Bo Concept Sleeper Ottoman

The Bo Concept Sleeper Ottoman, in a stylish black and white print pattern, featured today on Apartment Therapy, is THE small space solution for anyone who regularly has guests from out of town often, or even for someone who wants to fold up their bed during the day and hide it away in a corner.

On the one hand, this thing costs as much as my large blue sofa, but on the other hand, it is 100x more intelligent than my sofa, so it is totally okay. If only it came with other covers...

Veg*n Brunch: Saba Pasta

I cannot believe that I've never written about the veg*n brunch at Saba. Let me say right off the bat that I don't like the actual food that Saba serves Monday-Friday. I've never really had anything there that struck me as terribly successful, and I still miss Burrito Art, which is what occupied the Village location before Saba. Generally, when I want to go to this kind of pasta place, I go to Figo.

That said, they have amazing brunch. I happened to have it when they took us there for a grad school interview weekend, and I've been back nearly every Sunday since then. The menu has a lot of options--omelettes, French toast (including a vegan version), biscuits (vegan and non), and a bunch of other things. What I usually get is the Scrambled Tofu plate. For $5.95, you basically get a very large amount of protein: a big serving of scrambled tofu, 2 soysage patties, a biscuit, and grits. The scrambled tofu is cubes of fried tofu (not that mushy stuff they serve at Crescent Moon), in tamari sauce with roasted red peppers and broccoli. It alone is the reason I eat brunch at Saba. The biscuits are also very good (vegan and non, I've tried both). Saba is the only place that gets me to actually eat grits. I find them very creamy and filling there.

The way the "plates" work is that you choose 1, 2, or 3 eggs however you like them OR the tofu scramble, and you get your choice of: wheat toast OR biscuit, grits OR potatoes, and bacon, sausage OR soysage. A very large amount of food for under $6.

Service: Saba is one of those places, so popular now in the city, where you order at the window but get tableside service for the rest of your meal. I've found that the service was better at the Village location than the Decatur square location, where I went yesterday for the first time. Decatur seemed to not get a lot of brunch guests, as I was the only person in the restaurant for the first half of my meal. It makes sense though, because the square has so many other brunch places that no one would think to go eat at the new brunch place.

The food tasted exactly the same as the other location. The only complaint I had was that it took forever for my grits to come out, and I almost didn't think they were going to because the waitress never mentioned it. In fact, I had finished my whole meal before they came out, but I didn't mind so much because it meant that I ate less of them and that I had a really nice end to my meal. I attributed the lateness of the grits to the fact that they had to make a portion just for me, since no one else was there.

I actually very much prefer the decor in the Decatur location, now that I have seen it. They seem to have ordered these large red wooden chairs en masse, and used them not only at the tables, but to decorate the restaurant by hanging a few from a wall. This works very well with the brick wall on one side, that the restaurant shares with Birdi's, and the other rustic art that adorns the space. The tables are large and spacious, and there is even a very large "family style" table in the middle of the restaurant, perfect for large groups. I'd be willing to give the real food there a try sometime just because I think the place looks nice, so that says something.

Nature's Path Organic Instant Hot Oatmeal

I don't even like oatmeal usually. It makes me so hungry after like 30 minutes, unless I eat a heavy protein right before it. Recently, though, I was making a care package for a friend and decided to include a few packets of Nature's Path Organic Instant Hot Oatmeal. I kept a few packets for myself and ate them for breakfast. Eventually, when I ran out of it, I got so grumpy that I drove to a far away store just to buy it, even though I'd recently been grocery shopping.

It is amazingly satisfying and delicious. The oatmeal, which only takes about a minute to cook in the microwave, is topped with cinnamon, soy nuts, flax seeds, and dried blueberries. It is barely sweet, but smooth and creamy, especially with a bit of added soy milk. It is also vegan and fully organic. It could use some more protein, but the overall carb content is relatively low considering that it is oatmeal.

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Green eggplant tofu curry with ginger quinoa

This dish was inspired by my visit to Amaryn last week. I have never used Chinese eggplant in a dish other than Chinese garlic eggplant, so it was a lot of fun to cook. The recipe makes a lot and will probably feed about 8 people. It is bright, summery, creamy, sweet, and spicy comfort food.

Green eggplant tofu curry

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil
2 Serrano chillies, seeded
1 can coconut milk (use lite if you prefer)
2 Tbsp sweet chili sauce
1 tsp coriander, ground
1 tsp cumin, ground
2 Tbsp minced garlic
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 Chinese eggplants
1 Tsp oil
1 lb tofu, drained and sliced however you like it
1/2 cup bean sprouts (I use mung bean)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Wash and slice the eggplant into rounds. Place in a colander on a plate, sprinkle with salt, and leave in sunlight for about 20 minutes. The salt draws the bitterness out of the eggplant and helps it cook. There should be darkish liquid in the plate as a result. Wash the eggplant when it is done and let drain.
2. Heat oven to 250F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange eggplant slices on baking sheet, drizzle with oil, and season with salt and pepper. Roast eggplant until ready, about 30 minutes.
3. To make the curry paste: combine chillies and basil in a blender or food processer (I used my immersion blender's milkshake cup attachment). Pulse until roughly chopped. Add a bit of coconut milk and blend until well-combined. Add cumin, coriander, and chilli sauce. Blend again, adding a bit of coconut milk if it helps. Place this mixture and the remaining coconut milk in the refrigerator.
4. Saute the chopped bell pepper and garlic over medium heat with a bit of oil. Deglaze the pan with the unused coconut milk. Add the curry mixture and stir.
5. In a hot man, sear the tofu on all sides. When finished, place in the curry mixture.
6. Remove eggplant from oven. Place slices in curry mixture to cook on low heat while you cook the quinoa.
7. Garnish with some lime, bean sprouts, and basil.

Ginger quinoa
1 cup quinoa, uncooked
1 cup vegetarian chicken-style stock
2 Tbsp ground ginger
salt and pepper to taste

1. Clean quinoa by soaking and removing junk pieces.
2. Bring the stock and ginger to a boil and add quinoa, stirring frequently.
3. Cook until fluffy. Season as you like. Serve with the curry.

Small space solution: C&B Convertible Compact Desk

The Crate and Barrel Convertible Compact Desk is the most logically intelligent piece of furniture that I've seen all year. In one form, it is simply a nice wood file cabinet, and in another, it features a pullout desk and storage area on the left for supplies and a laptop. This is the perfect small space solution for anyone who uses their living or dining room for both entertainment and work. It isn't a bad price either, at $499, for what you get. Made of a mix of solid and engineered woods, it has a pretty nice finish and even space for cords!

Base jumping off of wind turbines

Wind is my favorite kind of alternative energy. I also like to watch extreme sports, and this is the coolest combination of the two ever.

From the Huffington Post.




Once, a fellow airplane passenger told me about his engineering job, which is to design giant kites that pull oil tankers across the ocean. Apparently, fueling oil tankers takes quite a bit of energy, so the purpose of the kites is to make the process of transport more fuel efficient. The same guy told me that he does all of these extreme sports involving kites connected to road bikes and various things, which at certain speeds lift the vehicle off of the ground into the air. So awesome.

Water crisis

As many of you may know, Atlanta has been in a pretty severe drought for over a year. My county has all sorts of rules for the outdoor use of water, and a lot of people I know have started to adapt their water usage habits to conserve water. This is a really good example of resource scarcity forcing ingenuity and a shift to other lifestyles (one that I hope will also result from the high gas prices, but we will see).

One really interesting exemption from outdoor water usage is for reclaimed wastewater. This can mean a lot of things, but the most common are:

• Placing a bucket in the shower to collect water from washing your hair, etc. and using it to water your lawn or plants.
  
• Placing a bucket under the sink, with the pipe opening into it, to catch wastewater and use it as toilet water (that one is a little hardcore, admittedly)
• Catching rainwater in a barrel that then waters the lawn or your flower beds

These things all take a bit of adjustment, so in the meantime you may just install a more efficient showerhead, a dual-flush toilet, or use laundry detergents that allow you to decrease the amount of water you use.

What do you do to save water?

Another thing that I've had to deal with recently is that one of the water processing plants for my area lost power yesterday, and now we cannot bathe, cook with, or drink any tap water unless it is boiled first. I don't like using bottled water at all, especially now that I've switched to a Brita filter, but having to use it for washing veggies is just sort of ridiculous. Hopefully the water will get clean soon. I will say though--I really appreciate the convenience that water sanitation brings to my life.

Clocks from Uncommon Goods and bonus DIY tutorial

I am very aesthetically drawn to clocks, especially large ones with things
like pendulums or brightly colored hands. In practice, though, many of the more conventional ones, such as the CB2 Metropolis Wall Clock, remind me of those schoolroom clocks that I hated so much.

Fortunately, Uncommon Goods has an amazing selection of interesting clocks made from recycled and re-purposed materials.

The Tin Man clock is one of many metal-object creations that, despite their monochromatic color palette, would really stand out in both very colorful and black-and-white rooms.

The Infinity Clock is designed with large amounts of negative space in mind. Though the clock portion only takes up roughly 1 square foot, the hands extend beyond the base, and at certain times of day, break up the negative space that is the rest of the wall.

The most interesting and eye-catching clocks, though are these three, made of re-purposed cameras:



They are, in order, the Vintage Box camera clock, the Vintage Viewfinder clock, and the Vintage Flash Camera clock.

These got me thinking that a clock can be made out of any old item that you feel is worthy of being mounted on a wall or displayed on a table. This simple tutorial from the DIY Network shows you how to make your own clock using a simple kit from a craft store.

There are a lot of cool objects that I can think of that would be good for this purpose. I am thinking of painting a clock background onto a canvas and installing the clock in the middle of it.

DIY home decor

I am on a pretty small decorating budget, and given that I don't like most of the decorative items that I see in catalogues (or cannot afford the ones I love), I made some of my own.

One wall art idea that I had was to take pretty tissue paper from a recent purchase at Anthropologie and frame it with large Ikea Clips frames. The pattern is bleached white leaves and branches on blue paper, and it goes really well with my red sideboard, which you can see in some of the other pictures. Because tissue paper is cheap and thin, it is VERY easy to frame.



Another project I may undertake soon is to use the Ikea canvas framing kit to frame some pretty fabric. I can't find it on the website right now but I definitely saw it in the store yesterday.


The other major project I've worked on is finding and making decorative pillows for my bright, cornflower blue couch. All of the pillows that I found were either too expensive (who pays $50-100 for a pillow!?!?!) or not of the right color palette. Yesterday, out of desperation, I went to a fabric store to see if it would be less expensive to make my own. It was so much less expensive, in fact, that the cost of my supplies was less than one pillow that I was going to buy on Etsy for $22. Not only that, but I have an extra yard or so of fabric left over to make other things for around the house (or a cool skirt maybe?).

Here is the evolution of my decorative pillows. First, I sewed the covers. I don't have a sewing machine so this is all by hand. The fabric is canary yellow twill (kind of like the material that khaki pants are made of) and the filling is a down alternative because I'm allergic to down.


Here you can kind of see the brightness of my primary colored-living room, heightened by the addition of this pillow:


I decided to sew on some buttons before finishing up.




The finished product:



Now, if only I could find something for the wall behind that couch.

Amaryn Thai Noodle Bowl, Decatur

Amaryn Thai Noodle Bowl is sort of like Doc Chey's, except that they have the best coconut curry that I have ever tasted. It is perfectly spiced and perfectly sweet, with a generous helping of noodles, and very very good tofu. There was probably 3/4 lb. of tofu in my dish, the Spicy Eggplant curry.




I also had this beautiful Thai ice tea, which the picture really doesn't do justice. The tea was a gorgeous amber color, and the milk, when mixed in, made it so creamy and delicious. As always, it had that great floral essence that I love about this drink.

Overall, a good go-to place when you don't feel like cooking.

Taqueria del Sol, Decatur

Taqueria del Sol is a local favorite, with several locations around the city. My favorite one is just down the street--it is bright and airy, and utilizes my favorite color palette: white, yellow, and blue. Despite being housed in an old gas station, the restaurant makes great use of space. The seating area is in the "garage," but has been opened up on both sides, so that there is only a ceiling and two walls. The other walls are open to the outside air, and overhead ceilings keep the breeze moving. One of my favorite things to do is sit in Taqueria on a warm afternoon and listen to the sound of the wind going through the restaurant.

The food is excellent (cheap, fancy tacos, very good side dishes, enchilladas), but you should get there early to avoid having to stand in line outside.

New from West Elm

This fall, West Elm is changing my mind about two room accessories I usually hate: pleated lampshades and mass-produced art.

The Pleated Shade Table Lamp is a great balance of the modern and antiquated. In fact, I never thought that I would like anything with pleates quite this much, but the lines on this lamp are thick and superb. Also available as a floor lamp.



Wall Art inserts are also the last thing I would usually ever consider putting in my apartment (see Walter Benjamin). These are NOT your typical cookie-cutter hotel room wall hangings. They are fresh, cute, and most importantly, affordable. You could easily decorate for about $40. Thanks, West Elm!

Carbon Offsets

Carbon Offsets are essentially eco-friendly services you can buy from various companies to offset the amount of greenhouse gases and other environmentally unfriendly waste you produce each year. Most, if not all, of these qualify as charitable contributions that you can deduct from your taxes.

I'd like to start buying offsets this year, but I have a few concerns:

-Am I getting ripped off? How transparent can any company actually be about how much they are doing based on your contribution. I guess all those rip-off charities have made a bad name for the good ones, but one cannot help but wonder.

-Is it going to be an excuse for me to not do more on my end to consume less energy? This is a valid concern because, while it is nice to be able to pay someone to take the CO2 I produce out of the air, maybe if I am producing so much I should suffer the consequences and just turn on the AC less. I'm not one of those people, though, who thinks we should abandon capitalism and live off the grid. A little smart capitalism like carbon offsets is better than no offsets at all, right? And it isn't as if I can go out and build a wind turbine or plant a grove of trees all by myself.

-What unintended environmental consequences may result from offsets? Anyone who has done any research on renewable energy development knows the politics and controversy surrounding the efficacy of these methods.

Do any of you buy carbon offsets? If so, what companies or organizations do you use and why?

Intelligent design: Joseph Joseph

Joseph Joseph is a British design company focusing on kitchenwares with intelligent uses and storage.

Their folding colander has made a number of web appearances. It flattens to store easily with the rest of your cutting boards and things.




Speaking of cutting boards, the Dual boards are incredibly space saving and useful. One side (wood) for dry things, the other side (plastic) for wet. They could be a little bit less expensive, but they sure are pretty.



The best item in the catalogue is actually still being developed. Nest is a collection of mixing bowls, measuring cups, a colander, and a juicer that stack perfectly together. They are so fun and colorful that they make me want to abandon all of these things presently existing in my kitchen in favor of one of these sets. Talk about intelligent design.

Check out the details at Dwell Magazine.

Heliotrope, Decatur

This is the first of a series of green design posts. I have a few articles in the works, but I'm waiting for my custom-made coffee table to come in and my apartment to be photo-ready before I finish them.

Today, I want to talk about one of my favorite stores, Heliotrope. Its kind of like a toy store for adults, where you can find cool housewares, furniture, and quirky fun things. They have a good selection of earth-friendly goods, including picture frames made of sustainable wood, soy candles, and re-usable shopping bags.

Here are a few things I found today:



The Artala Can is a biodegradable trash can. The sticker on the inside says that it completely degrades in a landfill. I kind of think that if these weren't so planet-happy, they'd still be really hot. Also available in Red and Ocean.




The Ada Occasional Chair is perfectly proportioned, modern in design, and comes in a really pretty blue-on-grey fabric. I'm going back next Friday, when they have their big sale, to buy one, because it would be the perfect addition to my (modern-in-form and vintage-in-color-palette) living room.

DIY Room deoderizer sachets/bug repellants

I've been trying to bug-proof my apartment lately in the greenest way possible. With all of the spiders that I try to repel or kill, constantly inhaling Raid will probably eventually kill me. Instead, I developed the following sachets, which also keep my rooms smelling fresh and floral.

What you need:

Unbleached tea bags*
Baking soda
Dried lavender**

How to assemble them:
1. Open tea bag.
2. Using a spoon, put about 1-2 Tbsp of baking soda inside tea bag.
3. Put another 1-2 Tbsp of dried lavender inside tea bag, as well.
4. Hold the open end closed and shake up to mix
5. Fold the top of the teabag over and insert the other end to lock. Alternatively, you can sew these up or twist and tie with a ribbon.

I put these in various corners around the apartment, but you can also put them in a decorative dish, under the sink, above the stove (to catch cooking odors), or even in the refrigerator.

*The empty kind that you fill with your own loose tea--I get mine at the local farmer's market. I'm sure Whole Foods and similar stores have them, as well. Use the kind made of paper, not cheese cloth-type material because you don't want the flowers and baking soda to fall through.
**You can experiment with different flowers. I buy these in bulk and they are known to repel spiders, so I chose to go with them.

French toast with nutter butter and blueberry compote

I'm allergic to peanuts, so I missed out on years of gooey, sticky-mouthed goodness until I discovered soynut butter. To me, because I don't know any better, it is just like the real thing, but most people think it is good in its own right.

As I was planning my meals for today, I realized that I was only left with 3 slices of bread. I'd been planning on having French toast with blueberry compote (see previous post) for breakfast, and a soynut butter and blueberry compote sandwich later in the day. Instead, I combined them all into one meal. The recipe is easily veganized if you use the French toast recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance instead of mine.

French toast with nut butter and blueberry compote
Serves: 1

For the French toast:
3 slices of multigrain bread
2 whole large eggs
Vanilla extract
Oil for frying

1 Tbsp nut butter of your choice (I used no sugar added soynut butter)

For the blueberry compote:
1.5 cups fresh blueberries
2 tsp arrowroot
2 tsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp sugar

1. Beat eggs in a bowl. Add a dash of vanilla extract.
2. Place bread in bowl and allow to soak.
3. Heat frying pan on medium-high heat with oil. Place bread slices in frying pan and fry until done on both sides.
4. Spread each slice of French toast with nut butter.

To prepare the blueberry compote:
1. Combine all of the ingredients over medium heat.
2. Crush blueberries and stir mixture until it simmers for several minutes. It will begin to thicken. Take off of heat and drizzle over French toast.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Lemon Creme Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World!

I have been eyeing these cupcakes since I got the book. The Lemon-Blueberry combination is one of my favorites, especially because I like very tart flavors. This cupcake really delivered, and is perfect for summer--not very sweet at all (the entire recipe used a grand total of 2 cups of sugar, I think, which, while it is diabetes waiting to happen, is much less than the other recipes).

The best part of this recipe was making the blueberry compote, which I have many plans for the remainder of. This morning, I had some in my yogurt with fresh blueberries--it added just the right touch of sweetness, and the cooked blueberries just burst in your mouth. The recipe uses arrowroot, which made me pretty happy because I've had some for a long time and never really had a chance to use it.

The recipe uses the basic yellow cupcake, and adds lemon zest, juice, and extract. The cupcakes are a beautiful golden color, and very porous. I used a pastry bag to puncture and fill them with the buttercreme directly, rather than removing the middle, filling it, and putting the top back on, as the recipe suggested. Too much buttercreme on this cupcake would overpower the delicacy of the cake itself, in my opinion. The whole concept is about subtle flavors--even though the end result looks pretty bold.

Mind you, by the time it got to assembling these things, we just wanted to eat them, so they are not the prettiest, but they sure were delicious. Next time, I will avoid the extra dallop of buttercreme on top, and simply drizzle on the compote.

Here's a cupcake sliced open.


And, after we devoured them, the plate looked like this:

Blueberries and Fiddlehead Ferns

It has been quite a while since my last post. That kitchenette in my old place was not so conducive to food preparation, but I have a real kitchen (hooray!) now, so here are my latest food shenanigans.

Whole Foods had giant flats of blueberries on sale, so I bought some to enjoy with some plain yogurt. Somehow, I have managed to have about a cup of blueberries every day for a week without running out.


This morning, I tried some in my French toast (recipe below). The blueberries were warm and delicious, without being syrupy.





I also found some darling fiddlehead ferns at Whole Foods. They were fairly expensive ($12/lb, though they are fairly lightweight). I used to think these looked sort of freaky (like green snails), and so this was my first time trying them.

A couple of things about the fiddleheads. You can't just blanch these things. You have to cook them in 2 changes of water, because they can otherwise make you sick. You should also clean them well. The fiddleheads

They have an odd flavor--its kind of creamy, if a green vegetable can be described that way. I was a little bit ambivalent about biting in, given what they look like, but they are pretty delicious. I thought the best way to serve them would be as bright green color accents in a pasta salad.

So, some recipes:

Blueberry French Toast
Serves: 1

2 slices of bread (I used a thick-cut multigrain, though challah would work well, too)
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup fresh blueberries, washed and dried

1. Soak the bread in the beaten eggs, making sure to be fully absorbed on both sides.
2. Heat a frying pan on high heat. Place bread in frying pan. Reserve some of the egg.
3. With a butter knife, make x's in the bread. Place one blueberry in each x. Pour the rest of the egg over the top of the bread.
4. Fry on both sides, being careful that the blueberries don't come out while flipping.
5. Serve with maple syrup or powdered sugar.

Fiddlehead Fern pasta salad
Serves: 8

2 cups whole wheat fusilli (or another pasta)
1/2 cup fiddlehead ferns
1 cup of mix and match veggies from your store's olive bar. I got marinated, pitted olives (chopped), marinated sweet read peppers, baby pickles, and marinated mushrooms from Whole foods.
4 Tbs rosemary grapeseed oil (see recipe below)
1 Tbs vinegar (I used rice vinegar)
1/2 cup crumbled feta
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook the pasta al dente, drain, and store in a big glass bowl in the refrigerator.
2. Clean and cook the fiddlehead ferns in boiling water. Drain, and cook again in a fresh pot of water. This should take about 10 minutes. Drain and let cool in the refrigerator.
3. Slice the olive bar veggies and feta into small pieces. Toss them, with the liquid, into the pasta bowl.
4. Toss in the grapeseed oil and vinegar with the pasta, and season to taste.
5. Add in fiddlehead ferns last.

Rosemary grapeseed oil

I used grapeseed oil because it has a very light flavor.

Take 1 bunch of fresh rosemary (washed) and put it in a saucepan with 1/2 cup grapeseed oil. Turn the heat to medium and allow the rosemary flavor to infuse the oil. When it starts popping or frying, turn the heat to low and let it continue to heat until your kitchen smells like rosemary.

When finished, remove rosemary pieces (or transfer them into a bottle with the extra oil for storage--the flavor will continue to deepen over time).