Tag Archives: Cooking

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A blessing or a curse?

I just found out that I get free Video On Demand through my cable service which is great – except that now I want to have a marathon of Sweet Genius instead of finishing my paper that’s due on Monday.

I think Sweet Genius might actually win out tonight. I need a little break after writing 11 pages and helping my friend pick the lock to her apartment. She has a habit of locking herself out, so I figured I may as well put my lock-picking skills to good use.

Anyway, if you’ve never seen Sweet Genius, tune in now. I’m not sure when the new episodes air, but I want to say its something like Sunday nights. Imagine Derrida and Foucault as one person. Then imagine that one person decided to make a bunch of desserts out of alligator meat, pink lemonade, and Oreos. That’s basically Sweet Genius, and it’s delightful.

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Smoothies.

I think I have become addicted to smoothies. I have always always loved smoothies, but I rarely used to indulge my obsession with these blended drinks. Something about paying $5 for a chilled mush of fruits and veggies… I just couldn’t do it. Ever since I bought myself a blender, I’ve been making my own smoothies. Every day. I seriously can’t stop blending things together. It’s just so yummy, and I’ve found that smoothies make really great breakfast and lunch options. I can easily pour them into my travel cup and take them with me in the mornings if I’m running late, and they’re incredibly easy to down while I’m pouring over research during the middle of the day.

One of my favorites for lunch is this Green Monster Smoothie I found via Pinterest. Who would have though blending up some spinach and a banana would taste so good. I think I may add some honey next time to make it just a touch sweeter.

Anyone have some great smoothie recipes I can try?

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When did I get to be so domestic?

Today I think I finally solved the age-old question. Okay, maybe not the age-old question, but my age-old question. Why do I hate doing dishes so much?

Answer: I am awkwardly tall. It figures that my awkward height would complicate my life in every way physically possible. You see, every time after doing dishes (even just the pots, pans, and plates from one meal), I have this terrible ache in my mid-/lower-back. It’s not so much an ache as it is just a dull annoyance, but it eventually gets to the point where it hurts to stand. Why does this happen? I’ve decided that kitchen counters are generally not made to favor taller people. I must lean at an awkward angle in order to reach into the sink and rinse the dishes, and that awkward leaning eventually becomes annoying back pain. Yay, me. I should hurry up and have children so I can assign them chores. Hehehe.

Also, I recently purchased a blender, and I think I am inordinately excited about it. It’s called “The Crush Master” by Black and Decker (what a great name, right?), and I cannot wait to start making all the healthy and delicious smoothies I have pinned to my Pinterest board in the hopes that this day would finally come: the day I own my very own blender. Does this level of excitement over a kitchen appliance mean I’m getting old? A good friend of mine said she was “old as dirt” when we celebrated her birthday a few weeks ago. Maybe I’m not that far behind.

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5 Things.

Today I decided five things about my future.

1. After waking up to a weather report that said “Currently feels like 3,” I decided I will never be sad to visit my parents in sunny south Florida no matter where I end up in the future.

2. Ice is incredibly slippery and should be avoided at all times while walking. Ice is also very sneaky and often disguises itself as soft, non-slippery snow. I will no longer trust ice.

3. If I end up settling down in a cold, snowy place, I will need to have a son ASAP so that I will always have someone to shovel my driveway and sidewalk.

4. Eating well is expensive and confusing. I received a wonderful vegetarian cookbook for Christmas and promised my mom that I would try out two new recipes a week. Last night I picked out two dishes that sounded wonderful and not too complicated and today I set off for the store. I spent the same amount of money buying the ingredients for those two recipes as I do on a normal basis. I suppose I’ll have to take solace in the fact that each recipe yields about 6 servings so I should be set for a while on freezer leftovers after another week or so of this. I decided I may scale back to one new recipe a week then.

5. I love snow. It’s wonderfully beautiful and delightfully crunchy under my boots. I love kicking it with my toes and seeing it sparkle in the sunlight. I love the way trails of footprints stay in the fresh powdery coating and the way cars look like frosted cupcakes on the side of the road. I am a Florida girl at heart, but I do love snow. I think I’d like to live where it snows forever.

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All things Korean.

Last night, three of my friends and I traversed the state to find some Korean food. Two of them, let’s call them CP and BH, lived and worked in Korea for several years after completing their undergraduate studies and had been missing some of the delicious treats they discovered while there. The other two of us were just along for the ride. We left around 5:30, and found the H-Mart around 7:something. The drive was supposed to take 20 minutes, but we had unanimously decided to “avoid highways” on the way there. Daniel, CP’s trusty British GPS, promised us this option would only add an extra 11 minutes to our journey, but as we continued driving, his estimated time of arrival adjusted every few minutes making us wonder if we’d hit Philly before we found the H-Mart.

Eventually, however, we arrived, and the drive was definitely worth it. I’d never eaten Korean food before, so I followed CP’s lead as she steered me away from meat-filled dishes and extra-spicy sauces. I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to spice. I soon found out that Korean food is not very friendly to vegetarians. CP and BH ordered a stew-like dish that I believe was called Kimchi Jjigae, and the rest of us (both vegetarian and newcomers to Korean cuisine) ordered some Korean Sticky Noodles. The menu and the lady behind the counter promised us these noodles were vegetarian; however, as we began to eat, my friend and I discovered that “vegetarian” apparently means “no meat except the beef we sprinkle all over the top.” Fortunately, chopsticks make excellent tools for picking tiny pieces of ground beef out of noodles. Hurdle one: leapt.

Unfortunately, however, chopsticks are useless when attempting to eat sticky noodles. We soon found that even our plastic forks would do nothing to help us break up the solid mass of noodles sitting in the bottoms of our bowls. So, while we started on some soup and some seaweed rolls, CP requested some scissors from the kitchen. The four of us could barely contain our laughter as she then proceeded to chop our noodles into manageable bits with literally some kitchen shears. Hurdle two: leapt.

After dinner, we walked around the huge Korean market. I was amazed and intrigued by everything I found. Saddened by the fact that I couldn’t purchase anything to make on my own (because I am headed to Florida for a month-long vacation on Tuesday), I made a mental note of everything I wan to pick up and try on our next visit. I’m not sure that Korean food is my new favorite or that I’d do particularly well living over there, but I sure had a great time. Perhaps, friendship truly is a panacea.

Here are some highlights from our journey:

Did I mention we have plans to return for Korean Karaoke?

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My life in limbo.

I have decided that I am in limbo, a no-man’s land between undergraduate and graduate student life.  I am not in classes, yet I am living on a college campus.  I am not enrolled, yet I still visit the library at least twice a week.  Every day students rush around campus to class or the gym or the print lab, but I simply watch them.  After almost two weeks of doing nothing but watching, I promised myself I would make use of this summer.  I will use this free time of mine to gain some important life skills.

I’ve already begun teaching myself to crochet and am quite pleased with my progress.  I never thought I’d be able to pick it up so quickly.  Hooray.  Hobby number one: check.

I’m also dedicating myself to working on my language skills.  I have a decent translation ability in Latin, but would like to sharpen it up before beginning my graduate career.  I’ve got a basic conversational understanding of Italian, so I want to maintain (if not strengthen) that ability.  Lastly, I am going to learn French.  I swear.  My best friend is fluent, so I already have a wonderful conversational partner.  My lack of such a partner was a huge deterrent while trying to keep up with my Latin and Italian skills.  It’s a lofty goal, but hopefully by the end of the summer, I will at least be bilingual, if not trilingual.  As Mario would say, “Here we go.”

For my third adventure, I am dedicated to improving my cooking skills.  I’m usually terrified of the kitchen, especially once things start to heat up.  I can too easily see myself setting something on fire; however, I know that eating out is one of the best ways to quickly murder my savings.  Economically, I need to do this.

Over the last few days, I’ve slowly begun working on my fears.  I started off slowly: black beans and rice with a tiny parsley garnish from my window herb pot.  It turned out wonderfully, but, as enticing as the simple cooking plan sounds, I cannot live on rice and beans forever.  After eating these leftovers for three days in a row, I might not complain if I never see rice and beans again.

So, for my next culinary adventure, I chose to branch out a little bit more.  Tonight I spontaneously decided to use some of my newly purchased groceries to make dinner. I grabbed a few things that looked appetizing, chopped them up, diced a few of them, threw them in a pot, and turned up the heat.  I had very little expectation of creating anything edible.

Here’s a list of what I threw in there:

1. one small zucchini, diced

2. three small red peppers and one small yellow pepper, chopped

3. one handful of baby portabella mushrooms

4. handful of rotini, cooked according to package directions

5. olive oil, random amounts.

Here’s how I attempted to be a chef:

1. I poured some olive oil in the bottom of a skillet and turned the heat on low.

2. I dumped a handful of rotini in a pot of boiling water and let it cook.  Pasta is the one thing I am not afraid of in the kitchen.  I can generally always boil noodles to an edible state.

3. I diced and chopped according to list above and dumped everything in the skillet with the oil.

4. I stirred for a while then decided that I needed a sauce of some sort.

Here’s how I attempted to make a sauce:

1. I threw two spoonfuls of Philadelphia© cooking cream into the skillet and stirred.

2. It still looked like it needed something, so I added some more oil and some dried basil for good measure.

3. It looked a little too sparse but I didn’t want to add anymore cooking cream, so I added a few squirts of spicy brown mustard just to see what would happen.

4. Lastly, I added some Morningstar© chicken strips (to keep the whole thing vegetarian friendly and therefore edible for me) and some fresh baby spinach leaves because they looked pretty.

This is what I ended up with, and it was delicious.  Next time, I think I will add more veggies.I’m anticipating good things in the future.  Hopefully, I won’t need to make friends with the fire department.