So Friday was my birthday. I overdrank and felt like crap Sat., Sun. my dad and his girlfriend came up and took my brother and me to Ecopolitan (my favorite -- raw vegan! -- and I'm so glad they were at least willing to try it). That was healthy. But I've been working a lot lately, which means not so healthy. And it also means really tired from overnights, days, overnights, drinking, etc. SO, today I am low on stuff but also low on energy and don't feel like grocery shopping (hm, couldn't help matters that I had Girlscout cookies for breakfast). I decided to make some pasta with what I have on hand.

I don't anticipate it being very delicious, but I tried. I sauteed some garlic and onion with olive oil and a little balsamic (going for sort of carmelized-like), but I got distracted and overcooked them a bit. Oh well. Added tomato sauce from a can that's been sitting around forever (actually, it's past its due date, I'm living on the edge here), did NOT take the salt already in there into consideration when I added MORE SALT (that's why it might not be good), also added a little sugar, fennel, oregano, sage, hot pepper flakes, some vodka (this is weird, but I figured, Newman's Own Vodka Sauce is really the only jar sauce I like...) more un-sauteed onion (needed more and I like the texture) and some of that pre-roasted garlic from a jar I still need to use up.

Too much salt! Otherwise I guess it's OK so far, in small tastes. It's simmering now. I have a bunch of pastas and decided on whole wheat angel hair.

We'll see...

Oh, and speaking of all that salt, I think I'm becoming sensitized to salt. I'm usually not one to say that -- frankly, I like salt. But since I've been making so much myself, I find stuff too salty a lot now. I got trail mix and almonds during one of my jobs (attempting to be sort of healthy) and they were totally-ass salted. I usually get raw almonds and didn't even realize some trail mix has salt, I guess. Ah well, it's a sign of good things, at least. I added more sugar and spice to my sauce to try to cut the saltiness, so maybe that'll help. Or maybe it'll be an overload of salty-sweet-hotness!

Stir fry! Roasted tofu with sauce that I made last week (about time I ate it!), green beans and bean sprouts. I think I even got the cooking technique down so everything is done right (though it might be faster another way). Pretty good, and much better than I always recall stir fry being when using frozen veggies and pre-made sauce :P I don't have the sauce recipe on me, but it involved garlic, ginger, orange juice, chili powder (or cayenne, can't remember), green onions... Marinated the tofu in it for a few hours, then baked. I don't really like overly squishy tofu, so for the stir-fry, I fried it up first with just sesame oil (reserved the sauce), then steamed the green beans by themselves with a little water, soy sauce, rice wine and roasted garlic from a jar (still gotta use all that old stuff up). Then I added the tofu back in, poured over the tofu's roasting sauce, and added the bean sprouts. Oh, and added a little more soy sauce, garlic and a little sriracha for good measure. It's fun to invent and have it WORK. Helps that the basis, the tofu sauce, was a recipe. Now I have a starting point.

Also, this is relatively easy to eat with chop sticks. I have my good days and bad days with them...

However, I have been spending too much on groceries. Not very much on anything else, but still. So we'll see how long I can keep this all up... I certainly can eat cheaper, if healthiness is less of an issue. Sad state of affairs. Can't wait until summer & the farmers market!

Borscht! Not much to say besides the pic, except it wasn't too hard to make, and people need to give beets a chance. Deliciousness! And very pretty. I should have a soup party and make my yellow squashes soup, my green curry spinach soup and my red/fuscia beet soup. So pretty, and so yummy. My favorite would still have to be the green (not just cauze of the color), but they're all soooo gooooood.

I think I am going to try split pea next. More green!

And in parting, I just want to implore you once more:

All we are saying

Is give beets a chance

I think Ashcan Rantings is kind of a weird name for a food-based blog (as this has become). So I'm thinking of switching over to a new one for the food stuff. Then I can continue to embarrass myself with my ashcan rantings separate (no, I don't plan to do that anymore, and I deleted a lot of old stuff. Just not worth commemorating like that...)

Crap, I gotta make my coffee! My head is a millllion miles away.

Oh, and my point is this: I want to bring some of these entries over to the new one, but gotta figure out how. I suppose I just copy and paste, but that seems so oldschool....

Here is a dessert I just invented. I can't give a real recipe, because I don't measure anything. I think I'm going to call it a yogurt cocoa banana split, or maybe something more catchy.

You put some lowfat plain yogurt in a bowl. You cut up 1/2 a banana. You dump some unsweetened baking cocoa on it. You put some honey in there. THEN, my secret ingredient, you sprinkle on just a sprinkling of cayenne pepper. You stir the crap out of it and then you EAT IT. Yum!

Here are the suchis I made. Thanks to Sarah for the sushi-makin' stuff!

On the left is a vegetarian roll (well, what was left of it when I took the picture), made with green beans, red peppers and cucumber in a yellow soy wrapper.

On the right is, um, a spicy imitation crab roll, with fake crabmeat, mayo, sriracha and green onion in a regular nori wrapper.

Sorry for the crappy presentation -- I lost track of time and was in a big hurry to eat and leave to see some music videos at a local screening, so I was more interested in eating.

They were a little fally-aparty, especially the veggie one with less crap holding the inside together, but for a first attempt I thought they were presentable. And they tasted deliciousness!

I also made some roasted tofu, which I didn't eat much of. Tonight I plan to stir-fry it up with some green beans, red and yellow peppers, and whatever else I find in the fridge, and will hopefully remember to take pictures (the tofu was good, but needed to be more fried for my taste -- I'm bad, but I just don't like slimy tofu!).

Which reminds me, I've reached a new point in my personal growth as an adult -- I now have enough cooking stuff and variety on hand that I can often make things without having to go shopping based on the recipe! This is apparently normal for other people (you see a lot of "make this easy recipe with things you have on hand" types of deals), but I never have things on hand. Which is why I would give up and go to Subway or Jimmy John's a lot in the past. No more!

Here's the broccoli. It was frozen broc & I've decided that's a no-no, taste-wise. But the sauce was good. I'd like to figure out how to thicken it -- it said to saute the garlic & ginger in butter, but of course I used olive oil. Wondering if that makes a difference. Not a biggie -- it tasted good, the mooshy frozen broccoli was the only drawback. Makes me want to make stir-fry!

Haven't really made anything new this week, still eating the leftovers. Oh, but I made baked potatoes and some improvised tzatziki (SP?!) sauce (no cucumber) to put on them. It's good but I used WAY too much garlic. Had that last night with my salad with red onion on it right before I went out, and there was not enough gum in the world to fix that breath. But delicious!

Tonight I might try this ginger-orange sauce recipe I found on some broccolis. It probably won't be that interesting to look at, but I'll have to post a photo of my salad too, since I've been eating it a lot.

Went for a walk with Bella dog today, which was fun! She likes to lead... It's a little dangerous on ice. But fun.

Oh, the day before yesterday I was having coffee with a friend, and we got hungry, so we went to Ecopolitan. Although it's a few dollars more than we could have spent elsewhere, it was well worth feeling good about what I ate away from home. Delicious! I had a falafel wrap (not the best thing I've had there, but very good) and an awesome smoothie that had basil in it. Yums!

Last night I went out with another friend and had 2 beers AND some of her tater tots. They tasted good, but I felt it. Tummy was still kind of pissy this morning. But I don't feel that horrible about eating it, since it's the first fried thing I've had in weeks. A few tots every couple weeks is totally acceptable.

Oh, and for lunch today I had tomato soup (Campbell's) and some lite microwave popcorn. Not ideal, but part of the point of all this was to save money, and I have a ton of that still around, so I should sneak it in now and then and get it gone. Could be worse. Plus I don't want to OD on the yummies I made too soon!

Dokus Malorkus

So, in honor of the rantings of the ashcan, this blog will now feature my adventures in health and sustainability. I'm going to post my food adventures, exercise (hopefully someday I'll do more interesting things that walks -- starting my yoga DVD again one of these days for sure, and that'll give me more to obsess about), and trying to be as green as possible on a tight budget.

Right now I'm making curry potato/leek/spinach soup, and it smells great! I've decided to become one of those people who post photos of their food. Because it really is more interesting when you can see it (though not as good as when you eat it!). I could post recipes, but I certainly didn't make most of them up, so I'm not sure if that's OK...

Some things to think about:
Composting in a rental property where there are dogs in the yard
Growing vegetables in said yard...

OK, soup is done, now I have to take and remember how to add a photo. Gotta say, the soup is AWESOME -- depending on your feelings, in spite of or because of its being very green (I forgot about all that spinach -- I was picturing it being kind of orange -- curry/potato).

I usually hate reading recipe reviews where everyone says "this is GREAT, I just substituted most major ingredients and did this and that and totally changed the recipe!" However, since there is a CRAP TON of this soup (I doubled what didn't look like a huge batch), I am going to modify. My ONLY complaint is that it's kind of thin, so I'm going to make some with chunks of potatoes and... Dammit, this is WHY I write stuff down, I forgot what else I was going to do with it! Oh, next time I would probably leave out the milk -- it tastes great, and of course in the end there's more soup, but I like to avoid dairy as much as possible (besides my copious yogurt -- which I plan to try again, yes!)

So I don't know how to use my digital camera -- it's out of focus, oh well. Also, because the soup is thin, this is after stirring my dollop of sour cream in. It was the least crappy photo :)

OK, HERE IS PART OF MY SOUP. Haven't used Photobucket in a while, and APPARENTLY I'm stupid, because when I resize it, hit APPLY, then hit SAVE, it keeps reverting back to its original size. I mean, duh, of course it would. So here's the edge of my giant soup.

Hm, maybe interesting (maybe too much time on my hands)

So TMI time. Today I am feeling very bad, I think because of that time of month. Very weak, run-down, feel like I'm going to faint every time I stand up, no appetite most of the day.

I finally started to feel hungry, and was going over in my head what I have to eat (not a ton, since I needed to go grocery shopping today and didn't feel up to it). I thought I'm probably iron deficient and should have some of my yummy spinach salad -- sort of the most "naughty" thing I've had lately, as there's a little gorgonzola on it, always tempting. But right now it didn't sound good at all. I thought the spinach was probably good, but the rest sounded bad, and spinach by itself never sounds good (I'm not there yet -- hopefully someday I'll eat spinach leaves like chips!).

So I thought, tuna? Processed, yes, but I'll eat a can plain if it'll help. Eh. Smoothie? Neh. Corn! Eh, corn is good, but I don't think I could eat a bowl right now. Suddenly I thought of the bag of frozen peas, and thought, PEAS, I need PEAS. Now, I eat frozen peas because freezing them doesn't screw them up, but I'm not a huge pea fan (though I do like them fine). And I decided I could handle a couple walnuts.

So I looked up the nutrients in peas, and guess what? Excellent source of iron! Also vitamin c (which I haven't really had today) and whatever-whatevers that help process protein -- from... the walnuts! Anyway, I think, MAYBE, that was my body telling me what it needed. We'll see, I need to less type-y more eat-y.

Ooh, and I just saw that The Princess Bride is on Bravo tomorrow night. SWEEEET.

Memo to the internets:

Please cease and desist using the word "recycle" when you mean "reuse" or "re-purpose." I am trying to find out if the round cardboard containers oatmeal comes in are recyclable, and all Google is giving me is page after page of "recycle your oatmeal containers into stupid, ugly craft projects!" I know I'll be looking up more recycling tidbits in the near future, and I'm irritated already. Hey, soccer moms, you're screwing up the internets! And your crafts are stoopid!

Hey, it's me!

After a year of not blogging. Because, really, this is an online diary, and if anyone is still out there, (whazup?), I'm gonna go ahead and bore you, because it's really for myself. (Partly because I have a terrible memory! Some of the stuff I read back on doesn't really ring a bell...) And yes, I deleted some stuff I'd rather pretend didn't happen. It's my blog and I'll cheat if I want to!

So... After 2007, I have to say that 2008 was one of my worst years. Bad things happened, work slowed way down, and I pretty much didn't deal with it well. Gained back probably 10-15 lbs. Just ugh.

BUT, that's what New Year's resolutions are for! I know they're cheesy, and it really is arbitrary to put any sort importance on any certain date, but if one chooses to look at it as motivation to change, there's nothing wrong with that.

So far, I am on a giant health food (and exercise, when it's not freaking below zero) kick. I want to look better, feel better, save money, save the earth, and occupy my time with more productive activities.

I'm all about superfoods, whole foods, making stuff myself (this is relatively new), and my ultimate goal is to buy only things that contain only one ingredient (I would say not processed, but pasteurized milk for my yogurt and dried herbs and spices are fine by me, and those are processes.) I don't know if I'll make it that far -- easy enough when I'm not busy, but I'm getting busier already (mostly Guthrie, unfortunately), so it might be hard to be 100% strict about that. It'll also be nearly impossible on set (though I am going to start bringing some of my own snacks), but at least I can think about what I eat instead of shoving in whatever looks yummy. But for now I'm loving this.

Since that's my obsession, here's what I've been doing: For breakfast, oatmeal (I just discovered that it's delicious with cinnamon and a little honey, and yes, that's good for you); a smoothie made from yogurt (Stonyfield farm fat-free plain is the only way to go -- 6 cultures instead of 2 or 3!), blueberries, strawberries, pineapple and OJ; and a hard boiled egg. (ALL superfoods, I might add, except honey.) And of course coffee, I cannot give that up. Lunches and dinners so far have been: spinach salad (the best is my supersalad with walnuts, red onion, a sprinkle of gorgonzola, with olive oil and red wine vinegar drizzled on top -- also have used carrots, egg, cucumber); squash soup from scratch (thanks for the recipe, SB!); just big bowls of frozen vegetables (frozen is no worse than fresh, and sometimes better because they're flash-frozen while "fresh" has been around a while, leaking nutrients); grapefruit; and before the one-ingredient obsession, tomato soup with a little feta, and I can't remember what all else. Point being, incredibly healthy and DELICIOUS.

Today I tried to make my own yogurt. It didn't work, so I need to invest in a thermometer. I think I can handle making it once I get my process down, and it's about half the price and I'm told tastes much better.

Other things I'm going to try: sweet potato "fries" (baked, of course -- my brother's recipe which is really good); baked potato with seasoned yogurt; garlic mashed potatoes (potatoes are surprisingly healthy and very cheap); a salad of grated cabbage, beet, carrot, diced cucumber, and a dressing that will hopefully resemble Thai plum sauce (I made this up in my head -- I hope it turns out as good as it sounds, because whenever I've totally made a recipe up, it's SUCKED!); baked green bean "fries;" curried spinach potato soup; broccoli with orange sauce (sauce reportedly good on many vegetables); toasting my walnuts to bring out the yumminess (so I read); a baked tofu recipe with some good-lookin' seasonings. More to come as I find more recipes, and I have others up my sleeve to try. (Summer? Gazpacho and taboulli!)

I plan to make my own vegetable broth as soon as I find a good soup pot at Goodwill. AND, I'm going to make Labneh, a soft (Lebanese?) cheese made from basically draining yogurt, then mixed with spices, garlic, etc. I've never had it, but everything I see describes it as delicious. Then I can put that on my salads instead of buying cheese! If I ever make more money, I may try fish. Not sure on that, though, as I'm getting good protein from other sources (I also want to try a pureed edamame recipe I found, and hopefully can use my homemade cheese for -- soybeans have a ton of protein). I might try to find out how Ecopolitan makes their raw "bread" and put the cheese on that.

I'm not about raw at all, and this isn't remotely vegan with the eggs and yogurt (although you CAN make it out of soymilk, so maybe I'll try that). I am trying to cut out wheat for a while to see if that's causing my acne. But when I have more money I definitely intend to buy more responsible eggs and milk. I feel bad not doing so now, but money is about to get VERY tight for a little while, so after that I'll take a breath and reassess.

Tonight is my lovely spinach/walnut/onion/gorgonzola salad with sweet potato fries and ketchup homemade by my dad! Nyum nyum!