Vanity Table

Chocolate fudge cookies with peanut butter chips

I made these for a housewarming recently because I hate showing up to stuff like that empty-handed. Also because arriving at a party and looking around for the snaxx and finding only booze is the worst. 

RECIPE COMING SOON PROBABLY

Banana blueberry bread

Last Friday a bunch of us had to come into work early for a big meeting. I hadn’t baked anything for my newish coworkers yet so I thought it would be a perfect excuse to surprise everyone with breakfast. Also banana bread is very delicious at all times. I came to work with loaves of it still warm from the oven. Then the location of the meeting got changed to a much smaller edit room and I got disinvited and the important people absconded with the loaves. True story.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup neutral oil

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1/2 cup chopped lightly toasted pecans

1/2 cup blueberries

3 very ripe bananas mashed with a fork

DIRECTIONS

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

Whisk together the sugar, oil, yogurt, vanilla, egg, and egg yolk in a separate bowl until you get out the lumps. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and whisk until barely combined. Fold in the pecans, bananas, and blueberries so that they are evenly distributed throughout. Grease a 9” x 5” loaf pan and dust with flour, then pour the batter in it. Bake until a toothpick tester comes out clean and the top is nice and burnished, about 70 minutes in my oven but start checking after an hour. 

I get stressed out baking loaves for people because you can’t try them to make sure they came out okay. However, if you use this recipe you do not need to stress about that. The answer is always: It came out great. 

SPRING IS COMING

Allegedly.

I really like meatballs on top of things that are not pasta

Meat is a vehicle for sauce, ice cream is a vehicle for candy, pasta is a vehicle for meatballs, etc

SNAXX

Here is the way Tarik and I became friends when I was brand new to VF and didn’t know anybody: I walked into our office kitchen to get a snack and found that the refrigerator had been cleaned out and everything in it thrown away, including all the snacks I had put in there to last me the rest of the week (three Polly-O string cheeses). I LOVE string cheese so I was, to be fair, an irrational amount of upset about this, but even looking back now I get extremely mad thinking about the needless waste. Why anybody would throw away three wrapped string cheeses is beyond me. They clearly do not go bad. By the way I am 100% not exaggerating about any of this; I was actually standing in front of the empty refrigerator with my jaw dropped, fighting back feelings of panic (what to DO) when I noticed there was another human being in the kitchen with me. I had to make a game-time decision about whether to explain why I looked like someone had just killed my dog and I’m glad I did because Tarik completely got it. I believe what he said was, “Snacks are important!” and I felt very relieved and understood in an existential way and I knew we would be friends after that and we were. 

I turn 24 tomorrow and snacks are no less important to me now than they were then. Unfortunately every day this week I have either forgotten snacks or I have consumed them all at once at lunch (that was a bad day) and then been in a snackless rage by 4pm. If I am beginning to sound like a freak to you that is fine. We don’t have to be friends; I have Tarik.

EGGPLANT CHIPS

I dip these in a sauce of Greek yogurt and sriracha, stirred with a fork. Mediterranean AND Asian, you say? I call it “I am young and poor”-fusion. 

Directions:

Slice an Italian or Japanese eggplant (the smaller, seedless skinny ones) into thin coins. Arrange on a non-stick baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with your choice of spices. I like cumin, cayenne, and unhealthy amounts of salt. Roast at 400 degreees, or 425 if you like to burn the crap out of them like me, until crispy, about 20 minutes depending on the thickness of your slices. 

ANIMAL CRACKERS

I was making whole wheat cheddar crackers to bring to an Oscar party and things got silly

Whole Wheat Banana Yogurt Cake with Peanut Butter-Greek Yogurt Frosting

It sounds healthy right? My poor unsuspecting dinner guests were like “Well done, you” and I was like “Well now I definitely can’t tell you that there are severely unconscionable amounts of butter in this.” Like so much butter you probably shouldn’t even look at this picture for very long.

Shiny happy carrots

I made these for dinner a week ago and ate every last one over the course of one New Girl episode which, FYI, clocks in at a very short 21 minutes. Then I made them for a dinner party on Monday and all eight people got a serving and I was like that’s funny that serves eight people.

Caramelized maple carrots

Whisk together 1/4 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup maple syrup (yes, expensive, sorry) until combined. Toss the mixture with a 24-oz bag of baby carrots in a roasting pan and sprinkle with a little sea salt. Roast at 400 degrees, tossing occasionally, for about an hour or until they get small and really sticky. Remember when your parents used to tell you that sweet fruits and vegetables were “just like candy” and you were like “I KNOW ABOUT SANTA AND I KNOW YOU ARE LIARS” well these carrots are exactly like candy and that is very much the truth.