Curried Avocado Soup & Salad

Since it's so freakin hot I've been eating a lot of salads.  Also found a recipe for chilled avocado soup in the moosewood cookbook (the moosewood cookbooks are all excellent and  a very worthwhile investment for any type of diet however most meals are vegetarian.  None contain meat although a few have fish.

I've modified the recipe slightly from the moosewood and it's so easy - takes a total of about 2 minutes to make.  The salad is my own creation from leftover stuff in the fridge - I rarely use dressings, imo a good salad just needs a little seasoning and oil or a light sheen. 

Curried Avocado Soup (2 servings)

2 avocados
2 1/4 cup veggie broth
1 tsp curry powder
1/8-1/4 tsp white pepper
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup lowfat milk
1-2 TBS of low fat cream cheese
(The moosewood calls for 1/2 cup of heavy cream instead of last two ingredients)

- Put avocado and half the broth in blender.  Blend.
- add rest of ingredients.  Blend.  Chill.  Server.


Arugala Salad w/ blackberries (1 serving)

1/2 cup arugala
1/4 cup goat cheese
blackberries (to your liking)
-mix a bit of olive oil with 1/4 tsp of rice wine vinegar.  Add pepper. Dress salad.

Enjoy!

Spring Reading

Been awhile since I updated my books.  I liked just reporting my favs so here they are, from Feb on:

Brandon Sanderson's Hero of Ages (Mistborn Series #3):  Great finish!!  Very sad Felicia Day was not a fan.  But then again she likes that harlequin stuff.  I guess she can't be perfect.

  White Tiger by Avravind Adiga.  Writer completely immerses himself (and by extension you) into character.  Pretty amazing.

  Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts.  One shot sci-fi with more historical fiction elements that science fiction elements.  Still good.  Laugh out loud writing.

The Immortal LIfe of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  HeLa Cells...and their story.  Well written - especially in translating the information to nonscientific audience.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest  by Stieg Larson.  Goodbye Lisbeth Salander!  I will miss you.  I blame Stieg, for dying.  And yes, I blame robert jordan too.

Meatless Mondays

Johns Hopkins is starting a campaign for people to reduce eating meat on Mondays. I like the idea because it makes you feel like you are doing something without the pressure of going completely vegetarian. If you do not eat meat on Mondays you will reduce your meat intake by 14% - pretty significant if you think about it. You might not care at all about what you eat which is fine. If you do though, Meatless Monday is a great way to contribute without the full on commitment.

In order to add my measley support to this initiative I have decided to share a veggie recipe on Mondays.

 AJ’s Tabouleh (Hind Matthews/Ina Garten)

This is my Nana’s recipe (ingredients). Nana was born in Iraq and lived in Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey (among other places) before settling down in Pennsylvania. I’d love to tell you this particular combo of Tabouleh is from a specific region of the middle east but frankly I have no idea and I doubt Nana would either – I think it’s a combination from several regions.

It’s important to note that I am using Ina Garten’s method for cooking Bulgur Wheat. Must give that fabulous cook her due.

In the summer I always have tabouleh in the fridge. It’s my go to snack. It’s a refreshing salad but it’s delicious if you throw some hummus in a pita and stuff it with tabouleh. It can also be wrapped in grape leaves.

1 c. bulgur (you can find near the dried beans or in the organic section)

¼ c. olive oil

2 ½ tsps salt (kosher sea salt is best)

1 ½ c. boiling water

2-3 green onions, minced (you can use other types of onion but I don’t recommend it. Use the green!)

1-2 tomatoes (more if you like them)

3 TBS chopped fresh parsley (I eyeball this but I’d say 3 tbs)

2-3 TBS chopped fresh mint (I eyeball this, go a little lighter on mint than parsley)

Juice from 1 or 2 fresh lemons

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  Put bulgur in bowl with olive oil, salt and pour boiling water over it. Mix and let stand 1 hour.
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  After 1 hour mix the rest of the ingredients together.

I’d recommend chilling it before serving. Making the night before works best as the flavors really meld over night in the fridge. Keeps great!

You can also add cucumbers, black pepper, allspice and cinnamon if it strikes your fancy.

Bulgar Wheat nutritional info:

1 cup of unprepared bulgur contains approximately:

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  Energy: 1500 kJ (360 kcal)
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  Dietary fiber: 8 g
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  Protein: 12.5 g
• 
  
  
  
  Carbohydrate: 69 g whereof 0.8 g sugars
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  Fat: 1.75 g whereof 0.2 g saturated fat
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  Potassium: 410mg ^[4]

Eye Candy

The only thing worse than being a female gamer and being forced to play a male avatar is having to play an ugly male avatar.

 This angers me considering how much hot female ass I have to watch through multiple cut scenes.  Do they make men ugly b/c they want male gamers to associate with them more?  Really, I have to wonder.  Maybe it’s the designers; look guys, it might be hilarious in the studio but it’s not cool or even fun to put your f’d up nose on the guy.  

Enzio from AC2 (that’s Assassin’s Creed 2, not Asheron’s Call 2) is butt ugly.  Luckily I only have to look at the hooded back of head most of the time.  Niko from GTA4 was stocky and busted (and frankly reminded me of Ahmadinejad).  And don’t get me started on Alan Wake – although to be fair his wife is pretty ugly in that game too.

                                                        Niko or Iranian Prez?

Even Bioware, my favorite company in the world has given me shit options for male romance in the past several games.  Let’s see, I get Zevran the gay elf or Alistar the crybaby warrior.  Oh wait, there is Leilana.  She’s a girl which means I get to go lesbo.  Awesome.  Again, designers, might be fun in the studio, not so much in the home.

Meanwhile I get to watch slow moving cam shots of Gloria’s thighs as she takes out multiple hordes of demons in DevilMayCry4.  I’ll give them a pass though since Nero is pretty hot – probably the hottest guy in video games.  But it still would have been much cooler to play a girl. 

Gloria, butt-kicking.  Literally.  DMC4

ME2 makes me cry with joy and then pass out with exhaustion

 I can't say enough good things about Mass Effect 2.  So I'll stop there on the positives b/c they would just go on forever.  But trust me, if you game, you really need to play this game.  If you like sci-fi you really need to play this game.  If you get enjoyment out of tabletop rpg's that let you explore character motivations and personality you really need to play this game.  If you like shooter/adventure games you really need to play this game.

Visually stunning, conceptionally innovation and with absolute perfect storytelling I cannot rave more about this franchise.  Mass Effect 1 is necessary to play 2 (you import your character and all your decisions into the 2nd one and it DOES make a difference) and that was one of my all time top 5 video games so it's not like you need to trudge along and play ME1 - that game is phenomenal all by itself.  But ME2 - it just adds something to the industry that I cannot put into words.

I started this game on Sunday night.  I had been playing dragon age, beaten it, but due to an xbox glitch with downloading my gamertag to a new xbox machine i lost like, 300 gamer points.  So I was all set to restart the game and replay it to get my points back.  I told this to my online gamer friends who all immediately replied, "Dude, seriously, dragon age was a great game but everyone i talk to who replayed it was like, 'i'm gonna beat it before i play me2' and then they played me 2 and they were like, 'why the f did i wait so long to play me2?'" so based on this riveting and completely strong argument I popped in ME2 last sunday night.  Even though I said, "i don't necessarily want to play me2 right away because after playing me1 i was so sad that I would have to wait years to play me2."  And they said, nooo don't worry, it's worth it.

Those fuckers are probably working for Bioware.

4 days and 34 hours later I had beaten the game.  And now all i can think about is the DLC just waiting for me (that's downloadable content for you gamer newbs).

Screenshot of Mass Effect 2 male shepard.

Mass Effect 2 DLC (which I'll be buying tomorrow, damnit!!)