Leave No Scone Unturned

Have a good weekend, y'all?

Mine was pretty fun.

I went k a y a k i n g with my mom! Or I would have.

We arrived at the river (mini wine bottles in tow) 

and were promptly assessed by the check-in girl...

You out of shape bitches are not about to kayak down this river.

The water was too low for kayaking!!!!! 

For the more "inexperienced" looking guests, anyway.

Oh, well.

At least I got to see my mom!

We have fun, but I don't always e n j o y her brand of humor...

Often, it involves setting a plastic cockroach next to her drink at a restaurant,

waiting for the waitstaff to notice (and freak out),

then grinning from ear to ear.

Pleased as punch.

To save myself any extra exasperation, I fixed up some Oatmeal Peach Scones for breakfast.

They make life so easy!
Because of their shape (flat), they can be frozen and quickly prepared for breakfast in your toaster.

Roasted Olives & Okra

Greetings, y'all!

I'm extraordinarily enthusiastic about holidays. (Usually.)
Even dumb ones!
I built hats in the shape of a 100 for the centenary day of elementary school. (Every single year.)
.....

Something about celebrating the arbitrary really gets me e n l i v e n e d.

But this year was different.

For Independence Day, I watched The Last of the Mohicans.

Or tried to.

And don't even get me started on International Kissing Day.
Spoiler alert: I didn't make any tongue sushi.

I'm not alone though.

Even my s u c c e s s f u l roommate has trouble sometimes!

Once a girl told him she wasn't looking for a relationship.

Only she forgot to erase a New Year's Resolution written on her mirror....

2012: Acquire Relationship

Another friend had better luck! At first anyway...

She made it all the way through the first date to second base.
& things were heating up!

But then the gentleman apologized:

"Pardon my arousal." 

So, that was that. They went to sleep!

Disappointment sucks, so imagine how ecstatic I was when my experiment in cooking worked out.

I made a really swell dish y'all.

Roasted olives & okra are a little salty, a little umami, and totally toothsome.

Another dish you can enjoy hot or cold, and they would be great as toothpick trio skewers if you're into appetizers.

Not Really Bruschetta

Good evening, y'all.

Are you going to A t h f e s t tonight?? 

Everyone will be there. I'll be there!

And aaaaall the townies,

 dressed to the nines in 

   homeless-chic.

Do you know how expensive it is to look this poor?

Ah,  A t h f e s t . The biggest party this town has to offer.

.....................................................Well.

Have you memorized your lines yet???

You gotta have something to say, baby.

All the hipsters are gonna wanna know what you thought of that new Reptar album. 

&isn't Atlas Sound just, like, so alluring and distinct these days?? M e l a n c h o l i c . . ..

I haven't settled on what to say.

Perhaps, "It was o k a y, but...

they missed their chance to do something surprising."

But I do know one thing for sure:

I'm sooo making breaded eggplant "bruschetta" again.

(Topped with garlic lemon "aioli".)

Fadulous Orange Oatmeal, Ossified

Beating the heat, y'all?

I've always been a sucker for f a d s. 

I lovingly cultivated a home for my lifeless pet rock.

Suffered scorn for my blinding orange crocs. 

(Until my mom, fearing they'd be caught in an escalator and I'd be maimed, banned crocs.)

I had a rainbow fanny pack emblazoned with my name!! 

An improvement over the goth phase.

Yes, my addiction to  f a d s  has deep roots y'all.

Aaaaall the way back to 1990. The year they closed the leaning tower of Pisa.

I'm not ashamed!

Food  f a d s  are alright, don't you think??

See also: cupcakes.

I noticed baked oatmeal popping up a while ago.

I was sold immediately. 
I was sold before I tried them. I became fiendishly addicted after I tried them.

Breakfast of the Year, All Years.

Extremely simple to make & customize, baked oatmeal  is just... awesome. It's like eating cake for breakfast, except good for you! 

Scoop some out every morning, top with nuts, drown it in milk, spread nut butter on it, or eat it warm, or cold, or with honey on top, and you're guaranteed to have a bangin' day.

Somebody Call Pesto Corntrol!

Been doing any travelin' this summer, y'all?

Perhaps you've heard of the m e g a b u s?
Massive. Blue. Double-decked.

Filled to the brim with uncomfortable looking strangers ?

Just pretend like you're asleep.

I got well-acquainted with the m e g a b u s this summer.
Blinded by the prospect of cheap travel, I booked myself an 8$ round trip to Mobile, AL.

I was so proud of myself.

I was going to meet all kinds of worldly people riding the bus. 

We'd be friends forever!

The woman in the seat next to me was wearing thick purple socks over her shoes.

She was working on a journal entry titled "25 Ways to Kill Your Lover"

It was exhaustive.

Folks, I didn't make any friends on the m e g a b u s that day.

On the ride home, I sprawled across 2 seats.

Nobody sat next to me. I pretended to be asleep.

Dejected and alone, I was cheered by one thing:

I brought a baggie of Sunflower Pesto Corn Salad & ate it with a plastic Wendy's fork, 

no longer caring whether food accumulated upon my personage. Or in my teeth.

Silky Pasta

Bonjourno, y'all!

I've never had a taste for Italian food. Whenever its served, my countenance sours.
Oh. You got lasagna? Perhaps I could eat some old leftovers from your fridge? 
What did you have yesterday? Meatloaf?


Isn't Italian food just a delivery system for butter & cheese? 
...
What?

"No!", you say? "What about the vino", you wonder? "Polenta is basically grits", you'd remind me? "Surely you eat arrosticini fairly regularly?" you'd marvel?

Well, Grand Inquisitor, riddle me this.
It'd stump even Bilbo Baggins himself, I wager.

How do you explain the Olive Garden???

Oh, you can't? That's what I thought.

Folks, I know Olive Garden is not the only eatery proffering Italian-American fare. 
I am aware of the possibility that Olive Garden is not authentic Italian food.

I don't care. (I still don't want to eat Italian-style food okay.)

But there is one thing that really gets me jazzed about eating (anything) & that one thing is FREEBIES.

Man oh man do I like free shit.

One of the many personality traits I share with Oprah.

So when one of my brother's friends was moving out of his apartment, and inexplicably throwing his pantry out, I scored some egg noodles.

They had an Italian flag printed right on the box. "Made in Italy," they taunted me. 
Those noodles sat in my pantry forever. Well past the recommended use by date. 

Finally I used some of them last night.
I'll be dratted if I didn't enjoy those egg noodles down to the last bite.

I even ate an extra noodle I found while cleaning out my colander later that evening.

Ugly Waffles

The rooster's crowing, y'all.

That doesn't always mean it's morning. This rooster is vigilant. Alert.

(Loud)

All day long.

Wake the fuck up.

But today it is morning. Ahhh. 

Refreshing. 

Another Georgia summer morning of relaxation, courtesy of the UGA Board of Regents.

They laid me off. Those bastards.

What are we gonna do with all this free time??

Make a time-consuming breakfast,  o f  c o u r s e.

And what could be more comforting on a still-rainy day than ugly waffles? Mmmm. One of my favorites.

One of my favorite healthy breakfasts, anyway.

I call them ugly waffles because they're sort of ugly. They're floppy. Spongey. Beige.

Moist.

They come out in a big pile, and I love them! It's because of the oat flour, folks. It soaks up liquid like you would not believe, especially if you don't cut it with other types of flour.

Which I don't, really. (well, maybe a little other flour)

Eggy and buttery, despite the omission of both yolks and butter, ugly waffles are always a fun way to start the week!

Engorge Your Eggplant

What's good, y'all?

I love eating vegetables. I love putting them all in one dish and enjoying myself a veritable vegetable jamboree. 
(A poppin' produce party, a bountiful bacchanal!) 

So, stuffed vegetables are perfect for me--and you can stuff any vegetable you want, really!

Zucchini. Potatoes. Bell Peppers. Mushrooms.

Stuff 'em all, I say.

Right into my face.

Yesterday, I made a stuffed eggplant which is basically like a twice baked potato, but healthier and also better because

EGGPLANTS TASTE BETTER THAN POTATOES!

Listen to the ponies.

Yes, they surely surely do folks. 

So, I wrastled  myself up a basic recipe for stuffed eggplant and mutilated it appropriately. 

I was happy with the finale.

I love how the edges curl up. Check after the jump for my recipe!

Dang Good Granola

Good afternoon, y'all.

Do you make your own granola?

Who, me?

I didn't, either until yesterday. I'm no authority on making granola. All I can say is this is a dang good recipe & I'm looking forward to making more.

This granola has fruit puree (applesauce) in it, which I think is just grand. Using fruit purees with no added sugar are a good way to cut back on the sugar you have to put in!

Each 1/4c serving of granola has 6g sugar.

Granola is fun because you can do whatever you want to it, and then you really feel like you have your own little recipe. Also, it makes your house smell good. Like, really good.
  (Useful for when the male strangers from craigslist you moved in with smoke a lot of dank weed).

No dried fruit because it's summer and you can eat it with fresh fruit, dummy.

Do you want the recipe?