Mmmm….Braaaaains.

Presented for your lunchtime consideration: Walnut Brains in Chocolate Skulls. Genius use of walnut!

From Street Anatomy:

These chocolate skulls with walnut/candy brains are genius and so well executed for such a small piece of chocolate!  They are hand-crafted by twin sisters from Spain, Ruth and Sira García Trigueros who also happen to run their own little design and illustration shop, Sparganum.

 

Mmmm….Braaaaains.
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Dining Out for Life

Dining Out for Life Minnesota is tomorrow – Thursday, April 28th.

Go out to any one of a gazillion and ten participating restaurants, and the restaurant donates a portion of your food bill to The Aliveness Project, a local nonprofit agency which each year serves one out of four people living with HIV/AIDS in Minnesota. The Aliveness Project offers an on-site hot meals program, food shelf, integrative therapies, case management, holiday baskets, HIV educational services.

I’m getting up early to have breakfast at Anodyne Coffeehouse in South Minneapolis before going in to work.


And for dinner I’m going to Joe’s Garage in Loring Park with a bunch of friends.

There’s an entire list of restaurants throughout Minnesota that are participating in Dining Out for Life.

Where are you eating?

Dining Out for Life

Cuzzy's Brick House Restaurant

My work group went out to lunch today, and I found another place that serves gluten-free pizza!

A wood-fired Brick House Pizza – Pepperoni, Sausage, bell peppers, red onions, mushrooms & black olives all served on a gluten-free crust.

For those of you used to paying top dollar for gluten-free alternatives at Pizza Luce (a small Classic costs $12.59. The same pizza with a GF crust is a whopping $5 extra at $17.59), Cuzzy’s Brick House is a breath of fresh, oregano-scented air. Their small Brick House (shown above and pretty much the same as Pizza Luce’s Classic) is $12.99, and they will sub in a GF crust at NO additional cost.

Cuzzy’s Brick House is located in Chaska, MN. It’s a bit of a haul if you’re coming from Minneapolis or the east suburbs (oooo..take THAT St. Paul!)  However, their menu is phenomenal and I could see making the occasional special trip out here with friends. Cuzzy’s is several steps up from your average soup, salad and burger joint. I mean sure, you can snag any number of variations of hotdog or cheeseburger if that’s what you’re craving, but they’ve also got appetizers like Portabella & Brie Bruschetta, pastas like the Butternut Squash Ravioli, entrees like the Cabernet Mushroom Chops and a desert menu that will add a couple of pounds to your bottom just from seeing it as the waitress carries the tray across the room.

Burgers and sandwiches run in the $8-10 range and the entrees are around $10-18. Their drink prices are reasonable, and the open, classy interior makes Cuzzy’s a great place to have happy hour. Also, I’ve been told that they throw a mean weekend bar night!

Cuzzy’s also has a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis (but doesn’t show pizza in the online menu), and The Victoria House in Victoria, MN is in the same family.

2880 Chaska Blvd., Chaska MN
website: http://www.cuzzys.com/
phone: 952.448.5594
email: [email protected]

Cuzzy's Brick House Restaurant

Cuzzy’s Brick House Restaurant

My work group went out to lunch today, and I found another place that serves gluten-free pizza!

A wood-fired Brick House Pizza – Pepperoni, Sausage, bell peppers, red onions, mushrooms & black olives all served on a gluten-free crust.

For those of you used to paying top dollar for gluten-free alternatives at Pizza Luce (a small Classic costs $12.59. The same pizza with a GF crust is a whopping $5 extra at $17.59), Cuzzy’s Brick House is a breath of fresh, oregano-scented air. Their small Brick House (shown above and pretty much the same as Pizza Luce’s Classic) is $12.99, and they will sub in a GF crust at NO additional cost.

Cuzzy’s Brick House is located in Chaska, MN. It’s a bit of a haul if you’re coming from Minneapolis or the east suburbs (oooo..take THAT St. Paul!)  However, their menu is phenomenal and I could see making the occasional special trip out here with friends. Cuzzy’s is several steps up from your average soup, salad and burger joint. I mean sure, you can snag any number of variations of hotdog or cheeseburger if that’s what you’re craving, but they’ve also got appetizers like Portabella & Brie Bruschetta, pastas like the Butternut Squash Ravioli, entrees like the Cabernet Mushroom Chops and a desert menu that will add a couple of pounds to your bottom just from seeing it as the waitress carries the tray across the room.

Burgers and sandwiches run in the $8-10 range and the entrees are around $10-18. Their drink prices are reasonable, and the open, classy interior makes Cuzzy’s a great place to have happy hour. Also, I’ve been told that they throw a mean weekend bar night!

Cuzzy’s also has a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis (but doesn’t show pizza in the online menu), and The Victoria House in Victoria, MN is in the same family.

2880 Chaska Blvd., Chaska MN
website: http://www.cuzzys.com/
phone: 952.448.5594
email: [email protected]

Cuzzy’s Brick House Restaurant

The Emperor's New Dinner

Soooo…here I am making dinner*. I’ve got some tilapia, I’m not really sure what I want to do with it** and so I’m looking for a jazzy new recipe online. I’m a very visual person when it comes to recipes – I want to see the finished product before I decide if I’m going to invest time and ingredients, hopes and dreams and all that. I’m thinking some wine, some capers and I come across this:

What the… Food photo cheat! And then I realized that it’s a Weight Watcher’s recipe, so maybe it’s some sort of new-fangled diet tilapia meal in which the portions are really, really, really small.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s how the real dinner turned out. I ended up throwing some garlic, salt, pepper, dried chives, “italian herbs”, red wine, olive oil, lemon juice, capers, green olives and  white onion in a bag, tossing it around a bit, then throwing the whole mess into the oven at 350F for 20 minutes. Nom nom nom. I made broccoli and cheater-rific Trader Joe’s pre-made risotto as sides. Nom nom nom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Cuz if there’s one thing we young things know how to do, it’s make some dinner.

**I mean, I know what I want to do with it; I want to eat it. I’m just not sure how I want to prepare it.

The Emperor's New Dinner

The Emperor’s New Dinner

Soooo…here I am making dinner*. I’ve got some tilapia, I’m not really sure what I want to do with it** and so I’m looking for a jazzy new recipe online. I’m a very visual person when it comes to recipes – I want to see the finished product before I decide if I’m going to invest time and ingredients, hopes and dreams and all that. I’m thinking some wine, some capers and I come across this:

What the… Food photo cheat! And then I realized that it’s a Weight Watcher’s recipe, so maybe it’s some sort of new-fangled diet tilapia meal in which the portions are really, really, really small.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s how the real dinner turned out. I ended up throwing some garlic, salt, pepper, dried chives, “italian herbs”, red wine, olive oil, lemon juice, capers, green olives and  white onion in a bag, tossing it around a bit, then throwing the whole mess into the oven at 350F for 20 minutes. Nom nom nom. I made broccoli and cheater-rific Trader Joe’s pre-made risotto as sides. Nom nom nom.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Cuz if there’s one thing we young things know how to do, it’s make some dinner.

**I mean, I know what I want to do with it; I want to eat it. I’m just not sure how I want to prepare it.

The Emperor’s New Dinner

Brainy White Elephant Exchange

Our office holiday party was yesterday, and it was pretty fabulous.

The party was held off-campus in the Snyder Building Auditorium of the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.  The room had a gigantic sloping ceiling and huge wood and glass chandeliers.  One of the organizers had made pretty centerpieces made of red-bark dogwood, pine tree braches and ribbon.

The food was really very good!  There was a lot of food that I was able to eat, even with the whole gluten-free deal-eo.  I had a mixed greens salad, grilled vegetables, caprese salad and chicken with capers, nom nom nom!  I had to pass on the orzo (Orzo is always frustrating.  I want to go to the cook and say “You picked rice-shaped pasta!  You meant to pick RICE!), the heavenly-smelling bread basket, and every single desert option, but after dinner I had some delicious apple cider with cinnamon sticks and was plenty satisfied. 

There were a few short speeches and recognition awards, and a drawing for door prizes that seemed relatively benign – T-shirts with the company logo, some gift cards, etc – until the big winner opened his plain cardboard box to reveal a frickin’ iPad!  Argh – so jealous!  Apparently our department received the iPad as part of a promotion for ordering a whole slew of HPLC columns that we needed anyway.  Order more!  Order more!  I need to do some chromotography on…uh…that dihydrogen monoxide over there (As an aside, this is the awesomest website on dihydrogen monoxide EVER)

Then came the event that I had been looking forward to for the whole week:  The WHITE ELEPHANT EXCHANGE!

I love white elephant exchanges because they’re humorous, slightly competitive and there’s always a chance you’ll walk away with something fun and exciting.  Just in case you haven’t heard of a white elephant exchange, this is how it works:

1) Find something around the house that can be re-gifted.  It can range from semi-nice (soaps collections, candles) to ugly (homemade ceramic fish) to very strange (huge green Hulk mitts that make growling sounds when you bash them together).  The odd gifts are usually the most fun.

2) Wrap the present and bring it to the party.  All of the presents go into a pile.

3) Everyone draws a number.

4) #1 goes to the pile and chooses a present.  He/She unwraps the present and displays it for all to see.

5) #2 may either choose a wrapped present from the pile, or may “steal” the present that #1 unwrapped.  If #2 steals, then #1 gets to choose a replacement present from the pile.

6) #3 may either choose a wrapped present from the pile, or may “steal” either of the other two already revealed presents.  If someone’s gift gets stolen, he/she may either choose a new present or steal a different unwrapped present.

And so forth and so on until everyone has a present.  Rules may vary.  Our White Elephant Exchange had a rule that any given present may only be stolen three times.  The person who got it on the third steal was safe; they could no longer have the present taken away.

We had 40 people participate, and there were some pretty silly and pretty decent presents in our pile.  On my first turn I chose a wrapped present.  It ended up being this ridiculous poker table/business card holder affair:

I figured that there was no way anyone would take this piece of crap present off of my hands.  I mean…who keeps paper business cards anymore?  But somewhere around #20 the big boss honcho took his turn.  He looked at all of the unwrapped presents and then said something to the effect of, “What department supervisor doesn’t need a good place to store business cards?  I’m stealing that poker table!”

Holy cow!  Hardly believing my good luck, I handed over the business card holder and rushed to the stack of presents.  I unwrapped a ~8″ wooden giraffe statue, which looked something like this:

Meh.  Whatever.  I could get down with a giraffe statue.  But just a couple of turns later, a coworker stole the giraffe, proclaiming that it would be perfect for his little cousin who just loves giraffes (note the plea to sympathy to try to avoid having it stolen later down the line).

That was a good steal for me, because in the intervening time someone has unwrapped…a BRAIN CANDLE!  It was beautiful with its gray, plump gyri and deep sulci, perhaps about the same size as adolescent human brain.  It did have a severely flattened cerebellum and a noticeable lack of the rest of the hindbrain, but I suppose it was shaped to sit on a flat surface, so I was willing to forgive the designer his or her artistic license.  Because, HELLO, it was a BRAIN CANDLE!

So I stole the brain candle and retreated to my corner, hoping that in the plethora of gifts available, no one would remember me and my little treasure.  Sadly, but not surprisingly, the candle was stolen a few rounds later.  After all, I was in a room full of nerdy scientists.  Despondent and bored with the opened presents I went back to the mystery gift pile.  I unwrapped a well-used, stained coffee cup/candle warming plate.

Crap!  Well, that was going in the garbage.  I’ve never owned nor wanted a warming plate, but I nodded, acknowledged my present and got back in line with everyone else.  In other news, there was some drama over a very nice set of pasta pots that had been stolen once or twice.  A few turns after I had drawn my lousy warming plate, the current holder of the pasta pots had them stolen from her.

Now whenever it was someone’s turn to choose between a wrapped gift and an already-opened gift, all of us who wanted to get rid of our crap presents would loudly market our wares to that person.  When the pasta pot-less women came over toward me I pitched my plate, “You could use it to cook pasta.  You know…if you used a very small pan.”  Amazingly, she took the bait!  I was free to choose another gift.

I was heading toward the pile of unopened gifts when inspiration struck.  “Hey!”  I turned toward the emcee.  “Can I steal a present that has already been stolen from me?”  After a  brief huddle I was given the okay.  I turned toward the brute who had so cruelly stolen the brain candle, raised my eyebrows and started sauntering in his direction.  He made a sound of protest and looked down at the brain candle, which he was protectively cradling in his hands.  He gave me a mock scowl, sniffed and handed it over.  

Bonus: This was the third steal – the brain was henceforth protected from other present thieves!  I returned to my seat with my new treasure, glowing with the excitement of having fought for and won my very own brain candle (and managing to weasel out of the other crap presents).

Brainy White Elephant Exchange

Not for the faint of tastebuds

Yeah, this had “I have a bad feeling about this” written ALL over it.

Me: Hey, what should I make for dinner tonight?  Hmmm…I love tacos, and I love crab meat – hey, I should combine the two!

Me to Myself: Ummm…are you sure you want to do that?  You might ruin perfectly good crab meat, or perfectly good taco seasoning mix.

Me to Me to Myself: But, I like fish tacos.  And I like shrimp tacos.  So crab tacos would probably be tasty.

Me to Myself: You’ve only eaten seafood tacos made by professionals.  In restaurants.  Have you ever attempted to make any sort of seafood taco with canned seafood meat?

Me to Me to Myself: No, but I have eaten canned crabmeat and it’s pretty tasty.  And how hard can it be to make seafood tacos?  It’s the same thing as beef or chicken tacos, except with seafood. 

Me to Myself: Have you ever used a pre-made taco mix on any seafood before?

Me to Me to Myself: Well, there was that one time with the shrimp…

Me to Myself: You were drunk, you don’t even remember what that tasted like.

Me to Me to Myself: True…

Me to Myself: Soooo?

Me to Me to Myself: You know what?  I’m going to try it anyway.

Some time later…add a little lettuce, tomato, a dab of sour cream.

Me:  Here we go!  Canned crab meat tacos! [eating commences – nom, nom, nom – a slowing of chewing, a hard swallow and a pause] Ugh… this is horrible!

Me to Myself: *sighs* You never trust me.

Me:  I hate you.  [Mumbled grumbling.  Chew.  Swallow.  Repeat.]

Not for the faint of tastebuds

Fresh Pesto and Tabouli

September 22nd marked the official first day of Fall, and I (admitted defeat, bidding a woeful adieu to summer) celebrated by cutting all of my basil, parsley and chives down to the ground.  When one has grown a ton of basil and parsley over the length of an entire summer, it only makes sense to prep some pesto and tabouli.  A few glances at the interwebs and a quick dash to the Wedge Co-Op for fresh tomatoes, garlic, green onions, some walnuts and quinoa, and I was ready to begin.

Pesto

First I made the pesto.  I stripped all of the leaves from the stalks and chopped the leaves using my mini Cuisinart food processor, then I chopped the walnuts, crushed the garlic and shredded the parmesan-reggiano.  I mixed everything in a big glass bowl and then added half a cup of olive oil.  That’s it!  It was lover-ly.  For more blow-by-blow, this is the recipe I used from Simply Recipes.

The big white pieces are broad, flat shreds of parmesan…mmm… A little pesto goes a very long way when mixed into pasta.

Tabouli

I used this recipe from greatpartyrecipes.com to make the Tabouli, but I made a couple of changes.   Instead of the gluten-containing bulgar I used quinoa, I skipped the mint because it was exorbitantly-priced, and I left the cucumber out because I somehow lost it between the checkout line and home, and I didn’t feel like going back out to buy another.

I started cooking the quinoa and then chopped the parsley – stems and leaves – in the food processor.  I diced tomatoes, minced the garlic, and sliced the green onions.  Once the quinoa cooled a bit, I mixed everything together and finally added the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

It was also lover-ly and simple.

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Afterwards, the kitchen looked like this.

I was done with cooking for the evening, so I threw a little of the extra quinoa on a plate, mixed in some pesto, added a side of tabouli and had a loverly (if quite herby) dinner.

Fresh Pesto and Tabouli