glitter and good will

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?

somethin' in the works

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!

klutz in the kitchen

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:

hurts so good/Mister saves the day

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.

and now for the bonus round

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

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.

bottom of a bottomless pit

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

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?

carpe diem...et rosae

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.

birthday coffee and shameless plugging

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:

1. Farfalle with Shallots and Chard - I cannot wait to make this again!
2. Gussied-up Tabbouleh and Smoky Zucchini Bean Dip - the best tabbouleh I've ever had.
3. Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil - because "a big pot of pasta is a happy thing" according to Mister.
4. 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.
5. Funeral Cake - BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE EVER and just in time for some Addams Family Halloween Fun!
6. 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!

far from farfalle

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.

cereal thief and tomato fail

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.