short and sweet while my hands are clean

It's been a messy, dirty day.  One of the few things I do look forward to with the imminence of springtime is that the warmer, more humid days restore the moisture winter sucked from my hands.  I look forward to the day I can wash my hands without having to immediately slather them with hand lotion, before they become taut and shiny and feel all papery.  Blech.

Anyway, I'm waist to eyeball high with boxes right now and a little overwhelmed by the knowledge that tomorrow is our last full day in this apartment.  When I look around, it looks like there's still so much to pack, but when I pull out the boxes (the guys at the liquor store love me - they won't have to pay their recycling bill until March) and start putting stuff in them, I find myself running out rather quickly.  We had an early dinner (more in a moment) and then I got to packing up my kitchen, but I figured it was time for a Blog & Wine break, so I opened up my Malbec before I packed up the corkscrew.

Dinner tonight came to us via the talented (and busy!) hands of the cooks at Blackbird Pizzeria.  My intention had been for us to eat at Blackbird - less trash and clean up for me - but there was not a single table open in the whole joint!  Good for them - it's always great to see a business like that do so well while other pizza parlors only blocks from there are switching hands so quickly they're not even bothering to put up the new signs.  We ordered our food to go and flipped through Grid while we waited for dinner.  While we waited, it occurred to us that one reason there were no tables open was because they are not exactly fast food.  Anyway, we got our bag of goodies and took it home:

After far more deliberation than I felt the menu warranted, Mister decided on the Chickpea Salad Hoagie, which appears to be the vegan equivalent of chicken salad.  It was a lot of sandwich - probably about 14" (Mister's guess).  He started out enthusiastically enough, but he seemed to lose steam about halfway through, beginning to devote more of his attention to the fries.  Once he'd finishd the first half, he rewrapped the second half with great gusto, at which point I realized exactly how big a sandwich it really was and he made some comment about only being able to stand the texture one half at a time.

Mister takes his sandwiches very seriously.  If they aren't perfect, it's as though it is a personal offense.

Speaking of serious - these are some serious fries!  Mister and I agreed (as we conquered that pile with the zeal of people who haven't eaten fries since...well, okay, since Monday) that these are very, very good fries.  The outsides are perfectly crispy while the insides maintain a soft, light texture, and the folks at Blackbird have the salt thing down pat - not too much, not too little.  It's like the Goldilocks of French Fries.

As I mentioned, I got the Roasted Eggplant Grinder and it was astonishingly good.  I ate the whole thing happily, along with my share of the fries.  It's ever-so-slightly too oily, but that's really just my terrified-of-fat-calories side talking - the garlic-infused oil really makes the sandwich.  The marinated eggplant, broccoli rabe, and roasted red peppers certainly help create an amazing sandwich.  I definitely preferred this sandwich over their cheesesteaks, mainly because this sandwich had just a sprinkling of Daiya, rather than it being a main ingredient.  I think it worked very well on this sandwich because there were several other bold flavors to balance it out - it really kind of dominates the seitan in the cheesesteak.  Perhaps if the seitan was seasoned a bit more creatively, it would hold its own against the Daiya...food for thought.

Anyway, I'm about to run out of wine (and steam), so it's back to the boxes...let me leave you with a few glamour shots of our mess:

I don't know why I was surprised, but it actually took two boxes to pack all of my cookbooks.  I guess this makes sense, since I had three shelves devoted to them... 

I refer to this as my Fail Box.  This is probably the crappiest packing I've done yet.  I just kind of tossed all of my cookware into a really big box.  It's crammed in there pretty good and Mister already practiced picking it up, so I think it will make its way two blocks without any major damage.  It is neither orderly nor attractive, though.

from the floor to the middle

middle to the top...that's quite a pile

I have absolutely no idea what's for dinner tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Donna Reed takes a walk on the wild side

Alternate title: Sometimes, courage backfires.  

I can say with a certain degree of certainty that the last two nights' dinners were not winners and it is highly unlikely they will find their way to the table again.  Fortunately for you, the telling should be at least somewhat entertaining, in that can't-look-away-from-a-trainwreck kind of way.

Last night, I made Seitan Noodle Casserole, which was only marginally less of a disaster than tonight's dinner.  Let me start with the story of why I thought this was a good idea:

Once upon a time, my mom made this really great casserole that we unanimously loved as a family.  I don't know if it actually had a name, but if memory serves, it involved shredded chicken, cheddar cheese, macaroni, and probably a condensed soup product.  In any case, we loved it and it was apparently easy to make, so it became a "regular" in Mom's dinner rotation.  She used it to bribe me into eating when I might not be otherwise interested and it worked every time. 

For the life of me I can't imagine what made me think of this...perhaps I was craving a comfort food, perhaps I yearn for simpler times, but I was suddenly struck with an overwhelming desire to recreate this old Better Homes & Gardens classic in a cruelty-free recipe.

With any luck, my mom is looking at this picture and saying "Oh my heavens, it looks just like the casserole I used to make!"  If that is actually occurring, let me say this one thing in your defense, Mom:  It was nothing like yours (you win).

 It does actually look tasty, but it didn't come close to the taste and texture I was trying for.  I am going to try to tweak it a little and give it at least one more chance because there were a few things I knew right away I would do differently a second time.

1. saute the seitan until it becomes a little brown and crispy, rather than baking it while still "raw."
2. same with the peppers, but substitute "softened" for "crispy"
3. add some seasoning agents to make the "cheese" sauce a little more intense
4. use cheddar Daiya (or Ricemilk cheese)

The main problems in this version were the mildness of the cheese sauce (Mister said it resembled marshmallows after a few bites) and the fact that the only Daiya left at Whole Foods was mozzarella-style.  I think I would still like to try the cheddar-style.

Let's talk about Daiya for a moment.  Jess at Get Sconed has made her reticence toward this cheese-replacement a well-known fact.  Nevertheless, Daiya is taking the vegan foodie universe by storm, so I wanted to give it a try.  I've never actually used any other non-dairy cheese in a way that required melting, so I really don't have a point of comparison.  Here is how the mozz-style Daiya melted on top of my fail-casserole:

Not overly convincing, if you ask me (which we'll presume you did, since you're still reading).  Also, not terribly appetizing - this opinion was vehemently reinforced by Mister when he made a concerted effort to eat around the "fake cheese."  Neither of us is impressed and Mister was very grateful I didn't taint tonight's dinner with the 1/2 cup left over.

Tonight, then, I thought I would try to make up for last night's less-than-perfect dinner.  What better way to suck up to Mister than with his favorite food: Pizza!  I pulled out my VegNews and my brand spankin' new jar of sumac and put together Zesty Za'atar Pizzas with sliced Roma tomatoes and Kalamata olives.

It's very pretty, yes?  That's about where the enjoyment ends.  First, that crust was one of the most difficult-to-cut crusts ever and required my pizza roller-cutter as well as my super-sharp Kuhn Rikon paring knife.  I may have nearly lost my temper, too, and nearly given up on dinner.  Maybe.

Because I couldn't find any pre-blended za'atar, I purchased a jar of sumac and put it together with the other ingredients in a recipe I had for the blend.  I coated the pizza crust with oil, sprinkled the za'atar all over it, artistically arranged the tomato slices and olives, re-coated with oil and baked for about ten minutes.  Mister and I learned a valuable lesson from our walk on the wild side:

It's good to be adventurous...as long as you know it will sometimes lead to absolute and undeniable failure.

We have decided (unanimously) that we aren't fans of sumac or za'atar, at least not in the quantities required to coat a pizza.  We ended up scraping a great deal of the spices off and trying to salvage dinner...

I had hoped that the casserole would have been awesome, comforting, and amazing so I could share a recipe with you, but I am no Mozart and sometimes I have to erase things and redo them to get them right.  If I do accomplish what I want to with that recipe, I will post it then, but until that time I want to encourage everyone to head over to chicvegan.com (you can also link from the right side blogroll) because my Banana Blondies recipe was featured!