warm spinach breakfast salad

You guys, this is like the BEST food I've ever come up with. I don't have a real recipe, but basically you chop up a few slices of bacon and fry those until they're starting to get crispy. Throw in a ton of spinach and cook until just wilted. Dump spinach and bacon onto a plate and fry an egg (or two!) in the remaining bacon fat. While your eggs are frying, sprinkle some dried cranberries, walnuts, and blue cheese over the spinach and bacon. Top with your fried egg, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. When you eat it, break the yolk so it mixes with the balsamic to basically create a vinaigrette on your plate. It is seriously SO GOOD.

pickle time love

I went to Pickle Time (my fav weird little burger joint in my tiny town) with Emily today. I ate a tasty burger, of course, and we giggled at all the funny pickle drawings. I particularly liked a "GodzDILLa" drawing of a pickle godzilla (puns never get old), but I think my favorite was this sweet little drawing of pickle love.

roadtrip/sandwich

denim jacket - thrifted, sweatshirt - craft fair

I'm in Spokane right now, and this has essentially been my uniform the past couple days. The sweatshirt I got at a craft fair in Seattle, and it's made locally. The Levi's jacket is one of my favorite items of clothing ever. I found it at Value Village, already beat up, faded, and full of holes. It fits perfectly. 

Breakfast Sandwich

Toast 2 slices of whole wheat sourdough. Cook 2-3 slices of bacon, reserving the rendered fat in pan. Cook  a bunch of spinach in bacon fat, and then fry two eggs. Spread toasted bread with mayonnaise and a grainy, sweet mustard, and pile the cooked spinach, bacon slices, and fried eggs on one slice of bread. Top with salt, pepper, and grated parmesan cheese, and a big pile of fresh sprouts.

cute as a cupcake

So the other day my awesome friends, J and A stopped by work to drop me off one of the special, limited time Easter cupcakes from Trophy Cupcakes. Yeah, I do have the very best friends ever. They stuck around for a bit until I could go to lunch and we ate together outside by the river. Doesn't J look adorable? I love her super cute style.

on me: shirt - mom's, cardigain - uo, skirt - thrifted, tights - target, shoes - steve madden, sunglasses - topshop (london), purse - thrifted dooney & burke

on j: skirt and hairclip - h&m (new york), boots and necklace - yesstyle.com, tshirt - target, jean jacket - american eagle, tights - forever 21, tote - sanrio

choco cupcakes and cute puppies

Last week Emily and I made cupcakes for our sweet coworker's last day. She had been at the store for something like 25 years and she's just the nicest lady so we were really sad to see her go. We were at Emily's mom's house (she was housesitting) so we made it easy on ourselves and used a mix for the chocolate cupcakes. But since I can never just make a simple boxed cupcake, I made the cream cheese frosting from scratch and filled the cupcakes with strawberry jam. YUM. It was a good combo. And a perfect balance between easy and special.

We also got to play with her mom's adorable new puppy! I want to steal the little sweetheart, but I'll content myself with begging Emily to take Bella for walks and let me tag along. I snapped a bunch of pictures because she's just the sweetest little dog. So cute!

wild rice with miso dressing

I have been basically living on this salad lately. It is SO good. Wild rice is tasty and healthy (but surprisingly hard to find! I get mine at Trader Joe's but everywhere else it's really expensive) and the miso dressing is delicious. Seriously, I want this stuff on everything. I didn't have any edamame so I subbed some frozen green beans, which were ok. I skipped the tofu because I suck at cooking it. I also didn't have shallots for the dressing so I just threw in some garlic. I also like to cook my rice with a little more water than the package indicates so it turns out a little softer. I found the recipe on this amazing food blog. I've been getting a lot of really good recipes from Sprouted Kitchen, including an amazing lentil "meatball" with lemon pesto. Tasty stuff. also, the pictures are so incredibly gorgeous, I really cannot recommend the blog enough.

Wild Rice Salad with Miso Dressing
1/2 cup wild rice
cooked or raw veggies
3 tbsp. sesame seeds

2 tbsp. miso
2 tbsp. agave nectar
1 tbsp. sesame oil
2 1/2 tbsp. rice vinegar
garlic
juice of half an orange

Cook your wild rice according to the directions on the package. Prepare whatever veggies you're using. I like raw carrots, sliced thinly and some green beans or broccoli, lightly steamed. The edamame in the original recipe would be delicious but I don't usually have that on hand.

Mix miso, agave nectar, sesame oil, rice vinegar, crushed garlic, and freshly squeezed orange juice. I use my immersion blender to get it nice and emulsified.

Toss rice, veggies, miso dressing, and sesame seeds to combine and enjoy!

polenta with magic sauce

I found this recipe quite some time ago and pinned it on Pinterest. Last night I came home exhausted but I really wanted something tasty to eat and more filling than the salad I already had. I had some polenta in the fridge, the kind that comes in a tube, so I sliced that up, fried it in a little butter, and topped it with my new favorite thing, magic sauce!

This stuff is seriously so good. I think I like it so much because of all that paprika. Not that long ago, I was putting paprika on everything to the switch to magic sauce only adds more flavor. I bumped up the garlic just a little because I always like extra garlic. I also didn't measure the lemon juice and I think a half a lemon was more than was called for, but I liked all that freshness. And one last deviation . . . I didn't have fresh herbs so I used dry and honestly I didn't really measure a single thing and it all turned out ok. Actually, it was amazing!

Magic Sauce
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp. fresh rosemary
1 tsp. fresh thyme
1 tsp. fresh oregano
2 tsp. sweet paprika
2 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf, crumbled
pinch red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Heat olive oil until it is warm and remove from heat. Crush rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Smash garlic into a paste. Add garlic, paprika, red pepper, and salt to the warm olive oil. Then add the herbs and squeeze lemon into the pan. You can keep it in the fridge for a week or a bit longer and the flavor should develop more after a couple days, although you can and should use it right away as well.

bagel love

There is nothing better for lunch than a poppyseed bagel with cream cheese, lox, capers, and red onions. Stopped by Mikie's Brooklyn Bagels after staying at Emily's one night. I remember going to Mikie's when I was a kid but I think it's changed ownership over the years. Still totally delicious but I feel weird buying bagels from asians instead of a jewish guy. Ever since I ate this bagel I've been thinking about New York and how much I miss good jewish delis. I think I'm overdue for a visit to my aunt in Manhattan.

Breakfast this Morning: Toast with Nutella and Bacon

Snack of the Day: Apple Pear with Maple Almond Butter

on it like a bonnet

I had such a nice day today! Ems visited me at work (she was actually dropping off cupcakes for our favorite dude, who is sadly leaving the store tomorrow) and on my lunch we went out by the river and smoked while we chatted. It was a nice to have a break from being "on" like I am all day at customer service. It's nice to be able to scowl, and curse, and complain. And how cute is Emily's little embroidered cardigan? Darling!

After work, J came and picked me up (I let her use my car after she took me to work because hers broke down on Friday) and we had dinner with Amanada and Liam. We went to this rad Chinese restaurant I hadn't tried before. The decor is bonkers, with tons of fake plants, twinkle lights, and weird large, round, colored lights all over the restaurant. The food was damn good though. I had honey walnut crispy shrimp which was weird and delightful and Liam ordered this delicious tofu dish. It was cool to get something different at a Chinese restaurant, you know? So many places it's all orange chicken and mongolian beef.

sweater - icelandica (reykjavik), plaid shirt - thrifted, wool skirt - thrifted, tights - old, boots - thrifted, bag - thrifted dooney & burke

After dinner we were going to see a movie but when we got to the theater it turned out it wasn't playing when we thought it was. Apparently Fandango can't be trusted. We dicked around and argued about seeing another movie before we finally discovered it was playing twenty minutes later in the next town. So we dashed back to our cars and got there just in time. I saw a preview for this adorable chimp movie I want to see when it comes out. Apes get to me when they do things we do. It's cool when you see that they really are just like us. The baby chimp snuggling made my heart melt.

Jordskokker Soup

So my awesome friend Line from Denmark translated this recipe for me. It is seriously so good. I had it when I visited Denmark and then I wanted to eat it all the time but sunchokes are only in season in late winter it seems so february/march seems like the time to make this. In Denmark, they call these root vegetables jordskokker, but here we call them sunchokes or jerusalem artichokes. They are the root of a small variety of sunflower, which I have tried without much success to grow. My flowers bloom but I get tiny roots which aren't worth the effort of digging and peeling.

Sunchoke Soup

1 lb sunchokes

1/2 onion

1 big clove garlic

2 tbsp olive oil

3 sprigs thyme

1 quart chicken broth

1/4 cup heavy cream

sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

2-3 tbsp apple cider vinegar

bacon

chives

Peel sunchokes and roughly chop sunchokes into large chunks, setting aside one or two small ones for garnish. Peel and chop onion and garlic as well.

Heat olive oil in large-ish pot. Add sunchokes, onion, and garlic, and saute without browning for a few minutes. Add thyme, and let get all aromatic and yum.

Add chicken broth and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add heavy cream and simmer for a few more minutes.

Take the pan off heat and blend using hand blender (or transfer in batches to regular blender) and after blending season with salt and pepper. Don't add salt until after blending or it will never get smooth, don't ask me why.

Fry up a few strips of bacon (or chorizo but I think bacon is best because bacon is awesome) until crisp and chop into bits.

Chop reserved sunchokes into small bits and marinate in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, sea salt, and freshly ground pepper, and chop and add chives.

Serve in soup bowls, topped with raw marinated sunchokes and bacon. You could also add scallops but I haven't tried that because bacon is where it's at.

note: I typed this recipe while drunk so apologies if there are typos/other errors.

strawberries pt. 2

I already wrote about the first day of strawberry picking, this was the second. I went with my mom on the first, and my friends the next. This time we were in an even better section of the field and in no time had around 13 lbs each. Well, J had less because she didn't want to make jam. Silly girl. Of course a lot more pictures were taken with the three of us.

shirt - gap, jeans - uo, boots - thrifted, lip color - revlon just bitten in gothic

After picking our combined 35 lbs of strawberries, we went the shitty grocery store where we bought mexican Cokes, the only local burger joint in our small town, Pickle Time, for burgers, and ate in the park by the river. Later, we went back to my place, made a few batches of jam, a strawberry rhubarb pie, and these delicious strawberry-basil-gin cocktails. Yum.

sick day

I've been sick lately and haven't been posting much. This is pretty standard, big bowl of pho (with lots of hot sauce and jalepenos), book, moth-eaten sweater, no make-up. Unexciting. I do have one last snow-day outfit I'll try to post soon and lots of new purchases that need to be shown off. I am sorry about the slowing down of posts on this blog and am very grateful to those who continue to comment. I definitely feel inspired to write a post every time I see a comment, so thank you for that.

lunch with john wayne

Amanda and I found the best little cafe/diner in Monroe. It's called the Hitching Post Cafe and it's full of murals and country awesome-ness. I loved it. Little greasy spoon type places are my favorite places to eat. We had sandwiches and really amazingly bomb-ass onion rings. I haven't had a good onion ring in forever but these were incredible. I also felt like I fit in pretty well with my plaid shirt and braids.

We went after going to the post office to apply for passports. Because, in one month, I am going to London. Paris. Copenhagen. And Reykjavik. Yes, all four. Yes, you should be jealous. A cousin is getting married so my whole family is going to London. But I am traveling separately and going on this epic adventure and, you guys, I am SO EXCITED. Like you have no idea. Also, A random old lady at the post office complimented me on my hair, which I thought was sweet. Oh, and I just got this amazing dark green nail polish! Looks black most of the time but is really a blackened mossy green.

shirt - urban outfitters, jeans - urban outfitters, boots - thrifted, nailpolish - opi here today...aragon tomorrow

piecycle pie oh my god yum

tee - depeche mode concert, sweatshirt - old navy, beat to shit denim jacket - thrifted levi's, blanket skirt - thrifted, tights - target, shoes - aldo, purse - thrifted coach

I still go hang out at my spot by the river on my lunch breaks, usually to smoke, but damn is it cold now. Snow and everything. So weird. Anyways, later at Shane's we watched a ton of tv and ordered pie and this time I actually got a picture of the pie guy. He's a cutie! We got sweet potato, and he gave me some tips on making good pecan pie for Thanksgiving. He's even willing to share his knowledge. Good god, I've been talking about food a lot lately. Blame it on the holidays!

it's not like being an oncologist . . . i don't need to do a bunch of coke to be happy

shirt - target, sweatshirt - old navy, skirt - bb dakota, tights - urban outfitters, shoes - aldo

I love this skirt. I ought to wear it more. This was just a work outfit, plus hanging out with my dear friend Tommy afterwards. We made Mac and Cheese Pancakes, which are delicious. Like seriously, please try them. They sound so weird but they're really so so good. Make sure your cheese gets kind of crispy on the outside, and serve them with some butter and good maple syrup. It's amazing. And watch this video, because dude is hilarious.

thanksgiving baking

sweater - american rag, corduroys - j.crew

This was a total lazy day at home outfit. I love this sweater but I don't really know how to wear it. Like every outfit I wear with it feels like it could be better, but I don't know how. But the kimono sleeves and smocked waist are just so rad!

Also, I made the BEST Cranberry Curd Bars with Walnut Shortbread Crust for Thanksgiving. Seriously, click that link and try these! They would be great for Christmas too, and they're really pretty easy. I almost fell on my kitchen floor when I tasted the curd. They are the prettiest pink color!

Independance Day (or Happy 4th of July a month and a half late)

tee - pacsun, jeans - gap, shoes - converse, headscarf - thrfited, lip color - target red by l'oreal

Independance Day always feels a little bit fifties to me so I played that up this year with the silk scarf, cats eye makeup, and red lips. I don't love this lip color as much as some of my other red lipsticks but it's pretty good for longwear. It doesn't dry out my lips too much and really stays like it's supposed to. Is it a little ridiculous that I have many many different colors, formulas, and brands of red lipstick? I only buy red or deep raspberry colors. Well, I do have one nude lipgloss for when I want to look sort of sixties, but other than that I stick to reds.

When I focus on my makeup/hair more than usual, I tend to stay with a simpler outfit, like the jeans and tshirt I wore here. Now, I gotta say, I'm pretty damn happy with how my eyeliner turned out. I'm not exceptionally good at the winged liner, I must admit, but I rather liked how it turned out! And the little pomp works better when my bangs are too long, like they were getting back then.

Boy, it's weird to write about stuff from nearly two months ago! I mean, here it is, almost the end of August and I'm writing about the 4th of July. Which I spent in Des Moines (WA not IA), with Justina and Liam. We watched fireworks by the water, shot off our own, ate homemade cherry rhubarb pie, and drank beer. It was a proper Fourth, if you ask me.

taste of summer

skirt (worn as a dress) - used to be my mom's, belt - thrifted

It seems summer came and went in mere days here in Washington. It's still August but we're already having days cool enough for sweaters and tights. And it didn't get hot until mid July. So that's what, one month of actual nice weather. And even that was intermittent.

Yesterday's cold temperatures make this photo almost heartbreaking to me. I miss those few hot days! I miss throwing on something breezy and no shoes and just hanging out. This is one of those things that I really just wear around the house, although I did go to the grocery store for pizza ingredients in this outfit. I added sandals and a chambray work shirt to the skirt/dress and rainbow colored leather belt (which I love, by the way. it's kind of goofy but perfect for the summer). The pizza was delicious, cooked on the grill, with apple, spinach, provolone, feta, and carmelized onions. YUM.

I had been planning a show/party at my house for the next day, with a couple of my friends' bands playing and such, but ended up having to cancel it because two of my friends got arrested! We only found out the night before the show was supposed to happen and they had already been in jail a whole day and we had no idea if they were going to get out in time to play. Since their band was the one I really wanted to have at the party, we cancelled the show. They got out the next day and totally could have played but by that time we'd told everyone not to come. The whole thing was pretty funny, especially when I got pulled over right after finding out they were in jail. It definitely made me a bit more nervous when I was talking to the cop, but it ended up being no big deal. I had a break light out, and the cop warned me there was a lot of drug activity so I should be careful. Which I totally already know since half the kids I went to high school with are on heroin now and I found a bunch of used needles in the woods by my house when I was walking my dog.