Welcome to the Funki Baker's kitchen!

It's a twister! It's a twister!

2010-06-27T00:13:00.008-04:00

So I haven't posted in a while because we had a tornado!!

Well, mostly I haven't been posting because I haven't been cooking, but also, we had a tornado. It came down our street, even, but it didn't even touch our house. And I was so disappointed because I LOVE The Wizard of Oz. Honestly, I am so bummed, because we can't afford a vacation this year and for a minute, I totally thought we were going to Munchkinland on a free flight.

Anyway, instead of picking up the house and transporting us to a magical land? The tornado knocked over a bunch of trees and powerlines and screwed up our internet connection and ripped up the beanpole in my garden and broke a lot of stuff up the street.

Hmph. Some twister.

So we're okay (although it took me hours to convince Grinder to come out of the basement) but we haven't really been on the internets for a while. And, um, well, I haven't been cooking.

Because it's hot.

And, um, I'm lazy.

But that's okay! My therapist says I need to forgive myself and move on. So I will be posting recipes soon because I missed you all, and, also, because we're out of cookies!!

I love it when he brings me flours!!

2010-06-17T23:44:00.012-04:00

So I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but I'm one of those gluten people. You know, the ones who can't eat gluten or wheat or stuff. I'm not a Celia. Just allergic. Like you know, some people are allergic to cats, and some people are allergic to plants, and some people are allergic to springtime?

Well, I'm allergic to gluten, but it's not as easy to get away from as cats are. A cat you can put in the closet or something.* Gluten's not that easy. It's in everything!! Bread, pizza, cupcakes, soy sauce, beer, the wafer at church. People love gluten and I can't have it.

But it's okay, because I've been allergic for a long time and I know what I can eat now. Like, it used to be so bad, I didn't eat potatoes (because I thought there was gluten in them - duh!) and I only ate gross foods, because I didn't think gluten-free stuff was good. My mom is still afraid to cook anything for me because she's afraid I'll die at the dinner table (and that would be the worst after-dinner clean-up ever.)

But anyways, there are flours that aren't made with gluten! And today, Grinder went out to the store and got me some more flours!!

And oooh, I've never seen these before, actually. He brought me purple corn flour and pea flour (that's gotta be like the chickpea flour, right?) and the coolest one: banana flour! I can't wait to use this one.

We'll have to see what my muse cooks up! What a good husband, right? Every girl should have a man bring them flours!!

* No cats were put in the closet during the typing of this blog.

Chickpea cookies!

2010-06-16T00:18:00.010-04:00

So I know I posted last night but here's the recipe. It's soo easy and with the chickpea flour and the yogurt, it's almost healthy. It's like eating a vegetable, only with a lot of butter and sugar! (And that's the best way to eat vegetables!! Who said being a vegan couldn't be fun?)
Anyway. I'm adding this post as part of Wanderfood Wednesday, because the nice lady over at Wanderlust and Lipstick asked me to add a post. I don't like it when my food wanders, so I wasn't going to do it, but then, I saw that her site has to do with going to other countries. So that's okay.

I don't wander really far (Grinder gets nervous if he can't see the house) but my ingredients do, sometimes! I got the chickpea flour (or besan flour) from the Indian store near our house. I was hoping that we'd get buffalo meat and stuff in there - but oopsie - not that kind of Indian. But they had great food! I got a big bag of the besan flour because I was so excited - but then I didn't know what to do with it. So I decided to make cookies, because cookies make everything better. The best thing? They're gluten-free!! So if you're a Celia, you can eat them!

UPDATE: I have a video on them up on YouTube, too, but definitely go by the recipe below. It's just better.

Chickpea cookies!
2 1/2 cups of chickpea flour
1 stick of butter (or you could do half a stick of butter and half a cup of pureed pumpkin or applesauce. That will make it less fatty)
1 egg
1 cup of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
dash of salt
1 c. of yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla

1) Preheat your oven to 300 F.

2) Melt the butter.

3) Beat the egg, the sugar and the butter (or applesauce or pumpkin) until its sticky and pasty.

4) Sift all the dry ingredients together (but not too hard, or you'll get it all over the kitchen!

5) Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and blend until smooth.

6) Beat in the yogurt and the vanilla

7) Grease a cookie sheet and dust with besan flour

8) Use a spoon, and make piles two inches wide of batter like this:
9) Bake for 20 minutes!! (or until they they rise and get a little brown around the edges.)

20) Eat!

Hiya! (And chickpea cookies!!)

2010-06-14T23:50:00.005-04:00

Hiya!

Just wanted to say hi to everybody because it's been forever since I posted. Well, okay. It's been since Thursday but that's like forever in Internet years. I just finished making my chickpea cookies and they're really good.

I was really surprised, because actually, even though I know vegans eat chickpeas and other beany-type things, I hate chickpeas almost as much as I hate lettuce. But guess what? If you add a stick of butter, everything tastes better!

I'm going to get the recipe and pictures up soon and I might make a video, but right now I have to go. I was so excited that I sifted all over the kitchen and now I have to clean it up.

Ooh, also? I made lettuce soup again and instead of wasabi (we know what that does to us now) I put in cayenne pepper and that was just as good. I actually caught Grinder eating it. But he pretended that he was throwing it out. But I totally saw him eating it, so he can't fake me out.

G'night!!

Lettuce slaw!

2010-06-10T21:35:00.006-04:00

Oh, wow. Now that FoodPorn is following me on Twitter, I wish I took a picture of the lettuce-slaw. But it was so good I ate the whole thing. So no picture for FoodPorn this post.

That's okay, though, because I think porn's illegal anyway.

Anyways, here' s my recipe for lettuce slaw! It was really easy to make. In the video, which is sorta kinda up on YouTube, I was able to make it and keep my cats from fighting all at the same time! I couldn't have done that with the lettuce soup. And like I said in my last post, I got the sauce from Mark Bittman's big yellow cookbook. But I changed it a little, and it was good, which surprised me because usually, I think, coleslaw is really gross. At least in diners it is. They give it to you in that nasty little paper cup and it's all soggy and ewww.

But this totally isn't gross! Try it out!

Lettuce-slaw!

Like, about a head of lettuce (maybe a little more.)
1/2 cup of scallions
3 carrots
2 tablespoons Grey Poupon or other fancy mustard
2 tablespoon cooking sherry (don't drink it. It's not very good.)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon celery seeds
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper

1) Chop up the lettuce really small, (so it looks like that crinkly paper that people put in Easter baskets, you know, the green stuff) and chop up the scallions and grate the carrots.
2) Mix all the vegetables together.
3) In another bowl, mix the mustard and the sherry together, then put in the sugar and celery seeds. Then whisk in the oil a little at a time. (I don't know why not all at once, but that's what Mr. Bittman says).
5) Put the sauce in with the vegetables and toss them all together.
6) Add salt and pepper and put the whole thing in the fridge and leave it there! You want to to be a little mushy, so it looks like slaw and not like salad.

Serves, um, well, like I said before, in my house, it serves one.

Hope you like it! I do. It gives me something new to do with all my lettuce.

Bye!!

Just sayin' hi, and oopsie - got to give credit to Mr. BIttman.

2010-06-10T08:30:00.006-04:00

Hi!

Hope everybody is doing good today. I really wanted to have my lettuce-slaw recipe up by now, but it's taking sooo long for the video to go up today. It's been like, hours. Anyway, if the video doesn't go up soon, I'm going to put the recipe up here. It turned out really good. Because at first? It was all dry and stuff and it was exactly like a little salad, and that's no good. But then, after a couple hours in the fridge, it got mushy and delicious. Real cole slaw, only just without the cole!

I gotta say though, I took the recipe for the dressing from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything cookbook and changed it just a very teeny bit. So that's not really mine. You all know how I feel about cookbooks (cookbook writers are always talking about measurements and stuff. How can you hear you spiritual guide when you're counting?) but that' s good cookbook and I don't want to rip off Mr. Bittman. After all, I follow him on Twitter and that means we're almost like friends.

Bye for now!
-Funki

Pea Salad! The best kind of salad! (Because there's no lettuce)

2010-06-08T20:54:00.005-04:00

Hiya - I'm just uploading my newest video to YouTube! We made a couple of videos today, but the smoothie one was hard. I couldn't hear my muse, and the rice milk was all icky, and there was cat fur all over and anyway, it's not going up for a while.

But one of my favorite recipes is!!

This is pea salad and it's really, really easy. Even Grinder could do it, well, he could if he ate vegetables. And you know what? The other reason I like this recipe is because it really IS vegan! (Yay!) And almost all the ingredients come from the yard, which is good, because I'm not allowed in the supermarket anymore.

Here's the recipe.

Pea Salad

As many sugar snap peas as you can get out of the garden. For me that's like, a cup. Leave the shells on. (They're sorta gross without the shells.)
A handful of mint
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

1) Fill a small pan with water and add some salt. Put it on a burner at high heat.
2) Add your sugar snap peas to the water, cover, and set the timer for two minutes.
3) While your peas are boiling, chop the mint up and put it in a bowl with lemon juice, salt and pepper and the balsamic vinegar. Put that in the fridge.
4) When the timer goes off, rinse the peas in cold water and then put them in the fridge too!
5) Before serving, combine the mint mixture with the peas. It's so good!

In my house, this serves one, because I'm the only one who eats it! Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Oh, I almost forgot! I'm on Facebook and Twitter now too! Everything is all linked up, so you can find me anywhere. I just found myself on Google. Wow. I found myself. And I've been looking for ages.

Oopsie: Wasabi powder.

2010-06-08T08:29:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I didn't know this, but wasabi powder? It goes bad!

Grinder and I aren't feeling too good, so I Googled wasabi and oopsie!

I used wasabi that my roommate gave me when she moved out, like three years ago. Actually she went to jail and I had to sell all her stuff, but I kept the wasabi.

Should have sold that, too. I guess you're not supposed to keep wasabi for more than 18 months. That makes me sad, because I have to dump out the rest of my soup, and I like my soup. : (

I know that maybe it's not a good idea to tell all you all on a cooking blog that Grinder and I have the gollywobbles because of our first recipe, but I think we have to tell you this. After all, I love you all and don't want you to get the scoots, too!

Golly! Gotta run!

Lettuce soup - waaaaay better than salad! (Eww)

2010-06-07T20:46:00.000-04:00

I hate lettuce. I wish that I liked it, but really, I'd rather have a candy bar. But because I really want to be a vegan, I planted a bunch of lettuce in the yard this year. I thought maybe it would be better if it came out of our own lawn, right? Well guess what? I still hate it!

But now I have a lot of lettuce.

So I decided to make lettuce soup!!

I made up the recipe for the soup while Grinder and I were making the YouTube videos. I changed it a little bit after we were done, based on Grinder's reaction and input from my cooking muse, so there's more yogurt and more wasabi in this recipe. Check it out!

Lettuce soup!

About 1 to 1 and a half heads of lettuce (Eww.)
A handful of strong-tasting herbs, like mint, or thyme. I like to throw in grass clippings. Whatev!
Half a cup of scallions or green onions, or anything oniony.
Three crushed and mint cloves of garlic
5 cups of water
A big potato
2 tablespoons of olive oil (We used lemon, but it doesn't matter.)
2 tablespoons of wasabi powder
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2/3 cup of non-fat greek yogurt
salt and pepper (because they go in everything.)
cat fur, to taste (but that's optional.)

1.) Chop up the lettuce into thin strips, about the size of pregnancy tests, and chop the herbs and the scallions.
2.) Heat a medium-sized pot over the stove, and put in the olive oil. Sprinkle a little salt in there so it gets hot! Turn the heat to medium high and put in the scallions and stir them until they get clear.
3) Add the garlic and stir for like, two more minutes then add the five cups of water.
4) Add the potato and turn up the heat. Cover and cook until it boils. Turn heat down and simmer for 10 minutes.
5) Now put in your lettuce! Cover and cook 7 more minutes. Then put in your herbs and cook for a few minutes more.
6) Now add your lemon juice and wasabi! Stir well and turn off the heat. You'll have to cool the soup down before you can put it in the blender.
7) Now the FUN part! Ladle the cool soup into the blender and BLEND! Blend it so it's good and, um, blended.
8) Then put everything back in the pot and put on the stove on low heat. When it's warm taste, to make sure it doesn't taste like lettuce (yuck.) If it does, adjust your seasonings. Go out, get more grass clippings - anything - just change the taste.
9) Whisk in your yogurt.
10) Serve!

Serves how ever many people you can get to eat it!

Hope you like it!

Welcome to the Funki Baker's kitchen!

2010-06-07T19:56:00.000-04:00

Hiya! I'm the Funki Baker, and this blog is my dream come true! Ever since a little girl with an Easy Bake oven I've always wanted to have a cooking show! And ever since I first made microwave popcorn and PopTarts, I always wanted to share my recipes.

I love food. I love to eat it, and write about it, and cook about it, and eat it. Recently, I left my job, which was very food-based — I was a checkout girl at the supermarket! But I got fired. I can't say why and I can't say which supermarket it was; the manager tells me that's a no-no. But that's okay, because now I get to write this blog and share some of my own recipes with you.

Maybe I will get famous for them someday. You never know - it worked for that Julie-Julie person!

I also have a YouTube account. I like to think of it as having my very own Food Network! Here's my first post:

I hope you like it. I will be back with my recipes!