Friday, November 23, 2012

"Where's the turkey, Chuck? Don't you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners?"

It's hard to get excited about Thanksgiving when you can't eat mashed potatoes or gravy.  Just sayin'.

Regardless, we were headed a few hours south for dinner Thursday so I wanted a couple of simple recipes we could make the night before or that morning, that would travel well and not require precious oven space upon arrival. 

I found two from my new hero, The Wannabe Chef, whose motto ("love the ingredients, not the food") and totally simple, mostly gluten-free, handful-of-ingredients recipes won me over a few months ago. 

First came the maple roasted brussel sprouts.  Apparently this maple-syrup-brussel-sprouts business is really common, but it was news to me earlier this week.  Good news, it turns out.  They were a bit overdone but still delicious, and they traveled well. 

not pictured: the brussel sprouts we actually used to make the dish

Next up: maple almond butter sandwich cookies.  I am all for homemade nut butter but I bought pre-made almond butter just for convenience this time.  We used the whole jar for a double batch of the cookies (which took about 3 seconds to whip up, by the way) so I had to improvise for the filling.  After a 10 minute showdown between my As Seen On TV Faboo Quad Pro food processor and the filling ingredients, I decided to settle for chunky almond creme, and I actually think it made for a more interesting texture and tastier filling.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm lazy.

The kids tore into the cookies as soon as we put them out after dinner, probably because they looked like peanut butter cookies and tasted like gingersnaps and had creamy sugary buttery mapley goodness in the middle.  The adults got a few as well.  We set aside a few cookies while packing food that morning (which will go fast) and a few spoonfuls of filling (which will go wonderfully on... something yet to be determined...  pancakes, perhaps?  who am I kidding?  I suspect it will go wonderfully on a spoon on the way to my mouth).

no spoon necessary

Finally we threw together a quinoa pecan salad with parsley, mint and lemon.  I overcooked the quinoa just a bit the night before but in the end it didn't really matter.  So easy, so tasty, so protein-packed! 

 note to self: make more

Couple all of this with turkey, ham, fresh veggies and homemade wine (and maybe some ill-advised cheesecake sans crust too close to the quinoa salad, but only mildly ill-advised) and I'd call my first healthy Thanksgiving a success.

I think that calls for some sausage.

Friday five!

How totally cliche - five things I'm thankful for, in no particular order... except for maybe the first and last ones:

  • that my basic needs of food, clothing and shelter are met every day
  • being able to run 3 or 9 or 13.2 miles in a row
  • peanut butter
  • winter sunrises and sunsets
  • my small but powerful support network (here, near and far) who keep me grounded, open their homes and hearts to me, teach me something almost every time we talk, and make me laugh
_______________
What?  You're thankful for peanut butter too.  I know that you are.

Friday, November 09, 2012

Plans!

three emails this week:
"portland!"  "portland?"  "in portland"
love when friends visit

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Pins and needles...

good job, florida
lookin' good, my maryland
virginia... deep sigh

ears versus forehead
this is how some people vote
sadly not kidding

i'll give YOU four years
and a crapload of issues...
let's see what you do

organic farming
not seventeen billion kids
sends the right message


varied results from
fox vs huffington post
quite interesting

really, fox?

however it ends
democracy in action
is pretty damn cool

to democracy!

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Belated Friday five.

Five movies we have seen recently(ish), in one sentence and no particular order:

  • The Hunger Games - everything about this movie bothered me and yet I liked it a lot.
  • Moonrise Kingdom - I'm really not sure how Wes Anderson keeps topping himself, but he has now officially set the bar impossibly high.
  • Beasts of the Southern Wild - could've done without the prehistoric monsters, but otherwise a really interesting and moving film.
  • Samsara - the aliens must think we are ABSOLUTELY INSANE.
  • The Dark Knight Rises - I had so many questions afterward, the main two being "why the hell does anyone still live in Gotham City?" and "why the hell are they still making Batman movies?"