Turd Ferguson gets off the couch...but just for a minute

Lookit me, I did something productive. My pregnancy cravings so far have been incredibly boring and somewhat embarassing. Soup is the biggest thing, all kinds of soup. Including condensed, fresh and steaming from the microwave. And it’s summer. But when I feel kinda classy, I am ravenous for thai food. There’s a place near my house (proximity is a must at this point) that makes fantastic spring rolls, and I crave them fortnightly.

CK is not a big fan of thai food, which, yes, has put a burden on our marriage at times. I could eat it every day, but he gets saturated after our quarterly visit. Thus, I either do the take-out thing while he eats his own food, or we have to figure something else out. Like this homemade spring roll.

It’s not as good as the restaurant version. Appropriate zesty dipping sauces really make a difference there. I didn’t have enough energy to make peanut sauce after standing and chopping vegetables assembly-line style, and we were out of hoisin. So I had to make due with soy and some leftover wasabiyaki. Also, the restaurant version is rolled much tighter. I don’t know how they do that. I think I was nervous about puncturing the rice paper and rolled them too gently.

Aside from that, they were basically the same as the restaurant’s. Very simple, not fussy with the innards. Lettuce, rice noodles, a strip of baked tofu, and matchstick cuts of carrots (from the garden, ooh) and cucumber. I changed it up by adding a slice of avocado, cuz I live life on the edge. Cilantro would have been good too, and I’ve had it in other versions, but I didn’t have any.

This held me over for a few days, but I’m already feeling the urge to go back for their rolls, and maybe some fried tofu stir fry. I just can’t duplicate their fried tofu.

Hey, maybe I’ll stand in front of the stove to make dinner next week. We’ll see.

stickers and ponies and rainbows and my poop

Okay first of all, I’m totally over the whole Weight Watchers thing. I don’t follow recipes unless I’m baking and I hate dieting. I was trying to lose some weight before my wedding so I bought two of those cookbooks. Some of the stuff was actually good – casseroles, mostly – but overall it was a pretty stupid endeavor. I don’t need a recipe to make soup, and I’m not going to substitute real ingredients with weirdness and chemicals just to get the points down. And besides, points are gay.

I’m not making such a fuss these days. I’m watching what I eat, but I also indulge in the odd distinctive milano cookie when it suits my mood (the orange ones dipped in tea are excellent). My hubs has recently decided he wants to watch his cholesterol, which helps me a bunch because he will finally eat chicken without complaint. So I’m laying off the beef, making vegetarian more often, and also trying to just get over it. Not very successfully. But all this adds up to entirely uninteresting food blogging fodder. So sorry.

The other day I made some effing yumtastic nettle-walnut pesto, which I mixed with caramelized onions and honey chevre from Trader Joe’s, then slathered the concoction onto broiled chicken breast and pappardelle noodles for some good eatin’. Last night I did the same thing, but also added a can of stewed tomatoes and used shrimp instead of chicken. Damn fine, damn fine. By the way, honey chevre....I need to make that into a cheesecake pronto.

Another goodness of spring bounty-type food that has me all excited is a soup that CK absolutely will not touch, so I usually make it on Sunday nights and box it up for lunches throughout the week. It’s beet, onion and asparagus, chunked up and simmered with vegetable broth. It is magically delicious, and cooks up to a lovely, homogenous shade of magenta. As a bonus, it also makes a fun color show out of your peeps and poops (not to mention the usual asparagus pee-stink). After having it three days in a row for lunch, I made unicorn poo. No joke. Purple poo with bright pink pee water. How terrific is that. The soup inserts a mythical creature directly into your bum. There are probably plenty of other nutritional benefits, but unicorn poo is just rad.


Here’s a recipe for unicorn poo soup, by me:

1 onion, chopped (whole pearl onions are also a treat in this)
2-3 fresh beets (depending on size), peeled and cut into ½” cubes
1 quart vegetable broth
Appx. 1# fresh asparagus, cut to ½”

I’ve found that the fewer ingredients the better with this soup, so keep it simple and let the natural flavors do their bidness.

Sweat the onion in a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the beet after about a minute and saute on medium for 5 minutes or so. Add the vegetable broth, bring to a simmer. Allow to cook for 10-15 minutes before adding the asparagus, then season with a smidgeon of salt & pepper. Simmer for about an hour.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Enjoy three days in a row then sit on the toilet.