I love cucumbers

This is something that I forget almost every winter.  I love cucumbers.  I love the way they smell, I love the way they taste, I love their crunch and the fact that you would have to do something really bad to a cucumber to make it not naturally cool.  Something evil, like microwave it.

For however happy cucumbers make me, there is something else that makes me sad.  That thing is always the same: tomato seeds.  I don't know what it is about tomato seeds, but I find them utterly repulsive and everything about them makes me unhappy.  I hate cutting into a grape tomato to have the seeds squirt out and more than that, I hate slicing the core out of a "normal" tomato and finding it left behind a virtual colony of gross little seeds, encased in some gelatinous substance that then adheres them to the wall of the tomato I just want to dice.  There have been times that the sight has literally caused me to gag.

Fortunately for everyone, a cucumber and tomato salad cannot be beat and even I'll admit that.  Additionally, something wonderful happens to raw tomatoes when they marinate for 30 minutes or more in a "dressing" of sea salt, lemon juice, and olive oil.  It's almost as though the salt and lemon juice "cook" them a little.  My only complaint about this salad is the incredible amount of dressing left at the bottom of the bowl.

In case you haven't guessed, either by the salad or process of elimination, tonight's dinner was Chickpea Croquettes with Greek Salad Topping from Vegetarian Times: Quick and Healthy.  I've made this before, when it was originally featured in Veg. Times, but I don't remember being quite as impressed with it that time as I was tonight.

Since it was Friday and I was pretty proud of myself for making it all the way here again, I decided there was nothing wrong with a little cooking partner.  Meet Aperitif:

Malibu Pineapple Rum + Papaya Nectar + Lime Perrier
HAPPY FRIDAY

I don't know if I've only used this bag of chickpea flour for this recipe and nothing else (and therefore it has been sitting, bored and cold in the refrigerator, for a year) or if I've managed to sneak it into something else, but I have to say - I'm completely intrigued by chickpea flour.

What's even more awesome is that this stone-ground "good source of protein" has a recipe for hummus on the back which is created not by pureeing chickpeas in blender, but rather by combining this flour with water and a few other flavor elements.  I really want to try that when our current super-tasty Cava Mezze Roasted Garlic Hummus runs out.  Considering how great it is, that shouldn't take long.

I combined the hummus mix chickpea flour with cumin, salt, and chili powder, then whisked it until it was homogenous in color and not nearly as pretty as it is above.  In place of boring old water, I decided to mix it with vegetable broth for added flavor, so perhaps that was a contributor to my happiness with how it came out.

Add in some diced orange pepper for crunch and deception.  That's right - those little orange cubes are liars for two reasons.  One, they were supposed to be red, but red peppers are not having a happy season just yet.  More importantly, though, because the finished product was far more garlicky than I expected it to be, I kept expecting the crunchy texture to lead to the distinct realization that I'd bitten into a clove of garlic.  That was not true, though, as the sweetness of the pepper shone through after only an additional chomp.

One of the most rewarding parts of the evening was cooking up 8 of these suckers without setting off the fire alarm.  This may not sound like an achievement to you, but almost every time I "fry" something with spray oil on a skillet, I end up overjudging the heat I need on the burner, which results in me burning at least the surface of something (they're "blackened," like cajun-creole, ya know?) and generating enough smoke to set off the alarm.

That didn't happen tonight because I finally figured out that it's okay to a) cook with the exhaust hood running and b) lower the heat once the skillet it where it's supposed to be.  This results in more evenly (and quietly) cooked food.

When I was preparing to set the table and deliver our dinner to it, I turned to find Angst had camped out in "Roast" position in front of the fridge.  Bizarre little cat.  Turns out he was thirsty and knows that's where Mommy keeps the "special" (Brita) water.  Spoiled, I tell you.

Anyway, dinner was delightful, especially with the crunch and sweetness of the orange pepper to break the potential monotony of a pretty bland-looking meal.  Chickpeas in chickpea flour?  It doesn't exactly scream excitement.... but maybe it should.  After all, it is spiked with chili powder and cumin.

Speaking of spiked....

speedy vegan?

I was originally going to title the post "Speed Vegan" but I didn't want it to be confused with the cookbook by the same name.  Although I sure would enjoy the SEO hits that may result from such a clever title, I don't want to be the cause of all the disappointment people would feel upon discovering this was not an associated blog.

However, I do want to share with you one of my cookbook gems: Vegetarian Times Fast and Easy.  This is a pretty good book - a lot of recipes are surprisingly tasty.  That truly was not intended to be the backhanded compliment it looks like.  What I mean is that some of the recipes combine bizarre (and sometimes difficult-to-find) ingredients but it always comes out well.  Other recipes you can look at and just know they'll be great.  I enjoy the first kind - I love being surprised by dinner.  This is actually pretty funny, considering what a picky eater I was as a child and how I hated to "try new things."

A few nights ago, I made one of the latter - an old, faithful standby, Tuscan Vegetable Ragout.

It's an incredible melange of crunchy, creamy, squishy, and squeaky.  Squeaky?  Well, yes - haven't you ever noticed how sometimes artichoke hearts make a squeaky sound?  You'll notice now.

Anyway, there are general ingredients - white beans, tomatoes, zucchini, artichoke hearts - which make up the standard Italian cuisine base, wouldn't you say?  Then there are embellishments, just like a good opera. [If I could take a brief detour: through my adolescence, I was trained as a classical vocalist.  One of my favorite things about Italian music was the Aria - the purpose of an aria is to showcase the ethereal voice and undeniable talent of, normally, a soprano.  As luck would have it, that was the part I sang.  The structure of an aria is similar to a canon in instrumental music - you start with a simple theme, but then to "show off" you sing through the exact same tune a second time but with wild - yet tasteful and perfectly articulated - ornamentation.  I am not saying that I fulfilled all the lovely descriptions I just gave of the Diva, but I did adore singing the second round of an aria.]

In Tuscan Vegetable Ragout, the ornaments take the form of cubed smoked tofu, sliced kalamata olives, and occasionally small pasta.  I skipped the pasta this time around because I felt like the menu was already quite noodle-heavy, so I served it on brown basmati instead.

The flavors of the various parts combine into a mouthful that is at once sweet (from the artichokes and tofu) and a bit savory (from the tomato-drenched beans and zucchini) with the satisfying crunch of zucchini combined with the smoothness of creamy cannellini beans.  There is nothing outstanding about this dish other than how perfectly its parts come together to make a whole.

Tonight's dinner, on the other hand, was quite outstanding, flavor-wise.  Tonight I made Singapore-Style Noodles with All That Other Stuff.  I nearly forgot how stirfries worked, which is amusing to me as they were all I did know how to do before I learned to cook.

I have gotten so used to chop-as-you-cook recipes that when I know I'm making a time-saver, I tend to automatically go to that.  You cannot pull of a successful stirfry this way.  No, fortunately, I remembered just in time that you really do need to prep all of the ingredients before you heat the oil.

This required 4 prep bowls, 2 knives, 2 measuring spoons, 2 measuring cups, and 1 whisk to accomplish, but I did pull it off and the result was terrific.  Love at first bite for Mister.

Me?  Well, it bit me.  Does it look tasty?  It totally is.  Does it look spicy?  It definitely is.  Furthermore, it's that sneaky spicy that doesn't hit you at first and then all of a sudden you're like "holy cow, my mouth is on fire!"  This should have been obvious as I was whisking nearly a tablespoon of curry powder and a teaspoon of harissa into the sauce, but it wasn't really.  I'm still stupidly brave about both of those ingredients and continue to forget how much harissa especially likes to kick me in the throat halfway through my meal.

It was absolutely worth it, though - I could only handle one bowl.  Mister had plenty of time to plow enthusiastically through two bowls while making mean jokes about dinner eating me.  He also had a good laugh as I tried to cool my burning tongue and lips by unwrapping the last Li'l Dreamer and pressing it to my tongue, which was sticking out through my lips.

Hey, ya know what?  I may have looked like a doofus, but it worked.  And it was delicious.

big fat butter beans

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

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

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


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


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

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



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

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

go ahead, surprise me

What an unusual day.  It was absolutely chock-full of surprises - some good, some not so good.  Why don't we start at the beginning?

My goal for the next phase of my life is to not need a back-up alarm.  I'm sure you can imagine, my first alarm is annoying, but not nearly as annoying (or far away) as my second alarm.  That's the point, of course - terrifying incentive to get up and out of bed before Mister is awakened by the super-irritating noises my cellphone makes to nag me out of bed.

You would think waking up to a breakfast like this would be incentive enough, wouldn't you?  It would be, if it didn't greet a day that found me making my way out to another glorious day at work, knowing that this will probably be the most special part of my day.  And it was special - like I mentioned yesterday, those strawberries are ineffably incredible and need to be eaten in generous quantities and frequently.

Also, every now and then, there aren't many things that are more amazing than a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel dripping with melted Earth Balance.  Except a toasted everything bagel similarly decked out along with a row of perfectly ripe, organic strawberries.

When I got to work, there were two more surprises waiting at my desk.  The first surprise was found on my desk - an adorable star-shaped lollipop in red, white, and blue (it's Flag Day and as part of Employee Appreciation week at work, we get themed surprises and also honored employees who served in a branch of the military).


The second surprise took the form of an unexpected email announcing the promotion of one of my colleagues - this is both awesome and enviable.  He works very hard and deserves recognition for his efforts.

In a final pair of surprises (at least for the work day), we had a new class of new employees start training yesterday.  Today is normally the day that I blow their minds and they usually return the favor.  This group did not let me down.  They did surprise me, though, in two ways.

New Hire #1 shared her experience from her previous position at AARP - she said that the older folks she spoke to who were healthy and disease free in their advanced years all had one thing in common.  Are you ready?  I know this will blow your mind: they all either followed a vegetarian diet or ate plenty of fruits and vegetables (in addition to meat).  Who's surprised?  Raise it high!  No one?  Yeah, me neither.

The next surprise truly did catch me off-guard.  A lovely woman in the class, I'm guessing she's in her mid-50s, shared the secret of her gorgeous, gray-free hair and it was not what I was expecting.  She said she takes a teaspoon of unsulphured blackstrap molasses every morning and it reversed the grays she did have and now her hair is all blond like it was in her youth.  Considering how expensive it gets to keep up my dye-job, I think I'm going to try it.  The worst thing that happens?  I get a teaspoon of important vitamins and minerals in my morning tea and my hair is still gray.  Not a bad worst-case scenario (except for that whole "hair still being gray" thing).

So...it looks like my class is teaching me, doesn't it?

Dinner tonight was Vegetable Biryani from La Dolce Vegan.  It started out with a fun little spice medley:

And ended up (after some excitement - keep reading) as a tasty little supper:

I think it could use maybe a little more salt.  The only reason I say maybe is because the scent of the spices starts to take over and flavor the food about halfway through and then you can taste more complexity.  It does have to build up, though, and sometimes, I just want dinner to be tasty immediately.  Patience, Grasshopper.

So, while I was cooking, suddenly there came the wretched, loud, annoying, and terrifying sound of a fire alarm, followed by the sight of the occupants of the building next to us emptying out onto the sidewalk.  Mister went out to investigate while I shoved Angst into the bathroom so I'd be able to find him if we needed to evacuate.  Turns out the people on the top floor set their kitchen on fire, but were able to extinguish the blaze before the fire company showed up.  I really hope it just took a while for someone to call them, because if their response time started from the beginning of the alarm, I am pretty sure our whole building will be engulfed in life-destroying flames before they find their way to our home.  After all the excitement, I finally put dinner on the table and told Mister about my fabulous day.

We haven't see the mouse yet tonight, but Angst had a horrible day, so I hope his little friend pops out to say hi at some point just to make him happy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

there's lettuce in my pasta

Like I mentioned in my menu, I've always skipped over recipes calling for escarole, primarily because I can never find it at Whole Foods.  To my great delight, I came home with some yesterday, so tonight I made Penne with Cannellini Beans and Escarole from Vegan Italiano.

Isn't it lovely?  So... green!  I have a confession to make: I've never had escarole until tonight.  In addition to having an extraordinary amount of trouble locating it in center city, it was most certainly never a part of meals growing up outside the city.  Mister was very surprised when I shared my escarole epiphany with him since he grew up in a hippie family with a Greek dad and part-Sicilian mom; dark leafy greens and various other things that never crossed my lips until adulthood were a regular part of the days there was money for food in his childhood.

My take?  It's kind of weird, isn't it?  I think I imagined escarole to be a dark leafy green, kind of like Tuscan kale but with the texture of spinach or chard - a silky green that would linger briefly on my tongue before following the penne down my throat.  I couldn't have been too much more wrong - it was more like I had added lettuce to my pasta.  It was a little crunchy, a little bitter, and plenty chewy - more like the look of lettuce with the toughness of kale.  I should have realized I was wrong when I was chopping it.  It was actually tough to chop!  Ordinarily, my fancy new knives slice through greens like butter, but not this time - I actually had to put some elbow grease in.

The combination of escarole, tomatoes, garlic, and cannellini beans was classically Italian and completely delightful.  I served dinner with a generous bowlful of mixed Mediterranean olives in a vinegary brine, accompanied by a glass of Apothic Red for my sipping pleasure.  It could only have been a more perfectly rustic and Country Italian meal if we were eating outside as the sun set behind a far-off horizon with a basket full of crusty, warm bread to sop up the sauce.

And just when you thought I couldn't paint a more delightful picture of [food-provoked] happiness, you must have forgotten (or not known) that I baked last night after my post!

I called them macaroons, but Hannah calls them Coconut Drop Cookies.  They just magically appeared in my inbox one day, courtesy of the VegNews e-newsletter I get monthly.  Okay, the cookies themselves did not magically appear, but the simpler-than-pie recipe sure did and it took very little time to pull all of the ingredients together and make my kitchen smell amazing.

The best thing about these cookies (besides everything) is that the recipe makes 10.  That is a totally manageable number of cookies.  I really don't like cookie recipes that yield a tremendous number of cookies (unless it's the holiday season - any holiday season - and I'm baking for a crowd) because they make too big a mess and then I have too many cookies anyway.  Ten cookies?  Well, we'll get through almost half the first night and they'll be gone by tomorrow night.

They have the most amazing flavor.  Like I said, they are super simple to make, so please do yourself a favor and click that link.  Make these cookies and enjoy them with a tall glass of nondairy milk.  I rarely drink soymilk because it does have kind of a weird aftertaste when you're drinking it solo (I use unsweetened original - no flavor and no added sugars), but these cookies are so rich and flavorful, I dare you to try to eat them alone.  Actually, I don't - why mess it up?  Just enjoy with a cup of coffee or your favorite nondairy beverage - there are two delightfully contradictory flavors that come together in a way that enhances each: the tropical sweetness of toasted coconut and the spark of salt from an unusually large measure added to the recipe.

Dear Lord...I think it's time for dessert.

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.