Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Born This Way

Just hold your head up girl, and you'll go far
Listen to me when I say...


Overscheduling. Overeating. Undereating. Overworking. Overexercising. Underexercising.


"There's nothing wrong with loving who you are...
'cause He made you perfect, babe!"

Learning. Writing. Growing. Loving.

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way.

Ready to win. Answering only to myself. Breaking free of it all.

I haven't posted much, but I've been thinking and pondering more than ever. Gaga inspired me to share just a bit, albeit cryptically. Who knew the queen of freakified videos would speak to my soul?

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Soup for Sick Tummies

Tonight I invented a soup that I wanted because my stomach didn't feel well and my son's been feeling poorly all day. I decided to get on my blog really fast to write down what I did because otherwise I'll never be able to create it again and I think I'll want to do so. I'm eating a bowl as I write this - it's quite soothing and delicious.

2 c red lentils (I bought mine from the bulk section at Sprouts...I love Sprouts)
1/2 an onion - diced
1 teaspoon minced garlic (maybe it was a little more than this....maybe 2 teaspoons??)
2 Tablespoons grape seed oil (more or less 2T - just toss some in - mine was garlic/basil flavored)
2 small red potatoes - chopped into small pieces
2 long sticks of celery - chopped into small pieces
1 fresh tomato (from my neighbor's garden...Holly is the best - we traded tomatoes for cucumbers the other day) - Next time I might use a can of diced tomatoes so I get the pieces even smaller and keep the nice fresh tomatoes saved for salads.
3/4 can of coconut milk (It was the part without the cream, for the most part, after it had been in the fridge for a while. I'd used the cream to attempt to make some sugar free, dairy free, gluten free icing for cupcakes. Epic fail - but that's another story...)
3 cans of water - according to my math, that worked out to about 4 1/2 cups of water
cardamom - this is my new favorite flavor. I think I put in about a tablespoon but I wouldn't swear to it - you can also buy this in bulk at Sprouts, which is good because it is an expensive spice.
sea salt - probably a teaspoon??? (I know, I know...this recipe isn't very helpful, is it?)
fresh ground pepper - I just held it over the pan and ground for a while. Your guess is as good as mine on the amount but it wasn't a whole bunch.

Heat the grape seed oil. Add the onions and garlic, saute for a few minutes.
Toss in everything else.
Bring to a boil then simmer for about 10-12 minutes. (Red lentils cook really fast. They're pink when they're dry, then they're yellow-ish after they've cooked so "red lentils" is a bit of a misnomer but who am I to judge?)

Ok, so it doesn't look like much but I swear it's wonderful and I did the whole thing (including kitchen clean-up) in half an hour. The cupcakes in the background are the sugar free, gluten free cupcakes that my son loved - this time I used eggs and he liked them less. Hmmm. Guess I'll go back to the less puffy, flax-seed substitute cupcakes next time. To each his own, I always say.

Now if I could only get the icing figured out, I'd cry with joy. I didn't post a picture of my latest icing fail because I don't want to gross you out. Let's just say that it's sitting right next to my husband at our kitchen bar as he works on his model and it could clearly substitute as model glue. For all I know, he's already used some for that purpose.

Come to think of it, the icing ingredients were quite expensive. I hope he does use some as glue because at least then it won't be a total waste.