Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Veg Stir Fry with Cashews

The delicious plump cashews given to us at Christmas really made this dish extra special!



Veg Stir Fry with Cashews
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 1/2 blocks (3/4 package) Trader Joe's Baked Tofu
  • 1 1/2 cups broccoli
  • 1 big carrot
  • 1/2 bunch of asparagus
  • 1/2 portabella mushroom
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup vegetable stock
  • 2 Tbsp Braggs Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce)
  • 1 Tbsp fish sauce (can be omitted for Vegan and Vegetarian Option)
  • 1 Tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp corn starch
  • Fresh Ground black pepper
  • 1/3 cup large cashews
  1. Prepare veggies the way you like it. Chopped fine or left chunky.
  2. Whisk the stock, braggs, fish sauce, vinegar, corn starch, 1 Tbsp sesame oil and pepper to taste in a small bowl. Set aside.
  3. Over medium-high, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large pan or wok, with 1 Tbsp sesame oil.
  4. Begin sauteeing the veggies, starting with the carrots. When those are starting to brown, add the remaining veggies, leaving the chopped garlic for last.
  5. When the veggies become tender to your liking, add the chopped garlic, and stir until fragrant.
  6. Stir the sauce one last time in the bowl before adding to the pan, to distribute the corn starch evenly. Add to the veggies and stir until coated and the sauce begins to thicken.
  7. Add cashews and serve over hot rice or noodles.
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Monday, December 22, 2008

Turned on by Chocolate. . .

Ooooh, I have been waiting to blog about this for the week and I just can't take it any longer!!! I have been a baking machine over here. I guess you would call that an oven.

Check out these truffles, ya'll!!!! It's a very basic recipe, and I searched the internet and found several recipes. You MUST make it with good chocolate. What is good chocolate? Well, it's the best kind you can get your hands on. I used some Ghiradelli, Cadbury, and also some Bakers Chocolate, cuz that's what our Food Lion and Martin's down the road has. So what I'm sayin' is that you just shouldn't use crap. Although some people might call the aforementioned shitty chocolates.

Ya melt the chopped up chocolate using hot heavy cream. Now ya know how to make a ganache! Stir n stir until it is shiny and glorious looking then let it chill. I did mine overnight with the first batch, but discovered it was quite firm, and didn't scoop out beautifully like it did for Ina Garten. I ended up pushing the chocolate in the melon baller with some force. The first batch ended up looking like real truffles--the ones that look like little turds.

The second batch was where I got a little bit better. I let the ganache cool in the frig for about 2-3 hours, poking it now and again to see the viscosity. I tried to temper the chocolate. I say tried because I still don't know if I did it right. It didn't quite "snap" like they say tempered chocolate will do. All I can say is that they are freaking delicious. And that's really all that matters.

I topped mine with Celtic Sea Salt, chopped pistachios and walnuts, cocoa, and some white chocolate.

I have to share with you the sensuous feeling of feeling chocolate dripping off your hands. Oh my goodness! Silky, warm, sweet chocolate, oozing down my wrists, warmed by my own body heat. . . I didn't realize that the correct temperature for tempered chocolate is actually a bit on the cooler side. I spooned some melted chocolate in my hand, then rolled the ganache balls into them. So it's not like you melt in the microwave and dip away. No no no. To get REAL looking truffles, ya gotta put some love into it.

It was also a lot of fun letting hubby clean my fingers of the melted chocolate. . ..

Chocolate was all over the place. Slung onto the countertops and floor by my rolling motions. . . :)

There were other treats made, too, but Santa only comes once a year. You'll hear about these soon.

UPDATE: I am freaking out! The picture of my truffles is featured on Foodgawker! Yay!!!

Update 12/2011:
You can order these AWESOME fair trade, organic chocolates from Sweet Earth Organics and they will ship as quick as you'd like! Pin It

Friday, December 19, 2008

Last Mintute Christmas Cards

I bought a beautiful set of Christmas cards from Etsy, and they are so freaking cute!! Stephanie from She's So Creative makes some really funny cards. I'm definitely gonna hit her up again for some cards in the future. . . All of them were really funny! I especially liked this one:


Anyways. . .I wanted to share the couple of cards I made this year. After running out of the kick-ass new set of cards, I busted out the Christmas cards from last year. Along with my handy-dandy tip of cutting out portions of used cards to make hanging tags, I'm now going to let you know that you don't HAVE to keep those cards. Noone's gonna know you cut it up and sent it off as new to someone else. Well. . . unless they are reading this blog. . .

Here's what I made:

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Barley Pasta Bake


I used about a cup and half of cooked barley, and probably about the same amount of cooked pasta.

In a pan, I sauteed half an onion in some butter til soft. I added some leftover veggies, including some broccoli rabe and roasted broccoloflower from last night.

As the usual white sauce method goes, or, if you aren't so smart in the cooking department (ie: make it by the box kinda shit), that means you throw in some flour, then some kind of liquid. I used a splash of cream sherry and some milk. Bring 'er up to a boil and get all thick.

Add some cheese. I used about a cup of cheddar.

Stir in the barley and pasta, throw it into a dish and bake it til it gets all bubbly and makes you wanna dive right into it.


Tonight we got take out from the mexi joint. Maybe it was because I was so goddamn hungry, or that it was just the right temperature--but that was like the BEST fucking burrito I have ever had.

I'll bet it was because yesterday, we got snow, which turned to this early this morning. This purdy little red berried shrub turns a gorgeous crimpson in late summer. Holla at me if you know what the hell it is.

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Friday, December 12, 2008

Slapping your Camera Upside the Head

You might all be complaining about shit like, "I need a new camera" because your pictures suck so bad. I'm here to tell you that you don't need to. (all the while enjoying my 2 month old camera)

This is a little post about using your camera for what it's worth. Just like most things in life, everything you need for your camera is hidden right inside of it. LEARN your camera, folks. Try different settings, just for the hell of it, and guess what? You might just come across something worthwhile!

For example:

This shot was taken at a high ISO of 800. I'll be honest with you and tell you that I don't know what the hell ISO stands for. In a minute, I'll Google it.

This next one was taken at 100 ISO. Obviously it makes a big difference.
I'm sitting here sipping on my hard ciders, looking at the 2 photos and it doesn't look like much of a difference. What the hell is she talking about?? Maybe when I publish this it will be a lot more obvious with the larger pics. (note: click on the pictures to see what I'm talkin about . . .)

I thought the first picture looked grainy. In the second photo, those shroomies look a lot more succulent. Read: more lickable.

On a side note, that soup kicked some MAJOR ass! I deglazed the pan with some cream Sherry after sauteing the mushrooms, and it was so good. That really made a huge difference in flavor. Gave it a more "meaty" texture, if ya wanna call it something. I wish I had some now. . .
You should have seen my first attempt at the cheese toast. Hubby said, "is the house burning down?" when I came from the kitchen at 11:30 am to make sure he wasn't alarmed. . . The last remaining birds outside, peeking in, must have thought this woman was crazy, fanning the smoke detector with a broom. . .


Anyways, back to the pictures. . . . I have actually unsubscribed to blogs because their pictures sucked so bad.

Call me a photo snob if you want, but I want good pictures, damnit! If you're gonna waste your time on here, you may as well make your shit look as good as you can. Ya'll don't have to know what lies beyond the little placemat with the bowl of scrumptious soups. . . Pin It

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Crackerhead

Note that I did not name this CRACKHEAD, because I am FAR from that. I think someone might call me a crackerhead, having made these. Crackers are what I'm talking about. No, they're not water crackers. What a stupid fucking name for crackers, anyways. MMMhhh. .. Crispy Water . . . Doesn't that sound scrumptious! Sorry, but I gotta have a little somethin' more when I'm noshing on crackers (usually with cheese).

These Crackers definitely fit into that. Yeah, people are probably gonna freak out and say, "You made these?" Sandra Lee, you better run for the trees! Cuz I bet her cracker recipe would be brushing butter on top of store-bought crackers and dipping into meatoloaf seasoning mix.

From All Recipes; Their website kicks ass, by the way. One of the reasons I love that site so much is the reviews for the recipes. Sure, it may look good, and might sound easy, but how is it really? I want to know about that kind of shit. I think it's hilarious when people totally rip up someone elses recipe.

Whole Wheat Crackers

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup water
  • salt for sprinkling

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. In a medium bowl, stir together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Pour in the vegetable oil and water; mix until just blended.
  3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough as thin as possible - no thicker than 1/8 inch. Place dough on an ungreased baking sheet, and mark squares out with a knife, but don't cut through. Prick each cracker with a fork a few times, and sprinkle with salt.
  4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp and light brown. Baking time may be different depending on how thin your crackers are. When cool, remove from baking sheet, and separate into individual crackers.
Notes:
I did end up baking my crackers a bit longer than suggested. Some of the thicker pieces were still kind of bready when I baked it for the suggested time. I will also roll these out thinner next time. You can use a pasta machine to get these totally even. But I think the un-evenness of hand-rolling it out lends a more interesting texture.

I also added 1/2 tsp onion powder to the flour and mixed that in before I added the liquid.

Vary the toppings if you like. I bet garlic powder would be good, and sesame seeds would probably kick-ass! Imagine how good "everything" homemade crackers would be!!!


These will blow any store-bought cracker into the water!!!
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Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Recent search results

Here ya go, folks. Do you ever wonder why the hell people are looking at what they are looking at? Well I do. Call me nosy, or just a friggen loser, but whatevs. . .

From Salt Lake City, UT: Bitchen Tree Skirt
Ljubljana, Slovenia: Dextrin Korner files
Portland, OR: Festival express shirt
Phoenix, AZ: Parody she'll be comin around the mountain
Ft. Myers, FL: fleece panties
Springfield, VA: vegetables thats on the Potomac River
Los Angeles, CA: Bitchen cook
Baltimore, MD: Bitchen Stitchen in MD
Aurora, CO: Bitchen Peacoat

I'd like a Bitchen Peacoat!!! and fleece panties sound mighty cozy. . . Then you can tell everyone else they are literally freezin' their butts off with their lame cotton drawers!! Pin It

Monday, December 1, 2008

Blog Reader FAILURE

Oh, how I love the FAIL blog. Basically I'm a blog whore nowadays. Each morning I spend at least a couple hours reading e-mails, myspace, and Blogs. I also spend time in my Etsy shop each day. But reading blogs has become a relaxing time for me; catching up with some of my crafting friends, drooling over food pics, and cracking up at some of the funniest blogs there are.

Some of my favorite funny blogs:
The last one on the list is written by Lindyloo, who also writes "Yeah, that Vegan Shit" She's a great writer and has awesome recipes.

The most drool-worthy site I've found lately has been Taste Spotting. I mean, just LOOK at that food when I searched "vegetarian"!!!
One day I hope to make pictures good enough that make you want to lick your screen.

Reading these blogs is another story, and the actual reason for this post. For a while, I was using Bloglines. It was great, but then lately it's been on the fritz. Last week Danielle's blogs didn't come thru, yet I knew she had posted. FUCK THAT! I can't be missin' my blogs, especially my girls'!!!

Bloglines looks like this:

Over the weekend, I test-ran 3 different blog readers. The first one was Feed Demon. Yeah, um, that one sucked. Then came SharpReader. Better, but it slowed down my computer and who needs that shit? 3rd and FINAL choice is the kick-ass BlogBridge! This is a program, so it doesn't run in your browser. The part that ruled about Bloglines is that the tab you had Bloglines on would turn bold to the amount of feeds that were new. Blogbridge lets you know new feeds are there by popping a small window up near the lower portion of your screen.
One of the benefits of NOT having this in your browser is that you can actually keep focused on what you're trying to do in your browser. You can finish your work, and not be tempted to read more trashy blogs.

With Blogbridge, you can set up a 2 or 3 pane window display, so you can see all your latest feeds from your favorite bloggers. It also lets you put stars next to your favorites according to how much ya like them.

Woo Hoo Blogs!

Now let's see how long THIS blog takes to show up in my reader. . .
Just to let ya know this feed came thru about 15 minutes after I posted. Not too bad. . . Pin It
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