someone nominate me!

Um pretty please can someone sign me up for this kitchen makeover show?!

Kthanks.

Actually my kitchen isn’t that deplorable… just to someone who likes to cook as much as I do!

Another post of random tidbits. They all tasted good!

A bean burger:

 

On toast with a radish and its leaves.

The secret ingredient, both in and on the patty?

Love love love. Kind of a love child between Ethiopian berbere spice and Mexican chipotle sauce? HOT. Start with a little!

To make my burger patties I just rinse canned beans, leaving them a little wet, microwave them to get em soft, and mash them, the water, bread crumbs, and a bit of seasoning (in this case harissa). Broiled approximately four minutes a side. They’re a little bit of a pain to flip, but that’s the only part of the process that isn’t so easy a chimp could do it.

For my untraditional burger I went for a really traditional side:

   

Insanely enough, I was craving traditional cole slaw- made with mayo. Yes, I generally hate mayo. But I used maybe 1 tsp. to dress like 1/3 of a large head of red cabbage. It was mostly white vinegar, mustard, and (brilliant- do this!) caraway seeds. Hit the spot, though!

I’m a bit befuddled by how to review this trail mix, another sent to me by YouBar:

 

It contains dark chocolate covered raisins, faux-Cheerios, regular raisins, dried apples, and peanuts.

My first thought when tasting it was “Ugh, more excessively dried-out nuts and  fruit, now with excessively dried-out cereal!” I did IMMEDIATELY demolish the dark-chocolate covered raisins, which are insanely good, and leave the rest of the bag on the shelf to be claimed by hungry family members/house guests (that first bag I was lackluster about was ultimately reviewed by four people, all of whom gave variations on “meh”).

However, I am a pick-at-trail mix type. When I came back from doing somethingorother later and was legit hungry, I started eating it more handful-style, getting multiple ingredients in one bite.

And wouldn’t you know it, some trail-mix synergy happened and the whole was more than the sum of its parts. If you’re a handful-eater (I think it’s mostly a boy thing… I hardly ever do it) but if you are, you will probably like this.

Make of that review what you will!

Sunday night I was just NOT FEELIN IT and my mom cooked dinner and I am such a kitchen control freak and should really let her cook more cause everything she makes is super delicious such as THIS:

It helps that those are local farmers-market sugar snap peas and were insanely, delectably, heart-stoppingly perfect and fresh. But she made a super yummy stir fry! All she used was peanut oil (likely more than I would have, thus the increased deliciousness :D), chicken, ginger, mirin, mushrooms, and the sugar snap peas.

Atop brown rice. So yummy!

Have you had it happen where you re-make a recipe and it ends up looking weirdly different than the first time you made it? That happened to me when I recreated the potato leek soup from the other day.

Markedly different color and texture! The only thing I can think of is that I used more of the dark top leek parts last time? Also, instead of veggie stock, I used my mama’s homemade turkey stock (turkey neck+giblets in a crock pot with veggie trimmings, herbs, and wine= BLISS!) and was out of buttermilk so used milk and (a TEENSY TINY BIT! Like 1/4 tsp) of apple cider vinegar.

Anyway, it was delicious before and it was delicious this time. Just peculiar!

Part of this complete (gloomy rainy day) lunch.

Apple slices, roasted almonds, and ginger tea!

Sometimes when it’s gloomy it’s sort of nice to just embrace it. Make soup. Go for a walk in the rain listening to Space Oddity on repeat. I think I’ll go take a bath and reread The Bell Jar!