Betty Crocker, eat your heart out

No matter how vigilant you are about your health, no matter how healthy you eat, no matter how many toxins you avoid, when you come into contact with 100+ people a day, you will get sick.  It's unavoidable.

So, in an unusual departure from the Mister's Sick theme, I am sick.  It's just a cold and I honestly believe it will be gone sooner than later without any lasting ill-effects.  Nevertheless, it's annoying and has successfully knocked me [somewhat] on my butt.  I started to feel a little sneezy on Thursday night, so, being the smart young lady I am, I went to bed a bit early, hoping to head things off with a good sleep.  I thought I'd succeeded... until about halfway through yesterday, when it became apparent I was not okay.  Eventually, I was interrupting client interactions to run to the bathroom and blow my nose before I dripped on the iPads.  Paints a lovely picture, I know.

I still thought I would come home and make the Kale Barley soup I almost made the other night, but I didn't.  By halfway through my walk home, I was a sniffling, hiccuping, angry mess.  I'm not sure if there is something more irritating that sniffling and then getting a vicious bout of hiccups because you're sniffling and being unable to control your breathing (thereby stopping the hiccups) because you're still sniffling.  Anyway, I was in quite a state by the time I burst into our home.  After I blew my nose and calmed down, I sent Mister out for vitamin water, V8, tissues, and food.  He returned with the least offensive flavor of Vitamin Water I've ever had and a falafel salad, heaped with roasted broccoli and cauliflower and a Wawa hoagie for himself.

Angst was all over that.

To my surprise, you can now get baby spinach on Wawa hoagies.  To my greater surprise, Angst wanted nothing to do with that!  Mister tried to give him some and he wouldn't even touch it until Mister also put some Ranch dressing on the spinach.  Then he licked the dressing off and started squeaking for more.  He started pulling Mister's wrist toward him when Mister picked a piece of Provolone cheese off of the sandwich to share with the poor, malnourished, starving kitty.  I told Angst I was disappointed in him skipping his spinach for cheese and asked him exactly what I was supposed to call the blog now?  Mister suggested Angst Loves Stinky Italian Cheese, but I just don't think it has the same ring.

Shortly after dinner, I went to bed and slept for 12 hours before getting up and stubbornly trying to go out and teach lessons.  That didn't end up happening, so after returning to bed for another few hours, I got up and tried to make dinner.  It was at this point Mister intervened.

"Stop trying to do stuff!  Sit down."

There will be no recipe because I have absolutely no idea how he did this, but my husband morphed into Benny cRocker and made a vegan version of Biscuits with Sausage Gravy.

So it turns out my husband is actually pretty good at making biscuits!  They were soft and puffy and tasty and split right down the middle when I pulled it apart at table.

He was a little weirded out making the gravy with "fake" sausage and soymilk, since he hasn't tried to make this since giving up meat, but it was so cute watching him putter around the kitchen.  Although a bit confused, Angst genuinely enjoyed this Special Episode of the Cooking Show.

He used Lightlife Gimme Lean sausage, but it wasn't quite as crumbly as he wanted it to be.  The gravy was pretty thick and started to congeal, but he decided it was due to not using enough fat, not the soymilk that set off the fire alarm upon being added to the skillet.

I'd never had Sausage Gravy and Biscuits before (I wasn't actually a huge sausage fan when I did eat meat), but it was tasty and Mister said it was "close enough."  Mister is a CookingWithoutARecipe kind of chef, but it turns out Lightlife actually did the work for him and you can check out their recipe here.

I've been upright long enough.  Time to drink more liquids and recline a little while I digest.  Hope everyone out there in the cyberverse is feeling okay!

a bun in the oven

Did I give you a heart attack, Mom?

No buns in my figurative "oven" - let me get that out of the way immediately.

I made my first ever vegan biscuits and I'm still high off of how well they came out. I ended up doing a kind of hybrid between Isa's Herbed Whole Wheat Biscuits from Vegan Brunch and Sarah's Easy Biscuits from How It All Vegan. By the way, I still think that is one of the most clever names for a book ever. There were three things about this recipe that amazed me:

1. watching the cider vinegar turn soymilk into buttermilk was simultaneously awesome and stomach-turning.

2. with just the right amount of ingredients, a dough formed and separated itself from the bowl, as well as the spatula, quite easily!

3. they really, really tasted like (whole wheat) buttermilk biscuits! It blew my mind. They were fun looking, don't get me wrong, but I really did not expect them to be this good - perfectly crisp and crunchy on the outside and light, puffy, and soft inside.
They kind of look like rocks, since they were drop biscuits, not cut. When I broke my first one open, there was a fabulous little puff of steam...mmm....so good. Another neat thing was that it seemed like the whole wheat flour made the biscuits a little sweeter, even though there was no sweetener - just thyme. By the way - I don't know if I just got lucky with my whole wheat flour, but it's very hard to sift because flakes of wheat stay on top of the little grindy-wheels. Irritating, but wholesome, I guess.

Anyway, I served my happy little biscuits with chunky, steamy, savory bowls of French Lentil Soup with Thyme and Tarragon from Veganomicon.
I still love this soup! It smells so good while it's simmering, and the length of time it takes to simmer is about the length of time it takes me to babble about some mundane but amusing parts of my day to Mister, make biscuits, and clean up. If you'd like to read more of my raving about just how good this soup is, and how you should make it and eat it and never eat anything else ever again because there's just no need click here or here.

There was one thing that was different and special about tonight's making of this heavenly soup: I used up a sprig of genuine home-grown lemon thyme, given to me by my previously mentioned generous colleague. It added a neat flavor to the soup, though I must admit it didn't really stand out against the generous helping of tarragon (my new favorite herb) and the savory smokiness of Hungarian paprika. I could definitely taste the difference, though. Surprisingly, this was also my first time cooking with fresh thyme.

In case you were wondering, once I got absorbed in my chopping and sauteing and sifting and plopping, I was able to ignore the utter disaster that someone else might refer to as my living room. Hopefully, this will get fixed tomorrow, because I won't be able to live like this for very long...