Star studded week

Just a quick update to let you know some exciting goings on around here. Last week I saw two definite celebrities, and one cookbook author (borderline celebrity). I'll start with the cookbook author, since this a cooking blog. I think I've mentioned before that I'm currently in love with my new cookbook - "Vegan Soul Kitchen". The author - Bryant Terry - is an oakland native. Last Sunday he and a spoken word artist and some interpretive dancers put on a performance art/cooking demonstration at La Pena, a cultural center in my neighborhood. It was really fun! Oliver said if they made him dance, he was going to leave, but in the end when they made him dance he was into it :)
The food was also really yummy.
Earlier that day we saw Joshua Bell play violin sonatas with Jeremy Denk. Jeremy Denk has a cool blog about piano: http://jeremydenk.net/blog/ . You should check it out, mom.
Then, on Thursday, I saw Bill Clinton speak! It was really cool. By total luck of the draw I had a great seat. It was in the big performance auditorium at Berkeley. He is a very good extemporaneous speaker, and very charismatic as well. You could tell how he got to be president.
Well, I expect a much calmer week this time around. I have a butternut squash I need to do something with, and some leeks, too. This morning I made pancakes (banana cinnamon hazlenut) for the first time in a long while, and I am re-committing myself to making a delicious breakfast one day on the weekend.

the evolution of forks

I just saw that Jody's profile inquires, "Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?" She asks us not to joke about evolution. I probably similarly debase science by letting it inspire greasy analogies, but I can't help but answer the question by saying that if there's at least a cartoon positing that the Y chromosome evolved by way of deletions from the X, then maybe we can argue that forks, like little men, evolved from lady spoons.

Yeah, roll your eyes. I'm eating my oatmeal with flax seed (see comment stream on post about the F word).

Blizzard baking

Something about snow makes me want to bake a lot and, of course, eat a lot. My first project was this tasty ginger cupcake recipe from 101 cookbooks. Yes I know I promised not to wrote more tribute posts, but these were just such a hit! I added about 1/2 cup coconut to the batter and sprinkled more coconut on top. I made extra icing, too, because icing is delicious, but the amount in the recipe is plenty. I shared them with my neighbors on one of the worst days of the storm when we bonded over our cabin fever.

Next, during a fit of post snow pre test anxiety, I whipped up these remarkable peanut butter sandwich cookies from an old wapo christmas cookie food section special. I used fresh bananas rather than dried, which was a mistake. In fact, as much as I love peanut butter on bananas, I'd like to try this recipe with maybe a cinnamon cream cheese filling instead. I would recommend making the cookies smaller than you think you need- keep in mind you'll be eating 2 of them at once. I also tried dipping a few of the extra cookies in ganache, which was fabulous.


Finally (I told you I did a lot of baking!) I tried the joy of cooking oatmeal cookie recipe for my dodgeball team reunion (note: the linked recipe omitted the 1/2c walnuts, a touch I really liked). A little tacky to bring cookies to a restaurant, yes, bit whatever. They were appreciated and I'm posting them as per request of a friend. They are very oatmeally and kept their shape nicely during baking.

Happy baking!! And sorry no gluten free stuff here =(

The F Word

is Flax. Suzanne urged a box of ground flaxseed from Walmart on us when we went up to Balto last weekend. Not exactly Moses coming from the mountain and urging the tablets on his people, but close: she had omega-3 in mind, and we take her seriously. So I used flax in biscotti: Fantastic. (Substitute 1/2 c ground flaxseed for flour.) In bread: Fine. In oatmeal: hmnm. Can't think of another f-word (or can I now??), but it was tasty.

Some Valentine's Day Food Porn

I apologize for not having posted for so long--I don't have the excuse of not having teh internets at home, I simply haven't been cooking much lately. Well, I have been cooking, but I haven't made much that's original. I figured that this blog could do without another "omg 101 cookbooks is sooooo good!" post.

My latest cooking adventure was to make a veritable feast with Michael for Valentine's Day. For our first course, we had mom's tasty squash soup with fresh whole grain bread.


For our main course, we had the Barefoot Contessa's spinach pie with her Asian grilled salmon.

For dessert, la piece de resistance, we made chocolate souffle with grand marnier-flavored chocolate sauce. It was to die for! Thankfully, there were leftovers: Michael liked his reheated, but I had mine cold with hot chocolate sauce on top. I liked it better that way than fresh!

spending yo sweet dolla dolla bills in the yay bay

Holla! Sorry I've been mia. All is good and well in the yay area. We were just without the internets for a couple weeks (our router broke and Oliver and I operate at our own special pace of never getting around to anything (and no Mom, we haven't been back to Ikea (it is highly questionable that this will ever occur))).
Anyways, I'm back! I made an awesome dish tonight (pasta with vegan ricotta and green garlic sauce), but that is not what I am preaching to y'all tonight. No, I would like to tell you what $32 magical dollars (magically charged to Robin's credit card account) will buy you at whole foods. The answer, in short, is pure bliss.
Mom insisted I "test out" the new emergency credit card by buying myself groceries. Instead of doing a sensible grocery trip, I made a late night trip to whole foods. I was drop dead, no dinner, post-spin class hungry, too. I bought all the things I always wanted but haven't tried because they are expensive (okay, not all the things, but many). So what did I buy? Well, I started out with a $3 bottle of kombucha tea with ginger, orange peel and hibiscus infusion. Then I got a blueberry nut food bar. Of course, hummus and babaganoush were purchased (essential vitamins for the Jody species). I also selected an organic zinfandel from Paso Robles. And finally, I went to the salad bar. I rarely do the whole foods salad bar because it is so expensive. And when I do, I pull a Reeves and only buy the light items. Well not this time. I went hog wild (all O-town slang I could think of to describe my actions was too raunchy for this blog). I got micro-greens, sprouts, red cabbage, chives, beets, sunflower seeds, currants, marinated mushrooms, marinated giant beans, roasted red onions, lentils, black quinoa, roasted sweet potatoes, grilled tofu and balsamic vinaigrette. It was the most amazing salad EVER. There is probably a lost book of the bible about this salad. It was $11.
I also got toilet paper (anticlimactic, sorry).
In retrospect, that's kind of a lot of stuff for $32. Respect, whole foods.
I promise more recipes and CSA adventures soon. Its good to be back :)

Palak Daal

More from 101 cookbooks (of course!) I made this recipe for palak daal (lentils w/ spinach) tonight. It was pretty good, but I think next time I'd make it with less water (4c), add the spinach about midway through the cooking, and add a chopt onion. In this run, I added more turmeric (good!) and topped it with the same yogurt and cilantro sauce mom posted from her recent butternut squash and chickpea recipe (mix 1c yogurt, 1/4c cilantro, 1/2T lemon juice). I made it in my slow cooker (3.5h on hi--probably would be better to do it for 6-8h on low, but I forgot to turn the thing on until it was too late...)