woah!

Goodness gracious I've disappeared. Crazy! I'm just lazy and tired and experiencing bouts of busy-ness during meal times. But here's something that's so quick and easy that I couldn't even think of an excuse not to make it. I found the recipe here. Hers were much prettier and more colorful, but I decided to stick to just two colors.

I used tofutti cream cheese with some agave nectar on top of mountain bread.


It's pretty darn simple. Just mix the lemon juice, cream cheese and sweetener. Then spread it on and layer your fruit on in a lovely decorative manner. Roll up and garnish with inevitable extra slices.




mmmm :)

Chunky Banana Bran Muffins

Now that my computer is fixed, I can post again! Delightful! I saw Ina Garden make this recipe on Food Network (her show is Barefoot Contessa) yesterday and realized that we had some bananas in the kitchen that were ready to be baked! This is kind of a college-y version of her recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup All Bran Cereal
1 cup buttermilk (shaken)***
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
6 tablespoons unsulphured molasses
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup raisins - About 3 1-ounce boxes of raisins
1 cup large-diced bananas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
***If you don't have buttermilk, you can have two subsitution options: use 1 cup of plain yogurt OR make your own buttermilk! Add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 cup of milk and let it sit for 5-10 minutes (this is what I did). Essentially, you are souring the milk. Gross, right?


Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place paper liners into 1 (10 or 12-cup) muffin tin.


2. Combine the bran and buttermilk and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the eggs, 1 at a time. Scrape the bowl and then add the molasses and vanilla. Add the bran/buttermilk mixture and combine. At this point, the mixture might look a little funky/curdled. Don't worry! It's supposed to look that way :-)




3. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the batter just until combined. Don't overmix it! Fold in the raisins, bananas and walnuts with a rubber spatula.





4. With an ice cream scoop or large spoon, fill the muffin cups to the top and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Rules of the Packy Nacky

Known to laymen as a picnic, the Packy Nacky is a long established tradition during which one must follow a certain protocol if one wishes to partake. For a Packy Nacky is not just a meal, it's a veritable cornucopia of vittles and conviviality. In order to be properly enjoyed, a Packy Nacky must be governed by the following rules:

1. Food must be prepared by the participants, to better facilitate bonding and friendship.

2. Participants must dress up real dapper.

3. Dapperness/the occasion must be commemorated with a picture (see below).

4. Chefs get to choose the cooking music.

5. Spoils of labor must be enjoyed out of doors (obviously).

My friends and I had a Packy Nacky today, and it was glorious in scope and epic in execution. Our day began early with a trip to the farmer's market for ingredients. Then we spent all afternoon in preparation of this feast:

Sammiches!

(Mine consists of chicken, avocado, green peppers, pesto and pepperjack cheese)

Blueberry Cake

Recipe from Everybody Likes Sandwiches

We added more vanilla than the recipe calls for, and sprinkled brown sugar on top instead of raw sugar. You could probably use just about any fruit in this cake, and it's easily modified to fit the perfect specifications for your cake happiness.

Salmon Macaroni Salad

Recipe from Simply Recipes

(basically raiding of my Google Reader starred items facilitated today's Packy Nacky)

This was definitely the pièce de résistance of today's meal, though we had to surmount many obstacles in order to make it successfully. First we forgot to get pasta, then there was an incident in which way too much dill infiltrated the salad, and I made a horrifying discovery:

Apparently, some canned salmon comes with bones and scales still in it.

You can't see it here, but there was an entire ribcage in this sucker. Luckily my friend Sarah volunteered to clean it out. I was ready to throw the entire can away and get new boneless cans, so deeply disturbed was I by this development. However, the salad turned out delicious, and ribcage free.

Sarah's mom also baked us these delicious fudgy cookies to go along with our feast.

And, lest you think we defiled the sacred rules of Packy Nacky:

Dapper, out of doors, and the slightest hint of a food baby.

We also made friends with this toad, but that's not required. Just a bonus.

StillTasty.com: When will my food be rancid?

StillTasty is a super helpful website to demystify the "sell by" and "best by" dates on food. However, the nose triumphs in my book.

[via unpressable buttons, via LifeHacker, via etc.]

Cross Rhodes in Evanston: GYRO HEAVEN

Holy crap these gyros are delicious. All the gyro meat you could ever dream of, plus more to take home with you and heat up for lunch the next day. If you can finish all this meat in one sitting, you have a stomach of steel and I envy you greatly.



This super-flaky, super-sweet, mile high baklava is to die for. Cross Rhodes is relatively cheap, especially for lunch. Check 'em out at Chicago & Main.

'B' stands for: Burgers on Buns with Beans and Brownies

Because I have very little self control and have only given myself the title of "someone who tries to limit the amount of meat--especially red meat--they eat" instead of "vegetarian," I was coerced by www.epicurious.com (and allowed by my meat-loving significant other) to have burgers for dinner last night.

I allowed this to happen in large part because the aforementioned significant other makes delicious things...and I knew burgers would be no exception, he seasoned them with Cajun spices and cooked them in the broiler. They turned out very tasty (as expected) and we ate them up along with some grilled zucchini and baked beans.


After dinner we had some left-over room in our stomachs and some left-over peanut butter fudge from the Sonoma County Fair, so we decided to make some brownies for dessert.


Brownies with Peanut Butter Fudge Bites
(adapted from Bon Appétit recipe, Peanut Butter and Fudge Brownies with Salted Peanuts)

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 7 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup Peanut Butter Fudge--cubed.

Line a baking pan with foil, place a pat of butter in the pan and let melt while the oven preheats to 325 degrees F.

Melt butter in a saucepan over low-medium heat. Add both chocolates; stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk in sugar, vanilla, and salt. Crack the four eggs into a small bowl and whisk together. Take a few small spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture and mix into the eggs to keep them from cooking in the hot mixture. Fold in flour, then fudge (if you don't have fudge you can use peanuts or anything else that sounds appealing). Even out the distribution of butter in the pan, spread in the batter. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 30 minutes. Place pan on rack; cool.

These brownies are completely decadent and great for any occasion. Also, they are a killer cure for a chocolate craving. Eat and enjoy! Off to yoga!

Breakfast for Dinner

Let's face it. Breakfast for dinner is probably one of the most delicious ideas anyone has ever come up with. Hats off to whoever that was. Instead of doing milk or orange juice for our breakfast for dinner, my friends and I decided to kick off the night with adult fruit smoothies. And one blender-full went a little something like this:





2 Bananas
1/2 or 3/4 lbs. of Strawberries
1 Nectarine
1 Cup Light Plain Yogurt
6 Shots of Raspberry Smirnoff Vodka
Ice



We blended all that delightful-ness together and poured them into glasses with Sno-cone straws. These have the little spoons at the end of them, so they worked well if there were fruit or ice chunks still in your drink!



All in all, our breakfast for dinner included the following foods: adult fruit smoothies, belgium waffles (made on a Winnie-the-Pooh waffle iron), turkey bacon, scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, Cinnabon toast, and hash browns. Om nom nom!

A potluck, or eat way too much food with friends

Yes, we serve out of ziploc tupperware. It's classy.

So as I said, the second installation of our potluck took place last night. We had way too much food, but we basically devoured all of it. We had sauteed mixed veggies, Italian tempeh nuggets, hummus, macadamia mash (both with raw bell peppers), spicy carrot fries, guacamole, fruit salad and interesting raisiny bread. For desert there were date and coconut balls ("nammi nammi"), coconut chocolate scone-cookies and butternut squash that took 3 hours to cook. Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the desserts, but trust me they were glorious. I'm a firm believer that food always tastes better when you eat and prepare it with people you love.


Unfortunately I still can't wrestle the oatmeal bread out of Jared, but he did say he would send me a loaf when I'm at school.

And just 'cause, here's my cat. No, he's not food, but he's always whining for food.