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The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Possibly My New Favorite Place EVER.

/ Kelly / 3 Comments

I’m writing this post in Pages (Apple’s anti-Microsoft Word) because lately my internet has been le suck. After spending yet another weekend out of town, my Google Reader is desperate for attention, but my internet refuses to load it! It’s super frustrating. :(

Anyway, like I said in my last post, I recently spent a magical week in Florida with my family as a surprise 30th anniversary gift to my parents. They’ve been married for thirty years, dated for six years before that, and produced three top-notch kids (heh heh), so we decided they deserved somethin’ special! Plus… we wanted to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. :) My whole family has been Potterfans for ages, so this trip pleased everybody.

Welcome to Hogsmeade!

And what can I say – Harry Potter World is abso-freakin-mazing. I was filled with such geeky, fangirly glee the whole time we were there, gazing up at the rustic, snow-capped buildings as I wandered the streets of Hogsmeade, buying a pumpkin juice from a crusty old street vendor, and window-shopping at Zonko’s joke shop. Although those of the iron-fisted, true-to-canon-only persuasion may recoil with horror at the fact that Diagon Alley shops are nestled next to Hogsmeade shops, I managed to let that slide, because the overall atmosphere is just so realistic and authentic and wonderful. Packed to the brim with merchandise and not-for-sale decorative, thematic knick-knacks, stepping into one of the crowded, cluttered stores that line the streets of Hogsmeade is like stepping into the Hogsmeade of J.K. Rowling’s books. The store clerks all wear Potter-appropriate clothing, although some of their combinations (bizarre striped pants and tunic-type shirts) are more reminiscent of a wizard trying to dress like a muggle, a la Cornelius Fudge. From the street vendors pouring out frothy mugs of butterbeer to the Hogwarts Express conductor roaming the streets, braving the heat while wearing a full-on conductor’s uniform, the staff adds an indispensable touch of life to the atmosphere that makes the whole experience that much more realistic.

GRYFFINDOR 4 LYFE!

And, of course, there are rides. Not many rides, but enough to satisfy anyone who needs to supplement their wide-eyed wandering through Hogsmeade with a little adrenaline rush. The Dragon Challenge ride is basically the old Dueling Dragons ride from Islands of Adventure; with a fresh coat of paint and a few minor changes to the interior line and waiting area, it’s passable as an interpretation of the dragon challenge from the Triwizard Cup. The ceiling of the loading area is particularly impressive; it’s meant to look like you’re in a large tent, and shadowy figures of dragons swoop down among the outlines of treetops. The ride itself is just Dueling Dragons, a fun, quick, roller coaster with lots of loops and turns and an element of “competition” as your dragon (either the Hungarian Horntail or the Chinese Fireball) races against the other.

For the younger muggles, the park features Flight of the Hippogriff, a tamer coaster that wends through the Hogwarts grounds and past Hagrid’s hut. Riders sit in a wicker-like car that’s fronted by a Hippogriff-head of sorts.

The park’s tour-de-force ride, though, is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which takes place inside the Hogwarts castle.

Hoggy warty Hogwarts!

The castle itself – and the line for the ride – is a major attraction; Universal did a truly amazing job recreating key rooms from Hogwarts, from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to Dumbledore’s office. Packed with magical objects and paraphernalia, the attention to detail is incredible. I could’ve spent hours just oohing and aahing and exclaiming over everything.

House points… looks like Gryffindor’s in the lead!

The moving portraits might have been my absolute favorite detail, however. One whole room of Hogwarts, one tall, narrow, glorious room, is filled with a haphazardly-placed array of portraits, pictures of wizards and witches and magical folk. Just like in the books, they really and truly resemble oil paintings – there’s that same sort of crackly gloss to them. But they move! The characters move and talk and interact and jump from one frame to another. I think I loved them so much because their styles were so varied, as if this was really a collection of paintings that started centuries ago and that current inhabitants kept expanding. It was, in a word, enchanting.

‘s magic.

And the ride itself? Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is easily – easily – one of the best theme park rides I’ve ever experienced. I don’t say that lightly, either; I’m a bit of a roller coaster enthusiast and a ride junkie, but this is hands down in my top three. It’s a little difficult to describe the type of ride this is; the story is that you’re invited to a Quidditch match, but you have to sneak in, so Hermione enchants a school bench to fly you there. Once you’re seated in the bench, the ride begins in earnest. The bench itself seems to move around on some sort of gigantic robotic arm, twisting you and turning you and jostling you around as you fly through a Quidditch pitch (“Showing off again for your muggle admirers, Potter?” Draco sneers) and dodge Dementors in the Forbidden Forest. The ride uses a combination of video screens and animatronics; the Whomping Willow that nearly knocks your bench off course is a three-dimensional moving object, while the swooping scenes of water as you fly over a lake are obviously shown on a huge screen that surrounds you and gives you the sensation of being there. The bench’s movements are perfectly synchronized with what you see, so when you dive off a cliff towards the water, the bench drops and so does your stomach. It’s truly incredible. And although the lines can be long – 90 minutes! – my family lucked out on one mildly rainy night when we practically walked right on… three times in a row. :)

And if that harrowing journey leaves you hungry, the Three Broomsticks is waiting with authentic Potter-esque fare. While the menu isn’t extremely vegan-friendly, I managed to piece together a decent meal of corn on the cob and potatoes and salad when my family ate there one night.

Nom?

Adjacent to the Three Broomsticks is the Hog’s Head pub, where you can grab a cider or a pint of the Hog’s Head home brew. I tried a sip of my brother’s, and it was quite tasty! If you’re not up for alcohol, the pumpkin juice is a ridiculously delicious alternative. Perfectly pumpkin-y and superbly spiced, the juice tastes best when ice cold – perfect for a hot day in Hogsmeade. The pumpkin juice avoids tasting like pureed pumpkin pie; instead, it combines a few different fruit juices (pumpkin, apricot) with the perfect amount of complementary spices to create a unique flavor that’s surprisingly addictive. I’m definitely planning on trying to recreate it at home! But – of course – pumpkin juice isn’t the star beverage…

Drink of champions.

…nope, that would be the ubiquitous butterbeer! Served either warm or cold, you can get a glass of this beverage nearly anywhere in the park. Butterbeer jockeys pour it from a cart in the middle of the street while bartenders serve up sloshing glasses in the pub, glasses filled to the brim with the caramel-colored beverage and topped with a thick, foamy head. I’d read up on butterbeer before heading to the park, and because others described it as tasting like cream soda and sugar and butter, I assumed it wasn’t vegan-friendly. The day after I left, though, I got a text from my sister saying, “The butterbeer’s nondairy!” Serves me right for not asking! In any case, my family described it as almost overwhelmingly sweet and creamy, perfect if you’ve got a major sweet tooth. (Note: I can’t confirm that “nondairy” means vegan; I’ve also heard it has whey in it.)

What else can I say? I loved this place. I felt like a five-year-old again, I was so excited to be there. If you’re a Harry Potter fan, it’s probably the closest you’ll get to ever living in his wonderful, magical world!

K-k-k-kale!

/ Kelly / 3 Comments

Holy green goodness, Batman!

Oh, what’s that, you ask? Oh, y’know… just a giant bowl of organic kale that I just HARVESTED FROM MY GARDEN. No big deal.

JK, it *is* a big deal – it’s my first harvest of the season! And I did it at 8:30 at night!! It’s totally worth the 8,639 mosquito bites I sustained in the process!!! Totally, totally worth it.

My work offers garden plots for free to employees, since our company owns 500+ acres in semi-rural Wisconsin. The garden is organic – no nasty pesticides allowed. The kale is one of only two plants I didn’t start from seed; when I saw organic kale plants for sale at the farmers’ market a few months ago, I couldn’t resist. And it’s doing well, as you can see! I look forward to a summer full of green monsters. :)

I haven’t been blog-absent because I’ve been diligently working in my garden, though. I actually spent last week at the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park (along with Universal + Disney) with my family as a semi-surprise belated 30th anniversary gift to my parents. It was FREAKING AWESOME and totally magical. If only I could really live at Hogwarts. Siiigh.

I’ll post some geektastic photos later, but I’m not sticking around too long – tomorrow I’m hoppin’ a plane for Austin, Texas for a weekend mini-reunion with some of my best friends from college. We graduated a year ago – it’s insane! It’s going to be great to catch up with everyone and pretend we’re young again. :)

Has anybody else been anywhere fun lately?

Chocolate-Covered Baby Balls [Or, Multiple Weeks’ Worth of Food, Mostly Dessert]

/ Kelly / 1 Comment

Okay, I swear this post isn’t a chocoholic pedophile’s fantasy (I feel gross just saying that)! Hear me out and I’ll explain – it’ll be worth the wait, I promise!

Tonight I had the most satisfying, amaaazing, and simple dinner ever. My hungry belly loved this meal!

Hello, summer deliciousness!

I channeled Angela‘s hot-over-cold approach to dinner with this dish, and I was surprisingly delighted by the result. I sauteed a yellow zucchini, some spinach, chard, and spring onions and piled that on top of a bed of a cold Southwestern Black Bean, Corn, and Quinoa salad I whipped up a few nights ago. Paired with lots of raw sugar snap peas and hummus, this meal screamed “SUMMER!” to me, especially since the veggies came straight from my CSA share. My roommate and I have a half-share (every other week) from a local organic farm, and they deliver the boxes straight to our work. It’s pretty much the most convenient thing ever! I didn’t get a chance to photograph this week’s haul since my roomie picked up the share, but here’s last week’s deliciousness:

First share o' the year!

That box included arugula, broccoli, cilantro, garlic scapes, head lettuce, kohlrabi, radish, Red Russian kale, salad mix, spinach, and strawberries. Holy freshness, Batman!

Anyway, after tonight’s dinner, I desperately wanted something sweet to round out my fabulous meal. Too bad I didn’t have any chocolate-covered baby balls left!

Oh, my.

Yeah, I know that photo is grainy, ugly-colored, and badly composed, not to mention a little nauseating. But its subject is so damn delicious that I’m posting it anyway. A chocolate-covered baby ball, you see, is born when two awesome bloggers’ recipes collide; more specifically, when Averie’s No-Bake Vegan Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls take a dip in Katie’s Pseudo Magic Shell. This chocolate covered hunk o’ peanut butter is a totally Katie-inspired dessert, hence the “baby” in its name. :)

Unfortunately, though, I didn’t have any baby balls left for dessert tonight. Nor did I have its flattened cousin:

Mmmffff.

Yep, that’s essentially a homemade peanut butter cup comprised of the same ingredients as the baby balls. Freakin’ amazing. ‘Nough said.

So without baby balls or peanut butter cups ready for my sweet tooth, what could I eat for dessert tonight? Not these cupcakes, sadly:

Multicolored brethren.

I made these for my roomie’s birthday last week. Using some VCTOTW recipes as a base, I made Peanut Butter Cupcakes with chocolate frosting aaand Mint Chocolate Cupcakes with vanilla frosting. The vanilla frosting is dotted with – get this – accidentally!vegan mint chocolate chips I discovered at Woodman’s recently. Score!

Sadly, though, those cuppers are no more. I considered devouring the only fruit from today’s CSA share…

(Okay, this photo is from our first share, but whatever!)

…but decided to save them for tomorrow. Instead, I went with a perfect dessert for a hot day – banana soft serve, of course!

Very soft serve.

It was a little more soup than soft serve, but that didn’t detract from its cool deliciousness. I made Averie’s vanilla variation, and used maple syrup for a sweetener, and it was almost too sweet! Now that I’m the ripe old age of 23, I find myself much less able to tolerate eXtReMe sweetness. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing!

So – that’s pretty much a summary of the foodie happenings in my life lately. What’s the most delicious thing you’ve eaten recently?

Simple Saturday Sandwich

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

Hey-o! This poor ol’ blog is a bit dusty. I have tons of food pics from the last couple of weeks in iPhoto just waitin’ for their moment in the spotlight, but instead I’m just gonna post one from today. :)

Why, yes, I frequently put my plate on the living room floor... cough, cough.

That right tharrr is my Saturday lunch. Inspired by this Voracious Vegan post re: delicious marinated tofu, I whipped up a similar marinade of my own (lemon juice + soy sauce + a bit o’ balsamic vinegar + a small glug of olive oil + Bragg’s + a dash of curry powder). After letting a couple of pre-pressed tofu slices soak up that liquid for half an hour, I cooked ’em up and then made a simple sandwich of tofu + a tiny bit of Vegenaise (which I very rarely use) + ARUGULA FROM MY GARDEN. First harvest of the season, woo! With a side of carrot sticks and TJ’s tomato-basil hummus*, this made a delightful summer Saturday lunch, and the bottle of Fat Squirrel was the perfect accompaniment. Oh, Wisconsin, I love you and your local, vegan-friendly breweries!

*Kinda not a fan of this hummus. I usually prefer hummus of the simple garlic type, but sometimes I forget that and get distracted by the idea of more exciting hummus. Next time I will put on my blinders and make a beeline for the straight-up chickpeas + tahini + garlic variety.

Anybody else have a simple yet delicious Saturday meal?

BUI: Baking Under the Influence (…of the internetz)

/ Kelly / 5 Comments

This is a cautionary tale, folks, a warning for those of you who sometimes feel an urge to bake but can’t drag yourselves away from the internerdz while doing so. You’ve got the recipe open on one tab, Gmail on another, Google Reader on a third, Jezebel on the next, and the PPK on yet another. Your iTunes is blasting some ridiculous and probably embarrassing tunes, and maybe you’re trying to keep up a Gchat conversation simultaneously. This is worse than drunk!baking, people. It’s distracted baking, and – much like texting while driving* – it can have Serious Consequences.

Sometimes, baking while under the influence of the INTERNETZZZ!!!11!1!!! can cause you to do things that make you seriously question your intelligence… or at least your ability to perform the simplest of tasks. Graduating magna cum laude with distinction in my major from a top college? No sweat; I can pull that off in my sleep. But reading a recipe? That’s beyond me. Somewhere between the [super embarassing] S Club 7 music video I watched on YouTube and the irritated e-mail I fired off to my best friend, I misread 1/4 tsp as 1/4 cup. Yeah. And the ingredient in question? Blackstrap molasses.

And the most embarrassing bit – the bit I very nearly decided to omit from this post – is that it took me an obscenely long time to realize my error. It wasn’t ’til I’d combined the wet and dry ingredients and was wondering why the result was more batter than dough that I figured something was wrong. And then – suddenly – I thought, “Hey… chocolate chip cookie dough isn’t s’posed to be brown.” Y’think?

So – let’s just say that my chocolate chip cookies quickly morphed into chocolate chip-molasses cookies. The good news? Dreena’s recipe can stand up to even this assault of stupidity; they were still surprisingly delicious, if a little too sweet, given the inclusion of maple syrup + sugar + way too much molasses.

Somethin' just ain't right.

I’d just like to try and recoup a meager 2% of my Baking Legitimacy by saying that this fiasco was caused because I was baking for the end results. When I bake for the sake of baking, I treat each step in a recipe with love and care, tenderly measuring flour and leveling the top of my measuring cups with a knife to ensure precision. I use my best Pampered Chef spatula to scrape the sides of a bowl, making sure no speck of flour goes unmixed. But baking for the end results is a much more slapdash experience, a mad rush of pouring and distracted stirring wherein all I care about is the finished product (and maybe a few spoonfuls of batter along the way). I’m disconnected from the end product and the recipe on the page; I’m pouring and mixing and measuring individual ingredients without thinking about how they’ll work together as a whole. It’s bad juju, man.

So, in conclusion – focus on your baking! That series of tubes might be super distracting, but don’t let it distract you so much that you commit a baking mistake that would make Betty Crocker cry and shun you from her kitchen forever.

*Plz don’t text while driving. It’s stupid and irresponsible. Guess what? In the olden days, people couldn’t even talk on the phone while driving – and they survived! You can wait 10 minutes to text your bff about the slowpoke old lady doing 25 in a 55 MPH zone. Trust.

Mashin’ on Memorial Day Weekend

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

When I was a kid, I never understood why adults got so excited about three-day weekends. Sure, having a day off from school was great, but I certainly didn’t look forward to it for weeks ahead of time. That may have been because I was an incurable nerd who hated missing school, but we don’t have to talk about that. The point is, now that I’m a Working Adult With a Real Job, I get it. This Memorial Day weekend? I’ve been waiting for it since Easter. And after this Friday – which was easily the most stressful day I’ve had since beginning work in December – it was like a gift from above. Three-day weekend? Bring it, baby!

To celebrate, my roommate and I went to the west side farmers’ market yesterday, and then headed to Bratfest before spending the evening chilling by Lake Monona and walking around downtown. Yeah, you heard that right – the vegan went to Bratfest, a quintessentially Wisconsin celebration of gluttonous pigging out on brats. While I may not particularly approve of that behavior, all the proceeds go to charity *and* they have vegan brats. So I decided to take part as a cultural experience. I certainly feel more like a Wisconsinite now, and really, it wasn’t that bad – there was live music and carnival-type food and a really fantastic atmosphere. Much better than I’d expected!

My lunch today was also much better than I’d expected. I whipped up the Chickpea Mash from Toni Fiore’s Totally Vegetarian, a cookbook I won a while back but haven’t used that much. But I wanted something light that would showcase the amazing Country Sourdough bread I picked up at the farmers’ market, and this simple, filling mash totally did the trick.

Mashity-mash.

Paired with a massaged kale salad and a few pickles, this was a delicious, simple summer lunch. The mash is not overly seasoned, but you could definitely doctor it up to meet your personal tastes. It’d work great either warm or cold, too. And the local, organic kale and tomatoes – also from the market – shone in the salad; you really can’t beat fresh, juicy tomatoes when you want something that screams “SUMMER APPROACHETH!” …cuz my tomatoes are Shakespearean, obviously.

Happy Memorial Day, American friends! Enjoy the three-day weekend (if you’re lucky enough to have one) but – as trite as it sounds – don’t forget to remember you have the day off in the first place.

First Times: Karyn’s Cooked

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

I had three big firsts a couple weeks ago – I am now no longer an eating-at-a-wholly-vegan-restaurant/eating-alone-at-a-restaurant/photographing-food-at-a-restaurant virgin! This is Big News.

(A warning – this is a lengthy post. Feel free to skip to the photo, cuz that’s where I actually start talking about things that are remotely interesting.)

I spent three and a half days in Chicago for work, and after suffering through some less-than-stellar meals with coworkers and at the customer site, I ventured to Karyn’s Cooked on my second to last night in the Windy City. It’s funny – I’ve always considered myself the type of person who’d be more than comfortable eating alone, but as I walked the three quarters of a mile from my hotel to Karyn’s, I realized that this was about to be my first such experience. It was also the first time I’d eaten at a restaurant that’s self-described as vegan – the Green Owl in Madison and the Garden Grille back in RI both feature lots of vegan options, but they mostly promote themselves as being vegetarian, not vegan. Needless to say, when I realized that Karyn’s Cooked was so close to my hotel, you can bet your pretty vegan butt I wasn’t going to pass up the opporunity to dine on gourmet vegan fare in a classy establishment.

And I needed it, too. For one, my trip was actually a big let-down. I’m a writer at my company, but I went on this trip as a “learner;” officially it was an “immersion trip” for me. But there was actually nothing in which I could immerse myself, because there was nothing for me to do. I halfheartedly tried to help one customer who was working on some documentation, but she didn’t actually need much help. Sigh.

And then there was the unfortunate food situation. On my first night in the city, I accompanied a couple of coworkers to dinner at a Chicago-style pizza joint. After learning that their marinara sauce contained cheese, I begrudgingly fell back on that most clichéd of vegan meals, the house salad. Snore. While nothing to write home about, the salad was at least decently sized and filled me up pretty well, especially since we ate a late dinner.

I lucked out the next day at lunch, when the catered meal at our customer site feature make-your-own tacos. Between the rice and the veggies, I managed to get a fairly satisfying meal, although the vegetables were kind of odd for tacos – carrots and cauliflower?! Whatevs; I’m a cauli fan! The salad, unfortunately, contained bacon, which is super lame. Boo to that.

Dinner that night had potential – I met up with some Chicago pals and we headed to Flat Top Grill, a local-ish choose-your-own-adventure style stir fry chain. It’s supposed to be very allergen and dietery restriction friendly, with a separate cooking space for people who want it. One of my friends, L., has severe nut allergies, so she and I both marked our bowl of stir fry ingredients with a white stick to indicate that we wanted our meals cooked separately. When our bowls arrived, all seemed well, and we hungrily dug in. And then I discovered something white, flaky, and horrifyingly fish-like in my bowl. Umm. Both L. and my other friend had fish, so I wasn’t sure where it came from, but when L. discovered some edamame in her stir fry, we realized that the edamame had come from my bowl of ingredients and my fish from hers. So, it became apparent that any bowls marked for separate cooking are actually cooked together – because cross-contamination couldn’t possibly be a problem between people with allergies, right?! Everyone’s allergic to the same things! …yeah. It’s a good thing I didn’t include peanut sauce in my bowl, or the night could’ve taken a turn for the dramatic. What the eff, Flat Top. Anyway, aside from the fish, my stir fry was pretty unexeptional, but I think that’s probably because I couldn’t resist the temptation to add seitan, tempeh, *and* tofu, and my flavors were just out of control. Ah well – at least the company was good. :)

Lunch at the customer site the next day was pizza, but luckily another coworker dislikes pizza and asked if I wanted to go elsewhere for lunch. We headed over to the French Market, which – and I quote – “[f]eatur[es] dozens of individual vendors in an authentic market environment.” I settled on a wrap called the Vegetarian, from Saigon Sisters, and it totally surpassed my admittedly low expectations – the combination of teriyaki tofu, roasted red peppers, thinly-sliced cucumbers and cilantro was ridiculously tasty.

However, the dinner I had that night at Karyn’s was even more ridiculously tasty. At the restaurant, I opted to sit right in front of the window, facing the street. I felt a little odd sitting there alone (especially when the waiter poured water for me and for the glass at the seat next to me, heh), but I wanted to people-watch. The restaurant itself felt warm and welcoming, classy yet not at all snobby. The waiters were perfectly friendly, which is always nice. When it came time to order, I perused the menu for way too long, drooling over the choices. I considered getting the raw dish, but I figured I’d save that for the next time I ate at Karen’s Raw. :) Eventually, I settled on a dish that is sort of out-of-character for me: the flautas. Here’s the description:

A tofu and carrot mix stuffed inside a corn tortilla and fried to perfection. Topped with a soy version of sour cream and a healthy scoop of homemade guacamole. Complimented with a bed of pico de gallo, mixed greens and refried black beans.

I’m not a huge fried food fan, and I don’t think I’ve ever had flautas before, but for some reason the thought of guacamole, pico de gallo, and crispy corn tortillas called to me. And, oh, I’m so glad it did.

Flautas, flaunting their fl...a... I got nothin'.

This was so freakin’ yummy. The flautas were not overly greasy, which I appreciated. I found the filling tasty and satisfying without being heavy, which – again – I appreciated. The soy sour cream was runny and didn’t add too much to the dish, but the guacamole… oh, the guacamole. It was perfection on my tongue, a perfect blend of velvety smoothness and small, soft bits of avocado. Between the guacamole, the pico de gallo, and the tasty green sauce, every bite was different as I mixed up the flavors. Even the refried beans were special, smoother and creamier than any refried beans I’ve had previously. I polished off this entire dish with no trouble whatsoever, which is a rarity for me – I can usually count on getting at least two meals out of any entree I order in a restaurant.

Then, I got dessert. I ordered the raw carob-mint cake, and got it to go so I could have a snack later on. I felt a little bad about getting dessert, since I’d be submitting my receipts to payroll to get reimbursed by my company (and the company, ultimately, by the customer), but then I thought about how my coworkers talk about taking customers to steakhouses and easily spending $30 a head, and I felt a whole lot less guilty.

Later that night, after working out in the exercise room on the 27th floor of my hotel (!), I broke out the cake and dug in. It looked like an enormous brownie, really, and for $6 it was a pretty good deal – I’ve seen tiny slices of raw cheesecake or the like go for much more. And, oh my gosh, this was so good. It was your standard date-nut-carob blend, but the mint and the creamy frosting took it over the edge. I’m a sucker for anything with the chocolate+mint flavor profile, what can I say. I fully intended to save some of my cake for the next day, but then… I ate it all. And I did not regret it, not one bit (although I will say that my tummy felt a little unhappy the next morning).

So, Karyn’s Cooked? Two enthusiastic thumbs way up. I’m quite happy I got to offset a rather boring on-site experience with a rather amazing gastronomical one, and I’m also happy that I have – finally! – conquered my fears and taken a food-photograph in a restaurant. Double win!

Purple + orange = green.

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

Remember preschool, when you learned about adding one color to another to make yet a third? It was pretty damn magical when you could mix red paint and blue paint and get a lovely shade of purple (or, um, poo-brown, if you were bad with proportions). Tonight I learned another color combination: purply blue + orange = green.

Craptastic stovetop photos ftw!

Yeah, you always thought green came from blue and yellow. WRONG, suckas! I don’t know if that picture quite conveys the vivid green that my water turned as I boiled up potatoes in preparation for dinner, but let me tell you – when I drained that pot, the water was green as the Grinch. Craziness.

Last week at the Madison farmer’s market I made some fun purchases: a crusty, satisfying loaf of spelt bread, a jar of cherry-rhubarb jam, and a kale plant for my garden plot at work (!). But I was most excited to discover organic blue potatoes (really more purple than blue), a variety of tater I’d read about but never personally eaten. I purchased three but didn’t use them ’til tonight, when I boiled up two blue potatoes and one sweet potato before sauteeing that shizz up to make a surprisingly wonderful potato hash.

I want to eat this photo.

Perhaps it’s not the most beautiful creation, but this was one of the most satisfying dishes I’ve had in a week or so, and that’s sayin’ something – I’ve had some pretty darn good food lately. It was so simple, too – I sauteed up some garlic and some onion flakes (in lieu of real onions; I inherited onion flakes from our college house’s pantry last year and always sneered at them until I had need of them tonight). With a little salt, pepper, and cayenne, this was so delicious. The blue potatoes were tastier and less starchy than your average Idaho, and the organic sweet potatoes were truly heavenly. And all those little burnt bits from the bottom of the pan? Freakin’ amazing.

Maybe I’m a cretin for covering this heavenly hash (heh heh) with ketchup, but I love Muir Glen’s organic ketchup alongside potatoes… such a fantastic flavor juxtaposition. It took a whole lotta willpower to save some of this hash, but I thought I might appreciate it for breakfast in the morn. Rest assured, I’ll devour those leftovers without hesitation tomorrow morning before a busy day of thrift-couch-shopping. Yeehaw!

So, what is your favorite naturally fun-colored food?

Beer & Cookies

/ Kelly / 3 Comments

A confession: I shunned beer for the first 21.5 years of my life. I didn’t drink at all for the first couple years of college, and then when I dipped my toes into the wild world of alcohol, my exposure to beer was limited to sipping cans of Milwaukee’s Best and then discreetly leaving them on a dresser in the middle of a packed room before slipping out of some awful party a friend had coerced me into attending. I wasn’t a partier by any means, but every so often I’d try to force myself into enjoying myself at such a gathering, only to be reminded that they just weren’t my thaaang. Whatevs, man. I made my own kind of fun, and it did not involve beer.

It wasn’t until I spent a summer studying abroad in Ireland and discovered the joys of Guinness that I discovered that beer could be downright tasty! Now that I’ve veeegan, I no longer partake of that Irish staple (sadface!), but I now consider myself a fan of [good] beer. I went from barely being able to stomach half a can of  Budweiser in the first week of my senior year of college to truly enjoying a pitcher of Smithwicks (also not vegan, lamepants!) or a bottle of Corona by the time I graduated. I appreciate the finer things in life, what can I say?

And by “the finer things,” I obviously mean baking chocolate chip cookies at 9:00 o’clock on a Friday night while drinking a locally-brewed beer and dancing around in my sports bra while listening to Lady Gaga. This is truth, folks. My roommate’s on a trip for work (I went on one last week too! More about that later.), so I have the apartment to myself. Clearly this means I need semi-nude solo dance parties.

So after my workout last night, I decided to try my hand at another chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tried one back during Vegan MoFo and was less than thrilled, so I thought maybe the PPK would come through for me. Isa’s like a vegan goddess or something, right? And this was an occasion where the vegan stars aligned and I had all the exact ingredients for this recipe. Usually I haphazardly substitute milks and starches liek whoa, but I recently picked up a bag of tapioca starch from Woodman’s, and almond milk is my alt-milk du jour, so I pretty much followed this recipe to a T (although I did cut down on the amount of oil, and the dough seemed perfect). So – results?

Me want coooookies!

These are better than the VegWeb variety (though, admittedly, it’s been 6 months since I tried them), but again, I don’t think they’re my chocolate chip cookie holy grail. They are pretty damn tasty, though, and the dough was a treat to scrape off the bowl. I’d definitely make these again, but I think I’m still in search of my end-all, be-all of vegan chocolate chip cookie recipes. Anybody have a suggestion?

As for the local beer that accompanied the baking of these cookies, well, I tried New Glarus’ Spotted Cow ale. Honestly, I was underwhelmed, but I think this is because I generally don’t enjoy beers that are light in color. And no, I am not a beer connoiseur, so “light in color” is the  most description you’ll get from me! I tried Capital Brewery’s Maibock recently, and it’s freakin’ delicious. It’s their seasonal brew, and I absolutely loved it. I think I prefer heartier, maltier beers with less of a foamy head than the Spotted Cow variety. New Glarus Brewery, however, is very vegan friendly, so I’ll have to give some of their other varieties a fair chance before I swear it off entirely.

Even though the beer and the cookies slightly underwhelmed me, I’m not gonna lie – my Friday night was a freakin’ awesome night. Tipsy one-person dance parties, Lady Gaga, and cookies? Hell to the YEAH.

WHOA UPDATE, DUDES. I wrote this post last night, but guess what? These cookies are FANFREAKINGTASTIC the next day! They’re chewy and sweet and generally AWESOME. Maybe they are my holy grail. Whoaaa.

Oh, and also? I tried some Thai iced bubble tea for the first time today at the Madison farmer’s market, only to discover just now that it contained milk. I guess it did seem a little cloudy, but I never thought that iced tea would have milk in it! I am super ignorant, apparently. And also super upset at myself. :( Sigh.