Etsy Shop Update- A New Direction!

I want to take an ever so brief break from posts about cooking to give you a little update on what's been going on over at my etsy shop. The basic idea is still the same- a mix of natural materials and metal, with clean organic shapes and a modern take on things.

But, recently I've been having some fun playing around, and have a new line of pieces with just a little more edge. With the addition of some gears, and some darker metal, the new pieces are a little edgy, and just have a little bit of a steam punk like feel, which is kind of fun.

Check it out!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/68892099/industrial-wood-necklace

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/54746600/gear-drop-earrings

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/68540110/series-of-gears-earrings

 

http://www.etsy.com/listing/68539040/butterscotch-chains

But, never fear... the new things haven't replaced any of my old favorites- in particular, my best sellers, the line of tiny pearl earrings (I have a pair and seriously have worn them pretty much everywhere), and the Tear Drop series of wooden earrings with various beads. 

 

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/57888221/simplicity-pearl

http://www.etsy.com/listing/54969768/festive-teardrop-wooden-earrings

Anyways, just thought it'd be fun to share my non-cooking activities of late!

Barbecue Popcorn- A revelation.

I have recently confessed my love of all shapes and sizes of cheap gummy candy. As long as I'm confessing my terrible food loves, I might as well tell you the next one... barbecue potato chips. I can't even buy these things, and I can barely even be in the same room with them. I loooooove them. Unfortunately, eating vats of potato chips does not fall in line with my attempts to eat healthy, whole foods.

However, today I made an amazing discovery. Behold... barbecue popcorn:

It turns out, a very simple spice mix, sprinkled on popcorn (with a bit of the healthy oil of your choice or butter to get it to stick), actually does a decent job of mimicking the bbq flavor, with way WAY less calories and fat than there are in a bag of chips. This is barely a recipe, but I thought it was pretty yummy and definitely worth sharing:

The stuff:
1 regular size bag microwave popcorn (OR an equivalent amount of normal plain popped popcorn).
1 tsp paprika (I used half regular, half smoked paprika)
.5 tsp brown sugar, packed
.5 tsp salt (reduce this by half if you're using microwave popcorn, because that stuff is already pretty salty)

What to do with it:
Pop the popcorn (duh). Mix together the spices thoroughly. Put a bit of oil (I used an oil mister) on the popcorn and stir/shake, then sprinkle on the entire batch of spice mix, tossing the popcorn as you go.


That is it! This will probably be my go-to snack in the face of a barbecue potato chip craving, and makes a fun twist on popcorn (which, by the way, is a very budget friendly snack if you buy it and pop it yourself) that you could easily serve to a group of people for a football game (or, more likely around here) an Oscars viewing event (my particular Oscars viewing event is all planned out, we are intending to focus 99% of our attention on awesome dresses and on George Clooney in a tux, because George in a tux is timeless. And maybe a little bit on Mark Ruffalo in a tux, just because he's adorable. The point is, we have our priorities in line). Anyways, whenever you eat it... enjoy!

Super Quick White Beans

This dinner was just a quickie, thrown together out of things that I had on hand, but it was pretty good, so I figured I'd share it just to show that you're never in quite as dire straits as you think...

What you need:

-1 can white beans (cannellini beans or white northern beans, or white kidney beans), drained and rinsed

-a few handfuls spinach, or if it is all you have, frozen spinach

-walnuts (toast them, seriously)

-half an onion, chopped

-1 sausage (I used Trader Joes chicken sausage)

-garlic, about a tsp

-a bit of olive oil

What to do with it:

Saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil until soft. Add sausage and cook until done or heated (depending on what kind of sausage you're dealing with, mine was cooked already). Dump in can of beans after draining/rinsing, including a few tablespoons water. Stir around and heat up. Toss in the spinach, heat until wilted (or melted if it is frozen). Serve, and top with toasted walnuts.

This entire process takes about 10 minutes, which seriously is not bad at all, and very handy for a week night. I think all of it went well together, but toasting the walnuts really makes it delicious and also makes it taste like something that took a lot longer to cook (of course, I'm also obsessed with toasted walnuts right now and am putting them on everything and keeping a big bag in the freezer at all times, so I may be biased, but, still, you should do it). Anyhow, if you have basic ingredients on hand, this could be your dinner! Also, obviously, you can leave out the sausage and vegetarian-ize the whole thing.

A Valentine's Day Confession

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day to you.

There are a lot of things someone could potentially discuss about Valentine's Day, and a lot of people have a lot of opinions.... it's corny, it's romantic, it's too commercialized, it's romantic precisely because it's corny, and despite being commercialized... I could go on. But, know what? I won't. Because that is just not what this blog is about.

Instead, I am going to use this day to reveal my deep dark Valentine's secret. Just brace yourself.

A lot of people love the holiday because one byproduct of commercializing it is that there is a vast array of Valentine's Day candy available starting immediately after Christmas. Most people get excited about heart shaped boxes of delicious chocolate. And don't get me wrong, I do love chocolate.

But, meet my kryptonite, my Achille's heel...

cinnamon gummy hearts.

It may actually be the lowest form of candy, which I will readily admit. It's available almost solely at large pharmacy-type stores, and cost something like 99 cents a bag. And, to me, it is like crack.

I already love the cinnamon-gummy-heart's kissing cousin, the sugared orange slice candy. In fact, if I am alone at an airport, and facing a stressful situation (i.e returning from exhausting job interviews, which has happened a few times recently) the orange slice is my top choice. But, the cinnamon gummy heart is CINNAMON, which puts it over the top. It's like the orange slice and Hot Tamales had a glorious glorious baby.

I think it is probably for the best that these are only available for one month of the year.

Kale Chorizo Soup

This recipe was made by special request of Feesh (my co-gardener across the city), who got extremely excited when kale appeared in my CSA box and immediately requested kale-chorizo soup. And, who am I to deny something that sounds so delicious?

The stuff:
1 onion, chopped
~3 tablespoons olive oil
1.5 lbs white potatoes, thinly sliced
8 cups water or low-sodium chicken broth (I used half and half)
.5 lb Spanish chorizo (spicy cured pork sausage), cut into 1 cm cubes*
a big bunch of kale, washed, with spines cut out, leaves roughly chopped

What to do with it:
In a large soup pot, start the onions, and add the chorizo. Once the chorizo is pretty much cooked, add the potatoes. Then add the liquid, and cook until the potatoes are tender- break some of them up to release the starch and thicken the soup. When everything seems ready, add the kale and just let it get soft. Then, serve!



*Ok, so here is the dilly with the chorizo. Basically, chorizo is not just chorizo- there is Spanish chorizo (which this recipe actually called for) and Mexican chorizo (which we used, because we are in LA, and you can't swing a stick in the sausage section of the grocery store without hitting some Mexican chorizo) and soy chorizo, which you could sub here, but I believe it is closer to the Mexican variety. What is the difference, you ask? Well, I'm not going to claim to be a chorizo expert and I'm certainly not interested in thinking too deeply about exactly what is in it, but I have learned this... Spanish, or Portuguese chorizo is firmer, and can be more easily chopped while Mexican chorizo is ground, has a softer texture and is spicier. Theoretically, you can't normally cross- substitute them (although, I did learn that in a pinch, you can actually chop up ham and season it with smoked paprika to approximate Spanish chorizo). However, in this recipe I'm here to tell you that the Mexican version worked just fine (which I assume means the soy version would also work just fine), so... do what you will!

Baked Squash, Sauteed Spinach and Shallot-Walnut Risotto

I've been posting a fair number of meaty dishes lately, so figured I'd throw the vegetarians a bone. Well, a bone is probably the last thing they want. This is me, throwing them a chunk of tofu. Except, really, there is no tofu involved and I'm out of analogies, so I'm gonna skip to the good part and show you the dinner:

This is definitely a Sunday dinner type of meal... there is nothing quick about it. But, it is a very warm satisfying meal to fortify you as you prepare to head out into the no-man's-land of Monday morning, and I thought it was delicious.

Risotto:
-1c arborio rice (there was a lot of price variation here, one container cost $8 and one cost $3- obviously I bought the $3 one, but I have no idea if there were ramifications from that.
-.5c white wine (a good tip if you don't want to have a whole bottle open is to use those small bottles at the grocery store for cooking)
-approximately 4c of the broth of your choice (veggie or chicken)
-2 shallots, thinly sliced
-a few tablespoons of the butter product of your choice (I used Earth Balance)
-1/3-1/2c walnut pieces, toasted
-sprinkle nutmeg
-1/3c almond milk or milk of your choice


Squash:
- 1 decent sized acorn or kabocha squash (I used Kabocha), cut into quarters or eighths depending on size
-2 tbsp butter product of your choice
-1 tbsp brown sugar
-pinch ground red pepper
-pinch nutmeg

Spinach:
-a few tablespoons leftover broth
-as much spinach as needed
-half tsp garlic
-few drops balsamic vinegar

What to do:
I'm going to do this not categorized by ingredient, but in the order I think you should do them to actually get this all done around the same time.

1. put the shallots in a large pan with some of the butter, and cook very low, to begin to carmelize- this will take a while
2. after shallots are started, slice up squash

3. Combine butter, sugar, pepper, and nutmeg in a small bowl, and rub onto each slice of squash
4. Place slices in a pan, and bake at 400
5. put walnuts in, to toast- take out when browned (much earlier than squash- watch this)

likely there will be a delay here, while the shallots caramelize and the squash bakes. when the shallots are very soft and brown, keep going:

5. pour broth into a sauce pan, and warm it up, so when you add it to the risotto, it is warm
6. pour wine into shallot pan, and cook for a few minutes so alcohol can burn off.
7. add rice, and cook for about 5 minutes, until lightly brown
8. start the process of gradually adding stock using a ladle, and stirring it until each spoonful is absorbed. I believe it is this slow process that lets the starch come off of the rice and thicken the mixture- you'll notice that the stock in the pan does look somewhat thickened as it cooks
9. keep going until the risotto is soft, but still a little firm. Then add in the walnuts, nutmeg, and almond milk, and stir in.
10. very quickly, use the remainder of the broth in the sauce pan to sauté the spinach-  just toss in a little garlic, throw in the spinach, and let it wilt.When it is wilted, sprinkle on a little balsamic vinegar.

To serve, spoon out risotto, serve spinach, and add the squash... yum!

A Little Splash of Color

Everyone should have a pair of bright purple shoes. Just saying.

Afghan Pumpkin- Part II

   I posted a while ago about my first attempt at an Afghan Pumpkin dish... as you may remember, I found it overly sweet and was a little disappointed. Never one to give up on half a pumpkin, I continued onwards... most of the pumpkin recipes I saw online were either the one I initially posted, or this one, which has the same pumpkin preparation, with the addition of lamb in tomato sauce. 

I wasn't really feeling the whole lamb thing, so as usual, hacked something together out of things in my cupboard, in this case, lentils and textured vegetable protein (TVP) which is an excellent substitute for ground meat in almost all contexts.

"Meat" sauce:

1/3c lentils, cooked (boil them until they taste reasonable, not too many directions there).

1/4c TVP, soaked in water to rehydrate

1/2 onion, chopped

1/2 red pepper, chopped (because I had it... optional)

1 small (8oz) can tomato sauce

1/2c water

~2 tsp fresh ginger or ginger paste

2 tsp garlic, chopped

1 tsp coriander

oil for browning

Basically, brown the onion and red pepper in the oil. Toss in the lentils and TVP, then the liquid ingredients and spices. Cook until it makes a nice sauce. If you're in a carnivorous mood, just use ground lamb or beef.

 

To serve, make some brown rice or other grain (I used the frozen brown rice from Trader Joes), heat the pumpkin from recipe 1 (http://yellowfishblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/afghan-pumpkin-part-i.html) and put it over the rice, being sure to get some of the sauce. Then, top that with the yogurt sauce (as a reminder, it was the easiest sauce ever- basically, just yogurt, garlic and salt), and then finally with the 'meat' sauce mixture.

 

This was vastly superior to the first version... it actually was a really interesting mixture of sweet (the pumpkin), savory (the tomato mixture), and tart (the yogurt sauce). I actually liked it, which was a big improvement from Recipe I which was just to sweet for me to eat. The main barrier between me making it again and not is that honestly, dealing with that pumpkin was a giant pain. I think you could probably do something similar with butternut squash, and that I might try. At any rate, its a really unique taste experience, a cuisine you don't run into every day, and in general is worth giving it a shot! 

*this version is vegetarian, if you came up with some replacement for the yogurt, it could become vegan, but I would absolutely not leave out the yogurt sauce entirely, it added a lot to the overall experience, particularly cutting the sweet of the pumpkin.