Do It Yourself: Origami Diving Birds

In a recent conversation with a friend who has sadly just found out she needs to move, it came up that I had, in fact, changed dwelling places five times over the last two years. That is more than I have moved in my entire life- and I've been in the same city the entire time.

This was mostly due to uncertainty of how long I wanted to stay in one place for, and a fear of signing anything with a term longer than eight months. During this time period, I have lived in an apartment with a kitchen so small you must be touching the second cook at all times, a kitchen that was constructed in a hallway across from a bathroom (and cat litter), a carpeted basement which used to be a Best Western hotel room, and above a pizza parlour where I was eventually robbed.

Needless to say, this is the first apartment I have had that I can start to settle into, and experiment with home projects. I'm not sure what possessed me to try this out, but after an initial observation that they looked like bats was dismissed, I was pretty happy with the outcome. I tried to find the best and simplest folding pattern for an air-borne bird, and settled on the traditional dove or pigeon origami. I got instructions online, and here is what  I did:

Raw Zucchini Pasta with Vegan Sunflower Walnut Pesto

I know that I have the best friends a girl could ask for.

That's because my birthday involved an evening filled with entirely worst-dinner-guest-friendly foods- including raw cake and homemade coconut ice-cream- and new kitchen gadgets. I have never actually owned more than a garlic press and hand blender. It wasn't long ago that I was scraping carrots with a semi-sharp knife for lack of a peeler. Well, in one week, I all of a sudden own an 'apple peeler corer slicer' (awkward title, I know), food processor and spiralizer. On top of feeling loved, I also now feel more accommodating to myself. This is the first dish to use any of these gadgets, and I have used all three. Hopefully, these will help to alleviate the amount of deep sighing the comes from the other side of the room when I use my hand blender for 10 minutes straight.

The Hardest Recipe to Taste-Test: Homemade Jalapeño Hot Sauce

In the last two years, I have consumed about 100 times the amount of hot sauce I have over my entire lifetime. The amount has increased even more in the last few months while adjusting to my heart-wrenching break-up with ketchup. Sometimes ketchup was my sole reason for eating food. French fries, for example, or raw tofu - these were, in fact, just vessels for ketchup. I also have a persistent craving at all times to dip things.

Sometimes I will admit this backfires, because when I am excited and treat hot sauce like ketchup I risk numbing my taste buds for the rest of the meal. In this recipe, I used jalapeños, but removed the seeds to allow for a more moderate degree of heat. I told my guinea pig I thought it needed more seeds. He asked if I thought it should be hotter. My response was that I couldn't tell- my mouth was on fire.

I still stand by the fact that it is on the medium side of spicy, and the lime and mango give it a really nice, refreshing taste. As refreshing as hot sauce can be, anyway.

Homemade Jalapeño Hot Sauce with Mango and Lime   
   
Ingredients   

1 cup grated carrot

1 yellow onion, chopped

15-20 jalapeño peppers, chopped and seeded

1/2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic

1/3 cup water

1 mango, peeled, cored and chopped

1/3 cup vinegar

3 tbsp lime juice

1/2 tsp coarse ground sea salt

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

Directions

Heat a saucepan on medium heat. Add olive oil, onions and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes, then add carrot, jalapeños and water.

Simmer for 5-10 minutes, until onion and jalapeños have softened. Remove from heat, and combine in a food processor with remaining ingredients. Blend until completely smooth. Add more vinegar if you prefer a thinner consistency.

Transfer mixture into jars, let cool, and refrigerate. Yields about 3 cups.