The KitschenBitsch

The Bitsch Is In

Tomato-Corn Cobbler

(Note: This post was written prior to my vacation. I’m leaving the tenses alone.)

Whatever you’re doing right now, you should stop, go to the farmers market, get your ass home, and make some tomato-corn cobbler with pepper-biscuit crust and okra shoestring fries.

Quit sitting there! Go now!

Oh… you need a recipe? And ingredient list? Okay. That’s acceptable.

It’s been a damn good night. Life’s been rather hectic, what with the summer job and inadvertently becoming a home spa consultant (call today for your free spa treatment – facial, hand and foot treatment – whoops, sorry, wrong website). So, I took tomorrow off, and Mr. B and I are heading out for a beach vacation for the weekend. This means I don’t have to get up early and could finally tackle the obscene pile of produce that’s been accumulating from my CSA and a farmer friend.

I think I have ten pounds of roma tomatoes.

Anyhoo, we listened to NPR and I spent two hours chopping, blanching, mixing, and all-out creating. No, this does not take two hours. I was futzing around and enjoying myself and stopping to complete other tasks. And then, when I finished listening to an instructor talking about one of my favorite short stories to teach, Mr. B and I got to watch a Merle Haggard documentary while we tore into the cobbler. Yeah, it’s been a damn good day.

I started with Deb’s (of Smitten Kitchen, no less) recipe for tomato-corn pie. I made it last summer and it was so good I about hurt myself taking it down my greedy little gullet. However, I wanted a little sumpin’ else in that crust (and I have yet another variation on this masterpiece, so stay tuned for that one). Black pepper goes so well in scones – why not in a biscuit crust? And why not use buttermilk in place of milk? I mean, I am in the biscuit belt here. I also didn’t want to lose any tomato juice, so I decided to just do a top crust instead of putting one on the bottom to get soggy.

Try this recipe while the foods are in season. You will not be sorry. In fact, eat it so much you’ll be sick of it when fall gets here so that you may look forward to butternut squash.

tomatocorncobbler

Homespun happiness.

Tomato-Corn Cobbler

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Crust of Joy:

1 cup flour

½ tablespoon baking powder

½ tsp salt

lots of freshly coarse-ground black pepper, to taste

a dash of white pepper (for that deep, slow heat)

3 tbsp butter, cut into cubes

up to ½ cup buttermilk

Filling of Delight

Tomatoes! (Yeah, I’m leaving this open – I used about three big slicers and five or six romas)

At least two ears of corn

Fresh basil

1 tbsp mayo (feel free to soften up some cream cheese or sub in crème fraiche or Greek yogurt, you mayo haters)

1 tbsp lemon juice

Salt

Pepper

Sharp cheddar cheese

Whisk together dry ingredients for crust. Cut in butter with a pastry blender. Add buttermilk slowly, mixing into flour mixture by hand until it forms a loose dough. If it’s warm in the kitchen, put this in the fridge while you work with the other ingredients.

Preheat oven to 400. Bring a pot of water to boil and fill a large bowl with icewater. Cut an x in the bottom of each tomato and drop it into the boiling water for a few seconds, and then plunge into the icewater. This will allow you to easily slip off the tomato skins.

Slice the tomatoes and cut the corn off the cob. Place one layer of tomato slices in the bottom of a casserole dish. Top with half of the corn. Salt and pepper this layer, and sprinkle lightly with shredded cheese.

Chiffonade the basil (stack leaves, roll them, and slice the roll) and sprinkle it over the cheese. Repeat the tomato/corn layer. Whisk the mayo and lemon juice together and pour this over the vegetables.

Roll out the crust on a floured surface and place it atop the cobbler. It’s a cobbler – don’t worry if there are cracks or if the crust is a bit uneven.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until filling is bubbling and crust is starting to brown. Dig in! The filling will be runny, so I suggest serving the cobbler in a bowl or a plate with a lip.

Consume with reverent gusto and okra fries.

No Comments by TheBitsch on July 29, 2010
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Okra Fries

Boyfriend and I go to Asheville from time to time in order to have a quick weekend escape and to pretend that Biltmore is our own personal home. Each time we go, we pick a day to have a major meal at Chai Pani, an Indian street food restaurant. Here we can get an obscene quantity of food, seemingly half the menu, for a pittance, and our favorite part of the meal is always their okra fries. Well, that and the fact the waitstaff’s t-shirts say “Namaste, y’all.”

It took me a long time to warm up to okra. I always associated it with sliminess, but have discovered this is not the case. Fried okra is a thing of beauty, and okra fries are easier than the usual buttermilk dunk-cornmeal toss I usually do. I consulted the internet and found a neat little take on the fries at Food and Style.

Make three times as much as you plan to eat because these are delicious and addictive.

okrafrites

Do you know how hard it was to wait for a picture?

Okra Fries

barely adapted from Food and Style

A big-ass pile of okra, washed

Flour

Cornmeal

Salt

Seasoning

Canola Oil

Trim tops of okra and cut pods lengthwise. Heat ½-1” of oil in a pan or fire up (not literally) your deep-fryer. Julienne okra lengthwise. Mix some flour and cornmeal in a shallow dish. Toss okra slivers in this mixture. When oil is hot, drop handfuls of okra carefully into the oil. Cook until the okra is browning. Remove okra to paper towels and salt and season to taste with cayenne pepper or Indian spice mixes (I can promise you that seasoning the dredge is a waste of time, as most of the flour and flavor falls off when the veggies hit the oil). Stuff your face.

PS — While not healthy per se, these are vegan.

No Comments by TheBitsch on July 29, 2010
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One Reason I Adore Nigella

“Peel and halve the red onion and cut into very fine half-moons and put in a small bowl to steep with the lime juice, to bring out the transparent pinkness in the onions and diminish their rasp….Tip the now glowingly puce onions, along with their pink juices over the salad in the bowl…”

~From Nigella’s recipe for Watermelon, Feta and Black Olive Salad.

Actually, I don’t just adore her. I want to be her when I grow up.

No Comments by TheBitsch on July 7, 2010
filed in Musings

Purple [cup]Cake[s]

This post is dedicated to the one and only Cap’n. Cap’n and I have often talked about what we want to do whenever we achieve some lofty goal – whatever it may be. I’ve often discussed a party I want to throw whenever I publish my first book, a date that is always five to ten years in the future. (Considering I’ve written ten and forty pages of two books respectively, the date of release for that hypothetical book isn’t moving any damn closer.) At this party, I want two things – champagne and purple cake. (Coffee will be there too, but that’s just a given.)

lonecupcake

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of purple cake. Not lavender, not a yellow cake covered in fondant. Purple cake. Deep, beautiful violet cake with richly hued, jewel-toned frosting is what I want. I learned from a very young age that “purple cake” means “white cake with lavender flowers” or some such nonsense, and I am on a mission to change this.

I’m no fan of artificial colors. Also, I don’t see why they’re always necessary. I’ve seen the colors beet juice can impart to a cake – why the giant container of red color for a red velvet cake?

blueberrybatter

I found myself with an abundance of blueberries this weekend and the itch to get into the kitchen and experiment. Fruit cake (totally different from fruitcake) has been a thorn in my side – a thing I cannot master. I want rich fruit flavor both in the cake and in the buttercream, and it’s been obnoxiously hard to get the ratios straight. I’ve screwed up God only knows how many strawberry cupcake recipes, ending up with muted dry cake and gloppy icing.

Of course, I consulted the internet, and was immediately annoyed. Just as I’m annoyed about recipes for strawberry cake that begin “open one box of cake mix and one box of strawberry jell-o,” I’m furious with blueberry cupcakes that are muffins with frosting. No. NO. No.

See, frosting isn’t the main event when it comes to cake for me. [My boyfriend is raising his voice, declaring that I don’t understand cupcake or cake, as this statement completely goes against all he believes.]Yes, I love frosting and will lick it from my fingers if there is nothing sitting around just waiting to be cloaked in sugary fat. Frosting should add to the cake, not be some insipid concoction mean to saccharine a dry and flavorless cake. And there should not be shortening, which leaves a greasy film on the tongue. Ick, ugh, no.

Luckily for me, I found Casual Baker, who shares my cupcake philosophy it would seem. The recipe for blueberry cupcakes on the site required only minor tweaking for my tastes, and I was thrilled. The flavor is muted, but the color is deep, the cake is moist with a nice crumb, and the frosting isn’t overly sweet thanks to the cream cheese. I did not add the extra blueberry puree to the cupcakes that she recommends because I was worried about the cakes being too moist as I planned to transport them and serve them at an event (which dammit, is NEXT weekend… but that leaves me time to experiment with peach cakes).

Also, since I’m not a frosting piler, CB’s frosting recipe made enough to frost two batches of cupcakes, so I’m going to give you the quantities for a half batch. CB’s recipe made ten regular cupcakes (standard, not oversized) plus 24 minis. They are just as good naked as with icing. Of course, me being me, I switched up the extracts and dialed back the sugar.

nakedcupcakes

Eeeee! Naked cupcakes!

Lastly, start early. The blueberry puree needs to cool before err, pureeing, and the cupcakes are fine made the day before, as is the icing. I actually find the frosting better after an overnight chill to let the blueberry flavor really come out.

Celebrate your independence from boxed mixes and vegetable shortening with these cupcakes. Call them blue if you’re having a patriotic cookout. Or, I’m thinking of making this a fabulous three-layer purple cake for whatever wonderful event I next have a chance to celebrate.

Purple [cup]Cake[s]

Direct quotes from Casual Baker’s recipe are in quotation marks below. I bow to her baking prowess. Her completely awesome recipe is here.

Blueberry Puree

Put about two cups of fresh blueberries (CB says you can use frozen) into a small pot over medium-low heat. Slightly crush the berries with a potato masher to get the juices flowing. Do not add water. Bring the berries to a simmer and cook over low heat until thick and syrupy. This only took me about ten minutes, but if you have juicier berries it could take longer.

Let the mixture cool and then puree in a blender. If you don’t let it cool, you will have explosions. You can strain it, but I don’t see the point, frankly.

Oh, and by the way, if you add some sugar to the berries, don’t puree them, and sop up the resultant stew with biscuits like my grandma used to occasionally do for breakfast, you’ll be a very happy person for the day. Unless you get indigestion, which can happen.

Blueberry Cupcakes:
2 cups + 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup of butter, room temperature but not very soft
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 medium eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup whole milk  (2% will not cause the world to end)
1/2 cup blueberry puree
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper cups. You can probably get 45 minis or 15-18 standard-sized muffins from this recipe. The original looks to make a dozen, but I think that’s for an oversized pan.

”In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating just until incorporated.” Also, I accidentally dumped both eggs in at once and nothing bad happened. If you screw up as I did, merely soldier on.

”In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, mix the milk, blueberry puree and vanilla.

”Add wet and dry ingredients alternately to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix just until incorporated after each addition. Do not overbeat!”

Fill cups 2/3-3/4 full depending on whether you want flat or domed cakes. To fill the mini cups, fold down top of a ziptop plastic bag, put batter in bag, and snip off corner. This is much easier than spooning batter into those wee cups.

Bake for 18-22 minutes for standard cupcakes or 10-12 minutes for minis. Cake will spring back to the touch. “Cool for 10-15 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely before frosting. ”

Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting:

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cup blueberry puree (she called for this amount for the full batch of frosting, but my puree was very thick)
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Mix in the blueberry puree and extract just until combined.. Slowly add sugar and beat until incorporated. If you overbeat the mixture, it will look grainy like it does in my pictures. However, the texture won’t be bad and it will still taste delicious

”Frost the cooled cupcakes as you wish. Store in the fridge, but bring to room temperature before serving.” For this frosting, I recommend picking up frosting on the back of a spoon and swirling it onto the cupcakes. It’s so soft that I didn’t bother piping it.

overheadcupcakes

When they're tiny, you are contractually obligated to eat at least two. At least.

3 Comments by TheBitsch on July 6, 2010
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On Carnivore Guilt

Some of you may have noticed an empty spot on my blog as far as recipes are concerned. I like lots of cuisine – Southern, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, nondescript. But there’s one thing I really like to eat that hasn’t been appearing on this here blog so much.

Meat.

I love beef. I love pork. Steaks, burgers, and bacon are three of the most delicious things to cross my plate. And yet, I’m not eating them right now.

I’ve crashed headlong into a state I find myself in about every two years or so, a state I’ve dubbed “carnivore guilt.”

Carnivore guilt can strike with little or no warning. It often makes a lot of sense.

My first bout was at fifteen after assisting my grandfather with a bovine castration gone awry. My next, just about a year later, coincided with selling two steers I’d been raising. I even named them after two boys who’d messed with the hearts of me and a friend, but it didn’t help.

It’s really hard to be a vegetarian when you have close family members who are livestock producers and fancy possibly being one yourself.

I’ve been considering where this latest bout of carnivore guilt came from for awhile. I truly think it’s from seeing so many animals on the road when I’m driving to work every day. An hour commute makes for a lot of roadkill sightings. Yes, I know it’s because of “progress.” And yet, I can’t help but think that a little more suffering for a living being is unnecessary.

Yes, I know people make their livelihood off livestock production. People in my family have for years. But I also know that our livestock, and agricultural system as a whole if we want to be honest, is wrecked. I say this as the daughter of a farmer, so don’t take it lightly.

When I went to college, I was on track for a career in agriculture. Farming is a noble profession. However, the side of farming I planned to go into is not one I see as so noble now. It was well-intentioned, but I believe if I were in that arena at this point, I would have to leave.

Yes, I can buy organic, grass-fed, free range, holistic, all natural, holy-moly cattle products at my local farmers market and know that animal lived a humane and healthy life. I just question why that animal could not go on living that humane and healthy life while I have a bit of tofu instead. Basically, carnivore guilt comes in the form of me wondering just why in the hell I deserve to kill an animal for my dinner, and why in the hell pigs are food and dogs are pets and not vice versa.

People say we were made to eat meat. Yes, this is true. We were also made to be nomads and hunters and gatherers. I don’t so much think I require a T-bone to sit at my desk, teach at my classroom, jump on the elliptical machine after work, or go “gather” my groceries at the local market. Our lives have changed, and our diets should reflect that.

I’m not telling you to become a vegetarian. I’m not even calling myself a vegetarian. I can’t tell you that how I feel won’t change, or that I won’t experience what’s happened to me in the past that pulls me out of this immense guilt. The experience usually goes like this: I come to with a grease-smeared mouth. There is a foil wrapper from Cook-Out in my hand, and the lingering aroma of a small burger steak style fills the air nearby. There may be onion rings nearby. I may be clutching a peanut butter-fudge milkshake. I will feel happy and forget why I wanted to be a vegetarian.

Hormones are funny like that.

I’ve also learned that if I ever label myself with some sort of declaration that “I will never do/eat/drink X again,” it fails. When I quit smoking, there was no announcement in advance. I didn’t admit having quit for a few months. It wasn’t this one-time event; it was a chain of behaviors over a long period of time.

Right now, I’m not eating meat. That may change. This won’t become a “Vegetarian Blog,” but it will come up from time to time.

And dammit, I could really go for some bacon. Unfortunately, I see a living, breathing pig every time I start to crave it.

8 Comments by TheBitsch on July 2, 2010
filed in Musings

Don’t worry…

…this blog is not going to turn into some all-healthy, vegan- all-the-time show. I promise.  Recipes and photos (yeah, mostly healthy) will resume their regularly scheduled posting this weekend, and I promise to get some fat-laden goods in here. I mean, that IS what you know and love me for, right?

In the meantime, Cheap Healthy Good turns three, and celebrates by giving us the gift of their top ten recipes of the year! Our own life-changing (if I do say so myself) gingersnap oatmeal is featured. The butternut squash risotto ain’t to shabby, either, so get ye over there to wish her a happy Third Birthday, or to sound more adult (perhaps frighteningly so), a Leather/Crystal/Luggage Anniversary.

What are you eating for the Independence Day weekend? I’m going to have a few days off work and can’t wait to whip something up.

No Comments by TheBitsch on June 30, 2010
filed in Musings

Crack in a Jar

I have a new addiction.

I discovered Naturally Nutty’s Cinnamon Vanilla Sunflower Butter via Kath. (And man alive, not only does Kath post every meal each day, she manages to blog WHILE SHE MOVES. I feel sooo lazy.)

This is some of the most amazing stuff I’ve ever eaten. It’s got a bit of a gritty texture, reminiscent of when you cream butter and sugar together to start a cookie batter. The taste I can best describe as the coating on fried ice cream at a Mexican restaurant. The stuff is organic, allergy-friendly, and contains hemp and flaxseed oils (and, uh, don’t eat a whole bunch right out of the gate if you’re not used to eating flax… just sayin’).

I was really worried that I’d hate the stuff because I looked forward to it so eagerly from the minute I ordered it online. I actually ran down the driveway and met the UPS delivery person because I was so enthusiastic. Spread between two pizzelles (the ones at Costco are all-natural and have only 23 calories each!) and washed down with almond milk, this is my new favorite indulgence. Kath said the butter tastes like frosting, but all I can think of is the crust on the fried ice cream with a little piece of fried flour tortilla sprinkled with cinnamon. I’ve been putting the butter in oatmeal, smoothies, blended into iced coffee… you name it.The first taste is always my [Tired Metaphor Alert!] Proustian voyage back to a birthday meal at the local Mexican restaurant, with my eight-year-old self in a sombrero, happily pigging through the platter. Clearly, not much has changed. I still have a penchant for silly-ass hats (not to be confused with silly ass-hats) and delectable desserts.

I’m in love. Mr. B doesn’t like it, which means I get both jars allll to myself. That’s good, because I’ve already eaten half of the one I opened on Thursday night.

I am not being compensated for telling you guys about this. I just think you should know about it. Please don’t wipe them out though… I’m going to need more soon.

No Comments by TheBitsch on June 27, 2010
filed in Review

On the Gym

So, I mentioned a couple posts back that Mr. B and I joined a gym. It’s actually a wellness center affiliated with a hospital. I’d grown to loathe my usual gym so much that I haven’t been since I started my job. Yeah, that job, the one last August. Needless to say, even with my weekly pole lessons, I’ve been getting squidgier and my aerobic fitness (especially with this whole asthma thing thrown in) was positively laughable.

When you first sign up at Nifty Gym, you fill out an application, and if you’re in horrid shape (We were!), you get your doctor to sign off on it. Mr. B and I go to the same doctor, and I’m imagining him looking at the applications and screaming “Oh, thank God!” and rushing them back to the front desk.

Once your doctor affirms that he doesn’t think you’ll die on a stationery bike, you have a consultation and get your base measurements. This involves riding on a bike while keeping your heart rate at a certain level (flatly impossible for me — my heart thinks it is jumping hurdles, with corresponding spikes), testing your back flexibility (the one part of my body that 12 years of ballet did not make more flexible), testing your strength (I curled 60 lbs. like a champ), doing as many pushups as possible (I’m so mad I stopped at 25 — 26 would have put me in a higher category), getting weighed, testing your body fat percentage, and having everything measured.

As we’ve discussed, I’m a fat girl. Not hugely fat, but fat enough. I’m fat enough that due to my BMI (27), doctors love to tell me that I need to weigh 131 lbs. Having weighed that as a seventh grader, I’m less than optimistic. While I’m aerobically out of shape, I’m pretty damn strong. Hauling 165 lbs up a brass pole once a week (for recreation, not profit) and some other core strengthening exercises have given me above average muscle for a fat girl.

Imagine my delight when I discovered by bodyfat percentage is around 22% (!), putting me in the fit category. Imagine my utter thrill when my paperwork read, “KitschenBitsch, due to your low bodyfat percentage, it is not recommended that you lose weight unless you want to change your body composition.” I won’t lie. I did the cabbage patch out to where Mr. B was to show him, and I probably actually kept dancing until I got on the elliptical machine. For the first time in ten years, I was told that I did not need to lose weight. It was a beautiful thing.

One one hand, it was awesome. On another, it is sad that I needed that validation. My little community talks much about body image, and I think I’ve got a fairly healthy one at this point. But I can’t deny I’m holding on to three dresses from four years ago, waiting to see if I get back in them.

Of course, since I changed my eating habits and have been working out like a madwoman, I’ve lost four pounds. I’m fine with that, and I’m fine with losing more. But, if I stay this size forever and am healthy, I’ve got a hell of a lot to be thankful for.

************************************

On a funnier note, post-consultation I had my workout consultation with a trainer. She’s an exercise physiologist. I’ve determined this means she watches what you do when you’re moving, how you move, and explains to you why that is. She could tell which hip was stiff just by watching me. We also had quite a laugh when she discovered that I can’t stand with my feet straight ahead. This is due to genetics (my dad walks with his feet turned out, and not coincidentally needs a hip replacement at 57) and due to twelve years of ballet. Great. The classes I took to make me graceful have ruined my body. Those of you who know me know I have the flattest butt ever (seriously — it’s so flat I broke my tailbone TWICE). My weird stance and gait are part of that.

So, to combat this, I’m being very conscious of how I walk and am essentially learning to walk again. I’m also having to regain balance. I have fabulous balance with my weird gait, but with my feet pointing forward, I can’t stand on one foot at all. I’m also doing some strange stretches, including one that has me stand with a foot turned in, one leg bent on a bar in front of me and pulled over so far I’m twisted, and then bending at the hips. It’s hilarious, but it works.

My back and hips feel great even with my two hour commute, and I’m now able to do 45 minutes of cardio and keep my heart rate under 160 while I do it. I won’t lie… I do kinda feel like a superhero.

2 Comments by TheBitsch on June 25, 2010
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Chocolate Covered Spinach: The Other Milkshake… err… something

Summer’s here and the time is right for dancin’  in the street drinking creamy, frosty beverages. Seriously, it’s wet-blanket, poor air quality, crap-I-developed-asthma hot and humid down here. It’s gross, and I’m trying not to eat my weight in ice cream as I do every summer. I was not made for heat. I was made for cool, crisp autumn days and warm baked goods.

When avoiding massive amounts of ice cream, smoothies are an option. I’ve talked to you all before about how much I LOVE green smoothies, how they reduce cravings, help Mr. B lose weight, are portable, etc., etc., etc.

Well, a couple months ago I experienced extreme smoothie burnout. I drank essentially the same stuff every day for ages, and my belly and my tastebuds were OVER it.  Then, I took a summer job that has me on campus all day, going straight from campus to the gym most days. I’ve cut waaaay back on animal products which is great, but it often means that my tummy gets a bit rumbly three or four hours after I eat. Also, I need a tiny caffeine hit in the afternoon, and I ALWAYS crave a chocolate chaser after eating super-healthy food. Combine this with actively reducing my refined sugar consumption, and we have a problem.

I’m not a problem-haver; I’m a solution-finder. I knew that a delicious “milkshake” could be made by merging frozen banana, peanut butter, and chocolate. My favorite smoothie back in the day at Planet Smoothie was the Frozen Goat, a meeting of chocolate, peanut butter, coffee, and banana. With these concepts, a new idea was born.

If you make the smoothies for immediate drinking, toss in some ice cubes or freeze your banana first for a thick, frosty delight. Another great tip is to freeze your leftover coffee in ice cube trays. It will keep your iced coffee from getting watered down, and the cubes are great to use in this smoothie or in at-home blended coffee drinks, saving you $4 at That Coffee Store.  Dates can also be used as a natural sweetener. I plan to try my hand at date syrup in the near future. Feel free to change it up and let me know in the comments if you have any successful combos.

This shake is an excellent pre- or post-workout treat, and it’s been keeping my milkshake cravings at bay for quite awhile now.

Alternative Chocolate Milkshake (no, not really the Pearl Jam of milkshakes… sorry)

For two servings (16 oz each, about one liter total), toss into the blender:

Two big handfuls washed spinach (I prefer organic baby spinach because I’m inadvertently becoming a giant hippie)

Two bananas

1-2 tablespoons peanut butter (depending on your calorie/protein needs)

Optional: 2 tablespoons-1/4 cup oatmeal (depending on how much “sticking power” you need)

1-2 tablespoons of cocoa

½-3/4 c. coffee

½-1 c. unsweetened vanilla almond milk

Splash of vanilla

Optional: 1 tsp. sweetener of your choice – I’ve used agave and maple syrup and usually my bananas are sweet enough to go without it, unless I put in too much coffee and/or cocoa, making it bitter

Pulverize until smooth. Pour into lidded vessels of your choice and refrigerate until consumption. The oatmeal will cause the mixture to thicken overnight, and you may notice some separation. I store mine in two pint-sized mason jars so that I can shake them before drinking, and I like drinking out of glass containers. It’s one of my classier traits (though of course, I drink my beer straight from the glass bottle in restaurants and on planes, horrifying servers and probably embarrassing the shit out of Mr. B).

No Comments by TheBitsch on June 24, 2010
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Cleaning up the Kitschen

*Vacuums cobwebs* Hi there.*sneeze*

So, I guess you’ve figured out that whole “summer off” thing didn’t pan out. I’m such a fool for thinking it would. I’m tremendously bummed that my much-needed break isn’t going to pan out, but I’m glad to be getting the money and to be getting experience in another job.

I was asked at the last minute to stand in for a coworker on maternity leave, so my plans have been thrown out, clearly. I’m only working four days a week, but those four days come with a long commute, a hefty chunk of time at the gym, and then on my days off I’m just trying to catch up. Maybe next summer I’ll get to that list of 30 Before 30. This summer, I’m not even going to get out of state, let alone across the country.

So what’s been going on? Welll….

I went with Mr. B to Biltmore again.

I went to Salt Lake City with Black Witch to see Blonde Witch and her little Red Witchling.

I spent a weekend at the coast watching Mr. B catch and release sharks.

I had a Beauticontrol spa party which only my mother and one friend came to, and I was so exhausted that I served all storebought food – blasphemy in my own house.

We joined a really awesome gym and go most days of the week. It’s taking up a lot of time, but totally worth it.

During the week, Mr. B cooks and I take frozen Amy’s entrees and smoothies to work, and I’ve been 85% vegan for the last few weeks. Crazy.

The good news? I’ve got a backlog of posts that I’m trying to turn out, and I’m cautiously optimistic that I’ll be able to resume regular blogging in a couple weeks once we finish a little more work on our house.

Thanks for hanging around, and the Bitsch will be back in posthaste.

Xoxo,

KB

No Comments by TheBitsch on June 24, 2010
filed in Musings

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