Archive for November, 2012
11 items.
More coffee comics from me and JT of Feisty Goat! I should disclose that he bribed me with a bag of his delicious coffee when we started this project, and they were wonderful, and they’d probably make an excellent holiday present for someone!
So there’s a part in Usual Suspects where Verbal tells Agent Kujan, “Back when I was picking beans in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee, right off the trees I mean. That was good.” I didn’t know much about coffee when I saw this movie for the first time, but even so I thought to myself, how could that be good? Wouldn’t coffee right off the trees be awful? Doesn’t it need to be processed and roasted and aged and things? That said, I’d love to see coffee plants in bloom. They look amazing, and I bet they smell great too.
We have a few more coffee comics up our sleeves for the next week or two, so stay tuned!
OH HEY now’s as good a time as any to mention that I have some nice things for sale at Shortpants Press and they could maybe make quite clever holiday presents for people that you know, provided those people are into comics about ghosts and dreams and prints of food type things. Also, next week I’m adding two more prints to the store! Very exciting.
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Today marks the start of a series of comics about how coffee is made! These are a collaboration between myself and JT Peifer of Feisty Goat Coffee, who’s been kind enough to write up very thorough material about how coffee’s produced, and also kind enough to send me a bag of delicious, delicious coffee beans.
I have long been a coffee enthusiast, but I confess I didn’t know much about it going into this. I had a feel for which blends I liked, but not much beyond that, so this will be pretty educational for me too.
PS! JT and I have been planning this series for a while, but last week I ran across this amazing piece about coffee from Dan Zettwoch! Isn’t it lovely?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Sorry this one is late. In all the chaos of putting a bunch of pork in a slow cooker for a few hours and playing video games all day yesterday, I completely forgot to draw a comic.
So since our families are far away, and Niles is so wiped out by Thanksgiving customers this time of year, we had a really low key day, made some tacos and guac, had a few people over, and watched copious amounts of Adventure Time. It was really pretty delightful. We may not do the big roast-turkey-and-cranberry thing, but I definitely have the fridge-stuffed-with-food-the-day-after thing.
Tako? Tacos!
So once again we’re staying put for the holidays, and having a little casual get-together for some other holiday orphans. We’ve got a fairly large pork roast in the freezer that I’m thinking will become a very nice pot of slow cooked tacos al pastor. I’ve never been a fan of traditional Thanksgiving food, and this is easier, so it suits me just fine. Although I actually think sensei was a bit disappointed I wasn’t doing the stereotypical American feast.
Speaking of Japanese class!! Remember the mystery soup? I got my hands on another box of it. The ingredients list reads: anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, basil and bay leaves. But I did a quick google search of the image and found a bunch of places selling it online! Still have no idea how to pronounce it, though.
Happy hunting!
OH. One more thing: I’m going to take updates down to two days a week instead of three. New comics will be Mondays and Fridays. You guys are okay with that, right? No one will think less of me?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
And with this, I’m wrapping up the pumpkin comics. I’m not tired of eating pumpkin, mind you! And this recipe sounds pretty amazing. If you want to be super ambitious, after panel four, split the batter into two; add the cocoa powder and chips to one half, and the pumpkin and spices to the other. Then you can layer them in the pan before baking, or swirl them together! Beckie recommends mixing it all together, though, and not just because it’s easier – the pumpkin puree thoroughly mixed throughout the brownie batter makes for some intensely moist and tender brownies.
These recipes seriously make me want to go out and get ten more winter squashes! Thanks for all your help, Beckie!
So, I had no idea that easy, quick microwave mug cakes were a thing until I saw this guest post on Lucy Knisley’s tumblr, by Lani Fernance. Since then I have made at least five mug cakes, because they are SO EASY.
I haven’t tried this one yet, but it seems like it’d be just delicious. It’s also a super easy recipe to convert to paleo and vegan. I still have a cup of the acorn squash I roasted left over, and it’s highly likely it will end up becoming toasty warm mug cakes!
PS. I’m tired of pumpkin recipes. I mean, I’m not really tired of pumpkin recipes, but I’m tired of using this color scheme. I’ll do one more pumpkin recipe! I’m thinking the pumpkin shrimp curry, how does that sound? Then we can move on with our lives.
Totally made this recipe this weekend! Beckie started with this recipe for reference. I roasted a small acorn squash and got at least two cups of puree out of it – probably a little more – and I only used a cup of it for this recipe, so I’ll have to decide which of Beckie’s recipes to try for the rest of it.
Anyway, this recipe is absolutely decadent and absolutely amazing. The squash/pumpkin adds such an interesting depth to the cheese flavor. Obviously you can use any cheese you want in it – we chose fontina because it melts so beautifully, and also because it’s a milder taste – I think a really sharp cheddar might fight with the flavor of the gourd you’re using. I sprinkled a little cheddar and parmesan on top with some breadcrumbs when we tossed it in the oven, though.
Of course it helps that the only dijon mustard we have in the house is infused with black truffles (from the JDY Gourmet sale!) Even just two teaspoons of it accent the whole dish so well. Such a little bit of truffle goes such a long way!
More pumpkin adventures! Beckie says she started this one with this recipe, and altered it a little. She says you can use a little flour or even some crushed almond to thicken the sauce if you need to.
Again, I haven’t tried these recipes yet, but I do have an acorn squash languishing away in the kitchen. Maybe it needs to get roasted this weekend and turned into some fettuccine!
Ok! Let’s get these pumpkin recipes started. Here’s the recipe for pumpkin smoothies, which sounds amazingly delicious to me. It’s based pretty closely on this recipe, with a few suggested substitutions. This would be a pretty easy recipe to make vegan, you guys! Also, Beckie says it was a big hit with her kids!
Keep in mind I haven’t made any of these yet – maybe I’ll roast some pumpkin this weekend and try these out…
So Beckie’s been taunting me on Facebook with pictures of all the wonderful things she’s doing with her pumpkins. She lives in Texas, so it’s not even like I can run over to her house and taste test any of these things. O Cruel Fate!
Apparently at one point during the chain of pumpkin recipes, Beckie’s youngest was marching around saying “Happy pumpkin to you, happy pumpkin to you!”
Fortunately she’s very nice about sharing recipes. Do you guys want any of the recipes for these things? Maybe we’ll do a few of Beckie’s recipes here?
