pea kitty

So, there's this blog I follow - Peas and Thank You - in which the blogger/mother/cookbook author occasionally makes a snarky remark about the family cat.  Apparently, she and the cat haven't gotten along very well since she started making babies and it makes for some charming off-handed remarks along the way.  Since the theme is peas, she's Mama Pea, married to Pea Daddy, and the cat is Pea Kitty.

Angst is trying to usurp Pea Kitty's throne.

I don't think he actually wants to move to the Pacific Northwest and live with a family he doesn't know which includes two darling children to torment his anti-social little butt, however, he did earn the name from Mister during dinner tonight.

Tonight we had Spicy Vegetable Ragout from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures.  I completely failed to get a picture of it because it was pretty busy at work, I was hungry, and I just wasn't thinking about how fun it would be to snap a photo of my food to share with the world.  Honestly, my brain had already left dinner and fast forwarded to the imaginary E.L.F. cosmetics shopping spree I've decided to try, inspired by my all-day make-up tutorial marathon yesterday.

You don't need pictures, though, to hear about the best part of this dinner.  It was Angst discovering he loves peas.  Seriously.  Possibly more than chickpeas and maybe even spinach.  He came over to bother Mister when I set down dinner.  Like normal, Mister selected something from his bowl to convince the kitty he didn't want to share are dinner.  Also like normal, Angst loved what Mister shared and wanted more...and more... and more.  Pea after pea dropped to the floor and was scooped into his mouth after many squeaks and sad eyes at Mister.  We couldn't believe how crazy he was being, so we just kept giving him peas.  He probably ate 10 before we said, "sorry, no more" and showed the pouting kitty our empty bowls.

Peas.

I never would have guessed.  Mama Pea?  You need another cat?

green goodness! it's special sauce!

I'm a little slow to jump on the Green Juice Train and I'm not ashamed to admit it's partially because I don't have any unquenchable desire to drink algae.

I think my mom might need a moment.

Anyway, I'm sure it would be more enticing and rewarding if I made my own green juice like this superstar, but I do not have:

• the time
• the desire
• the juicer

So instead, every once in a while, when I feel like I need an extra kick of Healthy, I'll buy some.  I've found that I quite enjoy Naked's Green Machine - enough that I can ignore the algae as long as I shake it before every sip.

Tonight, I stopped into Whole Foods to grab a couple of items I had intended to get at Trader Joe's before remembering I wouldn't be able to get there until Sunday and I didn't have the ingredients for enough complete meals without those things to get to Sunday, so it was all a moot point.  Anyway, I had picked up everything I went in for (except cauliflower, which was either hiding or absent, but I didn't see it) and I'm not even sure how I was in a position for this to catch my eye, but I did see Bolthouse Farms Green Goodness and decided to give myself a little punch since my chest is still tight and I keep hacking up a lung if I breathe too many times in a row and I make too much noise at night trying to breathe for poor mister to sleep and it's probably bad form to cough on customers.... enough reasons?

Good, because truth be told, once I got it home, my courage and drive somewhat evaporated.  I mean, really - you cannot look at this and tell me it screams, "Ooooh ooh, ME!  I'm tasty!"

Not exactly irresistible.  Nevertheless, I hate being sick and I like taking care of my body and if "8 delicious juices" delivering "14 powerful nutrients" including iron, vitamins B6, B12, A, and C has to be green....well....I guess it has to be green.  I have nothing against green, by the way, but that "juice" is what we call in my world murky.

Fortunately, it is quite delicious.  I think it might be slightly less sweet than Naked's Green Machine and I'm okay with that, though I think Naked will still be my favored green smoothie.  I almost bought R.W. Knudsen's Mega-Green juice when I was there yesterday, but I just cannot do it.  There's something about the way it's marketed that makes it look as though there's no way it will be anything but straight-up nasty.  Maybe someday I'll be adventurous enough to find out, but this week was not that Someday.

In other news, Mister and I have an astonishing talent for being at our most OughtToSeeADoctorness during the three months out of the last 5 years that we haven't had health insurance but I still don't regret not devoting an entire paycheck to COBRA coverage between now and when my coverage at work kicks in.

Dinner was chock full of veggie goodness, though (by the way, is everyone else aware of how awful Chock Full O' Nuts coffee is?  Well, now you are).  With the snow peas I picked up at Whole Foods, I was able to make the Hoisin-Braised Tempeh Tofu with Chinese Vegetables from Vegetarian Times Fast & Easy that I was daydreaming about all day.  Everyone at work was female today, so instead of music, we had the Food Network on and watched way too much Rachael Ray, who I have deemed The Anti-Vegan.  I swear, I've never seen anyone include that many animal products in their recipes. 

Back to dinner.

It was good and the tofu worked so well I can't really imagine tempeh being better, but I'll probably never know since Mister dies if I even say the cursed word out loud.  Dinner is always fun when it involves snow peas and hoisin sauce amuses me because it kind of looks like Chinese BBQ sauce.

It was good, but not outstanding.  There were two weak points - one the fault of the book and one was my poor choice of accompaniment.  I served it over brown rice, expecting the braising sauce to be more potent.  It wasn't dreadful, but I can almost taste how much better it would have been with rice noodles instead of rice, so I may try that in the future.

In the book, it doesn't actually tell you when to add the hoisin sauce, so I added it just before the 15 minute simmering time.  I figured this was probably right since it was meant to braise the "tempeh" and wouldn't do a very good job of that if I didn't add it before the braising time.  I tasted the sauce when I added the snow peas for the last few minutes of cooking and it barely had any flavor since it was diluted with nearly the same amount of water, so I added more.  The recipe calls for 1/3 cup, but next time I make this, I will probably go with a half cup from the start and possibly less water, since the bok choy seemed to still have some clinging to its leaves, which added to what I had poured in.

Despite the slightly frightful tightness in my chest, I am still looking forward to the first truly cool day of autumn this Saturday.  Since I'm teaching, I can even dress appropriately for the cold, thereby decreasing my chances of catching tuberculosis!

photo credit

apparently tofu can grow legs

I swear I picked up a package of tofu last weekend. I don't know why I wouldn't, since one of the dinners on my menu had the word "tofu" in the title. So, if indeed I did pick it up and bring it home to live in my fridge this week, it must have understood what would happen when I took it out of its dark haven and brought it into the light of the kitchen counter. My tofu sprouted legs and ran away. I looked in every last corner of my fridge and even in the freezer but if I ever had it, it must have run away because it's not here anymore.

So, for dinner we had Five-Spice Vegetables...with Green Tea Rice.
It was fine without the tofu but it didn't make much. The tofu would add the sweet to balance out the savory as well as flesh out the dish a little more. Is it vegan to say "flesh out"? Anyway, I feel like it's been forever since I've shared a recipe with you, but I think it's only been a week. As promised, since I didn't grab the wrong spice this time, I will reveal to you the recipe for tonight's dinner. I think if Mister could have had more than two servings, he would have.

Five-Spice Vegetables & Tofu with Green Tea Rice
serves 4 (when you include the tofu)
Ingredients:
2 cups water
2 bags of green tea
1 cup jasmine rice

14 oz extra firm tofu
4-6 oz pineapple juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce

head of broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets
large red bell pepper, cut into strips
large carrot, thinly sliced on the bias
4-6 cloves of garlic, pressed/minced
2 Tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp Chinese 5-Spice powder
1 tsp soy sauce

Bring water to boiling, then turn off heat, add teabags and cover. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, then remove teabags, stir in rice and simmer, covered, on lowest possible heat 20-25 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed.

Meanwhile, cube the tofu and let it drain on paper towels while you mix the pineapple juice with 1 Tbsp soy sauce and bring to boiling in a large skillet. Add tofu and lower heat to a lively simmer. Cook until the liquid is mostly evaporated and reduced. Set aside.

Heat oils in a large wok on high heat. When the surface of the oil shimmers, add the garlic and stirfry for 30 seconds. Add the vegetables and stirfry 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle in 5-Spice powder and soy sauce, stir to distribute, then add tofu cubes and any remaining cooking liquid. Stirfry one more minute, then remove from heat. Serve over green tea rice and enjoy with chopsticks!

yours will have happy chunks of browned tofu, too, though.

We'll close out tonight's post with a nod to another Natalie who kindly left me a comment asking why, indeed, Angst is not vegan.
1. Because his mommy and daddy are not vegan and we buy his food.
2. I haven't seen vegan cat food in any stores and I generally do not order things over the internet (call me old-fashioned).
3. Most importantly, because cats are biological carnivores. According to a lot of research, cats must consume meat products. If they do not, they risk all kinds of health complications, such as blocked urinary tracts and progressive blindness. Cats must consume Taurine, which has only been available through meat products until very recently. A few people think that there is nothing inferior about synthetic taurine, but I am hesitant to find out by risking Angst's health.

In fact, there is even an online store through which a vegan pet parent can purchase vegan cat food and in their FAQs, they state that in most cases it is not safe to feed a male cat a 100% vegan diet. Angst, being male, eats a varied diet which does include the small amount of meat in his commercial cat food. He loves spinach, arugula, potato (chips), hummus, doritos, pizza, and a variety of other non-meat foods. Because we're naughty and we share our table food with him, it would be safe to say he probably eats about 25% vegan.

I also agree with this lady, who points out that if vegans are so concerned with the well-being of animals, that concern should be extended to their companion animals (she even uses PETA-approved language!) and include feeding them a diet that meets their nutritional needs and does not risk their health in order to fit them into their human's paradigm.

When I first became a vegetarian, I was exposed to a lot of information about veganism and animal rights and all that good stuff. I will share more about my own journey and personal dabblings in a future post, but I wanted to make this point: When I tried to be vegan (which at that time lasted about a month or two), I struggled with whether to try to feed Angst a vegan diet as well. It was obvious to me that it didn't make any sense to spend my money on food for him that had meat in it when I was using my consumer status to show my disapproval for the meat industry by not buying meat for me. I looked around for vegan cat food and after I couldn't find any in the stores around me, I decided to do some research online. That was how I discovered that a cat's unique nutritional needs make it unsafe to feed a cat a 100% vegan diet.

When Angst was a baby, one of his favorite treats was chicken cheese steak. He has not had this in over 7 years, but I have little doubt that Grampa shares other bits of meat with my little angel when he goes to visit. I have not eaten meat in 7 years, but I have been poisoned by restaurants who advertise a vegetarian soup or noodle dish and fail to recognize the (obvious to me) implications of using chicken broth as a base. My stomach no longer produces the enzymes necessary to digest meat so I would get sick (and have after eating at these establishments). I would hate to see the effect something similar would have if my loving father unknowingly sabotaged my vegan cat by sharing a little piece of chicken with him.

So, Angst loves spinach and Angst is an omnivore.

cardboard cask...classy

Due to several factors, I was actually off from work today. The first part of the day (after the coffee and strawberry/yogurt oatmeal part) was quite full of angst and Angst. It involved him hiding from me and me banging on things to try to get him to stop hiding - probably not the most effective strategy in hindsight. Anyway, after I gave up on trying to "unhide" the cat, I went on my food shopping adventures.

And so, faithful readers, in this post we will:
1. see this week's menu
2. see tonight's dinner
3. babble about wine (2 glasses in)
4. discuss neighborly behavior

Starting from the bottom up (no pun intended), I will now tell you the previously alluded to story of what it means to be a good neighbor. When I had my hair done last week, it took three hours to put two colors in and cut it. That's a lot of time to talk to the person slopping your head up with colored goo. In our conversation, Candi related a tale of not-so-neighborly conduct by some girls who work at a salon across the street, located in a gym, strangely enough. We shared our ridiculously out-of-fashion ideas of how new neighbors were greeted to the neighborhood "back in the day." I can remember being a child and accompanying my mother with a plate of brownies or chocolate chip cookies to the still-disheveled home of a new neighbor just moving in. Anyway, today I made 2 dozen ginger-coconut-carrot muffins and packed half of them up in a shiny gold shoebox, then marched them across the street to "welcome" Candi to the neighborhood. So, I'm feeling like a good neighbor right about now.

I bought wine today. I'm very amused that I can't say "I bought a bottle of wine" and the reason is that I bought a cask of wine. Or at least, that's what the manufacturers decided to call the cardboard box that houses the bag that holds my wine. Either way, it's 3 liters of delicious Pinot Noir - as summer ends, so does my affair with Riesling. I have had this wine before - it marks a brilliant crossroads between dry and fruity and the fruitiness is primarily a darker variety - cherry and blackberry - so it fits well with the drier qualities. Nevertheless, the whole reason I ever tried this wine was its name: Pinot Evil (see no evil, ha ha ha). It even has the three monkeys.
According to the box...er...cask of wine, those 3 liters represent 4 bottles of wine, so hopefully it will last me a while!

Tonight I made Polenta & Vegetable Bake for dinner.
It was wonderful - good enough for Mister to have thirds. It was perfectly hearty and very rich without being overly so. It was also extraordinarily easy to make and came together much more quickly than I thought it would. Mister doesn't like eggplant, so I just diced two zucchini. I also added two cloves of garlic because I just felt like it needed it. It was a little watery and was difficult to transport from the baking dish to our eating dishes, but it tasted amazing. I will definitely make this again. As a side note (hearkening back to that wretched Cavit Pinot Noir), my pretty glass of Pinot Evil was the perfect match to dinner's flavors.
Now for this week's menu (my refrigerator and cupboards are full of fun ingredients!):
1. Stewed Lentils with Soy Sausage; with Fingerling Fries (both from Vegan Express by Nava Atlas - I just can't get away from this book!)
2. Pasta Jambalaya (also from Vegan Express)
3. Pasta with Beans and Chard (also from Vegan Express)
4. Double Pea Soup with Roasted Red Peppers (from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)
5. Roasted Yellow Pepper and Corn Bisque (also from Veganomicon)
6. French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme (also from Veganomicon)
7. Tuscan Vegetable Ragout (from Vegetarian Times Fast & Easy) This is another one of those old favorites you can lean on when you want something savory and simple. The whole book is great, but a little tofu-heavy. I like tofu now, but when I first got the book, I really wasn't a fan.

You'll notice I've cited sources for all recipes on this week's menu, which means they aren't mine. Now that the weather is cooling down (to my ineffable delight), I want to make soups and baked dishes. The same way that I learned to create skillet suppers and sautes over the summer, I will learn to create savory baked dishes and soul-warming soups: by recreating other people's for a few weeks. I figure I'll spend September, maybe the first part of October "researching," and then I'll get another creative streak like I did in early August and pump out a bunch of casserole and soup recipes. So, for now, I will make what has been made before and I will focus every last tastebud on the purpose of discerning what makes this dish or that dish taste so good. And then I'll let you know!

One last thing: I have added a poll on the right side of this page because I want your opinion. If you think the name I've quasi-settled on is stupid, please leave me a comment and either tell me why you think it's stupid and/or what better name you would suggest. Thank you!!!

nom nom nom the spinach

First, though, tales of today's bar. Today I had the thinkFruit Chocolate Pomegranate Power bar. It left a much more favorable first impression than the Jocalat bar yesterday, though I think that if I had to choose between the two, I would actually choose the Jocalat bar.
First of all, there's just something about me that cherishes the simplicity of 3-5 ingredients. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the thinkFruit bar had the most ingredients - granted, only ten, but they included things like added pectin and the ever-enigmatic "natural flavor." Also, I don't care for the trickery of using pineapple and pomegranate flavored cranberries to flesh out the bar. I would not have been less inclined to purchase the bar if it had said Chocolate Cranberry Power or something like that because honestly, I was more excited about the chocolate. Speaking of chocolate - the chocolate taste was subtle...possibly even more so than the Jocalat bar, which surprised me for some reason. On the plus side, this bar is lower in fat than other fruit & nut bars, with the added bonus of being enriched with omega-3s despite the lower fat. Also, there were a couple of times when I could swear I tasted figs, but there were none on the label...unless they are the "natural flavor." I guess we'll never know.
Anyway, it wasn't a bad bar at all. I'm still trying to decide how I feel about thinkProducts in general, but as it goes, I wouldn't turn my nose up if this was offered to me. I just wish pomegranate wasn't dead last on the ingredients list since it's part of the bar's name.

For dinner tonight, I made the Chamomile Couscous with Savory Spinach (but there was actually only one piece of spinach - the rest was spinach-flavored basil*). It was fun and different. I think it'll take a little tweaking, but all in all it came out well. Also, when you are absolutely certain you have an abundance of chamomile tea in your tea chest, please check before you arrogantly write it into a recipe as though you'll never run out. You can also read that as: My dumb butt didn't realize I only had 1 of the 2 tea bags I had written into the recipe, so I substituted one chamomile tea bag with Stash Sandman tea, which contains chamomile...and spearmint, which way overpowered both that chamomile and the pure chamomile tea bag. Also, in an effort to draw out the flavors of the tea and not just the scents, I think I overdid the honey. Below you will find the amended recipe, with less honey.

Chamomile Couscous with Savory Spinach
serves 6

Ingredients:
a little more than 2 cups water
2 chamomile tea bags
2 cups plain couscous
1/2 Tbsp (1 1/2 tsps) honey
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp yellow mustard seeds
1 Tbsp garam masala**
1/2 tsp salt
28 oz (petite) diced tomatoes
15 oz chickpeas, rinsed and drained
9 oz fresh baby spinach

Boil the water, then place the two tea bags in the pot and cover - allow to steep at least 5 minutes. Remove tea bags, stir in honey until dissolved, then add couscous. Cover and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a deep pot. Add the mustard seeds and cover. When mustard seeds begin to dance, sprinkle in the garam masala, then stir in the undrained tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then lower heat, stir in chickpeas and salt and simmer a few minutes. Add about 1/3 of the bag of spinach, cover to steam 1-2 minutes, then stir into tomatoes and chickpeas to wilt. Repeat with second 1/3 and final 1/3. If your cat enjoys spinach, share some with him (or her) before you destroy it all in your dinner. Once all spinach is added and has wilted, uncover and allow to simmer about 5 minutes.
Fluff couscous. Serve spinach mixture over a fluffy white cloud of couscous!

*this was a joke...read about the pomegranate-flavored cranberries again if you didn't get it.

**Garam Masala is merely a mixture of popular spices used in Indian cooking. One brand will have one mixture and another will have a completely different mixture. For this recipe, I used Whole Pantry brand - a.k.a. the Whole Foods store brand - which ended up being much heavier on cardamom than I would have preferred. Cardamom is one of those very pungent and peculiar spices that is better seen but not heard, so to speak. Whole Pantry Garam Masala has the following spices: black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, coriander. To balance out the pungency of the cardamom and cloves, I added just a pinch of cumin for its savory and a generous pinch of turmeric for its bitterness. You'll be able to smell if it needs something. For the record, my favorite Garam Masala (so far) is McCormick brand.

Finally, I got Angst to dance for his spinach. I tried to get some action shots to share:"mmm... is that my spinach?"
"nom nom nom"

cheerio, little cat

Angst has become more insistent that I share my breakfast with him in the past few days, going so far as to pull on my arm while I'm eating it!
Wednesday (no cook night), I had to get more coffee anyway, so while I was in the store I figured I'd pick up one of those frozen dinners I hear about. After examining them, I found them less than tempting, so I headed to checkout with my coffee. As I did so, I passed a sale display - substantial discount on Cheerios! So, I got a big ol' box for $2 and my coffee and went home to have 2 bowls of Cheerios with soymilk for dinner. Well, Angst caught on, and when I had Cheerios with blueberries for breakfast yesterday and today, he felt like I should share. He likes cereal a lot more than I thought.

(mommy's favorite little piggle)

Anyway, dinner last night was kind of a failure, but I figure if everything I made was a success, how would I ever learn and grow as a cook? Secretly, though, I like the stories of Mozart - how upon finding his original manuscripts, there are no erasures - he got everything perfectly the first time. I wouldn't mind having that ability - learning is overrated.

I don't even remember the first fancy name I gave last night's dinner, but by the end of the night I had dubbed it Red Rice and Beans. I cannot understand why sometimes rice cooks up perfectly (in the amount of time it's supposed to take) and other times it takes 90 minutes of simmering to even approach being done. By the way - that's my patience threshold for rice. If it's not saturated and tender after 90 minutes of cooking, I am crunching my way through half-cooked rice... which is more or less what happened last night. It has potential, I'll give it that, but it's not close enough to being more than merely edible for me to post up here yet. Let me give it another try (with more time and spices!) and then I'll share the recipe and take pictures.

I had a delightful and creative day off today and I have my refrigerator and "pantry" stocked with ingredients for what will hopefully be a week full of amazing flavors and foods. I am very pleased to share this week's menu, once again with only 2 meals from someone else's brain!

1. Cinnamon Bulghur with Pomegranate Saute
2. Red Lentil Coconut Curry
3. Mediterranean (Mock) Risotto
4. Farro Pasta with Sunshine Sauce; accompanied by Tomato Rosemary Scones from Vegan Brunch by Isa
5. Cuban-Style Black Beans with Rice and Plaintains from Vegetarian Times Fast & Easy
6. Black-Bottom Pineapple Tofu with Cashew Coconut Rice (also from Vegetarian Times Fast & Easy)

I'll check in later to let you know how tonight's dinner goes (it would be difficult for it to suck more than last night's adventure). By the way - I kept apologizing to Mister about how long it was taking, then when I finally gave up (after about 2 and a half hours of cooking, I'll add), I thanked him for eating it and apologized for how much it sucked. God bless him - he told me it was good (it really was only barely edible).