message to farmers: NIMBY!

nowadays there's one more thing to add to the list of power plants, trash dumps, and prisons that elicit the cry of "not in my backyard!": farmers. it's bad enough that i've had to put up with a slew of dirty hippy farmers invading union square three times a week under the family friendly guise of the greenmarket. but since moving, i'm now expected to tolerate this neighborhood nuisance just one mere block from my apartment every single sunday.

ladies and gentleman, these farmers have no business in tompkins square park. this is historically a place for drug dealers, homeless people, and riots. not small business owners peddling organic and affordable produce. i decided to pay them a visit last sunday and one vendor even had the nerve to sell me eight ripe and delicious plums for only three dollars.

look, all i'm saying is, we didn't suffer through an industrial revolution just so we could abandon factory farming. do we really want our future generations knowing where their food actually comes from?? i admit, there's probably no stopping those those liberal pinko nutjobs from advocating fair and healthy options for our planet, our workers, and our bodies. but at least let them do it out on some commune or kibbutz somewhere - not in the middle of my urban metropolis.

if you, like me, want to boycott these farmers' markets altogether, i suggest using local harvest to plug in your zip code and find the locations nearest you. this tool for avoiding local family farmers is certainly invaluable.

still don't believe what a crisis this really is?? just check out what happens to the poor twinkie (at a farmers' market!) in this video and learn more about the left wing attempts to undermine the farm bill here.

you hear that farmers? it's on!!

i <3 salad

well it's time for me give a shout out to my favorite fellow blogger again. i'd been waiting for a special occasion to make this awesome recipe, but finally i decided i would just treat myself!

in this sweet summer treat you take something plain and simple like this:



and mix it with other fun ingredients containing things like high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and modified food starch to make something like this:



pretty great, huh?

snickers salad (by carrie's dad's girlfriend kelly)

• 6 chilled snickers candy bars
• 6 apples (granny smith and/or red delicious)
• 1 container cool whip
• 1 box instant vanilla pudding

mix cool whip and pudding mix together (i substituted lite cool whip and sugar/fat free pudding for a healthier option). core and chop apples and snickers into bite size pieces. even though i substituted individually wrapped snickers minis (all that packaging makes me feel safe from food contamination... and terrorists) , i still halved or quartered each one. combine apples and snickers with cool whip / pudding mix. drizzle with caramel and chocolate and chill for at least an hour.



this is quite possibly the sweetest thing i've ever ingested (and this is coming from me - the girl who eats ice cream by the tub and donuts by the dozen). i actually wound up using only half the apples called for because there simply wasn't any more room in my bowl to mix up more salad - so perhaps more fruit would have offset the cloying flavor a bit. but as we all know, the more saccharine the better when it comes to desserts - which means the snicker salad is pretty much perfect!

do real people eat this? (part one: cottage cheese & banana)

welcome to the first installment of my new series entitled "do real people east this?" in these posts i'll examine food combinations that are (or were) staples for me, and ask if any other human beings out there actually eat them. then it's up to you, my faithful readers, to reply and tell me just how much of a freak i am. i'm kicking things off with a childhood favorite that i still eat today: cottage cheese & banana.



my mother got me hooked on this one early on. i did some snooping on the internets and all i seemed to turn up was a baby food recipe (that seems to use "cottage" and "cream" as synonyms) and some misguided fitness enthusiasts.



so tell me blogosphere, does anyone else out there eat this? and if not, would you all be willing to try, because i'm telling you - it's delish!

miracle of modern science

one of my favorites fruits is the mango, but i've always detested what a mess they are to eat. well now there's been an amazing technological advancement that's turned the mango into an simply snackable comestible.



i don't know what sort of genetic engineering or scientific mumbo jumbo went on in a lab somewhere to make this a reality, but i'm just happy it did.



heaven forbid my dining experience should ever be hampered by napkins or hand washing. now, finally, i can eat my fruit with a plastic fork out of a non-biodegradable container like a civilized human being. hooray for science!!

triple berry surprise

okay kids, this recipe is a bit involved, so you might want to enlist some parental supervision. there's prep work and stove usage... but don't worry, no knives! anyway, now that i've been turned on to one of the hot new cooking trends out there, it's opened up a whole world of possibilities to me, not the least of which is wheat berries!



triple berry surprise

• 1 part wheat berries
• 4 parts water
• 1/4 cup raspberries
• 1/8 cup goji berries
• 1/4 cup soy milk
• 1 tablespoon honey

rinse wheat berries in cold water. to cut down on actual cooking time it's best to soak them overnight (or for extra easy cookability soak them for a full day and pretend it has nothing to do with the fact that you forgot they were already sitting there on the stove for a good 12 hours). i used a half cup of berries and 2 cups of water because i don't actually own a full set of measuring cups (a true chef just knows) and the half cup was all i had handy. bring water with wheat berries to a rolling boil and cover pot. let cook until most of the water in the pot has evaporated (for an added crunchy film, ignore pot boiling over and smell of burning wheat and allow half the berries to fuse to the bottom of the pot). drain berries (or not, depending if you went for the crunchy film effect) and top bowl with raspberries and goji berries. add a splash of soy milk and drizzle with honey.



i suppose i've given away the fact that the surprise in this recipe is really just some soy milk and honey, so if you make this for friends be sure not to spoil it! some might also argue that this is more of a breakfast dish than a dinner one. but as you all know, i refuse to be bound by society's norms of time specific food.

whoa, sour (lg15 9 of 12)

if the creator's aren't above a bit of product placement, then neither am i.

and what better time than 20 minutes into the ceremony when we're all wondering if bree is dead to plug some gum!



and not just any gum, new ice breakers sours gum! bree chewed these in the truckstop reunion video.



i personally prefer the box with berry splash, strawberry, and raspberry lemonade; though they come in other flavors as well. the recommended serving size is two pieces. you can try more than that if you dare, but you risk having a complete overload of sourocity.

thanksgiving in august (lg15 5 of 12)

i've been sharing some great snack recipes with you all afternoon, but now it's time to get into some serious cooking.



thanksgiving feast (by lonelygirl15)

• 1 bottle of cranberry juice
• 1 bag of potato chips
• 1 container of trail mix
• 1 package of turkey jerky

bree made this meal in picnic form for daniel in the thanksgiving video. it's a great new take on the traditional thanksgiving dinner with the turkey jerky (i substituted primal strips meatless jerky) representing the turkey, potato chips as mashed potatoes, trail mix for stuffing, and cranberry juice instead of cranberry sauce.

i can't wait to make this for my family come november!!

breakfast in bed the morning after (lg15 1 of 12)

so a little over a year ago i decided i need yet another way to waste time on the internet and got sucked into the lonelygirl15 videos. today, 200+ videos later, is the 12 videos in 12 hours season finale, so i'm geeking out by devoting all of today's blog entries to the amazing recipes i've learned by watching this series. seriously, all of the drama of the ceremony and escaping the order is practically overshadowed by the incredible cooking.

so without further ado:



bree's breakfast in bed with jonas's morning after coffee (by danielbeast)

• one banana
• one orange
• one small container of yogurt
  
• 3/4 cup of cereal with milk
• 4 heaping tablespoons ground coffee

daniel made this for bree during the breakfast in bed video.




slice banana into coins (if you're not quite up to par with your knife usage yet a plastic knife or even a chopstick will still cut through the soft banana). peel orange and separate into wedges.* serve with bowl of cereal (bree had froot loops, but i substituted some hoighty toighty healthy cereal) and container of yogurt.



i tried my best to recreate the coffee daniel made for jonas in the morning after, but for some reason i couldn't get mine to appear invisible like his did. i made mine with mud truck organic hippie blend but maybe next time i'll try something different to achieve that "does not appear on film" effect.

snacks and lunch coming up next... stay tuned!

*nerdy bonus point - does anyone know what other video involved bree and orange wedges?

trendsetter

one of my favorite bloggers, carrie (aka adam's wife), tipped me off to a hot new food trend a few months back - whole wheat.



well look what i stumbled across at the store the other day. i don't usually fall victim to short lived cooking fads, but i figured i'd give this one a whirl.



trendy peanut butter & jelly sandwich

• 2 slices whole wheat bread
• one heaping tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter
  
• one heaping tablesoon of jelly

spread peanut butter evenly on one slice of bread. repeat with jelly on the other slice. combine bread slices (jelly side to peanut butter side) to form a sandwich.



i'm sure this trend won't be around for long - but it sure is fun to play around with in the meantime! thanks carrie!!

think pink

sometimes i simply don't have time to practice my culinary arts. but anyone can still eat healthy with a quick trip to the corner deli.



diet cranberry ginger ale and a japanese red bean cake are rich with almost all of the major food groups.

the rice flour on the outside of the mochi is your serving of grains, fruit is obviously fulfilled by the cranberry in the ginger ale, and red beans count as both a vegetable and a meat believe it or not.

the only food group missing is dairy. so perhaps next time, i'll supplement this all pink picture of health with some individually packaged strawberry cream cheese spread (courtesy of dunkin donuts).