Soda Pop

Never been a fan of fruit soda's. Grape, orange, strawberry, what have you. They just don't taste right. Its just an excuse to drink sugar fizz. Its grape flavor! That makes it all better!
Straight carbonated water has never been dear to me either. Its dry bubbles just highlight the sodium content making it taste somewhat salty, which in this case I find unappetizing. I'm working on it, but I've yet to be able to develop a taste for it.

The fix for both, Izze, naturally flavored blends of fruit juice with sparkling water. Each bottle counts for one full serving of fruit, and with no added sugar or artificial flavorings they show up your average grape and orange soda. They have a very fine fizz. Combining it with the zip of the fruit juice, its a very bright compliment. The fine misty smoke as you open a cool bottle, and the zing each time I take a sip... And I do sip it. Takes me about a day to drink one if I take my time, leaving it in the fridge between tastes. My reacurring favorite is their Clementine flavor. Carbonated orange juice that tastes like orange juice. Eureka! Pictured here is their pomegranate flavor.

Their lite versions use a 90:10 split carbonated water to juice ration in place of the 70:30 in regular. They're very similar to straight carbonated water, but with just a hint of flavor and sweetness to nock out that salty aftertaste.

Cheers!

Pea Soup and Crap Chowder

Soups have been slipping one by one into my kitchen. They have done this a total of twice. No big feat... but I share.


I was bedazzled by a bag of green split peas in the grocery store. As I was admiring their uniform green plasticine sheen, I realized I had never partaken of split pea soup. Much like lentil soup, pea soup gets a pretty bad wrap for its appearance. As Jordan describes his family's version "It looks just like cartoon vomit." Sounds appetizing of course, but both lentils and peas are so healthy, packing a ton of fiber and protein with no fat and hardly any carbohydrates. And both are relatively cheap... And I had to try it some day.

I set about searching for a recipe with vanity in mind. I searched images of pea soup. The most hideous looking (though still delicious sounding) recipes contained cubes of ham and carrots and various bits and chunks. The prettiest of all were made with fresh peas looking wonderfully vibrant, and an interesting cold soup using frozen peas. Of the prettiest dried versions the most fashionable had little besides peas and onions. A pretty greep puree with a dollop of cream (mentally added) puddled in a shallow bowl caught my eye. Turns out it's Emril Lagasse's recipe.

Under the surprisingly eager eyes of both my little siblings, I prepared the soup mostly by the recipe. I cautioned them that pea soup was not very popular. Though it was a wonderfully healty and even delicious soup, people were mean to it because it doesn't look very pretty. They were caught by the drama, and as a result ask me its status every 5 minutes through the process. They both enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. My parents did as well. A definite success. Sadly we forgot about the leftovers and they perished. A moment of silence...

Moving on, the latest soup has no photo's, but was tasty. A combination of bacon, clams potatoes, and cream along with some other integeral ingredients comprised a wonderful clam chowder. Though dubbed far before its completion "Crap Chowder" by my eagerly sarcastic brother, the children did try some. It had a lot of clams, so I don't begrudge them their ample leftovers. They did praise its flavor however. Which I thought a total plus.

Another Strike Of Pie Day

I have taken it into my head, as is oft my want, to practice my art of cookery in my ample spare time. Being returned to my native kitchen, I am much obliged to begin said practice. I started small. A batch of oatmeal nut cookies with a small amount of chocolate and no raisins. A day later, I followed with another batch of cookies, to replenish the first, and a batch of 6 loaves of bread. It was a take on an AllRecipes for so called Fabulous Homemade Bread. I replaced half the bread flour with whole wheat flour for that extra fiber, I mean, texture boost.


At anyrate, the bread was pretty fine. I baked two loaves and froze the rest in the form of two more loaves and a batch of rolls. They should be good later. Other than the shape laking a bit of height, the bread was perfect. Very light and tasty.


But I digress. We are not here for the bread. We are here for pie. I took a class on it a while back, and have been meaning to work on my skills for a while now. So I made a couple batches of crust. To practice see. All of a sudded I had a fridge with 4 pie crusts resting within! Whats a girl to do? Bake some pie, of course, but what variety? Going with what had on hand I grabbed a bag of frozen blueberries. As life usually goes the berries were all shriveled and yucky, so I had to go to the store anyway. And so with some wingin-it skills, and two bags of berries I came up with this.


Two-Berry Pie
1lb- Frozen Blueberries
1lb- Frozen Raspberries
1 double pie crust batch
1/2 C sugar or so
1-2T corn startch
I rolled out the crust in the pie dish brushed it with a beaten and left it in the fridge.
While I mixed the sugar and corn starch and tossed it with the berries.
I poured the dusted berries into the crust, dabbed some butter about it, and topped it with the other crust. I formed it up, then brushed it with more of the beaten egg, sprinkled granulated and turbinado sugar on it and popped it into a 400 degree oven for 15 or 20 minutes till it started to brown, then I dropped it down to 350 and cooked it for about 40 minutes or so till it was hot and the crusts looked done, covering it halway through with tinfoil so it wouldn't burn.

Did I stress the wingin-it bit?

It turned out wonderfully. Eating the whole thing amongst the 5 of us within 3 hours, the pie claimed an average of 2 slices per person (two children included here). And I'm telling you we aren't big on the baked fruit thing. Or even the pie thing... But it was good.

Soo goood.

Bursting

I've been reading. Reading, in fact, to the point of being all read out (for the time being). I followed this with video game playing. I skipped on past the video-gamed-out point a few days after that. To follow up I anime-ed-out myself in the last few days, and I seem to be moving on to cooking.
If the pattern continues I shall be somewhat cooked-out in a few days(allowing a few extra to account for extreme cooking stamina I've built up over the years). I can hope the next activity will put an end to the pressure. You see I've been building up quite a bit of creative potential in my weeks of frivolity. I should hope I will be able to write something. Be it a wondermous blog or a fantastical story. Either would bring much sunshine to my heart.

Can't Can Help?

How many times...
in your day is can't said?

How many times...
do you say "you can't"?

How many times...
do you think "I can't"?

How many times
does "can't" need to be said?

How many times...
do you need to hear 'you can' before you believe it?

How many times...
will you tell someone they can?


Its not just a word. Its a feeling. A numbing admittance. You thought you could, but you can't.

With the nonchalance of shooing a fly new ideas and young hopes are batted away. How often I say or think, "except you can't".

You can't do a triple back flip and kick the robber in the face, before hand springing onto your bike and pedaling away at the speed of light.

Maybe you can't... but who am I to put "can't" in your head?

So many things I write off as "I thought I could, but I really can't". What other conclusion could I draw, having no evidence of my ability to do said feat? Being thus put down by myself, I then assign others the same inability. What has changed since I thought that I could? My perception.

Its been too long since I thought I could. I must have been mistaken. That Can is too old. That means it's a Can't.

Yet I realize.

"Can" only has the shelf life you assign it. You can... you just maybe haven't yet. >.O

-_\\\ *angst*

Leek is a wonderful vegetable. Most especially when you have bunches and bunches of very well grown, young, white, tender, delicious leeks. I am biased when I say my favorite way to eat them is Au Gratin. I have only ever eaten them Au Gratin. They are wonderful. A nice leek soup might be good someday... but au gratin is fine with me.

There’s neither an art or a science to bad days. They are a mysticism of their own. To define them, to cause them, or to cure them, I am at a loss. Recent experiences have only left me increasingly confused. Every day this summer has tried its best to start off terribly. Lack of sleep is a prime suspect, as is oversleep. Both culprits played their cards Saturday and Sunday respectively.

Saturday -

Waking up early, but not early enough, Saturday I proceeded to be rushed. I fly out the door to a van of irritated waiting people. We rush to the wedding and realize my zipper has come off track. I’m open from shoulder to the small of my back – were the zipper wedges itself – down to my skivvies. Weddings these days frown on nudity. I drop them off and drive home. Terrible so far yes. I pick them up and take them to the lunch. I go home again, but now with a mission. There is a farmer’s market in the park. I have never gone being asleep till noon most summer days. I’m a foodie who has never graced a farmer’s market. Hardly a foodie at all! I hop in my roasty car and go. I inwardly hoorah. It isn’t closed yet. I’ve made it on time… the day continues. My alone time gives me a bit of calm and serenity. I drop by my house to drop off my goods. Seven leeks for all of $3, a quart of blueberries for the same, two peaches, for a dollar more, and a pot of mascarpone from Bella’s a total of 30 cents fewer than it actually cost. After scrounging in the car for loose change the cashier sold it to me for what I had.

Sunday -

The day proceeded to a miraculous finish. Fulfilling some obligation to the community theatre, I help set up set. I scamper home, toss together dinner for my swimming familia, and head out the door to the town next over with my suitor and his family. We eat dinner and this posh eatery with wonderful food. When the waitress speaks of the ingredients complimenting each other, and food interactions (the herbed butter melts on the filet making a divine sauce) it should be pretty good. And then we hie to a Shakespeare play. Get back in time to catch a movie with my family, and go to bed happy, albiet late. I wrote another blog see.
Sunday’s curse of oversleep proved harder to throw. If I were not already a suspect for the bad day, my mother was. She rules a large part of the mood in the house. Just when I’d get myself awake enough to feel good she’d be showing her own temper and trigger mine again. I took turns being at peace with the world and myself - to door slamming, sibling thumping, pony stomping frustrated anger. The highlights – dancing the kitchen clean with my Zune, my leeks au gratin prep, and my 40 minute run while it baked. Alone time can feel so good sometimes.

In short, bad days are terrible to throw. Leeks are a wonderful vegetable. And I have only ever eaten them au gratin a total of three times.

Good days to you.

Documento

Oprah is like another Mecca. Whether knowingly or not, people bow to her. She cultivates inspiration, aspiring change, and sucess. You can see it pool and flow around her. She has the wealth to irrigate fertile ideas and invest in potential. As amazing as it is to see her tend her gardens, more intriguing still are the bits and pieces of greenery sprouting up volunteer around her them. The woman draws ideas to her like ravines draw run-off.

Arriving home from work I always miss her show. What I'm finding is her website holds great content much more frequently. I could care less about Tom Cruise jumping around, or Chalize Therun believing wrinkles are the best. You don't always get specials about her amazing school in Africa or self help survival stories. On her website however - if you can find it - there is some wonderful content. I would post several examples, but my search techniques have only yeilded one.

An end to the the set up. What put me on the subject is this article. The title "Transition Anxiety" initially repels me from it, but the small intro sentence tacked below it draws me back in. "If you're always running late, carelessness might not be to blame—your perception of time could be the culprit," it reads. Well... that does describe me. I read it. And it does describe me. To a T. So... if you want to get to know me a smidgen better. If you want to know why I tell you to call 15 minutes before anything. Why I'm always late, unless I'm not. Read it.

Transition Anxiety by Martha Beck