Another food post

You guyssssss...
I've been so exhausted every night. Any kind of creative thought has seemed simply impossible. I got so tired that I stopped making myself lunch for my internship. I have just been grab-bagging it. Example: one day I had snapea crisps, a can of pineapple, and some frozen peas. I know, you're jealous.

Well, this long weekend gave me a chance to refresh. Last night, I tried two new things. Both food-related, of course.

I bought this Cascadian Farms Ancient Grains Granola, and I am digging it. Not digging the price. Think around $5. No bueno. So, I did some googling and found a quinoa granola recipe! I read over it briefly, just to get an idea of how one goes about making granola.

I mixed together about a cup of oats, a cup of buckwheat groats, a third of a cup of tricolor quinoa in with a ton of coconut, a handful of chia seeds and some cinnamon. Then, I mixed in half of a cup of honey and half of a cup of coconut oil. I would most certainly either up the portion of oats or lower the amount of honey. It was toooooo sweet. Overall, I'm excited about  how it turned out. I will keep you updated on the other granola-esque concoctions I end up with.

I also tried to make some Filipino food. To be specific, I tried to make ginataang bilo-bilo, which is a rice flour dumpling in a coconut milk stew. It's supposed to be a dessert, but I was envisioning it like a dumpling version of oatmeal. It's made with jackfruit and tapioca pearls, traditionally. I had some tapioca pearls on hand, but no jackfruit, so I made it with some mango instead. I think I made it properly, but I just wasn't enjoying the dumplings themselves. I am proud of myself for trying at least. Of course, I didn't take any pictures. So, you can just google this stuff and imagine that's what it looked like.

Happy MLK Jr. Day everyone : )

Bitter and not at all sweet

So, day two of no pizza and also my first full day at my new internship. (I've also got this sweet gig volunteering to help teach kids how to cook healthy delicious foods in an after school program, and my first day was today!) I had this tantalizing image in my head the entire drive home: a gorgeous, orange sweet potato dripping with butter and slightly caramelized from the oven. I opened the fridge when I got home, and then remembered how long ago I'd cooked the sweet potato. It was not a pretty picture.

Eh, whatever. I've got a couple foods in the fridge, no problem. I get this amazing idea: red beans and rice with the kielbasa I bought yesterday. Except, no red beans on hand, but I had black beans. Then, I thought omg beer. And risotto! And cheddar! Sounds like a good idea right? I've been wanting to try and create my own "recipes," so I googled to see if other people had done similar things. They had. So I went right ahead. Grabbed an IPA, some onion, garlic, risotto, cheese, kielbasa.. All it needed was a kick. I noticed a can of tomatoes and green chiles, so I grabbed that too. I started cooking my risotto and onions and garlic and beer concoction. It tasted soooooo good. Then, I think I made what was the fatal mistake. In went that can of tomatoes and green chiles. Despite the label "MILD" on the front of the can, it was spicy as hades. I think this numbed my tongue a bit. I added in the cheddar and kielbasa, and it seemed too good to be true. It was.

I just sat down with a large bowl and took a bite. I have never been more disappointed in my life. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But, the dish was so bitter, I am now just eating tiny little bites, avoiding the tomatoes and lapping up the kielbasa. Granted, it could have been a bad choice of beer or the cheese might have been too funky, but I think it was something in that can. Oh well, at least I tried!

This is me being disappointed and tired and cranky.

Oh, and happy new year!