A real blog post is just not going to happen this week. Or next week. Or even the week after that. I have babies, weddings and international travel to juggle, and blogging has no place in between. Dry your eyes.
My new niece, Annie
I’ll have much better material come September anyway!
Hope your summer is as full of exciting events as mine! Do tell.
See you in a couple weeks!
Foodbuzz not-so-recently sent me some free samples of new products from Nature’s Pride, but clearly it has taken me a while to make good use of them. Thank God for freezers!
I shared the Country White hot dog and hamburger buns with my parents, so I’ll have to check in with them to see how they’ve enjoyed using this stuff. As for me, I’ve been slowly but surely making my way through the bag of 100% Whole Wheat hamburger buns. Actually, I think I’ve used them for just about everything but hamburgers.
For example:
Snobby Joes! I’m so late in trying this recipe, considering how popular and reliable it seems to be. My impression was right—this vegan take on Sloppy Joes comes together easily and the seasonings will definitely remind you of its bemeated cousin, if you’ve ever tasted the beef version, that is.
To round out the meal, I roasted up some brussels sprouts, broccoli and diced butternut squash (note to self: roast frozen butternut squash at your own risk, as it may or may not “squash” itself all over the other veggies). I also blended up a quick raw kale soup (water, kale, avocado, carrots, EVOO, lemon juice, Bragg’s…the usual suspects).
This is how food babies are made.
I ended up enjoying the leftover Snobby Joes open-faced on the buns for a higher filling to bread ratio. I highly recommend eating Snobby Joes this way, considering you’d probably be happy to eat the filling straight from the pot by the spoonful anyway!
The most recent use of my Nature’s Pride buns was far more spontaneous. I wanted a sandwich and my only criteria was that it involve bread. I’m easy to please.
I ended up spreading 1/4 avocado on one half of the (toasted) bun. Meanwhile, I broiled some sliced crimini mushrooms (spritzed with cooking spray and dusted with Adobo) for 5 minutes and layered those onto the sandwich along with a tahini drizzle and a touch of Sun In Bloom sauerkraut.
I’m a little obsessed with tahini these days…it’s just so rich and creamy and drizzle-able! I considered drizzling it directly onto my tongue but settled for a lick of the spoon.
I was a bit worried that this sandwich would suffer from the all-too-common bite ‘n’ splode effect, but it actually held together very well. I credit the tahini. :)
And on the side, a delightfully peppery salad:
Organic arugula topped with roasted brussels sprouts, artichoke hearts, pistachios and balsamic vinaigrette.
And tahini.
Not like it’s earth-shattering news, but clearly hamburger buns are useful for infinite vegetarian sandwich options, so I’ve really liked having these whole wheat buns around. I’m not a huge sandwich person, so having bread that is specially made just for sandwiches has challenged the flabby and underused sandwich portion of my brain. Many thanks to Nature’s Pride for helping me tone and tighten my sandwich muscle.
What goes in your favorite sandwich?
Don’t think I can’t see you through the computer screen. You opened this post with a schtank eye and a smirk. You’re waiting for me to unleash a torrent of horrendous pea puns, and I’m offended by your lack of faith.
Doesn’t mean you’re not right.
If you recall my recent clafouti experiment, you’ll note that I sang the praises of The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Cookbook. Well, I’ve had another success with one of its recipes—this time, with peas.
Behold: Risi e Bisi.
Risi e Bisi is a risotto recipe typical of the Veneto. I know many people are intimidated by the thought of making homemade risotto, but it’s really not hard at all. It’s not as though it’s challenging technique-wise, so long as you follow the recipe. It just takes time (and a lot of stirring) to complete the process. I didn’t find it unpleasant at all—in fact, I’d consider the repetitive motions a form of kitchen thera-pea. Bazing!
Indeed, shelling two pounds of peas becomes fairly meditative after a while, and though it took nearly an hour, I decided there was something both deeply satisfying and depressing about putting in so much work for relatively little yield.
As suspected, however, the result was creamy, buttery and well worth the effort.
This dish will definitely need to be re-pea-ted.
Speaking of which, what do you call it when you eat leftover peas?
Give up?
Re-peas!
…
…no?
Fine, just for that, I won’t share how I came up with the improvised pea drizzle-garnish stuff.
Ok, you talked me into it. Here’s the reci-pea:
(And you thought you were safe!)
After you’ve boiled the pea pods to make the risotto’s broth, ignore the instruction that says to discard them. (Sorry, can’t share the book’s recipe since I didn’t change anything, but do check it out sometime!) Before you get wrapped up in risotto pour-and-stir process, throw the drained pea pods in a blender with a cup of water, a couple tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese, a dash of garlic powder and S+P. Blend smooth (and to taste) and set aside until you’re ready to top your serving of risotto.
No need to waste all that tasty pea by-product, right? And trust me: this addition to the Risi e Bisi recipe makes it all come out really well. ;)
Speaking of reducing waste (no more pea jokes, I swear…except for that one), I have a mini-giveaway for any readers who happen to live in NYC. Remember when I got to attend the opening of Otarian? Well, I have since dined there a couple more times, and it really is mighty tasty (not to mention quick, veg- and environmentally-friendly). There are two locations here in Manhattan: one on Bleecker Street and one on 8th Avenue in midtown. You must go try the paneer wrap!
To sweeten the deal, I have precisely 23 Otarian Carbon Karma Cards to give away. Every time you use your card, you rack up Karma Credits depending on how much carbon omission you conserved by choosing an Otarian meal. Once you have a certain amount of points, you become elegible for free stuff (the first 100 points will get you a free Choco Treat, for example).
So if that sounds good to you (and why wouldn’t it?), let me know in the comments and I will mail a card to the first 23 New Yorkers to do so. While you’re at it, go ahead and email your mailing address to diana at soapandchocolate dot com.
Peace.
Safe to say that I’ve been dealing with a bit of a pancake obsession since I moved (nearly two months ago now!). When you are spoiled with a high speed blender, as I now am, pancakes come together in no time at all, so I’ve indulged this obsession to the point of obliterating it completely.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t come up with a few pancake plates I wasn’t proud of! (It also seems that I can’t not form a sentence that doesn’t contain not too few negatives.)
The pancakes in these pictures came from the Blendtec recipe book—they’re a hybrid of whole wheat and cornmeal; not sweet at all. I layered them with grilled slices of eggplant and zucchini, then drizzled on a “syrup” of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Don’t let the savory-pancakes-for-dinner thing throw you off too much. If I’d have called them crepes, you wouldn’t have batted an eye.
But since I aim to please, I’ll also include a pancake concoction that I did indeed eat for breakfast.
The orange blob threatening to consume my whole wheat pancakes is a little something that I shall call carrot cake…sauce.
I guess a similar effect could be accomplished by throwing a carrot cake in the blender, but that sounds wacky even to me, so that ought to tell you something. Let’s go the traditional recipe route instead. It might even be a little bit healthy.
Carrot Cake Sauce
Ingredients:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend on high until smooth. This should make you 2-3 servings, depending on your love for carrot cake.
I hate to admit that this is pretty much the pinnacle of my kitchen creativity in the last few weeks, but it’s basically true—my schedule has kind of exploded, so I hope you’ll bear with me as I adjust my blogging routine. I’m thinking once a week is about right, pitiful as it sounds. But on the other hand, it can’t be forced! I mean, I could post daily on the state of my dust bunnies, but they’re pretty camera shy. The odd pancake will have to do in the meantime.
What’s your favorite way to eat pancakes?
It’s Cherloo! Drop me an email at diana at soapandchocolate dot com and I will forward it to the CSN peeps. Congratulations!
I’mma hitcha with the punchline right here: I got fiddy (50) bones with your name on ‘em for the low, low price of a comment on this post.
The kind folks at CSN online stores have given this here blogger a chance to redeem herself for keeping their first offering of a Tribest Blender all to herself. Now I get to pay it forward and offer you a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to any of CSN’s wide array of online stores. Don’t feel limited to things like blenders—they’ve got all manner of fabulous curiosities for sale—wall sconces, BEAN BAG CHAIRS (awesome.), bombe chests (whatever those are…) and my personal favorite, ice cream makers.
Considering the makeup of my readership, few though you may be, I think I know where your loyalties lie among the aforementioned choices. But I’ll refrain from pigeonholing you. You wanna spend your $50 on a bombe chest, be my guest.
A’ight, you know the rules:
To enter, just leave a comment on this post (US and Canada only, por favor). For additional entries, you may:
Link back to this giveaway on your own blog. You must leave an additional comment on this post to let me know you’ve done so, or the additional entry will not be counted.
Tweet a link to this giveaway, making sure to include my Twitter handle, @soapnchocolate. Again, you must leave an additional comment here to let me know you’ve done so. You can use the following message:@soapnchocolate is giving away a $50 gift certificate to CSN Stores! http://bit.ly/aaIVwN
I’ll post the winner next Monday, July 19.
This giveaway is the bombe.
Hi.
There is butter on my face and in my belly. Allow me to explain the former before you skedaddle off to some more dignified blog.
Maren of Butter Your Body skin care sent me a sample of her Green With Life face mask. All the Butter Your Body products are vegan, natural, organic and handmade. I could tell—it smelled like salad!
But in a good way. With some skin products, I have a sense of inhaling frankenfumes, which can’t be doing much good, so I was glad to use a product that had me 100% confident in its integrity and benefits. Thanks for the sample, Maren!
Rest assured that I limited my sampling of the above product to topical use. I decided against testing my theory that the mask was indeed granulated salad.
Instead, inspired by Gena’s recent praise of the sweet potato-avocado taste combination, I decided to try it for myself. I wanted a baked sweet potato for dinner, but not just any old butter for topping…
…and I didn’t want just a simple chopped or mashed avocado.
No, I wanted a fat party in my mouth. Into the mini blender went 1/4 avocado, 1/2 tbsp coconut butter and 1/2 tbsp coconut oil…
…onto the grill went a sliced yellow squash…into the oven went some broccoli florets…
…and into my belly went all of this:
At which point out came an “I should probably put this on the blog.”
So I did.
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