I digress...

Recreating a Meal

2010-10-16T16:51:00.001-07:00

Last month, N's brother and his girlfriend came for a visit. They kicked us out of the kitchen and made a wonderful meal: portobello mushroom burgers, wilted spinach salad, and roasted cauliflower. The cauliflower is easy: toss chopped cauliflower with oil and salt, and bake at about 400F until browned, about 20-25 minutes. The salad and burgers were a little more challenging -- our visitors hadn't given us the recipe, and we didn't want to try and wait for an answer via phone or email. So, to quote Tenacious D, this is just a tribute. (YouTube link, yay music!) But it's a delicious tribute, if I may say so myself.

Burgers:
2 portobello mushroom caps
2 slices wheat bread
2 handfuls fresh parsley (about 1/2 cup)
5 cloves garlic
1 T olive oil
salt to taste
3 T chevre (goat cheese)

Coat the mushroom caps with a small amount of oil, and bake at 400F until mushrooms are starting to soften, about 20 minutes. In the meantime, toast the bread, then add to a food processor with the parsley, garlic, and olive oil. Process to coarse crumbs, then add salt to taste. Spread each mushroom cap with 1.5 T chevre, then top with the bread crumb mixture (about 2 T for each; you'll have leftover bread crumbs). Bake for another 10 minutes until the cheese softens and the bread crumbs brown.

Wilted Spinach Salad

1 zucchini, chopped
1 red or yellow pepper, chopped (optional)
1 bunch fresh spinach (the smaller the leaves, the better)
a few chopped kalamata olives
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 chopped Roma tomatoes
2 T olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
salt

Coat the zucchini (and pepper, if using) in olive oil and roast for 20 minutes at 400F until browned. Mix the spinach, olives, cheese, and tomatoes in a large bowl. Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt in a small bowl to make the dressing. When the zucchini and peppers are cooked, add them to the spinach mixture and toss until the spinach is dark green and wilted. You may need to heat a small amount of the dressing and add to the salad to get enough heat to completely wilt the spinach. Add dressing to taste -- we had a little dressing left over.

Lasagna and Garlic Rolls

2010-10-10T12:32:00.001-07:00

I've been on nights for a few weeks, and during the week all that I do is work and sleep. Weekends are free time -- but the first weekend I was a zombie from adjusting to the schedule, and last weekend I was sick. (How nice for me that my 24-hour bug corresponded to my 24 hours off!) This weekend was wonderful, and N and I got to do a lot of cooking. I've got some Onion-Garlic Soup on the stove, and some Bad Mood Soup in the fridge, but the Mushroom Lasagna and Garlic Rolls are a tough act to follow. We actually followed the recipes for both of them (?!) -- the only change that we made was omitting the nutmeg from the lasagna. There were a lot of steps involved, but it was worth every pot, pan, and calorie :)

The lasagna tasted even better the next day when the flavors had been able to mellow and mingle a little. Highly recommended!

Falafelentils Revisited

2010-08-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

I wasn't exactly wowed by the Falafelentils when I first made them, but I found myself using them in sandwiches, salads, and just eating them cold out of the fridge. And when they were gone, I missed them...

So I made more today. I didn't have any leftover rice, so I cooked some brown rice using this method, which worked surprisingly well and required almost no effort. I made similar modifications as last time, except that I used 1 tsp of cayenne pepper in place of the chili powder, used 1 cup of rice instead of 1/2 cup, and I pureed the onions and spices together after I'd cooked them. (And I used up the last of the sesame seeds, yay!) The falafelentils STILL stuck to the pan despite my coating the pan in olive oil, so I'll either pan-fry them, or cover the baking pan in foil when I make them again.

Dinner Party!

2010-08-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

We had people over for dinner tonight -- it's been a while since we've cooked for anyone other than each other, and I was WAY off on the timing. (Oops.) But everything turned out well. I made black bean soup and cornbread and N made spicy rice and his secret-family-recipe chocolate cake with buttercream icing. I also made salad, inspired by Paula Deen's recipe. (Betcha never thought you'd hear me say that...)

My version:

2 ears of corn
2 pints grape tomatoes, halved
1 avocado, chopped
3 green onions, minced
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
Juice of 2 limes
1/4 c olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Boil the ears of corn until tender. Cool, then cut the kernels off and put into a bowl. (This would also be a great use of leftover corn on the cob.) Add the tomatoes, avocado and green onions. Blend together (in a blender -- alternatively, you can finely mince the cilantro and mix by hand, but you won't get as uniform a texture) the cilantro, lime juice, olive oil and salt, then mix gently with the vegetables. Serve immediately -- the dressing will slow the discoloration of the avocado but won't prevent it entirely.

N Cooks Indian Food

2010-08-02T18:03:00.001-07:00

Descriptive title, no? I had a not-so-great day at work, and was super-excited to be greeted by Saag Mushroom with rice and homemade naan.

For the naan:

2 1/4 tsp dry yeast
1 C warm water
1/4 C white sugar
3 Tbsp milk
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp salt
4.5 C bread flour
1/4 C butter, melted

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume.
Preheat oven and pans to 450F.
Divide dough into 10 pieces and roll out on floured surface into circles. Place rolled out dough on cookie sheet and brush with melted butter.
Cook for 8 minutes or until lightly browned and puffed up.

And the saag mushroom:

6 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 C onions, raw
3/4 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp fresh ginger root, shredded
10 oz. spinach, fresh
18 mushrooms, cleaned and sliced (or substitute 2 portobello caps)
2 oz Philadelphia cream cheese
1/4 tsp kosher salt

Directions

Brown garlic in olive oil, add chopped onion and fry 'till brown.
Add coriander, cumin, chili powder, and ginger root. Stir.
Add cream cheese. Stir well and cook for two minutes
Add salt, sliced mushrooms, and spinach, cook for 10-15 minutes until spinach is tender and excess water has boiled away.

Definitely worth making, or even better, having someone make it for you!

Spicy Rice (and Onion Soup)

2010-08-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

Spicy rice...mmm. That's really all there is to it. (And it's quick, and easy, and relatively healthy. But really, "mmm" is the important part.)
1 cup uncooked white rice
2 T oil
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 small chili peppers, chopped (about 1 T)
1-2 large portobello mushroom(s), chopped (or about 10 button mushrooms, chopped)
1/2 package of frozen veggie "ground beef"
lime
sour cream

Cook rice in 1.5-2 cups water. Meanwhile, saute onion, garlic, and chili pepper in oil; when translucent, add mushrooms and cook for about 5 minutes, then add "ground beef". Cook another 10 minutes or so until heated through and water has evaporated. Mix into hot rice and serve with lime quarters (for squeezing) and sour cream. The sour cream and lime really bring things together, so please don't skip them!

The soup is from this recipe, with a few changes. I substituted 2 T oil for 2 T of the butter, and Gruyere for the mozzarella. I used 1 T Better Than Bouillon in 4 c water for the broth, and added about 1/2 tsp soy sauce. I also sauteed a few cloves of garlic with the onions. Highly recommended :)

Dessert First!

2010-08-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

I have an extensive "Make this recipe someday" list, and just as long is my list of reasons why I don't try things from the list. "No time", "unfamiliar ingredients", "I already have a great recipe for this", etc. Well, I didn't have a good excuse not to make Veggie Platter's Cardamom Flavored, Eggless Chocolate Chip Muffins, but I did need a good occasion. Then I came across two at once: the last day of my first rotation as an intern (?!), and Nupur's Blog Bites 6: Potluck Edition. I followed the recipe almost-exactly, adding just a pinch of salt and about 1/2 tsp of vanilla, using half white and half wheat flour, and omitting the wheat germ. Next time, I may add just a little more sugar (or use a sweeter yogurt), decrease the cardamom a little, and add a small amount of ginger and cloves.

Day Off Cooking

2010-07-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

What do you do with a day off? You sleep in (whee!), go out to breakfast (double-whee!) and then cook (triple-whee!) Triple-whee is actually appropriate because we tried three new recipes (and 3 fun kitchen gadgets) in a single afternoon.

The first: soft pretzels. We followed this New York Times recipe but shaped the pretzels in snail-shell spirals like Vortex does. (And like Vortex does, we served them with nacho cheese sauce.) Working with lye was a little scary, but the results were totally worth it -- we'll be making them again. I mean, what else will I do with 2 pounds of lye? (Suggestions welcome...) Kitchen gadget #1 -- the KitchenAid mixer that made quick work of the dough.

The second and third: ice cream. A giant box arrived the other day -- it was an unexpected wedding gift from longtime friends of my parents. It contained kitchen gadget #2: a super-nifty ice cream maker. We made strawberry ice cream from One Hot Stove (employing kitchen gadget #3: a food processor) and then the double-chocolate peanut butter ice cream that Nupur linked to in her post. We followed the strawberry recipe exactly, and added a few tablespoons of marshmallow Fluff along with the peanut butter to the chocolate ice cream.

All in all, a lovely day, with lots of yummy food :)

Apple Cake

2010-06-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

This recipe is from my mom, the queen of baking.

1 c (2 sticks) butter, softened (Mom says no substitutes)
2c white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4c peeled, cored and chopped apples (I used 2 1/2 large Granny Smith apples)
2c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbls cinnamon (yes, tablespoon)
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Optional (any or all): 1 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup raisins, 1 cup of chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350. In lg bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Stir in apples (along with nuts, chips and/or raisins if using). Stir flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices together, and gently fold into the apple mixture. Pour batter into 2 greased 9" baking pans. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake about 40-50 mins at 350 til cake is done and tester comes out clean... Do not overbake.

Buttery, yummy, lightly-spiced, comforting cake. It would be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but what cake wouldn't? ;-) This is definitely going into the make-again pile!

Tahini Sauce

2010-06-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

Falafelentils are excellent cold. I ate them for lunch yesterday on a lettuce wrap with plain yogurt and raw yellow peppers, sprinkled with a little extra chili powder. (I'm not typically fond of "Eat this, not that" type suggestions, but romaine lettuce leaves instead of pita or tortilla works for me.)

Lunch today was falafelentils with kale salad (raw kale leaves "massaged" with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt), grape tomatoes, and N's amazing tahini dressing.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
5-7 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
~1/2 cup lemon juice (juice from two medium-sized lemons)
3-4 tablespoons warm water (more or less based on your desired consistency)

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until the desired consistency is reached.
Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Falafelentils

2010-06-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

BB4 has made me much more conscious of using up my leftovers and cooking creatively, but I still have the sesame seeds in my pantry. Before I resorted to grinding them up and putting them in spaghetti sauce (isn't that what you're supposed to do to hide foods?), I decided to see if I could use them in a tastier fashion :)

Just Bento suggests rolling Spicy Lentil Snacks in sesame seeds (which is how I found the recipe), but I changed things a little. For seasoning, I used 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1.5 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp ground pepper, and the juice of half a lemon. Instead of brown rice, I used leftover rice (that had been seasoned with garlic-lentil powder and lemon). I reduced the oil to 2 T. And I added 1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds to the mixture. Once baked, they came out similar to falafel...so they're falafelentils!

Honestly, the sesame seeds didn't add a whole lot to the recipe, but that's OK :) Next time I make the recipe I'll probably reduce the lentils to 3/4 cup and keep everything the same. And I'll remember to oil the pan so that they don't get stuck and broken like the ones in the picture!

This goes to Nupur's BB4.

Moffins!

2010-06-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

(Don't ask me why -- muffins have always been moffins. That's just how it is.)

In the spirit of BB4, I decided to use up a couple of very ripe bananas. Yesterday, I attempted to make banana yogurt, but the sweetness of the banana didn't "balance" well with the harshness of the plain yogurt. A couple teaspoons of sugar and a splash of vanilla extract didn't really help, so I let it sit in the fridge overnight to see if the flavors would blend. Sadly, nope. It was also a very thin consistency. (I ate a few tablespoons with some fruit and granola this morning. It wasn't awful, but I wasn't eager to eat any more.) I had seen on a few blogs that yogurt diluted with milk could be a buttermilk substitute, so I figured that yogurt diluted with banana could also be used in baking. I had another banana to use up as well. I found this recipe, and here's my version. (Note: even when I'm baking, I'm more of a cook -- these measurements aren't exact.)

2 very ripe bananas
1 cup plain lowfat yogurt
1 T milk
2 T olive oil (just because that's what I have in the house)
1 egg, beaten
1.5 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour (I used TJs white whole wheat flour, similar to whole wheat pastry flour)
1/3 cup sugar
1/6 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375F. Blend together (in a blender or food processor) the yogurt, milk, and 1 of the bananas. In a medium bowl, mash the remaining banana. Add the yogurt mixture, oil, egg, and vanilla. In a large bowl, mix together flours, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour batter into muffin pan (makes 12 muffins), sprinkle tops with sugar if desired, and bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.

Renters garden too!

2010-06-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend, we bought a garden kit with seeds for several different types of fruits and vegetables. Once we got it home and opened the box, we found that the instructions read:

Asparagus plantings will last for at least 15 years, so be sure to locate your plants in a place where they will not be disturbed for many years. Asparagus plants are tall (6 feet) when mature; plant them where they will not shade other plants in the garden. Do not harvest asparagus for at least 2 years after planting.

Teehee...I didn't realize that I would have to put down roots before I allowed my plants to.

Ethiopian Veggies

2010-06-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

2 medium onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic
3 T olive oil
1 T butter
1.5 t ground ginger
2 t ground cumin
1 t ground turmeric
1/4 t ground pepper
1 t salt
4 carrots, sliced
2 cups green beans, cut into 1" slices
2 cups cauliflower florets (1/2 medium cauliflower)
1 can (or 2 cups cooked) chickpeas

Puree onion and garlic together in food processor. In a large pot, heat butter and oil over medium-high heat. Add spices and salt, and cook for 30 seconds. Add onion-garlic puree and cook for about 10 minutes or until puree loses the sharp "raw" smell. Add carrots and cook for about 10 minutes, then add beans, cauliflower, and chickpeas. (You can also add a small amount of water if things start to get dry.) Cook for another 10-15 minutes or until veggies are soft.

(This was inspired by a recipe on AllRecipes but I didn't follow it very closely.)

I served this with rice that had been mixed with lentil-garlic powder, butter, and lemon juice.

Banana Bread French Toast

2010-06-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a "breakfast person" but we decided to do a special breakfast this morning: banana bread french toast with a banana-brown sugar topping.

6 thin (1/2" thick) slices of banana bread
2-3 eggs, beaten
2 T brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch ground ginger
pinch ground nutmeg
2 bananas, sliced

Dip the banana bread in beaten egg, and then fry in butter. Meanwhile, mix brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in 1/4 cup water. Stir to dissolve. Fry bananas in a small amount of butter. When they begin to brown, add sugar syrup and cook over medium heat 3-5 minutes until thickened. Happy Saturday sugar high!

Black Bean Soup with Onion-Herb Bread

2010-06-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

I'm really enjoying this month's theme; I actively went searching for things to use up in the pantry. I found a bag of dried black beans (not sure when I bought them or why) and decided to make crockpot soup. The recipe is a combination of Art is the Handmaid of Human Good's Slow Cooked Black Bean Soup and Sustainable Pantry's Black Bean Soup.

16 oz dry black beans
2 medium onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 ribs celery, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 T chiles in adobo
2 T chili powder, divided
1 T ground cumin
2 tsp Better than Bouillon (vegetable concentrate)
6 cups water
1 tsp salt
Garnishes/mix-ins (optional but recommended): shredded cheese, sour cream, chopped green onions, lime wedges, chopped cilantro, tortilla chips

Rinse beans and put in a large bowl. Cover with cold water and let sit overnight. In morning, drain and rinse beans, and mix in crockpot with onions, carrots, celery, garlic, chiles in adobo, 1T chili powder, cumin, water, and Better than Bouillon. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or until beans are tender. Puree, and add salt and remaining 1 T chili powder. Adjust seasoning to taste and serve with garnishes.

The onion-herb bread is based on Baking Bites' Caramelized Onion Bread. I pureed leftover caramelized onions with the last of the ~~fresh~~ wilting basil and sage in the fridge, and added this mixture to the dissolved yeast along with the water. I substituted whole wheat flour for 1 cup of white flour but otherwise followed the recipe. Yum!

Two more for BB4. (And many thanks to Nupur for helping me rediscover my kitchen creativity!)

Super-Easy Sweet and Spicy Noodles

2010-06-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

I love to cook. But I was thinking today -- over the past several months, I haven't done a lot of cooking. After our CSA ended last September, I had cooking fatigue for a few weeks. Then it was interview season (a lot of travelling), a month at my parents' house for an out-of-town assignment, my ER rotation (crazy schedule), then "almost time to go out of the country for 6 weeks", then "out of the country for 6 weeks", then "almost time to move". Now that we've moved (into a place with a gas stove, and plenty of counter space), unpacked the kitchen (first boxes to be opened, of course), and found the most awesome market ever, I'm super-excited to be cooking regularly again. (It helps that I'm on vacation for the next couple of weeks...)

I'm also impatient. I tend to take shortcuts and simplify recipes. Sometimes it works, but sometimes I need to have someone step in and follow a recipe on my behalf. N always cooks the tofu for this dish because I'm almost physically unable to wait for it to brown. So here goes.

Sauce
4 T soy sauce
4 T brown sugar
Sriracha (rooster sauce)

The rest :)
veggies (we used mushrooms, broccoli, and carrots)
8 oz whole wheat spaghetti
4 scallions
6 cloves garlic
16 oz firm tofu, cut in 3/4 inch cubes
toasted sesame oil

Sauce: Mix soy sauce and brown sugar, then add Sriracha to taste.

To prepare: Cut veggies into bite-size pieces. Boil a pot of water; blanch veggies and remove from water with a slotted spoon. Put pasta into water and cook til al dente. Meanwhile, saute garlic and onion. Add tofu and cook until browned (seriously, it takes forever). When tofu is cooked, add half of the sauce and cook for about a minute so that the brown sugar caramelizes. Mix remaining sauce with pasta and veggies and top with tofu.

Farinata

2010-06-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

My other guilt-inducing pantry item was a bag of besan. I had bought it to make patisa (an Indian dessert) but the only recipes that I found had terrible reviews. So the bag sat on a shelf -- unopened -- and came along when we moved. Most recipes I found called for only a tablespoon or two, certainly not worth opening the bag. But Tofu for Two's farinata recipe used 2 1/4 cups...and so the bag was opened.

It was different from anything that I'd made before, and I didn't really trust it. You mix the besan with water and oil, let it sit for 4 hours (I'm still not sure why), then add in seasonings, and bake it at a very high temperature. And somehow, the very thin batter turns into a smooth, almost quiche-like dish. It was absolutely delicious -- besan will never sit neglected in my pantry again.

I followed the recipe pretty closely; I used basil in place of rosemary because it was what I had on hand, and my converted measurements were probably a little different.

2 1/4 cups besan
3 cups water
3 T olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
5 cloves chopped garlic

Whisk together besan, water, and olive oil. Cover and let sit on counter for 4 hours. Add salt, basil, and garlic, and stir well. Pour into oiled pie plate. Bake at 390 F (I have a digital temperature-setter on my oven; if you don't, 400F should be fine) for 30 minutes, then turn heat up to 425F and bake for 20-30 minutes until it is center is no longer "jiggly" and top is well-browned. Let sit for 10 minutes before cutting.

This is my second entry for BB4.

Pantry Granola

2010-06-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

When Nupur announced Blog Bites 4: What's Lurking in the Kitchen?, I figured that there was no way that I could participate. Having moved (very, very) recently, my pantry was empty. But it turns out that a few items had moved with us, to languish in the new cupboards. This recipe was inspired by an unopened package of sesame seeds, bought for a recipe that just didn't sound as good when I looked at it a second time. Searching for "sesame seed recipe" brought up granola, which reminded me that I had a huge canister of oats (I hate oatmeal, but convince myself every few months that I should try it for a healthy breakfast...). Several recipes also called for chopped nuts, and I had a big bag of those left over from my sister. And dried fruit (bought just because it was yummy, then fell off the back of a pantry shelf) and dried sweetened coconut (2 unopened bags, no idea why).

So, inspired by Standardized Granola, here's pantry granola. And it actually -- almost -- ended up being counterproductive. N and I were out looking for a washer/dryer and passed by a grocery store. I asked him to stop so that I could pick up molasses -- the only thing that I needed for the recipe and didn't have. He reminded me that we actually did bring a half-full jar with us, so that ended up being a using-stuff-from-the-pantry item as well :)

1/2 cup sesame seeds
3 cups oats
1 cup chopped almonds (I used whole almonds and chopped them in a food processor)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 T molasses
2 T water
1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup dried fruit (I used a berry mix from Trader Joe's)

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry frying pan over medium-high heat until browned - here's the before-and-after.

Mix with oats, almonds, and spices. In a microwave-safe container, mix sugar, salt, water, and molasses, and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, and add to oat mixture. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until browned, stirring every 10 minutes. Mix in coconut and berries.

Final product:
Not too sweet, it will be good with fresh fruit and maybe some yogurt. I'm sending this to BB4 and making a vow to better know -- and use -- what I have in the cupboards.

And while this one doesn't qualify -- it doesn't come from a blog -- it was a great use of going-stale bread, sage (leftover from yesterday's butternut squash puree), and eggs (which I never seem to know what to do with). I omitted the green onions and substituted caramelized onion (also leftover from the butternut squash) for the sauteed onion, but otherwise followed the recipe. This is definitely a make-again recipe!

Mmmm...Tomatoes

2009-08-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

If you're a gardener (or a good friend of a gardener) or have a CSA share, you've got to have that recipe. You know, the one that makes you say "Yay, 11 pounds of veggies!" instead of "Oh. My. Goodness. What will I ever do with 11 pounds of veggies?"

We've figured out that recipe for just about everything. (Okra and eggplant being the current exceptions, but thanks to Nupur, we're working on it.) The only other stumper was tomatoes -- we'd get them super-ripe on Saturday, and they'd be squishy and inedible by Sunday. I peeled, seeded, and froze several of them, hoping to figure out a use for them later. But they kept coming, and I wasn't ready to admit defeat. I found this recipe on Nupur's A to Z of Indian Vegetables, and I've made it twice in two days. The first time I followed the recipe almost-exactly, and the second time I omitted the cumin and mustard seeds, adding purchased spicy sev just before serving to add a little heat. Needless to say, this has become a keeper!

Niftiness!

2009-04-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

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!

Handmade Awesomeness

2009-03-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

But not handmade by me! Because while I can knit well and crochet enough to get by, I cannot sew. At all. However, Kabs can, and I am the very lucky beneficiary of her considerable talent. Behold the needle kimono:

Closed:

Open, with the awesome needles that I also received (all 8" DPNs: 4 sets of size 3s, 1 set of size 4s, 1 set of size 5s, 1 set of size 6s, and 5 sets of size 8s):And the best part: it's monogrammed!

I am obviously beyond excited! And inspired to someday learn to sew. (Although seriously, I imagine that I'd end up with a needle in my hand, so maybe I should stick to knitting.)

Couscous Salad

2009-02-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

Potlucks tend to be the bane of a vegetarian's existence. Sometimes there's nothing to eat but what you brought; sometimes you find yourself holding up the line to ask about ingredients in the unlabeled, yummy-looking mystery dish. And sometimes you're lucky -- at work, we had a lettuce-free salad potluck, and I could eat almost everything!

My contribution was a curried couscous salad. I started with this recipe and made the following changes. First, I cooked the couscous using the instructions here. (Note that pouring boiling water over toasting couscous will give you a volcano of steam and flying super-hot couscous bits. They don't tell you that part in the instructions.) I used a little oil to toast the couscous, and a little to saute the onions, and I mixed a little in with the lemon juice and spices -- all told, I probably used about 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup. I sauteed about 2 cups of chopped butternut squash (about 1/2" cubes) with the onion. I skipped the currants and used only 1 bunch of scallions (including the green part). And I went a little nutso with the seasoning: increased the lemon juice by about 2 tsp, doubled the cilantro, increased the coriander to 1 tsp, added a tsp of dried ginger, 1/2 tsp of cardamom, and about 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper. I cut the nutmeg to about 1/8 tsp and didn't use curry powder. Even after that, it was still pretty mild, but tasty. (And it makes a LOT...easily enough for 10 people. Or lunch for a few days.)

I think that it would be good with kidney beans, or lentils. And I'll be making some raita to go with it :)

Soup!

2009-01-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

Soup = perfect food; there's really nothing more to it than that. So, courtesy of a snow day, here are 2 of my favorites. They're variations on a theme: celery, carrots, onions, starch, other stuff, simmer. And be happy and full and warm :)

Lentil Soup

2 T oil
1 cup dry brown lentils
1/3 cup barley
1 large onion, minced
2 stalks of celery, minced
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
3 carrots, sliced
6 cups water
2 tsp tomato paste

Heat the oil in a medium pot. Add the lentils and barley and cook over high heat for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Add the onion, celery, and garlic and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the carrots, tomato paste, and water. Cover and simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes until the lentils and barley are tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I often use 2 potatoes, peeled and chopped, in place of the barley, and it's also good with sweet potatoes. You can also mix in finely chopped kale near the end of the cooking time.

Mushroom Barley Soup

2 T oil
1 cup barley
1 large onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 carrots, sliced
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 oz dried mushrooms
4 cups water

Heat the oil in a medium pot. Add the barley and cook over high heat for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Add the onion and celery and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the carrots, both types of mushrooms and water. Cover and simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes until the barley is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I've added a little bit of dill to this in the past, but I really like it better "unseasoned" to let the flavor of the mushrooms shine. (The dried mushrooms are key, although I suppose you could leave them out and substitute mushroom broth for the water.) It's really good served with a little sour cream or plain yogurt.

Retracing the Steps

2009-01-02T15:05:00.000-08:00

The Internet is really really great...for randomness. Through a series of events (names have been changed to protect the innocent), my friend and I stumbled across Internet Boy's Failed Vacation, in which Internet Boy is dragged to a Series of Places in Rural Ohio. As we had neither gas nor time to recreate the whole series, we focused on one -- the Columbus Washboard Company. "Aha!" you might say. "It's in Columbus!" WRONG. We had the privilege of driving to Logan Ohio for a visit. (A surprisingly fun visit, I was forced to admit.) There were whoozits and whatzits aplenty, there were gizmos and gadgets galore. (And pictures, we took pictures.)

Friend, here. The blog auteur was kind enough to let me drag her on this trip-o-randomness, which included -- much to her joy -- a shop dog at the door. After seeing the dilapidated old shoe warehouse the washboards are now constructed in, the shop dog was very comforting. We were preparing for falling bricks.

Instead, we found Laura, a very... perky woman. With an oversized Columbus Washboard Co. T-shirt and a ....abducted!

(My friend is a journalist. And this is not an article.)

It was cool. There were washboards. And a dog. (The dog was really cute but we didn't take any pictures of him, and sadly, we didn't see the shopcat. But there were warnings posted not to let her escape.)

REL <3s her washboard.
And I am merely surprised that it didn't suck. (Seriously, it was fun. Weird, I KNOW.)

And us, with everything that we bought. (4 for me and 3 for REL. Mmmhmm the power of random to generate sales.)

Yay for the internet!

Yummy Greens and Tofu

2008-12-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

My roommate had bought some beautiful fresh beets-with-greens, and then decided that she didn't want the greens. Free veggies for me, score! I'd never cooked with beet greens before, so I searched online and found Alanna's recipe. Here's my version:

1 cup veggie broth

1 bunch beet greens and stems (about half a pound), sliced

1 bunch green onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1 T brown mustard

1 16-oz (ish) block firm tofu, cubed

Heat broth to a simmer in a large pot. Add greens, onions, and garlic, and cover the pot. Cook about 10 minutes until greens are tender. Stir in mustard and tofu and cook 5 minutes or until heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

As usual, I'm not too sure on the measurements and cooking times...but this was really good! I ate it just like soup but it would be good on pasta or with mashed potatoes. It would work really well with spinach but might be overpowered by kale or mustard greens. Also, the beet greens that I used had very thin stems -- if yours have thick stems, you may want to add the stems with the onions and garlic, cook until tender, then add the greens with the tofu and cook for 10-15 additional minutes.

Ugh. Seriously.

2008-11-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

I need to get organized. I haven't the faintest idea how to go about it -- I still believe that I lack the organization gene and there's not much that I can do about it -- but I just threw $50 down the drain over a misplaced piece of paper. (Actually, I threw it into the state of Ohio's bank account. Grumble.) I came home to find a traffic ticket for "failure to display current registration sticker". I paid it, then went online to confirm my registration and buy new stickers. And then I remembered. That grocery shopping list from July? I wasn't keeping it because I care about what produce I bought 6 months ago. I was keeping it because I wrote it on the back of a very important envelope. Yep. Sigh. New Year's resolution, here I come.

Apple Crisp

2008-11-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

I went apple-picking a few weeks ago while I was in Akron. And I went a little nuts. There was a lot of "Oooh! Look at that one! And that one! Oooh, are we allowed to climb the trees?" and then suddenly I had 20 lb of apples. I arranged them very prettily in a bowl, but that's about all. And then they started to develop the Dreaded Squish. So I made apple crisp, times 4. Because it freezes well. (And because I'm not very creative, sadly.)

I used the topping recipe from the PPK -- increased the cinnamon to 1 1/2 tsp, added 1/2 tsp ginger, and a sprinkling of cardamom and nutmeg, and subbed atta for the APF because it's what I grabbed first. I didn't bother with the complicated filling recipe, just peeled and sliced as many apples as would fit into an 8x8 foil-lined baking dish (I used about 7 but it obviously depends on the size of the apples). Then I mixed 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp sugar, and 1/4 cup water and poured it over the apples. I put the topping on top (logical, eh? but I think it would make a good pie crust too), covered the baking dish with foil, and baked about 35 minutes in a 350F oven until the apples started to get tender. Then I uncovered the dish and baked for about 20 minutes more.

Burp.

2008-10-29T19:07:00.001-07:00

I have 3 different homemade soups in my fridge right now: butternut squash, minestrone, and split pea. I don't know whether to admit that I have an addiction, or just to enjoy it. It's cold, I vote for the latter. :)

And speaking of voting...I did! And while I'm sure that most of you know who I voted for, I'll offer a hint to those who don't. It's my awesome roommate's awesome pumpkin:

It's been an awesome week of vacation, with lots of time for eating and knitting and hanging out. I start rotations again on Monday...I'm already dreading the exhaustion but looking forward to being useful again :)

Scattery

2008-10-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

I am a scatterbrain. I almost never have a working pen in my pocket (despite having to write stuff down all day long), it's a superhuman effort for me to be on time for things, and I've forgotten my car at school a few times. (One of the few downsides of taking public transportation most of the time -- when you do drive somewhere, you usually take the bus home out of habit.) But today, I've reached a new level. We've got a test tomorrow (I knew about that thankfully!) and a few of us students were discussing our weekend plans. (Free weekends are few and far between and WONDERFUL.) One of the girls rattled off a long list of things and I mentioned that it was a lot to cram into a weekend. She said that it wasn't just a weekend, and I said that I was jealous that she was brave enough to take time off of rotations. She looked at me like I was crazy. "You know we have next week off, right?"

Well, actually I didn't. Score one for the calendar.

:)

2008-10-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

This song makes me happy.

And happy is good.

Carbs of the 70s

2008-10-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

I've written about 70s vegetarian food before. (For the record, I wasn't there, but I've read the cookbooks.) I forgot to mention 70s bread in that entry -- the hearty, heavy whole grain loaves that can be either amazing or inedible. And while I rarely bake (changing a recipe has far more serious consequences for a cake than for a stir-fry) when I do, I make bread. It almost requires modifications (based on kitchen temperature, humidity, measurement techniques) so I feel far more comfortable throwing the recipe out the window :)

I got the recipe from my mom (in the spirit of full disclosure, the original actually came from a 1984 Good Housekeeping magazine, but we can pretend) and changed it to use ingredients that I had on hand. I may be the only person in America to have all these things in my kitchen, so here are some thoughts on substitutions. You're basically going for a dense-yet-tender bread with little bits of yumminess throughout.

Atta (can be found at Indian grocery stores): half whole-wheat flour, half white flour

Toasted flaxseed: sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, finely chopped walnuts

Wheat germ: additional flaxseed (or substitute) or oats

Graham flour: whole wheat flour with a little brown sugar

Molasses: brown sugar mixed with water to a syrupy consistency

Here's my recipe. It's mostly for my own reference -- because I don't follow recipes well, sadly I don't write them well. But if you've got a fair amount of breadbaking experience (and the need to use up some atta, graham flour, wheat germ, and flaxseed) go for it.

3 water

1/3 cup molasses

6 T oil

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 tsp salt

2 packages (4 1/2 tsp) yeast

1/2 cups toasted flaxseed

1 cup wheat germ

1 1/2 cups oats

1 cup graham flour

3 1/2 cups atta

Mix water, molasses, and oil, and heat until hot but not boiling -- about 2 minutes in the microwave should do it. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, and slowly add liquids. Mix, adding flour as needed -- dough will be sticky. Knead 5 minutes until dough is elastic or until you get tired, then place dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Rise one hour until doubled in size. Punch dough down, shape into 2 long loaves, place onto a greased cookie sheet, and rise again until doubled -- about 30-45 minutes. Preheat oven to 350F. Moisten top of loaves (I run my hands under water than rub them along the bread, but you can use a pastry brush or spray mister) and sprinkle with salt. Slash tops of loaves with a sharp knife or razor blade, and bake until loaf sounds hollow, about 35 minutes. (I turned the oven up to 400F for the last 5 minutes of baking for a crunchier crust.)

I got about 24 thick slices of bread -- it freezes very well, and is amazing when toasted. Great with soup!

Soup!

2008-09-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

It's getting to be colder, which means it's getting to be cooking weather. I can get by in the spring and summer with salads and dips and french fries, but it's hard to buy consistently good vegetarian "winter food" without spending tons of money. (And it's impossible to buy consistently good vegetarian winter food in a midwest hospital cafeteria.)

I found VeganYumYum's minestrone recipe and adapted it, in keeping with her thought that "you do not go grocery shopping to make minestrone". Usually my tomato-based soups turn out slightly sour, but this one was great -- I think that it was the combination of no-salt canned tomatoes and the long cooking time. This is intentionally a very simple soup but you can add dried herbs (with the garlic and carrots) or fresh herbs (about 7 minutes after adding the kale) if you want.

2 T oil

2 medium yellow onions, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/4" slices

1 can no-salt diced tomatoes, blended until smooth (do not drain before blending)

2 potatoes, peeled and chopped

4 oz mushrooms, sliced

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained -- do not blend ;-)

1/2 bunch kale, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil in large pot with lid over medium heat; add onions, stir, and cover. Cook for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and carrots and saute 2-3 minutes. Add tomatoes and potatoes, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Add mushrooms, chickpeas and 2 cups water and cook for 15 more minutes. Add kale and 2 cups water and cook for 10 minutes until potatoes are tender and kale is no longer bright green. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Tired...

2008-08-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

Six weeks down, two to go. Fourteen more days of too much work and not enough sleep. (Mostly, I blame the sleep deprivation on work, but sometimes it's my own choice. I'm not sleeping at all tonight because I have to go to work at 4AM tomorrow. I'd rather go to bed super-early tomorrow and sleep for a long time than sleep only a few hours tonight.)

I've not been cooking much either but I have made a few things.

Marinated Tomato Salad

OK, so this really shouldn't count as cooking -- no heat involved, and it's way simple. Regardless...

2 ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

balsamic vinegar to taste -- I think I used about 5 tsp

red wine vinegar to taste -- I used about 1/2 tsp

salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate at least 1 hour but preferably overnight. This is a very versatile recipe: you can add thinly sliced green onion, or strips of fresh basil or cilantro (ideally right before serving). This salad can be served with slices of toasted baguette -- call it bruschetta :) -- or mixed with pasta and olives. Or you can substitute mozzarella cheese for the chickpeas. Or use the tomato salad as a topping for grilled tofu. (If you do that, leave out the chickpeas...unless you're trying to prove that vegetarians do get enough protein.) It makes a good filling for omelettes, mixed with sauteed spinach, onions, and mushrooms.

Yellow Split Pea Soup

Also not a lot of work, but this one does involve the stove.

2 T oil

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 cup dried yellow split peas

4 cups water

1 large onion, minced

3 carrots, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

Heat the oil in a large pot, and add the cumin and mustard seeds. Add dried peas and toast for about 3 minutes. Add water and bring to a boil, then add chopped veggies. Cover and cook about 40 minutes until peas are tender, then season to taste with salt and pepper.

An Attempt at Real Cooking
With measuring and stuff. This is my totally bastardized version of Nupur's Rajma Parathas (keep scrolling, you'll find it). First and foremost, I realized -- about halfway through the process -- that my rolling pin is in my parents' basement. So much for thin and pretty parathas...mine were about 1/4" thick. They were like a cross between corn tortillas and pita bread, and were fabulous on the first day but don't store well. The recipe didn't have quantities, so I did my best. (I think I was pretty close too, I'm making progress!)

2 ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded

1 1/2 cups cooked kidney beans (can substitute canned beans -- rinse and drain well)

3/4 tsp salt (do not use if using canned beans)

3/4 tsp coriander

1 1/4 tsp powdered cumin

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

2 cups atta (Indian whole wheat flour)

Put everything except atta into a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour bean puree into a bowl and add atta. Mix well to form a stiff dough. Knead for 3 minutes, then cover dough and let rest for 30 minutes. Divide into 12 portions, roll as thin as you would like/are able (mine were pancakes about 4 inches in diameter), and fry in a shallow layer of oil until golden.

I'd definitely like to try these again once I have a rolling pin :) And that's it for your monthly edition of Bek Cooks! (PS I really am very tired and am writing from memory. If something looks wrong, it probably is...leave a comment and I'll fix it...)

From 5 Ingredients to 5 Spices

2008-07-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

Well, y'all got a short break with my last post, but I'm back to cooking with 5 Spices. Actually (sadly) I'm pretty much not cooking: my schedule sucks, and I'm usually too tired to drive to the grocery store after work. And I was going to cook last night, but my parents surprised me with a visit and we went out to dinner :)

I made the "Creamed Farmer Greens" (p. 35) and the "Corn with Mustard Seeds" (p.32-33), and served them with basmati rice and yogurt sprinkled with cilantro.

The first several times that I looked at the greens recipe, I wasn't impressed. To me, pureed greens mixed with heavy cream sounded a lot like baby food from the 1950s -- yuk. But then I realized that the recipe was basically palak paneer, minus the paneer and with kale instead of spinach. (And I loooove palak paneer.) I used a 24-oz bag of precut kale instead of the greens called for, and added a few cloves of garlic along with the onion and ginger. I increased the amount of water added to the puree to 1.5 cups, and used the kale cooking water rather than the plain water called for. I added cubed paneer during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Oh, and I left out the heavy cream :)

I followed the corn recipe pretty closely -- I used frozen corn kernels, added a bunch of chopped green onions (white part only, the green part had dried out from sitting in the fridge) and kept everything else the same. I used 2 Thai chiles and it was spicy, so watch out if you're cooking for people with sensitive palates!

This made a lot of food so I'll have leftovers for a few days. Yay!

MBP: Pasta with Chickpeas and Roasted Garlic Tomato Sauce

2008-07-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

This is my MBP: Less is More entry...my version of Nupur's version of Sheela's Sun-Dried Tomato Spread.

1 box whole wheat pasta

1 can diced tomatoes

1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes

10-12 cloves garlic, unpeeled

pinch sugar (optional)

salt and pepper to taste

1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

Bring a pot of water to a boil; add pasta and cook according to package directions. If necessary, use pasta water to rehydrate tomatoes -- the brand that I used was very soft right out of the package. Drain canned tomatoes and put into a food processor with rehydrated dried tomatoes, then blend to a smooth paste. Place garlic cloves (unpeeled) into a dry skillet (do not add oil) and heat over medium heat. Cover and cook for approximately 5 minutes, shaking pan occasionally, until garlic cloves are soft. (Thanks to Lisa for this post on pan-roasting garlic!) Once cloves are cool enough to handle, peel and add to food processor. Blend until smooth. Add salt, pepper, and optional sugar to taste: I find that a little sugar counteracts the slightly bitter/sour flavor that canned tomatoes have. Toss sauce with chickpeas and pasta and serve hot.

The sauce would also be good layered with pureed white beans as a dip. (Maybe add a thin layer of basil pesto as well...mmm...)

I'm a little embarrassed that this recipe doesn't contain any fresh ingredients, but happy that I can make good food out of my pantry! I had just cleaned out my fridge and thrown out a bunch of veggies that I'd bought and hadn't had time to cook, and when I went to the grocery store I figured I wouldn't make the same mistake twice. So -- go figure -- we got out of work early today. Not that I'm complaining :)

Thanks to Nupur and Coffee for hosting, and to Sheela for the original recipe!

Happy Saturday!

2008-07-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

Well, if Kabs is having a Summer of Socks, I am having a Summer of Spices. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, another recipe from 5 Spices. While I'll probably not make every recipe in the book (not least because several recipes feature the Dreaded Eggplant), at least a third of them are in my cooking queue :)

Tonight's dish was the Simple Cabbage Stir-fry. I pretty much made it as written; I added a bunch of chopped green onions, 1/2 tsp ground coriander, a can of chickpeas, and a little bit of water so that things wouldn't burn. (The frying pan that I used was way too small so I couldn't stir everything properly at first, but it cooked down in about 30 seconds.)

Oh, and I subbed in this really cool arrowhead cabbage that I bought at the Clintonville Farmers' Market. (It totally made me miss Soulard, sigh.)

And in other news, things are way better at work. I realized that I had to change the way that I was handling the situation, and I did. I'm still pretty sure that I don't have an inner surgeon trying to get out, but I can -- and will -- be able to learn a lot and be a useful part of the team regardless. Here's to attitude adjustments! (And happy Saturdays!)

So Far...

2008-07-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

...Not Good. I was really looking forward to taking care of people, but no. All that I've done -- for twelve-plus hours a day -- is watch other people take care of people. It'll change soon (I hope) but it's been frustrating, and the sleep deprivation isn't helping. I lost my temper today (not at a patient, TG, but at a member of my care team) and I feel awful. Tomorrow will be a fresh start -- I just have to remember to listen to the necklace :)

Spicy Tofu and Pasta

2008-07-01T16:10:00.000-07:00

I tend to stick to vegetarian cookbooks -- there's no fun in hauling a heavy book home, and then realizing that you can only eat a few of the recipes in it. (Well, OK, technically no one can eat a recipe -- but you know what I mean.) I was a little disappointed to find out that 5 Spices wasn't vegetarian, but since there are so few recipes (and so many beautiful pictures) I read through the meat, poultry, and seafood sections anyways. I kept coming back to "Baked Fish in a Spice Broth" -- I (think that I) kept the basic essence of things, but I changed a lot of the ingredients. This could be an everyday meal for me -- I did all my prepping and chopping as the pasta water boiled and so this took about half an hour from start to finish. Here's my version:

8 oz chunky dry pasta (I used whole wheat penne)
2 T canola oil
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1 bunch green onions, whites and greens chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (I used 1/2 tsp and it was pretty spicy; I think I'll use a little less next time)
3 drops ginger extract (or 1/4 to 1/2 inch fresh ginger, grated or juiced)
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 block water-packed extra-firm tofu (or 1 block firm tofu, pressed), cut into 1/2" thick slices
1/2 tomato, seeded and minced
2 T minced fresh cilantro

Begin heating water for pasta (cook the pasta according to the directions on the package). In a large frying pan with a lid, heat the oil, then add the mustard seeds and green onion. Cook 5 minutes or until onions are soft. Add garlic, cayenne, and fresh ginger if using, and cook an additional 30-60 seconds. Take 1 cup of water from pasta pot, and add to the frying pan with the ginger extract, coriander powder, and salt. Bring to a boil and add the tofu slices. Reduce heat to simmer and cover the pan. Cook for 5-8 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated and the tofu is hot -- flip the tofu slices halfway through and adjust the heat if necessary. Sprinkle with tomato and coriander and serve over hot pasta.

Drinking My Words

2008-07-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Those who know me personally know that I drink my coffee black -- "fluffy coffee" has no place in my life. But I may have just blended cold coffee with ice, and decided that it needed a little bit of almond milk and sugar. And then I may have decided that it was damn tasty. Fluffy coffee drinkers of the world, I owe you an apology.

Proud of Myself

2008-06-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

I swear, every time I learn something new, I turn into a little kid -- I'm all excited and proud of myself way out of proportion to the actual achievement. Note that -- unfortunately -- this doesn't apply to academic learning, just stuff that I do on my own time.

Anyway, yesterday's moment of joy was this:

"Everyday yellow dal" from 5 spices, 50 dishes with onion raita and rice. I actually followed the recipe, more or less -- added 1/4 tsp cardamom and 1/2 tsp ginger powder, omitted the butter, added a few extra cloves of garlic, seeded the tomato, and substituted white onion for red. (And -- shhh -- I used pre-ground coriander; I couldn't find a spice grinder for the whole seeds.) Apparently, the secret to cooking is to measure the spices and follow the recipe :) Who knew? The raita is just thinly sliced raw onion mixed with yogurt, salt, powdered ginger, and cayenne pepper.

Strangely, I had some difficulty finding yellow split peas for the recipe -- my grocery store didn't carry them and neither did TJ's. (Someone described TJ's as a grocery store for people who don't cook -- I got offended at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I rarely buy basic ingredients there. I do LOVE their frozen fruits and veggies though!) So I stopped in to the Indian grocers and also picked up some chiles, sev, and paneer.

And despite the name of the recipe, I doubt this will be an everyday meal for me: this was my kitchen by the time I finished cooking. My next investment may have to be a spice rack :)

It's a Tie

2008-06-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't kill it, and it didn't kill me. All in all, not bad for my first pressure cooking experience. I certainly didn't keep my cool under pressure: having heard several horror stories about exploding cookers, I was a little on edge. I called my parents no less than 5 times while pacing around the perimeter of my kitchen -- a safe distance from the hissing, shaking object on the stove -- and telling them that I was certain to be blown up any second.

Turns out that the little jiggly thing on the top didn't work so great -- it didn't jiggle to let me know that the cooker had reached pressure. After about a half hour of nothing happening, I poked it gently with a spoon and it started spinning like crazy. So I shut the cooker off, depressurized it, and opened it to find some very well-cooked beans. Thankfully, nothing burned, and next time I'll know to check the pressure after about 10 minutes.

I think that I'll give this recipe a try tomorrow. Green peas for the yellow, water for broth, add some cauliflower and carrots and maybe part of a can of tomatoes. The more that I use the cooker, the less scary it will be! (Yay for kitchen desensitization therapy!)

Mixed Veggie Raita

2008-06-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Somedays, I just don't feel like cooking. Like when it's 96 degrees (and me with no A/C)...or when I remember that my pantry is still pretty bare from the recent move. Raita to the rescue!

I was going to make cabbage raita from this recipe (about halfway down) but I didn't understand the directions. So here's what I did instead.

2 cups cabbage, thinly sliced (can substitute prepared coleslaw)
2 medium carrots, thinly sliced (shredded would be better but I was lazy)
3 tablespoons finely minced yellow onion (if you're like Kabs and hate onion, you can use a little less -- or if it's a texture thing, you can shred or juice the onion. But don't leave it out entirely.)
1/2 cup plain yogurt (more or less to personal preference)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 salt, or more to taste

Mix all ingredients and adjust seasoning to taste. It's best if it sits in the fridge for a little bit (mine chilled for about half an hour while I made rice) and it's good on the second day as well. I wouldn't let it go much longer because the cabbage was starting to get a bit of a bitter taste. I mixed the raita with canned kidney beans and served it over rice.

Tomorrow I'll try cooking dry beans in my pressure cooker -- if you hear of a roof being blown off of a house somewhere in Columbus, it's either me or a very small tornado. And I'm looking forward to using those beans (though maybe not this first batch) in recipes from 5 Spices, 50 Dishes. Nupur recommended it in this post and I've already reserved it at the library. (Yay for CML!)

Etiquette Tip

2008-06-09T19:40:00.001-07:00

If you haven't seen someone in a year, don't greet them with "Hey, have you gained weight?"

Although you'd think that would be obvious, personal experience suggests otherwise. (And no, I haven't, thanks.) People don't always heed the call of the obvious.

Hence the warning label on the dryer at the laundromat: "Remove all pets and children before starting machine."

And the (literally) 50 people who've hit "Reply All" to an email that starts with "Please do not use reply all in response to this email."

Somedays, I just give up.

I Need Food Inspiration...

2008-06-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

I've moved -- that could be several posts in and of itself, but whatever, it's done. I'm on vacation now, whee! (Not that I'm doing anything exciting, but I had early days all week and I'm happy to sleep in.) I think that I'll actually enjoy my surgery rotation (totally unexpected but sweet) but there's a downside: I have to eat breakfast. Days start at 5:30AM (eeeeeeew) and if I don't eat, I'll pass out in the OR. But I don't want to wake up any earlier than I have to (I already need to get up at 4:30 to get to work on time) and my stomach can't handle anything too "sloshy" that early. I ate cold pizza all this week -- and it was good but I think 8 weeks of it would get old. So here's the challenge: I need something that I can take from the fridge and eat in the car, no heating required. I'm willing to cook on the weekends but I'd prefer things that would keep in the fridge through the week, rather than needing to be frozen and later defrosted. Vegetarian is a must, high-protein would be ideal. There's always pizza, and I've also thought of French toast, and peanut butter sandwiches. Yogurt and smoothies are too liquidy; I've thought about something like a Spanish omelet but I really don't love eggs. So inspire me and I'll love you forever :)

First of the Lasts

2008-05-10T17:00:00.001-07:00

So, the next few weeks are going to be weird and stressful -- moving sucks. It's starting to really hit me that, yes, I am leaving soon. I've reserved my moving truck, packed a few boxes (pitifully few -- a large part of "moving sucks" is "I suck at moving") and had several "OMG, we totally have to get together before you go" conversations. And today I had a "last time" moment smack me upside the head. I think that I'm going to have a lot of those in the next few weeks, and I've probably had a bunch already, but this was the first one that stopped me in my tracks: the last time that I'll be shopping at Soulard Market.

I love Soulard -- it's one of the first places that I sought out when I moved, and I wasn't disappointed. I've definitely gotten spoiled by inexpensive produce, and it's also a great place to people-watch. I'm definitely an impulse buyer (10 lbs of green beans? My own full-sized watermelon? Bags upon bags upon bags of kale? Check. I also randomly bought a huge photograph, and I love it.) and today was no exception. Keeping in mind that I'll be going out of town on Friday, I bought a pineapple, a pound of cherries, 3/4 pound of peaches, a pound of apricots, a box of strawberries, a bunch of broccoli, a head of romaine lettuce, 2 big zucchinis and a head of cabbage. And doughnuts...I totally faceplanted into the greasy bag of cinnamon-sugary goodness, yum.

There will probably be many of these posts in the next few weeks -- it's surreal for me and I'm just trying to work everything out in my head...

Garter Rib-versible Hat

2008-03-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

This hat is knit in the round and is entirely reversible. It’s sized for an adult female –circumference is about 20”. You can add or subtract stitches in multiples of 4 and add or subtract rows of ribbing as necessary for length.

Materials: worsted weight yarn and size 9 DPNs (or circular needle for Magic Loop).
Gauge in K2 P2 rib, unstretched: 4 st/inch and 5 rows/inch

CO 80 sts. Place marker and join round, being careful not to twist.

Work 6 rounds of K2 P2 ribbing.

Rounds 7 and 8 together make up one repeat of the “Reversible Rib Pattern”.
Round 7: K all stitches.
Round 8: *K2,P2. Repeat from * around.
Repeat “Reversible Rib Pattern” 5 more times (total of 6 repeats).

Work 6 more rounds of K2 P2 rib, then another 6 repeats (12 rounds) of the “Reversible Rib Pattern”.

Work 2 more rounds of K2 P2 rib.

Begin decreasing for top of hat: *K2 P2tog. Repeat from * around. (60 st)
Next round: *K2, P1. Repeat from * around.
Next round: *K2tog, P1. Repeat from * around. (40 st)
Next round: *K1, P1. Repeat from * around.
Next round: K2tog around. (20 st)
Next round: K2tog around. (10 st)
Next round: K2tog around. (5 st.)
Gather remaining st and weave in ends.

Recipe Transmogrification

2008-03-04T15:47:00.000-08:00

Snow evening, yay! (I had daytime classes but my night class was cancelled due to weather, or, more accurately, St. Louis weatherphobia.) I decided that I really wanted chocolate cookies, so I found this recipe. I'm out of brown sugar, so I followed the substitution given here -- well, more or less. I was too lazy to oil my measuring spoon, so instead of adding 4 T molasses, I added 7 T-ishes. (Yes, a T-ish is a measure.) And when it came time to decrease the (almond) milk by 3 T, I fudged the calculations a little and probably decreased it by only about a T-and-a-half. So when it came to the point of dropping the batter by spoonfuls onto the cookie sheet, I decided to make cake instead. (I baked it for about 23 minutes until the center was just set.) Chocolate cookies turning into molasses cake -- why do these things always seem to happen to me? :)

Here it is right out of the oven:

And with cherry jam:

Now, off to do the homework that would have been due in about an hour...

More Knitting

2008-03-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

I fear that I am becoming a dishcloth person. (Yay for TFD!) Here's my latest:

It's a petal dishcloth. Some people have posted pictures of ones that they've made using different colored yarns -- it looks really cool but I'm not buying any more cotton yarn until I use up the entire 900 yards that I bought. (I've been trying to remember why in the world I thought I needed 900 yards of dishcloth cotton. I think that I intended to make shopping bags...it hasn't happened.)

However, there is a (sweater) light at the end of the (dishcloth) tunnel. CPH isn't done yet, but it's getting closer. I've finished the funny-shaped hood pieces (actually, I've finished the first and gotten about halfway through the second) -- here's one Frankenseamed in, to show that it fits.

And here's Loki, with the canine seal of approval:

I promise, it's not for her, but try telling her that. She and the cats are all over anything that I try to knit. But once it's done, that sweater is all for me!

Mario Kart as a Metaphor For Life

2008-02-17T19:50:00.000-08:00

Bear with me for a moment here, people. (XKCD rocks!) This will have a point. (Whether it's relevant...is totally a judgment call on your part.) When I was a kid, my bestest childhood friend and I used to spend hours playing Mario Kart, a racing game for the Super Nintendo. She would kick my butt routinely -- though not quite as badly as when we played Street Fighter -- and sometimes, I'd be trying my hardest not to win (because I didn't have a chance!) but to avoid being beaten by more than one lap. There's nothing like getting passed for the second time :)

And so it is now in CPH-land. Kabs is thinking about starting a second one, and it'll probably be started before I finish mine...but I'll be damned if she finishes a second before I finish my first! It's on.

Per Request...A Discussion of Nutritional Yeast

2008-02-17T17:58:00.000-08:00

This is nutritional yeast. It, along with tofu, brown rice, sprouts, and nutloaf, make me think of 1970s vegetarians. (I love all of these...except nutloaf, which I've never tried. The name makes me giggle too much.)

Some people say that it tastes like cheese, and indeed, it's the main ingredient in a lot of homemade non-dairy cheeses. (Although I've never had a non-dairy cheese that I liked, I don't blame the nutritional yeast.) Nutritional yeast is a good source of vitamin B12, which is difficult to get on a vegan diet...and in fact, I "discovered" nutritional yeast during a foray into veganism.

I don't really think that it tastes much like cheese -- at best, it bears a vague resemblance to a very mild Swiss cheese -- but I do like it on pasta. I'll often mix it with a little bit of pasta cooking water, salt, and pepper, and add some cooked green peas... it looks like mac-and-cheese, at least :) Or I'll sprinkle it on pasta and tomato sauce to cut the acidity. I really like it mixed into vinaigrette dressing, or in potato soup. (Some people also say that it's got a chicken-esque flavor. It's been a long time since I've had chicken...but I'll say that it probably tastes about as much like chicken as it does like cheese. But it does add some depth/complexity.) I usually add a little to pesto, use it to make the sauce for veggie pot pie, and I've also heard people say that it's good on popcorn (sprayed with olive oil to make it stick). And it's vital to my broccoli casserole, which also features, um, brown rice and tofu.

And just for the standard disclaimer: nutritional yeast is NOT baker's yeast (the stuff that makes bread rise), nor is it brewer's yeast (the stuff that makes beer fabulous). It is also (contrary to my beliefs until about 10 minutes ago) not an ingredient in Marmite or in Annie's Goddess Dressing. But it is wonderful!

Bad Weather, Good Soup

2008-02-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

It got cold here! (I want to say that it's not fair, but whatever, it's February.) So I made soup, and it's one of the best soups that I've made in a loooooooong time. Not so pretty, but that's just how it goes sometimes.

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 T oil

1 medium onion, sliced

1 Thai chile, minced

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup dried split peas

1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped

2 small white potatoes, peeled and chopped

Put the mustard seeds and cumin seeds in a large pot over medium heat. Do not add oil. Toast seeds for about 3 minutes, until they develop a nutty smell and begin to pop. Add oil, onion, chile, and salt, and saute for 2 more minutes. Add peas and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Add sweet potatoes and white potatoes and cook 15 minutes more until peas and potatoes are tender. Add seasonings to taste. Fabulous!

I <3 Fridays

2008-02-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

I live a quiet life, and I'm OK with that. Generally, people are like, "Woohoo! Weekend! Time to go out and get WASTED!" Good for them. Not I. (At least, not often.) But I do like weekends just as much as the next person, and this has been a tedious week.

I haven't cooked much in a while, so I was looking forward to making something out of my somewhat limited pantry. (I've been so spoiled by the Soulard Market that, even though people are taking me to stores -- and I totally appreciate it -- I haven't bought much produce recently.)

As luck would have it, Nupur posted this fabulous recipe for tomato soup, and I happened to have nearly everything on hand. (Except salt, but I borrowed some from Jessie. Having nice neighbors rocks.) I changed it a little bit -- it's me that we're talking about here -- but only a little bit, I promise. I omitted the milk (OK, I didn't have that either, but I never do), substituted Italian seasoning for the oregano, cut the sugar to 1 tsp, and added some garlic, a few slices of Thai chile, and some nutritional yeast. Perfect! And I also baked a batch of rolls to go with the soup.

And I made a dishcloth on Monday -- took about 2 hours and made class go by a lot more quickly. Nothing too exciting, but since the progress on CPH has been minimal, and Kabs' present is still top-secret, I wanted to post proof that, indeed, I'm still knitting. The "Chinese Waves" pattern (I swear it's not just garter stitch) can be found here. The yarn is variegated Sugar & Creme cotton.

Impressed

2008-02-08T18:25:00.000-08:00

Today is my two-week "anniversary" of carlessness. I'm grateful to Jessie and Nupur and Jackie for driving me places, thus making the carlessness possible. Dad's made a lot of progress dealing with the insurance company, and I hope to have the car back soon-ish. Not much bloggable has been going on -- CPH is stalled, Kabs' mystery project is going well but it's a secret, and I've not cooked anything recently that merits a post. So, here's a post that's been bubbling for a while.

I was told that I'm not easily impressed. This is true. And I don't know why it's like that, but it is...and when put on the spot, the only thing that I could think of was "I'm impressed by people who can burp on command." Absolutely, entirely, 100% true. But I knew that there had to be more...because honestly (I promise) I'm not that shallow. So here we go...in no particular order, and with no promises of completeness.

-I'm impressed by people who are multilingual.
-And people who can knit sweaters like it's no big deal.
-And people who wake up without hitting "snooze" on their alarms.
-And people with consistently well-behaved dogs.
-I'm ridiculously impressed by Maya Lin.
-I'm impressed by people who can program code. (Is that redundant?)
-And people who are articulate.
-And electrons. Very impressed by electrons.
-I'm impressed by gardeners.
-And neurons.
-And people in the US who've chosen to be carless. (This really and truly had been thought of before my car got stolen...but the last two weeks have confirmed my original thoughts.)
-And people who can write vegan recipes that don't use margarine, Ener-G powder, or any other "fake" egg, dairy, or meat products.
-And lots of other things too, I'm sure. It's been my mind-occupying tool-of-choice recently when walking to work, and I've thought of about a zillion things that impress me. But then I've forgotten them. So I guess I'm impressed by people with good memories.

AKA Not Me. (I do apologize for the lack of interesting posts...working on it.)

Unexpected: An Update

2008-01-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

So...the good news is that the police found my car. The bad news is that it had been driven into a fence. It's currently undriveable -- the front bumper is dragging on the ground -- but the damage beyond the bumper doesn't seem too extensive. (And so far, my insurance company has been awesome. We'll see how it goes once they actually have to start paying for things.) I'm upset that some other things were stolen -- a book that I received as a gift, and a set of blood-pressure cuffs. I know that it's my own fault for treating the car as a storage-unit-on-wheels, but it still sucks. (And it definitely could be worse -- I am grateful that the car was recovered quickly, and mostly intact, and that my insurance company has been so helpful. Believe me.)

Unexpected

2008-01-25T17:14:00.000-08:00

My car is gone. Missing. Stolen. I'm not freaking out or anything -- it's more a state of surreality (is that a word?) with maybe a touch of denial. Mostly I'm upset because it means that I'll have to miss the dog parade on Sunday. (I can take public transportation, but Loki can't.) Everything else in my life -- work, school, gym, grocery, library -- is (relatively) easily accessible on foot or public transportation. I'm grateful for that. This is going to be a hassle no matter what (unless by a miracle-of-miracles it shows up quickly, and in one piece); I can't imagine how tough it would be if I really needed to have a car to get places.

Wish me luck.

zOMG! She's Wearing Socks!

2008-01-19T15:58:00.000-08:00

I don't wear socks. But yes, those are my feet in the picture, covered in socks handmade by me. The socks are wonderfully warm and comfortable to the point that, halfway through the second sock, I tried to figure out a way to wear the sock as I knit it. Unsuccessful, but they knit up so quickly that it really didn't matter. So I've hopped another knitting hurdle, and it feels good. I'm fairly certain that I can squeeze another pair out of the yarn that I bought, and then I'll probably be done with socks for a while. I can see the appeal of them (portability, mostly...although there is that really cool shape-as-you-go factor...like, damn, it's turning into a sock!) but I don't think that it's for me. Too much measuring, and at the end of the day, it's a sock. And I don't wear socks.

And this is my current food obsession. Take a piece of "raw" tofu (House brand firm tofu comes pre-cut into four slices per package), and sprinkle with 1-2 chopped green onions. Mix soy sauce with ginger extract (I use about 1 drop of extract to 2 teaspoons soy sauce) and pour over the tofu and green onions. I'm sure that it's an acquired taste but I love it.

Concepting a Sweater, Take 2

2008-01-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

One of my earliest knitting projects was June Oshiro's DNA Scarf. I didn't know much about yarn choice at the time -- the scarf curls like crazy and the yarn that I used is entirely, unblockably, acrylic. (The scarf was a gift for my sister. I don't know if she still has it...and I'm afraid to ask, because I'll cry if she says that it's been lost, and beat her up if she says that she gave it away.) The other newbie yarn mistake that I made was in estimating required yardage. Well, OK, that's a lie, because it implies that I attempted to estimate required yardage. What actually happened is that I, terrified that I would run out of yarn in the correct color, bought every ball of yarn that Michael's had. (Again, a lie. I didn't actually buy all of the yarn that they had...just the 11 or so balls in the right color and dyelot.) Which, more or less, brings us to the present day, and my 6 balls of mocha Microspun. (There might actually be more -- I haven't actually plumbed the recesses of the stash cabinet.)

And that Microspun wanted to be a Duchess Raglan, with some Fair Isle detailing at the cuffs and waist. Main color: mocha. Contrast color: dark green. So I found someone destashing on Ravelry, and bought the green yarn. It arrived yesterday. The yarn on the left is what I imagined (it's my stash, leftover from the Odessa of my dreams), and the yarn on the right is what I received. (The top is the mocha.) I don't blame the seller; I blame my hyperactive imagination and desire to own yarn.

So the Fair Isle is out -- too much work for too little contrast between the colors. I may hold the green Microspun together with some dark green laceweight in my stash, and just do a broad (2" or so) stripe at the neck, cuffs, and hips. (And also, I was in a meeting the other day, and I saw "my" Fair Isle pattern on a sweater worn by an unfashionable biostatistician. And it didn't look out of place on said biostatistician. It's a sign.)

Food In the New Year

2008-01-01T08:57:00.000-08:00

Let's get this straight -- these are not resolutions. I have a notoriously poor track record with keeping resolutions. Instead, they are techniques and ingredients upon which I intend to focus in 2008.

1) Wine. I don't like wine. But it's not easy to get good beer everywhere, and I am now at an age where I am not allowed to make faces at the dinner table just because ~~wine is gross~~ I don't like something.

Step 1: Stop saying wine is gross.
Step 2: Drink more wine. (I bought a bottle that had a nice description...we'll see how it tastes. Hopefully not gross.)

2) Tea. I dislike tea less than I dislike wine. I like red tea and ginger tea and lemon tea and sugarysugarysugary chai. I do not like green tea or black tea or that weird tea in Chinese restaurants that smells like chrysanthemums.
Step 1: Drink more tea. I have over 100 red tea bags (mum rules, she mailed me some from home) and lots of ginger and lemons, and now I have this awesome stuff to make my own chai. (And I even have black tea that my friends gave me -- it makes better chai than red tea, sorry to say.)
Step 2: Buy a tea ball. The current method of straining with a colander means that things spill everywhere...so I use more tea, but I don't drink more tea.

3) Chile peppers. Not the best food for a cook who doesn't measure. Also, chile peppers can make your hands tingle. When it happened to me (starting a few hours after I'd cooked) I was pretty convinced that I was dying of some weird rare neurological disease.
Step 1: Buy chile peppers.
Step 2: Use frequently and sparingly.

4) Pickled and fermented foods. I already like miso and tempeh and soy sauce and dill pickles and olives. I'd like to try cooking with kimchi and natto and different Indian pickles.

5) Intentional cooking. It's not like I just happen to trip over the stove and **Poof!** there's food. It's more that I rarely if ever plan ahead. So this year I'll ~~make a weekly meal plan~~ ~~stop buying food just because it's inexpensive~~ use my slow cooker and pressure cooker more often, make big batches of food and freeze leftovers, and try to do some prepwork/precooking on weekends.

Happy cooking and happy 2008!

Instead of Barley

2007-12-29T21:07:00.001-08:00

This is what I made instead...it's kind of an Indian mashed potatoes. I think tomorrow I'll make patties and fry them, but right now I am being lazy. (I also made a giant batch of green beans, similar to yesterday's recipe, except minus the carrots, and with a few chiles. And cooked for about 45 minutes.)

1 small cauliflower, chopped
4 potatoes, peeled and chopped (about equal to the amount of chopped cauliflower)
1 minced Thai chile
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 tsp powdered cumin
1/4 tsp salt
pinch of dried fenugreek

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add potatoes, and cook about 12 minutes. Add cauliflower and cook about 7 minutes more. Cauliflower will be tender and potatoes will be done or a little "overcooked" -- that's OK. Drain, reserving a small amount of water. Pour into a bowl and immediately add the minced chile. Mash roughly -- you don't want it to be entirely smooth. Add ginger, cumin, salt, and fenugreek and a little water if the mixture is very dry. (I totally didn't measure these...I'd actually start with 1/2 tsp each of ginger and cumin and go from there.)

No Barley

2007-12-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

After speaking with Kabs earlier, I was inspired to make barley soup. Hasn't happened yet -- might tomorrow, not sure. Here's why:

1) No barley. I thought that I had some, and there's still a possibility that there's a box buried somewhere in my (very disorganized) pantry. However, I vaguely recall knocking said (open) box off the shelf awhile ago. I went to the grocery store and bought barley, but then I also wanted to go to TJs and Jay's while I was out, and that turned into about a 2-hour excursion.

2) Bucket of beans. I went to Soulard, and one of the produce stalls had a half-peck of green beans for $5. (This is about 2 paper grocery bags full...I don't have a scale at home, but it seems like about 10 lbs.) Took me about 2 hours to trim them all. I really need a person to accompany me when I shop. Not to carry my bags, although that would be great, but to tell me when I don't need to buy stuff. Course, the conversations would go something like this:

Me: Ooooh, green beans! Look, only $5 for 10 lbs!
Personal shopping assistant (PSA): 10 lbs is a lot of beans. Don't buy them -- you don't need them.
Me: Yes, I do.
PSA: No, you don't.
Me: You know, you're right. Pauses, then dashes off frantically to buy the beans. You're just mad that you have to carry the bags!

So yeah. Make beans, not barley :)

I <3 Green Beans

2007-12-28T16:21:00.000-08:00

I really do. I bought them nearly every week during the summer, and then they disappeared for a while from the market. And then they returned, and I rejoiced. Sadly, I doubt that they are locally grown. They're also not as sweet and tender as the summer ones. Just as inexpensive though -- I don't understand it, but I'll take 3 pounds.

I was going to roast them, but decided instead that I wanted to braise them. However, I didn't want to cook them for 3 hours. I stumbled across this recipe, and felt that it had promise. Here's my version:

2 T oil
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small onion, minced
1 inch fresh gingerroot, minced (probably a little less than 1 T)
1/2 c water (plus a little more if necessary, see recipe)
1.5 T soy sauce
1 t balsamic vinegar
1 lb trimmed green beans

2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

pepper to taste

In a frying pan with a lid, heat the oil on medium-high. Saute garlic, onion, and ginger, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes or until lightly browned. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and cover. Lower heat to medium-low (liquid should be simmering). Stir every 5 minutes, and add a couple of tablespoons of water if pan becomes dry. Cook 20-25 minutes; vegetables will be very soft. Add lots of pepper, and adjust seasonings as necessary -- I sprinkled a little extra vinegar and soy sauce on mine, and you'll probably need more if you serve this over rice or noodles. I'm almost definitely going to make this again; I think that it would be great with some cubes of tofu added with the veggies...and maybe some broccoli, a little bit of minced red chili pepper, bamboo shoots...

I loved the simplicity of this, but now I'm getting carried away with possibilities. Ah well, the more the merrier :)

Warning: Linguistic Sacrilege Ahead :)

2007-12-25T09:24:00.000-08:00

Yeah, if there's a hell for people who love bad puns, I'm so going there. (Course, if that "sins of the father" stuff is true, I was damned the day that I was born. My dad is the bad-pun master.)

But anyways, we had the day off of work today, and I still have the stupid cold, so I decided to cook fake-chicken soup. Veggies, water, wheat gluten, and seasonings, all that you need to make...wait for it...

Seitan on Christmas.

Shame on me, and happy holidays!

Gifting!

2007-12-23T18:47:00.001-08:00

I'm very excited to be having "Christmas Eve" dinner tomorrow with Nupur, her husband, and their dog. (I say "Christmas Eve" because no one present actually celebrates Christmas. Of course, it is Christmas Eve regardless of whether we celebrate it or not...so maybe I should remove the quotation marks. Nah.)

So, just in time, I finished the last-of-four Odessas. There are clear beads on it, even though you can't tell from the photograph.

I also made Carrie's biscotti. I substituted dark chocolate bits for the semi-sweet mini-chips. Next time, I'll search out the semi-sweet chocolate. I loooooove dark chocolate but I think that it overpowered the rest of the flavors in the cookie.

I'm bringing a bottle of wine too. I don't really like wine (I think that it tastes like gasoline with a little battery acid), and I've decided that my New Year's resolution will be to learn. (I've done this successfully with several foods.) So I also bought wine for me! We'll see if I can taste its promised hints of chocolate and cherry and other wonderful things.

Food and Music

2007-12-22T15:11:00.000-08:00

I am constantly amazed at how much I eat. I am lucky to have reliable access to inexpensive fresh produce, and I take full advantage of it. (I've never had problems with quality either. Well, except for last week's mangoes. The produce guy said that they were "hit or miss", and implied that I shouldn't buy them. I interpreted that as "very very ripe, need to use them quickly, too much for one person", and in reality, 9 were entirely rotten and the other 3 were rock hard. I threw those out too, because I'd already cut them and so they wouldn't ever ripen. Out $2, no big deal.)

Anyone who sees me probably assumes (if they think about it at all, which I doubt) that I'm buying food for an entire family. But no, it's just me. Here's what I got this week:

1 pineapple: $1
1 lb cherries: $3
3 lb green beans: $2
3 heads cauliflower: $1
3 heads lettuce: $1
10 oranges: $1
1 bunch celery: $1
a lot of onions: $3

And something else I'm forgetting apparently, because I'm short $1. Or maybe I'm just off on the price somewhere.

I'm also a little in love with a couple of cheesy songs that I heard on the radio yesterday. (That's 2 confessions in one, people. Yes, I listen to the radio -- there's no CD player in my car -- and yes, I have a soft spot for cheesy music. But only some of it. Feel free to lose any respect that you may have had for me.) Here's one:

And the other has embedding "disabled by request", so you can see it here. And happy Solstice/early merry Christmas/late happy Hanukkah/enjoy your random non-holiday!

And the Heat Goes On...

2007-12-16T08:30:00.000-08:00

Yep, I caved, and turned on the heat this morning. It was at 60F but that was too warm (totally not kidding), so now I've set it to 55F and it's great. I really truly thought that I might make it through the winter, but several things happened recently to change my mind.

1) It snowed, and for some reason, that makes it feel a lot colder.
2) Kabs informed me that my pipes might freeze. And that would suck. A lot.
3) My fingers were getting too stiff to knit. And that did suck. A lot.
4) Last night, when I got home, the dog was shivering. (Poor baby...I felt like a terrible mom.)
5) I'm sick. Nothing major, just a cough and sneeze with a little bit of a sore throat, but I figured that hanging out at 48F (yep, the thermostat finally dipped below 50F) wouldn't help things at all.

And I now get to look forward to a nice high gas bill.

Most Expensive Farmers' Market Trip Ever

2007-12-15T12:09:00.000-08:00

...at least for me. I've seen people buy way more. But whatever, here's today's haul.

1 2'x3' photograph -- a storefront in Seville with a dressmaker's form out front (sounds stupid maybe, but it's very cool) -- $50

Everything else was multiples, and significantly less expensive.

2 cantaloupes - $1
3 little butternut squashes - $1
2 lb of yams - $2
a thingie of celery (a bunch? a head?) - $1
2 orange caulflowers - $1
5 bunches of green onions - $1
12 mangoes - $2
fresh gingerroot - $0.65

The cantaloupe and mango will probably become fruit salad for a potluck tonight. The squash and the yams will hang out for a while -- they're relatively nonperishable. The celery and onions will likely end up in soup. The cauliflowers...roasted, fried? Anything but raw.

Boxes and Contents

2007-12-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

So, now that 3 of the 4 recipients have told me that they've gotten their boxes, I can talk a little more about the cookies that they contained. There were peanut butter cookies -- recipe straight from the Jif PB jar, except that I used almond milk instead of dairy milk. I used eggs, but I've made the cookies vegan before by using 2 T mashed banana or flaxseed egg substitute equal to one egg. There were also "Crackerdoodles" -- to quote beast, they're like snickerdoodles, with crack. I intended to make gingersnaps (I can post my mom's recipe if anyone wants it), but I accidentally forgot to add molasses. (I also used 1/2 brown sugar and 1/2 white sugar instead of all white sugar like the recipe called for.) These also used eggs, but you could substitute 2 T applesauce or 2 T pumpkin puree per egg.

The last cookie is kind of a 2-for-1. My mom calls them fruit bars, but that makes me think of fruitcake, and I don't like fruitcake. So I call them pie bars. They're ridiculously easy, and I just made them again for 2 potlucks that I'm going to this weekend.

1.5 cups Crisco

3 cups sugar

6 beaten eggs

1.5 tsp vanilla

3.5 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup oats

2 cans pie filling of your choice -- I used one apple and one cherry

Beat shortening and sugar well. Add eggs, vanilla, flour, salt, and oats. Split dough into 2 equal portions. Place 3/4 of each portion in a foil lined and greased 9x9 inch pan, and spread out evenly. (Dough is sticky and may be hard to work with.) Spread with pie filling and top with spoonfuls of the remaining dough mixture... it will spread out during the baking time. Bake 375 degreesF for 40-45 minutes, until top is lightly browned.

Boxes of Joy

2007-12-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

The focus of my weekend:
The top envelope contained these:

And unfortunately, they don't photograph well. They're a yarn snob's nightmare -- 1 strand of acrylic (Caron Simply Soft) held together with one strand of novelty yarn (Bernat Boa eyelash yarn), crocheted in mesh stitch. I think that I chained about 24 to start, but I can't remember for sure. The scarves turned out really well, and got the most compliments of any project that I've worked on in public. (Fun Fur: knitters hate it, non-knitters love it. Go figure.)

The rest of the boxes contained cookies -- not telling what kind, don't want to ruin any surprises. One also contained this blue Odessa, and one went to the person who absconded with my maroon Odessa.

There was also a box-not-pictured, because at the time of shipping, the lovely green Odessa was as-yet-unfinished. The box-not-pictured also contained the mix CDs Volume 1 and Volume 2.

I hope that all of the packages arrive quickly and unharmed. (And I hope that I remember to mail the last one tomorrrow!)

The Playlist, Volume 2

2007-11-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

2D2F -- Avenue D
Game Shows Touch Our Lives -- The Mountain Goats
Getting Ready -- Watershed
Hallelujah -- Rufus Wainwright
Innocent -- Our Lady Peace
Back to the Pain -- Tim Easton
Good Life -- Kanye West
Flagpole Sitta -- Harvey Danger
Banditos -- Refreshments
My Neck, My Back -- Khia
Jumper (Cover) -- Bedlight for Blue Eyes
Pepper -- Butthole Surfers
Landslide (Cover) -- Smashing Pumpkins
Old College Try -- The Mountain Goats
I'm a Slut -- Howlin' Maggie
More for Me -- Tegan and Sara
So & So -- Kim Richardson
Present/Infant (Live) -- Ani DiFranco
Colorblind -- Counting Crows
Stronger -- Kanye West
Stone Girl -- Kelly Zullo

And there you have it -- 79.5 minutes of carefully arranged randomness.

Comfort Food

2007-11-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

So, it's getting a little colder here. Not yet to the "damn!" stage (I haven't even turned on my heat yet), but sweatshirt-and-slippers weather for sure. And that means comfort food.

Typically I find recipes online and modify them until they barely resemble the original. ("Um, they both have potatoes. That counts, right?") But occasionally I'll find something that's already super-easy and vegan, and where I already have all of the ingredients. In that case, I'll modify them only slightly. Such was the case with this banana pudding. (I did have to go to the grocery store -- I didn't have cornstarch, and I wasn't in the mood for banana soup.) I used vanilla-flavored almond milk, brown sugar in place of white, and a ridiculously ripe banana. (That last point is key -- and when I say ridiculously ripe, I mean it. This banana was ready to eat literally 2 weeks ago.) And instead of following the instructions, I mixed the dry ingredients, slowly added the almond milk, heated until thick, and then blended in the banana and vanilla with my immersion blender. Not very photogenic (almond milk + brown sugar + crazy-ripe banana = beige pudding, although I think it could work with some sliced banana and a little sprinkling of nutmeg and turbinado sugar) but mmmmm.

The second barely counts as a recipe, but I'll post regardless. There is (of course) an inspiration for this recipe. As I implied above, I tend to cook with what I have, rather than buying stuff with the intention of cooking specific things. And I really shouldn't be allowed to shop at the farmers' market unsupervised: I'm a sucker for a bargain, whether or not I actually need what I'm buying. Snow peas were $0.65/lb yesterday, so I bought 3 lb. Great bargain, you say? Indeed, but what will I do with 3 lb of snow peas? (This has 2 connected thoughts. (1) I also bought 4 lb of string beans; they were only $0.50/lb. (2) I am so grateful that I'm a vegetarian -- this could be dangerous when buying meat. "Hamburger? Grade D? Only $0.37/lb? I'll take 5 lbs!") But yeah, back to the snow peas. Easiest soup ever -- take 2 cups of water, bring to a boil, throw in a handful of snow peas (or other really quick-cooking veggies), simmer for 3 minutes, remove from heat, and add thinly sliced green onions, cubed tofu, and some kind of "instant soup". Sometimes I use miso or seasoning packets from the Japanese grocery, but recently I've been using onion soup mix, but diluted (about 1.5 tsp/2 cups water), and it's wonderful. Comfort food extraordinaire.

Peace

2007-10-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

Late last night, bu and I were walking along a bridge over a major highway. It was the usual whoosh-whoosh-rumble underneath, when suddenly, there were no cars in either direction as far as I could see, and it was perfectly silent. It was absolutely astoundingly beautiful and peaceful, and we're going to try again tonight.

(This entry is really just for me -- for when I am looking back over this at some long-future timepoint, and it will make me happy to remember.)

Zoo Pics!

2007-10-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

Normally I am a rational, well-behaved adult. (Dissenters will be smacked.) Take me to a zoo, however, and all bets are off. Because I. Want. To. See. The. Po. Ley. BEARS! NOW! My poor parents had no choice but to take me to see the bears. (We had a wonderful weekend, by the way.) And my dad took some great pictures...

Here is the bear:

And here is the bear...on my HEAD!

I'm normally opposed to pictures of myself on the blog, but I'm really amused by that shot. A little more than I should be...to the point of singing the "Poley-bear on my Head" song for the rest of the day. Yay for parents, and yay for poley-bears!

Blah-ging.

2007-10-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

So life's been pretty same-old, same-old recently. Nothing bad, but nothing too exciting, at least not in the bloggable realms of food and knitting. This is mostly a place-marker post so that next time I decide to blog, I won't feel like it's been forever and give up. (I'll be doing a lot of traveling in the next couple of months -- family and friends, not scenic places -- and so blogging will be more sparse than usual.)

CPH is semi-stalled -- I keep wanting uninterrupted time so that I don't screw up the sleeve caps. That usually happens during SnB, but last week I was having a totally frantic day so I got there late and left early, and didn't want to risk messing up the sleeves. And beast visited this weekend so my faux-plan of knitting at a coffeeshop didn't happen either. (Fun visit though!) I guess I'll try again at SnB this week, and failing that, take it on the trip to Philly. (Cables on a plane!) And I need to hunt down a book that I'm using as inspiration for the hood. And a copy of SnB so that I can remember how to sew shoulder seams. I'm also working on a twist-cable knit-in-the-round baby hat while I'm in classes, and a gift for beast.

I've cooked a decent amount recently, but nothing that I haven't made before. (Except for some bread that I'd actually like to take a second try at before I post the results.) Most of my kitchen wonderful-osity has taken place at Campus Kitchen, which I love, and am going to try and recreate at OSU when I go back.

Until whenever!

You Want Fast?

2007-10-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've got fast. Kabs was talking about a "fast" sweater, done in less than a week. I'll grant you, that's fast for a sweater. But I like my gratification even faster. This hat was started on my walk to class this morning (much to the amusement of a guy sitting outside the hospital) and finished in class this afternoon (much to the amazement of people who'd seen it earlier in its completely-not-resembling-a-hat state). I also learned that our teacher knits. Totally cool.

And this is Schwubs with the hat, just for scale.

And Toast, up close and blur-sonal. (No flash, no worries. No cats were harmed in the making of this picture.)

Still Ill?

2007-09-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

I think that I am still a little less-than-healthy, but I'm feeling better. I slept all morning and then volunteered this afternoon. (Shame on me, I know. But I wore gloves and didn't sneeze or cough on anyone or anything.) And then I went to the international foodstore, the recycling dropoff, and the grocery store.

We'd made chicken and biscuits as one of the meals today, and that inspired me to make veggie pot pie. (Sort of...I decided to skip the crust.) The original recipe was in Judy Krizmanic's A Teen's Guide to Going Vegetarian; mine is from my own head and a very beat-up index card with a reminder of how much flour and how much water go into the sauce.

4 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 medium onions, chopped

4 carrots, peeled and sliced 1/2" thick

1 cup frozen peas

1 cup frozen corn

1 can chickpeas

8 oz mushrooms, chopped

Put potatoes and onions in a large pot with 2 cups water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for about 8 minutes. Add chopped carrots, simmer for 5 more minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients and cook until heated through.

Meanwhile, make sauce. Mix in small(ish) bowl: 1/2 cup flour, 4 T nutritional yeast, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp thyme, and a pinch or two each of ground ginger and ground cumin. You can also add dried dill, tarragon, basil, or oregano. Pour in 1/2 to 1 cup water, enough to dissolve the flour. Add to the vegetables and cook until mixture thickens, about 3 minutes. Adjust seasonings and serve with bread.

And of course, where there are mushrooms, there are booty-mushrooms:

Yay!

I am ill.

2007-09-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

Nothing serious -- cold? allergies? both? -- just enough to make me crave naps and warm liquids. I've been kinda fighting it all week, but it got way worse overnight. I'll head to the grocery store later today to buy some stuff to make soup, but here's what I managed to pull together from my mostly-empty fridge and pantry. Disclaimer: this is probably totally gross if you're not (a) me and (b) ill.

Peel and dice 1 potato. Place into saucepan with 2 cups water, and bring to a boil. Once water boils, lower heat and simmer until potato is tender, about 10 minutes. Pour a beaten egg into the "soup" and simmer for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Marmite and pepper to taste.

And now, off for a nap.

Tamarind-Date Chutney

2007-09-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

I love to cook. This blog was intended to be a balanced portrayal of my life: some food, some knitting, some adorable pets, some everything else. Well, that didn't last long. My pets, while adorable, don't really enjoy being photographed. (And SOMC and SOMM aside, one can really only look at so many pet pics. I don't care how cute they are.) My knitted FOs are few and far between, and my "everything else" is relatively uninteresting. So, by default, a food blog it is. It's also a way for me to keep track of things that I've made -- I modify recipes like crazy, and every once in a while I'll hit on something that I'd like to make again. (And again and again and again...I'm kind of a 3-year-old like that.)

I also love to volunteer. I'm not exactly a social butterfly...I'll give myself partial credit and say that I'm a social caterpillar. So it's nice -- at least for me -- to have instant common ground when I'm meeting new people. (There are a zillion benefits to volunteering...but I do have a point that I'm trying to reach eventually. And I can only digress so far before it's considered a new topic.) One of the first things that I did when I moved here was to look for volunteer opportunities, and I ended up at Campus Kitchens. Amazing organization -- I really want to get one started at OSU when I head back in the spring -- and amazing volunteers.

(Gasp! It's my point!) I worked with Nupur all summer. She's a really inspiring person and a brilliant cook, and I was really sad when we compared schedules and found out that we wouldn't be cooking on the same shift anymore. But we kept in touch by email, and she invited me over for dinner and cooking lessons this weekend. I had a ton of fun and I learned a lot about Indian cooking.

Nupur's version of this chutney has only 3 ingredients: dates, tamarind, and jaggery. This recipe adds a little salt and cayenne pepper. I -- par usual -- added a bunch of stuff. (It's like a compulsion...I can't ever make a recipe without messing with it.) Mine turned out so well that I just want to eat it with a spoon. No exact measurements...m'bad.

Dates (I used "cooking dates" -- basically a cake of dates that have been pureed and mixed with a little oil.)
Tamarind (Apparently they sell tamarind juice. Or tamarind concentrate. I meant to get that and accidentally got the kind that still had all of the pulp and seeds left in.)
Jaggery (Unrefined sugar -- it comes in a giant awe-inspiring block.)
Salt
Cumin
Powdered Ginger
Cinnamon
Cayenne Pepper

Place dates in a small saucepan with some water. (I used about -- I'm guessing here -- 1/3 cup dates and 2/3 cup water.) Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, to dissolve the dates. Meanwhile, take a chunk of tamarind, place it in a bowl with water, and microwave for 1 minute. (I used about 1/4 cup tamarind.) Mash the tamarind as best you can -- there will still be nasty-looking chunks of pulp and seeds. Place a small strainer over the saucepan with the dates, and pour the tamarind mixture into the saucepan, pressing down on the pulp to extract as much liquid as possible. Break off a piece of jaggery (between 1 and 2 T sized) and add to the date-tamarind mixture. Sprinkle in a small amount of salt and each of the other spices. Simmer over very low heat for 3 minutes. Cool, and serve with samosas, pakoras, yogurt, or any other dish of your choice. (Or eat with a spoon.)

An Explanation and a Shrug

2007-08-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

There are good parts and bad parts to walking to work. Good points: exercise, no worries about parking, nice 20 minutes to think every morning and afternoon. Bad points: what works clothing-wise at work isn't so great to walk in (e.g. heels, long-sleeved shirts in the summer), carrying stuff 20 minutes each way. So I decided to leave my laptop at work most nights. It's been less traumatic to break my internet addiction than I thought that it would be. (I made up a list of internet rules at work; we don't have filters or blocked sites -- at least not any that I visit -- but I don't let myself look at my Google Reader or Ravelry or Craftster or any of the blogs/comics sites that I waste time on at home. I do, however, keep all 4 email accounts visible most of the day...so I guess that I am still internet-addicted. Oh, and I'm allowed to look at NYT and CNN and anything else that comes up on the thingy at the top of my GMail. So yeah...still internet-addicted.) So the point of that, tangential though it may be, is that I'm not going to be blogging very frequently.

But yeah. Here's a shrug that I made, based on Tubey. I knit it with Lion Brand Microspun that had been in my stash so long that I can't even remember why I originally bought it. I made 3/4 length sleeves, with no bell, and just a regular knit BO. I did a 2 stitch garter edging along one edge of the back, hoping that it would be enough to keep the stockinette from curling along the top. No such luck, so I flipped it upside down -- the top part is now plain stockinette, and it does curl, but it actually makes a really warm-and-comfy-neck edge. I crocheted along the now-bottom edge to minimize the curling. I did a row of crochet slip stitches and then did a shell edging based on one that I saw in SnB Crochet: *sc in first garter ridge, skip a garter ridge, 5 dc in next garter ridge, skip a garter ridge. Rep from * until end. The shrug is surprisingly warm; I haven't actually worn it at work yet but I imagine that it will get a lot of use.

And a close-up of the edging. Apologies for both shots -- it's surprisingly difficult to photograph a shrug.

Cauliflower Casserole

2007-08-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

It may look like a coconut cake, but it's not. It's a cauliflower casserole. Now, although approximately 84% of people prefer coconut cake to cauliflower casserole, don't be too disappointed. It's a damn good cauliflower casserole.

1 head cauliflower, broken into florets

1 potato, peeled and chopped

1 T olive oil

1 large onion, thinly sliced

8 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

1 block (19 oz) soft tofu

3 T nutritional yeast

1 egg

salt and pepper

1/4 cup panko

Preheat the oven to 375F. Put the cauliflower and potato into a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer until tender (10 minutes). Drain, reserving a cup of liquid, and mash, leaving some chunks. Meanwhile, saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until lightly browned. Put the sauteed onion and garlic into a food processor with the tofu and blend until smooth. Mix the mashed cauliflower/potatoes with the tofu mixture in a 8"x8" pan. Add the nutritional yeast, egg, and salt and pepper to taste. You can add a small amount of reserved cooking liquid if the mixture seems too dry. Sprinkle with panko and bake 40 minutes, until the casserole is "set" and begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

The egg and panko are totally optional -- I just happened to have them around. The original recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance, reprinted (totally without permission) here. (The chick who runs that blog annoys me, and I run across the blog all the time because we have similar taste in food.) Isa (of VWaV) modified it from a Bon Appetit recipe, reprinted (I'm guessing with permission) here. I liked my version and will definitely be making it again.

Good question

2007-08-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the Random Surrealism Generator:

Who do you think is more likely to crochet a face - Godzilla or Pearl Jam?

Ravelry is hard work!

2007-08-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

So I got my Ravelry invite earlier this week, or maybe last week. Sometime recently. There's a lot to like about it (as about a zillion people have said so far), but what nobody talks about is how much WORK it is. Now, granted, there are a lot of people who've done tons of work to make it happen -- there are a lot of nifty little link-and-search buttons and other cool features that have obviously taken a lot of time and effort. And I suppose that, as a Ravelry user, it would be OK to just post a list of projects with no details and no pictures. But there's this vibe (at least so far in the beta-testing group; I'm still curious to see how things will change when it's open to everyone) of very high expectations. It takes a village to raise a sweater. And there are people out there (cough, Kabs) who document stuff, and are happy to have another outlet for documentation. Me, not so much. My goal today is to post 3 FOs. These will be the easy ones -- the pics are taken, stuff's already written in my blog, cut, paste, voila. WIPs will get dealt with at some point, and then, GROAN, I'll maybe just maybe deal with posting my stash. (Oh. And if you're not Kabs and don't already know, this is me on Ravelry.)

Sopa de Lechuga

2007-08-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

It's not often that you get to use the Spanish word for lettuce on an English-speaking blog. (Well, a blog by an English-speaking person.) And although there's nothing Spanish about my soup, I like the Spanish word for lettuce. So ha! This is also called Swamp Soup.

I had several heads of romaine in the fridge that were starting to get wilted, so I took the outer leaves from 3 of them, chopped them and put them into a pot. I added 3 peeled chopped potatoes, 2 chopped onions, and a head of garlic, peeled and chopped. I added water to cover, brought it to a boil, then simmered it for 20 minutes or so until everything was soft. Then I blended it and seasoned it. (Usually just salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast.) This "recipe" works pretty well for any veggie -- carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green peas, zucchini, asparagus...mixed veggies would taste good but look even scarier than the Swamp Soup above.

Odds and Ends

2007-08-18T15:11:00.001-07:00

Just a few pics of things that aren't interesting enough for full posts. Begone with you, off of my camera and into the world!

Pineapple Bread
Potatoes and Cauliflower, pre-roasting
Chocolate Chip Cookies

Homemade Ice Cream (KindaSorta)

2007-08-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've got a teeny-tiny passionate hatred for recipes that call for "gadgets" that I don't own. It just seems unfair. (And yes, I am aware that there are FAR greater injustices in this world.) I'm a decent cook, I know how to substitute ingredients no problem, but it's hard to substitute for a kitchen appliance. And I'm living pretty minimally appliance-wise this year. Stove, range, microwave, mini-blender, food processor, immersion blender. That's all. No KitchenAid, no grill, no breadmaker (never actually owned one of those), and no ice-cream maker. That last one is the problem, because it eliminates approximately 100% of recipes for homemade ice cream. Until NOW! (Wahaha.)

I used the recipe I mentioned in my previous post. I used 12 or 13 peaches, but I did cut away a lot of bruises and nastiness, so you really only need 9 or 10 if they're in good shape. I used a 6 oz container of nonfat plain yogurt (TJs house brand has no gelatin) and 1/3 cup white sugar. Dumping all of those peaches in at once totally overwhelmed my Cuisinart, so I blended as follows:

1/3 of peaches, 1/2 of yogurt, 1/2 of sugar. Blend until smooth, then add another 1/3 of peaches, 1/2 of yogurt, and 1/2 of sugar. Blend until smooth and then stir in remaining 1/3 peaches. (You could blend them in, but I like it with the little icy peach chunks.) This stuff is absolutely astounding.

And one more pic:

I like the texture shot, but wasn't real thrilled with the plastic bowl. So in the interest of blog-photography (and nothing else of course) I had to scoop myself up a bowl of ice cream. Mmmm.

Shopping, yes. Success, questionable.

2007-08-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

I intended to take it light at the market this week since I'll be out of town this weekend. I only spent $15, but I still got a lot of food. Here's the rundown:

3 heads of cauliflower, $2
3ish lb peaches, $1
the best yellow tomatoes in the world, $3 (my impulse/splurge purchase)
3 bunches of asparagus, $4
3 lb string beans, $3
1 lb cherries, $2

The cherries are for eating plain, although I read somewhere that they can be roasted, so I'll look into that. The asparagus will be steamed -- they're too thin to be roasted. The beans will be steamed, roasted, and/or eaten raw. The cauliflower, whoops. No single person needs 3 heads of cauliflower, but they were on sale. Roasted, made into soup, uh, made into some recipes that I will immediately seek on the internet. Yes, that is the well-thought-out plan. And the peaches are for this recipe. I bought them from a stall that has amazing prices and questionable quality, but I knew that going in and I'm totally willing to cut away some nasty spots on some of the peaches when they're that cheap. So now I'm off to freeze and dice and do whatever else it takes so that I have food for the rest of the week.

Shopping Success!

2007-08-17T20:06:00.001-07:00

And, shockingly, it doesn't involve food. (That's tomorrow's post.) I got a coupon for NY&Co. and decided to go there to find a dress for Kabs' weddingish. Didn't find one, but I did get 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of work pants, and a work shirt. All for less than $150 total, and I also got another $60 worth of coupons. (Sweet.) And I found out why I was having this problem. Apparently, they size big -- way big. And their stuff stretches even more once it's worn. (I am truly grateful to the saleswoman who clued me in to this. I'm a size 14 and didn't buy anything larger than a 10. And it fit. We'll see how this actually works when I wear the pants to work next week.) Woo for the weekend!

Taking Inventory

2007-08-11T10:07:00.001-07:00

Today's farmers' market haul:

3 zucchini
2 heads of cauliflower
3 lb green beans
1 pineapple
1 pint yellow tomatoes
1 lb yellow onions
1 lb baby Yukon Gold potatoes (plus one potato to make it exactly a dollar)
1 lb roasted salted peanuts

Beaster paid for it all because she is awesome.

In Which Things Return to My Life

2007-08-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

First off, just have to say it: 100th post! Woo! I am sad that I don't have a 100th-post booty-fruity, since that is still my favorite part of this blog, few and far between as those posts are. Oh well, I can always edit that in later.

And in the past few days, I've had things show up that were randomly missing. And I am excited.

The first: Freedomland. It's a book that I read ages ago (as in, high school, but not for school), loved, and then promptly forgot all identifying information. I remembered a few scenes, the cover picture, and that the author's last name started with a P. And I've been looking for it ever since. I stumbled across it a few days ago at the (otherwise deficient) St. Louis Public Library. And I still love it. But apparently other people don't -- you can get a one-cent copy on Amazon. So I'm buying it. Whee!

The second: my dog. She was only gone for about 5 minutes -- slipped out the front gate, then ran around to the back of the house, and appeared outside of the back gate. I'm confused and happy that she came back rather than running away when she had the chance, because shame on me, I hadn't even noticed that she'd disappeared.

The third: my favorite vegetable peeler. I am indeed a big enough kitchen dork to have one. I lost it during the move, and I've been using a random crappy one for the last 2 months. (I kept forgetting to buy a new one -- it wouldn't have lived up to my favorite one anyways.) Well, I was digging around for my Cuisinart shredder attachment and found my peeler in the "useless stuff" box. Yay!

And the fourth: my seeeeeestar! I haven't seen her in a few months either, and she's been gradually becoming one of the Corn People. (Kraki.) But she has decided to come visit me this weekend, just for the hell of it. And we will go shopping and eating and wandering. And that is sweet.

Happy weekend! (And be afraid for Monday the 13th...)

More Bags!

2007-08-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

So I finally finished the bags for the Reusable Bag Challenge. It's crazy how fast stenciling is -- not that my results are amazing or anything, but still. You can make something in like 15 minutes. (I sense more stenciling in my future...I have a ton of leftover paint. And cardboard. And an X-acto knife. Mmmmm X-acto knife.)

So here's the final products:

(It's fronts and backs -- I wish that I had 6 of them, but there's only 3.) I had great ideas for cheesy eco-slogans, but my crappy stenciling "skills" would have left smaller letters looking like random blotches. So I went with short-and-sweet and then made potato-print hearts and stars. Overall, very fun, and now I have more bags. Woot!

Turnip Greens? Eh.

2007-08-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

So I cooked them -- just boiled them for about 3 minutes to decrease the bitterness and toughness that greens in general are known for. They weren't bad, but they certainly weren't kale. More like spinach, nothing exciting. And it didn't really seem like it would hold up well in the fridge -- one of the great benefits for me with kale is that it keeps well, and I get to eat fresh veggies all week. So I used all of the turnip greens in the following "recipe", and I'll try mustard or collard greens next week and see how they stack up. (This is for 1 bunch of greens; I made a triple batch.)

Peel and slice 10 cloves of garlic. Saute garlic in olive oil in a large-medium saucepan. Sprinkle garlic with cayenne pepper -- I never measure and I usually add too much, but I like it that way...

When the garlic is tender but not brown, add 1 bunch of chopped cooked greens. Stir well and heat 2-3 minutes until everything is hot. Stir in 1/2 can of (rinsed and drained) white beans. Salt and pepper to taste. Great served over hot pasta with diced tomatoes.

Drool, Purchase, Repeat

2007-08-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

OK, I was just being ridiculous today at the farmers' market. I think that I spent between $20 and $25, but I can't be sure. I intended to buy some zucchini and tomatoes,and maybe some beans. Here's what I left with:

1 seedless watermelon

1 pineapple

3 lb green beans

2 lb snap peas

3.5 lb Roma tomatoes

3 lb turnip greens (no more kale...)

4 fresh figs (my absolute favorite fruit ever...)

2 heads cauliflower

3 regular zucchini

and this:

Well, OK, the cat I had before. The zucchini is new. (And for those more inclined toward standard measurements, it's 15" long.) It will be soup. The little zucchini will be brownies. The beans and the cauliflower will be roasted; the greens will be boiled. (Then what, dunno. I've never made turnip greens before, but that's what the produce people said would be most kale-like.) Everything else will be dealt with in one way or another. Except for the watermelon, which required urgent chopping. Because I put all of my stuff in a cardboard box in the trunk of my car. Upon removal of said box from said trunk, the bottom of the box fell out, as did all of the produce. Most of the stuff survived intact. The watermelon cracked in half. Note to self: next time, no watermelon.

My dad is cooler than I am.

2007-07-31T05:42:00.001-07:00

Not always. (Just to get that out of the way, and to give me the chance to tell some dad stories.) For instance, I had the joy of explaining body shots to my parents. And I got to tell Dad that the colon-parenthesis in my email was not a typo. And then there was the following moment in Dad-history:

Scene: Family Vacation. We're in the car, and Dad is flipping through radio stations. Music comes on.

Dad: I know who this is. It's Limp Bizkit! (Pause.) And I even know that they spell it funny.

That's my second-favorite Dad moment. The first is when he stuck noodles up his nose. It was great. (I like to remind him of that during Thanksgiving dinner. And then ask Mom to tell her one-and-only joke. That's when I get excused from the table.)

But Dad is actually quite cool. He named the dog after beer. (Thankfully not Natty...but that would be a pretty sweet dog name.) And then yesterday's email. (All paraphrased until the last one...)

Me: I'm getting annoying emails from someone that I don't care to talk to. Do I ignore them or answer and say that I'm busy?
Dad: Say hi, thanks for the emails, very busy, hope you're well. AMF.
Me: AMF?
Dad: Adios, and you fill in the MF.

Totally made my day. Totally.

Seven Things

2007-07-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

So there's this "7 Weird Things About Me" meme going around the blogosphere. Technically, you're supposed to be "tagged" for it, but since my sole reader doesn't partake of such frivolity, I'm just going to do it anyways. (I like running across these things a couple of years after I've completed them...)

1) I have odd fears. The "big 3" are chickens, mimes, and SR 315. Someone once thought that I was afraid of chicken meat, and they were all like, ohhhhh, so that's why you're a vegetarian. Um, no.

2) I've wanted to change my middle name for as long as I can remember. I've made a point to get it removed from all official documents, and I've even picked out a new one. I probably won't ever change it though; my parents think that it's too disrespectful.

3) I eat more frequently than anyone else that I know. It's kind of a pain.

4) I strongly prefer odd numbers to even ones. Prime numbers are extra-cool. My favorites are 13 and 47.

5) I truly enjoy burping. This does not endear me to my mother. I enjoy swearing too. Mom's surprisingly OK with that. My sister still gets the what-for if she swears in my parents' presence.

6) It takes me forever to decide to do something, but once I make up my mind, I can be really determined. Even if I know that something's a bad idea, I often go ahead with it. (Case in point: I have decided to get a pair of greyhounds after I take my Step 2s. Who needs 3 dogs? Certainly not me. Why a pair of greyhounds? Because they look cool in pairs. No other reason.)

7) I am a Google ninja. And ninjas are cool.

The End!

Roasted Almond-Garlic-Lemon Green Beans of Fabulousness

2007-07-29T18:30:00.001-07:00

And yes, the title basically says it all. I topped and tailed all 3 lb of green beans earlier this afternoon, and used about half of them for this recipe. (That really is one of the few downsides of the farmers' market -- I have to use the food FAST, since it's not underripe and/or stored cold like grocery store produce. But this time it was mostly my fault -- the beans were a little wet when I got them, and then I refrigerated them in the plastic bag that they came in. They probably would have been OK if I'd dumped them into the veggie bin right away.)

The recipe is the illegitimate child of a Cook's Illustrated recipe and something random that I found online. And damn, it's good.

1 to 1.5 lb fresh green beans

1-2 T oil (prefer olive, but canola is fine too)

1/2 fresh lemon

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup sliced almonds

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450F. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil (optional but makes cleaning up a zillion times easier). Put the beans on the cookie sheet in a single layer and toss with the oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 10 minutes, then stir. Return beans to oven for 6-8 minutes. Meanwhile, use a vegetable peeler or lemon zester to zest the lemon. Mince the lemon zest and put into a small bowl. Juice the lemon into the bowl, add the garlic and stir. Take beans out of oven, mix gently with the lemon-garlic sauce, and sprinkle with almonds. Roast for another 6 minutes until beans are wrinkly and lightly browned. Let cool for about 5 minutes before serving to allow flavors to blend.

They were pretty perfect as is, but next time I think that I may add more garlic (as if anyone's surprised), and thinly slice the lemon rather than zesting and juicing it.

No kale, no watermelon

2007-07-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't go to the farmers' market last Saturday and I regretted it all week. So even though I had less sleep than usual last night, I woke up at 9, walked the dog, and went downtown. I've gotten kind of sick of watermelon, so I passed on that. And then I was sad to see that the leafy veggies booth had no kale. If they're still out of it next week, I guess I'll try mustard greens or something. Sniff, whimper.

Here's what I got, as best as I can remember. (Seriously...there's so much to look at and buy, that once something's in my bag, it's pretty much forgotten until I get home. I haven't bought the same thing from two different booths yet, but I probably will one of these days.)

1 pint Roma tomatoes - $1
3 lb green beans - $2.55
3 large zucchini - $1
2 lb cherries - $4
2 heads Romaine lettuce - $1

No definite plans for any of it yet; I'll figure something out.

Over the Top

2007-07-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

I love cables. Adore them, in fact. So I was quite excited to see a link to a "Gratuitous Cables Shrug" pattern on Knitting Pattern Central. But I have learned that there is indeed such a thing as too many cables. This woman looks as if she's wearing a pie crust. And the sad thing is, a lot of effort went into that. Makes me a little sick to my stomach just thinking about it...kinda like eating a lot of raw pie crust dough. Ugh.

Garterlac Dishcloth -- FO!

2007-07-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

I finished the garterlac cloth. I guess that it doesn't look like much, but I'm pretty proud of it. Entrelac (even entrelac-esque) was always something that I assumed would be intricate and difficult. Not so much. But I've become addicted to dishcloths, much to the detriment of CPH. I'm thinking of making a loopy cloth or a butterfly cloth next. Why? Instant gratification. (As opposed to the world of research, which is delayed-to-never gratification...)