cake or death

A little bit more than a week ago, I was sitting at the dining table, constructing the menu and Mister walked by just as my eyes had fallen on a recipe for a Sweet and Sour Stirfry in The Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook.  I looked up from my scheming and asked him, "would you like to have a sweet-n-sour stirfry?"  He responded with a relatively enthusiastic, "sure!" so I put it on the menu.  Since I completely forgot to buy tofu and cashews, it sat on the menu, unmade all week.  Today, I finally got the ingredients I needed to prepare the recipe, so I figured I would do so before the other ingredients got bored of sitting in the fridge for a week and grew legs (or other things that don't belong on vegetables).

I love colorful dishes, especially when the colors are as vibrant as these!  I think I had the reddest pepper ever on sale at Whole Foods (maybe not, but that's how I felt) and despite the Pavlovian Christmas association of red and green, I just love the way the colors look together.  Add into that the sunny yellow of pineapple chunks against snow white cubes of tofu and you have a very nice little stirfry to bid farewell to winter (yes, I know there's still a week left).

I am continually amazed by the way a simple sauce can make the difference between hippie-dippy steamed veggies and a take-out emulating stirfry, served over basmati rice to absorb any extra gloop.  If only the reason I usually turn to take-out was purely because I love the way Chinese take-out tastes, rather than my lack of desire to cook, this would save me a ton of money.

Except for one small thing.  Apparently, sometime in the last 8 days, Mister came down with schizophrenia or some kind of dissociative disorder.  He ate his stirfry and rice, and he didn't push his food around too much with the chopsticks, but when I asked what he thought, this was his response:
You made it well.  I would just never actually, on purpose, eat something sweet-n-sour.

What?  When I reminded him of the encounter recounted above, he had no recollection of it, and asked if I had posed the question to him with another choice.  I said no, I just asked if he wanted the stirfry, and that seemed to "explain" things in Mister's head.  Apparently, if he had said "No," we simply would not have had dinner.  He seems to have missed the part where I was sitting with a pile of cookbooks and a grocery list...

This reminds me of [edit: an Eddie Izzard routine] a Monty Python routine he and I watched together at the beginning of our relationship.  I'm not actually a big Monty Python fan - I think it's more of a guy thing, kind of like the 3 Stooges or the Marx Brothers, except smarter and more English.  Regardless, one sketch I did always find amusing was when three men were given a choice: Cake or Death?  For obvious reasons, the first two men chose cake.  When it is the third man's turn, he also chooses cake, but is informed that they have just run out.  His response?  So my choices are, or Death?

That was as good of a segue as I'll ever have to the bonus round of our post today...

I have been wanting to bake since we moved in, for two reasons.  First, nothing says "home" like the scent of freshly baked something.  Second, and possibly more importantly, I have seriously shirked my responsibilities as a recipe tester for Dynise's upcoming cookbook, and I believe the deadline is looming.  So, out of guilt as well as privilege (because I really am very lucky to be able to "test-drive" these awesome recipes), I baked Rue des Rosiers Pain d'Epice, a nice dark spice loaf.

If the goal was to make the entire apartment smell like where I want to go once I've left this world, then Mission Accomplished!  The loaf bakes for nearly an hour and fills as much space as it can with the most amazing scent.  I'm not sure there is a better smell for baked goods than the smell of something loaded with "winter" spices - cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, for example.  Even chocolate cake or brownies cannot compete with the molasses-rich scent of this dark bread.

It has incredible texture and both Angst and Mister were enthusiastic taste-testers with me.  It was nearly impossible to wait for the loaf to cool enough to cut it without man-handling it.  I just kept walking over to sniff it and at one point I tried to convince Angst that if we both blew on it, it would cool down faster.  The sliced almonds made it very pretty, but definitely made it a little more difficult to cut without marring the top.

Dynise introduced the pain d'epice by painting a lovely Euro-urban scene of a breakfast made up of tea and a slice of this spice loaf slathered with Earth Balance and marmalade.  Although it is very possible there are flavors of marmalade besides orange, I am not aware of them and I'm not big fan of anything orange which is not the raw fruit itself.  However, I can agree that a few pats of EB, spread across the still warm bread and allowed to melt a bit took this bread from quite tasty to absolutely heavenly.

I'll leave you with confirmation of my previously expressed "fears."  Although it seems the entire month of March is an opportunity for people to drink (Mardi Gras and St. Patty's day), it seems today was the big celebration, since we had the parade earlier in the day.  While I was out buying food for our cupboards, I had the incredible misfortune to miss a big band of bagpipers playing outside the Irish bar across the street.  Since they woke Mister from his slumber, he decided I should at least get to see what I missed:

Nope, definitely not sorry I was several blocks away when this was happening.  I am glad Mister got a picture, though.  We have some great from-the-window pictures from our years living in this area.  We'll add this one to the cyber-pile.

my kingdom for some bread

Bread.  There are so many forms bread can take.  Commonly, it is merely the outside of some delicious inside that makes up a sandwich, but Mister and I quite enjoy bread simply for its breadiness.  We love the house-made focaccia at Horizons, as well as the microwave-warmed pita at Cedars.  We love the hearty whole grain bread from Whole Foods and the meal-in-itself 12-Grain bread by Arnold.  We love to use bread to dip in the hot broth of our soup while we wait for it to cool enough that we can eat it without scathing our tastebuds and Mister especially loves to scoop up various Italian-influenced dinners with some bread.  We have a variety of spreads for our bread: hummus, tahini, peanut butter, apple butter, Dark Chocolate Dreams, and a few samples of Justin's Nut Butters; but sometimes, I just spread some Earth Balance love on mine.

Do you know people have gone to prison over bread?  Even in the popular musical, Les Miserables, one of the main characters, Jean Valjean, spent 5 years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family.  I realize the novel and resulting musical are works of fiction, but it is historically-based fiction and you can see the same theme represented throughout literary history.  When I was in college, I was part of a group that visited a local prison, seeking to show kindness and compassion to people who had that in very short supply.  I was intrigued by my new "hobby" and integrated it into my studies, even writing one of my term papers on prison recidivism.   Here's where it gets interesting.

Yes, of course I can relate all this prison talk to dinner.  I guess that doesn't say much for my culinary skills, does it?  Regardless, we had Pasta e Fagioli from Vegan on the Cheap, which I truly thought would be brothier than it turned out (as you can observe in the picture - also note the bread; it's about to be important).  Additionally, when I finally arrived home after a brisk walk through mid-30-degree weather, I had an irrepressible craving for toast.  Not just a "Hey, ya know what might be nice?" kind of craving; rather, the kind of craving that causes all the wind to be knocked out of your proverbial sails when you preheat the toaster oven only to open the refrigerator door and see....no bread.

So, I re-wrapped myself in my scarf, coat, hat, and gloves, and much to the kitty's horror, headed back out the door.  Mister needed coffee creamer anyway, otherwise tomorrow morning would be very sad, so I headed up to Superfresh for some pre-shopping (tomorrow is grocery day).

Has it ever occurred to anyone else [in America] how absurdly fortunate we are that there is an entire aisle at the grocery store devoted to bread?  Take a minute to ponder that, because it's not like that everywhere.  I walked the length of the aisle with my eyes peeled for the bright orange circle that signifies this or that bread is on sale.  Best bargain?  $1.50 for a loaf of whole wheat bread.  However, upon examination, I couldn't figure out why it needed half of the ingredients it contained, so I moved on to the $1.79 loaf.  A little better, but still not really a whole grain product.  What I really wanted was for some Arnold's bread to be on sale, even though I knew the best I could hope for was $2.50.  That's exactly what I found and I did stand there for a moment, pondering whether a 71-cent savings was worth the finely milled wheat flour and HFCS.

People go back to prison because of high-pressure decisions like that one that I was privileged to make and sometimes, I totally get that.  It can be overwhelming.  Think about it: for however long you've been "locked up," someone else decided what and even when you ate.  Not the most favorable situation, but what choice do you really have?  So, you do your time: you're where you're supposed to be, you eat what you're fed, you wear what you're given, and you keep yourself out of trouble.  Now you're back in the free world and you have to go food shopping for the first time...and then the second, and on and on.

I have always had the freedom to choose my own bread and it drives me crazy sometimes because of how many darn options there are.  Can you imagine not having to choose and then having so many choices?  I kid you not - honestly rehabilitated people become so overwhelmed with the decision to buy this bread or that bread, they unconsciously put themselves in situations where they are set up to fall again.  Their motive?  To return to what they know, where they feel safe - a place with no decisions.

Heck of a food blog, eh?

Alright, back to the food.

I would much rather have the burden of choosing my Arnold bread if it means I can also make tasty, hearty, inside-out warming soups like this one.  I'm sure prison food has come a long way since, well, whenever, but I'm still pretty sure my soup is better.  It came together quickly, too, although the broth did require some tweaking.  It tasted very tomatoey and not quite as rich and garlicky as I wanted it to, so I added a bit of sea salt and white wine vinegar.  That seemed to do the trick.  I ended up having my toast for dessert, since there wasn't really any broth to sop up (and I really wanted toast anyway).

Finally, I'll leave you with a happy picture and my new menu:  here is my first purple oatmeal of the season!

I get the frozen mixed berry blend at Whole Foods and then heat about a half cup of berries in a covered saucepan until they get all sizzly and juicy, then I sprinkle in the oatmeal and add 1 cup of almond milk and stir everything up.  I had forgotten how good it is.  And how purple.

Despite my best intentions (and the paycheck I just got), this week's menu comes completely from Vegan on the Cheap...again.  Yup, it sure does appear that I'm getting my money's worth from this one!

1. Moroccan Chickpeas and Couscous

2. Indian-Spiced Lentil Ragu

3. Better-Than-Takeout Tofu Stir-Fry - I have skipped over this the last three times I made my menu from this book because broccoli has had a bad year, but I'm going to try this with frozen broccoli and see what happens because it really does look like an incredibly tasty recipe.

4. Rice Island Casserole - I have no idea what is going to happen here, but I think it'll be good.  Either way, doesn't it have an awesome name?

5. Samosa Pie - Mister and I love Indian food, as you have probably observed if you've been reading for a while.  Even more than that, Mister and I love samosas.  There is just nothing bad about them.  The whole pie crust thing has kept me from doing this before.  It may be the wine speaking, but I'm feeling a bit intrepid this week, so let's see how it goes!

6. Vegetable Lentil Stew - yes, it sounds boring after...well, the other 5 menu items, but Mister loves him some lentil stew.

overkill makes the broth unnecessary

I'm pretty good at overreacting.  Most of the time, I can keep myself in check (after years of admonishing looks from Mister when I was on the verge of being a high-maintenance girlfriend).  Since I don't want to be "that" girl/woman, I've done my best to purge myself of neurotic tendencies, but there is one area in which I am completely willing to look crazy, and that is when something directly relates to my health.

When I was in high school, I was known for my singing and I had every intention of always being known for my singing, so I was super-protective of my voice and all the parts of me that contributed to it.  The minute there was a little chill in the air, I was in a turtleneck and sweater and if, heaven forbid, someone was smoking near me or the air was really cold, I had no hesitation about pulling the turtleneck up over my mouth and nose to warm/filter the air around me.

Ever since I became a grown-up, and more importantly a vegetarian, it has been increasingly rare for me to fall ill.  When that happens, I usually do three things: sleep as much as possible, drink detox tea and eat nutrient-dense foods, and bundle up to excess.

So, before I left my home to teach today, I assembled the following outfit:
thigh-high knit socks under knee-high boots under an ankle-length skirt with an undershirt under a thermal shirt, topped with a scarf, my winter [wool] coat, with gloves.  I stepped out of the building and immediately noticed that I had overreacted a bit to a sunny, mid-50s day.  I comforted myself by remembering that I would return to pitch darkness and probably exactly 50 degrees, possibly less.  Even if the temperature didn't budge an inch, I had significantly fewer sniffles and sneezes today and I would prefer not to relapse tomorrow.

Dinner closely echoed my outfit overkill; in my excitement to include plenty of good-for-me fresh veggies in my soup, the broth was kind of like a second thought - there was very little point to its existence other than to puff out the bulgur and make me believe it was really soup.

Buckwheat Bulgur-Black Bean Soup from the October 2010 issue of Vegetarian Times magazine was as tasty as it is beautiful.  I really enjoy the color combination of the top three colors of the rainbow and I think the black beans do a great job bringing out their complementary but still contrasted colors.  The recipe said to shred the carrots, but I'm really not a fan of shredding carrots - it makes a mess that can really only be justified by carrot cake.  So, I julienned them with my favorite kitchen toy instead.  I don't think my mother knew just how helpful that bad boy would be, or how very much use he would get - I think she just thought it was cool.

Angst is apparently trying to put on his "winter weight," which means he's eating as though he'll never eat again...which was reinforced when he ran out of food before I had a chance to get him new food.  He spent most of his waking minutes today convinced he was starving to death.  Fortunately, I was aware of his plight and stopped by Superfresh on my way home to pick up his dinner.  While I was there, I thought a nice accompaniment to our soup dinner would be a nice loaf of artisan bread to dip in broth and/or the dipping sauce I wanted to share with Mister (as far as I'm concerned, that little $5 tin has already paid for itself).  Since it's autumn, Superfresh decided that all the bread should have raisins (Mister's arch-nemesis), but with a little spy-power, I was able to locate and snatch up one of two loaves of roasted garlic bread.  It went very nicely with both the dipping sauce and the soup.

I made a bit more tonight and between Mister's and my delight for the dipping sauce and Mister's proclivity toward using bread as a soup scoop, we made it through half the loaf tonight!  Maybe I'll skip the rice in our Moroccan Lentil Stew tomorrow and just let Mister use up the rest of the bread as lavash instead!

if I didn't have bad luck...

...I wouldn't have any fun stories to tell! I am somewhat convinced that I am only wearing my apron because it says "bitch, bitch, bitch" on it and it's black. Tonight's adventures proved that it doesn't necessarily protect me from flying food the way an apron might protect someone else from flying food. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I know that one minute I was [not so gently] squeezing a quarter of a lime over the soup pot and the next minute I was trying to extract the lime pulp from where it had flown beneath my apron. I didn't even know there was enough space between my sweater and the apron, tied quite snugly around my body, but there was evidently just enough space for a chunk of lime to wedge itself in there and hang out around my belly.

All this fun ended with a delightful and surprising Roasted Yellow Pepper and Corn Bisque from Veganomicon. It didn't take the full amount of time estimated in the cookbook because I used pre-roasted yellow peppers. The soup actually only simmers for 20 minutes once all the yellowy goodness is piled in the pot and brought to boiling. Then the real fun begins - the part you really like if you like kitchen toys: I got to use my immersion blender. By the way, immersion blenders, much like conventional blenders, have different settings from "gentle stirring" to "deadly mutilation." Make sure to check where yours is set before you turn it on and splatter bisque all over your stove, counter, and self.

I served up this pretty yellow soup with what was left of the crusty bread from the farmers market. Good thing, too - it turns out nutmeg can be rather hot when added to soup in sufficient quantities. That surprised the heck out of me.

Also, there are only 12 days left to vote in my poll - I want your feedback! Please let me know someone is actually reading this and vote and/or leave me a comment!

wheat is out to get you

Shhh...don't make any noise or sudden movements - it will find you.

I made Mediterranean Risotto for dinner tonight, but I'm not posting any pictures because it didn't look any different than it did when I made it with barley. Here are the main changes:
1 cup of arborio rice (vs. 1 cup pearled barley), cooked in 2.5 cups broth added 1/2 cup at a time and allowed to absorb before adding more. 1/3 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (packed dry, no oil, vs. 3/4 cup) added with the third addition of broth. I also completely left out the white pepper and didn't add the chopped peppers and olives until the last addition of broth.

The thing about wheat is this: Despite my alterations, this risotto is still way too intensely flavored, so we ate it with bread as scoops. Wheat bread. But we might not have known that wheat bread contains wheat if it weren't for the very helpful label on the back, letting us know that there is wheat in the wheat bread.

It's blurry, but the little white tag at the bottom says:
"Allergan Information: This product contains wheat."

What I want to know is this: are there really people that stupid? What did you think would be in wheat bread?

In other news... today I gave in to myself and ate my beloved Clif Nectar bar, flavor: lemon, vanilla & cashew. Again, the packaging itself makes me happy - it's a very mellow shade of yellow...one I can imagine painting a future kitchen.

This bar is absolutely sublime. I could just sniff it (and normally do, just before nibbling tenderly at it) and be happy because it smells SO good. All 5 ingredients (dates, cashews, goji berries, lemon juice concentrate, and vanilla) are certified organic. That may or may not mean something, but it makes me feel more like I'm ingesting pure sunshine.

Nutritionally, the price is right for a snack - 160 calories, only 6g fat, yet providing an equal 6g of dietary fiber and 4g protein (which isn't much, but you look for stuff like this after too many people ask how on earth you can possibly get enough protein without eating animal corpses *gasp!*). Also, this little 1.6 oz bar claims to provide 2 fruit servings in its delectable little self. The thing that really gets me about this bar is how creamy it is in texture, which I think is primarily owed to the velvety cashews. The ratio of vanilla to lemon is also perfect. I can't recommend this bar enough - I love, love, love it!

But here is my puzzle:
A Nectar bar is 1.6 oz.
A Larabar is also 1.6 oz.
A Nectar bar lays claim to 2 servings of fruit,
but A Larabar only claims 1 serving of fruit.
Both bars are made up of fruits and nuts.
All I can come up with so far is that Nectar bars are more concentrated on the fruit aspect of the bar, where Larabars depend heavily on nuts to texture their bars, therefore leaving less room for fruit. If you have a better answer, though, I'd love to know it - leave me a comment!

angst also doesn't like butter lettuce

He thought he would, or perhaps he thought it was just mottled spinach, but when Mister gave him a piece, he sniffed it, licked it, made a valiant attempt to eat it, but ultimately gave up and walked away.

Tonight we had an "easy" dinner. That's what you're supposed to say when you make sandwiches for dinner, but it's not always true - some sandwiches are much easier to make than others. For example, it is easier to make a peanut butter sandwich than it is to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's not difficult to make a PB&J, but it is more complicated because it involves more ingredients (and if you're a little nutty - no pun intended - it could involve more utensils, too) than a simple peanut butter sandwich. So, as dinners go, tonight's was quite simple, but I would like to say that our sandwiches were complex, as fist foods go.

Tonight we had Smoked Apple Tofu sandwiches. I had this little storm in my brain that made me think of the marinade - I love the combination of sweet and savory - and then I thought of fun things to do with other parts of the sandwiches. I would like to preface this with the assertion that I'm actually not a huge fan of sandwiches. Sure, they're convenient and easy to carry on picnics, but it's very rare (for me) to come across a sandwich that really makes you pause and say "Wow, that's quite a sandwich!" I have had two such experiences in my life, which combined to create tonight's dinner in my brain.

In 2003 (yes, it really was that good of a sandwich), my husband and I took a trip to Lake Tahoe, which involved flying on Delta before all airlines started going cheap on the airline food provided on cross-country flights. I still remember how good my sandwich was, because I think I told the airline no less than five times that my husband and I required vegan meals. In addition to a really good cookie and a few other tasty bits, they gave us these amazing sandwiches. I want to say the sandwich filling was in a pita, but if it was a pita it was a very good pita. It was a bunch of grilled vegetables, primarily squash, but really good. It was just very bare yet surprisingly flavorful - enough so that I remember it 6 years later! The second sandwich is made immortal in a blog from last week - I'm still impressed with how tasty that sandwich was.

So my brain put together a marinade, putting all these memories together, and tonight I made tasty sandwiches for dinner.
There isn't really a recipe, but I'll tell you what I did:
I combined 8 oz apple juice (no sugar added) with 2 Tbsp liquid smoke and 1/2 tsp salt in a spouted measuring cup and stirred it all together to make the salt dissolve. I drained a 14 oz container of extra firm tofu and cut it lengthwise into 8 slices and laid them on paper towels to drain while I prepped the other toppings. I heated a skillet on medium-high heat and placed the 8 tofu slices upon it, then poured a small amount of the marinade onto each slice (and was delighted by how quickly each slice absorbed it!) and let it cook. Total cooking time for the tofu was 15 minutes, flipping the tofu about every 4-5 minutes to brown/crisp the tofu evenly, and pouring more of the marinade on as seemed appropriate. By the end of the 15 minutes, I had incrementally poured out all of the marinade and the tofu had soaked it all up and become browned and crispy on the edges and looked like this:
I then took two slices of multi-grain bread and spread about 1 tsp of hummus on each slice. I then laid a couple of leaves of butter lettuce on one slice of bread, topped the lettuce with two pieces of tofu, then laid some very thinly sliced carrots and cucumbers atop the tofu and laid the other slice of bread on top. I peeled both the carrot and the cucumber and then cut them both in half crosswise. I then took the vegetable peeler to each half and made paper-thin slices lengthwise (okay, they were more like cardboard-thick, but that doesn't sound as poetic). The tofu came out really well, and Mister was impressed, so I consider this dinner a success, even if I didn't make the side dish I had intended to make with it (it was a long, exhausting day).