kind of an expert on it… he spun at Midnight… which is just amusing as shit… since well, cake and gothapottami. He should’ve spun our party.

Drove Arcci home and snagged an egg sandwich at Barnside before coming home and collapsing in a heap of tired and down blankets, listening to Dexter.

Overall, pretty awesome night.