Bowl of this

This is a whole lot more health, so I suppose I’ll balance it out with some more “woops-that-beer-went-down-rather-quickly”-related stories. Like losing my scarf one night last week after spending $10 on jukebox songs (No, GUYSS, I GOTTA PLAY THIS ONE MORE SONG, YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT [cue the 3rd paul simon song of the night, accompanied by lots of jukebox-ward looks and eye-rolls]). And then last night I lost my cardigan. Like, how do you lose a cardigan? Why did I take it off? I woke up on a couch with all my clothes on and my earrings were in my shoes.

Which is to say I need to cut out the saucing a bit. So that’s what I’ma do. Quit imbibing all the time.

I know! Vegetables and sobriety! I feel like the lamest possible version of myself. But you know, there’s more to life than drowning out your misery in alcohol.

Namely, you can get rid of your misery. WHICH IS WHAT I DID. You know how? Well, I quit my job, friends. Just like that. Didn’t like it, didn’t want to do it anymore, saw no future in it, so obviously I stayed in it for about a year after I figured that all out, and then last week I put in my notice.

That’s right, kiddos. I did the one thing I said I was never going to do again: quit my job with no subsequent job lined up. Ha! Ha Ha! Also, I have no money! To speak of! And the money I earn goes to 1) rent 2) all the vegetables that exist and 3) an unwise amount of beer.

Hoping to curb #3, save up a bit before my last day (in 3 weeks), and then…I don’t know. Find another soul-sucking job? Go to school? Finally realize my destiny as a day-shift stripper? I don’t know!!! The world is my oyster.

Now, on to more pressing matters. Namely: does ANYONE HERE know how to shuck an oyster? If so, can you help a girl out? Because, really now, I am at a loss here.

Mushroom Shichimi Rice Bowl
from 101 Cookbooks

2 cups cooked brown rice*
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced
Fine-grain sea salt

12 ounces / 340 g chanterelles or mushrooms of your choice, sliced ~1/4-inch thick

8 ounces / 225 g firm tofu, cut into tiny cubes
1 small bunch kale / 3 oz / 85 g, well chopped
Shichimi Togarashi or red pepper flakes, to taste  (or i made my own mixture of black sesame seeds, seaweed, salt, pepper, paprika, chopped ginger, and red pepper flakes)

If you need to cook the rice from scratch, do so.*

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large skillet over high heat. Add the mushrooms in a single layer, stir well, and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid, and then brown, about 5 minutes more. Stir a few times along the way, but don’t overdo it; you want the mushrooms to be deeply browned on both sides. Stir in the garlic roughly 20 seconds before the mushrooms finish cooking. If you need to cook the mushrooms in two batches, do so. Transfer the mushrooms to a plate, set aside.

Using the same large skillet, no need to clean it out, cook the tofu along with a couple pinches of salt over medium-high heat until heated through, and until it starts to brown a bit. Roughly one minute before the tofu is finished cooking, stir in the kale. It should collapse and cook down over the next 60 seconds.

Season all the components generously with Shichimi Togarashi and salt to taste. For each serving, dish up a heaping spoonful of brown rice along with some of the tofu/kale mixture and a some of the mushrooms.

Serves 3-4.

*To make a pot of brown rice: The ratio I use to cook brown rice is 1 part rice to (just shy of) 2 parts water, plus a good dose of salt. The following recipe will make more than you need for the above recipe by about double, but it’s worth making extra for later in the week.

You’ll need 2 cups / 14 oz / 400 g brown rice, rinsed and drained + 3 1/2 cups / 830 ml water + 2 teaspoons fine-grain sea salt

In a large saucepan over high heat, bring the rice, water, and salt to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer gently until the water is absorbed, about 45 minutes. Fluff with a fork and serve hot. Any leftover rice can be cooled and then stored in the freezer for later use.

Prep time: 15 min – Cook time: 5 min

I want to be good, is that not enough?

Heyyyy internet. How are you? I’m a tad bedraggled if we’re being honest. If we’re not being honest, I’m good!

So, listen. I know most of you come here for the butter-sugar-flour-self-deprecating-hopelessness combo that is my personal life recipe, but: there have been some changes, as you might’ve guessed from my notable length of silence. Namely, I’m trying to be Good. Don’t worry, not good in the way that would mean me not calling bars on Monday morning to locate my credit card (it was at the Noc Noc). But good in a way that means I literally have not even said hello to my Kitchenaid since before New Year’s. Good in a way that means taking care of myself (when I am not drinking too much beer and walking home at 9am in last night’s ensemble).

The gist is that I’m off white flour and sugar and butter for the month of January. (Besides drunken dominos pizza because, i’m sorry, i’ll never be able to say no to that) WHICH MEANS….vegetables. Lots of fucking vegetables. For the most part I’ve been just throwing them all in a frying pan and eating the result (which is never un-delicious). But last night I decided to impart a bit of structure on my vegetable consuming, and went to my most reliable vegetable experts, the ladies of the Moosewood cookbooks.

This winter curry is totally lovely and spicy and soft. And look, I put a fucking sprig of parsley on it for your aesthetic enjoyment. Don’t even ever say I never did anything for you. So if you’re not interested in healthy fare, you might be disappointed in me for a little while. I take full responsibility. If you still need some Badness from me to survive, I can tell you about that time I stole a tshirt from the storage room at work because I was wearing the same sweater I left in the previous day. Also my underwear were in my purse. LISTEN LIFE IS COMPLICATED.

Winter Curry
adapted from Moosewood New Classics

1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups onions,  chopped
1 tsp black mustard seed (didn’t have this so i added some mustard powder)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
2 tsps cumin
2 tsps ground coriander seed
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
4 cups diced potato (i did 1 potato and 1 sweet potato)
4 cups diced butternut squash
1 1/2 cups water or veggie stock
2 cups chickpeas (canned, drained)
2 cups canned tomatoes, diced
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped cilantro (i used parsley)

heat oil on medium high heat. add mustard seeds until they begin to pop. add onion and sautee until translucent (10 min or so). Meanwhile mix together spices, garlic and ginger. add to onions and stir constantly for 1 min. add potatoes, squash and water. bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 min. until veggies are just tender. add chickpeas, tomatoes, lemon juice and cilantro. Stir and simmer until flavors are well blended (about 10 min).

In sickness and in health and if you get fat from too much cake.

You may have heard I made a wedding cake. It happened! I would like to first acknowledge that I didn’t go at it solo. My friend Marge, who’s been featured here before, did a lot of work, and my friend Meg, who has also been featured, did slightly less but still a very important amount of work. Do I want to one day make a wedding cake by myself? Yes. But this was my first go, and it was for a life-long friend, and if it came out like shit I wanted to be able to spread the blame. I kid, I kid! I couldn’t have done it without Marge and Meg, as well as my poor mother, who wasn’t even made aware of my hare-brained scheme until it began, and was very obliging in letting me completely fuck up her kitchen for several days.

So, we went to Costco and bought like….10 lbs of flour, and a huge container of oil, and so much sugar. And we were like, this is plenty. We won’t use all this. This is insanity. Turns out, though, there is like….a shitload of  oil in a wedding cake that feeds 160. Like, all the oil in the world.

Then I freehanded a bunch of snowflakes in melted white chocolate because I am an all-around badass. Then I added edible sparkles which proceeded to embed themselves into my soul. Seriously, I am still finding them. It’s really, really, really embarrassing when you are 27 years old and you show up somewhere with sparkles on your face and you are unaware of said sparkles and therefore unable to explain that THIS IS NOT ON PURPOSE.

And then, you know. We made a lot of cake and a lot of frosting and I hacked a lot of it off to create hexagon shapes and then I frosted it and we made fondant and wanted to die because fondant is the work of the devil and i hate it so much i want it to die.

And then I drove it–VERY CAREFULLY–in the back of my mom’s car, in between the ceremony and reception, to the reception hall. And I stacked it and artfully placed the snowflakes and stifled my horror when, halfway through the reception, someone bumped the table and the top snowflakes came tumbling down and broke themselves and what is left of my heart.

And then we ATE IT, and it was actually really fucking good! On account of me being totally awesome and nailing my first go at wedding cakes. And I didn’t even get drunk and make a cynical comment about the conventions of marriage and how is it logical to promise one person you’ll never stop loving them when you don’t actually know that that is true? You know? Because, sometimes you just stop. Because, life spoiler alert here people, some people turn out to be real jerks.

Not you, though, reader. You’re a keeper. I’ll make your wedding cake, too.