This will break your heart

This father is awful. But also, isn't this really the saddest thing? Much better at doing what it does than any Oscar-nominated flick.

Easy-Peasy

I have been making various pasta sauces longer than I have been making any other type of food. And only since I have been here in Detroit have I started to tame them: follow recipes, use only a few ingredients. (My Northampton style involved including the most. Of vegetables, spices, everything.)

And this new turn-to-simplicity has culminated in my making this recipe, which I highly recommend. Ingredients: canned plum tomatoes, butter, an onion, salt. That's it. And, really, I think it's my most successful sauce-making of all time. Do it up.

Two words of caution:

At risk of sounding like the overconsuming American that I am, this recipe really only makes enough sauce for a little less than 8 0z of pasta (not 16), two servings. If you like your sauce very saucy, chunky, etc. (It probably just coats 16 oz.)

Do not discard the onion, that onion tastes heavenly. We ate ours on the side. Or save it for a sandwich or something.

I like to roast things

because I just discovered roasting things, and roasted things are delicious. The two best things so far are beets and Brussels sprouts.

Beets:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2) Wash beets, chop off the ends, peel if you don't like the skin (I do like the skin).
3) Wrap the beets in aluminum foil.
4) Place them in the oven. Check them in 45 minutes by sticking a fork through the aluminum and into the beet. If the beet is tender, it's done. It may take up to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the size of your beets.

Brussels Sprouts:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2) Wash Brussels sprouts, chop off ends, and cut Brussels sprouts in half.
3) Toss with good olive oil and spread on baking sheet.
4) Roast 15 minutes on lower rack of oven.
5) Remove , sprinkle with 3 cloves minced garlic and good salt.
6) Roast 10 more minutes, till soft with crispy parts.

(I stole this recipe from somewhere, but can't remember where...)

Successful Receipts

There are very few delicious-and-affordable restaurants in Ferndale. There are, however, no fewer than four grocery stores within about 5 blocks of my house. Two of them are very good--one a produce place, one a discount health food store. On my way home from the coffee shop, I can stop into both and get ingredients to go cook dinner. So, in my quest for deliciousness, I have been learning to cook things. The best so far:

1) Minestrone Soup from Vegan Yum Yum

2) Pasta with Sweet Potatoes and Leeks from Real Simple

3) Chocolate-Chipotle Chili from the Urban Vegan

I subbed brown rice for pasta in the minestrone, rice pasta for wheat pasta in the sweet potato/leek recipe, and garden veggie tempeh for seitan in the chili. Also, had to leave off the tamarind paste on the chili (b/c I couldn't find any) AND, unfortunately, had to sub regular chili powder for chipotle chili powder (couldn't find any chipotle chili powder in Ferndale). All the recipes turned out fantastic, though I bet the chili's even better if you can find the chipotle powder.

Treat from LG

So I go to fmsbwtozau to look at this really rather a lot. And so I will post it here. So I can see it even more.

Sensual Seduction

So the new Snoop Dogg video is hot. As Anna points out.

Also, when I was at the Detroit Institute of Art today, looking at the really really amazing Diego Rivera mural, Detroit Industry, this guy who worked at the D.I.A. was cleaning up chairs and singing this song. Whistle while you work. Like Snow White and the Seven Snoop Doggs.



Oh, wait wait. The best part is that this is only the RADIO version and the real version is exactly the same but sub "Sexual Eruption" for "Sensual Seduction."

Hear Me?

So the other day I went on Kareem Estefan's really awesome poetry show, Ceptuetics, and read some poems, etc.

http://www.mediafire.com/?fijjnm0jcis

Some Tay Zonday