Vegan V-Day Peanut Butter Date Balls

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Well, hey there lovers!

I’m going to pretend you’re all my lovers, whether you’re willing or not, since I’m by my lonesome this Valentines day. This is the first V Day that I’ve been single since the inception of this blog. In that time I flew through two relationships… and boy are my arms tired. Buh dum chh!

If you’re wondering why I’m up in the middle of the night posting about Valentines day stuff instead of having dreams about Channing Tatum like every sane single gal, there’s a good reason. I’m sleepless in central Illinois because one of my amazing ex’s is either extremely short sighted, or super masochistic, and decided to send me an email the day before Valentine’s day.

In my last email, I told him not to respond, to forget I existed and to leave me alone. In a bold, kind and genius move he decided to toss that request out of the window, the day before the most romantic holiday on this here planet. What people won’t do for the last word…

While I may sound a bit bitter (I am), I’ve chilled out a bit and am ready to take on this holiday in single lady fashion. What does that mean for me? A day of blogging, doing yoga, reading, watching a movie with Jason Segal in it, and eating a quick fatty vegan desert while trolling the Craigslist personal ads in a half joking, half curious manner.

I was going to call this post something like “Valentines Day? Don’t Have a Date? How Bout Some Vegan Peanut Butter Date Balls?” The other one seemed to roll off the tongue a little better while being a little less bitter.

This is my valentine's day date. Sexy, huh?

These take literally 3 minutes to make. So if you get hungry in between your crying jags/sex marathons you can whip up a quick batch and chow down before heading back to your lamenting/nude romantic activities.

Unfortunately, even though I’m such an amazing cook and food blogger, I forgot to measure all of this out so be warned, these are precise guesstimations.

Ingredients

  • 1/3 cup of uncooked oats
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup dates
  • Small handful of vegan chocolate chips or cacao nibs
  •  3 T raw coconut flakes (optional)
  • 1/2 t agave (optional)

Method

  • mix ingredients together until the mixture isn’t dry or sticky. Add more peanut butter if it’s dry. Add more oats if it’s sticky.
  • Roll into 1 inch balls
  • Pop them in the fridge for 30 minutes, or skip the fridge and pop them in your mouth.

Alright, it’s time to shake it all off and catch some shuteye. What (aside from babies) are you making this VDay?

Vegetarian Rainbow Chard Breakfast

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This post is dedicated to Justin, who is a biotch every time I get into a grain staple. He requested that I never talk about polenta again. I can’t really promise you that I won’t make more polenta stuff in the future, but I figured I’d share something sans polenta that you can make for breakfast. It’s almost identical to the hearty version of polenta I posted a few weeks ago. I’m going to say polenta one more time… polenta.

Okay, now that it’s out of my system, here’s a tasty breakfast brain child from me to you.

  • Get some rainbow chard. Sautee it in some olive oil until it’s all wilted. Plate it.
  • Fry an egg. Plate it on top of the rainbow chard.
  • Cut some cherry tomatoes in half. Fry those too. Guess what you can do with those? You got it.

There you go! There’s proof that I could make something that isn’t polenta.

This makes a great, healthy, cheap 5-10 minute breakfast. I really could have branded this as a brunch dish, but I didn’t think of it until right now I’m not into bourgeois branding techniques.

What do you eat when you’re not eating polenta?

 

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

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willworkforfoodgirl

Today is a crazy awesome day. Just got a ticket to Denver where I’ll be studying yoga for a month. Plus, I just checked in on the stats for this blog (I’ll pretend I don’t do that 380239 times a day like every other blogger on the face of the planet). What’s nuts, is that this has been the highest clickity clicky month since the inception of this blog. You guys are fan-friggin-tastic.

Willworkforfoodgirl is nearing it’s second year anniversary and it’s amazing to see what it’s turned into. Who knew that I could leave it for.ever. and pick it back up and watch it grow, and then drop it again, and then put the pieces back together and watch it turn into something awesome. I’m really amazed at how much everything has changed in two years. It’s crazy how much the writing, pictures, lifestyle, focus have  improved over the years. It’s wonderful to have all of that documented.

Man, what I wouldn’t give to hear from any and every one of you. Let me know what you like, what you want to punch me in the jaw about, what you’d like to lay your eyes on and I’ll see if I can make that happen.

At any rate, I want to genuinely thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m so grateful that so many of you have taken time out of your day to check out my word vomit and food pictures (note to self: don’t put the words vomit and food so close together).

 

Baked Grapefruit

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grapefruit breakfast picture

This is one of those insomnia posts. I drank coffee until 8 p.m. and I made this baked grapefruit a few days ago. And from those two unrelated events, this post is born at 4 a.m. So it will be waiting for you, to serve as inspiration when you wake up on this beautiful (?) Monday morning.

grapefruit picture

Do you have a grapefruit? Do you have brown sugar? Do you have an oven? What about a toaster oven? Well, if you have three of the things above, you’ve got what it takes to make some delightful baked grapefruit.

Just cut your grapefruit in half, run your knife around the edge to separate the fruit from the peel, and score it into fraction-y sections. Spread 1-2 teaspoons of brown sugar on top. Place on a baking sheet and broil it for about five minutes.

grapefruit and brown sugar

There you have it! It’s a five minute breakfast. This is the only way that I can really eat grapefruit and it’s a delightful alternative for getting your citrus on in the winter.

grapefruit picture

Okay, it’s beyond bed time. Seacrest out.

Have you ever made baked grapefruit? Are there any other fruits I should cover in sugar and throw in the oven?

Vegan Stewkulele and Supernews!

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Stewkulele! See what I did there?

stewkulele

Here’s a stew I made sitting next to a ukulele I played. They’re both super rad and super vegan. The stew has a veggie broth and tomato base so it’s warm, but bright. I laid it on some brown jasmine rice right before I laid down some mad jamz on that uke.

Seriously though, this stew was perfect. It took about 20 minutes to prepare and it was one of those kitchen sink stews that actually turned out really well. If you’re a fan of the kitchen sink stew, you know that you’re taking a leap of faith when you throw what you have in your fridge into a pot.

Here’s my winning combo:

  • 4 cups vegetable broth
  • 1 can garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed)
  • 6-8 fingerling potatoes (halved)
  • 1 bunch med organic carrots (cut into two inch chunks)
  • Handful of sugar snap peas
  • 3 ripe roma tomatoes (cut into chunks)
  • 2 small red onions
  • several tiny white onions
  • 3 gigantic cloves of garlic
  • salt and pepper
  • cumin
  • chili powder
Throw it alllll in a pot and season to taste. Bring it to a boil. Turn down to med low, and cover. Stir occasionally. Cook until the potatoes are tender (about 20 minutes depending the size of your potatoes).
Serve over a bed of warm rice. Sh*t’s comforting.
Update!

So you’d think that since I’m doing this regularly that I would have fewer updates. Alas, there’s always a lot of life flowing my way. It’s just the way it is.

There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life, and those who suffer from an over-abundance of life. I have always found myself in the second category.  -Waking Life

It looks like the winds of change are taking me to Denver for a month in the spring to do Forrest Yoga foundation teacher training with Ana Forrest! Yoga! Teaching! The Ana Forrest! Okay, maybe that’s only the most exciting thing on the planet to a yoga nerd, but I’m pretty jazzed about it, to say the least. So jazzed that every time I write about it or tell someone I say it like that… The Ana Forrest.

I was waiting until everything fell into place before I shared it on this blog, but I jumped the gun and let it slip on another blog I write for about health and wellness. Amazingly enough, the kind lady who runs the Forrest Yoga newsletter saw my post and asked me to write a piece about my love of Forrest Yoga and my anticipation for the training. So, booyah! Super excited about getting to be a part of that.

So should I tell the truth in that piece? Should I write about how the anticipation of it is making me a lot more competitive with myself. Should I let on that I walked five miles today to do yoga at two different studios. That I’m doing Bikram, Hatha, Vinyasa, Iyengar… really, any yoga I can get my hands on. Should I let on that this has turned into my yoga bachelor party. The practices might not be super meaningful since I’ve found ‘the one’, but before I commit, I need to see what else is out there really quick.

Just playin’. I really want to be in great shape and I’m fortunate enough to be in a city with so much fantastic yoga going on that I can try out a lot of stuff right now. I’d been kinda hating on Bikram for some time now, and I wanted to get the full experience of it to see if I wasn’t misjudging it. I’ll let you know when my month at Bikram Chicago is through. I also found this sweet little studio called Village Yoga nearby that I really like. I also want to check out The Lab and Moksha. Of course, I still want to spend some more time doing Forrest Yoga at Turbodog.

So this is what my life has become: touring the Chicago yoga scene, long nights with the Ukulele, makin’ up some tasty stew and putting words onto the web for a livin. I can’t complain. As a matter of fact, I really feel the need to pinch myself right now. Life is beyond good.

-wwffg

How are you all doin’? Any suggestions for a studio I must try while I’m still in Chicago? Any variations of this stew that you want to share?

 

A Vegan Polenta Breakfast and a Not So Vegan Polenta Breakfast

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Aha! I’ve made it back by the end of the week! That means I win something, right? There’s got to be some sort of blogging reward/award for that.

I’ve still been crazy busy (a.k.a. eating gross pumpkin pancakes and watching mildly humorous British comedy for hours on end… whatever, it’s winter). In all seriousity, I’ve accomplished a lot this week. I found a ukulele and I’ve been playing that. I’m almost finished with all of my work for the week. I went to my first ever Black Hawks game (do people clap through the entire national anthem at sporting events now?).

And I’ve… Okay well, that’s pretty much it. The ukulele has pretty much taken up all of my time. Soon I can accomplish my dreams of making my very own YouTube video showing of my uke skillz playing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. It seems that that’s the only reason white Midwesterners learn how to play that particular instrument. I picked it up to write dark and disturbing songs about my ex that sound deceivingly cheerful. Think Jason Mraz meets Saw V. It’s been cathartic to say the least.

Okay, so here’s some more polenta inspiration for you. I call it inspiration, because they’re not quite recipes. If you want recipes, you can head over to the blogs that I write for a living: Dorm Room Menu and Scratchncook. I just picked up Scratch N’ Cook today, so the recipes are only mine from this day forth, but the old stuff on there is good too.

This blog is too cool for recipes. It’s all free form and hip and what not. It’s like a revolution that will hit the food blogging world faster than minimalist food photography. Eff your recipes.

Sweet Vegan Polenta Breakfast

Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup cooked polenta
  • 1 apple
  • 1 cup almond milk
  • 2 t honey
  • 2 t maple syrup (optional and possibly not a good idea)
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 1/2 t cardemom
  • 1/4 t cloves
Method:
  • Combine all ingredients except for the polenta. Heat on med until apples are tender.
  • Add polenta and turn the heat to med low. Stir until polenta is creamy.
Hearty Non-Vegan Polenta Breakfast
Ingredients:
  • 1 Cup cooked polenta
  • 1 egg
  • 1 t butter/oil
  • salt & pepper
  • tomatoes (diced or halved) (optional)
  • dried or fresh sage (optional)

Method:

  • Fry/scramble an egg
  • Reheat polenta
  • Combine
  • That’s really about it

Those both look suspiciously like recipes. Bollocks! Apparently, I’ve been kept down by the man and I’ve been watching too much British TV.

Anywho, I have some work to finish before my night is through and before this Valerian root tea knocks my ass out. Fun fact: Valerian root has the same effect as valium when taken in high enough doses. Yay herbs!

I’m going to have some huge news to share coming up in my next post (fingers crossed) so stay tuned for that and… you guessed it… a few more polenta recipes. I swear it’s almost over.

Thanks for stopping by!

-wwffg

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Vegan Chicago Style Polenta

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spicy polenta

As soon as I named this easy version of spicy Italian polenta, I realized that Chicago style polenta should probably have celery salt, sport peppers and mustard in it. That sounds gross, and I also really want to try it. I just moved to Chicago and I can’t tell you how crazy exhausted I am this week. I spent the past four days practicing Forrest yoga, going to the Second City for class, house sitting (tis awesome! Photo below), meeting all sorts of new folks, actively pretending that I’m good at staying up late and waking up early, and trying to get my bearings in this town so I can figure out what to do next and how I can get there without getting stabbed.

Sweet New Temporary Digs

I have hella work to do today, I have to go get some winter boots and I’m going to a Star Wars themed burlesque show tonight (best first date idea ever?), so I’m still crazy busy. But I couldn’t help but give in to the compulsion to post something on WWFFG today. I didn’t want to leave you with that stupid awesomely compelling and important peanut butter and nanner post any longer.

Since I’ve been all over the place these past few days, I wanted to have a breakfast, lunch and dinner staple prepared so I could mix in some extras and it’d be ready to go. Polenta is my go-to for that kind of thing.

This simple ground corn can be made into a sweet or savory breakfast, quick and pasta-like for lunch, or fried and all fritter-like for dinner… That, and the word sounds kinda fancy. All of those variations of polenta are awesome and I have pictures and recipes for every single one of them ready to go up on here. I also have a recipe for a French Toast Casserole, and a quick vegan Nicoise Salad type-thing. What I’m saying is that it should comfort you that someday you maybe might possibly see these things on this amazing blog one day. But enough of my empty, half committed promises. Here goes…

Chicago Style Polenta

Stuff:

  • 1 cup cooked polenta
  • 1/2 cup spicy spaghetti sauce
  • spinach
  • dried/fresh basil and oregano
  • salt, pepper to taste

Method:

  • If you don’t have a batch of polenta prepared, or if you have no idea what I’m talking about when I say that word, there’s more info here. If you’ve never made polenta, I’d suggest making a big batch and experimenting for a few days. It’s extremely versatile and it’s fun to play with it. That’s what she said.
  • Heat your spaghetti sauce in a small pot over med-low heat. That’s not what she said.
  • Add chopped spinach, basil, oregano and polenta.
  • Stir continually until smooth and hot.

It should only take you about 10 minutes to prepare this for a quick lunch or dinner. Polenta takes about 30-40 minutes to prepare a large batch, so I like catching up on Wait! Wait! Don’t tell me! and Radiolab while I cook up big batches of rice and polenta on Sundays so I have it ready to go for the next week.

So, that’s all I have time for today. Wish me luck on getting all of my shiz done. Wish me luck on the sexy Star Wars themed first date. Wish me luck on getting back to this blog and posting some more stuff later this week. After you’re done wasting all of your wishes on me, go make some polenta! Let me know how it goes.

What are your favorite vegan polenta recipes?

Why Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches Will Someday Rule The World

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I was jungle hungry, so some of this sandwich didn't make it to picture time.

People give cockroaches too much credit. I’m pretty sure that after the apocolypse, those crunchy little creatures are going to be hailing to the all important and all powerful peanut butter and banana sandwich. Why? Because they’re awesome, and you can find the ingredients for them pretty much everywhere and they’re hearty, fatty sweet and vegan. Case closed in one poorly constructed run-on sentence.

I know what you’re thinking guys. Willworkforfoodgirl is such a good food blog written by an amazing food writer that knows everything about food. Don’t I know it? Don’t think that every time I sit down to hammer out a post, I don’t realize that each one is going to revolutionize the home cooking world. Look at this one. I’m sure you’re thinking, “Holy shit! Peanut butter and banana sandwiches… that’s more revolutionary than the occupy movement and DDR combined!” But I wish you guys would stop thinking that because really it’s a lot of responsibility. I’m not the V for Vendetta guy. Although I would like to challenge him to an ‘eggs in a basket’ off. In the end he would probably win and then brainwash me. It’s okay. I’d look good bald.

Since you already know how to make a peanut butter and banana sandwich, this post is just to serve as inspiration. Go eat one now! No bananas? Sub out another fruit. I used papaya when I was in Panama. It was awesome. Pineapples and mangoes also get the green light. Then experiment… Grill it, fry it, batter it and fry it (umm…. yes).

This post is also to serve as a “Hello! I’m back in the states! U.S.A! U.S.A!” I’ve been in Panama, where the grass is literally greener and the heavens are closer. I’ll probably share some photos and some travelogs on here later on this week. Perhaps it’s time to start separate photo and travel sections here on wwffg. Perhaps.

Ahhh… It’s good to be back home. Hot showers. An oven to bake in. A big computer. WiFi. Oh shit, I sound so domesticated. If you would have seen me on Sunday morning you would know that this is not really the case. I strolled into the hostel covered in crusty dried mud, wearing the last of my dry clothes (jorts, a sportsbra and a hippie belly shirt… you know, super stylish stuff), and I’m pretty sure that’s the moment when I knew I could totally make it as a traveling vagabond.

Man, this post is so dimensional… Not only is it’s purpose to talk about those other super blogworthy things, it’s also a call for suggestions. I’m going to do some baking for this blog and my family tomorrow (see who comes first?) and I was wondering if you have any awesome citrus and cardemom baked goods that you absolutely love. I have some sweet little oranges and hella fresh organic cardemom that are begging to be put together. I’m kinda feeling bundt cake, but I’m not completely sold on the idea…

But enough of this for now (don’t you dare let out that sigh of relief). I’ve got a bunch of catching up and lazing around to do today. Stay tuned for some travel tales and for a wwffg baked goods monstrosity.

Thanks for stopping by!

Corinne

Occupy Images

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Three posts in one night? Yep, apparently I just can’t get enough of WordPress today. I just got finished doing a post on the Occupy Chicago rally I went to on Thursday. To be honest, I’m not that excited about the way the article turned out, but some of the pictures I got were really wonderful. I just wanted to share some of those with you guys. Let me know what you think…

The WWFFG Winter Concoction

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Before I begin, I’d like to share a story with you guys that proves that Google is as accurate as you think. I was going over the stats for this blog a few minutes ago, and  I found out that the most popular search that leads people to willworkforfoodgirl is “free fetish porn.” Now, I’m not sure where google came up with that, but it’s pretty much the best thing that has ever happened… ever. I can imagine that people looking for free fetish porn who stumble onto my ramblings and homemade dog food recipes probably get pretty annoyed. And I’m going to assume that it’s those people who rate my posts with four stars. Thanks for the feedback, perverts.

 

Now that we’re all caught up, we can move on to our first ever drink recipe. It’s a warming winter drink that I’ve developed using Ayurvedic ingredients that work together to sooth the throat, warm the body, calm the mind and stoke your digestive agni (fire).  Oh yeah, it’s pretty perfect. I spent an entire month perfecting this drink and it is just that… perfect. Should I say perfect one more time?

 

Ingredients
*Measurements Approximate- Make this to taste.
  • 2 Tablespoons Ghee
  • 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Fresh Ground Black Pepper
  • 1/4 Teaspoon cardamom
  • 2 Teaspoons Fresh Ground Ginger
  • 2 Tablespoons Honey
  • 2 cups Almond Milk
Method
ginger drink
Melt ghee in a pot over medium heat. Add ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper. Simmer until aromatic.
ayurvedic cold remedy

Add almond milk and honey. Continue to stir until the concoction comes to a boil. Immediately remove from heat and serve warm.

ayurvedic almond milk ginger cinnamon recipe

 

Seriously, this stuff is the best. It’s absolutely my new favorite thing. I have a mug of this and some dried dates for an afternoon snack when I’m feeling chilly and it’s probably one of the best parts of my day. Nay… my life. Try it and you’ll know that that statement isn’t so much sad as it is true. This stuff is, shall I say, perfect? 

Try it out and let me know what you think.