Eclectic Food: Goulash

Goulash is delicious, easy, and pretty cheap to make!  My favorite recipe includes onions and celery, but you can use pretty much any veggie you think would taste good.

Goulash

Eclectic Food: Daal

Daal is a really delicious Indian soup, and is really easy to make!  The secret is to use red lentils (they're actually orange in color), which cook up faster than other lentils.

Daal

Eclectic Food: Slow-Cooker Chicken and Dumplings

Nothing fills your stomach quite so well as chicken and dumplings.  A staple of winter eating, they don't have to be complex to make!  This recipe uses just a few ingredients, and can be adapted however you'd like.  Add in some carrots or celery if you'd like!  Also note: this recipe is for a small slow-cooker.  If you have a larger one, double the amounts listed.

Slow-Cooker Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons ice cold water
1/2 an onion, minced
2 carrots, sliced

1.  Put chicken, minced onion, sliced carrots, butter, cream of chicken soup, and broth in slow-cooker.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
2.  If you used bone-in chicken, remove skin and bones from chicken.  Use a fork or other utensil to break up the chicken, and set slow-cooker to high.
3.  At this point mix your flour with the ice cold water  (you might need to add more flour or water to get the right consistency).  Knead until it is damp all the way through.  If you are obsessive about the size of your dumplings, roll the dough out and cut into 1/2-inch squares.  I just tore small pieces off of my ball of dough.  Drop the dough bits into the slow-cooker and stir.  Cook for another 45 minutes-1 hour.
3.  Serve and enjoy!

Gluten-Free Version:
Substitute gluten-free all-purpose flour instead of wheat flour.

Eclectic Food: Workday Salad

When I was younger, I thought I hated salads.  My only experience with salads were the ones they served for school lunches, with shredded iceberg lettuce and sometimes two carrots.  It wasn't until I got to college, land of horizon-expansion and unlimited all-you-can-eat buffets that I realized I do, in fact, like salads.  I just despise shredded iceberg lettuce and low-quality vegetables.

The great thing about salads is how you can literally only have things you like on them.  They're super adaptable--if you don't like one thing or another, switch it out or omit it entirely.  I usually use a baby spinach/kale mix ('cuz I'm fancy) for my greens, shrimp or crab for my meat, and fancy salad dressing.  You can make your salad however you want--I promise I won't tell!


Simple Workday Salad

Eclectic Home: Tin Can Planter

Growing up, my grandpa and father both had huge gardens.  Every day during summer we'd go out and water the plants, and come fall our table would groan under bushels and baskets full of green beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, and peppers.

Now that I'm living in an apartment, I don't have a yard where I can grow vegetables, but I still want to grow things.  Hence this planter!  It's small enough to fit in my window, incredibly customizable and easy to make cute, and since it's tin, even if my cat knocks it over, it won't break.  You also get to feel like an earth-conscious hippie (even if you aren't), because you can reuse a can instead of throwing it away!  Below are some basic instructions; use your own taste and style to make a cute planter of your own!

Tin Can Planter

Eclectic Food: Dirty Rice

I love dirty rice like nobody's business, but unfortunately it is difficult to come by in the Midwest.  While the Midwest has some delicious foods of its own, I sometimes get a hankering for a taste of home and wind up making myself some dirty rice.  If you've never had dirty rice before, you should definitely try it as soon as you can!  It's spicy, it's flavorful, and it is downright delicious.  Just never try the Zatarain's or pre-packaged versions of Southern food unless you're truly desperate.  They are usually terrible and never as good as actual Southern food.  Here's my favorite recipe for dirty rice.

Warning:  I have included directions for making dirty rice the way I grew up eating it--spicy as sin.  If you are a baby with spicy things have a low spice tolerance, omit the spicy items from your version.  If you accidentally make it too spicy, you can just add more rice to tame the burn, though you might need more seasoning added.  And be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after chopping the jalapeño!

Dirty Rice

Eclectic Home: Dinosaur Toothbrush Holder

I bought some cheap dinosaur toys from Wal-Mart years ago and gradually came to realize that, while I like dinosaurs, I don't play with toys anymore.  I wasn't really sure what I'd do with them, so they just sat in my bedroom for a while.

Cue surprise winter moving!  Suddenly I was sharing a bathroom with two other individuals, and didn't have a place to put my toothbrush.  I thought about looking into buying a toothbrush holder, but I am very poor and lazy, and shopping takes money and effort.  So I tried to think what I could use that I already had, and thought of my dinosaur toys.

This is a really cute and fun way to hold your toothbrushes.  If you get a long-necked dinosaur, you can also use it to hold hair ties (as Rexy* is proudly modelling).

*I named my toothbrush holder Rexy.  He has an inferiority complex because he's not a T-Rex.

How to Make a Dinosaur Toothbrush Holder