nothing ventured, nothing gained

So, I've been thinking of baking on and off for a couple of months.  Obviously, the best time to do so is during the first May heat wave in years.  Let's back-track, though.

A few times recently the Baking Bug bit me, only for me to open my cupboard and discover (repeatedly, since I don't learn the first time) that I have less than one cup of flour.  Not too many things you can make with that little flour.  A few times recently, Mister's been up to his old tricks, wandering into the kitchen, wanting "something," only to be thwarted by the fact that neither of us has replenished the flour, so again - no baking.

This past weekend I was around cakes almost every waking hour.  I watched batter being made in large quantities and enough frosting (they call it "icing" in the South) to fill a plastic storage bin other people would use for their winter clothing or to corral cleaning supplies.  I was surrounded by the heavenly scent of cakes baking - chocolate, almond pound, vanilla - and watched as they were prepped for icing and then decorated efficiently and skillfully.  I was even lucky enough to have some batter slung at me while I was eating my breakfast, as a sister-in-law reacted in time to save a full cakepan from overturning but too quickly to put down the spatula first.

Needless to say, after a weekend like that, all I wanted to do last night, my first night home, was bake cupcakes and even decorate them.  It's rare that I bother with icing my cupcakes, as I explained over the weekend, because you have to be patient enough to let them cool and I just want to eat them while they're still warm.  Nevertheless, when I started daydreaming about what I would make and how I would decorate, I was rudely awoken to the continued Lack Of Flour in my cupboard.

~*~*~*~*~

Over the weekend, we moved the retail and service portion of our flagship store (which is currently our corporate headquarters) into a new location, just two doors down.  Despite the move being so close we didn't even need movers' assistance, and despite a bunch of hardworking individuals pulling a 14-hour day while I was sitting in Georgia sniffing cake batter, things are still a little crazy as everyone gets settled.  A little (okay, a decent bit) of that chaos is leaking back into the "old" building, where me and other administrative folks are still in residence.  By the end of today, one of my colleagues was clearly in need of some TLC and good, old-fashioned, female-tilted relaxation.  

I hatched a plan on my walk home: moist dark chocolate cupcakes, topped with something decadent.  Maybe I would get a decorator tip and food coloring and make a red rose topping (a wee bit ambitious for someone who has never actually decorated a cupcake outside of smearing an improvised "cream cheese" icing on top and carefully placing chocolate chips to look randomly sprinkled on).  No.... I try to stay away from artificial ingredients, so why would I use food dye?  Ah!  Strawberries!  Yes, I would puree fresh strawberries and then make a pink "buttercream" to frost the tops of these decadent chocolate cupcakes.  Hmmm.... suddenly, the light flavor of a strawberry creme topping seemed better suited to vanilla cupcakes, which I had no interest in making.  Then I remembered a comical conversation about Tequila-tinged cupcakes and rethought the strawberry theme - I'll stop at the liquor store, pick up some Pinnacle Whipped and macerate some berries in it, then plop them on top of a chocolate frosting!  But then there's the issue of transportation... thinkthinkthink... I've got it! 

~*~*~*~*~

As I sit here, telling ridiculous stories and dragging this post out as long as possible to make up for all the words I haven't been sharing, I am breathing in the thick, delicious aroma of newly baked chocolate cupcakes.  I used Dynise's recipe for Funeral Cake in her new book Celebrate Vegan.  I actually tested this recipe for the book, so I knew its intense flavor was exactly what my colleague (and I!) need to make it to Friday.  It is taking every ounce of my imaginary self-control to stay away from the cooling cuppers (though I think the large amount of batter I scraped from the sides of my mixing bowl and ate while they baked helped...)

I know, I can feel your sarcasm seeping through the computer as you think "Wow, Natalie, you made chocolate cupcakes?  Good freakin' job."  No, no, friends - it gets far better.

When I stopped to get flour on my way home (and strawberries, just in case I changed my mind), I also picked up a bottle of sweet red wine.  Again, nothing much new here, so let's skip right to the Big Innovative Moment this has all been leading up to:

If I actually let the cupcakes cool without eating them, I'm going to whip up a glaze using that wine.  The cupcakes alone are enough to give you a foodgasm, (have I mentioned you need to get the book??) but if the icing comes out even half as well in real life as it does in my brain, the complementary flavors will kick these sweets up a notch and a half.  Current plan is to do a cup of confectioners' sugar with 2 Tbsp of the wine, then more or less paint the glaze on or possible dip the nicely domed tops of the cupcakes to allow a little Hershey Kiss-shaped action on top.

No pictures tonight, sweetpeas, nor confirmed recipes - I promise I will return tomorrow with pictures, recipes, and reactions, but for now it's time to get to sleep so I can get up early and ice my cupcakes!

celebrate tweakin'

When I first started cooking from cookbooks, I was strict to the letter.  As time went by, I found I had to tweak things a little, either because they contained onions (which make my breath sad) or eggplant or mushrooms (which make Mister sad).  The more I cooked, the more comfortable I became with tweaking, so that now I can even mix together two recipes the way an artist my blend a few paints on her pallet (though I'm usually surprised when they come out this well)...

Last night's dinner was Easy Manicotti Alla Romana from The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  In case you were wondering, there is actually a way to further simplify a recipe with "easy" in the title.  Ironically, but maybe not unexpectedly, the shortcut came from another recipe for Cheese Manicotti on the back of the pasta box.

Just as I was gearing up to be annoyed by the extra step (and extra time) of having to boil the manicottis first, then stuff them with the awesome filling (verrrrry carefully so they don't break apart) before covering them with marinara sauce and baking them for 45 minutes, I saw my little miracle: according to the manicotti box, I could stuff the nice, dry, rigid pasta with the stuffing without boiling it first, and all I had to do to ensure they were not still rock hard when they came out of the oven was add a cup of water to the marinara sauce!

It's so exciting when that nonsense is true.  The spinach and "cheese" filling was also quite flavorful and good.  The cookbook almost had it right without my help, but they wrote for me to add a 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese to the tofu "ricotta" so I substituted the same amount of nooch.  The final tweak involved spinach.  For reasons I will probably never know, the author of the recipe felt like it needed a ratio of 48oz of frozen spinach to 10oz of tofu.  Mister's eyes almost popped out of his head when I shared that and he was quick to agree with me that two 10oz blocks of spinach were far more fitting to the 14oz block of tofu.

Yesterday afternoon, I spent a lot of time flipping through pages and furrowing my brow and then thinking I had everything figured out until I consulted with Mister and found that I was doing it wrong.  Well, maybe not all of "it" but certainly some of it.  I figure that there will probably be plenty of people grabbing last minute Thanksgiving things on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and I don't want to be one of them, so I wanted to plot out my Thanksgiving menu along with the regular week's menu and shop for the whole lot over the weekend.  Now seems an opportune time to share the "normal" part of the upcoming menu, since dinner came from it...

1. Cottage Pie because I still haven't made the seitan and at this point, I may just buy it.

2. Farfalle with Shallots and Chard from Celebrate Vegan, because I have been waiting to remake this for nearly a year and now I have my new cookbook.  By the way, the rest of this week's abbreviated menu comes from Celebrate Vegan so I'm not going to bother writing it again.

3. Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil because this is also a super recipe that makes Mister happy.

4. Jambalaya, because I need another jambalaya recipe like I need another beans-n-rice recipe or another pasta e fagioli recipe, but the ingredients were just so intriguing and this was a recipe I did not have the opportunity to test.

Why not, you ask?

When Dynise communicated her desires and expectations to the whole group of us testers, she requested that we make the recipe exactly as written and then make it a second time if we felt the need to tweak it.  I completely respect that, since she won't know how a recipe she wrote came out for someone else if they don't use the recipe she wrote, ya know?

As a result, I did a lot more cooking with onions than I was used to, or comfortable with, but in the course of doing so, found that it's not always a terrible thing.  In fact, being "forced" to follow her recipes without what had become a natural inclination to tweaking was delightfully education and helped me to expand my repertoire further because I used ingredients I would never choose on my own.

Nevertheless, there were many recipes I could not test because they contained an ingredient to which Mister was allergic or had an aversion.  Now that I have the cookbook in its completed form, I can find substitutes for tempeh and mushrooms so Mister doesn't end up in the emergency room or wake me from a sound sleep with his moaning and wincing.  I can sleep through a police raid outside our window but I can't sleep through the aftermath of feeding Mister tempeh.

Fortunately, my tweak-creative mind was able to find an adequate substitute for the tempeh bacon I was supposed to use in Dynise's delightful Jambalaya in the form of Hickory-Smoked Tofurky deli slices.  I just unwrapped the whole stack and "diced" the slices - it was possibly even easier than if I had used tempeh bacon with the added benefit that tonight won't be the night I'm widowed.

hurts so good/Mister saves the day

I truly don't know how these things happen.  I thought I was finally finished my food shopping when I walked out of Trader Joe's this evening, only to get home and start making Granada Paella from The Urban Vegan and discover that I was short a red bell pepper.  I don't know how many times Mister has gone out after I started making dinner to get something I was missing (tortilla chips, refried beans, spinach, to name a few) but we can add Red Bell Pepper to the list.

He came back with a brown paper bag and my spidey-sense* told me the red pepper was not alone.  Indeed, after Mister pulled out the pepper, he smiled and reached back into the bag and gave me chocolate, "because you ran out."  What a sweetheart! because I did eat my last mini-chocolate bar from the halloween candy last night.  I thought it was sweet that he wanted to be as vigilant about my dark chocolate supply as I am about his bread supply.
*spidey-sense: the magical ability of wives to know beyond any shadow of doubt that their husbands will return home with at least 1 item more than they were sent out to get.  I inherited mine from my mother and that's why my dad isn't allowed to go to Pepperidge Farm unchaperoned.

Anyway, I recognized that Mister was probably about to be even more helpful as I was cooking dinner.

I love this recipe - truly I do - but I keep forgetting how now that I make it correctly, it burns my face off.  This is normally how dinner goes when I make this:
Bite 1: mmmm....tasty, but hey, that's a little spicy!
Bite 2: umm.....
Bite 3: chokecough
water break
get a few more bites in: face starts to feel a little hot around the ears, eyes, and nose
water break
few more bites: nose starts running
wipe nose
water break
few more bites: now my tongue and lips are burning at a steady rate, almost ignorable
few more bites: can't quite feel my tongue
Time for 2nds! (can't help it - it tastes so good it's worth the pain)
grand finale: my nose is red, my ears are red, my nose is sniffly, my lips are burning and my tongue is nearly numb... and my husband, who by now has plowed through three bowls without blinking or taking more than two sips of water, is laughing at me.

As I've learned previously, the best way to treat these "symptoms" is with dark chocolate.

Thank you, Mister

Although Angst initially showed some interest in dinner, it didn't take long for him to decide he wasn't terribly interested in whatever was making his Lady disintegrate, so he found something else to be far more interesting than our dinner time talk about dubstep. [By the way - if you want to see something incredible, click here and prepare to hold your breath for about 6 minutes.]

Inside that large Williams-Sonoma bag live some other, smaller paper bags.  Just before we sat down, Mister added the little brown sack from Essene to that bag, but Angst really wanted it.  This is the last in a series of pictures of him climbing into the larger bag to snuffle at and try to retrieve "his" bag.

my bag.  mine.

perfect timing!

I never realize how many e-magazines and other lifestyle websites have my email address until this time of year.  This past week, I've been bombarded with emails from Real Simple, Martha Stewart, and probably some others, on how to have a healthy, happy, full-of-variety, outside-the-box-but-still-traditional, cholesterol-free, chocolatey Thanksgiving.

I do actually intend to pick through each and every email, especially since I get to host Thanksgiving this year!  This is mega-exciting for me.  One of the biggest reasons Mister and I moved from our old closet to a slightly larger one (think "dressing room," folks) is because I love to entertain but had no space to do it in our old apartment.  I am so excited about Thanksgiving, I've even managed to block out the anticipated trauma of Black Friday (the first time it's mattered in 17 years).  I will be wandering off shortly to sift through emails and websites and.....

My new cookbook which arrived just today!  Woo hoo!  This is probably one of the best Mondays ever: my make-up came out great and garnered several compliments from customers, my dad came to visit and we made plans to have Thanksgiving at my home this year, I sold more than anyone else in the store (closest person "behind" me was over $2000 behind), and I came home to Celebrate Vegan, the long-awaited second cookbook from Philly's own Urban Vegan, Dynise Balcavage.

I'm sure you can imagine the sole source of next week's menu.

I will be posting a review of this book, just in case I haven't already enticed you into purchasing your own copy.  Hey - Black Friday Christmas is coming!  Time to make those lists!

Ironically, I made my favorite recipe for Sloppy Joes last night, and I remember thinking, "Gee, I hope I get my new cookbook soon...I love these sloppy joes, but I could just drool thinking of those new recipes [that I haven't beaten to death and will do again tomorrow night]."

In fact, tonight's dinner was Farfalle Rotini with Cabbage and White Beans from Vegan on the Cheap and when I saw that I had the new Celebrate Vegan and a pile of shallots, I almost abandoned dinner to remake this sure-to-be-classic/heavily-rotated recipe.  I was too busy daydreaming to take pictures of tonight's dinner, but let me assure you, the most interesting part was Angst wishing he could overturn one of our dishes and steal all the "slimy," wilted cabbage.

It's a good thing I have so many more tasty things left on this week's menu, because I'm already looking forward to plotting next week's (and Thanksgiving! so off I go).  Sweet dreams are made of this!

birthday coffee and shameless plugging

I will beg your pardon ahead of time - this post may bounce all over the place.

Yesterday was my dad's birthday which is absolutely no excuse for not posting since we didn't do anything but talk on the phone, but all I did for dinner was send Mister out for more tortilla chips while I reheated the leftover chili, so I didn't consider that very post-worthy.  Something post-worthy could have come out of the conversation I had with my dad while I walked home from work, but I couldn't think of anything clever to say about his boat being shrink-wrapped for the winter (but doesn't it evoke a fabulous mental image of men on ladders with hair-dryers?).  Here's something I love about my dad, though - me calling to wish him a happy birthday turned into him asking whether I prefer my coffee beans whole or pre-ground... just in case he returns to the Realm of Dark Chocolate Ecstasy Coffee this weekend...

Tonight, I made an old favorite recipe that I haven't made in years for no good reason except my own lack of imagination: Penne with Spinach and Chickpeas in Garlic Sauce from Quick Vegetarian Pleasures.

Angst absolutely loved all the little Hummus Balls (chickpeas) Mister was sharing with him.  First he licked off all the salty, garlicky sauce, then he ate up his Hummus Balls with great gusto!  And to think, possibly the only reason I haven't made this in recent years is because it didn't occur to me to just leave off the Parmesan - shame on me!

Okay, I'm sure a little of my negligence was due to the cookbook-buying spree I went on when I discovered how many amazing vegan cookbooks there are out there, thanks to the blogiverse.  Speaking of amazing vegan cookbooks....

Yanked from Amazon.com

Best segue I could come up with accidentally to remind everyone that Celebrate Vegan by local Philly Urban Vegan, Dynise Balcavage is now available through Amazon.com and you should order it.  This is the cookbook I had the incredible privilege of testing recipes for over the winter last year and I know I can't wait to get my hands on it!

For your reading pleasure, and with the hopes of enticing you to get this cookbook with express shipping, here are some links to my wintertime testing:

1. Farfalle with Shallots and Chard - I cannot wait to make this again!
2. Gussied-up Tabbouleh and Smoky Zucchini Bean Dip - the best tabbouleh I've ever had.
3. Pasta with Red Peppers and Basil - because "a big pot of pasta is a happy thing" according to Mister.
4. Lemon-Champagne-Braised Baby Bok Choy and Pan-Seared Tofu with Balsamic Glaze - I kind of want to start stockpiling the baby bok choy now... I already have a little bottle of champagne in the fridge.
5. Funeral Cake - BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE EVER and just in time for some Addams Family Halloween Fun!
6. Mega-Israeli Salad - the only thing better than the crunch is the bite of the garlic.

You can also click on the "testing" label at the bottom of any of those posts to see more adventures, but seriously - you need this cookbook.  Celebrate Vegan by Dynise Balcavage - go get it!

huge apples and lentil hummus

Everyone around me has been raving on and on about these apples.  What apples?  Honeycrisp Apples.  Everyone seems to have something to say about how amazing they are and how in season.  I must confess - that is one of the myriad reasons I love fall.  Not honeycrisp apples, per se, but the pure bounty of varieties I've never seen before that crowd my grocery bins and await Mister and I should we actually make our way to Linvilla one of these days.  At the moment, I have a bag full of a new surprise favorite, Gingergold apples, in the fridge.  I discovered these little beauties at Essene and then found a whole bin of them for a lower price at Whole Foods.  I expected them to be a little spicier, but they are "just right," to steal a phrase.  However, right next to the bin of yellow apples was a display of apples the size of a baby's head.  Honeycrisps, of course.

I mean, seriously - I have abnormally large hands for a woman, to give you an example of that apple's size.  If anyone plays the piano, you might be further intrigued to know that I can reach a 10th with those hands.  Yet, I could barely capture the entire honeycrisp with it.  Wonder how much apple that is when you cut it up for breakfast?

Enough to be piled upon a dinner plate.  Best breakfast ever.  Well, except for all the other times I've said that - I just really like breakfast.  There's no shame in that.

Last night I was sick by the time I finished work - my throat was so swollen and hurty that I could barely swallow.  I was dizzy and my eyes were crossing from being exhausted.  By the time I took off my shoes and visited the loo, my cheeks were bright red with fever and my skin hurt.  By 9pm, Mister had tucked me in for a long Autumn nap which lasted until my alarm yelled at me at 7am this morning.

I still felt kind of awful, but my mega-dosing on vitamin C and other things that are good for me (had a Naked smoothie on my way home from work) and 10 hours of sleep seemed to at least fend off disaster for the moment, so I showered, dressed, took two aspirin and went to work.  Fortunately for me, my attendance was requested with a new trainee starting today - I'm beginning the structuring of future trainings, so I get to participate in training opportunities between now and when we start implementing.  It was much easier to get through today sitting most of the time.

As luck would have it, the boss took me and the new hire to lunch at Pure Fare and it was utterly delightful.  Normally, I get one of their outstanding salads.  I had kind of gotten it into my mind last time, though, that I want to try one of the sandwiches.  Today was that day and I happily chowed down on the Lentil Hummus sandwich on multigrain bread.  The bread was very good, though a little too soft/flimsy to support the weight of all the awesome things inside:  green hummus (I can't even imagine how they made it), halved cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, fennel, and broccoli raab.  Delicious!

That got me through the rest of the day and when I came home, I still had some energy for making dinner!  I made Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan with one small twist.  I thought I had more TVP than I did, so I ended up adding about 1/3 cup of red lentils to make up the difference, which resulted in me also needing to add some vegetable broth to be absorbed by the lentils, and having to cook it a little longer.  That was fine, since I also wanted to serve "something green" with dinner, especially since I'm not feeling 100%.

It was tasty and I love how the broccoli is eager to soak up the herbs and spices as well as the broth when I steamed it with just a little.  It's amazing how easy it is to make a tasty veggie side dish - it really required almost no thought and slightly less effort (granted, the broccoli was pre-cut).  I had one sandwich and thought about having another - they really weren't that big.  However, I reflected on the vague nausea I've been carrying with me since this morning and decided against that.  Considering my belly is still a little sad, I think that was the right decision.

Well, kids, I'm off to try for another "full night" of sleep, so I'm signing off for now.  Sweet dreams!

monday =/= spanakopita

I don't know what made me think Spanakopita on a Monday night was a good idea, but last night before I went to sleep, I pulled the phyllo sheets and frozen spinach out of the freezer and let them sit in the fridge to "warm up" while I was at work today.

I'm still getting used to my new job and its different patterns, so I guess I just had no idea how busy a Monday could be until I was halfway through it.  It was a relatively stimulating kind of busy, the kind that involves you in enough projects and interactions that before you know it, it's nearly closing time.  Still thinking I was hot stuff, even though I nearly fell asleep at least three times on the short bus ride home, I pulled the thawed phyllo and spinach out of the fridge and put them on the counter while I opened up The Accidental Vegan to find the recipe.

After reading through the recipe twice, I took a long and meaningful look at my unfrozen prey... and put them back in the fridge.  The recipe is probably very simple, but it just had entirely too many steps and too many warnings for a Monday night.

Thinking fast and presenting myself with a mini-basket challenge, I surveyed the miserable, TimeToGoShopping contents of my fridge and freezer, then pulled out La Dolce Vegan, grateful that I picked up some potatoes to roast with the spanakopita I didn't make tonight and made Aloo Mattar for what I believe is the first time.  I was missing a tomato, but I couldn't see how it would make a big difference.

Savory, squishy potatoes with little sweet green peas, bursting with a sweet flavor made for a fun combination.  I can't see this becoming one of the "regular" curries I make from this book, but we'll certainly add it to the Perfect Portions series and I'm sure it will find its way onto our table again.

Speaking of things finding their way onto our table...

1. Chana Masala from Vegan Express, accompanied by a roasted green thing (probably asparagus, possibly broccoli) because I can't deal with the idea of just eating chickpeas and tomatoes for dinner.

2. Pasta Jambalaya, also from Vegan Express, because this is fun and we haven't had it in a while.

3. Pasta Twists with Cauliflower and Spinach, also from Vegan Express (can you tell I feel the need to make and eat dinner in a short amount of time?  Just because I'm getting home from work earlier doesn't mean I'm not starving after an active day...)  Anyway, I'm pretty sure we haven't had this before and I can't imagine why, since cauliflower and spinach are happy things.

4. Pasta Puttanesca, also from Vegan Express, because I absolutely can't recall the last time I made this.  Okay...now that we've got all the pasta covered...

5. Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan.  There are two reasons I chose this - first, it's so easy and so tasty and cooks up so fast.  Well, I guess that's kind of three reasons, but we'll say one because the second reason is that I am super stoked for Celebrate Vegan to arrive in bookstores and online retailers everywhere on October 18th!  So, I'm ramping up my palate for more tasty recipes from Dynise, in other words.

6. Granada Paella, also from The Urban Vegan to revisit an old favorite.  I was actually torn between this and the Tunisian Soup, but since it's just beginning to be soup weather and everything is still unpredictable, I decided to go with BurnMyFaceOff Paella instead of trying to serve Mister soup on some surprise 80-degree day...

Anyway, we may try again for the Spanakopita tomorrow, or it may wait until Thursday, but either way we'll  have a fun recap of that adventure in the near future!

rock you like a hurricane

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

You're welcome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

On to the menu!

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

choose your Pakistani adventure

When I first started cooking, I found the structure and preciseness of a recipe to be comforting; everything was under control.  When I started cooking I had nearly no confidence I would ever be more than a mediocre cook, but I figured it was worth a try to expand my cooking skills beyond veggie burgers and ghetto lo mein.

Now that I feel more comfortable in the kitchen and have thoroughly equipped myself with various cooking tools from ordinary to obscure, and done the same with my spice shelf, I find that I enjoy "tweaking" recipes as I make them more than once and adjusting recipes even the first time around if I don't think Mister or I will enjoy the contents otherwise.  I can't even begin to guess how many different ways I've substituted foods for fungus and zucchini for eggplant.

Modular Pakistani Kima is a great recipe, then, at this point in my life.  There are a few "modular" recipes from The Urban Vegan and I believe more are forthcoming when Celebrate Vegan makes its way into bookstores and homes everywhere this fall.

This recipe is kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  I loved those when I was growing up, especially when I would stick my thumb in the last decision point so I could go back if my choice ended in death.  If you think about it, it's kind of twisted that they would have a series of children's books where if you made the "wrong" decision, you died.  I mean, the books were written in second person, so there's no getting around the fact that whatever happens, happens to "you."

Anyway, morbid children's books aside, there really isn't a choice you can make with this curry that would end badly, so it's pretty safe decision-making and sometimes we need that.

In the past, I've made this with kale, carrots, and white beans as my "choices," amidst a curry that always includes crushed tomatoes, diced potatoes, and a metric ton of curry powder - but even with the curry powder you must make a choice.  Dynise suggests 3-5 tablespoons of curry powder, stating that she goes with "the full monty," all 5 Tbsp.  I did that once and found it a little bit overwhelming, despite my love of Frontier brand curry powder, so this time I went with three.  It was fine, but I think next time we'll do 4 - it's my lucky number and a fine middle ground.

This time, I decided to use up the bag of chopped kale in my fridge (did you know the very back of my fridge - maybe yours, too - gets cold enough to make ice form on kale?  that's what I learned today), as well as the TVP that was taking up too much room in a cabinet, and I had every intention of adding green peas...until I realized what a huge amount just the kale, potatoes, and TVP, with crushed tomatoes and a cup of broth made.  Looking back, I don't think they would have contributed to the taste profile I was setting up, either.

It came out really well.  Mister and I were quite pleased and Mister had a second helping, even though I really heaped it on for the first.  Since curries usually taste even better the following day, I'm already looking forward to eating lunch tomorrow!  Speaking of tomorrow, it's going to be kind of a big day, so cross your fingers and hold your breath because we've got a Secret Reveal coming very, very soon!

makes mouths happy

Mister loves mashed potatoes (well, potatoes in general, but he definitely loves mashed potatoes as a top three pick).  Actually, let me try that again:

Mister looooooooooves mashed potatoes.

He also loves broccoli and chickpeas and garlic.  It stands to reason, then, that Mister loved tonight's dinner: Forty-Clove Chickpeas and Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction.  Angst kind of liked it, too - he liked the little balls of "raw hummus" Mister kept giving him.

There's Mister's lunch tomorrow - one of the few times he will happily eat leftovers.  As he got up from the dinner table tonight, he proclaimed it one of the best dinners ever because it was made up of "so many favorite things!"  I must agree.  Also, in my own mindful eating of dinner, I made two discoveries - one sweet...the other less so.

I discovered the unbridled bliss of biting into a forkful of mashed potatoes to find a perfect chunk of roasted garlic inside.  Such a powerful flavor, especially because this particular chunk had a whole side that had been browned by the roasting, so it added a kind of darker, smoky aspect.

The second thing I discovered is actually more of a slow-dawning realization.  I do not have a "go to" mashed potatoes recipe.  I have recipes, and occasionally, I follow one - most of the time that is because it is directly linked to the other recipe I'm making and I feel bad making one without the other.  That was not the case tonight - tonight, I simply decided to serve the pile of roasted perfection on top of what I had hoped would be light, creamy mashed potatoes.

I have actually accomplished that, by the way - just wanted to clear that up.  I didn't quite get there tonight, though, which I'm choosing to blame on the lack of Earth Balance and soymilk for blending.  In their place, I added a fair sprinkling of kosher salt, a generous dab of olive oil, and a very rounded spoonful of hummus.  The hummus definitely helped and I can see myself using it again in that capacity, but what I'm getting to is this: I shop for my recipes, so if I have a recipe for something, I know exactly what to buy.  If I had made mashed potatoes from a recipe, I would have purchased soymilk and replenished the Earth Balance before it got down to the miserable little teaspoon currently hogging the whole tub.

Summer isn't a big time for mashed potatoes (or roasted things, for that matter), so I'm issuing myself a challenge this fall (which is creeping closer, believe it or not!).  This fall, I want to perfect my own awesome "go to" recipe for mashed potatoes so flavorful and creamy we'll forget any allegiance we ever paid to those [delightfully convenient] Country Crock mashed potatoes in a microwaveable tub.

I'm also hoping this will ward off the Baking Bug just long enough for me to protect my waistline through the winter months.  Except for two things that will probably interfere....

Celebrate Vegan, the new cookbook by Dynise Balcavage (The Urban Vegan), which I had the extraordinary fortune to be involved in through recipe-testing, will finally be released on October 18!

One short week later, Isa and Terry's new book, Vegan Pie in the Sky, will also be released on the unsuspecting public.

Stay tuned!  Every menu from now until Christmas will be made exclusively from Appetite for Reduction!


(j/k)

TGIF (PS: I'm lazy)

What a week for writing - I feel like I'm full of words but completely lacking in the energy to tackle the monster posts I want to write.  I'm hoping that at some point this weekend I can just settle in with a nice big cup of Blue Bottle Coffee and type my way to carpel-tunnel.  And as long as we're on the topic of how awesome it would be to post from Pure Fare with a hip cup of pour-over and a vegan pastry at the ready...who wants to buy me a MacBook Air?  Labor Day is coming - that's a gift giving holiday, right?  No?  Okay, fine - Mister's birthday is in a week and a half and when I was little, my parents used to give me a gift to open on my sister's birthday so I wouldn't feel left out.

You wouldn't want me to feel left out, would you?

So, back in RealityLand, it's quite fortunate that I have a bag of Blue Bottle beans in my cupboard and a whole weekend of errands ahead of me.  I'm presently eating my Trader Joe's belgian chocolate and drinking Apothic Red and doing my best to resist a nearly irrepressible urge to construct a To Do list for the weekend.  I'm also managing to avoid constructing my menu, which is kind of key to the To Do list phenomenon.  I will need to tackle that shortly - I've decided to embark on a predictable experiment: I am going to attempt to shop primarily at Trader Joe's for the month of August to see how much money I save.  According to last week's math, 1 bag at Trader Joe's equals 50% of a bag at Whole Foods, price-wise.  I regularly spend $50-$70 at Whole Foods for a week of groceries; I have not yet crested the $30 mark at TJs - it's kind of like living that question from the VeganMoFo survey every week.  The point is, unless I want to participate in a total PublicTransitFail, I need to know what I'm shopping for before I leave for lessons tomorrow, since I'll want to stop at TJs on my way home.

Before I leave you to go poke through my dust-defying cookbook collection and make this week's menu, let's talk briefly about dinner:  Orecchiette Con Broccoli from The Urban Vegan.  I made this at least once before because Mister (and I) like pasta and broccoli is a fun vegetable (my nephews and nieces call florets "little trees").  I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in the outcome.  First things first, though - let's talk about my solution to the Miso Issue.

When I've made this before, I've always done my best to force the miso paste to blend with the hot, garlic-infused oil without the assistance of another liquid (or a rancid one...oops).  I even bought a special flat-whisk from Williams-Sonoma to help, but alas - miso paste has no interest in blending with hot oil.  This time around, I thought I'd be tricky (forgetting about that whole oil-and-water thing) and I blended the miso with hot water until it was pretty much dissolved into a thick liquid, then poured that into the hot oil to blend with my magical whisk.

As you can see, that worked out perfectly.

Nevertheless, it did seem at least a little easier to break up the big undissolved chunks of miso than it did when I didn't dissolve it in water first.

I don't know if I've ever made this 100% correctly, but I am in the habit of sauteing the broccoli in the infused oil and miso, rather than parboiling it before the pasta, then collecting it from boiling water to add to the saute pan while I cook the pasta.  Seems like too many (messy) steps to me and just sauteing it seems to work just fine anyway.  The only thing that troubles me is this: it seems like the broccoli immediately absorbs all the oil and any water I add to moisten the skillet, which is possibly the culprit for the complete and utter lack of flavor tonight's dinner had.

It's a shame - it was really quite beautiful.  The broccoli steam-sauteed to a beautiful shade of green without taking on an iota of the 15-minutes of garlic infusion that occurred just prior to the little trees being added to the pot.  I don't remember if it did that last time, but Mister and I both added salt at table, and that is only a semi-annual occurrence (not bad, since it's already August, actually).

Alright - I need to go plot my menu and grocery list for next week's meals.  Good thing the new issue of Vegetarian Times just arrived!

diversity for dinner

So, over the weekend (when I wasn't writing my novel about Bay Area Eats), I got to construct and shop for my full week menu.  I definitely had another one of those ILoveTraderJoe's moments and each time I go there I find myself more willing to go out of my way to shop there.  I'm still getting used to the layout and the much smaller size than Whole Foods, but I pay about half of what I do at Whole Foods and I'm still working out that budget thing.

On Friday, I made Aloo Gobi from The Vegan Table because Mister Loves Curry, especially with two favorite veggies.

It was quite a bit more chopping than I anticipated, but by the time I crammed all 4 potatoes, 6 tomatoes, and head of cauliflower into my miserable little saute pan (near fail!), it smelled too good to think it wasn't worth the work.  I steamed some brown basmati over which to serve it and then called a very happy (and by then, very hungry) Mister to the table.

After dinner, I made up my new menu:

1. Granada Paella from The Urban Vegan, which is one of the main reasons I had to at least drop in to TJs, but the whole $25 for a bag I'd pay $50+ for at WF was also pretty alluring.

2. Bean and Bulgur Tacos, also from The Urban Vegan.  I've passed this recipe a dozen times, each time wondering exactly how that would work, but being unwilling to take the chance of finding out.  Carpe Diem, friends!

3. Orecchiette con Broccoli, also from The Urban Vegan.  Hopefully this time I won't make myself sick.  I do anticipate this will be my easiest and tastiest attempt because I bought a convenient and inexpensive bag of pre-cut broccoli florets at TJs and I plan to dissolve the miso in something that isn't rancid this time.

4. Fusilli with Lentil Sauce from Vegan Italiano.  I was poking through some old posts and came across the first time I made this and thought, Hey, that was pretty good - let's have it again.  So there you go.

5. Penne with Cannellini Beans and Escarole, also from Vegan Italiano.  I'm still finding my way around TJs, but for all I could see, Whole Foods is still the only place to go for escarole.  Not that it's a huge, irreplaceable part of my life.  There may or may not be a post soon on Pretty Woman in an Ugly World about a recent customer service encounter at Whole Foods that may or may not be fueling my search for an alternate organic grocer...  maybe.  

Anyway, with a fridge full of food and well-stocked cupboards, I did the logical thing and made Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan.  Nothing exciting - they were as fabulous as they always are, which unfortunately makes for seriously boring blogging, so we'll move on to last night's dinner: Fusilli with Lentil Sauce.

This makes an absolutely delicious sauce, but I'm not thrilled with how soupy it comes out.  I think 2 cups of broth + 14 oz undrained diced tomatoes might make a little too much liquid, especially when you include about 4 Tbsp of liquid condiments.

I think where I go wrong with the sauce is following the directions.  That whole Tyranny of the Recipe thing again... the recipe instructs me to cover the pot while the lentils bubble and boil their way to plumpy-tenderness, presumably so that the steam helps the process along, but I think they will still plump up just fine if I leave the lid off and allow the liquid to evaporate and concentrate a bit.  I think Mister will appreciate that, too, since puddles at the bottom of his pasta bowl make him a little sad.

As long as you ignore the puddle beneath this pile of pasta, it's really a very attractive (and super easy and tasty) dinner.  I really should make this more often.  I used de Puy lentils this time around and I think I probably would have done better with regular old Goya brown lentils.  The way they held their form was a little distracting - I would have liked them to blend in with the rest of the sauce a little more.

Tonight, Mister and I were both pretty starving by the time I got home from work, so ignoring the good sense that told me to save my fastest cooking meal for tomorrow night, I sped through the prep for Bean and Bulgur Tacos tonight.

In the little square of plastic, you see something you could easily mistake for very creamy guacamole.  You would only be half right...it's Trader Joe's Guacamole Hummus - 50/50 blend of avocados and chickpeas with various seasonings mixed in.  You can also see the little corner I dug out with a flatbread and part of a red pepper...quality assurance, you know.

It was a bit spicy, owed to the blended jalapeno and at least a little garlic, as well as some cilantro and lime.  It was an unusual color.  Does anyone like Fiona Apple?  On her first CD, Tidal, she sings a gorgeous song called "Pale September."  For some reason, the opening line (Pale September - I wore the time like a dress that year) always made me think of a pale chartreuse chiffon dress, gossamer against sunlight and a gentle breeze.  If I had married in September, rather than October, I would have hunted that color down and made it my wedding color...and promptly made enemies of my bridesmaids, at least three of whom would not have been flattered by the shade, but hey - it's my wedding, right?

Fortunately for everyone, I married in October, so they wore crimson instead.  My point?  The Hummamole (that's what Mister and I are calling it) was that color.

I shredded a big bowl of romaine lettuce and sprinkled it over top of a generous smear of the Hummamole on each tortilla, then topped it with the bean and bulgur mix.  It was light yet filling and really hit the spot with a variety of tastes and textures.  I guess in that way it was very much like the dinners in this post.  The heat and tanginess of Indian curry, the savory toothiness of pasta with a rich Italian sauce, and a new take on a familiar Mexican taco recipe, replacing the brown rice with coarse bulgur.   

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.

double-decker leftovers

That is a lot of leftovers.  Unless Mister goes on some kind of pasta binge tomorrow/this weekend, I will bet we're still wading through these a week from now.  You know a dish yields a lot when you can portion out some above-average dinner portions and still have so many leftovers that one of your biggest containers won't hold it all, so you have to get a second container to fit them all and you're still smushing the lids on.

It started out simply enough, with a wish for Tuscany and a willingness to "settle" for Montepulciano and mixed olives, alongside homemade (albeit primarily canned) Italian dinner.

There's something so heart-warmingly rustic about a pot of white beans simmering with crushed tomatoes, garlic, and marjoram.  My mouth is watering just looking at that.  Also, I anticipate a similar picture later next week (menu foreshadowing, anyone?) and I'm already excited about it.  And yes, for reasons that will be revealed when I unveil the new menu, I do already have next week's menu planned.

Anyway, tonight was the magical night that I reprised Clara's Pasta e Fagioli from The Urban Vegan.  I neglected to add a cup of broth and I'm wondering if that's why it wasn't as flavorful as I remembered it.  Either way, it was still good.  The main reason Isa's recipe surpassed this one as my favorite is due primarily to the fact that the recipe in Veganomicon actually involves dicing my own fresh tomatoes.

But dear Lord, it sure does make enough to feed a Greek family.  And I mean the whole family.  And still send them home with leftovers, probably.  Good to know for future cooking events...

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!

things you don't need to know

Did you know that only about half the population notices a little something...different...after they eat asparagus?  In recent years, asparagus has gotten a lot of press.  Some people like to point out the vegetable's aphrodisiac qualities and subtly phallic nature.  Others, like myself, focus on even more vulgar features...yessiree, I am one of the chosen ones.  I can smell when I've eaten asparagus.

Like tonight.  I have had this bunch of asparagus in my fridge for a week, because I had intended to serve it as the requisite Something Green with our Pasta e Fagioli last week.  However, I was in such a hunger frenzy to get dinner on the table that night that I completely forgot about the asparagus until I was about to plate our dinner.  I guess it has a little more longevity than I thought it did.

So, since he survived Judgment Day and has remained planted here on Earth with Mister and I, I decided to spoil my kitty a little.  When I was making up my new menu last night, I thought I would be nice and make Sloppy Joes again.  After I accidentally closed his paw in the bathroom door, then stepped on his tail, and couldn't make the air stop being in the mid-80s, I decided today was a good day to make it up to him.

I was going to make french fries to go along with the Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan, but then I remembered the asparagus and decided to see if I could roast it quickly enough that I didn't make the kitchen unbearably hot.  I sprayed it with olive oil and sprinkled it generously with my beloved Mediterranean Sea Salt (McCormick), then roasted it in a 450-degree oven for about 15 minutes while the Sloppy part simmered.

Before I go, let me share the new menu - it's a bit salad-heavy.  Mister and I came to the unanimous decision that it was time to start integrating meal-salads into our menu, since it's not supposed to dip below mid-80s for about a week.

1. Orzo Pilaf from Vegan on the Cheap with Tofeta from How It All Vegan and served on lettuce as a salad.  The recipe in VotC has its own tofeta recipe, but when I made it before, I found that I preferred the tofeta from HiaV.

2. Rice Island Casserole also from Vegan on the Cheap.  I don't have anything clever to say about this.

3. Sloppy Joes from The Urban Vegan.  'nuff said.

4. Nicoise Salad from The Urban Vegan, possibly with a french baguette morphing it into pan bagnat.

5. Pasta with Beans and Chard from Vegan Express.  I love this and how easy it is to make.  I would have loved it if Whole Foods wasn't selling mutant chard this week.  I don't know what's wrong with it, but I do know I didn't want to bring any of it home with me.  I guess I'll have to head over to Essene tomorrow after all, something I thought I'd avoided when Mister accompanied me to Whole Foods, thereby allowing me to bring home more stuff than I am able to carry on my own, which has been the main reason I've been spending too much money at Essene lately.  The other reason is because it's an awesome place.  Besides, I also didn't get garlic for the same reason - the non-organic garlic was scary and the organic garlic was puny.

6. Spinach, Artichoke, and Chickpea Salad from Vegan Express.  In the past I have largely ignored Nava's chapter on Satisfying Salads, much to my detriment, it would appear.

7. BBQ-Flavored White Beans with Sausage and Spinach also from Vegan Express.  I love this meal.  ALSO, I want to use up the BBQ sauce in my fridge.  I don't know how long it stays good and I don't like wasting food, so I guess I'll never find out.

In other news, Mister and I have been devoting a lot more energy than most sane people would to keeping the poor, fur-covered kitty cool.  I have been trying to find an ice cube tray (with no success unless I want a novelty tray that will make my ice "cubes" look like brains, robots, or pistols), but until we get one, I've been filling up the 1/4 and 1/3 cup plastic measuring cups with water, freezing them, and stockpiling them in a box in the freezer when I haven't been dropping them directly into Angst's water bowl.  Mister, still trying to deny that he loves that little allergen furball, took the initiative to wet a washcloth and put it in the freezer, then lay it across the kitty's hot back.

And our final installment in the TMI department is a picture of my dear ol' Dad, celebrating Memorial day in style...

...on his boat, with his aviator sunglasses (okay, that doesn't completely make sense), and a cold one.  It's okay, though, he's earned it.

Thank you, Daddy.  Happy Memorial day to you, Poppop, Uncle Carl, and all the others who have served and who continue to serve our country.