Tomorrow: SECRET RECIPE

Tomorrow I'm trying out a covert, secret recipe for a friend of mine. It's a variation on a dish I like to make, and if it goes well, I'm TOTALLY adding it to the official arsenal of recipes. If it goes well, I shall dance up and down in my house. I'm really bummed because one of my secret ingredients is in Boston with no way to get it here in time, but hopefully the substitutions will work well.

Speaking of arsenals, I'm looking for something cute to store my favorite recipes in. Kate Spade Fanatic that I am, I've been considering this bad boy:

I also really like Anthropologie, and usually they have a couple cute recipe books...

Of course, the Martha Stewart Collection Recipe Box.

Any recipe boxes you guys like?

Don't Tell Michio Kushi!

There HAS to be a loophole on the diet for the Starbucks Hazelnut Soy No-Whip Hot Chocolate. I'm trying to justify it to myself by saying that life is a balance of yin and yang, and that for everything there is a season. This may be the reason why I can't fit into my favorite Jigsaw dress. I can rationalize everything.

And I'd just like to say that in 20 years, some things never change...

Matcha Cupcakes

I'm back in beautiful Nashville taking a few days off from the high-stakes game known as Tea-tending. For those of you who may be wondering what such a lovely and gifted individual does for a living, I'm a bartender/sommelier, but for tea. The image above you is a sign I made for a really cool tea commodity known as matcha. Matcha will heretofore be written in green, because the thing you need to know about matcha is that it's a Nickelodeon shade of green.

Matcha is finely powdered Japanese green tea, ideally from a high-quality green like Gyokuro. In the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, it's whisked in a small bowl with 170-180 degree water and unlike "regular" green tea where the tea bag is removed after steeping, the matcha has no filter and is consumed together with the water into which it was blended.

Matcha tastes familiar to many Americans who have enjoyed it in green tea ice cream, and it's pretty incredible blended with powdered sugar and steeped in hot milk as a latte.

We've got an even better way.

Vegan, Gluten-Free Matcha Cupcakes.

BE ADVISED: These are some expensive friggin cupcakes. They are quite costly due to the high quality and cost of matcha powder, as well as their dependence on yuppie groceries like gluten-free flour and almond extract. Are they worth it? Totally. You can reduce your costs considerably by purchasing a bulk green tea and pulverizing it with a seed grinder. I did this when I forgot my matcha powder and needed to make the cupcakes on the fly. It's not quite as good and can be a little... grassy, so be aware.

Source: Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero

EDITS BY BECKY PAXTON

1/2 cup soy yogurt

2/3 cup rice milk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup canola oil

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 1/4 cups gluten-free flour (I recommend making your own almond flour or Arrowhead Mills Baking Mix)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp. powdered kuzu root, dissolved in a little cool water.

3-4 tsp matcha tea powder

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup Agave Nectar. Be SURE to see the liquids step below because stuff needs to get removed before adding the agave!!

Green Tea Glaze (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line cupcake pan with liners.

In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, rice milk, vanilla, oil, and almond extract, beating well to blend in yogurt. REMOVE 1/3 CUP OF GENERAL COMBINED LIQUIDS. Then add agave and mix well. Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, matcha powder, and salt.

Fill liners two thirds full and baking 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on racks before topping with glaze

Glaze:

If you're using matcha/powdered sugar combo:

1 c. matcha/powdered sugar mix

4 tbsp. earth balance soy margerine

2-4 tbsp. soy milk

pinch salt

dash vanilla extract

If you want this to be sugar free:

3-4 tbsp. matcha powder

1 c. powdered soy milk

4 tsbp. earth balance soy margerine

agave nectar as needed

pinch salt

dash vanilla extract

Lotus Root Chips

We're entering my favorite season. The days are getting longer, celebrities are getting thinner, and magazines are getting thicker. It's Blockbuster Season.

Between the Twilight sequel, the Pirates sequel, and the last Harry Potter, what's a Snacro girl to eat at the theater? The only thing in the theater snack case that's seen anything remotely close to a vegetable are the peanut m&ms.

So I decided to try my own series of Macro Movie Snacks. I should start with the ones that didn't work:

-Wakame Chips. This was my weapon of choice in high school, and it alienated entire rows.

-Daikon Veggie Rolls. We've discussed on this blog how daikon smells like a cadaver once it ripens. Don't and say you did.

-3 Course Fish Dinner. May had the soups in her cup rests, I kept the salads on my lap, and the salmon fillets were on the floor. It was a lovely meal by Legal Seafood enjoyed while watching True Grit, but I'm not gonna lie, it was really uncomfortable trying to hide those fish fillets going in. And everybody in the theater seemed pretty surprised that somebody would smuggle a full formal dinner into a movie theater.

Successful Macro Snacks:

-Trader Joe's Seaweed Snacks. These thin sheets of nori seaweed are toasted in sesame oil and dusted with sea salt. The price is right at $.99, but you should be prepared to buy at least three, because they'll be gone in 60 seconds... har har har.

-I would say granola bars, but these are a lame snack food. They only last about a minute. True movie snacks are built to last at least thirty minutes.

-Little Lad's Herbal Corn. This stuff is amazing, and for $5, you'll get a bag you can repurpose into a tent to live in. The bag is huge, and rather than be smothered in the normal buttery trappings of theater popcorn, it's got fresh dill sprigs and nutritional yeast. Yum!

And that brings us to the delicious...

Lotus Root Chips

Pictured above are the Sweet Lotus Chips

Ingredients:

2-3 lotus root pods (available at your local World Mart or Chinese/Japanese grocery store)

Bragg's Liquid Aminos

Olive Oil

White Wine Vinegar

Nutritional Yeast

Sea Salt

SAVORY LOTUS CHIPS (Crunchy and salty)

Heat olive oil in skillet. Slice lotus root into thin rounds (about half the width of an oreo cookie). Toss slices into the skillet and squirt about 2-3 tsp Braggs into the skillet, cooking until all the liquid is gone and the slices are chewy like bacon. Throw into a ziplock baggie, sneak into theater, and enjoy!

SWEET LOTUS CHIPS (Similar to sweet potato fries or taro chips)

Whisk 3 tbsp. olive oil, 3 tbsp. white wine vinegar, pinch sea salt and 1 tbsp. cool water in large bowl. Place slices in bowl and allow to soak 1-2 hours. We agreed that this is the best because then the lotus roots can really absorb the flavor.

Place soaked roots on cookie sheet and coat in a generous dusting of nutritional yeast. Bake 10-15 minutes at 400.

Localvore: A Made-Up Word, But I'll Take It.

Paxton Family Cherries

Normally I shy away from the Localvore crowd in Boston because I feel like they judge me for the fact that the only crops my neighborhood is known for are potted aloe and certain unmentionable fungi.

I remember as a teenager drizzling out my nose in the spring and wheezing as I declared that there was no way I could have survived before the mid 20th century. With my debilitating allergies to every tree, flower, bush, and animal that isn't a cactus, I wouldn't have lasted a day without my air purifier.

Last week I had a fascinating conversation with one of my coffee shop regulars who told me that he cured his seasonal allergies through the use of local honey. It's amazing that something as simple as eating locally can literally inoculate us to local allergens. A coworker then came up to the counter and reported that he too experienced far fewer allergies since eating local honey.

They both used to take allergy shots, which my mother is convinced do some weird hoodoo on your life. She's probably right. The Kris List of Things That Do Weird HooDoo on Your Life is a pretty extensive list. It encompasses everything from FloNase to certain pieces of mid-19th century landscape. If any of you have met me and wonder why I have some of the odd aversions that I do, it's because of this comprehensive and exhaustive directory of Things to Be Avoided.

Anyways, I was thinking about last summer and the incredible healing I experienced from reaching into the garden to pick my collard greens, kale, and carrots, and it became so clear to me that we eat so much produce from South America that we're probably inoculated against their pollen. Between the bleachings, waxings, pesticide sprays, and long-distance shipping, are we losing some of the all-important germs that we should be eating? What ever happened to "God made dirt, dirt don't hurt?"

Now I am sitting down eating steamed collards from the front yard and cherries from my brother's cherry tree. I'm not going to play games and say I'm a good gardener... May left her plants in my care for a few days and I put them too close to the radiator and... it was like that scene in the Lord of the Rings where the Ents were trying to take out Isengard.

Burning limbs everywhere, and the slow, creaking sound of tree death.

it's 5 AM.

Ok. It is 5 AM and I am MISERABLE from eating watermelon. I am so mad. I am 23 years old. My body is not supposed to fall apart like this. It's insanity. I'm so over it. The infection I had turned into a rash, and I'm broken out all over my body. I should have known when I started craving rolls that it was a bad thing. I had a roll and some watermelon, and now I'm itchy and rashy literally from head to toe.

This is insanity. I've met septuagenarians who are healthier than me. I literally want to claw my skin off right now. AAAGHHHHH!!!!!

The thing that really makes me mad is that it was JUST WATERMELON. It wasn't like I was doing hard drugs. I wasn't even taking TYLENOL, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. I just want to cry. Partly from the discomfort, partly from the fact that I can't live my life because I'm constantly being punished by my stupid body. I am just freaking out right now. This is insanity.

I know I'll be better in a few days... but does that mean I have to be MISERABLE in the mean time?

Sinus Infection

My name is Becky, and I have a sinus infection.

Three days ago, I was fine.

I had a bright yellow Kate Spade sweater, new yellow Chucks, and a dress with cowgirls on it. The world was my oyster.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have put those cookies down. I would have stepped away from the muffins, and I would have thrown that delicious, delicious brownie promptly in the trash. By the way, the brownie was from Glutenus Minimus in Belmont, and it was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. But that's neither here nor there.

I am a princess, and I receive tribute. The tea shop that I work at was shopping for a new baker since our old one quit, and caterers from across the land were bringing tribute to us in vast boxes that weighed thirty pounds and smelled of heaven and butter.

There were cheesecakes of Traditional and Strawberry flavors in tall square boxes. There were boxes of flaky browned croissants and sugar-dusted berry scones. There was sheet after sheet of oozing chocolate cookie. One company brought us three boxes that were 3'x4' that took up three seats on the subway when I brought them home for my roommates. They had pastries I had never even heard of in there. Every possible variation on sugar, butter, flour, and chocolate was in those boxes.

And then there was the box from Glutenus Minimus. I scuttled away like a crab with a hot piece of detritus. I don't need to list what was in the box, because remembering it will just make me sad and hungry, but there was pumpkin tea bread, red velvet cupcakes, muffins, scones, and one brownie that took me to a higher state of being.

You can see where all of this lead. Such are the wages of sin.