day two hundred twenty-nine.

Day Two Hundred Twenty-nine 4/14/10
Dress: Black Cotton Pocketed Dress

Purchased From: Circle Thrift
Year or Era Purchased: Spring 2010
Price: $5
Accessories:  Electric Blue tights, black on black Converse, black cotton belt, black hair flower, mahjong bracelet 
Hair and Makeup: Braids with some down, partially curled with a hair flower, usual makeup
Comments/Compliments/Complaints:  One of my clients complimented my bracelet and whole outfit and called me "dressed in vintage" which I wasn't, so that kind of rules. 




So I probably only bought this dress because it has pockets.  The pockets aren't even that great as they bulge out a bit and make ones hips appear larger, hence my hands in them for the photo.   It also billows out in an unfortunate way so I tied a cotton belt around my waist for some definition.  I haven't been so great with my diet in the last week and it's definitely showing.  Stupid diets.  Since this dress was boring I paired it with some crazy electric blue fishnet style tights.  They have a fancy seam line in the back that kept floating all around and I finally gave up.  


I spent the day working, made a quick trip to Whole Foods and stuck to my budget and managed to only spend 23.75!!!! That never happens!  I came home and made a Sopa de Tortilla from the Horizon's cookbook with a green sauce to go with it.  It came out really well.  Here's the recipe:


Ingredients: 
32 oz (1 carton) Vegetable Stock
2 cups total of diced celery, bell pepper and onion
1 cup corn kernels
1 container of Seitan 
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tbsp. cajun seasoning 
1 hot pepper of your choice, diced
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup chopped tomato
1 avocado, sliced for garnish
Vegan or regular sour cream for garnish
12-15 tortilla chips


Green Sauce: 
1 bell pepper of your liking- grilled or roasted
2-4 tbsp. onion
1-2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 bunch fresh cilantro or if you hate cilantro use parsley and add a tiny bit of dry cilantro and suck it up
1 lime, juiced
salt and pepper
dash of cumin


Do Ahead: 
Grill seitan (brush with olive oil, salt and pepper and grill it until it has grill/char marks)
Cook rice
Grill pepper for the green sauce, if so desired roast garlic for the green sauce
Make the green sauce  (roast the pepper and garlic then blend all ingredients together in a food processor) 


Directions: 
Sautee the garlic, celery, pepper, hot pepper and onion in a little bit of vegan butter or olive oil for a few minutes
Add the corn kernels
Add the stock 
Add the cajun seasoning
Let it simmer and let the flavors mingle together for approximately 5 minutes on medium low heat
Add the tomatoes and mix together before serving


Plate:
Arrange tortillas along the perimeter of a bowl, in the center of the bowl/tortillas add a nice portion of rice
Top the rice with a bit of the broth from the vegetable medley 
Top with 1/2 of the grilled seitan
Top the seitan with a large dollop of green sauce and 
Using a ladle, spoon a large ladle of broth and vegetable mix into the bowl, right on top of everything
Top the dish with a dollop of sour cream and a few slices of avocado


It's a pretty involved dish but you can make a lot of stuff ahead of time.  I modified this a bit and combine it with another recipe to try to emulate the Horizon's Sopa de Tortilla they used to serve. It's close.  I suck at photographing food but here you go: 

After dinner and digestion Michael and I ventured to the third floor for painting.  I mixed an old super light blue color with a tiny bit of our bathroom aqua.  It came out to a beautiful sky blue.  I'm enamored with it.  I painted two walls blue while Michael painted flat white on two others.  We retired to bed full an tired.  It was a productive ass day.