Friday, June 29, 2012

Stuffed Squash

1 acorn squash
spinach
Gorgonzola - or sharp cheese of your choice

- cut squash half on the equator - cut off point at the bottom so the bottom half will sit flat
- roast in oven at 400°F until just tender (20-40 min depending on size)
- fill with spinach and cheese
- return to oven until spinach is tender and cheese is melted
- add bacon ;)

Veggie Pizza

large tortilla
favorite spaghetti sauce (I prefer Classico)
mozzarella
spinach
kalamata olives, halved
1 clove garlic, minced
artichoke (canned and quartered)

- lay tortilla on baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- smear tomato sauce over surface to coat
- add olives, garlic, and artichoke
- roll spinach up like a cigar and chop, scatter over pizza
- evenly coat mozz on top
- bake at 400°F until edge of tortilla is browned

Portabello Sammich

1 large portabello mushroom
olive oil
1/2 fire-roasted red bell pepper - enough to cover slice of bread (see below for roasting instructions, or buy canned fire-roasted red peppers - just as good)
spinach - enough to layer on sammich
2 oz goat cheese
1/2 Tbsp minced garlic
tsp lemon juice
2 slices of hardy bread

- slice portabello
- in med non-stick pan - lightly coat with olive oil, bring to med heat - add sliced portabello
- 2 minutes and flip
- 2 min and flip
- remove from pan and dab dry with paper towel
(cooked mushrooms can be refridgerated for sammiches for a few days - taste just as good cold)
- in small bowl combine goat cheese, minced garlic and lemon juice - mix thoroughly
- toast bread if desired
- slather on goat cheese mixture
- lay on spinach
- lay on pepper
- lay on portabellos



broiler roasting peppers
- remove top of pepper by cutting downward at the crown and cutting around the stem (like a pumpkin) - pop the top out and the placenta and seeds should follow (slice long-ways down the side of the pepper if it doesn't come out easily)
- cut pepper in half, place open side down in the broiler set to 500°F or oven broiler setting
- broil for up to 15 min, keep an eye and remove when most of the pepper is blackened
- remove and let cool under a paper towel
- remove skin, pat dry

gas stove-top roasting
- turn on burner to med-low
- place whole pepper on burner's grate
- turn with grilling tongs until most of the pepper's skin is blackened
- remove and let cool under a paper towel
- remove skin, pat dry

Stuffed Eggplant

stuffed eggplant:
1 eggplant
1 lb fresh mozzarella
3 tomatoes
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, diced
fresh basil bunch
salt/pepper

2 methods:
1.    slice eggplant long-ways in strips ~2" wide and the full length (mandolin works, or mad knife fileting skills)
       - warm in oven (300°F) just until soft and flimsy
       - slice mozz and 2 of the tomatoes, tear off several large basil leaves
       - lay warmed eggplant strips in 2s in a cross, lay 1 slice tomato, mozz and large basil leaf in the middle
       -  fold over bottom-most strip, then fold over the other strip to make a square packet
       - flip upside down, put back in oven for 5 min (optional)

2.     slice eggplant in medallions, leave raw
        - slice 2 tomatoes, mozz and tear off several large basil leaves
        - stack slices: eggplant-tomato-mozz-basil-eggplant
        - leave raw or heat in 300°F oven just until cheese starts to warm (fresh mozz gets watery if melted)

top with Relish:
(i don't recommend a food processor, it breakes down the tomatoes too much and waters down the flavor)
- dice 1 tomato, garlic, and mince sun-dried tomatoes and 3 large basil leaves
- put in medium bowl, add balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper
- mash with wooden spoon or tenderizer

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Perennially Apposite

"Most daemoniacal of all shocks is that of the abysmally unexpected and grotesquely unbelievable."
"... this comfort in suffering is the last resort of the hopelessly trapped ego, trying desperately to find a way of doing the right thing..."
"... wait without thought... so the darkness shall become light, and the stillness the dancing..."
"... some sort of passive mirror which merely reflects experience..."
"Look as I may, I will find no knower - only knowing; no doer - only doing."
"... the Indestructable dares all extremes..."
.
~HP Lovecraft


disappointments will be your failure; your own self-deception and self-doubt will condemn you
Only those that truly see what it is to climb - only those who are the best of themselves can surpass their doubts and inhibitions, and join me for the spectacular view from here. It's getting awfully boring looking at it alone.
I wait to be truly surprised by something - anything - because there really is nothing else that matters.

I abandon myself to inanition - it reigns me as my purpose, then.

Patience is my absolution, and I quietly watch the rare and beautiful forms of humanity play out before me; there only for me to appreciate, because I can no longer touch them - I could never touch them. My smile protrudes as my heart sinks, knowing all too well that its saturnity is the consequence of my own delight. How silly such a feeling is, however, even as rich and bitter food, so too is all feeling better when noted and savored but cursorily.

I know there are those that would contest me on a philosophical and political basis for this, but I think that most people would behoove themselves to take one simple thing into consideration: objectivism - in the sense that one is completely and irrevocably accountable for oneself and no one else.
If one fails to be responsible for oneself, regardless of fault, one cannot possibly be of any use to anyone else - one would be a potential hurt to all others, despite well-meaning intentions.

Be honest to the point of pain; be detached to the point of objectivity; be understanding and compassionate to yourself so you may be compassionate and understanding with others; face your fears; once you have passed through them, you'll realize that it wasn't so bad after all, that the darkness really wasn't there. No matter what the outcome, it was the journey that matters.

From love to peace: a response to the error in the practice of detachment:
Be careful: detachment and deprivation/isolation are not the same thing. Detachment doesn't mean that you can't have enjoyment and be sociable; it means that you are not affected in negative ways by what goes on around you because of a lack of control over how you feel. When you are attached to something, it clouds your judgment: you anger easily and love passionately (passion means misery) because of need and dependency. This usually results in defensiveness and unhappiness. Detachment is a lack of dependency on those things around you and the reactions to which you cannot control. It is the allowance of taking pleasure in small things that might not always be good, but they are only capable of affecting you in ways that you permit them, because you are detached from dependency.
This, like most things, constitutes a semantic misunderstanding. Detachment in a general understanding of one ignoring the world around him and aspects of one's own existence is not healthy. Detachment from dependencies, however, allows for operating freely without constraints of defensiveness and fear. Thus, you should be able to detach yourself from a situation in order to observe its nature with as little bias as possible. To do so, you must not be emotionally invested upon the outcome.
A healthy detachment comes when you can quiet your mind from emotional excess so that you can allow yourself to see what is really there instead of what you tell yourself. Emotions have their purposes, but they are bombarded and wholly over-extended because of the environments, "entertainment," and food chemicals we are subjected to. To quiet the mind allows you to detach from some aspects and reattach to others: such as the "universe" as Crowley describes it, or "source" as does Wayne Dyer.

Having peace and quiet around you and your being is not easy to live with; things become futile and purposeless because there's no reason for it all except what reason you allow it to have - it becomes painfully obvious that all your suffering is meaningless, and that is also hard to accept. This is why most people strive to maintain a religious faith, because that degree of futility and self-definition is hard to live with: namely, can one live happily without mattering?

But what of the ability and power to define the entirety of your own existence...

How divine