Hi folks! You want a preview of the scrumptious treats we’re creating for our photo shoot? I thought you might…

Last night was a hectic night, as are most nights at the HAP house. Mary arrived at six, followed by Corelyn shortly thereafter, and the frantic race to doughnuts, pancakes, and muffins began. We’re shooting a photo shoot this weekend for the blog and Mary’s 365 project, and because we can. The shoot is going to be wild and crazy, and involves the beach, and oven, homemade doughnuts, nifty aprons, and red nails.

Before Mary could blink, I had heated milk, melted shortening, put my yeast in water, and helped Corelyn whip up some muffin mix. We decided somehow to fill the muffin tins in the middle of the kitchen while we waited for the yeast to do its thing.

“Can you turn on…”

“The oven?” Corelyn asked.

“Yes, but I really don’t want you to. But we have to.”

As the oven inched towards 400 degrees, we set the muffins aside and finished the doughnut dough. Then we set it aside to rise. 7:15. 15 minutes behind. That was close.

Onto pancakes.

“When did you make the doughnut dough?” Mary asked as we finished that off and cleaned the bowl for pancakes.

“Just now. We’re going to make pancakes. Ready?” As I gathered the ingredients, Mary said, “Wait, you’re making them from scratch?” Which we were. (Especially since the blueberry muffins were from a Jiffy Mix box.)

Let me let you in on a little secret. Pancakes are hilariously easy. They consist of milk (or buttermilk if you have it laying around like we did), flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon (if you’re Mary and read the wrong recipe but simultaneously make a delicious discovery), eggs, and some oil. They are ridiculous. I could make ’em in my sleep. And somehow they always taste better homemade. This is the recipe we used was very similar to this one.

We did have to add about a half-cup of extra buttermilk to make sure they were liquid enough to pour. Then, Mary directed us for the size of the them as we made cute stacks for our shoot. Half-way through making them, genius stuck and I decided we should make hippopotamus shaped pancakes.

This ended with one hippo-shaped pancake (because I was using a cookie cutter. The smarter thing would have been to cut them after I made pancakes, but alas, I did not think of this. As we finished up the pancakes, we headed to the dining room to lay out our doughnuts. There were definitely pictures taken, but not by me, so you’ll see them soon enough. Soon two jelly roll pans and the Silpat were both covered with doughnuts, Mary clicking away and Corelyn giving them center holes. Corelyn was also making us dinner, and Mary heated up her dinner, and as we finished with the doughnuts we headed to the living room to eat dinner and wait for them to rise.

At some point in this chaos S showed up to hang out for a bit, and we were having a conversation in the living room about who knows what, and I exclaimed, “You’re so weird.” To which he replied:

“Really? ‘Cause I’m not the one with a coffee table with a tray of muffins and two stacks of pancakes on it.”

“Why is this weird?” Mary asked from her perch on the ground.

“I think this is the first time our cooking has reached all the way into the living room,” Corelyn added. Jeff merely rolled his eyes.

Now, everyone, back to the kitchen.

As I heated the oil up for the doughnuts, I realized that the candy thermometer we have has a “doughnut” line to show you were to heat your oil up to.

Delightful. once the heat was up to temperature, the frying began. There are pictures of this too, so don’t worry your pretty heart.

After frying all the doughnuts (of which there must have been 30-40, easily) we looked at each other, the kitchen, and sighed. Mary had left during the frying, Scott had peaced once he put in his “man doughnut” (about 4 times the size of the little dainty doughnuts we were making) and Jeff had put the camera down and headed to the living room. We were left with the usual – a colossal mess. Luckily Corelyn is a dishwashing wizard, and we got most all the dishes cleaned and the flour washed off of most surfaces before calling it a night around 11:30.

Just another night here at Garlic, My Soul.

I said this to Corelyn last night as we RUSHED out of the door to Trader Joe’s and I said, “Remember that time that we went to TJ’s and forgot our list?”

“Yes, we talk about it nearly every time we go to TJS, obviously it was traumatic.”

“Well yes, and we were rushing for some reason….”

“WE’RE ALWAYS RUSHING.”

“Corelyn, all our friendship has been for the past 2 years is RUSHING. We just RUSH around all the live-long day.”

Last night was no exception. The plan was to do the following: paint chairs, make granola, exchange music (if we had time), maybe slap on a second coat of paint, outfit plan for the photo shoot on Sunday.

On the actual docket? Unexpected visit from Mary, which turned into outfit planning whilst waiting for dinner to arrive. This was a blessing (not in disguised, as Corelyn pointed out) because she had insight into what she really thought would look great. Also unexpected visit from Becca, who showed up because she was supposed to grab dinner with Mary. This turned into dinner with Mary and Becca, whilst hanging out with Melissa, who actually was supposed to come over.

This led us to a late start on our painting, which meant we painted the chairs in my garage in the dark, using a camping light and head lamps. Mary watched for a few minutes before turning to go inside and keep Becca company.

“How do they look?” Mary asked as we came in, about 30 minutes later.

“Well, you’re not going to like them. But we’ll put a second coat on them and they’ll look great,” was my honest response. After that, we sat around for a few minutes making plans for the granola we were about to make, waiting for the food. The Indian place we order from somehow was very late in getting us our food, so this led to us eating and finishing up around 9:15. Since our normal TJ’s closes at 9:00, we had to head to a different one.

As we were going to the car, after saying goodbye to Mary and Becca who were rejuvenated by delicious food and ready for another adventure, Melissa, Corelyn, and I were reminded a) how late it was b) that we had the list and c) all we do is rush.

We headed to TJ’s where we had a hilarious conversation with the check-out guy, “You know how there is always something in granola that you don’t like? This granola will have nothing you don’t like, because YOU made it.” He seemed intrigued. He gave us stickers. One has a chicken with chicks that are multicolored.

Then we went back to the house, when we realized it was 10:00. Perfect time to make granola and paint the second coat. We got everything ready for the oven to bake, then took the timer, the camping lamp, the headlamps, and headed back to the garage.

27 minutes later, we headed back inside, but not before Melissa came to say goodbye and tell us someone had left a hilarious note (which is going to be posted soon, I promise.) She headed home, and we headed inside to finish the granola.

As we washed our teal hands, we could smell the oats and maple syrup all deliciously roasted. We documented what we had already added, and then added a slew of other things while making sure to keep track of what we were adding. Pictures were taken, random splotches of paint were found on each other’s arms, and granola was finished. By the time Corelyn left it was nearly quarter to midnight. We hadn’t had a music exchange, we didn’t pack the kitchen, but other than that, we had accomplished a lot.

Tonight, book club. Tomorrow? Rinse and repeat Tuesday’s chaos with some donuts, muffins, and pancakes. Stay tuned.

As you may know, here at Garlic, My Soul we have a lot of pizza nights. Some of them are large – thirty of my closest friends, wandering around my apartment eating slices for four hours. Some of them are small – just Corelyn, Jeff, and me. Recently, we had an in-between pizza night with my friend K from the east coast, and a few other buddies. We were going to make one of our most common – and favorite – pizzas. One that we make when the CSA has been particularly full of chard. And we decided maybe you’d like to be in on one of the most delicious pizzas ever.

So here you have it: Swiss chard and caramelized onion pizza.

First take some Swiss chard, and if it’s from the farmer’s market or somewhere equally as dirty, rinse it to get any sand/soil off of it. I used about five big leaves of Swiss chard.

Then I somewhat julienned the chard. Remember that chard, like spinach, will wilt as it cooks, so it will be much smaller. Also, please take this moment to know that chard is one of them most nutritious vegetables around.

Meanwhile, take about a half of an onion (depending on your like of onions) and sauté it with about a half-tablespoon of olive oil. Let the onions cook until they’re almost caramelized (give them about 15 minutes) and then add the chard.

There is a skip to a photograph here, but basically you’re going to wait another 10 minutes or so while the chard reduces and the onions really have time to caramelize.

Now you’re ready to put it on a pizza. Some notes about our pizza:

* We make our own dough. PW has a recipe, but we’ve made up our own. Family secret, but here’s PWs.

* We also make our own sauce. Also family secret, but we start with TJ’s diced tomatoes (which we blend) and use a can of tomato paste, along with some spices. Play with your sauce recipe, or ask your closest Italian friend. You want your pizza sauce to be a little chunky, not too sweet, but not too acidic.

* We use TJ’s quattro formaggio for our cheese, topped with some parmesan-romano blend. We also usually add a little sea salt, a little oregano, and some basil.

*Then we add our toppings.We put the oven all the way up and usually our pizzas take about 10 minutes.

Look at that delicious pizza. And the best part? Even the boys that ate this liked it — they though the chard was spinach. Our secret. If you’d like more adventure, add goat cheese – it really adds another layer to the flavor!

Firstly, here are a few pictures from our journey through Whole Foods.

We got distracted by the bulk bins, and I tried not to a) eat directly out of them and b) grab a cup of each type of grain.

Next, Corelyn and I marveled at the delicious meat selection. I swear that normal people don’t salivate over raw foods as much as we do.

Look at all those meaty options!

We wanted to get some kind of meat for kabobs, but we didn’t know what kind of meat to get. We knew the bison was out — that’s not readily available to all people — and that lamb was just too cruel. So we just asked the meat man (butcher counter assistant? I don’t know the PC term these days…) and he suggested top sirloin. We told him we needed enough for 3-4 servings, so he got us a nice big piece, about a pound and a half of meat. Wonderful.

After we put the Bulgur Wheat in to chill, we started on the Kebabs. First, we had to come up with a spice rub. I let Corelyn handle this mostly, as she is better at combining spices, whereas I just mainly use a lot of one or two spices.

We used curry, cumin, ground mustard, oregano, orange peel, and paprika for blackening and a little spice. The junks you see here are actually pieces of garlic, of which we used two cloves, but I might suggest garlic powder on account of the fact that when you sear the meat the garlic just fell off.

Mmmm, delicious garlic.

Now, meanwhile, you take your roughly 1.5 pounds of meat, and you enjoy its aroma and the fact that you are soon going to be devouring it. You hold it up, you talk to it. You pose with it.

Then we cut it up into about two inch cubes. Good for skewering.

Then we rubbed the spices all up on the beef. Well, Cor did. I watched. I also facilitated in getting her a Parker bowl too small for the job, but instead of fixing it, I merely mentioned it as I handed her the bowl. But alas, it was too late, and so she made due with the small bowl and the large amount of steak.