A Public Service Announcement

Pin It I urge everyone out there reading this blog (all THREE of you) to go home and spend a few hours organizing your pantry. No, it doesn't sound exciting or fun or sexy. Yes, you probably have a lot to do already and that's probably at the bottom of your to-do list (if it's even on the list). But one day soon, you will thank me for this.

Because you never know when your significant other will decide to make pasta from scratch using the flour contained in a jar labeled "all-purpose flour." And s/he will not know that you had dumped rice flour into the jar because you ran out of containers and couldn't be bothered to change the label. Then s/he will seriously wonder why the dough has the density and elasticity of a damp rag. And then as s/he stands in the kitchen scratching his/her head as to what happened ("but I followed the recipe exactly!!...."), you'll have to sheepishly admit that you screwed up, thank him/her for valiant effort and apologize profusely.

No fresh pasta for you! And you're out of rice flour. All because you couldn't be bothered to find a sharpie and a label when you had to.

Yeah....

Well, at least it's not rat poison.

The more you know... *Rainbow*

Mini Farm House Veggie Burger

Pin It Recently I ran into a college friend while riding the train. It was surreal since we haven't seen each other in close to ten years and we've not managed to meet up even though we have both lived in the Bay Area for years. It was great to see her. It turns out she likes food competition shows as much as I do and hates Sandra Lee as much as I do.

I wonder how she feels about the new show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate." In some ways, it's just a vehicle to showcase Food Network regulars' best (fake?) food-gasm faces with all that wooing, ahhing, sighing and gasping. I mean, really, the food can't be that good.

Or can it?

I made this farm house burger featured in the Burgers episode. I have to admit, it looks pretty darn tasty. The patty is made of eggplant, bread crumbs, soy cheddar, scallions, parsley and garlic. Then I topped it with a slice of soy cheddar, tomato and baby greens.

I do have to say it's pretty delicious. But is it so awesome that I close my eyes, lick my lips, and drool a little just thinking about it? Probably not. I thought the patty was dry and a bit crumbly.

It's dinner worthy, but not food-gasm worthy. I'm not even going to bother faking it.

You can find the recipe here.

We're back! + Turd Dogs + Spicy Quinoa

Pin It Moving is hard.

Never mind the weeks living out of a dozen of opened and half full boxes, the weeks of starting every other sentence with "where is __blank__?", and the weeks of cleaning, lining shelves, washing dishes, along with the other gazillion things that remain on the ever expanding to-do list, the absolute worst part about moving is eating takeout everyday. Last week, our pizza came with pepperoni instead of pineapple. So I had to eat an entire pie by myself over the course of four days. Nothing kills one's appetite for pizza quite like having to eat it over and over day after day. I hate overpriced Whole Foods salad bar... next thing you know, I won't want Indian buffet either. Then we're really shit out of luck here in Silicon Valley.

Now that our kitchen is in decent shape (with only a two more boxes to unpack), I'm ready to start cooking again. Of course, the perfect recipe for such an occasion is -- turd dogs?!?!

They say you can't polish a turd. But, it turns out you can make turd dogs look sort of like sausages. I tried putting them in buns and dressing them with condiments, but they still look like... well, shit. I wish our homemade sauerkraut had survived the move so at least we can cover this shit up. But our sauerkraut became a moldy, smelly, and generally vomit-inducing mess from heat and neglect. So here we are, looking at semi-naked turd dogs.

Incidentally, the post containing the recipe has a picture of turd dogs that strongly resemble something you'd find on a sidewalk or at a gas station restroom. VB, being generally fascinated with all things poop-y, was disappointed that my turd dogs did not look like they were freshly fished out of a toilet and plopped onto a plate.

Okay, I'll stop now.

Spicy quinoa is tasty. And it doesn't look like poop. There's nothing wrong with that.