Natasha Hates the Rain

It's official! I have a book coming out! Jeremy and I have joined forces and have made, what I hope to be, a super amazing and fun book that kids will love and parents can laugh at. With. There will be laughing, either "with" or "at." We will be selling at Comic Con next week, (holy oh my goodness, I can't believe it's actually that close!) Then after the convention, it will be sold via Etsy. So yeah, I'm totally gonna be one of those people. And I can't wait! The futures so bright, I gotsta wear shades!

Warm Mushroom Spinach Salad with Tempura Shrimp

Have you ever made a salad so amazing that you didn't even need dressing? Ok, maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe your will power is superhuman. How about, have you ever made a salad so good that your French Dressing addict of a boyfriend said, "this is so tasty, I don't need dressing." Exactly... Now you see where I am going with this.
So in a quest to eat healthy, I bought a 5 pound bag of spinach. Nothing is healthier than buying spinach. Well, I suppose consuming it is. But 5 pounds?! Really!? I know. So now the goal is: how many things can I make in the shortest amount of time so the pillow of spinach doesn't go bad.

The salad ingredients are:
3 to 4 handfuls of Spinach
1/2 of a small red onion (I got a gargantuan onion and used 1/4 of it)
4 mushrooms
1/2 a jalepeno, seeded
3 green onions
cilantro, to taste (Personally, I could eat a salad exclusively made of cilantro)
garbanzo beans
olives
garlic salt
seasoning salt


The tempura ingredients are:
5 already made Trader Joes Tempura shrimps (I'm like Sandra Lee, ya'll! Minus the cocktail hour)

Heat oven to 400 degrees, toss in shrimp, walk away.

Wash the spinach and the green onion. Set aside. The magic doesn't happen there. Wash and chop up the mushroom, jalepeno, and red onion. Put about 1/2 a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan and set on medium. Once the oil heats up, toss in the red onion. Stir a tad so it looks as though every piece is uniformly coated. (The magic of sauteed onion is that no matter what you end up making, someone will always say, "Damn, something smells GOOD!" Seriously. Every.Single.Time.)

Once the onion is smelling up the place like you know what you're doing, toss in the mushrooms. And a dash of garlic salt. Stir the mixture until the onions start to turn translucent. Now, toss in the jalepeno. No seriously. Just do it. I promise it's not going to be as hot as you think. Keep stirring.

Open oven, flip shrimp over.

From here, the oil seemed to have been absorbed by the mushrooms, so I went to reach for my rosemary infused olive oil (that I made... Suck it Martha!) but instead grabbed the Bertolli. The Bertolli must've sensed my initial rejection, because the cap proceeded to slice my hand as if to say "how dare you worship other olive oils before me!" Bertolli is THAT kind of an olive oil. Anywho, once everything was all simmering in the pan and my bandaid was in place, I tossed in about a handful of the spinach and a quick dash of the seasoning salt. I have no idea why. But sometimes, you just gotta believe. During the time I was contemplating whether or not I made the right move, I chopped up the green onion and put it on top of the fresh spinach.

So once all the spinach in the pan was kinda wilted (which is what happens to cooked spinach, no big woop) I put this on top of the bed of fresh spinach and the chopped green onions. Then I added half a can of garbanzo beans and half a can of black olives. I tasted the salad and swooned, but felt as though it was missing something. So I rummaged through the fridge until I found it: CILANTRO! Toss that sucker up, opened the oven, and placed two of the crispiest pieces of tempura shrimp on the side. The whole meal was so full of flavor that we didn't need soy sauce or French dressing. And dude, salad for a meal... hardcore.

Curried dill turkey burgers

In my quest to lose some pounds, I have been moonlighting with turkey. (with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard, obvi.) I've made some turkey meatball thing (the sight of white meat balls skivvies me out though) and have kind of been threatening to rock some turkey nachos. But before I get to that point, I decided that turkey burgers were the way to go.
You can't really mess up a burger. Or rather, I've never met a burger I didn't like. But then again, like Joey Tribioni, sandwiches, in any form, are my favorite food. Yeah, I said it.
So I was watching Rachel Ray (don't ask) and she was making open faced turkey burgers with some kind of gravy topping with peas and carrots and stuff on top of an english muffin. Blorf, right? But what she did say that stuck was that turkey dries out quicker than beef and that to maintain moisture inside the patty, it's crucial to incorporate herbs. Herbs are different than spices in that herbs retain their essential oils in their leaves and can be used fresh or dried. Whereas spices essenial oils are located in their pods, seeds, bark, etc and must be dried. In addition, you or I could grow herbs in any pot of soil we found, but spices are almost all cultivated in a land far, far away. (Thank you Alton Brown!)

So here is the recipe that I used/altered/ made my own:
2lbs ground turkey
3 green onions, cut to make lots of little circles (I'm sure there's an exact term. I just don't care enough to look)
6 or so branches of dill, chopped (disclaimer:my boyfriend and I love dill more than anything, so you may want to use sparingly)
Cumin
Turmeric
garlic salt
normal people salt (not rock, or pink or seasoned. Think like the salt of the 80's)

The reason that I didn't put measurements down for the powdery stuff is because I kinda just went with the flow. A friend once said that "cooking is an art, baking is a science." So I probably take more liberties with flavors than I should. Anywho, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and work it with your hands until the meat is uniform in shape. It wont be in color. But think like you're in need to put it all into a sausage. Or don't, whateves. Who am I to judge if you like your patties lumpy?

Ok, now here's the ancient Chinese secret: take a SMALL little nugget of your concoction, make a patty fit for a mouse, and fry that sucker up! Once it's all cooked through, taste it and see what it is missing. I did this about twice, and added more Cumin and more dill, respectively. This really is such a no brainer, I don't know why I didn't think of it before!

Once I was satisfied with the taste, I made a ball of the whole turkey/herb thing and then made a cross through the whole thing. Now I know I have the ability to make 4 equal patties.
I shaped them all up and then tossed them in a pan over medium heat. No oil. They ended up taking about 8 minutes per side. But that doesn't mean I didn't flip them more than once. I am all about rare beef burgers, but turkey is a dirty bird (see what I did there?) and like chicken, you need to cook them all the way through. I waited until the outside had a kind of hard caramelization. Then I cut them in half because I was so neurotic about whether or not they were done, but that's a story for a different time.


Once those little suckers were done, my boyfriend and I dug in. The bread we used was the almond rosemary focaccia. It could have been as though God himself made us dinner because it was SO effing amazing! Legend.......dairy! My BF said that it was so tasty that he didn't even want to put condiments on it. But he did insist on cheese. It's always something.

Almond rosemary focaccia

So, in my lack of writing, I have started cooking... a lot. Thus far my specialties are weird casseroles, elaborate versions of tuna, impossible combinations of pasta sauces (lobster ravioli with a curry tomato sauce anyone?) My boyfriends favorite thing I make is over roasted chicken and broccoli. Any way, what I am getting at is, I'm going to start documenting my recipes and their aftermath. Was it yummy? Has it been requested again? And what tweaks would make it better.
Thus far I've made a meatloaf that would knock your socks off. And I have ideas for more. But as of right now, meatloaf is on a back burner. Because I am now in the mood for baking. So here is what is on the menu tonight: Rosemary and almond focaccia bread with a dill curried turkey burger. I know, right? Sounds fancy!

So here is where I am, focaccia wise. I put together all the ingredients, and this time around I am waiting the appropriate amount of time to allow it to rise. Because I didn't last time. I didn't let that bread rest for even one nano second! I was like a bully. (but it was still delicioso) Thus far, I've let it rest twice. And I'm having weird versions of Lucille Ball getting pushed up against the wall! My goodness, they ain't kidding when they say it doubles in size. SCIENCE!

This is the recipe:
2 cups warm water
2 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup (or olive oil)
5½ cups high-grade flour
1½ tsp salt
10 almonds (finely crushed)
about 3 twigs of rosemary, leaves only (do I really need to be more specific? Don't throw in the wood part)

I mixed the water, yeast and sugar in the bowl for about five minutes. As this was happening, I crushed the almonds and the rosemary with a SlapChop (best invention EVER!) I put the almond/ rosemary portion in the olive oil (it seemed like the right thing to do) into the water yeast sugar concoction. Then I put in the flour and and then got down and dirty with kneading a loaf, know what I mean?
Once I combined all the ingredients together by hand (cause I'm old school like that) and kneaded for about 8 minutes, I left it in a bowl and put plastic wrap over it and left it alone for 20 minutes (I didn't do that before.)
During this time I looked up stupid celebrity gossip.
After 20 minutes, I went to look at my beautiful loaf and it beamed back at me with pride. I floured a cutting board and kneaded it some more until it looks more like what you think it should look like. Like a raw loaf of bread that was smooth and not sticky.
I then shaped the bread and let it rest for another hour and a half. (yeesh! I didn't do this AT ALL the first time) Then I got the urge to write this. So this is where we are now.

Can you tell I didn't really believe the whole "double in size" thing?.

From here I tossed that puppy in the oven (450f) after slathering some olive oil on the top and sprinkled on some more rosemary. It's done when it sounds hollow inside (think Heidi Montage) and it should be golden brown.
Now, I understand that Focaccia actually means "flat bread" but I don't like flat bread. So I didn't weigh it down with any stones or whatever. And instead, what I got was a bread that looked so happy and proud to be alive that I almost didn't want to eat it. Almost. But when I did...it was totally worth making the apartment about 137 degrees.

Me and my friends!

This is my best friend. Too bad he's in my tummy now!!! haahhahah!!



And here's me and my girls on my Birthday!

Well, Hello there...

Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years.

I just smelled last summer on the night air and it made me nostalgic for everything i don't want to go through again. Which is a very awkward feeling. I came across two very poetic stanzas (Tony Stanzas) in National Geographic that prompted me to write. I wrote "WRITE" on my hand as a reminder. And now, at midnight on a Tuesday, here i am, writing about a snake and an egg. full circle. Only Connect. I need a vacation. Mostly, to get away from myself.

We EGGcept her...one of us

When I was in middle school, I had a friend named Megan. She was like me: loud, funny, and smart. A lethal combination for parents and teachers alike. The only difference between us was that I was nice and she was mean. What I mean is, whereas Megan would stick her half sisters wet Barbie dolls in the freezer to make them shatter, I would secretly give her sister cheapo Barbie’s because I thought Megan went over the line. And the only reason they were cheap was because I was 14 and had to save up my lunch money to get them. Maybe it was guilt ‘cause I laughed at the shattering, but I thought doing that to a 5 year old was cruel. And yes it gets into her hatred for her step-mom and misplaced anger at the little girl. But that’s not what this is about. This is about the scar on my toe.
Megan’s dad’s kitchen had a linoleum floor. We never thought much of it. In fact, we never even cared about it until Megan dropped an egg. For reasons I can no longer wrap my brain around, Megan, rather than cleaning it up, stepped on the uncooked yolk and white matter. Megan commented on how slippery it was. Megan convinced me to do the same. I vaguely remember how slimy and cold it was. I really remember how slippery it was. Megan and I tried to spread the egg over more of the kitchen floor. We found a new game. When the egg could not satisfy how much we needed to cover the entire kitchen floor, Megan broke another egg. And then another. And then…well, Megan and I emptied out a whole carton. The floor of her kitchen was now essentially an egg skating rink. The smell was making us dry heave, but the fact that we were sliding all over was totally worth it. We started attempting triple sow cows, and double turns and spinning and all these stupid ice skating tricks that neither of us could do. I remember laughing so hard, mixed with this vomit inducing smell that I didn’t know if I should be more worried about horking or peeing. I laughed so hard at one point that I had doubled over. This now changed my center of balance. So I stood up quickly. That again made me unbalanced. At this point, I am now moving my torso up and down as if I’m pushing one of those old school railway cars. When my torso couldn’t handle it anymore, one leg went out. I tried to tell it to come back, and when it did the other jutted out just as fast. I ended up looking like a Russian dancer, with one leg quickly replacing the other. I’m sure if you got a video of it in slow mo, at one point both of my legs would’ve been off the ground. Like that old video about racehorses. And whether or not all their legs were off the ground at the same time. I was able to do this for about 60 seconds. And I honestly thought I would have been able to finally regain my balance. But mixing the laughing, with the dry heaving, with my newly found Russian heritage, I landed on my butt with a resounding thud. Upon my graceful landing, her stove bottom sliced my big toe. It wasn’t a bad slice. Just enough for me to have a scar. Not a ton of blood. Like a paper cut. What hurt the most was making it to her bathroom and trying not to leave a trail of pee there. Megan on the other hand, couldn’t make it that far. Plus, what I saw in my head, she saw in real life. Megan peed. I had made Megan pee in her pants. She walked to the bathroom defeated. After many many minutes in the bathroom, she finally came out, and couldn’t look me in the eye. Clean up might have been the worst thing I could ever imagine. We mixed lemon scented dishwashing soap with this raw egg yuck and now Megan’s pee. I think we told her parents we were trying to make a soufflé we learned about in cooking class. And even if they didn’t buy it, there is no way that they would have ever figured out the truth. I sometimes wonder if she ever told them. But more than that, I sometimes want to go egg skating again.