free Beaujolais? mais oui et merci!

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!

pub fare, take one

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...

2 ways to pre-game Friday

Today is kind of like Friday Part One.  I took tomorrow off from work because Mister and I have big plans.  Well, actually, Mister's and my big plans could have been accomplished by taking a half day, but I decided to take advantage of the fact that PIFA is still going on and avail myself on some free arts stuff.

Some women go to a salon/spa to pamper themselves.  I go to museums and live music with food carts.

Today was also an interesting food day.  It was Hot Dog Day at work.  It never fails to completely astonish me how much crappy food we serve our employees at a weight loss company.  This year's Hot Dog Day was only more civilized than last year's in two small ways:

1. We managed to avoid polluting Earth Day with our little tubes of nitrates and leftover skin.
2. We managed to avoid the novelty of a fat and toothless man serving hot dogs from his little cart.

Apart from that, it served as a reminder of two more things:

1. Just because we work for a company trying to establish itself as a total wellness solution and just because we aim to teach overweight and obese people how to establish healthy eating habits while losing weight on our program does not mean we feed our employees healthy food.

2. If there is something novel available, like, say, veggie dogs, people will choose that over their pink tubes of manipulated meat out of pure curiosity.  Unfortunately, this can end with no food for the people who can only eat the veggie dogs...people like me.

I'm trying to "be the bigger person" (not literally, obviously) and look at this from a generous and enlightened perspective, but there are two points at war within me:

1. I really, really want to focus on how awesome it was that so many meat-eaters voluntarily chose to eat something that was not dead.  I want to be happy for their excellent choice of a [albeit processed] vegetarian protein over their usual choice of rotting, preserved flesh.  I want to believe that running out of veggie dogs before the event was half over will indicate to management that there is a larger interest in good, non-meat options than they originally thought and that this revelation will result in more veggie choices in future events.

2. I wish they had "reserved" at least enough for the known vegetarians, and allowed omnis to eat "extras."  I mean, really.  I, like everyone else, had believed the company was feeding me today, so I did not bring lunch.  Them running out of veggie dogs resulted in me having to buy my lunch at the cafe, who, fortunately, had vegetarian lentil soup for me to dunk my naked hot dog rolls in.

In any case, I was happy to head home at the end of a very busy and hungry day and find that Mister was actually awake and alert.  I had nothing to say last night because when I got home, Mister was passed out in the dark in the bedroom, got up for about an hour and a half before giving up and going back to bed.  In the absence of a formal, cooked dinner, I had a grilled peanut butter sandwich and a plate of strawberries.  It was a nice little dinner, but nothing to blog about, especially since the strawberries could have been a lot closer to in season.  Speaking of seasons, I know Mister and I are quite ready to wave Allergy Season goodbye.

So, despite Mister's ambivalent hunger, I set about making Mediterranean Chickpeas and Vegetables, from the July 1998 Cooking Light magazine.  Click the meal name for the recipe - and you should - it's tasty and very easy.  If you have precooked rice, or use a faster cooking rice like Basmati or Jasmine, or even a fast-cooking grain like bulgur or couscous, you can easily get this on the table in 30 minutes, which was exactly what I was aiming to do.

It has been such a long time since we've had this that I'm pretty sure I've never served it in those bowls...which we got the first Christmas after we were married (2007).  See, it took me quite a long time to find my cooking "wings" so for the first several years of our vegetarian lives together, I just kind of made the same things in an ever-widening rotation.  I was always trying to learn new recipes, I just hadn't become confident enough in my ability to cook to take as many chances as I do now.  So, before I learned how fun it is to be adventurous in your menu selection, even if it leads to disaster from time to time, we would generally do a rotation of pizza, pasta, veggie burgers w/fries, pizza, rice and beans, my own weak version of veggie lo mein, pizza, and rice cooked in vegetable broth with whatever vegetables I found palatable that day sauteed in some olive oil with not quite enough garlic.  And pizza - did I mention that?  Yeah, Mister and I ate a lot of pizza when we stopped eating animals.

Anyway, this had a high priority in our rotation because it was the first time I thought to combine canned tomatoes with the sauteed veggies and definitely the first time I realized you could have beans (chickpeas) and rice AND veggies - I know, it blew my mind at the time, too.  So, I probably overdid it a bit, so when I started building my cookbook collection, it fell away.

I'm glad I made it and I'll probably try to remember to make it a little more frequently than once every 3 years or so, because it's really good and simple.  I always enjoy the recipes that involve bay leaves because they lend such a bizarre flavor to dishes; smoky, like I mentioned.

Anyway, I have some French wine to drink in preparation for my day of French fun tomorrow.  I'm so glad I decided to take the day off - I so enjoyed the PIFA gala and I've wanted to attend far more than I have, but alas... that whole pesky working-6-days-a-week thing gets in the way of a lot of things I want to do.  I plan to enjoy every moment of tomorrow and hope to capture as much as I can on film so we can have a little picture party tomorrow night in preparation for Real Friday.

Bonne nuit et Beaux rêves, mes amis, à demain!

delicious surprise

Longer ago than I want to admit, in what feels like a different lifetime, I was hopelessly addicted to Star Search.  Does anyone remember that?  Every weekend, I would park myself in front of the TV to watch America's youth compete against one another to see who was the best - kind of like American Idol, but without all the drama and caustic wit.  I won't deny that as I watched Ed McMahon introduce the acts and congratulate the winners, I harbored a secret hope that one day, I would appear on that show and take home top honors.

When I was 14, my love affair with Star Search ended.  That may have been the year it went off the air, but it was definitely the year I lost interest in watching it - you might call it the beginning of becoming jaded.  My family went to the shore for a week, and although we programmed the VCR (with a VHS tape and everything!) to record my favorite show, something went awry and when I popped in the video, full of anticipation after a week at the shore, all I saw was TV snow.  This was disappointing beyond the feeble reach of language and I'll tell you why.  For about 13 weeks, I had watched with something akin to pride as this funky late teen named Beth Hart swept, week after week.  You couldn't touch her; she had Star written all over her - she had a great look and the confidence of a rockstar, strutting around the stage, interacting with the audience.  Better still, she knew it - at the end of every song she performed, you could tell she knew she nailed it.

The weekend I missed was the weekend she won.  I never got to see her winning performance or celebrate for the girl I had tuned in specifically to see for 13 weeks straight.  I turned on the TV the week after and she was nowhere.  I stopped watching.

So, that was kind of a bummer way to start, huh?  The point is I stole my post title from one of her songs - one more flashback and I promise I'll stop.  God only knows how many years after all this, possibly during college, I heard this amazing song on the radio and then the announcer said a name I hadn't heard since the beginning of my adolescence - apparently, Beth Hart went on to make it pretty big.  I went out and immediately bought Screaming For My Supper, which had a song called "Delicious Surprise," with spicy lyrics like "If I won me the lottery, I'd dance naked in the streets with a top hat full of money.  You'd wanna get to know me, if I won me the lottery."

I had two delicious surprises tonight.  The first was dinner (appropriately): we had Quinoa Bulgur, Kale, and White Bean Stew from Appetite for Reduction.

The title could lead a person to believe it would be a thin, anemic soup, which is probably where Mister's lack of enthusiasm came from.  A person would be wrong, though - want to know what's propping up all that glorious kale?  Cups and cups of diced potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and leeks.  This stew was so flavorful, it didn't even matter I was one clove of garlic short.  It starts with a generous herb blend: marjoram, thyme, and the mystery spice, the thing that makes you go "hmmm?"  Crushed Fennel Seed.  It's so subtle, you don't even notice it until you pause for a sip of water and you think to yourself, "what is that sweet, anise-y taste, lingering along the sidelines of my mouth?"  It enhances the overall flavor of the stew without ever drawing attention to itself.  That's something I really like about Isa's soup - I have probably 100 soup/stew recipes, but hers are always amazing and I think the reason is because she always incorporates a little something that throws your tastebuds for a loop and makes your brain shake itself off for a second look.  Tarragon in lentil stew, fennel seed with kale and potatoes, the mellow warmth of roasted garlic.

I'm going to go enjoy my second delicious surprise while I craft the new menu.  My Beaujolais-Villages is already poured and "breathing" and I found a dessert-sized chunk of Vivani dark chocolate in my cupboard.  Bon appetit!

mister's miso noodle soup

Anyone here on facebook?  As 2010 approaches its end, I've noticed a lot of my friends doing what's called a "status cloud," in which the most frequently used words in a status are compiled and sorted.  For example, one of my friend's most frequently used word was "bus" and another friend's cloud revealed she spends the overwhelming majority of her status updates to inform the world about her elder son's exploits...her daughter trails by nearly 66%.

The point of all this is that every now and then, I start to post something and have an odd sensation of deja vu.  I have not actually done a data-based query, but from patterns I notice, if I had to guess my top three most focused topics they would be:

1. kale and my kale-heavy recipe list
2. how exhausting my job is, especially this time of year (you may have noticed that I let two nights go by without posts for the first time in months)
and finally...
3. mister being sick

My poor mister has such a challenged immune system.  I'm fairly convinced that the way he eats when I'm not around to give him a hard time might be preventing him from at least somewhat improving that, but he just naturally gets sick easily.

Can you guess the topic of this post?

Mister is sick.  I don't know what's wrong with him, but I am amazed at how dramatic his illnesses can be.  He can't just have a cough - no, he has to cough until he's in pain and then make miserable noises while shaking uncontrollably because he's freezing, even though we turned up the heat.  He's been getting progressively more ill over the last couple of days, but when I came home tonight and found our living room dark and empty, my first thought was still that he had gone out somewhere.  It took me about 15 minutes to realize he had gone to the bedroom and was so utterly unconscious that I had to hold my breath to hear if he was still breathing.

He was, so I returned to the kitchen to figure out what I was going to eat with the bottle of 2009 deBoeuf Beaujolais-Villages I picked up on my way home from work tonight.  I had far less than no desire to make one of the two leftover recipes on my menu if I was the only one eating, so I evaluated my ingredients and nearly made something fun with angel hair pasta, leftover fire-roasted tomatoes, and Swiss chard (and of course, oodles of garlic), but then I realized that despite my enjoyment of the cooking process, I wanted nothing to do with the clean-up.  That ended up backfiring (<-- foreshadowing), but I decided to head over to Essene to check out the hot foods bar.  I was a little torn between the quirky, healthy food at Essene and the sheer comfort I would get from a slice or two of Blackbird pizza, so I figured if there wasn't anything truly exciting at Essene, I would just go to Blackbird.  This is one of the many, many things I love about living where I live - they are each a block and a half from my home.

Turns out, Essene had plenty to fill my to-go box: amazing mashed potatoes, roasted yams, broccoli raab with garlic, harvard beets, tuscan white beans (with tomatoes and basil), and tofu cutlets.  I wish I'd taken a picture, but I was still in a pretty special state of mind, recovering from today and this week in general.  I'll fill you in more tomorrow, but for now, let's return to the theme of MISTER IS SICK.

I was about two bites into my luscious mashed potatoes when I heard Mister hacking up a lung in the bedroom.  I went in, since I figured he was awake, to see if I could get him anything.  Apparently, he wasn't awake, but every time I spoke to him, he had a coughing/shaking/moaning fit, so I figured it was probably best to leave and finish the Beaujolais my dinner.  About 30 minutes after dinner, while I was sifting through Twitter timelines and FB updates, Mister emerged from the bedroom looking like a cross between a bum and a caveman (not flattering, I know).  When he sat down at the table, I asked if I could get him anything.  To my surprise, he requested soup.  That surprises me everytime.

I put down the wine and got to work while Mister took a short nap on the table.

Miso Noodle Soup
2 servings

2 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
1/2 tsp minced ginger
2 small carrots, sliced
1 cup chopped broccoli
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 tsp tamari
1/2 tsp thyme
1 oz angel hair/cappellini, broken into 2" pieces
1 tsp white miso, dissolved in 2 Tbsp warm water

Heat oil in a large saucepan on medium heat.  Add pressed garlic and lower heat; allow to saute for about 5 minutes but be careful not to burn or brown the garlic.  Add carrots and ginger, stir to mix and allow to saute for 1-2 minutes.  Pour in stock and tamari and bring to boiling, then add broccoli and peas.   Return to boiling, stir in the broken pasta, then reduce to a lively simmer for about 4-5 minutes.  Stir in thyme and miso and remove from heat.  Stir to combine and allow to sit for 5 minutes.

you promised a rose garden?

I had another one of those euphoric laughing spells tonight.  I contained myself a little better this time, but as I left work tonight, I was so happy and relieved to bid the work-week farewell, I could have cried.  As I allowed the train conductor to "drive" me home, the uplifting sounds of Christmas filled my ears (I switched my iPod over the day after Thanksgiving).  I'll admit, I'm still not completely relaxed, considering that when Mister and I were lingering over our empty bowls, I explained to him that I was going to play on my computer for a little while, probably blog, then I was going to drink more wine and then construct our menu.  He didn't bat an eyelash and I laughed at my "agenda."  Then I got to work.

Happy Friday!

I can't believe I actually waited all week to open the bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau my dad sent home with me on Thanksgiving, but I did.  I think being sick for half the week helped with that.  I'm feeling much better, but as our dinner adventures will show, my nose and tastebuds have not escaped unscathed!  My first sip of the Beaujolais was not the thrilling experience I so desperately wanted it to be, in fact, it made me feel slightly nauseated.  After I let it "breathe" for about 20 minutes, it was better, but between that, the olives, and our dinner, there was some inescapably floral scent/side-taste following me around.

Tonight, I made Baked Ziti from Vegan on the Cheap.  Takes a heck of a picture, doesn't it?  All week, my intention was to boil the pasta and simmer the marinara sauce the night before I wanted to have it for dinner (which was just about every night this week) so I could assemble it and then let Mister put it in the oven while I nodded off on the train on my ride home.  That didn't happen, since I was too sick to have the energy to do anything for half the week.  So, I made it tonight and although we ate slightly later than usual, it really wasn't a considerable delay.  Additionally, I had a little time to relax while it was in the oven.

First, I mashed up the tofu with a fork and mixed it with nooch, marjoram, parsley, thyme (to stand in for oregano which I still can't tolerate), and salt.  I think I probably could have gotten firm tofu instead of extra firm, but I always like to make the recipe "true to form" the first time.

One of the reasons I chose this dinner recipe was the marinara sauce.  When I first bought this book and did a little review on it, I pointed out that the first section of food in the book was all DIY Convenience foods.  How-Tos on making everything from marinara sauce to tofu feta to pepperoni/sausage.  The first couple of times I made my menus from this handy little book, I wasn't as destitute as we were this past week, so I bought whatever the DIY section wanted to teach me to make.  This time, my brain was so math-oriented (someone take a picture - that will never leave my lips again) that when I saw the recipe called for 3.5 cups of marinara sauce, I realized that was 28oz and that I had a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes in my cupboard.  Imagine my delight when I looked at the recipe for DIY marinara sauce and saw that it was based on a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes!

It was a pretty sauce and it smelled good.  It tasted good, too, but just like the wine, there was a distinctly floral scent/taste going on.  Mister swears his tasted like Italian food and not a garden.  He even humored me by sniffing at his ziti.  It always turned out the same: I'm crazy; the food does not smell like flowers.  Meanwhile, I'm throwing out all these crazy postulations about why my dinner smells like flowers: the herbs in the tofu, the nooch with the tofu (even though I know darn well that smells savory), the dash of cinnamon and teaspoon of sugar in the marinara sauce, the olive marinade.

Nope.  It's just my nose, continuing to misbehave.  At least my dinner still lifes are as pretty as a rose.

you know you wish you had a fork

may your days be merry and bright

Happy Friday!  We made it!

It blows my mind that this time next week we'll have gone through the first round of holiday eating festivities.  I'm looking forward to the holiday, seeing family, not working, and not going to work.
Yes, I wrote that twice on purpose.  What a week and I'm not sorry to bid it farewell!  I had this awesome Good-news-Bad-news story with Mister during dinner tonight:

The good news is the week finally ended and I get to breathe for a couple of days.
The better news is that next week I only have to work two days!
The bad news is that means I have to fit a whole lot of work into those two days.
The good news is that lots of work makes the days pass faster.
The bad news is that lots of work makes the days disappear too soon.
The good news is, once I get through them, I'll be off for five beautiful days straight.

That seems a good place to leave it.  Speaking of getting through things, we've gotten through the menu this final night with a beautiful blend of cultures and cuisines.

Tonight's dinner was Cajun Baked Tofu with Cajun Beans and Rice, both recipes from The Accidental Vegan.  I've made the rice-n-beans before - in fact, it is absolutely my favorite beans-n-rice recipe.  The Cajun tofu was new and a delightful addition.  Since the tofu seemed the obvious Protein in the meal, I opted to leave out the veg sausage called for in the recipe.  I also discovered, while cooking and after Whole Foods was too far away, that I had only one of two tablespoons of the prescribed worcestershire sauce.  I subbed in a Tbsp of tamari, since it has a darker savory taste and could fill in if I closed my eyes and wished really hard (which I did, and it seemed to work!).

I also subbed an 8 oz can of tomato sauce for the 1/2 cup tomato juice that was the key part of the tofu marinade, which resulted in a fun lacquered kind of situation.  I flipped the tofu halfway through cooking and spread the remaining "marinade" over top of the tofu slices.  I whisked some harissa into the mix in place of hot sauce and was quite pleased with the heat it lent to the marinade - the tofu and rice-n-beans played well together, and the whole Cajun melange made fast friends with the Georges duBoeuf Beaujolais I picked up on my walk home from the train tonight.  I had actually intended to pick up the Beaujolais Nouveau people keep saying they see, but all I could find was a 2009 vintage - but hey! It was on sale and had a little hang-tag telling me it was the best year ever for Beaujolais due to....blahblahblah....a bunch of stuff my brain is too full and too tired to fit in.

Let's just say I had a sip during dinner and had the exact same reaction that I had to my favorite summer wine.  Mister was quite amused.

Mister loves me.

I'm not gonna lie - by the time I made it in the door tonight, I wasn't sure I would be able to extricate myself from a chair if I sat down, so I just stood in my kitchen, still wearing my coat, hat, and gloves.  After giving me my kisses, Mister walked away and came back with something lovely he thought would make me happy.

Yessir, it sure did.

 Speaking of things that make me happy (yup, looks like it's that Random time of year), has anyone else noticed that Starbucks has the most brilliant marketing ever?  One year, someone said, "Hey, why don't we make happy red cups for the winter holiday beverages?"  To everyone's ineffable surprise and delight, the world responded by thinking that was just the cutest thing ever, so now, the minute that bitter chill begins to infiltrate the breeze, Starbucks launches the Red Cup Campaign.  It's brilliant and it totally works.  I'll admit, I bought into the hype - I wanted a red cup.

Admit it.  You do, too.

P.S. You can get a Toffee Mocha Americano (not just a latte).  You want one because they are incredibly tasty.  Follow your heart.  I'll be waiting with my red cup, too.

prettier without plastic

I've been trying to figure out what to write for about an hour.  I really want to see if I can post something every single night of VeganMoFo, but I don't want to babble about boring stuff since my stats page tells me folks are actually reading my rambling.  Pardon me if I get a little random, but it's definitely starting to be That Time of Year again (look back a year on the right side --> if you want some fun reading).

Poor Mister has some kind of stomach bug.  Initially, he was trying to blame it on my Jambalaya, but I assured him that the stuff that tasted like seitan really was seitan and not some tempeh dressed up for Halloween.  As a result of his Angry Belly, he had no interest in whatever scrumptious feast I was gearing up to make...so I pulled my tall, narrow Tupperware out of the fridge and ceremoniously dumped some of my mom's stew into a pot to warm up.  I thought it deserved a prettier presentation than the glamour shot in plasticware, so here it is, all ready to be eaten:

look how pretty your stew is, Mom!

For some reason, it really disturbed me that there were no discernible flecks of herbs on there, so I thought I would add some "flavor."  I sprinkled it generously with powdered garlic (last night was not a All-This-Work-Just-For-Me kind of night) and a dash of sea salt.  I thought I detected a more adventuresome taste, until I warmed up a second bowl and forgot to season it and discovered that the enhanced taste was actually a function of it sitting in the fridge for a couple of days, and not anything that I did.  So, Well Done, Mom!

I almost did my chocolate round up, but I don't have enough "testing" done yet.  Don't worry - chocolate (and red wine) is my comfort food and the stress is being kicked up into high gear at work, so I should be ready soon!  I was ready to make my own chocolate sandwich treats by 1:30 this afternoon, so I'm pretty darn proud that I lasted until dessert time.

mmm....dessert

It's Beaujolais season and any day now the Beaujolais Nouveau will hit the shelves (not that I'm waiting...checking in....stalking...).  I discovered a perfect partner for the dark berry notes of this perfect Autumn wine - Bug Bites dark chocolate squares by Endangered Species.  A full review will be included with my chocolate round-up, but here are a few highlights:

• when I opened the wrapper, I was greeted by a small square picture of a bug with bug trivia on the back.  I'm not a big bug fan, but it was a clever idea.
• the texture is so smooth it was hard for me to believe it wasn't made with cream or milkfat, but it's not.
• one .35 oz square is the perfect size to satiate my craving for dark, bittersweet chocolate, and only sets me back 50 calories, 4 g fat, and 2.25 g sugar.  I may need to buy these in bulk!  They are the perfect replacement for my Ghirardelli addiction and [ironically] might just get me through the prep for Diet Season!

some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate

And for them, I cannot disagree.  I never got anywhere playing it safe - I say Fate should not tempt me.

I made it!  I got through my short week at work, which was jam-packed with work I usually have five days to do, as well as the excitement of knowing I was headed West (my favorite place to head) and some other morsels of happy.  I got exciting news shortly before leaving work tonight that I can't say anything about right now, but I just want to say that there is something truly fulfilling in seeing someone you have invested yourself in succeed and excel.  I can't wait to come home and say congratulations when everything is official and the cat is out of the corporate bag.

Okay, you got me.  I totally CAN wait to come home, but at least I have something to look forward to when the inevitable end of my vacation arrives.

Last night, I made Bulghur with Leeks and Swiss Chard from vegetariantimes.com.  This time I used red chard which added vivid color before cooking and colored the whole dish a little pinkish after cooking.

You can't see the pink too well, but there are pleasing little specks of red poking out through the forest of verdant chard leaves.  It had a peculiar buttery taste that enhanced the taste of the chard, resulting in me saving some for Leftover Lunch purely through self-control and discipline (and the desire not to piece together a lunch at work from salad and hummus).

Tonight, I made a little something spiffy.  It was originally born from one of those "Hey, I have a bunch of random but complementary ingredients hanging out in my fridge and I'm going on vacation.  How can I use those up so they don't have babies while I'm gone?" moments, but developed into a "pretty cool idea."

By the way of an aside, am I completely square that I still say things are cool?

Anyway, along with my tasty dinner, I opened a Natalie-sized bottle of Beaujolais, my favorite autumn wine.  It's nearly November, so by the time I return from California, the first round of Beaujolais Nouveau should be on the shelves or close to it.  Until then, this is light and enjoyable:

It accompanied dinner nicely, and continues to keep me company while I add new songs to my iPod and Mister destroys my feng shui by running back and forth across the apartment behind me, theoretically packing (but he's really just trying to scare the cat and drive me nuts).  Without further ado, let's look at dinner!

California Tofu Tacos
serves 4

4 12-inch whole wheat tortillas
14 oz extra firm tofu, cubed and drained on towels
1 avocado, cubed
2 small kiwifruit, skinned and cubed
1/2 cup chunky salsa (whatever heat you prefer - I used Mild 'cause I'm a weenie)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
generous sprinkling of cilantro

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add tofu cubes and stir to coat with oil.  Sprinkle with garlic and chili powders, as well as sea salt, then toss to coat.  Saute 5-7 minutes, stirring often, until the tofu begins to brown a little.  Add avocado and kiwifruit, stir to combine.  Stir in salsa and heat through until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 2-3 minutes.  Divide filling evenly among tortillas and eat as soft tacos or roll as burritos, if you wish.  I would guess surf music would be a fitting accompaniment, or maybe California Girls by Katy Perry...

I'm off to prepare for California!  I plan to try to at least pop up and say hi, but if you don't hear from me until Tuesday, please don't hate me!  You have plenty to read while you're waiting with bated breath for my return.