The Weekend That Was All About Foodssss (and other things)

This weekend was a LOT about food. And when I say a LOT, here's what I mean:

First, I channeled my inner urban hipster yuppie (is that even a thing?) and rode a bike to the Salt Lake Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I spent a lazy hour or so wandering all the booths, sampling all the peaches, and picking out m'goods. (And giving advice to a former co-worker. Gosh, I miss those girls! I'm really happy we still chat!) 



Once I had my haul, I happily filled up my bike basket and rode home.

Earlier this summer, I took Melanie to Rye for her birthday dinner. I had the pork belly lettuce wraps, which were DELICIOUS. I left slightly hungry (small portions... geez) and obsessed with pork belly. Thankfully, Trader Joe's helped me get my fix. (They sell pork belly.) And I decided to use said pork belly in a lentil soup this weekend. (And I got to use some of my farmer's market haul! Tomatoes, onions, cilantro.) And that's how I spent my Saturday afternoon.

Somewhere in there, I also made a second grocery run to Smith's (where I also bought a vacuum cleaner (#thingsyoubuywhenyoureanadult) and a Magic Bullet. you know, for green smoothie-making. Also, don't worry; later that night, there was yet another grocery run to Trader Joe's. I've basically used up my non-existent grocery budget for the rest of the month.) annnnd finally checked out the vintage shops on 300 South (Maeberry Vintage -- lots of good stuff, but nothing that was calling my name -- and all its overpriced antique store neighbors). I saw some cute things, but I've decided the DI is more my style. Mostly because I can actually afford the DI. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but antique stores here are seriously overpriced!

So obviously, when one has a giant pot of lentil + pork belly soup, one needs homemade bread. And that's exactly what I made Sunday morning before church. Sixty-five delicious rolls using my favorite roll recipe. (Don't worry; I froze half and gave some away to my family.)



Fun fact: that placemat looks like graphing paper, which came in handy earlier this week when I was helping my brother Spencer with some math homework. ;) You'd probably never guess, since I work in Comms/politics, but I'm actually really good at math. It's rather a point of pride with me, and I've considered taking a calculus class for fun, since I've forgotten so much of it! (The last math class I took was first semester freshman year -- Calc II. Eeeep!)

Sunday evening, I continued to get my domestic goddess on with the world's best brownies. (That recipe is seriously amazing. Click on the link, and go make some right now!) They were supposed to be for my brothers/mom, who were going to visit, but they ended up not having enough time for more than a drive-by to pick up rolls and soup, sooooo I now have a whole pan of these babies. Minus the one brownie I already ate. ;)



But lest you think my whole weekend consisted of making + eating foods, let's not forget I also did a lot of cleaning of the house and washing of the dishes (seriously, that much cooking requires a loooot of dishwasing!).

Oh, yeah, and I had some brief social breaks. Most notably, my old roomie Amanda came into town! I was looking forward to meeting her fiancé, but instead, I met her HUSBAND! (They eloped last Friday in Annapolis.) We took a group selfie on John's phone, but here's the one of Mandy 'n me from my cell:



And I got to meet Mandy's mom, of whom she is basically a clone. It's always nice to meet the people the people you love love. :)

I also went to the end of a Liberty Park picnic DC reunion Mel had organized. I wish I could say I feel bad I missed most of it, but what I can truthfully say is that I'm glad I caught a bit of it.

The other thing I did a lot of this weekend is watch How I Met Your Mother. I'm in a bit of a funk right now. (Hence my anti-social feelings, even with people I love – like the DC picnic crew from Saturday.) Hopefully this isn't over-sharing too badly with the worldwide web, but I'm just a bit worn out from dating right now. The last guy (I think I referenced this recently when I mentioned a promising relationship ending abruptly almost two weeks ago? Oh, and via text. Yep. Via text.) really shook me up. I guess that's why I'm especially loving HIMYM right now.

Steph likes to call me "Ted," as in Ted Mosby. Because, like Ted, I am a complete romantic. It's hard for me to go on a first date and not start considering from the get-go whether the guy has potential to be The One. Try as I might, like Ted (well, at least as of Season 8 Episode 1), I still haven't found my Lebenslangerschicsalsschatz. I've been guilty time and again of getting so excited about someone, I don't see until much later that he was really just a Beinaheleidenschaftsgegenstand. (Oh, also, Ted and I are both brunette grammar snobs who enjoy Star Wars and wearing our favorite boots. ;) Heh heh.)



In one of this weekend's episodes, Ted admitted that, for the first time, he had lost hope of finding The One. That's almost how I feel right now. Except I haven't lost hope; I'm just emotionally tired and need a break. Plus, I mean, I have so much I could be doing right now! I haven't even finished unpacking yet! My office walls are still empty. My back room isn't organized. Oh, and I just started violin lessons! (I've been playing since 7th grade but haven't played consistently in more than a decade. Since I played in the U's Symphony Orchestra during college. And I never took private lessons, so I figured it was time.) See? Lots to do besides even thinking of dating. ;)

Probably my journal is a better place for this type of stuff, instead of, you know the internet. But there it is. Ted took a break from dating in Season 7 to recoup and find himself. And since I'm basically Ted, I guess what I'm saying is... I'm taking the rest of August off. Hence all the cooking and not-so-much socializing. I love cooking, it's therapeutic, and I haven't been doing it nearly enough this summer. And if I have to do this dating thing at least once more (please only once more??), I need some recovery time. But maybe I'll see you again in September, dating world. Ttylz!

**EDIT: I just realized August ends in a week. So, my moratorium will now last until as long as I feel like it.**

PS Important sidenote: I had my very first press conference of my new job this week, and it went reeeally well! We had coverage from every major TV/radio/print news outlet, and I knew we'd really struck a nerve when the opposition issued a response. ;) The sun was in my face, but here is my face of excitement right after the event had wrapped up.



OK, that's all for now. Over, annnnnd out...

The Moistest Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Muffins EVER!

Before you start asking me, What? Pumpkin muffins in March? Let me counter with, Hey, man. Any time is pumpkin time!

Now that we have that out of the way, you should know these muffins were a total fluke. And that they were really, really good. They even elicited this heartfelt compliment from my friend, David, "I have to say these are really, really good! (Grabs another muffin) And you know I don't like your cookies." Thanks, friend. ;P

Back to the muffins... The story of how I made them starts at 7:17 am on Saturday morning. 

7:17am is the time my alarm is programmed to go off. It wasn't set for Saturday, but my body woke up anyway (also, I heard my roommate opening/closing her door). I remembered it was David's birthday, and I sent him a quick b-day text. (HBD, DBB!)

Then I lay in bed for a while, thinking about whether I should go back to bed or just get up. For some crazy reason, I decided to get up. 

I ran some errands (here's a little tip from me to you: the grocery store is totally EMPTY at 8am on a Saturday. ie- no crazy long lines. SCORE!) and came home to clean our kitchen. As I was cleaning, I noticed our Tupperware was all over the place, so I decided to organize all the cupboards. That led to me basically emptying most of our kitchen shelves, wiping everything down, reorganizing, and giving every item a home. Success!

At some point, I also started cooking, which led to more cleaning, which led to hey, I should bake something to take to David's game night tonight! I was gonna make banana muffins. But then I remembered I still had pumpkin butter from the time I went to an orchard near Harper's Ferry last autumn. And I thought hey! Bananas are squishy, pumpkin butter is squishy... Surely they're interchangeable? (spoiler alert: they ARE!)

I tweaked my favorite banana bread recipe, and these muffins were born!  Here's how I made 'em:

1/2 c melted butter
1/2 c sugar
1 c pumpkin butter 
2 eggs
1/2 c sour cream*
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 c flour

* I didn't have any sour cream, so I substituted 1/2 c milk + a few squeezes of lime to curdle it + 1.5 tablespoons of extra butter

Mix everything together, pour into greased muffin pans, & bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes (keep an eye on them!).

Thanks to the PUMPKIN BUTTER, these are the softest, moistest (I don't think that's a word) pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins I've ever eaten. Enjoy!

Wheat Bran White Bread

It's been an off week 'round these parts (mostly because I've slept through about half of it?). I caught some sort of stomach bug (or possibly food poisoning) over the weekend, so I spent the first few days of the week throwing up (no more "vomit-free since 2003." I suppose that supports Stephanie's typecasting of me as Ted Mosby. Ha.) and sleeeeeeeeping. So since there's not much to update on this week, here's a tasty little recipe I whipped up recently.

so good!

I had a hankering for some PBJ recently, but sadly had no bread to make it with. I decided to bake a loaf while I did homework. Now usually, I prefer to eat whole wheat bread. But since I don't currently have any wheat flour (and since I have a Costco-sized 25-lb. bag of  all-purpose flour...), I used white flour instead. I still wanted to be at least a little bit on the healthy side, so I looked up several bread recipes (including two I've used before), made some adjustments, and came up with this. And actually, that's my favorite part about this recipe; I put it together! This is a BIG deal for a non-baker like me!! (*pats self on back*)

The result was a beautiful loaf of soft, delicious homemade bread! (I'm still in shock.)

Wheat Bran White Bread
recipe by ME!

INGREDIENTS

2 t yeast
1 ¼ c. warm milk
¼ c honey/agave
¼ c olive oil
2 ¼ c flour
½ c wheat bran
1 t sea salt/kosher salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Add honey and oil. Let rest 5-10 minutes (or until foamy).
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, wheat bran, and salt. 
3. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix until everything is combined and your dough forms. Mix well (use your hands) and knead for 5-10 minutes.
4. Form dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
5. Punch down the dough and knead for another 5-10 minutes. Form into a loaf and place into a greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise 1 hour or until doubled in size.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes! The bread should be a light golden brown. Feel free to adjust the time, per the quirks of your oven. (The recipes I looked at said to leave the bread in for 30 minutes, but our oven is overeager and the bread was ready after 21 minutes or so.)
7. *IMPORTANT* Carefully remove the loaf from the pan (so the outside of the bread won't continue to cook. Also, don't burn yo'self!) and let the loaf COOL completely (so the inside of the bread DOES continue to cook; that's the important part!) before slicing.
8. Enjoy! :)

Tastes even better with Amish apple butter!

Call me Salvadorian...

... but every time I eat frijoles y crema (literally every time in recent memory), I think, "Holy crap, this has GOT to be the most delicious food on the planet!" Each time I take that first bite, it just tastes so, so good, I can't imagine anything tasting better.

Don't underestimate the humble black bean con crema, folks. Comfort food at its finest.

Especially when served con platanos fritos. Like this(!):

But twice more of everything, please! (via)

(Let the squishy foods continue...)

Chocolate-Chip White Bean Blondies

Lately, I've been getting a kick out of finding "healthy" versions of familiar recipes. Finding ways to sneak extra veggies or healthy ingredients into my meals is just so thrilling to me, for some reason! It's to the point that sometimes, I wish I had kids just so I could "trick" them into eating healthy things! (Though if they're my kids, they'll probably enjoy healthy things to begin with.) For now, I'll continue to get a kick out of tricking my roommate Whitney (whose face alone was worth a million dollars the time I told her I used wheat flour to make the chocolate-cookies. Heh heh! There was also that time Whit, her brother, and I had dinner at home, and I didn't tell them that I snuck carrot puree into the pasta sauce. (Don't worr it's actually really delicious!) Hee hee!)

Here's my latest "healthy" (or at least "healtier") experiment chocolate-chip blondies made with BEANS! Yep! Beans! Don't worry. These were yummy, too! (If you don't believe me, Stephanie and Brynn can vouch for this!)

Chocolate-Chip White Bean Blondies
(modified from here)

Yummy!

INGREDIENTS

1 15.5 oz. can of white kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 eggs
1 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
2 1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. + 2T brown sugar
1/2 c. flour (I used white, bc that's all I had, but I bet wheat would work, too!)
1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips (I maybe added a few extra on top!)

DIRECTIONS

1- Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease 9x9 inch brownie pan (or whatever pan you want to use).

2- In a blender (or food processor, if you have it), blend all ingredients together (except the choc-chips!) until smooth.

3- Mix in the chocolate-chips by hand.

4- Taste test the batter. Feel free to add a little more sugar if you'd like. )

5- Pour batter into pan and bake for 20-30 minutes (mine were done after 20, but maybe your oven is different).

6- Let cool in pan before cutting.

7- Serve with milk, and enjoy! Tastes just like a chocolate-chip cookie!

8- Relish the thought of fooling your loved ones by feeding them treats that are both healthy AND delicious! Laugh inside. (I promise if you don't know these are made with beans, you won't be able to tell the difference!)

what they look like while baking

Some Things That Happened in March

School and other things have kept me extra busy these past few months, and my poor blog has been sorely neglected. Lemme take some time to catch you up on the month of March. This is what happened in March (besides my 4-year mission mark, Amish country, overboard Target-shopping, etc.):

I learned how to make bagels!!

I jumped on the "coconut oil" bandwagon. (Because it's apparently cool right now to slap this stuff all over your food AND your face.)

My sister GOT ENGAGED!!

I saw the David(-Apollo) WITH David.

I decked out our table for Easter, and the color yellow made me smile! (And Mara included this in one of her "yellow happiness" posts!)

yellow daffodils + yellow easter chicken = :D

I made a Union Jack cake for Stephanie's birthday!

If you look closely (and squint a little?), you can see the criss-cross of the Union Jack in the bottom photo.

I (finally) went on a date to Take 5! So fun! (It was on my DC Bucket List, remember?)

I braided my hair and matched my lip color to my shoes. (What? No one else does that?)

Cliche on SO many levels...

I applied for graduation and ordered my regalia!!

(and then I took a picture with George in my Utah gear after getting out of the gym.)

Shum Shum came to visit!

I went to a CHEESY 90's themed party with some friends.

They had a "glamour shots" booth! Clearly, I cannot keep a straight face...

We said auf wiedersehen to Torben, who finished his thesis early and moved back to Germany to work for die Gruene.

The weatherpeople said it was going to snow... and it actually DID!!

SHOCKED that the weatherpeople were right!

I baked cinnamon rolls for Easter brunch at Melanie's.

This was pre-baking & pre-icing

My visiting teacher was awesome.

After three years of living here, I finally made it to the National Kite Festival!

You can't see it, buuuut that's a Barbie kite! #notashamed

April's been good so far, too. Maybe I'll catch you up on it one of these days. ;)

Best Pizza Crust of Your Life

Before this last Valentine's, I had never made pizza crust from scratch before. I looked for a recipe on Pinterest for which I had all of the ingredients (including regular flour. I have a personal policy against recipes that call for weird kinds, like "self-rising" flour or "cake flour." That cake flour is the one that kills me the most. I'm like... You guys, don't you know that you can make cake out of normal flour?? Goodness. And they call themselves professionals.), and I found this one. I made a few little tweaks here and there but mostly stayed true to the recipe (also, I doubled it, and we had enough to make six really big personal pizzas), and holy crap, my mind was BLOWN away by how good this was! (And everyone else thought the same thing, so it's not just my opinion here!)

And so, for you friends who did not celebrate LOVE with me last Thursday, here is the best pizza crust recipe ever! I'll never use another crust recipe as long as I live.

Heart-shaping not required. (Also, heart = courtesy of Camille for Nif)

INGREDIENTS

2 1/4 c. warm water
2 T active dry yeast (I used the kind that comes in a jar and goes in the fridge.)
3 T honey (Steph's on a no-sugar thing right now, so using honey was perfect!)
3 T olive oil
5 c flour (*This is less than the recipe calls for, but it was definitely enough.)
2 t salt
2 t garlic powder
1 t dried basil (it smelled so good!)
a few good shakes of Parmesan cheese (I sort of just eyeballed it 'til I thought it smelled good.)


DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, mix water, yeast, honey, and olive oil. Let sit until foamy (about 10 minutes).
2. Add the flour and seasonings. Stir with a spoon until dough comes together but is still sticky. Form into a ball and smell the good smells (No, but seriously. This dough smells amazing!)
3. On a floured surface (I spread out 1/2 c. flour on my counter), knead the ball of dough for a few minutes and work the 1/2 c. flour into your ball of dough until the dough becomes less sticky. 
4. Grease a bowl and put your ball of dough inside. Cover and place in a warm place to rise. (The recipe says to let it rise for an hour and a half, buuuuut I only let it rise for about 20 minutes, and it turned out just fine.)
5. After the dough has risen, preheat oven to 375 degrees.
6. When the dough is done rising, punch the dough down on your floured surface and roll it out into your desired shape. (I don't have a pizza stone or round pizza pan, so I used rectangle cookie sheets.)
7. After you roll it out, cover the dough and let it sit in a warm place for 10 minutes (I also skipped this step. On accident. Oooops. It turned out fine anyway. Also, at this point, the recipe calls for putting melted butter and garlic on the dough, but I chose not to. You do what you will. It's your crust, after all.)
8. Add sauce, cheese, and toppings.
9. Bake until the crust is a light gold/brown color. (Don't let it burn!)
10. Enjoy! The crust will be thick and fluffy and delicious and warm. Best. Pizza Crust. Ever.

What I Did in Utah

• Made cookies and played board games:

I told them they couldn't eat them right away, and this is what happened.

I know, I know! This is so immature, but we all laughed so hard!

• Drove through upper campus at the U to see the good ol' residence halls (aka my 1st home in SLC).

The H.C.! Where I ate all my meals for THREE whole school years... Oh, man.

• Took a "coffee break" with the BFF.

This is what "coffee break" means to Mormon girls. :)

I love us in our work clothes. :)

The view when you first get off the Riverdale Rd exit on I-15. (I know... I shouldn't take pictures while driving!)

• Got crafty with my brothers:

Spencer can use a sewing machine better than I can! (Which isn't hard, since I don't know how to use one.) He was sewing a present for my mom. (See photo below for finished product!)

Finally cutting up my old college t-shirts to make a quilt!

I realized too late that I probably should have cut all the pieces the same size... Ooops.

Hello from Chris!

• Saw James Harden and Kevin Durrant on Jimmy Fallon:

• Celebrated my MOM'S (52ND) BIRTHDAY!! :D

Is it cheesy to be making shaped pancakes for my mom?  Ha ha. :)

Birthday lunch at Costa Vida

Everyone gave her flowers. :)

 

The little gray rabbit is Spencer's final project! :) Cute, no?

Boys will be boys. :)

A video of the happy birthday-ness:

Sister + bf

• Took a fake (for me) nap in the car

They really WERE asleep. They always fall asleep on me. I wonder why... Ha ha.

• And then I flew back to DC.

Can you spot the Mississippi River? (Also, I totally just Em-Eye-Ess-Ess-Eye-Ess-Ess-Eye-Pee-Pee-Eye'd that.)

Also, hello from Ringo and Jaxie! BB wanted me to e-mail him a video of the pups on his P-Day, and now you get to see it, too. :)

Utah, you're pretty rad. :)