Impromtu Dinner Party

LOVE LOVE LOVE spur of the moment dinner parties.
Cooking, eating and drinking with friends is my favorite thing to do.
Last night was the most unprepared I have even been while hosting one of these, but that just made it more interesting. :)
Menu:
Sichuan Green Beans
Veggie Soup
Baked Butternut Squash
Strawberries and Watermelon with chocolate and cream cheese dip

Sichuan Grizzle Bizzles!- I have completely stopped measuring any ingredient when I make this, so again, bear with me.

Fill a cast iron skillet almost to the top with fresh-from-my-parents-garden Green Beans (about 1 1/2 lbs)
Cover well with Olive Oil (like, a lot)
5 Garlic Cloves, minced
1 TBS Ginger, minced
1/2 small onion, chopped
About 1/4-1/2 of a red pepper, keep slices long
About 1 tub of Tofu, cubed
3-4 TB Cooking Sherry/ Rice Wine Vinegar
Soy Sauce (LOTS), needs to heavily cover everything
Sesame Oil, to taste

1. Add oil large pan, enough to thinly cover the entire bottom...and all the green beans.
Cook Green Beans on med-high heat for about 12 min. Until they are soft, some will be browned.
2.Add the Garlic, Ginger and Scallions before Green Beans are completely cooked
3. Once the Green Beans, Garlic, Ginger and Scallions are browned, add the Sherry, Soy Sauce and Sesame oil. Stir and cook for a few more min.
4. Toss Tofu in at very end
Option- Coat and fry Tofu cubes before adding to mix, keeps it nice and crispy

This is sooooooo good.

I don't have the recipe for the soup, but it had Zucchini, Yellow Squash, Corn, Beans, lots of salt and pepper. VERY yummy and had an awesome, hardy flavor! Thanks Dominique and Coop!

The Butternut I just baked the day before with a little Raw Sugar sprinkled on top of each section.

Fruit and chocolate is good no matter what. :)

Thanks to everyone for coming out and enjoying all the food!

Spread

Praisn'!


Dessert!

Birfday Cupcakes

I wanted to surprise Chris with some birthday cupcakes when he got home from New York....He did get the cupcakes, but they were about a week late. :)
My super amazing plan was to make peanut butter cupcakes with a thick, fluffy coco frosting. This is what really happened...

Peanut Butter Cupcakes! These Rock.

1/2 C Peanut Butter
1/3 C Shortening
1 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 C Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
--------
2 C Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
3/4 C Milk

Cream together PB, Shortening, and Vanilla. Gradually add Brown Sug; beating until
light and fluffy. Add Eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.
Sift together dry ingredients, add alternately with Milk.
Bake @ 375 for 20 min, makes close to 2 dozen.


The cupcakes turned out rather dense, but it is Peanut Butter, so I sort of expected that. Not fluffy but full of flavor. NOW! The next step! Fluffy Frosting!
I've never made frosting before. I usually stick with a basic powder sugar icing and use it on cookies. I grew up eating holiday treats with this type of icing and it is the Best, especially after a day or two when it hardens!

My 50 year old Better Homes cook book was going to be my frosting sherpa.

After debating what kind of frosting would go best with PB cupcakes, Plus trying to match what I know Chris liked I decided on a recipe-my the name of it, how I could go wrong?!- FLUFFY FROSTING. Ok, great!
Almost all of the recipes involved boiling the sugar and I was quite excited to give this a try.

Fluffy Frosting:
1 C Sugar
1/3 C Water
1/4 tsp of Cream of Tar Tar OR 2 tsp Corn Syrup
Dash o Salt
1 Egg White
1/4 tsp Vanilla

Bring sugar, water and corn syrup and salt to a boil, cook until sugar dissolves.
Slowly add to beaten Egg White, constantly beating with an electric beater until
of spreading consistency; Add Vanilla.

LIARS!

I beat that mix for over 10 min. It wasn't even remotely close to being "Fluffy Frosting".
At this point I'm still determined to achieve a fluffy frosting status for these cupcakes. Recipe #2 was just called Boiled Frosting, basically had all the same ingredients except in different proportions, but also had a description I had never seen before...
While you are boiling the sugar and water, you are supposed to keep cooking it until "Soft ball stage, 236 degrees" Um, ok. So, with no candy thermometer I was just guessing and....

Again! Nothing!
This one was Slightly more fluffy than the first...but still not even in the same universe as frosting.
Failure, frustration, I gave up.
Any suggestions on how to make Fluffy Frosting would be greatly appreciated.

This time, these little cakes had to go naked.

Facebook Find

My awesome band mate Heather just posted this on The Facebook and it looks delicious:

Oyster Mushroom Recipe!
"This is AMAZING. made it last night and again tonight. get some shrooms at Jay's International on grand."

8 ounces fresh oyster mushrooms (rinsed)
1 tablespoon garlic (minced)
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon rosemary (minced)
1 teaspoon butter
2 teaspoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon dry white wine (or sherry)
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Step 1: Slice mushrooms into pieces. Sauté garlic in olive oil for 15 seconds. Add mushrooms and sauté 3 minutes.
Step 2: Add rosemary and butter and stir fry until butter is melted. Sprinkle mushrooms with flour and stir fry.
Step 3: Add wine and soy sauce and cook until liquid slightly thickens and the mushrooms are tender.

http://blogchef.net/oyster-mushrooms-recipe/

I'm always looking for good mushroom recipes considering I am way too picky when it comes to eating fungus.

1:00 am Lasagna

I apologize in advance for my poor ability to measure things out.

1 box of "oven ready noodles" (even though they kind of suck)
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 Carrots, diced
1 Yellow Squash, diced
about 2 Cups of fresh spinach
Tomato sauce & Diced tomatoes (I used about 1/2 of 15 oz can of each)
Cottage Cheese (I used about 3/4 of the large tub you can buy)
Mozzarella (or whatever cheese you want to use)
13/9 baking pan

1. Sauce the bottom of the pan, 1st layer of noodles
2. Sauce, tomatoes, cottage cheese, carrots, onion, squash, cheese, spinach, 2nd layer of noodles
3. REPEAT!

Bake with foil cover for 30 min, take foil off and bake for about another 5 min.

Yum!

Internetz

http://stlouis.backpage.com/EducationJobs/foodies-writers-wanted-part-time/4095732

REALLY FAST Lasagna

Having to be at SIUE for most of my life during the week has really depreciated my ability to make yummy foods.
It really sucks.
Plus, for about the last week I've been subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches and crackers=no es bueno.
I decided at the beginning of the week that I would make a big thing of lasagna so I could just bring small amounts of it with me each day, brilliant right?!
It took me until Wednesday to actually make it....and I started this process at about 1:00 this morning.
1 AM Lasagna!
I will post the recipe when I'm home and I don't have to rush off to a rehearsal, but the one thing that I was really disappointed with were the noodles.
I was grabbing things as fast as I could in the grocery store, came across these "no cook, oven ready" noodles. I'm thinking, SWEET, because I would like to sleep at some point tonight. Bought them.
They worked...ok...? The ones on top never really got to a soft, cooked noodle state- they mostly crisped up even though I had covered them with tomato sauce.
The others beneath had the exact opposite problem- MUSH! Mushy noodles. Not terrible but not good. It didn't ruin the whole thing luckily. I just ate the last bit I brought with me today.
FYI In-a-hurry-lasagna-makers, the "oven ready" are just not worth it.

Eating Eggs- Oops!

@Philsaurus is my good friend K who is has contributed much to this blog at the beginning. What you don't know is she actually has written Even More! that I simply neglected in my inbox and now I feel lame.
So, here is an old lil tid bit from Kelsey:

Eating eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

One of the important dietary things I’ve learned that I must do since (I’m a hypoglycemic: @FIRST BRAVE SOUL, is balance my carbs (which break down into sugars) with proteins (in order to slow
the process. Get this! It’s good for everyone! Here are a few tips.

My fave breakfast as of late is to make some oatmeal, toss in a peach (or blueberries, or whatever
fruit you have on hand), and a dollop of peanut butter (the organic, whole food version is
obviously the best choice). If you need more sweetness, add a bit of honey (organic! organic! no
added sugars) or cinnamon. In addition to this yum yum breakfast, I generally toss an egg or two
in a skillet and serve ‘em up over-easy.

Today I indulged a little bit for lunch and found a sweet sushi joint around the corner. Sushi was
probably the hardest thing about going veg for me. I knew there were options, but really… who
wants to nom an asparagus roll when everyone else gets spicy tuna? So I avoided sushi upon my
return from Istanbul, which is when I stopped cheating (mostly, upcoming blog on my biggest
cheat ever). Then I discovered this wonderful roll at Nori’s in Edwardsville that involves yams
in place of fish. FINALLY! A substantial sushi roll! I think I ate it every other day for a week
until one day, when I was badly craving sushi and Nori’s was closed, I went to Edwardsville’s
other sushi restaurant, Wasabi. I was ready to be disappointed with my asparagus roll, but
frankly my craving was just that bad. And then, suddenly, a bright light shined down on the
menu and I was rewarded for all the good deeds I’ve done in my life: Wasabi had a tamago roll.

Egg + sushi = a combination so delectable it could double as a healthy dinner and dessert

Other egg editions to lunch are, of course, adding one to a salad or, if you have other materials,
slicing one up on a sandwich.

Generally if I’m making dinner (lately I haven’t done much of this since I’ve been on the road),
I’m creating some sort of hodge-podge stir-fry. The one below entails brown rice, some carrots,
green onions, mushrooms, and a hard boiled egg or two. I can’t stress enough how much the egg
adds! In fairness, my mother doesn’t dig it as much, but she’s more of a eggs-for-breakfast kind
of gal.

In addition to establishing the balance, eggs also provide beneficial fats (gasp! the f word! fear
not! when I say beneficial, I mean it!).

Here’s a great recipe for egg salad that I’m dying to try (found via Leoslunchbox.com):

The recipe for the egg salad is simple:
1. Bring one egg to a boil in a saucepan. Simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Cool egg under running water, peel, and chop or mash with a fork.
3. Add 1 tsp Vegenaise and 1 tsp unsweetened pickle relish.

OH! And remember to keep ‘em farm fresh kids!

EFF OFF AUGUST!

Sorry for the slackin, but with 1.work and 2.not having my own crap computer connecting to the internet AND 3.purging my life of the ridiculous amount of internetz I was mentally consuming, I neglected this thing pretty badly.
School is in session and the music computer lab has AMAZING giant new macs, so I will promptly start vegging out on here more often.

FIRST RECIPE OF SEPTEMBER!
Brought to this blog via my friend Ashley. She made this delicious vegan pasta salad for my last party and I ate ALL of it. (Sorry, but I'm not rearranging the way it's typed):

It's pasta (duh), tomatoes, onion, sliced jalapenos, and chickpeas.

The dressing is a combo of tahini (maybe 1/2 c.), 2 Tbsp. vinegar (i used malt vinegar because that's what i had, but red wine or cider vinegar would probably be fine, too), some minced garlic, cumin, sriracha sauce, and salt-n-pepa to taste. You can add a tablespoon or two of water to thin out the dressing if it's too thick to mix well.

This is super yummy and I love the level of spice it had!

Nostalgia II

A few weeks ago my great aunt Monie died. She was well into her nineties and recently had her house struck by lightening (which is a story for another time). She is the inspiration for this blog!

My dad's side of the family has Family Reunion every year on the second sunday in June. We would have a hall rented out for all the food and for an inside spot to do crafts or games, a pavilion rented outside with a faucet that would always lead to impromptu water balloon fights, and when my Grandpa was still alive, there would be treasure hunts and other games.
I LOVED family reunion, I couldn't wait for it every year. Now, it has definitely become smaller in size, we don't rent the hall because they raised the price and there aren't so many games or prizes. The biggest thing I miss though is the food. There would be tables and tables and more tables of food inside and going through that line and picking one of everything was heaven.
BBQ, marshmallow salads, pasta, cookies, baked beans- all delicious, yet there are three distinct items that I will never ever forget. The first is fairly insignificant, but because the prime reunion food years were when I was <13, i used to eat my weight in jello jigglers. Nothing fancy, just plain 'ol orange stars and crescent moons, yet I remember how they used to be be arranged on the plate.
The other two items hold a little more emotional reverence for me, as in I have more vivid memories about these foods than I do about a lot of interactions with relatives.

1. Chex-mix, in gallon ice cream buckets, made and baked by my Grandpa. The best snack in the world. Again, nothing fancy or really diverging from the traditional recipe, but so good. I got to help put it all into buckets (he usually made enough to fill at least 8) and I usually just claimed one all to myself once I got there. Then, after the day was over, all the extra mix would go back with us and we got to snack on it for even longer. I miss this so much. My Grandpa held together a lot of different parts of our family and once he was gone a lot changed (blog for another time). I haven't really eaten chex-mix since then.

2. The fuel for this blog: Aunt Monie's cupcakes. I would hang around inside the hall as relatives would trickle in with their dishes just to be sure I was the First person to get one of Monnie's cupcakes. She would have a tiered cupcake holder and at the very top were all these little tiny cupcakes with pink frosting, covered with sprinkles. These were mine. They were my sugar rush source throughout the whole day. I'd eat a few right as they were unveiled, some more during bingo, grab one on my way back outside from the bathroom, of course a few during lunch and then whatever was left before leaving. So Many Cupcakes!
I miss these almost as much as the Chex mix. These cupcakes were such an integral part of those get-togethers for me.
For the last few years Monie hasn't been at the reunion. Age just got the best of her and like almost all the other older relatives on my dad's side- they will never let anyone see them if they are sick (or simply going slower than they used to). Which is frustrating and understandable at the same time.
Now Monie is gone and I will just have to be satisfied with the memories of her desserts. I've thought of asking for a recipe, but I don't even know if she had one written down. Maybe I'll ask.
Appreciate your food and how it makes you feel.

Nostalgia 1

Today was my first time at the Tower Grove Farmers Market. Today also happened to include the second time I've ridden my bike in the city (lame, but hey, I'm trying!). Being at the market brought on this rejuvenating feeling that really caught my off guard. I've known about it for years, just never went, so it wasn't "surprise". Biking to the park, walking around all the booths, listening to the music and seeing all the cute puppies really made me feel like I was back in Boulder, CO visiting my friend. It was strange, but in a good way. The bike ride was a little more stressful than the Colorado one and St. Louis is Definitely lacking in the sample department, but seeing everyone mill over fresh veggies, fruits, dips and pesto just felt...Good.
I fell in love with Boulder the first time I went there and haven't really had any experience that stirred up those memories and feelings since (other than going back to Boulder one other time). Boulder has fountains, a fancy tea house, music and the whole thing is a little bit bigger-Tower Grove can match just about all of its features. Our fountain is filled with kids, we have the pavilion with music in it, in the mornings it has a yoga class (for free!), no tea house but almost as many goggies and cute girls. It was nice to feel something like that here.

I didn't have much to spend so I bought a few ears of sweet corn and some basil pesto. I haven't had a chance to try anything yet but hopefully I can cook something yummy tomorrow evening. If you get a chance, you should really check out this market, or ANY open air, fresh/local produce market around. It's good for your soul.

NOT FUD!

This is just funny.

http://jezebel.com/5582196/your-sex-fantasies-are-perhaps-a-result-of-your-dying-ovaries

Ga'bye June!

I needed to have at least one official "THANK YOU!!!!" post for everyone that helped with the blog. I hope everyone who has been following will keep checking in! I'm really glad this class motivated me to start this and I guess I shouldn't be ending June on such a lame ass note, but I totally feel gross and lame today.
I've used "I'm moving" as my excuse to do as little physical activity as possible and eat the worst food as possible for, uh, 1.5 months now? Bleh. If you read through the stories and comments, the thing almost all have in common is the level of frustration. Buying smart and eating stupid, getting thrown out of good habits by stupid little things and finding that getting back on track makes you want to punch things.
I have yet to fully get "back into the swing of things" (do people still say that??) since the move and that bothers me. I may be eating relatively well but being a ginormous couch potato cancels all that out. DAMN YOU NETFLIX STREAMING VIA MY WII!!
I told myself after my summer classes I could focus more on being an entirely, well-rounded healthy normal person again, and that is exactly what I intend to do. I guess that is where this blog will be going??? Plus recipes!! Yay!

ANNNNND I will be posting pix and links to Lots of pix from the Naked Bike Ride soon!
Thanks again everyone! <3

Land Lady!

I just moved to an awesome house in St. Louis. My boyfriend has been friends with the owners, Denise and Aaron, for some years now and they are awesome as well. Here Denise's food story!

Most of my childhood memories center around our kitchen or the dinner table. My mom cooked a simple dinner every night, and until I was in high school, we always had dinner as a family. "Helping" my mom cook dinner every night was our chance to talk, just girl to girl. I got so much from that time.

My mom, aunts, grandmothers, etc. are all "good southern women" who show their love through food. Both sets of my grandparents grew up poor, on farms. I have had some of the best meals of my life at their tables. I moved away from home (Chattanooga, Tennessee) in 2002. Every once in a while, when I am feeling a little home sick, I will put Paula Deen on the TV. I don't always watch, sometimes it is just nice to have as background noise. Once I just turned it on to take a nap. She sounds like my Aunt Inez.

I went to church for 3 reasons:
1. My parents made me.
2. I liked to sing in the choir.
3. The potluck suppers were amazing.

I used to steal the salt shaker from my mom's kitchen and go out to the garden, pick a cucumber, and sit and eat it right there. I hated working in that garden, but the food that came out of it was soo good.

I am a good cook. I love to cook. Hosting a dinner party makes me so happy, and Aaron and I have had some winners. However, I cannot cook when I am angry. My food tastes bad. On the flip side, when I am in a good mood, my food tastes better.

I have been adjusting to Celiac disease (gluten allergy) for almost 2 years now. Thank goodness I can cook! There are so many products available, and with a little searching I am enjoying most of my favorite foods. The two big exceptions are sandwich bread and biscuits. If anyone out there has ever tried gluten free bread, you will appreciate this:
Most gluten free bread is sold frozen. At best is is dense, and tastes funny. After moving to Austin, I went to the Whole Foods downtown for some lunch and shopping. The Whole Foods in Austin is HUGE. It is like a small city with several restaurants and lots of prepared foods. Anyway, we were in the bakery section, and I decided to ask someone stocking the baked goods if they had any gluten free bread. She pointed to a display where there were two kinds, white (potato flour) and whole grain (didn't notice, was too distracted by the white bread). I picked up the bread and it was SOFT! I teared up and yelled "OMG it's soft!" to my friend. I couldn't quite squeezing it and saying "it's so soft!" the whole time we were in the checkout. As soon as I got home, I opened the bag and ate a slice. It was amazing!

My mom used to make this really bland baked chicken. She would bake a whole chicken with some veggies and stuff. My brother and I didn't like it, so we barely ate any. The good part of that was that the next night, mom would always make chicken enchiladas with the left over chicken. The enchiladas were awesome. My brother and I never told mom we hated the chicken, so she kept making it. As a matter of fact, when mom announced that dinner was baked chicken, Wes and I would usually get excited. For years, mom never understood why we got so excited over the baked chicken, but barely touched it. We told her when we were both in our 30s. Come to find out, mom would have happily skipped the baked chicken night and just made us some enchiladas.

Thanks Yahoo Answers

I wanted to keep the general form of this blog very open, I wanted people to feel free to write about anything in their lives...as long as it was somehow tied in with food. Since most of my friends, myself included, are great cooks and find so much joy in cooking, I began thinking differently about how female chefs are represented.
I love watching cooking shows, even the over dramatized "Kitchen Nightmares", and when I was trying to list off names of famous chefs from these, all I could think of were men.

Here is a link for a list of famous chefs: http://www.whispy.com/famous-chefs-resources.html
Almost all men.

Just google searching "Famous Female Chefs" this link comes up:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100320235419AA0BuOs

A Yahoo Question posted by a women expressing her confusion about this:
"My sister and I were talking about this, why are there so many guys in "female" jobs? She was saying the best hairsytlists are gay men and they are also the best beauticians to do makeup too. But the biggest thing is chefs! There are more women in the food network, but channels like Travel with Anthony Bourdain and TLC with Cake Wars, most of the best cooks are men."

This is the only response....
"Being a chef is a very high-presure job, and men tend to do better in the environment of a professional kitchen. In fact, professional chefs in restaurants have always been largely men, it has never been regarded as a 'female' job.

You can see this from watching 'Masterchef' for example, the TV series in which amateurs compete to become a professional chef. they always start with equal numbers of male and female contestants, but in the first five series, there has only been one female winner. I would imagine this is fairly representative of the numbers of real professional chefs.

And in fact hairdressing used to be considered a man's job, women only really started going into hairdressing in the 1920s."

Women get to cook. We get to feed our families, friends, run bake sales and make snacks for cub scout meetings, we were "put in place" in the kitchen....but when it comes to acknowledging achievements in cooking, men get it all.
It has NOTHING to do with it being a "high pressure" job (who knows, a woman could get hysterical during a dinner rush!) but with the idea of a woman, being in charge, confident, smart and capable and that being shown in the public. Men just don't us around that many knives at once. :/

It's frustrating to see that men and women are still, in 2010, accepting the joke that women are simply not able to stay in control under pressure. Julia could school pretty much anyone in the kitchen.

Defying The Barbie!

Hey! Want even more awesome articles to read?! Try This!

http://caseyemmakassiekaytlin.blogspot.com/

PIX

Later, I would like to have specific posts of foods friends have made and then pictures of foodie tattoos.
For now, I'm mixing the two.

Amanda!

Mary!




So long ago...

Lady Chef Deux

Here is a reason why tattoos are awesome: About two months ago (as I was planning my move to stl) the RFT ran an article about local food artists and their body art. They featured quite a few chefs, most of which had very obvious foodie tattoos, but one individual had a robin tattoo on her arm. Very detailed and beautiful, the robin symbolizing spring (as far as I remember).
Almost immediately moving to the city I discovered the bar The Silver Ballroom, and consequently one evening ran into the robin adorned chef named Mary. I told her about my blog and surprising, we were still able to exchange info! So, (sorry for the long intro) here is Mary's story!

I was pretty young when I noticed that I have exceptionally discerning senses of smell and taste. Dirty shoes, in addition to feet, also smell a little buttery- weird. Also, when someone's fingers touch the ice in your drink, the oil makes it taste a little coppery. Scotch whiskey, and sometimes Kentucky bourbon, has a certain bandaid-ointment undertone. Unoaking chardonnay is weak. I could go on. So I would eat literally anything- always. A favorite of mine at age 2 was white chalk. I'm still a huge fan of cottage cheese and tuna fish.
Seriously, from lima beans, collard/mustard greens, brussels sprouts, onions or avocado to squid, octopus, goat, name it- all that classic stuff that "kids don't like" (or won't try), I loved it all. It's not often I meet a taste I can't find a way to enjoy.
That's how I always knew I loved to cook. I like to use and create tastes that you wouldn't think could compliment each other and prove the senses wrong or take them by surprise.
My favorite recipe is this crazy chicken salad with pears and apples, green onions, horseradish and coarse mustard, little mayo and oil, lemon juice, salt, white pepper and little white sugar- topped with fresh cherries with a touch of brown sugar and salt, garnished with fresh mint. People are like, "What is THAT, there's a little kick in there." Then, "There's horseradish in here?! I don't even LIKE horseradish!" See? You just never found it's purpose for you.
And to anyone who thinks they don't like something- bleu cheese is a good example- never say never!

Lady Chef ONE!

Here is my friend Amanda's story!

Food! Let's start with the basics. I chose to lead a life of food. It's one of the most basic human needs. I am a chef. I decided I was crazy enough and in love with food enough, to become a chef. A pastry chef to be exact. (For those of you dieing to know: yes, I do watch Ace of Cakes. Yes, I do love it. No, I do not like Cake Boss. Oh, and those shows are nothing like a real life kitchen.) I work with food all day, everyday. I love food! Any food that is Gud Fud! Food is one thing we can do and experience every sense. It's the smell that drags us in. It's the sound of the sizzle in the pan and texture in our mouths. The sight of it before we even taste what has been placed before us.

Food has always been the center of my life. At family gatherings, my dad took pictures of the 'spread'! I started cooking with my mom when I was around six. I would stand on a kitchen chair at the stove and help mom with dinner. She always encouraged me and my crazy cooking experiments. Currently, I read about food all the time. It consumes my life. The more I learn, the more I want to know.

Food has a darker past for me as well. I come from a family of emotional eaters. Sad, eat... Happy, eat... Bored, eat... This is not a healthy way to live a life. My family is overweight, including me. I thought I was getting diabetes. I'm not, but I was diagnosed with Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome. Basically, my endocrine system doesn't know how to send the proper hormonal signals I need to regulate many bodily functions, insulin being one of them. This has influenced me to make changes in my food lifestyle I never thought I could make. My relationship with food is on an upward swing (for now).

Food is the one thing we all partake in. Food is Life!!! Food comes from life and helps sustain life. While working in the food industry, I've learned a lot about food. How it's made? Who makes it? What it's made of? And what makes Gud Fudz? Gud Fud is not Apple Fri Steak Bar and Grill, with their 'amazing' cookie dough salsa bread with chipotle jalapeno bbq dipping sauce! It's not out of a microwave (unless it's last night leftovers)! It's not from a multi-billion dollar food production industry that makes food for convenience! Hot Pockets? NO. It is real food. Grown by farmers and their families. It is food that is cared for by us, not left in some swamp of a feed lot so it can feed America! But tended to on grassy fields. Food is who we are. Why can't we choose our food on that concept?

Food does not need to be made just for convenient consumption...

Facebook Comments: 3

Lastly (for now) my boyfriend's mom Jeanette has short cookie story!

I don't know if this is a beautiful food moment...but to this day, everytime I play board games, I feel the need for fresh, warm, just out of the oven oatmeal cookies. I guess we used to bake and play games when I was growing up. Kinda my happy place! Proof that we have a strong association with food and memories....I guess!

Facebook Comments: 2

Next! The lovely Jen and her food statement!

I love eating and making food 'cause it tastes good! I make it a point to go to a new restaurant at least 2 or 3 times a month. I always try something new. Actually I was wanting to start a food blog this year, but alas...my laziness stepped in the way. =]

I like taking classic or traditional recipes and adding my own ingredients and twists to it. I always take a picture of stuff I order or make, because it's pretty much food porn. Heh. Also, because I can look back at it and say, "Damn, that was really good, I should make that again." I am not a vegetarian but I prefer vegetarian dishes. It's more of a challenge, as meat is usually what meals are based around.

Cooking is kind of an outlet. I enjoy when I can come home from work, unwind and make something and feed a few people. I love nothing more than homemade soup in the winter, and Indian & Mediterranean dishes are my favorite to make!

I think food is very important in the sense that it brings people together. Parties, dates, family gatherings...it is not only a need but a source of entertainment, conversation, healing and comfort. People love food. I mean...there is a Food Network on TV! (Don't even get me STARTED on cake decorating!)

Facebook Comments: 1

People have responded to emails I sent out about this blog, and I want to make sure their comments or stories are acknowledged.

First, the baker of the cakes, my friend Katie:
Once, I went to a friend's house to cook for him after he fell off of a motorcycle. When I arrived, he was all hopped up on painkillers and watching VH1 or some nonsense, so I decided just to get to work.

3 Cheese Tortellini with a basil pesto cream sauce, with chicken. Easy enough, right? I made the sauce up myself, and I learned to substitute soy milk for real milk in making it, because real milk makes me gassy. Teehee. Anyway, for whatever reason, I had managed to concoct it without having to thicken it with corn starch on the first few attempts. Of course, when I finally had to make it for someone else, it was watery and terrible.

But I had come prepared! I had my corn starch at the ready, and I measured it out into the appropriate amount of ice cold water. I mixed. I poured it into the sauce.

It remained watery, so I kept adding more corn starch. I was panicked. Here I was, trying to do a good deed for my (good-looking, extremely talented) injured friend, and I was about to feed him absolute crap. More corn starch. Then more flour. Okay, maybe a little bit more garlic to cover the taste of the flour. Maybe some salt. Crap crap crap. It was still liquid.

I peeked around the corner at my friend, who had been woozily asking, "Is it ready yet?" for about twenty minutes. He was passed out. Thank God. I hid in the corner of his kitchen and Googled the whole corn starch thickening process on my phone. I simply had to add it while the sauce was still over heat. I had just been adding it after I already cooked the sauce.

So, I reheated the sauce on the stove, mixed and mixed, finally glad to be doing it the right way. However, I had added about 4x the recommended amount of corn starch, plus about sixteen pounds of flour, so what ensued was a lumpy, sort of dry mess.

I woke my friend up and apologized in advance for what I was about to feed him. It didn't taste terrible, but it wasn't particularly good, either. Maybe it was just the pain killers, but he wasn't very enthusiastic about thanking me. I'm pretty sure I shed a tear or two on the drive home.

Artsy Fartsy

Here are some pictures of cakes that my friend Katie made!

These are my favorites...

First Brave Soul

This is the first post of a personal story.
My friend Kelsey (philososaurus!) has been kind enough to write a short bit about her relationship with noms

Guest blogger here. First, I suppose, a bit about myself. I dig philosophy, feminism, art, the color green, literature, pizza, spoons, mumblty peg, pizza, 3-part harmonies, veggies, pizza, & theatre. I really like pizza. I’m a decent, but uncreative cook and recently asked Emmaraptor if it was a good idea to roll tofu in baking soda before frying it. I’m a philosophy graduate student about to make the small fish, big pond move to NYC. I’m an addict, specifically I indulge in twitter (philososaurus! philososaurus!), talking about my rabbit, Yoshi, (see below), and talking about Yoshi on twitter. I think blogging is the beez-kneez (I have my own: http://blasfemy.wordpress.com/ ). This is especially true to this blog. The task that Emmaraptor has taken on is absolutely pertinent to the daily lives of women (and everyone!) and I’m eager to be apart of the discussion. I’m thrilled she has committed an Internet community to do so. I look forward to chatting about gud fudz, specifically through the lens of near-and-dear topics such as feminism, philosophy, and food politics.

Trials and Tribulations of a Hypoglycemic: My Complicated Relationship with Food
Most of what I know about food is related to animal treatment and pesticides, which says substantially more about the ethical standpoint of a particular business than about what I’m putting in my body. The rest of my very limited knowledge comes from what I know about what I put into my rabbit’s body. I know, for example, that bananas should be a treat (for rabbits) as they have little nutritional value (for rabbits) and that they (still rabbits) will choose the treat over their nutritional food or that cucumbers are mostly water and, thus, not as nutritious as we (people) like to think they are for us/them (people/rabbits).

I very much enjoy food, but often my relationship with food occurs when I purchase it. I’m particular (read: obsessed) with who I give my money to. I will not buy a product from Kraft (on purpose). My problem is that, after leaving the grocery store, after the economic exchange is done, I often lose my connection with the food that I put in my body. Essentially I buy smart, full of good ideas and good intentions, but I eat stupid. I don’t balance my meals efficiently and tend to repeat the same meals, rather than get a good variety of veggies. I’ve been able to skate by doing so, until recently.

I was diagnosed with hypoglycemia back when I was in high school when I went through a stint of passing out in the shower. The problem was certainly poorly managed low blood sugar issues, but when combined with low blood pressure (thank you, steaming hot shower) had dangerous effects. When I became a vegetarian (or started to become at least; I recently learned about renit, which means I’ve been eating stomach intestines for the 2 years I’ve claimed to be a veg), I paid particular attention to making sure I was getting enough of everything, calculating closely my sugars and irons. I thought I had most of it under control; I ate every 2-3 hours, alternating snack and meal. Then I started dating a nutritionist…
I began complaining about how I felt nauseous every day around one o’clock or so and that, by four, I had a headache. When I spent the weekend with him, I felt just fine. He would ask me around these times how I was feeling. I thought he was being very caring (he was), but in actuality he was monitoring me. At the end of the three days or so he convinced me to allow him to “nutrify” me, which means to chalk me full of vitamin D, B12 and some yellow horse pill that makes my constantly chapped lips smooth again.
We talk a lot about “voting with your fork,” animal treatment, organic farming, physiology. A lot of theorizing goes on. He seems to have fixed a lot of problems, treated a lot of easily treatable things (Except for my hypochondria; that seems to have flared up again). We both got burns around similar times. His has healed, no scars. Mine still busts open when I hit it too hard on the window. Immediately he comments, “you’re probably lacking zinc and vitamin C.” Not a big deal, as these are all treatable deficiencies. Good to know! (pours glass of orange juice)
Then my hypoglycemia seemed to becoming more and more problematic on a daily basis. We were out museum-ing and movie-ing when we had to cut it short so I could get a meal in. This is not okay with me. I’m not okay with interruptions like this. I have things to be doing, galleries to be walking through, drives to be going on, dancing to do. Upon arriving at my then abode, he headed for the stairs, which we always take instead of the elevator. And I realized that if I tried to go up the stairs that I honestly felt that I’d pass out (which I hadn’t done since I was 18). After getting some “gud fudz,” he sat me down to have a serious chat. I’m thinking, “holy crap he is going to dump me… Oh geez he is going to say the l-word…”

He talked to me about type two diabetes.

Does anyone remember the Babysitters Club episode where what’s-her-face has diabetes and has to eat a muffin? She passed out a few times, too. At the time, this was my only connection to how serious these issues could be. Ok fine, this was still how I perceived the seriousness of low blood sugar…

It never occurred to me that this could have a long term effect outside of having to food good and good for you a lot and often. Bummer, right? The conversation was a bit of a wake up call. I know nothing about diabetes other than some people so actually pronounce it die-uh-beat-us and that people can lose a foot from it, which I learned through Scrubs (I should either stop watching so much TV, or watch more so that I know about diabetes).
So this is my (current) frustration with my relationship with food. How indulgent can I be? How serious should I take this? Should I seek out vitamin/nutritional supplements (for this and other issues such as the vitamin b12, zinc, etc)? What does it mean to be “on the path to diabetes?” How quick can I get off of this path? And, constantly, is what I’m eating actually good for me?

Oh Urban Outfitters...

A friend brought this to my attention a few days ago.

http://www.feministing.com/archives/021437.html

I mean, almost everyone knows about American Apparel's choice in advertising technique, but this is the first thing I've heard of Urban Outfitters doing something along those lines.

Fud Role Play

Food can make or break an atmosphere. It always seems to be around when friends and family get together regardless of reason.

Let's hear about your beautiful food moments....but also some catastrophes.

Recipe UNO

I was planning on creating a food blog a long time ago, wanting a more "grown up" version of me posting recipes as facebook notes, so this class has inspired me to actually go through with it!

The purpose of this isn't just for recipes so I promise I will post other interesting things.

IT'S SUMMER! So I have to put up an awesome summer food. And it isn't really summer time until you grill things, so here is an easy BBQ option!

Stuffed Peppers!

Stuffinz:
1 C long grain rice
1/2 C wild rice
3 C H2O
1 Jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 Medium Yellow Onion, diced
1 15 oz can of Rotel Tomatoes (don't use all the juice)
1/2 15 oz can of Black Olives

Salt to taste
Ground Pepper to taste

Stuffee:
8 (that's right, Eight) Green Bell Peppers (or any other color you desire)

1. Cook rice!
2. Cut out top of peppers and remove all seeds
3. Dice onion, jalapeno and black olives and put in a large bowl
4. Mix diced veggies, can of Rotel (minus most of the juice) rice, salt and pepper together
5. Spoon stuffing into the peppers (you have to squish it in pretty good or else it will fall out on the grill)

Grill:
Place over medium heat coals.
I put mine on their sides and kept turning them about every 6 min or so.
Cook until outsides start getting brown (about 20 min)


I made this recipe up, it was my first attempt at stuffing something (hehehe) and these turned out really great!

Ladies

This blog is going to be an outlet for awesome ladies who love cooking yummy foods (and eating them!) to share recipes and to talk about foodie and gender topics.

Women have been pigeon holed into having an unnatural relationship with food for years and years. It would be great to have personal stories added, link any cool articles or just talk about why you love the food you eat! :)

Anyone is welcome to post or comment!