Mess of the Week

A long time ago, during a performance review, I had a boss tell me that although satisfied with my overall performance he was disappointed in my writing skills. In fact, he directly told me that writing was my Achilles' heel. Fair enough. I'm no Shakespeare.

Well. I just finished reading the final version of a manuscript that he wrote and submitted for publication in an international journal. The manuscript was riddled with typos. At one point, he (unnecessarily) used the phrase "Achilles' heel." Except that he spelled it "Achilles heal". H-E-A-L. No apostrophe. Ha! Who's the poor writer now, dude!?!?

A Vegan Takes to the Skies

Airplane food is notoriously bad. We all know this. Most accept that fact, arm themselves with Tums, and suffer through the airline meal. I am not one of those people. When I travel I always carry the essentials: a good book, some good headphones, and enough food to see me through the flight and any unforeseen delays. I say no thanks to the pre-made tray of tasteless food.

I'm traveling for the next couple of days and prepared some flight-friendly food. I know that the San Diego airport TSAs are suspicious of soy-yogurt and hummus, but are okay with oozing bean burritos; it seems that the definition of "liquid or gel" varies slightly from person to person. In the past I've tried to explain to a harried security guard that hummus is neither a liquid nor a gel, merely a non-flammable tasty Mediterranean spread make of chickpeas and tahini. However, my pleas fell on deaf ears and the hummus ended up in the trash. So now I try to bring foods that appear less exotic.



For my morning flight, these peanut butter waffles served nicely as my breakfast (recipe from the upcoming cookbook The Crack of Noon). I made them the night before, let em cool, and wrapped them in sturdy foil. Just after takeoff I unearthed them from the depths of my carry-on and the whole plane was jealous. They were snacking on Terra Blue potato chips and I was enjoying a delicious waffled creation. With an apple and a tangelo, and a $4 bottle of water from the airport Starbucks, this was damn good eats.



This was a cross-country jaunt, a long flight necessitating lunch. When the in-flight movie (27 dresses) was over I brought out this chickpea-salad sandwich, recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I also prepared this the night before the flight, waking up my husband with the noisy food processor. ("Why are you processing chickpeas? It's midnight forcryinoutloud!" oops, sorry babe, it's for a good cause.)

It's on whole grain bread, topped with spinach and romaine leaves. I added some stone ground mustard to spice it up a bit. This is a great flight option because it tastes great and is filling, but doesn't have a strong smell that fellow travelers may find offensive. Ever sit next to someone eating a tuna sandwich? It's not exactly an olfactory experience I'd recommend.

I packed other treats as well, just in case. Carrot and celery sticks, potato chips, cookies, peanut trail mix, and a few odwalla bars in case things got crazy, all simple things that aren't too fragile or prone to melting or spoilage. That's way too much food for one person on one flight, but I'll eat it all eventually at my destination.

I'm sitting in a hotel room right now, on the bed with the comforter safely pulled back. After only a few days away, my stomach is already wishing it was back home in it's own kitchen. The conference I'm attending actually has a wide variety of food that's passably edible. I'm actually having a good time. But Dorothy sure had it right: There's no place like home.

Good Day Sunshine

There's no better way to begin the weekend than by puttering around in my kitchen for three hours making coffee cake. Orange Pecan Crumbcake to be exact. The recipe is from the test kitchen of the upcoming brunch cookbook, The Crack of Noon, by Isa of The PPK.

It didn't really take me three hours to bake the cake; but, when I factor in the time it took to first clean all the dishes out of my sink while simultaneously watching Sandra Lee make a semi-homemade chocolate volcano cake, three hours it was. Let's break it down and demonstrate just how proficient I am at wasting time.

9:00am to 10:00am: prepare pecan crumb topping.
Why did that take an hour? Allow me to elaborate.

First, dig food processor out of cupboard. Spend several minutes shuffling last night's wine glasses around on the counter to make room for food processor. Unplug coffee grinder so as to clear a plug for the processor. Accidentally unplug the coffeemaker, mid-brew. Reprogram timer on coffee machine. Pour large mug of coffee for myself. Fill sink with soapy water, gingerly wash wine glasses. Wait, what was I doing? Oh yeah, crumb topping. Measure ingredients, add to mixer, process, done. That was easy.

10:00am-10:15am: Wander around the house looking for where I set my coffee. Find it on the bathroom sink. Ponder the many ways in which it may have arrived at that location. Dump it out, pour new cup of coffee.

10:15am-10:30am: Zest oranges!

The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of zest, so I find my microplane grater. I wash one of my grandpa's homegrown oranges and begin zesting. And zest. Sip coffee. Zest some more. Wince at Sandra Lee's annoying habit of calling her nephew "Bricer." Laugh at the kid trying not to roll his eyes at her.

10:30am-10:31am: Sean tells me our friend Nick is coming to visit tonight. Yay! Visitors!

10:32am-11:00am: Freak out and frantically try and transform our apartment from its current state of "in shambles" to something more along the lines of "acceptably presentable."

11:00am-11:15am: Give up on cleaning. Give in to starvation and get the cake in the oven, finally.

11:15am-noon: bake coffee cake. Marvel at the pile of dirty laundry waiting in my closet. Why do I have so many clothes? Why can't they just wash themselves? Watch YouTube videos with Sean of kids using power tools. Make absolutely no progress on urgent priority of cleaning house.


And there you have it, 3 hours of puttering around. But at least I have this to show for it. There it is, all glorious 9x13 inches of Orange Pecan Crumbcake.


I don't think I actually sat down to eat a piece until well after 1:00pm. A little later than I usually take breakfast, but in the true casual nature of a weekend brunch. I hope Nick likes coffee cake, because there's a lot to go around!

Little. Yellow. Different.

If someone asks me what I want for Christmas or my Birthday or other gift giving occasion, I always try to be pretty specific in my response. I used to try and go the modest route, insisting I didn't need anything or would enjoy anything. Both of which are generally true. But eventually, in my wise old age, I've discovered that the chances of receiving something awesome increase dramatically if I actually ask for what I want. Which is how I ended up with a mini-donut pan for Christmas; it is undeniable in it's awesomeness.

Since December I've been perfecting my mini-donut skills with several test batches. Tweaking little things here and there, taste testing for quality control though the whole ordeal. Practice makes perfect, right?

I think this batch was a great success. Here's the naked donuts, removed from the baking pan, cooling on a rack.


Once the donuts are all baked up, out of the oven, and cooled, I go to town with the chocolate glaze.


Some with nuts too!


And just to be sassy, some get zebra stripes.


These little guys have the texture of a nice cake donut, very reminiscent of the hostess mini donuts that come 6 to a cellophane pack. Except without all the chemical crap.

This recipe was inspired by and modified from the one on VeganYumYum.

Plain Cake Donuts!
Makes 2 dozen.

Sift together:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
little pinch of nutmeg

Mix in a measuring cup:
2/3 cup soymilk or almond milk
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
5 Tbs canola oil
3 Tbs soy yogurt (or egg replacer of choice)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix wet with dry to form a thick batter/smooth dough. Spoon into ungreased mini-donut pan. Bake 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool, frost, eat!

My pan has only 12 spaces, so I wipe it out after the first round before baking the rest.

If you don't have a mini donut pan, you can make a pretty decent "donut holes" in a mini muffin pan.

Someone's Got a Green Thumb

These beauties are from my Grandma's rose garden. As long as I can remember, she's had roses blooming in her yard no matter what time of year. These seem to smell better than any other roses too. She's got skills. And lucky for me, she's always willing to share a bouquet when her favorite granddaughter comes to visit.

Hot Child in the City

This weekend was hot. Damn hot. Hot like I actually didn't mind having to go into work because at least they've got air conditioning. I spent a fair amount of time lounging in front of a fan with a frosty beverage to cope with the heat. Oh, and I also made some tofu scramble.

The tofu is scrambled with sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms, seasoned with thyme, cumin, turmeric, paprika, and a bit of salt. Aren't the spices pretty?

Thanks Joe, you're quite the Trader

Alright, I'm little Miss Semi-Homemade on this dinner tonight. Maybe someday I'll get a real job and be able to spend my weekends at home making yeasted pizza dough from scratch and lovingly simmering tomato sauce on the stove all the live long day. That would be the life. Sigh.

In reality I spent the whole day at school; consequently, in order to make dinner I have to get by with a little help from my friends. (Not Paul and Winnie, I wish.) I mean Trader Joe's. So here's what I've got to show for it.


I started out with some TJ's whole wheat pizza dough. It's basically ready to go, just needs 20 min at room temp to relax. I cut it in half, stretch it all out, and fill up calzones for Sean and I.


This one is mine, filled with a whole week of leftovers. Starting from the bottom: TJ's pizza sauce, my homemade pesto, TJ's meatless-balls, some FYH soy cheese, artichoke hearts, olives, shiitake and enoki mushrooms, spinach, and somehow some shredded carrots ended up in there too.


Sean basted the tops of the calzones with a mixture of olive oil and a nice dark Porter beer. Actually his beer "accidentally" spilled into my little bowl of olive oil and we just went with it. You can't tame innovators. Lucky for us, it did make for a rich and tasty crust.


In the end, we enjoyed our pesto-Porter-mushroom-meatless ball calzones. Not bad for dinner on the fly. Trader Joe would be proud.