welcome, Spring - you're only a month late

If I could figure out how to take a screenshot on my Mac, I would show you the weather forecast for Philadelphia this week - in the 70s all week.  Granted, tomorrow has a red outline and a warning to expect severe weather, but they've been calling for rain all week and I haven't seen a single raindrop.

Now that I've said that, you can expect a photo tomorrow night of the huge bruise I'm going to get when a golfball-sized piece of hail hits me in the forehead.

For now, though, you can see photos of our delightful spring dinners!  I have been at least halfway fortunate this week - I have worked earlier than usual yesterday and today, meaning I get home earlier than usual, so I've had a little more time to cook.  It also means I've been able to enjoy a few minutes of sunlight on my walk home from the train.  So with all my "extra" time (more like "different," since I've had to retire earlier as well to ensure adequate sleep), last night I made Cajun Red Beans and Rice from The Accidental Vegan, and was able to use "better for me" brown rice since I could let it cook longer.

I'm having kind of a huge ton of fun with my new measuring bowls.  I didn't actually need to measure a cup of diced green pepper, but I used the bowl to hold it while I was prepping other ingredients and I thought it looked pretty enough to share.

Unlike the Battle of Pasta Fagiolis, I don't think I will ever find a beans-n-rice recipe to knock this baby of her throne.  The combination of ingredients is nearly perfect: the savory and toothsome Tofurky Kielbasa, the smooth and creamy kidney beans with their gorgeous garnet hue, the crunch of lightly sauteed green peppers that most certainly taste "green."  I was reflecting on the amount of rice in the recipe, though, on my way to work - there is even more time to ruminate on pointless quandaries now that I don't have to pay attention to exits and traffic lights. 

After piling his second helping into his bowl, Mister went to the fridge and returned with a slice of bread.  Almost every time he does that, it means he perceives an absence in the carb department of the meal.  He was not completely off this time, either - the recipe calls for 1.5 cups of cooked rice, but that really spreads the rice thin, as though it's just kind of a decoration on the beans and tofurky.  In the future, I think I'll double the rice and see if that's sufficient for Mister's grain-appetite.

Tonight, I was home even earlier and therefore had even more time to play in my kitchen.  I had originally intended to make a quick-cooking meal tonight, but when I saw how much time I had, coupled with the surprising amount of energy I maintained after working a whole shift that started so early that I actually got on the train about the same time I usually get in the shower, I decided to make Spring Vegetable Curry, also from The Accidental Vegan.

DIY Curry spice mixture, clockwise starting at the top: cumin, cardamom, turmeric, coriander, and sea salt.  After I carefully mixed them all together into a fairly homogenous powder, I made a little well in the middle to hold the garlic and ginger.

Once the spices had a minute or two to cook and then garlic and ginger had softened slightly, I added my mountain of vegetables (the actual cooktime -apart from the rice- is only about 15 minutes; the rest is prep, lots and lots of prep): big, thick stalks of asparagus, a red bell pepper, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, and red chard.

By the way - did you know that 2 cups of red chard has 25 calories and 1 gram of protein?  Yeah, I didn't either until I read the nutritional label.  That's right - wrapped around the bottom of the bunch was a little piece of cardboard that contained the nutritional facts on a bunch of greens.  I don't know if that shows progress for our country or if I should mourn for abused paper.

Regardless, the curry was outstanding.  I'd never actually made this recipe before.  When I make curries, they are generally of the "warm you from the inside out" kind of curries, made up of generally hearty vegetables and beans (chickpeas).  This was definitely a lighter curry and I have 2/3 left of the 6oz can of coconut milk to prove it.  Now I'm trying to scheme how to get Mister to use it in his coffee.

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

a tasty way to save money

One of the recurring themes of Vegan on the Cheap is that you can save a ton of money through DIY (Do It Yourself).  Now, this makes sense to me in the way that I understand I will make my money go further by cooking most nights and only dining out on a monthly basis (if that frequently!), and I know I save money by taking my leftovers to work for my lunch.  Everyone who has paid any attention to the money-saving tips and advice articles that have been quite abundant in recent years is aware of the way convenience foods like bagged salad suck the money from your bank account.  I think we've become so used to other convenience foods that it hasn't even occurred to us that they are convenience foods.  This includes things like: condiments, lunch "meat," baked, flavored tofu, Tofurky sausages.  Although Isa has several awesome sausage recipes in Vegan Brunch, it still seemed more like a special occasion "Hey, look what I did just for you" kind of thing, meant to impress more than to save money.

The entire first section of VotC teaches you how to make everything from a two-pound seitan loaf (which can be diced for stews, roasted in a slow-cooker as Pot Roast, or thinly sliced for sandwiches) to simple things like mayonnaise or stock/broth.  The rest of the recipes usually refer back to this section for one or more ingredients.  Last week, I was a bit resistant to the "extra work" that appeared to create, but tonight's experience just might have changed my mind.

Tonight's dinner was Peanut Noodle Salad, which involved some fresh veggies, noodles I already had on hand, tofu, and a DIY peanut sauce that was so good I could only believe I made it because....well....I made it.  Whole Foods carries a store brand peanut sauce that I love and have been relying on since the very first vegetarian meal I prepared in my first solo apartment in this beautiful city.  If someone blindfolded me and had me taste that prepared sauce and then Robin's sauce, prepared with the two hands busy typing this post, I would not be able to tell you which was which.  I consider that worth the price of the book alone, because I had all the ingredients necessary for the sauce on hand, and I usually do, where I had been paying over $4 a bottle for the prepared one.

In other news, I can honestly say I spent at least 30% less on my groceries this week.  Just some food for thought...