sometimes it's the simple things

You should see some of the things I see from my little window, overlooking a very popular street in Philadelphia.  The costumes some women wear, complete with these amazing shoes - I can't figure out how they remain upright, much less walk down the uneven, high-heel-unfriendly, chunks-missing-here-and-there sidewalks of center city.  The men aren't much better - gold-rimmed sunglasses (after sunset, because they're that cool), bright color-coordinated outfits, snakeskin print shoes...I see these people prancing around my neighborhood each weekend, sometimes arriving in outrageously pimped out limousines, jewelry (or shirts) sparkling even in the streetlights.  What are they looking for?

I think Lady Gaga put it best in her song, The Fame:

I can't help myself I'm addicted to a life of material.
It's some kind of joke, I'm obsessively opposed to the typical.
All we care about is, runway models, cadillacs and liquor bottles.
Give me something I wanna be, retro glamour, Hollywood.
Yes, we live for the Fame
Doin' it for the Fame
'Cause we wanna live the life of the rich and famous.
Fame, Doin' it for the Fame
'Cause we've got a taste for champagne and endless fortune.

People want to feel special; they want to indulge and partake in luxury.

I'm no different.

Fortunately, my indulgence takes far less time for make-up and outfit-selection.  I'm fine just the way I am - I just need a nice glass of red wine and a few squares of decadent, high-quality dark chocolate.

This little moment of opulence is brought to you courtesy of Yellow Tail Cabernet-Merlot (blue) and Vivani Chocolate.  (P.S. I dare you to go to Vivani's website and not drool while watching the homepage slideshow.)

Back to earth, back to the reality of a fun day of food shopping and laundry tomorrow, here is the new menu:

1. Indian-Spiced Lentil Ragu and

2. Mexican Rice and Bean Bake, both from Vegan on the Cheap and both left over from last week's menu, because Mister's belly troubles resulted in an extra night or two of not cooking.

3. Black-Bottom Pineapple Tofu with Cashew Coconut Rice from Vegetarian Times: Fast and Easy, because

• I love this recipe
• It's been a while since I've made it, and
• I have some coconut burning a hole in my cupboard.

4. Pasta Jambalaya from Vegan Express

5. Braised Cauliflower with Three-Seed Sauce from Vegan With A Vengeance.  Can you see that I'm trying to make up for getting all of my meals from one cookbook for two weeks? 

Angst also has his little piece of heaven right now - a red wire he stole from Mister and is now gleefully batting around the living room floor.  Sometimes, it's the simple things. 

Friday, I'm in love

TGIF times infinity.

Did you ever do that as a kid?  Argue with someone about how much more of an idiot they are than you, until one of you finally said, "You're retarded times infinity!" (To which the other party would obnoxiously respond, "Fine.  But you're retarded times infinity plus one."  Game over - you lose.)

No?  Okay, then let's just move on to yet another joyful post about how great it feels to arrive at the end of a long and harrowing work day to find that the weekend has begun.  It's starting to feel like each Friday is more exciting, necessary, and rewarding than the last, while Monday continues to become more and more dreadful, in every sense of the word.  I'm pretty sure I will be even more excited to greet next Friday.

So far, I've greeted the weekend by opening my new bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz-Grenache (AKA fuchsia) and making Italian-Style Rice Casserole from Vegan Italiano.  It wasn't the most ideal wine pairing as there is really nothing Italian about this wine at all... Yellow Tail is an Australian company, all good Shiraz is from Australia, and Grenache is from northern Spain/southern France.  I guess Spain is close to Italy, just across the Mediterranean and whatnot.

It was tasty, though a little muted in flavor, and the veggies were a bit mushy.  I was supposed to simmer it for half the time and bake it for the other, but I just couldn't make myself go through all that trouble, especially after I looked for parking for forty-five minutes (no joke).

In fact, let me interrupt this post with a Public Service Announcement from your friendly, disgruntled local.  When you come to spend your time (and money, hopefully) in my community on Friday and Saturday nights, please keep the following things in mind:

• No one wants to hear your music but you.
• Honking your horn will not turn the red light green
• Holding your horn down will not help the person trying to park their car accomplish this any faster.
• If your car alarm is sensitive enough to go off every time someone so much as looks at your car, don't be surprised if you return to find a screwdriver stabbed through the hood of your car.
• Revving your motorcycle in order to set off car alarms is not actually funny.
• I don't care how drunk you are.  I'm trying to sleep.  Go away.
• People live everywhere in the city.  There is nowhere that you can hang out on the corner at 4am, laughing loudly and/or yelling at each other where you will not be disturbing the sleep, nocturnal activities, or general peace of a resident.  Go home and be inconsiderate in your own neighborhood.
• Pedestrians in a crosswalk have the right of way.
• Pedestrians crossing the street at random places do not.  If you don't want to get hit, cross at a crosswalk.
• You are under no obligation to park in the lots.  However, please bear in mind that the streets outside our homes are generally the places that residents would prefer to park their cars.  Without looping around their neighborhood for 45 minutes after a long day ending a long week at work.  How would you like it if I park in your driveway the next time I head out to the suburbs for fireworks or a party?

Thank you for your attention.  Now back to your regularly scheduled foodie blog:

Last night, I made Penne with Cannellini Beans and Escarole, also from Vegan Italiano.  Actually, it ended up being Penne with Cannellini Beans and ... mixed baby greens... since apparently Whole Foods and SuperFresh were all out of escarole.  To be honest, I can't say I've ever seen escarole in either store.  I've also never really looked.

Speaking of looking, isn't it attractive?  I think my favorite part, besides how savory the whole thing was and how well everything went together, was that the penne was perfectly al dente, even though I accidentally cooked it about 2 minutes longer than the package said.  I used Rienzi brand - I don't think I've ever used their pasta, though I do avail myself of their artichoke hearts and roasted red peppers frequently.  If it's all so toothsome, I may have just developed a pasta brand loyalty for the first time ever.

to everything there is a season

Asparagus has the shortest season ever. I believe it was just a post or two ago I was explaining my reticence to purchase 4 lbs of asparagus at $2.49/lb. In the one week since I went shopping, the price per pound of asparagus has gone up a full dollar. Unless Whole Foods is just trying to exploit the demand half of "supply and demand," it looks like we're already staring into the face of the end of this veggie's very short growing season. At $3.49/lb I was very glad I had only 2 bunches to buy...until I realized that last week, my same $7 bought 3 bunches. Enough money talk, let's look at the fruits of my labor:

There are not too many things I like to do more with asparagus than roast it. Sure, it works well with a stirfry and it's a delightful addition to penne pasta with homemade marinara, and someday I'll probably saute it with olive oil, a generous amount of garlic and a conservative amount of lemon juice, but I do love it best when it has spent some quality time in a 425 degree oven, sprinkled fairly liberally with sea salt.

Tonight's dinner was Tuscan Vegetable Ragout. I wanted to make this first for two reasons: first, asparagus has a short growing season but an even shorter refrigerator life, so I want to use both bunches as soon as possible. Also, I opened the smoked tofu last night to add some protein to my after-dinner salad (more in a minute), and I don't want it sitting around all open for too long. I didn't add any pasta, like I said I would the last time I made it, but it did just fine for itself with the combination of beans, artichokes, tomatoes, zucchini, kalamatas, and smoked tofu.
I felt only slightly guilty that we didn't have salads with our dinner, but I had a nice salad at Cosi this afternoon with my dad. I needed to see my dad today, since yesterday I saw a dear friend say goodbye to her dad for the rest of her life.

Tragedy, in all its manifestations, amazes me. It has a power we can't even comprehend, much less harness. It is my belief, though, that when tragedy finds the right people, they respond by turning something painful into something positive. I believe I am the right person.

There aren't too many things more morbid (to me) than looking at the body of a soul who has left this world. I don't enjoy it. I think viewings, generally, are awkward. When I heard of my friend's father's death, I initially would have preferred to attend the funeral. Others might think me a little off kilter, since a funeral is a formal and involved affair - it reserves a great deal more of a person's time and possibly more emotional energy. But to me, because it is more formal, it is less awkward - you know what to do at a funeral. Viewings, on the other hand, you stand in a line, waiting your turn to offer condolences to the surviving members of the family, then stand before the casket (open, normally), to say goodbye to the deceased. However, my mother and another long-time friend and her mother were attending the viewing, so these were my choices: attend the viewing with loved ones or attend the funeral, alone but for my grieving friend.

After paying our respects and being sure our friend knows she is loved, we took our mothers and escaped to a local restaurant for dinner. To be honest, eating was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was a little hungry and I wanted the social time to shrug off the pain of the funeral parlor. Fortunately, I didn't have to eat much, since the restaurant (like most in the 'burbs) wasn't a big fan of herbivores - I was counting on classic American portion distortion to provide me with slightly larger side dishes of stirfried veggies and grilled asparagus, but when my butter dish arrived with 6 skinny spears I must admit, I didn't think it was going to be enough.

After "dinner," I made a quick pit stop to pick up another piece of the rainbow: Pinot Noir. This stuff is way too easy to drink. I needed that last night. Well, need is a strong and suspiciously dependent word, but the escape from the pain and tears that flowed more freely in the privacy of my own home was a welcome one. After a short breakdown, I made a very healthy (by that I mean American-sized) salad of baby spinach and a few last mixed greens, red bell pepper, cucumber slices, mandarin oranges, baby carrots, and sliced smoked tofu. I didn't take a picture because it wasn't very pretty and it took me about a half an hour after I made it to convince myself to eat it. It was very tasty when I did!

I certainly didn't mean to make this post such a downer. My plan is to come back tomorrow night with my usual cynical enthusiasm!

eating (and drinking) the rainbow

I haven't forgotten you, National Nutrition Month!

Years ago, when I worked in social services, I worked with a small woman who could most kindly be described as eccentric. She was deeply involved with yoga and meditation, had converted from Christian Science to Reformed Judaism, followed a macrobiotic diet in her recovery from cancer, and exercised harder than her 70-year-old body wanted to most of the time. Although she and I frequently argued about whether or not you could call yourself a vegetarian when you consumed fish on an almost daily basis (she did), she admired that I was a vegetarian and that I had a similar interest in caring for my body. I think she thought she had found a kindred soul because our colleagues had anything but healthy eating behavior - three of them were dangerously obese.

I was still relatively new to vegetarianism at this point and was rather proud of the spinach-n-sprouts sandwich that I frequently brought for lunch. I was even more pleased when I had the opportunity to share food with my colleagues on a two-day work retreat. I made a pasta salad with all manner of tasty veggies - it was beautiful. I had never heard the expression "eat the rainbow" until that day, when my crazy, er, eccentric colleague complimented me on doing so.

We have been following that sage advice ever since, and it was more evident than ever in our dinners the past couple of nights.

Last night, I made Pasta Jambalaya from Vegan Express. Usually, I use cavatappi pasta, but the tri-colored rotini just looked so cute on the grocery store shelf (and so on sale, too!). It really changed the look! I accompanied our jambalayas with a healthy-sized salad of organic mixed greens, shredded carrots, quartered kalamata olives, and dried cranberries. As Mister approached the table, he couldn't disguise his happiness when he said "Ooh! Dinner's so pretty!" I'm going to add this dish to my list of Great Foods for Large Gatherings, because I had forgotten how much it makes - we have a ton of leftovers.

Tonight, we had Sweet and Sour Tofu with Dark Leafy Greens with Sesame Miso Dressing from The Vegan Table. While not as colorful as last night's dinner, it was still bright and colorful. The recipe originally calls for tempeh, but since Mister's belly hates tempeh, I decided to freeze and thaw a block of tofu and then I roasted it. The roasting dried it out a little, but did accomplish the crispy outside I was hoping for. Next time I will marinate the tofu before roasting to see what that does. The dressing on the greens was a little much for my little bundle of chard. "Bunch" is such an arbitrary measurement - what if her market is more generous than mine? I think it is, because there was a little pool of very intense dressing at the bottom of our little bowls. It was very good, but we couldn't finish even the 1/2 cup we each got because of the intensity of the dressing.

The sweet-n-sour sauce (homemade, thank you very much) was far more mild than I expected - it was perfect, if you ask me. Although the recipe called for apricot preserves, Superfresh was having a sale on Polaner All-Fruit, and I find Smuckers and their store brand revolting, so all that was left (and acceptable, AKA not sweetened artificially) were Pineapple preserves - I think that made a big difference.

The final "rainbow" I tasted was another color in the Yellow Tail rainbow: Riesling. It is very easy to drink. It's nothing special, honestly. It would be a good wine to drink for the sake of getting drunk because it goes down very smoothly, but one of the things I cherish in Riesling is the crisp "bite" a good one delivers - this one, like Polka Dot, has no such bite. It's really nearly a Pinot Grigio, which kind of enhances my curiosity to try the Yellow Tail Pinot Grigio, one of the few "colors" left. I was up in the air as to whether I wanted a red or a Riesling, and I almost shelled out for an Eiswein (Ice Wine, from grapes harvested after the first frost). I ended up with a bottle of Black Tower Riesling when I saw the Yellow Tail display and thought, "Well, I already know YT is vegan, while I know nothing about Black Tower other than that it has a cool bottle." Click on the link for Polka Dot (above) if you want to know how effective that method of choosing wines is. In the end, I wanted to try the YT Riesling anyway, so I chose that one. It will do, but I won't buy it again. I think this is the first color to fail and that doesn't really surprise me since I'm ultra-finicky about whites.

Yellow Tail: taste the rainbow

Maybe you've seen this, if you're in the habit of wandering around wine stores: Yellow Tail wines are color-coded. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it sure does make the specific wine I want easier to find. For example, it is much easier to spot RED far away than it is to read the words "Cabernet Sauvignon." On the other hand, color-coded things are generally marketed to people who are...well...perhaps less than gifted, intellectually speaking. So, it kind of feels like Wine For Complete Idiots, but it's also really convenient.

In any case, I thought I was being quite clever tonight, while ruminating aloud to my dear husband about the color-coded wine and its implications for my intelligence. I made a comment about wanting to "taste the rainbow" a la Skittles candy.

So far, I've tasted Yellow (Shiraz), Red (Cabernet), Fuschia (Shiraz-Grenache), and Blue (Cabernet-Merlot). I also had a glass of their Sparkling White at Greek Christmas this year and I was completely impressed with it. I've been a huge fan of Moet Chandon for years and though not exactly classy, Martini & Rossi Asti is fun to drink on St Patty's day with a drop of green food coloring. Honestly, though, Yellow Tail's sparkler may have unseated them for both class and affordability.

Rainbows left to taste include Orange (Merlot), Purple (Shiraz-Cabernet), Magenta (Pinot Noir), and though I'm not all that into whites (actually, I don't like them much at all), I may have to try their Riesling (Yellow) and possibly Green (Pinot Grigio).

The reason I want to "taste the rainbow" is two-fold. For one, they have some really unique wine blends, but more importantly, Yellow Tail makes vegan wine and I want to support them. Vegan wine, you say? It comes from grapes, what wouldn't be vegan, you say? Alarming, but true - most wines/alcohols are filtered using animal products - I'm going to share an excerpt from The Vegan Table that will probably make even meat-eating readers' stomachs turn, but it's easier to give it to you verbatim than to try to paraphrase:

Examples include gelatin (the boiled bones and tissue of slaughterhouse animals), isinglass (obtained from the swim bladders of fish), chitosan (derived from the exoskeleton of crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp), casein (from cow's milk), and egg albumen (from chickens).

Now, with those lovely thoughts and pictures floating around your brain, let's move on to dinner! I have to work tomorrow, and the restaurant I want to go to is closed for dinner on Sundays anyway, so we were going to go out for Valentines Day tonight. Unfortunately, the rust-colored drops of water suspended from our bedroom ceiling put a nix on those plans. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing we [or apparently our maintenance men] can do about the slow leak threatening my piano and Mister's side of the bed, other than wait for Monday when the roofer is coming to fix the hole in the roof. In case time-travel isn't your thing, Monday is about 36 hours away and at least two nights in aforementioned threatened bed. Mister and I are somewhat convinced that the roofer will find the hole close to the site where the inept maintenance men fixed our air conditioning this summer... What held us back was waiting for the maintenance guy to return our phone call until it was too late to go out, so we'll be headed out for our Valentine dinner on Monday, as long as I make it through the day at work...I'm sure I'll be full of fun stories that night.

I changed my mind a few times tonight, trying to decide what to make [besides reservations]. At first, I thought I'd make the Two-Tofu Shepherd's Pie, but I decided it was actually too late to start something that labor-intensive, and most of the ingredients are pantry stuff anyway. Then I thought I would make Curried Udon Noodle Stir-Fry since it is the most fresh-vegetable-intense meal on the menu. What made me choose Garlic and Greens Soup was the simple fact that Mister finally made it down to the amazing Sarcone's before they ran out of bread (no later than 3 PM, but normally earlier) and we wanted to eat it up before it went stale. What to do with day-old crusty bread? Dip it in a brothy soup, of course!
I used kale as my green and there are actually three Yukon gold potatoes hiding in there with the whole head of garlic.

Amazing. I could drink Lake Tahoe.