That’s Totally Okay

Looking back through today’s pictures, I still don’t know how I was as productive as I was.

I guess that explains how it’s already 6 pm, though. Last I checked it was 10am!

There was lots of learning to be done, though. Both of the educational sense as well as the personal sense.

Like how it’s totally okay to completely mess up your pancakes, only to discover they’re the best you’ve had all week. Even if they look like they’ve already been digested once or twice.

…and it’s also totally okay to realize that maybe the only reason you make mini loaves of bread is not because you like it better fresh – but because it’s so much fun to make and smell.

Sarena’s bread has yet to disappoint. I don’t think it’s possible for it to. It is so quick, so simple and so delicious.

Roasted Red Pepper & Garlic hummus from Appetite for Reduction

Realize you’re home alone for 25 minutes? Well – it’s perfectly reasonable to go on an insane food-processor rampage, right?

For some reason, I can’t get the rest of my family to welcome with open arms the amount of noise required for making hummus and nut butters. On a Sunday morning, no less.

When people should be waking up to the smell of bacon, not the sound of hummus.

And yes, it’s totally okay to combine hemp seeds, sunflower seeds and peanuts in your quest to make the perfect unsweetened peanut butter. Just don’t forget the pinch of salt!

But hey – why not try a flavored cashew butter for once? I’ve never had anything other than “normal” cashew butter, so I decided to give it a try. Verdict? totally okay.

• 2 c. roasted & salted cashews
• 1 t. olive oil
• 1 t. date syrup
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 1/8 – 1/4 t. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 c. golden raisins

Method: Process the cashews until they form a ball. Break it up and add in the oil, syrup, extract and cinnamon. Process again until smooth. Add more oil depending on how runny you like it. Add in raisins and pulse a few more times to combine.

And by the way…if you just so happened to have made peanut butter before this…and didn’t feel like washing and trying your processor…it’s totally okay to just use the processor with the peanut butter residue still in it.

Not that I would have ever ofund myself in this situation or anything.

Haven’t done laundry in two weeks? Totally okay – it just makes you find all those old clothes you don’t know why you still have…but then realize why when you have nothing else to wear.

Again, not that I would know anything about that.

Yes, it’s perfectly fine to consider your workout for the day simply walking up a hill.

…but it’s probably easier to buy when the snow is up to your waist, and your dog might hate you for it.

Sorry for the butt shot…but this just had to be done. Kaia found that it worked best if she just tried dragging herself along on her belly.

We have so much snow right now. And we had a thundersnow storm last night!

It was kind of creepy and I was ready for the apocalypse.

I also realize that lately I’ve been hardly creative in the kitchen on my own, but rather have been making recipes out of books like it’s my job.

Well, I do wish it were my job…

But hey, that’s totally okay. I’m calling it “fine-tuning my technique.”

Because really, I don’t actually know anything about cooking or baking.

It’s totally okay to instantly think of your childhood when creaming “butter” and sugar.

Isn’t it a requirement of growing up to eat the butter and sugar when making cookies?

Not quite enough dried figs for your homemade “Fig Not-Ins” after you absent-mindedly munched on a few?

Using some golden raisins as filler is perfectly okay.

Adding anise extract, on the other hand? Totally not okay. Sambuca has ruined anise extract for me for the rest of my life, I think. I can’t have peppermints anymore because of peppermint schnapps, either.

Luckily, the anise was just an accentuating flavor, not a main player. I followed Vegan with a Vengeance‘s recipe because I wanted to have a more dough-like newton. The recipes I found online were more like a date bar – but with figs. I wanted more of a distinct fig newton! But, adding the anise idea came from this recipe.

Ironically, rolling the dough out for this was very time consuming and difficult and it will probably be many moons before I do it again. That and the directions confused me. I don’t think they were confusing, I think I was just having a “moment.” A “what the kale?” moment.

And if you lose patience with it, it’s totally okay to end up just making two giant tarts with the last of your dough.

And by the way – taste-testing your fig filling? Perfectly fine. In fact, I think it’s required. Mainly if you have some fresh bread and cashew butter to accompany it. D’oh.

Having paprika that’s older than you are? Well, that’s probably not okay, but I use it anyway. It probably doesn’t taste like…well…anything…to be perfectly honest with you.

I kid you not, I remember having this paprika when I was, like, three.

Because I was definitely using paprika as a wee little three year old. I distinctly remember burping “mo’ papriikay!” a time or two.

But until I finally remember to buy new paprika, this old stuff had to do for the mushroom and cannellini paprikas in Appetite for Reduction.

And in case you were wondering – it’s also totally okay to have sweet potato fries with every meal…and still not know whether you prefer them with barbeque sauce or hummus.

And lastly – it’s perfectly fine if you just watch the Superbowl for the commercials. I’m not a football fan…I prefer real sports.

Other things that are totally okay:

• Realizing you haven’t gotten out of your pajamas all day. Which probably means they’re really gross considering the fact that I was definitely sweating walking up that hill.
• Not putting away your laundry even if it’s all done.
• Realizing you sort of enjoy the reading for your recent classes.

What was your “totally okay” moment of the day?

And I’ve gotta ask…Superbowl – yay or nay?

A Conglomeration

With my new (er, not so new anymore) blogging style, there’s a lot more useless blabber that ends up “on the cutting room floor,” as they say. With me, it’s more like on the bedroom floor and then covered with dirty clothes.

This leaves me feeling relatively out of touch with you lovely people, and I don’t like that! So…here’s some relatively mindless rambling that I deemed relatively useless at one point, and is probably still relatively useless, but I have nothing else to share. So there.

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I still eat pancakes like they’re going out of style. Because I work in phases, I’ve been loving sauteed apple as the topping of choice…though bananas still have my heart.

And are way cheaper.

And I’m welcoming applicants to start up a peanut flour business. I mean, I would think us bloggers alone are reason enough for TJ’s to keep it stocked, but apparently not.

Should we place bets on what the next hot food item will be? I don’t even know where to begin.

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In a traumatic event involving me trying to use Teddie’s right ear as something to hold onto whilst flying over his neck,he is now right earl-less. See?

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I have been loving on salads lately. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my mom bought me two huge tubs of lettuce and baby spinach, but we’ll just say that ever since the eggplant bacon caesar salad I’ve been getting cozy with a big bowl of greens pretty frequently.

My favorite salad add-in (save for buffalo tempeh) is red onion. I like to breathe stinky.

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L is the sweetest girl ever, after hearing my grumblings of whole wheat breadcrumbs being nonexistant in these parts. I had no idea what the strangely shaped package my mom brought me contained…

But I don’t think I’ve ever been so giddy about breadcrumbs before. If I was just a little bit crazier I’d had run right out and bought a sweet onion so I could make onion rings, but those football fans that are stocking up on Superbowl foods scare me. That and the Bruins game was starting in ten minutes.

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Speaking of Bruins, Thursday night’s game = four fights and a goal within the first minute. Four fights and two goals within…two minutes, I think? That is all. I love hockey. We won’t talk about today’s game, though.

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iHerb.com has the fastest and most reasonably priced shipping I’ve ever seen. And reasonably priced goods! And if you want to save $5 off your first order, you can if you enter in code WEZ004. Oh, and they always include fun samples! Well, everytime I’ve ordered anyway.

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I received a bunch of fun-sounding salt samples in my last Foodzie box, but I’m really disappointed to report that I don’t think my tastebuds are so delicate to pick up on any differences.

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It occurred to me the other morning, as I was driving to work at 7:00 am, wide awake and so ready for the day, that if I were as optimistic, outgoing and energetic at night as I am in the morning, I wouldn’t even be a real person.

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The other day I was chopping celery with my really sharp knife, and I somehow slid a finger over the top of the blade by the point. I thought I cut myself, and deep enough to warrant stitches or at least a lot of blood, so I dropped the knife and started freaking out, clutching my hand and waiting for blood to start spurting everywhere. It turns out I didn’t even break skin. I can be a little be dramatic. I guess.

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My mom is convinced she wants to take part in Meatless Mondays since she watched Oprah, but wants it to change to Meatless Tuesday so that I can be home to cook for it. Yes, I watched the Oprah episode. If you haven’t seen it, Nicole wrote a good post about it, and I left my thoughts there, too. But, hey, if my mom wants to have a meatless Tuesday, awesome.

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Sometimes, I get asked why I won’t post a recipe from a book.

My answer is simple: I am morally opposed to it.

Cooking is an art-form. Creating recipes is an art-form. Even if a list of ingredients can’t technically be copyrighted (how weird is it that it’s copyrighted and not copywritten?) I know how it feels to have work that you’ve created show up elsewhere without credit. I am talking about my photography, but I view it as the same concept. I know how ripped I get when I see people taking my photos, and I can only imagine how ripped published authors must get when they see recipes they’ve poured their heart and soul into to be published in a book appear on websites where people can go and get them without paying a single penny.

I’m all about supporting the author, not ripping them off. I have too much respect for them than to post their recipes will-nill on the internet. In case you’re wondering, yes, I also buy my music rather than downloading it for free. Again, respect and appreciation.

As for posting recipes from other blogs? Well – I understand that basically everything has been done before. If I see a recipe that is similar to one another but there’s hardly any mention of another recipe, I tend to give the author the benefit of the doubt that there was a similar thinking process. But using a recipe from another blog, saying so, and then posting the exact same recipe on your own blog? Well, I think link-backs are sufficient so that traffic can be directed their way as a sign of appreciation…but I think that’s just one of my little quirks.

And lastly, re: adaptations and inspirations. I link-back or don’t post the recipe if from a book if I keep mostly the same. C’mon…changing the flour or a couple spices doesn’t make it a unique adaptation. I don’t even think veganizing something with a flax-egg and earth balance makes it an adaptation. When I do that, I say it and link-back to direct people to the basic recipe and instructions. Only when I change a good number of things – say, at least 5 things that aren’t basic flour swaps, etc – will I just re-post the recipe. And even 5 things is a close-call to me. Take, for example, the chickpea recipe I posted the other day. I was tempted to just write out my swaps again instead of re-typing the recipe – but then sort of realized that by the time I wrote out the swaps it was just plain confusing. Had it been a blogger or book, I might have passed on reposting. But it being a free source I decided to just go for it. Am I guilty of the “I swapped the flour, so I adapted it!” label? Well, I can’t say for certain – but I bet if I looked through my baking tabs I’d find one or two back from my beginnings that aren’t quite as unique as I now require. Not hypocritical – I’ve just learned what respect is.

This was not directed at anybody or any certain event!! Just something I’ve been meaning to mention lately, since I’ve been cooking out of books so much lately. I would love to hear your thoughts on it, though. Am I just picky because, being a photographer, I know how it feels and can relate too much to the authors? Maybe. I mean, I feel bad when I give full disclaimer that something wasn’t my idea and someone comments saying “oh my god! you’re so creative! marry me!”

I just want to say “no no no!! I’m a terrible person, I’m not the cool one!”