Bad at Blogging, Good at Potato Salad

I'm really only breaking blog-silence to post this potato salad recipe. Because it's mothafuckin' Memorial Day, so you should be celebrating it with some damn potato salad, like the troops would want you to. It's really friggin' good, and I'll be making it for a glorious block party shindig tomorrow.

Super Suburban Potato Salad

Prep Time: 45 Minutes  |  Cook Time:  |  Difficulty: Easy  |  Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 6 strips center-cut bacon
• 5 pounds russet potatoes (about 8 medium russets)
• 1 cup light mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup mustard
• 3 tbsp. white vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp. sugar
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. celery seed
• 1 small white onion, finely diced
• 3 stalks celery, finely diced
• 5 whole green onions, sliced
• 8 small sweet pickles, chopped + pickle juice
• 4 whole hard boiled eggs, chopped
• 1 cup green peas, thawed from frozen

Directions

Cook bacon; reserve drippings; chop bacon. Cut potatoes in halves or thirds, then boil until fork tender. Drain. Mash half of the potatoes with the bacon drippings; cut other half into chunks and toss with 2 tbsp. pickle juice. Mix together mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, sugar, salt, paprika, pepper, and celery seed. Fold potatoes together with onion, celery, bacon, and green onions; toss with dressing. Fold in pickles, eggs, and peas then taste for seasonings, adding more salt, mustard, or mayo as needed. You may also splash in juice from the pickle jar if salad needs a little moisture.

I drew upon the following recipes to craft the above:

The Pioneer Woman's Perfect Potato Salad

Brown Eyed Baker's Best Ever Potato Salad

Martha Stewart's All-American Potato Salad

FUN + FUEL = FOOD

Re-posted from its original location on the blog You Plus Two, where it ran as a guest post.

FUN + FUEL = FOOD 

Remember that scene in Finding Nemo, when Nemo sits in on the shark’s support group? And their mantra is “Fish are friends, not food”? Well, here’s the thing: Foods are friends, not foes.

 (I may have already exceeded the recommended number of words beginning with F in a single post, but I promise this won’t turn into a giant alliteration.)

It’s hard to remember this sometimes, with the seeming barrage of calorie counts and health studies and the words obesity epidemic being thrown around every 5 seconds… but food is not the enemy. But while it’s also easy to go into a hyper-utilitarian argument that food is just fuel for your body and you need to only put in the good stuff for optimum performance (gee thanks, health magazines), the fact remains — food is also DELICIOUS.

Like, cheese?
Chocolate?
Bread?
Steak?
Right?
So good. And it’s things like those (says the unabashed food dork) that make life so much fun. At the same time, I know that if I ate nothing but those kinds of food all the time, I’d feel physically (and probably psychologically) awful. Which is why it’s so convenient that many foods that I know are great for me also happen to taste awesome. It’s all about being able to strike a balance between logic and joy.

It’s actually kind of awesome, the ways in which food can fuel your body. I confess, I put cheap gas in my car, because I don’t really know how my car feels when it runs on better fuel vs. the budget stuff I buy. Now, you may already suspect this, but I am not a car. What I DO know is how I personally feel when I eat lots of veggies, whole grains, fish, water, fruit, healthy fats, etc. vs. how I feel when I eat junk food on the regular. Luckily, I’m a bit of a supermarket floozy, in that I’ve been around the block (aisles?) a few times and have figured out what works best for me all-around.

Example: I love spinach. Not just the way it tastes — which is fresh, mild, and wonderful — but the fact that it’s AMAZINGLY nutrient-rich, loaded with vitamins A, C, and K, folate, iron, fiber, and other essential nutrients. But because of those things, it’s not just good for the inside of you body, but the outside too. Due to its high content of anti-aging minerals and antioxidants, spinach is frequently cited as one of the best “beauty foods” around. Plus, the fact that I can eat a big ol’ bowl of the raw leaves, blend a handful into a smoothie, or wilt some quickly with pasta makes it even more appealing. Y’all, I can wax rhapsodic on spinach for hours (don’t test me), but the point is this: finding foods you love that love you back is HUGE. (Need a good resource for nutritious foods? Read up at The World’s Healthiest Foods.)

However, knowing that I get nutritious foods into my life on a fairly regular day-to-day basis, this allows me to give myself a pass when it comes to those special treats I want. If it’s Saturday night and all I want is some PIZZA, guess what I’m gonna eat? If it’s my friend’s birthday and there’s a cake, I’m having a slice. Because I know that a) I eat smart most of the time and b) if I deprive myself, I’m just going to turn into an angry, bitter curmudgeon who no longer gets invited to those birthday parties. These things happen as a part of life, so rather than fight it, you might as well enjoy in moderation. Balance, yo. BALANCE.

Staying mindful about what you’re eating can also be super helpful, not only in terms of your enjoyment, but also in terms of how much of it you end up eating. If you’re having something that you know is a special treat food, don’t just wolf it down. Appreciate every bite, savor the flavor, chew, and swallow. Allow yourself to REALLY enjoy what you’re eating. This not only keeps you focused on “OMG, how good is this delicious morsel I’m eating?!”, but it also gives your body time to respond when it doesn’t really need anymore. So often, we eat too fast, stop when we’re full, and then go on to feel EVEN FULLER several minutes later. Your digestive system doesn’t work as fast as you can eat, so it makes sense to slow your end of things down whenever possible. (For more on mindful eating, check out this piece by Darya Pino, PhD.)

The biggest (BIGGEST!!!) rule of all? If you DO indulge and eat more than you ordinarily would, DO NOT stress out about it. Stay smart and stay mindful — come on, you know you don’t do that all the time! Give yourself a break. Just because you had that indulgence does NOT mean you might as well go all out and keep eating badly as a consolation or whatever. It also does NOT mean you should beat yourself up about it; you don’t deserve that. Instead, focus on the positive — how good it was, how much you enjoyed it, why you decided to eat it in the first place, etc. Then proceed as usual with your normal eating habits. In short, keep calm and carry on.

Don’t fight your food. Just think before (and while) you eat — no regrets!

The Best Damn Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever**

**subject to personal opinion

I recently officially wrote all this down after a couple years of just making changes to my favorite cookie recipe as I went along. This is my go-to, my failsafe, and I cannot guarantee that I make them exactly this way every time... because I'm fickle like that. I pretty much never actually measure the chocolate/seeds/nuts and am prone to using whatever nuts I have on hand or none at all.


The Best Damn Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever
Adapted from David Lebovitz's Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe

Makes about 40 cookies (depending on how small/large you make em)
 

4 ounces (1 stick) salted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup packed dark or light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup flax seeds


1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or by hand, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar just until smooth and creamy.

2. Beat in the egg and the vanilla.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

4. Stir the flour mixture into the beaten butter until combined, then mix in the chocolate chips, the nuts, and the seeds.

5. Cover and chill the batter until firm. (For best results, at least chill overnight.)

6. To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350ºF. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray.

7. Roll the cookie dough into balls about the size of a large unshelled walnut. Place 8 - 10 balls evenly spaced apart on the baking sheet.

8. Bake the cookies for twelve minutes, until the cookies look barely browned and are still very soft. (They'll firm up as they cool; the key to good chewy cookies is undercooking them!)

9. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on the sheet for a minute before transferring them with a spatula to a cooling rack. Repeat cooking process until all your dough is cooked.

Mmm-MMM! That is one tasty muffin!

These muffins got their profane name after I described the muffins I was about to make as being "all fuckin' full of grains and fruit and yogurt and shit." (Note: Reading this sentence off the page makes these muffins sound more disturbing than they are.)

These are selections from an actual IM conversation with my boyfriend after he tried the muffins in question:

"Are these just whole-ass blueberries up in these motherfuckers?"

SHIT YES, MOTHERFUCKER!

"Holy fuck! Moist. Squishy. Blueberry-y. But with a hint of millet crunch. Pretty goddamned fantastic muffin."

I think the millet really helps to keep it not become over-moist and provides necessary texture. And fucking blueberries rock. And there's flax seed pureed into there too, so there's all that healthy Omega-3 shit inside!

"OH MY FUCK! So healthy!"

So now without further ado...


Healthy Motherfucking Muffins

[photo to come]

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup quinoa flakes
1/4 cup millet
1/2 cup raw sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
zest of 1 lemon
1 apple, cored and roughly chopped
1/4 cup flax seeds1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cups 2% Greek yogurt
1 cup blueberries, fresh
sliced almonds for topping, optional

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease the cups of a standard muffin pan; or line with paper baking cups, and grease the paper cups.

Mix together flour, quinoa flakes, millet, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and lemon zest.

Place apple and flax seeds in a blender with 3/4 cup water, and blend until smooth. Add in the yogurt and vanilla, and pulse blender until mixed.

Pour the blender contents into the dry ingredients, stirring just to combine. Fold in blueberries.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them nearly full. A slightly heaped muffin scoop of batter is the right amount. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with almonds, if desired.

Bake the muffins for 25 minutes minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the center muffins comes out clean.

Remove the muffins from the oven, and after 5 minutes (or when they're cool enough to handle) transfer them to a rack to cool. Serve warm, or at room temperature.

Yield: 12 muffins.

Seedy, Cheesy, and Just the Way I Like It

I love me some savory pastries. Especially ones with cheese. Sweet jesus, YES CHEESE. But I also recognize that I need to balance out my own personal cheese-loving tendencies with healthier ones. Hence, this recipe was born.

I cobbled together a few different recipes, using this one from the NY Times as a base while adding in elements I liked from other recipes (quinoa flakes and, of course, cheese). And since I was adding cheese, I slashed the sugar considerably and cut the vanilla. And lo 'n behold, they turned out pretty goddamn awesome.

(Note: When I made these, I added more water than I needed, resulting in a need to add a BUNCH more flour when rolling out the mad-sticky dough. I have adjusted the amount accordingly and the 2 tbsp. listed below should be just peachy.)

Seedy Cheese Scones

2.5 oz AP flour (plus more used while working)
2.5 oz cake flour
2 oz quinoa flakes
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 ounces (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
2/3 cup yogurt + 2 tablespoons water
6 tablespoons mixed seeds/grains (I used sunflower, poppy, and millet)
2 oz. grated cheddar

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
2. Sift together the flours, flakes, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt. Place in a food processor fitted with the steel blade and cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.
3. Combine the yogurt and water, add to the flour mixture, and pulse processor til mixed. Stop the machine and add the seeds. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the cheese; pulse to mix.
4. Flour your hands as well as your work surface, and scrape out the dough. Gently shape into a rectangle 1 inch thick. Cut into 6 squares, then cut the squares diagonally to give you 12 triangular scones. The dough may be sticky; add a little more flour as needed to make it workable.

5. Place the scones on the baking sheet about 1 inch apart and bake 15(+) minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, or serve warm.

Yield: 12 scones

Next time, I'll likely try using a tad less butter, actually use the amount of water listed above, and have whole wheat flour on hand to swap out for the AP stuff. But considering how fast and loose I played with this recipe without having tested it, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

In response to my aforementioned feelings...

I've been feeling the need to detox, as many of us do after the holidays, as much as I can while we're in book development at work. (This is a process that requires me to make semi-regular trips to the kitchen to taste a new recipe or two and weigh in on whether it's good, what it needs, etc. Yeah, it's a rough life.)

Being the Francophile I am and knowing that I'd surely become a crazy person on a juice cleanse and that I'd be unlikely to keep anything going longer than a couple days, I made a choice that was food-like and brief. Mireille Giuliano (of French Women Don't Get Fat fame) has a Leek Soup Kick-Off Weekend plan which is kind of a lead in to eating better in general and flushing your system to get you started off right. While her extremely spartan Magical Leek Soup recipe looked a bit TOO extreme for my purposes (NOTHING BUT LEEK BROTH AND BOILED LEEKS FOR TWO DAYS?! See, I got crazy just thinking about it), the Provencal-inspired Mimosa soup seemed a bit more my speed.

Here's the recipe. The following words, until indicated, are Mireille's... my notes will be in red.

[begin Mireille]

Mimosa Soup Recipe
1 head of lettuce
½ lb. carrots
½ lb. celeriac
½ lb. turnips
½ lb. cauliflower
1 lb. leeks
2 hard boiled eggs chopped
½ cup chopped parsley
Water to cover in a large pot

[TRUTH TIME: I added about 2 tbsp. of miso paste to the very large pot because I just couldn't bear the idea of all that unseasoned soup. But even still...]

1. Clean and chop all ingredients in rough pieces and, except for the cauliflower and parsley, put them a pot. Cover with water, bring to boil and simmer unlidded for 40 minutes. Add the cauliflower and cook for another 15 minutes.

2. Pass all the contents through a food mill. (I used an immersion blender; worked just dandy.)

3. Serve in a bowl and add more parsley and pieces of chopped boiled eggs.

Instructions:
Eat a cup every three hours (room temperature or reheated) or so all day Saturday and Sunday until the same Sunday dinner of fish or meat, 2 steamed vegetables with a dash of butter or olive oil and 1 piece of fruit. Somewhat less liquidy [thank god] and magical [I'll take that to mean maddening] than the leek soup it nevertheless is an effective and tasty alternative.

Both versions are so good [read: bland but tolerable], and an adventure for most palates [read: an exercise in deprivation], that you will have a very hard time seeing them as prison rations. Especially if these tastes are new to you, jot your impressions of flavor and fragrance in your journal. In time, this exercise will intensify your pleasures [read: cravings], and you may want to keep a regular diary of your experiences gastronomiques [read: psychotically maddening cravings for things like bread and cheese], including some wine notes (just as serious oenologues do).

[end Mireille]

I just had my first bowl, and I should be able to keep this up all weekend, due to the fact that I have a pretty rigid and demanding rehearsal schedule that will keep me from going out or having dinner with my boyfriend. I can be pretty sure, though, that my "Sunday dinner of fish or meat, 2 steamed vegetables with a dash of butter or olive oil and 1 piece of fruit" will stray a bit away from the prescribed meal.

Old and Fat

I feel old and fat and no amount of other people saying "Dude, you're not fat" or reminding me that I'm only 29 can quell it.

(Sidenote: Has this ever helped? Has the response ever been, "Whew! Thank goodness!" I'm not saying I AM fat; I'm saying I feel fat. I know it's in my brain and not my ass but I can't shake it -- the feeling, not my ass.)

*sigh*

I'm blaming the new year.

For some reason, the impending New Year (spellcheck says it should be capped, y'all) has me in a state of self-doubt I haven't seen since my birthday (*cough only 3 months ago cough*). I think this whole year leading up to my 30th birthday is just going to be one long string of anxiety over feeling like I'm aging but not growing up.

Not that this is even outside the norm these days. One of my very favorite websites is written by a group of ladies who appear to always be barraged by others deeming them immature, irresponsible, etc. Which is probably why I love it all so much. Then there's "Young Adult," with Charlize repping for all the lady-girls out there.

But back to me. (FOCUS.)

When I hit 29, I was like "This is it, homes. Last year of your 20's. You better look hot while you can because it's all downhill from here." I can practically feel my metabolism slowing down as I type these words. I've begun to notice a permanent crinkle in my face that isn't related to speaking or smiling (them lines ain't going NOWHERE) or raising my eyebrows in surprise/disdain; it is an inner eyebrow crinkle that is distinctly from excessive squinting and brow-furrowing, much of which I blame on the years I spent avoiding wearing my glasses. Now I'm stuck between my deeply-ingrained lazy ways and my desire to retain my youthful (?) good looks (??) -- I'll obsess much of the day over whether or not to start using a night cream, eye cream, serum (I don't know what serums do, WHAT ARE THEY?), but by the time I'm zonked enough to crash, I'll usually fall asleep with a full face of makeup as per usual.

By the way, I feel like the people who market those face creams are FULLY aware of this kind of paranoid insecurity and how much sway it hold over us when they come up with the pricing. I'm super-cheap and still youngish, so when I look at these creams, I think "Yes, I'm concerned about this, but I'm not $40-a-jar concerned yet." I'm pretty much under-$20-concerned right now. I'm also embarrassed to purchase these items, mostly because I don't want anyone to comment on my selection. I would rather buy a pile of scandalous underwear, tampons, lube, and condoms than walk up to a register with a jar of something marked "anti-aging."

And as for exercise, I really haven't found something that falls in with my Midwestern frugality (read: brutal cheapness), my inability to stick to a routine, and the aforementioned lazy ways. I tried taking a morning walk around my neighborhood, but after a while I got SO BORED with my stupid neighborhood! So I stopped. I've tried workout DVDs which was OK until a) my stupid, newly-motivated boyfriend started getting up earlier too and puttering around while I follow instructions from the television like an asshole (I should mention at this point that I REALLY HATE having other people watch me exercise, mostly because I'm sure it's hilarious) and b) I got SO BORED with the DVDs. I have one of those trainer-things for my bike, (which looks a bit funny, since it's a cruiser with a basket), so I can bike in my living room -- biking while reading was actually working really well for me, until I started having to spend my early morning time waking up to work on other stuff. (Hey, holidays? Let's get this shit over with already.)

Today I keep seeing mentions of pilates. Pilates? Is that something I want? I don't know. I have a pilates DVD I used for a while, and the best thing I learned from it is that pilates was created by a guy named Joseph Pilates. THERE WAS A JOE PILATES. As in "Who do you think you are, Joe Pilates or something?" That doesn't even really work as a burn because Joe Pilates was a real person. Not to mention the fact that the name Joe Pilates sounds like it belongs to a dude who runs a pizza shop in Queens.

If anyone reads this and has actual suggestions as to what might work for my cheap, lazy, self-conscious, easily-bored self in terms of exercise, tell me.

Enough of this for now...

Things I'm embarrassed to do:

- Enjoy Evian Facial Spray. God, I thought this was stupid when I first saw it. I even got one free in a swag bag that went untouched for eons until I gave it a go. Then I realized how delightful it felt to your skin, when you live in a semi-desert-like climate, to mist your face with tiny droplets of water. Not even just when you're hot. I sit in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day and have found myself sneaking off to the bathroom with my spray hidden to give my face a quick hit of moisture. I can't help feeling like a socialite who just got off an airplane or something when I use it, which makes me feel both ashamed and well-hydrated.

- Try on a pencil skirt at J. Crew. Why? Because the super-fashionable dudes who work there observe and hover around customers (because they're doing their job), and I have a pretty good idea that if I go in there and try one on, it's NOT going to look good on me. Mostly because I'm paranoid, but also because they don't carry petite sizes in-store. So if I try one on, it's going to be too long. And I won't even get a good idea of what actual size I'll need, because the petite sizes are smaller everywhere, not just shorter. SIGH. And so, to spare myself the indignity of looking short and dumpy in a pencil skirt in front of the cool J. Crew employees, I'm just gonna order the petite sucker online.

- Same goes for any vaguely scandalous underwear.

- Take fish oil supplements, not for hearth health, but because I want my skin to be pretty. I'm so vain, I probably think this blog is about me. Which brings me to...

- Be mildly panicking about turning a mere 29. I've started looking at more intensive moisturizers and face care regimens. Luckily, every time I do, my frugality trumps my vanity when I see the prices. YES, I would love a vat of Dr. Perricone's Super Omega face junk. HELL TO THE NO am I paying that much for it. That's why I was super stoked to see some face oils being sold by a DIY blogger I admire for a reasonable price. So I can support her doing work I enjoy and stoke my vanity/self-loathing at the same time.

Enough honesty for today.

Mildly obsessed with DIY nail art

Here's my attempt at a gradient...



In case you're wondering, I painted on the green first, let it dry, then dabbed on the black polish with a makeup sponge (not one of the shiny sides of the sponge, or else chunks may stick to your nail -- my left thumb is a testament to this). Then top coat. BOOM.

This one's for Foodbully!

Alright, after acquiring a killer-sounding chocolate-chip biscotti from a Twitter acquaintance, I mentioned how I was reminded of a really good sounding recipe I stumbled across about 5 years ago in a cookbook an old roommate gave me. She requested said recipe, and so here it is.

I have de-Britished the recipe somewhat, as it was full of terms like "caster sugar," "corn flour," and "scant." (OK, I left in "scant," because I couldn't think of a better word to use and I so seldom get the chance to say/write/type "scant.")


Pecan Toffee Shortbread
from The Cookie and Biscuit Bible

Makes 20

1 tbsp. ground coffee
1 tbsp. near-boiling water
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 tbsp. smooth peanut butter
scant 1/2 cup superfine sugar
2/3 cup cornstarch
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

For the topping:
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp. light corn syrup
1 cup shelled pecans, halved

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line a 7 x 11" pan with waxed paper.

Put the ground coffee in a small heatproof bowl and pour the hot water over it. Leave to steep for 4 minutes. Strain through a sieve into a bowl. Discard the grounds.

Cream the butter, peanut butter, and coffee until light. Sift the cornstarch and flour together and mix in to make a smooth dough.

Press into the base of the baking pan and prick all over with a fork. Bake for 20 minutes. To make the topping, put the butter, sugar, and syrup in a pan and heat until melted. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Simmer for 5 minutes, then stir in the pecans. Spread the topping evenly over the base. Leave in the pan until cold, then cut into squares or bars. Remove from the pan and serve.

Nail fail.

After attempting a few other nail art projects (and wiping them off immediately thereafter since they looked like hell), I simplified and went with this...



Matt said it looks like a bunch of ellipses.

Having free time tonight, I think I'm gonna apply my ellipsified digits to my neglected ukulele.

(If I write that here, maybe I'll actually do it instead of getting sucked into So You Think You Can Dance.)

The Doctor is In

Some of the recipes I get asked for most often are my cold-busting tea and soup. Both rely heavily on garlic. I'm not sure of the exact scientific reasons behind WHY garlic has the magic touch, but I've heard many accounts of antibacterial and antiviral properties.

The tea was recommended to me by an elderly Chinese lady (who I used to work with at a mortgage company, just to remove any air of mystery or worldliness that might surround that statement). Over the years, I've learned to listen to pretty much whatever old ladies tell me, because the advice is generally fairly good.

For the tea, the concoction is pretty simple:

1. Smash a clove of garlic with the side of a big knife; discard the skin.

2. Pop the garlic clove into a mug of hot water OR pop the garlic clove into a mug of non-hot water and microwave it for 1 - 1.5 minutes. Let it sit for at least 5 minutes.

3. If you don't have time to let it come to a reasonable temperature, pop an ice cube into the concoction and stir until it dissolves. Or you can just let it cool off on its own.

4. Discard the garlic clove. If you like, add some honey or a squeeze of lemon and stir. If not, don't.

5. Drink it all as quickly as you can.

6. Brush your teeth. (Or at least pop a mint.)

Repeat up to 4 times a day, like you might with Airborne or Emergen-C. Way cheaper than either of those options.


And then there's the mid-day, "I just came home sick from work" Lunchtime Method...

Heat up a pot of chicken or miso broth and load it up with LOTS of sliced garlic. If this is all you have, you can stop there, but I will generally chop and throw in any veggies or noodles/rice I have on hand. (Carrots are particularly good. Let those cook a good long time until they're soft. And at the last second, a handful of spinach leaves is also a good touch; cook just until they're wilted.)

Serve up a cup, add in a healthy squeeze of sriracha hot sauce (as much as you can handle) and mix it in until your soup is a nice shade of orange.

Have a big glass of water, a glass of orange juice, and a box of tissues nearby. Eat the soup, utilizing as much of the water, OJ, and tissues as needed. (That soup should make your nose run like crazy.)

Once the soup is gone, take a nap. You should feel a good deal better when you wake up.

Damn you, meat pies!

I adore meat pies. Yes, sweet pies are great, but I could eat a savory pie every day for the rest of my life and never come close to getting sick of it.



This is the last remaining meat pie from the batch I made this weekend. It's not the prettiest of the batch -- it's merely the last pie standing.

"Dana, why didn't you take a nicer picture of one of the better-looking pies right after you made them?"

I have several answers to this question...

1. I had company.
2. I was in the middle of a Harry Potter Movie Marathon.
3. I was terribly hungry.
4. I forgot.

I could continue, but those are the only reasons that really count.

The recipe was Frankensteined from this wildly wonderful meat pie recipe, plus my taste buds, my laziness, and a bit of influence from the tastes and dietary restrictions of my guests.

The Amazing Disappearing Mini Meat Pies

Crust

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup cold butter

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp cold water

2 eggs

1 tsp white vinegar

Filling

1 smallish potato
1/2 onion, finely diced

2 stalks celery, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 lb lean ground beef

Olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

4 sprigs fresh rosemary

4 sprigs fresh thyme

3 tbsp. tomato paste

1 cup beef broth

1 tbsp. miso paste

Handful of grated parmigiano-reggiano

Crust

Mix the flour and salt in the large bowl. Cut the butter into small chunks, and cut the chunks into the flour mixture until it becomes crumbly. (I use a KitchenAid mixer and it does beautifully.) Beat 1 egg with the vinegar and water in a separate bowl or glass. Add the egg mixture to the dough and beat until mixture form a ball. Wrap in plastic and put in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Filling

Cook potato in microwave and set aside. Place onion and celery into a large frying pan on a medium heat with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Pick the rosemary and thyme leaves off the woody stalks, finely chop them, and add to the pan. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Fry and stir for 10 minutes. Put the vegetable mixture into a large bowl.

Place garlic into a large frying pan on a high heat with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Fry and stir for a few minutes, add the ground beef, a pinch of salt and pepper. When the ground beef becomes brown, add the tomato paste, beef broth and miso paste. Lower the heat, simmer for 15 minutes until most of the liquid has reduced. Turn the stove off. Mix in grated Parmesan until it disappears. Add the vegetable mixture into the beef mixture and mix well. Scoop out potato flesh, and mix into filling, roughly mashing the potato bits but allowing some chunks to remain. Allow to cool; add salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Roll out dough thinly and cut into rounds about 4 inches in diameter (working in batches as needed). Have a small glass of water handy and beat remaining egg in another glass or bowl. Using your hands, form meat into small puck-type shapes about an inch smaller in diameter than your dough rounds. Lay a puck on a round of dough, dip your finger in the water and wet the edge of the dough, then place another circle of dough on top. Pinch and seal the edges. Lay mini pie on a greased baking sheet and repeat with the rest of the pies. (You might have leftover filling, which is OK because it tastes great alone.) Brush the tops of the pie with beaten egg, slit the tops of the pies to vent, and pop em in the oven. Bake until golden, about 25 - 30 minutes (depending on whether your oven sucks like mine).

Makes 10 mini pies.

You know you're a dork when...

... instead of ordering a pizza during your Harry Potter movie marathon, you make this.



Yup. It's Harry Pott-za.

(I'm almost ashamed of myself. But I'm not, because it tasted awesome.)

MAKING PROGRESS

I'd say it's a good step forward when after exercising, you have the will to do something other than eat a very cold dinner and sit on the couch for 4 hours afterwards.

A while back, I began an on again/off again thing with Cardio Barre.

During the first class I nearly passed out because I wasn't breathing right, I felt like Jell-O afterward, the music was awful, and the instructor kept using the word "booty" and talking about bikini season. If you had asked me at 8:30 that night, while I was eating sushi on my couch, watching Glee, I would have told you that there was no way in HELL I was going back.

But then the crappy feeling subsided and I realized that a) not going back would be defeatist and quitter-esque since b) I had paid for 10 classes. (On LivingSocial, but whatever, I still had 9 more.)

The next class went better, only I had eaten a garlicky turkey burger 3 hours before class and ended up with CRAZY garlic burps after class. I had a smoothie afterward and sat on the couch, watching the Glee finale.

The next class was even better, except I had eaten a hard-boiled egg 2 hours before class and ended up with psycho burps afterwards and, thanks to the burping and excess water in my stomach that I slugged back mid-workout, had a near-vurp situation in my car. I had a smoothie, went home, and thought about how much I was gonna miss Glee. (Not that much.)

Tonight, after a couple weeks off for various reasons (I don't have to explain them to you!), I went back. I was scared that I'd regress to my fainting, vurping ways, so I didn't snack for 3 hours before class and breathed like my life depended on it (which, you know, it did). I was fine. And to my surprise, I didn't feel like I was going to die if I didn't get food in me ASAP, so I went home and made myself a lovely dinner of pasta, fresh peas, and arugula in a yogurt-blue cheese sauce with anchovy bits.

"Where was I?"
"You were growing."

BTW, I haven't heard that instructor use the words "booty" or "bikini season" since. And tonight's music was a lovely Michael & Janet Jackson mix.

I guess those kids in elementary school were right: First really IS the worst.

Subjective adulthood

A real adult would probably not attempt to drink a whole bottle of wine with a sore throat.

But I never said I was a real adult.

:D

Quiche me, you fool!

I decided that I wanted to make a quiche. Why? Not sure. I wanted something that I could eat all week long without getting sick of it, I wanted something vaguely substantial when paired with some additional veggies, and I wanted something that required a pie crust because MAN, was I dying to make me some crust!

Quiche was a natural fit. I also had some veggies from the farmer's market I had picked up on Saturday morning and leftover goat cheese from my pizza escapades last week.

After re-watching "Easy A" on Sunday afternoon, I was fully inspired...

Spell-It-With-Your-Peas Quiche

I tried to spell "twat" on this quiche but it didn't work. Stupid peas...



Ingredients:

For the crust...

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 pinch additional salt
1 stick cold salted butter, cut into chunks
1 egg

Mix up the flours and salt; I do all my crusts in my beloved KitchenAid mixer. (It's my fanciest kitchen appliance, and so I use it as often as possible.) Add in your cold chunks of butter (how appealing is THAT?) and let that mix up until the flour just looks kind of chunky and crumbly. Crack an egg into a glass or bowl, add in 2 tbsp. cold water, beat 'em up, and pour into the mixer bowl while the mixer is running. Once it comes together like dough, form it into a flat-thick disc, wrap it in plastic wrap, and pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Hey! 30 minutes have gone by! Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Once it's nice and chilly, roll it into a large circle big enough to fit a 9" pie pan (I go glass). Lay the dough in the pan (transporting the dough loosely rolled onto your rolling pin is a nice way to make sure it doesn't tear or crumple on you) and press to form your shell. Let it cool (in the fridge if necessary; I put mine on a windowsill like a cartoon character) while you make the filling.

For the rest...

1 cup fresh peas (or thawed from frozen peas)
2 cloves garlic (or 1 monster clove if you have mutant garlic like I had), finely chopped
1 medium-sized summer squash, sliced into thin semi-circles
2 cups arugula, roughly chopped
olive oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup 2% milk
1/4 cup fat-free plain Greek yogurt
salt and pepper at will
crumbled goat cheese (herbed, if you like)

If you have fresh peas, boil them until tender. (Mine took a long time, but I hear most take more like 4 minutes.) Drain, rinse, and set aside. (Make sure they get nice and dry; I didn't. Mistake.)

Add bit of olive oil to a large saute pan over medium heat. Once warm, add the garlic and cook until it starts to soften. Add squash and cook until THAT starts to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the arugula to pan, and toss until it wilts, about 1 minute. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl or large measuring cup. beat eggs, milk, yogurt, salt, and pepper until smooth. Add to the bowl of vegetables, and mix until it's as evenly mixed as it's going to get. Pour into the cooled crust.

Crumble however much goat cheese strikes your fancy on top. (My boyfriend isn't nuts about cheese, so I only used a bit; I've seen other recipes that call for a whole log. Whatever.) Lay peas in an even layer on top of everything.

Bake 40 minutes, until egg filling is set. Allow to cool slightly, about 5 - 10 minutes, then slice it up! Good hot, cold, at room temperature...


And I tell you now, a slice of this for lunch during the week will REALLY improve your at-work morale.

Hello Giggles = My New Obsession. Also, I am a nail artist.

I'm kind of hooked on Hello Giggles. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's the new cute girl-collective site launched by Zooey Deschanel and her homies, now being contributed to by many rad girls. (Note to self: I need to write for that website.)

Anyhow, I stumbled across this page, which had a tutorial on how to make your nails look all cool and cheetah-print-y but without the indignity of buying decals for your nails or paying some chick to meticulously detail your tips.

So I had to do it. And so I did.

"Dana, show us your tips!" OK, I will.



Do you see that?! It looks exactly like the tutorial. I am a goddamn nail artist and I never knew it.

I wonder if Hello Giggles could use a segment focusing a little too intensely on pizza...

I may have a problem...

This is the third pizza I've made this week.

I've discovered how easy making pizza crust is and I'm never going back. I'm sure as hell never buying Trader Joe's pre-made dough again. I'm keeping packets of regular yeast and quickie pizza crust yeast around all time. Because while the regular yeast makes vastly superior dough than the 30-minute pizza yeast, if it's between cooking up a frozen pizza and whipping up a fresh but speedy pizza, I'll take the second every time. And it makes one heck of a way to use up random scrap leftovers.

Pizza. Paltrow. Discuss.

I have mixed feelings towards Gywneth Paltrow. She seems cool, but she gets on my nerves. I could go into more detail, but I won't right now. When she came out with a cookbook a few months back, I was mighty skeptical (and wildly jealous). But she has been hanging with plenty o' notable chefs, most prominently Mario Batali, who knows a thing or two about pizza. So when she posted a pizza-centered email out to her GOOP mailing list (that's right -- I subscribe to GOOP), I had to give it a whirl. So for Memorial Day, I made pizza.

Below, I have posted Ms. Paltrow's recipe, along with the amendments I made in red within...

(For reference, here is the original recipe I started with before tweaking it.)

[begin Paltrow]

To make the pizza, I adapted Gwyneth Paltrow's recipe from My Father's Daughter:
If you have a wood fire, I kind of hate you. If not, preheat a pizza stone in your oven at the highest heat the oven can go to for at least an hour before eating. (If you don't have a pizza stone, just hold your horses -- I'll have you covered too. Just preheat the oven to 500 degrees about 1/2 hour before you're ready to cook that pizza.)
First, I round up my Pizza Dough Ingredients:

(I shrunk down the recipe from Gwyn's ginormous one; it made 3 times as much dough)

• 3/4 cups warm water (divided)
• 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast
• About 1 2/3 cups of flour plus more for kneading and dusting. I used bread flour but you can also use Italian "00" flour if you are Gwyneth Paltrow.
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt

For the dough, whisk together 1/4 cup of the water, the yeast, and the sugar in a large bowl and let stand until the surface has a few little bubbles and is creamy (about 10 minutes).

Add 1/2 cups water, 1 1/4 cups flour, olive oil and salt and stir until smooth. While stirring, gradually add up to another 1/4 cup of flour until the dough starts to pull itself from the edges of the bowl.

Knead the dough on a generously floured surface until it's elastic and smooth—it will take about 8 minutes of lovely fun kneading time. Dust the surface with flour as you go—you don’t want the dough to stick. Work extra flour into the dough as you go if the stuff is still kind of sticky -- I probably added another 1/4 cup a few large pinches at a time.

Form the kneaded dough into a ball, dust with flour, and gently place in a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a tea-towel. Let it rise in a warm spot until doubled, about 1 1/2 hours. You can let it sit for up to a couple of hours or even overnight in the refrigerator.

For the sauce you'll need:

• 2 tablespoons (or so) extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium-sized carrots, peeled and finely diced
• 1/2 large onion, peeled and finely diced
• 2 large cloves garlic, finely chopped (Gwyn's recipe had no garlic -- WTF, girl?)
  
• 1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes with their juice
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the carrot, onion, and garlic and cook, stirring now and then, until softened but not mushy, about 8 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice and the salt. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and let the sauce simmer for 40 minutes; use your sauce-stirring utensil to break up the big tomato pieces a bit while the stuff cooks. Carefully puree in a blender until very smooth. Let it cool before saucing your pizzas. (Or don't, but know that if you top your dough with warm sauce, you risk making the top of the dough a tad mushy and spreading it with the back of the spoon is mildly perilous. Not that this happened to me. {Fine, it did.} But at least let it cool down from lava temps.) This can be made up to a week ahead. (Like I plan a week ahead...)

Here’s my pizza kit ready to get going

• Pizza sauce
• Mozzarella (I used the pre-sliced stuff that comes in a log at Trader Joe's)
  
• There are squash blossoms in season so I tore them over a few of the pizzas
• Totally adequate olive oil
• Herbed goat cheese
• Giant basil leaves (from my own garden/single potted plant)
  
• White truffle oil (a little goes a long way)

To assemble pizzas, stretch dough with your fingers until quite thin. You can also roll your dough out using a rolling pin. (I didn't.)

Now top your pizza. I start with pizza sauce. Be sure not to put too much sauce on (this will weigh it down) and don’t go too close to the edge as this will make it hard to slide your peel under the pizza.


(You may notice at this point that I'm assembling my pizza on the underside of a baking sheet with a lip, dusted with semolina flour. My plan was to attempt to use this as a pizza peel alternative and scoot it onto my heated pizza stone. This did not work as the pizza would not scoot and my pizza stone was acting up anyway after what I can only imagine was a lot of improper non-pizza-cooking usage -- bad Dana -- so I just cooked the pizza on the upside-down cookie sheet, which incidentally worked fine. So now you know.)

And now for the toppings... Sprinkle each pizza with the toppings of your choice and then stick them in the oven.



If your oven is nice and hot, the pizza should be perfectly cooked and crisp in two minutes. (Or if you're using a normal, non-wood-burning oven like the rest of us plebes, it'll take about 10 minutes or so.)



[end Paltrow]

In all honesty, the pizza was magnificent. The phrase "I miss the pizza" was uttered by Matt and I each about 12 times after it was gone. I'm kind of obsessed with that sauce too -- it's a great base and I'll be putting it on damn near everything.

And just so you know, I'm making another pizza tonight.

UPDATE:

Made another pizza using 1/2 cup whole wheat flour in place of a 1/2 cup of the bread flour and topped it off with some wilted spinach. Delicious.