Dear fellow foodies and other interested friends,

Yesterday afternoon at work during my lunch break, I saw that a friend (who is a new vegetarian), posted in his status about chili cheese fries. I couldn't get the thought out of my head the rest of the day. I have had them many times before at Oreans, a vegetarian fast food place in Pasadena, but I don't think I've ever made them at home.

After a great workout at the gym with my hubby, we stopped by the grocery store so I could buy supplies. He was having a salad and some leftover rice and veggie stir fry because he had eaten so poorly the rest of the day, but I was determined to indulge in some culinary goodness, Suo-style. When complete, I thought the dish was beautiful, and the hubby looked impressed too, so I decided to give you all some food porn, and the recipe to my newest experiment:

Ingredients:
1 bag frozen crinkle cut fries
2 cans vegetarian chili
2 bags Veggie Shreds (shredded vegetarian cheese product) 1 bag mozzerella, 1 bag cheddar
1 bunch green onions
1/2 avocado
Seasoned Salt
Original California Style Hot Pepper Sauce
Ketchup
Tabasco sauce
Red Wine Vinegar
Ranch Dressing



Directions:
1) Cook the fries according to the package directions, and your preference. My broiler is in frightening shape, so I just baked them a few minutes longer than suggested, to obtain optimal/acceptable crispness. I was cooking for myself and one serving of leftovers so only cooked about half the bag.

2) Heat up the chili (1 can). I cooked it on the stove top because I had some time while the fries were baking and I try to avoid using the microwave when possible. Again, I only cooked 1 can. The good news is that now I have an easy meal waiting for us next time we're at the beach shack and craving this kind of yumminess.

3) Chop the green onions and avocado, and open your bags of shredded veggie cheese.

4) Take the fries out of oven and start plating.

5) Lay out your desired amount of fries on a dinner plate. I put a single layer of about 20 fries or so. Lightly sprinkle with seasoned salt, if desired.

6) Sprinkle a layer of veggie cheese shreds over the fries.

7) Spoon out a layer of chili over the cheese. I tried to get an even distribution of chili over the plate, while not completely dousing or drowning the fries.

8) Sprinkle more cheese over the chili, as desired.

9) Microwave the dish for 30-45 seconds (or more) to speed up the melting process of the cheese.

10) Pepper the dish with the green onions and avocado.

11) Drizzle with the pepper plant sauce, ketchup, tabasco sauce, red wine vinegar (although malt vinegar could be good, too!), and ranch dressing, as desired. I drizzed just a little to moderate amount of each so as not to overpower the dish with any particular flavor.

12) Drool and (do whatever else you do right before eating) and enjoy.

13) Optional: Chase with one of your favorite craft beers.


So that's it, folks! Let me know if you try this, and what your variations are!

Peace & Love,
S

A shot towards satiating...

I’ve had a pretty hard day today. Not like training-for-a-marathon-hard or trying-to-cope-after-getting-robbed-hard, or suffering-from-starvation-hard or going-off-to-battle-hard or working-for-peace-hard. But hard in the context of this little life I lead. I’ve felt challenged from the moment I got out of bed this morning. And yet I do feel guilty for bitching about it because there are others out there dealing with far more than little ol’ me. It’s been a long day and it’s not that long of a story, but probably not that exciting.

In any case, the last straw for me was realizing I had left some treasured items and resources somewhere I wasn’t planning on being for a few days. So, in feeling malnourished by the lack of those items, I’ve decided to redirect this effort to satiate this need for self care and community through free-writing and doing at least a little brainstorming in preparation to tell my spiritual journey at my Quaker meeting sometime soon. I’ve been telling a F/friend that I would do it for an adult education session for quite some time now so I’d like to make an effort to follow-through on that expression of willingness.

Where do I begin? Ah yes. Brainstorming.

***

OK. So I did about a page of brainstorming. But to share it or not to share it here? Maybe I should wait to share the journey until it’s written. Hmm. Well, it felt good to get started with that, and it felt good to write a bit. I feel a little more nourished now. Introspection is selfish but it has it's benefits, I hope.

Happy New Year

Boring title, I know. But I'm here and that's the point. So what leads me back here tonight? Is it motivated by the New Year and a manifestation of a superficial "good" intention? Maybe it is, and maybe it's just about writing. Maybe it's because what I feel I have to say won't fit in a Facebook status update. I was looking at other people's statuses, talking about their resolutions and goals, and was thinking about my own for this year, which was basically to working on "catching up". I'll get back to that, because what I want to do first is reflect on the vacation I just had. I'm also reminded that I never properly recorded a travelogue of our honeymoon in Europe which I still intend to do sometime. Another project that I was reminded of this weekend is to return to considering documenting and sharing my spiritual journey.

When I left work before the holiday, I really wanted to be intentional about having a fulfilling vacation. I wanted to make good use of the time, in ways that I could feel good about and be proud of. Now, I didn't accomplish all of my goals, but I did make some progress. I could really use another week or two. But who couldn't, right? I heard some folks say that they were ready and even anxious to come back to work today. Not me, but I did what had to be done, and now I'm rewarding myself. I had a delicious dinner from In-N-Out and now I'm clearly indulging in some good ol' fashioned navel-gazing. Ahhhh.

So, here are a few of things I had interest in doing over my vacation:

* get all christmas gifts bought or made, wrapped and sent

* send holiday cards

* finish wedding thank you notes

* study music

* read

* get together with old friends

* clean

* de-clutter

* sleep, sleep, and more sleep

* workout/prep for 10k on 1/31/10.

* SoulCollage silent retreat

* catch up on Quaker committee work

I'm sure there were probably a few more aspirations but this list summarizes it pretty well. I also intended to report each day on my progress and how well I was rockin' my vacation but I got shy.

I am happy to say that I did get some christmas gifts bought, made, wrapped and delivered, and yet there are still some to do. We sent a few more holiday cards and thank you notes and alas, there are more of those to do. I do feel blessed and grateful that I have so many to thank and reconnect with. It was nice to do some of that and see and speak with some family over the break. And then there were those familiar chaotic bittersweet holiday family moments that remind you where home is.

I did not read, study music or get together with friends very much, if at all.

I did not clean much, but I did de-clutter a bit.

****

I got distracted. But I'm back. Duh. Doh. Hmpf.

ANYway, back to the public display of navel-gazing. I was quite proud of the de-cluttering I have to say. In two days, I managed to clear out a couple of boxes and throw out/recycle four brown paper bags worth of old committee notes, minutes, agendas, travel documents, etc. It was the first time I had looked at these materials without excuses being made about how I would use them in the future. If I hadn't used them or looked at them in years (some as old as seven years), I figured I wouldn't be looking at them much going forward. The space cleared would be more useful than the space cluttered. If cared so much about the organization I had volunteered for, I should find a way to help them in real, tangible ways today. I needn't become an expert on the history of policies and process. A better gift would be to give of my time and the of the gifts I know I inherently have. There are many more boxes to go through (more committee minutes and notes, class notes, syllabi and papers from high school and college, old letters from old friends, trinkets, and countless other subjects), but four heavy bags was no small feat. And since my shredder is also broken and in my to be de-cluttered pile, I tore everything by hand. My hands have been terribly dry every since, but my heart and spirit do feel a bit cleansed.

I only slept in one day, until 3. I could have slept until 3 every day, but somehow I knew that wouldn't give me what I was looking for. I did get in a nap or two and that supplemented my need rest, at least a little bit.

I did workout, I did go to the SoulCollage silent retreat and I did do some Quaker committee work.

I also spent some time with my husband and step-daughter and that, too, was time well spent indeed.

Well that's that. One scattered mess of a first blog back.

Love,

S