That time I stole tofu scramble

I worked at an unnamed vegan/vegetarian cafe in NYC for a grand total of 2 weeks and in that time I managed to wreck havoc on the West Village coffee drinkers. 

I'm not the best barista. 

I just really don't care about how you take your coffee, because I'm trying my hardest to not burn the shit out of my hand on the steam wand. 

Did I accidentally brush your scone with my un-gloved hand? Oops. 

And my latte art looked like someone took a very circular poo. 

Long story short, baristing wasn't my calling. 

But said vegan/vegetarian cafe had a awesome tofu scramble recipe. 

A recipe that I might have stolen. 

Tofu Scramble (from an unnamed source)

You'll need:

2 14 oz blocks of extra-firm tofu

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 small onion- chopped

1 small green pepper- chopped

1 small red pepper- chopped

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp ground tumeric

15 oz can black beans

1/4 c cilantro- chopped

Salt and pepper

4-6 tortillas (or how many scrambles you want to eat...)

Things to put on top: salsa, avocado, cheese, green peppers, hot sauce, sour cream... the options are limitless. 

You'll need to:

- Press the tofu. 

- Smash the tofu with a fork. 

- Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onions and peppers; cook until soft, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in coriander and cumin; cook with fragrant, about a minute. Throw in the tofu, tumeric and beans. Cook until heated through, about 2 minutes, stir in cilantro and season with salt and pepper. 

-Serve with tortillas and garnishes. 

I can never show my face in that cafe again. 

Guys, I have to talk about the new David Bowie album. 

I seriously love me some Bowie, so much so that I dressed up as him for Halloween. It was awesome. 

This album though? I get it, he's on a very slow roll. He's David Bowie and can do no wrong, but The Next Day really just makes me miss his cutting edge days, when he was trying his hardest to push boundaries. This album feels like his silent surrender into aging rocker-dom, a genre I refuse to place Bowie in. I like that his music is aging with him and he's not trying to squeeze his 66 year old body into skin tight leather suits anymore, but this album sent me into a 70s Bowie phase and that's a land I'd like to stay in. 

In the video for "The Stars Are Out Tonight" he wears a yellow Mr. Rogers cardigan. 

Bowie in a cardigan!?! I just... I can't...


On a completely unrelated note, KDP is now two years old and has 100 posts!
Thanks for reading.
(seriously, thanks). 

Packing a fiber punch.

Who doesn't love Lara Bars? 

They're simple, delicious and so organic you can still taste the dirt. 

The only downside is the cost, at $1.30 per bar or over 20 bucks for a box of 15, these once were a special, "I've been a good girl", "I went to the gym today (yesterday, last week, will go tomorrow etc)" treat. 

But no longer!

I figured that with so few ingredients, they would be pretty easy to make. 

Year 2 means a new leaf with the KDP experiments! They work!

I also had some awesome cookie cutters, of the ninja and Alaskan animals variety. 

So now my afternoon snack is made even better by being in the shape of a whale. 

Almond Cookie- makes 6 ninja's
1/2 c pitted whole dates
1/2 c pitted whole prunes
1/2 c almonds
1 tbsp flax seeds
1 tbsp coconut oil
dash of sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Cuckoo for Coconut- makes 6 whales

1/2 c pitted whole dates

1/2 c pitted whole prunes

1/2 c almonds

1 tbsp flax seeds

1 tbsp coconut oil

dash of sea salt

1/4 c dried coconut

Pumpkin Pie- makes 6 squirrels

1/2 c pitted whole dates

1/2 c pitted whole prunes

1/2 c almonds

1/3 c pumpkin seeds

1 tbsp flax seeds

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

dash of sea salt

-Place the dates and prunes in the food processor, blend until it's a paste and put in a bowl.
-Add the nuts and seeds to the processor and blend until finely chopped (stop before it's a flour). Dump in the bowl
-Add the nuts, sea salt, coconut oil and spices to bowl, Knead the nuts into the paste
-Transfer to a surface covered with plastic wrap. Shape into bars (I used cookie cutters, you can also roll into a ball, if you aren't as awesome as I am). Wrap individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to eat (Let set for 20 mins in the fridge before eating).

Be warned, the process does make a mess. 

That's a porcupine. It's an Alaska thing.  

The flavor options are endless. Here are some of the other Lara flavors, but you can really throw whatever you want in there. Just get some dried fruit, spices, nuts, nut butter, chocolate chips and go to town.
Apple Pie
Banana Bread
Blueberry Muffin
Carrot Cake
Cherry Pie
Pecan Pie
Tropical Fruit Tart
Peanut Butter Cookie
Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie
Ginger Snap
Peanut Butter and Jelly
Lemon Bar
Coconut Cream Pie
Cashew Cookie


Get your kitchen dance on to this:

Carolina Chocolate Drops new album, Leaving Eden came out in February.
I'm still listening to it everyday.
Now granted, the sounds of the CCD's are completely and utterly my jams, but there is a raw, unprocessed, jam session quality to this CD that is really lovely. It really takes me back to being at the Alaskan Folk Fest, a Juneau relic that I missed and pinned for this year.
They are experimenting more and more with meshing their old time, black string band sound with beat boxing. It's interesting and gives them an update, I just fear that this gimmick will become too over used.
Check them out, they are definitely on the cusp of the bringing back the Americana Roots movement, with a modern spin.

Swamp thing smoothie

My 25th birthday is tomorrow and I still eat cereal for breakfast every.single.day. About a year ago I switched from skim milk to unflavored almond milk but I still eat fairly sugary crap for breakfast = no bueno. With some gentle guidance from Renai and Val I recently undertook one of those damn hippie cleanses from The Herbalist, no I don't wanna talk about it, yes it was traumatic, yes I cheated on like day 5, no I don't need you to judge me. ANYway I did learn something from this cleanse and that was the way of the breakfast smoothie. I jammed out with the breakfast smoothie throughout the whole 10 day (5 if you paid attention about my cheating) cleanse. Just this week I decided to have a smoothie instead of cereal for allllll of my weekday breakfasts. A big change for this adult child but that's just how awesome the breakfast smoothie really is! You really can't argue with getting some of your 5 fruits and veggies a day first thing in the morning and I stay full until lunch so that's a lot win-win in your mason jar!

Did you know that your average blender blade attachment thingy fits perfectly on your average mason jar? Cuz I didn't until Pinterest told me. It's true, I'll wait while you go try it on for size....done? Ok. Now how effing cool is that anyway? It cuts the amount of dishes needed to make and enjoy a smoothie by half! Half! Math! So what I do is prep most of my smoothie at night before I go to bed and it goes something like this:

Breakfast Smoothie:

- half of a peeled orange, chopped up

- half of an average carrot, chopped up

- some kale or chard if I have any, it really adds that nice green color to your brekafast

- a handful of hand-picked, frozen, wild Alaskan blueberries (what you don't have those? store bought will do)

-small portions of any other random fruit you have laying around, I normally toss in an apple slice or a couple strawberries, and 1/2 a cucumber is a super refreshing addition. We get a Full Circle Farms box every other week so I almost never buy fruit or veg from the store and end up just using whatever random stuff I have before it goes bad.

1. At this point I just put the blade thingy on it and stick it in my fridge

2. My roomie wakes up right when I leave so I wait until just before I leave to toss in the rest of the ingredients and blend it up cuz I'm nice and I want him to have a good day/ not hate me for waking him up before his alarm. Love me some not-cranky Joel Ion!

Second half of ingredients:

-a teaspoon of chia seeds

-probably about 1/4 cup of soy or almond milk

-6-8 ice cubes

3. blend like the dickens. My blender is rad but the little thing is just a blender, I know fancier folks have those vita mix thingies, and more power to them but kitchen redundancy and whatnot so I make-do with my 2nd hand blender. I make a royal racket blending because I don't like my smoothie to be really liquiddy, I prefer a more gelatinous mixture (thanks chia seeds) so it's just harder to grind down at first, turns out great.

4. put a lid on it and you're done! I like to drink mine at work straight out of the jar, it really grosses my boss out, he's the one that calls it a swamp thing.

Listening to: The sweet sound of my blender when I make my brekkie and my favesies playlist on Spotify when I'm sipping on it at my desk.

combine with latte from The Rookery and you're good to go!