Basketball and Celebrations

I went to my first ever professional basketball game tonight. At least in Minnesota, I have to agree with what I've been told--it's kind of fun to go to a Timberwolves game when it's free. Even though I have absolutely no interest in basketball, the entertainment between quarters is fun, the atmosphere is interesting and there's always some good people watching. On top of that, with baseball season coming up, it was kind of therapeutic to watch a game when I really didn't care one way or the other about the outcome. And finally, we had some pretty impressive seats for being free.

Not a lot of adventures this week, but my self-imposed month without eating out is over. Since Henry passed a big certification test, we also went out to celebrate and had some of the best cheesecake I've had recently at Rock Bottom Brewery. They don't have the nutrition facts for that on their website yet and I'm pretty sure I'm glad of that!

This upcoming week doesn't promise a lot of adventures--I'm probably going to be pretty busy between extra work, trying to enjoy the spring weather and maybe trying to get a few things done.

Food Experiments: Tomato Pesto Pasta

I always think that I like pesto until I actually eat it. It sounds and looks good, but when I finally eat it, it's just too oily for something so green and healthy looking! Today, I decided to try it again with a new recipe, hoping that the tomatoes would make it a little better. It worked to a point--I liked the taste of the pesto better, but I would still prefer to make it next time with less oil. I got the recipe from Cooking Light and adapted it to what I had in my kitchen.

Tomato Pesto Pasta with Feta Cheese

Ingredients

• 1/4 box fettucine
• 3/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained (next time, I would try using the dried sun-dried tomatoes with a tablespoon or so  of olive oil)
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
• small handful chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese, divided
• 3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. While pasta is cooking, combine tomatoes, basil, walnuts, 1/4 cup feta, garlic, salt and black pepper in a food processor. Process until finely chopped.
3. When pasta is finished cooking, drain and reserve 1 cup of water. Mix reserved water with the tomato mixture and whisk together. Add pasta and mix until coated.
4. Top with remaining 1/2 cup of feta.

Food Experiments: Slow Cooker Risotto

I don't think I've ever had risotto before, so I can't really judge if the recipe I made just turned out badly or if I just don't like risotto. Either way, I now have a big container of weird cheesy rice mush in my fridge that I've been trying to convince myself I should eat for about three days now. I hate wasting perfectly good food, and this really isn't that bad, but...it just reminds me of overcooked cheesy oatmeal. And when I have other, perfectly appetizing food around (even if it is Kraft mac and cheese or something that will take me another hour to cook), that somehow always wins over cheesy oatmeal.

I can't really pass judgement on the recipe itself for several reasons. One, I'm really not sure if I like risotto. There's a good chance that this tastes like it's supposed to and I just made an experiment that wasn't good for me. Two, I started this in a hurry after oversleeping one morning and didn't see that it was only supposed to cook for 2 hours, not 4, so it really WAS overcooked. Outside of my carelessness, though, this was a really easy recipe that was very quick to throw together in the morning. If I were to try it again, I'd make sure I was home so it didn't sit on the warm setting all day and possibly try a different type of cheese (I think mozzerella or gruyere or any other white cheese would probably work equally well and I might like the taste better). And I probably wouldn't make it for the night after a work party that was largely based around a food competition, because this just can't stack up to potato skins, homemade bread and honey butter, or mint brownies.

After this week, I'm starting to realize a little more that being a vegetarian must be hard. I'm having a really hard time finding recipes that aren't either really difficult, full of expensive ingredients, or full of eggplant and/or cabbage (yech). Hopefully next week will be a little easier!

St. Paddy's Day Wines

It's been a relatively eventful week for me, and I feel like I'm permanently catching up here! Today I started stirring up the dirt in my soon-to-be garden at Henry's house, adding peat moss to keep it from solidfying into the granite that it developed into last summer after a couple rains, I got a crown put on and will actually have a few months without having to see my dentist, and tasted rice pudding for the first time (yum!). And all of this was after celebrating St. Patrick's Day last night by attending a wine tasting dinner with Henry (a birthday present from his sister).

I love wine tastings. I generally just enjoy wine, but it's always hard for me to justify picking out a new, completely unknown bottle to try when there are a few nearby that I know will be worth the money. Wine tastings are my way of compromising...I pay a little more than I would for a bottle, but I generally find at least one or two wines that I like. And along the way, there's usually some pretty good food and knowledge!

The wine dinner last night was at Spill the Wine in Minneapolis. I had never been there before and to tell the truth, I'm still not sure what I think about it. The food we got was fantastic (deconstructed lasagna, goat cheese crustini, a citrus salad with passionfruit vinagrette, and homemade vanilla ice cream with peach port reduction) but the wine simply didn't measure up. Now, a large part of this might have been because the tasting was specifically focused around wines from Sonoma, and I haven't yet found a California wine that I really love. No wine was particularly bad, but I also didn't find a single one that I planned on buying...not a good track record. Generally I at least love the last wine I taste, even if I only love it because it's the seventh or eighth glass I've tasted. But, the restaurant was beautiful, the staff was extremely friendly and fun, and it is a place that I might be willing to try again--for a dinner, if not necessarily a wine tasting event. The biggest downfall to me (other than the so-so wine) were the people--I was surrounded by a lot of people who quite obviously drank wine because upper class, sophisticated people drink wine. If you can tune out the tables next to you, your evening here will be far better! But, in the future for my wine events, I'll probably stick with the Cooks of Crocus Hill, as I have yet to attend an event there that isn't fantastic.

Books: Peter and Max

I resisted being pulled into comic books until I was in college. Before that, comic books were for weird boys like my brother. But after freshman year and a few too many literature classes, comic books because one of the things I could read and enjoy no matter how high my burnout level. They were also one of the few things I could read without automatically finding 6 layers of symbolism in every sentence.

My interest in comic books (and my brother) eventually led me to Bill Willingham's Fables comics. For someone who grew up loving fairy tales and stories, these are a great grown-up version of the characters I  used to love. The series is based around the idea that the storybook characters that we know as fairy tales and fables are real, but were driven out of their own worlds and into ours by an army driven by an evil character known as "the adversary." The story of all these "fables" living together in their own community and trying to fight the adversary creates a wonderful new, if very dark, fairy tale. Even if you aren't a huge fan of comic books, these are absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in fairy tales.

Peter and Max, also by Bill Willingham, is a novel based on the ideas and characters of the entire Fables series. This could be a great place to start if you're interested in the idea but not ready to commit to becoming a comic book reader--you don't need to have read the comic books. You will benefit if you know at least the gist of some common fairy tales and nursery rhymes--in particular, the Pied Piper, Little Bo Peep and the Peter Piper nursery rhymes. The story is based around the lives of Peter Piper and his brother Max. Peter is living in the current-day Fables world with his wife, Little Bo Peep, while they are both being hunted by his brother Max. It is full of unexpected twists--for instance, the idea that Little Bo Peep was once an assassin and that the Pied Piper was once just part of a family of travelling minstels. It's hard to talk too much about this book without giving away some of the twists and turns that make it so delightfully entertaining, but I will say that the way the book develops the lives and personalities of characters who are so familiar and yet so vague is extremely satisfying. Reading this book is like meeting a childhood friend or bully decades later and finally learning what that person is all about and what really drove them to be your friend or enemy as a kid. You get all the pleasure of finally figuring out why you felt the way you did so long ago, as well as the surprise of seeing the unexpected futures of people who once seemed so familiar.

I liked it. Read it, and when you're done, get started with Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile. The trade paperback version makes it look a tad less juvenile, and chances are by the time you're done with the first one, you won't be worrying about much except for what happens next.

Strawberry Margaritas and some more tequila

My friends and I are some of the few people I know who still love tequila. And since I bought a bottle of delicious almond tequila in Mexico and had yet to crack it open, this weekend was a girls weekend focused around tequila. I won't say too much except to say that we each tried several new flavors of tequila and started the evening with six bottles of tequila for six girls. I'm not sure whether this qualifies as an adventure or a misadventure...two days later, I'm still very aware of my experiments!

The opening act was strawberry margaritas from scratch. For our first attempt, I have to say that they were pretty darn good...perhaps a little bit too good!

We adapted our recipe from Rachel Ray's Strawberry Marg-alrightas. Originally we intended to make all of our margaritas from scratch, before we looked at the serving size and the amount of fruit and decided to use a mix. Unfortunately in Minnesota, strawberries and limes are still expensive enough that it seemed cost-prohibitive to make enough margaritas for all six of us from scratch. I do have to say, though, that the numbers on the original recipe are extremely deceiving. If the recipe makes four drinks, it must be four fishbowls, because we got about 8 or 9 normal sized margaritas out of less than half of the recipe. Also, I'm not sure what size blender she used to contain all that fruit, but it certainly wasn't a standard kitchen sized one! The original recipe linked to before could probably easily give you 12-15 margaritas, which makes it much more affordable and absolutely worth the great taste.

What we ended up creating was good, although I would say it could have very much benefited from another quarter box or so of strawberries. Steamboat Willie proved to be very talented at coating the rims with sugar (I was impressed!), and the only thing that was really lacking was the ingredients to make more!

Strawberry Margaritas

Yum.

Ingredients

• 1 pint strawberries.
• Juice of 3 large limes
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 8 tablespoons sugar
• 5 standard shot glasses of tequila (we used Jose Cuervo, but I'm sure it would be delightful with Patron or another brand!)
• Around 2 cups ice (or whatever fits at the top of the blender after everything else has been added!)
• 1 lime wedge and sugar for coating the glasses

Directions

1. Cut up strawberries slightly for easier blending.
2. Add all ingredients except lime and sugar for coating to the blender; blend until smooth.
3. Use the lime wedge to carefully coat the top edge of the glass in lime juice. Pour the sugar into a small plate and press the rim of the glass into the sugar to coat.
4. Enjoy...probably a little bit too much. Make sure to drink plenty of water before you go to bed!

Food Experiments: Moroccan Lentil Stew and Kickboxing

When I first joined the gym by my house, I had been out of college (and my college-era martial arts training) for about a year. One of my goals was to get back into something close to the great shape I had been in for martial arts, and I decided that I wanted to go to a few kickboxing classes. I miss martial arts still, but I will probably never be willing to sell my soul to them to become a black belt. To remedy this, within my first month, I went to my first kickboxing class.

It was pretty darn horrible. I thought I was going to throw up for most of the class, and I was surrounded by skinny little high school students who were doing everything I couldn't, six inches higher, and laughing and cheering the whole time. That was about two years ago, and today (at Steamboat Willie's instigation) was the first time since that I have decided to go to a kickboxing class. This was the class I originally had wanted to go to, because it adds weighted gloves and a heavy bar to the exercises to add some resistance.

I was absolutely terrified.


But, I am pleased to announce that the last two years of working out must have paid off, because...I made it all the way to the burpies at the end of the class before I thought I was going to pass out! And it was fun, in a horribly painful sort of way. But then again, I suppose that is kind of the point of anything based on martial arts. At the very least, it gave me a taste of what I had been missing, and it could definitely have the potential to get me back into good shape!

After about a half an hour of walking and stretching until I no longer looked like a cherry tomato, I was happy to come home to my next vegetarian experiment...mostly because it was in my slow cooker and ready to eat. This Moroccan Lentil Stew is my first experience with the lentil, and I can't say it's a bad one. The stew itself is delicious, and the lentils don't seem to have a lot of taste to me. AND for my vegetarian or mostly-vegetarian friends who have a hard time getting in enough protein--the beans and apparently the lentils add quite a lot of protein to this stew. As does the cheese that I smothered it in when serving it!

Just in case, I'll copy the recipe for this below, but I would strongly recommend visiting Stephanie's blog or buying her book if you have any interest in cooking--both are fantastic!



Moroccan Lentil Stew
I made this in a 5.5 qt crockpot...the programmable kind that I love because I can be gone all day and it never burns! It took me aboput 20 minutes to chop everything up and add it in the morning. And you can find dried lentils right by the dried beans in the grocery store, for those of you who have never used them before! Also, keep in mind that this makes a LOT of stew, but she says that it freezes well.

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried lentils
• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1/2 cup chopped carrots
• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (and juice)
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 inch ginger, peeled and grated

Directions

1. Chop the veggies and add them to the bottom of the crockpot.
2. Drain and rinse the beans, and add them with the lentils.
3. Grate the ginger and add it with the dried spices.
4. Stir in the vegetable broth and tomatoes.
5. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours.

"Brain Rules" and pastels

Yesterday when I was looking for more glass paint, I instead found a cheap set of pastels. Remembering how much fun I had with them when I was a kid, I bought them, along with a big sketchbook. I am now slowly dying my keyboard all kinds of colors with the pastel colors that are still all over my fingers. It was still a lot of fun, but I have no more drawing skill than I did when I was a kid! I'll hope that I can acquire some with practice. Tomorrow I'll try to post some links for where I learned a few of the basics and maybe scan some of my lovely first attempts. With any luck, in a few months I can look back and see progress!

I finished the Brain Rules book by John Medina last night. I started this book for work, to try to gain some understand of the way people learn. I'm hoping to move my work into developing online courses (from writing manuals where I currently am) and I'm doing my best to understand how to make some incredibly boring procedures interesting enough for people to remember.

Brain Rules was a book that I saw recommended when browsing through Instructional Design blogs (such as this one or this one). It was advertised as an easy introduction to some important rules of how people learn, and it certainly seemed to be for me. While I'm sure this book was presented for a general audience and leaves a lot of information out (at least, if you're a psychologist or someone with a lot of knowledge in this area!) it really is a great, well-written and friendly introduction to the way people learn. He presents the material broken up into chapters of each "rule" (e.g., "People don't pay attention to boring things" or "Stressed brains learn differently") and takes into account every one of his rules throughout the book. It is filled with interesting anecdotes, spaced well to peak your interest after a more technical section, is easy to read and is continually related to the concerns of most readers. The book is also supplemented with a DVD and a website. He strongly encourages everyone to take advantage of all three media types, since the repetition and the variety will help people learn--but being the bookwork I am, I have yet to move past the book.

If you're interested in a quick, light introduction to human learning, this is a great book. It is easy to read and has a lot of practical knowledge that people should be able to enter into their own lives, whether to help their own learning or to help teach others. The tone is comfortably conversational, without the overly technical voice or the feeling of being talked down to that too many scientific books fall prey to. And for anyone interested in how the human brain works (yours or anyone elses!) it's a great, interesting read.

Vegetarian Experiments month

After a month of dessert, I decided it was time for something a little healthier. As much fun as it was for me to have two or three desserts in the fridge at all times, I can't say it helped my pants fit any better!

So I'm declaring this month a vegetarian challenge month. I have a few inspirations for this--first of all, it would be nice to have some recipes I could make when my sister comes home that I know are good. Second, I continually hear that cooking vegetarian once or twice a week is a great way to save money. And finally, I recently found this website with a ton of recipes that sound really, really good!

This week, I made a broccoli brown rice bake (I'll also copy the recipe below, although I'd recommend visiting the website to get some more ideas!). It was good, especially considering how healthy it was, but I think next time I'm going to try adding in a cream of mushroom soup (or something else to add some liquid) and some more smaller vegetables. The casserole was great the first day, but dried out pretty badly on reheating. Also, since the broccoli usually comes in larger chunks, it didn't mix in very evenly with the rice. I think it might be better if I added in some green peas, chopped okra or carrots, or something of a similar smaller size. It is still definitely worth trying, though--for such a simple dish, it was surprisingly good.

Broccoli Brown Rice Bake
I made this in a 9x13 pan, and about a sixth of the pan is a serving.

Ingredients

• 2 cups long-grain brown rice
• 5 cups water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup celery, finely chopped
• 1 cup onions, finely chopped
• 4 cups broccoli, florets and peeled stems
• 4 ounces (half a brick) low fat cream cheese (I added about 2 extra ounces for more moisture)
• freshly ground pepper and salt, to taste
• 1 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

1. Cook the rice according to package directions (in a pot or rice cooker) until tender. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly grease a large, shallow casserole dish.
3. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the olive oil. Add the celery and onion and sauté for about 7 minutes, or until onions are translucent.
4. Add the broccoli, stir to combine and sauté for another 3 minutes or until broccoli is not quite tender.
5. Add the cheese to the skillet, breaking it up and stirring it to make a slightly thick, creamy gravy that coats the vegetables. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
6. Scrape the vegetable cheese mixture into the bowl with the rice and toss to mix well. Season the casserole with the basil. 
7. Transfer the mixture to an oiled casserole dish, cover with foil and bake for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Serve hot.

Food experiments: Better than Sex Cake

I've been slacking lately on writing, and so I have a lot to catch up on...like this. I've heard about better than sex cake for years, but until a few weeks ago I'd never tasted it. A coworker asked for this for his birthday cake from Steamboat Willie, which she made on the day before Valentine's Day.

Yum. I had one piece at work, and promptly changed my plans for Valentine's Day dinner to include it. I hear there's a lot of different recipes for this out there, but this is the one that I definitely enjoyed!I would make this cake at least 6 hours or so before you need it, and the night before would be even better. The longer it sits for the toppings to soak in, the better it gets. Really--I had this cake leftover for over a week, and it was far better on the last day.

Better than Sex Cake
This reminds me of one of my favorite cakes that my mom used to make, but easier.

Ingredients
1 package devils food cake mix
Eggs and oil as required by your mix (usually 1/3 cup oil and 3 eggs)
1 can condensed milk
1 cup butterscotch topping
1 cup hot fudge topping
1 container Cool Whip
a few handfuls of toffee, chopped or crumbled (Heath bars work, but I used leftover toffee from my Mom's Christmas candy)

Directions

1. Bake the cake according to the package instructions.
2. Let cool for about 10-15 minutes.
3. Use a fork to poke holes all over the top of the cake--not big or deep, but just to perforate it enough for liquids to soak in.
4. Dump the can of condensed milk over the cake, spreading it as evenly as you can. Let it soak in for around half an hour or until it's mostly absorbed. It may not absorb well right away, but you can still put the other toppings on.
5. Dump on the cup of butterscotch, again spreading it as evenly as possible and letting it sit for awhile. Repeat the process with the hot fudge.
6. Let the cake sit until you are ready to serve. If the cake will be sitting out overnight, refrigerate it.
7. Just before serving, top with the Cool Whip and the toffee crumbles.