Scallion Pancakes

So this post is from 6 months ago - August 2013! Way back when it was hot and humid, people wore shorts and tank tops and drove with their car windows down. Summer seems like a distant memory with all the freezing temperatures and snow that's covering the sidewalks. I am so sick of the cold weather! Let's hope Punxsutawney Phil was wrong this year...

Anyway, this recipe should help warm you up on a cold winter night! It's perfect comfort food any time of the year, and it is also one of my favorite appetizers at a Chinese restaurant: scallion pancakes! It is a pretty simple recipe, but it does require a bit of time and expertise in flipping pancakes without burning them. However, this treat is worth the effort!

Frying in the frying pan!

Use a pizza cutter to slice the pancakes and serve it with dipping sauce. Unfortunately, I forget exactly what went into the homemade dipping sauce I made, but it was some combination of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, leftover scallion bits, ginger, and garlic. It also goes great with a cold beer!

And that's it!!! I am officially done blogging my food exploits of the 2013 CSA Season...and just in time! The CSA sent out an email notifying everyone it's time to sign up for the 2014 CSA. Guess it's time to start bookmarking more recipes to try this summer and fall...

Curried Stir-Fried Potatoes

A few months ago, iTunes celebrated it's 5 year anniversary by offering some of it's most popular apps for free. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything app, was one of those free ones, so I snatched it up! It's normally $9.99 and it is probably worth the price, but I refuse to buy anything from the app store. This recipe for Curry Potatoes comes from the app:

Curried Stir-Fried Potatoes

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons neutral oil, like corn or canola
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds (optional)
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1½ pounds all‐purpose potatoes, peeled and shredded or minced
• 1 tablespoon garam masala or curry powder (to make your own, see Garam Masala, Hot Curry Powder, or Fragrant Curry Powder), or to taste
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch cayenne
• ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Directions

1. Put the oil in a large nonstick or well‐seasoned cast‐iron skillet over medium‐high heat. When hot, add the cumin seeds if you're using them, fry them for 30 seconds, then add half the onion and the potatoes. Add the spice blend, salt, pepper, and cayenne. Cook, stirring or tossing, until the onion has caramelized and the potatoes are lightly browned, about 10 minutes; the potatoes need not be fully tender.

2. Add the cilantro to the pan, toss once, and transfer to a serving platter. Garnish with the raw onion and serve immediately.

The potatoes were served alongside naan and chicken tikka masala in a pre-made simmer sauce. The potatoes weren't so great - I felt like they needed a lot more curry flavor. Considering that I can't remember when I purchased the curry powder that's sitting in the pantry, maybe it's time to buy a new one? I would try this again, but it is not on the top of my cooking list.

Hibernation

That's my excuse for why I haven't posted in over a month! It was much harder than I thought to finish up posting food from the CSA...even there are only two meals left! Sometimes, when I get closer to the end of completing a task, I get a little lazy finishing it up. Does that ever happen to you? It's like now that I can actually see the end of a project in the near future, I can relax a little...to the point where I stop working. Oops. Don't worry, though, the last 2 meals will be posted very shortly!

Will an adorable picture of Winnie make you forget about how long it's been since the last blog post?

For the past few years, February has been "Vegetarian Month" in our home. This all started while I was in graduate school. I was taking a class about drug addiction, and one of our assignments was to give something up for a month and journal about it. While some of my peers gave up sugar, alcohol, and caffeine, I decided to give up meat. And because I have such a wonderful husband, he agreed to do it with me! Talk about a supportive spouse! It was much harder than I anticipated it to be - we had to be more creative when planning our weekly menus by trying new meals and foods. It was also a challenge attending social functions, like going out to dinner with friends or going to a Super Bowl party, where everyone else was eating meat. Somehow, we survived and we enjoyed it so much that we decided to continue the tradition every year!

This year, however, we decided to challenge ourselves a bit more and go vegan...before 6. A while ago I posted about Mark Bittman's idea of going vegan before 6 pm, where you eat vegan meals for breakfast and lunch and then whatever you want for dinner. It's more of a lifestyle than it is a diet, and it takes a lot of preparation and awareness of what you are eating for you to do it properly. We decided to incorporate this idea of going vegan before 6 into vegetarian month - we're going vegan before 6 and then vegetarian after 6 (so we can eat dairy at dinner). One day in and it's not so bad so far!

Breakfast: coffee with almond milk; cinnamon raisin bread with peanut butter; avocado toast
Lunch: smashed chickpea and avocado sandwich
Dinner: roasted vegetable sandwiches and salad

Stay tuned for more vegan and vegetarian meals this month!

Arugula Pesto

Nothing like the end of the year to remind you it's time to tie up some loose ends! It is hard to believe 2013 is ending in just a few days. I know I say it every year (and I'm sure you do, too!), but where did the year go? I definitely didn't spend the majority of my year blogging - oops. I am hoping to finish up posting the last of the recipes from the CSA so I can start 2014 fresh with some new posts!

What do you do with a giant bunch of arugula? What can you make that will last a while so you don't end up throwing it all out? PESTO! The recipe I used is the same one from the radish leaf pesto post from a while back, just substituting the radish leaf with the arugula.

Arugula pesto is a bit more bitter than traditional basil pesto, but it is still delicious! The bunch of arugula made so much pesto that there's still more than half of it sitting in the freezer! The plan is to use it up sometime this week: spaghetti with arugula pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. Maybe it will be the first meal of 2014!

Stitch Fix Review!

A few months ago, my lovely friend Leah told me about this new personal stylist/online subscription company called Stitch Fix. The concept is pretty simple - you fill out an online survey with questions about your style and body type and then voila! A box arrives for you filled with 5 items personally chosen for you based on your style profile. The questions are pretty comprehensive: What colors/patterns/fabrics do you like/not like? What parts of your body do you like to flaunt/hide? Are you looking for dressy/work appropriate/casual clothes? They even have accessories, too! Most importantly, they ask how much you are willing to spend on each item. You can also leave comments about pieces you'd like or items you don't want in your next fix. You can either schedule your fix for one at a time or you can subscribe for monthly fixes.

My birthday was earlier this week, and as a present to myself, I scheduled my very first fix! The anticipation was killing me! I was really excited for my fix to arrive, especially since I scheduled it almost 2 months in advance. Since it was for my birthday, I asked for some more fun/different items than I normally would like to receive. Based on my style profile, I was a mix of classic/preppy/casual chic/romantic. I also said I didn't have any body parts I wanted to hide or any ones I necessarily wanted to flaunt, since I wanted the clothes that I received to be things I could both dress up for work or wear out with friends or the husband. So...here's my review:

Items Received: In my first fix, I received 2 shirts, 1 dress, 1 pair of pants, and 1 bag.

The bad:The pants were black denim leggings, which unfortunately were too small. However, I already own a pair of black leggings, so even if they fit perfectly, I would not have kept them. The dress was a fit and flare style dress - black with hints of gold in the thread. Very appropriate for a holiday party! Unfortunately, the dress was too big in the arms (it did that weird gaping thing where your bra shows and hung too loosely in the top where it's not supposed to) and in general, that style is not flattering on my figure. I also received a beautiful teal, lace, peplum tank top that fit very nicely. It was a little more than I'd normally spend on a shirt, but I already own a teal lace top, so it seemed silly and excessive to keep this item.

The good: A convertible clutch/cross-body bag! It's fairly large (which is a good thing!) and black with cut-outs that have gold underneath. It's not something I would have picked on my own, but it's definitely a great statement piece that will dress up an otherwise plain outfit. A flowy, burgundy, sleeveless top - this color is definitely one of my favorites and I loved the loose fit. It's a little too cold to wear it now, but I am looking forward to wearing it once it starts to warm up.

Ease of Use: Stitch Fix is so simple - just fill out the online survey, get your box, try on the items, and return the ones you don't want using the pre-paid mailer that comes with your fix.

Cost: When your fix ships, you are charged at $20 styling fee. This fee then goes toward your total purchase of items in the fix. The only bad thing is that the styling fee not refundable, so if you don't like your fix, you lose your $20. The items in my box were all less than $100, with most items around the $50-75 range. As an incentive to keep the entire fix, you get a 25% discount if you keep all 5 items. With the discount, my items totaled $260. 

Overall Review: My stylist definitely nailed my style, considering two of the items that were sent were pieces I already owned! I think my profile needs some tweaking, but this is definitely something I'd try again. I hope that my next fix has more colorful and unique items. On the Stitch Fix blog, you can see some of the items they have available, and there were some pieces I saw that I was hoping for (and others I was hoping to not get!!!). The brands that Stitch Fix sends are fairly new, up and coming brands. Some I had never heard of, while others, I already owned. Therefore, the items are not things that you'd see everyone else wearing, which is a good thing. Overall, Stitch Fix is a fun and different way to add items to your wardrobe. It definitely does not replace trip to the mall, but it is a great additional way to get some retail therapy!

My new bag and top, courtesy of Stitch Fix

Want to try it? Click the following link to use my referral code for your next fix! Hope you like your fix as much as I did! http://www.stitchfix.com/referral/3240417