Take me to the moon. Duh.

First off. Want some discounted Moon Juice? The elixir of people like Gwyneth Paltrow? The shop that touts ingredients like sprouted brown rice, reishi mushrooms, pearl and astralagus? That makes Beauty Dust and Sex Tonic?

Get 20 percent off your first order with this link: http://fbuy.me/d_zpz

Plus local delivery was free for me. It may be for you too.

Yeaaaaa.

The owner, Amanda Chantal Bacon, got a wee chunk of press when interviewed by Elle magazine about her typical daily diet. Haters couldn’t deal with her expensive and oh, let’s call it exotic, diet. But WTF is up with the food shaming?

The woman owns a shop called Moon Juice, for goodness sake. If she wants to have “a copper cup of silver needle and calendula tea” to greet her yoga dawn then well then let’s let her. It’s her friggin’ job to drink fancy.

I had a few days of a liquids-only diet due to superduperfuntime surgery for my receding gums. I wasn’t feeling like human interaction and exhausted in the way surgery makes one. I decided to make the days of liquids and rest fun and find out what makes so many people drink Chantal’s potions. I had a discount code so I got some juices that I figured I would spread out over the next day or so. And they delivered free so I wouldn’t have to take my face, which I was keeping iced most of the time, out. Plus I needed to supplement what otherwise would have been an all-milkshakes-all-the-time regimen whilst healing.

I will start with my favorite juice! Lead with positivity. God the juice is affecting me already.

Roots Royal (green apple, beets, lemon, ginger, turmeric juice) For immune system, kidney function, energy and taming inflammation) So pretty, this juice! I love all the ingredients. Neither the ginger nor turmeric is overwhelming which is hard to do with these spices. I would not have minded if the beet flavor had been stronger but I think the fruits all blend into a perfect flavor I am renaming Burgundian Fuchsia Velvet.

Someone should make a sorbet of this juice. I would do it, but alas I don’t have an ice cream maker. And no I will not make a granita of this. Fuck granitas. They are fine if you dig eating a prickly snow cone on top of your dessert. Not for me.

Anyway. LOVE the Roots Royal. It is like dessert. I may just need more of these.

Enzymatic Tonic (alkaline, mineralized, oxygenated water, aloe vera, full-spectrum plant-based enzymes and probiotics). For glowing beauty and happiness–or so says the website. But of course. The front of the bottle elaborates–this is a “Moon Dusted Cleansing Nectar”. What does this nectar cleanse? My soul? One hopes.

It tastes oddly citric. Maybe that isn’t odd. After all I’ve never eaten or sipped aloe. I had an aloe plant for a while but just used it to moisturize or smear on burns. I’d never tasted my plant but my cat did. He also knocked it over in the process of munching and killed it. Unfortunately my cat is chatty but not in actual words so I couldn’t ask him if the plant had notes of lemon zest and hints of grass. But that is what I tasted in my tonic.

Ooh! Also I can now put a name on something I was having a hard time identifying in white wines. I’ll just say they have hints of Enzymatic Tonic. Just kidding. But in all seriousness if this is what aloe tastes like I am pretty sure I am going to be able to call out the flavor in wine. I’m sure I’ve tasted it in Grüner Veltliners. Yea!

Goodness Greens (celery, cucumber, spinach, kale, parsley and dandelion) For detoxifying, alkalinizing and promoting joy. Ooh joy. Oddly enough I spied this on the sticker on the bottom of this bottle.

Huh. Did they know I delight in random acts of goth?

Anywho the flavor. Very…green? I definitely tasted the celery and cucumber. There was a nice underlying sweetness I bet came from the spinach. I could drink this stuff. I drink it up. Normally I do prefer to eat my veggies but this juice is pretty handy for those of us who having chewing issues who want fiber. The great thing is all these juices had fiber and body to them.

Carrot, Lime and Coconut (those three things plus ginger)This is for the thyroid gland, immune system and energy. I hate coconut. And have carrot issues. Why did I get it? Because I am always trying to break down my own bounderies, dammit. Also sometimes the combo of horrible things equals divinity. Still, I approached with caution. I mean, I need more joy but maybe I have enough energy at this point in juicing.

I’m happy to report that although the carrot flavor shines through a tad more than I would wish this tastes pretty damn good. The carrot lends sweetness, the ginger gives bite, and this juice’s “finish” to borrow from wine tasting is rife with refreshing lime. So just as the carrot is about to send me into flashbacks of having to eat icky icky carrots as a youth, lime saves the day. I guess the coconut mostly gives silkiness and body. Would I drink this again? Probably not. But I am hungry and this is one of the more filling milkshake proxies I ordered.

Okay update, halfway through the bottle and damn this drink has a lot of sugars (natural fruit sugars but all the same) in it. I am buzzing.

Canyon Greens (Collards, rainbow chard, parsley, ginger, celery and cucumber)The website says this feeds immune system, boosts energy, and detoxes. The bottle calls it Immunity Food, Bone Nourisher and Energy Food. I call it green ginger juice. I was really excited for this one as I love chard, and will extol the virtues of it to anyone who will listen. Particularly you kale fanatics. Get on the chard train. There was a hint on green sweetness to this I think comes from the chard. But mostly this is just ginger-y which really is okay by me.

Lait de Coc0 280 4 8 (alkalinized, mineralized, oxygenated water and coconut) For brain, thyroid and skin. Crap I need that shit. But. Oh shudder. See: I hate coconut. I dumped most of this after some forced swigging. Couldn’t handle. It. Not even in the name of brain function. Ugh. Did I mention I despise coconut? Which means the rest of the world will LOVE this. Seriously you coconut lovers-which is like everyone-you will adore this beast.

Me? I am enjoying a chocolate shake now. Health and tastiness balanced. Now if only my gums stop hurting. I want bread. The just doesn’t blenderize well.

 

How To Find The One

We’re all on a quest for the one. Let’s go all caps on that–THE ONE. The One that will complete us, reflect our best self, that will make us a better person. The One our friends will love being with almost as much as us. The One we can take home to our families. The One we can’t wait for our parents to meet at Thanksgiving dinner. The One. You know…The Pie.

This pie is my One. I would like to think it reflects me-delicate on the outside, but multilayered, sweet yet tart, complex, relatively perfect if untidy…friends asked me to make this pie for them to take to parties I can’t even attend. That isn’t an exaggeration. This is the pie I’ll go out of my way to share. And my family adores it. They’d ask it back to dinner and send it Christmas cards even if we broke up.

There were 5 pies at this last Thanksgiving. I made a pumpkin pie. A guest brought a yogurt-pumpkin pie and some sort of pineapple-coconut confection. My aunt made an amazing pecan pie that actually made me like, nay, flipping’ crave pecan pie for the first time in my life. And then there was also…MY PIE.

A total of 11 guests were present at dinner. Naturally there were leftovers of everything. Except MY PIE. That got devoured. We sent some leftovers of other pie home with guests, yet still had portions of three leftover pies. But as I said, not My Pie. THE PIE. The One. Through that evening’s haze of sugar and alcohol my family insisted that I make another one the next day. And even once clear-headed the next morning, in the frigid air of St. Louis, my family was willing to go to the store to get more cranberries, apples and flour. I promise there are no drugs in My Pie. Love, perhaps. Once you get it you don’t wanna be without.

How do you find The One? Time and an open mind. I’m sorry to say there is no Tinder for pies. Unless you count the epicurious app? This pie really came to be because of a shortage of necessary ingredients. Rather than abandon plans for my stellar apple pie, I rummaged in the fridge. Despite Thanksgiving performance anxiety (this is NOT the time you want to screw up) I made an adaptation or two or four from the recipe I was going to use and created the first iteration of this pie. Then over the years our relationship has blossomed. But I knew from first bite it was gonna be My Pie. Sometimes love is so easy.

I have come to believe in butter crust for most things but I stand by the shortening crust for this one. It is the perfect delivery system for the filling and topping. Let me compare it to an exquisite bit of brie you are going to eat on a cracker, perhaps with a touch of quince paste or something. You need the right combo of sounding board, ooze, salt and sweet. If you put the cheese on a massive flavorful cracker that cracker is all you will taste. This is also why I don’t like a lot of sandwiches-it is hard to get the bread to work in harmony with the filling. But for that Brie a thin, delicately perfect bit of toasted baguette? It’s bland on its own, but transforms when paired with its toppings. That is how I see it with crust. To each pie it’s own crust style. And My Pie goes shortening. As a super-duper bonus, if you use a vegan butter substitute in the streusel this pie will be vegan. Not that that made Moby give it awards, alas.

I’m debating whether I should tell you my secret ingredient. Hmmm. Okay, I’m gonna leave one ingredient vague in the directions. It seems small but this ingredient IS THE DIFFERENCE that makes it My Pie. Whoever guesses what, of the one vague thing, is the secret and can guess what I use gets drinks with me if the timing is right. Or just my utmost respect for their culinary acumen. We’ll see. But I’ll keep an open mind. My Pie and I have an open relationship.

THE PIE
crust:
1 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (I stir and spoon into the cup), plus extra for rolling
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup shortening (I shamelessly use Crisco)
cold water
Whisk the flour and salt together. I use a fork to whisk. I know. Add the shortening and use your fork to cut in until floury lumps are forming the size of, say, a cocoa puff. Some can be bigger, some smaller. Feel it out. Now, sprinkle a few tablespoons of cold water over and toss it in. It will go further than you think. Add more water bit by bit until the dough is just sticking together. Don’t chill this dough or it will be really hard to roll. I just sprinkle some flour on a piece of parchment paper and roll it out there until it is big enough for the pie plate. Lift it up periodically and sprinkle more flour between the dough and parchment as needed. Now fold in half and gently ease in the pie plate. I use a Pyrex. If you are like me and not good at getting a perfect circle you may have to do a bit of patchwork on your crust but don’t worry. Cut off and/or patch in enough dough to get the same length of dough on the rim of the plate all the way around. You can make a pinched crust or use a fork to make a pretty crust but it will taste good no matter what you do. Put that sucker in the freezer.
For streusel:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter (or vegan butter-y stick)
Put it all in a bowl and get in there with your hands. Pinch it together until it looks pebbly. I feel like you will know when it is right. Just picture what the top of streusel pies look like. That is how it should look. Put the bowl in the fridge whilst you cobble up the filling.
For filling:
2 granny smith apples
2 macintosh apples
some citrus fruits for squeezing (do not use jarred juice)
2 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
pinch of allspice and/or cloves
pinch of ginger
Cinnamon, as you are in the mood for. around a heaping tsp., if you need a ballpark figure.

Heat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Start with the apples but have the citrus halved and on the ready. Peel the apples, cut into quarters, cup each quarter into a few long slices then halve those. Every time you put a handful or or of apple into the bowl give a hefty squeeze of citrus juice and toss it until the apples are coated. Repeat, until they are chopped. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Take the crust out of the freezer and put the filling in. Make sure the apples and cranberries distribute evenly and there aren’t any weird nooks. Take the streusel out of the fridge and strew it on, pretty evenly. Put in the oven. If worried about overflow you can put the pie plate on a baking tray. After about twenty minutes check the pie. The minute the streusel starts to get brown tent aluminum foil over the whole thing. Trust me, if you don’t your streusel will burn. Keep the pie baking about 45 minutes total. Delish.

Egg Creams and a GIVEAWAY here-what?!

I’m actually not lying to you when I say it’s the best. I don’t know why I said “actually” as I never lie. Hence the lack of product endorsement on my blog.

But there is a stevia product out there that is the best. Actually it is the only one I find tolerable. Which could mean that it is still crap, except that it is not. It’s good.

I am speaking to you of NuNaturals products. Stevia is not an artificial sweetener. It is real. In fact it is so sweet that you can only use teensy tiny bits of it to sweeten things-hence why it is calorie free. The one problem I have with all the other stevia sweeteners is that they are hella bitter. But I first got into NuNaturals when I tried some of their liquid stevia sweetener and found it was just sweet. No bitter. Whee!

Do not mistake me. This is not a total sugar substitute for me. I will never leave sugar completely, but I am a sugar addict so all I’m saying is I want us to have an open relationship.

I confess I get a huge kick out of getting to try new things for free. I promise I won’t share with you any of these things that don’t deserve to be shared. However I gladly would share NuNaturals so imagine my girlish squeal when I opened my email and saw this:

“We have recently introduced some additional new items that I would love for you to try. We are very excited about our NEW INDUSTRY FIRST, STEVIA BASED, ” O ” CALORIE, SUGAR-FREE, DAIRY-FREE, GLUTEN FREE, VEGAN, COCOA SYRUP , SIMPLE SYRUP, & COCOA MINT SYRUP.”

OOOOOHHHH free kitchen toys! Ones I am behind.
Vitamix I am looking at you.

And I get to host a blimey GIVEAWAY!!!! Yes you, you too could try this stuff and MOOOORRRRE! Details at the bottom of the post.

In the meantime I had actually been playing around with the venerable beverage known as an egg cream which has neither eggs nor cream and I had never tried before this year so I couldn’t vouch for “venerable” but I figured why not plug my new syrups into the equation? Ps in this equation 2+3=6

This is NOT a classic NYC diner version. More like a Beverly Hills post-spin class one? Not that I would know. There are a gajillion different versions of an egg cream out there and I had never even had one before so had no gauge. Also I’m using stevia syrup so I gave up on trying for authentic long ago. I just went whole vegan hog and made this a ridiculously LA drink. I used an alt mylk. Which is to say almond milk. The only way this could get more classic LA would be if I garnished with a kale chip, which you are welcome to do, but I wouldn’t.

Here’s my alt drink which surprised me in its tastiness. I found myself craving one days later, which is my marker for if a recipe is worth sharing. You could use regular milk and syrup in this if you like but I don’t know if the proportions would need to be different. Fortunately, this is a drink you can keep adding to until it is mixed to your liking. Much like us LA people alter menu items until no longer recognizable as their original version. But if you do tinker with this and end up drinking a bacon-infused tomato toddy, please don’t tell people it is an egg cream.

Then again, perhaps you could. After all, this is the drink that has NOTHING to do with its name.

Classic Los Angeles Egg Cream
2 Tbsp. nunaturals chocolate syrup
1/4 cup unsweetened plain almond milk
club soda, to taste
Add your milk and syrup to a glass and give them a stir. Top off with as much club soda as you deem fit. Enjoy. Easy peasy.

Okay, the giveaway! Here is what you win:

( 1 ) one bottle of the Cherry Vanilla Stevia Liquid,

a 50 pkt box of our NuStevia White Stevia Powder packets,

PLUS a bottle of our NEW COCOA SYRUP

& a bottle of our NEW SIMPLE SYRUP.

Each of your 4 winners will receive the complete product selection of all 4 items with the retail value of $ 55.00 , PLUS A FREE BONUS PRODUCT!

And I was advised to tell ya, you can get a discount on the webpage: http://www.nunaturals.com
Here’s how Ron the sugar-free poppa (ironic since he is my sugar papa when it comes to these products and…oh, sugar free…haha I get it) says to get it:

“When they get to our checkout page they should enter the DISCOUNT CODE ; BLG1214 and they will receive – 15% DISCOUNT on their ENTIRE ORDER. ( excluding any other discounts ) This discount remains EFFECTIVE UNTIL DECEMBER 31, 2014. Online ordering customers may also receive FREE SHIPPING to the CONTINENTAL U. S. on all orders exceeding $35.00 after discounts.”

If you try it and dig it you can like em’ up on ye olde Facebook page.

TO ENTER
So here is whatcha do: I am thinking of a number between 0 and 1000. Leave me a comment with what number you think it is. Whoever guesses closest wins. If someone guesses one above and one person guesses one below the higher number wins. If more than one person think of the right number I will put their names in a hat (or bowl or jar that remains to be determined) and draw. I know I am asking you to trust me on this but…why would I lie about stevia?

Contest is open a month until October 24th, midnight PST.

Triple Your Everything

Except nipples. Stick with two. If you have three, that’s all well and okay, but I’d only pierce the principle two.

Just to clear up any confusion I only have two nipples. And piercings.

So I’ve been pretty busy. My improv team has been booking more gigs outside of our weekly performance.

Auditions are back up and running.

I’m harloting around to casting director workshops like crazy in the name of ye olde pilot season.

Still reading and writing like a maniac for Hello Giggles.

AND most importantly Alice and I are planning our next pie party and boy is the theme of it this time a doozy. Let’s just say that my inner goth cook is hard at work.

So I’m busy. Ergo I am presenting you with a simple sandwich. I have a lot of random thoughts about/inspired by this recipe:

I’m not sure if it is an amazing recipe so much as fun. Maybe not amazing but WORTH IT.

I think everything is better with butter.

There are people who like grape jelly and people who like strawberry.
Of course I prefer blackberry or raspberry because I am persnickety. But will always take grape over strawberry. I think what you are raised with will always be the preference.

I was skeptical as to whether a slice of toast would do much for a sandwich, but then remembered how Bill Cosby used to put potato chips in his sandwiches, so I thought maybe crunch would be good.

It was. But I wanted to double the creamy to play against the crunch. So I did. Double the amount of PB and J initially called for. I adore the looks of this sandwich. It is so…architectural.

PBJ Triple from the allrecipes app
1 piece of bread toasted and cooled
2 slices untoasted bread
4 Tbsp. Peanut butter
4 Tbsp jam
Spread jam on one side of untoasted bread. Spread pb on either side of toasted. Make a sandwich. I hope you are capable of figuring it out.

I confirm the subscription of this blog to the Paperblog service under the username ellenclifford

Everyone Else is Doin’ It

I might jump off the bridge, I dunno. Particularly if it was a bikini bridge. I’m pretty much repulsed by that whole thing. The fact that it started as a hoax should say something about how dumb it is. Has anyone noticed that the latest body goals of women don’t have anything to do with the body, but rather with the absence of body? The thigh gap. The bikini bridge is the empty space between the swimsuit and your body as the bikini stretches across your sharp pointy hipbones. Gross. Okay, that is enough venting.

I have far too much to do to be jumping off Thinspiration Bridge, and I have enough practice with falling from high high heights. Maybe I’d do the real bridge jump, but I would have a nice bouncy trampoline arranged to catch me. That could be fun. Kidding, Mom. Just kidding. I wouldn’t put my head at risk, never fear.

In this post, we are going to look at chocolate as a metaphor for the trampoline under the bridge. And the jumping part I am partaking of is a green smoothie, which EVERYONE else is blogging up these post-holidays days.

My lack of spare time is actually part of why I make so many friggin’ smoothies. The other part is my deep love of wielding my immersion blender aka my kitchen paramour (I fit him in between the sexy beast and my boyfriend). A male friend of mine saw the base of it sitting out and briefly thought that it attached to something that would help me deeply love myself. I showed him the bladed attachment and assured him I am not that much of a masochist.

According to every other single blog in the entire universe, the green smoothie is what will save you, not kill you. Oh yes, it is “cleansing season” which is ridiculous, if you ask me. In theory it sounds lovely but in reality it is just a bunch of vegetables and juicers and blenders and overly enlightened people. Sorry if you are one of them. It’s ok. Different strokes for different folks. You’ve got your bridge and I have my trellis. This smoothie will neither cleanse you nor do your laundry, but it is tasty and healthy-ish.

All this being said, the fact that everyone was making these things called “Green Monsters” was intriguing. A well-named recipe can really lure a girl in. I do enjoy a good smoothie, so I gave a few recipes a try. After recovering from the various taste-bud wounds inflicted from jumping off overly banana-y tasting bridges, I decided to devise my own protein-filled, smooth, tasty, almost-ice-cream-sort-of smoothie that yah, yah, had some green in it, but in the form of fresh mint, yah? Yah. If you don’t have the fresh mint you can use some peppermint extract but then you only have a green-in-theory Chocolate Monster.

This Green Monster is rather pretty, to be called a monster, what with the fresh mint. But then, in real life monsters are neither green nor monstrous. Nor chocolate-y. Discuss.

Mint Chocolate Monster
1/2 cup cottage cheese
6 Tbsp. Chocolate protein powder (this recipe hinges on good-tasting protein, I use the MRM Veggie Protein)
big, big ol’ handful of fresh mint
handful of spinach if you feel it
1/2 a frozen banana, also optional
1 1/4 cup chocolate almond milk
sweetener of any ilk to taste
pinch of xanthum gum, if you like a super-thick drink
Blend like your life depends on it. You needs must blend this until you think it cannot get smoother and then a minute longer to get the aerated smooth texture. Unless you own a vita-mix in which case you probably just have to pulse it a second and you’ll have hot smoothie soup. If you have a vita-mix, good on ya. I’m jealous.

Pâtés for Vegs:

I thought maybe the elegant butter knife would give my mushroom pâté a bit of class.

Lemme tell you. Pâté is something we should all eat, in some shape or form. Being a vegetarian I feel shame in saying this, but if you ever get your hands on some pâté de foie gras you should gobble that stuff up. Am I going to be arrested for saying that?

I ate it once. I was in a restaurant on Oahu. In my probably-wrong memory it may have had some stars. Or maybe it just had a lot of dollar bill signs beside it in the guidebook. I was twelve. We had planned the family vacation there based on the fact that my papa had a conference to go to at the Waikiki Hilton Hawaiian Village so hey, that was airfare and board for one person. My parents made the mistake of letting me do a great deal of the research on what there was to do. I voraciously devoured travel guides and made lists of what to see and where to go and most importantly…where we should eat.

I do not actually remember that much about the restaurant or the meal besides that pâté and dessert-they gave us a Diamond Head-shaped chocolate filled with chocolate truffles to take home.

We had the pâté on the table as an appetizer and I did not know what it was. I only knew it was some of the most divine stuff ever. Better than butter? Ye gods. Then I asked my mom what it was and promptly lost my desire for it when I found out it was goose liver. Then later that summer I became a vegetarian-which I had wanted to do for years, but it was a matter of being old enough to cook myself something separately from the family so my lifestyle choice wouldn’t be a pain in the butt for my mom.

I never much cared for meat in the first place, and non-leather shoes are cheaper than leather ones, so being a veg has not been hard. And just so you meat-eaters know, I don’t begrudge you your meat. I think different bodies need different things. Mine needs dairy, hence me not being vegan. It’s sort of sad. It used to be that people would be impressed by my veggie life, but now I just get “Oh, but not vegan?”. To which I emphasize that I buy cage free eggs and organic milk products as much as possible, but still…vegetarians have become the sad middle road, I guess.

Let’s get back to the pâté. I am giving you two meat-free options today, one of them even vegan. I am sure they probably don’t compare with foie gras, but they are not really trying to do that-they are impeccable in their own right. Mushrooms and eggs are two of the most perfect edible things on earth, and I stand by my pâté. Actually it is my dreamboat-cooking-crush Mark Bittman’s pâté. I stand by my man.

The egg one is considerably less chic in appearance than the mushroom I’m afraid:

I think I just started gobbling it before it could be molded. I don’t mind if you do that too. Actually, please do that too. Go forth and gobble.

Mushroom Pâté slightly altered from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
Olive oil
1/2 c. chopped shallots
4-5 baby carrots, chopped
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
1 lb. white shrooms’ cleaned and roughly chopped
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 piece of bread, crumbled

Heat a skillet with a dash of oil over high heat. Add shallots, carrot, and celery and cook and stir until shallot is translucent. Sprinkle in some salt and grind in some pepper. Cool another couple minutes. Add tomato paste, then stir and cook about another ten minutes.
Turn off heat and allow to cool. Then put in your lover-that would be your sexy red Kitchen aid food processor you got for a song because it was factory refurbished.
Add crumbs and lemon. Blend until smooth, adding more bread crumbs if too thin or water if thick. It should be sturdy but spreadable. Give it a Tate and add more salt, pepper or lemon if you want.
Put in whatever mold or dish you want and chill. Find a snazzy serving knife.Yum it up.

Egg Salad Pâté adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped (one yolk discarded)
3 Tbsp. reduced-fat mayo
1 1/2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 slice bread and butter pickle, chopped
1/2 tsp. dried dill
Salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
Mix it all up. Mix it good. Put in container shaped how you want it to be shaped. Or just get a fork.

Third Annual Pumpkin Week in Spring Day One: Not’cho Cheese Macaroni

Oh that wild n’ crazee Kelly. If she spelled her name Kelli, “wild n’ crazee” would be wyld and cray-cray and have completely different and kinki connotations. And that is a fact.

As it is, Kelly with a Y keeps her craziness to the kitchen, and puts pumpkin in pasta. Because where there is one P another is sure to follow.

Enough alphabet madness.

Pumpkin Noocheeze Mac adapted from
this recipe

1 package shirataki macaroni
1/2 cup almond milk
3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 bay leaf
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
Freshly ground salt and pepper to taste
Drain zee macaroni. Rinse it very well, then microwave for a minute. Rinse it again, then put in a colander and drain it to be as dry as possible. You might even blot it.
Bring the milk and bay leaf to a boil. Whisk in the yeast, garlic, an Dijon. Cook a couple more minutes to thicken. Whisk in pumpkin, when it is as thick as you want it add the noodles and grind in salt and pepper to taste. Remove the bay leaf. You’re done, now dine.

Braised tempeh

My mistress, my lover, my one and only, i.e. my career, has kept me busy running about this year. Class! Audition! Improv! Stand-up! Writing! Screening!

This weekend she had a little soirée to attend where I praised her work in a little movie we watched that will be in the Chiller Network in May. She did ok. And I’m her worst critic. But I will be asking y’all to watch “Listen, My Children” in a couple of months.

I realized after doing stand-up last Monday (and after agreeing to do it again on the 15th!) that my mistress, Mz. Work, was tired. And hungry.

She came along when I ate at Caffe Roma to write this Blackboard Eats review, published today, but my official meat taster out-ate the both of us, as he usually does.

So I said ok, I’ll cook just for you.

I made her tempeh. And tonight I’m making her cinnamon rolls. Stay tuned!

Braised Tempeh for Your One and Only adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cool Everything Vegetarian

Olive oil spray
2 oz. tempeh, crumbled
3/4 tsp. minced garlic
3/4 tsp. ginger purée (I used jarred, feel free to use fresh)
Freshly ground pepper
Sea salt
1 cup diced tomato (I used canned)
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
Big handful of baby spinach
2 chopped green onions
1 Tbsp. chopped parsley
Spray a pan with olive oil and heat over medium-high. Add tempeh. Cook and stir, and when it gets a bit of color add garlic, ginger, and a sprinkle salt and pepper. Sauté a bit longer, until the tempeh is deeper colored. Add tomatoes and soy sauce, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer until thickened. Stir in spinach, parsley and onions. Stir and cook just until the spinach wilts. Watch your lover melt in your arms after they taste it. Whee!

A loaf! A seasonal drink! Being a guest post-er! And some striped tights in your face (see pic) just because

Popularity should not matter.
And yet.
I get hung up on how many people are clicking on my IMDB page. Shameless actress behavior.
I get hung up on how many readers my lil’ blog has. And how popular other bloggers are. Like my girl Kelly over at Foodie Fiasco.
Owing to the fact that she made use of the most fantastic mot “fiasco” I think the food-loving powers that be can get over her use of the word “foodie”.

Really, word snobs, get off yer high horse. It’s not like she used the word “moist”. Or like I used the word “cunt”.

Yeah I went there.

And it’s not actually a bad word. Read the book “Cunt” by Inga Muscio, author and feminist.

OMG the f-word! I’m on fire. Fuck.

Anyway read “Cunt”. You may learn something.

I’m gonna get back on track. We were talking about way-kool Kelly!

This popular gal let me write a guest post!

I made a bulgur loaf you can read about here.

And now because I love you even more, and because Kelly is only fifteen so she couldn’t take my cocktail recipe and put it on her blog, I give you some seasonal goodness in the form of a blood orange cocktail.

Blood oranges are all over the interwebs this week, but me posting this recipe has less to do with me being a joiner and more to do with the fact that blood orange season really is ridiculously brief and I want you to make this whilst you can.

No, you cannot substitute regular orange juice.

This is so easy and elegant. You can relish the fact that you have the prettiest drink. Oh yes you do. And yet it is also slightly manly in its deep red hue.

It’s a drink for all people. But not for all seasons. Boo-yah!

Blood Orange Champagne Cocktail from this recipe in Bon Appetit)
1 1/2 tsp. creme de cassis
3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed blood orange juice
Champagne
Slice of blood orange
Add creme de cassis and orange juice. Top with champagne. Garnish with slice.

Wisdom of the crust. With cocktails!

Steve was freaking out a bit-pie crust making is intimidating. So we took a minute to take a breath, lay hands on the bowl, and get in touch with the dough.

Before we get into me teaching my friends the wisdom of the pie dough:

It’s a heady time here.

Pilot season. Awards season. So it’s audition a-gogo and watching screeners like crazy time.

And I feel so alive.

No, really. It sounds cheesy, I know, but in all sincerity, this is the life I live for.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled snark.

My friend Alice and I had our third pie teaching party recently. The first gathering was tiny, and I only taught filling because I had performance anxiety about teaching crust technique.

Second time around I didn’t show y’all, but it was five of us gathering for an apple-blackberry-ginger pie. I got brave and taught crust, and one of my pupils made her own pie a week or so later! Color me proud.

For this party Alice requested that I make a savory pie, and we decided to make drinks too.

I seized the opportunity to devise a new champagne cocktail pretty much taken though slightly adapted from Serious Eats. Original recipe here but you should use mine then comment and tell me what you did with it. Yes you should, do it! My friend Suilma took an awesome shot of it:

Ginger-Grapefruit Deeeelight
1/2 oz. Liqueur de Gingembre (My dear fwife gave me this. It doesn’t have a brand name but is French. And ginger-y. I surmise another type of ginger liqueur would be smashing.)
1 oz. freshly squeezed red grapefruit juice
champagne
strips of grapefruit peel with none of the white pith on them.

Hint: Get your strips of peel before chopping open the grapefruit to squeeze it. Add the ginger liqueur to your glass and swirl to coat the sides. Add the grapefruit juice. Pour in yer bubbly. Take the peel, run it around the rim then twist. You should see and feel a burst of the oils coming misting out. People think garnishes are not so important but this one is. It really adds to the flavor, I kid ye not. Drop the peel in and sip your bubbles like a lady. Or sip like a man. Just do not chug.

And now for the main course!

I fretted as to what sort of savory pie to whip up, given somewhat limited time. The pies I wanted to make from Savory Pies, my new toy, took too long to prep if we wanted to eat before midnight. Our lil’ soiree was commencing around 8 and we wanted some pie by, say, 10.

I ended up listening to the CSA, my organic delivery I indulge in once every few weeks. I got some butternut squash from them that week.

Then I listened to my long-neglected lovah Mark Bittman who whispered “make my spicy winter squash galette”.

I said “yes, master”.

But being the free-thinking woman I am, when he asked me to use his pie crust recipe I said “please, bitch, I don’t think so”, and used my go-to shortening crust. It is fast and still delicious. This pie, excuse me-galette, actually may have benefitted from a crust that had butter (Different crusts for different fillings people! Drives me nuts when people claim that one crust is superior to another because the right crust depends on the situation. Sorry for this long parenthetical. I’m passionate.), but we did not have time for the requisite chillin’ a butter crust demands. And half the purpose of this party was to teach Steve some crust technique. He requested a few step by step photos:

This is the proper texture before adding water.

Rolling crust from the middle out.

This is the tart in our properly pre-heated oven.

Feeding time!

Savory Galette adapted from my one lovah, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian to please my other lovah aka myself
One basic pie crust
2 Tbsp. Olive oil
1 medium red onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup water
Two butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
Heat oven to 350 F. Put the oil in a skillet and heat to medium high. Add onion and stir occasionally until softened. Add garlic for another minute. Add salt, pepper, chili powder and tomato paste. Stir then quickly add water and squash. Bring to a boil, stir, then cover and take off heat.
Let it sit while you roll out that crust. Roll out to at least 12 inches. Put in pie dish. Stir filling, adjust seasoning if need be. Add filling to crust and fold excess crust over it.
Bake until crust is brown and filling is bubbly, about 50 minutes. Check on it periodically and if your crust is browned to perfection, cover it with a ring of foil so it does not burn.