(641) too busy on a break

so my spring semester of classes are over and I'm proud to say that I finished with all A's for the entire year! I'm sure this will be quite impossible once I transfer to UNCG but I am still pleased with myself. but to elaborate more on this title, I had about a week and some change before summer classes start (next Wednesday) and I have been pretty damn busy for being on a break. I have been reading a lot, which is lovely, drinking lots of tea, watching too many films, cooking here and there, and buying too much from Whole Foods (but never enough, really). I am almost done with "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" by Haruki Murakami, which I've sadly been trying to read since January. I will then start "Salem's Lot" by Stephen King because to me, summer is synonymous with Stephen King and his great horror novels. I am trying to read more and more. I really fell out of reading this semester due to biology taking up so much time and training at work. Really great films I've discovered thus far over my break have been: The Third Man (1949), Cruel Intentions (1999: guilty pleasure #9), Blow-Up (1966: cinematography worthy only), Irreversible (2002), Fish Tank (2009), and Death Becomes Her (1992). Enough prattling on, though, I have recipes to talk about! 

So I finally ventured out and made oven fries. It always seemed like a daunting task to me, or one could only be perfected by some. I used this recipe as my "guide" and made them, and they were great! I really liked them thinly sliced because they got very soft and fluffy inside.

My family celebrated Cinco De Mayo a day late. We adapted these burritos to be gluten free and vegan. They were amazing and I didn't feel bad about eating things like kale, mushrooms, corn, peppers, and squash with brown rice. I used Daiya's pepperjack wedge, which I found to like more than the Daiya shreds. It will also be used on a pizza this weekend!

This week has been a week of me trying new things. I have finally made curry, in the form of coconut red curry noodle soup. This counts for many new things I've never made besides curry: soup, using fresh lemongrass (which is very strange to chop), and it used shirataki noodles, which are made from tofu. I really loved this soup but I found I needed to give it a hefty splash of GF soy sauce. I will use shirataki noodles in more asian-inspired soups from now on, as they are a little thicker but still delicious. Trying new things has been really lovely!

Being a somewhat vegetarian (or as much as possible), sometimes I have to make myself eat things like fish or even the occasional chicken. I am not a HUGE tuna fan, even when it is sustainable caught $1.40 canned tuna, but I still try to eat these things for protein. We probably have about 50 Martha Stewart everyday food magazines lying in our house, where I stumbled upon this tuna + white bean salad.

Two more new things: eating cooked millet and broccolini. I adapated this lovely stir-fry from one of my favorite blogs and used broccolini because I am honestly a little sick of asparagus right now (though I will be eating some later). I think this recipe would easily be adapted to every season and its corresponding vegetables. I topped mine with a little extra soy sauce, sriracha, and a heavy dose of red pepper flakes. As you can see, my mother and I have not mastered the art of cooking millet, and ours turned out a bit mushy. It's still delicious though! I bet short grain brown rice or even quinoa would be a great substitute here as well!


Also, I tag my posts as vegan and vegetarian because there are usually options for both types of eating on my blog. Please do not get offended, like some have, that I do this. I try to make the things I post accessible to everybody. I am quite aware of what constitutes something to be vegan or vegetarian. Just thought I would say this because some apparently think it's not allowed to do so!