A friendship day treat!

So, according to my my LP (life partner) - who oddly enough has some unexplained fascination with Finland - in Finland Valentine's Day is celebrated as Friendship Day! YAY! To say Happy Friendship Day in Finnish it's hyvää ystävänpäivää! (pronounced something like :Hu-VA us-ta-van-PI-va. or something)

Last wknd, LP and our friend from college and I spent our saturday making friendship day cards! As it was noted, or more than one occasion - what do three, young, attractive ladies do on a saturday night in New York City? What else? craft and eat, clearly.

So, are any of us surprised that somehow all I managed to make were cards with uteruses (uteri?) on them?

somehow these uteri ended up looking fairly svelte, with a surprisingly hourglass figure. what can i say? some of them even had googly eyes. One of them was even shedding it's uterine lining. HAPPY V-DAY TO YOU TOO! I mean, who DOESN'T want a uterus card on V-Day?

So - for Friendship Day - here's a wildly unhealthy chocolate Friendship Day treat. It's pretty easy to make too!! I stumbled across it somehow - Luscious Chocolate Raspberry Bars on a website called Kaboose.

Here's the problem with baking - it's that you see everything that goes into baked goods, and you either still want to eat them or never want to see another baked good again. a fairly easy moral dilemma, i guess. :) I mean it's chocolate. The other day, I kid you not, I started to get worried that i wasn't eating enough vegetables, and then thought - oh, well i eat about 2 servings of chocolate a day. so no worries. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME.

Here's your shopping list for Raspberry Chocolate bars:

2 sticks butter

2 cups flour

1/2 cup packed brown sugar.

1/4 tsp salt.

Beat the butter til fluffy - add in flour and brown sugar. It'll be thick and hard to mix - almost like bread dough. I broke down and kneaded it with my hands.

Take 1 3/4 cup of the dough and press it into the bottom of a greased 13 x 9 baking pan. (Grease well). Keep the rest of the dough.

Bake at 350 for 10 -12 minutes, until the edges of the cookie base are starting to brown.

Meanwhile.....

take 1 cup Chocolate Chips

1 can (14oz) Sweetened Condensed milk

melt over a low heat until melty and smooth.

Also - while you're at it - take 1/2 cup chopped nuts and add them to the left over cookie dough. They say the chopped nuts are optional - and I'm not usually a nuts girl myself, but this time I think they're pretty necessary.

So - now your cookie dough is baked and a little bit brown -

perfect!

While still hot - take the chocolate mix and pour that sucka right on top.

take the extra dough/nuts mix and crumble it on top of the chocolate.

Now take seedless raspberry jam (the cheapest you can find, it doesn't need to be anything fancy) - about 1/2 cup. Drop it in teaspoons over the cookie crumble. (use as much as you want)

Sprinkle another 1 cup of Chocolate chip on top as well!

It'll look something like this:

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. If you want - take it out at about 20 minutes, and stir the raspberry jam/chocolate chips that are on top together. or you can leave it like it is. It's UNBELIEVABLE either way.

It'll kind of set in the oven - but not really. so just take it out when you're ready.

You have to let it set, for a good 30 minutes at least. It really won't come out of the pan otherwise. (although, if you're just looking for it to be delicious, dig into that sucka with a spoon.)

I brought these to the Corpses meeting that we had on Friday. one of our other corpses took a bite, and grabbed my arm and looked like she might pass out in sheer delight.

THEY ARE THAT GOOD.

Superbowl PARTY!

So I know this is about a week late, which is in part because the superbowl was so gluttonous that i went into hibernation for a week. that's not entirely true - I also baked like 2 other time last week, which also didn't help with the hibernation thing. There was just a ridiculous amount of food, which is probably one of my favorite things ever. All of it.

Here's there reason i'm so bad at taking pictures of food/cooking. I'd just rather eat it.

The superbowl seems to be one of America's feast days - An ex

cuse to gorge oneself on the most unhealthy and simultaneously delicious things.

Here's one of my favorite things - pigs in a blanket. Mostly because, as a "vegetarian" I effing LOVE hotdogs. My sister, whose been veg longer than I have, agrees with me that HOTDOGS ARE DELICIOUS. buuuut.....because I didn't really want to barf all day from eating pork -

TOFU PUPS

Let me just say - tofu pups + croissants = PERFECTION!!!

I have to say that my roommate came up with this - and what a brilliant IDEA. I pretty much ate all of them.

It's pretty easy - cut tofu pups in thirds (or in half), roll out croissants from the store (cut all of those triangles in half also), roll 'em up, stick em in the oven for 13 or so minutes. AND EAT THEM ALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!. you can also substitute the tofu pups for a piece of cheese. EQUALLY DELICIOUS.

Ok so we didn't just eat super unhealthy stuff. we also made KALE CHIPS. which are delicious. I'm trying to cut back on the superlatives, and the exclamation points, and the ALL CAPS, but really - THESE ARE AWESOME and so easy!!

Take a bunch of kale - preferably curly leaf or dinosaur. I mean, any type will really work, but the kind you get in the bag that's precut can be on the bitter side. just to watch out for.

Wash well (2x) and de-stem well, you really want to be sure to take away all of the big pieces or it won't be good. Rip into small pieces.

Mix in a bowl with a little bit of olive oil, enough to coat lightly. Sprinkle on any type of flavoring you want - salt, curry, garlic powder, parmesean, whatever you want!

Spread on a cookie sheet so they're separated

Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes - until crispy!!! (but careful not to burn them)

ENJOY!

And - the piece de la resistance: CHOCOLATE. what's a party without chocolate and sweets? AM I RIGHT?! I found this great recipe for Potato Chip Toffee - which is similar to Saltine Toffees, which I'll have to post sometime. Potato chips and chocolate! Salty and Sweet! CAN ANYTHING GET ANY BETTER?! oh, right, fewer caps.

So here's how you make them

Take 4 cups of potato chips and break them in half. According to the website - you should be using the thick cut kind - although we used kettle cooked, and honestly, they were too hard. I think I'd just use normal next time.

Melt 2 sticks of butter in a saucepan

add 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar (or white vin), heat over medium heat - stirring constantly, until boiling. Boil until toffee turns a light amber color - about 10 mins or so (ps - this is a basic toffee recipe, incase you want to add other things in - LIKE POPCORN!! what a brilliant idea!!)

Remove from heat and stir in 4 cups of potato chips, then transfer immediately to a buttered cookie sheet. Spread them out

If there's a cup or so of potato chips left, press them on top of the toffee.

Take about 3/4 cup of chocolate chips and melt them in the microwave (heat for 30 sec at a time, melt). Drizzle the melted chocolate on top!

Set aside and let harden for about 20 minutes - break into pieces and enjoy!

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

Roomie and I have been having a hankering for French Onion Soup, and we had a friend over for dinner so we decided to make it!

Mollie Katzen's French Onion Soup Recipe from is such a classic. It's like a no brainer to make at this point.

Melt about 3 TBSP butter in a big pot.

Take a **** ton of onions - 5 -7 of them, depending on the size. Slice them up, then. You have to use white or yellow, not red.

Put the onions in a pot and start frying. and then you fry and fry and fry forever.

after about 10 minutes, add 1 TBSP thyme (dry or fresh.) and about 1-2 tsp dry mustard (or if you don't have it, whatever mustard you have)

And then, fry it for 30 minutes or so.

Add 5-6 cups of good quality Veggie broth

2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

2 Tablespoon White Wine (or, you know, as much as you need to help the taste, with a good portion left over to drink ;)

Some fresh pepper

Simmer for about 10 minutes until heated through. Soup's done!

So the thing about French Onion Soup that makes it so delicious is that you have cheese melted/broiled on the top. Well you do if you have oven safe bowls. For those among us that are still using the random collection of bowls that you've gleaned over the years, and are afraid of what chemicals might leak should you put them in the oven, you can use the following method.

take some bread, cover it in swiss. Turn the oven on to broil.

Broil those suckas up! About 2-3 mins should be fine, or until the cheese is nice and melty.

You know, I've been thinking about going vegan for lent. but i'm really really really not sure I can do it. (as my mom helpfully reminded me - most chocolate has milk. thanks mom). It's mostly cheese that's holding me back. That and the brownies that seem to be made 3x a week in this house. Is it any wonder I've picked up running?

Anyway - put the bread in a bowl, and add the soup on top! Enjoy!

No Bake Granola!

So it turns out that I love food! All I've been thinking about the last few days is carbohydratesin combination with each other. Like right after dinner I had this brilliant thought about Oatmeal with banana, brown sugar and peanut butter. If i wasn't so stuffed from eating copious amounts of bread for the last 2 hours, i might have made it. Also, there were an insane number of baked goods in the house last week, so we're having a moratorium on baked goods until mid Feb (to coincide with Jeopardy with IBM's Watson)

Ok mostly I've been thinking about oatmeal. And granola. There's this adorable little bistro in town (you can tell that I live in village instead of a hamlet because we have bistros instead of cafes) that has very delicious granola. So I've been dreaming about it since Friday. It was homemade, and chewy, and was just delicious.

Ps. Bistro, according to my lovely life partner, comes from the Russian word meaning fast, which then got absorbed into the French language back when French was the language of the hoitey-toitey. or something like that. it also turns out that I'm bad at listening sometimes.

Anyway - I was reading through one of my Mollie Katzen cookbooks, and came across this recipe for dry roast granola - or as you can also call it "no bake granola". I added some flavoring to it - but in general it's a great starter recipe because you can add anything you want to it! It's more like museli than clumpy granola, but holllllyyyy cow, it's delicious. I think the key is the spices.

No bake granola -

Adapted from Mollie Katzen's "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest". Mollie Katzen and I had a fun weekend.

Here's what you need:

1 cup rolled oats (not quick oats, but old-fashioned, irish or steel-cut will work!)

1/3cup -1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used pistachio and cashew, or you can use peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, etc)

Heat a large pot - or if you have it, a cast iron skillet - and add the oats and nuts. stir constantly for about 5 mins, until they begin to get toasty.

Add:

1/3 c. wheat germ. (the store I was at had honey cruch wheat germ. best idea ever)

1/3 c. sunflower seeds

1/3 c. shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened, whatever you have)

(1/3 c. sesame seeds, if you have 'em)

Roast for another 5-10 minutes. Stir constantly, and seriously, be careful because wheat germ can burn quickly.

Add in:

1/4c. - 1/3c. packed brown sugar

1/4 ts. salt (if your nuts are unsalted)

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/8 tsp cloves

1/8 tsp nutmeg

(or, you know, about 1 tsp pumpkin spice. we all know my love of everything pumpkin.

Drizzle on some honey to make it stick a little bit more, and if you have a massive sweet tooth, like me.

Roast for another 2-5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Stir in 1/2 cup raisins.

Remove from heat, store in air tight containers.

if you're lucky you too can make a mess of your kitchen!

Lentil Curry Soup

This has been the week of delicious soups! Perfect for our 7th snow fall this month. Ugh. Record snow fall really isn't all that exciting. Just saying...

anywho. shortly after new years, I came into the office and there was a green present sitting on my desk. My aweso

me boss (who i've

reference before, and is genuinely one of the coolest people i know) got me what has to be one of the the

most fantastic presents ever.

The Political Palate: A Feminist Vegetarian Cookbook.

It's this cookbook from the 70s put out by a group called the

Bloodroot collective, which runs a restaurant in Bridgeport CT. The book's out of print, but they have a whole series.

There are some awesome awesome things about this book.

1) It's broken up seasonally! (this recipe comes from the early winter section - Dec 22nd, to Feb 2)

2) It promotes eating locally (like 30 years before the locavore movement even came about. suckas)

3) this is probably the coolest part: on each page next to the recipe are feminist writings - a sort of "feminist bibliography" as they call it: Mary Daly, Audre Lorde, Judy Chicago, a bunch of names that I wish I recognized and am a bit embarrassed that I don't)

My boss heard about it on the radio and thought that I would like it, and then went on amazon to see if it was still available and read reviews on it. Most of them said that the like the reciepes but didn't want to have to read all that "feminist, lesbian, theory" and in my bosses words she thought "oh, that'd be perfect for Miriam." haha. she knows me so well.

anyway - here's the first recipe (with a few changes)! It's delicious!

1 cup lentils - soaked overnight (or, you know, soaked before you leave for work in the morning), and then cook in 3 cups water until done. (depending on your lentils 30 min-1 hour). Set aside

In a large soup pot:

Chop 2 onions (i used red, they called for 4, but that seemed a bit much...) - fry in olive oil.

Add 3 cloves garlic minced, 2 peppers (green or red, depending on your preference) chopped roughly

Add spices (or if you want to be fancy, cook

in the oil first): ok. so here's the deal on the spices. I added what they said, and it tasted rather bland. so then i just started throwing stuff in, which roughly doubled it. so i'll tell you what they said, and then but in whatever you want.:

1/2 t ginger

1 t ground tumeric

1 t ground coriander

1/4 t ground cloves

1 t chili powder

1 t ground cumin (or fry up some cumin seeds and use a mortar and pestle if you're super-duper fancy)

1 tsp salt (apparently my love of salt is well documented, so we all know that i probably put at least a tablespoon in)

(we also added some cayenne pepper and "curry" powder from the bodega in brooklyn - which is suspect in it's ethnic background.)

When the onion/pepper are done, add the cooked lentils to the pot (adding water as needed - soup should be kind of thin).

Boil together with 1 quart canned toma

toes (we used our winter CSA tomatoes! yay!), and 1/4 cup - 1 cup raisins (depending on how much you like raisins)

They also said to add the juice of 1 lemon, but we didn't and, frankly, i'm not sure how much it would add.

Garnish with yogurt, cashews, etc! (they suggest a slice of apple) ENJOY!

For your reading pleasure, and feminist edification, here's the quote on the page of this recipe:

"The nineteenth century produced many other vegetarian feminists - Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott, Victoria Woodhull, Mary Shelly, and the Grimke sisters. The Vegetarian society held huge feasts during the 1850's, with honored feminist guests such as Lucy Stone, Amelia Bloomer, and Susan B. Anthony."

"The Oedible Complex: Feminism and Vegetarianism"

The Lesbian Reader

Carol Adams; Ed: Gina Covina and Laurel Galana; Amazon Press

(Can I just say how jealous I am that I can sit in on those dinners?!)

Peanut Butter Blondies!!!!

Ugh (as in, one of the most satisfied sounds ever). these are the most delicious things EVER. We made them last night, and less than 24hrs later they were GONE.

They come from Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar - which in general will rock your world - and is a follow up to Vegan Cupcakes take over the world. Post Punk Kitchen is one of the best things to have ever

happened to the planet. ever.

Trust me, you will not be disappointed - these are like peanut butter fudge and are only one of so many delicious recipes.

Peanut Butter Blondies:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8x8 pan.

Beat Together:

3/4 cup peanut putter

1/3 c. oil

1 c. brown sugar

Add in:

1/4 c. (non-dairy) milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Stir in:

1 c. flour

1/2 tsp salt,

1/2 tsp baking powder

(and because I couldn't resist) 1/2 c. - 1. cup choc chips.

Knead til soft. May require your hands to knead, it can get pretty heavy.

spread dough in baking pan,

Sprinkle with 1/3 c. peanuts on top.

Bake at 350 for 22-25 degrees (until brown and a tooth pick comes through clean).

Here's the tough part - let it sit for 20-30 mins. Trust me, it's worth it.

EAT

Black Bean Soup!

so....sorry? for not posting in forever? I feel like all I've eaten in the last month has been salad. and kale. ohhhh kale. so delicious. oh and then christmas happened. and all i did for a week was bake and eat and get a nice healthy layer of blubber on. that was delicious.

BUT! The very best life partner ever visited this weekend and we made so many delicious root veggies that i was inspired to make something new. this is one of the most delicious things i have eaten in such a long time. so perfect for a day when it managed to not get above freezing.

Also, it's supposed to snow AGAIN this week. i don't think there's been a week since the blizzard the day after xmas when it hasn't snowed. If that groundhog predicts more winter in February i'm going to go down to PA myself and kill Punxsutawney Phil...jk, jk.

Black bean soup just seems so perfect to ke

ep winter away. And it's super easy! (plus. i'm pretty much in love with cilantro, and i always forget until I eat it again, know what i mean?)

It's also from this great book called "Hope's Edge" written by Frances Moore Lappe (famous for diet for a small planet, from back in the 70s) and her daughter Anna Lappe. Not only does this book have really really awesome critiques about the food we eat, where it comes from, and how our consumption is f*ing everything up, but it also has these super delicious vegetarian Recipes!!! YAY! Delicious!

Black Bean Soup:

2 cans black beans or 1 cup dry black beans

1 cup frozen or canned corn

1/2 red bell pepper, chopped into small bites (opt)

2 cloves garlic minced

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1/2 tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1 heaping tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp dry oregano

3/4 tsp salt

veggie stock (opt)

If you're using dry beans - pick through and discard stones/weird ones, and rinse. boil them with 5 cups of water in a 4 quart dish. Simmer, partially covered, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours (adding water as needed), until tender.

If you're starting with canned beans, put 'em in a pot and heat it up. (don't drain!)

When heated through, add other ingredients. Simmer until warm - about 15 minutes (until Corn is done)

Add veggie broth as needed, if you want it to be thinner.

Enjoy!!! Nom nom nom!