Lissiel's Journal

Writing down the recipe so I don't forget it later, because this? Is super-mecha-tasty. <3

Take!
One bag baby carrots
Olive oil
One thumb-size or slightly larger piece of ginger root
half a medium onion, or a couple of shallots
about half a bulb of garlic (or less, if you're not as in love with garlic as I am)
some salt and pepper
Veggie broth of some sort

Do!
Boil the hell out of the carrots until they're soft enough you can turn them into a big bowl and mash them.

In the same pot, pour a little olive oil and saute on medium heat (so the juices come out and the ginger doesn't burn--DON'T USE HIGH HEAT, SELF. ) the onions, garlic, and ginger.

Pour in about half a carton of broth, heat to just below boiling.

Pour in the mashed carrots, mix, add more broth if needed for a reasonable soup-consistency. Add salt/pepper as you like (sweet veggie broth may need more salt).

Give the rest of the broth to the dog for his dinner so he'll stop telling you he's never gotten to eat anything ever in his whole life and he's so hungry mommy poor starving dog. O.O

Note that this, despite the main ingredient, isn't a sweet soup. The garlic and ginger leave it pretty spicy. <3

Serve!
With a little parsley or something if you have it, or a dollop of sour cream if you're not vegan. A few slices of good toasted sourdough on the side wouldn't go amiss either. <3

I got my hair cut. It has long-ish layers now, that make it curl instead of frizz weirdly. The lady took more off the ends than I wanted though. It's maybe three, four inches from my belt? At least I don't need to worry about tucking it into my pants anymore.

Have read Rabbit, Run, Native Son, Evolution and Why it Matters, The Analects of K'ung Tsu, The Daxue (Higher Education) and Xiao Jing (Classic of Filial Piety), half of Graham's Disputers of the Tao, On the Warrior's Path, and The Art of Peace. Since two weeks ago. And I still have quite a bit more I'm supposed to have done. Why did I think 18 units was a good idea again?

Been playing with the slow cooker I got for Christmas. I love how convenient it is, but somehow everything I cook in it sucks. Tasteless, and unevenly cooked. :/ I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Valentines day is coming up. I guess this year we should really do something for that. Er. That doesn't involve taking the long weekend and just sleeping and catching up on homework. Probably. I don't know.

I don't know if it's the stress, or the graduation anxiety, or the lack of sleep and not remembering to eat, or some hormonal/neurochemical thing, but I've really been having a hard time, lately. I'm tired, and cranky, and I don't want to talk to anyone or do anything but sit around in my pajamas with M and play video games. Also, people have been writing SO MUCH SHINY, and I haven't had the spare time/energy/emotional well-being to read any of it for weeks and eeeeeeeeh. *whine, bitch, moan, complain*

This is why no one has heard from me for weeks. H-hi guys! I still love you! Tell me what you're doing. <3

I thought I'd post some of my favorite veggie-friendly fall recipes. My family can't be the only ones going "oh no--what will so-and-so eat? D:"

Fear not, my friends.

( Carrot Casserole )

( Roasted Pumpkins )

( Veggie Stovetop!style Stuffing )

( 'Chicken' Gravy )

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World has a delicious-looking but rather complex dessert up, too: Pumpkin Pie Brownies. I may make these this year, if I feel brave. Wish me luck. :Db

I've been bad lately and either forgetting to eat entirely or eating a lot of rice-inna-box or pasta-inna-box, so when Michael went to the store the other day, he came home with THE WORLD'S MOST GIGANTIC BAG OF APPLES EVAR. <3

So today for lunch, I'm sitting here, looking around my kitchen, which contains:
One(1) left-over ciabatta roll from the mushroom sammiches last night,
Half a bag of cheddar/jack shredded cheese,
About a teaspoon left of a jar of crushed garlic preserved in oil, and
THE WORLD'S MOST GIGANTIC BAG OF APPLES EVAR.
And also is stupidly hot (wtf, it's October already, it should not be 86*). And I made the most delicious sammiches ever.

If you wanna make the most delicious sammiches ever, this is what you do:
Cut the roll in half, and lay it out on a plate you can microwave, cut sides up. If you have other kinds of bread, this is still probably good. Pumpernickle would probably be stupidly good.

Spread some of the garlic over one slice. If you don't have crushed-oil garlic, fresh chopped garlic and a little tiny bit of butter would probably be good too. I wouldn't use the powdered stuff though--that sounds like it'd be weird.

Cover both slices with the cheese. Next time, I'm totally making this with all cheddar.

Pop the whole thing in the microwave for a minute or so--however long it takes to melt the cheese. Meanwhile, slice up half an apple. Eat the other half, or hold onto it, or feed it to overly-pushy dogs whose favorite food is whatever-mommy-is-eating.

Take the plate out, carefully cause it's probably hot, and layer the sliced apple bits on one side, and moosh the other side over on top of them. This is probably good with a nice dark beer if you like that, or with cold apple juice if, like me, you don't.

Last night I went to bed at two, woke up at five, went to wake Michael up at eight (which put me back to sleep) and then woke up again at 9:30. WTF, self?

I have! Caught up on my mindless, obnoxious, unrelated to anything the hire add said it would be work for the internship, for the moment! Spent a week in Monterey--well, in Tia's house--taking care of her, since the blood clot means she doesn't get around so well atm! Made Jam! Made crazy-delicious apple pie! Cleaned my house which, oh g-d, did it ever need! Called the insurance people! Called the restaurant that overcharged us! Gone down and picked up my medicine! Worried a lot about: school, the fire down in big sur, Tia, my mom, Tiana, Sam, Danny, our lease running out and what to do after, school, whether I suck so bad at writing I should never do it again, whether I should take a concentration in technical writing, and, just for kicks, a lot of school.

I have not! Written the romance challenge piece that I wanted, or even outlined it satisfactorily. Got my shit together to see Greta I'M SORRY! or Zeana or basically anyone. Watched Hellboy 2 Hot royal elf action??. Figured out what I want to do for my birthday. Given Matt his birthday present/dinner. GONE DOWN TO TALK TO THE SCHOOL GUY OMG SELF YOU HAVE TO REGISTER LIKE YESTERDAY D: .

Nightmares: Down to roughly one a week, give or take. Woke up convinced I was lying in bed next to a corpse, this week. Yay. -_-;

Birthday mathoms written/drawn/whatever: 1 1/2

Times I've wished it were september already: 97,923,759,723,857,293,485,723,985

Amounts bid on my LLM post: $50, and $35, respectively.

Michael and I went out on a date tonight. He took me to this place off 11th street called the "Vegetarian House International Cuisine". It's a little hole-in-the-wall looking place with weird decorations, and it's run by a cult/small religion, but the staff was really professional and nice and informative, and everything on their menu is vegan and mostly organic, and everything we tried was so crazy delicious. Not even just good; we were eating stuff we don't even like, like shitake mushrooms for mike and brown rice for me, and we were getting so full it hurt and we kept eating more because that's how insanely good it was. Also, their vanilla cake was really good. I want to go back and bring everyone I know.

I seriously think San Jose must be like the best place in the universe to be vegetarian. <3

It's been a while since I had something to post, so. SPAM!

1. We saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age last night. ( Generally, I liked it. )

2. I wrote an essay about the Faerie Queene today, and only used the word "whore" twice and never had to use the words "penis" or "misogyny". I feel accomplished. <3

3. My strawberry plants! They have little green berry-lets on them! Eee! *thrilled*

4. I've mentioned, lately, things like wanting to have candles in case the power goes out or a first-aid kit for my car or an out-of-state emergency contact, yeah? And a lot of people have been kind of like..."that's weird. Why would you do that? Are you a crazy person now?" And, I mean... Aside from the fact that when you spend as much time walking into things/scraping yourself up/ getting random headaches/whatever as I do, you'd have to be crazy NOT to want tylenol and band-aids on you. *lol* For one thing, what does it hurt? And for the other, well...

I think I've mentioned to anyone who'd read this that sometimes I have nightmares, yeah? ( cut for those who don't care ) Long story short, I'm not crazy, and this is probably a pretty safe thing to humor me on, for those who were wondering. :D

5.Camping! This summer! Anybody interested? It'd be fun to do a family-oriented kinda thinger, but it'd also be fun to do a people-our-age kind of thing too-- burn some marshmallows into irrecognizablity, roast some corn-on-the-cob? Eeeh? come on you all know you want to

http://hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

I. Kind of want to do this. Er.

In any case, the man makes some interesting observations, and it's a quick read.

A couple of people have been asking me about vegan cooking, so I thought I'd post an example: my quick and dirty risotto-thing, and a baked squash. Warnings for my imprecise recipe-writing.

Risotto
Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil, a cup of rice (I like brown rice, but wild rice or long-grain or even plain white would probably be fine), and a package of cut-up clean mushrooms (I use button mushrooms, but you could also use portabella, or shitake, or a mix) into the bottom of a pan. Stir them around until the mushrooms are browned, then add one of those little bottles of white cooking wine and roughly a cup of vegetable broth. Cover and let simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Come back and check if the liquid is gone--you may need to add more and then just watch it if the rice isn't quite ready. Roughly chop some fresh basil leaves, toss into the pot. Drain a little container of quartered marinated artichoke hearts, toss those in. Stir.

It's just fine as a dinner on its own, but you could serve it with baked winter squash or with some meat if you have a carnivore at your house. :)

Squash
Grab a winter squash. Little pumpkins are good, but so are butternut squashes and acorn squash. I've never tried it with spaghetti squash, but that'd probably be good too. Cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and the stringy bits. Put a scoop of margarine or soy-butter, either some maple syrup (the real stuff, not pancake syrup; the latter is way too sweet) or brown sugar, some spices (some combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pepper, or just use pumpkin pie spice). Bake at 350 for around 30 min for a little pumpkin and closer to an hour for the bigger squashes; it should be squishy when it's done.

Chocolate-chip pancakes are the best dinner ever. I like being an adult. <3

Also! I am doing a quick!sketch meme over here(http://mitsuhachi.insanejournal.com/20712.html)
in case anyone wanted to leave me prompts.

( Halloween Soup )

( Lamb Curry with Pumpkin )

( Miniature Pumpkins stuffed with Rice )

( Mold and Mildew Dip )

( Orange-spice Pumpkin Bread )

( Rosemary Parmesan Pumpkin )

( Pasta with Pumpkin and Sausage )

( Pumpkin Pancakes )

( Roasted Baby Pumpkins )

( Spinach-stuffed Pumpkins )

( Pumpkin Soup )

( Pumpkin Cupcakes )

The BBC asked people to vote for the top 50 things everyone should try a bite of in their lifetime. Bold the ones you've tried.

I'm also marking * the ones I can prepare.

The top 50

1. Fresh fish*
2. Lobster
3. Steak *
4. Thai food
5. Chinese food*
6. Ice cream *
7. Pizza *
8. Crab *
9. Curry*
10. Prawns*
11. Moreton Bay Bugs (o.0)
12. Clam chowder*
13. Barbecues
14. Pancakes *(mmmm...pancakes)
15. Pasta *
16. Mussels*
17. Cheesecake*
18. Lamb
19. Cream tea*
20. Alligator (...does that actually taste good? You'd think it'd be all... dry, and tough...)
21. Oysters
22. Kangaroo (D:)
23. Chocolate*
24. Sandwiches*
25. Greek food
26. Burgers*
27. Mexican food (lol, as though anyone from california hadn't.)*
28. Squid
29. American diner breakfast*
30. Salmon*
31. Venison (DDD:)
32. Guinea pig (that'd be, like, two bites! WTF?)
33. Shark(surprisingly yummy in tacos)*
34. Sushi (lol)*
35. Paella
36. Barramundi (what is that even?)
37. Reindeer (but I bet uncle johnny has.)
38. Kebab*
39. Scallops*
40. Australian meat pie (is the kangaroo in it?)
41. Mango
42. Durian fruit (No idea)
43. Octopus* (yummy yummy pretty sushi)
44. Ribs (gag)
45. Roast beef
46. Tapas
47. Jerk chicken/pork (???)
48. Haggis (never again)
49. Caviar (fishbait. telling you.)
50. Cornish Pastry