I'm Perfectly Normal

Normal 17-year-olds do make savory crepes for dinner when there is nothing to eat, therefore, there is nothing abnormal about me and my habits.

So the fact that I was hungry has been established, but you really don't understand the full circumstances. There was really nothing to eat. My mother suggested oatmeal, which I hate after a month of eating a cup and a half of it every morning at 5am and no I will not give it another chance it's disgusting. My father had eaten already, and therefore disenfranchised himself from my problems. In the end, it was up to me, my pantry, and the vegetable drawer in the fridge. So naturally, because I can't eat oatmeal, had eggs for breakfast, and didn't want cereal, I made mushroom crepes. Perfectly rational, you see??

I just made a regular crepe batter, the recipe to which I'm not offering because seriously there was nothing special about it, sauteed some mushrooms, and went to work. The mushrooms were the real star of the show. I cut them finely, and sauteed them in a little bit of butter and some sliced garlic forever. Then I added some cream, maybe a spoon of it. So this really wasn't that light, but I was starving, okay??

The real tragedy was that there was no Parmesan cheese to add to the mushrooms, which would have made them 14810 times better. Really 14810 times.

It was the assembly which maybe makes this look unusual, if there was, which it is not, an atypical meal. I just laid out a crepe, spooned on mushroom stuff, folded and repeated.

It was good, but my family is still making fun of me.

Thanksgiving 2010: Part 1 out of ?

Above, Top to Bottom: Azerbaijanian knot bread, roasted carrots, stuffing,
gravy and cranberry sauce, turkey (number 1 of 2), garlic mashed potatoes, and the-best-rolls-ever.

Yes, it's 2011. Happy new year, everyone. In other news, I've finally gotten around to my Thanksgiving post. Once again, I started Tuesday night when I got out of school, by going grocery shopping and elbowing people out of the way to get a good turkey. People get vicious in the season of giving-thanks :)). This year, though, I made several improvements, one of them being not losing my favorite t-shirt to sloshed turkey-brine.

There was, regrettably, no theme this year. After Jamaican-themed dinner a few years ago, and Pennsylvania Dutch last year, I found I had run out of plausible ideas. So my "motif" of this year was .... myself. Yes, inflated ego, blah blah blah, but it was delicious, wasn't it?? I didn't really use recipes this year, the breads not included because someone who can make bread without a recipe is just a culinary genius in my opinion. I really don't think it was that hard not to use recipes, considering most of these foods are pretty common-sense-y.

My handy-dandy white board.

I approached this meal unusually methodically. I plotted out the menu and the tasks. Why, you may ask, would I be so intense about this? For a few reasons:

-I love Thanksgiving. Yes, it's nice to give thanks and see my family and all those things, but it is the one time a year I have three days to make whatever meal I like and test my (skeelz) skills.

-When I told my sisters what I wanted to make, and then my mom, and then my dad, they all expressed the same skepticism of you really think you can make all this? Well I showed them, didn't I?? DIDN'T I?? But they may have sort of won by eating the meal without having to cook anything.

Blurry picture of coconut caramel custard. Blurry because everyone was ready to eat, so I was in a bit of a rush.

I had a few things to prove with this menu :)). One, I was, and still am, really tired of sweet-pumpkin-pie-spice butternut squash soups. Really tired. Another, I defeated another enemy of mine from way-back-when: custard. Custard (and if you've been following you know about mygeneral fear of anything that is supposed to thicken) is not a friend of mine. The first and last time I tried to make flan, I was frightened. When placing the pan inside the oven, water sloshed from the water bath into the custard. I thought, what harm can it do? An hour later I had sweetened scrambled eggs in little ramekins, and a complex that followed me for a few years. Just kidding about the complex.

I used coconut milk (really light, healthy stuff...) instead of milk in the recipe, which made the custard soooo rich. Also, because I can't leave anything alone, I made caramel for the first time (bubbling sugar also frightens me) and placed that in the bottom of the large ramekin. It was a success!

Noon Rogani/Azerbaijanian Knot Bread. And no, I am not usually manicured,
but somehow almost always manage to be when I am taking pictures for the blog.

My real pride and joy though....was the bread. Adapted from this recipe off of King Arthur Flour's Baking Banter blog (which is completely addictive and awesome), I was ready to dedicate hours to this bread (also not a first). The recipe wasn't difficult because of the ingredients so much as for the manual labor involved. You are supposed to take a rectangle, maybe a foot and a half wide, roll it, and stretch it to five feet. I got to four feet before I felt my resolve (and the dough) tear, and the bread was really no worse for wear.

In the end, I was really pleased with the meal. However, I can also say I haven't really cooked for more than an hour since November. I guess I tired myself out?

Next Thanksgiving, then!

Figs!!

I love figs. If there is anything in this world better than figs, I don't want to eat it. It will just make the rest of my life a disappointment. During the summer with my cousins, I usually eat a good kilo of figs a day. That's a lot. Unfortunately, people in the states don't seem to believe in figs and their amazingness, and so finding them is really an occasion for celebration.

Did you know figs are grown in the desert?? The trees look all dry and gross, and then from them come these super delicious, sugar bomb juicyness monsters!! I know, I should calm down.

Another fruit I loooove are prickly pears, also pictured above :).

What happens is everyday when I return home from school, I make myself a rather large snack and relax for a bit. That day, I found the figs.

I made myself a plate of green and purple prickly pears, some figs, and half a lime, and realize how pretty it all was.

The lime probably needs to be explained. I'm going to go ahead and say that 90% of fruit are more delicious with lime. Most fruit that I just am not crazy about because they are too sweet; so much better with lime! Guavas, prickly pears, honeycrisp apples are all delicious with lime. I'm not insinuating that the figs need any improvement, because I'm pretty sure everyone now understands how much I love them, but lime just makes them even more amazing.

The only downside was that although I had prepared for the purple prickly pear (tongue twister!) by wearing an old t-shirt, it also stained my hands :). The picture above is after washing my hands a few times, and it didn't fade for about a day.

But in conclusion: I love figs.

Tea and Cookies

Tea and cookies is the ultimate Egyptian comfort food-snack. In this instance, mom felt bad for me and and my 4-hours-of-sleep-a-night and brought me a cup of tea with milk and some old-school cookies. When I say these cookies are old-school, I really mean it. They're not dipped in jam or sugar or shaped nicely or dyed. They are nutritious and delicious :).

Above are the cookies. There are two folded cookies stuffed with mashed date, a powdery walnut cookie, and a piece of aniseed biscotti.

As you can see, I was hard at work. And I'm also a very bad highlighter.

It may have been the caffeine, but I did feel better afterwards :))

F's Work Bento Boxes - Part 3

This was the last of F's work bento boxes, and made in a bit of a rush. Because I had to pack up my bento boxes to take home with me, I used one of her pyrex glass-because-plastic-leaks-chemicals tupperware.

In it is:

-a sandwich of: a morningstar spicy blackbean burger with avacado, tomato, mayo, spicy mustard, and pickles on an onion roll.

-some dry-looking carrot sticks

-half an apple, slices and limed

The whole sandwich is skewered on one of my plastic (that leaks chemicals) Popsicle sticks, because F doesn't have wooden skewers ad who wants to eat a sandwich that has completely fallen apart?

Man, I love those spicy black bean burgers. They're almost one of my favorite freezer foods, and they're awesome for breakfast too! I want one right now, actually...

F was rather sad when I left, and I was too, but I have this feeling that maybe she's missing having her lunch packed for her, ready to go in the refrigerator every morning, more than she misses me? Quite possible.

F's Work Bento Boxes - Part 2

Unfortunately, F left her bento box at work the day before - which led to an exchange reminiscent of a parent and a grade-school kid who had left their lunchbox on the playground. I put her in time out, and improvised with the next day's lunch.

I bargained some pita into this bento, which made me feel quite pleased with myself :))
In this lock-and-load box:
-more chicken salad, this time more salad-y and less chicken-y, with carrots and spinach
-kiwi, with apple underneath
-grapefruit and basil salad
-in the stacked silicon cups: ranch dressing and pistachios, both for the salad
-celery and Istanbul white cheese pita roll-ups
-cottage cheese (ewwww) with blueberries and kiwi layered in

Good thing F remembered to bring both lunchboxes home or she would have been in biiiiig trouble hahahahahaha.

F's Work Bento Boxes - Part 1

For the past week I've been staying with my sister F, and because she is my original bento benefactor, I decided to pack some supplies :)) For the past couple of days, I've been making her bento box lunches to take to work. Naturally, F couldn't make anything simple (hahahaha) and told me that she wants a "healthy lunch". So there went one of the boxes, but nonetheless, I persevered!

Above in her first-ever-bento-work-lunch:
-purple box: home-made chicken salad of chicken breast, light mayo, apple, celery, lemon juice, and black pepper, all in a romaine lettuce cup, topped with a little lemon wedge :)
-orange box: carrot sticks, green olives, and some yogurt-ranch-dressing topped with some carrot tops to keep it from sloshing :)
-red box: apple bunny and apple checkerboard, and some kiwi flowers
-green box: 1% cottage cheese, filled with some cereal, in a plum-cup. I know. Cottage cheese - super gross in my book! But F likes it sooo....

F reported that she hid when she ate it, because she didn't want anyone to give her awesome lunch the evil eye, and give her a stomach ache :))