Angst Loves Spinach

a curry to beat the cold

2012-01-15T23:19:00.000-05:00

I'm sure this will come as a surprise, but it hasn't actually warmed up since I last wrote - today's high didn't breach 30 degrees. I think tomorrow we might hit a balmy 38 as the high. Who cares about the weather, though? Someone had a birthday yesterday...

That's right - Me. I'm still here, despite my pitiful recent blogging. I don't normally like to designate "favorite" gifts because I love what all gifts represent - that a person loved me enough to think of me and give me a little something special.

Or, sometimes, a big something special. Story Time!

A few nights ago, probably toward the beginning of the week, Mister and I were talking about something that made this next comment appropriate. He said something and my response was, "Exactly, which is why I need a 1-qt All-Clad saucepan." I'm not ashamed to say that my new 4-qt saute pan has started a dangerous and expensive "addiction" to this wonderful cookware. Besides, I like that I can feel good about contributing to an American-owned and American-operated company, based in Pennsylvania, still doing everything in the USA, and though it hurts my wallet, I will gladly pay more to support that.

Anyway, I came home from an interesting day of teaching (nothing says, "today's gonna be great" like getting a call while you're on the train, asking if you're coming in today because the student no one told you was starting an hour before your earliest known student is in the store waiting for you) to go out for my birthday dinner at Vedge. It was good, but I think there are still some quirks waiting to be worked out. The noise level can get a little intense when it's a full house, and they dropped the ball on three kind of important things.

our original reservation, made through the magic and convenience of OpenTable, was for 9pm. I didn't really want to eat that late, but it was the earliest time available, so I took it, figuring I'd ask about changing when they called to confirm. They called to confirm on Friday, and I asked the girl if we could swing an earlier time. She said there was a table available at 8:30. When we arrived a little after 8:30, the hostess gave me the impression she thought we were early...
After confirming we'd like the 8:30 time, I asked if it would be possible to get a table that was not smushed in between two other 2 tops - it makes Mister and I very uncomfortable. Him more than me, but I didn't want anything to impede our nice dinner for my birthday. When we arrived and were told that our table was "already" ready, we were led to the only open table - a 2-top in between another 2-top and a 4-top occupied by a loud, obnoxious "party."
The waitress suggested 3-4 plates per person, since the new concept at Vedge is small plates so you can sample a wider variety of dishes. Following her advice, I ordered two old favorites from Horizons, which I knew would be at least a little different for the sake of novelty: Eggplant-Cauliflower Braciole and Golden Beets. We also got Fingerling Fries and Black Olives as kind of an antipasti. I never got my beets. Fortunately, that left plenty of room for the amazing Sticky Toffee Pudding with salted caramel and a scoop of vanilla-bourbon ice cream.

I don't want to come out and say I'm disappointed in Vedge, but so far Mister and I have yet to be wowed like we consistently were at Horizons. I'm pretty adventurous about my cuisine, but when Mister has to read and re-read the menu for the better part of 10 minutes, I think it'll be a hard sell to get him back there anytime soon.

On to the happy! It was freezing last night, so we gave the bus around 1 minute to show up then hailed a cab and got home in relative warmth. Upon our return, Mister presented me with my gift.

Have you guessed what it is yet?

If you guessed 1-qt All-Clad Saucepan you'd be right! Apparently, he'd already gotten it by the time I made the comment about it on Monday and told me today that his thought then was "oh good, then I can get rid of the receipt!" I can hardly wait to make my oatmeal in the morning...except that I'm out of soymilk, so it'll have to wait a day.

I'm also out of crushed tomatoes, which is why I didn't make a neat spin-off on a shepherd's pie made with winter vegetables and covered with a blanket of couscous, not mashed potatoes. Instead, I had to use my brain and figure out what to do with what I did have: red cabbage, carrots, peas, and chickpeas.

So I made something up and it came out well enough to share:

3-C Curry
(makes about 6 servings)
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 small shallots, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
head of red cabbage, chopped
4 carrots
15 oz chickpeas
1 cup frozen peas
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 Tbsp za'atar
1 Tbsp tamari/soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water, more if needed
brown rice for serving

Heat oil in pan over medium heat. When oil is "shimmering," add shallots and garlic. Stir to coat with oil, then lower heat and cook about 10 minutes, until shallots begin to brown and get a little crispy. Add chopped cabbage and water, cover and let cook for about 10 minutes. When the cabbage is at least half-wilted, stir in the curry powder, salt, and tamari, then add the carrots and peas. Stir well to distribute spices throughout the curry. Cover and cook for another 10 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Stir in chickpeas, taste for seasoning and add salt if necessary. Serve over brown rice.

It was pretty good - it had this amazing color scheme going on: every bad color combination that was "hip" in the 1960s, I think. We had the deep purple cabbage with bright orange carrots, vibrant green peas and beige chickpeas. I added a little more salt at the end of cooking to enhance the curry flavors and it was tasty enough for Mister and I to each have two servings. I'm looking forward to seeing how the curry flavors develop between now and lunch tomorrow.

Betty Crocker, eat your heart out

2012-01-07T20:55:00.000-05:00

No matter how vigilant you are about your health, no matter how healthy you eat, no matter how many toxins you avoid, when you come into contact with 100+ people a day, you will get sick. It's unavoidable.

So, in an unusual departure from the Mister's Sick theme, I am sick. It's just a cold and I honestly believe it will be gone sooner than later without any lasting ill-effects. Nevertheless, it's annoying and has successfully knocked me [somewhat] on my butt. I started to feel a little sneezy on Thursday night, so, being the smart young lady I am, I went to bed a bit early, hoping to head things off with a good sleep. I thought I'd succeeded... until about halfway through yesterday, when it became apparent I was not okay. Eventually, I was interrupting client interactions to run to the bathroom and blow my nose before I dripped on the iPads. Paints a lovely picture, I know.

I still thought I would come home and make the Kale Barley soup I almost made the other night, but I didn't. By halfway through my walk home, I was a sniffling, hiccuping, angry mess. I'm not sure if there is something more irritating that sniffling and then getting a vicious bout of hiccups because you're sniffling and being unable to control your breathing (thereby stopping the hiccups) because you're still sniffling. Anyway, I was in quite a state by the time I burst into our home. After I blew my nose and calmed down, I sent Mister out for vitamin water, V8, tissues, and food. He returned with the least offensive flavor of Vitamin Water I've ever had and a falafel salad, heaped with roasted broccoli and cauliflower and a Wawa hoagie for himself.

Angst was all over that.

To my surprise, you can now get baby spinach on Wawa hoagies. To my greater surprise, Angst wanted nothing to do with that! Mister tried to give him some and he wouldn't even touch it until Mister also put some Ranch dressing on the spinach. Then he licked the dressing off and started squeaking for more. He started pulling Mister's wrist toward him when Mister picked a piece of Provolone cheese off of the sandwich to share with the poor, malnourished, starving kitty. I told Angst I was disappointed in him skipping his spinach for cheese and asked him exactly what I was supposed to call the blog now? Mister suggested Angst Loves Stinky Italian Cheese, but I just don't think it has the same ring.

Shortly after dinner, I went to bed and slept for 12 hours before getting up and stubbornly trying to go out and teach lessons. That didn't end up happening, so after returning to bed for another few hours, I got up and tried to make dinner. It was at this point Mister intervened.

"Stop trying to do stuff! Sit down."

There will be no recipe because I have absolutely no idea how he did this, but my husband morphed into Benny cRocker and made a vegan version of Biscuits with Sausage Gravy.

So it turns out my husband is actually pretty good at making biscuits! They were soft and puffy and tasty and split right down the middle when I pulled it apart at table.

He was a little weirded out making the gravy with "fake" sausage and soymilk, since he hasn't tried to make this since giving up meat, but it was so cute watching him putter around the kitchen. Although a bit confused, Angst genuinely enjoyed this Special Episode of the Cooking Show.

He used Lightlife Gimme Lean sausage, but it wasn't quite as crumbly as he wanted it to be. The gravy was pretty thick and started to congeal, but he decided it was due to not using enough fat, not the soymilk that set off the fire alarm upon being added to the skillet.

I'd never had Sausage Gravy and Biscuits before (I wasn't actually a huge sausage fan when I did eat meat), but it was tasty and Mister said it was "close enough." Mister is a CookingWithoutARecipe kind of chef, but it turns out Lightlife actually did the work for him and you can check out their recipe here.

I've been upright long enough. Time to drink more liquids and recline a little while I digest. Hope everyone out there in the cyberverse is feeling okay!

sausage in my pocket

2012-01-05T00:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's a new year so I get to start my HolyCowIt'sSoCold posts all over again with a brand new quotient of times to bitch about the weather. Keep in mind - I love Philadelphia, I love Philadelphia in the wintertime, and I love the cooler times of the year. Still, there is no reason that I should be outside when the wind chill factors the temperature into the single digits.

Nevertheless, this morning I put on two layers of clothing, wrapped my puppy-scarf snugly around my neck, zipped my coat up to my nose, pulled on my gloves and hat and headed out the door looking very much like a ninja.

A cold ninja.

There's always something that astonishes me the first time each year that I look at the weather and see that not only is it 14 degrees right now, but it feels like it's 2 degrees and today's high doesn't break the freezing mark. It's as though that's never happened before, even though it did, in fact, happen just last year and the year before that, too. To anyone reading in Wisconsin or any of its neighboring states, and of course Canada, feel free to have a good laugh at my expense. I am grateful that I've never seen the temperatures you deal with all winter long. But for a relatively temperate area like Philadelphia, sub-freezing is our sub-zero.

When I got home, my first impulse was to make soup dinner despite Mister's inevitable protests. I did not for two reasons (one of which became null): first, we didn't have any sandwich fixin's and I feel bad [now] serving Mister just soup. Second, I was already thinking ahead to tomorrow's work lunch. Granted, there are a ton of fabulous eating options within a one-block radius of the store I'm in tomorrow, but I haven't been keen on ~~spending money~~ going outside unnecessarily lately. I don't want to test the strength of my "tupperware" by toting soup in my purse for a mile, so I wanted to make something a little more leftover-travel-friendly.

Enter Charro Beans with Chipotle Sausage from Vegetarian Times. I've made this before, so why bother posting about it again?

That's why ^. I've been meaning to try Field Roast sausages pretty much as long as they've been on the market, but they are about $1 more than Tofurky sausages and, being somewhat impoverished, that $1 has disproportionate value. Regardless, since the recipe called for chipotle sausages and since Field Roast makes them (and Tofurky does not), it seemed the perfect excuse to splurge.

Unlike Tofurky, which is packaged similarly to hot dogs, the Field Roast sausages were actually packed as individually-wrapped links. This made for quite the adventure trying to free them from their casings. It resulted in my hands and cutting board looking like someone had just killed him- or herself in my kitchen - I'll spare you the picture I took of my "bloody" hand.

Once I'd coerced the little buggers out of their plastic casing, I cut two sausages in half (anticipating they would pack too much heat to stay in whole rounds like the recipe instructed) and then sliced them to add to my sauteing peppers.

After letting them cook a little by themselves, I added the beans and tomatoes, but I left out the chili powder because I was getting the distinct impression the sausages might end up being more than I'd bargained for.

Fortunately, I did have the foresight to serve them on a fluffy, bland cloud of mashed potatoes.

That may very well have been the only reason I could finish my first...and only...serving. It was far more outstanding this time than the first time I'd made this dish, and that is owed completely to the brand of sausage, I believe. Okay, that mashed potatoes are awesome doesn't hurt.

In any case, two things resulted from this dinner: first, Mister ended up with a generous portion of leftovers [read: all of them] for his lunch tomorrow and I ended up with a new strategy to beat the frigid temperatures outside: sausage. By the time I finished my meal, I was nearly sweating, even though I'd turned down the heat while I was at work (Mister's fine - he's Greek so he radiates heat). So, I told Mister I was going to carry the leftover sausages with me to warm me up like the brandy in a St. Bernard's barrel - just keep my sausage in my pocket until I need to go out into the cold.

Insert reallllllly immature joke here.

On a final and unrelated note, my healthcare for my new job is about to kick in, which is perfectly timed since one of my contacts decided to rip in my eye today. All day I was walking around work squinting and blinking and putting drops in my eyes and complaining to my colleagues about my eyes bothering me. I was counting the minutes until I could come home and take them out. Upon doing so was when I discovered the damage, so I was reminded of yet another thing I love about Philadelphia and Winter.

In Philadelphia, especially Center City, but even on the residential streets where the homes are three stories tall, there is a natural darkness. This is both beneficial and detrimental, depending on your point of view. On the one hand, it might not be so darn cold if the sun could touch you and warm you up a little. On the other hand, I can get away with not wearing sunglasses most of the time. When it's winter, there's even less sunshine because the days are shorter and the sun never actually makes it to the "top" of the sky, so it's possible to stay out of direct sunlight pretty much all day.

Before you think I'm a vampire, let me just point out how difficult it is to wear sunglasses with seeing glasses - it doesn't work. Since my new contacts are at least a week away from being in my eyeballs, looks like I'll be rocking my glasses, so I'm glad I don't have to worry about sun.

That's all.

may your days be merry and bright

2012-01-01T23:20:00.001-05:00

Okay, so clearly (in Philadelphia, at least) we did not have a White Christmas. No, definitely not - it was gorgeous, though - around 50 degrees and sunny! Nevetheless, I felt like the title displayed a nice blessing to begin a new year. One which, according to some conspiracy theorists/history-ignorant human beings will be our very last one.

I say "Live it up!" then. What better way to do so than another thrilling and incidental collaboration between my mother and husband? I continue to be astonished by my new saute pan and am counting the days until I can comfortably add another piece of this addicting cookware to my small-but-adequate urban kitchen.

I'm fairly well convinced that food even looks more attractive in this pan. I mean, a load of sliced red peppers sauteing with garlic, olive oil, basil, and two big bay leaves is always a beautiful sight, but I believe the reflective nature of my new pan illuminates the beauty, enhancing it even further (I know, it's difficult, but try it!) To say I'm in love is putting it lightly.

The scent of my red peppers softening and getting all sweet and garlicky was enough to get Angst into the kitchen to be the live studio audience for The Cooking Show with Mommy...

Though I failed to be exciting enough to keep him awake. I appreciated his support and company, though. He appreciates warm, squishy things upon which to sleep. Tonight's dinner was a Red Pepper Risotto, taken from the book Mister gave me for Christmas. I'd tell you which book, but it's pretty non-descript: the title is Vegetarian and it's a compilation of recipes, so there is no author. If it's really, really important to anyone still reading after my excessive absence, I will post the editor's name so you can try to dig it up, but it's an older book (I love how Mister knows his way around thrift stores and the store we traded a bunch of books to, for credit toward more books, when we moved last February).

This picture shows again how fortunate I am to have my new, beautiful, easy to cook with, easy to clean All-Clad saute pan. Although I cooked the rice separately (more on why in a minute) and then added it to the pan, there is NO WAY I would have pulled that off with my 3-qt saute pan. I would have had to cut the recipe in half to make it fit, especially since I cooked 2 cups of rice to add to that. Rice tends to triple in volume when cooked, so that's about 6 cups of rice mixed into 3 red peppers and a 28-oz can of diced tomatoes.

By the time everything was cooked and combined, even Angst had grown more interested in dinner. Saint that he is, Mister scooped up the sleepy kitty to show him what was on the stove. Angst hates the stove and he hates hot food - it bites him. That picture was snapped right before he struggled free of the Evil Man carrying him.

Anyway, as you can see, this doesn't look much like a "traditional" risotto, and if you know anything about risotto, you know I committed a cardinal culinary sin by cooking the rice by itself and just adding it to the cooked peppers and tomatoes at the last minute. Let me explain.

Last night as we were finishing our very tasty dinner, long somen noodles sauteed with tofu, carrots, and asparagus with a homemade teriyaki sauce that didn't suck (following a New Years tradition of our Asian neighbors), Mister and I got into a discussion about his food preferences. We were discussing the innovative but limiting fixed menu being offered by Vedge for the holiday. I nearly choked on my noodles when Mister said, "there aren't a lot of foods I don't like, but the ones I don't like I really hate."

So I said:

mushrooms
squash
eggplant
whole wheat pasta
tempeh
quinoa
"squishy wheat"
prunes
raisins
pretty much any dried fruit, actually
gnocchi
ricotta
sweet potatoes

I could go on. For heaven's sake, I even have a label on the blog for "Things Mister Hates."

So, there were two reasons I cooked the rice separately. First, risotto takes a very long time and my hands have typing to do, so I didn't feel like wearing them out by continuously stirring rice for about an hour. Second, and more important, another Thing Mister Hates is Risotto, so I wanted to make this as un-risotto-like as possible and it seems to have worked since he had two bowls.

I have to admit, my favorite thing about him hating risotto is how he had forgotten and at what an inconvenient time he remembered. Two years ago at Christmas, his father took us and his wife to Lacroix, a very fancy and very expensive French restaurant overlooking Rittenhouse Square. For our side dishes, I selected sweet potatoes, since I never get to have them at home (see the list ^ ) and Mister chose Chestnut Risotto (to my great surprise, having avoided cooking risotto at home for this specific reason). It came, it looked delicious, and after he picked at it for a few minutes I asked if I could try a bite. He pretty much told me I could have it all if I wanted, revealing that he had forgotten what risotto was until it arrived. Ahh.... adventures in fine dining.

So, anyway, Happy New year to any faithful friend who is still reading after my nearly month-long absence. I haven't resolved to write more frequently, but I do anticipate having more to say going forward, so thank you for your patience - I hope to reward it richly this new year. Even if it all ends on the Winter Solstice like the Mayans said it would.

squeaky wheels and shiny round things

2011-12-30T00:10:00.000-05:00

It's a thing of beauty, isn't it?
That, friends, is the All-Clad d5 Stainless Steel 4-qt Saute Pan after which I have been lusting for the better part of 18 months (at least). I've had a longing in my heart for All-Clad cookware since I was planning my wedding (you'd better believe they bought full-page ads in every bridal magazine published in the Northeastern part of the USA). That yearning only grew more intense as I watched my mother-in-law preparing sauces and roasts and whatnot with her All-Clad cookware - now I could see how beautiful it is in real life and what a pleasurable cooking experience it appeared to offer.

If you clicked the link, you know that All-Clad is definitely not a bargain brand. One of my favorite past-times has become asking Mister if he'll buy me a $4,000 27-piece set of All-Clad for Christmas, my birthday, Valentine's Day, or Tuesday. (Hurry! It's on sale! Only $2,800!) I've made comments, half-joking to Mister, my mother, my father, Angst, and anyone else who will pretend to listen to me, just so everyone possible is aware that I would be eternally grateful if anyone ever felt like blessing me with at least a piece of this cookware. That's right - just one item, because that would be enough to know if the "hype" is true.

If you've been reading for a while, you've had the privilege of seeing multiple snide remarks directed toward my faithful but insufficient CuisinArt 3-qt Saute pan, which has helped me make dinner since I got it for our wedding 4 years ago. Actually, it was piece of a cookware set that I got on sale and I got what I paid for, so 4 years later, we're down to about half the original set and I've been replacing pieces bit by bit as needed. I shared my initial dilemma here, where I was trying to decide whether to dig a deeper hole of debt to get a nice cookware set or just buy nice pieces as I was able. Actually, looking up that post made me realize I've been complaining about my 3-qt saute pan for over two years. On with the show!

For Christmas this year, Mister got me.....

Not All-Clad. But he did get me a new cookbook, which is awesome, since I'd run out of creativity with my old ones (one of the many reasons I've been so neglectful in my posting). I've been cooking from it all week, but tonight's meal was particularly colorful and attractive: Vegetables Provencal on basmati rice.

Why am I posting this after completely ignoring pretty much all month that I cook and eat dinner on a nightly basis?

The answer is very simple and even more gratifying.

My mother reads my blog. On Christmas, she asked me what my inaugural meal would be...

in the All-Clad 4-qt saute pan she got me for Christmas...

I am a happy and very blessed lady.

The pan is a lot heavier than my "old" saute pan and I'm having trouble figuring out exactly where it's going to live. It was so easy to cook with and it's so beautiful it makes me smile involuntarily. I knew the real test would be washing it. I haven't had stainless steel cookware since my generations-old RevereWare bit the dust, but I remembered that being a huge pain in my butt to scrub clean. Since we have nonstick cookware, we don't have a scrubby thing. I accidentally got too wrapped up checking Facebook and looking at happy pictures and let the pot sit on the stove with leftover tomato-based sauce for about an hour.

Washing it felt like petting satin.

So, ask and ye shall receive, eh? My 1-qt sauce pot is starting to show its age....

Anyone?

sweet and simple success

2011-12-21T00:56:00.000-05:00

So, despite last night's relative failure (not really, but it didn't live up to my hopeless perfectionism, so...) I strapped on my holiday-appropriate red-n-white striped apron again. I guess it's kind of like getting right back in the saddle after being thrown?

Well, maybe not as painful, although you may find it painful to observe my "clashing" stripes. By pure lucky coincidence, I happened to be wearing horizontally-striped socks and I thought it was a funny combination with the vertical stripes of the apron. If you disagree, remember what your mother taught you about what to do if you don't have anything nice to say.

I have plenty of nice things to say tonight - we'll start with the cookies.

My first "nice" statement is to point out how lucky my colleagues are that I am a woman of my word (and that by telling them I was baking I created built-in accountability). Mister and I each had one small cookie to test their quality and were completely impressed.

In addition to being attractive on the outside, these cookies are "charming and delightful" and a pleasure to be around. I do not expect them to last very long tomorrow - they are just the right amount of sweet, aided, in part, by the cinnamon sugar in which I rolled them before plunking them down on the baking sheets. However, the generous amount of Earth Balance that began the batter contributed to an incredibly buttery taste and texture - you could liken these to a combination of those Dutch butter cookies so much like shortbread, and honest to goodness sugar cookies.

They are, in a way, sugar cookies - The recipe, filched gracefully from realsimple.com is for Brown Sugar Drop Cookies but my increasingly OCD self couldn't deal with the ugly little deposits of dough on the sheets, so I rolled them into buttery little balls and then dunked them into cinnamon sugar before pressing the down a little onto the sheet.

Time to pack them up! Before Mister and I eat them all...

in pursuit of the perfect brownie

2011-12-20T00:19:00.000-05:00

I know you're not expecting this, but OMGMyHomeSmellsSoGood!

'Twas the week before Christmas
and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring
'cause Angst killed the mouse

I suppose I could probably rewrite the poem to be clever, but why mess with something that time-honored. Besides, I've got brownies to wax poetic about.

Thanks to Isa and Terry, I've got vegan cupcakes and vegan cookies down, but brownies continue to be that impossible-to-replicate baked item. I have a few recipes and I've gotten some decent feedback on them, but to me, they've fallen short of "the real deal;" dense, fudgy brownies with the crinkly top. When I stumbled on this new post from a fellow Prodigal Blogger, I decided this recipe would answer all my prayers - after all the post's title is "The Best Vegan Brownie You Will Ever Eat."

I hope that's not true.

To be fair, it is the best vegan brownie I've eaten so far - so in a way it is true. However delightful it made my kitchen (and therefore, entire apartment, possibly the better part of the building) smell, and no matter how crinkly the top was, and regardless of the fact that this is the first vegan brownie I've had that's resulted in me chugging soymilk to settle the sweetness, it's still not all that I wanted it to be.

It's very chocolatey. It's very sweet. It's the closest I've been to the moist, dense, fudgy brownies I remember from the not-too-distant past, but it fell just a little short. My main grudge against vegan brownies is that they crumble. Brownies are not meant to crumble - we'll leave that to shortbread and biscotti. Brownies hold together by the sheer weight of their fudginess. You could, conceivably, eat a brownie without a plate.

When I was mixing the wet and dry ingredients together, I thought it would be fun (and a little extra decadent) to include a handful of peanut butter chips (and it was). As I was "pouring" the batter into the prepared pan, I found that I had to "spread" it to the corners - not a quality I usually look for in brownie batter, but the recipe did state that the batter would be thick. It certainly was. I kind of think that if I hadn't pushed it into a perfect rectangle with my spatula, it would have been perfectly content to be a little oblong brownie.

That's another thing. I don't know what's up with all these "brownie bites" you can buy in grocery stores, but brownies are square or rectangular. They are not round. When you pour brownie batter into a mini-muffin pan and bake it, what comes out of the oven are mini-muffins, not round brownies. There is no such thing as a round brownie. Are you listening, Superfresh?

Okay, back to tonight's baking adventures.

So, my intention was to make these incredibly dense and moist and fudgy brownies, spiked with little bits of peanut butter, and then carefully pack them between layers of wax paper and deliver them to colleagues tomorrow so they could ooh and aah and exclaim their surprise about how fudgy and perfect my vegan brownies were. I'm not sure they'll make it in and it's not necessarily because Mister and I can't keep our hands off (though they really are very tasty).

My brownies are crumbly.

I feel like I should have known that when I was forcing the batter into the corners of the pan. At least three times before I put them in the oven I thought, "maybe I should add a little more liquid?" Because the flavor is so good, I may make a second attempt and follow my heart on that, but it's too late tonight. No brownies for you, faithful and persevering colleagues, or at least not tomorrow. Tomorrow night will find me in the kitchen again "after hours," either perfecting this recipe or making cookies. I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out...

glitter and good will

2011-12-14T01:07:00.000-05:00

If you look back over posts from Decembers Past, you'll find I don't usually have time to enjoy The Most Wonderful Time of the Year due to working like a maniac. Since I find myself working a retail position this holiday season, I figured I would once again miss out on the fun due to a busy schedule. It has been plenty busy but since I am now in the city from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep again, I still have enough leftover time and energy to enjoy the holiday - how welcome a relief!

I hope you found my last post more inspiring than depressing or mean. I expect this one to be of a far more light-hearted nature.

In years past, as in, those that came before full-time jobs and adult responsibilities, I used to love the weeks leading up to Christmas. Everyday I would open my eyes in anticipation of a snowfall that usually didn't come. At night I would decorate the envelopes in which I would send off treasures - Christmas cards and sometimes invitations to a grand party. One year, I even managed to have a formal party - I wore a full, floor-length gown of midnight blue georgette and satin! I was the most dressed of all my attendees, but they did humor me and dress to the nines. Although I'm not yet back to the point of being able to host a lavish, gilded soiree, I have decorated my home for the first time in many years and tonight I covered myself and my dining table with the glitter that fell from the Christmas cards I was addressing in my finest script. It feels good to have a box full of treasures for mailing!

In the hopes of pulling you into my Holiday Spirit, let's have a Picture Parade!

Here is a tiny ceramic nativity scene. It seemed like the best place for it was beneath the tree, since I do consider the birth of my Savior to be the greatest gift of all. Despite that truth, I will probably have to move it when I start putting presents beneath the tree (which I hope will start happening this weekend!).

Anyone remember Beanie Babies? This is my angelbear beanie - its name is Halo II (good name for a friend, right?) and we share a birthday (even if we are 22 years apart).

I have a lovely angel ornament who is currently too big and heavy for my little Charlie Brown tree. Fortunately, this year we have a mantel and a fireplace and I think she looks just lovely suspended there, just beyond the tree.

Santa's keeping a close watch over my watercolor of Lake Tahoe (I think he'd rather locate his toy shop there).

Initially, I thought I'd clear off the mantel completely and put up green garland, maybe with some lights and ribbon, then weave some candles and other Christmas decor (like my tiny nativity scene) in, but then I looked again and saw what a beautiful job Mister had done, arranging one of my favorite wedding photos amidst some candles and other works of art created specifically for us, and I thought I would rather just augment his work. So, I added another Santa.

Eleven months of the year, this guy lives inside the santa box above. He's a painted ceramic snowman lantern. Think about that. A snowman lantern. It's a little twisted, don't you think?

"Hey, what should we set on fire?"

"How 'bout this snowman over here?"

I mean, really? What thought process goes into making a snowman lantern?

Nevertheless, I love it and will keep him burning as long as I keep finding tea-light candles.

This is a little pewter nativity scene candle. Again, with the irreverent things to set on fire, but anyway... my father-in-law gave me this little token at my first Greek Christmas. He did so because he didn't know if the hostess, Yiayia (Greek for Grandmother), would have included me in the gift-giving and he didn't want me to feel left out.

So I love it.

That's a little tin pail, painted up to resemble Santa. It appears Santa is like the Beans-n-Rice of my decorating world - can't have too many versions, can I? This one makes a great candy holder, so there are individually-wrapped peppermints in there right now. Candy canes may or may not be next.

Angst was feeling a bit uncertain about the decor changes.

In fact, he was pretty sure he wanted nothing to do with all these sparkly, lit-up things.

Oh. Wait.

Dangle-y things?

grinchy mcscrooge

2011-12-11T01:52:00.000-05:00

What is up with kids these days???

Yes, I've become one of those stodgy old geezers that says things like that. Hear me out, though - in the "olden days," stodgy old geezers were called by a different name - Elders - and people showed them reverence and respect simply because they had managed to live long enough to get gray hairs.

I work with a bunch of people who are, on average, 10 years younger than me. While this is usually something we don't notice, I can't help but wonder if it is a generational difference that allows me to love Christmas in all its trimmings - the music, the food, the scents, the decorations - and that causes them to adopt an attitude of apathy at best and downright mean-spirited, steal-your-sunshine hatred at worst. I don't know when this happened since I was too busy to enjoy Christmas the last two years, but it seems that without exception, my colleagues display a total bah humbug attitude toward the holiday season: while I look forward to the isolated 4 weeks each year that I get to listen to Christmas music, they hate it and complain relentlessly about having to listen to it.

I've had it.

What happened to holiday cheer? Where is the "most wonderful time of the year"? Why doesn't anyone "buy into" that anymore?

I think most people are quick to blame the heinous over-commercialization of the holiday for all this Anti-Christmas sentiment. I can understand how it must feel like Toys-R-Us opening at 9pm on Thanksgiving and the ads for holiday shopping season starting right after Halloween can take away the charm and sentimentality of Christmases past.

I think that's only part of a much bigger picture. I've been thinking a lot about this because to me, Christmas is a joyful time of year - I love Christmas. I look forward to it the way a child does, but not in anticipation of presents - rather, I linger on every sight and scent, I enjoy every single day. I smile when I see the first snowflake decorations tied to the lampposts in Philadelphia and the sight of Headhouse Shambles and Rittenhouse Square all lit up for Christmas makes my heart swell. I feel joy when I walk past a tree or window display of a storefront. I actually love Christmas shopping because I know that I have all the excuses I need to "spoil" the people I love. The only thing I really don't like about Christmas is the time that I have to wait between buying a gift and giving it because I love the joy a small token of love and friendship can bring to a person.

Why don't other people have that joy?

From looking around me and doing some serious thinking (who, me?), I think that a bigger part of this new "bah humbug" trend is the deterioration of relationships - relationships with your family, possibly your colleagues or friends, but yes, relationships. Whether people admit it or not, I think that is why so many young people hate Christmas. I know people who hate Christmas just because it means they have to see their family and deal with all the drama - when your family is built around dysfunctional relationships, it doesn't feel good to spend time together. When we place all our worth on being in a romantic relationship, it "ruins" Christmas if that person dumps us before or around the holiday season.

Honestly, friends, what it comes down to is this: a lack of connection to, respect for, and relationship with the Savior whose birth Christmas celebrates removes any last vestige of holiday joy. [Before anyone reading feels the need to bring this up, I am very well aware that the Church strategically selected December 25th due to the celebration of a popular pagan holiday and that December 25th is not actually when Christ was born. None of that changes the fact that this is the designated holiday to symbolically celebrate the miracle.]

This time of year you hear ads on the television and on the radio, reminding you to "keep Christ in Christmas" or remember the "Reason for the Season" and it's easy to roll your eyes and say it's hokey, but if we refocused the holiday and remembered why we celebrate it, we might find a joy that transcends holiday shopping madness (I freely admit to hating mall shopping during December, despite my love of buying gifts), gives us strength to put aside differences and hurt feelings and gather with our families at the table, and most importantly, gives us a worth that will never be matched by another human being's love.

So what's wrong with kids these days? They were not raised in a Christian society, so Christmas has never been anything but a secular, universally celebrated, shopping holiday and another excuse for their family to make them miserable. The songs that I love to listen to remind me of the incredible love God showed by allowing himself to be born as a human infant to poor, unwed parents so that he could live among us, as one of us, and ultimately give his life so that we would no longer be separated from him. They remind me of the traditions my family has kept and the new ones I have adopted with the family I married into. They evoke warmth and love and golden images of happy people being nice to each other.

The songs they hate have no meaning apart from reminding them how useless Christmas is now that they aren't children looking for something special under the tree. As we [as a secular society] have successfully removed God from every facet of society that is not the cloistered halls of a church, we have lost our holiday traditions and the little things that can touch our hearts and make us remember that we have a lot of love to give.

I have a lot of love to give. Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones from me and mine.

somethin' in the works

2011-12-10T00:08:00.000-05:00

Yes.... I know I suck at posting recently. I'm sorry. But you're tired of hearing me apologize for sporadic posting anyway, aren't you?

I could babble about why I haven't been posting but it comes down to this: I don't find it interesting to post about recipes I've made multiple times and if I don't have anything interesting or entertaining to say, I don't want to post just for the sake of keeping up the blog.

Stick with me, folks. Not giving away anything just yet, but stay tuned - something's coming.

Soon.

:)

While we're waiting, though, why don't you page through some of my older posts? I used to put together some fairly entertaining posts when I was still figuring out this crazy cooking thing! Pick a post you enjoyed, then click on one of the tags for other posts like it. Or, just pick a random past month to check out.

If you want to laugh at someone being completely random and scatterbrained, check out December of any year and January of 2010.
If you want to think deeply, check out October 2009 or the tag Operation Gratitude Attitude (November through December 2009).
If you like faerietales, read the posts I wrote about PIFA, either by using the PIFA tag or by going to April 2011.
If you want to know more about the information that led to my decision to "go vegan," check out my multi-part review of Skinny Bitch between August and October of 2010.
If you need a suggestion, leave me a comment with what you want to read about/learn and I'll point you in the right direction.

No food pictures because you've seen them all before. How about an Angst picture?

How about his Greatest Hits?

See you soon!

flashbacks are fun!

2011-11-28T23:38:00.001-05:00

Everyone have their Flashback Hats on? Okay, hold on tight - here we go!

It was sometime in the autumn of a day in the mid-1990s. I was in college, sitting in my dorm room. It was later in the evening, I'd probably just finished some homework and had no other plans for the evening. I was hungry, but all food options on campus (aside from the healthful options in 1990s vending machines) were closed down for the night.

What's this?

My eyes fall on a plastic milk-crate beneath my nailed-to-the-wall desk. It's packed to the gills with all kinds of "food." When I shipped off to college, a group of dear friends had assembled this Care Package for me, full of strange and exotic foods I'd never eaten before. Well, okay, I'd had PopTarts on the rare occasion my mother was willing to permit them as a breakfast treat, but never artificially purple frosted Wildberry PopTarts. By the way - they're revolting. If you've never had them, there's no reason to start now.

I pulled the crate out in to the glow of the flattering fluorescent overhead light and poked through the contents for something that would qualify as Substantial Food. Finally, I pulled out a plastic packet which I pulled open to reveal a brick of dried "noodles" and a packet of seasoning that I think was supposed to taste like chicken.

That's right. Ramen Noodles.

I had never had them before, but I broke the brick into smaller bits, sprinkled the seasoning over top and filled the bowl with hot water. It was love at first slurp.

I can't even imagine what my body thought of the extraordinary sodium increase, but 10 (or so) pounds later, the love affair began to fade...

Don't fret! There is still time for a happy ending!

So a few months ago, vegan ramen started being a new foodie trend and for the first time, I learned that ramen is not just a 10-for-$1 phenomenon that prevents college students from starving at midnight (while raising their blood pressure and increasing their waistlines). NO! It's also a normal, everyday Japanese dish, ordinarily made with a savory (albeit animal-based) broth, plenty of fresh veggies, and long slender noodles.

Imagine my delight upon paging through Celebrate Vegan for this week's menu to find that Dynise had included her own ramen recipe. Tonight's dinner, then, was the ubiquitous Ramen Noodle Bowl from that very same book and it was far more delicious than those bricks of dry noodles soaked in reconstituted broth could ever be (no matter how long I'd been writing a term paper, preparing a speech, or studying for a test).

I don't know why the picture is green - all I can think of is the reflection from the placemats? Anyway... per the recipe instructions, I simmered ginger and garlic in a vegetable broth, along with carrots, green cabbage, broccoli, and green onions, topping it off with cappellini noodles standing in for those old, crumbly bricks (and also, because of a sale, the box of cappellini cost less than a six-pack of prepacked ramen noodles). It was delicious - Mister and I both slurped up two bowls with reckless abandon for our waistlines or blood pressure, and although I'm sure we could do without the concentrated sodium in the cubes of Rapunzel bouillon I used for the broth, I'm sure we could have (and have) done worse.

I was impressed with how much more flavorful and, for lack of a less pretentious word, complex the broth and noodles were. I'm not going to pretend that the cabbage added some je ne sais quoi, but I will say that the drizzling of toasted dark sesame oil to finish the dish did so with such a flair, it's hard to believe someone would bother simplifying all that jazz to sell by the penny to poor [stupid] college kids.

By the way - if you're wondering where the Freshman Fifteen comes from, it's not the beer Freshmen are too young to drink legally - it's from the Ramen their parents willingly buy them to get them through all-night study sessions (which really do happen!).

klutz in the kitchen

2011-11-28T00:01:00.000-05:00

You would think I didn't know my way around a kitchen. You'd think I've never cooked before... or measured anything... or stirred a pot. If you haven't been following this blog for the last couple of years, you might think I was just learning to cook from the way I was dropping things and tossing things around tonight.

You know, it's ridiculous - I took a couple of days off from my kitchen and it's as though I've never handled a measuring spoon or a spatula before. I spilled water, poured salt all over the counter, knocked rice on the floor, and dropped at least two measuring spoons. I tossed bits of spinach all over the stovetop and God forbid I transfer the coconut milk from the counter to the pot without dumping some of it on the skillet and pan-frying tofu in the process.

Fortunately, it all came together (after a little swearing and a lot of stooping) to make Sag Paneer from Celebrate Vegan.

I'll be honest, I was not all that impressed, after all my hard work (of spinach-slinging, salt-spilling, and rice-scattering). It was really rather bland, despite the addition of the maximum amount of salt (plus a little, probably) and the shallot-garlic-ginger base. I caught Mister trying to be subtle as he snuck more salt onto his second serving and unabashedly doused both servings with a generous amount of hot sauce (at my suggestion). I did not have an opportunity to test this before the cookbook was published, but I wish I had so I could have suggested a ton more flavor. One of my favorite parts of Indian food is the almost overwhelming 'spiceyness' and flamboyant flavors - those aspects were disappointingly absent from this recipe, making me glad as heck for the overboard flavors in The 30 Minute Vegan's version of this Southern Asia staple.

Angst still seemed to think he urgently needed to share Mister's dinner...

"This is my Imploring Face"
(note the paw on Mister's knee)

"Please, Mister, I NEEDS!"

So, Black Friday I came home and ate leftover Spanakopita and leftover Apple Pie. Saturday I slept most of the day, drank some coffee, got another make-up delivery, and then went out on a belated Anniversary Dinner with my hubby because....

...Vedge finally opened! Hallelujah, folks.

I took a bunch of pictures, but it's possible that Vedge is even dimmer than Horizons was, so none of them came out. Here's the synopsis:

I started out with an Apple Cide Car, per the power of suggestion from Dynise's review of the Friends and Family night. With dinner, I enjoyed a nice glass of Dolcetto. The server explained that the Chef suggests three plates per person and that the menu lists plates in order from light to heavy. To share, Mister and I ordered our old favorite from Horizons - Truffled Fingerling Fries, a newsie Crispy Cauliflower with Kimchee Mayo and an order of Roasted Baby Broccoli from their "Dirt" list (today's fresh veggie sides). I elected to try a new dish, despite many of my favorites from Horizons making a slightly altered appearance on the menu - Steak-Spiced Tofu with squash, chanterelles, and a few other unidentified vegetables. I can honestly say that this dish marked the very first time I have actually found mushrooms enjoyable. I will not be seeking them out any time soon, but it was nice to not have to eat around them. Mister stuck with what he knows, ordering the Grilled Seitan, even though it came on a bed of beluga lentils with some mushrooms surrounding it. It was so refreshing to be able to order and eat anything on the menu. The delightful thing about the small plates thing Vedge is doing is that it enabled us to order and enjoy dessert without feeling like total pigs (and since it's much further from home, the walk back helped burn off a few calories). Mister, as usual, got Fig & Quince Cheesecake and discarded the fruit. The figs tasted kind of "green" and the quince was middle-sweet. I would have left them on, myself. I got the Sticky Toffee Pudding with Pumpkin(-spiced) "ice cream" and loved every warm, melty bite.

As a side note, Angst helped me finish the blog post tonight and Mister took pictures:

still alive - be thankful!

2011-11-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

I know other bloggers have gone far longer than a week without a post, but I am not normally among them so it feels like forever. I hope you'll excuse my absence, considering how busy I've been preparing for Thanksgiving and Black Friday - or I should say it like this:

the first Thanksgiving (or holiday at all) that I've hosted in my own home!
the first Black Friday I've worked retail in fifteen years.

Fortunately, both went off pretty well, yet both were fairly stressful in the days leading up to them. Additionally, I just haven't felt like I had anything interesting to say. I realized recently that one of the reasons I've found blogging to be so much fun and so fulfilling in the first two years of this little blog was because I was still learning how to cook new and interesting things, so I was always trying to make something I hadn't made yet so I could come up with a unique post. Over the last several months, I've found myself perfectly happy to repeat "favorites" from the last few years, and although I only rotate recipes every few months, I still didn't have anything interesting to say about making "this" dish again.

Here is a quick recap of my Celebrate Vegan mini-menu:

The two pasta dishes (Pasta with Shallots and Chard and Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil) were just like I remembered them - relatively easy with a ton of flavor. Neither of them made as much as I thought I remembered, but believe me, with Thanksgiving coming up, there was no place in our fridge for leftovers anyway.

I made one new recipe from the book I wasn't able to make before because it needed tweaking for Mister's intestinal safety, the Jambalaya and it was quite tasty and fake-meat-alicious!

So let's switch gears.

There's a lovely song by Josh Groban (which you can hear a beautiful cover of here) with the following lyrics:

Some days we forget to look around us.

Some days we can't see the joy that surrounds us.

So caught up inside ourselves, we take when we should give,

So for tonight, we pray for what we know can be,

And on this day we hope for what we still can't see.

It's up to us to be the change,

And even though we all can still do more...

There's so much to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for a great many things, not the least of which being how well my first Thanksgiving as the cook and hostess turned out! Here was our menu:

When my parents arrived, we set out mixed olives, veggie crudites with Muhammara (from Celebrate Vegan) and store-bought dill dip (thanks, Mister), and Spanakopita (from The Accidental Vegan). The main course was a Torfurky Roast which Mister has wanted since his first non-meat-eating Thanksgiving and I was thrilled to be able to give it to him. Alongside the Tofurky was mashed potatoes, roasted broccoli, and my mom's becoming-famous salad, then dessert was Apple Pie with Vanilla "ice cream" by So Delicious. Dad brought two delightful bottles of my favorite wines - Apothic Red and the 2009 vintage of Georges deBoeuf Beaujolais-Villages, as well as a four-pack of mini-champagnes "for after work."

Oh? You wanted a picture parade? Okay!

I began my preparations on Monday or Tuesday night, starting with the Muhammara dip since it would taste the best after sitting in the fridge for a few days. I figured it was best to make it the same night we had Pasta with Shallots and Chard since my home already stank of an onion sibling (and since I already had the book out). After simmering three chopped red peppers with a chopped onion and sliced garlic for an hour, I dry-toasted some walnuts,

And then placed everything in the blending machine...

and pureed it until it was mostly smooth and homogenously orange.

After it cooled a little, I scooped it into a "tupperware" and stuck it in the fridge, to be forgotten until Thursday.

Wednesday night, I intended to make the spanakopita because I've found that it sticks together better if it's made the night before it's eaten. So I chopped up a shallot to substitute for the revolting onion in the recipe and sauteed the onion and spinach while the lentils cooked.

Added the brown lentils (I'm not actually sure why, either)

and then a big heap of crumbled ~~feta~~ tofu,

and stirred it all together.

This is where it gets fun. By the time I started making this, I'd only worked one eight-hour day at work (the others went long in preparation for Black Friday) and after that 8-hour day (of being one half of the sales force, since one person got sent home with an eye infection) I had a 2.5 hour hair appointment (oh, how I missed you, Candi KaBoom!), so I really wasn't on my most... "with it" behavior.

I realized after all the work of assembling the spanakopita, including gluing sheets of phyllo together with olive oil while listening to the darkly angelic voice of Amy Lee through my earbuds, that I had missed one step of the two-step process required to preheat my ancient oven. So, finding (at 2am) that my oven was still cold after it was "preheating" for 30 minutes, I covered the spanakopita with plastic, put it in the fridge and went to bed.

It came out just fine when I baked it the next morning.

Then came the piece de resistance.

Mister's long-awaited Tofurky Roast, complete with wild rice stuffing.

I put it in a little Corningware casserole dish and surrounded it with quartered potatoes and carrots, then poured half of the sage marinade over it and stuck that puppy in the oven.

It's not a real puppy, by the way.

appetizers - from the top: Muhammara, Dill dip, olives

more apps: Spanakopita, crudites

The Torfurky, all basted and roasted and ready to eat!

Sides: mashterpaters, roasted broccoli, and the canned
cranberry "sauce" Mister insisted we needed

I realized in a panic a few days before Thanksgiving (and a few days after I constructed the menu) that I had completely neglected to get/make gravy. In an incredible (and incredibly fortunate) coincidence, my dear Mama Pea posted this recipe to save my butt. It was good and easy to make in a pinch, but a little too thick to become a regular occurrence in our home, so next year we'll think ahead and find something a little more pourable.

Next year?

That's right! It seems my parents enjoyed themselves enough to consider sharing the holidays - with any luck, that means I will always host Thanksgiving and they can have Christmas :) In any case, thanks to my hard-working dishwasher and helpful husband, it didn't take all that long to clean up after dinner, allowing me to get to bed by nine(ish) since I had to be up at 3am to go to work.

In case you were wondering, Philadelphia is incredibly quiet and peaceful (and dark) at 5am.

celebrate tweakin'

2011-11-19T23:44:00.000-05:00

When I first started cooking from cookbooks, I was strict to the letter. As time went by, I found I had to tweak things a little, either because they contained onions (which make my breath sad) or eggplant or mushrooms (which make Mister sad). The more I cooked, the more comfortable I became with tweaking, so that now I can even mix together two recipes the way an artist my blend a few paints on her pallet (though I'm usually surprised when they come out this well)...

Last night's dinner was Easy Manicotti Alla Romana from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook. In case you were wondering, there is actually a way to further simplify a recipe with "easy" in the title. Ironically, but maybe not unexpectedly, the shortcut came from another recipe for Cheese Manicotti on the back of the pasta box.

Just as I was gearing up to be annoyed by the extra step (and extra time) of having to boil the manicottis first, then stuff them with the awesome filling (verrrrry carefully so they don't break apart) before covering them with marinara sauce and baking them for 45 minutes, I saw my little miracle: according to the manicotti box, I could stuff the nice, dry, rigid pasta with the stuffing without boiling it first, and all I had to do to ensure they were not still rock hard when they came out of the oven was add a cup of water to the marinara sauce!

It's so exciting when that nonsense is true. The spinach and "cheese" filling was also quite flavorful and good. The cookbook almost had it right without my help, but they wrote for me to add a 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese to the tofu "ricotta" so I substituted the same amount of nooch. The final tweak involved spinach. For reasons I will probably never know, the author of the recipe felt like it needed a ratio of 48oz of frozen spinach to 10oz of tofu. Mister's eyes almost popped out of his head when I shared that and he was quick to agree with me that two 10oz blocks of spinach were far more fitting to the 14oz block of tofu.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent a lot of time flipping through pages and furrowing my brow and then thinking I had everything figured out until I consulted with Mister and found that I was doing it wrong. Well, maybe not all of "it" but certainly some of it. I figure that there will probably be plenty of people grabbing last minute Thanksgiving things on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and I don't want to be one of them, so I wanted to plot out my Thanksgiving menu along with the regular week's menu and shop for the whole lot over the weekend. Now seems an opportune time to share the "normal" part of the upcoming menu, since dinner came from it...

1. Cottage Pie because I still haven't made the seitan and at this point, I may just buy it.

2. Farfalle with Shallots and Chard from Celebrate Vegan, because I have been waiting to remake this for nearly a year and now I have my new cookbook. By the way, the rest of this week's abbreviated menu comes from Celebrate Vegan so I'm not going to bother writing it again.

3. Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil because this is also a super recipe that makes Mister happy.

4. Jambalaya, because I need another jambalaya recipe like I need another beans-n-rice recipe or another pasta e fagioli recipe, but the ingredients were just so intriguing and this was a recipe I did not have the opportunity to test.

Why not, you ask?

When Dynise communicated her desires and expectations to the whole group of us testers, she requested that we make the recipe exactly as written and then make it a second time if we felt the need to tweak it. I completely respect that, since she won't know how a recipe she wrote came out for someone else if they don't use the recipe she wrote, ya know?

As a result, I did a lot more cooking with onions than I was used to, or comfortable with, but in the course of doing so, found that it's not always a terrible thing. In fact, being "forced" to follow her recipes without what had become a natural inclination to tweaking was delightfully education and helped me to expand my repertoire further because I used ingredients I would never choose on my own.

Nevertheless, there were many recipes I could not test because they contained an ingredient to which Mister was allergic or had an aversion. Now that I have the cookbook in its completed form, I can find substitutes for tempeh and mushrooms so Mister doesn't end up in the emergency room or wake me from a sound sleep with his moaning and wincing. I can sleep through a police raid outside our window but I can't sleep through the aftermath of feeding Mister tempeh.

Fortunately, my tweak-creative mind was able to find an adequate substitute for the tempeh bacon I was supposed to use in Dynise's delightful Jambalaya in the form of Hickory-Smoked Tofurky deli slices. I just unwrapped the whole stack and "diced" the slices - it was possibly even easier than if I had used tempeh bacon with the added benefit that tonight won't be the night I'm widowed.

free Beaujolais? mais oui et merci!

2011-11-18T00:33:00.001-05:00

So, tonight was the Midtown Village Beaujolais Nouveau festival, honoring the third Thursday of November, when the Beaujolais Nouveau is introduced to the waiting (and aware) world. It involved 12 restaurants serving Beaujolais-soaked entrees or appetizers (or maybe just constructing a specialty cocktail involving Beaujolais, like the Sangria at the Stephen Starr Mexican joint) and 9 area retailers (including my store) offering sales and complimentary tastes of the new vintage. Some highlights?

Beaujolais risotto
Beaujolais-braised short rib pizza
Beaujolais-inspired chocolates
Beaujolais soap and lip balm
and my favorite... Beaujolais jello shots

There were several other things, but those struck me as most outstanding and interesting. I was working for the first two hours of the festival, but when my shift ended, I headed out to see what was still going on. I entered Duross & Langel and was treated to a dixie cup of 2011 Beaujolais Nouveau and a complimentary tin of Beaujolais lip balm (it kind of smells like cherries, but whatever - it was free and makes my lips feel shiny). They have some amazing handmade soaps in there and I will almost definitely return for the holiday shopping season - this stuff is great for that person who has everything because they are both novel and expendable.

After sniffing to my heart's content (and wishing things had price tags), I gave my empty cup to the jovial young man who had given it to me when it contained a swallow of wine and headed out the door. I wandered next door to Paper on Pine, owned by a neighbor of mine and a lovely woman (who also patronizes our shop). As soon as I came in, the owner recognized me and gave me a more generously-poured plastic cup of 2009 Beaujolais-Villages (which wasn't exactly the point, but it is considered Georges deBoeuf's Vintage of a Lifetime and it's one of my favorites) to sip on as I chatted with her and wandered around her delightful little store. I ended up with a lovely card and some stationery. I will undoubtedly revisit her establishment not only for Christmas shopping but for many other things (she does custom-printed invitations and announcements, too). As I was paying, she asked if I wanted more wine - what a lovely woman! Alas, it was time to go home and make dinner, so I just stopped into my "local" wine store and picked up my own bottle of 2011 Beaujolais Nouveau to enjoy over the weekend.

It was only by reminding myself that payday is tomorrow that I was able to prevent myself from calling the newly-opened Vedge for reservations. I've waited this long...

Nevertheless, by the time I got home, it felt too late to start making a dinner with an hour and a half of cooking time, so I decided to wing it!

Mister and I had a field day trying to come up with a cookbook-worthy name for this creation, but unless anyone would like to volunteer something a little snootier, we're going with

Pasta with Green Veggie Marinara

6 generous servings

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil

5 medium cloves of garlic, pressed

generous pinch of red pepper flakes

1 bunch of asparagus (roughly 1lb), bias-cut into 2" pieces

10oz frozen spinach, thawed

24oz prepared marinara

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a sauteuse on medium-high heat. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, then reduce heat to low and saute, stirring frequently, 3-5 minutes, until golden. Add asparagus and stir well to combine with garlic.

Cover pan and raise heat just slightly to make the asparagus sizzle a little. Saute 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, cook the pasta of your choice (my choice was penne) according to package directions. When the asparagus is tender, stir in thawed spinach.

and then add the marinara and stir well to thoroughly combine.

Simmer, uncovered, 5-7 minutes. Drain the pasta and season the sauce with salt and/or pepper to taste, then toss the sauce with the pasta and serve!

Enjoy! (with some Beaujolais Nouveau...)

Cheers!

your daily b*tch(es)

2011-11-16T22:48:00.001-05:00

Last Christmas [I gave you my heart - come on, sing along!], my sister(in-law) gave me a wonderful gift. It's a gift I get to enjoy every single day, and I'm not talking about her brother. She gave me a Skinny Bitch daily calendar. This means that every day there is a new nugget of wisdom, served up with a side of KickYourA$$ and sometimes a tall glass of Reality.

I actually took it to work and had it on my desk at my old job and my former boss used to get almost as much joy from it as I did, so after I left, if the Wisdom Nugget was particularly useful, I would email him and always use the title Your Daily Bitch. Lucky you, you get a double dose.

B*tch #1: working an 11-hour day because Black Friday is coming and apparently that means we have to rearrange the entire store. Fortunately, I adore my new colleagues and there was generous "overtime compensation" provided by the Pres: gourmet pizza (including an incredible tomato pie with jade-green pesto swirls) and high-end beer (but I drank Smirnoff Ice because I don't like beer ~~and I missed being trashy~~). Nevertheless, my feet hurt and I'm exhausted, so this is kind of my way of copping out.

Which leads to....

Bitch #2: brought to you from a particularly useful day on the Skinny Bitch calendar that now lives on my desk at home:

THIS IS YOUR LIFE! Live it to the fullest with reckless abandon. Seize the day. And do it again tomorrow. Live. Go get your dream job. Search for your dream man. Fear nothing. Try everything. Be excited. Dance. You'll never get yesterday back, but today is yours for the taking. Make it great. (my emphasis added)

hurts so good/Mister saves the day

2011-11-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

I truly don't know how these things happen. I thought I was finally finished my food shopping when I walked out of Trader Joe's this evening, only to get home and start making Granada Paella from The Urban Vegan and discover that I was short a red bell pepper. I don't know how many times Mister has gone out after I started making dinner to get something I was missing (tortilla chips, refried beans, spinach, to name a few) but we can add Red Bell Pepper to the list.

He came back with a brown paper bag and my spidey-sense* told me the red pepper was not alone. Indeed, after Mister pulled out the pepper, he smiled and reached back into the bag and gave me chocolate, "because you ran out." What a sweetheart! because I did eat my last mini-chocolate bar from the halloween candy last night. I thought it was sweet that he wanted to be as vigilant about my dark chocolate supply as I am about his bread supply.
*spidey-sense: the magical ability of wives to know beyond any shadow of doubt that their husbands will return home with at least 1 item more than they were sent out to get. I inherited mine from my mother and that's why my dad isn't allowed to go to Pepperidge Farm unchaperoned.

Anyway, I recognized that Mister was probably about to be even more helpful as I was cooking dinner.

I love this recipe - truly I do - but I keep forgetting how now that I make it correctly, it burns my face off. This is normally how dinner goes when I make this:
Bite 1: mmmm....tasty, but hey, that's a little spicy!
Bite 2: umm.....
Bite 3: chokecough
water break
get a few more bites in: face starts to feel a little hot around the ears, eyes, and nose
water break
few more bites: nose starts running
wipe nose
water break
few more bites: now my tongue and lips are burning at a steady rate, almost ignorable
few more bites: can't quite feel my tongue
Time for 2nds! (can't help it - it tastes so good it's worth the pain)
grand finale: my nose is red, my ears are red, my nose is sniffly, my lips are burning and my tongue is nearly numb... and my husband, who by now has plowed through three bowls without blinking or taking more than two sips of water, is laughing at me.

As I've learned previously, the best way to treat these "symptoms" is with dark chocolate.

Thank you, Mister

Although Angst initially showed some interest in dinner, it didn't take long for him to decide he wasn't terribly interested in whatever was making his Lady disintegrate, so he found something else to be far more interesting than our dinner time talk about dubstep. [By the way - if you want to see something incredible, click here and prepare to hold your breath for about 6 minutes.]

Inside that large Williams-Sonoma bag live some other, smaller paper bags. Just before we sat down, Mister added the little brown sack from Essene to that bag, but Angst really wanted it. This is the last in a series of pictures of him climbing into the larger bag to snuffle at and try to retrieve "his" bag.

my bag. mine.

perfect timing!

2011-11-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

I never realize how many e-magazines and other lifestyle websites have my email address until this time of year. This past week, I've been bombarded with emails from Real Simple, Martha Stewart, and probably some others, on how to have a healthy, happy, full-of-variety, outside-the-box-but-still-traditional, cholesterol-free, chocolatey Thanksgiving.

I do actually intend to pick through each and every email, especially since I get to host Thanksgiving this year! This is mega-exciting for me. One of the biggest reasons Mister and I moved from our old closet to a slightly larger one (think "dressing room," folks) is because I love to entertain but had no space to do it in our old apartment. I am so excited about Thanksgiving, I've even managed to block out the anticipated trauma of Black Friday (the first time it's mattered in 17 years). I will be wandering off shortly to sift through emails and websites and.....

My new cookbook which arrived just today! Woo hoo! This is probably one of the best Mondays ever: my make-up came out great and garnered several compliments from customers, my dad came to visit and we made plans to have Thanksgiving at my home this year, I sold more than anyone else in the store (closest person "behind" me was over $2000 behind), and I came home to Celebrate Vegan, the long-awaited second cookbook from Philly's own Urban Vegan, Dynise Balcavage.

I'm sure you can imagine the sole source of next week's menu.

I will be posting a review of this book, just in case I haven't already enticed you into purchasing your own copy. Hey - ~~Black Friday~~ Christmas is coming! Time to make those lists!

Ironically, I made my favorite recipe for Sloppy Joes last night, and I remember thinking, "Gee, I hope I get my new cookbook soon...I love these sloppy joes, but I could just drool thinking of those new recipes [that I haven't beaten to death and will do again tomorrow night]."

In fact, tonight's dinner was ~~Farfalle~~ Rotini with Cabbage and White Beans from Vegan on the Cheap and when I saw that I had the new Celebrate Vegan and a pile of shallots, I almost abandoned dinner to remake this sure-to-be-classic/heavily-rotated recipe. I was too busy daydreaming to take pictures of tonight's dinner, but let me assure you, the most interesting part was Angst wishing he could overturn one of our dishes and steal all the "slimy," wilted cabbage.

It's a good thing I have so many more tasty things left on this week's menu, because I'm already looking forward to plotting next week's (and Thanksgiving! so off I go). Sweet dreams are made of this!

no olives tonight

2011-11-12T23:57:00.000-05:00

It's a pretty safe bet that Mister and I eat olives almost every day. They are nearly always an accompaniment to our primarily Mediterranean dinners, so the only times I can think of that we don't have them at the table is when I make an Asian-inspired dish or we're out...which I usually try to time so they fall together. We did not eat an Asian meal tonight, but we did not eat a Mediterranean meal either... in fact, for many reasons, tonight's dinner was entirely unsuited to olives.

I personally have never seen olives in a pub (unless it's a fancy pub with martinis)...

And tonight I made my Mister his veganized Bangers and Mash:

Ingredients:
4 Tofurky Beer Brats
1/2 stick of Earth Balance (or measure 1/4 c from the tub)
1 tsp olive oil
4 large shallots, thinly sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic, pressed
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp fresh thyme (or scant 1/2 tsp dried)
1/2 to 3/4 cup of red wine
2 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 1 Tbsp warm water
and for the mash...
2 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into manageable chunks
2 Tbsp Earth Balance (1/2 of what remains from your earlier stick or measure from the tub)
1/3 to 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk (or nondairy "milk" of your preference)

makes 4 servings

To make the gravy sauce, slice the shallots nice and thin, then press the garlic over top of them. Melt the Earth Balance in a deep saute pan and add the olive oil. Dump the whole pile of shallots and garlic into the heated oil 'n' EB and stir it up good, being sure to break up the rings of the shallots.

Cook for about 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the sugar, stir to coat, and allow to cook another 2 minutes or so.

Sprinkle on the thyme (quick tip: the easiest way to remove fresh thyme leaves from their stalks is by pulling the stalk through your finger(nail)s against the growth of leaves) and pour in your red wine. Cook gently until reduced to just barely any liquid.

Pour in the vegetable broth and turn up the heat to get it to boil. Once the stock is boiling somewhat rapidly, turn down the heat so that it's still bubbling gently. Allow to cook until it's reduced by 80% - this took me about 30 minutes - stirring now and then. When the gravy is appropriately reduced, stir in the Worcestershire sauce and then the slurry of cornstarch + water. Turn heat to high and stir constantly until the gravy reaches a fierce, bubbling boil, then reduce heat slightly and continue to stir while it boils gently a few minutes. Remove from heat.

Now, while you had those 30 minutes that the gravy was reducing, you should have been chopping the potatoes, putting them in a pot and covering them with water + 1", then boiling them until fork-tender (it took me about 10 minutes, but I chop small). When the potatoes are done, drain them in a fine mesh colander and then dump them in your favorite Martha Stewart Blue mixing bowl.

Add 2 Tbsp of Earth Balance and start with 1/3 cup of soymilk (you can always add more). Sprinkle on however much salt you think is appropriate (I went with a heaping teaspoon), then mash with a potato masher or fork (or even an electric mixer if you're feeling spunky) until smooth and creamy, adding more milk if necessary.

To serve, place one Tofurky Beer Brat on a plate (you're welcome, Mister), and lay a mountain of mashed potatoes beside it. Place the gravy bowl on the table with a pretty little ladle and allow your dining partners to put it on their own plates, to taste.

It came out really good. Mister was thrilled and I was very happy with my heaping mound of mashterpaters. Mister and I once again remembered that we didn't know which hand held the knife, but we figured it was probably safest for the dominant hand to wield the sharp, pointy utensil.

As I'm sure you can imagine, Angst was also very excited about this "meat and potatoes" dinner. He was so big-eyed and daring in his begging that Mister couldn't even be mad at him and even gave him a few pieces of his beer brat.

I can't take full credit for this recipe. Since I was previously unacquainted with Bangers and Mash, I did do some internet research and was delighted to find the UK version of our Food Network, so the recipe above was inspired by and loosely based upon this one, penned by Ed Baines of Market Kitchen fame.

I got some lucky charms

2011-11-12T00:12:00.001-05:00

When I was a kid, my mother and I had a continual struggle over one particular breakfast cereal. My sister was frequently my accomplice and when we teamed up, we frequently won. We wanted Lucky Charms - what kid wouldn't? First of all, when we were children, they had a great marketing campaign, complete with animated leprechauns and colorful marshmallows.

this is the actual 1980 box design

Second of all, the cereal was almost half marshmallows! Granted, the other half was flavorless, grainy, mushy-in-milk cereal shaped to imitate those colorful, sugary, artificially flavored nuggets of heaven, but there were ways of getting around that.

And that, friends, is why the struggle occurred.

My mother made the mistake of giving in and buying it for us once. In days were were finished with the cereal, and what I mean by that is that we had plucked out all of the marshmallows and had no special interest in eating what was left. Mom saw this as a colossal waste of our hard-working father's money, so she swore she'd never buy it again.

When your eyes are as big and blue as mine and your hair as pale and angelic as my sister's, you just know that isn't going to last. Throughout my childhood and youth, the scenario repeated itself over and over - mom bought the cereal after securing promises from her two little ~~gremlins~~ angels that we would eat ALL the contents of the box, not just the marshmallows. We found newer and more inventive ways of not eating the gross, grey, real cereal in the box, or eating as little of it as we could get away with.

Once, as an adult, I bought myself the much-fought-over and much-sought-after cereal and discovered two things. First, I don't know if they improved the flavor of the NotMarshmallowBits, but it really wasn't all that bad to eat bites that contained equal amounts of cereal and marshmallows. Second, I don't know if they changed the "recipe" for the marshmallows, but they really weren't worth all the begging.

Anyway, this post isn't about those lucky charms (believe it or not).

I got lucky tonight with the last recipe of the menu: Tanya's Asian Creation from The Garden of Vegan. Honestly, I made this out of a stubborn desire to use the second most underused cookbook in my collection. I sat down with the book while making last week's menu and said, "I will find one good recipe in this book so I can justify having it for a better reason than that it completes the Sarah Kramer Trilogy."

In the book, the recipe looked promising, but I'll admit, it was at this point in preparing it that I finally became convinced it might taste good. I realized that is one of the reasons I don't cook frequently from this book - there are a lot of freaky little Asian-inspired dishes by Tanya Barnard, Sarah's writing-mate, and I just can't get into a lot of the strange ingredients she uses. I confirmed my suspicions during dinner that Mister might leave me if I try to feed him seaweed.

Fortunately, we both got lucky because this has no seaweed or other bizarre ingredients and actually tasted pretty good. It must have been sufficiently filling, too, because it took Mister hours to need his nightly sandwich(es).

So, the old menu done and the new menu was constructed over the course of today (yes, it took all day - I was interrupted several times by a hyper Mister who concluded that he is better off as an insomniac because when he sleeps too much [= enough], he has all kinds of energy and won't leave me alone). Lucky for Mister, I love him and I constructed almost the whole menu with his recent requests/feedback/pleas in mind.

1. Cottage Pie - I've mentioned a couple of times now that Mister mourns the loss of classic UK pub food (which is amusing, since I'm the Greek's little Irish wife), so I've set out to try veganizing a couple of classics. This one looked relatively do-able, so while the name of the recipe links to the original recipe, I will probably post my own version once I've determined it's worth feeding to other people.

2. Bangers and Mash - which was the original reason this began. Mister really wants vegan Bangers and Mash and said "it's just sausage and mashed potatoes, so it shouldn't be that difficult, but there's something about it that's just so....amazing." From the recipe I'll be loosely following, it looks like that "something special" is the gravy. Interestingly enough, I found a recipe for Bangers and Mash in one of the cookbooks I went through tonight for the rest of the menu, but since the recipe I'm borrowing from (click the title) is composed by a true Brit, I'm going to stick with that.

3. Easy Manicotti Alla Romana from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook because Mister also requested more food you need to cut with a knife and can be served on a plate. Go figure. Anyway, I figure this combines everything that is great in MisterWorld: Italian food, food you can cut, and food you eat on a plate.

4. Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan, which also requires a plate, also makes Mister (and Angst, and me) happy, and cooks up super fast and easy, which is all I want in the world some nights.

5. Granada Paella, also from The Urban Vegan, even though it burns my face off the first night (the leftovers hurt less, probably because I don't heat them up) because it really does taste incredible and I've made it so many times I barely have to think about it anymore, which is another thing that's important some nights.

6. Farfalle with White Beans and Cabbage from Vegan on the Cheap because I have half a head of red cabbage hanging out in my crisper drawer and because the grocery list was getting a little long for the second week of the paycheck.

At least half of the recipes take a decent time commitment. I wanted to take advantage of the time before Black Friday to make some longer-cooking meals because I have an idea that I will want low-effort meals for the month and a half that follows. Someday I'll work in a position that doesn't mean December = Insanity. This year is not that time.

pub fare, take one

2011-11-11T00:54:00.001-05:00

Exactly two weeks ago was Mister's and my 4th wedding anniversary. It was also one of the nights I worked until close (9pm) so we just ate leftovers and sniffed pretty roses and gave each other some kisses. We actually had our anniversary dinner the following night. In the absence of our dear departed (and ardently missed!) Horizons, the only place in center city Philadelphia (or anywhere within decent driving distance to my knowledge) for vegan fine dining, we made some calls, reviewed some restaurants' menus online, and eventually settled on this plan: we'd start at Front and South Streets and just walk until we found somewhere we wanted to eat.

I hate South Street. This was Mister's brilliant idea, because he seemed to think we had heard of a bunch of restaurants about to open on South Street. I think we might have been thinking ahead on that one because what was on South Street was a lot of recently closed restaurants, as the Street continues its slow decline. Regardless, we started our menu-gazing at Downey's, an Irish bar & restaurant. We ultimately decided it probably wasn't the best bet for a "quiet" romantic anniversary dinner, so we kept going, but not before Mister whined a little about why no one has yet undertaken to veganize Irish/UK pub food and mourned that he hasn't had Bangers and Mash in about 9 years.

So, for my mister, tonight I made Savoury Shepherd's Pie from How It All Vegan.

First, I took my time slow-sauteing carrots, celery, tomato, and some garlic standing in for onion, then added in the lentils. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of mashed lentils, but that's no fun, so I cooked 1/2 cup of French de puy lentils and didn't bother mashing them. It came out just right, and far more attractive than it would have been (and has been) with mashed Goya lentils.

In my pretty Martha Stewart Blue bowl, I mashed together 3 Yukon Gold potatoes with a generous tablespoon of Earth Balance, a quarter-cup of Earth Balance soymilk (we're all about product placement tonight, folks!), and a generous sprinkling of salt. It is such a simple recipe, yet it's one of the tastiest recipes I have for mashed potatoes.

While the pie went into the oven, I opened my Happy Weekend bottle of 2009 Beaujolais-Villages because I'm ramping up for next Thursday, which is the third Thursday of November. To celebrate the introduction of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau, there will be a street festival right outside where I work next Thursday, complete with complimentary tastings, sales at the retail establishments, and two things that I feel utterly compelled to try: Beaujolais jell-o shots because I cannot figure out how that works, and Beaujolais lip balm, because that's freaking awesome.

Once I had smoothed on a thick coating of mashed potatoes to top the pie, I was a little disappointed in how bland it looked, so I sprinkled some Mediterranean Sea Salt blend on that puppy and it was absolutely the right choice. It added just a little....je ne sais quoi (someone take my French away!)

Stay tuned for tomorrow's menu, which should include at least one other attempt at making Mister some pub fare and other recent requests. We might end up with A Menu For Mister, part two...

and now for the bonus round

2011-11-09T23:49:00.000-05:00

So, last night Blogger was being mean (or it might possibly have been Comcast, who apparently felt like last night was a good time to mess up our whole connection) and I couldn't post pictures of dinner or Angst or rice wrapped in grape leaves. Every Wednesday morning at work, we have a sales meeting where we each share one thing we learned this past week. You know what I learned this week?

I suck at telling unillustrated stories.

You want me to rant about the squandering of our planet's resources? Provide an in-depth discourse about why I don't eat honey? Shame the fast food industry for profiting off of our fast-forward culture and increasing the chances of your average American growing obese? Shall I regal you with stories of how people have committed petty crimes to violate their parole so they can return to prison just so they don't have to decide between 7 different kinds of bread? Or how pasta can feed an army of undernourished poor for pennies a serving?

I can do all of that without a single picture (though they make it more fun, you must admit), but tell you a story about pasta with broccoli and new concentrated liquid bouillon and a fuzzy fan? Nope, can't do it without pictures. I use the photos as a kind of outline - they remind me where the story is going next. Without them, I totally lose my train of thought and the entire post derails in mere paragraphs.

So, I've fixed last night's post - feel free to check it out.

Tonight, I made Moroccan Chickpeas and Zucchini from Appetite for Reduction.

In lieu of the prescribed [gross] onion, I sliced up the other half of the huge shallot Mister picked out on our team trip to Whole Foods last week. In other news, I'm super proud of him for only picking up three things that weren't on the list I gave him for his Superfresh run today.

I was also a bit generous with the "pinch" of cinnamon to be added to the mix. It came out perfectly, actually, but when I first did it and all I could smell was cinnamon (above 5 cloves of garlic, 1 Tbsp grated ginger, a sliced shallot, cumin, and coriander!), I panicked a little. See, when the recipe says to add a pinch of something powdery (like cinnamon), I just flip up the top of the spice jar and shake some in - no need to actually "pinch" it with my fingers - you'll never get that off. Regardless, sometimes I forget how eager cinnamon can be to escape the little plastic jar in which it lives as well as what a pungent little spice it is - a little dab'll do ya, as they say.

Angst was so excited about dinner tonight that I had to put him in the bathroom. He's getting very vocal in his old age and there comes a point where Mister and I just can't listen to him squeaking while we're talking. Once we'd finished, I retrieved him and gave him plenty of love. Fortunately, he likes the bathroom, so he probably just fell asleep and forgot he was stuck...

Or maybe he'll just hate me until I give him breakfast in the morning when he's had a long lonely night to remember how much he loves me and misses me when I'm gone.

pasta's hungry work

2011-11-08T22:36:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I think Mister is just a little bit looney. Tonight was absolutely one of those nights. I made Pasta Con Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction because I knew it would make Mister happy (and also because I had planned to make it last night, but we'll get to that in a moment).

After scarfing down two bowls full of linguini and plenty of broccoli (as well as plenty of garlic - I have the world's stinkiest breath right now, thanks to that and the nasty little chunks of diced red onion that were hiding in the lentils of my salad this afternoon), Mister said he was hungry. I thought, "Surely, I misheard!" So I asked him if he said he was still hungry. To my surprise, he responded by nodding vehemently and then sticking out his lower lip in a pout.

My husband is the only human being on the planet who can eat two bowls of linguini and be hungry afterwards. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

So, about 15 minutes after dinner, Mister put on shoes and his coat and went out to find a sandwich. Seriously. He came back a little while later, happily stuffed with a Wawa sammich and a stale donut.

Sometimes, I just don't get him.

Anyway, on my way home from work last night, I stopped at Superfresh because I didn't realize how little bouillon I had until I used it all up making the Vegetable Lentil Stew the other night. I was hoping to pick up a can or quart of veggie broth even though Superfresh doesn't believe in it but something new caught my eye instead:

Mister thinks that image is completely unappetizing, but I think it's kind of cool that they have concentrated liquid broth base in little individual squeeze-packs. That's how it ended up in my home.

Each of the little squeeze-packs, when combined with water, make one cup of broth, which is actually kind of perfect, considering the number of times I've had to cut a bouillon cube in half because I only needed to make one cup of broth. Nevertheless, these will not be a standard issue in our home for two reasons: first, though I'll admit I haven't checked the nutritional info on Rapunzel bouillon in a while, it seems a little excessive for each packet to provide 770mg sodium. That is a solid third of the RDA and it only makes 1 cup. God forbid I use two packets... The second reason is purely economical and ecological - they are way more expensive than premade broth or Rapunzel bouillon cubes and result in a lot more material waste.

I guess it smelled pretty good, though, as part of the Broccoli Con Pasta, because Angst bugged Mister for a sniff/taste the moment we sat down to eat.

Could you resist those imploring eyes? That sad, hungry little face??

Yeah, neither could Mister.

Fortunately, once it was down at eye-level, Angst remembered he doesn't like pasta and resorted to staring me down to see if I had something different to eat. I gave him a small piece of pasta and after he licked it, he left it on the floor for me to pick up after dinner. What a sweetheart.

If I could go back a night, though, even after I made a special trip to Superfresh specifically to get the broth so I could make Pasta Con Broccoli, upon returning home, I stood in my kitchen, my apron half tied, thinking. Realizing that I absolutely could not muster the desire to make and eat that dinner, primarily because I'd gotten a completely different cuisine stuck on my tastebuds, I called out to Mister, "Hey, do you want to go to Cedar's for dinner?"

Yes, he did.

big mess in my kitchen

2011-11-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

Things I have accomplished since dinner:

Cleared the table
ate some Halloween candy from my parents (my mom put a note in the bag that says "Better your home than ours," but I see there are only a few surviving Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars and I don't think the kids took them - I'm on to your tricks, lady!)
engaged in a fun Facebook message session
trolled YouTube for a clip from the movie, "Anastasia," then posted said clip on Facebook (go, social media!)
pestered Mister

Things I haven't accomplished since dinner: cleaning up. In fact, my kitchen is such a phenomenal mess right now that I think I might actually bake cookies or cupcakes or something, just to see if I actually can dirty every dish in the house.

It's probably not as bad as I think, but compared to the super-simple clean-up from last night's dinner, a stove and counter and sink covered in dishes is a little daunting. This is what happens when I make blender sauces. More accurately, this is what happens when I make a blended sauce that could totally fit in my smaller food processor attachment to my immersion blender, so I start piling everything in there only to remember that I have to blend for 5 minutes and realizing that I have no desire to push the button that makes the blades spin for 5 minutes. So, having dirtied the little food processor, I dump everything into the grown-up food processor and proceed with the excessive blending. Which makes a huge mess.

Meanwhile, I'm chopping and roasting cauliflower while rinsing the chickpeas (and contemplating the effort required to pinch them out of their little skins) and cooking the bulgur, then scraping the sides of the food processor (with yet another spatula) and trying not to drip the sauce that collected on the lid onto the counter (and failing). Nevertheless, it all came together beautifully for our Mediterranean Bowls from Appetite for Reduction.

By way of a short aside, last week I did a favor for a colleague who then did her best to show her appreciation by gushing all over me and then buying me Starbucks. She asked what I wanted when she was going out to get it and I told her, "A hazelnut americano would make my heart sing," which she thought was very funny. I tell you this because roasted cauliflower makes Mister's heart sing.

I cut it into small florets, then doused it with olive oil and tossed it with some kosher salt and the Mediterranean herb blend I picked up in California:

No joke, the cauliflower had been roasting about 15 minutes and I was getting ready to add the chickpeas while gathering all of the ingredients for Isa's Caesar Chavez dressing, also from Appetite for Reduction, when Mister followed his nose into the kitchen and asked what he smelled. I told him it was roasted cauliflower (even though it was still in the act of roasting) and he asked when he could eat it and if now would be a good time. I explained he would have to wait 5-10 more minutes and after one more try, he went back to his computer to wait like a good boy.

After all my kitchen gymnastics, here was the result: Caesar Chavez dressing, clearly meant to replace fattening, anchovyful Caesar dressing. While I don't think you could mistake this for "the real thing," it has a delightful tang and very strong flavor, most likely attributed to the shallots that haunt my breath even now. In fact, I'm going to blame my inexcusably excessive candy consumption on that - I'm just trying to get rid of the taste and my breath mints are allllll the way over there in my purse.

The finished product went over much better than the last time Mister had something specifically titled Bowl, and merely mentioning "that outdoor restaurant" threw Mister into a memorymare and he proceeded to once again voice his complete displeasure with the Gyro Bowl he got. I think he's being a little over-dramatic, but then again, I loved my Hollywood Bowl.

But again, how could I not? I'm a rockstar ;)

When I'm not being a rockstar, though, I'm the kitchen help... better get on that pile of mess...

mister loves pasta

2011-11-05T23:32:00.001-04:00

In case I haven't made it clear in the past, Mister loves pasta a whole heck of a lot. He loves pasta so much that sometimes he even lets me serve him noodles made of all kinds of weird stuff, like buckwheat soba and rice noodles. As such, I'm rewarding him with his patience for my recent soup spree with a week that is almost 50% noodles of some sort. In fact, tonight we kicked off the new menu with dinner #1: Pasta E Fagioli from Veganomicon.

I made it with fun and sturdy Rotelle, but aside from that and the incredibly strong flavor of garlic, nothing was any more outstanding about this dish than normal. And when I say "normal" what I mean is "indescribably good," which is why I won't try. Just get the book and make it yourself (but increase the garlic to 8-9 cloves, if you dare...)

Every once in a while I serve "weird" noodles, like whole wheat spaghetti, and Mister isn't quite as thrilled. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with the soba noodles later in the week. Fortunately, he's joined me in my love of these weird little rice noodles, which makes recipe creation a little easier.

Five-Spice Seitan and Noodles
4 servings

Ingredients:
12 oz seitan (in broth)
8 oz rice noodles, prepared according to package directions
green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup julienned carrots (about 1 large carrot or 2 smaller ones)
4 cloves of garlic, pressed/minced
2 Tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp Five-Spice powder
3 Tbsp tamari/soy sauce
2 tsp miso (I used white, but you can use whatever you have), dissolved in 1/3 cup warm water
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Heat peanut oil in a saute pan or wok on medium heat. Add garlic, pepper slices, and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally for 3-5 minutes, then add seitan and mix. Cook for 5 more minutes, then sprinkle on the Five Spice powder and tamari. Mix well and lower heat to medium low.

Drain noodles and add to the pot with the miso-water mixture and sesame oil. Cook, stirring frequently, for about three more minutes, until almost all the liquid is absorbed.

cold and sleeping beauty

2011-11-04T23:49:00.000-04:00

It almost seems inevitable that I would take a few days off after MoFo. I love MoFo, but there is something about "obligatory" blogging that wears me out a bit. Obviously, I chose the obligation, and there weren't really any rules about blogging every single day, but when there's such a good chance new eyes will find your posts, you don't really want to skip a night. So anyway, sorry about all that. I'm back!

Fortunately, some fun and exciting things (as well as self-deprecating moments of wallowing in near existential crisis) have been happening in my absence. Why don't we pick up where I left off - Wednesday.

Wednesday, if I recall, became quite cold by the lightless hours. This only helped me appreciate more the lovely present awaiting me on the kitchen table when I returned home from work that night: my brand new, 3rd of the limited run, Audrey coat from Vaute Couture! I don't know if I ever mentioned that I ordered it (back in August, which got me the coat at a 45% discount), but I have been anxiously awaiting it, especially as October drew to a close and I began to anticipate and experience the bone-chilling winds of November.

This picture actually shows the Hepburn coat (big difference, I know). The huge difference between the two is probably about 6 inches. While the Hepburn is more similar to the coat I replaced - a wool pea-coat that stopped just above my knees - the Audrey travels to mid-calf. This will result in an increase of warmth I probably can't even fully recognize just yet.

I haven't worn my new coat out yet because it's been quite temperate since it arrived (go figure), but it has some serious lining, so I'm sure it will live up to the claims of being wind-proof. This was one of the deciding factors - I think the coats are gorgeous, and it's almost a rite of passage for the underground diva in me to own a couture coat, but truly, I'm just tired of shivering through a wool coat in a Philadelphia winter.

I was supposed to attend a Dia de los Muertos party Wednesday night and I spent a decent bit of time preparing for it by daydreaming about the sugar skull make-up I wanted to try for it. Unfortunately, I forgot I was old until after I'd made, eaten, and cleaned up dinner. By then it was 10pm, it was cold, and I had grown just enough common sense to recognize that it was too late to safely ride the El to West Philly and back. I think the only reason Mister did not expressly forbid me to go was that he isn't my father.

Because I am a nice person, to use the words of a new boss, I agreed to work the later shift at work last night so another colleague could work early and attend an event after work last night. As such, there were no fun dinner stories, aside from Mister and I taking turns heating up leftovers. We ended up sitting at the table together, though, and discussing Occupy Philly, theology, and race relations until almost midnight. He drank coffee, I drank champagne, and together we put a small dent in the bag of Halloween candy my father gave me on my way to work.

Today, after sleeping past noon and taking our time waking up, Mister and I were happily ensconced in our Day Off Routine of drinking coffee and playing on the internet when there were two short buzzes from the "doorbell." Ordinarily, we ignore the doorbell since it's right on the street and sometimes hoodlums walking down the street think it's funny to ring a doorbell as they walk past. Today, though, I yelled to Mister (who was fully dressed already), "Hurry, it's my present!"

Mister jumped up and ran out the door - Philly mailmen don't leave packages and don't wait more than a few seconds before deciding you aren't there even though they know full well you probably have to unlock two locks, run down two flights of stairs to unlock two more locks and run down the small alley to the street... Regardless, because my former athlete still has it, he returned a few moments later (albeit a bit winded), smiling and holding a perfect white box with my name on it.

I hope I'm not the only woman who buys herself presents. Maybe I should start following my dad's lead and saying they're from Santa to me.

"Santa" sent me an early Christmas gift (because I'm a really good girl) - a shipment of e.l.f. cosmetics:

a palette of 100 shades of eyeshadow
12 cosmetic brushes
eyelid primer (just in case these colors don't have the pigment or staying power to match MAC)
"porcelain" foundation
a 4-shade "shimmer" palette
two eyeliner pencils and a pen (Mister said I should save money and just use a Sharpie - he doesn't realize it costs less than a Sharpie)
make-up remover wipes (we'll see how they stand up to my Neutrogena wipes)

That was all the provocation I needed to finally get in the shower and start my day - I couldn't wait to paint my face up with all that PETA-approved, cruelty-free makeup.

this is kinda what Heaven looks like to me

I hardly knew where to begin. Look at all those gorgeous colors! I watched a couple online makeup tutorials for color inspiration and got to work. I started with some black, mainly to test the intensity of pigment I was working with and I was absolutely astonished at how dark it went on with only a little dab on my new brush. Oh, that's another thing - I have been working with the same 3-4 shapes of MAC brushes for the last 10 years (and also, all the make-up I got today costed the same as one blush brush from MAC). It amazed me what a difference some of these new brushes made.

In the end, I was feeling like a pretty, pretty princess, so I went with a violet-fuschia shade with carbon black in the crease and some silvery-white highlighting just beneath the eyebrows. I had a bit more trouble than I anticipated filling in my eyebrows, which made me wish I had gone ahead and included the brow pencil in my order. There's always next time.

You can believe there will be a "next time." Probably a lot of them. I'll be honest - I was not expecting the quality I've seen so far. Do me a favor - head back up to that first shot of all the items I got. You back? Good - now, all that stuff? It was $36. Last time I went to MAC I spent a little more than twice that amount and came away with 2 eyeshadows, blush, lipstick and liner. If I had replaced my blush brush like I needed to, I would have taken that total over $100, which is actually all too standard for me.

Totally worth it. I can barely wait to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.

You may be thinking, "Um, yeah, so this is great, but what about the food?" Patience, dearies - here we go!

After discovering that it was quite cold and windy outside during our trip to Whole Foods, I couldn't think of a better way to warm our innards than with a big pot of slow-simmer stew. Good thing the last item left of the menu was Vegetable Lentil Stew from Vegan on the Cheap!

It was every bit as savory as I remembered it and it went well with the rustic, sour Pain de Campagne from Whole Foods I served alongside.

Wednesday night's dinner was fun and special, but this nonsense has gone on long enough, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow for that. Let's look at what's coming up this week!

1. Pasta E Fagioli from Veganomicon, AKA My Favorite Pasta e Fagioli recipe so far.

2. Savoury Shepherd's Pie from How It All Vegan, AKA Mister's Favorite Winter Dinner. It has been far too long since I've made this and Mister was mourning that there are no good vegan imitations of Pub Food when we were looking at a menu at an Irish Pub/Restaurant the other day. Eventually, this will result in me trying to make a vegan version of Bangers and Mash, because that is what he truly wanted, but when I told him I put this on the menu, he was pretty darn excited.

3. Pasta Con Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction, because apparently I want to use all my cookbooks in this week's menu. Also, because broccoli is awesome.

4. Moroccan Chickpeas and Zucchini, also from Appetite for Reduction.

5. Mediterranean Bowl from the Construct Your Own Bowl chapter of Appetite for Reduction. As we know, I love bowls, so it was only a matter of time before I decided to try one of these. Since they're so simple (not really a structured recipe), I have skipped these and the Sammiches/Wraps section, but we're gonna give it a go (and now you have Lady Marmalade stuck in your head. You're welcome.).

6. Tanya's Asian Delight from The Garden of Vegan. I feel sorry for this cookbook. I never use it. It looks brand new. I just can't get into a lot of the recipes these two crazy Canadians come up with in it (really, WHY would you put diced pickles - AKA relish - in Sloppy Joes? WHY???). One thing that I find completely charming in that "not gonna serve it to anyone I want to impress" kind of way is how quirky and down-homey the names of most of their recipes are.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to YouTube - magical videos of makeup applications and Evanescence/P!nk are calling me.

partners in crime

2011-11-01T23:47:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, I could burn water if I tried to cook. My mother tried to explain to me that cooking is as easy as following a recipe, but I couldn't be bothered to read and prepare food simultaneously. When I moved into my first apartment, I was somewhat skilled at Minute Rice, frozen chicken nuggets, and stovetop mac & cheese (involving packets of impossibly orange "cheese product"). I was also pretty skilled at ordering take-out and delivery.

Oh yeah, ramen noodles - I was a champ with those.

Anyway, when I met Mister, we usually went out for food, occasionally got a pizza after work, and once in a while, he'd cook something up. Once I got this romantic notion that I would make him dinner. I set the table with my parents' special china, crystal glasses, and lit some candles, then served the most impressive meal I could make at that time: chicken nuggets, Minute Rice, and Campbell's chunky soup in the Potato Cheese variety.

I look at that "menu" now and understand why Mister didn't let me cook again for at least two more years. I usually credit two things with me learning how to become the gourmet chef I pretend to be today: losing my job and therefore having all day to prepare dinner, and several great cookbooks gifted to me by my husband's mother, specifically Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. Let's put a little timeline together, though:

Summer 2001 - Mister and I share our first kiss, become generally inseparable.
Winter 2002 - Mister becomes a vegetarian, forsaking meat and confusing the heck out of me
Summer 2002 - I join Mister in ceasing animal consumption
October 2002 - move out of my parents' house and into my ghetto apartment. No takeout worth risking my life for, so I learn to cook...kind of. General rotation at this point: pasta with red sauce, veggie lo mein, veggie burgers with fries, mixed veggies on rice. Just mix and repeat.
blahblahblah
June 2006 - get laid off, have tons of time to cook, suddenly grow my gourmet wings.

Do you see that huge gap? Do you really think we lived on a diet of mixed veggies with rice, pasta and sauce, pizza and veggie burgers for four years? No, we didn't. Somewhere in there, Mister taught me some tricks and helped me figure out this crazy cooking thing.

See, I don't work all day and then come home and cook us dinner because Mister can't or is unwilling to. I come home and cook dinner because I enjoy cooking and it helps me unwind. Mister has offered many times to make dinner, but he knows I enjoy it. He does offer his assistance from time to time - especially where mexican/southwestern cuisine is concerned. I never would have known that you can't eat chili without tortilla chips and that using a fork is a sin but a spoon? Well, that's straight-up sacrilegious.

Tonight, as I was dicing a pepper for Tofu Rancheros, Mister came sniffing his way into the kitchen to see what was going on (the tasty aroma of the pan-seared tofu drew him in...no, really, it did). He asked what I was making, I told him. He asked how exactly that was going to work, so I told him the recipe. He stood, looking a little perplexed, then said,

"Shouldn't there be refried beans?"
Um....
"I thought that's what made them 'Rancheros,' right?"
Um.... I thought it was the tortilla.
"I don't know..."
Okay, well, do you want there to be refried beans?
thinkthinkthink "Yes."
short staring contest commences, and then,
"So I'll go get them. Do we need anything else?"

So that's the story of how Mister made my old recipe for Tofu Rancheros a little bit better.

Although, I have to say, letting the congealed mass of mashed beans sluuuurrrp! into my food is never something that makes me drool with anticipation. When I was younger, we had a poodle and when she got older we had to feed her a special diet which involved phenomenally stinky canned dog food.

I don't want to say that this reminds me of that... but why would I have told you that story if it didn't?

It always works out, though, once the heat has some time to work it into a malleable goop.

So, for your viewing and tasting pleasure, here is a recipe to celebrate World Vegan Day:

Tofu Rancheros
6 servings (or 8 skimpy ones)

Ingredients:
6 small to medium tortillas (I used Whole Foods 365 brand Red Chili tortillas)
14 oz firm or extra firm tofu
cooking spray
3 Tbsp tamari/soy sauce
2 Tbsp oil
1 large red bell pepper, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
14 oz can of petite diced tomatoes, drained with liquid reserved
1 cup finely chopped kale (or green thing of your preference)
a generous tsp of chili powder
a generous tsp of dried cilantro
a scant tsp of kosher salt
1/2 tsp cumin

Coat a square skillet with cooking spray.
Slice tofu through the middle lengthwise, then into 8ths crosswise. Heat the skillet while the tofu drains on a towel, then lay the tofu on the hot skillet and sprinkle with tamari. Flip tofu immediately to allow tamari to penetrate both sides of the tofu, and cook on medium-high for about 10 minutes, flipping two or three times (about every 3 minutes), until browned and a little crisp on both sides. Remove from heat and roughly chop with your spatula.

I'm actually not very good at "roughly." I prefer perfect triangles, cutting each square piece of tofu from corner to corner and then the other way, too. But it doesn't have to look this ~~OCD~~ precise.

While the tofu is cooking, heat the oil in a saute pan and saute the peppers and garlic in oil 3-5 minutes over a medium-low flame. Add drained tomatoes, chili powder, cilantro, salt, and cumin and stir well to combine. Cook for 5 more minutes, adding reserved tomato juice if the mixture seems to dry out, then add kale and stir to wilt.

Add refried bean and cut up the congealed, can-shaped mass until it can mix in with the other ingredients. Stir everything together until it is smooth and looks more like food or vomit than a can-shaped, pink cylinder of dog food.

Add tofu and mix well - feel free to break up the tofu a little more with the spoon as you mix.

Cook for a minute or two more, then remove from heat. Divide mixture among warmed tortillas, then tuck the bottom and roll like a burrito and enjoy!

It must have come out alright - Mister had four. That might be a record number of servings involving tofu for him. He was so busy enjoying his "fun dinner" that he didn't notice how much he'd eaten until I pointed it out, which then veered off into a conversation about Del Taco and him ordering the family value meals when he goes there because everything is so cheap and small.

bottom of a bottomless pit

2011-10-31T23:46:00.002-04:00

I may have mentioned this before, but in my world, certain things simply exist infinitely, without any risk that they'll run out. These things include dried herbs, spices, and various grains. I know the frozen veggies run out, I know the oils run out, and believe me, I'm aware of coffee's continual escape from our cupboard. In my brain, however, there will always be cumin, marjoram, and bulgur, and in the needed quantities.

Well, there was... until tonight.

I had only one meal left on last week's menu: Curried Bulgur with Chickpeas and Vegetables from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures. It was only after I'd poured enough water to cook a cup and a half of bulgur that I realized I had barely one full cup... I considered trying to draw out some of the water to make less bulgur, but then I realized the spice ratio would be off. This resulted in a swap for brown rice that didn't suck but probably won't happen again.

First, though, check out how perfectly julienned these carrots are!

No, they did not come pre-cut from a bag. Lest you think I'm bragging, though, I want to be clear that I was only able to pull off that level of perfection because of that still-super-awesome julienne peeler my mom gave me last winter. That is truly one of my favorite prep toys.

Anyway, it all came out perfectly edible, but the rice blows up bigger than bulgur, resulting in a wider distribution of the curry spices, resulting in a slightly more bland dish. I resisted the urge (several times) to add salt at table, instead resorting to stabbing an oil-cured olive and combining that with a mouthful of curried rice to take advantage of its almost painfully salty qualities. Without a word, Mister was doing the same.

So with that, we'll move on to the new menu. Welcome, new menu!

1. Vegetable Lentil Stew from Vegan on the Cheap because I saw one of my old posts highlighting this (when we'd just moved into our new home and I was sick as a dog) and I want to eat it again. I picked up a huge corner of what must have been a monstrously large loaf of Irish soda bread at Whole Foods tonight, which I intend to cut into chunks for Mister's and my dipping pleasure. Hopefully, he'll leave it alone until that happens.

2. Tofu Rancheros for the same reason (except for the part about bread).

3. Five-Spice Seitan and Noodles from my own twisted mind... I can't remember if I've shared the recipe previously, so I will likely include it on this making.

So, that's it - a short menu because I really wasn't all that into making a menu last night and I only need to get to Friday anyway. And another "That's it," goes out to MoFo 2011! If you found me this year, I'm so glad and I hope I've convinced you to stick around a bit longer. Here's me and Angst, signing off for October and my third MoFo:

pea kitty

2011-10-30T23:49:00.000-04:00

So, there's this blog I follow - Peas and Thank You - in which the blogger/mother/cookbook author occasionally makes a snarky remark about the family cat. Apparently, she and the cat haven't gotten along very well since she started making babies and it makes for some charming off-handed remarks along the way. Since the theme is peas, she's Mama Pea, married to Pea Daddy, and the cat is Pea Kitty.

Angst is trying to usurp Pea Kitty's throne.

I don't think he actually wants to move to the Pacific Northwest and live with a family he doesn't know which includes two darling children to torment his anti-social little butt, however, he did earn the name from Mister during dinner tonight.

Tonight we had Spicy Vegetable Ragout from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures. I completely failed to get a picture of it because it was pretty busy at work, I was hungry, and I just wasn't thinking about how fun it would be to snap a photo of my food to share with the world. Honestly, my brain had already left dinner and fast forwarded to the imaginary E.L.F. cosmetics shopping spree I've decided to try, inspired by my all-day make-up tutorial marathon yesterday.

You don't need pictures, though, to hear about the best part of this dinner. It was Angst discovering he loves peas. Seriously. Possibly more than chickpeas and maybe even spinach. He came over to bother Mister when I set down dinner. Like normal, Mister selected something from his bowl to convince the kitty he didn't want to share are dinner. Also like normal, Angst loved what Mister shared and wanted more...and more... and more. Pea after pea dropped to the floor and was scooped into his mouth after many squeaks and sad eyes at Mister. We couldn't believe how crazy he was being, so we just kept giving him peas. He probably ate 10 before we said, "sorry, no more" and showed the pouting kitty our empty bowls.

Peas.

I never would have guessed. Mama Pea? You need another cat?

snowtober??

2011-10-30T00:55:00.000-04:00

One thing I have to admit I love about news & weather websites/TVstuff is how easily and frequently they sensationalize any possible divergence from "normal" weather. Last winter, we had a "snowpocalypse" and I will admit, last January saw way more snow than I can remember in the last 15 years - in fact, the only time I remember more snow was January 1994 when they were cancelling school by the week and I actually only had three days of school in January. That was, as you say, epic.

So, enter today. Well, last night, actually, weather.com started predicting a snow storm with actual accumulations along the northeast corridor, including Philadelphia. By the time I left work, they had updated it to the season's first Nor'easter. If you are unfamiliar with the term, let me break it down like this: really really sucky windy storm that usually comes down from Canada to mess things up real good between Virginia and Ohio and up to Maine, generally involving heavy cold precipitation of some sort. Now, I like snow a lot, but a nor'easter was not what I wanted to hear.

So I wake up this morning to my alarm, believing I can probably head out to the suburbs and teach before anything serious starts, if it's even more than just crappy rain. I'm lying there for just a minute before rising and I hear it: tap, tap, ping, tap, etc. I think to myself, "No...it's not freezing rain. Not yet," and get up, pulling my bathrobe warmly around me as I head into the kitchen for breakfast.

Angst is in the window, smacking at the snowflakes.

Yup. Snowflakes. In October. I mean, for heaven's sake - it's not even Halloween yet! Everyone was freaking out all over Facebook, swearing they were going to move if we were in for another winter like last year, or worse. Me? I'm kinda hoping for it :)

Anyway, because it's so unusual for snow to start so early in the season ("normal" first snowfall in Pennsylvania - with any accumulation likely - is mid-December), everyone, including weather.com, is now talking about Snowtober. I guess that's kind of clever.

In case you were wondering, I did not ride the train a half hour out to the suburbs for the privilege of teaching at least three students who didn't bother practicing. Instead, I watched really awesome make-up tutorials on YouTube by this angelic little English girl, Klaire de lys, and then completely neglected to paint my own face. Poor Mister.

Eventually, I got it together to make dinner, which really couldn't have been anything other than Black Bean Soup with Kale and Rice from Vegan on the Cheap.

I was so relieved when the soup came out so chunky and substantial, because I know Mister's not a fan of soup dinners and he didn't eat much all day, but he seemed pretty happy about everything except eating his dinner with a spoon. I had forgotten how rich the broth is, and what a fabulous mouthful all the ingredients come together to make. Some sweetness from the carrots, creamy black beans, chewy rice, bitter kale, and tangy tomatoes were all brought together and spiked with a savory broth with simple spices.

Nevetheless, I knew Mister would be craving something more to eat later on, so when I was washing up the pot afterwards, I put a stick of Earth Balance out to soften.

Right now, my home smells incredible. I started out with the intention to make Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting, also from Vegan on the Cheap, but decided I had very little interest in the frosting. I started to just make chocolate cupcakes, but then decided to "doctor" them a little, resulting in a cupcake version of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, which were always among my favorite [Trick or] Treats.

It was a simple alteration, really. I started by filling each cupcake tin about 1/3 of the way

then I dropped about a half teaspoon to a scant teaspoon of peanut butter (I used chunky 'cause that's what we stock, but you can use whatever makes your little heart sing) into the center of each future cupcake, pressing down very lightly to set it in place. The dough is actually pretty stiff, so you shouldn't have trouble.

Once the PB was safely nestled in a little chocolate nest, I plopped the rest of the batter on top, filling each cupcake paper almost to the top, taking care to ensure it fell completely around the glop of PB, encasing it.

After teasing Mister and I with a luscious smell for about 25 minutes, these little beauties were finished cooking and ready to cool as much as we would allow them to...

Back to Klaire de lys for a few minutes...ah, so that's how they did the make-up for Black Swan.
And other stuff I don't really need to know. Thank you, YouTube!

Okay, back to the cupcakes.

So good. Seriously.

There were a couple of things I'd like to tweak in order to make this recipe completely my own and utterly scrumptious. Cooking Light got me in the habit of mixing up my flour to lighten it and then gently spooning it from the bag to my measuring cups before leveling them off. The idea here is that you use less flour = less dense baked goods = fewer calories. I think I need to abandon that for these cupcakes, in order to make them the dark, dense, fudgy outside I want them to be.

I think they could hold a little more peanut butter, too. I think a full teaspoon, maybe even heaping, would be in order here.

I also need to remember to check how much cocoa powder I have before committing to a chocolate cupcake recipe. I didn't have exactly a half cup of it left and I think that was to the cakes' detriment.

Believe me, these will be made again. And again and again and again, especially if we have a really snowy winter. Once I've "perfected" them, I'll share a recipe.

carpe diem...et rosae

2011-10-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

I can be a bad influence. I don't mean in that You-Should-Do-Drugs-'Cause-It'll-Make-You-Cool kind of way. Rather, I encourage people to choose the better of two evils when locked in an internal conflict of conscience. For example, the following conversation occurred at work today:

Colleague: I really want to go to Sampan for lunch, but I shouldn't.
Me: Why not?
Colleague: I brought a sandwich, so I was just going to get soup.
Me: Okay...
Colleague: Aw man.... I just remembered how good their soup dumplings are...[self-flaggelation follows]
Me: You should go.
Colleague: No, I should eat my sandwich, otherwise it will go to waste. I'll just go tomorrow.
Me: You don't know tomorrow will come - no one is promised tomorrow. If you want to go, you should go today. [little horns start to poke up from under my hair]
Colleague: You're a bad influence.
Me: Yes.
Colleague: But I'm having dinner with my cousin after work, so the sandwich will go to waste.
Me: The sandwich you were eating earlier?
Colleague: Yes. But I still have half left.
Me: Okay, but it's 4:30 right now and you're working until 9, so you won't have dinner until 9:15 at the very earliest. You'll be back here at 5, you'll eat your other half-sandwich around 7 because you'll need a snack to get you through until dinner.
Colleague: You're a bad influence.
Me: Yes.

With that, Colleague headed out the door for his lunch of Kimchi Fried Rice and Soup Dumplings at Sampan. He came back 30 minutes later with a satisfied smile and the last bite of an ice cream cone that had been his dessert poking through his lips.

I try to live by that whole "carpe diem" thing. Some people think it's morbid when I point out that we don't know that we'll have tomorrow, but it's true and I'm just trying to be realistic - you don't know. People close their eyes on their last day every day - if today is mine, I want to know I had a good one and didn't say, "eh, tomorrow," as though I had a limitless supply.

Actually, one thing, before we move on to happy things - here is a clip from Brandon Lee's last interview before he died quite unexpectedly on the set of "The Crow." You can skip to minute 5 for the part that is relevant to the first part of this post.

Now, Angst also likes to live in the Now, and doesn't want a single opportunity to eat something he shouldn't to pass him by. Enter the newest object of his hungry lust:

Two or three times a year (anniversary, birthday, and/or Valentines day), Mister ignores that Angst likes to destroy my roses and gets them for me anyway. At that point, Angst commences to stalking them, so we have to take them in the bedroom at the end of each night.

Yesterday was Mister's and my fourth wedding anniversary, which we celebrated by me working until 9pm, freezing my butt off as I walked home, and then hugging some and deciding to go out tonight instead (when I was home from work much earlier). Nevertheless, he did a bunch of sweet things for me - he got me my beautiful roses, changed the kitty litter and lit a smelly candle, and turned on the heat so I'd be warm when I got home from work. He's a keeper!

After a full day of trying to find somewhere to fill the void of Horizons and wishing Vedge was open, we ended up at La Fourno, having an enjoyable Italian meal. I will say, they have some of the most creative and substantial salads I've seen - we had some trouble finding the lettuce under all the grilled veggies! There was nothing terribly outstanding but I do have one little word of advice for my friends at La Fourno: wine should never be served in a heated glass. They really need to work on differentiating "cellar temperature" from "pizza oven behind this wall" temperature.

whataya want from me?

2011-10-26T23:43:00.000-04:00

If I could start from a decidedly non-culinary direction, I don't think I've made any secret of my love of two female vocalists.

Amy Lee of Evanescence

the incomparable P!nk

I realized something sometime in the last 48ish hours - I love them completely, equally, and for totally disparate reasons. They each represent something I love or want to love about myself - a glorified, famous part of me. I love Amy Lee for the ethereal beauty that she is - she looks a lot like me :) and we are both classically trained musicians. She is rumored to be a domineering perfectionist... no comment. P!nk, on the other hand, is the badass I want to be. I love how raw she is and how passionately she makes each poignant point, yet with enough fire that she doesn't normally allow for the same otherworldly wallowing I find so comforting in Evanescence's music.

It all made a lot more sense in my head, so let me wrap all that up by saying that Amy Lee speaks to the part of me that is aloof, mysterious, and all too in touch with the heartbreak of this world while P!nk pulls me up by my bootstraps, kicks me in the butt and reminds me that we can take this on, as long as it's worth fighting for.

Believe it or not, this really is leading up to dinner (kind of).

Tonight I made Rice Island Casserole from Vegan on the Cheap.

This is definitely not the first time I've made this, but sometimes, I spread my repeats so far apart that Mister forgets we've had something before. Also, I think he somewhat depends on me taking so darn long to remake a recipe so that he doesn't have to tell me when he doesn't like dinner.

Don't get me wrong - he went back for seconds. It might have been the second bowl that reminded him this wasn't his "favorite dinner," which is his cute little euphemistic way of saying, "I'd rather you didn't make this again." It's also possible that he ruined his own second bowl by thinking hot sauce would be a good addition. Either way, he got halfway through his second bowl before giving up.

I can probably take a lesson from a Sweet-n-Sour dish I made a few months ago which he helped me choose and then forgot when I served it, making a comment that he would never eat something sweet-n-sour "on purpose." I might have even caught on by his almost violent reaction to my suggestion that I might make pineapple cupcakes for his birthday and some derogatory comment about pineapple. I didn't, though, or I ignored it because sometimes, dinner is about what I want to eat.

In case you didn't know, P!nk actually wrote Adam Lambert's hit single "Whataya Want From Me?" and this is an incredible mash-up of the two of them singing it. It just seemed an appropriate song considering our dinner adventures...

birthday coffee and shameless plugging

2011-10-25T22:57:00.001-04:00

I will beg your pardon ahead of time - this post may bounce all over the place.

Yesterday was my dad's birthday which is absolutely no excuse for not posting since we didn't do anything but talk on the phone, but all I did for dinner was send Mister out for more tortilla chips while I reheated the leftover chili, so I didn't consider that very post-worthy. Something post-worthy could have come out of the conversation I had with my dad while I walked home from work, but I couldn't think of anything clever to say about his boat being shrink-wrapped for the winter (but doesn't it evoke a fabulous mental image of men on ladders with hair-dryers?). Here's something I love about my dad, though - me calling to wish him a happy birthday turned into him asking whether I prefer my coffee beans whole or pre-ground... just in case he returns to the Realm of Dark Chocolate Ecstasy Coffee this weekend...

Tonight, I made an old favorite recipe that I haven't made in years for no good reason except my own lack of imagination: Penne with Spinach and Chickpeas in Garlic Sauce from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures.

Angst absolutely loved all the little Hummus Balls (chickpeas) Mister was sharing with him. First he licked off all the salty, garlicky sauce, then he ate up his Hummus Balls with great gusto! And to think, possibly the only reason I haven't made this in recent years is because it didn't occur to me to just leave off the Parmesan - shame on me!

Okay, I'm sure a little of my negligence was due to the cookbook-buying spree I went on when I discovered how many amazing vegan cookbooks there are out there, thanks to the blogiverse. Speaking of amazing vegan cookbooks....

Yanked from Amazon.com

Best segue I could come up with accidentally to remind everyone that Celebrate Vegan by local Philly Urban Vegan, Dynise Balcavage is now available through Amazon.com and you should order it. This is the cookbook I had the incredible privilege of testing recipes for over the winter last year and I know I can't wait to get my hands on it!

For your reading pleasure, and with the hopes of enticing you to get this cookbook with express shipping, here are some links to my wintertime testing:

Farfalle with Shallots and Chard - I cannot wait to make this again!
Gussied-up Tabbouleh and Smoky Zucchini Bean Dip - the best tabbouleh I've ever had.
Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil - because "a big pot of pasta is a happy thing" according to Mister.
Lemon-Champagne-Braised Baby Bok Choy and Pan-Seared Tofu with Balsamic Glaze - I kind of want to start stockpiling the baby bok choy now... I already have a little bottle of champagne in the fridge.
Funeral Cake - BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE EVER and just in time for some Addams Family Halloween Fun!
Mega-Israeli Salad - the only thing better than the crunch is the bite of the garlic.

You can also click on the "testing" label at the bottom of any of those posts to see more adventures, but seriously - you need this cookbook. Celebrate Vegan by Dynise Balcavage - go get it!

slimy noodles

2011-10-23T21:57:00.000-04:00

Ordinarily, when I make Better-Than-Takeout Tofu Stir-fry from Vegan on the Cheap, I serve it over rice. "Ordinarily," I say, as though I make this all the time and not just twice before. Anyway, it's a pretty saucy "stirfry" and I'm not talking about its demeanor. As such, when I put it on the menu, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be fun to see how this works as a noodle dish?"

I'll admit, it's because I like to eat Asian-inspired food with chopsticks and in my opinion, noodles are far more fun and far easier to eat with chopsticks than rice dishes.

Anyway, as I was cooking the tofu and veggies, I boiled half a box of linguini and once it was finished, added it to the nice, thick, goopy sauce.

It came out great! A little messy, I'll grant you, but very tasty and I am pretty sure I will make it like this again... possibly always. The sauce made the noodles a bit slippery, which made my eating a bit slurpy and napkin-intensive. Mister was eating with such gusto that I asked him if he had eaten anything today. He explained that he had, but that he had to eat the noodles quickly because they were "slimy" and wanted to fall out of his chopstick grip. He has such a way with words.

Today was a gorgeous fall day, part of which I spent on a coffee-date with an old friend and part of which I spent shopping for the following menu:

1. Penne with Spinach and Chickpeas in Garlic Sauce from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures. I used to make this all the time so I hope my memories haven't built it up too much - I hate being disappointed!

2. Curried Bulghur with Chickpeas and Vegetables, also from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures. I really find the name of that book rather amusing. This is another dish I made so much that I took a long break from it and the last time I came back to it, I couldn't believe it was so tasty. Then again, I suppose there was probably a reason I used to make it so much!

3. Spicy Ragout of Vegetables and Tofu, also from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures.

4. Rice Island Casserole from Vegan on the Cheap. This recipe specifically names dark red kidney beans in the ingredients, but at least once I've substituted light-colored beans because SuperFresh is doing this weird thing where the dark kidney beans cost almost twice as much as the light ones. Can anyone provide insight, like dark kidney beans are very rare and only grow from one bean plant located on top of a craggy mountain in Turkmenistan? No? What then? The point, though, is that dark kidney beans were on sale this week (maybe they found a second bush somewhere) so I'll be true to the recipe.

5. Black Bean Soup with Kale and Rice from the Slow-Cooker chapter of Vegan on the Cheap. I've made this once before, though, so I know the secret way to make it without a slow-cooker (hint: it involves your stovetop and a soup pot).

sticks and stones... in my soup

2011-10-22T23:59:00.001-04:00

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

I'd like to call BS on that for two reasons. First and foremost, words can hurt a lot. If you don't believe that, you were never a 7th grade girl. Second, planks and rocks might break bones, but sticks and stones probably won't even bruise you. Someone got it backward.

Sticks and stone will probably break your teeth, though, should you find them in your Homey Vegetable Stew with Dumplings (from The 30 Minute Vegan).

If you remember the first time I made this, you'll probably notice the dumplings look a little different from the way they did then. A little...browner? A little less cohesive? Kinda gross-looking, actually?

The recipe calls for Spelt flour, but I was plum out - it's not one of those things I just keep around the house. I was going to use plain ol' wheat flour, but when I grabbed the bag down from the cupboard, I saw a special little jar hiding behind it - the mesquite flour my sister had ground for us from the pods of the mesquite tree in her backyard!

I pulled it down and measured out 3/4 cup to start making the dumplings, but I noticed there were some pebbly looking spots. In the interest of evening things out, I put the flour through my sifter. Good thing, too! When the flour had drifted dustily down into the bowl to be mixed with soymilk and canola oil, I looked into the sifter to see little bits of sticks and seeds and possibly stones (?) hanging out there.

Considering we don't have dental insurance right now, I'm glad I decided to sift before Mister broke a tooth.

When I set down the bowls, the dumplings smelled a little like gingerbread. They were sweet and a little mealy, but not in a bad way. I will probably do this in the future, but I will cut it half-and-half with "normal" flour because the mesquite flour did not hold the dumplings together all that well, and I think they were a little sweet for Mister's tastes.

I thought they provided a great, if not unexpected foil to the very salty-savory broth of the chunkier-than-I-remembered-it stew. It was just right for this first truly chilly fall day, though.

home, sweet huh?

2011-10-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when I come home from work, the home I return to looks very little like the home I left. It both amuses and disturbs me when Mister does huge, home-changing projects in my absence because he never ever finishes before I get home, and then he gets distracted and loses steam.

As proof of that, there are two large boxes hanging out in the middle of the living "room" and clothes are strewn all over the bed and floor in the bedroom. At least we found a place for the shelving unit that had also been in the middle of the bedroom when I first returned from work.

When I married him, I had no idea he would rearrange our furniture every few months while I was at work. Isn't that something for which women are supposed to be blamed?

Lest you think me ungrateful or dissatisfied, let me assure you - my very first reaction to our home, aside from a brief moment of "what the heck is going on??" was one of joy. It really looks better (except for the clothing all over the bedroom floor, but that's an easy fix). He cleared up some space in the living room and finally hung up my carved antique shelves and unpacked the two remaining boxes in the bedroom (yes, I know we moved in February...obviously we didn't need the stuff in the boxes that bad).

I had stopped at Superfresh on my way home because we lacked bread and garlic and apples. Although he did let me put the groceries away first, as soon as I had my coat off, he required my input for the bedroom, so we finished arranging a few things and moved them around a bit. Only then did we park on couch and Mister said he was hungry and asked if we could eat. He isn't usually that forward, so I asked if he wanted me to make something or if he wanted to go out.

Well, today was payday and Friday and I lead the team in sales today, which is quite an accomplishment since I just started a month ago, so we went to Pietro's for a nice little dinner.

We started with a plate of grilled vegetables. Forgive the dark picture, but the inside of the South Street Pietro's is modeled after the darkened streets of Italy, apparently. It's beautiful and rustic, with red bricks and stucco and green things growing all over the place and Juliet balconies "overlooking" the dining area. There are even "gas lamps" on the walls and at the ends of "fences" between dining areas. It's actually quite gorgeous, but dark.

Anyway, the grilled veggies consisted of artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, grilled zucchini and eggplant (which I rescued from Mister), tomatoes and a couple of cheeses Mister was happy to have to himself.

Mister happily ate his standard order: pizza, while I tasted a little bit of heaven in each bite of my Spaghetti con Pomodoro Fresco. When I was running an errand for work earlier, I passed the Rittenhouse location and that got my tastebuds drifting off in a reverie of remembering the last time (first time!) I had this and how incredible it was. Honestly, and it's awful to say this so close to Ralph's (I hope they don't hear me), but this is the best spaghetti I've ever had.

Speaking of heavenly... there are only 1 minute left for the Rapture to occur! Hold onto your hat, Mr. Camping - I think the bus is coming!

stocking weather

2011-10-19T23:18:00.000-04:00

It's coming. It will be here before you realize, making even the fittest women feel like slobs.

Stocking season.

Now, I know bare legs have been the trend lately, but nothing is going to change the fact that every day it gets a little further into autumn, a little closer to winter, and the new season of stylish legwear is making its way into stores: tights, stockings, nylons - whatever you want to call them, they are coming and they are cruel.

You can cheat a little - I know I do - by wearing thigh-high stockings, but there comes a part of winter when it's too bitterly cold for anything but serious, sweater-material, covering every-last-part-of-my-legs stockings. This is the part where I start wondering if I've been deceiving myself when I see a woman in the mirror who appears to be an appropriate weight. By design, stockings are meant to be tight - this helps to prevent adding bulk to the legs and prevents any possibility of cold air squeezing in. That does not mean they don't give otherwise healthy-weighted women a "fat" complex upon donning them the first, second, or hormonally-driven time.

Why do I tell you all of this?

I have been a size 4, more or less, for about 13 years. Since my early twenties, I have managed to stay within a 10-pound range in my weight, with a couple of odd life circumstances bleeding an extra few pounds on one side or the other for a very brief time. Over the course of my life, I've been subjected to the misdirected ire of overweight and obese women. Some "can't wait" until I get fat, others insist I weigh so little because I don't eat anything. More than a few people want to blame my horribly restricted dietary choices for my ability to maintain my weight, but let me tell you - there are plenty of fattening vegan foods. For heaven's sake, there are several cookbooks devoted solely to making delicious vegan desserts, followed by a vegan diet cookbook...

No, friends, the reason I have done a fair job of maintaining my weight for most of my adult life is because I keep myself in check.

I know that sounds boring as heck, but it's true. If you've been reading Angst Loves Spinach for a little while, you may have even experienced some of my "OMGINeedToDetox!!!" moments already. Well, hold onto your hats, because I'm pretty sure stocking season will bring on another round of that panic/vigilance. Which is good. Because I'm having Mardi Gras a few months early.

Every once in a while, I have a day where I am completely aware that I am taking in way more calories than my body needs and I do it anyway because sometimes, I just can't make myself care. Now and then, I have a week or weeks like that...that is when I start to gain weight. Not a lot, of course - it takes far more effort than you might imagine to gain a lot of weight (unless there are extenuating circumstances), but my skirts fit a little tighter, I like my profile a little less in a full length mirror, and I dread putting on full stockings.

After a healthy breakfast, a several-hundred-calorie snack at our staff meeting this morning, and two large slices of tomato pie (more in a minute - let me finish my self-flaggelation first), I recognized that I was probably about topped out for my small body's caloric needs for the day, but I still had my heart set on Put the Tex in Your Mex Chili from The 30 Minute Vegan for dinner tonight, served with a generous bowlful of tortilla chips, which I have come to accept as our standard "utensils" on Chili Night.

testing the limits of my saute pan... crowded much?

It really is a fabulous recipe - two kinds of beans, two kinds of peppers, an acceptable amount of garlic (not that I needed more after lunch today!) and seitan, among other things. It's hearty, savory, and fun to scoop with tortilla chips. Fortunately, I was able to stop after just one bowlful purely because I don't want to have someone carting me to work in a wheelbarrow tomorrow.

Ah, well.... as I used to tell my clients when I worked for a weight loss company, tomorrow is a new day with new opportunities to make healthy choices.

Now, about that lunch: any local readers, please do yourselves a favor. If you find yourself in the vicinity of 21st and Chestnut Streets, find a way to be hungry and then head into Mix Restaurant and Bar. I went there for lunch today with a colleague, so I can't speak for the bar part of the restaurant, but the pizza! They have several pies available from which you can select a slice, including a masterful tomato pie: fresh chunks of tomato, tons of garlic, olive oil, and an artful spiral of jade green pesto adorning the pie. I thoroughly enjoyed both of my pieces and happily wolfed them down accompanied by water they don't charge you for and a delightful lunchtime conversation.

I absolutely do not regret my lunch choice and I will do it again (with an overpowering mint gum as a chaser, in the best interests of my customers), but again, the time for moderation is at hand... we can't start stocking season with a over-thought body image crisis, can we?

peanut-scented zen

2011-10-18T23:07:00.000-04:00

I think the whole "bowl" idea is more of a West Coast phenomenon. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to be, actually, because I love bowls - I love the way they look, I like how much easier it is to eat most things from a bowl, rather than chasing things like cabbage, cannellini beans, and rotini around a plate. Let's have a short flashback parade:

Waaaaaayyyyy back in February 2010, my parents gave me The 30 Minute Vegan for my birthday. I've mentioned in the past how fruity and flowery the book is, written by a hippie couple blessed to live in Hawaii where it's warm enough all year to consider a 50% raw diet do-able. Raw. I can deal with raw. When we start talking about "living" soup, I get a little creeped out, to be completely honest.

Anyway, although I'm sure I had some other "bowl" recipes (Isa also favors them, which might put a bullet in my West Coast Bowl theory), it was this cookbook that introduced me to the Monk Bowl.

Later that same year, Mister and I took a trip out to LA for Blizzcon and some QT with his sister, her husband, and their adorable little boy. While out there, we visited Native Foods, which as you can probably imagine, is a whole restaurant whose menu consists almost exclusively of bowls. To back up just a second, here is the basic make-up of the ubiquitous "Bowl."

rice, quinoa, bulgur, or some other kind of grain; occasionally noodles, depending on cuisine.
veggies - usually steamed, occasionally lightly sauteed or raw.
protein source: tofu, tempeh, possibly seitan, commonly beans
topping: a dressing of some sort, maybe two - BBQ sauce, ranch dressing, tahini-mustard dressing, etc - normally a "creamy" or opaque sauce, rather than a vinaigrette - "bowls" should not be confused with salads.

So anyway, my whole point is - I heart Bowls. Mister could probably do without them, but he's never complained really... he just tends to set the table with plates when he has a chance.

Tonight, I made Monk Bowls again (you might have seen this coming). This time I was not overly concerned with perfecting the symphony in my kitchen or creating peaceful zen through multi-tasked cooking. No, this time, I was focused on a change I've made from the last few times I made this. I did not feel like making a dressing, even though it takes about 5 minutes if I'm really clumsy. I also did not feel like steaming the vegetables, because as I learned a little bit ago, I really don't like the water-logged flavor/texture of steamed veggies. I combined my solution for those two "problems" in one action.

The book even mentioned this, but I hadn't bothered reading the variations until last time I went through the menu. I sauteed them instead. In order to provide the flavor that would be missing from the dressing I did not intend to make, I made it a two-step process.

First, I poured a generous amount of olive oil into a pan and let it heat up a bit. I added about 2 tsp of za'atar, scant 1 tsp of sea salt, and about 1/3 tsp garlic powder. I let them warm in the oil, then stirred everything together. When the sesame seeds in the za'atar started to pop, I added the bowlful of chopped veggies (a red pepper, three carrots, and a head of broccoli) and stirred everything really well to coat the veggies with oil and za'atar. Then I covered everything up and let it steam-saute while I tended to my roasting tofu and simmering brown rice. All said, I let it simmer like that, stirring now and then, for nearly 15 minutes, which turned out perfectly, flavor- and texture-wise.

Angst was pretty sure he liked the smells in the kitchen and waited patiently in front of the dinner table.

He begged, noisily, throughout the entire meal, too, even though we insisted there was nothing he wanted. Mister even put his bowl on the floor so Angst could inspect it. Upon determining Mister wasn't eating real food, he turned his big sad eyes on me since apparently, I had what he really wanted.

I know I had what I really wanted! It turned out really well. The tofu was sublime. I pressed it in my handy Tofu Xpress before a brief marinating time in soy sauce, peanut oil, and water (okay, maybe there was a little drop of toasted dark sesame oil, too). It had a great texture after roasting 15 minutes and I don't remember the flavor pervading the tofu as much as it did this time, so I will continue to press the tofu for this recipe, even though it's not called for.

The sauteed veggies came out great, with a good yet subtle flavor from the za'atar. I will probably make some dressing next time, purely because dressing is fun. I just didn't want to deal with it tonight, and I had gotten the idea in my head to use some of the za'atar I got in San Francisco.

I wouldn't say it was a zen ballet, but then again, I'm not sure I would use that language to describe anything. Why don't we just leave it at: it was easy, it was tasty, and I'll do it again.

far from farfalle

2011-10-17T23:52:00.000-04:00

There's no need to build up to it with a clever story. Tonight's dinner was Farfalle with White Beans and Cabbage from Vegan on the Cheap.

Now, those among you who consider yourselves observant may notice there is something wrong with the farfalle. Namely, it looks an awful lot like rotini, not butterflies or bow-ties or whatever farfalle looks like. That, friends, is because it is rotini - rotini primavera, to be exact, which is the clever name they give the naturally colored pasta (which is no more nutritional than plain pasta). Apparently, we're having a Farfalle Famine here in Philadelphia, because try as I did, there was not a single box at Superfresh and I'm not paying $3-4 for special pasta made from Vietnamese rice harvested under a full moon by blessed virgins at Whole Foods.

I would kind of like to leave it there, but I'm just not that short-winded, no matter how epic a closing line that would have been.

Although the tri-colored rotini was very pretty, it really does not work with this dish. The cabbage stays flat and gets limp through the cooking process, so it seems to actually need the flat farfalle noodles to work with it. I was, however, quite pleased with the improved flavor of the cabbage/bean saute - I added a very healthy dozen shakes of Mediterranean Sea salt, as well as a few pinches of plain Jane salt and pepper.

Angst could not get enough slimy, savory cabbage... even if Mister was making fun of him for slurping it up off the floor.

sunday, lazy sunday

2011-10-16T22:15:00.000-04:00

I set my alarm for noon today. I still hit snooze several times before convincing myself to get up.

I sat around in my bathrobe for hours, drinking cup after cup of amazing coffee.

That's right - Dark Chocolate Ecstasy. You can't tell me that's not a killer name for a coffee. It made the kitchen smell amazing, so Mister and I made and drank two pots.

I've been peeing almost all day, but it was totally worth it.

All day, or more likely between each new cup o' joe, I asked myself with a touch of anxiety, "Isn't there something I should be doing?" Each time, the answer was the same - NO. I did all the food shopping yesterday and we can wait a few more days for laundry, so no, there was nothing that needed doing. It was great to just relax and enjoy my day off.

I'll admit, though, I'm still a little jittery from all that coffee - it's a bit more than I usually drink in a day and it was nearly as consistently administered (via hand to mouth) as it would have been if I had that sought-after IV drip of caffeine. Mister just brewed a pot of decaf, but I am definitely done with coffee... until tomorrow.

Between being overly lazy and overly caffeinated, I definitely had the energy to cook dinner. I made Mexican Rice and Bean Bake from Vegan on the Cheap, although I really ought to put "bake" in quotation marks (like I just did) because I haven't baked this since the first unnecessarily time-consuming time I made this. I find it comes together much more quickly and with less gnashing of teeth when I cook the rice separately from the rest, adding it in once it's fully cooked.

While the rice was cooking, I minced a dark green poblano chili because I think it's wasteful to get those expensive little cans of flavorless and mushy diced chilies. To soften the pieces up a little, I sauteed them with olive oil and garlic for at least 5 minutes, probably longer, before adding in everything else.

That smelled so good and only got better with the gradual addition of salsa, beans, sweet white corn, and then finally, the cooked rice.

I haven't made this in a long time and now I'm kicking myself because I did not remember it tasting as incredible as it did tonight. I'm not in the habit of buying/using white corn, but it added a neat "surprise" to the dish. It was crunch and sweet when you were not quite expecting something like that to be part of the dish, providing a nice contrast against the otherwise savory nature of this recipe.

Last night we had Pasta Florentine from The 30 Minute Vegan.

It was tasty and I always enjoy the nooch-heavy "cream" sauce, but aside from that, it was nothing special and I couldn't think of a single clever thing to say about it. So you just get a half-decent picture. Lucky you!

day dates and lazy nights

2011-10-14T23:28:00.000-04:00

Since I'm such a sweetheart (except when I eat Mister's soup), I woke up on the first day of my serendipitous three day weekend this morning. As usually happens on days I can sleep in a bit, I woke up an hour before I needed to in a complete panic that I was going to be late if I didn't get up right now. Fortunately, I remembered quickly that I was off today and didn't have anywhere to be until I went to see the magnificent and persevering Philadelphia Orchestra play the first concert in their opening series.

Please forgive the blurry picture, but you can see the important bits. The pouty young man in the lower right corner is Julian Rachlin, the violin soloist for today's (and tomorrow's and Sunday's) performance. He is quite a performer! He is actually only a few years older than Mister and I and I laughed a little to myself when he took the stage - I had no idea they could make nice expensive suits to imitate the growing (and somewhat disturbing) trend of skinny jeans on boys. I discussed this with a colleague 12 years my junior - she sees no problem with boys wearing girlpants. Call me old-fashioned, but men's and women's pants are designed differently because, frankly, men and women have different spacial needs in certain areas....

Anyway, back to the performance. Julian was totally a rockstar - he was a pleasure to watch as he nearly danced along with the more lively parts of the music he played and had some of the most charmingly pretentious facial expressions and theatrical, dance-like movements while he was waiting for the orchestra to let him play again.

Ordinarily, when I see the orchestra (not that it's a common occurrence, though I'm trying to weasel my way into the Lang Lang concert next Saturday, what would have been Franz Lizst's 200th birthday), I prefer to sit in the balcony so I can see all of the instrumentalists, not just the ones closest to the stage front. The seats Mister and I occupied today were the closest I have ever sat to the Orchestra and it was amazing to be able to see the faces of the performers. In a time when the arts in Philadelphia are encumbered at best and more realistically, endangered, and in the first few days of a new contract negotiation for the players which results in "downsizing" their salaries and benefits (the Orchestra declared bankruptcy earlier in the year and is trying to keep one of the world's best orchestras afloat), it was heart-warming to see how genuinely they enjoy playing their instruments.

For any arts lovers out there, here is the concert I had the privilege of seeing this afternoon:
Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Opus 25 ("Classical)
Sibelius's Violin Concerto in D minor, Opus 47 which was magnificent
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Opus 92 (which was featured in the movie Mr. Holland's Opus if anyone is familiar)

I loved every minute, but classical music is not really Mister's thing. To reward him for accompanying me, we visited a new restaurant for a late lunch (resulting in no fun dinner stories, unless you want to hear about the PB&J I'm about to eat). Zavino is a pizza and wine bar, part of the 13th Street Renaissance owed to a pair of visionary female entrepreneurs. Despite the threatening sky, we elected to sit outside. There was an awning to protect us when it did start to pour but we felt badly for the waitresses who brought our food (shielded by a tray over top). We started with a tray of marinated olives and an apple and candied walnut salad, then each of us got our own pizza. They had a Garden Pizza on the menu and when the waitress told me what was on it, there was no question what I would order: house-made marinara (spectacular) with large, thin slices of garlic, sauteed spinach and thin spirals of fennel. It was amazing. Even better, my evil plan worked - it started raining once we were seated and stopped when we paid the bill, allowing us to stroll home without getting wet. Timing is everything folks.

Speaking of timing, this seems a good time to share the new menu!

1. Monk Bowl from The 30 Minute Vegan because it's been a really, really long time since I've cooked from this book and I missed a couple of the recipes. Those follow:

2. Pasta Florentine, which, to be honest, was the whole reason I was looking through the book to begin with.

3. Put the Tex in Your Mex Chili. I'll be honest (again). I hate the name of this meal, as well as a lot of others in the book. There is no need to be this cheesy - it's a vegan cookbook! :)

4. Homey Vegetable Stew with Dumplings requires a little extra effort but is so worth it.

5. Farfalle with White Beans and Cabbage from Vegan on the Cheap. It's a 7-meal menu and the week before payday, so I figured I should probably complete the menu with some favorites from this book.

6. Mexican Rice and Bean Bake

7. Better-Than-Takeout Tofu Stir-fry

mean wife makes good

2011-10-13T23:52:00.002-04:00

I am a mean, short-sighted woman.

When I got home from work late tonight, Mister told me he'd been feeling sick all day and didn't eat much besides crackers, which made him "all pukey." I told him I was going to eat food and asked if he wanted to eat anything with me. He said no.

Nevertheless, it was really my finest moment of No Common Sense when I grabbed the leftover Harira soup from the fridge, heated it up and ate it. No more than 10 minutes afterward, Mister came into the kitchen and started snooping in the fridge. In the exact location where the soup had been.

I lamented that if I had known he would get hungry, I wouldn't have eaten the soup but I didn't think he'd want the soup anyway (even though that's usually what he eats when his stomach is angry) and he feigned devastation that I would do such an inconsiderate thing. Soon we were laughing all over each other, then we stood facing one another as I offered to make him a new soup. He thought for a moment, then said he would like that, so I made

Emergency Lentil Soup
2 servings

Ingredients:
2-3 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
1 large rib of celery, halved and sliced
1 large carrot, diced
1 medium potato, diced (I used a neato purple one we found at Linvilla last week, but I'm sure a regular ol' tater will do just fine)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup dry lentils
2 cups vegetable broth
1 sprig of fresh thyme

Heat olive oil in a saucepan on medium heat, then add garlic and celery and saute 2-3 minutes. Add carrot, stir to combine, cover and cook 2-3 minutes. Add potato and salt, stir to combine and then cover and saute 2-3 minutes. Add broth and lentils and bring to a boil. Stir in tomato paste until completely combined with broth, then place the thyme sprig on top and cover. Turn heat to the lowest setting and simmer, stirring occasionally, 20-25 minutes, until lentils and potatoes are tender. I usually test this by trying to smush a potato piece between the spoon and the side of the pot. Before serving, remove the now-droopy sprig of thyme.

cereal thief and tomato fail

2011-10-12T22:54:00.000-04:00

Angst has an unnatural obsession with my breakfast. I mean, I guess it's somewhat natural in that he always thinks he wants to eat what his humans are eating, but he is over-the-top lusting after my cereal. He begs for waffles, occasionally for oatmeal, rarely for fruit, but he is absurdly insistent about his "need" for my cereal. It doesn't matter what cereal I'm eating, either.

He sidles over to my desk area to start his hunter gymnastics. Here is my set-up in the apartment: I have my piano against the same wall as the oven, then the bench, which doubles as my desk chair because there is exactly enough room to swing around to face either the piano or my desk.

Angst has this strategy for stealing a bite of my cereal which involves him jumping up on the piano and lurking behind me for a minute...eventually, he climbs onto the bench beside me and tries to pull my hand (holding the cereal bowl) toward him. If and when that fails, sometimes he climbs up on the desk in front of me and stands in front of my computer display and on my keyboard until I move him.

He's such a naughty little beast. No mystery here as to why there's cat hair on my piano keys...

Anyway, after my little cereal thief tried to steal my breakfast, I went off to work and had the privilege of having lunch at Pure Fare again. Today I tried the Zucchini Noodle Salad, which consisted of thin but perfect "noodles" made of finely julienned (probably spiralized) raw zucchini, plenty of nutty edamame with some cherry tomatoes and red peppers, possibly a little too much cilantro, and a divine lemon-miso dressing. It was both beautiful and delicious, and if I hadn't been lunching with a colleague, I would have taken a pretty picture. I'm not quite ready to wear my Food Blogger Princess crown in public just yet.

Tonight's dinner, then, was the only thing left: Vegetable Chili from The Low GI Cookbook.

Looks delish, doesn't it? It was, actually, which surprised me. I've made this before, so I was quite aware that it is a good recipe (which is why I chose to repeat it), but something went terribly wrong this week, either in my grocery list preparation or execution, and I came up with no tomatoes tonight.

I've never made chili without tomatoes and realized upon finding no tomatoes in my home that I was not quite sure I could pull this off. However, Mister had already braved the cold mist accumulating outside in order to pick up the tortilla chips I also forgot to get, so I couldn't back down. I simply had to figure out how to make chili without tomatoes!

Well, I said I wanted to stretch for MoFo this year, and I had intended that as incentive to create bona fide recipes, but it's always good to know how to compensate for missing ingredients, so I put my brain to good use and came up with these changes:

I added some frozen corn to give the chili a little more bulk. I contemplated dicing an apple but then I thought Mister might not appreciate me incorporating fruit into his chili. I may try it in the future, though, because now my mind is a little stuck on that idea.
To add the tomato "flavor" in the absence of both fresh and canned tomatoes, I added a generous amount of the Spicy Hot V8 still in the fridge from our Harira adventure. It totally worked.

best frenemies

2011-10-11T23:19:00.000-04:00

There are a few super-smart folks in the world who excel at every academic subject from math to french with a little creative writing and chemistry thrown in for extra flavor. I am not one of those people. I got by for a while, but by high school I needed a tutor to pass math and managed to pass chemistry by one percentage point. I'm definitely a liberal arts kinda gal.

The laws in Pennsylvania say that I had to take science and math until the end of my junior year. You can bet my senior year of high school including such challenging math courses as British Literature and Creative Writing, while I struggled through my science course, also known as French.

What I'm trying to say is, me and math? We don't get along.

Nevertheless, we're going to start today's post with a little math - everyone's favorite, word problems. Ready? Here we go!

Coconut Milk + Lime = BFFs times infinity

Coconut Milk + Tomatoes and their juices = relatively tolerable

Coconut Milk + Tomatoes + Lime = this will never happen again

In case you couldn't put 2+2 together, tonight's dinner was Pineapple Curry Tofu from the new Clean Eating magazine. In theory, it sounded at least a little daring, but I figured I like tofu, we like pineapple, and Mister loves curry, so this should work, right?

Not so much.

It wasn't awful - I shouldn't let you think that. There was just something about it that didn't work. I'm pretty sure it was the final addition of 2 Tbsp lime juice. Tomatoes are relatively acidic, and when you add harissa in place of asian chili sauce, they get hot and acidic. The perfect foil seems quite obviously to be the thick, creamy, cooling (heat-distributing) coconut milk and I think it could have been, if only I hadn't actually followed the recipe. I think the sneaky frenemy was the lime juice. It seemed like such an innocent invitation, but what happened was that it enhanced the tartness and acidity of the tomatoes to such a point that the harissa made the whole thing hotter than it needed to be and a little unpleasant. Although there was nice bland tofu and delicious chunks of pineapple and red pepper, all I could taste was tomato.

By the way - me and flour-coated tofu? Also best frenemies. I really want it to work - I want my tofu to look like the tofu in the magazine, all crispy and evenly coated. My problem is that the minute I stir the tofu, all the "breading" adheres to the spatula, turning its back on the tofu like a 7th grade girl.

time changes everything

2011-10-10T22:55:00.000-04:00

I don't think it was all that long ago that I bought a bag of Nate's Meatballs for some recipe and wished they were a bit better than they were. They weren't bad, they just weren't anything special. The girl who rang up my groceries that night, however, thought they were the bee's knees. So, upon some research, apparently that occurred two years ago.

Good to know, though, that Nate put those years to good use, because when I used "his" meatless meatballs tonight when I made Southwestern Meatballs with Corn-Black Bean Salsa from Clean Eating magazine, they were spectacular. I'm not sure what product development took place, but they looked better, cooked better, and tasted better than they did two Novembers ago.

Not surprisingly, Angst begged persistently and loudly. Angst Loves Meat Analogs (and Spinach).

I served the meatballs and salsa over a pilaf of bulgur and brown basmati rice and the whole thing was delicious. I have never actually eaten a turkey meatball - I stopped eating animals around the time making beef out of turkey became "the new thing," so I never really had a chance, if you want to look at it like that. Nevertheless, these reformulated meatballs had an appreciable poultry flavor, so I couldn't help but wonder if that was their aim. The "old" meatballs were definitely more ground beef-y in both texture and taste, even appearance - they had that grayish color I could never understand why beef had.

The salsa itself was quite tasty, made up of canned black beans and canned tomatoes with a cup of Trader Joe's brand frozen corn and a teaspoon of cumin (because heaven forbid we make something "southwestern" without cumin). It went well with the meatballs, and the chicken-y flavor actually worked far better with their flavor profile than a more beefy flavor/texture would have.

Thanks for reminding me why I read you, Clean Eating!

biryani improv

2011-10-09T23:34:00.000-04:00

It all started last night, coincidentally while I was cooking dinner. My cell phone rang, and although I usually ignore it, I decided to see who it was.

"Hey Natalie, I'm sorry to disturb you on a Sunday night, but blah-blah-blah-building-up-to Can you work tomorrow even though you're scheduled off?"

"Uh...yeah. Can I be off on Friday in exchange?"

"Uh.... I can probably make that work. Does this throw a huge wrench in the works for you?"

"No, not really, but it would be great to have Friday off."

"What about an allen wrench?"

"Yes. It throws an allen wrench in the works. Can I have off Friday if I come in tomorrow?"

"Yes. Thank you so much. I owe you. At least a caffeinated beverage."

"Friday off will do just fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

And that's the story of why I was working today, instead of sleeping in and drinking coffee and eventually going food shopping, but mostly, having enough energy to properly prepare the Vegetable Biryani from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.

I didn't get a very good picture, but rest assured, it tasted much better than it looks. Authentic? Probably not - I skipped a few steps and improvised a few others (ghee is not exactly vegan), but it came out just fine and finished cooking much sooner than it wanted to.

I made an excessive amount of rice because I was supposed to layer it with a veggie filling before baking it for a half hour. I'm sure it would have been even more mouth-wateringly delicious if I had done that, as I have in the past, but tonight, after working due to a big street festival right outside our store encouraging higher-than-average foot traffic, I just didn't have the energy to go through the entire process, so instead, I just heaped the rich veggie curry on top of brown basmati rice.

It was delicious and hit the hungry spot just fine.

I did construct the "rest" of my incomplete menu last night. Mind you, the only reason it was incomplete is because I meant to be off today and then not again for a week. Now I'm just trying to make it through Wednesday (I work later on Thursday, so Mister's on his own).

1. Pineapple Curry Tofu from the most recent issue of Clean Eating magazine. I used to buy these every time they hit the newsstand, then contemplate whether to subscribe, then end up not subscribing because of how meat-centric most recipes are and how illogically protein-focused the magazine can be sometimes. Nevertheless, I agree with its most basic tenets so I always end up buying it again. It's probably been about a year, though, so I figured I'd look again and this issue had a decent number of "safe" recipes.

2. Southwest Meatballs with Warm Corn-Black Bean Salsa, also from Clean Eating. The recipe in the magazine includes instructions on constructing the ground turkey-based meatballs, but I'm just going to buy some Nate's at Whole Foods tomorrow.

3. Vegetable Chili Bowl from The Low GI Cookbook, contributed by one of Australia's National Treasures. I've made this once before and remember being pretty impressed with how it came out.

bet you can't have just one

2011-10-08T22:38:00.000-04:00

There are a few things I take for granted, living in Pennsylvania, and specifically this area of Pennsylvania. I normally don't realize other parts of the world don't have Tastycakes and Herr's potato chips and Wawas until I find myself on the opposite coast asking where the nearest Wawa is...and then having to give the best explanation my 19-year-old self could.

What I mean is, I'll bet I could eat just one Lay's potato chip because I was raised on Herr's and although I don't eat potato chips nearly as frequently now as I did as a teenager, I will always prefer them as a brand.

But this post isn't really about potato chips at all. Despite the newest issue of Vegetarian Times showing up in my mailbox today with a sweet potato chip-topped galette on the cover to make me drool a little. No, friends, this post is about Pasta e Fagioli, specifically the one from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, and generally, how darn many recipes I have for this Italian treasure.

Actually, this is a picture of my second helping, since I was too busy trying to match Mister's voracity to take a picture of the first bowl.

I have at least three "go-to" recipes for Pasta e Fagioli and I've even matched them up against each other to see who would come out on top. You might think a person in that position would not need another recipe for the same dish. You'd be wrong. Pasta e Fagioli is like the Italian version of the latino favorite, Rice 'n' Beans. I also have way too many recipes for that.

Like Rice 'n' Beans, Pasta e Fagioli is one of those meals that is so good that when you see yet another recipe, you feel compelled to try it - not because you're looking for a new "champion" but rather, because there's so little chance it will suck. It's kind of fail-safe, which is a nice quality for a sometimes work-intensive food to be. I will admit, though, I'm forever on the hunt for a Pasta e Fagioli that can truly be considered a soup and I have not found that yet.

For this recipe, I got wheel-shaped pasta for two reasons. First, the recipe was not specific - it just said "short pasta." Second, and more importantly, the last few times I've made a Pasta e Fagioli recipe, I've somehow overcooked the pasta, causing it to fall apart a little. In an effort to not wrestle the pieces of broken rotini toward one another again, I decided to try a sturdier pasta.

Normally, Pasta e Fagioli is exactly that - pasta, beans, tomatoes....that's about it. Basil. Yes, normally, there's basil. This one was a little more detailed - we had pasta, beans, tomatoes, and basil, of course, but also zucchini, carrots, and celery. I had some mixed feelings about this "complication," but as you can tell from my second serving, I got over any ill-will within a few bites.

With that, I'm off to harvest some more recipes from the three magazines I haven't had a chance to pick through yet...

red october

2011-10-07T23:38:00.000-04:00

October in Philadelphia is special for a lot of reasons. We don't really have that whole beautiful leaves-changing-color thing they do out in the suburbs. We do have one of the most delightfully gradual descents from warm to cold I've ever experienced - sometimes it is literally one degree colder each day. One thing that we have had for the last few years is what we call Red October. It's nothing we're hunting for, and unfortunately, it does lack Sean Connery's intensity, but only slightly.

I'm talking about post-season Phillies.

Oh, yeah, and all the crazy, loud, half-delusional drunks stumbling around center city and leading...themselves alone... in their ridiculous "Let's Go, Phillies" chants (because they might have just figured out that "let's go" and "phillies" both have two syllables). There is nothing sadder than one dude with a backwards cap and a beer gut singing out "let's go, phillies" as though any minute now all the other drunks are going to join in. They never do.

You might think nothing else (of any import, anyway) happens in October. I would argue against that point of view, but let's focus on something I truly love about Philadelphia.

On Tuesday, we hosted a gathering at one of the stores for a local real estate agency to demonstrate and promote their new technological application with the assistance of our knowledgeable employees. To show their appreciation, that same agency sent a basket of goodies over to the store today - sandwiches and cookies from a relatively new Italian restaurant in Rittenhouse Square - Serafina. I keep meaning to make Mister take me there for dinner, but then I keep having trouble trying to explain why we should cross the city for pizza and pasta, especially living so close to the Italian Market. These sandwiches might help me in that endeavor.

It was nice of them to send the goodies, but that isn't what I love about Philadelphia. What I love about Philadelphia, as compared to my previous place of employment and colleagues out in the rural reaches of Montgomery County, is that when the food was unpacked, not only did the givers of the gift ensure there were non-animal options, but my colleagues didn't say "Oh, hey, a grilled veggie sandwich - that's different - I want to try that!" No, they said, "Oh, Natalie, you don't eat meat, right? Why don't you pick your sandwich first."

I realize this seems like common sense, but outside of Philadelphia (or whatever metropolis you choose), it is not. It just represented another moment of happiness over my decision to leave one place and come to another.

What's a great partner to sandwiches? Well, besides chocolate chip cookies? Soup! Or, notably, Harira from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.

Granted, several hours separated the sandwich from the soup (like, you know, the distance between lunch and dinner), but it was the best segue I could come up with. It's Friday. Anyway, I used to make this soup fairly frequently when I first started cooking. I haven't made it in years, but I can honestly say, I don't remember it tasting the way it did tonight.

I think the main difference was the freshly squeezed lemon juice. I'm pretty sure I never included that previously. Also, I used what was left of the Garlic Broth and made up the missing liquid with V8 Spicy Hot. I always sub garlic for onions, which got me to thinking if there was some conversion I could make: this much garlic = this much onion. I suppose I could just use onions when the recipe asks for them, but that would take all the fun out of guesswork. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I used fresh tomatoes, which could have something to do with the bright acidity.

An hour or so after dinner, though, I realized why Mister doesn't like soup dinners. I was hungry again. He might have something there, so unless a soup is really substantial, you'll probably see it retired to side dish status on future menus.

adventures in pumpkinland

2011-10-05T23:35:00.000-04:00

It's October. The minute the month most associated with a deep burnt orange color ticked into being, before the last bell of a clock striking midnight faded into the darkness, food bloggers everywhere were already writing sonnets to show their love and devotion to pumpkins.

That is not what this post is about. We literally went to Pumpkinland today.

We were greeted by these guys. I have no idea if they serve any practical purpose or if they're just for decor, but a whole row of them "welcoming" you to Pumpkinland is both charming and unnerving all at once.

These "Jack Be Littles" on the other hand, are adorable. I wanted to adopt them and take them home.

White Pumpkins! Martha said they existed, but until today, I'd never seen one. I stand corrected and now I want to turn them into candle holders.

We've been meaning to go to Linvilla Orchards for at least a month, but every time I had a day off, it was raining. Today, though, there was (for the first time in a month) a 0% chance of rain. I got up relatively early, met my dad for lunch at National Mechanics (they say they have the best veggie burger in the city - they may be right!) and a short walk around Old City/Independence Mall area, and after a quick stop into Superfresh on the way home, I grabbed Mister and we headed out of the city and to Linvilla.

Linvilla Orchards is split up into a few different parts - it has acres of farm land where you can "pick your own" whatever (apples, pumpkins, berries, etc) depending on the season. They have hayrides and special events throughout the year, but they really seem to put the most effort into Halloween. We stuck to Pumpkinland and the Farm Market, but they also have various attractions you could expect at a county fair or something, including a petting zoo....not so fun.

Goose Gourds! Can you see why?

There was a display of expertly carved pumpkins, too. Here are some of our favorites:

Pumpkin Pi - get it? Dorks.

too much Sam Adams Octoberfest?

In addition to bins and bins of pumpkins and gourds of all shapes and sizes, including squashes for eatin', too, they construct a display with a theme. This year's theme was faerietales.

Monster mansion w/graveyard. What's amazing?
The sky really was that blue - it's not part of the scene.

not a faerietale character, but have you ever
seen a scarecrow that huge???

After all the outdoor fun, we were quite finished with squinting and uselessly shielding our eyes with our hands while making that completely unattractive scrunchy face people make when they squint in the sun. We headed into the large glass house and were immediately greeted by a bin of "Wee Bee Littles" and Goose Gourds dressed up as...geese. Someone has way too much free time (and is probably also a Martha fan).

Continuing our tour of Weird Stuff I've Never Seen Before, we turned around from the Floral-Clad Goose Gourd Army to see Snake Gourds. I don't even know what you do with those. Are they for looking at or for eating?

Finally, after getting some fun foods to renew our energy, we went into the Farm Market. We bought a whole bunch of unnecessary stuff that is also fun. Here is a small sample:

They have about 100 different hot sauces, possibly more. Most of them are relatively mild, according to Mister, being made with jalapeno, habanero, or cayenne peppers. Nevertheless, whenever we go, we get a new hot sauce for him to try to burn his own face off (all it takes for me is a stingy pinch of cayenne). While contemplating the Wall O' Hot Sauce, he wondered aloud if there were any hot sauces made with Ghost Peppers. I told him I thought that was probably illegal, so no, but then I plucked this guy from the shelf.

911 Hot Sauce is not made with Ghost Peppers, but it is made with Scotch Bonnets. Neither Mister nor myself have ever seen a hot sauce made with Scotch Bonnets, so into the basket it went.

That this came home with us is one part October, two parts marketing. Don't you want Old-Fashioned Ginger Snaps in a old-tymey lookin' bag? We did.

Treats in hand, we headed back to the city and I started dinner. I found that I was not actually interested in making anything on my menu tonight (mainly because I'd been running around all day, even if it was fun stuff), so I improvised a little. We still had a ton of Mediterranean Stew leftover from last week, as well as two Tofurkey Italian sausages that needed eating, so I boiled some brown basmati rice, diced the sausages and sauteed them briefly before adding the stew to the pot, and then magically, dinner was ready!

Looks almost as hearty as the Harira I had been gearing up to make. Also, I realized something when I opened the lid on the leftovers and for a brief, horrific moment thought the asparagus pieces were green beans. My life would be so happy if a) we lived somewhere with plentiful, local (= cheap) asparagus (you know, like Scandinavia), and b) I substitute asparagus for every time a recipe wants green beans.

I don't really have anything against green beans, but asparagus is so much better.

Until next time, may you have apple butter wishes and pumpkin spice dreams!

a [sur]prize in every box!

2011-10-04T23:53:00.000-04:00

I had a revelation this morning as I was getting out of the shower.

Angst always sits in the bathroom to keep me company while I shower in the morning (or afternoon, on days off sometimes). As I was stepping out of the shower, I asked him if it was bad that I was already actively anticipating the end of the work day I had not yet begun, purely because I have tomorrow off? See, I just started my job a month ago and I am very happy there. However, here is the discovery Angst and I made this morning:

No matter how much you enjoy your job, you still prefer your days off.

I could be wrong. Some people find their jobs positively completing and I know there are folks the uninitiated refer to as "workaholics" who find their job so fulfilling (or inescapable) that they would be perfectly happy to just take a dinner break and keep working into the night. I enjoy my job enough to work on things far into the night, but I prefer to do so in the comfort of my own home, until Mister tears me away from my computer and reminds me we have a bed, too. Nevertheless, I was very happy to finish up this evening a little after 6 and once again, magically get home before the sun fully set.

I love how much time my new schedule/shorter commute allows Mister and I to spend lingering over dinner or hanging out before I even start heating a pot. I love that even though we had a nice little conversation and then I talked to my sister for about 20 minutes while emptying the dishwasher and putting various other things where they belong, I could still take my time and make dinner at my pace - no need to rush. After dinner, Mister made decaf coffee and we sat and talked about my sister's new boyfriend and people getting pregnant and trapping themselves in a situation that looks like "mandatory marriage" - and by the way, those two things are unrelated - Breathe, Mom! Anyway, we just kind of babbled at each other about the obscure things we find interesting and when we excused ourselves, it wasn't even 10!

We had the last meal on the last menu, Warm Chickpea Ragout with Swiss Chard, Carrots and Harissa from Vegetarian Times Fast & Easy.

We've had this several times before, but Mister had absolutely no recollection of it. It did taste a little different - a little more savory, which added the benefit of controlling Harissa's heat. The only thing I could think of that I did differently was that I used a half cup of the leftover garlic broth, which is pretty pungent. I also added a generous amount of salt and I can't remember if I've done that in the past, since I usually only mess with things that have a specified quantity, rather than the disgruntling "to taste."

It was very tasty and I love how harissa allows me to eat spicy things without my entire face burning off in the process.

Anyway, completely by coincidence, my menu ran out the night before my day off (I wasn't originally supposed to be off tomorrow), so let me share a short menu with you - a mini-menu, if you will. Full-sized version will be introduced over the weekend. A recent comment reminded me just how well loved my Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant cookbook has been over the years - in fact, I'm pretty sure that was a primary guide for me as I learned how to cook. Pages are dog-eared and stained, some stick together a little at the yellowing edges, and favorites have been marked along with "someday I have to try this" recipes. I've been neglecting the book for years, so I decided to pull it out for this week's menu. I had thought that I'd been neglecting it because a lot of the recipes take a while to cook, but I discovered two other things that have probably been deterring me unconsciously.

First, the recipes are built for a restaurant, and are therefore, huge. I don't need that much food and I don't feel like figuring out how to divide everything to only make enough for me and Mister and Leftover Lunch. Second, and probably more importantly, there are very few vegan recipes and the tweaks required would probably strip away the charm of the original recipe.

"Hey! I veganized a recipe that someone converted from a meal full of meat into a vegetarian recipe." Wow. That's great. That sounds like cousins who can legally marry, barely, to me. So, with all that in mind, I chose the following three irresistible recipes, all from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.

1. Vegetable Biryani - I have not had many moments in my culinary "career" as proud as the moment I made this the first time. After years of spaghetti and veggie burgers, this was a gourmet achievement of the highest order. It's actually really easy, but I haven't made it in a while because I have an even easier recipe with fewer steps (and fewer pots).

2. Pasta e Fagioli because hey, what's one more Pasta e Fagioli recipe when you're keeping a secret tally of how many Pasta e Fagioli recipes you have to how many Beans 'n' Rice recipes you have?

3. Harira, which is a huge pot of African soup which Muslims traditionally eat to break the fast of Ramadan. We are neither African nor Muslim and if we were fasting, Mister would need a lot more than soup to break the fast, but this was one of the first soups I ever made that did not involve a can-opener, so you can consider this a little prideful trip down Memory Lane.

My fingers are cold. I think it's time for a Cosmo. See you tomorrow!

autumn minestrone = awesome sauce

2011-10-03T23:39:00.000-04:00

This is truly one of my favorite times of year. I love each "first" of fall - the first cool day, the first time you pull on a long-neglected jacket, the first scarf draped loosely around your neck. I love the first nip in the air and the first time it is truly justified and not just paranoia to button/zip up your jacket and maybe hunch up a little against the wind.

I love the smells - the crisp scent of firewood set ablaze in someone's cozy fireplace, the smoke wafting from their chimney and filling the air with an unmistakably autumnal feel and smell; the first emergence of cinnamon brooms and pine cones in the supermarkets, and the syrupy aroma of freshly baked apple cobbler in your own kitchen.

Yours. Not mine. I'm not baking until Wednesday at the earliest. But you can share your smushy, cinnamon-y, warm apple-y cobblerness with me if you'd like.

Today was the first day the sunlit temperatures couldn't find their way out of the 50s, which meant it was also the first day we didn't have the a/c on at work, which meant it was the first day I was actually warm. Regardless, the walk home was all the chilliness I needed to be perfectly provoked to make Autumn Minestrone from the Moosewood Restaurant Soups & Stews Deck.

To a soundtrack of Apoptygma Berzerk, I lovingly made the broth myself last night, following a recipe from the same deck for Garlic Broth. Believe me, anything involving 3 heads of garlic is okay in my book. I expected the resulting soup to be a bit brothier, since it called for 6 cups of the broth I painstakingly simmered while playing on facebook, but I guess I underestimated the sheer volume of veggies that would be going into it. Believe me - I'm not complaining about the veggies. Every time I eat something this full of veggies, especially lovely, dark green, Tuscan kale and Vitamin C-rich cauliflower, I can just about feel the health flowing into me.

I could use a little boost right now. But hey, when I can breath without tightness in my chest, I'll appreciate breathing all the more, right? This is just another opportunity for gratitude.

Nevertheless, I did anticipate the soup would be, well....soupier, so I asked Mister to pick up special rustic Italian bread for us to dip in the broth and make our soup dinner a little more substantial. Turns out I needn't have worried, but the seeded spelt bread he picked up was still a delightful addition to our light Mediterranean feast, which I topped off with a generous bowl of mixed olives.

One final thing of note, merely because I'm making such a concerted effort to improvise more: somehow, in a moment of brain malfunction, I used up the zucchini I meant to add to this soup. After a thorough interrogation of the cat, I remembered what I had done with the zucchini and moved on to being grateful I was too lazy to make the roasted cauliflower appetizer I had intended for a few nights ago (when I used up the zucchini without realizing), so I subbed the cauliflower for the squash. Mister loves cauliflower and merely tolerates zucchini because it's a part of so many recipes there would be nothing left for me to cook if he outlawed that ingredient, too (along with eggplant, mushrooms, tempeh, quinoa, and "squishy wheat"). Mister and I agreed, though, that this soup was far better completed by the cauliflower than it would have been with zucchini. The texture it leant was perfect, as was the subtle flavor and the barely perceptible way it soaked up the garlic broth.

Angst loves BBQ Seitan

2011-10-02T22:13:00.000-04:00

I guess I should have known. Angst always gets super excited when I make the Sloppy Joes recipe from The Urban Vegan and I guess I just thought he was all about the TVP. Perhaps he is, but I think I might have a little fuzzy BBQ-addict on my hands, because tonight he could not get enough of our BBQ Seitan and Broccoli, pinched from theppk.com.

The first time I made this, there were two major differences. First, I used homemade cubes of baked seitan, whereas this time around I chopped up a tub of Michael's Savory Seitan, resulting in a chewier, "meatier" texture. Also, the first time around, I served the BBQ-soaked seitan and broccoli over a fluffy cloud of mashed potatoes. This time around, I really didn't feel like doing the mashing part, so I improvised a bit (per my goal...) and came up with:

Greek-Fried Potatoes
2-4 side dish servings, depending on the size of your potatoes (did that sound wrong?)

Ingredients:
6-8 small red potatoes, well-scrubbed
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 Tbsp Mediterranean Sea Salt Blend (McCormick Gourmet spice blends)
1 tsp dried marjoram
1/4 tsp garlic powder
generous pinch of allspice

Scrub potatoes well, then cut into quarters or sixths, depending on the size of your potatoes and what you feel constitutes a mouthful. (I think we might be continuing our downward slope here.) Heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan on high heat. Add potatoes, stir well to completely coat with oil, then sprinkle on Mediterranean sea salt blend, marjoram, garlic powder, and allspice. Stir again to coat evenly, then cover and lower heat to medium high.

Cook potatoes, stirring occasionally, 8-12 minutes, until crispy and a bit brown. Pierce with a fork to ensure they are tender on the inside, then turn off heat, replace cover and allow to sit for a few minutes.

The potatoes accompanied our dinner perfectly, though due to the richness of the BBQ sauce, I think I will serve the seitan and broccoli on something next time, if not mashed potatoes again. Angst was an eager attendant at the table, looking between Mister and I with his big, sad eyes as if to say, "Surely, one of you is human enough to see my sorrow and share your food." Ultimately, like always, Mister isolated a kitty-sized piece of saucy seitan and put it on the floor (which was followed by me telling Angst that he had to eat all of it, including the sauce that was now on my floor).

Believe me when I tell you, this was not a problem for him. He quickly licked that all up and waited for more. He had a healthy little appetizer to his own dinner, between me and Mister slipping him little pieces of gooey seitan that he all too readily slurped up from the floor.

noms?

He has no shame.

See you tomorrow, MoFos!

sunny saturday love

2011-10-01T23:43:00.000-04:00

Happy October! Happy VeganMOFO! Happy World Vegetarian Day! happy happy happy

I love this month. There are so many great things - anniversaries, birthdays, CDs I've been waiting for for 5 years, new cookbooks, and the return of the Vegan Month of Food! MoFo Blogging is the best kind of blogging - it's kind of like the New Year because I think it helps all of us get back on our feet. This time of year, dozens of blogs are remembered and reformed, dozens of writers recommit themselves to posting more frequently. More serious questions are asked and answered.

This is my third Vegan MoFo. The first year, my goal was simple: I'd just started the blog a couple of months earlier and I wanted people to read it, goshdarnit! Here I was, pouring my heart and soul into writing recipes and then composing awesome recaps of our dinner adventures, but what good was it, other than an online "Dear Diary" if no one was reading. So, my goal for the first year, starting out anyway, was simply to gain readership. I accomplished that, but I also came away empowered, enriched, and ready to think more critically about things about which I'd let myself become complacent. I gave my mind a hearty chunk to chew on by examining my feelings about the ethics of honey and wool - two forms of animal consumption in which the animal continues to live, making it seem less cruel.

The second year, last year, I don't know that I had any actual goals. I just really enjoyed MoFo the year before, found a ton of new blogs to read and managed to convince at least a few people that mine was worth reading, so I did it again. Again, I was enriched and inspired. The best part about last year's MoFo was that because it was in November, everyone got to share their Thanksgiving adventures.

This year, I do have goals. My posting has been falling off lately, which is something I've noticed on blogs I've followed for a while. You start out all full of vim and vigor and you're going to be the best, most conscientious blogger ever...until you realize that there's a whole big world out there full of life waiting to be lived. I'm not a "short" blogger - I don't jot down a couple of sentences and attach them to a picture just to be able to say "I blogged today." If I don't have something to say, I just don't blog. Unfortunately, that can result in days or even a week going by with nothing from me but silence resulting in Facebook rumors that I died.

I go into a little more detail here, but the short story is this: my goal for Vegan MoFo 2011 is to get back to basics. I started this blog to expand my ability to actually create my own recipes and learn the puzzle of flavors and textures in such a way that I can just grab some ingredients and turn it into a delightful meal without having to consult a page of a cookbook between each step. The problem I keep running into is how many fabulous cookbooks there are and how I want to try every recipe, but I really just want to be able to say "I'm a cook." I want to make dinner without help from Isa or Nava or Sarah or even Dynise - not all the time, but I want to know I can do it without second guessing myself.

This couldn't come at a better time - I've cooked myself bored from my current cookbook collection and the release of the cookbook I am most looking forward to has been pushed out to November. This means I am perfectly in a place to force myself to be creative and stretch my wings a little. I construct a weekly menu, but my intention for this month is to always be at least one meal short of a complete week (and I don't mean that in the "euphemism for crazy" way). I will share any great recipes I do come up with, but if you want a teaser to convince you to stick around, try this: September Lentil Soup.

Now for a little dinner recap: tonight I made Mediterranean Stew from the Moosewood Restaurant Soups and Stews Deck.

Right now, Mister and I can't get enough veggies and this stew is packed with them. Two large bell peppers, a bunch of asparagus (roughly 1 lb) and two medium zucchini along with plenty of garlic, a can of tomatoes and a can of beans. I caught something like the lovechild of pneumonia and tuberculosis at the beginning of the week and it appears I've passed it on to my dear husband, so we've been guzzling green juice and eating our veggies like they're going out of style. Or like it's autumn and we're afraid of being confined to canned tomatoes and frozen broccoli for the next few months. Either one.

It's attractive in almost a provencal kind of way, wouldn't you say? One of the things that stood out the most to me was the very pungent taste of the fresh oregano I used. I've never cooked with fresh oregano, even though I knew it would greatly improve my opinion of oregano as an herb, so this was a treat. I thought the proportions of fresh herbs was somewhat comical, as the prescribed amount of basil was 1/2 cup but they only wanted me to add 2 teaspoons of chopped oregano. Once I tasted the stew, served over bulgur, I understood why.

There was one bizarre-ish kind of thing that stood out to me in this recipe. You could add clams as an option. I own two other Moosewood cookbooks, so I am aware that they sometimes include fish recipes, but I just don't get that - fish-eaters consider themselves "pescatarians" rather than vegetarians, who eat vegetables :) On their website, the folks at Moosewood claim the restaurant is vegetarian, but states that they serve fish and seafood as well. The Collective gives the impression that their main dietary concern is the health of those eating the food, so that might explain their notion that fish fit into a vegetarian diet. That is, if they are not "ethical" vegetarians, but merely trying to eat in the most healthful way, they would do right by putting the emphasis on grains and vegetables and tofu and beans as primary sources of protein (which they do), with the occasional consumption of "healthy" seafood.

For my purposes, though, to be vegetarian means to eat no meat and to be vegan, well, that's usually pretty indisputable, isn't it? If not, feel free to navigate (via the right sidebar) to my October 2009 posts, in which I explored what going vegan meant for me.

Well, it's time to wrap up. If you're new, Welcome! I hope you enjoy my snarky little posts and witty recaps of the sometimes strange but almost always delicious things my family of 2.5 eats for dinner. If you've been around for a while, Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love knowing you're out there and counting on your sweet, encouraging, and sometimes challenging responses to my posts.

saving my awesome for MOFO

2011-09-30T23:47:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow is the first day of Vegan MoFo 2011 and I can't believe it's here again already! I'm really not sure what happened to September, though it's the same thing I imagine happens every time someone starts a new job - time just runs away with all the fun (and learning, and doing, and stress). Regardless, October starts in a little more than a half an hour and with it begins my third MoFo. I am totally looking forward to this.

If you want to read previous years' MoFo posts, just navigate along the right side bar --> to October of 2009 and November of 2010.

I don't have anything at all to say about my awesome 10pm dinner of leftover Chana Masala with Green Goodness, but I will tell you my walk home from work was awesome. Everything is a matter of perception - whether you realize it in the moment or not, you always make a choice in how you respond to a situation. Here are the FACTS about my walk home from work tonight:

it was raining
it was in the mid-60s for temperature
it was 9:30 on a Friday night
I was hungry
I am sick

There are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, you could read those as complaints. They would be justifiable complaints, too. Who wants to be leaving work, alone, hungry, and sick at 9:30 on a Friday night and walking through the rain to get home?

ME.

Honestly, those things all suck (well, the temperature wasn't bad), but I was so elated to be walking home from work that nothing but that actually mattered. I continue to be abnormally happy about this change in commute style and length.

Before I leave you to go cough in a corner, I wanted to share something I thought was awesome (in that ironic, "um, right" kind of way). I've mentioned before that there are two locations for my new job. The one I was at tonight, which is walking distance from my home, is nestled between two Starbucks. There is one a half block north, which is connected to Macy's and there is one a half block south and one block east. The latter is a great location for grabbing coffee on my way in to the store, but if I'm actually just grabbing coffee during a break, I go north.

I was waiting for the nice young spaz at the espresso machine to brew my autumnal caramel americano and I glanced into the fine jewelry department of Macy's. Just as I finished being underwhelmed by their displays (can we get some sparkling lights, please?), I noticed one of the most ironically super signs ever.

In case you can't make it out, Macy's wants me to know that for my convenience there are restrooms on the third floor. I would like to point out that since I was in a Starbucks with a street entrance separate from the store, that means we were all on the first floor. However, for my convenience, if I need to pee, I can find the ever-ellusive escalators or wait for the same elevators that have been creaking up and down the floors since 1928 so I can use the convenient restrooms on the third floor.

For the sake (and convenience) of their customers, I sincerely hope Starbucks has its own restrooms.