Friday, November 27, 2009

Turkey Alternative Part II: Spaghetti! SQUASH! Spaghetti!

So I bet you thought I would post this before thanksgiving? Yeah, I did too. I bet you were all glued to your computers, refreshing our site every few minutes. Waiting with baited breath for this post... Yes, sometimes I kid myself.

Any-whoozles. For those of you sick of eating tofurky/turkey/? leftovers already here is an über simple recipe I picked up from my sister.


Spaghetti! SQUASH! Spaghetti!



Simple Sauce:

• 1 28oz. can of crushed tomatoes with basil
• 2 large carrots chopped (yes, I put carrots in my tomato sauce)
• 1/2 onion chopped
• garlic (optional and to taste)(I use 2 tbsp fresh grated GINGER instead - soooOooo delicious!)
• 6 or so mushrooms chopped
• Olive oil
• 1 tbsp sugar (or sweetener of choice)
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh/or not oregano
• splash of red wine (optional)
• 1 head of broccoli chopped into bite-size bits
• salt and pepper to taste



"Noodles"

• 1 lrg spaghetti squash
• salt and pepper to taste



"Noodles" Directions:

Slice your spaghetti squash in half (length-wise). Scoop all the guts out. Cover gutted squash with water in a large pot. Boil until the squash is super well done (stick a fork easily in it). Drain water. Run a fork length wise down your squash (see photo below). Those are your "noodles." I left mine in the squash for a nice visual bowl - but you don't have to. Scrape all your "noodles" out. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour sauce over and enjoy! One large squash will probably feed four people.


Simple Sauce Directions:

Heat a bit of olive oil in a frying pan (like 2 tbsp?) for a minute. Throw in onions & garlic (or ginger). Brown slightly. Then toss in the mushrooms and carrots. Cook until mushrooms are darker and shrink slightly (dis means dey cooked). Pour in tomatoes, oregano, red wine and sugar. Stir together and cook until the sauce starts to thicken (~10-15 minutes). Throw your broccoli on top and cover (for just a few minutes) until broccoli is dark green. Stir together and add salt and pepper (to taste). Voilá!

(combine with crusty bread from Turkey Alt Part I for extra awesome)

I hope you enjoy this! I know I certainly did. And the best part is (accept for the bread) this is vegan and gluten-free!


Love you, mean it

Emily

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Turkey Alternative Part I: Italian Bread Soup

Oh bloggy,

How I've missed you.

What better week to celebrate beautiful food than thanksgiving week? This is part one of two great recipes I recently tried out. They aren't necessarily turkey-alternatives but more-so awesome cool-weather meals that are relatively quick and easy.

Part Uno:
I'm not really sure how accurate this recipe is to traditional Italian Bread soup. Or if traditional Italian Bread soup really exists? I randomly saw a picture in a cookbook and said "hey, I can make this vegan." The rest is sort of just history.


Italian Bread Soup



1 loaf ciabatta bread (sorry gluten-free faces!)
1 28oz. can of crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp fresh chopped sage
1 32oz. thing (package? can?) of vegetable broth (if you're crafty and not working and going to school full-time you should prolly just make your own)
6+ crimini mushrooms chopped
1/2 onion chopped
2 large carrots
1/2 head of savoy cabbage chopped (make sure to get this and not some other imitation cabbage)
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 400.˚ Heat about 2 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan. Once oil has heated for a minute throw in the onions. Brown slightly. While you are doing this, stir the tomatoes and vegetable broth together in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Once boiling add carrots, mushrooms, sage and browned onions. Simmer and cover (or vice versa). I would let this simmer for about 25 minutes so everything can cook together. If you like things to cook for longer - go for it - who am I to judge? Now add the cabbage and cook for another 5 minutes. You don't want to overcook your cabbage - overcooked cabbage is nar the horn nasty.



About 15 minutes before your soup is cooked - chop enough bread for you and who-so-ever is dining with you. Place the bread on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with olive oil. You can sprinkle some salt on their too depending on your taste. Place in oven for about 10 minutes until it's nice and toasty. Take out of oven and off of the sheet.

When you are bowling up your soup (bowling?), put at least a few slices of the bread on top of the soup so they can soak in. This soup wouldn't be Italian Bread soup without BREAD in it (gluten-intolerant friends, I encourage you to try this with your favorite bread alternative).

Bring this to your Thanksgiving party and say "L-tryptophan what?!?"


Love you, mean it

Emily

Sunday, November 22, 2009

RIP Daul Kim

Late Thursday night model, Daul Kim's body was found hanged in her Parisian apartment. Kim, sometimes muse of Karl Lagerfeld, was only 20 years old. "Kim, who was known in fashion circles for being feisty and sensitive, wrote about the high and lows of her hectic life on the international modeling world" on her invite only blog iliketoforkmyself (telegraph UK).



Her last post was entitled "hi to forever." But did not cause alarm because "most of the posts are entitled 'hi to' something. Her last post early on Wednesday morning is accompanied by a You Tube clip of the house record 'I Go Deep' by British DJ artist Jim River" (telegraph.UK).

love you, mean it

Emily

My First Gluten Free Pie (of the season)

I always find the first pie of the season to be extremely difficult to do successfully. Too wet, too dry or just...not. The combination of flours (this video is ADORABLE, by the way) is extensive and seems to take a subtle feel and intuition. For some reason I have no desire to make pie outside November-February and I find that every time I take this hiatus I press the restart button and need to hone in on my pie making ability. 

Something to note about gluten free pie is that the dough doesn't look the same; Most gluten free baking, for that matter, looks nothing like typical wheat flour baking. Its one of those things that Gluten Free people realize early on: if you're expecting it to taste (or look) the same, you'll always be sorely disappointed, but if you think of it as a completely different entity with its own perks, tastes, and quality you'll enjoy every bite. (unless your pie crust was as dry as my first batch- woops!)

I used Gluten Free Girl's recipe this time and I'm looking forward to going through my rolodex of pie recipes to improve and maybe this year I'll write down what I did...



and after I work on my own recipe i'll post that one. 

This was actually a sweet potato pie. I find pumpkin takes a lot of sugar to make it actually taste good, and sweet potato can go without much else but a tablespoon or two of agave.
 
love you, mean it.

Barton

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Key to my Heart

I saw these today while researching my trend report paper...




These laser cut wooden keys are available online at Liberty, a UK gift shop. They are designed by an amazing paper-cutting fiend: Rob Ryan. Who, I'm pretty sure will be in charge of creating the favors for my wedding someday. You can read his blog here or buy his wares on etsy.



love you, mean it

Emily

Friday, November 20, 2009

Friday Pretty

...my raspberries before i devoured them. Aren't they gorgeous? 
I love the contrast of the pinkish/red against the green.


Happy friday!

Love you, mean it. 

Barton

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Sammich!





This is your new favorite blog Barton.

Twig and Thistle: a collection of daily inspiration for home and life.



Love you, mean it

Emily

Welcome to the Gun Show

I peeped these little babies while downtown yesterday.


Courtesy of world's most amazing stripper shoe shop.
Good news is that most of them are vegan.
No joke!




Apparently Madonna liked them too.



Love you, mean it

Emily



photos care of likecool and insider

The Weekend Forecast

Thread: "a curated showcase of the best emerging, trend forecasting, style breaking, genre bending fashion designers, and the music and art that rock their world. A dynamic one day retail environment, bringing new fashion and art to more than 20,000 fashion savvy, trend pushing, music loving, taste making movers and shakers, all keen to get first dibs on what drops next in the emerging fashion designer world." 


Yes, please!

RSVP by Friday at noon and its $8 ($10 at the door). 7x7 has given us 7 reasons why we all should go, so I can stop yammering about how great its going to be. 

11am-6pm. I'm going Sunday!

Love you, mean it.

Barton

muscle connects to the bone...

An afternoon pick me up...

I would like her dress, please. 


love you, mean it.
barton

Satisfying Cravings

The only times I've been brought to tears because of my body's inability to digest glutenous products (and dairy, for that matter) is when I want pizza. Hot, gooey, salty, spicy, EASY pizza. You can get a decent slice anywhere and voila! You're full and happy. Eat it with your hands, in fact! If you eat it with a fork and knife, its considered rude. 

To get a slice of gluten free pizza one must travel far and wide and shell over their soul and their first born. 

I used Bob's Red Mill whole grain pizza dough mix. It was just about $4 and it tasted great! It is supposed to make two pizzas, but I got excited and made the first pizza a bit too thick, which meant that I had a strange amount of dough left over. 

Homemade pizza sauce, sautéed onions and zucchini, and a drizzle of goat cheese, lightly dusted with black pepper and red pepper flakes.


I decided to experiment and make some rolls with the left over dough. They were SO yummy. Way better warm and fresh, but when toasted the next day, tasted just as good! 

They were light a crusty- a rarity in the GF world. 


Finn watching me eat from the other side of the window. Meowing at me, no less. 

love you, mean it. 

Barton

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Celebration Anniversary Gym

This is "celebration anniversary gym" according to google images:








love you, mean it

Emily

Monday, November 16, 2009

My Future

yes, please. 

love you, mean it.

barton

picture found on audreyhepburncomplex

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Just in case you missed it...

Happy Monday!

Sometimes the blogosphere amazes me. People are so on top of their game (Emily) I don't even understand where their brilliance comes from. This place is all about being new, innovative, and edgy. Finding the next best thing before anyone else. Blogs create trends and people are paying attention. 

But I'm a conservative lady who sometimes catches onto trends a week (or a year) after everyone else. I like to have my shoulders covered most of the time, and I see happiness in timeless things built to last- so sometimes I feel behind the times. But I do my best and let you know what I think and most of the time just report the reported. Its a sphere of sharing, am I right? 

So if there are any other folks out there like me, I hope you appreciate this overview of some of my favorite posts from the last few weeks:




Any other good ones? Tell me, please. I know you're out there. 

love you, mean it. 

Barton

Saturday, November 14, 2009

This Charming Man

Ever browsed through Barney's like it was a museum, secretly hoping one day that Yigal Azrouël dress would be yours? Now it can be, if just for one night.

Rent The Runway is a new site run by the fabulous Jenn Hyman and Jenny Fleiss. The pair of Harvard business grads decided they wanted to bring high (expensive) fashion to the masses by renting it out.

First you sign up on their site and select the date you need a schmancy dress for. Then you select a dress from a slew of "A-list" designers (umm, hello Proenza Schouler, Vena Cava, Catherine Malendrino, the list goes on and on). The day of they will send you the dress in TWO different sizes to ensure fit and a cute little care package. The care package comes complete with a pre-paid envelope (to return the dress the next day), double sided tape, clip bra converter, deodorant wipes and breath mints!!! You don't even have to dry-clean it!


Love. Wear. Return.


Not willing to pay to wear something for one night? Think about it this way - how many times have you dropped $50 on some crappy dress from H&M because you "have nothing to wear" for so-and-so's wedding/party? Don't worry. You're not alone. I've done the same thing. But I will no longer acquiesce! I am going to wear that Marc by Marc Jacobs dress. Dammit.

Love you, mean it

Emily



p.s. information from rent the runway and refinery 29.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Life is a Struggle... Eat Cake.

Perhaps you've noticed or maybe you haven't? Anyway, I'm a sucker for fashion food. I wasn't really sure how to define that but then I saw this photo:



A model wearing A.F. Vandevorst eating cake. Above the photo was the slogan: "Life is a struggle.. Eat cake."

The slogan is the title of a video art piece by Stephan Blaise, co-creator of motion media magazine FLY16x9. The piece aired at New York's MoMa recently (maybe you caught it?). The video shows 5 women trying to eat entire cakes in real time.

I love this for many reasons. One being that it reminds me of a video piece my friend Phil did while we were in school. In the video he tries (unsuccessfully) to eat 30 McDonald's hamburgers. It was beautiful and disgusting and great. Much like this video by Blaise.



Love you, mean it

Emily



P.S. Post inspired by Fashiontribes.

Etsy Finds

There was a part of me that had been resisting doing another etsy feature because the last time I got myself into a bit of trouble. 

I'm being a good girl this time. I promise. I hope.


I feel like my Etsy choices this time do not have much of a theme... do you see one? 

I love that it teeters between summer and fall...perfect for erratic San Francisco Weather.
 


Warm Skirts are my saviors.
CUTE! Little bow. (Can I have the sweater too?)

simple farmer's market sweater

I have lots of these...and I want more. 

This Dress is really beautiful. Haven't seen much like it. 

Enjoy! 

love you, mean it.

Barton

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Bailey Lassoes The Moon

I encourage you to open this to a new window while you read this.

I aspire to one day own a nice trench coat. Not some crap from H&M (what I can currently afford) but a nice european-spy-looking-thing.

Christopher Bailey, head designer for Burberry had 700,000 people respond to his twitter updates after their spring 2010 line aired. And he was like wtf - why not make my own social networking site?!

That site is called art of the trench.

Fans and Burberry owners everywhere can post pictures of themselves (or other attractive people) wearing trench coats. Others can either view details of the photo, "like" the photo, comment on it or share it depending on their current fancy (what? I love british people)(and their snaggy teef). One may also connect with facebook to post their picture(s).



The site also features a history of the trench coat that - if I do say so myself - is actually pretty cool.


Here are a handful of my favorite photos so far:






So can someone buy me a trench coat already so that I can post pictures of myself and increase my self-indulgence pts?

I swear to you. One day this will work.



Love you, mean it

Emily



p.s. post inspiration from WWd

p.p.s. music by the kooks "sofa song."