The Possimpible

This weekend I had a healthy dose of awesome girlfriends two ways: Lisa and Leslie. To mark the occasion, I decided on a menu for Lisa and I. I normally come up with some sort of new meal for when guests come over, and this time I had the pleasure of exposing my victim to my new diet. Fortunately for me, Lisa is aware of my quasi-vegginess, and is also health-conscious. This means that she doesn’t mind (at least, I think she doesn’t mind…) trying new veggie dishes with me and skipping the meat for 24 hours or so. Meat-eating friends of mine, rest assured; if I knew you were coming over and would die before you tried TVP I’d be glad to cook you some meat and would gladly enjoy it with you. Thought I’d make that clear before 95% of you never came over ever again…

Anyway, I made 4 new dishes while Lisa was here. Two were desserts, one was a main course, and one was a breakfast item. All four were a first for me, two were completely successful, one was decent and one was a huge flop. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which ones are which after you read the recipes…(Lisa, no cheating).

Vegetable Curry

2 cups baby carrots, chopped
1 medium zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 can green beans, drained and rinsed
1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tbsp corn starch
3 tbsp garam masala
½ tsp salt
2 cups vegetable stock
1 small can diced tomatoes, with liquid
2 cups spinach, chopped

In a large slow-cooker, combine all ingredients except for tomatoes and spinach. Cook on low for 7-9 hours or until vegetables are tender. Add tomatoes and spinach, cover for 5 minutes and serve over cooked couscous or basmati rice.
Also great with a dollop of sour cream and fresh cilantro, as well as fresh papadums.



Easy Strawberry Mousse Pie

For the crust:

1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup sugar
6 tbsp melted butter

Combine ingredients until crumbs are moistened. Press into a greased pie plate. Bake at 375degF for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Set aside to cool completely.

For the filling:

1 tub CoolWhip
1 pkg strawberry Jell-O
1 cup chopped strawberries

Combine ingredients, stirring well to completely incorporate Jell-O powder.
To finish pie, spread filling into cooled pie crust and refrigerate.


Caramel Oatmeal Squares (recipe courtesy of Lisa Kileeg)

1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup icing sugar
¾ cup cold butter, cubed
½ cup rolled oats
pinch of salt
1 pkg Skor chips
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375degF. Grease an 8x8 square pan, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats, icing sugar and salt. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the mixture until the mix resembles coarse crumbs. Press all but ½ cup of the flour mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 10 minutes until pale golden.
3. Mix the Skor bits and chocolate chips. Spread them on top of the base and sprinkle remaining flour mixture over the chips.
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes until bubbly and golden brown.
5. Cool completely.

Eggs Florentine (for two people)

2 English muffins, halved
4 eggs + 2 egg yolks
2 cups spinach, chopped
1 cup unsalted butter + 1 tbsp
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ tbsp water
green onion (or chive if desired) chopped

For the hollandaise sauce:

1. Melt 1 cup butter. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
2. In the top of a double boiler containing barely boiling water, whisk the yolks, water and lemon juice until mixture is light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
3. Remove pot containing the yolk mixture from the double boiler. Slowly, and while whisking constantly, add the melted butter to the yolk mixture. Continue whisking briskly for about 5 minutes. Add a pinch of salt.

For spinach mixture:

1. Melt 1 tbsp butter in a frying pan.
2. Once melted, add spinach and sweat down, about 1 minute.

To finish:

1. Toast English muffins.
2. Top each half of muffin with a spoonful of spinach mixture, then one poached egg (see Wed., Aug 11th post entitled “Awesome Breakfast” for directions on poaching eggs), then a tbsp of hollandaise. Garnish with green onions or chives.

It was a long weekend, despite being quite productive. Lisa arrived Saturday around 2:30pm, and before that, I spent my Friday night and Saturday morning in yoga (both days…I’m glad to report that Michelle is feeling much better and taught the best core stability class I’ve been to yet. Order is restored to my chakras…) and reading Eat Pray Love. I’m about half way through the book, fyi. I’ll refrain from commenting until I’ve finished the whole thing. I also finally finished organizing my “office,” otherwise known as the one wall of my living room that somehow contains all my work/school stuff, awesomely spread out in boxes, binders, little plastic organizational drawer sets and modular shelving. Even though I won’t be doing much writing this semester, other than (hopefully) marking undergraduate labs, there’s something soothing and hopeful about an organized office space…like somehow the work you’ll be doing there will be fulfilling and effortless. For as long as I can remember I’ve loved those few weeks leading up to September, when the binders are new and full of blank loose leaf. Back when the binders have neat stickers on their sides that still say “BCHM 432” and “BCHM 411.” Only around mid-October do those labels no longer seem accurate but instead mentally translate to “goddamn this is a lot of memorizing/best mark of my university career…how did that happen!?” and “wow if only Mueller’s notes were in chronological order…/I hope I never have to TA this course.”

Anyways, I digress. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, what I did this weekend. I also helped my friend Leslie move into her place, which is a basement like mine except newly renovated. I am immediately jealous of her dishwasher and stacked washer/dryer, but also not jealous of the crack-your-face-open death-stairs leading down into her place. Of course, I’m going to be so busy in the upcoming months that I won’t ever be intoxicated and at her place, so I’m likely never to have to worry about those stairs. Watch, now that I’ve said that she’ll need me to come rescue her one night and I’ll forget about the steps, bail and nom some concrete on every step on the way down. Hopefully someone will have almost done so and wisely lined the wall at the bottom of the stairs with toilet paper or that insane-person wall padding.

I digress again. … Ok now I’m just rambling. I’ve been watching too much House and my brain is stumbling on a few things. I know this blog isn’t meant as a place to vent and expose my sad little feelings to everyone, so I’ll spare you the gory details and keep it brief:

1. One of my best friends is moving away for two years very soon and I’m having an impossible time dealing.
2. I have a scary meeting with Steve (my supervisor) tomorrow, where he’s going to help me kick my data analysis into overdrive, but that also means I have to be up to speed on my NMR theory. I did some today but with Steve you never know.
3. I have a HUGE semester/year coming up of which I am terrified…solving this structure, TAing BCHM 317 (hopefully), taking a time-consuming writing and analysis course come January (the prof for it says it will take up two full days a week to get a comparable handle on…there go my weekends) and gearing up for my friend Laura’s wedding, which I am a bridesmaid in.

I’m also going into my first year of no-Bands, which will be a huge adjustment. I have a million things going on in my head. It’s interesting how the rest of the world is spinning at a hundred miles an hour, people are leaving and experiencing and meeting each other. Grad school and the single life move at the pace that grass grows, it seems.

Also, this is completely and utterly unrelated to today’s entry, but it made me giggle so here it is.





NB. With Lisa around I sort of forgot to take pictures of anything but the first thing we ate (curry). Apologies!