Niftiness!

I'm gonna be a copycat, just because I'm enamored with the idea. As REL explains here, Johari windows are a tool that lets you see how other people see you. I've picked adjectives that describe me, and I'd like other people to pick adjectives that describe me too! (And no, self-centered is not an option.) I'll be happy to pick adjectives for you too, should you create a profile.

Here is mine.

Bek 1, Cilantro 0

Or shall I say, Bek 10, Cilantro 0. It's been Cilantro Central here for the past week, as I bought a huge bunch of the stuff and have been trying to use it up before it went bad. I don't understand why you can't just buy herbs by weight like everything else :(

Anyhow, I made spring rolls, cilantro-lime rice, several lunches worth of peanut noodle salad, a fridge-cleaning version of okonomiyaki (or faux-konomiyaki, since it bears little resemblance to the original) based on this recipe, and still had cilantro in my fridge. Then I stumbled across this post (OK, it was intentional -- I was searching Google Reader for cilantro recipes). I got Veganomicon from the library, and lo and behold, the Black Bean Burger recipe called for cilantro! I made the recipe almost-as-written (just substituted 1/2 tsp Sriracha for the garlic and chile powder, and used the liquid from the canned beans in place of half the water) and voila, no more cilantro. Well...almost no more cilantro. I had just about 1/4 cup left, so I mixed it with some lettuce and cabbage, and tossed it with peanut sauce to make a salad to accompany my burger. Yay!

Vietnamexican food

No, thankfully it's not fusion cuisine. I'm just too lazy to make 2 separate posts.

First off, spring rolls. A friend of mine is following a gluten-free vegan diet and I wanted to bring food to the potluck that she could actually eat :) I followed Nupur's instructions, as much as I ever follow instructions...

My filling ingredients were Melissa's baked tofu (prepackaged), thinly sliced; rice vermicelli noodles; thinly sliced carrots; thinly sliced yellow bell pepper; bean sprouts; cilantro; basil; green onion, and leaf lettuce. For the dipping sauce, I used Sriracha, chunky peanut butter, agave nectar, soy sauce, water, and fresh lime juice. And because my soy sauce contains wheat and I couldn't pin down whether Sriracha is gluten free, I also brought Taste of Thai peanut sauce. (Everyone else liked it, but I'm not a huge fan of coconut in savory things.) And if you don't feel like actually making spring rolls, you can mix the sauce with the filling ingredients and call it peanut noodle salad :)
And because I had tons of leftover cilantro, I decided to make black bean stew with cilantro lime rice. The rice was easy: I just added fresh lime juice, salt, and a couple of handfuls of cilantro to hot rice. And the stew wasn't much harder: I sauteed chopped butternut squash with chopped onion, added frozen corn, a can of black beans, a teaspoon of tomato paste, and ground cumin and cayenne pepper.

I still have a ton of cilantro. I'll probably try C&Z's poicamole, and I welcome any other cilantro-using recipes!

Guess what? Pepper butt!