Farty Does Bar Food

Two confessions. I love to drink. I also love hanging out in bars. I especially love hanging out in bars and watching baseball games.

There's this electricity in the air. Everyone is so excited. Then something happens. Cliff Lee strikes out A-Rod. Chase Utley hits two home runs. There's a crack or snap and the place erupts with shouts and applause.

Philly is freakin' out a bit.

I mean, of course we are. We're playing the Yankees in the World Series. Forget 2004. This is the real fight of the underdogs.

Last night, I took in game one with some new friends at a local sports bar. I was drinking, so I wanted to eat something substantial. There were two appetizers on the menu that I could eat: french fries and corn tortilla chips.

That said, this is what I ended up with.

French fries with guacamole and salsa.

Sigh.

It was really good. But I'm feeling it today, believe me!

Party at the Farty's

Yesterday afternoon, I walked in the kitchen to find my momma cleaning.

I said: "You know I'm gonna trash this place once you leave, right?"

She sighed. She knows me well.

Some people throw parties when their parents go away for a weekend. Me? I bake the night away. This weekend, I had an overflow of recipes I wanted to try... and did.

UPDATE: Bread recipe has been removed due to repeated attempts, repeated failures, and repeated craptasticness.

VegWeb's Pumpkin Cornbread

If you don't subscribe to VegWeb, you need to get on that. Every couple of weeks, they send you a mess of vegetarian and vegan recipes. This month, I got pumpkiny ones.

I looked at the recipe for pumpkin cornbread and couldn't believe it. All pumpkin and cornmeal. No sugar. No flour. See? Like the song says. Unbelievable.

Again, the texture came out perfect. Bready, chewy and crispy, just like real cornbread. It wasn't very sweet or nearly as pumpkin-y as I would have liked. If I make it again, I will definitely add more cinnamon, more all spice, and maybe some agave. As it stands, it's perfect cornbread for a meal. I'm totally eating it with some chard, black bean, and tomato soup tonight!

Chocolate Covered Katie's Brownie Batter Pancakes

Oh lovely, lovely Chocolate Covered Katie... I just found your blog a few weeks ago. I LOVE what you are all about. Your philosophy is mine. Let's make food that's so good that we never want mealtime to end. You are creative. You are decadently brilliant. Girl, I LOVE you.

But... look at this.

This is MATH.

Katie's recipes are mostly measured out in grams. So I spent a good portion of this morning trying to convert grams to ounces, cups, and tablespoons. It was quite pointless. In the end, I added extra applesauce, extra soy milk, and subbed different stuff for half of her ingredients.

Still. It was nice to have a recipe to bounce off. Thank you, Katie.

Can you tell I love the bready?

Let me see if I can recreate what I did here.

1/2 cup millet flour

1/4 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup brown rice protein powder

1/2 cup applesauce

1/4 cup non-dairy milk

1/4 cup apple juice

1 big spoonful of peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

4-5 tablespoons of unsweetened chocolate

3 packets stevia

1/4 teaspoon spirulina (optional)

Who doesn't want brownies for breakfast? These brownies contain protein powder AND spirulina. That means you get half a day's protein and a serving of vegetables in these pancakes. Perfect for your growing chil'ens.

Let me say this. I have no idea if I'm going to have my own kids someday. My experiences with relationships and boys has been pretty sketchy. (Basically, I'm a bitch who doesn't put up with shit.) I have hope, but whatever.

If I don't meet my FartyMan, I have a plan. I'm going to adopt. I'm going to adopt a little boy. And you know what? That kid's going to eat brownie pancakes for breakfast.

That kid's going to eat GOOD.

In the meantime, I'm pawning the extras off on my brother. I'll let you know what he says.

Rainy Day Tea

Philly is a cold rainy mess. It's all November up in this bitch. And we ain't even had Halloween yet. Talk about a WTF.

Today I got up and knew there was only one thing that would help me make it to my math class. Russian Caravan tea. It's a lot like Earl Grey. Only it doesn't suck.

From what I've read online, the name and taste come from the same place. Russian czars used to import the tea from China. On the trip up, it would sit for sixteen months in moist bamboo baskets, absorbing the smoky pine of the campfires each night. It's called caravan, because the caravan gives its special dark taste.

To me, Russian Caravan is what Earl Grey tries really hard to be. Inky. Smoky. Mysterious. A perfect side for reading Poe or Melville. Something to be drunk in the early misty morning, or a dull grey afternoon. It tastes like it looks on the box. Navy blue.

Since I opened the box this morning, Russian Caravan is all I can smell in the kitchen. It's awesome. I'm doing my usual Friday stuff - cooking, hanging herbs to dry, washing bed sheets. Every once in a while, I look out at the cold rain. I breathe in deep. There it is. Smoky dark winter all up in my nose. It's made for a quite a peaceful, cozy day.

Feeling a Bit Español Today

Look at this monster. Can you believe I ate the WHOLE THING? I can't.

My digestion has been tops for the last three days. I'm pretty much beside myself with happiness. Theories on what's helping will come soon, as they always do. For now, let's talk food.

What the hell is this?

It's a BURRITO IN A BOWL! Courtesy of the "burrito in the bowl" place where my IBS-BFF took me in University City a couple months ago. Only the ingredients are somewhat different. My burrito is mostly vegetables. And I don't charge $2.50 for an extra shot of guacamole either.

The Contents

1 handful of spinach

1 giant button 'shroom

1 quarter of a giant tomato

1 handful of broccoli sprouts

1 handful of black beans

Enough guac to cover everything

Lemon

Salt

Pepper

The guac was made in the food processor. I used a whole avocado, a tablespoon of tahini, juice from half a lemon, and a little salt, pepper, and onion powder. Everything made to taste. 'Cos I don't mind my germs!

Whenever I express my love of the guac to anyone, the reply is always the same. "It's so fattening." The truth? Yes. It is.

This is how I make sense of the extra calories to myself. First, I don't give a fuck about calories. Second, I'd rather get my fat from a lovely green fruit than a block of cheese. Why are green fruits better than white cheeses? Well, if you have to ask... I'm going to have to write another blog.

O. M. G. Can you see the avocado fat just hanging off me???

Guinea Pig

Whenever I get a huge stack of papers from my students, I head to a coffeeshop. There's no other way to get me through it. I have to be stuck somewhere, focused, unable to leave until the whole lot is done and graded.

This week, I headed over to The Handcrafted Cookie. They are located in my heart, my lovely town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. According to their website, the company is dedicated to promoting healthy bodies and a healthy environment. That means that their treats are all organic and fair trade. They recycle and compost almost all of their refuse. They also bake a mean vegan gluten-free agave-sweetened cookie.

So I went. And I ended up a guinea pig.

It turns out... the Handcrafters are in the process of finding the perfect vegan, gluten free, agave sweetened cookie. They asked ME to taste test a few. By a few, I mean four.

I told myself, "You're only going to eat one."

Myself replied, "Yeah right, bitch."

To give myself credit, I did take a good hour to finish them. I had to wait for them to cool. Warm cookies don't taste the same as room temperature cookies. In my opinion, warm stuff is just not as sweet. These cookies definitely changed taste as they grew more tepid.

Can you tell one is darker than the other? It's the one on the right. I can't tell you why it's darker, but I can tell you that it was better. See?

I saved the best for last.

Apparently agave can affect the texture of a cookie. The owner warned me of that ahead of time. He said, "One is too cakey."

"I love cakey stuff," I replied.

But I didn't love the cakey cookie. It wasn't cakey in a good way. It was... fluffy. It affected the taste big time.

This is something to take note of - all you agave bakers out there!

Fluff aside... both cookies were bangin'. Take it from a spastic and obsessive junk food eater. It's really really really hard to make a good vegan gluten free agave sweetened cookie. These guys and Cookies for Me? are the only companies that have come close to the real thing, in my opinion.

Although I didn't try the regular ones, it's safe to assume that they are awesome as well. Anyone who can master a vegan cookie knows what the eff they're doing!

As for the rest of you who can eat normal food - if you are looking for healthy organic cookies, check out the Handcrafters! They ship!

Herb Nerd

What you see here is an artichoke compound. It contains artichoke leaf, gentian, fennel, ginger, wormwood, beet, dandelion root, and blessed thistle. All brilliant herbs that aid digestive problems. Tomorrow, before breakfast, I take my first dose.

Tinctures - in case you don't know - are herbal extracts. Herbalists make them by storing fresh herbs in alcohol. After about a month, they strain the herbs and bottle the juices (aka menstruum). So the tincture has captured all of the health benefits of the herbies at their prime stage.

Herbies. That's what I call them. Plants are like my BFFs right now. Any free time I have, I spend it reading about herbs and herbalism. This is my favorite book so far.

Valerian got me interested. My girl Aubrey told me about it. "It smells like dirty socks," she said. "But it helps you sleep." A lifelong insomniac, I had to try it.

I have to disagree about the smell. Valerian root doesn't smell like dirty socks. It smells like rotting corpses. But you know what? It works. Night after night, I choke it down. It's better than taking Benadryl for the rest of my life.

Insomnia abated, a host of other (a'hem) problems bubbled up... in my guts. I had no medical insurance. (Still don't. Who does?) My giant "IBS for Dummies" offered a small list of herbal remedies. Peppermint. Fennel. Dill. Angelica root. Some worked. Some didn't.

I think I got hooked when I discovered the herbal bulk section of my local Whole Foods market. The names splayed out before me. Nettle. Raspberry Leaf. Lemon balm. Lavender. Wait, I remember thinking, I can eat lavender?

My interest in herbalism piqued in the same way as my fandom for the Red Sox. Remember the 2004 Red Sox? What a group of characters! It was easy to tell them apart. And when you did, watching them was like watching a TV drama. Every night, Johnny Damon would look really hot, Kevin Millar would say something really funny and offensive, Mark Bellhorn would choke, and Ortiz would hit a homerun.

Herbs feel like little characters to me. Each one has its own personality. That personality comes out in different colors, smells, tastes, health and medicinal properties.

I'd been drinking boxed herbal teas for a couple years. Most left me dissatisfied. Celestial Seasoning teas are all hibiscus and natural flavor. Same goes with the Republic of Tea. Traditional Medicinals are one of the few legit companies out there. But their brews are mad busy. Gypsy Cold Care is one of my favorites - and it contains like twenty different ingredients.

I wanted to drink echinacea without the mint or the elderberries. So I started brewing my own teas. Hence... my new business. Beacon Tea.

More about that later. As well as little updates about herbal remedies, as I learn them. One thing to keep in mind: What works for some people doesn't work for everybody. I like to think that's what makes herbalism so fun. The plants react to your own individual body chemistry. Through taking them, you learn about the herbies and yourself. You aren't healing a sickness. You're healing a person.