A Very Belated Winter Solstice

I had a dinner party a few weeks ago (on December 26) to commemorate the Winter Solstice that had occurred 5 days prior. Yes, it was belated but I am, in general, not an early person.

The menu started off with blackbean hummus with celery, pita chips (mommy-made) and carrots to dip.

I made a honey mustard dressing for a baby spinach salad. So good.

Before being attacked by a hand blender, the roasted red pepper soup vegetables simmering in broth.

After being attacked by a hand blender, the vegetables and the broth were no longer discernable.

Here I am, rolling out the pasta like a champ. I hand-rolled pasta for 7 people. HULK NIDHI!

I improvised a drying rack for le pasta by using an unused magazine rack I found in my parents basement. My parents basement is so awesome; I find so many cool unused things in there that I later steal and bring back to CLE with me. Shh, don’t tell my mom!

The pasta was placed into a freezer bag. The freezer bag was placed into the freezer (ironically).

I started the sauce with 2lb campari tomatoes that were sitting in the fridge. THIS WAS NOT ENOUGH!! Can you believe it? 2lb of tomatoes is not enough for a sauce. I guess cooking evaporates the water or something.

And the pasta and sauce blended together, a magical culinary masterpeice. It’s a vodka “cream” sauce, can’t you tell?

Before my guests arrived, I set the dining room table. This is not your normal dining arrangement, so please do not attempt to copy.

I like to pretend that my loyal readers really want recipes, so here they are.

Black Bean Hummus
1 can Black Beans, 1 can Garbanzo Beans, 4 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 tbsp Tahini Sauce, water to blend, salt to taste
Put all ingredients in blender and blend.

Honey Mustard Dressing
1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup mustard (I used horseradish mustard), 1/2 cup vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar), 1 small chopped onion, 6 tbsp Olive Oil, Salt + Pepper to Taste
Sauté onion in 1 tbsp olive oil until onions are slightly brown, then throw all the ingredients in food processor and process.

Pasta
4 Cups Semolina, 3 Eggs, 1/2 Cup Water (to the right consistency)
Stir ingredients together. Let dough rest for approximately 1h. Roll out into rectangular shapes. Let the shapes partially dry then cut into strips of varying thickness accidentally. Dip in flour to coat if you plan on freezing it, else, drop in boiling water and let cook for 3-4min.

Vodka “Cream” Sauce
2lb Campari Tomatoes (Or any type of Tomato can be subbed), 1tbsp Crushed Red Peppers, 2 Can Petite Diced tomatoes bc you realized 2lb campari tomatoes may or may not be enough, 1 medium diced onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1 cup vodka, 1 cup broth, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp butter, Salt + Pepper to Taste
Cook all the tomatoes and Red Peppers for approx 1 hr, till tomatoes have been smooshed. Pick out skins of the tomatoes. In a separate pan, add vodka, onion, and garlic; reduce this mixture until it has halved in volume. Pour that into the tomato mixture, as well as the broth. Then melt the butter and sauté with the flour until the mixture has browned. Then add the milk until it has formed into a thick mixture. Add this to the sauce. Let the sauce simmer until you believe it has achieved the right consistency. (Sidenote: This recipe was adapted from Rachel Ray’s “You Won’t Be Single for Long Vodka Cream Pasta” recipe but I changed the name to “You’ll be single forever Vodka Cream Sauce”)

Cheers! Happy Belated Winter Solstice and a very Happy New Year!

Date Night Pasta and Sauce

I had a friend over for dinner last night, so I cooked up a lovely meal of pasta and sauce.

I made the pasta from scratch. I kneaded the dough and added “Italian Seasoning” to it.

Then I rolled it out very thinly with a rolling pin and cut it with a pizza cutter into fettucini-esque slices. I also forgot to take pictures of this step. But doesn’t it look beautiful cooked?

I made the pumpkin-spinach sauce and also forgot to take pictures of that.
   

The Pasta
1 egg, 1 cup flour, 1 tsp oil, pinch of salt, ~2 tbsp water to reach the right consistency. I also added “Italian Seasonings,” whatever those may be.
Mix all the ingredients until you have a nice, flexible dough. Then let the dough rest for about 45 min.
Roll the dough out very, very thin – as thin as you can possibly get it. SO thin. This can be done with a pasta maker.
Use the pizza cutter to slice your pasta. While I made mine into long strips, I encourage you to make weird and interesting shapes.
If you don’t want to eat the pasta straightaway, you can freeze it (before you cook it, of course)! 
Throw the pasta into heavily salted (like the sea!) boiling water and let it cook for approximately 4-5 minutes.

The Sauce
3 tbsp butter, 2 cloves garlic (minced), 1 small onion (minced), 1 15oz can pumpkin, 1/3 pkg frozen spinach, 1 tsp turmeric, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1 tbsp sugar, salt and pepper to taste
Sauté the garlic and onion in the butter. When they have become translucent, add the pumpkin, spinach, turmeric, paprika and sugar and mix around until everything is saucy. When it’s good and sauced, add a lil salt and pepper until it tastes fantastic.

Gorgeous.

The Big Chill at the Big House

Until December 11, 2010, the outdoor hockey attendance record was set at 74,544 fans.

Enter the Big Chill at the Big House. A spectacle of an event, where Michigan Stadium was frozen over (sort of), Michigan played Michigan State in ice hockey while a record crowd of 113,411 fans watched. That’s Michigan Stadium, always breaking attendance records.

Michigan Stadium is frozen! Except it just looks like an ice rink was transported and carefully placed on top of the gridiron.

The main sponsor of the game, Arby’s, had their name plastered on one of the Zambonis.

There was also a blurry order of curly fries running around on the field.

Look! Michigan Stadium finally installed real stadium lights instead of renting them each time that we had a game that may parlay into dark. This is in preparation for our first night game against Notre Dame in 2011!

Besides apparently forgetting to bring their hockey team, Michigan State also apparently forgot to bring their band. They only filled out approx 1/3 of the seating available for their team. So embarrassing.

However, the Michigan Marching Band was a shining star in the sea of fans.

I went to the game with Dov, who looks like a male model in this pic. A male model trying to sell coats with the fur (with the fur!).

The final score was 5-0 Michigan. Poor Michigan State. Such an epic game, such an epic loss for them :) Michigan Stadium was amazing. There were fireworks every time Michigan scored a goal. Michigan State’s goalie isn’t a goalie, he’s a sieve. He’s not a sieve, he’s a funnel. He’s not a funnel, he’s a vacuum. He’s not a vacuum, he’s a black hole. He’s not a black hole, he just sucks :)

Ohhhh C-ya!
Chumpdickwussdouchebagassholeprickcheaterbitchwhoreslut!

French Bread

I made bread last week in lieu of buying it. I haven’t cooked since my recent holiday (more about that later) and this was a good solid foray back into the world of making food.

I used this recipe and it turned out pretty well. I added butter and a little salt.

Before baking, after 2nd rising. I made one braided loaf, and one rolled loaf (like the recipe says).

After baking. I love the way that the braided one looks. I doubt that I would have been able to braid it had I not added butter. Braiding sticky dough is hard. Braiding butter-lubed dough is easy.

With pasta sauce, spinach, mushrooms and mozz on top.

Mmm bread.

J+K visit the CLE!

I have known Jacqui and Kristina since high school, when we wore dresses on top of jeans and pretended that we were members of a hockey team called the Detroit Red Wings. (Kristina writes about them in her blog!)

Anyway, we started Friday night out with a bang…went to McNulty’s, the classiest of the classiest bars. They gave us free SoCo shots. Jacqui is wearing my Texas sweatshirt. I tried to make her wear my “Engineering Battle Robots for a Better Future” sweatshirt, but she deemed that “too nerdy” and fiercely argued to wear the Texas sweatshirt. Kristina is wearing her own clothes. I am wearing a sweatshirt that I received while participating in a “THANKS FOR DONATING TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING” rally.

This was like 2 months ago, so we were still in the “I HEART DENARD” phase of our football year. It was a good idea to participate in Untie your Shoelaces like Denard day. Kristina’s shoes are sweet, they are blue and say MICHIGAN in maize on the back. *Covets*

McNulty’s was having a sweatervest party or something. I stumbled on some weirdo boyfriend of my coworker that night. I also stumbled on some roommate of some weirdo dude I went on one date with and then he never called me again, but that’s a different story. Seriously, who hangs out at McNulty’s? THIS GIRL.

 
Jacqui and I passed out at McNulty’s. Just kidding.

We went to the WestSide market and bought crêpes for brunch. We are all wearing Michigan themed stuff in honor of the football game. I’m wearing the scarf that I knitted for myself on the drive to South Bend for the game in September, Jacqui’s wearing her Michigan Squirrels t-shirt (she only joined the club for the t-shirt), and Kristina is wearing her new Michigan fleece. I don’t know why this is turning into a fashion post.

Kristina! That’s a crêpe, not an ice cream cone!

At the Art Museum, looking at the paintings wasn’t enough. Be zombies for me, my little angels of art, be zombies!

 

Kristina and Jacqui were on the inside looking out while spying on a wedding party attempting to take pictures in the rain. Real stealth. I think that the wedding party looked up at one point and saw us looking at them, but really, what could they do? No one is going to run inside the museum and say, “Stop looking at us!” Really, that would just be immature.

Art makes a girl hungry. And in this case, it made three girls hungry. While waiting to get a table at Melt, we managed to watch the tail end of the Michigan game (read: the last three quarters). It took forever. Then we waited for our food…

And waited…

And waited…Jacqui was so hungry that she ate her hand! Oh no!

But all’s well that ends well. We had our food and then ate it, too.

Melt is an experience that is not worth the four hours we were there. But the weekend was perfect with my lovely friends :)

Can a Fridge truly be a Vegetarian?

On the eve of my 24th birthday, I decided that my fridge was not animal-friendly enough. Sure, it was filled with vegetarian items such as broccoli and hummus, but it was still hungry. Maybe it wanted meat?

Cue my fridge looking sad and vegetarian, with only a 2009 Michigan Football sticker, a 2006 Dream Cruise hologram magnet, and a “Save the Date!” to keep it company. Also some wine bottles I guess.

Animalify! It has received a mixed response from the people that have seen it. My true friends love it, while people who don’t really support my arts and crafts and therefore cannot be true friends severely disliked it.

The whole thing. The bottom came out more lopsided than I would have hoped, but I’m ok with that.  It is made from black contact paper which comes off unfortunately rather easily.

I was reminded of Only in Kenya while I was stickering :)

Cilantro-Jalapeño Hummus

I made pico de gallo earlier this week, and anyone has used cilantro knows that buying a bunch is almost always too much cilantro! What to do with it? Should it sit in my fridge as I promise myself day after day that I’ll do something with it? Should I throw it out right away to prophesize the inevitable? OR should I get an idea from my Google Buzz feed that Cilantro Jalapeño hummus might be delicious?!

Ingredients
-2 cans Chick Peas
-1/2 bunch Cilantro (the leftover)
-1 Jalapeño (incidentally, also leftover from my pico de gallo)
-4 tablespoons lime juice
-3 cloves fresh garlic (unless you’re a vampire), roasted (I microwaved mine)
-2 tablespoons tahini sauce, if you have it
-salt to taste

Throw everything in your blender and blend it until smooth-ish. If your blender was like mine and refused to blend it, add a little water until it starts blending smoothly.

The ingredients posed for a picture before mixing it up.

Cilantro-garlic shot.

The blending process didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped it would.

But I made it blend by mixing with my trusty mixer, the spoon.

Doesn’t that look scrumptious?

This is probably my favorite hummus ever. It tastes sort of like green chutney, which is basically all the same ingredients minus the chick peas.

Too Sexy for my Sweatshirt

The University of Michigan apparel store was switching, so the former store had all the items on their website listed on clearance. I went a little crazy. I now own Michigan fuzzy dice (but they’re not in my mirror because they totally flop around), a Michigan softball, and a bunch of other clothing paraphernalia.

I acquired this beautiful size M Michigan Alumna sweatshirt (I didn’t know that alumna was the feminine singular of alumni. I thought it was alum!) and the fit was just totally off.

Totally, totally off.

Luckily, with the help of my sewing machine, I can now wear it with even more Michigan pride. I added a little bit of gray t-shirt fabric to the sleeves and the same fabric to the hips to make them longer.

Rawr. I’m a model if you know what I mean and I do my little turn on the catwalk. I fill up the entire doorway with my stance. and I’m wearing tights like pants.

The back. Wait, no, that’s just me figuring out how to use the timed settings on my camera and failing.

There’s the back! I have a seam running down the back. I think it adds to the aesthetic appeal of the sweatshirt.

‘What is that girl wearing on her head?!’ you may ask. Well, friends, it’s an anthro-inspired headband. I used it as part of my Psyche costume but kind of like how it looks in general. And since I don’t knit, I have to use up my oodles of yarn somehow! Some would even say that it looks like a sweatband. That means it goes perfectly with my sweatshirt.

  
Happy sweating!