free Beaujolais? mais oui et merci!

So, tonight was the Midtown Village Beaujolais Nouveau festival, honoring the third Thursday of November, when the Beaujolais Nouveau is introduced to the waiting (and aware) world.  It involved 12 restaurants serving Beaujolais-soaked entrees or appetizers (or maybe just constructing a specialty cocktail involving Beaujolais, like the Sangria at the Stephen Starr Mexican joint) and 9 area retailers (including my store) offering sales and complimentary tastes of the new vintage.  Some highlights?

• Beaujolais risotto
• Beaujolais-braised short rib pizza
• Beaujolais-inspired chocolates
• Beaujolais soap and lip balm
• and my favorite... Beaujolais jello shots

There were several other things, but those struck me as most outstanding and interesting.  I was working for the first two hours of the festival, but when my shift ended, I headed out to see what was still going on.  I entered Duross & Langel and was treated to a dixie cup of 2011 Beaujolais Nouveau and a complimentary tin of Beaujolais lip balm (it kind of smells like cherries, but whatever - it was free and makes my lips feel shiny).  They have some amazing handmade soaps in there and I will almost definitely return for the holiday shopping season - this stuff is great for that person who has everything because they are both novel and expendable.

After sniffing to my heart's content (and wishing things had price tags), I gave my empty cup to the jovial young man who had given it to me when it contained a swallow of wine and headed out the door. I wandered next door to Paper on Pine, owned by a neighbor of mine and a lovely woman (who also patronizes our shop).  As soon as I came in, the owner recognized me and gave me a more generously-poured plastic cup of 2009 Beaujolais-Villages (which wasn't exactly the point, but it is considered Georges deBoeuf's Vintage of a Lifetime and it's one of my favorites) to sip on as I chatted with her and wandered around her delightful little store.  I ended up with a lovely card and some stationery.  I will undoubtedly revisit her establishment not only for Christmas shopping but for many other things (she does custom-printed invitations and announcements, too).  As I was paying, she asked if I wanted more wine - what a lovely woman!  Alas, it was time to go home and make dinner, so I just stopped into my "local" wine store and picked up my own bottle of 2011 Beaujolais Nouveau to enjoy over the weekend.

It was only by reminding myself that payday is tomorrow that I was able to prevent myself from calling the newly-opened Vedge for reservations.  I've waited this long...

Nevertheless, by the time I got home, it felt too late to start making a dinner with an hour and a half of cooking time, so I decided to wing it!

Mister and I had a field day trying to come up with a cookbook-worthy name for this creation, but unless anyone would like to volunteer something a little snootier, we're going with

Pasta with Green Veggie Marinara

6 generous servings

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil

5 medium cloves of garlic, pressed

generous pinch of red pepper flakes

1 bunch of asparagus (roughly 1lb), bias-cut into 2" pieces

10oz frozen spinach, thawed

24oz prepared marinara

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a sauteuse on medium-high heat.  Add garlic and red pepper flakes, then reduce heat to low and saute, stirring frequently, 3-5 minutes, until golden.  Add asparagus and stir well to combine with garlic.

Cover pan and raise heat just slightly to make the asparagus sizzle a little.  Saute 7-8 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Meanwhile, cook the pasta of your choice (my choice was penne) according to package directions.  When the asparagus is tender, stir in thawed spinach.

and then add the marinara and stir well to thoroughly combine.

Simmer, uncovered, 5-7 minutes.  Drain the pasta and season the sauce with salt and/or pepper to taste, then toss the sauce with the pasta and serve!

Enjoy!  (with some Beaujolais Nouveau...)

Cheers!

livin' easy on the Rue du Sud

Mister and I are not big Francophiles.  That whole trend certainly did not escape us, but it did not endear the French, their culture, food, drink, or diplomatic decisions to us - quite the opposite.  Unfortunately, when Philadelphia was bursting with Love for All Things French, pioneered by a specific demographic of which Mister and I are also not fans, Jacques Chiroc had made some very Anti-American moves, so we felt like the appropriately patriotic thing to do was to ignore their existence as a country.

We did feel like things went a little too far when people started renaming a Belgian invention "Freedom Fries," but all in all, we felt fairly justified avoiding French imports...ironically, including P.Diddy-pimped adult beverages.  This became a little trying as one of my favorite bars hopped on the Frenchie-Train, featuring 6 out of 7 reds from France...  I drank a lot of Shiraz that year.

Once the excitement of the moment had passed, there were still a load of French restaurants and bars that had popped up and managed to stay in business.  I think crepes are funny but Mister will have no part of them, so we'll still never see the inside of Beau Monde.  As fun and intimate as it looks, Bistrot la Minette has entirely too many animals on their menu for us to venture in for a meal.  We were actually invited to dine at Coquette (when it was still open) by the owner, but $17 for a lentil tian was too rich for our Greek-Irish blood, even with the promise of free champagne.  La Croix was fabulous and I have trouble remembering a more pleasurable dining experience (aside from almost every time we go to Horizons), but we cannot afford to go there when not under the cover of my in-laws' relentless generosity. 

Mainly, though, the reason we steer clear of French food is because Mister finds it insulting to his masculinity.

So, it was with a little trepidation that I embarked on a dinner of Provencal Black-Eyed Peas with Asparagus from The Complete Vegan Cookbook, but I really thought it would be a fun dinner to make and I wanted to see if I've had my Herbes de Provence long enough for them to turn gray and lose all flavor and scent (and yes, I do recognize that I should have checked that before I went shopping for ingredients...just in case they were...).

Well.

Not only were my Herbes de Provence just fine and quite excited to join the dinner party, but Mister so enjoyed his French dinner that he took a decidedly unFrench portion size for his second helping.  I love plating our dinners.  I always try to make a pretty little bed of the pasta or rice or couscous, in this case, and then artfully swirl the scoop of veggies on top, even trying to shape them into a small pyramid at times.  Then, Mister goes back for seconds and comes back with a travesty of presentation with globs of food all over his bowl or plate. 

Hey, I'm just happy he liked it.  Me?  I loved it, too.  Since we're not in the habit of eating French-inspired flavors, I was a little taken aback by the pungent herb mixture, specifically the crushed rosemary, which is most certainly an acquired taste that I haven't worked very hard at acquiring.  At the last moment, just before stirring in the fresh parsley, you make a tiny little cornstarch/arrowroot slurry and mixed it in to thicken the sauce - I think that really pushed it over the edge in terms of savory pleasantness.  I'm not sure "pleasantness" is a word, but if it is, it's an ugly one.  I just couldn't think of a better way to express it.

Couscous, the base upon which this Provencal ragout was served, has a tendency to continue expanding once it's in your stomach.  This is, of course, enhanced if you got hot while food shopping and ended up drinking three glasses of water before dinner and one with... So, Mister and I were feeling a bit bloated after dinner.  My solution is to get up and move around so I can encourage the couscous to digest and get the heck out of my stomach; Mister takes a more European approach.  He naps with the kitty.

Look at the murder in those eyes!  It's as though he's saying, "Stay away.  He's my Mister.  Mine."  I think he was really just angry that I took a flash picture, actually.

Anyway, tomorrow we have Cousin's wedding and I'm hoping that at least for the hour or so that the wedding is supposed to occur, it can be dry for her outdoor wedding.  However, I am listening to the music of a thunderstorm right now, so I'm afraid the ground might be irreparably soaked by noon tomorrow even if it does stop raining.  I'm sure we'll be hungry for dinner later, though, since the wedding is so early in the day, followed immediately by the reception, so I still anticipate dinner stories, hopefully with a touch of magic interwoven.

That being said, I did shop for the new menu today since I didn't think there would be time tomorrow:

1. Clara's Pasta e Fagioli from The Urban Vegan.  Although Isa's recipe for Pasta e Fagioli is the reigning champ, having stolen the spotlight from this recipe, we must remember that this was the champ for a while for good reason.  I felt an unusual longing for this recipe, so I decided to grab that book off the shelf.  I cannot wait until the new cookbook comes out - there are so many fabulous recipes I can't wait to see in print and reprise!

2. Granada Paella, also from The Urban Vegan.  I figured as long as I was in the cookbook and as long as I loved this recipe so much, I may as well make this delightful recipe again.

3. Veggie Goulash from La Dolce Vegan.  It's been a while since I've played in this cookbook, mainly because I know that every time I open it, I feel compelled to make...

4. Punjabi Peppers and Tofu (also from La Dolce Vegan).  What can I say that I haven't said already?  I could probably cook this every week and not get bored of it.  That's a lot coming from someone who strives to make something different so frequently that she only repeats recipes semi-annually sometimes...

5. Vegetable Biryani, also from La Dolce Vegan.  I've only made this biryani once, but it was easy and tasty, so I figured, why not make it again?

Hopefully, I will have some fun pictures and an entertaining recap from the wedding!  See me tomorrow!  :)

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.

welcome, Spring - you're only a month late

If I could figure out how to take a screenshot on my Mac, I would show you the weather forecast for Philadelphia this week - in the 70s all week.  Granted, tomorrow has a red outline and a warning to expect severe weather, but they've been calling for rain all week and I haven't seen a single raindrop.

Now that I've said that, you can expect a photo tomorrow night of the huge bruise I'm going to get when a golfball-sized piece of hail hits me in the forehead.

For now, though, you can see photos of our delightful spring dinners!  I have been at least halfway fortunate this week - I have worked earlier than usual yesterday and today, meaning I get home earlier than usual, so I've had a little more time to cook.  It also means I've been able to enjoy a few minutes of sunlight on my walk home from the train.  So with all my "extra" time (more like "different," since I've had to retire earlier as well to ensure adequate sleep), last night I made Cajun Red Beans and Rice from The Accidental Vegan, and was able to use "better for me" brown rice since I could let it cook longer.

I'm having kind of a huge ton of fun with my new measuring bowls.  I didn't actually need to measure a cup of diced green pepper, but I used the bowl to hold it while I was prepping other ingredients and I thought it looked pretty enough to share.

Unlike the Battle of Pasta Fagiolis, I don't think I will ever find a beans-n-rice recipe to knock this baby of her throne.  The combination of ingredients is nearly perfect: the savory and toothsome Tofurky Kielbasa, the smooth and creamy kidney beans with their gorgeous garnet hue, the crunch of lightly sauteed green peppers that most certainly taste "green."  I was reflecting on the amount of rice in the recipe, though, on my way to work - there is even more time to ruminate on pointless quandaries now that I don't have to pay attention to exits and traffic lights. 

After piling his second helping into his bowl, Mister went to the fridge and returned with a slice of bread.  Almost every time he does that, it means he perceives an absence in the carb department of the meal.  He was not completely off this time, either - the recipe calls for 1.5 cups of cooked rice, but that really spreads the rice thin, as though it's just kind of a decoration on the beans and tofurky.  In the future, I think I'll double the rice and see if that's sufficient for Mister's grain-appetite.

Tonight, I was home even earlier and therefore had even more time to play in my kitchen.  I had originally intended to make a quick-cooking meal tonight, but when I saw how much time I had, coupled with the surprising amount of energy I maintained after working a whole shift that started so early that I actually got on the train about the same time I usually get in the shower, I decided to make Spring Vegetable Curry, also from The Accidental Vegan.

DIY Curry spice mixture, clockwise starting at the top: cumin, cardamom, turmeric, coriander, and sea salt.  After I carefully mixed them all together into a fairly homogenous powder, I made a little well in the middle to hold the garlic and ginger.

Once the spices had a minute or two to cook and then garlic and ginger had softened slightly, I added my mountain of vegetables (the actual cooktime -apart from the rice- is only about 15 minutes; the rest is prep, lots and lots of prep): big, thick stalks of asparagus, a red bell pepper, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, and red chard.

By the way - did you know that 2 cups of red chard has 25 calories and 1 gram of protein?  Yeah, I didn't either until I read the nutritional label.  That's right - wrapped around the bottom of the bunch was a little piece of cardboard that contained the nutritional facts on a bunch of greens.  I don't know if that shows progress for our country or if I should mourn for abused paper.

Regardless, the curry was outstanding.  I'd never actually made this recipe before.  When I make curries, they are generally of the "warm you from the inside out" kind of curries, made up of generally hearty vegetables and beans (chickpeas).  This was definitely a lighter curry and I have 2/3 left of the 6oz can of coconut milk to prove it.  Now I'm trying to scheme how to get Mister to use it in his coffee.

lucky number 4

Do you have a lucky number?  Yes, I know that's kind of BS, but bear with me.  Although I know most things are purely chance, it does seem like 4 has done me well over the years.  It could be that I prefer the number 4 because everyone in my immediate family has a 4 in their birthday.  Mom's 4, I'm 14, Dad and Sis are 24 (of different months)...that's kind of cool, if you think about it - what are the chances?  Also, these four birthdays occur over the course of four months.

So, that's my excuse for favoring four.  Does anyone know Isa's?

One of the fun things about constructing a menu completely from one cookbook, or even from multiple cookbooks by the same author, is that you start to pick out patterns.  Now that I am....well...more than four meals into Appetite for Reduction, It seems like Isa's magic number for garlic is 4 cloves.

That was kind of a tangent that has nothing at all to do with dinner, but it was on my mind, so I thought I'd share.  Besides, it's better than the story of how Blogger wouldn't let me post anything last night, so now you get a two-fer.

Last night, I made Braised Cabbage with Seitan and finally, Jerk Asparagus.  It was fantastic.  It may or may not look like much, but it tasted heavenly.  Once again, even though I work for the #1 home-delivery weight loss program in the country, I was astounded that "diet food" could taste this downright decadent.  Granted, I probably violated the portion a little bit, but how can you really go wrong with cabbage?  Again, I was very pleased with the flavor and texture of the homemade seitan - it has the savory-spicy flavor of a Tofurky sausage and is nice and chewy.

Something I noticed while browning the seitan before adding the cabbage: since I just re-wrapped the seitan in the tin foil and stuck it in the fridge, it was quite thirsty and willing to rapidly soak up the broth I added to prevent it from sticking to my non-stick saute pan.  Perhaps next time I will experiment with a simmered seitan and store leftovers in leftover broth.  That will probably more closely mimic my dearly loved Ray's Seitan.

Because I used green cabbage and because I braised it in a relatively rich stock with a generous helping of thyme, the cabbage was surprisingly savory.  Normally, when I cook cabbage, it's red and retains some sweetness, regardless of the way I prepare it.  The flavors and textures of this dish complemented one another perfectly and it was a pretty easy dish to prepare, so I'm sure it will find its way into some kind of rotation.  The 15 minutes of braising on the stovetop gave me time to cook the Jerk Asparagus.

It was a different taste for me.  Ordinarily, I roast asparagus because ordinarily, I buy the thick stems.  These were not pencil-thin, but they only look so substantial in the picture because they are perched upon a 1940s bread and butter plate (did you know our dinner plates have increased in diameter by as many as 3 inches since the 1950s?).  The asparagus might have been a little cinnamon-heavy...I didn't add more than a dash, but it has such a pungent scent, I might do better in the future to either leave it out or counter it with a little more thyme.  It was good and Mister was thrilled, though.

Tonight, I made Ginger Bok Choy and Soba, which allowed me my treasured privilege of finding a rose at the bottom of one stalk:

I absolutely love how it does that, and the Evil Martha Stewart lurking within me will eventually collect a bunch of bok choy butts and spray-paint them gold for a centerpiece someday.

The finished product was not terribly attractive and upon first bite, not terribly exciting.  I added a little more tamari to mine and felt it was substantially improved.  Mister happily wolfed down two bowls before I was halfway through mine without additional seasoning, so it could be personal preference.  I don't enjoy ginger quite as much as Mister - I'm more of a tamari/umami kind of gal.

If I could end on a tangent, the gorgeous, slimy bowl of noodles you see above almost didn't make its way onto the table tonight.  I know you're going to get tired of reading this because I know my car-less butt is going to be complaining about it all winter, but here it goes:  It was SO COLD when I was walking home from the train tonight.  As I got closer to home, I tried to take my mind off the dreadfulness nipping at my nose by plotting dinner.  As I drew nearer to Superfresh (if I detour a block I'll pass it), it occurred to me that I did not want noodles for dinner, I wanted something hearty and innard-warming.  I thought of creating a casserole, but didn't want to invest the time.  Suddenly, I remembered one of my favorite, fast-cooking slow-food recipes (figure that one out) and nearly ran to SF for supplies for Chickpea Stew with Fried Polenta, but in the end, decided I had such good momentum going that I didn't want to screw it up by taking a detour...  I wonder, though, if I'll make it home without a pit stop tomorrow, because it's still on my brain!

menu fail and vegan paneer

First things first:  I've been trying to be a little more creative in my photo taking - I recently remembered my camera has a zoom feature (most do, I'm sure).  Furthermore, if you hold real still and let it focus, you can actually get some highly enticing shots.  Exhibit A:

This shot really redeemed the number of photos I dragged to the "trash" because gooky sauce doesn't take pretty pictures.

Last night's dinner was Hunan-Style Orange "Beef" and Asparagus Stirfry from VTCC.  I got to use some of my favorite things in the making: the zester I was so excited to find in my Christmas stocking (despite the weird looks my mother gave me) and those funny rice noodles.  I also used two of Mister's favorite things: asparagus and fake beef.  There were a few amazing things about this dish.  For one, I didn't realize how much flavor the freshly grated zest of a whole orange would impart to the dish, even when added at the very end!  Second, I'm not sure what the point of coating the stirfry strips in cornstarch was, but it had two very noticeable effects: it coated the bottom of my wok with a layer of blech (that's the scientific name) that I had to scrape off with my fingernails (all the while realizing that the nonstick nature of the wok has absolutely left the building), and it made the 2 cups of sauce into a very gooky, sticky, lacquer (which probably didn't help the situation at the bottom of my wok).  Although I won't put this in regular rotation, it was certainly good enough to make again, and just one bowl each was quite enough for Mister and me.

Tonight, we had Tofu Saag from The 30 Minute Vegan.  It was extremely flavorful, thanks to the recent reunion I've had with my beloved Frontier Curry Powder as well as some cumin and coriander.  I continue to adore the way all recipes in that book that use tofu have you roasting it first.  It smelled so good in the oven and there was a richness of flavor that it added to the dish that would put real Indian paneer to shame. 

I used frozen spinach (per the recipe instructions) but neglected to thaw it first like the recipe suggests.  As a result of my own stupidity, it became more than a 30-minute meal, but we had nowhere to be, so there wasn't any rush. 

It tasted as good as it looks.  I served it on top of Jasmine rice, which does not take 40 minutes to cook, as the bag claims.  Fortunately, I checked on it "halfway" through (yes, I know you aren't supposed to lift the lid, but I'm just too good at making rice stick to nonstick cookware to take that chance) and found that it only needed about 5 more minutes.  Also, in place of the onion and to give it a little color, I sauteed a diced orange bell pepper with the garlic and ginger.  It was very flavorful and I absolutely would not be able to eat it without the rice.  While the noodle dish (above) was heavy enough that we only had a serving each, this meal is rich enough that we could only stomach one bowl.  I will definitely make this again, though I will probably cut down on the spice blend just a little.

Now, I know I said I would strive to have a menu this week which excluded an Indian-style meal.  Maybe next week...

1. Orecchiette with Broccoli, Chickpeas, and Tomatoes from Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein (a good Italian name if ever I saw one).  I also purchased something special today to drink alongside:  Castello Banfi Centine Toscano, a Super-Tuscan.  I hope it's as awesome as it sounds!

2. Penne with Roasted Vegetables and Garlic Puree also from Vegan Italiano.  I fear the Fatkins Hysteria has infiltrated my mind in at least a small way, because I got this far into my menu and said "Okay, that's enough pasta for the week."  Someone save me.

3. Mediterranean Rice Salad with Roasted Red Peppers from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals by Robin Robertson.  Okay, you got me - rice is still one of those evil carbs, but I like to look at it as a whole grain :)  Besides, the Mediterranean diet makes a lot more sense in my little Greek(-Irish) household.

4. Indian-Spiced Vegetables over Basmati Rice also from One-Dish Vegetarian Meals.  I almost made it through, but Indian-style food is just too tasty to leave out!

5. Moroccan Chickpeas with Couscous from One-Dish Veg. Meals.  I have made this before, but it's probably been about a year, so I figured it was okay to dust this one off.  I love the flavors of Moroccan-inspired dishes, too, but I feel like most Moroccan dishes have been "anglicized" for our bland American tongues.  At the same time, I feel like there's probably a good reason for that and my Irish tongue is thanking me for that.

Just in time for Memorial Day, Summer has made an appearance today.  Here's how Angst is coping:

boldly going where I haven't gone before

The last two nights, I've made a couple of recipes I had looked at previously but didn't feel courageous/ambitious enough to cook.  My recent feelings of creativity somehow manifested themselves into bravery and allowed me to step out of my "regular" recipes in a couple of books I've had for a while and see the recipes with new and anxious eyes.

Last night, I made Penne with Asparagus and Spring Herbs from the Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  You can see that it is fairly attractive, despite the "cream" sauce.  I'm not sure that came across the right way: so that I don't alienate my cream sauce-loving readers, it's not that I don't like cream sauce, but it tends to mute the colors of the dish and has the potential to make it look slimy.  See Exhibit A (above)...

It was tasty, though it had that impression of "needs a little something."  Turns out that something was salt, which we added at table.  Mister also sprinkled his with a very generous helping of Parmesan and shared a tidbit with Angst.  I'm not very good [yet] about tasting and adjusting simmering sauces, but I'm downright negligent about doing so for blender sauces.  Since the recipe advised adding salt and pepper "to taste," I just skipped it and figured we could add it later, which we did.

Here are my happy steamed carrots and asparagus before I drowned them in the herb and poached garlic "cream" sauce (it was made by pureeing silken tofu with the vegetable broth in which I poached the garlic).  You'll notice (my mother and I hope) how perfectly uniform my julienned carrots are.  I did NOT buy one of those very handy bags of "shredded" carrot that come that way - I used my birthday toy for the first time and it was awesome!

Tonight, there were no fancy kitchen gadgets (unless you consider tongs fancy).  I made Chile Cornmeal-Crusted Tofu from Veganomicon accompanied by Garlicky Kale (but no Tahini Sauce) from VwaV. 

How adorable are the tofus?? I actually almost skipped this one because I didn't feel like dealing with the breading, but I'm so glad I did it - both dishes were so good!  The kale was dressed in just the perfect amount of olive oil and sauteed garlic - it needed absolutely no augmentation.  Mister was completely enthralled with the tofu, which I invariably count as a victory.  When he came to the table, his remark was "Oh, that looks fun!"  As it turns out, my husband loves breaded things - who knew that's all I needed to do?  Granted, the crispy outer layer was exceptional as well as pretty, and the way it perfectly surrounded the little puffy cloud of tofu was pretty darn cool.  There is a part of me that is a glutton for punishment and would love to try this with silken tofu, for the complete smoothness and creaminess of the tofu within the crispy outer coating.  Something tells me the silken tofu wouldn't hold up through the dredging process quite as well, but it might be worth a try.  Stay tuned for more adventures!

masters in english + world traveler = awesome cookbook

Anyone who owns the cookbook I'm about to rave about probably knows which one it is from the title of this post.  For anyone who has not yet experienced the wonder of a cookbook elegantly written about a diverse collection of edible treasures by a self-proclaimed food hedonist who relies on both her childhood in the coal-mining, rural region of Pennsylvania and her adulthood in the bustling mini-metropolis that is Philadelphia, I'll fill you in.

We're talking about The Urban Vegan by Dynise Balcavage.

I wanted this book because I follow her blog and wanted to support her in this venture.  I really wanted this book after reading about Jess (from Get Sconed)'s adventures with her copy of the book.  I love the very varied aspects of this book - she covers everything from replications of Philadelphia street cart fare to diner favorites to unpronounceable (by non-world-travelers) haute cuisine. 

Not only are there enough dissident recipes to keep a foodie on their toes and in the kitchen, the tidbits she adds throughout the book are a pleasure to read - introductions to recipes, reminiscences of her childhood Polish food, strategies for making a dinner party as hostess-friendly as it is guest-friendly.  In one such tidbit, she reveals seeking a Masters degree in English, which really ties everything together and explains why the book uses such elegant language with obvious ease.  Reading some of her descriptions made my mouth water and I had to take a dinner break...and then a dessert break.  I haven't had the privilege of cooking anything from this cookbook yet, but I have read it cover to cover (I'm not kidding) twice in the last 2 days and have constructed my entire extended-week-plus-special-Easter-dinner menu from those precious pages.

1. Cameroon Mafe which looks to be a slightly more exotic peanut-based stew than others I've made.
2. Granada Paella - I will admit, I hesitated for quite a while before allowing myself to add this to the menu.  I haven't had the greatest luck with these rice-cooking-simmerers, and I have gotten terribly spoiled with my growing collection of blink-and-dinner's-done cookbooks.
3. Orecchiette con Broccoli accompanied by Tuscan Braised Beans.  Orecchiette is such an awesome and sometimes difficult to locate pasta shape.  When I found that SuperFresh (of all places) regularly stocks it, I found a growing desire to use it whenever possible.  I'm actually really excited about the beans - when I saw the recipe, I thought, "I must find a reason to make these."  Neither pasta (generally) nor broccoli packs much of a protein punch, so I figured this was a good combination, culturally and nutritionally.
4. Balsamic-Roasted Vegetables because seriously, what part of that doesn't sound great?  I hate to tweak recipes I haven't made yet, but because she actually invites variation throughout the book and because the things I am adding are actually suggested at the end of the recipe, I don't feel so bad.
5. Tunisian Soup - I was a lot hesitant to include this.  Don't get me wrong - when I saw the recipe, I thought it looks amazing and like something that belongs in my belly.  However, it is not only officially Springtime, but the weather in Philadelphia is supposed to be gorgeous this week - not terribly conducive to soup slurping.  Ultimately, I stared at weather.com until I found a rainy day, so there's my justification.
6. Cauliflower-Chickpea Tagine - this ought to make it up to Mister that I'm going to feed him soup in 70-some-degree weather.

I also found the dish(es?) I will be sharing with my family on Easter, but I like surprising my family so my lips/fingers are sealed for now.

By the way, I was so excited about that Spicy Stirfry with Clementines, Asparagus, and Tofu that I made it twice in the same month - I can't remember the last time I did that [heating up leftovers does not count].  As I mentioned in the menu for last week, I planned to use mandarin oranges instead of Clementines.  Let me leave you with a word of advice:  don't do that.

It turns out canned mandarin oranges do not appreciate being cooked at stirfry temperatures and promptly became one with the sauce.  Sometimes you just can't be that lazy.  Observe the difference a little effort makes:

And one last note, as I'm looking at that amazing, healthy sized asparagus - for anyone local, Whole Foods is selling asparagus now for $1.99/lb!  And so, it will find its way into one of those meals, probably roasted because that's amazing.

to everything there is a season

Asparagus has the shortest season ever. I believe it was just a post or two ago I was explaining my reticence to purchase 4 lbs of asparagus at $2.49/lb. In the one week since I went shopping, the price per pound of asparagus has gone up a full dollar. Unless Whole Foods is just trying to exploit the demand half of "supply and demand," it looks like we're already staring into the face of the end of this veggie's very short growing season. At $3.49/lb I was very glad I had only 2 bunches to buy...until I realized that last week, my same $7 bought 3 bunches. Enough money talk, let's look at the fruits of my labor:

There are not too many things I like to do more with asparagus than roast it. Sure, it works well with a stirfry and it's a delightful addition to penne pasta with homemade marinara, and someday I'll probably saute it with olive oil, a generous amount of garlic and a conservative amount of lemon juice, but I do love it best when it has spent some quality time in a 425 degree oven, sprinkled fairly liberally with sea salt.

Tonight's dinner was Tuscan Vegetable Ragout. I wanted to make this first for two reasons: first, asparagus has a short growing season but an even shorter refrigerator life, so I want to use both bunches as soon as possible. Also, I opened the smoked tofu last night to add some protein to my after-dinner salad (more in a minute), and I don't want it sitting around all open for too long. I didn't add any pasta, like I said I would the last time I made it, but it did just fine for itself with the combination of beans, artichokes, tomatoes, zucchini, kalamatas, and smoked tofu.
I felt only slightly guilty that we didn't have salads with our dinner, but I had a nice salad at Cosi this afternoon with my dad. I needed to see my dad today, since yesterday I saw a dear friend say goodbye to her dad for the rest of her life.

Tragedy, in all its manifestations, amazes me. It has a power we can't even comprehend, much less harness. It is my belief, though, that when tragedy finds the right people, they respond by turning something painful into something positive. I believe I am the right person.

There aren't too many things more morbid (to me) than looking at the body of a soul who has left this world. I don't enjoy it. I think viewings, generally, are awkward. When I heard of my friend's father's death, I initially would have preferred to attend the funeral. Others might think me a little off kilter, since a funeral is a formal and involved affair - it reserves a great deal more of a person's time and possibly more emotional energy. But to me, because it is more formal, it is less awkward - you know what to do at a funeral. Viewings, on the other hand, you stand in a line, waiting your turn to offer condolences to the surviving members of the family, then stand before the casket (open, normally), to say goodbye to the deceased. However, my mother and another long-time friend and her mother were attending the viewing, so these were my choices: attend the viewing with loved ones or attend the funeral, alone but for my grieving friend.

After paying our respects and being sure our friend knows she is loved, we took our mothers and escaped to a local restaurant for dinner. To be honest, eating was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was a little hungry and I wanted the social time to shrug off the pain of the funeral parlor. Fortunately, I didn't have to eat much, since the restaurant (like most in the 'burbs) wasn't a big fan of herbivores - I was counting on classic American portion distortion to provide me with slightly larger side dishes of stirfried veggies and grilled asparagus, but when my butter dish arrived with 6 skinny spears I must admit, I didn't think it was going to be enough.

After "dinner," I made a quick pit stop to pick up another piece of the rainbow: Pinot Noir. This stuff is way too easy to drink. I needed that last night. Well, need is a strong and suspiciously dependent word, but the escape from the pain and tears that flowed more freely in the privacy of my own home was a welcome one. After a short breakdown, I made a very healthy (by that I mean American-sized) salad of baby spinach and a few last mixed greens, red bell pepper, cucumber slices, mandarin oranges, baby carrots, and sliced smoked tofu. I didn't take a picture because it wasn't very pretty and it took me about a half an hour after I made it to convince myself to eat it. It was very tasty when I did!

I certainly didn't mean to make this post such a downer. My plan is to come back tomorrow night with my usual cynical enthusiasm!

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.

fast food - have it your way

So, apparently I've been too busy to bother posting here, so the very first thing I want to do is plug for The 30 Minute Vegan again. Without that book, dinner this week would not have been possible. At the very least, it wouldn't have been healthy. I've mentioned before that Mister would be happy to eat pizza for dinner every night, and he almost got his wish, so maybe he's not as big a fan of this book as I am. In any case, my time continues to be limited, so on with the parade of fast food.

First up, Sunday's dinner - Easy as Pie Stirfry. It was absolutely easy, though there was a great deal of chopping involved. It probably would be easy-as-pie if I would just invest the $20 in a mandoline. I'm getting faster at my prep, especially thanks to my new "chop & scoop" cutting board that funnels my newly chopped bits into whatever vessel they need to occupy, but I'm starting to think I'll never be Food Network fast. I guess I'll never be a celebrity chef, unless America's lazy rise up and demand a narcoleptic hostess.

On Monday, I made the super-duper-fast Mediterranean Hummus Wraps.


They were far tastier than I expected them to be and I had pretty high hopes for these babies to begin with, so let me make a recommendation - get this book and make these wraps. Next on my list of food-blog-feats-to-accomplish is to learn how to take a better picture of wraps, burritos, fajitas, and quesadillas. In other words, I want to figure out how to take attractive photos of enclosed dinner - I'm sure the answer lies in cutting said dinner item in half and propping one end up on the other, but I was afraid they would fall apart if I did anything other than wrap them as well as I could and then push them, seam-side down, onto the plates and hope they made it through our dinner prayers. By the way - if you want to see some amazing pictures of food, check out Another One Bites the Crust - you can also link to it on the right side of the page.

Tonight's dinner, then, was the last dinner on my humble (and fast) menu this week: Seitan Curry Bowl. By the way - this one and the wrap were part of the Lunch section of the book - I figured those meals would probably be even faster to make and I was more or less correct. This one comes together so quickly you almost run out of time to gather the spices. It's perfectly flavorful and not as overwhelming as I thought it would be considering how much curry powder, cumin, and soy sauce is in there. Also, it allowed Mister and I to take advantage of the amazing depth of flavor present in in-season asparagus. I anticipate a decent amount of asparagus recipes for the next couple of weeks, since the season is so tender and short and as tonight's experience proved, there is a remarkable difference in taste when [Mister's favorite] veggies are in season.

I'm off for now - one more day of work before my one-day weekend, so you can count on a new menu either tomorrow night or Thursday, if I get to it in the midst of re-planning my mini-vacation to Arizona and baking Irish Soda Bread :)

Jocalat on one shoulder, Seitan on the other...

I decided to start sampling my treasure trove of bars today. Ordinarily, this is how my day goes, eating-wise:
breakfast
morning snack
lunch
afternoon snack (sometimes)
dinner
The morning snack is usually a piece of fruit - grapes, an apple, a pear. However, I've found that they don't hold me over very long. Usually, I have my snack about two hours into my work day, but today I knew I was going to be too busy to eat something then, so I would have to go at 1 hour into work and make it last until a few hours later when I got lunchtime. I figured a 180 calorie fruit, nut, and chocolate bar would do a better job than my grapes, so I just grabbed the first one I could reach and it was my Larabar Jocalat Chocolate Mint bar.

I have to be honest: when I opened it up and smelled it, I thought, 'I don't know about this..." and when I took the first bite, every impulse in me wanted to be completely unladylike and spit it out in my trashcan. I fought the urge to be utterly uncouth and managed to chew it up and swallow. Upon doing so, there came this kind of nice aftertaste that made me pause and say, "let's try another bite." I realized about halfway through the bar that sometimes you just need to give your tastebuds a moment to shift their paradigm. If you are expecting something chocolatey the way that a Hershey's bar or (ooohh) a Dove bar is chocolatey, you will be sorely disappointed. Once I realized that something that had dates as a first ingredient wasn't going to be creamy, it was actually a delightfully dark and bitter chocolate taste on my tongue.

By the way, that little bar got me through four and a half hours of training before I could have my lunch (leftover "black bottom" tofu).

Tonight, I had more fun with gloppy sauces and once again marvelled that I can make them without gobs of some fatty substance. None at all, actually! I made Pineapple-Tamari Braised Seitan for dinner tonight. Tamari is a japanese version of soy sauce - a little sweeter, a little more piquant, if you will. If you cannot find it (though it is widely available where I live anyway), regular soy sauce will be an adequate substitute. It didn't turn out completely as I imagined, but it was really good, and could be a great noodle dish if I made 3 times as much sauce...and with the huge can of pineapple juice I got (because apparently they don't make single servings anymore), I very easily could have!

Pineapple-Tamari Braised Seitan with Vegetables

Ingredients
2 Tbsp peanut oil, divided
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
8 oz seitan
1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
3 Tbsp tamari/soy sauce
2 Tbsp cornstarch, dissolved in 2 Tbsp warm water
4 cloves garlic, pressed/minced
1 bunch of asparagus*, ends trimmed and bias-cut
2 medium carrots, bias-cut
1 large yellow bell pepper, cut into thin strips
cooked brown rice

Tear seitan into bite-sized chunks with your hands. Heat 1 Tbsp peanut oil in a large saute pan; add seitan and saute 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until edges start to brown. Combine pineapple juice and tamari, pour into seitan and stir to coat. Bring to simmer, then cover and reduce heat slightly. Braise, stirring once or twice, 10-15 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the garlic and vegetables by pressing all garlic into a small bowl and placing all cut vegetables in another bowl. Heat 1 Tbsp peanut oil and 1 tsp sesame oil on high heat in a large wok or a very large pan - it is ready when the oil shimmers. Add garlic all at once and stirfry rapidly for about 15 seconds. Add vegetables and stir constantly for the first minute, and very frequently for another 2-3 minutes.
Dissolve the cornstarch in water and add to seitan mixture, then pour seitan and sauce into wok to thicken with vegetables. Stirfry one more minute until sauce is thick and gloppy. Remove from heat and serve over rice.
* Note:
Asparagus has an early and short season - usually around early- to mid-springtime. I was absolutely astonished to find not-rotten/rotting asparagus at Whole Foods so I bought it because it competes only with cauliflower for Mister's affections.
Asparagus is "ripe" when it is colorful and closed up - the tips should be tight and pointy, nothing should be "blooming," so to speak. If the heads are opening, you're better off skipping it. Also, always eat asparagus as soon after you buy it as possible - it's a finicky little vegetable without a great deal of stamina.
If you cannot find an appetizing bunch of asparagus, broccoli would make a very close substitute - as far as the stems are concerned, I can't taste a big difference in flavor, only texture.
final note: bias-cut means to slice crosswise diagonally.