Heavens to Betsy. Who wants to take a pilgrimage to Milk Bar with me? Friends, they have things called Cereal Milk (like the stuff at the bottom of a bowl of Froot Loops) and Crack Pie. Crack pie. It’s like I secretly became Christina Tosi’s muse and I don’t even know it. Because I want everything they sell. Everything.
Of course, since I don’t live in NYC, I have to make do with homemade versions of their food. So I decided to make cornflake-chocolate-marshmallow cookies a few weeks ago. They did not disappoint. I still have some in a jar in my kitchen, if you want to come over and have one? There are also a few unbaked in the freezer if you’re a fan of raw dough. I can share.
These cookies are really easy. The only hard part is beating the dough for about 10 minutes – apparently, that’s so that we’ll be able to incorporate as much butter as possible into the cookies, without them melting in the oven. Of course, I’m impatient, so a few of mine melted a bit in the oven. I survived.
If you’re looking at this picture and thinking to yourself: “My my, but that looks good”, I would like to inform you that you are not wrong. It was good. A little too good.
Why too good, you ask? Well, because, I am now in possession of some dangerous information: I now know how to make pizza dough. I have the easiest-ever recipe bookmarked, I own bread flour, I have a few packages of instant yeast lying around – and honey, you better come save me from myself. If you only knew how much I love pizza…
Conveniently, this is a “bread-like” recipe, which means I’m a quarter done my bread-baking resolution! But I have a feeling that thanks to lots of inspiration and this initial success, I’ll be baking more than 4 breads this year.
Wanna know how to make it yourself? That’s a rhetorical question, obviously.
Since it’s January, I’m joining in with the masses and making some decisions that I hope will better my health. Actually I should say decisions that WILL better my health, because they already have – I’ve seen changes. Today, I wanted to share some of the systems that have been working for me, mostly because I find them either accessible, easy, or helpful (not necessarily all three!).
Diet
Note: cupcakes were eaten on cheat day! :)
First, my diet. This I would not put under the “accessible” category, because it is pretty difficult and requires quite a bit of willpower (for me, at least). But it is definitely helpful and I have seen results after only 2 weeks.
I am following the “slow-carb diet”, written about by Timothy Ferris in his book The 4-Hour Body. You can click the link to see a full explanation of the diet, but the gist of it is: you eat solely protein and vegetables 6 days a week, with a free-for-all day 1 day per week. No carbs (including fruit), nothing that could be considered “white”, no rice even if it’s brown (!), no dairy. Basically your meals should consist of protein and vegetables, and that’s it.
The more you think about this diet, the harder it seems (at first). No fruit! No rice! Unfathomable. And indeed, the meals are a little boring. It’s hard to think of meals that don’t include some kind of carb. But eventually if you think about it creatively enough, you can come up with some food that is yummy and healthy. No joke! Here’s what’s been working for me:
Shrimp stirfry, with peppers, onions and broccoli
Shrimp + avocado salad
Eggs, cottage cheese (allowed in small quantities) and broccoli
Black bean burgers (no bun) with guacamole and salsa
Panfried Korean-style tofu
Sweet potato fries and green salad with edamame, beans or avocado
Bean salad with beans, onions and a light dressing
Homemade chili with lots of kidney beans and veggies
Nuts or spoonfuls of nut butters for snacks
Big mug of tea with 1 sugar cube to fend of nightly sugar urges
Now, I’m a (quasi) vegetarian, which makes this diet a little bit harder for me. If you’re a full-fledged carnivore, it should be a breeze! Swap out different proteins with veggies on the side and you’re set. Personally, I love food, so I haven’t been satisfied to eat the exact same thing every day (except for breakfast). So I’ve tried to be really creative with my food without breaking the rules, and I’ve enjoyed most of my meals immensely.
As you may know, I love to make cupcakes. I have my trusty vegan cupcake cookbook, which honestly contains the tastiest recipes I’ve encountered. They are so good, and I’ve never come across someone who wasn’t flabbergasted to hear that they were vegan. You would never know it by eating them! They are delicious, moist, and the book is full of flavour combos that I love.
Prior to this year, my cupcakes were topped with a big smudge of icing, and maybe sprinkled with some pretty sprinkles if they were lucky. I didn’t have a piping bag, and I definitely didn’t know how to use one. But then, for some reason, I caught the “domestic goddess bug” (I blame this blog) and promptly stumbled on to the idea of piping bags, pretty piles of icing and food colouring. I’m still getting the hang of it.
One method that always left me in awe was icing roses. Golly gee, let me tell you – pictures of that technique blew me away. It looked like the most complicated thing on the planet, but boy were they pretty. Then I learned something amazing! The whole process hinged on just one jumbo icing tip!! Aha! Suddenly the complications seemed to fall away, and icing roses were in my grasp.
Little did I know how difficult it would be to find a Wilton 1M tip with which to pipe. Granted, I could have bought it online, but I decided to check every cooking shop in the surrounding area first. Finally I located one at the local Bulk Barn when I was home for the holidays. (Montreal doesn’t have Bulk Barns, and it pains me greatly.) That night, I whipped up a batch of plain vanilla cupcakes and buttercream icing, and my Mom and I learned how to pipe icing roses like pros!
