allium allergy??

I have shallot breath.

Strangely enough, I think I'm developing an allergy to alliums.  Well... the two alliums I allow in my home: garlic and shallots.  Not the kind of allergy where vital parts of my anatomy stop working or my noggin swells up and I can't see or breathe.  Nothing quite so severe.  Still, I think I have at least some small reaction that appears to be consistent with the use of those two things (and believe me, it is a rare night indeed that finds me preparing dinner without garlic!).

Although I love garlic and find shallots an acceptable substitute for onions (picture me wrinkling my nose while I say that), every time I cut one of either open, I find myself sneezing in the kitchen.  We'll push aside any ideas of how sanitary that may or may not be to focus on the tragedy.  What if I actually develop a full-blown allergy to garlic??  OMG!  Life (or at least dinner) as we know it would cease and poor Mister... oh, poor Mister.  He already has to deal with my fear and loathing of cayenne pepper severely dampening any opportunity to eat "hot" food at home and I've long since banned onions for their stench and nasty texture.  If I stopped cooking with garlic, I think he might leave me.

Heck.  I think I might leave me.

Nevertheless, I have shallot breath.  Considering myself victorious for only sneezing once through the chopping of 3 shallots tonight, I heated a generous portion of olive oil in my trusty All-Clad sauteuse.  Upon adding the shallots, I stirred and waited.... as they sizzled and melted and stunk up the whole apartment (granted, it doesn't take much), Mister followed his snuffling nose out of his work-room and into the kitchen.  I think the Stinktastic Shallots Sizzling part is his favorite part of dinner - possibly more favorite than even eating it.

I regret I have no pictures, especially because our Aloo Mattar from La Dolce Vegan looked as great as it tasted, but the final product was very pleasing and even though I have shallot breath, I have to admit they really do add to the flavor.

A few notes if any of you folks reading are fortunate enough to own La Dolce Vegan or have asked Santa to drop it down the chimney for you (there's still time!  he hasn't left yet!):

• I doubled the recipe so we'd have some leftovers to eat for lunch, but I found that I needed to add a full cup of vegetable broth (vs 1/4c) to keep the potatoes from sticking to the bottom of my pan.  This is usually the case for me and potato curry recipes.  I feel like it's likely that the authors intend the potatoes to sear on the bottom, rather than just get cooked to mushy perfection, but since I'm not working with nonstick cookware now, I'd rather have a brothier curry - besides, the starch in the potatoes squishes out (or something far more scientific) and causes the broth to become a thick sauce rather quickly.
• When doubling the paprika, I decided to add a little some'in some'in so I did half regular paprika and half smoked paprika and I think that made a huge difference in the flavor.  I will definitely do that again.
• I did not double the garam masala, but I was "generous" with the prescribed amount.  I should have doubled it.

I have to go take care of this shallot breath.

And blow my nose.

no olives tonight

It's a pretty safe bet that Mister and I eat olives almost every day.  They are nearly always an accompaniment to our primarily Mediterranean dinners, so the only times I can think of that we don't have them at the table is when I make an Asian-inspired dish or we're out...which I usually try to time so they fall together.  We did not eat an Asian meal tonight, but we did not eat a Mediterranean meal either... in fact, for many reasons, tonight's dinner was entirely unsuited to olives.

I personally have never seen olives in a pub (unless it's a fancy pub with martinis)...

And tonight I made my Mister his veganized Bangers and Mash:

Ingredients:
4 Tofurky Beer Brats
1/2 stick of Earth Balance (or measure 1/4 c from the tub)
1 tsp olive oil
4 large shallots, thinly sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic, pressed
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp fresh thyme (or scant 1/2 tsp dried)
1/2 to 3/4 cup of red wine
2 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 1 Tbsp warm water
and for the mash...
2 lbs of Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into manageable chunks
2 Tbsp Earth Balance (1/2 of what remains from your earlier stick or measure from the tub)
1/3 to 1/2 cup unsweetened soymilk (or nondairy "milk" of your preference)


makes 4 servings


To make the gravy sauce, slice the shallots nice and thin, then press the garlic over top of them.  Melt the Earth Balance in a deep saute pan and add the olive oil.  Dump the whole pile of shallots and garlic into the heated oil 'n' EB and stir it up good, being sure to break up the rings of the shallots.

Cook for about 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the sugar, stir to coat, and allow to cook another 2 minutes or so.

Sprinkle on the thyme (quick tip: the easiest way to remove fresh thyme leaves from their stalks is by pulling the stalk through your finger(nail)s against the growth of leaves) and pour in your red wine.  Cook gently until reduced to just barely any liquid.

Pour in the vegetable broth and turn up the heat to get it to boil.  Once the stock is boiling somewhat rapidly, turn down the heat so that it's still bubbling gently.  Allow to cook until it's reduced by 80% - this took me about 30 minutes - stirring now and then.  When the gravy is appropriately reduced, stir in the Worcestershire sauce and then the slurry of cornstarch + water.  Turn heat to high and stir constantly until the gravy reaches a fierce, bubbling boil, then reduce heat slightly and continue to stir while it boils gently a few minutes.  Remove from heat.

Now, while you had those 30 minutes that the gravy was reducing, you should have been chopping the potatoes, putting them in a pot and covering them with water + 1", then boiling them until fork-tender (it took me about 10 minutes, but I chop small).  When the potatoes are done, drain them in a fine mesh colander and then dump them in your favorite Martha Stewart Blue mixing bowl.

Add 2 Tbsp of Earth Balance and start with 1/3 cup of soymilk (you can always add more).  Sprinkle on however much salt you think is appropriate (I went with a heaping teaspoon), then mash with a potato masher or fork (or even an electric mixer if you're feeling spunky) until smooth and creamy, adding more milk if necessary.

To serve, place one Tofurky Beer Brat on a plate (you're welcome, Mister), and lay a mountain of mashed potatoes beside it.  Place the gravy bowl on the table with a pretty little ladle and allow your dining partners to put it on their own plates, to taste.

It came out really good.  Mister was thrilled and I was very happy with my heaping mound of mashterpaters.  Mister and I once again remembered that we didn't know which hand held the knife, but we figured it was probably safest for the dominant hand to wield the sharp, pointy utensil.

As I'm sure you can imagine, Angst was also very excited about this "meat and potatoes" dinner.  He was so big-eyed and daring in his begging that Mister couldn't even be mad at him and even gave him a few pieces of his beer brat.

I can't take full credit for this recipe.  Since I was previously unacquainted with Bangers and Mash, I did do some internet research and was delighted to find the UK version of our Food Network, so the recipe above was inspired by and loosely based upon this one, penned by Ed Baines of Market Kitchen fame.

sunshine polka dots

Happy Monday!  The countdown is on - Monday down means only three more days until I wake up before the sun and race it westward to California!  I'm scheduled to touch down at 1pm-ish, so if I win, I might admit the world is coming to an end.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weekend.  As my previous post shows, I was pretty busy on Saturday, and Sunday as well, but in a totally different and far more fun way.  On Sunday, we met up with friends we haven't seen in a while - some of them we haven't seen since our wedding!  Fifteen of us descended upon North Bowl in the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia and spent about five hours eating, drinking, and making merry.  It was a mixed bag, in terms of the service level being a bit below where I expect customer service to be, but we weren't there for the waitstaff, we were there to see each other.  Even Mister managed to be social!

I'm actually not going to spend a lot of time talking about our experience with North Bowl because I used up a lot of my words in the email I wrote to the management.  The happy ending, for now, is that the management responded quickly and appropriately and my happiness with the venue has been restored by their actions.  More details coming later....along with one of two upcoming surprises. [ilovesecrets]

Tonight I had a real conflict within while trying to determine what to make for dinner.  The part of me that hates when food grows limbs in our refrigerator and runs away or turns funny colors really wanted to make the Black Bean Burgers since I'm using up the burger thins from when I made the Lemony Chickpea Burgers and I don't know how long it will take them to grow "friends."  Another part of me wanted to make a longer-cooking meal since I had time, and yet another part of me wanted to make a meal with lot of leftovers for lunch this week.  Eventually, I settled upon the Mexican Rice and Bean Bake from Vegan on the Cheap.

Because a 4oz can of about two tablespoons of diced green chilies is pointlessly expensive, I pick up a cubanelle pepper at Whole Foods and diced it to saute with the garlic, and in place of the onion, I use my last shallot.

I'll admit, this picture made me a little nervous.  For one thing, I've never cooked a cubanelle pepper and I wasn't sure of its exact heat level.  The lightness of the pepper worried me, as it seems like they get hotter as they get lighter (ghost chilies, anyone?).  Also, apparently, shallots make my eyes tear the way onions make people who eat onions eyes tear.  I really wasn't sure what I was getting myself into.

[I would like to take just a moment to direct your attention to the pretty little Whole Foods brand pinto beans hiding behind the bowl there - 89 cents each, baby - that's right!  Thank you, Lacy!]

Turns out, I was getting myself into a fabulous base for a very tasty dinner.  I know I've made this before, because I know this isn't the first time I've said, "no, I am NOT baking this."  I can't remember when, though - what I do know is that I should make this more frequently because at the moment, it's a contender for the 2nd place spot for my favorite rice-n-beans recipe.

It's just spicy enough to keep things interesting, but I'm still able to eat it, which I consider a plus, since it's my dinner, too. In addition to the "just right" heat level, the little drops of sunshine scattered throughout (also known as "corn") added a satisfying and sweet pop of "other" flavor into a very savory and spicy dish.

Stay tuned for the unveiling of Secret #1 soon!

ail et au citron

I think I'm going to come out with a "signature scent," meant specifically to be worn on the fingertips.  Obviously, I have no idea how to make or market perfume, and if my name appeared on cosmetic shelves, it would only be followed by the oohing and ahhing of people wondering just who the h*** Natalie K is.  Nevertheless, someday when I'm famous, women everywhere will riot for the opportunity to wear Natalie K's Ail et au Citron*.  If it does well enough, maybe we'll come up with a brut aftershave for men...

I'm normally pretty good at following directions, mainly because I figure they're there for a reason and the originator of the directions knows better than me.  However, I think I've missed the point of Appetite for Reduction.  Surely, if I developed a serious weight problem and had reason to "take it seriously," this would be a great cookbook to follow the directions to a "t" and lose weight while enjoying delicious and diverse creations.

Fortunately, I don't have a weight problem.

Yet.

Seriously, though - can you look at the Chickpea Piccata, nestled in its little cloud of fluffy mashed potatoes, settled on a bed of baby arugula and tell me, truthfully, that you could refrain from having seconds?  Of course not!  And that's just from looking at a picture - if you had one little taste of the rich, lemony-yet-savory sauce or bit into a single creamy chickpea or briny caper, you could not stop.  If you could have smelled the scents wafting through my home, you'd have been following your nose into the kitchen just like Mister did.  If you could enjoy the texture contrast of creamy, fluffy mashed potatoes against crunchy, peppery, green arugula, you could not resist a second helping.

Mister and I sure couldn't.  We'll add this to the No Leftovers Series.

*if you can't read French, check out google translator.

lessons learned at the cutting board

Call me a lifelong student or simply a student of life; I love learning things and applying the things I learn.  When I was actually in college and grad school, you couldn't shut me up once I got going about something I had learned or read and once I had babbled all about it to one person, the information was with me - learned.  There is something about sharing what I learn with others that helps me to more fully understand it myself.

It was really difficult to make myself go back to work yesterday - I had a three-day weekend because of taking my birthday off and at least half the country seemed to have yesterday off because of Martin Luther King Day.  I tried to give myself a pep talk by asking myself, rhetorically, I thought, what on earth I would do if I didn't go to work.  Unfortunately, I was prepared, and started listing things I would do if I stayed home.  Ultimately, I convinced me to go to work because I knew we were in for some nasty weather and I wanted to leave myself the option of calling out today if it really was bad.

That's exactly what I did.  I'm pretty sure it was fate or possibly predestination (in other words: I had predetermined to take the day off if the weather was even remotely hazardous to travel).  After thawing out from my walk home in 20something degree weather since the buses felt the best way to honor MLK was to make sure Rosa had to walk, I started making dinner.  As I was shredding my cabbage and boiling the farfalle, Mister drew my attention to the little sparkly bits of snow dancing around in the streetlamps' light.  By the time I put dinner on the table, there was actually a coating on the roads which surprised the heck out of me - I didn't think we were actually supposed to get an accumulation!  Through dinner and clean-up, the snow continued to fall - just tiny little guys, but enough of them that the 20-degree streets didn't stand a chance - and then they got bigger.  By the time we were heading to bed, the snow had turned from fluffy flakes of happy to ominous drops of freezing rain, ricocheting off the windows before coating the snow-covered streets with a layer of ice.

I got up in the morning and it looked like the rain had cleared up most of the streets, so I had some tea and breakfast, but as I listened to the moaning of the wind outside, I became more than just a little curious about the state of things, so I visited weather.com and decided now was as good a time as any to follow SEPTA's tweets and was I ever right.  For the next twenty minutes, as I hemmed and hawed about whether to risk a relapse of my fragile health to go to work today, I was bombarded with updates on this bus being rerouted and that one being cancelled, while this train was late and that one is only going half its normal route, and let's not forget about the trolleys being stopped because of "smoking manhole covers."  I decided the apocalypse was manifesting itself through public transit and said to myself, once again, "what will you do if you stay home?"  This time, though, I made a list of all the ways I would be more productive at home than at work, and when I hit the bottom of the paper, I called out.  It took a minute, including writing time, by the way.

What on earth does all this have to do with learning, you ask?
Well, nothing really, aside from allowing me a little extra time to cook dinner and forcing me to be introspective about something I thought I'd left mostly in my past for the sake of helping a student with her homework.  So, on to dinner!

Since I was well-rested (yes, I left out the part about going back to bed after leaving the list to be completed upon re-waking), I had plenty of energy to devote to making Chickpea Piccata, served on a fluffy cloud of Caulipots, both from Appetite for Reduction.  Here are some things I learned:

1. If Isa wants to help people lose weight, she needs to stop making her recipes so darn tasty.  I have not had trouble keeping my promise to my mom yet.

2. Thanks to Isa and Dynise, I have become much more daring with garlic and with shallots.  There was a time, about a month ago, actually, when I couldn't fathom preparing garlic in anyway that did not involved pressing it so that it would more or less dissolve innocuously into my food.  Now?  Check out these huge slices of garlic:

3. Shallots make me cry.  I've seen some funny pictures of onion goggles, but I've never really had any problems with onions, green onions, shallots, or garlic making me tear up...until tonight.  It was the weirdest thing; I was slicing the shallots and all of a sudden, I noticed my eyes were stinging and about to tear up and I stood upright and allowed myself a moment of confusion - it's not like tonight was the first time I'd sliced shallots.  I think the difference tonight is that I was wearing my glasses, not my contacts - can anyone else confirm this or am I just a freak?

4. Angst loves when I stay home, but he doesn't like to share.  He demonstrated his defiance tonight by hopping up onto Mister's dinner chair while I was filling our bowls and making himself very comfy.

Look at that scowl!  He was very clearly saying, MY chair.  When Mister came to sit for dinner, Angst just gave him that same angry look, as if to say, "find another chair. This one's taken."

He scrammed when Mister made like he was going to sit on him, though.

The Chickpea Piccata was absolutely fabulous.  From the minute I opened this book for the first time, that was high up on my list of things I wanted to make, and it did not disappoint.  I want to share Isa's intro because it perfectly sets you up for the amazing flavors about to meet and mingle in your mouth:

A plate of piccata is like an instant fancy dinner with all the stops.  One second you're just sitting there, all normal-like, but the moment that first forkful of lemony wine bliss touches your tongue, you're transported to candlelight and tablecloths, even if you're sitting in front of the TV.

I served the piccata over Caulipots, as Isa suggests.  Mister and I love the way this girl thinks; one of the things we missed the most after "going veg" was mashed potatoes, which doesn't make any sense, since potatoes are not an animal.  We realized, though, that there are very few things in our diet with which you can serve mashed potatoes.  Isa has changed all of that, though, with her genius scheme to used mashed potatoes as the starchy base, rather than the standard rice/grain or pasta - we love her for it.

The caulipots were unbeatable - they were just a little lighter than regular mashed potatoes, but packed a powerful punch, flavor-wise and nutritionally.  I used only two Tbsp of broth in the mashing, yet the whole batch was perfectly seasoned from that + olive oil + little bit of salt.  This may very well become my standard "mashed potatoes" recipe.  If I haven't said it yet, please do yourself and everyone you cook for a big favor: break open your piggy bank and head to your local bookstore to get yourself a copy of Appetite for Reduction.

testing, testing, 123?

What a day!  I should sleep just fine tonight for all the excitement and running around I did.  Normally, on my lazy Sundays, I'll just kind of eat throughout the day...breakfast, then breakfast snack, then pre-lunch appetizer, and finally lunch, then maybe some lunch dessert a little bit later, and finally dinner...and probably dinner dessert (you really can't have too much dessert - I'm always the one in the dessert buffet holding a dinner plate and trying to look casual about it).  Today, though, I was too busy running all over center city and relishing my city-dwellerness to eat more than two substantial and delicious meals.

Well, okay, I did have a little pre-brunch snack when Mister brought me a doughnut from his early morning (9am on a Sunday is early) venture out to get an egg sandwich and gatorade.  I ate my Christmas doughnut (red and green sprinkles on chocolate frosting!) with my coffee, then got ready for my brunch date.

Lovely Lady and I each got the Tofu Benedict at Mi-Lah Vegetarian.  It's exactly what I got last time, which I really tried not to do - after all, it's not every day I eat somewhere where nothing is off limits.  I contemplated the beer-battered seitan on Belgian waffles, as well as a couple of other options, but really, I couldn't escape my desire for that big pile of kale on the right as well as the sweet potato homefries on the left.  Plus, the english muffin is awesome and the hollandaise sauce is bizarre enough that I was trying to figure out what made it taste like that.

I ate everything on that plate. 

do you know what this is?

it's a close up of this!

 After brunch, Lovely Lady headed over to DiBruno Brothers for some pre-game provisions (she is originally from NYC and an avid Giants fan.  Her husband is an avid Eagles fan.  There is battle in that household when the two teams play...as they did today.) and I headed to the first stop on my afternoon shopping adventures.  A brief tour of center city's shopping hotspots (at least the ones I can nominally afford) included Urban Outfitters, The Shops at Liberty Place (home of the 3-story-tall Christmas tree pictured above), The Shops at the Bellevue (notably, Williams-Sonoma - gift shopping today, but I'm looking forward to returning next week with a purse full of discretionary funds...or a giftcard or two), Borders, Ten Thousand Villages, Starbucks, Wine and Spirits, and a cigar store.  Can you believe I appear to have finished my Christmas shopping?

Christmas/Winter Scene set up in the Bellevue

After depositing my bags of various treasures at home, I set back out to Whole Foods and Superfresh for our weekly food provisions.  I had intended to make a fairly labor-intensive meal for dinner tonight, but I was foiled by the absence of fresh basil, a key component in the dish I had planned to make.  As such, it will unfortunately have to wait until the end of the week now, because I don't see myself wanting to spend hours on dinner much before Thursday.

Besides, I had some chard taking up space in my packed fridge, so I felt the need to use it, which left me two options: a super spicy dish or a dish I thought might go better with my poor Mister's misbehaving belly.  So, tonight's dinner was Farfalle with Shallots and Chard.

I took a picture of the shallots saute-ing because it's never happened before and I didn't know if it would ever happen again

Between onions and shallots, I'll take shallots any day of the week, but that doesn't mean I'm completely comfortable with them.  This recipe involved more shallots than I've ever used in a recipe before and in a much less minced way.  In other words, there was no way I would be able to avoid actually tasting one.

Here are the shallots welcoming the chard into their little party.  While all this sauteing was occurring, Mister's curiosity replaced his nausea and he came into the kitchen, sniffing at the air like a bloodhound and walked directly over to the pot. 

"What IS it?"
"Shallots."
"It smells good. I want to make them eated."

Considering the man was actually externally ill a few hours before, this was promising.  Fortunately, by the time his hunger kicked in and he made his way into the kitchen, I was only about ten minutes away from putting dinner on the table.

It tasted as delightful as it looks.  Due to the length of time the shallots sauteed in the olive oil before I added the chard, the olive oil took on an amazingly buttery taste.  I kept psyching myself out with the shallots because they looked so much like onions.  Every time I took a bite, I thought to myself, "Oh, no, this is going to be the time I taste them!"  And I did...they were a little bit sweet and ever-so-slightly crunchy; they weren't crunchy the way fried things are, but rather like raw jicama, with a similar taste.  Despite my initial reticence, I found myself seeking them out in the bowl to pile on top of the chard and pasta to be shoveled into my mouth.

The shallots did saute with red pepper flakes, but not that many, which was why the heat of the dish surprised me.  Mister, who was having stomach issues, said I had a sissy mouth and that he was fine, so I'm pretty sure it was just my surprise that intensified the heat.  Like heat usually does, it enhanced the other qualities of this recipe.  We will definitely have this again...when the cookbook I tested it for comes out...