celebrate tweakin'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why not, you ask?

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

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

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

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

sometimes the sequel is better

While it is rarely true in motion pictures, I find that a dish is usually better the second or third time I make it.  I can only imagine that this is because the first time, I stay strictly close to the written recipe, and on future adventures, I break free of the tyranny of the recipe, allowing myself to tweak a little here and there.

Tonight, I reprised Pasta Shells with Black-Eyed Peas from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  We liked it just fine the first time around, which is why I made it again, but since I looked back over my original post, I remembered to give it a little more flavor this time around.  Mission accomplished: a generous sprinkling of my beloved sea salt blend took this from a decent dinner to a fantastic meal.

The shells were a little bigger than I thought they'd be, once they were all cooked up.  I knew they weren't as small as the ones I usually get, but these are really big - as in, almost clever-hors-d'ouevres-stuff-them big.  It was actually kind of fun trying to see how much "filling" I could force into each shell before stuffing it in my mouth.

I'm an adult.  I can play with my food if I want to.

extreeeeeeme close-up!

Anyway, in about 24 hours, I'll be trying to force myself to go to sleep so I can get up at some horrid time like 4am (which is when I should be going to sleep, not waking up).  Fortunately, the happy ending is that after I sleep through a four hour plane ride and groggily locate the bathroom and Starbucks at the Salt Lake City airport, I will find myself in San Francisco, ready for a much-needed, incredibly deserved [albeit short] vacation.

I've been researching cocktails on Esquire.com so I know some fun things to order (I am Over-Prepared Woman - that's my superhero name), and I've scoped out a natural, non-toxic nail salon where I hope to get a manicure to pass the time between my flight's arrival and my sister's.  This time tomorrow I'll be packing and panicking and hopefully, remembering to check-in online.  I'll be packing my fun little owl book as well as my camera (and the battery charger!), but I have absolutely no idea if I'll get a chance to post while I'm out there.

That being said, it's time to reveal what's behind Secret Door #1.

I've decided to create a new blog.  Don't worry - I'm not abandoning this one!  Angst Loves Spinach will continue to be my primary blogging home, but Pretty Woman in an Ugly World is going to be a kind of supplement, so to speak.

I realized that although this was meant to be a "look ma, I'm learning to cook vegan!" blog, there are a lot of times I've written up reviews of restaurants or other food-oriented establishments.  Customer service is very important to me and I feel like it is a dying art.  In an effort to put the spotlight on those businesses that continue to offer World Class Customer Service, as well as expose those who don't quite know how to spell it, I've created this new blog.

The spark behind it was two-fold.  If you want to wander over there, you'll find the "story" laid out amidst the tabs (which I know are still woefully lacking from this blog, and I hope to correct that soon!), but let me give you a brief synopsis:

As I mentioned in the last post, 13 of Mister's and my friends joined us for an evening of fun at North Bowl, based on our recommendation because we so enjoyed the first time we visited.  Our experience this time around was so far from the first experience as to be unrecognizable.  Our waitress was quite possibly the worst waitress I've ever had.  It was embarrassing, since it was my suggestion and most of our friends were from out of town.  I sent off a long, detailed, and "passionate" email to the management that very night, letting them know how unacceptable our experience was.

Management's response was swift and favorable - they reviewed their video tapes, identified the "culprit" and will address this occurrence with her.  Additionally, at the time of my choosing, Mister and I and two friends have been invited back to the bowling alley for a round of bowling and drinks on the house.

At my work, we try to keep an evaluation of World Class Customer Service by asking ourselves at the end of a customer interaction, "How does the client feel about me?  How the customer feel about our company?"  So, how do I feel about North Bowl?

I'm thrilled with them.

Seriously!  Within 12 hours of me writing that email, the management took the appropriate steps to ensure my future satisfaction with their establishment.  That kind of customer service is so out of fashion these days that it reminded me of something I had pondered long ago.

In the beginning of the movie, "Pretty Woman," Julia Roberts's character, Vivian (perfect '80s name) finds herself rudely turned away from a boutique on Rodeo Drive.  She is devastated because all she wanted to do was buy a dress so she would look appropriate for her dinner date.  I'm sure at least most of my readers are well enough acquainted with the scene that I don't have to rehash it, but here is what has stuck with me for years now: when she returns to the hotel and gets "in trouble" with Barnard, the hotel manager, she tells him her sob story (while losing her composure) and he, despite his notions about her and her occupation, has an irrepressible desire to make it right.  He picks up the phone, calls a fancy department store and calls in a favor, resulting in Vivian getting the perfect dress and everyone is happy.

The reason this stuck with me is because it is my opinion that a person should not have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per night at a high-end hotel to be treated with respect and dignity.  The a$$-kissing is nice and I suppose that's something for money to buy, but it just feels like more and more often, we accept substandard service simply because there is no outstanding service available (or affordable).  I had an entrepreneurial moment while watching the moving about 5 years ago that I would like to get into hospitality just so that I could start my own hospitality business modeled after the service demonstrated at the Beverly Wilshire, but somewhere "normal" people could go.  Everyone deserves a little sucking up once in a while, don't you think?  (that is, by the way, absolutely a goal I have for this vacation - we're staying in two boutique hotels and I expect to be treated like a female version of Edward Lewis.)

So, in an effort to shift our service paradigm, especially in a time when money is far more scarce, so far more valuable, I want to highlight businesses that either offer incredible service consistently or companies, like North Bowl, who are willing to do whatever it takes to regain your business after someone messes up.  Occasionally, I may also write a scathing review of a business that exhibits unapologetically horrendous service, obviously hoping to influence my readers to take their hard-earned dollars elsewhere.

So, if you get bored in my absence, please, feel free to poke around on Pretty Woman in an Ugly World and let me know what you think!

grocery shopping on saturday night

It's the thing to do.  It'll make you feel good.  All the cool kids are doing it.  Or, well, nothing quite says "party animal" like going grocery shopping on a Saturday night.  I'd say I'm a total loser, but working six days a week and not getting home until 9PM on five of them tends to make the food shopping schedule a little bizarre.  Besides, since everyone else is already at the bar, restaurant, dance club, or strip club, I don't have to dodge as many people as I do on say, Sunday afternoon.

I only did one "leg" of my shopping adventures.  I really just wanted to get enough food to make one of the recipes on my new menu, so I went to Superfresh and got a head start on about a third of my list.  My menu is short but my shopping list is relatively long.  The main reason for this is my desire to stock the shelves, fridge, and freezer with enough appetizing and affordable food that Mister won't eat pizza every single time he's hungry while I'm in California.

That's right.  I'm going back to California on Friday, for my first ever Sister-Vacation.

We've gone on plenty of vacations together, obviously.  I mean, we did live together growing up and all, so if my parents decided to go on vacation, they usually took us both with them.  However, we've never done more on our own than just hang out for a day at the mall or go out for dinner and drinks.  I've visited her at college and stayed with her when she graduated, but we've never actually gone somewhere together.

We're off to San Francisco and I am stoked.  I'm reading and re-reading my VegNews magazines for ideas of where to go and what to do.  Sometime in the next couple of days, I will make our reservation to dine at Millennium, a fine-dining vegan restaurant I've heard plenty about but never been to.  Very excited for that.  The other thing I am absolutely the most excited for (besides spending plenty of time with my sister) is our trip to Cinnaholic.  I want to drool just thinking of it.  Mountains of vegan cinnamon buns waiting to be turned into your own personal cinna-bundae (clever, yes?) with custom icings and toppings.  It might be fruitful to walk back to San Fran after that...

It seems so long ago this was just a little, crazy idea hatched through text messages and now it's nearly here!  I'm sure I'll ramble a little bit about the trip every day between now and Thursday, and then possibly go missing for a few days, then come back with a massive picture parade post, so let's move on to my mini-menu to carry us through until Mister gorges himself on pizza and sandwiches and I eat, drink, and breathe in everything I can on the West Coast.

1. Mexican Rice and Bean Bake from Vegan on the Cheap.  I was going to make the Salsa Rice and Beans, but I continually and unfortunately neglect this tasty recipe in its favor almost every time, so I decided to mix it up a bit.  It's not like I'm actually going to try baking the brown rice.  Can you hear me laughing from wherever you are?

2. Better Bean Burgers also from Vegan on the Cheap.  I was actually intending to make these tonight, but Superfresh was hiding the cheap black beans, so I will have to wait until I see the prices at Whole Foods tomorrow.

3. Pasta Shells with Black-Eyed Peas from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  I was poking through some old posts and I came across the first time I made this, so I decided it was time to repeat.

4. Pasta Primavera with Fresh Veggies and Herbs from The Vegan Table.  Talk about a cookbook I've been neglecting!  I nearly had to blow the dust off of it!  Anyway, I wanted to make the last meal I cook this week to be something very big with lots of leftovers (for obvious reasons, I would assume) but more importantly, leftovers Mister would find attractive.  I remember this making a huge yield, so I specifically sought out the cookbook for this recipe.  Regardless, when I return from Cali, I'll have to devote a whole week to this book because I'd forgotten how many great recipes there are in there.

5. Chickpea Stew with Fried Polenta from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  As I was making this for dinner tonight, I found myself reflecting on how this is truly one of my favorite recipes.  Because I've grown to love cooking so much and since I'm continually trying new recipes I find myself hesitant to declare "favorites" the way I imagine a mother avoids and appearance of liking one child more than another.  Realizing, however, that food does not have feelings, I would like to let you in on a personal secret:

I love this one the most.

dangerous salads

Sometimes Mister and I get a little silly.  Such was the case tonight, following what logically should have been a light dinner.

I mean, for heaven's sake - it's SALAD; the Mediterranean Chopped Salad from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook to be exact.  Doesn't it look tasty?  Thus the source of our silliness.  After we'd each polished off two healthy bowls of salad, Mister puffed out his belly and said he was all fat.  I put my hands around my little pooch and said I was fat, too.

Fat from salad???  Clearly, we're insane.  Yet, it was undeniable that we both felt very full and somewhat bloated.  I know cabbage can cause a bloaty, gassy belly, but there was none in this salad, so now I'm filtering through the other ingredients for the source of our "fatness."  One of the things I did differently this time around was using a spring mix of baby lettuces - I wonder if some of those have the same bloating character as cabbage?  If anyone knows, I'd love some insight.

On the other hand, it's not like we were just eating lettuce - there is a lot of "stuff" on the salad, and at least two of those things have a decent amount of [heart-healthy, Mediterranean] fat in them; oil-cured olives, hearts of palm, and chickpeas are among the culprits, but let's not forget about the 1/3 cup of olive oil I mixed with red wine vinegar and poured all over the place.  Also, for protein and fun, I diced 4 oz of smoked tofu, which obviously added some substance to the salad.

Salads are dangerous!  Now that you are certain I'm off my rocker searching for my marbles out in left field, let me explain.  For one, salad bars are Satan's Playground.  When I say Satan I actually mean Germs, but sometimes they seem the same.  Assuming you can squeeze your germaphobic little self past that obstacle, though, let's talk about America's Pasttime: Over-Eating.

Look at this salad!

Don't you just want to eat it until it's all gone?  I know, me, too!  If you could have tasted it, you would definitely be with me on this because the combination of all the little elements takes this salad over the top.  The problem is, we attach this magical word - Salad - and all of a sudden, a meal has no calories.  This is simply not true, but you think Salad = Lettuce and a few tomatoes thrown in for color.  All of a sudden, you have a great big bowl full of pretty lettuce, dotted with crunchy grape tomatoes, pleasantly bland chickpeas, tangy artichoke hearts and astringent hearts of palm, alongside the perfect overbearing saltiness of oil-cured black olives balanced by the subtle, smoky sweetness of the prepared tofu.  That's actually a huge amount of food, but don't forget the bowlful of orzo and more than 1/2 cup of vinaigrette mixed in for good measure.

But it tastes so good!  So you plow through a bowl or two, just like me and Mister, completely ignoring that each serving has 480 calories and 28 g of [good] fat.  Then you wonder why you feel all fat and bloaty afterwards...  I'm telling you - salads are dangerous.

1-2-3-delicious!

I like mnemonic devices - they make life so much easier.  Probably the most frequently used form of this device is the acronym: a collection of initials that make up another word.  For lack of a more tactful example, we'll go with a well-known one: AIDS.  Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.  I find another form of mnemonic device helpful when I teach piano lessons - anyone who's ever taken piano lessons knows what's coming.

Every Good Boy Does Fine helps children remember the letter names of the lines on the treble clef.  This is a helpful little device if you ever want to read music.  There are a host of others, including a very creative one brought to me by one of my students to help her remember the names of the spaces of the bass clef: All Cows Eat Grass Blades.

One of my recent new hires created a modified acronym to help her remember the Core Values of our company and counting things off tends to find its way into march songs and cadences (for obvious reasons).  And of course, that's where we're going with all of this.  Some of my favorite "go to" recipes involve numerical mnemonic devices (say THAT five times fast) which help me to cook faster because I don't have to refer to the recipe for exactly how many tablespoons of this and teaspoons of that.  I devoted this post to the singular additions that make magic in my favorite "Indian" recipe.  Isa has a fabulous 2X2 BBQ sauce recipe that she created for the same reason.  Tonight's dinner, then, is brought to you by the number Three.

Three is the number of bowls of Yakisoba I had before forcing myself to save some for Leftover Lunch purely so Mister doesn't go out and buy pizza and I am not subjected to the "Gee, I wonder what I can eat at the cafe that doesn't involve animal bits" game.  Clearly, this is another one of those "I could eat this until I get a stomachache" dinners.

Three is also the number of ingredients in the simple but incredibly delicious sauce.  Three ingredients is simple enough to remember, but it's even easier when you have a little mnemonic device to help... like 1-2-3.  1 Tbsp raw sugar, mixed with 2 Tbsp rice vinegar and 3 Tbsp tamari/soy sauce.  Voila!  Very tasty sauce, and just enough of it to thoroughly coat the veggies and soak the noodles with flavor.

Finally, Three is the number of items left on the menu I have been cooking from but haven't bothered to list.  Here's a preview of the rest of this week:

1. Cajun Red Beans and Rice from The Accidental Vegan (same book Sunday's Kedgeree and tonight's Yakisoba live in) because I am incapable of cooking from this book without making this recipe.  And why should I deprive myself of the best rice-n-beans recipe I have, anyway?

2. Jerk Seitan on Coconut Rice, both from Vegan With A Vengeance, and yes, both still leftover from last week's menu.  No, I haven't stopped by Whole Foods for the missing seitan yet.  That's what Thursday is for.

3. Mediterranean Chopped Salad from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  This is another one of those salad recipes that is sinfully simple and completely satisfying.  A little twist this time around involves smoked tofu and colorful lettuce.

cake or death

A little bit more than a week ago, I was sitting at the dining table, constructing the menu and Mister walked by just as my eyes had fallen on a recipe for a Sweet and Sour Stirfry in The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  I looked up from my scheming and asked him, "would you like to have a sweet-n-sour stirfry?"  He responded with a relatively enthusiastic, "sure!" so I put it on the menu.  Since I completely forgot to buy tofu and cashews, it sat on the menu, unmade all week.  Today, I finally got the ingredients I needed to prepare the recipe, so I figured I would do so before the other ingredients got bored of sitting in the fridge for a week and grew legs (or other things that don't belong on vegetables).

I love colorful dishes, especially when the colors are as vibrant as these!  I think I had the reddest pepper ever on sale at Whole Foods (maybe not, but that's how I felt) and despite the Pavlovian Christmas association of red and green, I just love the way the colors look together.  Add into that the sunny yellow of pineapple chunks against snow white cubes of tofu and you have a very nice little stirfry to bid farewell to winter (yes, I know there's still a week left).

I am continually amazed by the way a simple sauce can make the difference between hippie-dippy steamed veggies and a take-out emulating stirfry, served over basmati rice to absorb any extra gloop.  If only the reason I usually turn to take-out was purely because I love the way Chinese take-out tastes, rather than my lack of desire to cook, this would save me a ton of money.

Except for one small thing.  Apparently, sometime in the last 8 days, Mister came down with schizophrenia or some kind of dissociative disorder.  He ate his stirfry and rice, and he didn't push his food around too much with the chopsticks, but when I asked what he thought, this was his response:
You made it well.  I would just never actually, on purpose, eat something sweet-n-sour.

What?  When I reminded him of the encounter recounted above, he had no recollection of it, and asked if I had posed the question to him with another choice.  I said no, I just asked if he wanted the stirfry, and that seemed to "explain" things in Mister's head.  Apparently, if he had said "No," we simply would not have had dinner.  He seems to have missed the part where I was sitting with a pile of cookbooks and a grocery list...

This reminds me of [edit: an Eddie Izzard routine] a Monty Python routine he and I watched together at the beginning of our relationship.  I'm not actually a big Monty Python fan - I think it's more of a guy thing, kind of like the 3 Stooges or the Marx Brothers, except smarter and more English.  Regardless, one sketch I did always find amusing was when three men were given a choice: Cake or Death?  For obvious reasons, the first two men chose cake.  When it is the third man's turn, he also chooses cake, but is informed that they have just run out.  His response?  So my choices are, or Death?

That was as good of a segue as I'll ever have to the bonus round of our post today...

I have been wanting to bake since we moved in, for two reasons.  First, nothing says "home" like the scent of freshly baked something.  Second, and possibly more importantly, I have seriously shirked my responsibilities as a recipe tester for Dynise's upcoming cookbook, and I believe the deadline is looming.  So, out of guilt as well as privilege (because I really am very lucky to be able to "test-drive" these awesome recipes), I baked Rue des Rosiers Pain d'Epice, a nice dark spice loaf.

If the goal was to make the entire apartment smell like where I want to go once I've left this world, then Mission Accomplished!  The loaf bakes for nearly an hour and fills as much space as it can with the most amazing scent.  I'm not sure there is a better smell for baked goods than the smell of something loaded with "winter" spices - cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, for example.  Even chocolate cake or brownies cannot compete with the molasses-rich scent of this dark bread.

It has incredible texture and both Angst and Mister were enthusiastic taste-testers with me.  It was nearly impossible to wait for the loaf to cool enough to cut it without man-handling it.  I just kept walking over to sniff it and at one point I tried to convince Angst that if we both blew on it, it would cool down faster.  The sliced almonds made it very pretty, but definitely made it a little more difficult to cut without marring the top.

Dynise introduced the pain d'epice by painting a lovely Euro-urban scene of a breakfast made up of tea and a slice of this spice loaf slathered with Earth Balance and marmalade.  Although it is very possible there are flavors of marmalade besides orange, I am not aware of them and I'm not big fan of anything orange which is not the raw fruit itself.  However, I can agree that a few pats of EB, spread across the still warm bread and allowed to melt a bit took this bread from quite tasty to absolutely heavenly.

I'll leave you with confirmation of my previously expressed "fears."  Although it seems the entire month of March is an opportunity for people to drink (Mardi Gras and St. Patty's day), it seems today was the big celebration, since we had the parade earlier in the day.  While I was out buying food for our cupboards, I had the incredible misfortune to miss a big band of bagpipers playing outside the Irish bar across the street.  Since they woke Mister from his slumber, he decided I should at least get to see what I missed:

Nope, definitely not sorry I was several blocks away when this was happening.  I am glad Mister got a picture, though.  We have some great from-the-window pictures from our years living in this area.  We'll add this one to the cyber-pile.

wonders never cease

A couple of weeks ago when Mister and I did our speed-shopping at Essene, he misunderstood that I wanted him to fetch brown rice and basmati rice and returned with Brown Basmati rice.  Tonight was the first night I needed to open that bag and use it and it was an interesting experience.  Although brown basmati takes as long, possibly longer to cook than long-grain brown rice, it smells so much better.  I'm not sure of the price difference, but this might be a worthwhile switch for the future, because the only thing I hate more than the huge and unnecessary amount of trouble I have cooking brown rice is how bad it smells.

In fact, the brown basmati rice smelled so good while it was simmering that Mister, who previously was not sure he was hungry but "go ahead and start cooking anyway, I'll probably be hungry by the time it's done," shuffled into the kitchen and decided he was so seduced by the scent that he couldn't wait for dinner to cook, he had to eat a sandwich because he was so hungry now.

I hate it when he does that.  It really drives me crazy when he eats something I consider substantial right before we have dinner.  I keep forgetting the Food Math Mister laid out for me about a week ago:
I figured out that I eat about three times as much as you and twice as fast, so I'll always eat more and be finished first.

With that in mind, I tried to think of his pickle-n-mustard sandwich as an appetizer.  Clearly, it was, since he scarfed down two healthy helpings of dinner as well as half the olives I set out.  What was this magical dinner?

Greek-Style Rice Pilaf from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  I had some serious misgivings about this dish while it was cooking and I will accept at least half the blame for that.  The recipe comes from the Fast, Fast Foods chapter of the book and the largest ingredient is 3 cups of cold, cooked rice.  Although I intended all week to make rice after dinner so that I would have it ready, I failed to do so.  As the weekend approached, I decided as long as I would have the time, I would prefer to cook the rice and then add it to the dish so it was fresh.  I think I underestimated the importance of the rice being precooked and cold.

Because I used freshly boiled rice, it was far more gelatinous that I would have preferred and I started to worry that it was going to resemble something too close to risotto for Mister.  Since you already know the end of the story, you know I needn't have worried, but it really started to look smushy and creamy.

It came out just fine and with just the perfect amount of lemon.  The lemon was extremely willing to give up its juice and because I felt the lemon flavor was way too strong in the chickpea patties I made the other night, I worried it would be overwhelming in this dish as well.  Apparently, I worry way too much - it completely enhanced the vinegary flavor of the artichoke hearts while the sweet green peas played the perfect foil by adding a touch of sugar.  I think the peas also brought out the mellow sweetness of the marjoram I subbed for oregano because I really wish I didn't have to cook with dried oregano ever and I can't wait until the herb garden from my mother blooms so I have fresh oregano.  Maybe then I can stop hating it.

When I put our dinner on the table, someone had taken up Mister's chair as though he was waiting for me to serve him at the table.

He's so good at scowling.  You'd never know how spoiled he is, with his china food and water bowls and leopard print appointed Kitty Cave.

rain in december

It just seems like that shouldn't happen.  Not in Pennsylvania, anyway.  It's been relatively overcast for a couple of days and yesterday we had a few moments of snow-globe weather that we paused a meeting at work to observe.  Tonight, streetlamps and traffic signals are reflected on the slick city streets.  I'll admit, I'm grateful they are reflecting on wet roads and not ice-coated roads, but there is something more depressing about December rain than rain in any other month (except possibly February).

Additionally, it seriously interferes with my weekend ritual of food shopping.  That is the one advantage I'll grant to suburb-dwellers - grocery shopping in the rain isn't that big a deal because you shop inside and are only outside long enough to move your groceries from your cart to your car before returning home in an enclosed, heated box.  I, on the other hand, walk to the store and walk home and I have to say - it's not easy to carry groceries and an umbrella.  I got the first leg of my shopping in before the rain but I'm a little leery about what tomorrow brings (according to weather.com, it brings nothing but more rain, but there must be a break in the clouds sometime).

Even though I didn't have my usual hectic schedule today, I still taught my lessons, which is becoming more time and effort consuming with the recent addition of two bright young ladies, so I didn't get a chance to relax.  Tomorrow morning is definitely for lounging, especially if it's going to be raining and gloomy, so I'm already plotting a luxurious breakfast (we'll see if it actually happens).  The point of all this blithering nonsense is that I got home from teaching around 7ish with exactly no motivation to make a pastry crust, find space to roll it out, and then take all the other necessary steps to make Samosa Pie.

Fortunately, Dragani and I put together a handsome menu last night and one of the options could be constructed solely from food I buy at Superfresh, so tonight's dinner was the perfectly hearty, homey, and savory Chickpea Stew with Fried Polenta from Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.

I can't say it enough: I love this meal.  It is so easy to make that I probably should have saved it for a night I'm feeling more braindead, but I guess you could say I'm still recovering from the week.  It combines nearly all of my favorite things: polenta, blended sauces, savory garlicky-tomato goodness.  How could I go wrong?

As you've probably observed, I branched out for this week's menu, consulting more cookbooks than the one I've been using for three weeks straight.  We still don't have any money, but I had a few recipes on my mind that I really wanted to make and this week I am more interested in quick-cooking meals than inexpensive ones.  As a result, I spent twice as much at Superfresh as I spent on all of my groceries a couple of weeks ago, but I think Mister was about to cry for lack of frozen pizza anyway.

1. Samosa Pie from Vegan on the Cheap will be tomorrow night's dinner.  Tomorrow will probably be a lazy, inside-chore day (yay for laundry and the Christmas tree!), so I'll have plenty of time to make the crust during the afternoon hours. There might even be time (and energy) for cookies!

2. Jerk Seitan on Coconut Rice from Vegan With a Vengeance.  I got a huge craving for this when I made the Island Rice Casserole last week, so now, I'm going to fulfill my own fantasy.

3. Warm Chickpea Ragout with Swiss Chard, Carrots, and Harissa from Vegetarian Times: Fast and Easy because nothing warms you up inside quite like a burning tongue and lips.  Look how diverse I was this week - three meals, three cookbooks!

4. Chili and Polenta Casserole also from Vegetarian Times: Fast and Easy.  Once again, a meeting of all things beloved by me and the Mister: chili, polenta, and [ta da!] something I can prepare tomorrow and stick in the fridge for a couple of days before we eat it, a convenience that will come in darn handy by mid-week, I'm sure.

5. Potato Corn Chowder from The Accidental Vegan.  I couldn't tell you exactly what caused me to crave this, but this was another recipe I specifically hunted through this book to find.  I just seem to recall loving it more every time I made it, so it's kind of like comfort food.

6. Cajun Red Beans and Rice also from The Accidental Vegan.  Speaking of comfort food...as long as I had the book out, I flipped through looking for a final fast and easy meal and found this - I may be a vegan cliche, but this is my favorite rice-n-beans recipe.  Speaking of vegan cliches, how's this one for you: as I was riding the train to the southwest suburbs today, the train stopped to pick up passengers in University City (imagine that).  As I sat against my window, I noticed a little weed garden full of long, green leaves and thought to myself, "I wonder what those taste like.  Someone should gather those for cooking."  Then I realized they were probably skunk cabbage.

PS: I still haven't slept, so it's still Saturday.   ;P

menu fail and vegan paneer

First things first:  I've been trying to be a little more creative in my photo taking - I recently remembered my camera has a zoom feature (most do, I'm sure).  Furthermore, if you hold real still and let it focus, you can actually get some highly enticing shots.  Exhibit A:

This shot really redeemed the number of photos I dragged to the "trash" because gooky sauce doesn't take pretty pictures.

Last night's dinner was Hunan-Style Orange "Beef" and Asparagus Stirfry from VTCC.  I got to use some of my favorite things in the making: the zester I was so excited to find in my Christmas stocking (despite the weird looks my mother gave me) and those funny rice noodles.  I also used two of Mister's favorite things: asparagus and fake beef.  There were a few amazing things about this dish.  For one, I didn't realize how much flavor the freshly grated zest of a whole orange would impart to the dish, even when added at the very end!  Second, I'm not sure what the point of coating the stirfry strips in cornstarch was, but it had two very noticeable effects: it coated the bottom of my wok with a layer of blech (that's the scientific name) that I had to scrape off with my fingernails (all the while realizing that the nonstick nature of the wok has absolutely left the building), and it made the 2 cups of sauce into a very gooky, sticky, lacquer (which probably didn't help the situation at the bottom of my wok).  Although I won't put this in regular rotation, it was certainly good enough to make again, and just one bowl each was quite enough for Mister and me.

Tonight, we had Tofu Saag from The 30 Minute Vegan.  It was extremely flavorful, thanks to the recent reunion I've had with my beloved Frontier Curry Powder as well as some cumin and coriander.  I continue to adore the way all recipes in that book that use tofu have you roasting it first.  It smelled so good in the oven and there was a richness of flavor that it added to the dish that would put real Indian paneer to shame. 

I used frozen spinach (per the recipe instructions) but neglected to thaw it first like the recipe suggests.  As a result of my own stupidity, it became more than a 30-minute meal, but we had nowhere to be, so there wasn't any rush. 

It tasted as good as it looks.  I served it on top of Jasmine rice, which does not take 40 minutes to cook, as the bag claims.  Fortunately, I checked on it "halfway" through (yes, I know you aren't supposed to lift the lid, but I'm just too good at making rice stick to nonstick cookware to take that chance) and found that it only needed about 5 more minutes.  Also, in place of the onion and to give it a little color, I sauteed a diced orange bell pepper with the garlic and ginger.  It was very flavorful and I absolutely would not be able to eat it without the rice.  While the noodle dish (above) was heavy enough that we only had a serving each, this meal is rich enough that we could only stomach one bowl.  I will definitely make this again, though I will probably cut down on the spice blend just a little.

Now, I know I said I would strive to have a menu this week which excluded an Indian-style meal.  Maybe next week...

1. Orecchiette with Broccoli, Chickpeas, and Tomatoes from Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein (a good Italian name if ever I saw one).  I also purchased something special today to drink alongside:  Castello Banfi Centine Toscano, a Super-Tuscan.  I hope it's as awesome as it sounds!

2. Penne with Roasted Vegetables and Garlic Puree also from Vegan Italiano.  I fear the Fatkins Hysteria has infiltrated my mind in at least a small way, because I got this far into my menu and said "Okay, that's enough pasta for the week."  Someone save me.

3. Mediterranean Rice Salad with Roasted Red Peppers from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals by Robin Robertson.  Okay, you got me - rice is still one of those evil carbs, but I like to look at it as a whole grain :)  Besides, the Mediterranean diet makes a lot more sense in my little Greek(-Irish) household.

4. Indian-Spiced Vegetables over Basmati Rice also from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals.  I almost made it through, but Indian-style food is just too tasty to leave out!

5. Moroccan Chickpeas with Couscous from One-Dish Veg. Meals.  I have made this before, but it's probably been about a year, so I figured it was okay to dust this one off.  I love the flavors of Moroccan-inspired dishes, too, but I feel like most Moroccan dishes have been "anglicized" for our bland American tongues.  At the same time, I feel like there's probably a good reason for that and my Irish tongue is thanking me for that.

Just in time for Memorial Day, Summer has made an appearance today.  Here's how Angst is coping:

baba ganoush: the new superhero

Eggplant is Public Enemy No. 2 in my home (Mushrooms have taken the No. 1 spot), at least as far as Mister is concerned.  I suppose if you really want to think about it, Meat is really number one on our Least Wanted list, but if you look further down that list, you'll see things like "eggplant" and "sweet potatoes" and "squishy wheat" scribbled hastily in Mister's nearly illegible handwriting.

So it might appear that I was setting up an old-fashioned Western showdown, complete with spurs and sagebrush (and maybe a few tumbleweeds for good measure) when I selected our dinner tonight: Chickpeas in Eggplant-Tahini Sauce from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook. 

If we want to skip directly to the fairy tale ending, it was Mister waiting impatiently to eat and then having seconds while stating with enthusiasm how good dinner was.

If you'd like to know how I did it, keep reading - I'm full of devious schemes to deceive my husband and make him eat everything he hates.

Not really, actually.

My "trick" was simple: Baba Ganoush.  This hummus look-alike even had Angst begging for a taste when I set down our bowls and garnered an emphatic thumbs-up from Mister.  I whisked about 4 oz of this roasted and pureed eggplant dip into the tomato-tahini sauce, along with two huge and unnecessary cloves of garlic and possibly a tad too much salt.  I would like to apologize in advance to my new hires and any colleagues who visit me in my sequestered station tomorrow - I fear I will smell like garlic into the first part of next week.  Sexy.

In addition to the chickpeas and kind of in place of the eggplant cubes, I thought julienned carrots would make a nice addition and round out the meal's nutrition profile.  Okay, I also wanted to play more with my newest kitchen gadget.  I do think they made the meal more attractive, though, than a saute pan full of chickpeas simmering in a chunky, gooky sauce.

To go alongside (and on top of) dinner, I made this simple salad of marinated tomatoes and cucumbers.  It was much better tasting than I thought it would be (since I don't normally care for raw tomatoes) and it was so pretty, with flecks of chopped fresh parsley sprinkled throughout.

glamour shot