SOTD - 01.24.13

Are you up to the challenge of making today's Smoothie of the Day?!
Fun Fact: it's not really a challenge. I just want to remember how to make this again sometime.

1 small banana
1/2 (ish) c. frozen blueberries
2 kale ice cubes (method found here)
spoonful (virgin) coconut oil
almond milk

You know your smoothie? It's all bluuue.

Aside from being tasty, this smoothie was a success because:
1. Those kale cubes blended in better than straight up, raw kale.
2. It is dairy free, if you like that sort of thing.
3. I bought a giant bucket of frozen blueberries last fall, so anything with blueberries wins.

So there you have it! What are you drinking this snowy Thursday morning? Yes, it's 11 degrees outside, I brushed an inch of snow off my car, and I had a smoothie for breakfast. Don't worry though, I've now moved on to one of my favorite teas.

Things I Like to Smell - Vol. I

Do you have certain scents that trigger memories for you? Or, conversely, when you reflect on some time, place, or person that was special to you, does a smell come with that memory? It does for me. For example, freshly baked bread smells like being home because my mom is the best at making bread. Even though my first boyfriend was over a decade ago, I can still tell when I walk by someone wearing the same cologne. And after my grandma passed away, I considered buying some vintage Avon talc powder at a flea market  because she had it in her bathroom for as long as I can remember.

photo credit

Anyone who spends a significant amount of time around me will quickly learn how much I like to smell things. Justin and I almost always spend some time smelling seasonal candles wherever we find them. Teavana and Penzeys both endeared themselves to me from my first visits, simply because you're allowed to smell all the things. And sometimes when I am sad or bored, I will go to a grocery store and stand around smelling the different body washes or fabric softeners. I'm well aware that it's things like this that make me obviously normal and not weird at all.

Without further ado, here are some things I am currently fond of smelling. This volume of Things I Like to Smell was inspired by my friend Kerry's post on beating the winter blues. Even though we had a freakishly nice weekend (high five, global warming!) it is back to feeling wintery here in Ohio and these are the smells that cheer me up despite the weather.

photo credit

1. Sea Spray from Lush Cosmetics
My friend Vicky gave me some of this and it has gradually become my new BFF. I like it for all its intended reasons (like making me not look as if I'm trying to cosplay Hermione Granger in my daily life) but the most surprising thing for me was the scent. This product is the perfect reminder of sunny, windy, sea-salty days. I don't know how they do it, but I've found it a pleasant surprise to catch a whiff of summer when it's all of 12 degrees outside.

2. Orange & Cranberry Scones
Whether it's because this is the first flavor I ever made, or just the fact that citrus is such a happy smell, baking off a batch of these scones always smells the best to me. Find a recipe, make yourself some tea, and and eat one while they're still warm from the oven. Trust me on this.

3. Stauf's Market Spice Tea
Speaking of tea, this one is amazing. It tends to get cold before I can finish it because I'm always torn between wanting to keep smelling it and wanting to drink it. If you like orange-y cinnamon teas, this is the best one I've had yet.

4. Woodsmoke
My parents have a wood-burning stove in their house, so this is another smell that always reminds me of home. The combination of clean, cold air and the drifting smoke never fails to take me back to the days of bundling up and going out to play in the snow with my brothers.

5. Homemade Yujacha
I found this post on Pinterest about a Korean concoction of honey and lemons that you add to hot water to make a drink that's good for fighting colds. Since I love honey and lemons, I had to try it. I also added slices of fresh ginger to mine, and sweet merciful heavens it could not possibly smell any better than it does. It also tastes good, which I was concerned about with leaving the pith of the lemon in there. I am almost through my first jar of it, and I haven't even been sick.

So am I the only one who just wanders though life smelling things? Or could I run into you in the laundry aisle the next time I'm lurking in a grocery store? Either way, I hope you get to smell some of your favorite things today too! As for me, I think I'll be making some tea shortly!

PSA: Crimes Against Nature

Hello. This is your local, neighborhood Jordan, here to remind you that some items in your grocery store are crimes against nature and that you should avoid them at all costs. If I never saw one of these "foods" again, it would be light-years too soon. Most of these things are the mutated counterpart to something delicious, and it should be known that my hate for these wretches stems from human meddling. Except for the last one. I'm convinced it's an alien.

1. Canned Mushrooms
They don't taste like mushrooms. That rubbery, soggy texture is disgusting. They are slimy and evil.

2. Turkey Bacon
Don't even start with me. Anything not made of bacon will never be bacon. NEVER.

3. Canned Pineapple Juice
It tastes like metal and citric acid. It's probably made of pineapple tears because it reeks of sadness.

4. Jarred Albino Asparagus
There's no way it's not over-cooked, but mostly that crap looks like fingers. Scary as all get-out.

5. Baby Corn
Also terrifying. Like it comes from an alien planet where they have hands and teeth that are also that tiny and equally creepy. In the immortal words of Nadia G, "You suck, baby corn!"

Are there any foods for which you harbor an irrational and probably unhealthy hatered? Please share!

A Conversation & An Alot

Me: Of the two Theory of a Deadman songs I've heard before, I thought 'Bad Girlfriend' was by Seether and 'Not Meant To Be' was by Nickelback, haha.

Justin: Alot of modern rock sounds similar.

Me:

If you're not familiar with it (i.e. don't understand why this is funny), you can find the original Alot at Hyperbole And A Half. And shame on you for not knowing about it already!

Review: Sophie's & Ajumama

Part II of  The Happy Day I Got to Try Lots of New Food

On the same day Karla and I had brunch at Skillet, there was a food truck party at a new-ish little brewery in Columbus. The place is called Zauber Brewing, and they occasionally have these events where you can try their beers by the pint and they bring in a rotating cast of food trucks while they're at it. I, like many other self-proclaimed foodie-types, am a big fan of the food truck scene, added to which, not one but two of the trucks I've been wanting to hunt down were both scheduled to be there! So of course, I had to go.

Justin and I headed down around dinner time, and probably would've missed the brewery if it weren't for the food trucks out front because it's so small. We then walked all the way around the trucks because there was a cord around them, not realizing until we got to the other side that we had to duck under it to get in. Ha. It didn't occur to me they were making an enclosed space until I saw people with pints of beer in hand.

Once we finally managed to get inside, we started at one end of the line and perused the menus of all the food trucks they had circled up like a caravan of conestoga wagons. According to the Zauber Brewing website, the line up that night was: Hungry Monkey, Mojo TaGO, Tatoheads, Ajumama, Blu Olive, Sophie's Gourmet Pierogi, Short North Bagel, and Street Thyme. Every truck had something (or several somethings) that sounded good, so it would've been hard to decide where to go if I hadn't already been following a couple of them on Twitter and getting hungry from their updates. Plus, Justin wanted pierogi too. So now, on to the food:

What We Ordered:

From Sophie's: Justin - The Vintage, Me - The Soph

From Ajumama: Traditional Hodduk 

Definitions (just in case): 

Pierogi - Similar to a big fat ravioli, but usually filled with mashed potatoes and cheese or onion. Origin: Poland.

Hodduk - Kind of like a chewy pancake, but filled with cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts. Origin: Korea.

Why I ate two filled-dough-type things for dinner - They were delicious.

Photographic Evidence:

Me and my delightfully-international, truck-made dinner.

Verdict of the Noms:

All very good! I don't know how Justin's pierogi tasted because he ate them so fast, but he said he liked them. I liked my pierogi a lot too and the pork belly that came with it was super tasty. The flavor of the vegetables reminded me of when my grandma would make stuffed cabbage when I was younger.

As for the hodduk? Just typing that word makes me want another one, if that tells you anything. I've had the make-at-home kind from a box and didn't like them at all. The real thing is so much better. You have to wait a while for the sweet, molten insides to not burn your mouth off, but believe me, it's definitely worth it.

Final Words:

I would get food from both these places again in a heartbeat. I think I would pick something new at Sophie's and definitely get some of their Italian ice next time because that looked really good too. From Ajumama, I would obviously order hodduk again, but it might take me a while to get brave enough to try some of their other menu items. I've never had much Korean food, so I really don't know what I would or wouldn't like. That's the nice thing about these food truck events though; you can sample a couple different things when they're all together like this.

For me, the other good thing about this event was that Karla told me she was jealous we were going and she had to work, so I was able to repay my brunch debt to her by taking her some dinner from the trucks. We got her an orzo pasta salad from Blu Olive (since I figured it would travel well) and took her a hodduk also. And the next time Andrea and I are both in Cbus, we'll have to go find Ajumama, since she's the one who introduced me to hodduk; otherwise, I might never have tried it! 

Review: Skillet: Rustic. Urban. Food.

Part I of  The Happy Day I Got to Try Lots of New Food

A couple weeks ago, my friend Karla and I decided to meet up for brunch to try Skillet for the first time. Justin (sad that he had to go to work instead) and I went our separate ways bright and early Saturday morning, and I headed south at the behest of the Australian gentleman who lives in my GPS.
Even with the eternal highway construction, I got to Skillet with minimal getting lost, which is always a happy occasion for me. I found a parking space exactly in front of the tiny restaurant and all seemed to be going well. Then I went to put my GPS into my purse and noticed that my wallet was not in there to keep it company. Uh oh. I had driven to a part of Columbus I could only identify as "near German Village," twenty minutes on the highways, all without my driver's license and now, had arrived at brunch with no way to pay for it.
I happened to have ten dollars in emergency cash, but knew from perusing the menu that would limit my options somewhat. However, Karla arrived minutes later and reassured me that she could handle this and I could get our next meal. Hooray for friends! Now, on to the food:

What We Ordered:
Karla - Heirloom tomato tart with an arugula salad, side of elote, coffee
Jordan - Chicken gravy and eggs over biscuits, side of bacon, coffee

Photographic Evidence:

Karla and I and our delicious brunch at Skillet. (Photo of me by Karla)

Verdict of the Noms:
It sounds cheesey to say this, but everything was awesome. Karla was super excited about the elote (AKA Mexican street corn, if you are like me and didn't know what that was) and the biscuits under my chicken gravy were seriously the lightest, fluffiest, butteriest biscuits I have ever had in my life.  I tried some of Karla's tomato tart which probably couldn't have been better, and we both agreed on the deliciousness of the bacon (not pictured above, but it looked like bacon).

Final Words:
I would absolutely, definitely recommend you try Skillet. The restaurant is super tiny, so get there early and/or be prepared to wait outside for a table. I know I will certainly be back in the near future, maybe for lunch next time to see what other deliciousness I can find there. Oh, and take a friend, especially if you might forget your wallet, and/or because you'll want to try whatever they order too.

...

To be continued: I was actually lucky enough to try three new food places that Saturday, so check back for my review of two of the many Columbus food trucks!

Food: Zucchini Fritters

A quick recipe for you, since I just made these for dinner and am all fat now from eating almost* the whole batch. Not having a picture is bad, I know I know, but believe me when I tell you this: Zucchini loves Basil. Forever. Now, on to cooking!

1 medium zucchini
1/2 medium onion
2 eggs
Some kind of Italian cheese (maybe a 1/4 cup?)
basil, black pepper, garlic powder
salt (not until the end!)

Shred both the veggies with your shredding device of choice onto a plate. (The biggest holes on the box please, we're not making applesauce out of veggies.) Get a bowl big enough for all your things. Pick up handfuls of your shredded veggies and SQUEEZE (pretty hard, hence the capslock). The goal is to  get as much water out as possible without bothering with that annoying salt-and-wait method that I hate. Drop your squeezed handfuls of goodness into the bowl until you're through all the vegetation. Discard the watery stuff... or drink it, I don't really care, just don't put it in the bowl. Crack two eggs into the bowl, beat them, then mix them into the veggies. It might look like they're barely coated in egg and that is what you want. Their job is to just hold the fritters together, not go making everything taste like eggs because no one wants that. Season with as much basil, garlic, and pepper as you deem reasonable. I like a lot of all those things. DO NOT ADD SALT YET. I mean it. Throw in some cheese- I used the dry shaker parm and some shredded asiago. Mix all the things. Heat some coconut oil in a frying pan to mediumish. Drop forkfuls of goodness into hot oil. Be careful and whatnot; it's hot oil. You may now salt the fritters if you so choose. Wait until they're brown on the bottom, flip them over, wait until the other side is brown too, remove to paper towel covered plate. Let cool enough that you don't burn your face off. Eat now. Thank me later.

Makes: About 12 small fritters.

*By the time I hit publish, I had eaten the last two.