Soo as noted in the title, last week  TWO weeks ago didn’t turn out quite as I had expected. I concocted some recipes on Monday (el presidente day) for my week of food.  I was fairly happy with how they came out only to find out that upon second consumption (after it lived in the fridge for a bit) I disliked both recipes, a lot. Sigh. See below for further griping.

Thankfully (as seen in the foreground) I made some of that delish potato salad on Saturday so I could thankfully depend on a few lunches of that during the week. Also pictured is some banana bread which is a secret family recipe that I may later divulge (it’s really  not that secret but I do not feel like including the recipe here so . . . to be continued?)

Oh Eggplant Salad, I had such high hopes for you! Personally, I blame the cumin. You see,  I’m fairly positive I have never had this spice until my pilgrimage to NYC (ps, as embarrassing as this is, I may or may not have just had to look up how to spell “pilgrimage” because it’s one of those awesome Americanized words that we (at least I) pronounce completely differently than it’s spelled.) Back to the cumin, I am fairly certain that I have not been aware of this spice until these dishes (see below for further cumin griping), Mom, if you have used cumin in your cooking of my childhood then you cleverly hid it because your food is always delicious. I’m not saying this dish absolutely tasted like the inside of a trash can, but cumin just doesn’t do it for me, at least in these instances. Rating: Difficulty = 3 because there was a lot of prep, Deliciousness = 2, stupid cumin.

Again, such high hopes, dashed (hah! a spice pun!) by the excess of spices. Ladies and Gents I introduce you to the Squash & Cous Cous Salad, sounds pretty promising right??? Just look at the beautiful photos of their dish! Sigh. Cumin again, rears it’s ugly head only to be combined with its seemingly harmful but in reality bullying sidekicks Nutmeg & Cinnamon. See below for my artist rendering of what happened. Recipe Rating: Difficulty 4, butternut squash is a bitch to peel and cut, boo. Deliciousness: 1, my tastebuds were definitely P.O.’d when I reheated this for lunch.

As you can see, poor defenseless butternut squash is being ravaged by the the spices, Cinnamon obviously has the most festive explosion, mostly because he is angry his full name does not fit on the label, the others are just bullies, see Cumin flexing his muscles while twisting his ribbon mouth?! Punks.

Hey what’s that deflated thing in the pan? That, my friend, is my banana bread and although it looks perfect upon removal from the oven, it subsequently proceeds to cave in and grow ugly, still tastes good though so I won’t judge.

‘Tis all for now! <3

So this is a lil late, but ya know, better late than never right? Right.

This lil number was dinner for two-three nights (for me and Jake) and it was tasty and filling! It is – drumroll – “Middle Eastern Eggplant Salad” fairly easy to make, especially considering I’ve never cooked eggplant before. The flatbread was a nice addition (as seen in the recipe pic) because you can almost make a lil sandwich out of it. And using a scoring system I am just making up, it was a 2 out of 5 stars for difficulty (5 being I ended up crying bc everything is charred and I wasted so many groceries) and for Yummibility: 3 out of 5 (5 being the most incredible thing I’ve ever eaten).

This is Koshari. An “Egyptian street food” that is spicy. The recipe doesn’t say it’s spicy, but it is. And I mean, I’m not saying I was sweatin’ bullets eating this dish, but since I’m kind of a baby when it comes to spicy things, I definitely noticed a spicy presence in my mouth upon consumption, (presumably the ground up red pepper that was required). I wasn’t too impressed with this dish and was sad mine did not look as nice and fancy as the picture, however, when I ate it (and I am still eating it because the recipe legit makes a buttload) I obviously mixed all the different elements of the dish, because, let’s be realistic, I am not going to cart 5 different tupperwares to work everyday so I can painstakingly assemble my lunch so it looks nice. Soo I would rate this as a 4 on difficulty because there was a lot of different elements to cook simultaneously – it wasn’t disastrous but it was kind of annoying. Delishability (same as yummibility) maybe a 2? It’s not that great, and I have A LOT of leftovers, so that’s a little depressing haha. Would I make it again? Prob not. Am I still eating it for lunch because I’m cheap and don’t want to waste the leftovers? Yes. Am I happy about it? Not really. haha. Moving on . . .

Yummy Yum yum. Pumpkin Bread (with chocolate chips!) There’s not a lot of gibber jabber about this one because it was tasty and it subbed for my breakfast this week because hey – although I understand that chocolate chips is not technically a healthy way to start the day, I am supposedly a grown up and I can choose what I want for breakfast, and there’s pumpkin in it, so that makes it a somewhat okay breakfast food in my book. haha. The recipe is from this adorable blog that Ms. Alicia recommended to me and I love it! There are so many recipes I want to try, not to mention the food photography is pretty bad ass too! The only thing I might change about my PumpBread would be to lay off the choc chips a bit and/or (as the recipe recommended that I blatantly ignored) sprinkling them on top – I think it would support the pumpkin flavor rather than having the chocolate kick the pumpkin flavor’s booty. Difficulty: 1, mixing ingredients and stirring? Easy peasy. Delishability: 4, sweet change up from my normal banana bread.

That is all for now, I have no idea what I’ll cook this weekend, but am hoping a cooking muse will appear to me soon haha.

Google, you get my every time! Happy Valentine’s Day all!!

Hello All!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out this weekend for my birthday celebration, it really made me feel special that you all showed up! Especially Bryce & Ian who made a long trip all the way from VT ! Friday night was the big hullabaloo and it was great, tons of friends co-mingling and home by 1 yay!

Saturday we went to the Museum of the City of New York to see the “Greatest Grid” exhibit and was pleasantly surprised by a cool exhibition of Cecil Beaton‘s drawings, costume/set design, and photographs. There is also sort of a continuation of the Greatest Grid called “The Unfinished Grid” upstairs which has all these abstract visions of what the city might looking some day not so far away, and a show called “Police Work” that features photographer Leonard Freed’s images taken while following cops around in the 70′s. I would highly recommend taking a trip over there especially for a $10 admission?? Count me in!

Sunday was particularly lazy which was nice until around 7 when I went on a cooking marathon (after grocery shopping of course). Below is one of the four recipes I cooked last night between the hours of 7 and 10 (+ about an hour or so for uber clean up).

Lunch! “Light & Fresh Potato Salad” This was the last recipe I made and it was pretty easy. Just boiled the cubed potatoes, chopped up some peppers, green onions, and grape tomatoes (I totally forgot the add the cucumber hah ooops) and mix together some quick ingredients for the dressing and I am quite pleased with how this came out! Full recipe here. I kind of completely ignored the measurements for the veggies (except I ballparked the potatoes) because I am not going to discard 1/3 of a pepper if the recipe only calls for 1 cup and I figured it would just make a larger batch and the potatoes seem to be coping just fine with the additional pepper friends it has. As mentioned I will hopefully post pics of the three other recipes ASAP, because, I’m sure, you’re dying to know.

PS – Anyone check out this adorable and thought provoking commercial during the Grammy’s last night? My friend Alicia did a nice lil post featuring the Making Of vid and it is really awesome! Check it out here! I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that it’s for Chipotle, but hey, it’s got a good message and Willie Nelson and Coldplay, so it’s okay in my book!

So uhh, since my birthday is coming up (cough cough tomorrow) my extremely thoughtful mom sent me some packages in celebration of such a wondrous event. I received two “we missed you ” slips from the USPS last Monday and Tuesday and then had to patiently wait all the way until Saturday because guess what, the post office near my apartment is open from 9-5, because you know who can pick up packages during those hours? No one, that’s who, but that inconvenience is another story. So, Saturday, like a child on Christmas (or her birthday), I ran to the post office with my two slips in hand and slide them to the seemingly cheery USPS worker through the hole cut in the one inch thick plexiglass. She meanders back presumably to the Present Cave where some Gift Orc is holding my birthday presents hostage, only to return with one package. Long story short (or at least a little shorter), I was supposed to have received THREE packages with my two slips, but this would only be revealed days later after filing a missing package claim (after confirming the package count with mi madre) and only to be presented with three emails from my mom containing the photos below and variances on the subject line of “NYC RATS GOT IN YOUR PACKAGE” . . . I thought she was kidding . . .she was not.

Photo 1, subject line: “NYC Rats Got into Your Package”

Photo 2, subject line: “Destroyed box!”

Photo 3, subject line: “NYC Ratz!” (my mom is pretty hilarious FYI)

Note that the last photo is the other side of the package – those rat bastards (literally) gnawed their way INTO and OUT OF my package, which in photo 3 you can also see was so thoughtfully packed with Valentine’s Day M&Ms. WTF rats, c’mon. The only labels found were “Unable to Deliver as Addressed” which is wrong because the address was correct (my mom would NOT make that mistake) and “Unable to Deliver in Current Condition” which turns out, the VT USPS slapped on there because there were probably M&Ms and rat turds falling all over the other clean not-gnawed mail. As of now, all the VT USPS said was “all we can say is sorry because it wasn’t insured” . . . so, apparently somehow, somewhere en route from VT to NYC (definitely somewhere in NY) Splinter lost control of his rat posse and they wreaked havoc on my poor defenseless birthday/Valentine’s Day package . . . most likely it was one of these guys, if only I had a giant shovel, or pitchfork.

Quick pic of my lunch! As mentioned on Monday I cooked a lot on Sunday and I wanted to share what the Acorn Squash Salad looked like because it was finally time to eat it!

So there it is, I substituted barley for the faro as I did not feel like googling what “faro” was prior to grocery shopping. The yellow goop is the mustard vinaigrette (or whatever the recipe calls it) and of course note the ever present Lactaid as I put some Feta on my salad. The salad was overall pretty yummy, the barley and squash provide nice textures while the dressing and feta add an extra kick. And yes, I am about to eat my oatmeal chocolate chip cookies right about now.

Yes, I have been absent from your lives for far too long, but not quite a month long. The truth is I’ve been busy. I took a writing class for three weeks here, This class to be exact. I met some really great people and really enjoyed the process and creativity of it. It was challenging and I thoroughly enjoyed it (I know I said that already, but I really did!) I am hoping to take another class there soon to continue my motivation. The last week of post-class has been enjoying no intense writing homework, attending impromptu dance class via Girl Walk All Day  (AMAZING) , bikram-ing, documentary watching, and trying not to get a cold.

Documents I watched that I highly recommend and heavily influenced this blogpost are: Forks Over Knives

And: Food, Inc.

I had heard of both of these and ignored them because ya know, I don’t need to see any more images of cows getting slaughtered to know that the meat we eat isn’t the greatest. However, for some reason, I felt compelled to watch Forks Over Knives which promotes the health benefits of a plant-based diet by following three people who are recommended to try the life style change. The results are incredible: reversing disease, weight loss, providing more energy, having a better quality of life etc. Then, my good friend Alicia (who had been meat free for officially over a year) yet again, recommended I watch Food Inc. which dives into the contradictions/hypocrisies that is the food industry/FDA and how food is being produced on a mass scale.

So I watched it and haven’t eaten red meat since last Tuesday. I am by no means going to be a strict vegan, but I am definitely trying to be more aware of where meat is from – i.e. a local farm or mass produced. I also understand the contradiction of trying to eat locally but yet still buying veggies from the grocery store, but I’m working on that. On the up side and what brings me to the main event of this post is: I was super motivated this weekend to try cooking some veggie meals for the week! See below!

Breakfast!

What the balls is that green bug guts crap on your rice cake Cayla ?!! Well, since you asked nicely – it’s Lime Avocado Mousse (with some coconut shavings). Super easy to make and does not tastes like avocados at all! I also made this chocolate mousse (because who doesn’t like chocolate mousse that doesn’t make me curl up in pain #LactardProblems). This was a lil different bc it required almond butter and since I was using cheapo coco powder (instead of fancy cacao powder) the almond taste predominates. It’s okay, but I would also be curious to try this recipe instead (minus the dates). Or maybe even this raw chocolate cake.

Oh and that cute lil quiche on the side?? Yeah, there’s no meat in that either. A recipe I found thru my good friend Candice who has been doing her own food challenge (much more kick ass and legit than my aspirations). Here’s the full recipe. It basically says to whip a dozen eggs and add w/e you want, so I did just that (minus the meat). I used: mushrooms (about 5), 1 Red Pepper, 1 Tomato, handful of green onions/leeks/something that looked like the first two, some basil, and shredded yellow squash. They are pretty tasty and I had a TON of extra veggies (see below).

Lunch!

Extra veggies, hmm let’s make a lil stirfry and put it over some barely (that I was coincidentally making for this recipe.) Sauteed some garlic and olive oil, added onions until they’re kind of clear, added the veggies, simmered over medium heat until they looked good.

Dessert!

Yes, these aren’t technically “healthy” but there’s oatmeal in them . . . so maybe that counts a little? And I at least made them so I know what ingredients were involved – ps BEST Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (it’s coincidentally the first recipe that pops up when you google “oatmeal chocolate chip cookies ). I also toasted the seeds from the Roasted Acorn Squash that I made (to go over salad later in the week) courtesy of this recipe.

So, that’s about it. I hope you’ll be hearing from me soon!

These crafts technically happened after Christmas but I’m including them in the final installment because I was still off from work so, it could also be called “Cayla What Did You Do When You Weren’t Working” but, consistency.

Before and After of my corner shelf-y thing. Before = Cayla has too much crap, After = it appears Cayla has much less crap. I did some cleaning post-holiday and found a skirt that I did not wear and was conveniently the length I needed for this curtain. Immediate sewing surgery began, cutting down the main seam and then hemming the sides. Cutting some crude holes somewhat evenly spaced towards the top and threading short pieces of thick yarn through them to tie onto the wire. It’s not the most glamourous fix, but it works for now and was completely in less than an hour. Yippee!

I bought more earring loops when I was home, and beads were on sale at Jo Ann’s Fabrics, I couldn’t resist. Like what you see? I’d be happy to make a custom pair JUST FOR YOU! Email/Comment for preferences and pricing.

I will make replicas, but these are MINE.

For anyone who knows someone who needs some hand-crafted earrings or just wants a pair of their very own – coming soon to an Esty near you! (or just leave a comment with your email and I’ll let you know pricing etc.) 

Fiery and fluffy these sterling silver hook earrings are just over 5″ long from feather tip to top of the hook
and about 2″ wide.

Emerald and elegant, these saturated bad boys are just under 4″ long and just over 1″ wide.
Sure to impress any feathered friend.

Bright and spritely, this petite pair is for someone who wants a pop of color without screaming across the room.
3″ long under 1/2″ wide.

Fluorescents not your style? No problem! You can’t shout every day, then you’d have constant laryngitis.
Just under 4″ x 2″  these partridge feathers will attract the finest fowl.

Fine and fluffy these natural toned down come in just under 3″ long and 2″ wide (including the widest wispys).

There are many slight variations of patterns for the downy feathers so let me know if you’re interested and I can send you the whole slew of pictures.

That is the acronym for “Cayla What Did You Do for Christmas” in case you thought I passed out onto my keyboard. Here are some pics from my holiday excursion spent mostly in the great state of VT.

The temperature was 4 degrees one night . . . 80 in the car.

Lake Champlain after the freezing night.

Skye being the best dog ever watching passersby. Sunset pre-freezing night.

Sunset post-freezing night.

Crazy cool iced formed on a bush.

Another sunset, and Jake’s new best friend.

Christmas Cards! Thank you so much everyone who sent me and Jake cards, they were really sweet and made me very excited when opening our mailbox.