go west, young girl!

I live on the eastern side of Broad Street, which is considered the "middle" of the city, even though there are only 13 blocks to the river on the East side and 30 to the river on the West side.  Nevertheless, I was discussing this with a future colleague in a short pre-work meeting last week: it is this huge, big deal to cross Broad Street.

There is no good reason for that, especially when you could easily walk from Washington Square to Rittenhouse Square (the two big parks on either side) in about 20 minutes, maybe 30 if you really take your time and all the lights are against you and there's too much traffic to jay-walk.  A phenomenon that I've noticed, though, is that your idea of distance adjusts to where you live.  So, when I lived in the furthest reaches of what could be called, with any kind of integrity, the Main Line Philadelphia suburbs, I had no issue driving 30 miles into the city for entertainment or to visit friends 17 miles away.  When I moved into a part of Philadelphia that could not possibly be considered center city, I had no issue driving into center city but I was less inclined to drive outside the city to visit friends as I had been when I was in the suburbs and everything was far away.  When I moved into a busy part of center city, I found it a struggle to ever go anywhere that required the use of my car (other than work, of course).

So there you go; I stick to "my" side of Broad Street most of the time.  However, now that I'm dependent on public transit and since I will be working on the "other side," I'm branching out a bit and seeing what the West side of Broad has to offer.  The answer?  A great deal, actually - Rittenhouse Square area really    has the best shopping, boutique-wise in all of Philadelphia.  You can imagine it, if you wish, as a marginally more affordable East Coast Rodeo Drive.  I'm not a huge shopper, but when I do, I prefer smaller boutiques to department stores for many reasons I'll probably go into at another time, possibly on another blog.  Anyway, although most of my favorite restaurants are within blocks of my home (which was one reason I chose to live here, honestly), I love crossing Broad to visit Williams-Sonoma, MAC, Barnes & Noble, Anthropologie, and.... Pure Fare.

Yup, that's pretty much where all of this has been leading to.  We had Pasta Della California from Veganomicon for dinner tonight, and I've made it plenty enough that it really wasn't all that interesting to share about, so I'm going to focus on lunch today.

It's a relatively small joint but it has clean lines and an airy feel, since the wall to the street is completely made of windows, floor to ceiling, just about.  On each end there is a service area - one for drinks and one for food, and then there is a wall with two or three refrigerated shelves stocked with ready-to-eat food.  One thing I love about Pure Fare is that everything is labeled - ingredients, calories, price, and in terms of their baked goods, whether it is vegan or gluten-free.  I think that is wonderful!

In the center of the room, there is a long communal table with swinging stools.  I have nearly fallen over every time I've sat down, but I think it's great that you can adjust where you sit without having to scrape the legs of a heavy chair across the hard floor.  There are also two bars against the windows, looking out onto 21st Street, but I wanted to sit at the table.

I mean, why wouldn't I want to sit in front of a centerpiece of flowers and asparagus?  I have to admit, although it did make a charming display, I was sad that the asparagus was a centerpiece and not a side dish.  Anyway, how did I come to have my lunch there?

Glad you asked.  Today was the last day I was covered by the insurance my former employer covered and there will be a bit of a gap before I am covered at my new job - 90 days, to be exact.  I am generally of good health and Mister is generally stubborn about seeing a doctor, so we've forgone COBRA's generous offer to take an entire paycheck away from me to cover our health insurance until I am covered again.  Regardless, I wanted to have my long overdue eye exam before losing my insurance, so I went to a nice little place on Rittenhouse Square and was planning to go to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things as long as I was allll the way over there.  I remembered that Pure Fare is the only place in Philadelphia who serves Blue Bottle Coffee and I was in the mood for some of that espresso-like brew.  As I walked, I realized I was a bit hungry as well, so I thought I'd get a little something from their pastry case.

As I waited for my pour-over to drip through the filter and into my cup, I inspected my options....which were, in fact, very little somethings.  I opted for the vegan brownie because they're awesome but mine always end up too dry for my tastes and this one looked nice and fudgy.  It was.  Regardless, it was just a little bugger, so I scoped out the salads, too.

This is the Falafel Salad, although I'm not completely certain why it was called that.  It had whole chickpeas, but the crumbly stuff that looked like it should be mashed up falafel patties is actually bulgur wheat.  Very good bulgur wheat, but not falafel.  Regardless, I'm not complaining - this was the best salad I have eaten in a long time.  I'm really not much of a salad person, honestly, but this salad was absolutely exceptional.  There were two especially memorable things about my salad:

First, do you see those perfect, red cherry tomatoes?  Never have I ever had such aptly named vegeta-fruits.  They were incredibly sweet, so much that I didn't believe they were actually tomatoes.  There were also slices of cucumber and green bell pepper, along with the bulgur, chickpeas, and perfectly cut up lettuce.

Second, do you see that awesome green dressing?  When I was surveying my food options, I saw a quinoa salad that I will probably try someday (since I will be working walking distance from this delightful foodery - man, that will never get old!), and a lentil hummus sandwich that was also quite tempting, and finally, my falafel salad.  Since it's normally a given that salad should be vegan unless the title expressly states otherwise (you know, like Grilled Chicken Caesar, or something similar with an animal in the name), the salads and sandwiches were not labeled vegan or not.  I asked the nice young lady at the food counter if the falafel salad was vegan and she said it was, other than the yogurt-based dressing.  I made a comment on how I could just leave that off and she asked if I would like a different dressing, which is how I came to possess the blissfully verdant and eye-poppingly tangy dressing in the picture.

Score one for customer service, Pure Fare - that's a great way to make me come back and habitually spend $10-14 on lunch!  It might seem to others like "duh, of course you could get other dressing," but I'm a person who doesn't like to inconvenience people, so I normally don't think to ask if another dressing might be available.  It was very thoughtful of her to offer it to me, because otherwise I would have eaten the salad dry.  It was a delightful salad, but there was definitely an element of pure sparkle added by the neon green dressing, and you can bet I'll be back for more!

Even if it is alllllll the way over on 21st Street.

I love cucumbers

This is something that I forget almost every winter.  I love cucumbers.  I love the way they smell, I love the way they taste, I love their crunch and the fact that you would have to do something really bad to a cucumber to make it not naturally cool.  Something evil, like microwave it.

For however happy cucumbers make me, there is something else that makes me sad.  That thing is always the same: tomato seeds.  I don't know what it is about tomato seeds, but I find them utterly repulsive and everything about them makes me unhappy.  I hate cutting into a grape tomato to have the seeds squirt out and more than that, I hate slicing the core out of a "normal" tomato and finding it left behind a virtual colony of gross little seeds, encased in some gelatinous substance that then adheres them to the wall of the tomato I just want to dice.  There have been times that the sight has literally caused me to gag.

Fortunately for everyone, a cucumber and tomato salad cannot be beat and even I'll admit that.  Additionally, something wonderful happens to raw tomatoes when they marinate for 30 minutes or more in a "dressing" of sea salt, lemon juice, and olive oil.  It's almost as though the salt and lemon juice "cook" them a little.  My only complaint about this salad is the incredible amount of dressing left at the bottom of the bowl.

In case you haven't guessed, either by the salad or process of elimination, tonight's dinner was Chickpea Croquettes with Greek Salad Topping from Vegetarian Times: Quick and Healthy.  I've made this before, when it was originally featured in Veg. Times, but I don't remember being quite as impressed with it that time as I was tonight.

Since it was Friday and I was pretty proud of myself for making it all the way here again, I decided there was nothing wrong with a little cooking partner.  Meet Aperitif:

Malibu Pineapple Rum + Papaya Nectar + Lime Perrier
HAPPY FRIDAY

I don't know if I've only used this bag of chickpea flour for this recipe and nothing else (and therefore it has been sitting, bored and cold in the refrigerator, for a year) or if I've managed to sneak it into something else, but I have to say - I'm completely intrigued by chickpea flour.

What's even more awesome is that this stone-ground "good source of protein" has a recipe for hummus on the back which is created not by pureeing chickpeas in blender, but rather by combining this flour with water and a few other flavor elements.  I really want to try that when our current super-tasty Cava Mezze Roasted Garlic Hummus runs out.  Considering how great it is, that shouldn't take long.

I combined the hummus mix chickpea flour with cumin, salt, and chili powder, then whisked it until it was homogenous in color and not nearly as pretty as it is above.  In place of boring old water, I decided to mix it with vegetable broth for added flavor, so perhaps that was a contributor to my happiness with how it came out.

Add in some diced orange pepper for crunch and deception.  That's right - those little orange cubes are liars for two reasons.  One, they were supposed to be red, but red peppers are not having a happy season just yet.  More importantly, though, because the finished product was far more garlicky than I expected it to be, I kept expecting the crunchy texture to lead to the distinct realization that I'd bitten into a clove of garlic.  That was not true, though, as the sweetness of the pepper shone through after only an additional chomp.

One of the most rewarding parts of the evening was cooking up 8 of these suckers without setting off the fire alarm.  This may not sound like an achievement to you, but almost every time I "fry" something with spray oil on a skillet, I end up overjudging the heat I need on the burner, which results in me burning at least the surface of something (they're "blackened," like cajun-creole, ya know?) and generating enough smoke to set off the alarm.

That didn't happen tonight because I finally figured out that it's okay to a) cook with the exhaust hood running and b) lower the heat once the skillet it where it's supposed to be.  This results in more evenly (and quietly) cooked food.

When I was preparing to set the table and deliver our dinner to it, I turned to find Angst had camped out in "Roast" position in front of the fridge.  Bizarre little cat.  Turns out he was thirsty and knows that's where Mommy keeps the "special" (Brita) water.  Spoiled, I tell you.

Anyway, dinner was delightful, especially with the crunch and sweetness of the orange pepper to break the potential monotony of a pretty bland-looking meal.  Chickpeas in chickpea flour?  It doesn't exactly scream excitement.... but maybe it should.  After all, it is spiked with chili powder and cumin.

Speaking of spiked....

dangerous salads

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

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

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

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

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

Look at this salad!

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

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

how low can you go?

[note: Blogger crapped out on me mid-post last night, so "Part I" will be last night's post, leading to "Part II" which is tonight's dinner adventures.  Look it as a bonus post!]

I have pretty low blood pressure.  I have since I was a young teenager.  The same way that some people (ahem, Mister) need to eat a certain way to manage their blood sugar levels, I sometimes have to eat to manage my blood pressure.  It's actually a fairly enviable position in which to find oneself - I fear, though, for the day Mister's family history of heart disease threatens our little family because we love salt.  Although I am good at enhancing the flavor of foods without adding salt, I would not be as happy a little chef if I couldn't add my precious Mediterranean Sea Salt to roasted vegetables.  In fact, my world might stop turning if I couldn't sprinkle roasting broccoli or asparagus or potatoes with this magical mixture.

I don't have any pictures because Mister and I were in quite a rush to eat (hungry, hungry hippos), but dinner really wasn't anything especially attractive tonight anyway.  I made Pasta Puttanesca from Vegan Express and roasted some broccoli with olive oil and the sea salt blend as a side dish (gotta get some green in there, right?).  For you to truly understand why I love this blend so much, I want to clarify that there are plenty of other flavor elements besides just the incredible chunks of sea salt that catch themselves in a floret to deliver a satisfying crunch when you bite down.  The ingredients on my blend are: sea salt (really?), garlic, basil, oregano, lemon peel, red bell pepper, and the ever ubiquitous "natural flavor."

Speaking of red bell peppers, I don't know what happened to the one I was supposed to slice for tonight's dinner!  I know I got one, but I'm wondering if I accidentally used it for a different recipe.  In any case, I ended up substituting my orange bell pepper for it and I don't think it mucked up the flavor too much.  The pasta was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be and not as incredibly tasty as the roasted broccoli.

Speaking of broccoli....  When I was at Trader Joe's, I saw a bag of broccoli florets for what looked like a pretty decent price - probably a better deal than anything but frozen.  I looked around a bit and discovered that I would get a lot more broccoli for my buck if I bought the convenient pre-cut bag of broccoli than if I got a couple of spears and spent all that time separating the little florets from one another.  Score one for convenience!

[Part II]

Ever since our "celebrity chefs" came to visit and put on a little show a couple of weeks ago, I've been craving chickpea burgers.  Chef Michael Solomonov (Zahav, etc), made turkey burgers, served on the burger thins I love.  They looked so much like chickpea burgers, I kept hoping that if I wished hard enough, they would be.  Alas, they remained little beige patties of ground-up birds, so I had to DIMyself.

I didn't take a picture of the burgers because a) they were not even close to as attractive as Chef Solomonov's turkey burgers and b) burgers just aren't all that exciting to photograph.  Even though the turkey burgers looked very tasty, I would not have whipped out my camera if I'd had it with me.  I might have just had a small inspiration, though.  We'll get back to that later.

Along with the Lemony Garlic Chickpea Patties from Vegan on the Cheap I made the Middle Eastern Chopped Salad from Vegan Express.  This was most definitely worth photographing:

Local cucumber, tomatoes, and a yellow bell pepper came together to make a colorful and festive looking salad, sprinkled with fresh parsley and lemon juice, enriched with olive oil and oil-cured black olives.  I love cucumber-tomato salads dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.  I think I would have been happy to include some garlic as well, so I'll keep that in my mind for the next time I make this salad, but I will freely admit that I am sorry I've never made this before.  It's a lot of chopping, so between that and the made-from-scratch burgers, dinner took well over an hour to prepare, but it's nearly Friday, right?  A little sleep deprivation never hurt anyone, right?

critter petting zoo

This is a great apartment - really it is, but seriously - this place is Critter Central.  After a generally blissful, critter-free existence for the last six years in our tiny apartment, it seems like we found us a wildlife reserve here and I'm wondering if that is one of the reasons for the exceptionally low rent for a 2-bedroom apartment in this part of town (I'm thinking the Meeting Place for the Socially Challenged across the street is another reason).  Presently, in addition to the fuzzy lump we actually want living here, we have one adorable but gotta-go mousy friend, a flock of fruit flies who are trying to hijack my wine (I've already explained to them that I work far harder than they do for my wine) and a spider that might have been helpful in getting rid of the flies if he weren't too darn lazy to build a small web.  Having not accomplished his purpose, Mister escorted our eight-legged free-loader out of our home.  Mister also set a trap for the mouse:

Yup.  A plastic box, set upside down and propped up by an old, empty jar that used to hold Alba facial moisturizer with a piece of cardboard acting as an appetizer plate for a Mouse-Feast of peanut butter.  I tried to tell Mister that this is not a cartoon, but he insisted it would work.  So twice now, the mouse has gone in there and won.  First time, he ran in, grabbed the PB and pulled it out with him before we had a chance to catch him - mouse 1, us 0.  Then, we set it up again because the mouse dropped the PB plate and after a long, patient, barely-breathing staring contest, the little bugger decided to press his luck.  Just as he made his move, I made mine...and Angst made some kind of clattering that made the mouse turn around and run away.  Mouse - 2, us - 0, Angst - in the 'dog'house.

We decided our little friend needs to hit the road.  There are just too many gruesome ways for him to die here and traumatize me in the process.  I would share some of those ways but you don't want to hear about them any more than I want to think about them and even less than I want to actually experience any of them.  Since part of dinner involved roasting, I checked the inside of the oven before preheating it.  Then it started to smell like burning, so I yanked open the door and peered inside with a flashlight, fully expecting to see something that would make dinner a moot point (for lack of appetite), but there was no mousy (thank heavens).  After dinner, we spent enough time waiting to catch the mouse that Friday night's post will have Saturday's date, so just remember, kids - I haven't slept yet, so it's still Friday.

Anyway, as I was coming home from work tonight, I got to thinking about a great many things, but the only one you're interested in is dinner.  Trust me.  I really thought it would be neat to make an entire menu from the cookbook my company is hawking.  Appetite for Reduction made it seem like "diet food" could always be a culinary treasure, but I'll be honest - despite my attempts to make these dishes sound fabulous, I'm a little less than impressed.  The only flavor most of the recipes I've made so far have had came from my own inability to put only 2 cloves of garlic into something or my enjoyment of tweaking flavor elements.  It's not all bad, necessarily, but I have definitely lost my excitement for this cookbook - the pictures look far more attractive and appetizing than the finished product tastes.  I still have a few recipes to go and I do intend to finish them, but what this is all building up to (fortunately) is that I improvised to such a point tonight that I could not say, in good conscience, that I actually followed the recipe for the White Bean Salad in the cookbook.  The reason this is fortunate is that it doubles the recipe fun!

I am not at all ashamed of how excited I was to use my new BBQ sauce, given to me by a member of our chefs' council.  I was a little worried about the heat, but it turned out to have just the right amount.  It's a bit tangy and neither sweet nor savory BBQ sauce, but it is certainly good and I would actually purchase it in a store if I could find it.

I decided to go for a southern-style meal, at least where the BBQ sauce is involved.  The "salad" ended up being relatively Mediterranean, but I think most of my salads either end up that way, or a mix of hippie-commune-meets-Neiman-Marcus-urban-legends, so no big surprise there. 

Roasted Veggies with White Beans
yields about 4 appetizer/side dish servings

Ingredients
1 pint grape tomatoes (organic, if you can)
1 lb asparagus (normally one bunch)   
 15 oz can of white beans (cannellinis were pretty darn good), drained and rinsed (do you really even need to say that anymore?)
2 Tbsp high-quality olive oil
1-2 tsp Mediterranean sea salt blend (to taste)
1 tsp red wine vinegar


Preheat oven to 400 F.  Break the ends off of the asparagus stalks and slice into 1" pieces, on the bias if you want it to be pretty.  Slice the larger grape tomatoes in half diagonally and leave the little ones whole.  Drizzle asparagus and tomatoes with 2 Tbsp olive oil, sprinkle with 1 tsp of the salt blend to start, then toss to coat.  Roast for 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Now would probably be a good time to start the other half of the recipe, if you're making both (see recipe below).  Once the asparagus is beginning to shrivel a bit and the tomatoes are beginning to burst, remove from oven and add beans and as much as 1 more teaspoon of the salt blend, along with the red wine vinegar, and toss to coat evenly.  Allow to sit and cool while you prepare the po' boys.

Seitan-n-Slaw Po' Boys
serves 6, one po' boy per person

Ingredients
16 oz seitan in broth, drained and sliced very thin/shredded (baked seitan will not work here - I used Michael's Savory Seitan)
10 oz bag of confetti slaw (or other slaw)
2 Tbsp canola (or olive) oil, divided
1 Tbsp tamari/soy sauce
3-4 Tbsp all-natural, spicy BBQ sauce, divided
1/2 tsp pomegranate molasses (or dark agave nectar)
6 long sandwich rolls (about 6")

Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a large, deep skillet on medium heat.  Add confetti slaw, stir to coat with oil and then cover.  Allow to steam-fry 5-7 minutes, or until softened, stirring occasionally.  Remove from pan and add the remaining 1 Tbsp oil and turn heat to medium-high.  Add seitan and stir to coat with oil.  Cover and cook until seitan begins to brown and oil has been absorbed - about 5-7 minutes more.  Once the seitan has browned to your liking, add about 2 Tbsp of the BBQ sauce and stir to coat the seitan evenly.  Allow to cook one more minute, then add the slaw and stir to coat everything with BBQ sauce, adding more 1 Tbsp at a time until all the seitan and slaw is well-coated in BBQ sauce.  Drizzle on the molasses/agave and stir to combine.  Remove from heat.

If you'd prefer, you can heat the rolls in the oven - it should still be hot from the Roasted "Salad," so you won't need to heat it up.  Once they are warmed/toasted to your liking, slice lengthwise, taking care to leave a substantial "hinge."  Gently pile about 1/2 cup of the seitan-n-slaw mixture into the roll.

Serve with "salad" and enjoy!  You want pairings?  How about a nice Merlot-Tempranillo blend or South African Pinotage with dinner, and finish with a digestive of anisette, sipped slowly from a decorated cordial glass?

Bon appetit!
(can anyone translate that to Creole-French?)

sour times

I think it was my first year in college when a fairly new, very quirky friend introduced me to a little band called Portishead.  Of their three albums, I own two - their first and their last.  The first, Dummy, has a bunch of great tracks to just kind of groove to - this is mellow music with a little bit of trip-hop for good measure.  Their most popular song is called "Sour Times" and you can click the link to let the song follow you through tonight's little adventure.

I woke up to a "sour" surprise...

Why isn't any furniture ever off limits to a cat?  I mean, he knows he isn't supposed to be on the table - he just doesn't care.   I came out of the bedroom and looked for him to greet me on the floor.  After conquering my confusion over not finding him where I expected to, I started toward the kitchen to make tea and breakfast.  Then I saw him - sprawled out on the table, sleepy and dopey, and not making even the remotest effort to remove himself from this forbidden place, rather, looking at me as if to say, "what?"

So, naturally, I took pictures before chastising him.

When I reached work, more sour times awaited.  I had not been there even a half hour before the VP sent out an email to the groups I work with, explaining that US News & World Report had compiled a list of weight loss options and ranked them on several different features.  He went on to explain that we did not do as well as we would have preferred and that "talking points" would be distributed by the end of the day, in case anyone asked us about it.

Slightly more curious than my own cat, I immediately visited the website to view these results for myself.  To say "we did not do as well as we would have preferred" is a vast understatement.  A rough translation would be "we nearly came in dead last out of 20 options."  Also, our "talking points" appear to go something like this: "Nuh-uh!"

Nothing quite reinforces the printed word like hearing those sentiments spoken by the lips and voices of our current clientele for about 3 hours today.  So, as I was headed home, I tried to recover some semblance of enthusiasm, especially considering we have another group of new employees coming in on Monday and obviously, we want them to think the world of our little company for at least a few weeks.  When I got home, I inadvertently chose to make the sourest meal in our line-up.

Curried Cauliflower, Garbanzo, and Tomato Salad from The Complete Vegan Cookbook was not everything I thought it would be.  It wasn't bad, but as salads go, it would be closer to the bottom rank than the top.  I had hoped for a more pronounced curry flavor and I think I was unrealistically expecting it to be a savory marinade, despite the 4 tablespoons of citrus (half lemon, half orange) and only 2 teaspoons of tamari to balance.  The cumin and curry powder were more of an essence, present more in scent than in actual flavor.  My instincts say that salt would pull their flavors out a little more prominently, but I'm not sure that was meant to happen.

I made it more for Mister anyway and he seemed happy with it.

Me?  I'm just happy (and a little smug) to report that in those twenty "diets" ranked by USN&WR, who did better than my company?  Raw food diet, veganism, vegetarianism, and Eco-Atkins (vegan Atkins - who'd have thunk??).

(PS. my favorite Portishead song has always been and still is Wandering Stars.)

on a lighter note...

Why don't we talk about food tonight?  Food so good that it can't possibly stir up controversy since it can be unanimously agreed upon that good food can also be tasty food (and pretty food - let's not neglect the food porn).  Why don't we do it like this: first we'll have a picture parade (to make up for last night's dearth), then we'll talk about the new menu.  Ready?  Let's go.

Last night, before I got all caught up in reading Mama Pea's post and answering some of the commenters with my own thoughts, leading to my novel-post because I had to get all those thoughts swimming around my head out in some kind of semi-coherent way, I made Rice Island Casserole from Vegan on the Cheap.  This is another one of those "baked" recipes that I have turned into a stovetop simmer recipe, because brown rice and my baking skills just do not get along.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but in my world, rice does not cook in the oven but rather on top of it.

It's such a good dinner - I never have trouble clearing my plate.

Or bowl.  Whatever.  The one thing I'm a little sad about is purely aesthetic - the kidney beans are pale.  Mister was kind enough to accompany me to both stores last weekend, enabling me to shop faster (he was just following me around with the baskets) and buy a little more (since he was there to help carry - he's such a handsome little pack-mule).  When we were at Superfresh, he made a comment on the absurdly high price of beans.

Beans are supposed to be cheap, right?  I mean, isn't that the punchline - "we were so poor growing up that mom ate beans because there was only enough 'real food' for us kids" right?  Actually, I know someone who did eat beans so her children could have more substantial food.  Anyway, I haven't been paying attention really, because beans are just one of those "essential" items that I pick up every single time I'm at the store.  It wouldn't really matter if they had tripled in price - I would still buy them and just be surprised at my higher bill.  His initial impetus to exclaiming his disbelief was that he wanted to pick up a can or two of refried beans but they were "way too expensive."  We happened to be having this conversation as I was picking out the whole beans and I noticed a huge difference in price between the dark and light kidney beans.  I don't actually know, besides color, what the difference is between them (logic would dictate the darker beans would be higher in antioxidants, but that's just a guess), so I decided we didn't need the more-expensive dark kidney beans.

They are much prettier, though.

Speaking of pretty (I'm getting so good at these segues), how about these cherries?

Every week, Whole Foods reduces the price by $1, but I really don't think they'll go much lower than $5/lb, so I decided this was the magical week we could have some.  If I'm wrong, well, I guess we'll have to get some more when they're a lower price, won't we?  I wouldn't mind - they were as sweet, juicy, and ripe as they are beautiful.  Cherry red is one of my very favorite colors (you might have guessed that from the placemats).

I actually got up early enough today to go to the Headhouse Farmers Market.  Well, to be honest, I frequently get up early enough to go to the farmers market but end up missing it because I'd rather spend the time waking up slowly and watching Evanescence or P!nk videos on YouTube.  Today I actually went...and was disappointed.  I guess it would have been okay if I didn't have a specific list of items in mind and if I was willing to pay more to support local agriculture that may or may not use genetically modified seeds.  I will probably return in the future, because there were a lot of fun booths that had stuff I would buy if I weren't on a budget, but I tried really hard to be frugal this week since there are a lot of beginning-of-the-month expenses to wipe out the paycheck I just got. 

After playing at the farmers market, Mister and I met up with my parents for a little brunch at Farmicia in Olde City.  We went there almost exactly 2 months ago with them and they enjoyed it so much they specifically requested returning there, so I made the reservations and off we went.  There was a deflating baby and a squeaking fan, but as always the food was delicious and the cocktails inventive.

I had the same thing I had last time, but this time I actually remembered my camera.  This is the Scrambled Tofu with Vegan Chorizo.  Obviously, that's on the right.  In the back were sopapillas (kind of like Mexican pita) to scoop up various parts of the meal.  On the left is a crisp tortilla with a generous lump of avocado-tomato salsa.  The tofu could have had a little more flavor, but its relative blandness helped to even out the spicy kick of the chorizo.  The sopapillas are pillow-soft and delightfully chewy and did a great job delivering the big chunks of avocado, dotted with crisp tomatoes, to my mouth.  In the back right, you may observe a slightly cloudy-looking drink.  That was my Little Miss Sunshine.  I ordered it because the name is hilarious and because it sounded fun - strawberry-flavored vodka with fresh lemonade.  It was very easy to drink and if I didn't keep reminding myself it had alcohol in it, I probably could have knocked back two with minimal effort.

Before they left, my mother gave me a delightfully fragrant, hydroponic basil plant.

Let's see how long it takes either for me to kill it or Angst to eat it.  Mister and I are fairly confident that he would be repulsed into stopping his nibbles after only one bite (which would confirm that it is most definitely not spinach), but I'm hoping that he can smell that it's not spinach and just stays away from it.  It looks so pretty in its Classico jar (bonus: if Angst does decide to eat it and knocks over the jar, at least I won't have lost another vase).

Since I had all day, pretty much, to prep for dinner, I saved the most time-consuming recipe on the menu for last - Orzo Pilaf from Vegan on the Cheap with Tofeta from How It All Vegan.  As I mentioned in the menu, VotC has its own tofeta recipe, but I like the one in HIAV better.

I needed a new dress for Cousin's wedding this weekend.  Okay.  I didn't need one, but I can only wear the same dresses so many times before people start wondering if I do laundry.  Besides, the last time I bought a dress, it was for my wedding, so I think it's okay to get another one after 4 years.  Anyway, before I headed out to Greene Street Consignment, I put the tofu in my handy-dandy Tofu Xpress to press while I shopped.  When I returned, with a dress, I diced it and put it back in the box along with the marinade to which I accidentally added twice as much basil as the recipe prescribed, then let it marinate for an hour in the fridge while I did other stuff.

building a base of greens

mmm....so tasty

I really like the crunch and varied texture provided by the lettuce leaves.  I've made this before and did not serve it as a salad and it was just fine, but I think this is a better way for the future.

Finally, the new menu.  More than half of it comes from a cookbook I have pretty well neglected since we moved: The Complete Vegan Cookbook.  That's a shame - it has a lot of good recipes.  So I started my recipe search there and nearly concluded it there as well, except that I had at least one recipe I knew I wanted to make from Vegan on the Cheap (will I ever get tired of this cookbook?).

1. Curried Cauliflower, Garbanzo, and Tomato Salad from CVC because cauliflower is awesome, but curried cauliflower = Mister in heaven.

2. Pasta Puttanesca with Artichokes, also from CVC.  I really like puttanesca sauces - they are so flavorful as to be nearly overwhelming.  I am curious about the combination of what I consider two fairly different tastes (and I might be doing it wrong, so I guess we'll see).  Puttanesca sauce is salty and kind of dark tasting, whereas I consider artichokes a little tangy from the brine they usually soak in during storage.  I'm supposed to be using frozen artichokes, though, but I couldn't find any.

3. Bulgur and Red Lentil Pilaf with Kale and Olives, also from CVC.  I love this dish.  That's all.

4. Provencal Black-Eyed Peas with Asparagus, also from CVC.  When we were first dating, Mister and I worked very close to one another, so we would sometimes take a short break for ice cream or other little treats.  A few times, I stopped at Baskin-Robbins on the way to meet him and I would call and ask what he wanted - his answer was normally, "whatever's weird."  In the spirit of that, I chose this dish - it's definitely weird: Black-Eyed Peas definitely have their place in Cajun/Creole cooking, and that cuisine is certainly influenced by Provence, but I think we're taking a mighty big leap here.  And then there's the asparagus.  That just doesn't make any sense to me.

5. Farfalle with White Beans and Cabbage from VotC.  I bought a big head of red cabbage for one of last week's salads and only used a very small amount.  The recipe calls for green cabbage, but we're just going to improvise a little.

6. Coconut Curry Rice also from VotC, except I forgot to pick up more curry powder.  Looks like a mid-week trip to Whole Foods is in my future...

to taste, my eye!

I thought about leaving punctuation out of the title, just to paint a nice gory mental picture, but changed my mind at the last moment.  Are you relieved?

Well, TGIF, all!  I haven't fully sunk into Friday yet, still letting myself dwell a little on a stellar day at work but also some interesting, new, and possibly helpful information I learned that may come in handy in the near future.  I put a little bit of a challenge out there, kindling just a little bit of hope amidst the danger, and now I just need to let go and let the weekend take over.

I was a little worn out when I got home from work and my mind was a little spinny.  I hate going to work the day after some kind of magical experience (see PIFA gala, PIFA/Metal day, and last night's fun if you need examples of Magic).  It's always so much more disappointing.  While I was sitting on the couch with Mister, I silently realized that making dinner was pretty low on my list of Things I Want To Do Right Now and almost asked if Mister wanted to go to Pizzeria Stella instead.  Then I remembered we're a little poor, so I did a little internet research on how to "bake" potatoes in the microwave, then commenced to assembling Nicoise Salad from The Urban Vegan.  

It had a lot more ingredients than I thought it would, resulting in my brain-dead self going back and forth from the counter to the fridge to the sink then back to the fridge for the towel hanging on the door, many many times.  Finally, the potatoes were "baked," the green beans were steamed, the red pepper and tomatoes were sliced, and the olives were scattered.  Just before I tossed everything together, I mixed up Dynise's uber-easy Dijon Vinaigrette.

The dressing recipe was much easier than the salad recipe (which just kind of feels wrong), but I have three complaints about it:

1. the recipe makes at least a little more than the salad needs.  There is a little puddle at the bottom of our salad bowl and that should never be.
2. the recipe calls for a crushed clove of garlic, which means I end up with a whole clove of garlic I feel like I wasted... but I'm not about to save a cracked, vinaigrette-covered clove of garlic for another recipe.
3. I HATE recipes that say to add "salt to taste."  I'm not a taster.  I think it means something like "add as much salt as you think you'll enjoy as part of your consistent personal tastes," but it doesn't say all of that, so I always wonder if I'm adding enough or too much salt to things.
4. Okay, this isn't actually a complaint - more of an observation.  I'm not a big fan of mustard and I'm always wary of dressings and sauces that contain prepared mustard in a greater quantity than 1 tsp.  Since I'm not so keen on mustard, we had only one kind, and I was not about to buy gourmet super-duper-amazing Dijon mustard just for this recipe.  I found that the Spicy Brown French's mustard we had in the fridge worked just fine.  So if you want to make this dressing and you just passed your last jar of Grey Poupon out of your limo window, don't fret!  Store-brand specialty mustard will be just fine!

Angst was squeaking up a storm as I set the salad on the table and sat down.   He was also making big pouty eyes at me and Mister.

Mister gave him a dressing-coated piece of lettuce to make him go away.  He ate it all up, squeaked again...and then went away.  Well done, Mister!

salad season is here

As I shared my menu last night, I realized it is 50% salads.  I'm completely okay with that for two reasons: first, salads fit into this whole detox effort I was babbling about.  Second, and more importantly for my overheated Greek husband, they do not require cooking, which means the kitchen (and therefore, the "dining room") remains the same temperature as the rest of our hot home.

Tomorrow, in exchange for him washing the towels I couldn't bring myself to launder on my final day off, I told him he could get a Blendini and turn on the A/C, so if it's cool in my home when I return to it, there had better also be a pile of clean towels waiting to be folded.

Anyway, tonight I made Spinach, Artichoke, and Chickpea Salad from Vegan Express.  From the title, you can guess at least three things that were in it, right?  From the trend salads seem to follow when they find their way into cookbooks, you might imagine that those are the only ingredients, apart from possibly some tomatoes and a crunchy garnish, wouldn't you?  Going into it with that mindset, you might be surprised by how darn many ingredients this "simple" salad had.  Let's just say I got good use from my pretty measuring dishes.

That was round one - a cup of tomatoes, a half cup of carrots, and a third of a cup of oil-cured olives for spite.  Round two consisted of a cup of shredded cabbage, a half cup of roasted red peppers, and a can each of artichoke hearts and chickpeas.  I was supposed to only add a cup of chickpeas, but seriously?  What was I going to do with the half-cup left over?  Besides, we like chickpeas in this family.

Another fun thing was serving the colorful, festive salad in my huge red Martha Stewart bowl using the gorgeous and unique Rosewood salad servers my sister gave me for Christmas this year.  I think they're from somewhere in Africa, but I can't remember where she said they came from.

Anyway, they're beautiful and functional, just like I like 'em.

The lighting for this picture is awful, but I wanted to show our little dinner table all set with the salad and accompaniments.  We have some extra mixed olives, in case the 1/3 cup actually in the salad isn't enough.  We also have a gravy boat because I think it's funny that I have two gravy boats that have never been full of gravy.  Actually, that's not true.  The gravy boat we had our tahini salad dressing in tonight, the one on the table, sat on the table my father dined at as a child and teenager.  Surely, sometime in his youth, that gravy boat actually had homemade gravy in it.  So let me amend my statement: in the 8 years that I have been in possession of my Dixie Dogwood dinnerware set, that gravy boat has been destitute of gravy.  It made a perfect vessel for the tahini sauce from Mister's lambless gyros, which magically morphed into a salad dressing tonight.

The salad was delightful and the tahini sauce really went well with the Mediterranean flavors.  The olives made a salty companion to the barely in-season grape tomatoes, while the crunch of the raw cabbage played nicely with the chopped baby lettuces and crisp orange carrots.  After dinner had settled as much as salad is going to settle, Mister and I ventured out into near-record heat to get a cool treat from Rita's Water Ice (so handy to have one a stone's throw from the apartment - we can tell if it's open just by walking down to the corner).  Chocolate water ice for me, Passion Fruit Ice-Vanilla Custard gelato for him, we headed back to the apartment so I could be introduced to a young Robert DeNiro's sinister side in Cape Fear.  This is just one of the movies that Mister could not believe I had never seen and which resulted in us subscribing to Netflix.  After spending most of the second half of the movie with my hands over my face, we decided to move The Tourist up in the queue, taking what was originally the place of Taxi Driver (I need a short break from intense violence starring Robert DeNiro - you must understand - I was introduced to the old, comedic DeNiro.)

Well...back to "real life" tomorrow, at least for a couple of days.  I'm just focusing on Thursday when I get to take a half day and spend the evening at the ballet.  Then, it's Friday!  See?  I can do it.

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."

Mexisraelican cuisine...figure that out

One of the things I admire about Isa's recipe creation and matching is the joy she finds in fusion.  Not trendy fusion, like French-Chinese or Nouveau Mediterranean or whatever it is Horizons does - no, Isa likes to mix things that don't belong.

I do, too, but I'm not quite as skilled at it.  For some reason, it always works with Isa's pairings.  Not so much with mine.  I know I have at least one poor pairing in the past, but tonight's was truly bizarre: Mexican and Israeli.  Perhaps we don't even need the label "Mexican," but even if we took a close look at Latino cuisine, I don't think we'd find many points of similarity with Israeli/Middle Eastern cuisine (aside from Mister's love of each).

For dinner, I made Salsa Rice and Red Beans from Vegan on the Cheap.  It was pretty simple to make, since most of the time was just letting the brown rice simmer away until it was cooked (only about 45 minutes, this time).  I cooked the rice completely separately from everything else, but it all came together in the end for a strangely sweet rice-n-beans.  I'm not sure if it was the fresh poblano or the fresh tomato, or even the canned tomato, but there was something undeniably sweet going on.

While the rice was simmering away, I had about...oh...45 minutes of free time, so I filled it with much chopping.  On my way home from work, I decided to take advantage of the not-arctic weather to stop into Superfresh for kitty litter and my usual fruitless glance where the fresh spinach should be but isn't.  One big difference today, though - there was spinach there!  I picked up a bag for tomorrow night's curry (finally), then remembered how I wanted to get a few extra veggies yesterday but didn't want to go out in the cold, so I grabbed my memory grocery list and a basket, and still remembered the kitty litter.

The fruits of my chopping was the Mega-Israeli Salad from the forthcoming UV2.

Texturally, it had many layers - crispity-crunchety peppers, more refined toothsomeness from tomatoes and cucumber, with a creamy smooth bite of avocado.  The dressing was delightfully simple and pulled everything together in the most mouth-watering way.  I didn't even get a chance to ask Mister what he thought, because before he finished chewing his first mouthful, he was exclaiming how good the salad was.

There's a tartness from the lemon that is only slightly overwhelmed by the zing of raw garlic, which only dominates the dish as much as you let it - you could also allow it to draw out the crunchiness of the raw veggies with even more intensity due to their enhanced flavor.

The salad was amazing and will absolutely find its way onto my table again (and hopefully, the tables of family and friends who ask me to bring food to gatherings).  As far as pairing it goes, I guess we'll have to play around with different main courses - it completely overpowered the Salsa Rice and Red Beans, with their subtle, sweet flavor and creamy texture.

 Mister did exactly what I expected him to do when he saw the mountain of rice and beans and tomatoes - he went to the cupboard and pulled out the tortilla chips left over from our last chili adventure.  To my amusement, he alternated between scooping up rice-n-beans and treating his salad like really garlicky salsa.  Either way, dinner got an enthusiastic thumbs-up from Mister.