Cauliflower Power!

Hello, sea monkeys!

I'm sorry I've been away for like, the entire summer.  You see, this summer was supposed to be epic.  Turns out, it was just an epic fail.

Things were going quite well.  Then, my car decided to almost catch on fire, and my neck decided it was going to stop being a bendy thing that supports my head, and instead it was going to be a hurty thing that caused major trauma for my entire body.

This was not a great summer.

Well, because the neck issues weren't getting better (or rather, they would get better, then get worse again, then get better again, then get worse again--like the worst roller coaster ride ever), I decided I needed to drastically change my diet.

How does a diet make a difference in neck pain?

I'm glad you asked.

The answer is SCIENCE!

I SAID SCIENCE!

Well, okay, actually, the answer is inflammation.  I did some interneting, and I discovered that certain foods are either inflammatory (increasing your body's inflammatory response), or anti-inflammatory (figure out what that does on your own, brainiac.  Must I spell out everything for you?).  And I figured I'd cut out all the foods that would increase my body's inflammatory response, while adding in more foods that would decrease my body's inflammatory response.

Wow.  That was boring.  Sorry.  If you're at all interested in that anti-inflammatory diet stuff, go use the Google.  It has way more boring than I have.

Anyway, with my new diet, I cut out sugar, red meat, poultry, gluten, AND all grains (at least for now).

I call my new diet the "Oh My Gosh, I Can't Eat Anything" Diet.

OMGICEAD?
OhMagicHead?
Sounds good.  The Oh Magic Head Diet.

Well, I knew I'd eventually start missing things like eating, so I started looking into what I could do with vegetables.  I discovered some recipes for making "rice" out of cauliflower.  So I decided to try it.

Here is the Couth Ramble method of cooking the PERFECT cauliflower "rice" in 10 easy steps.  More or less.  I really didn't bother counting them, okay?  I may or may not actually be a cooking expert.

1. Wash your cauliflower and chop the big florets into little florets.  While you're doing this, think about the word "floret," and how silly it is.  Also think about how angry it makes you that cauliflower isn't spelled "collieflower."  But then think about how "caul" looks like "maul," and how the word "mauliflower" really should be in everyday English usage.

Chuck Norris doesn't eat cauliflower.  He eats MAULiflower.



...because he's angry it's not spelled "collieflower."

2. Chop the mess out of your mauliflower (I used a food processor, because I'm not She-Ra: Princess of Cooking Power) until it's in these little bitty pieces that somewhat resemble rice.

3. Decide that you are no longer making mauliflower rice.  You are now making mauliflower couscous.  Because that junk don't look like no rice you ever seen.  Consider going back to elementary school for grammar lessons.

4. Think about how much you like to say couscous.  Say it a few times to yourself, because, gosh darn it, it feels good.  Couscous.  Coooouscoooous.

5. Put some butter in a skillet.  Turn on the burner.  If you don't turn the burner on, your skillet will not get hot, and your butter will get sad and lonely.

6. Wash and cut up some mushrooms to saute in that lonely butter.  Stir it up now, nice and slow.  Wonder if you should give your mushrooms and butter some privacy.  Turn your back for a moment, and think about how much fun it is to say 'saute.'

7. When your butter and mushrooms have combined into something beautiful, go ahead and add in that mauliflower couscous.  Couscous.  Cous....cous.  Couscous.  Stir it up.

8.  Keep stirring.

9.  Keep stirring.

10. Add in a little olive oil.  Tell yourself you're only adding the olive oil for anti-inflammatory purposes.  Stir some more.  Lie to yourself some more.  You were way too good for that jerkface, anyway.  Yeah.

11.  Add some spices--like sage and cilantro--because obviously those two spices go well with everything.  And obviously I have no idea what I'm doing.

No.  Idea.

12. After you're just really tired of stirring, turn off the burner.  Put that mauliflower couscous mix into a bowl.

13. Tentatively try a spoonful.

14. Make a weird face.

15.  Immediately add enough extra spices to sufficiently cover up that you are, in fact, eating cauliflower.

16. Try it again.  Smile.

Victory is yours!

Victory tastes kinda like spices trying to mask the flavor of cauliflower.

Enjoy!

...ish.

SAA Ep. #27: Cooking with Fail!

Tim Hawkins is probably my favorite comedian.  He's got this fabulous routine about biscuits being so good they'll make you want to slap your mama.

My grandmother, now she was the best cook in the world.  Don't argue with me on this, because if you think your grandmother is/was a better cook, then you're wrong.  My grandmother was the best. 

I mean, I love green beans.  I love them raw or straight out of the can, no salt added, whatever.  If there is such a thing as a green bean connoisseur, then I am one.  Oh, but my grandmother was an artist.  She could do things with green beans that would make me want to slap my mama. 

Only, yeah, Tim Hawkins was right.  I don't really want to slap my mama, and no amount of culinary genius could drive me to such a point.  I love my mama.  She's the greatest mama in the world.  I am, and have always been, and will always be a mama's girl.  Nothing in the world is going to change that.  So don't get me wrong when I say that my mama did NOT inherit her mom's cooking gene.

Her canned green beans were still good when reheated in the microwave of evil (guess who's been watching too much Megamind?).  Since I spent most of my life being overweight, it's safe to say that my mom's cooking wasn't bad.  It was good, but not anything...ANYTHING...like my grandmother's cooking.

Apparently, my grandmother's cooking gene skips a generation, because my older sister seems to have inherited it.  I have...well...not.  And the way I see it, she's got four kids and a hubby to feed, so she's welcome to the cooking gene.  I don't have as much need for it since I've just got myself to feed.

The thing of it is, I've inherited my mom's cooking ability, only it's worse.  It's much, much worse.  Take the most evil cooking you can think of...and multiply it by six.  That's my cooking.

Sure, I can manage a few basic things.  I can hard boil an egg...usually.  I can make a decent bowl of pasta (with jarred pasta sauce).  There are even some dishes I can make that might make you want to slap your mama.  My guacamole is so amazing that it has been dubbed rockamole (and no, you can't have the recipe, because I don't use one...what I do with avocados, limes, onions, and cilantro is magic.  MAGIC I TELL YOU!!!).  I'm also pretty good at making those giant cookie cakes.  My most recent success was this masterpiece that had my friends raving (both over the appearance and taste):

Yes.  It's a cookie.  A cookie that looks like a pizza.  Go ahead, say it.  I'm awesome.

But I'll let you in on a little secret.  I don't make my own cookie dough.  It's store bought (so is the icing).  I won't tell you which brand of cookie dough I use because I'm mean.  I'm just going to say that I've tried many different kinds of cookie dough, and the kind I use is by far the tastiest.  It's also the cheapest I've found anywhere.  There's a little hint, but that's all I'm giving you.

So yeah, I can cook enough to keep myself happy.  I can even impress people occasionally.  I even went on a spaghetti squash kick for a while and surprised myself by making squash edible.  Squash typically doesn't make me want to slap my mama.  My mama knows what squash used to do to me.  I was never a picky eater--never.  I'd eat yucky broccoli or whatever gross stuff she put in front of me.  But I drew the line at squash.  I couldn't eat the stuff.  Mama tried to make me. 

One of the earliest memories I have is mama trying to force me to eat a forkful of squash.  I was three or four.  I was wearing a pink sweatshirt, or maybe she was.  I remember that pink sweatshirt vividly, though.  I remember it so well because as my mama was forcing squash down my throat, I vomited it back up all over that pink sweatshirt.  Pink and yellow.  Sweatshirt and squash.  Emblazoned in my memory forever and ever. 

Mama never made me eat squash again.

But I figured out that I like squash now...or I did...until I ate so much spaghetti squash that I hated it again.  That's the thing with me.  I usually get on a food kick and eat so much of one certain kind of food that I end up hating it.  That's the extent of my success with food.

Add to the success my many fails--like the time I blew up the microwave trying to cook an egg without cracking it first (doh!), or the time I got all ambitious and tried to make perogies and used the wrong kind of flour so that my dough was hard, salty, and completely inedible, or the time that I forgot to put sugar in my cobbler (surprisingly, it was still kinda tasty--like eating biscuits with jam--but I still fail).  More than once, I've accidentally poured pasta down the sink.  One time I did the same thing with a pot of boiled potatoes I was preparing to mash--on Thanksgiving Day, which meant I had to run to the store for more potatoes at the last minute.

I have issues scrambling eggs (they never look how they're supposed to look).  I forget to cut the fat off chicken and wonder why it tastes all rubbery.  I put cilantro in pretty much everything (seriously, I could write a whole blog about my love of cilantro, and maybe I will someday).  My idea of a good bowl of soup is something that has Campbell's written on the label (insert joke about any soup I eat being Campbell's soup...cuz that's my last name, too). 

The family I "nanny" for has learned that they can trust me with only the most basic of food preparations.  If I'm ever to make dinner, the usual procedure is: "We have plenty of leftovers in the fridge for you to microwave."  Sometimes I'm asked to nuke some chicken nuggets or stick a pre-made pizza in the oven, but they know me.  I am not to be trusted in the kitchen.

But it's okay, because green beans still taste great when I eat them with a fork...straight out of the can because I'm too lazy to get a bowl.

And come to think of it, it's kind of a relief to know that most of the things I cook aren't going to give anyone cause to inflict bodily harm upon their own mother.

Public Service Announcement: How to Stay Single in Ten Easy Steps

Meet Ruth.

Ruth is single.

How has a gorgeous, talented, and smart (not to mention, humble) young woman like Ruth remained single for all these years?

Hmmm....that's a mystery...

Ah, Ruth has remained single because she has learned the secrets--

The secrets to staying single!

She's going to share these secrets with you...in TEN EASY STEPS!

STEP ONE: Work as much as humanly possible.

Working three or more jobs makes it nearly impossible to have a social or dating life. If you find that you're working all the time and STILL have time for dating, try writing a novel. That will take away every last iota of your free time, making it impossible for you to find time for dating. For added singleness insurance, try working with kids. That way, you get that haggard, unattractive "my kids are driving me crazy" look without actually being a parent.

STEP TWO: Wear a ring that looks suspiciously like a wedding band near (or even on) your left ring finger.

Whether it's a "Purity Ring" or just some weird LOTR obsession, wearing a wedding-band-ish ring will confuse people enough to virtually guarantee your continual singleness. Also, biting your nails and having horrendously dry skin probably helps, too. No one wants to hold THAT unmanicured monstrosity!

STEP THREE: Surround yourself with children so that everyone, including single men/women, will assume you're a mommy/daddy.

(I don't have a cutesy pic for this step because I'm NOT a mommy and don't feel comfortable posting any of the MANY pictures I have of me with someone else's kids.)

If you want to appear as unattractive as possible to all eligible suitors, make sure you always have kids with you. If you aren't a child care provider by trade or don't have any kids to borrow, go rent some kids. There are kid rental places now, right?

And always make sure your facebook profile pic is of you and a kid that looks exactly like you.

STEP FOUR: Don't have mad cooking skills.

A lack of mad cooking skills makes you less desirable. 'Nuff said.

STEP FIVE: Have an imaginary boyfriend/girlfriend.

Whether you're the Captain Jack Sparrow type, the Edward Cullen type, or I don't know...whatever fictional female the boys are into these days... having a fictional significant other makes real potential significant others shy away. I mean, most eligible men and women know that they can't compete with the fictional perfection of a fictional person, so they just give up. And you remain single.

STEP SIX: Be a Grammar Nazi!

Because EVERYONE loves a Grammar Nazi...right? Right? Oh.

STEP SEVEN: Make friends with creatures that usually only exist in fantasy.

People will think you're crazy. Crazy people don't get dates as often as sane people, or so I have heard. I wouldn't know. I've never been sane.

STEP EIGHT: Do weird stuff in public for no apparent reason.

While some people actually appreciate weirdness in other people, it's probably not the best way to make a first impression on any single people who might be watching.

STEP NINE: Actually WANT to get married.

In my experience, nothing scares a single guy more than a woman who wants to get married. So just want to get married, and you'll scare away every single guy within a 100 mile radius.

STEP TEN: Be a socially awkward super hero.

Meh. Works for me.