"Take a shower"
Turn on the water before you get in, and make it just a little hotter than you're used to.
Get in.
Enjoy.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
An Ode to Aprons
I once heard a statistic that women who wear aprons have 40% more sex than women who don't. Instead of wondering where this fun fact had come from, I started thinking of possible reasons for this statistic. Theory 1 is that people who wear aprons know how to cook, and this makes them all kinds of attractive. Theory 2 is that people who wear aprons have a good sense of hygiene and aren't slobs. Theory 3 is that a well-tailored apron does great things for the waist and ooh la la (9 out of 10 French maids agree). Feel free to add your own theories to the list, but all of them add up to equal a passion for aprons, possibly fake statistics, and unproven theories. A very important component of the Stoned Soup Club is the wearing of aprons. I like to wear them not just when cooking, but also when doing other crafty projects. It's kind of like a uniform, and helps me psychologically: when you strap on the apron, it's business time. My original apron is a sweet little number by a designer named Jessie Steele, a.k.a. the modern day apron queen. I also have love for vintage aprons, kids' aprons with robots on them, and garments that technically aren't aprons but look like them. Much of this is owed to a former place of employment, Flirt in Brooklyn NY. They design a great line of
clothing that I'm a huge fan of because it's girly and yet sturdy enough to plow a field in. They also teach classes at their sewing studio, and know what makes a great first time sewing project? An apron.
The apron pictured above I made for Nikki from a vintage pattern and some great fabric from a company I love called Repro Depot that reproduces (not repossesses) vintage fabrics.
I have to admit, the mushroom on the pocket is one of my favorite crafty accomplishments in a long time.
Whether you're a kitchen goddess, a handy lady, or a dude who isn't ashamed to tie one on, this is my call for you to reclaim the apron! According to the stats, you'll be glad you did.
Monday, December 14, 2009
The 8-Minute Full Family Meal Machine
Due to overwhelming popularity, all of the Bullet Express representatives are currently busy. Bullet Express appreciates my call, and will be with me shortly.
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Due to overwhelming popularity, all of the Bullet Express representatives are currently busy. Bullet Express appreciates my call, and will be with me shortly.
Let me back up a little.
Last week, I received an early Christmas present from my Dad. He LOVES watching QVC, so I can usually bet that whatever I get is going to come from there. He recently called me and said I needed to come get my present, because it was taking up too much room in his house. NOW I was curious. I met him for dinner, and before we left I was bestowed my large gift: The Bullet Express.
It slices. It dices. It grates. It juices. It makes bread. It food processes. It does just about everything short of take me out to dinner and meet my parents. It's slogan? "The 8-Minute Full Family Meal Machine".
My Dad thought this was just the end all be all of kitchen technology. He ranted about the infomercial, which I'm sure he had seen more than once. He raved about the sheer number of features and what it could do for me. And the best part, do for me in only 8 minutes!
I really appreciated the sentiment. He obviously had been paying attention to my conversations about learning how to cook, and throwing dinner parties. He just didn't question my appliance inventory before he dropped $120 on something that would make everything else in my kitchen obsolete. I already owned individual appliances that do most the things this machine does in one. So now what?
Immediately after receiving the gift, I began to think of ways I could get rid of it. Ebay? Try to return it back to the company without him knowing? All these options involved my lying for the rest of my life about how often I use this wonderful product, and that seemed like a lot of work. Out of curiosity I looked at ebay, to get an idea of how valuable this machine is to the American public. I type it in and....what? The highest bid on one is $35? But he paid $120 for this! I decided to check a few other websites, see what the story was. After going to Amazon.com, I found my answer.
Apparently, and met with not much surprise by me, this thing SUCKS!
The bad reviews were endless. "The Bullet Express shot cabbage clear across my kitchen", "The motor can only run for 30 seconds at a time before it shuts itself off to enter cool down mode", "Many of the parts broke right after the 30 day warranty", "This machine is slow, big, and useless". Wow. It all made me feel a little more superior inside. Technology isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
Thankfully, as if by divine intervention, my Dad calls the next day and says he didn't think it looked like I was pleased with my Bullet Express, and wonders if I'd like to return it. So he doesn't take it personally, I let him know about the bad reviews and suggest he get his money back so as not to waste it on something inferior.
Maybe it's me, although I don't really think it is, but I like doing cooking stuff the hard way. I don't own an automatic vegetable slicer, but I do own a cutting board and knives. I don't own a bread maker, but I do have flour, pans, and an oven. The reason I don't own things like that is because, simply put, I don't want to be done in 8 minutes! To me, that is so far from the point of cooking. It is against the idea of the Stoned Soup Club entirely. When my attitude changes from embracing the tears that come from chopping onions and the smells rising from my chili pot, to wanting to churn out mixed up slop in less time than it takes for my oven to heat up, I plan on hanging up my apron for good. Maybe this somehow is linked to my lack of desire to do the entire marriage-family-kids bit. Maybe there are people who really need to be done cooking in 8 minutes, because the baby is screaming and the kids need to be picked up from soccer practice and the husband doesn't want to take care of either. All I can do is thank GOD that I'm not one of them.
So now I wait, on hold with Bullet Express, who is still saying they appreciate my business, so I can get a return number and be rid of this thing for good. Meanwhile I'll be taking the full 5 minutes to cut the vegetables and 30 minutes to make the bread, while I use the money to buy an Xbox 360. Now THAT'S technology I can use.
-Nikki
...
...
...
Due to overwhelming popularity, all of the Bullet Express representatives are currently busy. Bullet Express appreciates my call, and will be with me shortly.
Let me back up a little.
Last week, I received an early Christmas present from my Dad. He LOVES watching QVC, so I can usually bet that whatever I get is going to come from there. He recently called me and said I needed to come get my present, because it was taking up too much room in his house. NOW I was curious. I met him for dinner, and before we left I was bestowed my large gift: The Bullet Express.
It slices. It dices. It grates. It juices. It makes bread. It food processes. It does just about everything short of take me out to dinner and meet my parents. It's slogan? "The 8-Minute Full Family Meal Machine".
My Dad thought this was just the end all be all of kitchen technology. He ranted about the infomercial, which I'm sure he had seen more than once. He raved about the sheer number of features and what it could do for me. And the best part, do for me in only 8 minutes!
I really appreciated the sentiment. He obviously had been paying attention to my conversations about learning how to cook, and throwing dinner parties. He just didn't question my appliance inventory before he dropped $120 on something that would make everything else in my kitchen obsolete. I already owned individual appliances that do most the things this machine does in one. So now what?
Immediately after receiving the gift, I began to think of ways I could get rid of it. Ebay? Try to return it back to the company without him knowing? All these options involved my lying for the rest of my life about how often I use this wonderful product, and that seemed like a lot of work. Out of curiosity I looked at ebay, to get an idea of how valuable this machine is to the American public. I type it in and....what? The highest bid on one is $35? But he paid $120 for this! I decided to check a few other websites, see what the story was. After going to Amazon.com, I found my answer.
Apparently, and met with not much surprise by me, this thing SUCKS!
The bad reviews were endless. "The Bullet Express shot cabbage clear across my kitchen", "The motor can only run for 30 seconds at a time before it shuts itself off to enter cool down mode", "Many of the parts broke right after the 30 day warranty", "This machine is slow, big, and useless". Wow. It all made me feel a little more superior inside. Technology isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
Thankfully, as if by divine intervention, my Dad calls the next day and says he didn't think it looked like I was pleased with my Bullet Express, and wonders if I'd like to return it. So he doesn't take it personally, I let him know about the bad reviews and suggest he get his money back so as not to waste it on something inferior.
Maybe it's me, although I don't really think it is, but I like doing cooking stuff the hard way. I don't own an automatic vegetable slicer, but I do own a cutting board and knives. I don't own a bread maker, but I do have flour, pans, and an oven. The reason I don't own things like that is because, simply put, I don't want to be done in 8 minutes! To me, that is so far from the point of cooking. It is against the idea of the Stoned Soup Club entirely. When my attitude changes from embracing the tears that come from chopping onions and the smells rising from my chili pot, to wanting to churn out mixed up slop in less time than it takes for my oven to heat up, I plan on hanging up my apron for good. Maybe this somehow is linked to my lack of desire to do the entire marriage-family-kids bit. Maybe there are people who really need to be done cooking in 8 minutes, because the baby is screaming and the kids need to be picked up from soccer practice and the husband doesn't want to take care of either. All I can do is thank GOD that I'm not one of them.
So now I wait, on hold with Bullet Express, who is still saying they appreciate my business, so I can get a return number and be rid of this thing for good. Meanwhile I'll be taking the full 5 minutes to cut the vegetables and 30 minutes to make the bread, while I use the money to buy an Xbox 360. Now THAT'S technology I can use.
-Nikki
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Support local music by feeding them.
I have never been any kind of musically inclined. I tried to learn drums once, only to realize that I was, in fact, born without rhythm. It's fine though, because even since moving back to Northampton, I have found myself SURROUNDED by musicians. In a conversation with Mac once, I feel like I adequately described the sheer number of bands in town as "Stray dogs on the street. Take them home and feed them, and they're yours".
A few days ago, my two roommates new band, Johnny Mondegreen (word of the day kiddies, Mondegreen means a misheard lyrics, such as "Excuse me while I kiss this guy") had their first ever show scheduled. In honor of this momentous occasion, we decided to make dinner for the band. Because really, musicians just rock harder with full bellies. Mac and I surveyed our respective kitchens and listed what ingredients we had, and came up with a meal based on that.
This is an IMPORTANT Stoned Soup skill to learn: making something out of nothing. Don't feel like driving to the store? Too broke to even drive to the store? Open your cupboards, your refrigerator, your freezer, and make a list of the things you have. Chances are a pattern will emerge, like "Oh, I have 2 different kinds of pasta, 3 half empty bags of various cheeses, stale french bread, and canned tomatoes." and POOF! You're halfway towards eating a wonderful Baked Macaroni and Cheese dinner. All without leaving the warmth and comfort of your own home.
After making our mental food lists, and seeing that together we both had black beans, half a green and red pepper, some onions, rice, and cheese, we decided on burritos. Only a few things needed to be bought to finish off the concoction. And pretty soon, we were eating Breaded and Spiced Tofu Burritos.
This tofu recipe is an SS Club favorite, because it makes the tofu taste a LOT like chicken. I have used the tofu in lasagnas, pad thai, you name it, it works. It's quick and easy, and will have you pretty stoked about eating tofu.
Breaded and Spiced Tofu-
You will need:
A 16oz package of extra firm tofu (if you can find the extra firm tofu that's already cubed, even better)
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1. Prepare the vegetable broth. Drain the tofu, cut into tiny cubes (say, 1/2 inch) and soak in broth.
2. Find 2 bowls that are relatively the same size. In one bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
3. After tofu has soaked for around 10 minutes, drain the broth.
4. Add the tofu to the dry ingredients. Use the empty bowl as a cover, and toss the tofu, so as to completely cover it in breading.
5. Heat oil in a frying pan, and fry tofu until brown on all sides.
As for the rest of the burrito, I am sure you have all made these at least once in your life, so I don't need to tell you how to do the rest. Although I do have a suggestion for making it taste that much better. Fry your peppers and onions in a pan, and then add the black beans. Add some salsa to the pan as well (the leftover Tomato-Chipotle sauce worked GREAT) and heat everything thoroughly. By cooking everything together, it will have a much better taste. Get your tortillas nice and warm, dollop the beans/vegetables on with some rice, guacamole, and cheese, and you have one hell of a burrito on your hands.
The band was very appreciative. Especially when their 2 biggest fans waited until 1am to hear them play 3 songs, even though they both had work VERY early the next morning. But who cares? Drag yourself through your day, take a nap when you get home, and do it all over again. That's what life is all about.
-Nikki
A few days ago, my two roommates new band, Johnny Mondegreen (word of the day kiddies, Mondegreen means a misheard lyrics, such as "Excuse me while I kiss this guy") had their first ever show scheduled. In honor of this momentous occasion, we decided to make dinner for the band. Because really, musicians just rock harder with full bellies. Mac and I surveyed our respective kitchens and listed what ingredients we had, and came up with a meal based on that.
This is an IMPORTANT Stoned Soup skill to learn: making something out of nothing. Don't feel like driving to the store? Too broke to even drive to the store? Open your cupboards, your refrigerator, your freezer, and make a list of the things you have. Chances are a pattern will emerge, like "Oh, I have 2 different kinds of pasta, 3 half empty bags of various cheeses, stale french bread, and canned tomatoes." and POOF! You're halfway towards eating a wonderful Baked Macaroni and Cheese dinner. All without leaving the warmth and comfort of your own home.
After making our mental food lists, and seeing that together we both had black beans, half a green and red pepper, some onions, rice, and cheese, we decided on burritos. Only a few things needed to be bought to finish off the concoction. And pretty soon, we were eating Breaded and Spiced Tofu Burritos.
This tofu recipe is an SS Club favorite, because it makes the tofu taste a LOT like chicken. I have used the tofu in lasagnas, pad thai, you name it, it works. It's quick and easy, and will have you pretty stoked about eating tofu.
Breaded and Spiced Tofu-
You will need:
A 16oz package of extra firm tofu (if you can find the extra firm tofu that's already cubed, even better)
2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1. Prepare the vegetable broth. Drain the tofu, cut into tiny cubes (say, 1/2 inch) and soak in broth.
2. Find 2 bowls that are relatively the same size. In one bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
3. After tofu has soaked for around 10 minutes, drain the broth.
4. Add the tofu to the dry ingredients. Use the empty bowl as a cover, and toss the tofu, so as to completely cover it in breading.
5. Heat oil in a frying pan, and fry tofu until brown on all sides.
As for the rest of the burrito, I am sure you have all made these at least once in your life, so I don't need to tell you how to do the rest. Although I do have a suggestion for making it taste that much better. Fry your peppers and onions in a pan, and then add the black beans. Add some salsa to the pan as well (the leftover Tomato-Chipotle sauce worked GREAT) and heat everything thoroughly. By cooking everything together, it will have a much better taste. Get your tortillas nice and warm, dollop the beans/vegetables on with some rice, guacamole, and cheese, and you have one hell of a burrito on your hands.
The band was very appreciative. Especially when their 2 biggest fans waited until 1am to hear them play 3 songs, even though they both had work VERY early the next morning. But who cares? Drag yourself through your day, take a nap when you get home, and do it all over again. That's what life is all about.
-Nikki
Friday, December 11, 2009
Westward Hos: Pioneer Wives Wore Aprons, Too
As the appointed crafty arm of the Stoned Soup Law I thought I'd share as my first project a craft that captures so many of the things dear to our hearts: kitchen equipment, recycling, being broke, handmade stuff. We at the SS Club pride ourselves on being able to whip up an amazing meal no matter how well-appointed or busted our kitchen situations happen to be. But there are certain things you can never have too many of, and one of them is potholders. (Ask any seasoned SSer who once reached for a hot panhandle because the smoke alarm woke them out of their spacey kitchen meditation or make-out session and burned themselves because there was no potholder at hand and OH MY GOD I JUST NEED THAT HORRIBLE BEEPING NOISE TO STOP and they will verify.) But who wants to spend money on potholders? Enter last year's jeans, the ones you turned into shorts over the summer. Maybe you were clever enough to knowingly save the chopped off leg parts for a future project. Maybe you just forgot about them and they got shoved under the bed where the kittens have been building forts out of them for the last 3 months. Either way, grab yourself some old denim (and make sure it's clean).
Moth holes in your favorite wool sweater? Accidently threw it in the dryer and shrunk it? Even better! This is a legit crafting process called "felting" so pretend like you meant to. It will make the fabric denser and easier to work with.
Cut squares of sweater material and denim in equal sizes, lining them up and ironing them on top of each other. A good hot iron is a really key piece of equipment in this project. Ironing the pieces together sort of helps them stick to each other a little. Note: Make sure your sweater is %100 wool. Sometimes synthetic materials will melt to an iron.
If you don't have a sewing machine, you can sew them together by hand, along each edge leaving a slight margin-- 5/8s of an inch is pretty standard.
I used a sewing machine for mine and here are some tips I pass along:
*set your stitch length long, it will be help accommodate the stretchiness of the sweater fabric
*sew with the denim side down-- the wool can snag on the teeth that help feed the fabric through the machine. Denim side down makes for a much smoother ride.
*the sweater fabric will want to shift and stretch on you, it's not the easiest stuff to work with. If you felted your material it will be a little stiffer and less stretchy, and this helps. Use your hands carefully to guide the fabric and keep it in place, especially once you are sewing the last side, sometimes it wants to bubble at the end of the final seam.
*Don't be too worried about the edges lining up, we'll take care of that in a minute. Be more concerned with the materials lying flat against each other.
When you are done, iron again, and trim the edges. Often the sweater material will have shifted a little, and trimming will make the edges look even and square.
Voila! Look at how ingenious and resourceful you are. Wool also has natural microbial properties so your kitchen is just a little more germ-resistant than if you were using boring regular potholders.
There are times I think I would have made a good pioneer wife. Stay tuned for future episodes like aprons made out of flour sacks and that time Ma killed a bear with her skillet.
Monday, December 7, 2009
A good deed for me means cookies for you.
It's a proven fact; nothing says "Thank you for fixing my car for only the cost of parts" or, "Thank you for shoving a 7ft Christmas tree into my Dodge Neon" quite like cookies. Everyone loves cookies, especially this time of year when eating a ton of crap isn't only excused, it's encouraged. So started my Sunday night of baking in exchange for the many good deeds I have been on the receiving end of recently.
About a year or so ago, I scoured the Internet for an easy to make, but also easy to impress, vegan cookie recipe. Many of the ones I ran into had ingredients I don't tend to have in my house, or had a ton of complicated steps I just didn't feel like doing. That is until I found a blog called Mac and Cheese Review that had a recipe for something that sounded almost too good to be true: Vegan Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Cookies.
Now anyone who knows me knows that I think peanut butter should be on EVERYTHING. It's a magical, wonderful food that my life would be severely lacking without. Mix that with chocolate, and forget about it. So I decided to give the cookies and shot.
I think I've made them at least 10 times since.
They are AMAZING! They are rich with just the right amount of sweet and just the right amount of peanut butter. They were easy to make (although a bit time consuming, but I'll explain why that's not so bad in a minute), most of the ingredients were already in my house, and people will hardly be able to believe they are vegan. I brought these to a party for the most recent election, and a guy there told me I "singlehandedly changed his mind on vegan baking". That's me, converting one nonbeliever at a time.
So without further ado, the recipe (which I adapted a bit from the original blog because of a portion issue)
You will need:
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup margarine
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup soy milk
½ cup powdered sugar
½ cup peanut butter
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips (try Bakers)
(Should yield about 12 2-inch cookies)
1. Preheat oven to 350ยบ.
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the margarine, sugar, and brown sugar. When combined, mix in the soy milk.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix.
5. In a separate bowl, mix together the powdered sugar and peanut butter. Once mixed, add the chocolate chips.
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take about a 2 or 3 tablespoons of the chocolate dough in your hand, and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball on the parchment paper to form a disk. Take a pinch or about 1 teaspoon of the peanut butter mixture and place in the center of the disk. Like so:
7. Fold the edges of the disk up and over the peanut butter, pressing the seams together. You will be left with a slightly misshapen ball that looks like this:
8. Gently flatten the ball with your palms to form it into a cookie shape, being careful not to split any of the seams. Clean up any of the edges you feel look unsightly. Then, place the cookie seam-side down on the parchment paper to bake, about 10-12 minutes.
Unless you are trying to really get these suckers made quick, the assembling process of the cookies should take about 30-45 minutes. But this is a Stoned Soup favorite for a reason. The work itself is pretty mindless, so before you start assembling, light a j, turn on some music, and just use the time to get lost in your own thoughts. I'm sure you don't take as much time every day as you should to just focus on what's going on in your head, so why not start now? And by the end of it, you'll have all these delicious cookies to eat on top of it.
-Nikki
About a year or so ago, I scoured the Internet for an easy to make, but also easy to impress, vegan cookie recipe. Many of the ones I ran into had ingredients I don't tend to have in my house, or had a ton of complicated steps I just didn't feel like doing. That is until I found a blog called Mac and Cheese Review that had a recipe for something that sounded almost too good to be true: Vegan Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Cookies.
Now anyone who knows me knows that I think peanut butter should be on EVERYTHING. It's a magical, wonderful food that my life would be severely lacking without. Mix that with chocolate, and forget about it. So I decided to give the cookies and shot.
I think I've made them at least 10 times since.
They are AMAZING! They are rich with just the right amount of sweet and just the right amount of peanut butter. They were easy to make (although a bit time consuming, but I'll explain why that's not so bad in a minute), most of the ingredients were already in my house, and people will hardly be able to believe they are vegan. I brought these to a party for the most recent election, and a guy there told me I "singlehandedly changed his mind on vegan baking". That's me, converting one nonbeliever at a time.
So without further ado, the recipe (which I adapted a bit from the original blog because of a portion issue)
You will need:
1 ½ cups flour
½ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup margarine
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1/3 cup soy milk
½ cup powdered sugar
½ cup peanut butter
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips (try Bakers)
(Should yield about 12 2-inch cookies)
1. Preheat oven to 350ยบ.
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the margarine, sugar, and brown sugar. When combined, mix in the soy milk.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix.
5. In a separate bowl, mix together the powdered sugar and peanut butter. Once mixed, add the chocolate chips.
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take about a 2 or 3 tablespoons of the chocolate dough in your hand, and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball on the parchment paper to form a disk. Take a pinch or about 1 teaspoon of the peanut butter mixture and place in the center of the disk. Like so:
7. Fold the edges of the disk up and over the peanut butter, pressing the seams together. You will be left with a slightly misshapen ball that looks like this:
8. Gently flatten the ball with your palms to form it into a cookie shape, being careful not to split any of the seams. Clean up any of the edges you feel look unsightly. Then, place the cookie seam-side down on the parchment paper to bake, about 10-12 minutes.
Unless you are trying to really get these suckers made quick, the assembling process of the cookies should take about 30-45 minutes. But this is a Stoned Soup favorite for a reason. The work itself is pretty mindless, so before you start assembling, light a j, turn on some music, and just use the time to get lost in your own thoughts. I'm sure you don't take as much time every day as you should to just focus on what's going on in your head, so why not start now? And by the end of it, you'll have all these delicious cookies to eat on top of it.
-Nikki
Friday, December 4, 2009
The SS Club Presents: A Very Mexican Christmas
Personally, I love Christmas trees. Can't say I care too much for the holiday itself, but I must say that the tree aspect really helps me tolerate the singing, shopping, and mandatory 1 night of church a year I endure to please the family. I will get a real tree every year as long as I live. Fake trees are an abomination to me, and I shall hear of no such thing. I mean really, the smell alone is worth the cost and hassle.
This year I purchased my tree from the Forestry class at the high school where I work. $30 for a tree 8 ft tall and 5 ft wide, you can't go wrong with that. So after a bunch of teenage boys with chainsaws loped off 2 ft (I wasn't sure of the height of my living room, but 6ft was all I willing to risk) and managed to get the entire tree INSIDE my car with NO doors or trunks open, I made the long, pine-scented drive home. And prepared to call a SS Club meeting.
While leafing through a authentic Mexican cookbook I had borrowed from the Culinary teacher earlier that day, I found a very enticing recipe I decided on for the evening: Crispy Lentil Cakes with Tomato Chipotle Sauce*. It was going to be a Mexican Christmas party.
The sauce was fairly easy, but the cakes were a little annoying. You had to cook the lentils for at least 30 minutes, plus freeze the individuals cakes for 30 minutes, so if you make this, be sure to give yourself a lot of time. Some of the cakes also fell apart, but thankfully the recipe made a bunch so that even with our disasters, we still fed 4 very hungry people with food leftover.
After eating, then the decorating! Now our house has always been more of a Halloween house than a Christmas one, but who says you can't have both? Our tree was decided to be far from anything traditional or "pretty", but instead funny, and maybe a little weird. We used the eyeball lights that decorated my porch for Halloween, as well as retro Christmas lights with bulbs so big I'm afraid to leave them plugged in for more than 20 minutes. The ornaments range from Simpsons characters, to tiny golden Elvis records, to amputated monsters riding sparkly balls that jingle, and everything in between. Also, as we opened up the bag of ornaments, I realized that one of the candy canes from last year had melted all over, causing many of them to look like they were bleeding. We went with it.
Our product:
A few ornament closeups:
I don't know what this is supposed to be, but it has no arm.
Clothespin solider at full attention.
Santa cop, patrolling the red light district of my tree.
And my favorite addition, the drunken, wine bottled, robot-esq angel. The best part is that the wine is called "Falling Star"
Coming soon- Tampon angels.
-Nikki
*Recipes featured in this meeting:
Tomato-Chipotle Sauce
You will need:
3-4 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 medium-large ripe tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1. Lay tomatoes on a baking sheet and place about 4 inches under a very hot broiler. When they soften and blacken on one side, about 6 minutes, turn them over for 6 minutes on the other side.
2. Roast unpeeled garlic cloves in an ungreased pan for 15 minutes, turning occasionally.
3. When tomatoes are finished, allow them to cool and then remove the skins.
4. Put garlic, tomatoes and any juice from them, and chiles in a food processor. Pulse the machine until it has the consistency of thick tomato sauce.
5. Heat vegetable oil in a pan, and when hot, add sauce and cook until thick and dark red/brown, about 5 minutes,
Crispy Lentil Cakes
You will need:
10 oz brown lentils (not red)
1 medium white onion
Olive oil
6 large garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
2 cups dry bread crumbs
1. In a pot bring 2 quarts of heavily salted water to a boil. Add lentils and simmer on medium for about 30-35 minutes. You want them tender and cooked, but not mushy. Drain, and spread out on a baking sheet to completely cool.
2. Roast unpeeled garlic in an ungreased pan for 15 minutes, turning often. Cool, peel, then finely chop.
3. Chop onion and brown in a pan with oil for 10 minutes.
4. Mix lentils, onion, garlic, cilantro, cheese, pepper and salt in a bowl.
5. Use a 1/4 measuring cup and pack lentil mixture in tightly, to the top. Turn over on a baking sheet and lightly tap the top, dislodging the cake (The mixture isn't very sticky, so this trick helps you make an easy cake shape)
6. Freeze cakes for 30 minutes, to make breading easier.
7. Combine eggs and milk and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Spread out bread crumbs on a plate. Dip each cake into egg mixture, ad then cover in breadcrumbs.
8. Turn on oven to lowest setting. In 1/8 inch of oil, fry the cakes for 3 minutes on each side, doing only 2-3 at a time. When each cake is done frying, store in the oven on a baking sheet until finished with all of them.
9. Top of Tomato Chipotle Sauce, and enoy!
This year I purchased my tree from the Forestry class at the high school where I work. $30 for a tree 8 ft tall and 5 ft wide, you can't go wrong with that. So after a bunch of teenage boys with chainsaws loped off 2 ft (I wasn't sure of the height of my living room, but 6ft was all I willing to risk) and managed to get the entire tree INSIDE my car with NO doors or trunks open, I made the long, pine-scented drive home. And prepared to call a SS Club meeting.
While leafing through a authentic Mexican cookbook I had borrowed from the Culinary teacher earlier that day, I found a very enticing recipe I decided on for the evening: Crispy Lentil Cakes with Tomato Chipotle Sauce*. It was going to be a Mexican Christmas party.
The sauce was fairly easy, but the cakes were a little annoying. You had to cook the lentils for at least 30 minutes, plus freeze the individuals cakes for 30 minutes, so if you make this, be sure to give yourself a lot of time. Some of the cakes also fell apart, but thankfully the recipe made a bunch so that even with our disasters, we still fed 4 very hungry people with food leftover.
After eating, then the decorating! Now our house has always been more of a Halloween house than a Christmas one, but who says you can't have both? Our tree was decided to be far from anything traditional or "pretty", but instead funny, and maybe a little weird. We used the eyeball lights that decorated my porch for Halloween, as well as retro Christmas lights with bulbs so big I'm afraid to leave them plugged in for more than 20 minutes. The ornaments range from Simpsons characters, to tiny golden Elvis records, to amputated monsters riding sparkly balls that jingle, and everything in between. Also, as we opened up the bag of ornaments, I realized that one of the candy canes from last year had melted all over, causing many of them to look like they were bleeding. We went with it.
Our product:
A few ornament closeups:
I don't know what this is supposed to be, but it has no arm.
Clothespin solider at full attention.
Santa cop, patrolling the red light district of my tree.
And my favorite addition, the drunken, wine bottled, robot-esq angel. The best part is that the wine is called "Falling Star"
Coming soon- Tampon angels.
-Nikki
*Recipes featured in this meeting:
Tomato-Chipotle Sauce
You will need:
3-4 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 medium-large ripe tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1. Lay tomatoes on a baking sheet and place about 4 inches under a very hot broiler. When they soften and blacken on one side, about 6 minutes, turn them over for 6 minutes on the other side.
2. Roast unpeeled garlic cloves in an ungreased pan for 15 minutes, turning occasionally.
3. When tomatoes are finished, allow them to cool and then remove the skins.
4. Put garlic, tomatoes and any juice from them, and chiles in a food processor. Pulse the machine until it has the consistency of thick tomato sauce.
5. Heat vegetable oil in a pan, and when hot, add sauce and cook until thick and dark red/brown, about 5 minutes,
Crispy Lentil Cakes
You will need:
10 oz brown lentils (not red)
1 medium white onion
Olive oil
6 large garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper
2 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
2 cups dry bread crumbs
1. In a pot bring 2 quarts of heavily salted water to a boil. Add lentils and simmer on medium for about 30-35 minutes. You want them tender and cooked, but not mushy. Drain, and spread out on a baking sheet to completely cool.
2. Roast unpeeled garlic in an ungreased pan for 15 minutes, turning often. Cool, peel, then finely chop.
3. Chop onion and brown in a pan with oil for 10 minutes.
4. Mix lentils, onion, garlic, cilantro, cheese, pepper and salt in a bowl.
5. Use a 1/4 measuring cup and pack lentil mixture in tightly, to the top. Turn over on a baking sheet and lightly tap the top, dislodging the cake (The mixture isn't very sticky, so this trick helps you make an easy cake shape)
6. Freeze cakes for 30 minutes, to make breading easier.
7. Combine eggs and milk and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Spread out bread crumbs on a plate. Dip each cake into egg mixture, ad then cover in breadcrumbs.
8. Turn on oven to lowest setting. In 1/8 inch of oil, fry the cakes for 3 minutes on each side, doing only 2-3 at a time. When each cake is done frying, store in the oven on a baking sheet until finished with all of them.
9. Top of Tomato Chipotle Sauce, and enoy!
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