Public Service Announcement: Puffed Brown Rice

In case you are ever wondering, putting brown rice in your air-pop popcorn maker (circa 1985) will not, in fact, result in homemade puffed rice. It will, however, result in a hurricane of hard dry rice flinging itself into every nook and cranny of your kitchen and into your face.

I'm just glad I didn't start this experiment with the quinoa, which was going to be Phase 2.

Spicy Polenta Casserole

My life right now goes something like this... wake up, drink copious amounts of coffee, go to work, run around all day, come home and watch something really educational like one of the many Real Housewives shows or ANTM (and the girl I liked tooooootally won on ANTM last week- woot!), then I hole up in my room and write grants until midnight while Charlotte stares at me balefully, collapse in bed. Rinse. Repeat.

You will notice that description does not include things "make delicious, creative, healthy meals every night, take pictures of them, and write clever posts about them". My actual dinners are focused more on what I can make that I can then microwave servings of for days on end. Fortunately for you, one of these actually turned out to be super delicious and now you get to read all about it.

What you need:
For the polenta:
1c cornmeal
2c milk (I used almond milk)
1.5c water
1/8c grated Parmesan
1/2c shredded cheese (I used the Trader Joes Quattro Fromagio, which is a staple around here)

For the filling:
a whole lotta chopped cleaned stemmed Kale (or, green of your choice)- probably 6 cups
1/4 onion, chopped
a little oil for browning the onion
1 package "Soyrizo" from Trader Joes*
1/3c water
1 tbsp butter (or, butter-like substance- I used Earth Balance)
pinch of salt (don't need much, what with the cheese and chorizo and all)

*now, you could use regular chorizo, but seriously, have you ever read the ingredients in that stuff? I mean, I'm not a vegetarian, but, man, that stuff is terrifying. The soyrizo is actually awesome, spicy, and unless you are a chorizo aficionado I doubt you can even tell the difference (but, your arteries can!). just try it.

Preheat the oven to 400. Grease an 8x8 baking pan with cooking spray.

First, you're going to make the filling.  Heat the oil, and cook the onion until translucent and soft. Then, toss in the soyrizo (don't put in the casing! it's plastic!) and stir it around. Put the kale in, put in the water (so it can steam a little) lower the heat, and cover the pan. When it is still pretty bright green, but is soft, uncover it and let it sit.

Now, you need to make the polenta (my instructions, and general inspiration, came from the Food Network). Boil the water/milk/salt. Turn down the heat, and slowly pour in the cornmeal, stirring as you go. Keep on stirring it, and it will thicken- you want to keep stirring because if it's lumpy, it'll be gross. It'll become kind of like the texture of boxed cafeteria style mashed potatoes (sticks together, but still stirrable), and then you're done. Stir in the cheese and the butter, and really mix it up.

Next, pour half the polenta in the pan, put in the entire kale/chorizo/onion mixture, and spoon on the rest of the polenta, you'll probably need to spread it around with a spoon. Then, bake it in the oven for 20-25min, it should be nice and golden brown. Wait a minute, then serve!

It was sooo good! Something about the cheeziness and the cornmeal and the spicy chorizo.. mmm. It also microwaved really well (which was important because I ate it for quite a few dinners/lunches that week). This could actually work as a breakfast casserole, it might go well with scrambled eggs. Also, if you want to use it as a side dish you could leave out the chorizo (the original recipe didn't have it). But, honestly, it was delicious, and I wouldn't if I were you. Anyways... try it!

Balcony Garden... back in effect!

Spring is here! Please observe...

 Guess what this is... acorn squash! I would never have really thought of it, but according to the little plastic card from Home Depot, it turns out you can totes grow it in a container, so, I am! I was pretty sure this was never going to work, but low and behold, it has a bunch of (really pretty) blossoms! I kind of thought it was going to be bigger and vinier, but, whatever... I'll take what I can get. I'll keep you posted.

 This one, this one is pretty impressive and has basically nothing to do with me. All the credit here goes to Sheila, the banana pepper plant.  Now, to re cap, Sheila produced at least 50 peppers... along with going in to almost everything I ate last summer, she also contributed to the awesome pepper jelly. Impressive act #1 is actually living through the winter. I'm not gonna lie, I did not do much in terms of helping those guys out... I watered them, but was generally speaking very very lazy about it. Basically, Sheila started to resemble a stick more than a pepper plant, and I grew deeply concerned for her welfare. Long about February I started actually watering them, and Sheila came back from the dead and started to look at least like a stick with leaves, which was an improvement. And then, out of the blue, she started growing more peppers!!! There are 4 on there! Basically, it's official- Sheila is a warrior.

Did you know that lavender blossoms grow in a spiral like this? I didn't, until some of the blooms came off... I love finding secret geometry hidden in nature.

The Famous Donut Muffins

I feel like I have been reading left and right on the internet about these donut muffins. I love donuts as much as the next girl, but they're not exactly something you can have on a regular basis. So, I figured I'd give this whole donut muffin thing a shot- I used a recipe from over at For The Love of Cooking, which you should totally check out if you don't read it already.

The Stuff:
- 3/4 c white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 cup of flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/4 cup of vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup of milk (I used almond milk, it didn't matter much)
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

sugar topping:
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Basically, just mix everything together (I am not organized about that, but you can do wet and dry ingredients separately if you're really vigilant). Grease the muffin pan with cooking spray- don't use muffin cups because it'll ruin the whole ultimate donut-like effect. If you want them to be really round, just make about 9 muffins, or you can be more frugal and make 12. Bake them 15-18 minutes.

Now, for the topping. I made some rolled in cinnamon sugar mixture. Just wait a few minutes after cooking, then roll them around in the bowl. I also decided I wanted some glazed because to me, that is what actually makes a donut. I found this Alton Brown glaze, and it was really good. Now, the recipe he has is huge, I only had half my muffins to do anyways, so used a tablespoon of milk and half a cup of powdered sugar (and there was still extra). I put them on a cooling rack with paper towels underneath, and slowly spooned the glaze over. You can see both types in the picture.

Normally with something like this, I would do things like replace the eggs with egg whites, and reduce the oil, and other similar things. But, I figured the whole idea here was that the texture would be similar to a cakey donut, and I didn't want to mess that up. So, I left it as it was. Honestly, it actually did taste pretty donut like, I don't think you'd fool anyone, but the glazed ones in particular could definitely work for a craving... give it a try!

Not Your Average Steampunk Butler

This is a little off the beaten path topic-wise, but I'm all pumped up about it, so you have to see.

Basically, KidRobot is an awesome store that, among many other things, sells blank Munnys. If you aren't familiar with Munnys they're basically little vinyl guys that are completely blank and you can decorate them however you want. Then, KidRobot has a Munnyworld contest, where you decorate them and submit them to the site. I've never made one before, but Feesh was all excited about it, so I decided to make one for the contest too... in pretty much no time I was all psyched up as well.

Basically, I totally forgot to take a picture of mine when he was blank, so here is the picture from wikipedia, which is probably fancier than anything I'd have taken anyways...

I'd been thinking a lot about what to do, and spending all day thinking about brains at work, obviously the first thing to pop into my head was something that somehow took a look inside the Munny brain. I have all these gears from my recent Steampunk inspired jewelry, so settled on the idea of a Steampunk, gear-headed Munny.

I was afraid to cut his head, so my partner in crime did it, and claims it wasn't hard at all. Then, he primed it using Krylon Spray Primer, and they dried all day. We got enamel paint, which worked really well (we used Testors) and it went on smoothly. I wanted him to look like he was made of brass or copper... as you can see, it is better to take their arms and heads off before painting them, otherwise the areas in the joints won't turn out neatly. It feels a little criminal to rip the Munny limb from limb, but trust me, he'll get over it.

Then, I stuffed his head full of clay, and used that as the base for all the gears. I love how they turned out...

And... here is the final product!

You can see all the other entries here.. it's worth checking out, some of them are really amazing!