Scraps and Snippets ~ Quinoa Thai Salad

Perfect summer meal salad. Yum.

QUINOA THAI SALAD

• Dressing
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup soy sauce (low sodium is what I used)
• 1/2 cup  peanut butter
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
• Zest from 2 fresh limes
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2-3 Tbsp Sriracha hot sauce (or to taste)
• 2 tsp sesame seeds
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp onion powder

• Salad
• 1 cup quinoa cooked in coconut milk (1 cup dry quinoa to 2 cups coconut milk. Bring to boil and simmer covered for 15 minutes.) (Rinse quinoa first unless the package says pre-rinsed.)
• 1 package broccoli or cole slaw or cabbage as preferred. You could also use prepared noodles, too.
• Additional add-ins or sides to toss onto the salad - bean sprouts, spring pea pods, cucumber slices, chopped red, orange or yellow peppers, chopped green onions, dry roasted peanuts, cilantro washed and long stems removed and chopped, toasted unsweetened coconut, hot pepper flakes.

In a food processor, puree the dressing ingredients.

Prepare add-ins and slaw, cabbage or noodles. If making a large salad toss everything together. If doing individual salads just set out the different ingredients in bowls.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Minupdate

In case you are wondering....there are going to be a few new blogs in town. 


I announced on Facebook that this is happening. 

September 6th. Coming your way. Out of the Frying Pan...the book. Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A thousand moons or more in the making, cooking, editing and writing of this story. It's here!  

Because our characters are BIGGER than life. They need their own blog. So in a few weeks, Zula and Fern should be hitting the blogosphere. With ZU-fer. A blog. About so many interesting things. 

Gladys can't wait!

And beginning now I'm collaborating on a new humor blog called Modern Day Mishaps. Where a bunch of hilarious or mildly amusing or completely inappropriate gals share snippets of the, uh, well, mishaps in their lives. Mishaps sounds so much kinder than clumsy, ridiculous or goofy, right? 

I'll be sure to share where to find both of these places as soon as it all starts happening. 

Scraps and Snippets ~ Delicious Vanilla Cake

The epic cake adventure was made possible by this cake. 

3 and 1/3 Cups flour
2 Cups sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP and 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 tsp vanilla
2/3 Cup oil
2 Cups water

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour two cake pans or a 9 x 13. Or prep 18 cup cakes, or a combination that makes sense for your creation. 

Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir well. Dig wells in the dry mix, two smaller and one larger, large enough for nearly a cup of liquid. In the large well pour oil, vanilla in one of the smaller and vinegar in the other. Pour the two cups of water in and stir well. 

Divvy up the batter. 

Bake until golden and the cake springs back and knife comes out clean. Bake cake pans approx 28-30 minutes. 9 x 13 approximately 33-35 and cupcakes about 17-20 minutes. 

Cool about 10 minutes. Pop out of pans. Cool completely. Frost. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Current Affairs Part 2

Sometimes hiding from trolls is a good idea. 

Yesterday was about big pockets and corporate nastiness taking advantage of the little guy just trying to make a living. 

Today. Politics. And the tension in every city in every state and nation. Racial, religious, political. Our world is a hot mess. 

Anyone with access to technology and social media can spew hate. Or stalk. Or rip down and destroy.  Free speech in America gives voice to every oddball thought and bigoted hatred or attention seeking narcissist. These are my opinions, shared through a simple wifi connection and a used Mac. If I chose to I could wallpaper Facebook, tweet my brains out and Instagram the crap out of my opinion.

But I choose to limit my comments and limit what I allow my mind to ruminate on. 

Fear and bitterness are two deadly poisons. Bingeing on them with endless streaming horrible news feeds and opinion pieces and polarizing dogma is going to result in more explosive thunder claps of bad news and reactionary knee jerks. 

Ignorance is not bliss. But neither is immersing ourselves in the cesspool of trolls or fear mongers. 

Vote your conscience. Pray for America, for the world, for victims and families touched by tragedy. Be kind. Be respectful. Set boundaries. Go outside and smell the roses. (Or watch three puppy or cat videos for every political cartoon ummm I mean commercial.)  Things may not be getting better but that doesn't have to mean Hell reigns on earth or the Zombie Apocalypse is imminent. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Current Affairs Rant...

9 year olds' selfie of her Lego person

I think it's fascinating when big companies try to sweep oops under the rug and then threaten and bristle if anyone comes questioning them. Yet, so many get busted. And when it's all said and done the money they shell out to cover their lie on top of the thing they were trying to cover has to be so much more than had they done the right thing in the first place. Yet. It happens. 

Not that I know any involved in this latest deal. A company, Zara, has apparently been using designs that are real simplistic but obviously real similar to artists without giving the artists credit or payment. And the bootlegged designs are being placed on items for sale, and, therefore, Zara is making some bank.  http://www.shoparttheft.com When confronted Zara threw a lawyer at the artists so they are taking matters into their own hands through a social media campaign. Like I said, I know nothing beyond just what I read on the link, but I hate the abuse of power. 

Having posted so many recipes and book reviews I try to stay on top of the legal and ethical waves of doing the right thing.  For starters I don't use photographs taken by others, unless it's one of my people who give me permission or use my camera to take it. (I'm taking to you 7 year old oh, and 5 year old.)

If I get a book for review, the free book has nothing to do with the honesty of my review. I write reviews for the people who love to read, not the authors. That's what endorsements are for, and even then, the few I've written, are honest. I'm not selling my integrity for a free book I may or may not like. I have a disclosure notice right on the review blog. And seriously, the major point there is that I can't review something I haven't been able to read. Or products, same deal. Can't review it if I don't have the product to try out. But there are laws out there to make sure people aren't taking money under the table to "endorse" products. So many bad apples. 

If I make someone else's recipe or take one from a cook book that is still available it is unethical for me to post it as is and call it my own. That makes a ton of sense to me. The Rice Krispie folks own the Rice Krispie label and trademark. They also owe whoever came up with that recipe. There are many slightly tweaked versions. I've tweaked one myself. But I can't claim the on the box Rice Krispie Treat exact recipe as mine. That said, recipes are kind of tricky. Honestly, one person needs a written list of instructions to make pulled pork in the crock pot. Another wings it. The similarities of a several pulled pork recipes are going to be a lot. You'll need pork, seasonings, spices, a way and length of time to cook it. That's where the tweaking and uniqueness comes in. So in a situation like that where there is an on-line or cook book recipe, the proper and appropriate thing to do is link to the original author's recipe so that the person reading my blog can go to the other person's page for the recipe. If I change multiple ingredients (use of jack fruit, heart of palm and diced seitan instead of pork for example and 5 different spices added and two subtracted for the sauce) and rewrite the steps accordingly I can name it my own but I also should link to the person or give a shout out to the cookbook who inspired me. 

Also blogging gains me next to nothing. I have ads on my page. And I get a PayPal deposit of cents every month or so. 

So it kind of ticks me off that just because someone has a lawyer on staff they can borrow anything they consider simplistic and make money on it all the while intimidating and threatening the people who say "Foul!" 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Cake Diva Continued

The day of creation was here. And Cakey-Girl was thrilled. 

We set the fondant out to hit room temperature. As I said yesterday this is something I wouldn't do again. The fondant was pretty easy to put together. I'd make it right before I needed it, maybe while the cake is cooling. It was so much easier to work with while still slightly warm from the microwave. 

Since my job was basically grunt labor, wrestling and rolling the cooled and stiffened fondant Cake-Diva was full on decorating, dictating and running the show. She wanted bright vivid colors and I think she pulled that off. 

We dirty iced the layers, she plopped the fondant down and cut it and patched it. This went real fast and we both loved the texture of the covered cakes. With a little buttercream to hold the second layer we repeated that step with the different shaped cake and the differently colored fondant. 

We slapped more buttercream down, glued the cupcakes in place and began to make them look like roses. I did half of the first one and suggested a technique. She went rodeo and did her own thing. They looked enough like roses that she was happy. At this point we popped the cake into the fridge because it was warm enough in the kitchen to soften the butter cream a bit too much. 

While that firmed up I rolled out the third and fourth colors of fondant for the decorative touches. She took to the  cookie cutters and the cute little metal alphabet cutters we got at Hobby Lobby for under $6.00. I'm definitely going to get $6.00 multiplied worth of fun and joy out of that purchase. She found that she could use jack-o-lantern cutters, and corn-on the-cob skewers for shaping and and detail. 

She began loading shapes with buttercream details, and cutting/poking and prepping like a beast. Once I got the cake back out of the fridge she frosting glued all of her designs on the cake and embellished everything. 

It was so cute. And surprisingly delicious and oh so sweet. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Cake Diva Part 1

I mentioned that my oldest granddaughter was staying with us and wanted to make a welcome home cake for her mom and siblings. We had watched several episodes of the Next Great Baker and she was enthralled. 


I have an awesome and easy vanilla cake recipe and I found a DIY fondant recipe, too. How challenging can this be? I thought. 

So over the course of three days we set out to build an epic cake based on the lil baker's cake book. (Drawings, diagrams, plans sketched by the nine-year-old master chef.)

A square layer, a round layer and 4 cupcakes were baked and frozen for ease in frosting. On day 1. 


Fondant made of marshmallows and an unholy amount of powdered sugar was put together on day 2. This was so easy. A big bowl, 4 cups of miniature marshmallows, 2 TBSP water and 4 plus cups of powdered sugar. Yep. That's right. Marshmallows and powdered sugar. You melt the marshmallows with the water in the microwave, stir it till smooth and begin adding powdered sugar one cup at a time. Then you sprinkle more powdered sugar on the surface of the table and begin kneading until it is no longer sticky, turning it over and folding it as needed until its all smooth. 

Roll it out. 

Lay it over the "dirty iced" (technical term learned from "reality" television in which a cake is iced with a thin layer of butter cream to set the fondant and cut down on crumbs) cake and smooth it out. 

That's if you want white. If you want colors then warm up because you have the need to knead some more. Our creation needed four colors. So to be safe we doubled the batch above. (If you are local and have a need for marshmallow fondant which tastes eerily just like Lucky Charms marshmallows, come on over, we have some left.) Green, blue, lavender and orange. We used regular food color, no need for the heavy and more expensive paste. 

I was the sous chef mixing and kneading because the executive pastry chef lacked even more height than me and lacked the kneading hand muscles. This next step I will skip when attempting fondant in the future. We wrapped the little logs of fondant in plastic and chilled them once the colors were mixed. 

The next day after we made the buttercream we began to work with the fondant. The much harder and firmer fondant. The little cake diva immediately assigned the rekneading to me. The rolling became mine as well. She work on the cutting and placement instead. 

More steps and the final creation tomorrow. My typing muscles took a beating from the fondant wars!