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Hi. Husband here. Blogging. It's something that almost everyone who's tried has failed at. Stamina, endurance, discipline, cleverness, readership, credibility, and incentives like actual money - these are the things that separate the common John or Jane from the professionals. Unless we're certified and getting paid for it, there's little point in keeping a blog any more.
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Probably Too Much For A Facebook Status Update

On November 6th I posted a photo on Facebook announcing to the world, or at least to the part of the world that matters to me, that I was pregnant. In my excitement (or, in retrospect, naiveté) I let you all know as soon as we knew, about this totally awesome happening.

I had my first doctor appointment this Thursday past and there I received some shocking news: no heartbeat. No heartbeat and an unmistakable pronunciation that my first pregnancy is destined to be a miscarriage. That’s hard to write out. I must admit, when my morning sickness (which was all the time) eased along with other symptoms I though that I was just one of the lucky ones who would have an easy time of it. Sadly, that was not the reason, I suppose.

It’s easy to be fatalistic when you’re thinking things will come to you. . . much harder when things are being lost. Mr. Crow and I are doing alright though. It was shocking and terribly sad at first and, of course, it still is, but it’s a little tempered now, too.

We always said “if it was time then it was time” so I guess now was not the time. Maybe, with the new house and all it would have been too much to handle. . . Maybe the kid figured out early on that we were vegetarians and went to go live with a family that would feed it bacon and he just couldn't find a suitable sublet tenant.

So, we thank you all for the well wishes and we want you to know that we’ll be saving them for later. Consider this a postponement.

You’ve been put on notice.

Baby Shower recipe List.

Maybe I’ll go back and write more on this but I’m tired tonight and this is all you get.

butternut squash and sage risotto

Arancini di riso

strawberry cupcake filling

spicy "crab" in wonton cups (you know I used Match)

French-Style Stuffed Eggs

The peppers were mine. just sauté them in evoo, add some balsamic vinegar and sugar half-way through. done.

hummus is a basic hummus recipe but I added a bit of cumin to it.

and, finally, the coup de grace:

Rigatoni Ai Tre Formaggi

3T salt

1 lb rigatoni

1.5T sweet butter

1/2 c shredded Swiss cheese

1/2 c shredded fontina cheese

1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 c heavy cream

1/2 c grated parmesan sheese

1/2t nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter a casserole dish.

Boil pasta until super-al dente (because it will cook more in the oven). Drain pasta, rinse, and drain again.

In a large bowl mix butter and past until well coated. Add the 3 shredded cheeses, 1/2 the parmesan, and cream and mix thoroughly.

Place in the casserole dish and sprinkle the remaining parmesan on top. sprinkle in nutmeg and bake 15-20 minutes – until the top is golden brown

 

if I missed any recipe you want let me know. I’ll fix it.

Bathroom Festivities!

Confession: I am in love with my bathroom. OH, yes I am. I have been dreaming of this color scheme in a bathroom since 2003. seriously.

I know there is a “thing” going on right now in bathroom décor where it’s supposed to be all spa-like and serene. I say “eff that!” because my bathroom kicks my butt every morning and every night and I love it!

In case you don’t remember, here is what it looked like before:

Okay, so, that’s that, never to be seen or heard from again. Now observe the AMAZINGNESS of my current bathroom!

 

YEAY! I feel like having a party now, don’t you?

Just wait until you see the photos of the new living room!

COMING SOON!!!

Pictures of the House!

We’re finally in the house, have been for a week now, really. I just got rid of about 1/2 my wardrobe, and a ton of other stuff and I feel much better.

Here’s the first few pictures I’ve taken. . .this is what we have to work with (hover for room info):

as you walk in from outside you see:

then, going upstairs:To the left:Straight ahead:Ahead (to the right)Hard right:Right again:Or keep going:

Turning back:

You may have noticed that I too no pictures of the living room. I was surprised too. I was sure I had. ANYWAY, outside of a SUPER SECRET but amazingly awesome project in the bathroom, the living room is the BIG-DEAL thing we’re fixing up first.

Let me show you a picture of what the wallpaper looked like:

Horrible, right? I know. It’s gone now, don’t cry. So is the tan carpet. Here are some photos of us working on The Project:Here is Mr. Crow doing . .. something. . . I think he’s pulling staples out of the wood floors.

 

Here’s Mr. M and my Bro doing the same.

 

This is what it looked like after we tore off all the weird textured wall paper and removed the fuzzy left-over backing paper and scraped off as much of the other 3 layers of wall paper that still remained below. . . .

 

And look what I found near the bookshelf:

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And THIS is what it looks like now. we scraped off all the rest of the wall paper that was harder to get off with razor blades, patched any holes in the plaster, and, as an added bonus, we used a heat gun to remove the MILLION layers of paint from the trim around the floor, windows, and doors.

Next, we’ll be sanding and staining the hardwood, painting over the bricks in the fireplace (Mr. Crow hates them), and painting the walls. . . we’ll be done someday.

We DID get one thing done that I’m happy about:

I bought this light on sale YEARS ago and I never had a place to put it. I kept it for some absurd reason and now it’s in my kitchen!

Now it’s time to bake brownies.

Neil is Sick

This is making it very hard for me to enjoy the other successes in my life. . . .

I spent about a day glowing over the fact that the house appraisal came back better than we would have dared to wish.

Then Neil’s condition seemed to get worse. All information seems to point to pancreatitis. At first, when he came home from the hospital he seemed so happy and playful. He was definitely doing better. Exactly a week later, he seemed to back-slide. he was drooling all over the place and he threw up a little bit. So we trucked him back to the vet, who did some more tests, confirmed that some of the enzymes they look at are, indeed, elevated further, and gave me even more pills to give him. ugh.

So now, we’re giving him an appetite stimulant (mirtazepine), antibiotic (clavamox), Pepcid, and an anti-nausia medication (cerenia).

I also, while doing some internet research, came upon an interesting correlation. (You’ll notice that there are no pain relievers in the mix above.) We, for the first few days, were giving him some kind of pain relieving gel under his tongue daily. . . . but now we’re out and he’s feeling crappy again. I can’t help but think that the two are connected since the 8-10 websites I looked at list pain management in the list of symptoms that need to be addressed. 

Now my next step is to call the vet and see about getting something to assist Neil with whatever pain he might be in. It hard to tell with cats and Neil is so sweet and easy-going he probably wouldn’t complain about anything. . . . And it’s not like I can give him aspirin. Cat’s livers are funny things. Any people-type stuff could kill him.

The other big thing is getting him to eat and drink. I think/hope the pain relievers will help with this. However, in the mean time, the vet showed me how to give him electrolyte fluids under his skin. Mr. Crow can’t even be in the room when I do it. (wimp)

Ah, well. BGP, as my cousin likes to say.

I’m Trying To Write a Blog . . .

. . . It’s working.

Mr Crow and I just took a bath. Feeling refreshed. Listening to Penguin café Orchestra (Perpetuum Mobile). The Parakeet seems to like it and tries to sing along. I’ve stopped washing my face with soap. I’m recovering from a dozen mosquito bites. No joke.

We biked to the Relator's office to go over some paperwork, then we went a little further to the North Market:

Namaste beer

personal watermelon

white peach

3 avocadoes

a dozen eggs: 10 brown, 1 white, 1 blue

rhubarb, lime, cardamom ice cream

 

We found the recycling bins closest to our new house. . . .

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On the house-front we’re having the appraisal next week. Assuming all goes well, we’ll be in by September. We’re nervous but I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about (as if that makes sense).

I’m already mentally placing the chicken coop to the left of the back porch. I’m reading three books right now:

Chick Days

The Quarter Acre Farm

The Girl With Curious Hair

. . . too bad Mr. Crow isn’t keen on chickens. he’s worried that they’re going to be too noisy. . . I think he’ll live. (He’ll have to!)

 

*************************************************

Neil is in the hospital. He hadn’t been quite himself since Sunday. The doctor thinks it may be his liver but we won’t know for sure until later. Sadness.

Home Inspection Etc.

The “Etc.” up there is for the two new headbands I bought!

So, the home inspection was yesterday. It went as expected. It’s an old house. It needs some work. Some of it is more important than other bits.

okey doke. Let’s get started:

So, the basement is damp. It’s damp, apparently, because it’s stone and stone is “like a sponge”. Which means, really, that there’s nothing to do here but level out the floor a bit. . .and kill all the spiders.

The roof over the porch is leaking a small bit so we’ll need to fix that. It’s just a little patch on one side so it shouldn’t be too hard.

The gutters need replacing. This issue is what’s causing a lot of the dampness in the basement. Fix that and it’s two problems for the price of one. I’d really like the kind that you don't have to muck out every season but we’ll see.

The forth thing that it really needs is a new coat of paint. To get that done we’ll need to replace some of the broken shingles around the house. Easy enough, I suppose, but what’s on there right now is asbestos. bummer. Fortunately, Home Depot sells a similar looking product called “concrete fiber” that we’ll use to fix what we need to. This is the big papa project. There are some places in back of the house where it looks like they put in a shorter window and just put a big board over the hole instead of reshingling. *sigh*. Also, there’s a door to the kitchen RIGHT NEXT TO the door to the living room. This looks stupid and we want to cover it over. Of course we need to do all this at the same time:

-take out the door

- rip off the boards

- replace all the damaged shingles

Only then can we paint. Good thing we’re young-ish. . .

So, maybe we’ll get all of this done by winter. . . maybe not. We at least want to get the porch and gutters done for sure. . .paint can wait until spring if it has to. . . but the blue is SO UGLY.

AAAAnyway. Now we wait. The underwriter is working on stuff and then it’s go go go until it’s ours.

Adventures are Time-Consuming!

Who knew?

So, I’m married now. That was great! You can check out the details here.

Now we’re in the process of buying a house! HOLY COW! It’s been a kind of whirlwind, really. On Monday, July 11th, I was browsing Zillow.com on my phone. None of the pictures were loading. The map said there was a house in Clintonville that just happened to be in our price range! I got a “feeling”, you know. . . so I sent an email to Mr. Crow to have him check it out. He immediately sent a message to our realtor who, being amazing, was able to show us the house Tuesday at noon. . . we signed our papers at the Taco Bell down the street immediately after that.

Offer, counter offer and here we are, 4 days later waiting for an inspector to check the house out for us (This upcoming Tuesday) and then, barring any major issues, we’ll sign and the house is OURS!

That’s an adventure if ever I heard one.

The current pictures online don’t really do the old girl justice so I’m just going to wait and take my own. We’re also planning on doing a little work to the house right off the bat so there’ll be pictures of that coming up at the same time.

Banzai!

Feeding Time At The Zoo

I decided I was sick of smoothies this morning. Not surprising, I’m sure.

I decided to make banana “pudding” instead. Actually, as I eat this, it’s really more like raw COCO Wheats.

This is a bowl of 3 mashed bananas, some dried, grated coconut, and about 1T of ground flax seeds. I also stirred in about a tablespoon of this amazing junk:

I may not be able to eat the whole bowl but I’m certainly going to do my best. What this yields is a sweet, toothsome mash that You could probably dehydrate into some amazing chocolate crêpes as well. I ‘m just going to eat it.

Oh, I feel I should mention, even though my week of “science” is at an end, that my skin is looking phenomenal. That alone is enough to keep me eating mostly raw. However, the mood balancing, ease of preparation, lack of guilt whilst eating “junk food”, and energy booting magnificence are also good reasons for me to keep it up. Yeay!

I Ate The Pictures

Well, not really, I just forgot to take some but, rest assured, the following raw recipes made quite a splash.

Guacamole Jicama roll-ups Serves 6

6 avocados
2 handfuls of cilantro, minced
1 handful of parsley, minced
1/4 c lime juice
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/2 t salt
    - mash all together
1/2 t cayenne
1T lime juice
2C julienned jicama
    - toss in a separate bowl
3 heads romaine lettuce
    -  in a leaf of romaine, place a dollop of guac and some jicama sticks, roll and eat. . .  the whole bowl.

*This recipe comes from Living Raw Food by Sarma Melngailis.

Double Mango Thai Basil Salad serves 4

1c raw brazil nuts soaked for 1hr, thinly sliced
1/3 c agave nectar
1t chili powder
sea salt
4 green mangos (I used 1 granny smith apple) peeled and thinly julienned.
2 ripe mangos, peeled
1 small red chili (I used about 1T siracha)
3-4T lime juice or coconut water
star anise
1 small handful Thai Basil leaves, thinly julienned

in a small bowl, mix the brazil nuts with the agave nectar, chili powder, and a generous pinch of salt. spread the nuts on a dehydrator sheet and dehydrate at 115 degrees for 24-48 hours. (I definitely cheated and tossed these on some silpat in the oven until they were toasted. I didn’t have 2 days to dehydrate these guys. if you are baking them, still buy raw nuts so they’re not TOTALLY overdone.)

place the green mangoes (apples) in a medium bowl an sprinkle with about 2t of salt toss well and lest stand for 30 min or more (I used a dash of lime juice too so the apple wouldn’t brown.)

in a blender, blend the flesh of one of the ripe mangos with the red chili and enough coconut water to make it a thin smooth consistency. Season with a pinch of salt and a pinch of star anise. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and set aside.

Julianne the flesh of the second ripe mango and add it to the bowl with the green mangos. Throw in the basil and toss to combine.

Spread some of the spicy mango sauce onto a plate, pile the mango/apple combo on top and sprinkle with the brazil nuts. Garnish with additional star anise.

Um, I should mention that I completely forgot about the star anise. . it was still great.

*this recipe comes from Raw Food Real World by Matthew Kenny and Sarma Melngailis.

Make these. Eat them. Feel awesome.

Day 5: speak of the Devil

Yesterday, some of you will remember, I mentioned that I wasn’t really feeling any of the  detox crappiness that some people talk about feeling once they go raw. . . Well, I may have spoken too soon. Nothing serious, I just had a little trouble sleeping.

This morning, though, I feel fine! I woke up only half an hour later than usual and I don’t feel like I tossed and turned all night. Ah well, that’s the main thing, right?

In other news, I think I need to lay off the cashew dip. I had it last night with carrots and broccoli fir dipping and I kind of had the feeling of a rock in my belly. It was just too heavy for me to enjoy. . . .but it tastes so good! Today I’m having a salad to give myself a break.

in other other news, Mr. Crow invited some friends over for food (or something) tomorrow. Yikes! I feel like I’ve got very little time to prepare/shop for ingredients. Mr. Crow has requested some “raw-violi” from the Living Raw Food book. I’ll be gathering ingredients today and dehydrating tomorrow, I guess. The “pasta” requires young coconut flesh, as well so I’ve got to devise a good way to get into my coconuts fast! this solves that!

Now I’ve got to make a grocery list, do my push-ups and crunches, shower, drink breakfast, go to the library and pick up another recipe book (I think I’ll have every singe one out of the library when I’m done), go to the store (thank goodness it’s cold), and then head to work by 1:30. I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough time.

mood: 9
energy: 9
hours of sleep: 8.5 (time spent in bed)
Appx% of raw food consumed yesderday: 98%
notes: Skin is actually looking better!

Day four: recipes and junk

I think I’ll get the “junk” part out of the way first; and, when I say “junk”, I mean “junk food”. Check it out. The most gorgeous junk food evaaar:

These are cupcakes I made for a New Year’s party. They were devil’s food cake with a peppermint buttercream. Once I frosted them with voluminous peaks of fluffy perfection I did the following:

That’s a dark chocolate ganache, people. And, check out my cute liners! That was a Christmas gist from my in-laws-to-be! So nice!

Next up, I have a cake that I made on Sunday. It’s “my” (Baked’s) signature buttercream frosting (almond flavor) with amaretto soaked strawberries.

See how the amaretto-strawberry juice soaked into the cake!? This was a boxed cake, even! All you do is bake a cake from a box, while that’s baking soak some sliced strawberries in some amaretto and a bit of sugar. When the cake is cool, slice off the top to make it even, pour the strawberry amaretto juice and chopped berries onto the exposed cake, frost the other side and flip it onto the berried cake, then frost the outside for an impressive and impressively easy dessert.

What’s next? Well, it’s not exactly junk food any more but it’s not something I really liked.

 

This is from a recipe called Poivrons Farcis from Urban Vegan. I was trying to make myself like peppers but I’ve never been a big fan. This dish was no exception. The inside was great: Gimmie Lean Sausage, carrots, pepper bits, quinoa . . . I just couldn’t handle the pepper shell with it’s soft layer and the horrible, tough skin. bleck. Ah well, we froze then for Mr. Crow.

Now, on to the most recent of things. So, yesterday I said that I was making kale crisps in my dehydrator and I’d let you know how it went? Well, it went GREAT! Although this attempt was a bit salty for my taste but these were superbly munchable. Kind of like a raw Dorrito. I even passed some around at work where, after some initial trepidation, people nommed them with gusto!

Look how cute it it! I probably ate half a head of kale yesterday as a snack. mmmmm. This is definitely a staple.

Next up is a “cheese” from Sarma Melngailis’ Living Raw Food.

4c raw cashews, soaked for at least 2 hrs (overnight in my case)
1/3c fresh lemon juice
2t sea salt
2t smoked paprika
2T nooch
1/4c miso (white/yellow)
1/4c tahini
1/4c filtered water, plus more as needed
1/3c minced chives (I left these out)

Blend all but the chives in a high-speed blender until smooth, adding additional water one tablespoon at a time as needed, until the cheese is think and smooth but not runny. Transfer to a bowl and fold in the chives.

She uses this recipe to stuff squash blossoms in a fancy-type recipe but, in her everyday recipe section she fills bell pepper halves with it. I further deconstructed it and served it as a dip with red pepper spears and celery to make it all the more portable.

Now, I know I just wrote that I don’t like peppers, but, as I also mentioned, I’m determined to make myself like them. I made a very important discovery yesterday with this. I like, nay, I love raw peppers. When the whole thing is crunchy it’s the finest thing in the world. I ate an ENTIRE pepper for lunch. Raw food FTW.

And now, for the checklist:

mood: 9
energy: 9
hours of sleep: 8.5
Appx% of raw food consumed yesterday: 90%
notes: The buzz is gone and I’m kind of glad. I find myself hard to handle when I’m that way. I still have tons of energy as evidenced by my cooking and blogging. I’ve even been helping Mr. Crow with his chores around the apartment.

They say that you go through an uncomfortable detox period when you eat this way. Supposedly it involves things like: Headaches, nausea, depression, moodiness, nightmares, poor sleep, diarrhea, sore throat, cold/flu symptoms. I’m still waiting for it. . . (^.^)

For now, I’m ready for breakfast. Let’s go see what the cornucopia has for us today!

Day Three. I think I’m Sold.

mood:9
energy: 10
hours of sleep: 9
Appx% of raw food consumed yesterday: 100%
notes: Wasn’t very hungry yesterday.

yesterday was such a nice relaxing day. I was a little lazy in the morning and, instead of having another romaine lettuce smoothie I cheated and used Amazing Meal. YEAY CHOCOLATE! Got a few things from the library (yes I went again) like the following cookbooks:

Living Raw Food - Sarma Melngailis

Raw Food – Life Force Energy by Natalia Rose

Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen - Ani Phyo

(I also got The Mice Templar but that’s another story)

Also, from looking at the cookbooks I’d gotten and some of the pictures, Mr. Crow was inspired to buy us dehydrator after all. I was against it for a little while, being that it was only day two, but we’ve got TONS of canned fruit in the pantry that will have a better chance of getting eaten if it’s in roll-up form,  soooooo . . .yeah.

Having the dehydrator allowed me to chicken out on my kale smoothie I had planned for the morning. I made Kale crisps instead! These seem to be rather popular in the raw community for when you want a crunchy/salty/cheesy thing to munch. They even package them and sell them got REDICULOUSLY high prices! WOW! I can’t believe people would pay more than $0.50 for such a small amount of dehydrated seasoned kale. It’s a total rip-off. Anyway, I made mine beginning with these directions but I used Braggs, nooch, a little sea salt, and some sesame seeds for an Asian touch inspired by some seaweed crisps that I adore. When I’m hungry I’ll find out how I did.

I’ll also be making some cashew cheese to eat with peppers; a recipe from the book Living Raw Food will show me how. There will be pictures!

Anyway, it’s time for breakfast! I’m thinking I’ll be doing this one:

"man-nana smoothie"

2 mangos

2 bananas

several handfuls of spinach

water

Raw Food Day Two

Literally humming with energy. Yesterday it was a struggle to get out of bed, today it was a struggle to stay in so Mr. Crow could sleep in. . . . until 8:30.

mood: 10
energy: 10
hours of sleep: 9
Appx% of raw food consumed yesterday: 95%
notes: pasta craving is gone. Not especially hungry.

The only cooked food I ate yesterday was about an ounce of leftover tempeh in my Asian coleslaw salad. I had 2 green smoothies over the course of the day (mainly because I’m lazy).

Smoothie #2:

2 pears, cored and chunked
1 banana, broken up
1c frozen mango
1/2 head romaine

Interestingly, by mid-afternoon yesterday, I noticed an improvement to my energy levels. I was bopping through the library like I’d had a cup of tea. I even picked up some light reading for my free time which I haven’t done in quite some time. (It’s a book called Petty Magic by Camille DeAngelis)

I’m surprisingly thirsty this morning. Despite that, there is an appreciable improvement in my breath. Praise be!

I’ve been looking up recipes here and there on the internet and I’m sorely discouraged to find that most of the more delectable seeming recipes require a dehydrator. Sadness! Ah well. I’m certainly not going to buy an expensive piece of equipment that I don’t necessarily need before I pass month one. Although, home-made fruit leather is quite a draw. I’ll be sticking to what I can make in my blender/food processor for now. Cashew cheese is on my list as well as some energy bars (if I can find a non-dehydrated recipe). I’ll be sharing those with you, along with more green smoothie recipes as I try them out.

Today I head to the store for supplies. I’m looking toward my future trials with green smoothies with mixed feelings. As I mentioned during my farm share experience I’m not a huge fan of greens (I don’t like bitter anything). I feel like spinach will be fine but the kale/chard/collards in my smoothie may take some getting used to, to say the least.

A new year. . . I’ve been avoiding you.

That’s not true.

Yes is it.

It’s really taken me this long to get back to normal from the holiday season. I spent most of the month of December working/traveling/eating food I wouldn't even think of eating any other day of the year. What a joyous time! I have no pictures.

Long before we decided we were finally going to get married, I had taken up a crusade of health. When the end comes, I know I will not be one of the strong so I know I must be one of the fast to survive. Heloooo treadmill. I know, I know, but it’s wintertime and I’m a beginner so cut me some slack. Then I found this website posted on a friend’s Facebook page. So I’m about to start that as well. In 2 months, if I work hard, I should be able to do everything this program says I can. I will be a beast. rawr.

On the nutrition front, I’m heading in a new direction as well, mostly for amusement and love of the scientific process. Today is the first post in a series called “Miss Crow goes raw(ish) for a while to see if all the crazy stuff people say is true”. I’ll need to come up with a better title soon but that’s good for now.

So, yeah, people DO say all kinds of crazy things about the benefits of a raw food diet:

• excellent detoxification
• Increased energy
• Improved skin appearance
• Better digestion
• Weight loss
• Reduced risk of heart disease
• euphoria
• relieves PMS/PMT
• cures cancer

ummm. . . . Now, I’m skeptical of anything that says I can cure cancer, especially when there’s only some sketchy science backing it up but, hey, it’s a free country, you can say what you want as long as you have a disclaimer stating that it may or may not be true. (scientists have studied that eating fruits and veggies protect from free radicals and also seems to change how blood supplies are directed to pre-cancerous areas, but “cure”? I don’t know.)

However, even if half of the stuff they say comes half-way true It’s worth the experiment. I’m ready for clear skin and weight loss. Increased energy, YES! Euphoria may take some getting used to.

The only other thing that freaks me out it all the talk of “purity”. It makes them seem a little cultish. I asked Mr. Crow last night if I freaked out and got really new-agey after eating a bunch of green smoothies if he’d still love me. He said “yes”. Whew!

So, I’ve been easing myself into it for a while now by eating about 40-50% raw on most days in the forms of salads, crudité, and whatnot. Today is day one of 75% or greater. For breakfast I had a green smoothie, upon which I am totally sold:

3 clementines, peeled and split up
1 fuji apple, cored and chunked
1 kiwi, peeled and chunked
5 big leaved of romaine, washed and torn
brita water

I put the fruit in the blender and pureed it. Then I added some water and the romaine and pureed it again. It mostly tasted of apple with a romaine aftertaste which was surprisingly fresh and definitely not offensive. I’ll be going to the store today to pick up some baby spinach and kale for the rest of the week.

I’m also heading to the library to pick up some raw “cookbooks”. Can you really call it a cookbook if there’s no cooking in it? I wish the library had delivery. I REALLY don’t want to go outside in the cold.

Okay now for the science part. (Some of this is going to be somewhat subjective since I’m not going to sit and count every little blemish that’s working it’s way through my skin but I’m a sociologist so I’m okay with that.) Mood and Energy numbers are on a scale from 1-10:

mood: 4
energy: 5
hours of sleep: 10
Appx% of raw food consumed yesterday: 30%
notes: Craving noodles. Curse you wheat.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to document again.

Miss me?

No?

That’s okay.

Even I don’t know what I’ve been doing since I made lasagna!

The cider is still in the carboy fermenting away. We’re about to bottle in in the next couple days.

ummm. . . .

So, not a lot of food happening in my life right now but defiantly a lot of adventure. I’m in the process of planning my wedding. It’s set to take place in Las Vegas (who’d’ve thought?) in June 16th, 2011. It’s really been a furious rush to get everything planed while I still have time to breathe. . . . and before any other forward-thinking, type-A bride gets there before me.

No way, sister! I’ve got the location, hotel reservations, photographer, reception site, menu plan . . . .Yeah.

I’m waiting for my dress to come in along with a brooch I ordered from Ebay and then it’s down to the sundry items like welcome bags for our guests, favors, ribbon for my shoes, and music. We’re doing that ourselves.

Oh, and invitations. I’m working on that too. I’ve got a super secret plan that I might not be able to pull of in time. . . More on that later.

I’ve become part of a really neat online community called Offbeat Bride. These ladies are amazing. I’ve been so incredibly impressed with their creativity and kindness I can hardly believe it.

I feel like I’ve gotten a lot out of the way but, somehow, I feel like I’ve got so much left to do.

BUT ENOUGHT ABOUT THAT!!

I’m making my mom a sweet scarf for Christmas! I saw pictures of a beaded scarf online that I liked but I had to pay for the pattern. Yeah right! So I found as many pictures as I could find and attempted to figure it out myself. (The only logical option!)

So, from the pictures it seemed that the scarf was knit up in a garter stitch with little pyramids of beads at each end, thusly:

This is just one example of the NUMEROUS photos I found online. I wasn’t especially thrilled with the garter stitch option because the one I’m making is of a more dressy yarn and I wanted it to have more visual interest than just wiggly lines. I opted for a seed stitch instead and I’m really happy with the look. Because of the stitch pattern it also changed the way the beads look as well. instead of the solid looking lines of beads running the length of the scarf, every other bead is hidden by the stitch pattern. Finally, I used a much smaller bead. On a sport weight yarn I chose a size 8 bead which is about the smallest bead I could fit on.

YARN PORN! (Watch out now!):

So there you have it.

Want some directions?

You will need:

1 hank (100 g) sport weight yarn
3 colors (or whatever) seed beads, size 8, 20g each
Size 6 needles

Slide 40 beads close to the end of your yarn.

place your slipknot for a long-tail cast on after those beads and cast on 5 stitches.

Slide 10 beads from the tail and 10 beads from the main yarn up and cast on a stitch to hold them in place. cast on 4 more for a total of 5 stitches. bring up 10 more beads from each side. Cast on 5 more stitches and repeat until you have 4 sets of beads and 5 sets of 5 stitches each. For the second row, follow the pattern:
k,p,k,p,k, place 10 beads, k,p,k,p,k, place 10 beads, k,p,k,p,k, place 10 beads, k,p,k,p,k, place 10 beads, k,p,k,p,k

you should be at the end of the row now. Flip your work over.

Follow the pattern again, placing 9 beads instead of 10. Decrease the number of beads by 1 each row until there is only 1 bead left per set.

The pattern should be as follows:
k,p,k,p,k,(pb),k,p,k,p,k,(pb),k,p,k,p,k,(pb),k,p,k,p,k,(pb),k,p,k,p,k

Um, so, I haven't figured out how to take it off the needles, yet. I'm sure I'll figure it out, though. (nervous laughter)

Technorati Tags: knitting,beaded scarf,seed stitch,wedding plans

Three Sisters Lasagna

Look who was stuck to my screen by nothing but a breeze!

It’s fall for sure and this got me thinking about Thanksgiving and gardening and all kinds of stuff. There’s been a lot of talk on the internet lately about “The Three Sisters”: corn, beans, and squash.

I had some leftover lasagna noodles from the Food Not Bombs thing on Sunday, some black beans that I had soaked overnight fro no particular reason, some random vegan cheese, and about 4 pounds of carnival squash from my CSA so I decided to do some kitchen improv.

First a picture, then the recipe:

Serves . . . . a bunch. . . maybe 8

2 lbs carnival squash (or whatever)
1t pumpkin pie spice
1/4 c milk
salt and pepper
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2 cups black beans (post-soak volume)
6c water
1/2t cayenne
1/2t cumin
1/4t garlic powder
1 bay leaf
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1/4c butter 
1/4c flour
3.5c milk 
2t Emeril's Southwestern Seasoning
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1 package no-boil lasagna noodles
1c frozen corn
appx. 1/2c cheddar cheese
appx. 1/2c mozzarella cheese
appx. 1/4c parmesan (I used my own home-made stuff)

1. Preheat your oven to 375*. Cut the squash in half, seed them and place them, cut side down on a rimmed baking dish lined with parchment paper. Bake for an hour or until tender.

2. At the same time, add the beans, water, cayenne, cumin, garlic powder and bay leaf to a pan. bring to a boil then drop down to a simmer for about an hour or until the beans are tender. add more water as necessary to keep the beans covered (I didn't need to add any).

3. Meanwhile, Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed sauce pan. Sprinkle in the flour and whisk until smooth. Slowly whisk in the milk. Keep whisking until the sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 15 min(?). Once it's thick enough, turn off the heat and add the SW seasoning. Taste it, see if you like it. It should be creamy and just a little spicy.  Set aside to cool.

4. When the squash is done scoop out the flesh and put it in a blender with the pumpkin pie spice, milk, and a little salt and pepper. Blend until smooth, taste, adjust seasonings to your liking. set aside.

5. When the beans are done, drain any excess water and set aside.

6. Now we build: In a 9x13 pan, put 3/4c of the sauce. put on a layer of noodles.
        Spread 1/2 the squash evenly on top
        1/2 cup more sauce.
        another layer of noodles
        spread out the beans and corn next
        1/2 cup more sauce
        cheddar cheese (I found the sliced kind and I used 5 slices)
        noodles
        the rest of the squash
        1/2 cup sauce
        noodles
        remainder of the sauce
        mozzarella and parmesan
7. Cover with foil and bake in a 400* oven for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 more minutes. I like my lasagna kind of crispy on top and dry around the edges which is why the baking time is so long. If you like your lasagna softer just shorten the uncovered time to your liking.

I made this in the morning and stowed it in the fridge for the day and had Mr. Crow throw it in the oven just before I got home from work. The house smelled AMAZING and I got to eat dinner right away! It was spicy and sweet and creamy and so delish! I don't usually pull "real" recipes out of my ear like this so I'm kind of anxious to have someone make this. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

The Great Cider Adventure

With this year’s farm share I’ve been getting apples. Big apples, smal apples, red apples, yellow apples. . . .I’ve been shoving them in drawers, in the fridge in bowls on shelves. . . pretty much anywhere i could put an apple I had one. With a literal bushel of apples squirreled away in my tiny kitchen I was seriously in need of room for, well, everything else.

Mr. Crow had since bottled his beer and, with all the larger equipment free, we decided to make some apple cider; hard apple cider! Here’s what we started with:

I used my apple corer/slicer tool to cut up each apple, tossed it into the Blendtek and made raw apple sauce. We then squeezed out all the juice using a small bag made out of bed sheet type material. Leaving us with 3 gallons of cider, and all this stuff:

 

 

 

 

 

I pasteurized the cider, added champagne yeast and now it’s in a bucket in my closet.

More to come!

Curry Night

I had a pile of new stuff from the farm share and I had no idea what to do with this stuff.  But with hunger in my belly and a can of curry in my pantry anything is possible!

I got this cool looking curry jar from Whole Foods the other day:

So now what? well, I got this bag of swiss chard and I got some sweet potatoes, aaaaaand some TVP. . . That’ll do!

So, yeah, no recipe here, just sauté everything until it’s almost done, dump in the jar of curry and heat through. I got mine on a pile of jasmine rice. The curry’s mild spice went really well with the sweet potato sweetness. Highly recommended.