Party Like It's 1999

I'm so excited about our trip to San Francisco! Sasha made us all reservations for our first night there at a swanky and wonderful sounding restaurant, Millenium. I'm in it for the black bean torte with strawberry-jicama salsa. (Plus carmelized plantains plus cashew sour cream plus pumpkin-habanero salsa verde.) Now I just have to figure out what to wear.... and stay awake!

Red Pill or Blue Pill

This is a sort of strange little cartoon but have you escaped the Meatrix?

And another note: our local Sunshine Market finally started carrying organic whole wheat pasta! Praise the lord hallelujah. One less thing I or Amos has to run to Whole Foods for. It really is the oddest place; hot dog thieves and organic pasta. Bear Naked Granola an aisle away from Chorizo. Fiji and Perrier water next to Jarrito mineragua.

Girl, It's Time for Pancakes!

This is Morgan two Sundays ago mixing up some porridge cakes.

CSA Box for the Week of April 16th

Finally things are starting to grow out of the ground and the trees are starting to get a green fuzz going. We visited Katie's campus and there were daffodils everywhere. Unfortunately it isn't quite time for edible items to start growing up here yet and most of our food in this weeks box still came from California. I don't know why there was no asparagus...

CSA Box for the Week of April 16th

Leeks CA
Carrots CA
Garlic WI
Shitaake Mushrooms IN
Pink Lady Apples WA
Onions CA
Fennel CA
Kale CA

I used the kale last night to make a pesto. If you haven't had kale pesto you are definitely missing out on something good.

Today on the suggestion of my dad and step-mom Ce-Ce we all went to this little eco fair at a local high school called Green Scene and totally pigged out on some nachos from Soul Vegetarian East. Plus greens, macaroni and cheese, and bbq seitan. OMG. And I scored like 10 compact fluorescent bulbs for free.

Right now I have to run because tonight we are playing a city-wide game of tag called Journey to the End of the Night. It should be some great fun.

Whole Wheat Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

These cookies - really really good. I didn't measure everything I put in here but can take a pretty good stab at how much of everything I did use. I also had to make a half batch of what I would normally make because I didn't have enough banana, sugar or butter for a whole batch. Maybe that is the secret to their goodness? And whole wheat flour in a cookie - what kind of nonsense is that? Chewy awesome nonsense.

Whole Wheat Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

You Will Need:

1/2 C Earth Balance
3/4 C Evaporated Cane Juice
1/2 Ripe Banana
1/2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
1/2 Tsp. Peppermint Extract
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 C Cocoa (More or less... cocoa was one of those things I just sort of dumped in...)
1 C Whole Wheat/All Purpose Flour (About 70% Whole Wheat/30% All Purpose)
6 Oz. Chocolate Chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare a cookie sheet by greasing or lining with parchment paper. Or for a crispy bottomed cookie preheat baking stone in oven.

Cream together butter, sugar and banana. Beat in vanilla and peppermint extracts, salt and baking soda. Stir in cocoa powder until well incorporated. Slowly add flour. Finally gently stir in your chocolate chips.

Spoon dough onto cookie sheet in small balls. Bake for 11-13 minutes. Let cool on wire rack.

Yields about 12-14 decent sized cookies. If you want 24-28 decent sized cookies double the recipe.

4/20/07 Note: I made a full batch of these yesterday by doubling the recipe and they were spot on. Bake away!

Where we ate last night

I have this little business going where I bought a bunch of bikes from a second hand store back home - classic Schwinn's - and have been selling them on Craigslist. So I was feeling pretty flush and everyone wanted to go out for dinner plus it was Friday (!) so we went to Lula Cafe. Since it is only two blocks away from home I usually just stop in (or make my sister stop in) to get coffee to go. Their entrees aren't too pricey ($17 is about as high as it goes for a vegan entree) and they have a really fun atmosphere. The food is interesting but sometimes really bland. I don't usually even like the food that much but this time was pretty decent so read on.

First there was a little amuse of cauliflower and wild ramps. Amos and I split the crispy chickpea panelle with wild mushrooms, fava beans, minted red onion and frisee. We also split the beets marinated in olive oil (that I have eaten for breakfast before) and a bowl of veggie soup. It came with bread we gobbled up and lemon thyme butter I sadly pushed off to the side. The best thing I had was the blood orange cosmopolitan. The rim of the glass was lined with lemon juice and just a touch of powdered sugar, none of that Chili's pink rock sugar nonsense. And the blood orange gave it a subtle little bite. I had two.

That said I think it is time to make cookies! It has been rainy and gross all day long ....

Nice Photo?

Someone on Flickr commented this was a nice photo. The coaster says "Rock Bottom Lounge" - a kinda creepy kinda scary bar in New Orleans.

Pesto Time

What is it about pesto that makes your afternoon seem to go slower? Now there is enough time to read an extra chapter of your book or write a letter to your grandma.

Hot Dog Story

I have a quick story about what happened at Sunshine Market - our little neighborhood grocery - two days ago.

I was standing in line and the two people in front of me (small container soy milk and a gallon 2%) asked the cashier "what happened here the other day?!" And the cashier said that a man had walked into the store and tried to steal a pack of hot dogs. A manager saw this and apprehended the man who pulled a knife on the manager. I think all this went down on the sidewalk outside because a cop was driving by and saw the thief with the knife and ran up with his gun drawn and said "Drop the knife and the hot dogs!" So the one person in line in front of me had happened to be walking down the street and saw the guy laying on the sidewalk with the hot dogs laying there too! The cashier said it was sad the man put himself in jail over some hot dogs. I was like yeah - that sucks.

Also I have been in this really happy mood ever since yoga on Wednesday night and the teacher said that whole "don't worry something something divine order etc etc." Even though I was sick yesterday I was still happy. And I am even happier today because I bought two plane tickets for Amos and I to go visit Sasha and Vanessa in three weekends! And I volunteered to help out at ESL in Logan Square on Tuesday and my student was really into biking and global warming even though I had a really hard time understanding what he was talking about sometimes. He did Earth Hour and thought it was funny that everyone at Pankakes said WTF! the Earth only gets an hour! We also had to read this book about a boy going on the Oregon trail which I thought was sort of ironic and odd.

NO MORE VEGETABLES

My box was faithfully sitting on my sister's stoop yesterday full of veggies even though I canceled it.

CSA box for April 2nd:

Ambrosia Apples BC, Canada
Chevril WI
Garlic WI
Celery CA
Lettuce IL
Tomato and Scallop Soup WI
Zucchini FL
Spinach IL

So I am excited to try out my new herbes de provence with the zucchini. And the chevril would go nicely in a Tofu salad sandwich. (I also just learned chevril is a member of the parsley family with a delicate flavor.) And I was out of garlic. But I still have lettuce from last week! And I don't really use celery for anything... maybe they can come to pankakes this week and serve as bloody mary swizzle sticks....

I have a weird paradox to share as well: I needed to buy bagels yesterday. I forgot. Then I just happened to be with a friend later that evening at that same bakery and the bagels I most likely would have bought were in the bag with all the other not-bought bread in the trash. There were only six bagels in the bread reject bag so chances are I might have bought all six bagels thus preventing them from entering the waste stream. Maybe I should remember the words of my yoga teacher that night "Don't worry. Something something divine order everything is as it is as it was and as it will be." Or maybe I just saved ten bucks. Who knows!

CSA Box Updates

Hello all! Amos and I have started to document all our spending in MiniMoney to see exactly how much we spend per month... and we spent a whopping $511.69 on groceries last month. And that doesn't even include eating out. (That would be another $201.80.) Is this normal? It seems awfully high to me.

So lets catch up on the CSA box:

CSA Box for March 26th:

Spinach WI
Russet Potatoes WI
Zucchini FL
Suntan Peppers FL
Lettuce IL
Micro Greens IL
Carrots CA
Yellow Onions CA
Beets CA

So under half of the produce we received this week is local. But what can you do? It is just the beginning of spring here. I am thinking about planting some spinach and greens in containers on my back porch. We started receiving the box for convenience but what could be more convenient than just stepping out on the back porch and grabbing a bunch of spinach we grew ourselves?

Anyone want to offer up a rooftop spot in their building for us to start a container garden?

A non-food related item (or maybe it is food related?): Amos and I went for the first time on Sunday to play bike polo! It was really interesting as I have never actually ridden a bike into a chain link fence before... good times. The website shows it being played on grass but we were playing on a tennis court in Humbolt Park. Oh what Sunday fun there is to be had.