in pursuit of the perfect brownie

I know you're not expecting this, but OMGMyHomeSmellsSoGood!


'Twas the week before Christmas
and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring
'cause Angst killed the mouse

I suppose I could probably rewrite the poem to be clever, but why mess with something that time-honored. Besides, I've got brownies to wax poetic about.

Thanks to Isa and Terry, I've got vegan cupcakes and vegan cookies down, but brownies continue to be that impossible-to-replicate baked item.  I have a few recipes and I've gotten some decent feedback on them, but to me, they've fallen short of "the real deal;" dense, fudgy brownies with the crinkly top.  When I stumbled on this new post from a fellow Prodigal Blogger, I decided this recipe would answer all my prayers - after all the post's title is "The Best Vegan Brownie You Will Ever Eat."

I hope that's not true.

To be fair, it is the best vegan brownie I've eaten so far - so in a way it is true.  However delightful it made my kitchen (and therefore, entire apartment, possibly the better part of the building) smell, and no matter how crinkly the top was, and regardless of the fact that this is the first vegan brownie I've had that's resulted in me chugging soymilk to settle the sweetness, it's still not all that I wanted it to be.

It's very chocolatey.  It's very sweet.  It's the closest I've been to the moist, dense, fudgy brownies I remember from the not-too-distant past, but it fell just a little short.  My main grudge against vegan brownies is that they crumble.  Brownies are not meant to crumble - we'll leave that to shortbread and biscotti.  Brownies hold together by the sheer weight of their fudginess.  You could, conceivably, eat a brownie without a plate.

When I was mixing the wet and dry ingredients together, I thought it would be fun (and a little extra decadent) to include a handful of peanut butter chips (and it was).  As I was "pouring" the batter into the prepared pan, I found that I had to "spread" it to the corners - not a quality I usually look for in brownie batter, but the recipe did state that the batter would be thick.  It certainly was.  I kind of think that if I hadn't pushed it into a perfect rectangle with my spatula, it would have been perfectly content to be a little oblong brownie.

That's another thing.  I don't know what's up with all these "brownie bites" you can buy in grocery stores, but brownies are square or rectangular.  They are not round.  When you pour brownie batter into a mini-muffin pan and bake it, what comes out of the oven are mini-muffins, not round brownies.  There is no such thing as a round brownie.  Are you listening, Superfresh?


Okay, back to tonight's baking adventures.

So, my intention was to make these incredibly dense and moist and fudgy brownies, spiked with little bits of peanut butter, and then carefully pack them between layers of wax paper and deliver them to colleagues tomorrow so they could ooh and aah and exclaim their surprise about how fudgy and perfect my vegan brownies were.  I'm not sure they'll make it in and it's not necessarily because Mister and I can't keep our hands off (though they really are very tasty).

My brownies are crumbly.

I feel like I should have known that when I was forcing the batter into the corners of the pan.  At least three times before I put them in the oven I thought, "maybe I should add a little more liquid?"  Because the flavor is so good, I may make a second attempt and follow my heart on that, but it's too late tonight.  No brownies for you, faithful and persevering colleagues, or at least not tomorrow.  Tomorrow night will find me in the kitchen again "after hours," either perfecting this recipe or making cookies.  I guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out...

sunny saturday love

Happy October!  Happy VeganMOFO!  Happy World Vegetarian Day!  happy happy happy

I love this month.  There are so many great things - anniversaries, birthdays, CDs I've been waiting for for 5 years, new cookbooks, and the return of the Vegan Month of Food!  MoFo Blogging is the best kind of blogging - it's kind of like the New Year because I think it helps all of us get back on our feet.  This time of year, dozens of blogs are remembered and reformed, dozens of writers recommit themselves to posting more frequently.  More serious questions are asked and answered.

This is my third Vegan MoFo.  The first year, my goal was simple: I'd just started the blog a couple of months earlier and I wanted people to read it, goshdarnit!  Here I was, pouring my heart and soul into writing recipes and then composing awesome recaps of our dinner adventures, but what good was it, other than an online "Dear Diary" if no one was reading.  So, my goal for the first year, starting out anyway, was simply to gain readership.  I accomplished that, but I also came away empowered, enriched, and ready to think more critically about things about which I'd let myself become complacent.  I gave my mind a hearty chunk to chew on by examining my feelings about the ethics of honey and wool - two forms of animal consumption in which the animal continues to live, making it seem less cruel.

The second year, last year, I don't know that I had any actual goals.  I just really enjoyed MoFo the year before, found a ton of new blogs to read and managed to convince at least a few people that mine was worth reading, so I did it again.  Again, I was enriched and inspired.  The best part about last year's MoFo was that because it was in November, everyone got to share their Thanksgiving adventures.

This year, I do have goals.  My posting has been falling off lately, which is something I've noticed on blogs I've followed for a while.  You start out all full of vim and vigor and you're going to be the best, most conscientious blogger ever...until you realize that there's a whole big world out there full of life waiting to be lived.  I'm not a "short" blogger - I don't jot down a couple of sentences and attach them to a picture just to be able to say "I blogged today."  If I don't have something to say, I just don't blog.  Unfortunately, that can result in days or even a week going by with nothing from me but silence resulting in Facebook rumors that I died.

I go into a little more detail here, but the short story is this: my goal for Vegan MoFo 2011 is to get back to basics.  I started this blog to expand my ability to actually create my own recipes and learn the puzzle of flavors and textures in such a way that I can just grab some ingredients and turn it into a delightful meal without having to consult a page of a cookbook between each step.  The problem I keep running into is how many fabulous cookbooks there are and how I want to try every recipe, but I really just want to be able to say "I'm a cook."  I want to make dinner without help from Isa or Nava or Sarah or even Dynise - not all the time, but I want to know I can do it without second guessing myself.

This couldn't come at a better time - I've cooked myself bored from my current cookbook collection and the release of the cookbook I am most looking forward to has been pushed out to November.  This means I am perfectly in a place to force myself to be creative and stretch my wings a little.  I construct a weekly menu, but my intention for this month is to always be at least one meal short of a complete week (and I don't mean that in the "euphemism for crazy" way).  I will share any great recipes I do come up with, but if you want a teaser to convince you to stick around, try this: September Lentil Soup.

Now for a little dinner recap: tonight I made Mediterranean Stew from the Moosewood Restaurant Soups and Stews Deck.

Right now, Mister and I can't get enough veggies and this stew is packed with them.  Two large bell peppers, a bunch of asparagus (roughly 1 lb) and two medium zucchini along with plenty of garlic, a can of tomatoes and a can of beans.  I caught something like the lovechild of pneumonia and tuberculosis at the beginning of the week and it appears I've passed it on to my dear husband, so we've been guzzling green juice and eating our veggies like they're going out of style.  Or like it's autumn and we're afraid of being confined to canned tomatoes and frozen broccoli for the next few months.  Either one.

It's attractive in almost a provencal kind of way, wouldn't you say?  One of the things that stood out the most to me was the very pungent taste of the fresh oregano I used.  I've never cooked with fresh oregano, even though I knew it would greatly improve my opinion of oregano as an herb, so this was a treat.  I thought the proportions of fresh herbs was somewhat comical, as the prescribed amount of basil was 1/2 cup but they only wanted me to add 2 teaspoons of chopped oregano.  Once I tasted the stew, served over bulgur, I understood why.

There was one bizarre-ish kind of thing that stood out to me in this recipe.  You could add clams as an option.  I own two other Moosewood cookbooks, so I am aware that they sometimes include fish recipes, but I just don't get that - fish-eaters consider themselves "pescatarians" rather than vegetarians, who eat vegetables :)  On their website, the folks at Moosewood claim the restaurant is vegetarian, but states that they serve fish and seafood as well.  The Collective gives the impression that their main dietary concern is the health of those eating the food, so that might explain their notion that fish fit into a vegetarian diet.  That is, if they are not "ethical" vegetarians, but merely trying to eat in the most healthful way, they would do right by putting the emphasis on grains and vegetables and tofu and beans as primary sources of protein (which they do), with the occasional consumption of "healthy" seafood.

For my purposes, though, to be vegetarian means to eat no meat and to be vegan, well, that's usually pretty indisputable, isn't it?  If not, feel free to navigate (via the right sidebar) to my October 2009 posts, in which I explored what going vegan meant for me.

Well, it's time to wrap up.  If you're new, Welcome! I hope you enjoy my snarky little posts and witty recaps of the sometimes strange but almost always delicious things my family of 2.5 eats for dinner.  If you've been around for a while, Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I love knowing you're out there and counting on your sweet, encouraging, and sometimes challenging responses to my posts.

rock you like a hurricane

So, hopefully, I can write this post and put it live before we lose power.  Although it doesn't seem that bad, the lights have flickered and everyone else I know seems to be losing power, except for two insane friends who went out to dinner in a hurricane warning.

You're welcome.

Anyway, it's been a soggy, drippy, noisy day so far and the fun is just beginning - apparently the real good stuff is coming in about an hour or so.  I had a glorious day of being trapped in my apartment (which, after spending 13 hours a day outside of it for the last 4 and a half years is actually quite okay), drinking cups (yes, multiple!) of New England Chocolate Cappuccino coffee and eating Pretz-a-bagels, which Mister and I spied at Superfresh last night and could not resist bringing home.  I'm also 100 pages into the second reading of an Anne Rice novel old enough to be of drinking age if it was a person.  We also got a call from Mister's sister with fabulous news.  I won't tell you what it is, but here is Mister's stunning response:  "Do you know what flavor?"

Since I do anticipate losing power, I'm going to fill you in on our incredibly tasty dinner, the new menu, and then I'm going to pour some champagne and return to the Mayfair family for some good old-fashioned, time-traveling, imagery-overload fun.

I was planning to make the longest-cooking Jambalaya recipe I have, but then I realized that without the need for work-lunches this week, I didn't want that many leftovers while we were still working through the ones in the fridge.  So, instead, I pulled out The Urban Vegan to make the Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Spinach curry.  I had some doubts about this recipe primarily because I was already pretty happy with the Isa-recipe I have from VwaV for pretty much the same meal.  I also was a little leery of her description, in which she really plays up what she claimed was a "creamy" character of this curry.

Honestly, the only curry I have ever eaten that I would call creamy involves coconut milk or yogurt (real or soy, depending on when I made it).

Mister and I unanimously agree (which is, of course, quite a challenge...) that I stand delightfully wrong. This curry is incredible and it is creamy for no good reason.  It might possibly be because I couldn't find a 15 oz can of crushed tomatoes so I just used a 15 oz can of tomato sauce, but it's not like I used prepared sauce or anything.  It truly seemed attributable to the silky spinach and creamy chickpeas.  Additionally, this recipe used a fresh chopped tomato, which I think cut down on the acidity usually unavoidable in canned tomatoes.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, this is one more reason everyone should own The Urban Vegan.  And hey, as long as you're on Amazon ordering that, you may as well see if you can qualify for free shipping by adding Mama Pea's book.  Then, after that transaction is complete, you can pre-order Celebrate Vegan and Vegan Pie in the Sky - I figure that since they're both due out in October, within a week of each other, maybe they'll ship together and you can get the supersaver free shipping on them, too.... but even if you don't, if you follow all of my instructions you'll at least end up with four killer cookbooks that didn't kill anything....

On to the menu!

1. Orecchiette with Cherry Tomatoes and Kalamata Tapenade from VWaV - I'm pretty sure that will be tomorrow's dinner since it's been hanging in since last week and the cherry tomatoes and fresh parsley might band together for a mutiny soon.

2. Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon with Mashed Potatoes.  I figured I can do some slower cooked meals this week since I don't have to worry about starting at 9PM or later.

3. Seitanic Red and White Bean Jambalaya, also from Veganomicon and also awesome and slow-cooking.  I'm just going to let this one stew for hours, literally.  It's going to be incredible.

4. Pasta Della California, also from Veganomicon.  This one will wait until my rock-hard avocado ripens a little more.

5. Tofu Spinach Lasagna from The Vegan Table.  Truth be told, I've wanted to make this for quite a while, but it requires a bit more energy that I feel like exerting at 9pm and on the weekends, no matter how grand my aspirations may be, I get lazy and want nothing to do with that kind of project.  Normal people can just stir up a tub of ricotta....I have to turn a block of tofu into "ricotta."  Fortunately, the results are so worth it.


6. Penne Arrabbiata, also from The Vegan Table.  This was dinner last night and a few bites in, I determined it will also be Mister's lunch this weekend.  I had the good judgement not to add all the red pepper flakes prescribed in the recipe, but I still added too many for my tender Irish tongue.  Mister, on the other hand, loved it and dutifully had two bowls last night and one for lunch today.  I swilled the last of my Malbec to quell the pain.

Alright, I got through the post without losing electricity, so mission accomplished.  As a reward, I'm going to eat a few squares of dark chocolate, drink rose champagne, and read my book.  Enjoy your evening and if you're on the East Coast, stay safe!

secret special sauce

Maybe it's just me and maybe I've just heard one too many nasty rumors about the "cooks" in fast food restaurants, but does anyone else get skeeved out when they see "Chef So-and-So's Special Sauce" listed on a menu?  My brain just goes right to, "No, thank you!"  Yes, even in fancy restaurants with real chefs.

Anyway, I'm going to share tonight's dinner tale first, since it's relevant to the title, then we'll backtrack to last night's meal and activities.  My goal, both when I bought my groceries and even as I set out to start my chopping and cooking and whatnot tonight was to make Panang Cucumber Curry from the hallowed pages of the September Vegetarian Times magazine.  As I was going along, though, I realized that I made so many tweaks that what I made didn't actually resemble the recipe at all, aside from that they both involved cucumbers and the end result was a delicious curry.

Since I departed so far from the original recipe that I didn't actually consult the magazine at all once I started cooking, I feel completely clear to give you my easier, pared down recipe:

Tofu-Veggie Curry with Special Sauce
makes 4-6 servings (4, if you're piggy like me and Mister)

Ingredients:
1 cup basmati rice
1 3/4 cups water


14 oz extra firm tofu, cubed and drained
1 large hothouse cucumber, cubed
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced thinly lengthwise
1 Tbsp peanut oil
2 Tbsp tamari, divided
15 oz jar of prepared curry cooking sauce*


Boil water in a 2.5-qt saucepan with a tight-fitting lid.  Stir in basmati rice and cover, reducing heat to its lowest setting.  Steam for 20-25 minutes then turn off heat and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes, preferably 10.

Meanwhile, cube the tofu into 1" pieces and allow to drain on a towel.  [Alternately, you could press it for an hour, but my main goal here was a quick and easy meal.]  Heat the peanut oil and 1 Tbsp tamari in a saute pan or large, deep skillet until the tamari starts to bubble a bit.  Add the tofu and stir, gently but thoroughly, to coat all tofu with the tamari-oil mixture.  Cover and saute on medium heat 7-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, while you prep the pepper and cucumber.

About 5 minutes into the tofu sauteing time, lay bell pepper slices over top of the tofu and replace cover. Dice your cucumber, then stir the cucumber in with the pepper slices and tofu; at the same time, stir in the prepared curry sauce and the remaining 1 Tbsp tamari.  Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer gently 3-5 minutes, just until the sauce and cucumber are warmed through.

To serve, plate a bed of basmati and then spoon the curry over top of it.  You could garnish with a thai basil leaf if you want to be fancy.  I didn't.

* I used Patak's Original Jalfrezi Curry Cooking Sauce for our dinner and I quite liked how it came out.  It was not terribly spicy at all, so if you're looking for that aspect, you may want to also stir in any spare harissa or sambal oelek you have lying around.  Patak's has a whole line of curry cooking sauces, but be sure to check the ingredients - this one is vegan, but others use real cream.

Anyway, when I got home from work last night, my home was dark.  How many times have I started a Leftovers story like that?  Does anyone have the next line memorized?  I'll give you one hint.

So, since Mister was unconscious and slightly delirious and taking up the whole bed, I decided to try to "enhance" what was left of our totally anticlimactic Orecchiette con Broccoli.

I started out by heating some olive oil and white wine together in a skillet.  I added the last of the leftovers and sprinkled everything generously with my Mediterranean sea salt, but then I decided to also add some tamari.  There are very few things in the realm of stove-top cooking that I don't think would be improved by the addition of tamari.

Fortunately for me, this was definitely one of those things!  It was so tasty I was disappointed there was so little left!  In the end, though, it left more room for dessert: Soy Delicious Fruit-sweetened Chocolate Almond "ice cream."

My internet connection crapped out before I could come on here and babble, but that gave me a great excuse to do two things I'd been meaning to do for a while: I mended a hole in my bathrobe and a whole mess of socks while watching "Pretty Woman" for the first time in at least a year (that's a long time for me to go without!).

Did someone say Pretty Woman?


Purely by coincidence, there just happens to be a new post up on Pretty Woman in an Ugly World.  It's not about the Whole Foods experience, rather, I take on an even bigger giant - the Starpower of Starbucks.  Check it out if you have a chance!

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!

pre-friday WIN

Today was super-dooper busy at work.  As such, I feel completely entitled to the calories I probably overconsumed at Horizons tonight.  Mister and I finally went and there were available tables tonight, so we had a happy, adventurous, tasty dinner.  I even remembered to take very dim pictures!  I'm going to ramble a little about our visit, but please, even if my play-by-play of a gourmet dinner is not exciting to you, stick around - most of the WIN happens after dinner.

I literally spent at least half the time I was at work today walking briskly from one end of the building to the other for one inane reason or another.  I got through the day quickly, but with the forward-looking thought of what a delightful evening lay ahead - after we turned ourselves away from the bar seats at Horizons over the weekend, Mister and I decided to go tonight, when we figured it would be less crowded.  Our plan was actually to sit outside and ignore Mister's allergies long enough to enjoy the balmy evening air while we dined.  However, as we approached the restaurant, there were no tables set up outside.  As we drew closer, it looked like the restaurant wasn't even open and I had this dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach that Horizons went out just like so many other restaurants/businesses in the Queen Village/Bella Vista neighborhoods lately - no notice, just closed up one day.  Then we spied a sign in the window indicating that service was available upstairs only.  I turned to Mister and told him that if there were no seats, we were making reservations for tomorrow night.

I ignored him as he told my upstairs-bound back that we couldn't sit outside tomorrow night since there are supposed to be serious thunderstorms.  I ignored that we would really need to stay home and comfort the poor, terrified cat.  Fortunately, there were a few available tables upstairs, so Angst will have the pleasure of our presence tomorrow night.  I'll do my best to give you a short picture parade but I didn't want to use my flash, especially since it seems to make the pictures in dark areas even darker, so the pictures are a bit dim - hopefully you can still see a little.

I wanted to start my meal with a cocktail.  It's been a bit of time since I've had one - possibly since brunch with the parents a few months ago.  One of the things I normally love about Horizons is how unique their combination of ingredients are and how esoteric some ingredients are.  However, it does not help my usually stubbornly autonomous self to make a decision on a cocktail when I can't even pronounce the components of a cocktail, much less get an idea for the taste.  After some consultation with our delightful server, Jeannine, I opted for the Night Boat to Recife.  Since I can't pronounce the liquors, I sure can't spell them, but I'll describe the drink - it was absolutely the most complex cocktail I've ever had.  It started out with an unmistakable and strong citrus flavor, then moved toward a slight bitterness before resolving to a most bizarre but delicious aftertaste I can only compare to the taste of cinnamon applesauce. I know that doesn't sound sexy, but it really is an incredible cocktail.  I had a glass of Pinotage with dinner because I'm thrilled to find a single restaurant in Philadelphia that has Pinotage (a spicy South African blended red wine) by the glass.

For the eating portion of our evening, we began our meal by sharing the Shaved Spring Vegetable Salad, consisting of micro-lettuces with shaved fennel, roasted asparagus, toasted hazelnuts, and what appeared to be edible flower petals, dressed in a sublime hazelnut vinaigrette.  Mister, as always, ordered the Grilled Seitan and I almost did as well, since it has been well over a year since I've ordered it, but the past three to five times we've gone to Horizons, I've struggled with my curiosity about the Fresh Hearts of Palm Cake with braised beluga lentils and curried mixed squash, topped with cucumber chutney.

I tasted each component individually.  One of the deciding factors was my desire to eat their braised beluga lentils, so I tasted them first - they were good, but not outstanding on their own, which wasn't how they were meant to be eaten anyway.  The mixed curried squash was extremely flavorful and not terribly spicy.  The two together were perfect.  The cucumber chutney tasted more like marinated cucumbers, but I might be misunderstanding the nature of chutney, since I've always had spicier chutneys.  The cake itself was amazing both texturally and spice-wise - this provided the heat I was expecting to find in the curried squash, and was perfectly balanced by the chutney, curried squash, and lentils.  I'll admit, I was a little hesitant going into it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Horizons has never let me down, and I fully expected they would not let me down this time either.  I was not disappointed.

I was also not disappointed in our shared side of truffled fries, which I have presently decided are the best food currently available on earth.  I even said to Mister that if the world actually were going to end in the near future and the date and time really could be foretold, I would want the last thing I ate on this earth to be truffle fries.  That's right - not chocolate - truffle fries.  They're that good.

We agreed that dessert was also necessary, so we perused the adorable little dessert menu.  They usually have a few standards as well as a rotating flavor or two, specifically related to their cheesecake.  It is truly remarkable how nearly identical their cheesecake is to "real" cheesecake - the only way I can tell the difference is that my digestive system and intestinal tract are not rebelling.

Mister almost always partakes of the cheesecake when we do get dessert, but tonight, we both got our own slice of Lavender Cheesecake with a dollop of whipped "cream" and mashed blueberry coulis.  It was divine - that's really the best explanation I have.  I could ramble on and on about the amazing texture of the cake or the charming tanginess that makes you wonder if it's really vegan.  I could dwell on the perfect graham cracker crust or the fascinating scent-flavor experience created by using lavender in food.  But really, you should just focus on this: Go to Horizons before they close and eat truffle fries and cheesecake with a nice glass of Pinotage or Muscato.

Now, on to the rest of tonight's WIN.

About a week ago, I retweeted a simple but cheesy message in a silly and desperate attempt to win free tickets to a ballet I can't afford to see.  Let me back up - I could afford to see every ballet or orchestra concert I wanted to, as long as I was willing to sit in the nosebleed section and squint at the stage, wondering if I need a new prescription for my contacts.  I am not willing - I got spoiled by seats close enough to the stage that I made eye contact with the dancers.  So anyway, I tweeted some silly line about loving the Arts in Philadelphia, figuring it was worth a shot, and to my incredible surprise, I won!  One week from tonight, I will be floating down from an ethereal high of spending the evening watching powerful, strong men and women move around a stage with grace I can only wish for from seats I couldn't possibly afford (hopefully in the company of a similarly graceful and beautiful female - Mister has made it quite clear that although he enjoys spending time with me and doing stuff to make me happy, he has to draw the line at men in tights). 

Winning, Part II: after dinner, I perused the feed on Facebook because you know, it's kind of addicting.  Imagine my delight when I saw my Summertime Granola recipe featured on Chic Vegan today!  Head over [click here] and check it out!


Winning: Finale:  Tomorrow's Friday and then it will be a nice, long, fruitful yet relaxing weekend.  Cheers!

lovely day for an apocalypse

Soooooo....about that apocalypse thing...  I took the above picture on my way back to the train station after teaching yesterday, approximately 2 hours before all the good little kitties were scooped up by an invisible hand and delivered to heaven and the rest of us experienced a catastrophic earthquake unlike any seen/felt before, leaving us to survive continuing chaos and degradation until the world is mercifully destroyed on October 21st.

As you can see, I was not one of the chosen.  According to a comment on my last post, neither is one of my readers.  Unfortunately, neither was Angst.  He was very disappointed.

On the brighter side of things, yesterday was a gorgeous day - not bad for your last day of "normal" life, huh?  In a way, it kind of felt like one of those movies they put out a few years ago where everyone is going about their business like everything is normal, completely ignorant of the danger and destruction that awaits them in just a few short hours.

Or not.  "Rapture Fail," to quote so many others.  As much as I would like to live in the Time of Tribulation (not really, actually), I'm pretty happy the whole day passed with nothing more than gossip, sunshine, and a movie I liked far more than I thought I would.

I started the day with a smoothie date!  Kelly from Living On The Vedge met me at Pure Fare in Rittenhouse Square and helped introduce me to the wonderful world of smoothies.  While I still can't see them becoming a regular part of my breakfast rotation, I think they have a place once in a while, kind of like a special treat.  I plan to actually devote a post to my smoothie experience, so I'll move along in the day for now.  After we finished our smoothies and nice conversation, she headed to the Rittenhouse Row Festival and I headed to the train station for a relatively short day of teaching.

As I approached Suburban Station, I was caught off guard by this astonishing image.  First of all, the Comcast building is the tallest building in the Philadelphia skyline and is an imposing building to stand beneath.  It looks like it reaches straight up to heaven (maybe Angst should have taken the elevator instead of waiting) and, being clothed in reflective glass, it actually blends in with the sky until you notice that the sky looks a little pixelated and weird.  Then you have this moment where your brain yells, "Holy crap, that's a building!" 

The other incredible thing that caught my eye was the eerily perfect reflection of the building I was standing next to.  After I stood there gawking long enough to make a few tourists stare at me, I decided to pull out my camera and capture this amazing view before heading underground and out of my beloved city.  It is definitely things like this that cause me to pause and truly love my city.

After teaching, I returned to my fair city and found not a single stone overturned, so it looked like we were still safe from the zombie invasion for which the CDC was preparing America.  I was relieved to see the beautiful and historic synagogue on Lombard St was still in one piece, with the 10 Commandments standing proud and strong at the top.

Another welcome site was the steeple of St. Peter's Church on Pine St, the gold cross gleaming in late afternoon sunlight.  It came into view as I crossed 4th St and I was struck by the way it stood out against the magnificent white clouds, as if to say, "we're still here!"

So, the threat of apocalypse past, Mister and I thought we would enjoy the beautiful weather with a trip to Horizons, intending to drink in the temperate air and remarkable sky along with a tasty dinner and undoubtedly decadent dessert, possibly a cocktail or two.  A lot of other people had the same idea, so given the choice between dining inside and at the bar or eating elsewhere, we headed back toward home.  Mister tried to find another fun place to eat, but I really had my heart set on Horizons, so we just went home, where I prepared the last dinner from our menu, Fusilli with Lentil Sauce from Vegan Italiano.

I have seen recipes for lentil sauces before and aside from the way red lentils break down and thicken a sauce, I just couldn't imagine how it would work.  In fact, my original intention for this sauce was to use red lentils, until last night, when I pulled out my jar and found it to be lacking at least half the quantity I needed to make the sauce, so I hesitantly used regular ol' Goya brown lentils instead.

Mister and I were both completely surprised by how incredibly tasty the sauce was and how well all of the parts worked together.  Mister plowed through three big bowls and I chomped delicately through 1.5 (keeping his food math intact).  I am so sorry I didn't make this sooner.  I don't anticipate lentil sauces being my new passion, but I will definitely make this one again, and probably in the not-too-distant future.

After dinner, we watched Avatar and it was really a remarkable movie.  We both went into it with a trepidation we reserve for big budget blockbusters with CG main characters.  Our bro-in-law in California does this for a living, so we know CG has improved significantly in the last ten years, but Jar-Jar Binks really ruined everything.  We were both completely impressed with the movie in all aspects - CG, storyline, acting, even psychology (awesome inner battle with Jake Sully).  After the movie, we still had to wait for some of the drunks to stop screaming in the streets, so I put together this week's menu.  Having gotten through our Italian Week, I felt the need was quenched and we could move on to a completely ethnically diverse menu:

1. Italian-Style Rice Casserole from Vegan Italiano.  Okay, so I didn't make this last week due to a dearth of peas at Whole Foods, but I have the peas now, so we'll have it soon.  Besides, I can't go from all Italian to no Italian without doing irreparable damage to Mister's psyche.

2. Naked Burritos - I've seen one too many Qdoba billboards (I pass one every day on my way to work) and the craving for Mexican, more precisely burritos, set in.

3. Pasta Con Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction.  Old habits die hard...maybe I'm not completely over my Italian cravings.

4. Seitan Gyros from The Accidental Vegan, at Mister's request!  I almost always ask Mister if he has any requests when I start my menu planning.  98% of the time, he does not.  Last night, I asked again, and by habit, he said "no." Less than 30 seconds later, he stepped back into the kitchen and said, "Yes. Can you make me gyros with that seitan, since it tastes so much like lamb?"  How could I refuse my poor vegetarian Greek?  He hasn't had a gyro in nine and a half years.

5. Salsa Rice and Red Beans from Vegan on the Cheap.

6. Seitan Pepper Steak also from The Accidental Vegan.  Since the seitan recipe makes a 2-lb loaf and I don't know how long it will keep, I figured I should have another recipe that requires seitan on the menu this week.  I had some trouble choosing between this and Seitan Cacciatore, but ultimately decided that my menu, though far more diverse than last week's, still required a little more variety.

So there you have it: Italian, Mexican, Greek, and Asian.  Not bad!  We kicked it off tonight with Mister's request, since I had to bake the seitan this afternoon and I figured it might be easiest to just slice the seitan very thinly right after it popped out of the oven (okay, I let it cool a little tiny bit).  I set up a Build Your Own Gyro station on my long counter and let Mister construct his own.  I figured that was also a safer way to go about the Tahini sauce because it seems like I always put too much sauce on Mister's stuff.

Shortly after I took that oddly yellow picture, I think I figured out why gyro-serving places always give it to you in a little paper cone.  It's hard to keep those suckers wrapped in a cone shape without crushing the pita and/or getting tahini sauce all over your hands.

I did both.  SO, I decided I was not as good at gyro-eating as my Greek husband (unlike him, I think I only had one or two gyros before going vegetarian) and decided to turn my dinner into Gyro Salad (kind of like a Greek version of Taco Salad).

Second time around, I just skipped the pita altogether.  It was so good - the savory seitan really did mimic my memories of lamb and Mister was thrilled - it was exactly what he wanted it to be.  He so rarely requests anything other than "Whatever makes you happy, baby," that if he does want something specific, I fall over myself to make it for him.  The crunch of the chopped romaine was the perfect complement to the chewy seitan and the umami of the seitan foiled the semi-sweetness of the tomatoes as the smokiness of the tahini sauce coated everything with a layer of "something special."

garlic + harissa > cilantro

About two years ago, I got into a bunch of blogs.  I'd never really explored the blogosphere and honestly, I can't tell you what made me reach out two years ago, but I can tell you what has kept me here.  There are blogs I read because I like the wit, there are some I love for the pictures, and yet others for the scathing sarcasm or descriptive eloquence.  I love words and I love looking at things of beauty.  I've also discovered I have quite a taste for what foodies/food bloggers call "food porn."  You want to know what really hooked me, though?

The recipes. 

I'm sure you kind of expected that since I'm kind of a recipe-hoarder, but it's true.  Especially in the beginning, if a blog I was following went too long without a recipe I found attractive, I usually lost interest in the blog.  Inspired by two things, I started my own blog.  One of those two things, if you're wondering, was my lofty aspirations of honing my skills in writing and recipe-creation so I could realize my dreams of becoming a successful cookbook author or maybe the next superstar chef just waiting to be discovered and put on display on the Oprah Show.  The other was that I enjoyed reading Isa's recipe intros as much as I enjoyed the recipes themselves.  I recognized that her humor closely mirrors my own and that our writing style is similar.  I thought to myself, "even if my recipes suck, at least I can write in a way that is entertaining enough to keep people reading until my recipes don't suck." 

I hope I'm right.

I also hope my recipes don't suck.

Anyway, as my little blog evolved and branched out a bit, I found that I don't get inspired to write recipes nearly as often as I have some amusing/traumatic/enlightening experiences in the kitchen, so I hope you'll find tonight's tale of discovery as amusing as last night's exploding tofu.

Tonight I made Potato and Cauliflower Burritos from the June 2011 Vegetarian Times magazine.  The assembled burrito pictures did not come out at all.  That's another thing I've enjoyed the last two years - the incredible progress I've made in my ability to take pictures of stuff that not only don't look awful, but actually make the subject look appealing (most of the time).  In addition to tasting really good, these burritos helped me to expand my learning into another dimension.

As you may have noticed, I rarely repeat recipes.  I realize this is not completely normal, but there are so many neat recipes out there, I want to try them all.  I've also turned every vacation into an opportunity to go to as many strange restaurants as possible and truly savor every meal I eat while away from home - whether I'm down the street at Horizons or on the other side of the country, testing out the San Fran Veg Scene (as I will be in July - yay!).  When I was flipping through the latest Veg. Times, I came across this recipe and immediately thought it would be fun to make and that Mister would love it.  I was right on both counts.  I think it could have been a little spicier, but I didn't follow the directions 100% (that's becoming a theme, actually) and instead of using a chipotle chili in adobo sauce, I squirted what I thought to be a healthy dose of harissa into the sauce.  I think it would have had the desired effect if I had squirted twice as much, so I'll keep that in mind for next time.

So, with the potatoes and cauliflower simmering away with what I had hoped would be a spicy red curry sauce, I grabbed my bag of cilantro from the fridge and started gathering leaves for chopping.  Then, I smelled it.

I'm not exactly sure how to describe "it," but here are some adjectives that seem to apply: strong, pungent, musty, green(ish), stinky.  I wish I had some $5 words to use here, but I'm still using that part of my brain to figure out if that's what fresh cilantro is supposed to smell like while simultaneously reaching an understanding of why so many [white] people can't stand this herb.  Part of me hopes I got a bum bunch while another part of me really doesn't want to contract some kind of Mexican supervirus 36 hours before my brother-in-law's wedding.

Why does cilantro smell so bad???  It doesn't smell that bad when it's dried and it doesn't smell bad at all when it manifests itself as ground coriander.  Did I get a bunch of half-rotten stalks or is that extraordinarily pungent scent supposed to accompany the bouquet in my fridge?

The Happily-Ever-After end of my story, though, is that dinner was really good - the flavors and textures worked together beautifully.  I increased the final garlic count from 2 cloves to about 5 and I decreased the prescribed cilantro from 3 Tbsp to 1, but the mixture was well balanced and tasty.  Mister and I each wolfed down two burritos (which would probably [rightly] be called dosas in another culture with better spices) and I can see this easy-to-prepare, fast-cooking meal becoming as regular in our "rotation" as any recipe is likely to become.

sleep is for the week

No, that was not an unintentional spelling error, it was a very poor pun.  I am ridiculously exhausted and for no good reason, other than being in a more or less constant state of sleep deprivation.  So, on Friday nights while the rest of the world is gallivanting around my neighborhood, I am struggling to keep my eyes open and form coherent sentences.  As such, I find that where I used to stay out until the bars closed, I'm old and tired and ready for bed before midnight as my body, aware that we've reached the end of the standard work week, tries to make up for the hours and hours of "lost" sleep I didn't get this week.

It's super cold in Philadelphia, which is a stunning way to welcome Springtime - I think it is actually below freezing right now and the heat keeps kicking on.  I decided, as I was leaving work and walking through rather blustery conditions, that there was nothing special enough about today/tonight/the recent past or foreseeable future to warrant a walk through the cold, windy night for the privilege of paying $25 for tofu.

Instead, I made a pit stop at Superfresh for black beans and fries and cooked up some bean burgers.  The excitement never ends.  One of the things I truly enjoy about my husband, however, is the bizarre and thoughtful conversations we have after dinner. Tonight we talked about clonal trees and Methuselah, a tree thought to be 4,800 years old; the oldest living non-clonal tree.  Last night we discussed the Hadron Particle Collider and how the Earth nearly imploded in 2008.  Which, of course, led to the most romantic thing said all night:

If the whole world has to implode, I hope I implode with you.

I know.  We're kind of like Romeo and Juliet.  I'm just waiting for our movie to come out.

Anyway, I have absolutely nothing interesting to say about our burgers, so I'll skip right to the menu.  I wanted to do something a little different this week.  I've actually wanted to do this for a while.  I did not use a single existing cookbook to construct my new menu - each of these recipes comes from a blog I've been following for a while, in one capacity or another.  You can link to all the blogs on the left side of the page and as I prepare each recipe, I will link back to the blog from which it came.

1. Seitan and Broccoli with Pantry BBQ Sauce from the Post Punk Kitchen, Isa's blog.

2. Pasta with Peppers and Sausage
3. Red, Gold, Black and Green Chili
4. Sicilian Market Pasta, all three from SusanV at the Fat Free Kitchen blog.

5. Meatless Meatloaf from Mama Pea at Peas and Thank You.  Mama Pea will have her first cookbook published this summer and I couldn't be happier for her.  You should pre-order the book - I'm planning to pick my copy up the moment it's out.

6. Wheatberry "Paella" with Chickpeas and Leeks, also from thePPK.com.  I'm pretty sure Isa can't write a recipe that doesn't include chickpeas...just an observation.  A fun story - apparently, she was posting about the same time I was poking around my bookmarks looking for fun food, because I went back to the PPK about a half hour after deciding on #1 and found this freshly posted recipe.  I feel kinda special about that.

7. Seitan with Prunes, a test recipe for the forthcoming UV2.  I think all the other testers are a little afraid of this recipe.  I'm not saying that I'm going into this without a little trepidation, but I will be the first person to test this recipe, despite it being posted about two months ago.  I'll admit, I'm a little worried about how Mister will feel about savory-braised prunes sharing a skillet with his seitan, but I'm willing to risk a fail dinner for the sake of testing this "scary" recipe.  You can count on a great and detailed post that night!  Unfortunately, I won't be able to share the recipe, but I'm sure I'll plug once again for you to buy the book when it comes out.

With that thought, I'm going to give up on consciousness.