Bee Vomit and other things I won't eat...

Honey is dried bee vomit. It seems honeybees drink nectar and regurgitate it back and forth among its members in the beehive. We Jungists refer to this as The Collective Stomach.

Before becoming vegan I was mostly a meatatarian-- a person who doesn't eat seafood or enough green vegetables. I had no idea how hard it would be to go vegan, especially considering I don't like to read or research ingredients in food products.

The honey thing came out of left field really. Had I not watched a militant vegan's Q&A YouTube, that one would've slipped right by me for who knows how long. How many more veganically incorrect foods will I eat before I can officially call myself vegan is anyone's guess.

Lucky for me I can still go to fast food restaurants, in theory. Not that I frequented them that much before. It's just that when you close one door, you become shamefully desperate while waiting for the next door to open. Or is it that you're still just wanting to 'fit in?'

Anyway, supposedly Taco Bell is 'vegan approved', even if it's not kosher. So I took 'er for a test drive yesterday. It wasn't as easy as you might think. 

I pulled up to the drive-thru, ordered what I thought was vegan: three black bean tacos, w/guacamole, lettuce and tomato only, please. The drive-up teller told me that will be $10.17 at the window. When I questioned her about how much extra the guacamole, lettuce, and tomato were, because usually spending $10 at Taco Bell can feed a family of twenty, she assured me it was only $2 and some change difference. 

When I pulled up to the next window to pay and get my order, the two cars behind me --soon to be three-- were wishing there was another window for effed up orders like mine as I was handed three black bean burritos instead of tacos.

It wasn't the teller's fault, according to my daughter who was with me at the time, who is not vegan but refuses to eat at fast food restaurants, ultimately making her diet healthier,  I had ordered three burritos. Lucky for me my daughter whispered this under her breath after the teller left to go exchange my order.

There are lots of reasons my daughter doesn't eat fast food, the least of which is due to the amount of fat, the most of which is because she doesn't trust what's going on in the mind of assembly line worker #3. ESPECIALLY when the order is returned for redo at rush hour and it wasn't his/her fault.

She's right. While assembly line worker #3 didn't spit in my tacos someone --I ain't saying who-- made a little switcheroo. While I was right about the cost --I got $5 back-- who cares! someone switched the beans from black, to refried, knowing li'l miss mindlessness me wouldn't catch it until after taking that first bite a little later on down the road.

Honestly, I was so hungry I was in denial it wasn't black beans until the last bite of taco #2. Up until that moment I'd led myself to believe their black beans were overcooked and of a lighter variety.

Can you really taste lard in refried pintos? Yes. After devouring that third taco the roof of my mouth felt like an oil slick. Ever see a dog eat peanut butter? That's what my tongue was doing for the rest of the night.

Do I still eat honey? Do you like bee vomit?

key lime pie, burnt turkey, jameson's, and green drinks.

today's post is all about balance.
i'll start with the key lime pie. my absolute best almost homemade recipe to date. 'tis the season to be jolly and all that. here's a picture for inspiration. notice how it's half gone, or half not, depending on your point of view. mouth watering yet?

click to enlarge

this pie is so easy to make, you can almost do it w/out having to drag yourself into the kitchen, which is just the incentive you need to crawl back on the cooking horse if you burned the thanksgiving turkey like I did. what saved the day? notice the shot glass in back to the right? that and a bottle of jameson can do what an apple-maple reduction butter glaze too long in the oven cannot. go easy on the jameson's. no need to get your underwear in a wad, it's only a turkey. keep the proportions of jameson's to turkey equal.

click to enlarge

now for the pie, let's not waste another minute. 

start with your own jar of key lime curd. follow the directions for tartlets that comes on a postcard --one 14 oz. can sweetened Condensed Milk with 8 oz. cream cheese. mix with a hand mixer on medium speed until uniform. mix in key lime curd on low speed until combined--with one exception...fold in 1 cup of freshly whipped whipping cream into the mixture. then pour into graham cracker pie crusts, this makes enough filling for two. (use Betty's recipe for crust.) chill for 4 hours, then top each slice with a dollop of fresh whipped whipping cream and lime peel garnish.

click on the hot links for both recipes. i'm too exhausted to write it all out after the two days of preparation it took to burn that turkey.

you will want to eat this entire pie in one sitting--it's that good--i don't care what kind of health kick you're tellin' people you're on. if need be, balance it with a large green drink beforehand--preferably your own homemade. invest in a juicer (another hot link), if for no other reason than green drinks can do for guilt, what that reduction butter glaze did for my turkey ;)

Overnight Kale

No, I am not suggesting you FedEx kale out of your kitchen. Was it not just three summers ago I did this very thing with Mr. G's when it was the ONLY vegetable he grew? Goes to show the importance of being en vogue--timing is everything.

Anyway, what I'm now suggesting is if you're searching for a delicious, raw, non-time consuming recipe for this super-green food, you've just landed the Holy Grail of Kale. I'd like to say, this is from an old family recipe handed down to me from my great-great-great-mamaw generations ago.... well, why not?  Ever notice how carefree and painless it is to lie on the internet?

Interestingly enough, someone else's great-great-great-mamaw must have done the same--passed on this recipe--as you can also find it on page 88 of the latest Women's Health, November 2012 issue. There's a couple more in it I plan to include in this blog when I get around to making them. Practice what you preach, is what I was always taught at the little white Southern Baptist church down the road when I was a kid. Then again, I was also taught not to lie. If you want, buy a copy of this magazine yourself for the other recipes. But don't say I didn't warn you when your significant other snatches it right out of your hot little hands after seeing Mind-Blowing Sex! --in bold--splattered on the cover. If you're among the more youthful crowd--good luck getting him/her to wait until after dinner! However, if you're my age, you're gonna need to be in top shape for those suggestions (yes, I peeked), hence the healthful recipes. You might want to start with this one, and wait for me to post the others; working your way up, or down--depending on who's on top, or sideways. I'll leave that for you to figure out.

Inspiration enough?....here it is.

OVERNIGHT KALE

Stuff 

2 Tbsp champagne white wine vinegar (splurge) 
1-2  Tbsp finely minced shallot
2 tsp honey
1  Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch of salt
1/8  tsp black pepper--a smidgeon
1  bunches organic dinosaur or curly kale (about 1 lb), center ribs and stems removed, leaves sliced into thin ribbons
optional:
1/3 cup pomegranate seeds
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
2  Tbsp toasted pine nuts

Mix It Up
1 - Whisk together vinegar, shallot, honey, olive oil, salt, and pepper.
2 - Toss kale in dressing to coat evenly. (The dressing will seem light, but the kale will wilt down to half its volume.)
3 - Transfer kale to a lidded container and refrigerate overnight. To serve, divide kale among plates and top with pomegranate seeds, grated cheese, and toasted pine nuts.

Suggestions
Dried fruit like cranberries can be substituted for pomegranate seeds, as can other toasted nuts--pecans, walnuts--for pine. However, start with using the ones in this recipe if the ingredients are in season.


Mmmmm....Now that's good eatin'!

Writer's Brunch

You heard correctly. Brunch. Meaning breakfast and lunch... which I usually don't get around to eating until one hour before suppertime, when Mr. G gets home.

My response to his "What's for dinner?" usually goes something like:

[exasperated] "Do I look like a maid? What, did you NOT just have lunch? Do you need to eat every hour on the hour?! I have a life too, you know, I'M trying to write."

Anyway, if you too are a wanna-be famous writer, scratch that, famous-or-not, you're writing, you can't let little things like hunger pangs or your partner returning home after a long, hard, strenuous day at a real job, making real money, drag you from your life's true purpose. 

Brunch Menu

• Chai Tea  (A staple. Serve with frothed lactose-free milk, thank you.)
• 1 fresh, organic peach  (IF and ONLY IF it's beginning to rot. You've no time to dilly-dally peeling peaches unless it's absolutely necessary.)
• 2 organic brown rice crackers each topped with organic peanut butter and organic bananas.
• Coke. Except when the last COLD one has been taken by a certain someone stopping by who apparently "DOESN'T KNOW THE RULES" to replace the last Coke in the refrigerator with ANOTHER from the cupboard. In which case, drink water, 'cause you know you're nowhere near the recommended suggested intake of .5 oz times your body's weight.

Mmmmm....Now that's good eatin'!

Bridesmaid's Mother's Blues

Today's suggestion? When it's 3 PM, and you've not yet eatin' a thing because you've been consumed helping a certain someone wade through the mountains of online dresses in their OMG moment of: "HELP!!! I hate the bridesmaid's dress I ordered a week ago and received yesterday for the wedding I'm supposed to be in three days from now!"  Try this:

• Open said refrigerator door
• Grab anything that looks fresh and does not require cooking--keeping in mind your last, recent adventure in the land of indigestible food.
• Devour
• Close refrigerator door

and/or...

• Open cupboard door(s) which contain(s) boxed and/or SWIC (something weird in a can) foods
• If necessary, grab a can opener, open SWIC, devour anything that looks appetizing, hoping one: there's anything in there; two: there's anything in there you'll eat
• Close cupboard door

Take me away Laura!

Mmmmm...Now that's good eatin'!

What Not To Make

Hot tip for the day: If you think it's your imagination, it's probably not.

Who would've known to think it, but sometimes a good recipe is the one you know NOT to make.

Here's my latest discovery. After pulling an all-nighter doubled over in extreme agony on the floor, and bathroom toilet, might I be so bold as to suggest you NOT cook meat that has been in your freezer for say, more than two months. At least not that speciality item you bought at the meat counter that seemed scrumptious at the time, so you bought two to save one for later. You know, flank steak swirled around bacon, cheese, and spinach. Yeah. That one. Of course maybe it just wasn't cooked long enough. I don't remember. What I do remember is chewing some of the bacon in dim light while watching a movie, thinking, "Hmmm... something tastes a little squishy, then again maybe it's just my imagination."

The Secret's Out!

When you're swingin' three blogs with hopes to start a book, something's gotta give! Today, it's this blog post. I wouldn't exactly call it stealing...but you might. I could also clue you in to whose FB page I stole it from, but you probably wouldn't know her anyway. Anyway, my latest discovery about creativity, according to, CREATIVITY: FLOW AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISCOVERY AND INVENTION is "...creativity involves changing a way of doing things, or a way of thinking, and that requires having mastered the old ways of doing or thinking."

With that, let's see how creative you can get with this recipe below. Bon Appetite!

Secret Sauce Recipe

Click here for website
 or on photograph to view recipe ;)

Mmmmm...Now that's good eatin'!