still alive - be thankful!

I know other bloggers have gone far longer than a week without a post, but I am not normally among them so it feels like forever.  I hope you'll excuse my absence, considering how busy I've been preparing for Thanksgiving and Black Friday - or I should say it like this:

1. the first Thanksgiving (or holiday at all) that I've hosted in my own home!
2. the first Black Friday I've worked retail in fifteen years.

Fortunately, both went off pretty well, yet both were fairly stressful in the days leading up to them.  Additionally, I just haven't felt like I had anything interesting to say.  I realized recently that one of the reasons I've found blogging to be so much fun and so fulfilling in the first two years of this little blog was because I was still learning how to cook new and interesting things, so I was always trying to make something I hadn't made yet so I could come up with a unique post.  Over the last several months, I've found myself perfectly happy to repeat "favorites" from the last few years, and although I only rotate recipes every few months, I still didn't have anything interesting to say about making "this" dish again.

Here is a quick recap of my Celebrate Vegan mini-menu:

The two pasta dishes (Pasta with Shallots and Chard and Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil) were just like I remembered them - relatively easy with a ton of flavor.  Neither of them made as much as I thought I remembered, but believe me, with Thanksgiving coming up, there was no place in our fridge for leftovers anyway.

I made one new recipe from the book I wasn't able to make before because it needed tweaking for Mister's intestinal safety, the Jambalaya and it was quite tasty and fake-meat-alicious!

So let's switch gears.

There's a lovely song by Josh Groban (which you can hear a beautiful cover of here) with the following lyrics:

Some days we forget to look around us.

Some days we can't see the joy that surrounds us.

So caught up inside ourselves, we take when we should give,

So for tonight, we pray for what we know can be,

And on this day we hope for what we still can't see.  

It's up to us to be the change,

And even though we all can still do more...

There's so much to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for a great many things, not the least of which being how well my first Thanksgiving as the cook and hostess turned out!  Here was our menu:

When my parents arrived, we set out mixed olives, veggie crudites with Muhammara (from Celebrate Vegan) and store-bought dill dip (thanks, Mister), and Spanakopita (from The Accidental Vegan).  The main course was a Torfurky Roast which Mister has wanted since his first non-meat-eating Thanksgiving and I was thrilled to be able to give it to him.  Alongside the Tofurky was mashed potatoes, roasted broccoli, and my mom's becoming-famous salad, then dessert was Apple Pie with Vanilla "ice cream" by So Delicious.  Dad brought two delightful bottles of my favorite wines - Apothic Red and the 2009 vintage of Georges deBoeuf Beaujolais-Villages, as well as a four-pack of mini-champagnes "for after work."

Oh?  You wanted a picture parade?  Okay!

I began my preparations on Monday or Tuesday night, starting with the Muhammara dip since it would taste the best after sitting in the fridge for a few days.  I figured it was best to make it the same night we had Pasta with Shallots and Chard since my home already stank of an onion sibling (and since I already had the book out).  After simmering three chopped red peppers with a chopped onion and sliced garlic for an hour, I dry-toasted some walnuts,

And then placed everything in the blending machine...

and pureed it until it was mostly smooth and homogenously orange.

After it cooled a little, I scooped it into a "tupperware" and stuck it in the fridge, to be forgotten until Thursday.

Wednesday night, I intended to make the spanakopita because I've found that it sticks together better if it's made the night before it's eaten.  So I chopped up a shallot to substitute for the revolting onion in the recipe and sauteed the onion and spinach while the lentils cooked.

Added the brown lentils (I'm not actually sure why, either)

and then a big heap of crumbled feta tofu,

and stirred it all together.

This is where it gets fun.  By the time I started making this, I'd only worked one eight-hour day at work (the others went long in preparation for Black Friday) and after that 8-hour day (of being one half of the sales force, since one person got sent home with an eye infection) I had a 2.5 hour hair appointment (oh, how I missed you, Candi KaBoom!), so I really wasn't on my most... "with it" behavior.

I realized after all the work of assembling the spanakopita, including gluing sheets of phyllo together with olive oil while listening to the darkly angelic voice of Amy Lee through my earbuds, that I had missed one step of the two-step process required to preheat my ancient oven.  So, finding (at 2am) that my oven was still cold after it was "preheating" for 30 minutes, I covered the spanakopita with plastic, put it in the fridge and went to bed.

It came out just fine when I baked it the next morning.

Then came the piece de resistance.

Mister's long-awaited Tofurky Roast, complete with wild rice stuffing.

I put it in a little Corningware casserole dish and surrounded it with quartered potatoes and carrots, then poured half of the sage marinade over it and stuck that puppy in the oven.

It's not a real puppy, by the way.

appetizers - from the top: Muhammara, Dill dip, olives

more apps: Spanakopita, crudites

The Torfurky, all basted and roasted and ready to eat!

Sides: mashterpaters, roasted broccoli, and the canned
cranberry "sauce" Mister insisted we needed

I realized in a panic a few days before Thanksgiving (and a few days after I constructed the menu) that I had completely neglected to get/make gravy.  In an incredible (and incredibly fortunate) coincidence, my dear Mama Pea posted this recipe to save my butt.  It was good and easy to make in a pinch, but a little too thick to become a regular occurrence in our home, so next year we'll think ahead and find something a little more pourable.

Next year?

That's right!  It seems my parents enjoyed themselves enough to consider sharing the holidays - with any luck, that means I will always host Thanksgiving and they can have Christmas :)  In any case, thanks to my hard-working dishwasher and helpful husband, it didn't take all that long to clean up after dinner, allowing me to get to bed by nine(ish) since I had to be up at 3am to go to work.

In case you were wondering, Philadelphia is incredibly quiet and peaceful (and dark) at 5am.

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?

let's give 'em something to talk about (link party)

A friend of mine posted an article on facebook today about how useless a college education is, sparking a short but lively interaction between friends in the comment section.  The main point of the article is that institutions of higher education are outdated, obsolete.  They are expensive wastes-of-time and in the end, the bearer of a degree benefits little from that time and money spent.  I have my own mixed feelings toward this article.

On the one hand, I did go to college.  I even went to grad school and was 2/3 through my Masters degree before taking a leave of absence that turned into dropping out altogether.  I am still paying off my Bachelors degree but I haven't worked in "my field" since 2003.  I may still be paying off the degree I didn't get when I entered graduate education (can't differentiate that debt from leftover wedding debt with some travel/moving debt mixed in for good measure).  So, to sum it up, I am many thousands of dollars in debt for a degree and a half that I'm not using.

On the other hand, I think there is a great deal more learning that goes on in higher education than what is summarized on that nifty piece of paper you get when you wear a black robe under a hot May sun for a few hours.  Do I regret that I haven't worked in "my field" in over 8 years?  Somewhat.  Do I regret what I eventually got my degree in?  Sometimes, and more frequently lately.  Do I feel I would have gotten as far as I've gotten professionally without a degree?  No.  No, I do not.

Every time I've engaged in a job search over the last 10 years, any job I had any interest in pursuing was quite clear on the necessity of a college degree.  Some have been content with a 2-year degree, others have stated that a 4-year degree is "preferred."  Besides just having a degree to have a degree, I think I learned a lot more during my time in the classroom.

I learned how to think.
I learned how to ask questions.
I learned how to communicate to various levels of understanding.
I learned how to expand my vocabulary; I learned how to "dumb it down" for accessibility.
I learned how to juggle work, school, and social life.
I learned about a big world I didn't know existed - I was extraordinarily fortunate to go to two schools who placed a heavy emphasis on multi-culturalism and learning from "the other."
I learned how to play nice with people who weren't like me.
I learned how to reach deep inside myself and find something I held in common with "the other."
I learned how to see the world, or just my little city, through the eyes of someone completely unlike me.

I learned how to cooperate.  I learned how to love.  I learned.

So, regardless of my current profession being as far from "my field" as possible, I have always been and continue to be ineffably grateful for the 9 years I spent in institutions of higher learning.  I learned a lot from the books, but I learned a lot from the people and the experience as well.

My college and grad school were very focused on social justice, equality, and leaving the world a better place than it was when you entered.  The world around us is making it very difficult to carry out the last one, but I have no doubt that my classmates are continuing to strive toward that goal as much as I am.  By being part of that culture, surrounded by that ethos for nearly a decade of my life, my mind is irreversibly changed.  I was privileged, sheltered, and myopic as an adolescent.  Being a part of that new world helped to shape me into a pensive, globally-conscious, action-oriented adult.

My decision to give up meat had very little to do with the suffering of animals, but rather, it was focused on the degradation of our world - environmentally, nutritionally, and socially - which can be traced to the meat industry.  My husband became a vegetarian first and I thought he was crazy - life without meat, cheese, milk, etc, was absolutely foreign to me and I was not comfortable with it at all.  I asked him why he chose that route and his long, thoughtful answer appealed completely to the part of me that mourns for the exploitation rampant in poorer areas of the world, poorer areas of our own country, state, 25-mile radius.  It was the slow realization that I was contributing to the poverty and hunger of other human beings by indulging in luxuries like filet mignon on a pretty regular basis that led me to declare "Never again," as two-thirds of a perfectly good piece of meat slid off of my plate and into the waiting garbage can.

The USDA (in all their hallowed, pure-intentioned, unconflicted-interest glory) released the new My Plate, to replace the food pyramid as the new guide for how Americans should eat.  This has led to a number of editorials, blogs, and tweeted musings about the influences that shaped the Plate and whether it accomplished any good whatsoever.

Mama Pea stirred up quite a discussion with her post - I encourage you to read not only the post but also the comments.  Her readers are an insightful and generally well-educated bunch.  Someone who was interested in doing so could learn a whole lot of good information from these comments.  I know I did.

Nutrition and healthy eating are nearly constantly on my mind.  I work for one of the top three weight loss programs in the nation as one of the people who train incoming new hires as well as "uptraining" the present corps of employees on new policies, guidelines, or other relevant information.  This can be, on limited occasion, extremely rewarding.  Most of the time, it is heart-rendingly frustrating.  Because I have put so much time into understanding my own relationship with food and the way that it fuels my body and propels my life, I take for granted that other people also think of these things.  I am guilty of crawling back into my own little world and neglecting the evidence of the much larger world out there.  It is astonishing how little people know about food, nutrition, and how to not kill themselves.

A few times, I have thought it would be humorous to devote an entire post or two to some of the bizarre things my new hires or present employees say to me in trainings.  While these things are kind of funny in retrospect, as a "I can't wait to tell Mister about this one" kind of thing, they are horrifying when they actually occur because they remind me how much I take for granted in my own life.  Here are some highlights:

There was the employee who was truly surprised that chicken would not be included on our vegetarian program. [click here for the full story]

There was the hot dog vendor who was personally offended by my tofu pups.

There was the woman who explained that vegetarians have to eat a lot of food that's been enriched with protein to help them "fight the cravings."  I was too busy being horror-stricken to ask her what vegetarians were craving that they needed protein in large quantities to ward off.

That same employee, only minutes later also explained that vegetarians don't get enough nutrients, which is why "they all have that weird skin color."  Mister and I had a field day with this one.  That weird skin color?  We weren't sure whether she meant that healthy glow that comes from eating foods that are good for you or the absence of red-flushed cheeks/face that indicate hypertension.

Another new hire nearly laughed himself into a coma trying to figure out why we would even need a vegetarian weight loss program since "those people" don't eat anything.  On the one hand, I'm glad he was able to recognize that eating animals contributes to the obesity rampant in our nation.  On the other hand, I explained to him that there are a great many things that are vegetarian-safe but will make you fat: potato chips, cake, french fries (not from McDonalds), most candy; I finished by pointing out that Alec Baldwin is a vegetarian.  I didn't need to say the rest.

I don't share these stories to make fun of the "stars," rather, to show what I believe is a relatively common ignorance about healthy eating.  It's so much more convenient to eat whatever McDonald's tells you is healthy or pick the lowest calorie treat in Starbucks' pastry case than it is to think of balance.  Pizza and drive-thru burgers are so much easier than working all day and then cooking a meal from scratch.  I totally get that and there are times I feel the same way.

So, although I feel the USDA is hopelessly corrupt and has been bought out by Big Meat/Dairy, I do think the Plate is a babystep in the right direction - at least it shows that half the plate should be taken up by fresh whole foods like fruit and vegetables.  Even though protein represented by meat and dairy are considered an essential part of your daily meals, at least the protein portion is smaller than the rest.  People don't know enough, generally, about nutrition or the corruption of those who feed us (so to speak) to make an educated decision, so if this will give them a little tap in the right direction (portion control, anyone?), I'm all for it.  Paradigms are not shifted overnight and the veg movement is definitely gaining ground.  We'll get there.

In the meantime, may I suggest two in-depth articles for your reading pleasure?

On the Huffington Post, Nil Zacharias explores The Inconvenience of Being Vegan.  He provides a lot of really good information in a completely accessible and readable format.  He incorporates humor but knows when to turn more serious to make his point.  He also includes a ton of links so interested readers can get more information.

At ZenHabits, the writer explores the myth that soy is bad for you in some way.  I was fortunate to find this post immediately after one of my new hires expressed concerns his son had raised to him about soy, resulting in the young man's refusal to eat anything with soy.  When I say "anything," I mean this young man is reading labels as closely as a vegan looking for casein.  This is a well-written and comprehensive answer to him buying into the anti-soy propaganda circulated, not surprisingly, by Big Meat and Big Dairy....

I meant to tell you how much I enjoyed the Rice Island Casserole from Vegan on the Cheap tonight, but I think too much.

a tribute to a supermom

I'm getting old.  I don't mean that the way I usually do, when I'm looking at my gray hair in a mirror and having an existential crisis about wasting my life.  My body is getting old.  Unlike birthdays and gray hairs, people don't feel the need to tiptoe around that one - with each day that passes, each holiday we celebrate, each wedding we attend, each baby that is born, there is someone there to remind me that if we want a baby, we need to get on it because my body has only a few more "safe" fertile years left in it.

Nice, huh?

As I approach my mid-thirties, with only a soon-to-be 11-year-old cat to call my baby, I am reminded of all the things Mister and I have said over the years, regarding procreation and why we really have no interest in it.  For most of our time together, Mister has traveled extensively for work.  Babies would interfere with that in multiple ways - I didn't want to explain why Daddy was away so much and I didn't want to resent my offspring for preventing me from going with him.  That is a tangible example of the underlying theme of Mister's and my decision to remain childless - we are just too selfish.  Neither of us has come to a point in our lives where we can see children fitting in - rather, for us and our lives, children would be an interference of sorts.

Before you decide I am the worst human being ever and take my uterus away, hear me out.  I have a very high opinion of mothers, which is the primary reason I am not one.  I think mothers (generally) are the most selfless, loving, patient, amazing humans on the planet.  From the moment of conception, a mother gives and continues giving until she finally takes her last breath.  A mother cares about your hurt no matter how mean you were to her in the midst of it.  A mother works solely so her children can have what they want, since their needs are more than met; or, a mother stops working so her children can benefit from her attention and love as they grow.  A mother is always thinking of what is best for her children (okay, maybe not always, but it sure seems like it sometimes) and doing whatever it takes to show her love to them.

I admire those qualities.  I think if I needed to, I could cultivate them because I can feel them lying dormant inside me.  I just have no desire right now to be that person.

Believe it or not, although I do love my mother with all my heart, she was not the inspiration for all that mushy.  Believe it or not, that was all to build up to this ridiculous idea I had: to cook a whole night of recipes from Mama Pea.  I admire the way she raises her children and if you read her blog for just one week, you will be as hopelessly hooked as I am.  Lucky for you, she just revamped her recipeas page so all of her awesome is easier to find.  You want easier?  She has a book coming out soon - you can (and should) pre-order it on Amazon.

Anyway, for my first trick (AKA Dinner), I made her Meatless Meatloaf.  This was actually on last week's menu, but I chickened out last week.  I made it tonight by sheer force of will and at this point, morbid curiosity.  Now, I'm kicking myself for ever having doubted Mama Pea - I've been reading her blog long enough to know better.

It's really not very attractive...but then again, neither is "real" meatloaf.  What matters is the extraordinary taste.  No offense, Mom (I love you!), but this loaf of mystery meat was far more flavorful than the gray loaf of ground beef we ate in my childhood.  Of course, I'm inclined to think chickpeas taste better than cows, but I know my mother and I differ there.

To go along with the theme, I sauteed some Yukon Gold potatoes in a mixture of olive oil, vegetable broth, garlic, and Mediterranean seasoning from California.  They were good, but were far overshadowed, flavor-wise, by the 'meatloaf.'

Turns out, though, that together, they complemented each other - the intense flavors of the loaf enhancing the potatoes while they calmed the seasonings in the loaf.  I think Mister might have preferred that both components of dinner not be smushy, but he seemed to like it nonetheless and thanked me for making "funny dinner."

For my next trick, I decided to make this amazing recipe for Apple Spice Coffee Cake that Mama Pea just posted over the weekend.

It looked amazing going into the oven, although I made a huge mess of everything putting it together!  There are a lot of ingredients, possibly more than I had bargained for, so it took me quite a bit longer than I had anticipated.  If I realized how inefficient I was in my kitchen (after all, I am still getting used to it), I would have started at least a half hour earlier than I did.

Nevertheless, it was fun putting it all together - I rarely make things that have a crumb/streusel topping because it's such a pain in the you-know-what.  My "small" bowl was way too small, so I had to upgrade before smushing in the Earth Balance, and my fork was frustrating me - I had run out of patience at this point, so I just rubbed it all together with my fingers.  This is not the best idea when you have long fingernails.  So, after I had coaxed the last bits of topping from under my rings and fingernails into the sink, I finally got this sucker in the oven.

One of the reasons I love making spice cakes or cookies is because they start smelling good when you are mixing everything together and the aroma only gets better throughout the assembling and cooking process.  Most of the time, by the time I get to remove my treasure from the oven, I'm almost literally drooling.  There's also something about the scent that fills my kitchen while baking these delights that is just so patently "homey."

To borrow a phrase... oh. my. peas!

My pictures aren't as pretty as Mama Pea's, but I haven't taken any seminars on how to do anything more than point-and-shoot, and my camera is adequate, but nothing "special."  Regardless, I certainly hope my cake tastes as good as Mama Pea's because I can't imagine it getting much better!

The pain-in-the-butt streusel topping was absolutely worth every sliver of Earth Balance that got stuck beneath my nails, trapping with it some cinnamon and brown sugar and maybe a piece of oat for added comfort.  What was the most amazing thing, though, was the way the two textures came together.  The top was undeniably crunchy, almost crisp, but the cake itself was light and pillow-soft.

Speaking of pillows....

I'm really bad at going to sleep by a reasonable hour.

Good night, folks!

sleep is for the week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what's your money's worth?

Ever since I was introduced to the term in high school economics class, I have been fond of measuring things in terms of opportunity cost.  Although I will admit it doesn't always make sense or apply to a situation, it does make other decisions easier.

For example - right before we went to Arizona, my car just plumb stopped working.  It didn't run at all and had to be towed to be fixed - that fix took two weeks, an engine, a rental car, and a few thousand dollars.  When Mister and I were trying to decide whether it was worthwhile to invest that much money into an 8-year-old car with over 150,000 miles on it, we finally decided to fix it because we knew what kind of 'used car' we were 'buying,' as opposed to starting from scratch and paying far more than we would to fix a car that hasn't given me any trouble until that very moment.

That same thinking is what has kept us stifled and cramped in our teeny, tiny, frequently malfunctioning apartment for over five years.  We both think it's just plain stupid (for us; everyone else can make their own decisions) to pay the same amount or more in rent than we would pay on a mortgage for a house.  Unfortunately, spacious apartments in this part of town are hard to find for under a thousand bucks.

In any case, when the bathtub is clogged and the kitchen light blew out for at least the fifth time in 2010 (no joke), I take solace in things like this: How do you know when you've gotten your "money's worth" from something?  Feel free to comment with the answer to that :)

While I was definitely having an "I hate my apartment" moment after the light blew, I was able to find happiness in the small blessing of a beautiful dining table.  Mind you, the table itself is nothing breath-taking to behold in all its IKEA glory...

But it is functional, space-saving (both sides can fold down, leaving only a 10-inch "obstruction"), and most important, it moved our dinner eating to a more civilized adult setting.  For the first couple of years, Mister and I ate dinner on the couch, using the coffee table (which was usually covered with any variety of magazines, school work, books, and or mail) to hold our drinks while we balanced out plates on our laps.  There is always a small part of me that gets great joy every time I set out a beautiful tableau on our little table:

Dinner was just so pretty tonight and it made Mister and I happy to have such a nice table to sit at.  Back to the money thing - this is not an expensive table and it does not look like one.  Sometimes I think I will want to replace it with something prettier/more regal when we move and sometimes I think I will just buy/make a couple of tablecloths instead.  In any case, though I would feel wasteful just getting rid of something perfectly functional just to have something prettier, my little table has served well through over a thousand dinners and months of poring through magazines planning my wedding, as well as providing a sturdy surface for the addressing of invitations (DIY, baby). 

You may notice in the picture above that there is not only a beautiful pair of dinners and a charming fruit bowl, but also a black and white photo of Mister and I.  It was a gift from my sister and I love it, so I brought it home from work (we're moving from one building to a new one this week, so it seemed like a good time) and it's keeping my pretty roses company (until Angst eats them).

We had our two salad dinners the last two days.  Last night we had Soba Noodle Salad with Ginger Peanut Dressing from the Sept. 2009 issue of VT magazine.  For a pretty picture, click the link - the one I put on the table last night was not even remotely photogenic so I didn't even bother.  It was very good and provided us with excellent garlic breath for hours (I do consider that a happy thing - no, I'm not kidding).  The dressing had a bit of bite, which was probably the raw garlic, although I think the quarter-cup of rice vinegar might have helped.  It's not pretty at all, but I would definitely recommend it, although I would use all 8oz of the soba noodles in the pack to disperse the dressing a little more - it was bordering on too intense.

Tonight, on the other hand, we had Rice Salad Primavera from the July 2009 issue of VT magazine.

The picture might have been prettier if both bulbs in the overhead light in the kitchen were on, but alas... let's not go back there.  The flavors in this salad were much subtler than last night's adventure.  For fun, I served the salad on top of... salad.  I figured some mixed greens would add color and crunch (since cucumber and raw pepper aren't crunchy) and I was just in the mood for a good fruit salad - Superfresh did not disappoint!  That store has so much potential...

Anyway, off to plot my new menu with a little help from Yellow Tail and Symphony X!

One last thing before I go - Mama Pea is hosting a cookbook giveaway - see her blog for details!

forget the rainbow - I'm eating the jewelry box

I think I enjoy looking at food as much as I like eating it. A well constructed salad or a nicely plated entree are just beautiful to behold, especially when you make a habit of "eating the rainbow."

On Sunday night, I made Colleen's Mother-In-Law's Crowd-Pleasing Pasta with Tomatoes and Artichokes. I actually expected it to make more than it did, based on the volume of the Pasta Jambalaya, but I think Colleen and her MIL have a better grasp of appropriate portions than Nava and her teenage boys.
It's kind of like a milder Pasta Puttanesca. There's nothing really remarkable about this dish, but I can see how it would please a crowd - it has a nice flavor and the artichokes lend a sweetness that balances the saltiness of the kalamata olives.

Last night, I made Roasted Asparagus Soup with Thyme, accompanied by the outstanding and positively glorious Fruited Spinach Salad.
The soup looks absolutely revolting - I'll give you that. Fortunately, you can only see about a third of the bowl. Even though the recipe called for four pounds of asparagus, and even though asparagus is in season now, making it much more affordable, I ended up getting only 3 lbs because I couldn't really deal with the idea of spending $10 on asparagus alone. Maybe I'm just being neurotic or pinching my pennies dry, but when you're talking about 10% of my weekly food budget on just one vegetable...

Anyway, ignore how it looks - it tastes so good! Fast forward to tonight - for the first time in recorded history, my husband chose to reheat the leftover soup rather than the leftover pasta for dinner. So, you know it had to be good. Personally, and I do believe I was somewhat alone in this, I was just as excited about the salad - it looks like jewels!
Although the "recipe" called for macadamia nuts, I found them to be even more cost-prohibitive than 4 lbs of asparagus, so I used hazelnuts and they were just fine. The gorgeous and surprisingly tasty dressing was a simple raspberry vinaigrette. It was just supposed to be 1 cup of raspberries blended with 1/2 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar, but since I didn't have seasoned rice vinegar, I used a mixture of 75% mirin and 25% rice vinegar. It was perfect.

I was planning to just heat up the leftover pasta and make salads for dinner tonight or convince Mister to go out somewhere with his brother and future sister-in-law, but Mister wasn't hungry or social, so I just made myself a mega-salad, spread some hummus on a slice of bread, and poured my last glass of Yellow Tail Riesling.
Ignore Mister's bike lock. Apparently, there wasn't a better place for him to put it than on the dining table. My mega-salad had mixed greens [hiding underneath] cucumbers, red bell pepper, sliced carrots, quartered kalamatas, and mandarin sections. I was going to sprinkle it with nuts and add a few cubes of smoked tofu, but I think I ran out of space, so I just wrote those ingredients into my new menu. Best segue ever?

1. Tuscan Vegetable Ragout accompanied by roasted asparagus. It's been ages since I've made this and it's always so good without being too innard-warming, so I figured it was a good Springtime dish. I added smoked tofu the last time I made it and plan to do so again.

2. Black-Bottom Pineapple Tofu with Cashew Coconut Rice - The innermost desire to eat this again actually fueled my choice of cookbooks to browse, so the only reason it isn't the first meal to appear on this list was because I got distracted and misdirected by the Tuscan Ragout. It will probably end up being Hazelnut Coconut Rice, though, because I'm really good at letting nuts go rancid (I just found a bag of sunflower seeds that "expired" in July 2009) and I'm trying to break myself of that habit.

3. Spicy Stirfry with Clementines, Asparagus, and Tofu - I'll probably just use the other jar of mandarin oranges I got when there was 2-for-1 sale at Superfresh, rather than peeling and sectioning the Clementines. Also, I am unaware of anywhere that you can buy only 3 and I don't want a whole bag this late in citrus season.

4. Warm Chickpea Ragout with Swiss Chard, Carrots, and Harissa - I don't know if harissa can go bad, but I want to use up as much as I can before I find out the hard way that I tracked this stuff all over the southeastern corner of Philadelphia just to waste my money. As an added bonus, it tastes good!

5. Two-Broccoli Stirfry on Soba Noodles - I was reading through a couple of older posts and seeing this made me say "that was pretty good - I hope this week we break the two-week pattern of all the 'fresh' broccoli at WF rotting in its bin." If it's still not broccoli season, though, I have no issue using frozen broccoli - the WF Organic store brand is really good!

6. Penne with Broccoli and Creamy Tomato Sauce - I know I'm pushing my luck here with the broccoli situation, I just remembered how tasty this is and how it's even easier than it is tasty! Win-win, if you ask me, so let's just hope the broccoli is done being gross.

All six of this week's meals are taken from my ol' faithful Vegetarian Times Fast & Easy. It's a little tofu-heavy, but I managed to get two pasta dishes in there (even if one is soba) so Mister will be okay. I think he is warming to tofu more as I find more ways to make it palatable, both in taste and texture.

On a final note, click here for a thoroughly insightful and inspirational post from Mama Pea. It'll take only a few of your precious minutes to read and you'll be a better person. Besides, you've already wasted many precious minutes reading my babbling - you may as well redeem yourself.

St. Patty's Potato Puddin'

I decided to celebrate St Patrick's day today, since yesterday was too crowded :)

Last night, I celebrated by doing about 45 minutes' worth of fruitless shoe shopping, since Spring is upon us and it's time to let my toes out of their pointy prison. After I battled with unskilled drivers and drunk pedestrians, I did actually get parking pretty easily, so I celebrated by having myself a proper Irish dinner: leftover Seitan Curry Bowl. I did let Smirnoff and Martini & Rossi keep me company, though, as I plotted out the new menu:

1. Sweet & Sour Tofu accompanied by Dark Leafy Greens with Sesame Miso Dressing from The Vegan Table. It's actually supposed to be tempeh, but we've had such a good run of Mister not having to use our health insurance, I figured I'd see how long we could ride that wave and I thought the tempeh might interfere with my plans.

2. Roasted Asparagus Soup with Thyme accompanied by Fruited Spinach Salad also from The Vegan Table. I'm really pushing it with soup on a menu for the most temperate and beautiful week yet in 2010, but it's supposed to get rainy and dismal in a few days, so I'm kind of counting on that. I had some reservations, because the soup is primarily a puree, dotted with roasted asparagus tips, but I think I can work something out. Perhaps Mister will be more forgiving since I'm using his favorite vegetable.

3. Crowd-Pleasing Pasta with Tomatoes and Artichokes also from The Vegan Table. I felt like I was neglecting this book, can you tell?

4. Pasta Jambalaya from Vegan Express, because we can't let that book collect dust!

5. Seitan & Polenta Skillet with Fresh Greens accompanied by these mashed potatoes.

I actually ended up making that tonight, because I thought it followed with the whole steak (seitan) and potatoes theme of Everyone-is-Irish-week. I've made the Seitan & Polenta Skillet before, though I am convinced it gets tastier every time. While I was simmering dinner, I was also following Mama Pea's recipe for strange mashed potatoes she ate on her recent Hawaiian vacation. I had only one variation - I used Yukon Gold potatoes, not sweet potatoes, because I would like to see my next wedding anniversary. I'm not sure if that's the difference, or if I'm just not adept at making mashed potatoes in a food processor, but I ended up making potato pudding. It was interesting...I think the subtle flavors of the nutritional yeast and magical secret ingredient hummus will intensify as it sits in the fridge a day or two, but the texture was bizarre. I will attempt this again because it sounds like it should work, but I will mash the potatoes by hand with my nifty masher and I will use twice as much hummus and nooch. I'll let you know how it turns out!