cereal thief and tomato fail

Angst has an unnatural obsession with my breakfast.  I mean, I guess it's somewhat natural in that he always thinks he wants to eat what his humans are eating, but he is over-the-top lusting after my cereal.  He begs for waffles, occasionally for oatmeal, rarely for fruit, but he is absurdly insistent about his "need" for my cereal.  It doesn't matter what cereal I'm eating, either.

He sidles over to my desk area to start his hunter gymnastics.  Here is my set-up in the apartment: I have my piano against the same wall as the oven, then the bench, which doubles as my desk chair because there is exactly enough room to swing around to face either the piano or my desk.

Angst has this strategy for stealing a bite of my cereal which involves him jumping up on the piano and lurking behind me for a minute...eventually, he climbs onto the bench beside me and tries to pull my hand (holding the cereal bowl) toward him.  If and when that fails, sometimes he climbs up on the desk in front of me and stands in front of my computer display and on my keyboard until I move him.

He's such a naughty little beast.  No mystery here as to why there's cat hair on my piano keys...

Anyway, after my little cereal thief tried to steal my breakfast, I went off to work and had the privilege of having lunch at Pure Fare again.  Today I tried the Zucchini Noodle Salad, which consisted of thin but perfect "noodles" made of finely julienned (probably spiralized) raw zucchini, plenty of nutty edamame with some cherry tomatoes and red peppers, possibly a little too much cilantro, and a divine lemon-miso dressing.  It was both beautiful and delicious, and if I hadn't been lunching with a colleague, I would have taken a pretty picture.  I'm not quite ready to wear my Food Blogger Princess crown in public just yet.

Tonight's dinner, then, was the only thing left: Vegetable Chili from The Low GI Cookbook.

Looks delish, doesn't it?  It was, actually, which surprised me.  I've made this before, so I was quite aware that it is a good recipe (which is why I chose to repeat it), but something went terribly wrong this week, either in my grocery list preparation or execution, and I came up with no tomatoes tonight.

I've never made chili without tomatoes and realized upon finding no tomatoes in my home that I was not quite sure I could pull this off.  However, Mister had already braved the cold mist accumulating outside in order to pick up the tortilla chips I also forgot to get, so I couldn't back down.  I simply had to figure out how to make chili without tomatoes!

Well, I said I wanted to stretch for MoFo this year, and I had intended that as incentive to create bona fide recipes, but it's always good to know how to compensate for missing ingredients, so I put my brain to good use and came up with these changes:

• I added some frozen corn to give the chili a little more bulk.  I contemplated dicing an apple but then I thought Mister might not appreciate me incorporating fruit into his chili.  I may try it in the future, though, because now my mind is a little stuck on that idea.
• To add the tomato "flavor" in the absence of both fresh and canned tomatoes, I added a generous amount of the Spicy Hot V8 still in the fridge from our Harira adventure.  It totally worked.

a little piece of a national treasure

It is rare that I spend all day fulfilling my grocery shopping list.  Of course, it is also rare that I go alllll the way across town to Trader Joe's - in fact, it's been about 3 years since the last time I set foot in there.  It's not that I don't want to - I would love to be a more frequent shopper, but after today's adventures, I am more convinced than ever that I will not be able to indulge in that fantasy until one of two things happens:

1. I get a job in center city that allows me enough time on weeknights (purely by virtue of reducing my commute by 2 hours) to stop in after work, instead of trying to navigate SEPTA's horrendous and never-on-time bus schedule on a Sunday, when the buses run half as frequently as they're supposed to which is already on a 75% reduced schedule.  When you do the math, you should probably be able to figure out why it took me all day to go shopping there and Whole Foods.
2. Mister and I move closer.  Not out of the question, but not likely.  Even if we do, it won't be until March[ish] of 2013.

I'm hoping for #1, but I'm sure I've kind of given that away already.  In any case, after today, if I had foursquare, I'd be the SEPTA Queen.  Forget about Mayor - I passed over that with the third connecting bus.  Granted, this was all kind of a public transit fail, but I did get to and from Trader Joe's twice (I had to go back because I realized when I got home that the cashier keyed something in wrong and overcharged me quite significantly).  Speaking of which, the service at TJ's is pretty stellar - the girl who rang me up was cheerful and conversational and the lady who corrected my payment did so with a smile and without asking for some kind of proof that I didn't buy $25-worth of Blue Danishes (whatever that might be).

In case you're wondering, the purpose of my trip was to get the only vegan chorizo in Philadelphia for one of the recipes I'm making this week.  I figured, though, that as long as I was there, I may as well see if I could score some lower-priced, still-high-quality produce, etc.  That seemed like a good idea when I thought, "hey, the store is on Market St and dozens of buses come down Market St, so I'll just hop on one with my bag o' groceries to get back home."  Refer back to my comments regarding the frequency of bus service on Sunday afternoons if you don't feel like reading about how I carried my groceries about 15 blocks without the assistance of a bus.  And to think I've been complaining about the 7 blocks I now must walk to return from Whole Foods....

Anyway, with a fridge full of veggies, I decided to make the Vegetable Chili Bowl from The Low GI Cookbook.  It was actually written by Margaret Fulton and then contributed to the cookbook.  I had heard her name before, but they say you learn something new every day and today I learned that Margaret Fulton was made a National Living Treasure in 1998.  May we all strive for such lofty goals!

Mister and I dug into our bowls of chili with the help of organic corn chips from TJ's that cost less than the multi-grain Tostitos I usually try to use to assuage my guilty conscience.  It was a tasty little combo and the chips had a lot less salt than Tostitos, which I didn't realize was so overwhelming until I realized how subtly perfect these chips are.  We were pleasantly surprised by this chili.  I have begun to approach the recipes I chose from that cookbook with hesitance and an expectation that it won't be as exciting as I want it to be.  

I'll admit - I'm relieved to be coming to the end of these recipes, but I appear to have saved the best for [almost] last!  The fresh parsley was a nice touch and I was really happy with the way the two beans came out - I don't think I've paired chickpeas and kidney beans in the past.  It's a good, light, summer-appropriate chili, since the peppers make it sweet and the zucchini lightens up the flavor significantly.

With 20 cookbooks, it's no wonder Margaret Fulton is considered a treasure - especially if half of them are as good as this summertime chili was!

big fat butter beans

Have you ever eaten butter beans?  I hadn't.  I knew I'd seen them in stores, yet I still had some difficulty finding them and spent a little time pondering what would be an acceptable substitute if I couldn't find them.  Never fear, though!  The Bastion of Beans (Goya) would never let me down, so I did leave Superfresh with two cans of butter beans.

In case the "intro" didn't give it away, we had the Parsley, Butter Bean, and Cherry Tomato Stew from The Low GI Cookbook for dinner tonight.

I don't know why this surprised me, since the cookbook does actually have some very attractive pictures of almost every recipe, but butter beans are friggin' huge!  They were bigger than the half-moon slices of Tofurky sausage I added for substance!  They were bigger than the halved grape tomatoes (which were actually quite large for grape tomatoes)!  Texturally, they were kind of like really big cannellini beans - definitely a creamy center.  A person might even say they were "buttery," which is how I imagine they got their name.


"Hey - HEY!"
"What?"
"Have you eaten these beans?"
"No, why?"
"They're so....buttery!"
"Okay..."
"I'm going to call them butter beans."
"Good call."


That's the naming conversation.  It's acted out in my head by two cavemen who greatly resemble the characters in B.C., except hairier.

Anyway, all said, it was a pretty good stew, which I served over surprisingly fragrant brown basmati rice.  This actually happened - I was standing at my counter, chopping veggies, when an enticing scent invaded my nostrils.  I looked all over for the source of this scent before realizing it was the rice.  True story.



Although I found the size of the butter beans a bit disturbing initially, they really did help with the intense flavor from the sausage.  Without the added sausage, though, I'm not sure this would have been quite as happy a dish.  It smelled very strongly of the 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon I added in and I feel like the taste would have been overwhelming if completed by the 1/2 tsp of sugar I forgot to add and did not include the savory notes contributed by the sausage.

It's a very attractive dinner and it smelled fabulous while cooking, but I can't say I'll rush to put this on the table again.

weight loss never tasted so good

Relax, Mom, I'm not on a diet.  However, tonight I did cook from a diet cookbook [again].  I took a short break last night to make Granada Paella from The Urban Vegan and I am continually surprised by how astonishingly tasty it is!  There are relatively few foods I could eat so fast (from enthusiasm) that I would give myself a bellyache.  This is one of them.

It's a shame it doesn't look as good as it tastes. I think part of that is due to my negligence in checking the frozen veggies before I went shopping, so there were no frozen peas to add, keeping the dish a generally red and beige combo...not exciting.

I've noticed something about my shopping/menu planning.  There are certain things I take for granted - I just assume certain things will always be there.  As a result, I have found myself in the same position I was in last night more than just a few times.  In my brain, though, frozen vegetables reproduce in the freezer and all of my herb/spice bottles are magical and bottomless.

My empty jar of basil begs to differ.

Regardless, tonight brought us back to The Low GI Cookbook with Chicken [Seitan] and [Baby] Bok Choy Stir-Fry. 

This meal, amusingly enough, looks far more delicious and fun than the Paella.  Looks are not terribly deceiving, either.  While I certainly won't say that this recipe would make me choke in my excitement to pile it all in my mouth, it is extremely tasty, simple, and Second-Helping-Mister-Approved.

I had to make a few tweaks, obviously, as I mentioned when I constructed the menu.  For this meal, seitan replaced the chicken (and I'm pretty sure it improved the dish both nutritionally and taste-wise).  I also used my favorite brand of rice vermicelli to replace the egg noodles called for in the recipe.  Finally, I needed to replace the oyster sauce and it seemed to me that the best way to do this was to sub my vegan Worcestershire sauce.  My tastebuds agreed.  I have never actually eaten 'real' oyster sauce to my recollection, so I have absolutely no idea what it tastes like, but I do know that Mister and I were mutually pleased with the way the sauce came out.

Our little friend also seemed excited about dinner, since he came out of hiding and made a quick dash across the back of the sink to the stove to check out the pot while we were eating!  Although Angst seemed pretty sure the little bugger was hiding behind the toaster over this morning, we were starting to think he'd found his way out.  I think Mister is waiting for it to starve to death and just hoping he finds it while I'm at work and can dispose of it with no tears.

I just want something I can never have

I seem to always have one of two things working against my culinary adventuresome-ness.  Either I don't realize that an ingredient is super-bizarre and not likely to be hanging out on the shelves of your average Whole Foods, or in some strange subconscious way, to challenge myself, perhaps, I seek out recipes that use esoteric ingredients I may very well never need again.

You wouldn't really think that fava beans would fall into one of those categories, would you?  Well, maybe the first - the one where I didn't think it was all that strange an ingredient.  After all, they were the star of a very famous line in a very famous movie in the not-too-distant past.  Nevertheless, much like my extensive Hunt for Harissa, my attempt to make a meal involving what I thought was a relatively common Italian vegetable took me all over the city before I finally secured the magic ingredient.

Many thanks to DiBruno Brothers in Rittenhouse Square for having just enough amazing things to also have the thing I was seeking.  It had fallen over on a top shelf, but I found it and made it mine.  Actually, the harissa was also hiding on a top shelf.  Does that say something [aristocratic] about my tastes?  Maybe it just means I should be taller.

So, the bag of dried beans didn't exactly say "Fava Beans" but I figured Fava Anything was closer than I'd gotten previously, so I brought them home, soaked them last night, and boiled the heck out of them tonight.  To my great delight, I appear to have successfully revived them and made them a part of our dinner: Tuscan-Style Beans with Tomatoes and Sage.

I served them over the leftover Pasta e Fagioli because I didn't feel it was necessary to make new pasta when we hadn't finished that yet.  Additionally, there seemed to be a slightly disproportionate ratio of beans (cannellini + fava) to tomatoes, so I figured it was probably a nice touch to use pasta that already had tomato slush on them.

Unfortunately, entirely due to the base, Mister thought we were having leftovers for dinner and was very surprised when I pressed him for a reaction to the meal.  After he explained that dinner was leftovers and I explained that only the base was left over, he explained that he thought anyone who would eat just beans and tomatoes for dinner was quite out of his/her mind, thereby confirming my suspicion that this meal needs a base.  As they go, I think pasta was the best option, but perhaps a fresh, bigger pasta would be better in the future.  I thought small was the way to go, but after Mister's reaction, I'm reconsidering.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I need to be in a pretty special place to actually listen to the song that inspired the title of what was otherwise a fairly jovial post, so if you're interested, click here. You go on and check it out.  I'll hang back here.

change for the better

I had a really great day today.  I got up early to teach, but that didn't quite happen (summer always gets a little sporadic in terms of student attendance) so I was just super productive instead.  I got so much done that I completely forgot it was Saturday and was about to start whining about how "I don't waaaant to go to work tomorrow," when suddenly it dawned on me: tomorrow is Sunday.

Today was both productive and an exercise in adaptation.  I'm teaching!  No, wait, not teaching, so... I'll go food shopping!  I'm going to make an exciting recipe for dinner tonight because I have a fridge/cupboard stuffed with tasty vittles!  No!  Horizons is closing two weeks from tonight, so... we're dining at Horizons!

I love Horizons.  I'm so sad it's closing because I know we won't go as frequently when the new location, further into Center City, opens.  At the moment, anyway, since I spend almost every minute of my week commuting to or being at work, when we do venture out (which isn't all that often, though we've been trying to get out more), we tend to stick pretty close to home.  So when Kelly tweeted that she was eating at Horizons tonight and that the final evening would be July 2 (two little weeks away), I folded up my menu and called for reservations.

I was set on eating everything I hadn't eaten yet, so even though I love the Salt Roasted Golden Beets, BBQ Seitan, and Grilled Asparagus Salad, I was determined to start the meal with a new appetizer.

So, we started our meal with the Olive Board, which wasn't so much a board as it was a square plate, but I'm not going to pick nits.  There was a perfectly-portioned baby ramekin of mixed olives, marinated to perfection with garlic, herbs, and vinegar.  Beside it was a small butter cup of kalamata tapenade, ideal for dipping the lightly salted, dense and crispy breadsticks and thinly sliced carrots and zucchini.  There were also some pickled vegetables, but we (even Mister!) weren't so excited about those.

For the first time this year (and probably the last) we were able to sit outside, enjoying the company of Mazy the Little Gray Pitbull.  She was so precious.  I shot this picture while she was worriedly looking inside the restaurant to see where her mommy went (ladies' room).

As usual, Mister got the Grilled Seitan on Grilled Spinach and Yukon Mash with a red pepper coulis on top.  It looked ever more attractive than usual and it nearly made me regret my choice.

I've been hemming and hawing over the Pacific Rim Grilled Tofu, topped with turnips and concealing a base of edamame puree on top of a miso sauce.  My main concern has always been that the gochujang lacquer would be too spicy, but it was tangy, just as our waitress promised it would be.  I was happy that I ordered it and got to taste it, but I wasn't kicking myself for missing out all these years.

Once again, the portions were perfect to allow us room for their delightful dessert menu.

Mister got a double decaf espresso to go along with his Lavendar Cheesecake with blueberry smash and ancho peanuts.  At Kelly's suggestion (inadvertent, albeit), I chose the Chocolate-Stuffed Beignets with Iced Coffee Float. 

For the uninitiated, the beignets are basically fried doughballs, coated in powdered sugar, with a gooey dark chocolate center.

I was planning to join Mister in his after-dinner espresso, but when I saw that the beignets were accompanied by a coffee float, I refrained.  I did, however, tell him that when we come back for closing night, I want him to remind me to get an espresso with the Bittersweet Chocolate Tart (which is divine, but certainly requires coffee to calm the intense chocolatey-ness).

Fortunately, since I was so productive today, running all over the city, weighted down by heavy bags at least half the time, I probably burned off at least a few calories in advance.  Besides, we have a relatively calorie-conservative menu this week.

A few words of explanation: all of these recipes (except the last one) come from a cookbook I don't even own, enhanced at times by additions that came from my very own brain.  The cookbook that inspired these meals is The Low GI Cookbook, which happens to be available as a "special edition" being sold by the weight loss company that owns my days.  Our recent visit by the chefs who are laboring to enhance our program and foods to be at the top of the industry inspired me to show a little company pride and construct my whole menu from this book.  Obviously, since it's written for omnivores, a little tweaking was necessary here and there, but it wasn't too hard to find some delicious-looking and creative meals.  My only foil was the desire to make a new Mama Pea "recipea."

1. Tuscan-Style Beans with Tomatoes and Sage served over small pasta

2. Lentil, Spinach, and [To]Feta Salad using the tofeta recipe from HIAV.

3. White Bean Salad, served with po' boys (no, no, I could not resist the opportunity to use my new BBQ sauce, but at least you'll get a recipe out of it for the first time in months).

4. "Chicken" [Seitan] and [Baby] Bok Choy Stir-Fry - This recipe appears to be made for seitan, and I'm actually pretty sure my version will be better than the original as a result.  There were no "adult" bok choy at Whole Foods today, so just got twice as many baby bok choys.  The Curse of Bok Choy continues, apparently.

5. Parsley, Butter Bean, and Cherry Tomato Stew, which will most likely be served over rice.

6. Vegetable Chili Bowl which is far enough from a soup that Mister should let it slide.

7. Chickpeas and Dumplings (yes, a bonus recipe! AKA, I had a little trouble counting) from Peas and Thank You.  This looks so incredibly tasty I don't care how hot it gets this week.  I'll just turn the air conditioning way down low, throw on a cozy sweater and get to simmerin'.