I have a really strong urge to bake but I really can't just bake every time it snows....can I? We'll have to come back to that later.
I spent the better part of yesterday reassuring one of the managers at work that the snow wasn't going to be that bad and it would probably be fine. I have very little faith in the weatherguessers, you see, so when they get all excited and put up a big red warning for 4-6 inches, I'm not inclined to believe them until I see it.
I got up this morning, bright and early, figuring I'd head out to work, possibly get delayed by a few minutes, but be at work before any serious snow started. That way, at least I'd show my face before probably leaving early, before the train tracks froze. I put the teapot on to boil and started to make breakfast and prepare my matcha. It was only then that I looked out the kitchen window and saw, to my unabashed surprise, a decent accumulation of snow!
While eating breakfast, I checked out weather.com and discovered that the forecast was now calling for 6-8 inches, mingling with some freezing rain for some nice snow-ice-snow Oreo action. I was surprised that there were no tweets from SEPTA regarding delays in transit, so I kept moving toward the goal of going to work, despite the foreboding forecast. After showering, I found that the snow had gotten huge and was falling at a far heavier rate than originally forecast. Upon checking the weather again, I found a big mea culpa from the weather folks, saying that we were getting heavier snow than anticipated and upping the total accumulation expected to nearly a foot!
I'm sure you know where this is going. Much hemming and hawing and pacing the apartment later, I did one more evaluation and upon seeing that trains were running 15-25 minutes behind, buses were being detoured, and people were slip-sliding all over the place in their cars, I decided to keep Angst company. I wish I'd gotten some pictures of him earlier - the snowflakes were probably about the same size as his paws and he was sitting in his window just batting at them (and hitting the window instead). He got himself all worked up - it was quite a sight.
After another unsuccessful attempt to buy shoes, I started dinner. Mister didn't have any opinions since he knew he would like anything on the menu, so I made Seitan Cacciatore from The Accidental Vegan.
I've made this a few times before, although this is the first time I used homemade seitan, so it looks a bit different since I cubed the seitan. Also, I'm pretty sure the seitan I buy (Ray's, Michael's) is simmered, not baked, so it has a different texture. As it was coming into its final five minutes of simmer-time, I realized I hadn't made anything upon which to serve it. I wouldn't say I panicked, but I was a little worried about how Mister would take it - we've had a couple of conversations in the past about the necessity of a grain/pasta/carb-of-some-sort as the base to our meal and how he can't cope with a meal made of only vegetables and a protein source. I wished with all my heart for couscous to magically appear in the cupboard, but it did not happen. There was not enough time for rice and I used up all the bulghur in the stew...
Fortunately, between the pepper "noodles" and the big "meaty" chunks of seitan, Mister didn't even reach for bread! I guess it passed muster, but I'll still make a grain with it next time.
I was not nearly as productive today as I wanted to be and the snow got heavy way later than it was supposed to. I'll be interested to see what that does to the morning commute. I'm not going to deny that I'm hoping for another snow day... but for now, I have to answer a very important question:
to bake or not to bake?
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