My Kitchen Lately

Quinoa cooked in soy milk with fresh cranberries

& of course a big mug of earl grey tea :)

 Vegan Corn Chowder (recipe from Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook)

& Sweet Cornbread (recipe from Vegan Diner)

Vegan Avocado Buttercream Frosting (recipe from Joy the Baker)

Dear Husband To Be,

I want a townhouse.


Can we agree on that?


I don't want a big house on acres and acres of land. It's completely unnecessary to me. I don't need a hot tub or a master bedroom. Hell, I don't even need a big kitchen. I don't need a ton of counter space. As long as I can have a set of copper bottomed stainless steel pans hanging from the ceiling, I'll be happy. I prefer a cozy kitchen. Especially one with beat up wooden counter tops.


I simply need a space where we can be happy together. A space where I can have a small office. It doesn't even have to be a "real" office. A little nook in the living room is fine. I simply want a space where we can watch 90's sitcoms on DVD, cuddled on the couch. A space where we can someday put up a Christmas tree in the corner. I simply need a small dining room, so we can host small dinner parties with friends. A space where we can have dinners for two. I simply want to feel that delicious cold of a hardwood floor as I walk down the hall first thing in the morning. A hall where pictures of us will hang on the walls. I simply need a tiny backyard with a good fence so Eleanor Rigby has a place to play. A yard where we can sit on the back steps with Coronas in the summertime. 


I don't want a big house at all. I just want a home for us.

Homesick

Sometimes, I watch Gossip Girl just to view those shots over looking the city at the beginning of every other scene.

And I'm reminded of why I love New York.

Reminded of that feeling I had the first time I stepped off of a train platform in Grand Central Station.

It was no longer a dream.

I was no longer that little girl who kept a stamp of Lady Liberty next to a New York state quarter and a candle that said, "New York City" on it in a shimmery pink glitter. That little girl who dreamed about "the big city."

The orange lighting. the people. my new subway map. dragging my suitcase on the pavement through Chelsea. that moment when I thought to myself this is home.


I go back to that moment every chance I get.

It was the day after Thanksgiving and I was only seventeen-years-old.

Sometimes, that day feels so far away.

Then, I remind myself, I'm still so young. I still have plenty of time to make it my home.

Tangible & Intangible

"Like most people who love to cook, I like the tangible things. I like the way the knife claps when it meets the cutting board. I like the haze of sweet air that hovers over a hot cake as it sits, cooling, on the counter. I like the way a strip of orange peel looks on an empty plate. But what I like even more are the intangible things: the familiar voices that fall out of the folds of an old cookbook, or the scenes that replay like a film reel across my kitchen wall. When we fall in love with a certain dish, I think that's what we're often responding to: that something else behind the fork or the spoon, the familiar story that food tells."
-Molly Wizenburg, A Homemade Life, p. 2&3

Happy

So...I think I've figured it out.

What I want to do in life.

I know. BIG.

But here it is...

I want to be happy.

And I think I've got a pretty good plan for it.

I want to photograph. And write. And cook. Ideally work at some dream job that allows me to combine all three.

I want to sew. I want to make my own dresses with pretty fabrics...and maybe someday make clothes for my future kiddos.

I want to read. And dance. And watch good movies. And play with my puppy. And travel. Oh, places I want to go!

I want to run a small baking business. Not now, but someday.

Because no matter what I do, what other dreams I chase, I keep coming back to way it feels to roll out a pie crust. I keep coming back to the way my mother and I would sprinkle flour on the counter, plop the sticky dough down, and push with the wooden rolling pin.

I keep coming back to how it feels to drop a cup full of chocolate chips into cookie batter. How it's still fun to lick the beaters as they bake in the oven.

I keep coming back to the beautiful frustration of frosting a cake. How impatient I am when it comes to letting it cool first.

I keep coming back to the smell of adding melted Earth Balance to the beginnings of a graham cracker crust.   How the crackers crunch under the fork and that heavenly scent as it sits in the oven.

I keep coming back to muffins and scones. How they make coffee or tea taste that much better. Especially in the wintertime.

So, I will do these things. And I will be happy.

Oh, Autumn

Remember how I didn't want fall to come?

Yeah, I'm over that.

I am dreaming of apple cider and pumpkin patches. I caught myself baking vegan apple pecan muffins a few days ago. I am dying to photograph the changing leaves and layer up in scarves. I am already craving pumpkin pies and winter squash. And do you know what else is lovely in the fall? Roasted veggies.

The October issue of Whole Living printed a recipe for Roasted Fall Vegetables with Lentils. I took inspiration from it and this is what followed....

Roasted Vegetables with Black Rice

Ingredients:
1 cup of organic black rice (I tend to buy from the bulk section in my local health food store)
2 1/2 cups of water
1 large organic red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 large organic carrot, chopped into two inch pieces resembling homemade matchstick carrots
1/2 medium to large organic red onion, cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1 14 oz can of artichoke hearts, drained
5 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 tsp Dijon mustard
4 tsp apple cider vinegar

1) Place black rice and water into a medium size pot. Bring to a boil and reduce to simmer over low heat for 55-60 min.
2) Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Arrange veggies over two baking sheets and drizzle a tablespoon of the olive oil over each baking sheet and season with salt and pepper (I also think chopped garlic would be good on here too. Feel free to add some). Bake for 20-30 min, rotating once. Keep an eye on the veggies as to not burn the bottoms.
3) In a small bowl whisk together remaining three tablespoons of olive oil, Dijon mustard, and apple cider vinegar.
4) Toss cooked rice, roasted veggies, and dressing together. Enjoy!

Nevermind. I'll Find Someone Like You.

Guess where I found myself this morning.

The quaint coffee shop just off of campus where I sat studying my freshman year of college. The same coffee shop where I started my very first blog.

I needed to be inspired, so I went there. The whole place has been remodeled, but it still has the hardwood floors I dearly loved.

This whole day held an air of memories. It's only the last day of August, but it feels like fall. The moist air, the smell of smoke, and the coffee tastes richer. Coffee always tastes more rich in the fall, doesn't it?

I can't decided if I'm okay with this. Normally, I welcome the start of fall with open arms, and I am excited for it, but this year feels different. Maybe it's because we had such a cold spring and the weather didn't get warm until late June. I just feel like there is still more summer to experience. I'm not quite ready to trade the feel of the sun kissing my bare legs for tights. And I never got around to making a peach pie or cherry tart all summer.

I still wanted to go the amusement park and take a trip to Seattle. But I wanted to do those things with him. And maybe that's why I'm mad at summer's end. When the summer ends I know it'll really feel over.

He will go on with her. I will start my class. I will pour everything I have into my work. I will search for a job and an apartment. Hopefully, buy a new puppy. I will buy tons of kitchen equipment and cook fabulous things all the time. I will finally get around to reading all those Fitzgerald novels on my shelf. I'll explore more of my hobbies, rekindle my love to sew, learn more about wine. I will meet new friends and have plenty of good times with old ones. And slowly, I will do all theses things until one morning I won't be able to feel him anymore. He will be nothing more than a sweet, but vague memory of the man I once loved with every ounce of myself.

It's astonishing how knowledge of this is so heartbreaking and comforting all at once. That I will be able to move past him. I will be able to love somebody else. Yet, loving someone else means I will never love him the same way again. It will be further strained. Broken just a little bit more than it was before.

But I suppose even broken glass is beautiful.

So, rich coffee tasting, smoky, near fall day, maybe you will give way to a beautiful mosaic.

Post title from Adele's "Someone Like You"