Skinny Pad-ish Thai

It's no secret that Appetite for Reduction is my absolute favorite cookbook. I've said it over and over again on here, as well as to any human who will listen. Now that this soul-crushing, record-breaking winter is finally over, I figured it was time to add some color and flavor back into my diet. I spent the past five months subsisting on Golden Grahams, Clif Bars and Amy's Rice Macaroni, so Pad Thai Salad and Red Thai Tofu seemed like a good departure.

I had all the non-produce items on hand already, so this recipe just took a simple stop at Meijer to gather ingredients. I omitted the Thai basil from the tofu because I've never seen it outside Asian grocery stores and I didn't feel like trekking to the 'burbs, but otherwise I followed the recipes exactly. The salad was unbelievably easy to make. Just chop up some lettuce, slice an onion, and grate a carrot. Here it is in all its rainbow glory: 

I didn't take a picture of the dressing, partly because it wasn't photogenic, but mostly because I forgot. It was just blended peanuts, lime juice and a few other pantry staples. I mixed it all together, added some cilantro and chopped peanuts for garnish, and it was ready to go.

I had initially planned to serve the tofu on top of the salad, but they're both so flavorful that I opted to keep them separate. The tofu took a little longer to make because you dry-fry the tofu first, then sauté vegetables, then cook the two together in a sauce. If you wanted to save time and have a better equipped kitchen than I do (i.e., >1 skillet), you could multitask and have it done in 30 minutes.

Like every recipe in AFR, these didn't disappoint. My only suggestion would be leaving the dressing off if you're going to store the salads for a few days, because mine seemed to get soggy immediately. But most rational people probably do that already anyway.

Happy Easter!

I'm always glad to be vegan at Easter. I have fond memories of eating entire bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs (that matte sugar shell is like nothing else I've ever tasted) in my car on the way home from the drug store, or polishing off six Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Alas, I don't have that 16 year old metabolism anymore, so it's for the best that sugar traps are off my radar completely.

 

Easter isn't a big deal in my family, but my mom still makes an Easter basket for my 26 year old sister. I understand that vegan candy is inconvenient and expensive, so I accept her reasons for not making me one. Also, I'm fairly certain she loves my sister more than me. (Just kidding, Mom. You're the best!) This year, much to my surprise, the vegan Easter Bunny delivered a basket to my house:

 

This is from Sweet Pete's candy shop and it blew my mind. I should note that the picture above was a recreation of the original packing. Without thinking, I tore it open and started eating, just like when I woke up Easter morning as a 5 year old. After a few minutes of inhaling candy, I came up for air and realized I should take a picture. What you see above is a half-hearted attempt at restaging the basket. Here's a rundown on the components:
   - caramels (my absolute favorite)
   - dark chocolate covered potato chips (I was a bit skeptical, but they were amazing)
   - chocolate peanut butter meltaways (fantastic)
   - dark chocolate covered pretzels
   - Go Max Go Buccaneer bar (vegan 3 Muskateers)
   - dark chocolate covered Oreos
   - solid dark chocolate bar
   - gummy bears
   - salt water taffy
   - lollipop

Having a basket full of seemingly unlimited candy took me back twenty years. I'm not ashamed to admit that I carried the basket upstairs and spent the better part of Friday evening reading and eating candy in bed.

V'con Classics: Bulgur, Arugula and Cannellini Salad

Here's a weird thing about me (one of many, obviously): I rarely make recipes more than once. I have the same general feeling on movies and travel. There are so many great options out there that I feel like it's silly to repeat things, no matter how enjoyable they were. Bulgur, Arugula, and Cannellini Salad from Veganomicon is an exception. I've made this a number of times, largely because I seem to always have bulgur in my cupboard that I'm trying to use up. (I swear, after I use up this bag, I'm only buying the exact amount I need from bulk bins in the future. It looks so sad languishing on my top shelf.)

It's a pretty simple salad of arugula, red onions and mushrooms, mixed with cooked bulgur and white beans in a vinaigrette. It's easy to make (albeit I invariably make a huge mess when I stir it). And unlike most salads, it gets better after sitting for a day or two, thus making it the perfect weekday lunch option.

One thing I really dislike about buying produce at conventional stores is the amount of packaging. I try to avoid it (I can't wait until my City Commons CSA subscription starts in June!), but sometimes laziness and time constraints dictate my shopping choices. Though it induces ridicule by coworkers and refrigerator sharers, I try to reuse the containers as much as possible. I'm especially proud of my half onion repackaging tonight!

Super Simple Ironing Board Cover

I try very hard not to form sentimental attachments to objects. One exception is a set of ironing boards (a big one and a sleeve board) that I took from my grandmother's house after she died. There's something about standing over it, doing a task that it so stereotypically domestic, that makes me very pensive. My grandmother was the typical Mad Men Betty Draper-style wife and mother. When I'm ironing (and let's be honest, that doesn't happen often), my mind will wander to how she must have felt, standing over that same ironing board decades ago. Was she content with her life? Was she bored beyond belief? By the time I was old enough to ask her those questions, she was suffering from Alzheimer's, so I'll never really know.

Similarly, my grandfather made the sleeve-board. It's just some dowels and boards with padding stapled over the top, but I love that he built it himself rather than going to the store and buying one. He died when I was ten, so I didn't really know him either, but he should be happy to know that his legacy lives on every time I need to iron something small.

Sentimentality aside, I really like both of these boards because they're so sturdy. The large ironing board weights a ton. It's almost a struggle to put it upright and back in the closet. The advantage of that, though, is that it doesn't move when I'm ironing. Same with the sleeve board. I had a collapsible one before, and it was constantly collapsing on itself while I was ironing. This one takes up more storage space, but it doesn't go anywhere when I'm using it.

I had a piece of fabric from the October Small Craft supply sale that I really liked, but I didn't have enough to make a shirt (how I originally envisioned it). I had the genius idea to use it to cover the disintegrating ironing board covers. A few minutes on Google revealed that ironing board covers are ridiculously easy to make.

I just draped the fabric over the boards and cut, leaving about six inches around the edges. Then I sewed a casing and strung a piece of elastic through it. I pulled the elastic as tight as possible and safety pinned it together (mostly out of laziness - writing this now I realize it would have made more sense to take the cover off and sew it together). Et voila!

I repeated the same process for the smaller board, but didn't take any pictures. My most productive hours are often after 10pm on weeknights. And while I can bang out a lot of stuff, I don't always take the time to properly document it. The next time I iron (which may be a while from now), I'll try to remember to take a picture.

Snow Day Feast, V'con Style

I've always said that winters in Detroit aren't really that bad. Sure it's cold, but the cold isn't brutal. We get some snow, but it melts after a few days. The skies are sometimes grey, but it makes me appreciate the sunshine on clear days. Those factors that make winter unpleasant (but not unbearable) make spring AMAZING.

Then the winter of 2014 hit. This winter also coincides with me living in a house with zero insulation. When it's windy outside, the curtains move inside. We got another big snow storm today. Determined not to let Mother Nature get in my way, I put on my boots and trekked the mile to Kroger to buy groceries and spent the day cooking Backyard BBQ sauce, BBQ Black Eyed Peas Collard Rolls, and Messy Rice, all from Veganomicon.


This was a perfect snow day dish. I spent a leisurely three hours making it. I could have been more efficient with my time, but to me, one of the luxuries of a snow day is not stressing about multi-tasking. On a weeknight, I definitely wouldn't have taken the time to let BBQ sauce cook down for an hour or delicately roll steamed collard greens. But on a snowy Sunday, there wasn't much I'd rather be doing.

These turned out great. They were everything I think food should be -- a variety of recognizable textures and clean, distinct flavors that meld together perfectly. Full success!

Sister Act: Craft Edition

Growing up, my sister and I didn't get along. More specifically, I didn't get along with my sister. I'll spare everyone from the details of my antagonizing and just say that I'm pleasantly surprised she turned out to be a well-adjusted, emotionally stable adult despite my efforts to the contrary. My mom used to tell me that one day I'd be glad to have a sister. I refused to believe it then, but it's definitely true now!

My sister had a craft-night last weekend which I missed, so she brought the leftover materials to my house to work on them after a stereotypical morning of haircuts and going out for lunch. She found the inspiration on Pinterest, so we set off making decopage votive candle holders with tissue paper and Mod Podge.

Fortunately for me, she'd already worked out the kinks in the process during her craft night. She brought over an assortment of paper punches and tissue paper in every color imaginable. In process:

I attempted to make my project easy by cutting out two sizes of flowers in colors that coordinated with my living room. As usual, making "random" designs takes me three times as long as it does to order something. Eventually I got placement I was happy enough with and started adding layers of matte Mod Podge. Once dry, the holders have a frosted look that I really like.

Handmade Christmas: one gift done

Every year, I make a plea to my family to forego the Christmas shopping frenzy and exchange small tokens instead. Over the years, it's been met with varied reactions, none of them positive. This year, I decided to embrace the consumer spirit and do my best to buy thoughtful gifts that everyone would enjoy. True to form, I started the day after Thanksgiving (in Midtown with my Detroit Small Business Passport). Not surprisingly, by planning ahead and not racing around the mall on Christmas Eve, Christmas shopping was actually enjoyable this year. Christmas morning hasn't changed much at my parents' house since I was a kid, except we get started a little later and drink mimosas now instead of hot chocolate. This was the first year I was more excited to watch people open my gifts to them than to open presents to myself. It took me 28 years, but I finally got the Christmas Spirit.

I wanted to give a handmade gift to everyone on my list. As usual, my optimism was tempered by reality and I had to scale back my plans. My sister is an avid baker and I was really excited to get her the Kitchenaid stand mixer she'd been wanting for years. When I saw these cupcake oven mitts on Pinterest, I knew they'd make a perfect accompaniment.

For some reason, I had assumed I could buy the pattern as a pdf. When I sat down to make them the Saturday before Christmas, I realized it was only available in hard copy. I didn't have time to wait for it to be shipped, so I tried looking for other patterns. There were a few downloadable ones out there, but none as cute. I decided to draft my own and it went surprisingly well. So well that I considered posting it and writing a true tutorial, but there are other ones on the internet already and I feel bad for ripping off the original designer's idea. Note to craft pattern designers: offer PDFs! I would have gladly paid for it!

The construction was simple, albeit time consuming. I cut out front and back pieces of the two sections and three thicknesses of batting for each of the two mitts. I sewed the scalloped edge and turned and pressed it, then hand-basted everything together. As always, I do not have the patience for bias tape. After ripping out the haphazard machine stitching twice, I attached the top side by hand, which took FOREVER, but was worth it in the end.

And because I can't ever part with fabric scraps, I sewed a little bag to accompany these. I was really happy with how they turned out, and my sister seemed to like them too. The colors are off in the after picture, but they looked better IRL.

I also made a Christmas apron for my mom and somehow took zero pictures of it. It took me a few tries to get everything right, but in the end I really liked it. Hopefully she'll wear it next year and I can get a picture.