The Funnest Foodiest Picture Post

So. I have to work at 6am. I also really want to talk about food right now, so I’ve convinced myself that if I just post pictures of food I’ve made recently, I will get to bed on time. Let’s see if this works…

Pearled couscous with stir fried veggies (broccoli, mushrooms, onions)

Carrot muffins before they were baked…

Square-top carrot muffins that overflowed!

Mmmmm… peanut butter, sprouts, and banana sandwich.

Cinnamon spiced shortbread dusted (heh, more like snowed) with powdered sugar.

Pesto pita pizzas! One of my favorites.

I top them with everything in my fridge. In this case, pesto, cheese, spinach, zucchini, tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions.

Teriyaki stir fry – one of my most successful stir fries ever!

You have to eat stir fry on square plates with chopsticks. Trust me.

Mini banana muffins with walnuts. They’re like muffin vitamins! Hahaha.

Sometimes food is just so pretty. Broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and garlic sauteed in olive oil.

Pasta salad (from above) – good both hot and cold.

Noodley no bakes? It’s a crazy combination of several recipes. Lots of oats, peanut butter, coconut, chow mein noodles…

Not sure how these are going to taste, they are still cooling on the table as I type this. If they’re good, I’ll bring them to my parent’s house tomorrow! If they’re not good, I’ll still probably bring them.

Ok. Glad I got all of that out of my system. I have so many pictures of food on my computer; these are just a few of my favorites. The only subject that rivals food in my photos would be my cats. Speaking of, I’m well overdue for a post or two about them. Also a post about the artwork I’ve been slaving away on. And Cayo Costa. Man, this blogging thing is harder than I thought it was.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a quick peek into my fun food experiments. I say “experiments” because I rarely use a recipe, except for a base in some of my baking. Some things turn out, some don’t. My mom always said, “someone else just made this recipe up, why can’t I change it?” It’s basically the golden rule in my kitchen. I usually end up with something quite edible, and sometimes it’s absolutely fabulous. There are the occasional flops, but I eat those anyway because that’s what I made myself for dinner. Heh, I remember this one time, Beth (who lived with me at the time) and I made a huge stir fry in the wok I bought at the Salvation Army. We kept adding more and more as we discovered things in the fridge and pantry that would taste delicious, until we ended up with a HUGE amount of food in the wok, waaaaaaay  more than two people could ever eat. Beth commented, “I wish we had more friends.” We both laughed, and then proceeded to eat the entire stir fry between the two of us.

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.