blog of the month(s)

there was no blog of the month for october. so this blog will have to take on the mighty responsibility of being two blogs in one.

Mad Tasty:
I met dave at a judith butler reading. he was smart, funny, and had a cute adopted accent to boot. now he has a food blog that features a crazy variety of contributers and recipes. one recent post suggests that you shouldn't feel bad about not making your own tomato sauce because it's a tribute to the life and work of the late paul newman. that's the kind of logic I appreciate. also, one blogger invented tetris brownies. I don't think words are appropriate to describe that kind of awesomeness.

I wish judith butler had a cooking blog. that would be so cool. the recipes would be indecipherable, but I don't think it would matter.

aquavit! yes!

It is just so exciting when Norwegian treats are featured on teh interwebz!

check out http://www.chow.com/stories/11298 - an article about aquavit, a classic norwegian beverage that I drink chilled, and with beer. but not usually with rotting fish.

berries and other cute little things

folks, it is berry week over at the ppk. what does that mean? it means delicious vegan berry recipes for everyone. day one kicked off with marionberry lavender scones. holy crap, people. I want those now.

one nice thing about Isa and the ppk blog: the comments are full of helpful information from curious cooks like yourself. I love the comments of most blogs and most cooking blogs in particular. but ppk readers (and writers) have a special way with enthusiasm and adventure that gets me psyched for a romp in the kitchen.

this is my puppy in 2004, right outside the kitchen, exhausted from romping. totally relevant.

vegan blueberry grunts

As I threatened, I made the blueberry grunt featured in a recent post on VeganYumYum. I followed Lolo's recipe basically to a T, so I am not going to reproduce it here except for changes, suggestions, etc.



I made the one-big-grunt-steamed-in-a-pan version. Not as cute as the individual grunts, but I think less work. They came out pretty well - well enough that gina marie, roommate emily and I all cleaned our plates. I think that next time i will make smaller "pieces" of grunt though, not cook the blueberries down so much, and maybe have a higher berry to dough ratio.

the wet stuff... I had two plastic boxes of blueberries, and gina marie had a handful of leftover raspberries and strawberries and I popped those in too.


berries simmered for about 20 minutes - probably a little too long. I guess I thought they needed to be really thick to hold up the biscuit. Not actually true!


My attempt to "cut" in the earth balance. I mushed it as best I could with a fork and then put it in the fridge.


added the soymilk - I only had unsweetened vanilla, so that's what I used. I should have taken my rings off first.


really should have taken off the rings. I maybe shouldn't have used my hands because hands are warm, but I wasn't sure how else to manage it without overmixing.


this was tricky, I had no idea what I was doing - I should have followed instructions and made *bite-sized* biscuit pieces, but they were so sticky!








it was weird looking, but pretty.


lid on! no peeking - except I have a clear lid!


and done


done


done!

august blog number two - veganyumyum and lolo

I was at a fantastic birthday party for Ms. Chloe the other night, and I met a famous vegan foodblogger. Lolo's blog, VeganYumYum, is pretty right on. She has lots of beautiful pictures of vegan baked goods and other animal-free food including special cupcakes for knitting night (she was totes on Martha Stewart) and something called blueberry grunts - which I am dying to make, both because they look awesome, and because I am committed to making all kinds of cobbler-family desserts in a vegan way.... (see my blueberry buckle of 2007...)

Since VeganYumYum doesn't have a logo, I am including the latest post's gorgeous picture... Lolo says that she wants to do something with red currants and peppercorns! I am waiting excitedly to see what she comes up with next....

august blog - if they let me get away with it

sarah elisabeth and gina marie might veto my nomination for blog of the month. it's not really a cooking blog. it is, however, a blog about the perils and delights of eating. or decorating, rather. Cake Wrecks is one of those sites that makes you real glad we got the internet. basically, it's a collection of hideous cakes - and there are so many reasons why a cake can be hideous. I never knew. my personal favorite (so far) is the cake someone made for a podiatrist. on a technical level, it's an impressive cake. on a culturally sensitive level, however...

Site of the Month: Stone Soup Farm Encyclopedia of Vegetables

on my way home last night, I stopped by my local farmer's market. the vegetables were beautiful - and occasionally mystifying. as I fondled a gorgeous cluster of pea tendrils, my roommate asked me what a person would do with those. "cook them like greens?" I suggested, really having no idea other than my deep instinct that pea tendrils were the greatest thing ever. we paused over some pumpkin stalks. no idea what to do with those either. then there was the leafy bundle of something with an unfamiliar name. "that's pretty," I mused, with nothing more to say on the matter.

chances are, everyone has had that experience: finding some vegetable or food that looks wonderful and most likely edible, but that's all the knowledge available. this occurs frequently with our CSA. The first time I was presented with kohlrabi I believe I let it sit on my counter until it was obviously bad. it wasn't intentional. I just had no idea what to do with the thing. it had a funny name.

well, the morning after my confrontation with the pumpkin stalks and pea tendrils, an email arrived in my inbox. Jarrett, the good farmer (and friend) behind our CSA, has begun a vegetable resource page. it's a work in progress, but already it boasts pretty pictures and brief yet informative descriptions. the entry for kale tells you what veggie "family" kale belongs and provides cooking instructions. in four sentences. this page is a gem and it's our site of the month.

blogs for the animalistic among us

we forgot a blog of the month. oops.

here at leisurely breakfast, we don't really do much with meat. sarah elisabeth has been known to serve up a rack of such-and-such on occasion, but we just don't live very meaty lifestyles. this translates to our blog: if you're looking for carnivore advice, we're not your ann landers.

this month's (tardy) blog is simply recipes, a site that not only has a full range of recipes, but some of the most beautiful pictures of meat dishes that I've ever seen. the photos of all the dishes are gorgeous and also make me wonder how many sets of plates Elise actually owns. the recipes range from simple to complex, but there's really helpful commentary throughout the directions so that you're not just left alone with your list of ingredients and the "after" photo. I read this and get really jazzed about cooking, which is what a good food blog is supposed to do.

special shout out to the rosemary lemon rhubarb spritzer. I now cannot wait for rhubarb to be in season.

blogging blogs. omg. black metal baking.

When sarah emily and I (sarah elisabeth) went to Norway once, we met a blackmetal fanatic, who was very nice and spoke a lot of English. He was disturbed that sarah emily didn't know who motorhead was, and he also was a computer programmer and at the very end of our visit to this particular bar, sarah emily and I were leaving to go to the awesome lesbo-bar in Oslo that is now sadly closed. I think it was called sin pecado. Anyways, we were leaving and his friend suddenly pulled down his pants and we were made to bear witness to his rather small penis. The not-at-all chagrined black metal fan said: "It's not magic." And we left, but we loved it. It was amazing.

Black metal is a peculiarly Norwegian/Scandinavian genre of metal related to satanism and the occult and sometimes to ancient nordic religions. (wikipedia it if you want to know all the sordid details... they are actually awesome.) There is a certain awesome stupid nihilism to black metal.

In other news, stephen (of threefrog.blogspot.com) just alerted me to the most amazing site ever. it is blackmetal inspired baking. I can't wait to try everything. check out: The Black Oven.

This is the latest post...
The Black Oven: Where the Chocolate Beats Incessant

fisheaters

I have talked a lot about seafood with people recently. Mostly about who likes shellfish and fish and who's allergic to what and what that might mean. So I had it on the brain. Also, I miss Norway and fishing there.

As I was reading through one of our new blog links (see the lefthand panel here at leisurely breakfast for that) I noticed something interesting. The blog is Locavore Nation from the public radio show, The Splendid Table. A whole bunch of people in different places in the U.S. are blogging about their attempts to eat primarily locally. It's pretty good! How can you not love things from NPR/PRI/American Public Media?

As I was reading through the most recent posts, I noticed that two different bloggers referred to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program. It seems to be a way to pick what seafood you are going to eat based on its sustainability, toxicity, and locality. Seems neat to me. So if you eat seafood and live on the east coast, check it out! There are also options for people who live other places there... but why would you live anywhere but here? (just kidding!)