Ode from Cookie Monster

Cookie Monster really loves cookies. But he thinks he has a problem. Check out his close, personal and honest look inside himself here.

It's ok, babe. I still love you.

 

My New Favorite Website

Wow, have I got a new website for you! 

It is hilariously funny, witty, biting, sarcastic, clever and funny, all in one nifty little package (and yes, I am aware I said funny twice). If you don't like it, you're dead inside.

I give you: Cake Wrecks.

You're welcome.

My First Bento!

Here is a tiny bento my friend and former colleague Kitako gave me from her trip home to Japan. Bento lunches are very popular in Japan. Essentially, they are lunch boxes. But some people get really fancy and elaborate, making faces or pictures out of food. I am way too impatient for that, so I plan to use my new Hello Kitty bento for small things, like yogurt, carrot sticks, salsa or other small items. Cookie Monster actually got the inaugural use today, with salsa in the bento to go with his chips.

Arigato gozaimasu, Kitako-san!
どうもありがとう。

Eggplant Stacks

We have been doing a different type of grocery shopping in the past few months. We usually do a massive grocery store journey once a month or so, then supplement fresh fruits and veggies as needed. However, we haven't made the pilgrimage to the grocery store for a giant trip in a long time. As such, we are, about once a month, down to a jar of pickles, bottles of beer, condiments and a carton of three eggs, with a few things left in the pantry. This makes me get pretty creative with meals, like I'm playing Iron Chef: Cupboard Remnants.

Hmm, I think I'd like to see that show. It'd be way more like real life. You know, because everyone I know makes trout ice cream on a regular basis.

We lucked out with this meal, because at least we had some fresh ingredients. The eggplant is left over from our camping trip last weekend because we did not use it, and the squash we also picked up last weekend at the Newport Farmers' Market. The basil came from my garden!, and everything else was hiding in the fridge door or needed to be used up.

For the eggplant stacks, I cut the eggplant into rounds (after peeling it. I hate the texture of eggplant skin. It's just icky) and roasted it, along with rounds of an adorable round yellow squash. Of course, they were first dressed with olive oil, garlic and good ol' S&P.

Here is the sandwich I made for Cookie Monster. Notice that it's on a hamburger bun. Yep, you guessed it: left over from camping! I think a hamburger bun sandwich made an appearance in Cookie Monster's lunch four times this week, and he had a hot dog bun sandwich at least once. I'll be damned if I throw food away! (And, to be fair, a hamburger bun sandwich made its way into my lunch too!)

I bought a rotisserie chicken right before we left, thinking it would be good for camping, but we didn't end up taking it with us. So, we have a lot of chicken left over, hence the copious amounts of Cookie Monster chicken sandwiches.

This one has chicken, chipotle marinade sauce and bleu cheese on (yep! you guessed it!) a hamburger bun. After a short stay in a hot oven, it was quite delectable-looking.

I sliced up a tomato to go into the eggplant stacks and had a little leftover, so into Cookie Monster's sandwich it went. We also had some avocado needing to be used (are you sensing a pattern here?), so into the sandwich that went, too.

And here we have my eggplant stack with squash. Cookie Monster does not like squash (good! more for me!), so he didn't have any in his stack. I alternated eggplant slices, squash slices, basil leaves and tomatoes until I had a lovely little pile, like this. Drizzled with just a bit of balsamic vinegar, it was scrumptious.


And I didn't even put it on a hamburger bun.

ChezVCK Garden Explosion!

Ok, so remember how ChezVCK garden began? It was just a few short months ago that Cookie Monster and I shoveled dirt, decomposed kitchen scraps and poop (yep! Poop! Poop from really big cows) into some square wooden buckets and threw in some plants. And now? Look what we got! Mother Nature must really be smiling on us, because we really haven't put much effort at all into the garden. Those plants must really like the dirt and poop combination; they've been growing like weeds. Except edible, good, delicious weeds. Plants, really.

Here are our sugar snap peas. We have gotten three good batches of peas from these babies, and I think they're nearing done now. They were SO. F'IN. GOOD. Some were eaten raw, and others were stir-fried in olive oil with S&P.

Here we have the tomatoes. Lots of flowers, and some tiny fruit beginning.


See? Baby 'mater! Aren't they cute?

And I will love you, and hug you, and call you my squishy!
Can you find the baby zucchini? And look at those beautiful blossoms.

Tiny bell pepper...I see you!


Strawberries!See our cilantro tree? It has tipped over because it's gotten so tall and it can't hold its weight anymore. We still have lots of yummy cilantro, and soon we'll have lots of coriander.


The pole beans don't have any beans yet, but it won't be long now! With the recent bouts of sunlight (hooray! Vitamin D! Oh how I missed you!), the basil perked up and is doing much better. The only thing I'm slightly disappointed with is the rosemary. I thought it would really grow into a bush, like the cilantro surprisingly did, but it has remained pretty stagnant. But we've still got a lot more growin' season to go. There may be hope yet!


Woo Hoo for gardening!