every time i make some recipe that involves celery, i can't stop thinking about cell biology. chopped up celery has always reminded me of mitochondria, my favorite component of cells.

gather some of the usual suspects. today i decided we would do four of each, because this is a vegetarian soup (but not sXe) and i really like hearty soups.

cut things up. check out those celery bits, dude. i dunno why, but chopping them up always leads to a long mental thought process that starts with me remembering my college days, and my biology classes, and HOW MANY TIMES OVER AND OVER I ILLUSTRATED CELLULAR BIOLOGY. i think i could do it in my sleep. well, i am definily beyond my college and high school bio classes, and sometimes i forget things. so the more i chop, the more i struggle to remember all the names of the parts of a cell. it always leads to me looking it up, basically google searching for a quick cell diagram.

like this.
its a bummer, i guess, that i can't always remember the names of things like centrioles, which i feel like because of their awesome shape, i would remember.
well go ahead and turn your crockpot on. i used three cups of vegetable broth as a base, but in retrospect i'd use two.

go ahead and put your vegetables in there. add tomatos, cause you kind of want a tomatoey base if you are like me. today i had really limited time to make dinner so i used canned diced tomatoes, which i usually never do.
i used to go to a taco night at this bar that used canned tomatos on their tacos and it was such a barffest that i really really get grossed out by them still.

you picked over and soaked your white beans right? i didn't. i'm so bad at soaking beans, something that seems infinitely simple. literally every single time i've ever soaked chick peas they've sprouted. every. damn. time. i need instant gratification, i hate waiting ESPECIALLY when it comes to dinner.
well, you're gonna want about three cups of white beans.
rinse em and put em in the crockpot.

add some spices. in retrospect, add some thyme and maybe a little more sea salt.

put some gaddamm wine in there. something white and dry. this pepperwood was not dry enough, wat was i thinking?
mince up some garlic, maybe three or four cloves, and put it in the pot too.

get rid of the sinkful of veggie waste you have, be brave, use the disposal. i love mine, i in-sink-erate every single thing that i possibly can. my friend, a small applicance repair man, told me never to in-sink-erate greens...they'll fuck your shit up bigtime. have you smelled bad greens in the trash, my friend? it is horrible. so just take them out immeaditely, or better yet, eat em all and don't let em go to waste.
now that all your ingredients are in the crockpot, top it off with fresh spinach. it'll cook as the soup cooks.

go ahead and put the lid on, go do some other stuff. last night i couldn't wait and had pizza instead. oops. well we all can't be perfect anyway.
you know what? this soup base didn't thicken like i wanted it to. i reccomend you save a cup or have an extra cup of beans to put in the blender and then add to the mix. it'll make you happier i think. thats what i'm gonna do anyway.

good gad, i've been so busy! no time for internets!


first, there was new years eve. we ate waffles and had beers then rode home to celebrate midnight amongst the gunshots and fights.

in the middle of the night, an axe murderer came by our apartment building and decided to celebrate new years too.

door lights, much like sky lights, greatly improve the resale value of your property. they're all the rage.

we took pictures like the shining.

we spent most of the day new years day packing, or starting to pack i mean. it was rainy and grey, so no big deal.

before we packed we did go get breakfast at 821, it was awesome.

then, as a present to ourselves, we went to red lobster

sheesh, how did we even walk home?

mostly, we packed. and the dogs helped.


day two of packing, i basically just made a huge mess

i found a photo of my parents playing a crazy game

i also found documented proof of the time i threw up on the tarmac after a long and turbulent ride in a very small plane

i found proof of the level of classiness of our new neighbors in the hallway

i took the dogs to the park to run like wolves

mostly they ate sticks and wandered

then i ran an errand and put the dogs to rest at home, and went for a mountain bike ride. it was a glorious day.

even though they were very tired, the dogs still wanted to help pack

mostly we organized until we were too tired to do anything else

then we went to bed! and here we are now, on the verge of another chili party, full of life and good feelers because WE ARE BUYING A HOUSE AND MOVING IN TEN DAYS!

Look. I know you all know, but Pat is less than $400 away from getting the full $5500 funding for his pool. If he doesn't make the target amount, all the money gets refunded.
Help out if you can, I know its tight times after the holiday, but you know you'll swim or skate that pool at some point in 2011. If anything, help a real rad dude get his dream project finished. It'll come back to you.

woah!
krimbus happent. i had a bunch of time off, four days my friend, which meant ooooh fun cleaning and cooking and stuff. also, because of that holiday thing it meant mucho grande family time. friend family, my family, and Wolak family.

there was a lot of hanging out with dogs, that is always really nice.

first there was friend party time, at the kelleys house. so many faces to see that had been dearly missed.

there was a lot of sitting around a table full of delicious food, talking and discussing all the latest deets of everyones lives.

then that dern baby started drinking again...eeesh. not really! cora is totes straightedge, duh.

when i came home from friend party andrew had romantically put up my christmas tree. it made me cry, really serisouly. i have seasonal depression you see and it makes me cry at romantic things. but only in the winter, so you can suprise me romantically in the summer with no fear.
oh gosh, after friend party came my family party the next morning.
my mood was only 50% sad/upset, thats better than usual!

as always my mom had really gone to town on the place. even the chandelier!

she even brought in the yule stick!

we all sat around and ate lots of food and talked about our hobbies. most of the food was organized with little signs that told you what it was, and also told you what to eat it with. for example: there was a tiny sign that said "hummus" and underneath hummus it said "tortilla chips." isn't that helpful???

see? you can see the little signs. thats my family's motto, you know, "put signs in your food."

there were some dogs there to hang out with too, tuffy and lexi, and they were insane and crazy and totally ferocious and filled with loud farts and barks.

allright maybe i'm kidding, they are demure and sweet and fashionably warm, and softer than little lambs.
so you see, my grandma, who is sweet and wonderful, made most of the food for this get together. it was really a feast...so many different things labeled neatly that your eyes could not believe. upon arriving, i was advised to not eat anything with a sign on it, which was nearly everything. still the rebellious teenager, i only ate things with signs, also because i like organization. hm, well later i found out that my grandma made the foods over a week ago, and was totally ready for christmas feasting way before the due date. noone could look her in the eye when she asked how the buffalo chicken dip was, see?

well i felt fine later.
and by later, i mean at delicious dinner with the Wolaks!

we took photobooth photos in front of the tree

oh i forgot to tell you about how on christmas eve i got crazy and gave myself a haircut. it was sort of an all day affair. it started with a bang trim, but over the course of the afternoon became a full on endeavor. anyway, i like it.
hm. so after all that doubling up on possibly bad food then very good food, we went home and slept like logs.
THEN the next day we did nothing.
by nothing, i mean that we did sit and take delight in our presents from the day before, you bet cher butt.

andrew wouldn't stop holding this skateboard for some reason, i guess he really liked it.

then we went to get mexicun dinner!

we were all so full that we couldn't move after all the tacos, so we collectively sat and relaxed.

i took the time to observe some very cute ornaments while i was digesting.
then you know what? we went to bed.
the next morning was back to work for andrew, but i had the day off STILL. i worked all day on being not at work. i ran so many errands and did so many things that it would make your head spin to hear them all.
most importantly i made these:

they are for a chili potluck tonight, and they are chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels. i had one for breakfast, and let me tell you. they are so dern good.
well my coworker just left work barfing! if i get sick i swear to god i'm gonna punch someone. this throwing up is the worst kind of sick, i will seriously be angry if it get it.
i will keep you posted.

Let's talk about treats. I made a ton of different things this weekend for presents. Oh Mai god, so many things.
So today, to ready myself for a chili get together tomorrow night, I made something especially delicious. Something that no human could deny, oh garsh the love of peanut butter, chocolate, and pretzel all together.

Get the chocolate of your choice. Today i used mik chocolate, but this weekend I also used white and dark.
Melt it. Remember that time I told you how to do it in the microwave? Well maybe now you've ruined a couple tries and you are a professional chocolatier. Fifteen seconds at a time is no joke, stir it everytime until it is the right consistency.
See, like this.

Not too thick, not too thin.
Lay out some wax paper on a cool countertop.
You need to make a little landing pad about the size of the pretzel you are going to use.

Put a pretzel on each spot! Press it down so the chocolate holds it in place.

If you want to be all pro about it and you have just buckets of time, let the chocolate cool so the pretzels really won't move around when you get to the next step. Now, about that next step.

Take your peanut butter and spread it across the top of the pretzel, squish it Into the holes. Oh gad this is just shaping up to be so dern good.

Take a big dollop of chocolate and put it on top. Spread it around so you totally cover the pretzel and peanut butter. You can tap it a little to make it disperse, or man if you had a little chemistry lab vibrating table you'd be really set.

Let the chocolate set for many hours. Serve these treats to your favorite friends, or secret them away just for yourself you greedy pig, you.
The more of these you make, the better you get and the more perfect and fancy they get. Oh try not to get peanut butter on the electrical outlet. It's really sort of scary to clean up.