Here are the details on the final Fun-A-Day 2009 Art Show (details from the Fun-A-Day blog):
Saturday, March 7th
6pm – 10pm
The Cyberpunk Apocalypse (5432 Dresden Way, in Lawrenceville, near Remedy) is a new collective writer’s house/event space, and the show will be in the back house where no one is currently living.
Free admission, free drinks, free snacks!
Come check out my project, Q’s project, and more than a dozen others! Yeah!
Glamor shot!
I’ve made a fair number of soft pretzels in my day, but in the past, they’ve always been on the pale side. I’ve learned my lesson! Recipe after the jump!
I’ve been on a mission since last winter to make a really good vegan biscotti, a mission I’ve been sent upon by my dad, who always buys some at the local Italian grocer when he visits.
Q gifted me the Veganomicon cookbook, which has two good recipes, though I’ve been slowly working my way through some modifications to suit my tastes. My chief complaint is that the Veganomicon recipe’s a bit too sweet; what I usually want is a really crispy, really mild tasting cookie.
Recipe after the jump!
Homemade stock really adds depth of flavor to soups, to mashed potatoes, to curries — most anyplace you’d add some water, just add a little broth instead. So good. So easy and you were going to compost that stuff anyway, weren’t you? Making your own stock is obviously a lot easier if you make most of your meals at home, but then again, you’ll be more likely to use your own stock if you like to cook anyway.
Step one: Put all your vegetable scraps in a container in your fridge (or your freezer, if you don’t cook enough to fill a container in about a week). Onion ends, garlic paper, carrot peels and ends, potato peels, ginger peel, broccoli and cauliflower stems, just all the parts of vegetables that are perfectly edible but not so lovely that you want to add them into your meals.
Step two: Dump your scraps into a stockpot. Add enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour.
Honest. That’s all. Also, here is your warning that chucking jalapeno scraps in means that your stock is spicy. Oops. Didn’t think of that.
Using a slotted spoon, take out all the big vegetable scraps, and then pour the stock through a strainer into the container you’ll keep your stock in, in the refrigerator. It’s hideous and pale:
Homemade stock keeps about a week, week and a half, before it starts getting funky, so if you don’t think you’ll use it in time, freeze it.
Years ago I began to limit the amount of advertising I did via my wardrobe. Whether brand names or band names, I tried to limit myself to things that I actually like and support. Brand names in particular, I rarely wear anything with a logo emblazoned upon it. But like everyone, I have some soft spots for some companies and products, some somewhat unexplainable (why do i love Waffle House so much?) and others that make a little bit more sense.
The A-Treat bottling company of Allentown, PA is one such company and one that certainly makes sense why I hold it dearly. A-Treat makes a line of carbonated beverages, including some of the best birch beer you’ll ever drink, and your normal sodas like cola, orange and cream, and some stranger varieties like grapefruit (which is f’n delicious). I grew up drinking this stuff. At all family gatherings, this is what the kids drank. After a day of working on my grandparent’s farm, we came back to the farmhouse and drank what? A-Treat. And of course, you can only get A-Treat beverages in the eastern half of Pennsylvania.
So now living in the western half, access to A-Treat is limited. For our wedding, my folks brought like 10 cases of the stuff. In all of the photos from our reception, there are cans of A-Treat in every picture. When heading home for holidays, we usually grab a couple cases and ration them out over the months. This minor obsession with this part of my childhood has expanded beyond the drink itself. I check out Ebay every once and awhile for A-Treat collectibles. So far I have a clock and a toy truck. This week there were several metal A-Treat signs that I didn’t end up bidding on, but they provided me with the material I needed for one of things that i’ve really been wanting — an A-Treat shirt.
I’ve never seen an A-Treat shirt. I imagine they must exist, but where, who knows? So I snagged the graphic from one of the signs on Ebay and did a quick clean-up of the image, separated the colors in Photoshop and burned the two screens over the last couple days. And now, I have a sweet two-color A-Treat screen. Here’s a test print I did on an old white t-shirt.
REPRESENT!!
Look at this beautiful, beautiful print by Meredith Stern we just picked up at her show at Morning Glory! Also look at valentines in progress!
This past season is the first time we’ve tried saving seeds, and I guess we’ll see come summer how successful it was. We learned a few things (for example, even if the seeds seem totally dry, don’t close them up in a plastic container or they will get moldy!), and we made some really sweet Christmas gifts. Q drew Torley Manor as if it were actually a farm and not a city house, made it into a screen, and printed up the seed packets. We hand-stamped the type of seeds for each packet. Behold!
I love the little duck in the front yard.
We also gave our home-canned salsa as gifts to our family, near and far:
We will definitely be trying out some of our saved seeds this year (we saved some string bean seeds and I’m eager to see how they’ll do) but we are also gearing up to try some things we haven’t done in the garden yet. We got our seed order this week! Popping corn! Soup beans! Hurrah!
Oh, look at ‘em, look look look! I know we need the winter, but I’m ready for the spring!
One of our favorite sickly-fixing dinners is a really classic chicken soup, but made with homemade seitan and homemade vegetable stock. We’ll do followup posts on making seitan and making stock, and you’ll be surprised at how much easier they both are than you expect, not to mention cheaper.
Here’s what you’ll need:
That’s it! Like everything we cook — assume it’s flexible.
To start, chop up the onion, garlic, celery, and carrots and cook them till not-quite soft in a little olive oil. You don’t want them to be as done-through as you would for a heartier soup because they still have to hold their own since this is a lighter broth-based affair. I used to brown the seitan first and set it aside before adding it, but honestly, I don’t think that makes much difference.
You can cut the seitan into pretty small cubes because it absorbs a lot of broth and gets soft and sponge-y and wonderful.
Chuck everything else except the salt into the pot (add enough broth to cover everything) and bring it to a boil, then turn it down to simmer gently till the pasta is done. At that point, add a little more broth or water if you need it (you will — unless you added exactly the perfect amount of broth to be soaked up into the pasta and the seitan and have enough leftover to still be broth. In which case I bow my head to you.) and then salt to taste.
Few things smell better than onions and celery cooking up in olive oil. Dang. Even Q’s dad appreciates this soup. We do okay!
Steelers! Steelers!! Steelers!!!
Ok – yeh, so yesterday we had a little gathering at Torley to watch the Super Bowl. We made 2 homemade pizzas, Emma made a peach/black raspberry/strawberry pie that ruled, and lots of snacks. Andy gave us all a lesson on how to properly cheer. The game was great, Steelers won, and then we hit the streets. Here’s some footage I took out on Liberty Avenue.
See video here as I seemingly can’t embed Flickr video on this blog
Beyond that…
* Yesterday was like 45 degrees and sunny. It was wonderful. Emma and I took a nice long walk down to the 40th Street Bridge and hung out looking out over the river. Watched as chunks of ice broke off from and floated/melted away. So nice to get out and about to get some sun and air. Much needed.
* Fun-A-Day is over. I had pretty good luck with my project. Of the 31 people I contacted over the course of the month, all but 3 responded with some great ideas for Pittsburgh-related things to draw. To see all the drawings, go here.
* This friday is an art opening at Morning Glory for former-Pgh resident Meredith Stern. Highly recommended to check it out. Good Stuff.
See her online portfolio here.
OPENING! FREE FOOD + DRINK! SWEET TUNES!
February 6, 2008 – 6pm at:
MORNING GLORY COFFEEHOUSE
1806 Chislett Street in Morningside, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
http://www.moglocoffee.com
later in the month….
CLOSING PARTY! FREE FOOD + DRINK! SWEET JAMZ!
February 25, 2008 – 6pm