Oh the foods you will food (part 2)

So. I made it back alive from the most amazing week of being on a tiny island called Cao Costa. However comma, this post is not going to include any of those pictures or adventures, so you will just have to stay tuned.

Instead, here follows a quick pic trip back through the foods my wonderful Nate made for that epic birthday week I spent with him.

The first meal we actually had was this amazing Indian dish. This is actually happening right after we pressed the tortilla shells for the next day.

Coconut! Nate’s toasting coconut for the coconut rice that is the delicious base for the saucy yummyness that I think was called chicken tikka masala. I could quite possibly be wrong about the name, but that’s not so important. For the record, toasted coconut is oh-so-easy and oh-so-tasty.

Making coconut rice in a rice maker is ridiculously easy. Jasmine rice, coconut milk, toasted coconut are thrown (literally, from across the room and with deadly accuracy) into the pot and then promptly forgotten about.

And now the chicken and onions. I had a laugh when Nate meticulously sliced the onions so they would be the perfect size and shape, but later ate my words because they cooked perfectly in time with the chicken. I can never do that, so I’ve become a fan of burnt onions. Heh.

We are cheater cheater pumpkin eaters because we used a sauce pouch, but OH MAN it was a good sauce pouch.

Step one: pour sauce on your perfectly sauteed chicken and onions. Step two: simmer it until your stomach eats itself. Step three: take obnoxious pictures of the boy you love stirring said simmering sauce.

Step four: gaze upon the beauty.

While I’m fully aware that what I’m eating looks like the contents of a particularly vile diaper, the taste THE TASTE is spectacular. Pair with some wine or, better yet, an IPA and you’ve got a meal that’s so good it doesn’t matter that you’re sitting on the floor because the cat has peed on the couch.

And NEVER forget dessert, especially if it’s homemade chocolate milk with whipped cream and cinnamon.

Hokay. Now, this is the actual date of my birth. Here you see some peaches simmering down for a Paula Dean cobbler (in the words of Nate, “if you’re going to make a peach cobbler, then you’re going to use Paula’s recipe.”).

Nate is also rendering some fatty mcfats for a gravy, and we’ve got full pan coverage on the stovetop. This is going to be a production. Such a production, in fact, that I have very little pictures of the process.

OHMYGOSHMEAT. And beans and wine and somewhere, potatoes. We’re trying to multitask around each other here – I’m making cobbler and helping prep green beans, Nate’s making gravy and steaks and potatoes and just generally being in charge. Good times.

I HAD to take a moment to document this: gravy made from scratch. Mushrooms, onions, garlic, rendered fat, wine. Drool.

Candlelight picnic for my birthday! The best ever. Nate even went out and found my favorite wine. He’s too sweet! The food was too delicious! I’m going to explode from love!

“Dear, you should eat before it gets cold. Take pictures of the candles later.” Wiser words have been spoken, but it’s still good advice.

Cobbler! My first ever, and thanks to Paula Dean, fabulous! We stuck a huge pillar candle in it and sang happy birthday to me and then gorged ourselves. I also may or may not have taken more than two tries to blow out the candle. The ONE candle. Whatever… the cobbler was delicious, and we of course had it warm with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

Anywhoo, that’s the end of the birthday fooding, but there was quite a bit more that week. I’m just going to continue with random pictures of those foods now, so sit back and enjoy.

Venison burgers (a deer Nate killed all by his onesy) with mushrooms, onions, colby cheese and spinach. Mac and cheese with bread crumblies! We debated making the rolls ourselves, but decided against it due to time constraints. Slider rolls from the grocery store instead!

Spaghetti with venison meatballs, green beans, and garlic bread! Homemade homemade homemade! YUM YUM YUM! Uuuumm, pee ess, as hesitant as I am to admit to this, we watched the newest Twilight ridiculousness during this meal. WE MOCKED IT THE ENTIRE TIME, and even watched an entire scene in ultra zoom, which made it waaaaaaaaaay better. Oh yeah.

Before I left, while Nate was doing homework, I made white pizza! Crust from scratch, loaded with mushrooms, onions, spinach, garlic, and cheese. It was a huge success, if I do say so myself, which I do.

Ok. So that ends the week of amazing fooding and love that was my birthday. I am now inspired to eat my own dinner (at 8pm) and it will be oatmeal. Delicious, gut-sticking oatmeal. I haven’t grocery shopped in a couple of weeks. Here’s a picture of my cats to send you on your way, wonderful reader.

I would just like to point out that El is draped lethargically on my legs and Charlie is trying to blind himself. And that is all.

 

Something old from something new from something old

That’s right. I turned a secondhand plain white summer dress into a funky tye dyed little thing. It’s so easy!
I found this dress at the Salvation Army months ago, and I’ve only worn it once. It fit me great, but I don’t particularly care for or look good in white. It was just floating around my closet, begging to be worn but not really making a great case as to why. I’ve dyed plenty of things before – a scarf, 2 pairs of jeans, countless tshirts – so I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to dye this perfectly white dress. Duh! A quick trip to Michaels and a few bucks later and BAM purple dye sure to spruce up the poor thing. But wait, a few rubber bands and it’s time to go to town! I took a few pictures for posterity’s sake…

So here’s the dress, dye, and rubber bands. I twirled sections around the bottom hem and tied them off, and also did a quick spin with the mid-section and used a huge rubber band. It’s weird to think that even the smallest crease can resist the dye, but it works like a charm. Now it’s time to make the dyebath.

I grabbed a bucket from under my sink (you can dye in the washer, but yeaaaaah I don’t have one of those in my apartment) and some salt. The directions on the side of the dye are incredibly specific – x amount of dye per pound of fabric and x amount of salt in x amount of water – and I’ve never once followed them. I just pour a good amount of salt in the bucket and wet my fabric in the sink. Then I toss the bucket in my tub and start filling it with the hottest water from the tap. Pour in about half the bottle of dye, more or less, and stir to dissolve the salt. Stick the fabric in and stir away! Yes, I’m using a plastic spatula. It’s my dying spatula. The dye bottle says to stir continuously for 30 minutes, so in my brilliance, I put the bucket on a chair in the kitchen and watched an episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun while stirring. I may or may not be addicted to that show right now.

Next, you rinse the heck out of the fabric. Rinsing in the tub is relatively safe, and dye that doesn’t wash down the drain can be cleaned up with a little bleach and elbow grease. The directions are to rinse until the water runs clear, which could take a while. While I was swishing my dress around, I thought back fondly on all the times I’ve dyed things before. There was that big dorm event at college where I tye dyed my pillowcase and that time in the art building where Beth and I used the giant sinks in the ceramic studio to dye pants and dresses. My favorite memory, however, is one of the tye dye days I had with my mom. She watched the neighbor kids all summer and we’d always do fun crafts. We had gone out and gotten shirts, rubber bands, and dye, and then set up shop in the backyard with buckets and a clothesline. The best part was when she ran inside and got a pair of my dad’s underwear. We tye dyed it bright pink and hung it on the line.

Oh hey, my dress is done. Saweet! I love the way it turned out! The best thing about tye dye is that you never really know how it’s going to turn out, and it’s pretty much always fantastic. Now the dress just has to hang dry overnight. I also love waking up in the morning to find that the cats have pulled it down and dragged it across the bathroom floor. Gives it that nice little floor spice look. Mmmm. Floor spice.

Anyway, wash it separately the first few times and stick it in the dryer for at least 15 minutes to help set the dye. If you’re really paranoid, just always wash it with your darks (that is, if you even separate your laundry. pssssh.). Don’t forget to model it proudly in your doorway, and a cat always makes a great accessory. Ciao!

Oh the foods you will food (part 1)

When I was a kid, I was the pickiest eater. We’re talking I-only-like-bread-and-butter picky… Interestingly enough, now I’ll eat just about anything. I will try anything once… which is a good philosophy to have when your love is a self-proclaimed foodie.  Let’s put it this way: if I love food, then he’s obsessed with food (and I mean that in the best possible sense). Have I mentioned that he’s an amazing cook, too? Here follows a chronicle of one of the meals we had while I was visiting for my birthday. Shrimp Tacos.

First, let me introduce you to Nate. He is my love.
Ok now, on to the foods. Here we are making masa tortillas! It’s incredibly simple and the recipe (water, salt, masa) is even on the bag of masa. You just mix and make little dough balls.

See? Masa balls! Also, there’s the tortilla press Nate bought at a little Mexican grocery store, which is a really simple tool. You don’t actually need a tortilla press; I’ve made them at home with wax paper and a rolling pin. It does make it easier though…

A pressed tortilla! So simple to make. We made them very small so we ended up having 12 mini tortillas. I started by doing the pressing and then discovered halfway through that my upper body strength, sadly, did not lend itself to continually pressing tortillas. I’m a wimp. I know. So I coerced Nate to let me do the frying, which he had been in charge of up until this point.

The trick to getting these to cook properly is to make sure the pan is hot enough. Nate explained that he presses the tortillas down when they begin to bubble to make sure that they are getting fried evenly. No oil or butter is on the pan, you have to fry them dry. Flip them a couple of times, and when the whole thing bubbles up you know it’s cooked all the way through.

Yay! Delicious homemade tortilla shells! If you wanted to make tortilla chips, simply chop these up and deep fry them in oil until they’re crispy and golden brown. YUM.
Anyway, this was actually done the day before, because we got all menu-planny and were thinking ahead. It took us less than an hour to make these, so it’s not hard to make them right when you want tacos. We kept them ziplocked in the fridge with some paper towels layered between and then just popped them in the microwave for 30 seconds right before eating.
And now, the shrimp part of the shrimp tacos.
Nate did all the slicing and dicing because he has wicked knife skills (and he rightfully doesn’t trust me with a sharp object or with the concept of “slicing”). We made street tacos, which is basically just a meat and cheese filling that you pile onto tortillas in your hand and eat as you make them.

Meanwhile, I was gutting avocados and chopping onions and garlic for the guacamole. A little bit of lemon pepper, salt, and chili powder and voila! Homemade guac.

Nate sauteed the shrimp in garlic and onions and then grated monterrey jack cheese over the simmering pan of deliciousness. I’m practically drooling just remembering it…

He popped the whole pan into the oven to finish it off, and we waited anxiously for the cheese to melt to perfection. Our tortillas were in the microwave and I was sitting at the bar with plates and a rumbling stomach.

It’s still bubbling and steaming. Simply amazing.

We thoroughly enjoyed every bite, and ended up eating 3 or 4 each. I’ve never even heard of shrimp tacos before, and boy was I missing out.

And happy birthday lunch to me! ^_^