Blanket goes Indian, hasn't gone back.

Last week, I had the cooking equivalent of writer's block.

I definitely wanted to cook something.  Maybe even for other people.  But no recipes looked good, and all I really accomplished that afternoon was whining incessantly to my roommate about my inability to pick a recipe.

I needed to get out of my rut.  Do something unexpected.  Something exotic.

So I picked the easiest Indian recipe I could find, and you better believe I made that.

Red Lentil Curry

Ingredients

• 2 cups red lentils
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons curry paste
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon ginger root, minced
• 1 (14.25 ounce) can tomato puree

I followed this recipe fairly loyally, with my usual detours--powdered ginger instead of ginger root, garlic powder instead of minced, you know the drill.

First, I put an entire bag of brown rice on to boil (just follow the directions on the bag.)  Then I got down to business.

Aww boy you know I used lentils.

I couldn't actually find red lentils.  I'm not even sure they are a thing.  They probably are, and I'm just dumb.  So I used green ones.  Rinse them off, put them in a pot of water (the amount of water is kind of iffy, I filled the pot about an inch higher then the lentils and added more later), and leave them to simmer on the stove until tender.  Mine took about 45 minutes.

Chop up your onion and caramelize it in the oil.

Caramelizing is an exercise in patience.

I'm lucky my roommate was around to keep me from ruining the recipe.  Our dialogue went something like this:

Me: Are these caramelized yet?

Becky:  Do they look caramelized?

Me:  No.

Becky:  Then no.*

*Repeat as needed.

While you are waiting for the world's slowest onions to undergo the world's slowest chemical change, make the fancy spice mixture.

My dedication to the art of photography=
Inspiring!!!

I bought all kinds of new spices for this recipe.  They all smelled cool and foreign.  Combine all the spices and the sugar in a bowl and set it aside until the onions are done.

Looks like vomit, smells like heaven!

When the onions are caramelized, add the spice mixture and cook over high heat for a minute or two, stirring constantly.  Pour in the tomato puree and reduce the heat to a simmer.

My splurge of the day was some whole-wheat naan bread.  I brushed it wish some olive oil and heated it up in the oven.  I had never eaten naan before, but god knows I love bread.  It was really nice and chewy.

Everybody eats carbs in the same language.

When the lentils are done, drain the water and mix in the tomato-onion-curry stuff.

Steamy!

I have no idea how you are supposed to serve this, so I served it over the brown rice with naan on the side.  It tasted delicious.

Yeah, yeah, you're a model, eat your food.

I love this recipe for several reasons.

1. It tastes delicious and different.

2. At 89 cents for a bag of lentils, it is extremely economical.

3. It made so much food that I have eaten it every single day since I made it over a week ago.

4. It's super healthy.

Blogger has this cool feature that lets me see what countries are reading my blog.  Most are America, a few are from my friends studying abroad in Italy (HI GUYS!), but a few are from strange, cool places like Slovenia.  The point I'm trying to make is that I have a handful from India.  So, to my Indian readers or Indian enthusiasts in America, how did I do?  Passable?

Not to brag, but passable is how I roll.

Make your own frozen pizza

I like pizza.

That may not be the best way to word that.  I think I eat more pizza than any person I've ever met.  At least at school, I usually have some form of pizza every day, even if it's a couple pizza rolls at night when I'm doing homework (watching TV.)

God I sound fat.

Last semester, my roommate and I got in the habit of splitting these little frozen pizzas.  I think they were Totino's brand.  Whatever kind costs like, $1 at Walmart.

Those pizzas have less than no nutritional value.  They actually have trans fat.  Seriously?  What food even has trans fat anymore?  Absolutely ridiculous.

Part of my plan for Operation: B.B.B (see previous post) involved cutting back on pizza and potatoes.  Seriously--I eat so much of both those things that cutting them out of my diet as much as possible amounts to me being on a diet.  I accept me for who I am.  I accept me for who I am.  I accept me foDEAR GOD MY LIFESTYLE IS DISGUSTING.

I've been doing good on the potato front.  I had some chips earlier this week, but I justified it because they came after the worst bio lab of my entire life.  They were "Congratulations for not punching that chick in the face" chips.  The best kind.

Pizza, however, is another story.  I knew from day one that I could not keep myself from pizza.  Pizza's siren song curdles my Italian blood until all reason disappears.  I crave pizza the most at night, which is where those frozen pizzas came into my life.

I created a combat plan.  I made my own frozen pizzas.

BLANKET'S FROZEN PIZZAS
Ingredients:
Those healthy 100-calorie high-fiber Thomas' English muffins
Tomato sauce
Part-skim mozzarella cheese
Whatever you want on top
Lots of tin foil

I decided to make my pizzas with peppers and onions on top, so I started by cutting up my vegetables.  While doing this, I discovered the coolest pepper I've ever seen in my entire life.

It's like that thing!  From that movie!

Yep.  I found a creepy mutant pepper with a freaky unborn siamese twin growing inside it.  And just in case you wanted to try to rain on my parade and call that normal, guess what?  I've grown peppers before.  And that's not how it works.  It's called science.


Now you feel dumb.

Anyways, I cut up my vegetables, including that freaky mutant twin thing.  I haven't noticed any side effects from eating it except that sometimes, when I get really angryHULK SMASHHHHHHHHHH.

Whoops!  Sorry guys!  And whoever has to fix that door!

Gahd, I'm so funny.

Then I cooked up my peppers and onions in a little olive oil until they got soft and nice.

And slimy.

Open your english muffins and lay them out on a baking sheet covered with tin foil.  Put whatever sauce you like on them.  I think I used Great Value "Garden Vegetable."

They should just write "You know you can't justify
spending more!" on the jar.

Add cheese and toppings to your liking.

Ta da!

Freeze them for an hour or two, so that they aren't all sloppy, then take them out and package them individually in foil.

They've taken over my freezer.

I cook them at 450º for about 10-15 minutes, depending on what my oven feels like doing that day.  I like to just cook them right on the foil and not get a baking pan dirty, but it's up to you.  I don't think these can be more than 100 calories each.

Also, they taste super delicious and are way cheap.

Enjoy, my fellow poor pizza-loving health-conscious kids!

Operation: Blanket's Bangin' Bod

Something you may have gathered from reading my blog is that I am not the healthiest eater.  And that "not the healthiest eater" is a gross understatement.

I eat crap.  Tasty crap, but crap.

I really do like vegetables and all that, I just prefer them...you know...fried or on a frozen pizza.

NO MÁS!

(Do you like that I was dedicated enough to make the accent but not figure out the upside down exclamation point?  That's the type of mediocrity that will sail me straight to the middle!)

I have a life plan to get skinny again.  I'm really not all that fat for all the junk I eat, but I'm definitely not strutting around in a bikini any time soon.  Except I will be, because I'ma get bangin'.

My plan has several facets that, ideally, will create a prism that confuses my terrible will power into sticking around for awhile.  I have my exercise calendar (with a system of awesome rewards every 2 weeks), my friends and I might join a fitness program at school, and I'm making healthier food.

Without further ado-- Lentil soup.

I altered this recipe for poorness/impatience.  Here is my version.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb lentils
8 cups water
4 diced celery ribs
4 chopped carrots
1/2 onion, diced
3 chopped cloves of garlic
14 oz can diced tomatoes
Oregano, salt, and pepper

Put it all in a crock pot and cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 8-10.

Guess what I wear as a hat?  A lentil.

I love lentils.  They are cheap, healthy, filling, and delicious.  They are also high in protein, which is good for my vegetarianness.

When I still thought I was a champ.

Embarrassing: I cut my finger chopping my onion.  Kind of badly.  I just feel like such a dumbass when I cut myself cooking.  I'm fine, just annoyed.

Also injured: my ego.

The soup cooked up really nicely and the whole apartment smelled delicious.  I've been feeling homesick, and good soup is always really comforting.

I'm like Laura Ingalls Wilder's mom, if she had a crock
pot and Walmart.

Dumb Walmart was totally out of vegetable broth, and it's expensive anyway when they have it, so I used all water.  Next time I might spring for the broth, because the soup tasted pretty bland until I added a stupid amount of salt.

The best part?  All the ingredients came to less than $10, and I got a LOT of soup out of it.

So much soup!

Sorry for the short entry.  I'm in a mood.  Maybe all that trans fat was keeping me jolly.

It clogs up your arteries so the negativity can't leak
through!

Homemade bagels: practically worth it!

I've been wanting to make homemade bagels for a while now.  I really don't know why.  I have this memory of my mom making them once when I was little and them tasting something like bagels straight from Jesus' beautiful Jewish fingertips.

Something feels wrong about that last sentence.  Huh.

Anyways, I found a recipe online for easy, fast bagels.  And I have to say, they turned out pretty decent.

But really.  Just decent.  Not bad though.

Here's the recipe, courtesy of food.com.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup lukewarm water (varies depending on type of flour and weather)

As written, this recipe makes 6 bagels.  I doubled everything, so I made 12.  I also only had like 2 cups of bread flour, so for the rest I used all purpose.  Tomato, tomato.

That doesn't work when you write it down.

Start by mixing the water, sugar, and yeast in a bowl.  The water really does have to be lukewarm--too cold and the yeast won't activate, too hot and you'll kill it.

Like a kitten!
...Wait.

Fully dissolve the yeast and let it sit a minute, then add the other ingredients, slowly stirring in the flour.  It should end up looking something like this--

Uh oh.

Yep, you know what this means, kids.

KNEADING TIME!!!!!

15 goddamned minutes of it.  Shoot me.

Start with a clean, floured surface.

Fun fact.  I hid a message in the flour.  Can you see it?*

Turn out your dough and start kneading.  Make sure your hands are floured and that you have a little water on hand in case your dough gets too stiff.  Here is my kneading progression.  Beginning--

Gorgeous.

Halfway done--

I really did go 15 minutes.  Even though this looked
PERFECTLY FINE.**

Aaaaaand done.

Wait, wha---OH DEAR GOD NO.

Once your dough is kneaded, divide it up into 12 even balls.  While you're doing this, keep whatever dough you aren't working with covered with a clean, damp towel to keep it from drying out.

Heh.  Balls.

Shape the balls into bagel shapes.  I found that the easiest way to do this was poking a hole in the middle and stretching them out.  Make the holes pretty big, because these puff up.  Place them on a lightly floured baking sheet, cover them with plastic wrap and a towel, and let them rise for 15-30 minutes.

"Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits!  It says 'oooooo.'"
"Peter, those are Cheerios."

While the bagels rise, preheat your oven to 375º and bring a large, half-full pot of water with a tablespoon of sugar mixed in to a simmer.  That means it's not quite boiling, but there is some definite bubble action trying to take place.  If you have toppings you want to put on your bagels, get those ready by pouring them into a shallow dish.  I like everything bagels, so I used some steak seasoning.

I set the grinder on "coarse," and later ate
entire peppercorns.

Around this point, I checked on my bagels and they didn't seem to be doing anything.

They didn't so much rise as...not...rise.

I was kind of sick of waiting for bagels to puff up, so I just started the next step.  Place a bagel in the simmering water (it will float.)  Let it sit for 15 seconds, then flip it and give it 15 seconds on the other side.

They get all funny and slimy.

Remove the bagel with a slotted spoon and blot the excess water with paper towels.  If you want toppings, press the bagel into the topping dish.  Place the bagels on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Heeeeere's everything!

And here's NOTHING.

Bake the bagels until they are lightly browned, about 15 minutes.  The bottoms should look like this--

Fun fact: I burned my fingers getting this shot.

As you can see, the bagels plumped up nicely in the oven and the holes didn't look so dumb anymore.

My friend Colin came over, and we went and got delicious Wegman's deli cream cheese to grace my beautiful bagels.

Crappy bagel glamour shot: took three takes.
  I hate my camera sometimes.

These bagels got Colin's seal of vague approval.

Or apprehension.  Tomato, tomato.
DAMN IT.

We really did like these bagels, and they were fun and easy to make (not to mention pretty cheap.)  I would definitely make them again.  They tasted better than preservative-packed bagels in a bag, and about even with bagels from a normal deli.  Until you chomp down on a whole peppercorn and your tongue hurts.

Now a sponsored message from Blanket.

Hi Blankies.  This is your fearless leader speaking.  Just wanted to let you know that I love you, and that you reading my blog makes me happy.  I hit 1000 views sometime last week, and attempted to make a screenshot, but somehow just made a 6 page PDF file.  Either way, I saved it, and that's what counts.

I just wanted to let you all know that Blanket Blog is an interactive place.  Have you always wanted a tutorial on a certain food?  Do you have a favorite recipe you want me to make?  Leave a comment, and I will try them out (if I can find the ingredients.  Remember, I live in East Jesus Nowhere.)  My only requirement is that the recipe is vegetarian.

Remember, Blanket Blog is both my blog and your blog.  Just mostly mine.

I LOVE YOU GUYS.  Here's some footnotes.

*No I didn't.

**By my standards, which are kind of low.

***Were you just looking for the third footnote reference?