Snails!

I'll start by saying this isn't the first time I've eaten snails.

This is, however, the first time I've prepared them myself.

These are not backyard snails, mind you, but "whelks" I picked up at the Asian market in Rochester. I had a hard time deciding between the snails and live eels. Being that I didn't have a recipe for eels at the ready, I opted to go with the snails.
Snails are surprisingly easy to handle and cook. It's not like they'll hop or slither away, after all.

If you find yourself with some snails on your hands, start by letting them soak a good while to make sure they're clean. 2 hours at least. The water will get mucky, so change it every 30 minutes or so.

When you're ready to cook, bring a pot of water to boil. You won't want to cook these very long. Typically 10-15 minutes is the most you'll want to do. For this recipe, 7 or 8 minutes of boiling is sufficient.

Drop the snails into the boiling water and let them cook. Once the snails are done, rinse them with cool water and remove them from their shells.

Combine olive oil, onions and garlic in a small sauce pan and simmer on medium-low until the onions are soft and the olive oil is completely flavored.

Cut and clean the snails, removing the bits from the very inside of the shell, saving only the outside and white body parts. Cut these up into bite-size chunks and put them into the pan of warm (not hot!) oil.

 
Let it warm for 5 minutes or so, but not too long or they'll come out chewy. Salt and (heavily) pepper to taste.
 
This would be ideal served with crostinis or any other quality toasts. Since I don't eat them, I opted to just enjoy my whelks from the bowl. It really does make a great fancy-shmancy appetizer, assuming your dinner party guests are at all adventurous. I suppose you could pass it off as squid, but what's the fun in that!?

What's Your "Red Dress?"

This is a guest post by Kimberly Denean Davis. I was just recently introduced to her and her writing. I instantly fell in love with this piece. There's a bit of inspiration behind it as I'm about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime with the most incredible man. (More to come on that later.) For now... enjoy!

I want, just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies. I want to be shocking, and vivid and wear a dress as intensely amazing as the person I so want to be. And the more I thought about it the more I realized how often we deny ourselves that red dress and all the other capricious, ridiculous, overindulgent and silly things that we desperately want but never let ourselves have because they are simply "not sensible". Things like flying lessons, and ballet shoes, and breaking into spontaneous song, and building a train set, and crawling onto the roof just to see the stars better. Things like cartwheels and learning how to box and painting encouraging words on your body to remind yourself that you're worth it.
And I am worth it.

-Jenny Lawson


We have all got a "red dress" inside us.  Most of us will have a multitude.  These are the things we long to do.  To experience.  The little, and sometimes big, things we deny ourselves.  Because we don't feel worthy.  Because there is never enough time.  Because we don't like to think of ourselves as selfish.  Because life has a way of taking over and not letting us truly live.

What would happen if we declared a "Red Dress Day"??  One day in which we would all do ONE thing that we had dreamed of.  Something just for us.  With no shame, no embarrassment, and no holding back.  What would you do?  I know what I would do:

Singing lessons.  And more importantly, the courage to take them.  To let my voice be heard.

To go out in this world looking less than put together.  Sans makeup and fancy clothes and shoes.  Just to be seen in shorts and a t-shirt.  Just as I am.

Write my book.  Seriously carve the time out to begin.  And not stop until it's done.
To let go.  Of people, of places, of THINGS that don't benefit me.  Looking towards the future instead of living in the past.

Fall in love.  With no reservations and no hesitation.  To not care if my heart gets broken.  To truly and fully trust another human being with who I am.

Play paper dolls.

To go sit beside my granny's headstone and tell her everything I need her to know about how I feel about her and the person I am now.  To tell her about my children and how I hate the fact that she isn't here to see them grow up.  To tell her how Max is my Dad made over...she would have loved him so.  To leave a Hershey's bar and walk away with some peace.

Get in my car and just go somewhere.  To stop being scared because I don't know the exact way.  To explore.  To be spontaneous.  To see things.

Lie in bed all day and read.  Read until my eyes were stinging and red.  Read until my heart and my head was full.

Quit my job.

Sit in my bedroom floor and look through all my old picture albums.  Feel the history and the stories they tell.  Laugh and cry and be proud of where I come from, where I am, and where I am going.

Spend the evening with my boys at the drive-in.  Robo's peanut butter milkshakes and buttery popcorn.  Looking at the two best things in my life.

Sleep in.  And not care.

Stop defining myself by the size of jeans I wear.

Hold my head up.

Have the best birthday ever...(yes, this includes a surprise party and Taylor Hicks...ya'll will have to be in charge of this).

Be Glinda The Good Witch for Halloween.  Pink ballgown and glitter everywhere.  Sparkly shoes and a tiara.  I've always wanted to rule the world...even just for a day.

Be Marilyn Monroe for Halloween...just at night.  To look sexy, be sexy, and feel sexy.

Spend all day in a bookstore.  No rush, no hurry.  Time to sit and look and inhale.

Have my own blog page.  A page wherein I can write whatever I want.  Whenever I want.  To write the things that make people think.  That make them laugh and cry.  That change their world.

Be happy.  Be satisfied.  To stop analyzing every detail.  To stop expecting perfection...from others and from myself.  I want to make my life something worth living.

My "red dress" would be any and all of these things.  And so many more.  Part of life is having these "red dresses" and part of life should also be about doing more than dreaming.  It's the doing.

Coincidence (?) and my Pagan Brain

I believe my exact words were "We need a good thunderstorm. I want the sky to open up and pour down buckets. I want it to rain all the time so that she has no excuse not to let us use the fire pit."

This was yesterday.

Today: 

That's right. Big ol' thunderstorm, pouring down buckets. 

Ok so the story is this...

I got new neighbors recently who have been nothing but difficult since the day they move in. I rent a single bedroom apartment in a big old farm house that has 3 other single-bedroom units in it. Both of the downstairs neighbors are great. The three of us get along just fine. The new neighbor... well they don't seem to like anybody.

Jump to Friday night. I have some friends over for a bonfire, some drinks, and some fireworks. Neighbor 1 is out of town, I invite neighbor 2 to the hangout, and neighbor 3 (Mr & Ms Crankypants) aren't home, until abut the time we start to build the fire.

10:00 rolls around and I get a phone call from the landlord. I ignore her, because I had a suspicion that Crankypants complained. Not that they have any room to do that either. They play their tv at ridiculous levels at 2am, on a Tuesday. Sometimes it sounds like they have a T-Rex in their living room.

The landlord calls again the next morning to give me crap about the previous night's events.

Now you have to understand, I try to be a good tenant. I generally don't make much fuss, try to cooperate, and always pay my rent 2-5 days before the month begins. Really I'm the kind of person who just wants to be liked. My landlord is, for lack of a better word, a slack-ass, and is verging on slumlord. They don't like to spend money to fix things that need fixing, and sometimes I have to get a little pushy. You would too if you didn't have heat for 10 days in January, in New York. 

So the landlord calls. The conversation is brief and prickly. In short, no more fireworks, and no more fire pit because "It's too dry." Excuse me? My friends and I spent an entire day digging out and rebuilding that fire pit, and now you want to tell me I can't use it?

Well it ain't too dry NOW is it!?

Believe me, I don't want to get all boasty about making it rain. I'm not at all saying I did. These are just the funny little things some people call coincidence. Being a person of faith (in many gods who occasionally like to insert themselves into human affairs,) I sometimes wonder if the gods listen and sometimes say "Sure... let's have some rain."

Or maybe I'm just crazy and this is a fluke storm, and the rest of the summer is going to be drought-tastic.

I guess time will tell.

I'm just a little amused right now at the serendipitous timing that Mama Nature has.

Watermelon Basil Chiller

There is nothing better in the summer than a nice cold beverage when it's steamy and hot outside.

On the drive home I got a bit of a craving for watermelon, but I wanted something cold and icy too. It would take too long to cut it into cubes and freeze it. I was walking past the herbs and got a whiff of basil, and an idea struck!

Now you have to understand, I love basil. I really love basil. I find fresh basil absolutely intoxicating. I like to bury my face in it and just inhale. I breathe in deep breaths, into my nose, my lungs, my stomach, my toes. It fills me up and makes me go, "Ahhhh..."

I grabbed up a bunch of basil and I hurried home. The results of this little experiment? AMAZING!

Watermelon Basil Chiller

Ingredients:
Watermelon (sans seeds)
Fresh Basil
Pinch of Salt
Ice

Now this is SUPER easy.

Cut up the watermelon and toss it in a blender with some ice, some salt, and a handful of basil leaves, and mix. If it's too thick, add a splash of water (or better yet, green tea!)

Pour it in a pretty glass. If you want to get all fancy add an umbrella and enjoy! I chose to enjoy it out on my porch while waiting for dinner to cook. :)

*PS: You could easily boozify this for your barbecue cocktail party. If so, what would you use?

Lemon Curd to Lemon Chiffon

Life has been a little bit of insanity lately, but I did finally find a few moments to experiment in the kitchen a bit, and behold, I have not one, but TWO delicious things to share with you. The first is lemon curd, and the second is a lemon chiffon made from the curd.

I'd never had lemon curd before. To be honest "lemon curd" doesn't sound all that delicious to me. I like lemon, and I like curd, but something about those two words together just sounds... weird. When I looked it up I found lemon curd is just a creamy spread that can be used on scones or English muffins, or used as cake filling. Considering I eat none of these things, I was happy to find that it could also be used as an ice cream topping. Well at least it gets me something.

Thing is, in order to make recipe two, I needed it, and you know I'm not about to buy something I could easily make myself.

Lemon curd IS easy. Stupidly easy. And it's easy to make Primal too.

To make curd you will need:

A double boiler, or similar apparatus
1 cup of erythritol, sugar, or other equivalent
2/3 cups lemon juice
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
6 tbs coconut oil or butter

To make chiffon you will also need:
Heavy cream (whipped)

Start by creaming together your sweetener and oil, then slowly beat in eggs, yolks and finally lemon juice.

Put the mixture into your double boiler and heat gently until it thickens. Be careful and don't let it boil!

Using a whisk, stir constantly until the mixture reaches approximately 170 degrees. Remove from heat and let it cool. It should coat the back of a spoon.

You will need to chill it before turning it into chiffon.

Making lemon chiffon is even easier. All you do is fold together equal parts lemon curd and whipped cream.

Easy peasy.

Now, you could very well cheat. Go to the store, buy lemon curd and Cool Whip, and mix them together, but... ew. Just make it yourself. It's easy and 1000x better for you. Your taste buds will love you for it.

Simply serve chilled in a pretty dish with your favorite garnish. I chose to go with candied ginger, some chocolate bits, and slivered almonds.

 

That's it.
Isn't it pretty!?
Tastes pretty darn good too.