Saturday, October 21, 2006

Saturday Evening Post

What a weird day. I was so looking forward to my "knife skills" class at Whole Foods this morning. It was taught by my favorite chef, Jamie, and it never hurts to brush up on your skills. I picked out my station. My station had the 12-inch chef's knife. It was huge! I'm used to 8-inch knives, and my hand is sore after 2-1/2 hours of chopping and slicing. After practicing cuts on onions, potatoes, carrots, etc., we were paired off to prepare soup, salsa, and pico de gallo. I was paired with a 49-year-old man who told me he had never prepared a meal in his life. So we start preparing the sweet potato and kale soup. (He had never heard of kale or chipotle.) I took the sweet potatoes and he took the onions. After a couple of minutes, I heard him say "uh-oh." Well, his knuckles weren't quite curved under enough and he had sliced off a nice chunk of skin below the nail of his left middle finger. He was washed and bandaged and given a glove to put on. That glove filled with blood in no time. How appetizing is that? Needless to say, I went into high gear to prepare the entire menu myself.

So there were these 2 giant jalepenos to chop, which I did. When I went to wash my hands afterward, there was no soap at the sink. Yeh, I could have left the kitchen and gone to the public restroom, but I didn't. I just kept chopping. I AM SO STUPID! MY HANDS ARE ON FIRE, and from what I hear it will last for 3 days! I baked cookies this afternoon and having my hands near a hot oven is just unbearable. I am as stupid as my partner was.

Otherwise, the class was great. Jamie said when she was in culinary school, the instructors would come by and measure each piece of whatever they diced to make sure it was uniform and the proper size!

Thursday night I went to an open house at Whole Foods. They were previewing their holiday foods. I was pleased to find a platter labeled "Vegan Antipasto" which was a delicious variety of grilled veggies with a balsamic vinaigrette. There was also wonderful potato pancakes with an onion-apple topping. I also shopped. I found some items I had read about on other blogs and wanted to try; mainly, Sunshine Burgers and mochi.


I had to have a burger right away. I didn't have any tomatoes, so I used lots of ketchup!

And I sprinkled hemp seeds on my steamed broccoli.


Here's the almond crisp cookies I made this afternoon.


The recipe is interesting. I adapted it from the "12 Best Foods" cookbook. Remember when that list came out a couple of years ago? It's one of my favorite cookbooks. Aside from the section on salmon, it's very veg friendly. Anyway, the recipe has no butter and just 1-1/2 tablespoons of flour. I was supposed to get 24 large cookies, but I only got a dozen regular cookies. So I'm not sure if they are 55 calories or 110 calories each. But they are nice and crispy and will go with our pizza party tomorrow night.

I'm off to run my hands under cold water again.

7 comments:

Candi said...

Oh no! Poor you! Your hands must sting so much. I've had that happen before. :( The WF class sounds fun though, so hopefully you enjoyed it, aside from the pepper juice and the blood! eew!

I like the shopping finds! You know I love hempseeds! I love them on salads, and even sprinkled some in my smoothie this morning. Apple-Hemp muffins from Vive le Vegan are great too! :)

I've never tried or seen sunshine burgers. I have to take a trip tp whole foods and check that out!

Those almond cookies sounds really good! Sound great for a pizza party! :) Hope the party is fun!!!

Anonymous said...

I cringed when I read your post - I feel sorry for both you and your partner! That sounds like a cool class. I try to avoid Whole Foods if I can because I spend way too much money there. I limit my WF excursions to once per month when I stock up on the basics.

Your almond cookies look great. It's always fun to find recipes that are already (accidentally) vegan.

Saturdays are made for shopping and errands (especially when you're a working mom),

laura k said...

Oh my goodness, I cringed when you said "weird day" and "knife class" in the first line! I hope your partner is okay!! :(

Sorry about the jalapeƱo thing... I have made that mistake too, and let me tell you, it only took one time. I hope your hands feel better!

The Sunshine burgers sound soo good, but I have not sucked it up and bought any yet. For now, I'm happy trying to "invent" my own!

madeinalaska said...

funny I bought those exact burgers yesterday too! I have tried the original and thought the southwest ones should be even better! they are very spendy though in our neck of the woods.
sorry to hear about your hands.. I read on another blog you commented on that your sisters lotion helped. Ya!
take care,
Julee

Ben Kaelan said...

It still blows me mind how a 49 year old man would have never prepared a meal in his life! Dear lord... was his wife shoe shopping during the feminist movement?

Those almond cookies do look yum! Almonds are the only nut I'm allowed on the alkaline diet (the others are all acid)... I miss cashews.. those used to be my favorite!! But almonds do rock!

I picked up a book in Scotland this weekend about macrobiotics... I read how you had taken a class on it and I already own one macrobiotic cookbook (although it explains nothing of the macro ideas etc)... so I'm learning the basics. I don't wanna become fully macro but I might have macro weekends :) And have miso soup for breakfast every morning. HEhee.

I talk too much... I shut up now :)

- Ben

Nikk said...

You poor thing. I hope your hands feel better soon!

Whole Foods is one of my favorite places in the world, but I spend entirely too much money there. :)

Emmy said...

Oh no, that's awful what happened with the guy you got paired up with. Ick! So sorry to hear there was no soap. Hot peppers are one of the worst thing you can get on your hands. Too bad they didn't have gloves available to use while chopping the peppers. Hope your hands are feeling better.