Product Placement

Hi! My name is Busy.

I hardly have any time for you, blog-a-boos, but I ate a deRicious dinner and we should talk about it.

It started with "Not Vegan Vegan Caesar Dressing" adapted from OhSheGlows, the very best blog on the internet. The recipe started off vegan, but I have a cheese addiction, so... Yeah.

It went like this (visually), cause I don't have time to italics and bolds and bullets and all that jazz.

In a food processor (or a Ninja!), emulsify 1/2 c. water, 1/3 c. fresh lemon juice, and 2 tbsp EVOO.

Before. 

After. 

Add in a heaping 1/2 c. raw cashews, 1 clove of garlic, salt, pepper, and 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese.

Then stick it in the fridge for about 20 minutes. It will thicken up from the cashews absorbing the moisture.

I really loved this dressing, and it made a TON of dressing. Leftovers! Probably won't keep that well for long, though.

Here's the thing. I'm still getting into this grad school swing of things. Yeah, I'm busy. I work 30 hours of week. Luckily my very short commute only takes about 2 maximum hours total a week. I have 9 hours of class a week, plus 2 hours total per week commuting there and back. I try to exercise at least 5 hours a week. At least. I like to sleep 8 hours a night, or 56 hours a week. I eat three meals a day. That's 11 hours per week of eating. At least! (Ps. maybe I should workout more hours than I eat... just a thought?) My dog needs 2 walks per day. I totally short her and take her on sad fifteen minute walks. That's about 4 hours a week. It takes me half an hour to get dressed and do my makeup in the morning. You should see me before that routine... That's about 4 hours. I require showers in the evening. They take at least 1 hour a total per week. I once read that the average woman spends 1.5 hours a week using the... ahem... facilities. I drink a LOT of water. Let's make than 2. Too much?

That leaves roughly 42 hours a week to do what I want. That sounds nice. If I'm productive 6 hours per 2 days on the weekend, that leaves 30 hours during the week for me to get stuff done, or 6 hours per day. Yet somehow I end up with like 3 hours a day MAX to get my life in order. Can someone explain how that works out, please? Where did those precious hours go?

Sigh.

Back to product placement.

Sometimes you have to accept help where you can get it. And tonight, mine was in the grocery store.

This Tofurky Italian sausage was "amazeballs". I'm tired and saying stupid things.

Getting crispers!

DeRicious.

If you haven't tried that version of the Giada pasta sauce, (I got it at Target), you need to go buy it NOW. It is yummmyyyyy!!!

I'm going to go do homework now and lament over how much I miss you, my little blog of mine. My, my time flies when you're having fun!

When I Grow Up

Like most kids, I went through a lot of phases as a kid trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. Unlike most kids however, my phases were cyclical and actually practical (I never wanted to be a fireman or president). At an early age, like elementary school, I remember wanting to be an architect.

I wanted to build big pretty fancy houses for my family and me to live in. I don't know where that urge came from, but I watched a LOT of Bob Villa as a kid, so I blame him.

I don't know when I got over Bob Villa wanting to be an architect (the first time) but I started watching more Food Network. The Food Network was awesome in the 90's (it launched in 1993) because there weren't stupid competitions or reality shows or show downs. Sorry Bobby Flay, you're kinda a butt head.

"heyyyyy"

Anyway, the Food Network had shows like Two Hot Tamales, Ready Set Cook, Two Fat Ladies, Malto Mario, Sarah Molton, and The Dessert Show (with Mrs. Fields herself!). I watched all these shows and LOVED them. Yes, I watched a lot of TV as a kid. Whatever.

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to be a chef, too. In middle school/early high school I seriously looked into the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and became obsessed with their admittance process. I cooked dinner for my family as a high schooler, though I didn't really invent or create. I just made the things my mom would make, like stir fry or pizza or sloppy joe's. Fancy stuff.

Other than the Food Network, I think my Grandma had a lot of influence on my desire to be in the kitchen. When I was a kid she was always cooking southern classics like biscuits, bacon, chicken fried steak, gravy, peach cobbler (MY ALL TIME FAVORITE) and other things that contributed to my childhood obesity. Luckily I do not cook like that or eat like that (neither does she! she is the queen of vegetable soup!)  or I would weigh 375 pounds, easy.

this is what my grandma's cobbler was like, sugary, doughy, sticky sweet. i almost licked my computer finding an image.

If I would have stuck with it, I could have beaten Rachael Ray to the punch. But, around 10th grade I decided I wanted to be an architect again.

I think this switch was motivated by money. I wanted to be fricking rich, so I picked a top profession that didn't involve medical school, law school, or business school. (Life is funny sometimes).

I took it super serious this time, cause college was just around the corner. I took physics instead of easy science in high school. I interned with an architect and visited clients, drew CAD plans, and helped remodel kitchens. I went to Cal Poly's architecture summer workshop for four weeks during the summer before senior year. This was awesome because I got college credit. I had a GREAT time at what I later called "Architecture Camp". I made some great friends and made even greater memories. In the end I designed a house and got to build a model, too. I built a small home for my grandma and grandpa. It was bright yellow and had a tin roof. There was a room for my grandma to paint and a workshop for my grandpa to tinker around and build things. There were big windows and a hypothetical floor made from recycled materials. The model hit the trash a couple years ago. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of it. I have pictures of all the other projects, like this one of a covered pool structure. This one was cool because we were given a site orientation and had to make sure there was sun at certain hours and shade at other hours over a lap pool.

I made a lot of other ugly shit, too. But you won't be seeing that.

So I applied to Cal Poly with early decision priority. I ONLY applied to Cal Poly. It was the 2nd best school in the nation (next to Harvard) for architecture, and the only place I wanted to go. If I didn't get in then I would do community college in San Luis Obispo until I could transfer. Luckily, I got in.

However, one year into the program, I loathed architecture. I hated having no free time, not being skilled at drawing, not having a passion for building, and not being creative like my peers. I threw in the towel during my first quarter of second year. I had no clue what I wanted to do, but I knew that it wasn't architecture. I wanted to remodel kitchens and build houses, not sketch and create emotive spaces, or build experiential bull crap in CAD software. Not. into. it.

So I switched to a major that I knew little no nothing about. I figured one thing I liked about my arch classes was making the poster presentations using InDesign, and I knew I could keep doing design and layout in Graphic Communication. So I switched and took the intro class. It was about printing. Wait, what? There are DOTS on this paper? NO shit. Totally love printing. Still do!

dots!

Unfortunately, printing is not quite a booming industry. And I don't always want to work in production or manufacturing. But I'm young and I can change that now, so I am. And that's why I'm going to school for my MBA - so I can work in more industries than just printing and I can have the basis to be an effective upper level manager in whatever industry I wind up in. Let's just hope I don't rewrite this blog in one year from a culinary school.  :)

Praise Baby Bok Choy Jesus

We have a vendor at our farmers market that has some of the strangest things I've ever seen. I can't even describe all the stuff... spiney looking cucumbers, greens that I've never seen or smelled in my life, peppers of varying sizes and unknown scoville units. We've hit up the okra a few times, which kinda scares me because of its sliminess, but this week we picked up a vegetable that doesn't scare me at all: baby bok choy.

I present to you, dear reader, baby bok choy stir fry.

VEGETARIAN!

Garlic Ginger Baby Bok Choy Stir Fry


Ingredients

• 1 bottle Sesame Soy Ginger Vinaigrette/Marinade (or any other similar marinade)
• 1 package extra firm tofu, cubed
• 1/4 c soy sauce
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 3 tbsp fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
• 1 tbsp EVOO
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 1 yellow onion, in large slices
• 4 heads of baby bok choy, halved

Directions

At least two hours ahead of time, prepare the marinade:

In a large bowl, carefully toss tofu, ginger, garlic, sesame soy ginger marinade and soy sauce. Try to submerge the tofu so it soaks up all the flavor. Fridge it until ready to cook.

When ready to cook, pick the tofu out of the sauce (keep the sauce!) and place tofu pieces on a baking sheet. Broil on high for 10 minutes, then turn pieces and broil on high for another 10 minutes. 

While all that oven magic is going on, heat EVOO in a saute pan or wok. When oil is heated, add in mushrooms and onion and saute until slightly softened.

Reduce heat to medium, place bok choy on top of onions and mushrooms, and pour the marinade over the bok choy. Cover and cook until bok choy is tender, about 3-5 minutes.  

When the tofu is done, it will lightly crispy on the outside and golden delicious, but not like the apple variety.

Serve with brown rice and plenty of sriracha! I like the tofu on the side, but you could definitely toss it in before the bok choy if you so desire.

 Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

Wimp.

The employed folk might call today "the day before Friday" and say something like "yay tomorrow is Friday." For me, everyday is Friday. Or Saturday, really. BOO PITY PARTY. I'm not taking to unemployment well. I'm realizing just how much a job defined me for the past four years! I think that's a good and a bad thing. Good in the sense that I had so much commitment (FOCUS?) to my job. Bad that I didn't carve an identity otherwise. Good thing I have another three quarters of my life to fix that!

Happy eternal Saturday to all and to all a good night!

Blog One.

I have a lot of anxiety about writing my first blog post. To be honest, I have a lot of anxiety about a lot of different things, some even more trivial than the content of my first blog post. I suppose a reader could assume my propensity for trivial anxiety by simply reading this blog's title: Recipes for a Quarterlife. I'm at one of those points in life where you need to make some serious decisions. This particular juncture happens to be right at my quarterlife (assuming I make it to 100, minus a few months, though really I'd prefer to make it all the way to 100 if I happen to make it to 99 and some change).

It's not as dramatic as this quarterlife. Not even close.

At this point, I need to really decide what it is I want to do with my life, or at least which highway I'm merging on to next. I'm starting business school this fall, moving to my hometown, and performing a hard restart on all systems.  I don't know where I'm going to end up, but I suppose that's part of the fun and I will just need to let go of that anxiety here and now. Easier said than done.

Though my life is undoubtedly changing professionally and socially, there are two things I know about myself that are not changing. Those are my love of food and fitness. (Most likely not in a clinically recommended ratio!) My therapy is standing in the kitchen and cooking an extensive meal that nonetheless leaves a giant pile of dishes. Exercise takes a very close second to the satisfaction of cooking and sharing a healthy home cooked meal. Finishing a thorough and challenging workout is an accomplishment that cannot be taken away (unlike overcooking chicken).

And that's what this blog is all about: sharing my favorite recipes, my kitchen and culinary adventures with you, whoever you may be. My foodscapades might be sprinkled with workouts, or with whining, or with ranting, or with annoying recaps of my day. Or none of the above. They might be ugly cell phone shots of my cat, a rough draft of a term paper, or a simple list (I do love lists). Let's just play it by ear.