The best? What a bratty title. I always think it’s super snobby when someone names a recipe “the best” of anything but sometimes it really is true. Sometimes your aunt’s guacamole is magical and has this one weird and unexpected ingredient that really does make it the best. Sometimes your grandmama really does know the secret to perfect carrot cake. Sometimes it’s valid. This situation here is sort of the best tabbouleh salad I’ve ever had. Like, ever. So here we are with this super pretentious recipe title. I’m sorry…but only a little sorry.
I really love normal tabbouleh salads and I really, really love fattousch salads, so I figured I’d give this tabbouleh salad fattoush-like qualities. Did I just make sense? That was a long sentence.
[click to continue…]
You know the bulk bin area at the grocery store? You know, the area where they have all the crazy nuts, different flours, dried fruits and oats. THAT place is my absolute favorite section.
I feel like my brain goes into overdrive and all I wanna do is try all sorts of stuff I’d never normally think to cook with. It’s inspiration central. It’s also the place where people loooove sticking their entire hands into the bins so they can try a little bit of this or that. WHY?! Not ok. As a society we should be a little better than this. I mean, at least use the scooper!
Right now I’m having a moment with freeze dried strawberries. I blame the astronaut ice cream I loved eating whenever we took family trips to the space museum. If you’re new to the world of freeze dried fruit, it has the same exact texture as the astro ice cream but a totally different flavor. Think strawberries in overdrive. Yes, it’s magical.
[click to continue…]
Did you ever have a chia pet as a kid? Every. single. visit. to the drug store, CVS, consisted of me trying to scheme my way into getting my mother to buy one.
It was those commercials, man! They were so convincing. In case you’re unfamiliar with chia pets, they were the plant of the early 90s that was all up on the television. The kit included a pottery shaped animal, like a dog or a cat or a pig, and chia seeds. You smothered the chia seeds with water?—I didn’t have one so I’m unsure—onto the pottery animal and overnight you’d have a whole plant! It was magic. The commercials showed this rapid growth in a time lapse that made my 8-year old self go, “oooooo!”
Now some twenty years later, they’re in this smoothie.
[click to continue…]
When I think about making pesto, a romantic little picture is painted in my brain. I’m in a rustic, Tuscany-style home, barefoot in some sort of oldish, wrinkled – yet totally chic – long, linen dress, in a kitchen that’s older than my great, great grandma, and I’m there making pesto with the guidance of a sweet Italian old woman I can barely communicate with.
I’m adding stuff to the mortar and pestal, grinding it up and we’re laughing and looking adorable. The pesto is made from fresh basil that I picked just a few moments before, the cheese made from the neighbor’s cow and the garlic is fresh from the early morning’s walk (because I imagine you can just walk down the street and run into garlic everywhere. I dunno?). I’ve never been to Italy, sadly, so I’m not positive, but in my brain this is how it works.
The real life story of this pesto is that it was made by a girl living in LA who’s had one too many tootsie rolls this past week and needs a proper dinner. I have electricity so I opted to make this using a food processor, though a pretty mortar and pestal is totally on my Christmas list!
I’m a pretty big fan of pestos that aren’t traditional (evidence: here and here), which makes me believe that maybe I should be calling them something other than “pestos,” but whatever. This “pesto” is what I like to think of as a basil-no-longer exists kind of pesto. It celebrates the changing season, so kale is in place of fresh basil.
In this instance I used dino. Mainly because it’s called dino and that’s the coolest name in the world for a vegetable. If I was a dude I totally wish my name was dino.
Also, do you think dinosaurs ate dino kale? Hope so.
[click to continue…]
The September issue of Vogue told me a few things about Fall.
It told me that prints are the new basics, maroon is the new black, curvy is the new sexy, and quinoa is the new oatmeal.
I’m lying. Vogue totally didn’t say that. BUT, if Vogue covered breakfast foods, like they do clothes, they def would have said that. Oatmeal out; quinoa in! And calling it “porridge” gives it this very chic “working class English industrial revolution” feel. Think: orphans in Oliver Twist, BUT trendy and adorable (and not sad).
Quinoa for breakfast may seem strange. I suppose it is, a little. But when cooked in sweetened and spice-spiked milk, it goes from sort of weird to dreamy and stylish.
[click to continue…]
BREAKFAST FOREVER!
I’m an unbalanced breakfast eater. I either want a stack of pancakes with bacon and orange juice and, like, a strong spicy bloody mary…or nothing at all. I’m talking like a cup of coffee, while eating two stale tootsie rolls and scrolling through breakfast. I want dreamy breakfast or miserable breakfast. Nothing in between!
This is why this dish, to me, is dinner. The good news is that it sort of works for any time of day. It’s a good “anytime” meal. Buy the ingredients, have them on hand and make it when you feel like. It’s like a unisex shirt, it just works for everyone.
[click to continue…]
I’m the hunt for my first adult couch. Up until now I’ve been living very college-like, mainly because I’d rather buy a pair of shoes or go to a new restaurant or save my money than sit on something nice and grown-up, BUT I’m changing!
I have this weird urge to be a grown-up and I’m thinking buying a piece of furniture might catapult me there. I now realize the only thing worse than shopping for a new apartment, bathing suit and health insurance is shopping for a new couch.
Can we say expensivo. Also: why?! Where’s the happy medium between Ikea and Awesome…at Ikea prices? I need to know this. If you have any affordable/adorable/expensive looking couch recommendations, I’m open! I wanna hear!
[click to continue…]
Some of the best stuff isn’t planned. And today I present you the most delicious accident that’s happened in a loooong time.
You’re actually supposed to be staring at cute little baked oatmeal cups. I pictured you whipping them up for a Mama’s Day brunch and setting them alongside blood orange mimosa, iced coffee and super pretty flowers. But I failed you. SAD! I failed to bring the cuteness, I think. But that’s okay, because as I sat there pondering why and how the baked oatmeal cups went wrong, I started spooning it straight out of the muffin tins…and found myself repeating this act over and over and over. My accident was delicious!
So, rather than trying to make something cute, I decided to remake the dish–tweaking a few things here and there–and just throwing it all in a casserole dish. Sometimes tasty trumps cute, you know. And that sometimes is riiiiight now…
[click to continue…]
This avocado hummus is delicious. And I know I say that a lot, but I really rilly like this one. It’s a good one!
In other related news, why are avocados so expensive? I get that they’re delicious, buttery, fatty (in a healthy way!), pretty, and again, delicious.
No but really…
[click to continue…]
I’d like you to know something incredibly weird and personal about me.
Whenever I get sad, anxious, elated, nervous…something happens. It’s really strange. Like, I dunno why it does this, but my nose does this weird twitch thing. It’s like Bewitched, except totally not cute and definitely not deliberate. There’s no explanation and it hasn’t done this my whole life just recently actually, in the past few years. All my energy goes to my nose and tells me that it doesn’t like something (or does)!
On Saturday this happened to me. It was a combination of 3/4 parts sad and 1/4 parts anxious (in re: of a project I’m working on). Also, something I learned: coffee totally doesn’t help. It makes it twitch faster. Yes, coffee makes it go faster…by a lot. This is weird. And it’s weirder that I’m sharing this. But really we’re friends by now and you should know that when crazy emotions run through my body, my nose reacts. The end.
To calm my nose (or whatever) I decided to make something comforting…that wasn’t doughnuts…
[click to continue…]
