Tap Tap

Hello, blog. Have not seen you in a while.
I am coming out from under the blogging rock to share with you something I should have seen a while ago.

Lisa Hannigan meets Bossa Nova.

Need I say more?

Enjoy!

I am going to start a new, better blog. Those who would like to follow, let me know so that I can give you the link. Shhh!

I Was Slicing Up An Avocado

Possibly the best usage of our Swedish love, Jens Lekman's Your Arms Around Me, aside from that scene in Whip It, is this combination:



Swoon.

Cold/Flu-Kicking Soup

GERMS
are evil.
But we all fall sick; be it due to the season, be it working in germ-prone environments, be it dorm life, be it otherwise.

The best way to clear your system? Take-No-Shizer-Soup!
Take any combination of dark leafy greens, a tasty veg stock, tomato paste/sauce, your body weight in garlic, a similar amount of ginger, some cayenne pepper, a little bit of lemon, any combination of vegetables, perhaps a grain or two, and consume liberally. You will feel better!

Vegan Pancakes!

Simplest recipe ever! And delicious!

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

* 1 cup flour
* 1 tbsp sugar
* 2 tbsp baking powder
* 1/8 tsp salt
* 1 cup soy milk
* 2 tbsp vegetable oil


Preparation:
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl until well mixed.

Mix in the soy milk and oil and beat together until batter is smooth.

Drop 1/4 cup of batter at a time onto a hot oiled griddle, or well greased frying pan over medium high heat. When bubbles appear on the surface of the pancake, approximately 3 minutes, flip, and cook the other side for another 2 minutes. Enjoy!

Nutrition Facts: One pancake provides approximately: Calories: 149, Calories from Fat: 50
Total Fat: 5.6g, 9% Saturated Fat: 1.0g, 5%
Cholesterol: 0mg, 0%
Sodium: 58mg, 2%
Total Carbohydrates: 22.2g, 7%
Dietary Fiber: 1.2g, 5%
Sugars: 2.4g
Protein: 3.7g
Vitamin A 0%, Vitamin C 0%, Calcium 22%, Iron 9%, based on a 2000 calorie diet

Free Stuff!

I want to be able to do free Give Aways on this blog. So, if you read it, please follow it publicly via google (see link to the right), comment here, etc. Once i reach 30 followers I will do free Give Aways, and then if it grows to 50, 75, 100, i will do them more and more often. Also, tell me what kinds of things you want to see on this blog! I want to be motivated, creative, and positive in 2011!

This post is top-dated, so look below for new posts!

Little Joy

I just cannot get enough of this band.
I:
A) (Unexpectedly) Miss Los Angeles
B) Wish I could have made it to Austin for SXSW and a million other reasons

"Honey" Mustard Tofu with Kale and Yams = Yum

I've been slacking on cooking properly, especially in terms of making new things, and documenting them for your viewing and possibly also cooking pleasure.



My new friend and former neighbor David (<--- click that, he is quite the renowned artist) helped me to finally attempt this delicious recipe for Honey Mustard Tofu with Kale and Butternut Squash I've been meaning to try after spying it on Made Just Right, which is Earth Balance's blog of deliciousness. Earth Balance - you know, they're the ones who make the best vegan butter, and have recently started making other things too, like soymilk and peanut butter (it's the healthy kind but it tastes like JIF, sweet.)

Instead of butternut squash, we used sweet potatoes/yams. I substituted the honey with dark raw agave nectar, which worked nicely. Instead of 1/2 a TBSP of chili powder, I used 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper. We used extra garlic. And be careful if you follow that recipe, it doesn't list vegetable stock as an ingredient until it mentions it in the directions.

I served it over quinoa, made simply with just a dash of Cajun seasoning, and later dressed a little bit with Braggs Aminos. Voila!



For dessert, we melted some chocolate chips and dipped these incredibly fresh, sweet strawberries in them. It was a success:




All photos courtesy of David Newman.

Lisa Hannigan

I cannot stop listening to Ocean and a Rock, Lisa Hannigan's sweetly woven quilt of intricate lyrics and layered instruments. I would love to be able to cover this.


(Click here for lyrics)

Many of you have heard of Damien Rice, and if so, may remember that Lisa used to sing with him. She went solo a while ago and produced such mild yet moving music. She is a sweet addiction.

I recommend listening to the studio version of Ocean and a Rock as well:



More gems from Lisa's album Sea Sew:



Sea Song, Pistachio, Lille.

Thomas Fersen: The Tom Waits of France

I recently discovered Thomas Fersen, a Parisian who began in a punk band, continued as a 'café-theatres' piano player, and ended up a multi-genre artist drawing from Jazz, Folk, Blues, and so on. His smoker's voice immediately made me think of Tom Waits, though his music certainly has its own originality to it. He is a great poet and story teller, and in turn a great singer-songwriter. Give him a listen, below:

Fort Funston

I rode on the back of a Harley and I liked it.

Vegan Chocolate Peach Cobbler

In addition to veganizing, there seems to be a theme here of chocolatizing everything.


*This photo was made with a free polaroid maker, let me know if you want the download information*

Vegan Chocolate Peach Cobbler
I Adapted/modified this from a couple different cobbler recipes

Ingredients:

- 4 TBS Vegan Butter (i.e. Earth Balance)
- 6-8 sliced Peaches
- 1/2 Cup Flour
- 1/2 Cup Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 Cup plain rice/almond/soy/etc milk
- 1/4 tsp Vanilla (optional)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Melt the butter in a baking dish. Mix in the peaches until coated.
Sift dry ingredients in a separate mixing bowl, and mix with wet ingredients. Pour onto peaches and mix. Bake at 375°F for 40 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle with sugar, and allow to cool. Serves 4-6.

Vegan Scones

This was my first time making scones. Despite following the same recipe, the two batches somehow looked drastically different. Both were a success.
I added some extras to it, like vanilla extract and cocoa powder, to make it interesting.

The Courtney Janes

New favorite music: The Courtney Janes!

Since I had The Be Good Tanyas/Jolie Holland ruined for me by association recently, I was worried about it possibly leading to falling out of love with Alternative Country/Indie Folk, which would be tragic indeed. But last night at KC Turner's birthday bash, my faith was restored.



The Courtney Janes. There is something about Ben Hulan's demeanor that was absolutely enchanting. The beautiful Southern tinge in his voice, his sincere smile, the eloquently yet simply crafted lyrics, some sort of magical energy...

Learning To Love You More Assignment #69: Climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view.

Learning To Love You More Assignment #69:
Climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view.

I climbed this tree at the Treasure Island Music Festival in October.

Opéra national de Paris

‘Your wife is dead’: Lost Ted Hughes poem about Sylvia Plath’s suicide published

From Dangerous Minds:

A poem by Ted Hughes, considered lost, was published today in The New Statesman magazine after being discovered in the British Museum among his papers. In it, Hughes addresses the painful suicide of his wife, Sylvia Plath. The poem, written in the 70s, would seem to be the “missing link” from Hughes’ 1998 book about his marriage to Plath, Birthday Letters, as none of the poems in that book discuss the circumstances of her death.

Carolyn Kellog, writing at the Los Angeles Times, Jacket Copy blog:

Actor Jonathan Pryce read part of the poem for the [BBC4 Radio] broadcast, reading:

Late afternoon Friday
my last sight of you alive
burning your letter to me
in the ashtray
with that strange smile

Sylvia Plath, who today is best-known as the author of the autobiographical novel “The Bell Jar,” was a young poet living in England when she met Ted Hughes, then also a young poet. The two married in 1956, moved to the U.S. for three years, and then returned to England. They had two children together.

Plath was 30 when she killed herself by inhaling the fumes from an unlit oven. Hughes went on to become one of the significant British poets of the 20th century, serving as British poet laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998.

The poem includes how Hughes learned of Plath’s death, in its final lines.

And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.

There is also a video on the website above.

I will skip opinions about Hughes for now. I recommend you read the Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, as he censored the original publishing thereof.

More adventures in Deliciousness

Signature dishes round two: Ben approves of Chickpea Quinoa Pilaf. Added are a stir fry of greens in nutritional yeast to make it cheesy, grilled asparagus, and boiled corn.



This Coconut Red Lentil Soup (click for recipe) from 101 Cookbooks was incredible! Flavorful, aromatic, filling, and even photogenic. I absolutely recommend making it.

I paired it with:




Pasta Della California from the sassy favorite Post Punk Kitchen.
While a great idea, I feel that this would work better with couscous, quinoa, or anything otherwise that absorbs flavor better than pasta does. It was still delicious though.

All in all, good feasts.

Signature Dishes, Part 1

This post is very much overdue, but, better late than not ever?

I find myself making some of the same dishes over and over again, mainly because they are:
(A) Tried and True
(B) DELICIOUS
(C) A hit with both my vegan and carnivorous friends.
And so forth.

Kali and Christy, two fabulous individuals who happen to be RVing across the country at this moment, an account of which you can follow here (and should, this blog is complete with pretty pictures!), came over in July to try some of these signatures for Kali's birthday.

Behold, Chickpea Quinoa Pilaf from Veganomicon (which is apparently available in its entirety on Google Books, holler! ...wait a minute, I do not use expressions like "holler!") and the simplest and yummiest Vegan Chocolate Cake! Let me know if you would like the recipe to the latter as well. I tend to change up what I add to it, such as fruit, berries, and so forth.
Click on the photos to enlarge.


The birthday dinner, assembled and complete. So I have a little too much fun with presentation.


Closeup: In addition, we have veggie dumplings (not homemade, sorry! but something to try and make another time!), a simple salad, and fruit for garnish/decoration.


Hmmm.


I seem to be missing my cake pan, so lately the chocolate cake has come in the form of cupcakes/muffins. Christy helped - notice her flawless distribution of the batter. You're hired!


Birthday Kali approves!

And how can you get a cameo in the culinary adventures section of this blog, you asked? It's simple, cook with me! Or, be cooked for by me.

Musée de l'érotisme de Paris

Välkommen till Stockholm