Rhubarb Slush

Now this, this is probably the most important post I'll ever make. Rhubarb slush is my favorite food. It really is. Whenever I respond to standard, "so what's your favorite food" questions with Rhubarb slush, I get the typical barrage of confused looks. But I make no excuses, rhubarb slush truly is my favorite food. Nothing says summer to me like sipping on slush at my aunt Mary Beth's cabin. I haven't had slush is such a long time, I knew it was something I had to make as soon as vacation began.

The recipe, as follows, makes enough slush to fill two large tupperware.

12 cups diced rhubarb (about 5 or 6 big stalks)
9 cups water
2 cups white sugar
1 can frozen lemonade
1 packet (13 oz) of strawberry sugar free jello
1 cup rum (optional)

Bring rhubarb, water and sugar to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
Strain into a large bowl and discard pulp
Add lemonade, jello and rum
Freeze completely

Serve slush with 7 up, and enjoy. Really enjoy :)

Ridiculously Easy Coconut Curry Rice and Chicken

Coconut Curry Rice and Chicken.

yum, yum, yum. After a long day of doing nothing, and a three hour nap, I guess it was time for supper. I was exhausted from all that relaxing, and wanted to whip up something ridiculously easy.

I had bought two big yellow peppers earlier in the week, fully intending to whip up some fajitas. I thawed out some chicken but changed my mind at the last minute. I wanted to stretch the ingredients so I had enough leftovers for me as well as a dinner delivery for a certain someone who's still slaving away, studying heart murmurs like a medical zealot.

The first thing that popped into my mind was curry, must be all that "No reservations" viewing permeating my brain. I started by marinating my chicken in a bottle of mango curry marinade that my mom had bought me from Kowalski's. I let that go for about 2 hours and then I began cooking.

I started the chicken pan frying with a drizzle of olive oil while I prepared the rice dish.

Coconut Curry Rice
Add to the rice cooker:
1 cup jasmine rice
A can of Thai kitchen light coconut milk + water = 2 cups liquid
2 large yellow peppers, roughly chopped
1 big ol' garlic clove, finely chopped
1 diced medium sweet onion
2 teaspoons hot curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon coriander

I let the rice cooker do its thing, finished cooking the chicken, cleaned up and packed everything up. A spoonful of coconut rice/chicken curry helps the cardiology go down, in the most delightful way:)

Caramel Corn

George loves me again. He hated boards studying, he lashed out in unspeakable ways... now we have watched three movies together, and things seem to be going smoothly:) I rented Stardust, Paris, je t'aime and the Bucket List. My favorite was definitely Stardust. Jessica had told me to watch it a while ago, and she was so right. I was so worth $1, gotta love redbox!

While watching the movie I popped up some kettle corn. Which was delicious through the first movie, but by the second (Ahhh vacation) I decided it SO needed to be sweeter. So here follows my impromptu caramel corn.

I have no idea how you're actually supposed to do this, but it was ridiculously easy and worked. You should probably add some corn syrup, and thickener. Maybe I'll add cream of tarter next time. I'll research it later, I'm busy now, with the relaxing...

Pop kettle corn
Eat some
Decide, yes you definitely need more sugar
Wander into kitchen

In a saucepan I mixed:
a big scoop of brown sugar (i used dark, but I think cane sugar would be fab)
A splash of vanilla soy milk
About a table spoon of earth balance margarine spread
Bubble, stir like a madwoman, and when it starts to thicken pour over your kettle corn leftovers

MMMMM, continue on with your second movie:)

Pad Thai (a la Suzanne-can't vouch for authenticity)

I'M DONE!

My test is finally finally finally done. Thank goodness. Now I can enter the real world again for a few weeks.

Step one, was rent movies! Today I've watched King of California, which was pretty good. I have two more to watch, so we'll see how far I get.

Tonight I'm making up some easy pad Thai. I made the sauce a while ago, so i'm just going to use up the leftovers. The pad Thai sauce was very very fun to make, and the dish unfolded as follows:

I was at the grocery store, mad because they don't carry san J wheat free tamari...grrrr, and finally found tamarind. I took that as a sign and snatched it up. I'm not really sure why tamarind had been so elusive, but I swear I looked for it at least 5 times. I ended up finding a big block of it, and if I remember correctly it was about $1. So I bought it, with absolutely no idea how this hunk of gunk was going to turn into pad Thai. Let the fun begin!

When I got home, I googled it -how we functioned before google I honestly have NO IDEA-and got a general consensus. I was supposed to mix this tamarind hunk with about 4 cups of boiling water, let it sit till I could stick my hands in it, and then smash it up. Once it had formed a paste-and I was up to my elbows in zingy-sour smelling mush, strain to finish. Straining ended up being more of a "smash as much as I could" through my strainer, getting chunks and twigs out. It was so much fun, and let me tell you, something is very soul satisfying about smashing up your own paste complete with twigs. So after I made/hydrated my tamarind, I cooked up my version of pad Thai.

I based my recipe from here and was pretty please.

The sauce:
About 1/2 cup tamarind
a generous 1/4 cup of a mix of braggs aminos, wheat free tamari and a touch of fish sauce
*the recipe calls for 1/2 cup of fish sauce, but I just can't handle that. Maybe I bought cheap fish sauce, but the thought of it makes me want to toss my cookies. Bragg's has a very distinguishing taste to me, so I wanted the tamari in there too. I think it was a good choice. As you will find out, I don't pay too much attention to the details of measuring and all that nonsense, even in baking, and I majored in biochem! Whatever works:)
Brown sugar, till it's sweet enough. I started with about 1/4 cup, but kept adding untill I liked it
A pinch of paprika
A few pinches of chili powder, till it tasted smoky enough
A splash or two of sesame oil

The dish:
Sautee garlic, onions and other veggies.
I had sweet peas, carrots, red onion to start
I then added shiratake(well rinsed!) noodles and a ladle full of sauce and cooked
I pushed all that junk over to the side of my skillet, and scrambled an egg on my free side
Add a diced tomato and sprouts
Cook it all up
garnish with green onion and enjoy!

It really is very easy to make, but felt like such a huge accomplishment! I still have a glass jar of he tamarind paste in the fridge, so now I can whip up pad Thai any time I want. Hopefully I can get a picture up soon, but no green onion today:( maybe some zucchini and shrimp will find their way in though...

Special Delivery

SPECIAL DELIVERY!

AHHHH! and Shrimp Cocktail

My cat George, who strives to reach new levels of derangement every day, decided to eat a page summarizing ALL the antibiotics last night. He's special. To me that page was pure gold, to him merely a midnight snack. Lets just say, we haven't done much snuggling today. I think I'll hard boil some eggs, and make chef salads. I also have this cocktail sauce, by gluten free girl, in the fridge so I may end up roasting some veggies and having shrimp cocktail. We'll see how the mood strikes me. 2 more days of study and I'm really starting to get nervous. I'm really trying to keep positive energy though. My feeble attempt today: Man I LOVE the smell of hot pine trees. On my runs (let's be real-lame walk/jogs), I've been blessed with lots of beautiful and delicious smelling flowering trees. There were some wild roses and irises last week that made me smile. But now, its on to the hot pine trees! Its a smell that lasts all summer and it is finely here.

Maki Sushi

I am studying for my boards. Right now my diet is unfortunately consisting of mainly, diet coke and a jumbo box of rainbow nerds. Nerds seemed like an appropriate snack, and are oh so tasty. Thank god my candy obsessions are all gluten free-bring on the sour patch kids! But anyways, I haven't made anything lately, with the exception of Karina's jalepeno lime hummus. I used tahini instead of PB, because I'm rationing my dwindling tub till my test day, when peanut butter on waffles will be essential to my success. I've been gobbling the hummus on sliced veggies like a ravenous bear. Its really very tasty, and I must say, I've loved every single recipe I've ever tried of hers.

For my first post I think I'll put up some pictures from my first attempt at sushi. After going gluten free I was so relieved to think-at least i can still eat sushi! But each time I've gone to a sushi happy hour, all i can order is edemame and sashimi. While I LOVE sashimi, my loans don't, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I used 2 cups of sushi rice, which fit the 10 or so nori wrappers I had in the packet. I simply made it in my rice cooker, and chopped up veggies while it did its magic. Then I added some seasoned vinegar till it tasted zesty enough for me, chilled the rice, and wrapped away. I added cucumber, avocado, shrimp, crab, wasabi, carrots and red onion, in all sorts of different combos. 20 min of rolling later, I had enough sushi to feed an army. It was a very fun project, and I think its even suitable for company!

Hello! Coming Soon!