it can't rain all the time...

But it certainly will if it's the fourth of July and you have plans for grilling.

cheating nature

Luckily, Michael and I have this lovely little electric grill (bequeathed to me by my parents) that works just fine in a pinch.  Which is good, because we had some major grill plans.

zucchini/summer squash/seitan kabobs

We'd gone to the farmers market that morning (absolutely no sign of rain at that point, mind you), and bought loads of veggies (see end of post for the haul).  I made a quick half batch of seitan and we kabobed (kabobbed?  can I make that a verb, please?) the hell outta some fresh squash and zucchini with it.  Michael is the official grillmaster because I have ladyhands and tend to get burned.  He probably gets burned too, but whines less about it afterwards.

beautiful spring onions

Hey, guess what?  Spring onions are totally rad when you grill them.  The only bad part is that we ate without knives and you can't really bite them at this point, so be ready to have an entire onion in your mouth for a bit.  Unless you care to use a knife, that is.  (wuss.) 

land of forgotten watermelon

We also grilled watermelon, but were too full afterwards to eat it.  FYI: fresh off the grill, it just tasted like hot watermelon.  

combofabulous

That all combined into this monster plate: steamed green beans with dill and lemon, new potato salad, kabobs, corn on the cob (just...corn), grilled onions, and a fresh white cucumber.  Thinking back, here's what's local from the market: beans, potatoes, squash, zucchini, corn, the onions, and the cucumber.  Not bad, eh?  It was all delicious and I just have to say that we do a pretty darned awesome holiday spread, even when it's just the two of us for dinner.

Oh, almost forgot!  Michael whipped up this lovely antipasta style salad for lunch earlier in the day.

my talented boy :)

Red and yellow tomatoes, yellow beets, white cucumber, green chili, artichokes, and basil with a nice balsamic vinaigrette drizzled on top.  All local except for the artichokes.

As for the market, here's what we got:

squash, zucchini, yellow beets, corn, jalepenos, hot green chilis, spring onions, rhubarb, red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers, and white cucumbers.

All for $20 on the dot.  I felt a bit nervous about our abundance of tomatoes and peppers and such yesterday (plus was being a lazy bum on the sofa most of the day and didn't feel like cooking anything too involved)...so I asked my good friends of the PPK for suggestions on just what to do with all that veg.  The perfect reply came for...gazpacho!  Honestly, I've never really liked gazpacho (salsa soup, anyone?), but Michael loves it and I needed to use up stuff, so I made it. 

yellow gazpacho

And you know what?  It was awesome!  As a confirmed gazpacho hater, I must say that my gazpacho kicked ass.  So easy too...here's what I did:

Yellow Gazpacho That Is Better Than All Other Gazpachos

3 medium yellow tomatoes

1 medium red tomato

1/4 of a large white onion

1/2 green bell pepper

3 green chilis

1 small cucumber (mine was white)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 -1 tsp cumin (to taste, really)

about 1/2 cup water

2 tsp olive oil

3 or more Tbsp red wine vinegar

juice of 3 limes

salt to taste

Roughly chop your veggies (seed the peppers), put them in the blender with everything else, and blend it.  Yeah, that's it.  Refrigerate it if you want it cold (I did and it ruled).  For a nice chunky garnish (chunks are good, friends), dice up some more tomatoes, onions, bell pepper, cucumber, and a jalepeno, drizzle with lime juice, and add it to your soup.  Mine was mega spicy, but that's the way we do shit around here.

As for the rest of those chilis?  What to do, what to do....

this'll work for now.

WIP Wednesday: greening up 2 ways...well, actually 3

I feel bad about using plastic shopping bags.  We all should, really.  I couldn't really afford to buy a bunch of reusable bags though, so I decided to make some.  Out of my old tshirts that will probably never fit again because I'll probably never be a size extra small ever again.  I have all these old shirts that I love...but never wear, so this is a way for me to use them again and help out the environment.  The funny thing is that most of these shirts are from a store I worked at for awhile, and I had a major Volcom obsession for awhile and now all my shopping bags (except for like...2) have their logo.  Fun.  Psssst....these were really, incredibly easy to make.  Like ridiculously easy.  If you have a sewing machine (or just a shitload of patience), you can do this.  Looky here:

amazing how those xsmall tshirts stretch 

They hold so many groceries!  That's only three of around ten that I made.  Here's what you do:  

1. Find a tshirt that you don't wear anymore.

2. Cut off the sleeves, but keep the seam that holds them on intact (for stability)

3. Cut out the neckline so it's wider.

4. Turn it inside out.

5. Sew together the bottom hem (I did it twice for extra sturdiness).

That's it.  Go make your own grocery bags!  You no longer have an excuse not to.  Also, as you can see in that photo, Kroger is now carrying these Tasty Bite Indian dinners that you just microwave up and the ones that are vegan say vegan on them.  Which is pretty much unprecedented in West Virginia.  I was so excited that I had to buy one!  Haven't tried it yet, but they seem good.  Added bonus?  They're lower in fat and calories than most of those microwave meals, so you don't feel all gross after eating it (I'm assuming).  You might have also noticed these:

even greener

What's the point of using a reusable shopping bag if you just fill it up with your produce that's in those silly plastic produce bags?  If you're like us, you buy a lot of produce, either at the store or at the farmers market.  Well...fret not, my friends.  There is a way around it!  Some people, like our buddy Amy at Tahinitoo, make their own out of lightweight nylon.  There's no fabric like that at my fabric store, so I ordered some bags from Etsy from a girl who is making these (at $2 a bag) to pay for her college education.  Go check it out!  They are as light as the plastic bags so they don't screw up the scale, plus you are (yet again) helping out the environment.  And helping a kid pay for college.  Where can you go wrong?  They come in sizes small, medium, and large with these nice little ribbons to pull everything shut.  Rad!

Another way we are greenifying our house is by starting an indoor garden.  We made a trip up to Lowe's on Monday to get supplies...here's our seeds:

so many exciting veggies and herbs!

Last night Michael and I started planting the seeds that specified March for our region.  It was some work (and some money spent...), but well worth the effort (assuming we get loads of veggies out of it).  We have a sunporch on the front of our apartment, so all the containers are going out there.

do you see our garden owl?

Those are the ones that don't need to be transplanted.  Lids on top to keep the kitties out.  Now I really need advice on how to keep cats OUT OF THE PLANTS!  It's a big problem, because our cats are curious to the max and like to destroy things.  If you have any advice, let me know!  

My mom gave me a growlab that I can start seeds in for things like peppers and tomatoes.

happy plantlings

I can't find the list of all of our seeds, but here's what we planted last night:  brussels sprouts, cayenne peppers, chili peppers, scallions, golden beets, red beets, kale, red radishes, watermelon radishes, regular lettuce, mesclun, rainbow chard, and sugar snap peas.  Should be an adventure, eh?  This is all due to a book my brother got for Michael for Christmas called The Bountiful Container by Rose Marie, Nichols McGee, and Maggie Stuckey (thanks, Jonah!).  We highly reccommend this book for anyone with a small space that would be interested in gardening (indoors or out!).

Stay tuned for progress throughout the spring and summer on how our little plant buddies are doing!

The final way of going green is our St. Patrick's day meal.  As soon as I saw the colcannon puffs on Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, I knew I wanted to make them.  And I'm so glad I did!

nice little potato balls

These were seriously tasty.  I'd say you should make them all the time.  Not just on St. Patrick's day.  They are lightly crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside, with loads of flavor.  The recipe made more than I could fit on my cookie sheet (which was 30 puffs), so we put the rest in a loaf pan so Michael (the potato lover) could have colcannon loaf as snacks.

tato loaf

To go along with these loverly potato puffs, we seared some tofu according to a sort of tofu recipe that some lady behind us in line at the Healthy Life Market gave us.  Basically, you don't press it, just cut it into steaks (we got 4 out of our cake), salt both sides with sea or kosher salt and leave for awhile to sweat the water out.  Then heat up some olive oil in a nonstick pan and sear both sides until brown.  Adding cracked black pepper to both sides beforehand makes them extra yummy.  

i had no idea this would work so well

They came out with a great texture, but still pretty flavorless (which we figured would happen) so we served them up with some gravy, also via Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.  Mushroom gravy.  And it was freaking amazing.

gravy in the back, croissants in the front

It all turned out so well...  Which made us and our tummies mighty happy.

how can you resist?

I was going to make some soda bread to go along instead of the croissants, but I got some really sad news right when I started cooking and it just didn't happen.  I will make some soon though.  It was all in all a very successful meal, with all the right awesomeness to make vegans happy.

And I don't want to end this post on a sad note, but I do want to say....  Please, if you are depressed and thinking of taking your own life, don't.  There are always other options out there.  Your friends and family will miss you when you are gone, and their pain after that fact outweighs the pain you are feeling now.  I've been in the same position a few times in my life, but let me tell you...  life is a better choice.  You never know what it holds for you.  Please, get some help instead.

In loving memory of my brother's and my friend, Shane.  Please keep his family and friends in your thoughts.

Vday, testers, and other great stuff

Wow, it's been a busy week.  I can't believe it's been so long since I posted!  This is gonna be a big one, kids.  And before I forget (or you tune out before the end of my post haha...) don't forget to:

a) enter my contest for a $50 gift certificate for Earth Shoes here, and 

b) make sure you come back TOMORROW to see who won!  

I'll need all of you to come check to see if you won and if you are the lucky one, you'll need to send me an email (link on my profile page) with your name and email address so that I can send it to the peeps at Onlineshoes.com and they can get your your gift certificate.

Now that that business is done with, we must talk about food.  I'm gonna start with the big Valentine's day eats.  Ok, so I have to admit that up until a few days ago, I had completely forgotten about chocolate covered potato chips.  Anybody else have these before?  I remember in high school or undergrad having gotten a couple boxes of these and LOVING them.  There's just something about that sweet/salty combo that really does it for me.  So anyway, I was browsing through a Rachey Ray magazine at work the other day and saw a 'recipe' for chocolate covered potato chips.  I mean, seriously, leave it to Rachel frigging Ray to remind me of something so terrible for my health and then encourage me to actually make it myself.  Well, how could I refuse?  That woman.  There's something about her that I really love/hate.  Mostly, though, I really dislike her.  But I also just can't help but like her.  What is wrong with me?!

Regardless of my feelings for her, it planted a seed in my mind, and I made chocolate covered potato chips yesterday for us to munch on.

pure decadence

This is ridiculously easy to do.  Just melt some dark chocolate with some soymilk (or, I used rice milk because we had it for some reason).  Dip in some kettle chips (nonflavored).  Let drip on a rack with wax paper underneath.  When they're done dripping, put 'em in the fridge.  These are pretty good, but the chocolate I used was pretty bitter, so I'd add some sugar next time if I got the same chocolate.  Because, you know, the ones that I remember were, of course, made with milk chocolate.  Which is way different (and honestly way crappier) than the chocolate we eat now.  So what I'm basically saying is that you can't shove these into your mouth like you're popping M&Ms (oh, my old M&M addiction...R.I.P.) because they are richer and more of a....delicacy?  Can I call chocolate covered potato chips a delicacy?  

For dinner we made a chickn parmesan pizza.  This is the ultimate in easy.  Crust it up (I used a different crust recipe than the one from VWAV because I wanted a doughier crust), add garlic, onions, spinach and prebake for about 10 minutes at 450F.  Then add a layer of pizza sauce, lots of chopped basil, some sliced Boca chicken patties, more sauce, then your fake cheese of choice.  We used Teese and somehow, that crap didn't melt.  

non-melty, but still delicious

I think I sliced the Teese too thick, because it was melty on the underside, but still solid on the top.  It was fine to eat though.  Oh, and make sure you use Boca ORIGINAL chicken patties (not the organic ones or whatever) and still check your ingredients because apparently there is some conspiracy out there where some Boca chicken patties have milk in them or eggs or something, and some do not.  Inconsistency.  But you have to use these kind of breaded patties (if you find another brand, use those then) because chickn parmesan needs to be...breaded.  It's part of the deal.  This pizza turned out really good, but there was one weird thing about it.  Apparently our corner market is selling bags of fresh basil that is thai basil, without being labelled as such.  We noticed there was a strange licorice-y taste to our basil (after we put it one the pizza of course) and realized that we were eating some non basic basil.  It wasn't bad, but it was definitely different, haha...  So go for plain old basil if you make this.

slicer

We even tried microwaving our slices to melt that stuff, and it was a no-go.  It did, however, make it insanely hot and I burned the crap outta my mouth.  C'est la vie, eh?

And since you can never have enough chocolate, we made Chocolate Covered Cherry Pudding Cakes from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen.  Oh man, were these ever rich.

puddingtacular

My mom used to make pudding cake when I was a kid.  And I just couldn't resist trying it out myself.  Worth it!  And really, it was very easy.  I even bought ramekins yesterday so that I could make this.  That's dedication, baby.  Don't they look great?  Very intense (make sure to let these cool so that they can be more pudding-ish and less liquid-y) and the cherries and chocolate go together perfectly, of course.  A lovely end to a lovely day.

Ok, enough Valentine's day mushiness.  Next up?  Some tester recipes for the Cookin' with my Craw-Daddy zine!  This past weekend, Michael was out of town and I made the Swampy Tofu Scramble for dinner.

swamp thang

I was not really expecting a tofu scramble to knock my socks off, but consider my socks completely knocked.  This is honestly the best tofu scramble I've ever eaten in my life (and I've had quite a few).  Something about the flavor combo is just...perfection.  Plus there's a secret trick that makes it nice and creamy and super wonderful.  I liked it so much that I made it for Michael on Monday for dinner again, along with these bad boys:

Yell'er Hush Puppies

The flavor of these was really yummy.  They were a tad greasy, but they are hush puppies after all.  That's kind of how that goes.  Michael made these and we ate them with lots of mustard, and it was good.

ragin' cajun mealtime

Well, I dunno how cajun brussels sprouts are, but we steamed some and they went very nicely with this meal.  Made me feel a tad better about the fried-ness of the hush puppies.  I also think that the hush puppy batter would work really well as a batter for frying other things, like, oh, say...corn dogs?  Mwahahaha...  

Next up is just a meal worth mentioning because it was full of mushrooms and I ate all of them.  Shocker!

could i be changing my ways?

Michael found a mixed container of wild mushrooms while he was out of town and he sauteed them up quite simply with peppers and onions.  They were insanely delicious.  I don't know...but...I may be starting to like mushrooms other than oyster mushrooms.  Wonders never cease.  We made some couscous (that I think just had nutritional yeast in it, honestly) and I sauteed some kale that I had beforehand massaged with lemon juice (kale loves to be massaged with lemon juice, you must try this).  I just sauteed some garlic and one shallot, then added the lemony kale.  I have to say, it was the best kale I've ever eaten.  For such a simple meal, this was crazydelicious.

I also made something with another kind of mushroom for Michael's mom, who came to town this week.  It was the faux clam linguine that I've made before, but it turned out a million times better and I'm kicking myself for not taking photos of it.  

Oh well.

These babies are something you just have to make.  You have to!

relish oat crackers

Celine, of Have Cake, Will Travel, is a genius.  She also tested out some of the Zukay Live Foods, and made these amazing crackers out of the garlic relish.  Since the garlic relish was my favorite out of the whole product-testing-batch, and also since I've never made my own crackers, and also since they seemed so darned easy...I made them.  The day she posted them.  And they.  Are.  Wonderful.  And you don't have to have that specific relish.  I'm sure there is garlic relish out there besides that brand.  GO MAKE THESE!  Immediately!  Recipe here.

To finish, I will leave you with a sign that spring is close.  Don't despair.  I had these for lunch last Saturday, when it was sunny and 70F.  

a little taste of awesomeness

And while that warm streak was a bit of a fluke (it's much colder now), it gave me hope that it will be warm again.  There will be strawberries.  There will be fresh tomatoes and peppers and trips to the farmers market.  I will be able to go outside without a coat and without shivering and without hating life.  I just can't wait.

Now go enter my contest!

happy 2009!

So far, this year has been good.  Seriously, I laid in bed this morning wide awake thinking about getting up when I decided that my first act of the new year had to be a special one.  I didn't want to start out this year just the same as any old day from last year.  I became obsessed!  What would I do first?  After awhile, it became obvious that I would need to make eating my first act of 2009.  But...what would I eat?  Not cereal, booooring.  Oh, wait!  I had leftovers (it foggily came back to me eventually) from this:

!!!

Oh yes.  That was my new years spread.  I was a busy bee last night, indeed.  Let me detail for you just what was on that fabulous table.  In the back there's chips and salsa and storebought hummus.  Blah blah blah.  Next to that you'll see some cocktail grapefruit that I got on sale because apparently no one around here cares about them (the same display doesn't seem to have moved for over 2 weeks).   Then there's this!

homemade wontons and eggrolls

Like, completely homemade.  I made the wrappers myself because eggless ones do not exist in my town.  I got the recipe here.  I told Michael, as they were deep frying away, 'You know it's a special occasion when I deep fry!'  Oh, and it was totally worth it.  They were a giant hit and monstrously delicious.  The little wontons are filled with tofutti cream cheese into which I mixed grated ginger and sliced scallions.  They tasted just like crab rangoons!  I was telling Michael just the other day how I sort of missed crab rangoons...just because they are so...I don't know.  Delicious?  Anyway, I knew I was successful when our friend Chase ate one and goes, 'Hey, is this a crab rangoon?'  Ha!  This guy was great, by the way.  He is one of those poor souls that lives off of fast food for every meal of his life and was so grateful to be eating real food.  He was not phased for a moment that it was all vegan.  Fake cheese?  No problem for this dude.  It was pretty amazing, actually.  I love it when people come over and eat my food and enjoy it.  I mean, cooking for Michael and myself is rewarding in and of itself, but it's a joy to spread the love to others.  Especially those who eat like crap normally.  

Anyway, the 'egg'rolls contain shredded cabbage and carrots that I cooked in some sesame oil and hoisin sauce.  I'm seriously in shock over how nicely the wrappers bubbled up, too.  They look just like real eggrolls!  That sauce in the background is one inspired by a recipe in Vegan Planet (which my granny got me for xmas).  It's tamari, sesame oil, sliced scallions, chili garlic sriracha, rice vinegar, lime zest, and lime juice.  Yummm!  We have leftover cream cheese and sauce and cabbage filling and I want to pile them onto a bagel so bad.  No bagels here though.  Anyway, if you can't tell, I'm super proud of myself for making those and the fact that they turned out fucking awesome.  It wasn't that hard, either.  You should try it.

pizza bites

These were a big hit as well.  I should have made more.  In fact, I just made a bunch for Michael for lunch because there weren't enough last night.  This is just a sliced baguette with some pizza sauce, a slice of FYH mozzarella, and some spicy pizza topping that rules.  Baked at 400F until I forgot about them and heard them sizzling.  Melty awesomeness.  Chase popped one in his mouth before I could warn him about the fake cheese, but it didn't matter.  He ate like...almost all of them haha...

bruschetta and sweet potato fries

I wanted to make bruschetta really bad, but after going to two stores and finding no basil at either one, I was at a bit of a loss.  However, with my knowledge that mint and dill go mysteriously perfect together, I just used those herbs instead.  It was good!  My crostinis got a little overdone, but that's ok.  Oh, and those sweet potato fries were baked with smoked paprika and garlic powder.  Also a hit.  I just wanted a large variety of food, you know?  Lots of munchies for us to eat while we drank.  Thing is, I thought more people were going to be there for some reason.  Between the three of us, the only leftovers we have are:  a tiny bit of bruschetta mix (gone now), some crostinis (also gone), chips and salsa, hummus, and grapefruit.  Those boys crushed it!  I mean, I was eating too, but I was more concerned with drinking.  

And now a gratuitous fried yumminess picture, because I am overly proud:

nom!

I have one more thing to show you that's especially exciting, but Blogger won't let me upload any more photos for some reason, so I suppose it will have to wait.  Bummer!  I guess it's back to watching my Looney Toons marathon (yes yes yes!) and doing that thing that I'm excited to show you but can't.  I'm in total bliss because I somehow have tomorrow off work as well and there's nothing better than watching Pepe le Pew, Sylvester, Bugs Bunny, Wiley Coyote, and Daffy Duck do a bunch of stupid shit while I relax myself into oblivion.  Enjoy yourselves today, and have a happy, happy new year!

year end review

I cannot believe the year is over already.  It's been a whirlwind, folks.  I graduated from grad school, had an awesome show of my work, then got a terrible 9-5 job to pay the billz, went vegan, started blogging, had a miserably hot summer, a tragically short fall, and am well into a topsy turvy winter.  It was 70 degrees (F) on Saturday, and we were 3 hours north of where I actually live!  What!  Anyway, I know I've been gone for a little bit from the blogosphere, but I'm back now.  This post will probably suck because it's mostly just going to be a bunch of pictures of food from the past week or so, and they are all really bad pictures because it just got darker and darker in my kitchen until a week ago, so...  pardon that.  Also, I had a couple recipes in my head, but then never wrote them down, time passed, and I've forgotten what they were all about.  I plan on remaking them though, so look forward to yumminess in the future.  Without further ado....

Christmas food first.  

cookie craziness

The only thing crazy about these were how awesome they were.  My mom made these special family cookies vegan for me and they were WONDERFUL!  Upon her own admission, you cannot even tell the difference.  Score one for team vegan!  The gingerbread guys are crispy and buttery and spicy and just wonderful.  The candy cane cookies have just a hint of peppermint and are soft and delicate.  My mom rules hard.  Just wait.

makeshift pizza time

Well, when I went to my parents' house for Christmas the weekend before actual Christmas, we were having pizza for lunch.  Everyone else had a frozen number, and they got me this awesome shell that's all crackery crispy (yum yum), but...  Mom and Dad had no veggies in the fridge.  Apparently things had been busy around there (imagine that!) and veggies had been overlooked (seriously an anomaly in our house).  So I made this thing up.  It's kinda mexi-style.  There's tomato sauce, fire roasted tomatoes, black beans , some green peppers I found in the freezer, some chipotles in adobo (spicy!  spicy!), some garlic powder, cumin, and nutritional yeast.  It actually turned out fricking awesome, for a complete fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type deal.

holy hello, cinnamon rolls!

So yeah, I told you my mom rules.  Those are cinnamon rolls and they are amazing.  They are identical to the cinnamon rolls of my youth.  In fact, sometimes I think that my mom just says that things are vegan to make me happy, that's how good she is at veganizing stuff.  Like, she's way better at it than I am.  Maybe someday I'll be as good a cook and baker as she is.  We also did some of the minicrustlesstofuquiches (what a mouthful that title is, jeez).  They had very few veggies in them and didn't photograph well, so no pic, but they were really delicious too.  I brought leftovers home to Michael and he asked me if they had cheese in them.  Um, no.  Duh.  But they were really rich, so I could understand his doubt.

perfect xmas brekkie

Just look at that.  It's crazy how awesome those were.

foodie gifts

Michael and I teamed up for presents for my brothers and their wives by making kahlua (me) and biscotti (Michael).  We got to eat the overdone (burned?) bits of biscotti and thought they tasted pretty rad.  The kahlua wasn't anything to scoff at, either.  It was especially good in some cocoa on xmas morning.

lasagna for xmas eve

My family has always had lasagna for Christmas eve dinner.  This year, even though the day was different, the food was not.  I made a sillyradtastic lasagna full of a tofu ricotta concoction that started with homemade tofu and then combined the two ricotta recipes from Vcon.  So...basil-y and cashew-y and very rich.  I put FYH mozzarella on about 1/3 of the dish so that if anyone else wanted to try it, they wouldn't have to eat vegan cheese.  We all know that that stuff is an acquired taste.  I like it, though.  All was very yummy.

For actual Christmas dinner, Michael and I got a tofurkey roast so that I wouldn't have to spend all day in the kitchen when I could be sitting on the couch drinking mimosas instead.  Still, we spent a nice bit of time on the side dishes and all.  Here she is nestled amongst loads of roasted veggies, including broccoli, beets, sweet potatoes, red potatoes, and carrots.

beets like to spread the love

The veggies were perfection, and the roast wasn't half bad either.  Best of all, it was easy peasy.  I did make a nice stuffing that had dried cranberries and some cayenne, but no crunchy nuts this time.  It was moist, in a good way.  I thought my Thanksgiving stuffing was a tad dry, so I upped my veg broth a bit.  The gravy is Roasted Garlic and Shallot gravy from the cookbook Michael got me, The Idiot's Guide to Cooking Vegan.  Jerk-y name, but a really good cookbook, actually.  If I'm gonna judge it by the gravy, it's fanfuckingtastic.  Yum.  And so low fat!  No roux!  Shocking!

big ol' plate of yumminess

That's it for Christmas food, but here's something cool:

not dope!

Those little bags contain teas that my parents and my grandma got for Michael.  It's called Numi Tea and it's the kind that blooms when you brew it.  See?

lovely!

It's tasty, too.  Jasmine.  Yummmm.

So...I'm running low on blogfuel, even though I have like 8 more pictures of food to show you from my meals surrounding the holiday.  They are going to have to wait until tomorrow, methinks.  Until then, tide yourself over with a picture that totally sums up Michael and my first Christmas alone together:

fun!

That's season 4 of LOST on the tv, a mimosa slurped through a silly straw, the xmas tree, and some completely awesome giant sunglasses.  Oh yes.  Multiply that by 10, add in a dash of sleepiness, subtract any motivation to move and you get a perfectly laid back Christmas day.