Where There's a Vegan, There's a Way

Dead Blog, So Sad

2011-02-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated this blog in a while! It was a fun pet to have while at college and bored. I'll keep it alive because I come back to it the recipes, and I can see some people are popping in once in a while and find a recipe they enjoy (thanks for visiting!). My latest blog is about my gardening adventures. Still cooking a ton, just not being elaborate or trying too many new recipes these days.

http://myheartshapedgarden.blogspot.com/

Spring! Somewhere!

2010-01-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

Spring is on it's way and Oneonta got a taste of it yesterday. We had 65F weather, loads of wind and a crazy rainstorm but it was all so wonderful! It snowed today but I'll pretend that didn't happen...
Thanks to my Mom who gave me a gift card to heirloomseeds.com for Christmas I ordered and received some seeds that I plan on growing on my porch at college. SO excited! I now have two types of tomatoes to grow (Roma and Windowbox- good for containers), plus a packed of bush beans (green beans) and two types of peppers- California Wonder Peppers and another type that I cannot remember the name of. I also ordered a packet of 15 herbs including all my favorites like basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano and sage plus some fun ones like catnip! I might just sow that right under the bushes at my apartment because I love all the neighborhood cats and am always trying to entice them over.
March 25th is the date I'll start most of them inside and then hopefully get them into containers and outside by April and May. Pictures are sure to come.

Roasted Squash and Roots Soup

2009-10-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like a soup that screams fall. I don't even particularly like squash, sweet potatoes or carrots but this soup has convinced me!

Roasted Squash and Roots Soup

Ingredients:

1 butternut squash, cut in half, seeds removed, peeled and cut into 1 to 2 inch chunks
3 large carrots, cut into chunks
2 sweet potatoes peeled and also cut into chunks
canola oil
4 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup soy/rice/other milk
garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
thyme?

Preheat oven to 400F

Toss the chunky vegetables with canola oil and spread out on a baking sheet. Bake for 40 minutes.
When vegetables are roasted, add to a blender and blend in 2 parts with the stock (half the veggies and 2 cups stock) and transfer to a pot. Add the milk, a bit of salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. I also added thyme but I can't really taste it. It's very flavorful as it is, however, and doesn't really require much salt or pepper.
Heat through on the stove and serve. Mmmm.

This recipe was adapted from one that called for brown sugar, nutmeg and ginger, but I was not too keen on that. The recipe is here if you want to try it!

Asian Grilled Tofu Salad

2009-10-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

Asian Grilled Tofu Salad

Salad:
salad greens (mescalin mix, spinach, green leaf lettuce, whatever you like)
grated carrot
red or green pepper, cut into matchsticks
cashews, unsalted (roasted or raw)
cubed extra-firm tofu

Marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari
1 t sesame oil
1 T mirin
1 t chili oil (optional)
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 T ginger, micro-planed or grated

Dressing:
2 t miso
2 T sushi vinegar
1 t sesame oil or canola oil, or a mix of both
1 t micro-planed ginger

Mix marinade ingredients together in a bowl and marinade the cubed tofu for 30 minutes to overnight. Toss salad ingredients except tofu and cashews together and set aside. Make dressing by combing all ingredients.
When the tofu is done marinating, cook in a wok or saute pan on medium-high until browned, 10-15 minutes.
Toss salad with dressing, add cashews and hot tofu on top, sprinkle with sesame seeds and voila! Delicious. Enjoy immediately before salad gets wilted. Yummmm.

Quinoa Sushi

2009-09-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

I love sushi. I love it so much I might just have to marry it. This affair started when I was introduced to sushi (the fishy type) by my mother, probably around the age of 15. I tried all sorts of raw fish, eggs, tentacles and other assorted sushi fillings that would make the average person go "eeww". Frankly, it makes me go "ew" now too, but believe me, my love for sushi hasn't ended since going vegan. I do not miss the fish aspect at all, in fact, the nori has such a rich oceanic flavor and aroma that I don't even notice anything missing. And, thanks to sushi, I have a new found love of healthful and flavorful sea vegetables.
Alas, white rice is the bane of my existence. I would eat sushi all day, every day if it weren't for those infernal little white grains of starchy, nutrient-lacking goodness. Okay, they're not completely lacking, but I can do better. I've tried brown rice, but I just cannot wrap my palette around it. It always turns into crunchy unhappiness. In my internet ramblings I stumbled upon a really interesting idea; subbing quinoa for rice. I tried it tonight and oh, I will be eating sushi until I explode, and the Dietitian in my brain won't be all pissy about it.

A little about quinoa:
Quinoa is an African "grain" (actually a seed), pronounced "Keen-wa". It's an adorable, tiny grain that unfurls a little white tail when cooked. It comes in many different colors, including white and red, though I've only ever had the white variety and don't know if there is a flavor difference. Quinoa a complete protein (which means it supplies all 9 essential amino acids) and one of the few plant sources out there next to soy. It's a pretty good source of iron, folate and zinc, a good source of protein, phosphorus and magnesium and a great source for manganese. It's glycemic load is very low, and lower than white rice. Quinoa does have a slightly higher calorie count compared to the same amount of white rice, but this is due mostly because quinoa is a smaller grain, with less air spaces,which means 1 cup of cooked quinoa is more dense than 1 cup cooked rice. Cup for cup, quinoa is nutricious and something that should compliment anyone's diet.

Quinoa Sushi

Quinoa sushi :
1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained (use a mesh strainer, they're so tiny they'll just run through a collander)
1 3/4 cup water
2-3 T soy sauce

1 T rice vinegar
4-5 sheets of nori
fillings

rolling mat
plastic wrap

After rinsing the bitter oils from the quinoa, add to a pot or a rice cooker. Add the soy sauce to the water and pour the water over the quinoa. Turn on the rice cooker. If you don't have one, bring to a boil, lower to a simmer, cover and let simmer for 20 minutes. Unlike rice, you can stir the quinoa around during cooking if needed. Cook until the water is gone (there should be little steam chimneys in the quinoa). Throw into a big bowl and toss around with the rice vinegar. Toss for a little while, preferably in front of a fan, or be like me and let it sit to cool for 30 minutes or so. It's a little easier to work with the quinoa when it's slightly warm.

Sushi fillings can be whatever you want, but I recommend:
(most should be cut into matchstick-like pieces)
avocado, sliced
green onion
red pepper
carrot
cucumber
shiitake mushroom
mung bean sprouts/white bean sprouts
whatever else you put in sushi

Lay down a piece of your nori on a bamboo rolling mat that has been covered with plastic wrap. Gently spread the quinoa on the nori leaving 1/2 inch space at the top.
Yes, quinoa is much harder to work with than sushi rice because of it's size and inability to stick as well as sushi rice. I got quinoa EVERYWHERE but I'm sure with practice I can get better.
Place the fillings on the lower section of the nori, and roll that sucker up. You can also add wasabi in there at this point. When I'm taking sushi rolls to school, I also put a little extra soy sauce on the rice/quinoa so I don't have to bring any with me, and I also cut each roll once, in the middle, at a diagonal for easily shoving into my mouth.

Cut it like regular sushi and serve with soy sauce. Enjoy!

Edit: The rolls cut in half were a success, except quinoa seemed to fall out everywhere. If you're making them to eat later, make sure you are eating over a table or plate and not your laptop!

Avocado "Bacon" and Beer Potato Salad

2009-09-13T16:19:00.001-07:00

Avocado, bacon and beer, a heroic combination. Of course, not real bacon, but bacon bits are so so good for some strange reason. The pale ale really gives the dressing a great flavor! This recipe was adapted from a recipe my friend gave me from his Beer, Wine and Food class. They also made VEGAN STOUT CUPCAKES! I'm so jealous, I didn't even get any. I do have that recipe though.

Avocado, Bacon and Beer Potato Salad

ugliest photo ever

3lb red potatoes, halved
1/2 cup red onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup green onions, sliced thin
1/4 cup celery, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup sweet pickles, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup red pepper, finely chopped (optional)
2 T parsley, chopped
2 T pale ale, or any light colored beer
2 T cider vinegar (or white vinegar)
1/2 an avocado, cubed + lemon juice to prevent browning
1/4 cup bacon bits
Dressing:
2 T olive oil
3/4 cup white/yellow onion, chopped fine
3/4 cup pale ale
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 t sugar
3/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper
2 T dijon mustard

Boil the halved potatoes until fork tender. Don't over-cook like I did, the salad ended up being more of a mashed potato thing! Once tender, drain and let cool for 20 minutes. Slice halves into 1/4 inch half moon pieces.
Gently toss potatoes with red onion, green onion, celery, pickles, bacon bits, beer and vinegar.

For the dressing, heat the oil in a skillet and sautee onions until tender. Add beer, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper and stir well. Bring to a boil and reduce by half.
Once reduced and thickened, combine with dijon mustard and blend in a food processor until smooth. Add cubed avocado, pour dressing over potatoes, toss very gently and serve!
This is delicious warm and cold.

This is not pretty after about 12 hours in the fridge because the avocado will end up turning brown (but it is still edible! Believe me!). If you want to serve this to people who might care about it's appearance, either add the avocado right before serving or make the entire dish no more than a few hours before.

Blog revamp

2009-09-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

The name and layout have changed, and I did some tweaking of the tags so it's easier to find similar posts.
How does it look?

A Guide to Avocacdos

2009-09-13T10:38:00.001-07:00

Hass Avocados are the god of fruit, in my humble opinion. Packed with healthy monounsaturated fat, and only 4g saturated fat per average sized avocado, this is not something to feel guilty about eating. I have always been told they are "fatty" and "unhealthy" because of the amount of fat, but it's just not true! Sure, a "serving" of avocado is 1/8th of a fruit, and one whole fruit is about 350kcal, but even as a dietetic student I eat whole avocados at one time (aren't I hardcore?!). They are high in fiber, Vitamin C, K, and folate. As for minerals, one avocado will supply nearly 30% of the Daily Value of Potassium (in a 2,000kcal diet). 4 grams of Protein per fruit is not that bad either. In any case, moderation is key, but don't hesitate to enjoy an avocado once in a while!

Enough of the nutrition facts, how do we buy, store, and eat this heavenly food?

You can buy ripe or unripe avocados, but be sure to use the ripe ones very soon after purchase. Once ripe, they tend to become over-ripe in less than a day.

How to tell ripeness:
The avocado is an egg-shaped fruit that has a thick skin surrounding the flesh. The skin ranges in color from bright grass-green to black. The rule of thumb is that completely green avocado is an under ripe avocado, and one where the skin is black or green-near-black is ripe or ripening. To test, pick up a fruit. First note that it is rather heavy for it's size. Then gently put pressure on it with your thumb. If the flesh yields to the pressure slightly, it is ripe and ready to eat. If it still feels hard as a rock, or yields but only to a lot of pressure, it is not ripe yet. If it yields too much to gentle pressure, that's a very over-ripe one and not worth buying. It is very dissapointing bringing an avocado home to find it is over-ripe, so always go for the ones that are more firm than not, unless you plan on using it immediately.
As often the case with me, I want guacamole NOW and the store only has un-ripe avocados...

How to ripen an avocado:
I have heard of the microwave method but have never tried it myself for fear of ruining a $1.50 avocado. But this next method has worked for me very well. When you get green or just under-ripe fruit you can place them in a paper bag (or wrap them in newspaper) along with a few apples or tomatoes, or both. Depending on how many fruits are in the bag, the avocados (and tomatoes) will ripen quicker. As an example, I had completely green, rock hard avocados two days ago. After two days hanging out with an apple and three roma tomatoes, they were perfectly edible, even though the skin still had a lot of green in it. How does this magic work?! Most, if not all, fruit release a type of gas (the name is escaping me right now) that causes them to ripen. Same with bananas, if you stick them in a paper bag for a little while they will ripen at super speeds, because the gas is trapped close to the fruit.
Now, I just said I had three avocados all ripen at the same time. Oh no, what do I do now? I have to eat three within the course of two days, or else they'll go bad.

How to keep an avocado from ripening too quickly:
Stick that sucker in the fridge. My basic chemistry understandings tell me that the chemical reactions that ripen the fruit will slow down in a colder temperature. Also, the internet told me.

How to cut an avocado:
Hold the avocado in your non-dominant hand, and run the knife around the pit lengthwise (top to bottom). I always start like this: stick the knife into the top, a little off center of the stem, and spin the avocado around the knife, following the pit. Twist the two halves, and pull apart. To retrieve the pit: Hold the half in your non-dominant hand, pit facing you. Take a heavier knife and tap the pit with the blade. BE VERY CAREFUL! If you miss, that knife is headed to your own flesh, and that's not what we want. When the knife is in the pit, twist the knife and pull out the pit. Tap the knife and pit on the side of the garbage to remove. Don't try to use your fingers. There is a method to pinch the pit off the knife, but I find it a little dangerous to have my nice sharp knife next to my fingers.

How to eat avocado:
Oh where to start! There are so many ways to eat an avocado, ranging from simple to extravagant. I tend to stick to the simpler side of things. Here are a few of my favorites.
With a spoon- That's right, take that half of an avocado and just eat with a spoon. Variations include: salt and/or pepper, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce. The perfect cup in the middle made by the pit acts as a condiment holder!
Cubed- Take the pitted half of the avocado and run the knife in a crisscross pattern down to the skin, but don't puncture the skin. Once cubed, peel the skin off or run a spoon under the flesh between the skin to remove them. Toss with a little lemon or lime juice to prevent oxidation. Toss into salads (pasta, potato, green leafy salads), add to tacos, or add to a bowl of a nice hot chili or soup.
Sushi- By far my favorite way to eat avocado, just roll long slices into sushi. Nothing else needed, avocado sushi really hits the spot. Add wasabi and soy sauce and yum!
Baked goods- Yup, you can bake with avocado, sort of! Avocado can be used as a fat replacer in baked goods (look for recipes online), and I've even stumbled upon an avocado pie recipe.
I haven't cooked with avocado that I can recall, I prefer it raw.
Guacamole- The one and only.
Now what happens if you only use half an avocado? The other side will turn brown in minutes, gross.

How to prevent oxidation:
When the flesh hits the air it turns a nasty brown within minutes of contact. Again, using my basic chemistry understandings, this means that the oxygen in the air is stealing hydrogen molecules from the atoms of the avocado flesh, making it icky. Stupid chemistry always ruining things for us.
To prevent this we need to put up another barrier. Where previously it was the skin, now it's all naked and vulnerable. Lemon and lime juice tossed to coat avocado cubes, or drizzled on an open half will prevent oxidation for a little while. Leaving the pit in the avocado is a myth and doesn't work, the only part it prevents from turning brown is the part of the flesh it touches. This is what I do to save my avocados:
Drizzle lemon or lime juice on the exposed flesh and rub around a little with your finger.
Take a piece of cellophane and lay it flat on a surface. Place the avocado flesh side down on the plastic and wrap the plastic around the avocado tightly. When you turn it around the plastic on the fleshy side should look completely smooth. There is a little air trapped in the cup of the pit crater, but it wont affect the flesh too much. My halves usually stay for a day without browning too much, and two or three days without too much damage. If your half gets a little brown, it's still edible, but you can scrape off the top layer of flesh to reveal beautiful green deliciousness underneath.

That concludes my avocado guide.
Happy eating!

(Nutrition facts from here. I don't have access to a better program that is on campus at the moment, but I'm going to check the facts of that website with the more official program at some point.)

Busy busy

2009-09-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

I've been busy, it's as simple as that. I've been busier than I ever have been in my life. I have to plan in sleep and food because otherwise I would be spending days at a time on campus doing work. I've been cooking a ton, but I haven't been taking pictures. Most of the stuff I've been cooking isn't pretty anyway, it's only purpose is to sustain be during another 10 hour day on campus.
There were a few things I've photographed, so here's a quick picture post.

Mmmmm. Just looking at it makes my mouth water. This pita sandwich is so so so good after 4 hours of classes. Whole wheat pita, spinach, tomatoes, red pepper, onion, cucumber and spiocoli burger mashed up with a little veganaise.

Stuffed green pepper with quinoa, corn, other stuff, with FYH cheeze melted on top. And avocado. Yes.

Now I have to go write a biochem proposal, a career paper, research an advanced nutrition topic and read a few chapters in my text books. Oh fun!

Back To School

2009-08-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

I'm in Oneonta again after a blissful two weeks at home, where I did almost no cooking. I hate to say this but I prefer the kitchen in Oneonta for a few reasons:
1. All my stuff is here, obviously. How can I cook without all my cooking stuff?!
2. Natural light. Lots of it.
3. It's huge.
4. The appliances seem to work better. The stove gets hotter, the oven is the right temperature, and the old toaster oven I found cooks better.

But here are reasons why it's not as awesome as my home kitchen:
1. The oven at home is in a wall at the perfect reaching-in level. The oven in Oneonta is free-standing (with burners on top) and it wobbles.
2. Adam isn't around to bother me when I cook.
3. The cats aren't around to bother me when I cook either.
4. I can't see squirrels right out the kitchen window in Oneonta!

So home is truly better, but Oneonta is just prettier.

Since I've been back in Otown I've jumped back into cooking more often. I made three dozen muffins for breakfast and snacks, but a bunch mysteriously disappeared when I had friends over. I guess they were just too delicious.
Here are a few photos to tide you over.

Just looking at this makes my mouth WATER. Herb roasted Yukon potatoes with Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from Vegan with A Vengeance. YUM. I froze the rest of the gravy for a special dinner treat.

The muffins! Zucchini on the bottom, Bran right next to it, and Lemon Blueberry! So good my friends were stealing them. :)

Last but not least,Tomato Surprise. Fresh sliced tomato, pepper and salt. Perfecto.

Graham crackers, sushi, green tacos etc.

2009-07-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

Random photos of food that don't really need much explanation.

Sushi. I think I make sushi too often.

Mustard crusted tofu sandwich on home-made bread. Delicious!

Graham crackers!

Raw cucumber rolls. My favorite way to eat a cuke.

More sushi!

Homemade "everything" bagel with Tofutti cream cheese.
(I only made one bagel as an experiment and it worked well!)

"Green" taco because I wanted tacos but had no tortillas.

The end!

Sesame "Beef" with Green Beans

2009-07-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

I made an inventory of my fridge last night and the seitan was on the top of the list of "things to eat first". I bought it discounted earlier that day, but it was out of date. I had made extra sushi rice and that was also on my list so I just threw them together with some vegetables and voila, a delicious Asian dinner.

Sesame "Beef" with Green Beans

1/4 - 1/2 cup seitan, sliced (homemade or pre-packaged)
1 cup or more green beans, end snapped off and snapped in half
2 cups of cooked white rice
sesame oil for cooking
canola/other oil for cooking
3 T tamari or soy sauce
white sesame seeds

Preheat two skillest to medium-high and add canola oil to one, and sesame/canola to another (I cooked the rice in a non-stick and the seitan in my wok). Sautee green beans and sliced seitan together for about 5 minutes, and add a few splashes of tamari. Keep cooking in this fashion for about 10-15 minutes, or until the green beans and seitan have a little color, adding a little sesame oil or tamari when the wok gets dry. Add a teaspoon of sesame seeds to the mix in the last few minutes of cooking and stir in.
In the other skillet, add the rice and start stir-frying. It should only take about 5-10 minutes for this to heat through. Add onions/green onions or other vegetables if you want, or soy sauce for a more "authentic" fried rice taste. I was just looking to heat up the rice a bit.
Put the rice in a bowl and spoon the seitan and green beans over the top, and sprinkle with more sesame seeds. The end!

Zucchini Bake

2009-07-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

I adapted this recipe from one on the internet. It is so so SO good, I can't even begin to tell you. I think the reason I find it so delicious is because there are no special or crazy ingredients, in fact, I almost always have the ingredients on hand, and the recipe is so basic you can add whatever you enjoy. I also love that I can finally use my home-made bread crumbs.*
This is the go-to recipe if you're not feeling up to standing over the stove, or would just like a simple yummy dinner on a cool summer night.
No photos this time, I ate it all before I could get one! Whoops. But believe me, it is an attractive dish. Don't chop anything too finely for this recipe, it looks so much nicer chunky.

Zucchini Bake

2 medium zucchini or one monster zucchini (about 1 pound in all), quartered and cut into large pieces
5 - 8 small red potatoes, also cut into chunks, no need to peel
1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 shallot, chopped (optional)
1 jalapeno, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
paprika to taste
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400F
Combine all the chopped veggies in a large bowl. Add the olive oil to coat. Combine the spices and the bread crumbs (start with only a little bit of pepper and salt as to not over do it) and add the breadcrumbs to the vegetables and coat well. I didn't do this and instead coated them with breadcrumbs and tried to season them after. I got some bits that had a lot of spices, and some not.
And don't over season (like I tend to do...), you can always add salt and pepper after it's baked.
Plop the delicious smelling mixture into a baking dish (or spread on a pan, that will make it more crunchy) and bake for one hour, stirring it a few times.

*Extra bonus recipe/tip:

Homemade breadcrumbs

I have this faaaavorite bread of mine I always buy, but the way it's baked and cut means I always am left with itty bitty end pieces of bread that are mostly worthless (unless you want to make the worlds tiniest sandwich). Instead of throwing them out or feeding them to the wildlife, I've been freezing these ends and finally saved up enough to make breadcrumbs!
First, I thawed the bread in the fridge, and then I put them on a baking sheet and left them in the oven (NOT ON!) to go stale. They took a loong time to get stale in the oven, so if you're impatient, just do it on the counter top. I would suggest not doing this in the summer when it's humid, or everything will go modly.
After it's all crusty and stale (not too stale) I blended the bits of bread all up into fine crumbs and voila! Practically free breadcrumbs. I store them in the freezer and use as I need them, no thawing nessesary.

Taco seasoning

2009-07-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

Such a simple thing to make, and yet I hadn't thought of it in all the years I've been making tacos! For those of you with a well-stocked spice cabinet, this will be no problem to make. It's hard to believe some people don't have paprika or chili powder on hand, but it happens! You can change the amounts of anything to taste, I automatically knew that there was not enough garlic or onion on the original so I added more. Here's the basic recipe, test and modify to your liking. Also, I recommend doubling or even tripling, since this only filled about half a regular sized spice container.

Taco Seasoning

1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Combine all in a spice jar and shake shake shake.

When making tacos: Brown/heat the taco filling in a skillet (be it fake meat or not) and add a tablespoon of spices mixed in a quarter cup of water with a teaspoon of corn starch for thickening. Cook down like you would with the packaged stuff and enjoy.

Spring Rolls

2009-06-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

A long long time ago I ordered rice paper wrappers online for a few dollars a package. I bought four packages. Little did I know that each package had about 500 freaking wrappers in it! I am barely halfway through the first one. But that's not a bad thing, it just means I'm going to be making spring and summer rolls for the rest of my life. I always fill them with whatever I have on hand, but this time I actually found a recipe. They were so filling!

Spring Rolls

Rice paper wrappers, about 10
rice noodles or cellophane noodles, about 1 cup cooked (bring water to a boil, take off heat, and put in noodles for 10 minutes)
1 T sushi vinegar
1 t tamari
1 finely shredded carrot
2 scallions, finely sliced
1 t grated ginger

Combine all ingredients except the wrappers in a large bowl.
Heat up a few inches of water in a large pan (not too hot, your fingers are going to be in this water). Take a wrapper and submerge in hot water for 10-20 seconds, or until it starts getting flimsy. Lift it out of the water and place on a cutting board and fill lower 1/3 with the noodles. Wrap like a burrito! That's the best way I can describe it without photos. Burrito. Repeat.
You can find spring roll sauce recipes online, but I just made a simple spicy sauce with soy, mustard and hot pepper paste.

And now for some basil mushroom tomato pizza.

Tempeh Salad Sandwich

2009-05-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Adam and I just recently went to a wedding in Maine. The whole thing was amazing (minus the 8 hour car ride). Maine is really nice too, except for all the crab/lobster/seafood stuff. And the shore smells like dead fish. Gross. Besides the wedding, the other highlight of the trip was visiting the co-op in Blue Hill. They had a cafe! I had a Tempeh BLT one day, but the next day they were out. I wanted to get a sandwich for the trip home so the nice fella there made me a Tempeh Salad Sandwich and it. was. amazing. It probably only tasted so good because the bread was slathered with veganaise, but who cares?! I came home right away and replicated it.

The Blue Hill Tempeh Salad Sandwich

1 package tempeh (I used "flax", I can never seem to find just plain-old tempeh)
1 rip celery, diced
1/8th of an onion, diced
1/2 of a pepper (red, green, anheim, spicy, whatever you want) diced
1/2 cup carrot, grated
2 T - 1/2 cup veganaise (I only used about 2 or 3 T)
1 t dijon mustard
2 T chopped parsley
1/2 a lemon's juice
a splash of tamari
a dash of cumin
a few shakes of dry dill (I didn't measure these things, can you tell?)
a few shakes of kelp granules, optional

Break up the tempeh with your hands into crumbles. Mix in the chopped veggies. I find it easiest to then mix in the veganaise and after it has everything coated, then add all the other ingredients and mix mix mix. Store in the fridge.
Serve with a few slices of tomato and green leaf lettus on a hearty sourdough bread.
Thanks Blue Hill Co-op!

Stir Fry Pizza

2009-05-29T10:04:00.000-07:00

I was feeling like some pizza. I whipped up a batch of the pizza dough from Vegan with a Vengeance and IT IS AMAZING. Make this pizza dough. I will never buy pizza dough ever again, I swear to it. The night before I had a "regular" pizza complete with FYH mozzarella (the best pizza cheese, I think) and sauteed peppers, onions and mushrooms. Delicious. The only disappointing thing was the FYH didn't melt like it usually does. Oh well! Behold.

I forgot to mention it was a mini pizza. I only used 1/4 of the dough that is supposed to make 2 large pizzas. It turned out perfect! It was unbelievably delicious. Adam agrees (even though he had a regular pepperoni pizza).

And THEN. This is where magic happened. The next night I wanted more pizza, but I ate all the FYH cheese. This is what I came up with... (sorry, no photos, I accidentally burnt it and it was ugly but still delicious)

Stir Fry Pizza

1/4 a batch of Isa Pizza Dough from VWaV or any other pizza dough you got
olive oil
1 T pizza sauce
sliced seitan
sliced shittake mushrooms
sliced peppers (red, jalapeno, anything)
green onion
other asian veg that I can't remember now, broccoli would be good
Sesame oil
Tamari
Sriracha to taste

Roll out that dough like you mean it and transfer to a pan or pizza stone, and drizzle with oil (try sesame oil instead of olive). Top with a very thin layer of tomato sauce.
Sautee the seitan, mushrooms, peppers, onions and other things in a splash of tamari and a few drips of sriracha. Sautee until the mushrooms aren't juicy anymore. I always sautee veggies before putting them on a pizza so they don't turn into pizza soup.
After everything is nice and sauteed pour it on your pizza and bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes. DON'T BURN IT like I did. Watch your pizza people.
Remove from oven, slice, engulf.

Caterpillar Roll with Shittake Unagi

2009-05-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

I love Asian cuisine and naturally, Sushi is my favorite meal. But I needed to get away from the usual spicy tempeh roll (from Veganomicon) or the boring California rolls I always make. My sushi is usually only avocado, green onion, and cucumber.
I can't remember exactly how I came across the Caterpillar roll, but I think it was purely accidental. I saw a photo of one and how cute it was (it looked like a caterpillar!) and I instantly wanted to make it for myself. Mine didn't come out very pretty, and I didn't dress it up like a caterpillar, but it was still good. I actually remembered as I ate it that I never liked Unagi (eel with a sweet sauce) so I ended up pulling out all the "unagi" and just eating the roll without it, but it was still good for the few that I could stomach!
If you were an Unagi fan in the past, you will LOVE it. It tastes exactly like I remember.

Caterpillar Roll

1/2 cup Shittake Unagi (below)
1 Avocado, cut in half and sliced very thin (do this later to prevent browning)
1 cucumber, de-seeded and sliced lengthwise
a few sheets nori
2-3 cups cooked sushi rice

Cover your rolling mat with plastic wrap. This is an inside out roll! It was actually my first attempt, and it was easier than I expected. Spread the sushi rice out on the nori, covering it completely. Gently flip the nori so that the rice is face down. Fill the sushi toward the lower 1/3 with cucumber and unagi. Roll tight and set aside. Repeat as many times as you want, until your ingredients are gone or until you make enough to eat.

Shittake Unagi
1/2 a batch of Unagi Sauce (below)
a handful of shittake mushrooms

Slice mushrooms in long strips suitable for sushi and saute in unagi sauce until sauce thickens and is mostly absorbed by mushrooms. About 5 minutes. Set aside and let cool.

Unagi Sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/4 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and simmer until sugar is dissolved and mixture thickens, about 10 minutes. Let cool and store in a clean bottle in the fridge.

Slice the avocado very thin. I sliced width wise but I think I should have done it lengthwise (the slices didn't quite wrap around the roll like it some photos online). Scale the avocado slices like below and drizzle the roll with unagi sauce if desired, garnish with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. I didn't do either. Oops! Slice with a very sharp, wet knife and devour!

Best Ramen Recipe

2009-05-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

I love ramen. And it happens to be one of the few things I make that Adam will eat (it doesn't have any vegetables it it). So I made a double batch of ramen last night and ate my half, but I added a little bit of extra awesomeness and it turned out to be a very satisfying meal! I want more!
Just a warning, this dish turns out rather salty with all the soy sauce going on so beware and adjust as needed.

Delicious Seitan Ramen

Broth:
3 cups of water
Better than Bouillon No Chicken, 1.5 tablespoons (or to taste)
1 T Miso, dissolved in hot liquid
splash of tamari or soy sauce
1 T grated ginger*
1 small clove garlic, grated
1-2 drops of Sriracha
1-2 drops sesame oil
Udon noodles

Bring all the ingredients to a boil and add 1 bundle of udon noodles, cook for about 7 minutes.

Seitan:
thinly sliced seitan (as much as you want)
green onions
a dash of tamari or soy sauce
a drop of Sriracha (optional)

Stir-fry all ingredients until the soy sauce is absorbed and thickened and the seitan has a nice color. About 7 minutes.

Put the seitan in your bowl and add noodles and broth! Stir around, top with more green onions if desired, add a few more drops of Sriracha and enjoy!

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuum

* Ginger tip! I always used to leave my ginger in the fridge and it would get shrived and gross and sad. But if you peel it, wrap it in cellophane and freeze it you can grate off as much as you want and it seems to last forever! I love it! You can even peel it when it's frozen, but not with a spoon (like you can with fresh).

Seitan and Garlic Stir Fry

2009-05-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

I figured out what to do with the tops of the green garlic. They're a little tough in this recipe, but overall this came out as a great dinner. Yum. Also at the co-op I found some seitan! I've never had packaged seitan, but it's so much different than homemade (partly because I bake seitan and don't boil it).

Seitan and Garlic Stir Fry

1/2 recipe of Buddhas sesame seitan sauce recipe (find it here! I love this recipe)
Green garlic tops, chopped
1 cup of any kind of mushrooms, sliced
Handful of sweet corn (not necessary, I added it because I had lots of corn left. 19 cents an ear, all right!)
1 cup broccoli
1/2 cup sliced seitan
sesame oil

Saute seitan in some of the sauce until it's brown and delicious.

Add everything to the wok with the remaining sauce and cook like mad.

Serve. Voila!

Green Garlic Soup

2009-05-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

The local co-op in my town moved to a big beautiful house! It was practically in a closet before, but now their inventory has expanded and they're getting more produce and planning a cafe. I am SO EXCITED for the cafe, I really want to work there but I'm sure it wont open until I'm long gone for college. Oh well.
So I visited the new and improved co-op (they renamed themselves Green Peas too, or was it Green Beans? Can't remember. Oh well) and went snooping around. In the produce cooler were these huge beautiful green onions, but the woman there told me that they were green garlic! I didn't even know you could pick garlic before it grew a bulb but I guess you can, and you get these beautiful thick, garlicky stalks. I was chewing on a leaf the whole way home, it was just a tad spicy, but sooo garlicky. I love it. I love green garlic. I made soup with it, but every ingredient was an estimate so bare with me.

Green Garlic Soup

1 large bunch green garlic, white and light green parts
1/4 a sweet onion
1 clove garlic
3 small red potatoes, cubed small
1-2 cups veg stock or water and a boullion cube
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cut off the roots and the dark green tops (save the tops for another recipe).

Saute diced onion and green garlic.

After the onion cooks translucent, add the garlic and potatoes and saute for two minutes until fragrant. Your house should smell great right about now.

Add the stock until covered.

Oh yeah. I added about a tablespoon of Earth Balance margarine to give the soup a little shine and flavor. I don't think it did much, so this can be skipped.

Let simmer until the potatoes are cooked, about 15 minutes, depending on how big they are.

Stick in your blender after you let it cool (unlike me. I can never learn the omg-blending-hot-liquids-is-stupid lesson).

Whiz it. The color isn't very nice because my house gets almost no outside light. Blah.

Serve with a sliced crusty banquette.

Now what to do with these delicious garlic greens?

Potato skins and pantry monsters

2009-05-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Finally home! It's so nice to be back. The day I got home I planted corn, zucchini and cucumbers in the ground and potted a bunch of herbs and beans. Everything else is just too tiny to bother with. Lucky me it's pouring rain today so I'm not itching to go outside and plant fragile plants!

So instead, I've been cooking. I'm in the process of making my own tempeh, which is exciting! I'm also making almond feta cheese. Yesterday I had a dynamite tofu scramble.

Last night, oh man, I made the most delicious dinner ever. This post got me drooling back at college, so I had to make some potato skins. I didn't have any store-bought fake cheese, but I made something that is seriously much better! I used this recipe for "vegan sharp cheddar cheese", but it was very bland as it is. So I took about half the recipe, mashed it up with some more lemon juice, onion and garlic powder, and some more salt, and voila! PERFECT cheese for potato skins. Tangy and delicious. It adds so much flavor to the skins that I ate two and a half HUGE russet potatos worth. I was so stuffed it was painful. I made them a little differently than traditional skins to make them more of a dinner, so here's my adapted recipe:

Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1/8 cup agar agar powder (or 1/4 flakes- I suggest grinding the flakes a bit)
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup cashews
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1/2 cup pimientos
3-4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place all ingredients except the water and agar in a blender and make the agar mixture. You don't have to blend anything until the agar and water is in the blender.
Combine agar and water in a sauce pan and let sit for about 5 minutes. Then slowly bring to a boil. Let boil a few minutes until "clear". Since I'm not yet an expert at agar, google how to cook it if you're uncertain! It always works for me no matter how unsure I am about cooking it.
Dump the agar and water in the blender and blend! BE CAREFUL. The hot mixture will explode if you put the cover on the blender all the way, give it a little air to let the steam escape. It exploded on me, but I'm okay. I had lots of fun cleaning off coagulated chunks of fake cheese from the walls.
When it's blended and smooth (after 2 minutes or more depending on the strength of your blender) pour into a mold. I used an empty plastic tofu container.
Let in harden in the fridge for a bit. It should get firm after an hour.

After it firms up, take half of the cheese to use with the skins and put it in a mixing bowl and add lemon juice, more salt, garlic and onion powder to taste. You might not have to do that if you think it tastes strong enough.

Rockin' Stuffed Potato Skins
(serves two extremely hungry people 3 skins each, or three normal people 2 skins each)

3 big russet potatoes
1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cheddar Cheese (recipe above)
bacon bits

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Pierce them taters and stick them in the oven for an hour! That is the boring part. You can make the cheddar cheese during this hour!
After an hour and some poking and prodding to make sure they're done (I should have let them cook for a little while longer) put on an oven mit, take them out and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out as much potato from the middles as you like, but for really crispy delicious skins, leave only 1/4 inch of potato. Mix together the oil and spices and brush the inside and out and return to the oven for 12-15 minutes. With the extra potato make....

Mashed Tato Filling

Scooped out potato
two tablespoons marganine
splash of soymilk
paprika to taste
garlic powder to taste
salt to taste
any other spices that strike your fancy

Mash this all together and set aside.

After the skins have finished baking for a second time, take them out and arange them to be stuffed. First, add a thin layer to the skins of the mashed tato filling- I say thin now because when we made them we stuffed them with a LOT of potato and they were extremely filling. Next, add a layer of the cheddar. Finally, top with a generous sprinkle of bacon bits and return to the oven. Bake for 5 or so more minutes (the oven can even be off by now) or until everything is all warmed back up. Serve with sour supreme and green onion! Devour. Make again the next night.

One last thing. This is what happens when you leave potatoes unattended in the pantry for months and months. I screamed and scared the bajesus out of Wendy because the long, white finger things looked like they were reaching out at me.

Disregard the ant trap and the dirty kitchen, I just got back!

PS: Wendy loves laps. She doesn't care what else is occupying my lap. She messed up my post with lots of random letters, but I had to take a photo.

Four More Days

2009-05-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

Four more days until I can cuddle with my cats. Four days away from my kitchen. Four more days until I can start excavating the yard for my garden. Four more days! And two tests, but who's counting?

I have nothing else to say, really, other than I'm anticipating some awesome thunderstorms today. The weather has been a tease, we were supposed to get Tstorms a bunch of times already, and sometimes it turned into a sunny hot day, no rain at all. What a bummer.

Now for something completely different. I suppose. YEAH!

Chives! But I know you can read the label... just wanted to add an exclimation point to make it more exciting. Chives! CHIVES!

All growing except the eggplant.
I don't even like eggplant anyway.

The big ones are zucchini, to their right are tomatoes an the rest are itty bitty carrots.

Reach REAAACCCHH! Massively tall green beans and corn in the front. The corn have one adorable paddle-shaped leaf that is kaleidoscoping out of the main baby stalk.

There they are, taking over my bed by day and my desk by night.

Together now WAAH!

I lied.

2009-05-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

I so totally lied. Here I am, posting more photos. I am in love with these little things. It's hard to believe that I'm this crazy, yes, but it's like having a baby with less pain. These are my babies! I can't wait to EAT THEM. Creepy. Moving on!

The teeniest tomato sprout I've ever seen.
The cutest part is that the other tomato sprout that had two baby leaves stretched towards the sun all day actually closed them up for the night. Daaaawwwww.

Baby basil smiling at me.

Lots of corn shoots! I didn't even know that corn looked like this. In the back are green beans. Monster sized things. I'm going to have to plant them very soon or they'll die from lack of space.

Teeny oregano.

Reaching towards the sun. Reeaaaccchhh!

Thanks, Aubrey, for reminding me that by the end of the summer I am going to hate myself and what I've gotten into (kind of like the teenage years?), but for now let me enjoy them while they're young and not begging for money or to borrow the car!

And for the lat bit of crazy gardening mom-type thing, I took this time-lapse of the seedlings today. This is only about 6 hours of time. I wanted to see how much they grew/move while I'm not staring at them... it's quite a bit. You may not be able to see here, but the herbs in the back are slowly slowly reeeaaccching towards the sun. I have to rotate them all day or else they grow vertical!

Okay, enough! For now, anyway!

Obsessive update.

2009-05-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

I promise I won't post any more about the seedlings before they are big enough to actually see, but I was excited as I peered into the 3 day old dirt cups to find teeny green sprouts of thyme, basil and oregano, and fat, white knuckles of beans and eggplant. Also, one lonely and sad looking corn sprout. I haven't checked on the ones I planted last night for obvious reasons, I don't want to be disappointed. The beans and eggplant were less plants than they were baby roots pushing the seed out of the soil, but I love the teeny weeny herb sprouts! So tiny, it's adorable. So tiny I can't even photograph them! But I tried...

Teeny!

Weeny!

Oh my, this one is large. I had to cover it up with some dirt. I think it floated to the top with all the water I gave them!

Sad corn. I SWEAR on my life that it doubled in size between my classes today, from 10am to 3pm. Probably because I felt bad and put it in the sun.

Bean knuckles ready to grow towards the sun.

As for the size of my soon-to-be garden, it's looking like a 30' x 17' whopper, with paths of course, or else it would get a bit dense. I'm so glad we have a big yard and a nice landlord. And since I didn't realize that cucumbers, zucchini and eggplants need a 3 foot radius around them at all sides per a cluster of 3 plants, meaning I need a 6foot diameter circle for each of those plants, I will only be planting ONE patch of each. I think I will sell the other 14 or so plants, depending on how large they grow. I bet I could fetch about 2 bucks for each. Same for the other excess plants I don't have room for like the peppers (hot and sweet), green beans, peas, and roma and better boy tomatoes. I only needed 1 or 2 plants of each the tomato type, but I planted about 5 of each so I could pick and choose the strongest. I can only plant about half of what I've started for the others, because some of them are annoying plants that need a lot of space and I didn't realize this! Oh well.
Currently I am looking for one single book that will help me with most of my gardening needs. Everything Grows! does an okay job, except that it only talks about the plants that can survive in containers, so that leaves out a lot of plants I have now.
That is all, for now.

I love gardening.

Late Gardener

2009-05-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

The last post was kind of incorrect. Yes, I am impatient, but no, I am totally NOT getting a head start what so ever. Took me a little while to realize that I should have started a lot of these seedlings (especially tomatoes) in MARCH. Aaaaahhhh. So it may seem weird to say this, but I am an impatient and late gardener.

Speaking of which, I bought more seeds and starter boxes. This means I have a total of 344 seedlings starting. This is what I planted today: broccoli, sweet peppers, a hot pepper mix (that has Anaheim, Ancho, long slim red Cayenne, Jalapeno and Hungarian wax. It's unknown which ones I actually planted), swiss chard, cucumbers, spinach, green onions and peas.

Some of these don't actually need to be started, and can be sown directly outside, but I can't wait a few more weeks to do this (impatient) and I was supposed to do it a week or so ago (late).

I have to plan the size and shape of my garden now, considering most of these plants want to be a set distance away from each other. I already warned Adam that it's going to be substantially bigger than my current garden which is 2 feet by 4 feet. Yes, substantially bigger.

Just so I have this info somewhere attainable, this is the breakdown, there are more than one seed in each since little segment, but I'm going to weed out the weakest:
36 Basil
20 Green onion
20 Broccoli
18 Corn
18 Carrot
18 Bean
10 Peas
10 Spinach
10 Cucumber
10 Chard
10 Hot pepper
10 Sweet Pepper
9 Zucchini
9 Eggplant

I wont be able to plant all the corn, since 18 plant are going to require a 12 foot by 7 foot space. Maybe I can do it, I'll see when I get home!
The missing numbers are some herbs, but since I'm planting them in a pot I don't need to make garden space. I'm still unsure about where the basil is going, pot or garden.

What a dilemma. I will leave you with this... swiss chard seeds that look like tiny little spiky bombs. So cute!

Impatient Gardener

2009-05-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Heeeeeeeeeeeeey. Finally, the weather is steadying out and it's looking like spring. All this light is making my hair color look more like I wanted when I dyed it. Like so:

Except I don't think my eyes are different colors anymore. Darn, it was one of my favorite fun facts. The green in my one eye is slowly being assimilated. I just hope this isn't a sign that I have some crazy type of supressed vitiligo (which can affect the color of eyes, making them lose pigment- turning blue), which I think one of my brothers has. He looks like a paint horse, but he's so pale that it's hard to see.

Anyway, I didn't start this post to show of my homely mug, but rather talk about how impatient I am. I literally spend all my waking hours thinking about planting my garden. I looked at about six books in the library but ended up taking out only three. One is specifically on herbs and one is called Managing your Personal Food Supply. The other one is Everything Grows! which is a GREAT book. I love it. I want to buy it. The version I have right now is from about 1988. Actually, the Managing book has not been taken out since 1983... it's been on that shelf since before I was born. The other two haven't been taken out in about 9 years. This kind of depresses me, but again I have to remember there is no course on growing food here, so they're taken out mostly for personal interest, and almost nobody grows their own food anymore. Oh well.
I became so impatient to grow something that I went out today and bought some seeds and homes for them. Here they are all nice and planted:

I don't have a photo of the mess I made with the dirt and water and seeds and ugg, but it was impressive. I highly doubt any students have been planting recently in their dorms. I just hope that during inspections tomorrow they don't think I'm growing weed or anything. Teehee.

I planted sweet corn, eggplant, zucchini, carrots, roma and better boy tomatoes (to be transplanted in an upside-down grower), green beans, loads of basil, thyme, oregano, and chives. I forgot to get broccoli seeds, and I'm tempted to get some other plants but I dont know what yet. Luckily I have a big seed starter left over, much larger than the three I used already, so as long as I can get back out this weekend I will be able to plant more! Joy!

I'm content now. It feels so good to grow something from a seed, like raising a baby (a very easy to please baby that I get to eat). Even though last year I only grew strawberries that the wildlife got to eat, basil that turned black but gave me an okay yield, a scrappy raspberry stick that has one leaf and enough green beans to cause me to throw up my hands and stop picking them because I was getting pounds and pounds of giant beans a day by the end, I was happy. The green beans were great. I cannot eat that many, but they were still so satisfying to pick and cook and pat myself on the back. Maybe I can start a produce stand, but I doubt it will take off since I would be competing with a real farm stand and a co-op. It's a nice thought!

For everyone else who is growing this season, good luck. :)

Ambitious Plans for the Summer

2009-04-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

The end is drawing near, I can feel it. Warm weather, lots of sun, female students dressing sluttier with each passing day... spring has sprung and summer has taunted us with three days in the upper 80's and low 90's. This will conclude my first year at Oneonta. I survived! I can't wait to go home to my boyfriend and cats, but especially to Greenwich in the summer- it's so nice.

I have so many plans for the summer, not including finding a job to make a little money.

Summer Plans:
Start a new-and-improved garden (with sweet corn, upside-down tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, potatoes and others I haven't decided on yet)
Start an herb garden.
Build an arbor for my garden to grow green beans or grapes something like that.
Rearrange/clean the house SUPER DUPER well.
Consistently make my own bread, tempeh, tofu, pasta and canned tomato sauces (and other things?)
Make more art. It's been a whole two years since I've made any physical art (I've done some computer stuff).
Exercise more often, outside.
Get enough sun to stop being hideously pale but avoid cancer.
And most of all: RELAX, because next semester is going to kick me down hard, and I need time to recuperate from this semester.

I got into all classes but one! This is what my schedule will be after I get into that last class:

All I can say about that is uuuuuuuuuuggh.

Another two weeks and then I will have some food up, I hope!

Spring Break Eats (pic HEAVY)

2009-04-13T11:51:00.001-07:00

Spring Break started out rough but thankfully the weather broke and then it was awesome. I didn't use my brain much over break so I'm rusty in the formulate-sentences and witty-remark area. Eh, truthfully, I'm rusty in all areas. I did so little over break that I had multiple dreams (and daydreams) about playing solitaire.

Here Wendy is helping me lose my 400th game.

I did cook a bunch however! And I took armloads of pictures! By the end of the week the fridge was so stuffed full of my food that upon packing it all up to leave for college it looks like nobody lives in the house (unless they only eat condiments and pickles). Without further adieu... here is my foooood.

Adam and I went to the 99 Restaurant for Dinner and a Movie Night (we saw I Love You, Man) and I actually found something to eat! It was a sopping wet portobello sandwich with asparagus, artichokes, plum tomato sauce and baby greens. It was delicious, for a restaurant meal. I knew I could do better, and pictures above is the much-better-99-Restaurant-Portobello-Sandwich. Asparagus on the side, because I had waaay to many to put on the sandwich.

Below is what I made yesterday and it was flipping amazing. The PPK has been raving over the Vegetarian Times article about vegan cheese and we just so happened to go to Saratoga Springs where I picked up a copy at Borders. I went home and then promptly spend two hours peeling the skins off of a cup of blanched almonds. Oh Em Gee that was so much fun it's indescribable. I succeeded in rubbing large amounts of skin off my of fingers in the process, but I'm sure it only improved the taste of the cheese. The first picture is one of the sandwich I made, but on the same plate (the second photo) is some pepper-encrusted cashew goat cheese smeared on a piece of half-eaten tomato. The sandwich is chickpea salad.

It did not turn out like it was supposed to (semi-firm) and I murdered it with how much pepper I rolled it in, since it kept spreading and accumulating more pepper while it did so.. it's still delicious and worth trying. Ooooh yes. I also made the Almond Feta with Herb Oil and it turned out so well that my entire omni family devoured it at Easter. Here's the only photo I could get.

Next time I will reduce the garlic, because I think I practically burned the mouth of my gramma. Everyone else thought it was good however, just a bit garlicky.

Next... grilling! Yaaaay! Asparagus and skewers of red pepper, onion, grape tomatoes and baby bella mushrooms. The other skewers are BBQ seitan "ribz" and onions.

AAron and I. No, that's not a little boy, that's my insanely crazy short hair. Ehhhhhhh. I'm policing my side of the grill, threatening AAron with a skewer to the eye if the burger juice splatters on anything close to my food.

And now time for Let Me Show You Progression Pictures. Yay! The spread below is for making basil pesto and olive tapenade.

Lots of ingredients! Pesto recipe here, tapenade reripe here. This post is already too long to write out the recipes, or even explain how to do them. But I want to post the pics so nya, I do what I want.

Put them in the magic bullet cups and take a pretty picture! I bet you can tell which is basil and which is tapenade, you chef you.

Will it blend? Yes it will!

Now spread it on some big easy bread and roll it up!

DO IT.

Here they are rising in the living room next to the space heater. Mmmmmmmm bread.

Now eat all the pesto bread and fail to get any inside shots of it! That's the spirit!

And last but hell no not least, a coconut brownie. Oh delicious chocolaty yum.

Food, rats and on being cold.

2009-04-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Obviously I haven't been able to cook much since I've been at college for the past month or two. I'm home now on spring break, and what a break it's been! My laptop was delivered on Friday and it's a beauty. I love being free from my cumbersome desktop! My first computer was a laptop and it's nice to be back to one. It's so portable, it barely weights 4lbs, which will be perfect for me next year when I'll be toting it around Oneonta.
I visited my mom this weekend also, and I went to my neighbors house to see some baby bald rats. I saw them about two weeks ago and they were tiny, but I didn't get any photos. They were MUCH cuter then, and less nippy. Don't get me wrong, they're cute right now, so non-threatening my gramma even picked one up (somewhat against her will- it was scaling down my back and I was helpless). We were only playing with the females because the mom and the males are very mean.

As for cooking, I made the Vegan Omelette For One. This photo is from today, but I made one yesterday. They are delicious and really remind me of a good old omelette!
I filled today's with some jarred salsa and cubed avocado and I topped it with a little sour supreme. Yesterday I sauteed some mushrooms with garlic and shallots and used that for a filling. Both were delicious! I'm not a big fan of breakfast but has done a good job of reviving my appetite early in the morning.

I just had to take this picture of Ray. He seems so torn between the two cat beds. He eventually fell asleep right where he is... how indecisive.

The weather all week is rain, rain, cold and more rain. This is especially no good because we can't afford to fill our fuel oil back up (the minimum payment is almost 400 bucks!) so we have no heat for the remainder of this spring. The current temperature outside is close to 40F and inside it's about 55F. It's bearable, I will survive. I have three pairs of socks on, two fleece jackets and a thick hat on. I'm currently enjoying my make-shift Kotatsu.

In my desperate attempt at warming myself I googled various techniques. I stumbled upon a few websites about how the Japanese survive the winters since they don't traditionally heat their homes. Instead, they have a table that consists of a frame with a heater attached underneath, a futon (large comforter) placed on top of this frame, and a table top that goes on the futon. The heater heats the space under the blanked and voila! You have a bubble of heat, and a nice place to sit. My legs and tush are very warm right now, I'm tempted to fall asleep.
I don't reccomend using the heating method I am. It's a space heater that turns off when it senses the temperature is hot enoguh (whatever you set it at). I'm taking a big risk as I might catch fire. But it's sooo warm and I'm taking the chance!
I plan on making a safer more substantial kotatsu for my apartement in Oneonta next year. I suspect the heat will be low for most of the winter so I can actually afford living there.

Depression Cooking

2009-03-30T15:27:00.001-07:00

Don't worry, this post isn't about depression, but about THE Depression, not quite unlike the one we may be slipping into now... but I digress. I've been watching Clara's videos for a few months now and they are absolutely fascinating. Obviously, I'm interested in all things food and nutrition, so this type of stuff strikes my fancy. Clara is a 93 year old grandmother who lived through and, thankfully, survived the Great Depression. She has a youtube account, a facebook, and even a web site. If you're interested in hearing grandmotherly stories and watching her cook very interesting meals you must see some of her videos!

Aaaaaaahhhh.

2009-03-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been busier than I ever have in my entire life. On top of every little thing that is due in the next two weeks, on top of my second exams for every class AND on top of having to do corrections for a restaurant design project, as well as the 3rd part of the same project, I'm figuring out what classes I'll be taking next semester. It's going to be one hell of a semester.

My (possible) course load:
Advanced Nutrition I
Medical Nutrition Therapy
Restaurant Design, Layout and Operations
Elementary Biochemistry
Food Science
And a mini course, a seminar to start working on my portfolio

My schedule will look like this:
M-- 8-8:50am, 11-12:50pm, 2-2:50pm
T-- 12-1:15pm, 2-2:50pm, 4-5:15pm
W-- 8-8:50am, 11-12:50pm, 2-4:50pm
R-- 8:25-11:15am, 12-1:15pm, 5-5:15pm
F-- 8-8:50am, 11-11:50am, 2-250pm

I'm just glad that I'll have an apartment where I can just veg out and cook or do my own thing without all the noise and crap of nearby roommates (depending on my upstairs neighbors, that is) or the impending doom that is other classmates finding me in my room and making me do work. Heh heh.

Don't Just Taste It, Eat It!

2009-03-10T12:39:00.001-07:00

A few of my friends and I are doing a month-long project (March is nutrition month!) at Otsego Manor, a nursing/retirement home. I'm not sure which word is more accurate. This is our first display. Along with the poster of beautiful fruits and veggies there are information sheets.
I can't wait to put this poster in my dorm!

A special post for a special person.

2009-03-08T14:49:00.001-07:00

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY 22ND BIRTHDAY, AUBREY

(March 1st)

Here's to more fun times ahead, with less bike-riding!

NYC Restaurant and Food Show

2009-03-08T14:47:00.001-07:00

Happy Light is Happy.

My pals (Lauren, Steph and I) in the parking lot of the train station.

The group!

Us again, right outside of Grand Central Station in NYC!

FREE FOOD EVERYWHERE.

A couple out of the 10+ pastry sculptures. They were all amazing! The theme was a nod to Broadway. There were plenty of "Wicked" themed sculptures.

Tiny pinapple. It was no bigger than a regular apple with green stuff on it.

Tiny heads of cauliflower. The photo doesn't do them justice, but they were palm-sized.

I wish I had taken more photos. By the end of the day I couldn't eat another bite. The experience was so fun, especially being with good friends. I will definitely do it again next year!

Break Foodstuffs and Homemade Tofu (almost)

2009-03-08T14:22:00.001-07:00

First I will tell you of my adventures making tofu.
I got a tofu making kit online and went to work! The press was enormous. If I made enough soymilk it could easily make a 5lb brick of tofu. I only made about a pound this time.

The press covered in cheesecloth.

Homemade soymilk coagulating. The curds weren't as big as I think they should have been, but I was impatient (which was my downfall I believe).

The press with a 10lb weight on it.

Oops.

Most of the tofu was stuck in the cheesecloth. I wish I had used muslin (I think that's what it's called). It's more like a fabric than a holey mess like the cloth was. The tofu tasted very good though and I made tofu scramble with what I salvaged. Mmm mmm delicious. I will try again, I promise myself, but I have to find some better press liner and this time I will use gypsum.

Leftover potstickers. They were frozen, but cooked up very fast and were delicious. I need to make more.

Then I made tie-dye cookies for my friends on the long trip to NYC for the Food Show (post coming up!). They were delicious and pretty, a perfect combo.

My cupcake holder! So handy! I also made chocolate cupcakes, on the bottom.

And now for some yummy lazy stew I made for when I was sick.

The waffles I made! I DID IT RIGHT! I froze them and they are so good toasted.

Sorry for the lethargic post, but I am still reeling from that hike yesterday. It took a lot out of me!

Snowshoeing up Hunter Mountain

2009-03-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (3/7/09) I hiked up a mountain with a group of students and a guide who works for the Outdoor Recreation Center here at Oneonta. It was so much fun. The expedition was technically on shoeshoes, but we only used them for half the hike up, and I didn't use them on the way down. The snow was scarce, but where there was snow (mostly at the top) there was a lot. The trip was 6.5 miles, about. We started up the mountain at 10am and got to the bottom around 4pm. Lucky for us the day was beautiful, and it started raining as soon as we got to the parking lot (it absolutly poured!). The temperature was 50F. I felt nautious halfway down the mountain, most likly from exaustion and dehydration, but the rest of the trip was magnificent. The sun did me good. My freckles came out and I burned a bit, but oh well! At the top was a huge rickety metal tower (a lookout for forest fires) and we climed that too, getting a great view of the catskills. Here are the photos:

My gear. The photo was taken 2.5 miles up the mountain.

The group minus Snapper (our guide). From left to right: Joe, Nate, Steve, James and Steph.

Looking up at James (with the map) and the others. They were VERY high in the tower. It is so windy and cold up there.

The tower with tiny people at the top.

All our junk at the bottom.

Woah, a long way down. I got a bit whoozy.

The photos below were taken by my friend Steph:

2.5 miles up, 1 mile from the top, at the lookout area.

Me taking a picture of Steph taking a picture of me!

My mouth is full of PB&J. Oops.

The funniest photo of them all! When I got back to the ground I laid down, pretending to be dead from falling off that scary horrible tower (a topic we talked about at length while walking up the steep stairs). Horrible but oh so hilarious. I swear, people on other mountains could have heard us laughing hysterically.

And one link to a video.

I'm alive.

2009-02-23T14:38:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while since I updated, at least to me. Over valentine's weekend I got very sick with some type of flu or something and I ended up staying in good old g-wich until Wednesday, driving back to college the second my fever broke. I had to make up two exams but I think they went well. I still haven't felt very good, I'm home now for a week break. I hardly feel like cooking so I threw together a stew this weekend and plan on eating that all week. March is creeping up and I feel so old and useless. This summer will be nice though, I'm looking forward to warm weather and good fresh vegetables.
This Sunday is the Food and Restaurant show and I'm really excited for that! But before then I have a dentist appointment and an interview (I'm conducting) with an RD at the hospital.
Whoop-di-do.
Maybe I'll do some baking and get another entry here with some pretty pictures.

Friday Februrary Firtheenth

2009-02-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Yay! Friday the 13th! The last one seems so long ago, but this one is special. One of the most superstitious days of the year (one out of two this year, actually) right next to one of the most romantic days of the year! Now, I don't really believe the last bit, Valentines Day has been brutally molested by corporations trying to profit off of this holiday and I'm a firm believer that every day should be Valentines Day, but you get my drift.
So far today has been good to me. I went to the gym at 7:30am for 40 minutes. And later, after two exams (organic chemistry and consumer science) I'll be traveling home! Even the weather is nice, and I hope it stays. It's still very cold and almost every surface is ice outside, so lets hope the sun melts away the ice on the roads I'll be transversing.
Adam and I are going to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner tomorrow night, one of my favorite restaurants ever. Their sushi is amazing!

That's really all I had to say today, but here's the view out my window just now. Deceptively warm looking, right? It's about 12 degrees.

Stupid Chemistry Jokes

2009-02-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

I can't get enough of chemistry jokes ever since my professor brought out this beauty:

Why do white bears dissolve in water?

To which the class, glassy eyed and confused, didn't reply.

Because they're polar.

Ahahahahaha! No way. No way. So I made up my own.

Why did the molecule feel torn?

Because it's bipolar!

Nyuk nyuk nyuk. And then I looked up a few more, and they're definitely groaners.

What do chemists call a benzene ring with iron atoms replacing the carbon atoms?

A ferrous wheel!

and

What is the name of the molecule bunny-O-bunny?

An ether bunny.

I'm dieing over here! This is hilarious! How did it come to this?! How? Oh chemistry...
(Jokes from here)

(Kinda) College Cooking

2009-02-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

Last night was Girls Night In and/or Movie Night with two of my friends. Luckily both of my roommates had gone somewhere this weekend so we had the entire suite to ourselves. I've had quite a weekend, the best so far this semester (other than going home last weekend and cooking!)
Yesterday started with breakfast at 11:30am with Steph, then I went to the gym with her at 1 until 2:30, met her and Lauren at my dorm at 3:30 and spent the next hour at Walmart getting supplies. I got my hair cut... and the lady went a little short. Oh well. No more mullet!
After that we got Falafel from a great little restaurant here, ate it in the food hall with Steph who didn't want one, and got back to my suite at around 6pm. We made about 2 pounds of guacamole! And we ate it all! I wish I had taken a picture. It was SO MUCH. Five whole avocados, wow.
We watched a little of The Wedding Singer on TV, then Snakes on a Plane ("I'm sick of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!") and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. We pulled out the futon and crashed on it, the two of them were asleep by 11:30pm. Earlier in the night I wrote "Girls Night In!" on the board in the common room, but then below that I had to write "Party hardy till 11:30". Our plan next time is to take a nap before movie night. Hehheh.
We woke up this morning, watched Stand By Me until the food hall opened, had breakfast, finished the movie and parted ways. I've been studing for some tests these past few hours. Exciting eh? And I made some salsa from the left over guacamole ingredients, which is mostly what this post is supposed to be about.

Left-Over College Salsa

My work station and my new knife. I love the slice-of-bread shaped cutting board! Thanks daddy.

Pretty green onions.

Tomatoes and not-jalapenos.

Salsa.

Ingredients:
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1 jalapeno, sliced (which tasted like a green pepper- never getting produce at Walmart again)
2 green onions, white and light green parts
half a lime
onion and garlic powder

Mix it all together and eat with a fork. (We ate all the chips last night)

After I made it I was thinking that it would be good on something rather than just eating it plain like a poor sad college child. So I made...

Left-Over College Salsa Sandwich

I like that little jalapeno slice just chillin'.

Ingredients:
2 slices of bread (it's unnecessarly hard to find vegan bread, arg!)
3-4 slices of Yves fake meat
2 Tbs of Tofutti cream cheese
Left-Over College Salsa

Assemble sammich however you like. Preferably with the bread on the outside.

This week is a big week! Lots of tests for me, oh joy!

The Best (B)TLT Ever

2009-02-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

Over the past winter break between semesters I made a lot of food, but one sandwich still haunts me to this day. It is not healthy. It is not nice. It's a mean, greasy, sexy sandwich that I fantasize about in my dreams. Behold the awesomeness. Click for a juicy larger view.

The entire sandwich is pretty simple. Two buttered and Foreman-grilled pieces of whole wheat bread slathered with Veganaise. It's filled with spinach, tomatoes, sweet onions and Tempeh Bacon (VWaV). It's just so pretty it hurts my eyes. My beautiful baby.

That is all I have to say.

Weekend cooking: Pan dulce, potstickers and more!

2009-02-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

It irks me when people, not joking, say "well you shouldn't eat plants because they're living and when you pull a carrot out of the ground you're hurting it!".
All I have to say to them is "you must not be a science major".
Anyway, this is not a rant post! This is a food post! Eiiii! (girl scream)

I am so glad I went home this weekend. Other than one little, er, problem that left me unable to function for about 18 hours, I had a great time. I miss home so much, and I especially miss cook- I mean Adam! But cooking also.
The first thing I did when I got home (other than sleep, since I got to G-witch at about 2am) was grocery shop.
40$ worth of ingredients and two days later this is what I have to show.

Conchas
(recipe from Vegan Explosion)

This Mexican sweet bread is amazing! This bread is just barely on the sweet side put the topping makes this almost like a big amazing hole-less donut. Making it was fun too, especially the squashing of the topping to fit on the dough. Since our apartment is naturally cold (read as: we keep the heat at 60 to save monies) I had to put the rising dough in the bathroom (covered!) with a little space heater or else it would have never risen. It was so warm in the bathroom too, I could have stayed there all day. The best part is I still have 5 or so breads left and I brought them to college. I will be happy for the next week or so.

Pretty little dough balls.

The toppings. Cinnamon, vanilla and orange.

Topped. Some of them I scored and some I didn't- they're supposed to make cracks on their own as they bake.

Pretty little delicious turtle cake.

Potstickers
(Wrapper and dipping sauce recipe from ieatfood, Potsticker recipe from vegan yum yum)

Oh my GOD. This recipe, along with the next one, is a convincing reason why never to order Asian food out again. I had never had potstickers before and I am so sad that I was missing out this entire time! These. Are. Amazing. They're labor intensive if you make your own wrappers like I did, but they are so worth it! I got about 20 potstickers out of the recipe with extra filling (some of the wrappers were unsalvagable) and I froze most, and made them the next day right out of the freezer! If I were to live the rest of my life eating only one thing, it would be these.

The most beautiful handmade potsticker in all the land.

Some other ugly ones.

Mmmmmmm.

Buddha's Sesame Feast
(From Vegan Appetite)

MmmmmMMMmmmMMMMMMM. The best stir-fry I've tasted thus far, and I have had MANY stir frys. I went the lazy route and didn't use seitan in this recipe, I figured I was eating enough with the potstickers, so I used only veggies a la the Buddah's Feast from P.F. Changs. That's why I re-named it a bit (the original is Buddha's Sesame Seitan). Broccoli, onion, red pepper, snap peas and a strange looking green-ish pepper that I can never figure out the name of (I think it's Anaheim). So simple and so amazing. I was suprised I had all the ingredients for the sauce on hand since there are quite a few! The recipe was spicy, but nice, though next time I will reduce the heat a little because I like to taste my veg!

Apple Pie
(Crust from The Joy of Vegan Baking)

This is literally the best apple pie I've ever had.
I admit... it seems like I'm gushing over my food in this post, and maybe it's because I had been eating icky college food for three weeks already, but when I say this is the best apple pie I totally mean it. My senses were not clouded over in ecsasty of being home. The flaky crust from JoVB is a major factor, but the filling... oh my. I used kinda-older-but-not-rotted mcintosh apples. They were getting on the tender side, but they were perfectly edible. I sliced them very thin too, thinner than I usually would because Adam doesn't like chunky apple pie. It didn't really matter because I ate 80% of it before I came back to college. The apples mixed with some flour, sugar, cinnomon and nutmeg was all it took. It came out perfect.

I also made brownies this weekend, which were delicious! I didn't have time to photograph them though. The recipe is off vegweb. This is a good recipe, the best vegan brownies yet. They're fudgey and delicious, but they do tend to crumble a little. Still, it's a keeper.
And I got myself a present! A cute adorable totally practical cupcake carrier! It was on sale for 12$. I just checked online and it looks like they sell for only about 20$, but oh well. I can't wait to fill it up and bring it places! Cupcakes for all and to all a good cupcake!

And.... a bonus picture of mushrooms. I really don't know what type they are either. The grocery store near my house really sucks at labeling their produce.

The Anatomy of My Room

2009-01-29T18:06:00.000-08:00

After a "lovely" semester sharing half of a teeny room with a roommate I decided I do not ever want to live with another human being in such close proximity again (even you, Adam, think "big house").
Never. Ever. Again. Please and thank you.
Thank god I only had to do it for one four month period out of my entire LIFE.
And since my fate happens to be in the hands of a loving, caring, awesome god-like being, I do not have a roommate for this semester. The only draw back is that I have to pay *cough* lots *erg* many *hack* dollars extra. *gurgling blood*
Anyway. Now I occupy this teeny room all by myself, which is at least bearable. I sound like a total brat saying all of that but after having lived in a really spacious and awesome apartment for three-or-somewhere-around-there years, moving into a room smaller than my former bedroom and only living in half of it... is a shock. A horrible, frightening, privacy-invading shock.
And now this room is all mine. It's pretty pimped out. Almost-kinda. Sorta-not-really, but it's nicer than I could have imagined a dorm being. I have a rug! And two desks! Which is not as exciting as I'm making it out to be!

This is a photo of last semester. Oh the horror! The pink! The hello kitties! Aaaaahhh!
It wasn't that bad, but still. See my half? Omg so tiny. So un-livable. I'm aware there are people all over the world have it worse (and don't willingly pay for it!) , so I stuck it out and didn't complain and I made the most of it.

Transformed into semi-awesomeness:

Looking kinda the same, actually.

My second desk, mirror, and plant table.

Happy plant.

View from the door.

So pseudo-spacious. I love the carpet. It matches the chairs and the red drapes over the closet! Totally unintentional.
This is the view of outside... not as good.

And now for something completely different.

There. Now this post is food related.

Bonus picture of my mullet-in-the-making. I REALLY need to get my hair trimmed.

Happy plant is stalking me.

Gosh, my neck looks so fat. And most of my family didn't realize I had my ear pierced up there until I chopped my hair off. I got it when I was 16? Such a stealthy piercing.

Cooking Withdrawl.

2009-01-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

I'm going through cooking withdrawl. The shakes, the cold sweats, the crying out recipes in my sleep. I dream of cooking breakfast at night and daydream about cooking lunch and dinner. I cannot function without a kitchen.
This semester I'm taking an introductory foods class, which uses the most simplistic, basic cooking skills imaginable. It's hard to believe that 80% of my class is kitchen retarded. Nobody knew what a zeszter looked like.
For me, the class is a tease. It's tantilizingly close to being cooking, except in one lab we chop vegetables and in the second we make a stock and in the third we make a sauce... I'm getting cooking blue-balls from all of this. I need to get my fix. There have been times I would create an elaborate scheme to break into the kitchen and make a meal. (This is how I know I'm not normal.)
The main problem is that the class is not vegetarian or vegan friendly. At some point my "team" (three other girls and I who share a home-style kitchen) will have to boil veal bones to make a stock. Ug and ew and arg. I'm gratefull that my lab partners understand my situation and we made somewhat of a deal with the professor- that our kitchen could make half "traditional" and half vegan (an example recipe being tofu marsala AND chicken marsala). The tricky part is we'll have to make all vegetable stocks for our sauces, and I don't know how that will go down with the professor. I sure as hell don't want to make tofu marsala with beef broth, what's the point?!

Other than being incredibly unhappy with my food situation here on campus, I think this semester is going well. My consumer class is extremely interesting and the intro foods class is refreshing (the lecture, at least). Anatomy is a joke, it's so easy, and organic chemistry is keeping me on my toes. However, my foodservice class is killing me. I's a 3 credit class with 6 credits worth of work- absolutly rediculous.
On March 1st I'll be attending the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show in NYC. I'm really excited about it. I can't wait to see all the kitchen appliances! Most of them will be industrial, I'm sure, as a majority of the vendors will be catering to restaurants. And I've heard that there are food samples galore! Even vegan food! It's going to be a blast. I'll try to take as many photos as I can.

Well, I'm going home this weekend and I have a list of recipies I want to try out, so there will be at least one food-related post in the next week or so! I can't wait!

But for now, a photo of Wendy looking silly and why it isn't a good idea to try to cream together sugar and rock-hard margarine.

Joke's on you, cat!

Oops.

The cuteness, it is blinding.

2009-01-24T11:51:00.001-08:00

I just found three (out of focus) photos of leetle baby Ray Charles, barely a week after being adopted by Adam's mom (and eventually, Adam and I). He's eating left over hamburger helper. This is around the time we were figuring out his blindness.

He's gotten so fat! But he still has those crazy googly eyes. And he still loves food.

Nom-stalgia Part I; The Sweet Stuff

2009-01-22T13:37:00.000-08:00

Nom-stalgia, the feeling I get when I look back on all the photos I've taken of food I have cooked. Which is pretty much how I spend my free time here at college.

This is the part where I apologize for my horrible photography:
I'm not a "bad" photographer, just lazy, and most of the time I'm so in love with a food I'm like "no I must take a photo as fast as I can so I can eat this NOW" and this is where the ugly, fuzzy, poorly-lit, awkward angled photos come from. I still find it easy to drool over the food, just don't click on them for a larger image! My New Year's resolution is to be patient and take better photos- not only of food.

(Aubrey- I'm sure you've seen almost all of these photos before since I posted most of them on my old food blog.)

This first part is a dedication to the cakes, cookies, donuts etc. The sweet stuff!

Banana-pop: Here is a perfect example of a picture you do not want to click on- it's horribly out of focus. I wasn't trying to photograph the nice wood cabinets I have, I was trying to photograph the frozen banana pop! Anyway, these are DELICIOUS. I made close to 20 at one time, and they're super easy. Much healthier than regular ice cream as well, since it's only a chocolate and almond coated banana. I'll have to write myself a note to post the recipe (it's not hard to figure out though) and some better photos.

My birthday cake. Yes, I made my own. It's a three leaf clover- St. Patrick's day is my birthday. It was for my 21st, just this past one. Each clover leaf is a different flavor of cake, too! One is chocolate, one is vanilla and one is carrot-coconut (as are the cupcakes). The vanilla recipe I used was nasty, to say the least. It kind of clung to your teeth, but the other cakes were good! I am still searching for a great vanilla or yellow cake recipe.

Christmas cookies! I used this recipe and will never use another- it's perfect, even the icing. My family finally believed that veganism can be tasty with these cookies. Joy!

VeganYumYum mini donuts! Same as with the cookies above, the only recipe I will ever need for perfect donuts. The only problem is when coating with powdered sugar they tend to soak it up over night so you have to add more sugar... but is this a bad thing? I still can't tell. I even bought a mini bunt/mini donut pan just for these!

Molasses cookies. One of the few things my boyfriend will eat. So good and crumbly, I can't remember where I got the recipe. I think the recipe called for ginger, and I used ground, but next time I will add fresh grated ginger.

Apple pie cookies. What else can I say? They are just as good as you could imagine. I used granny smith apples but next time I'll use Macintosh so it tastes (to me) more like apple pie. Always have ice cream cone around!

Chocolate pudding pie. A classic. I used the chocolate pudding recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance and a store-bought graham crust. However, I don't add the any extract like the recipe says, it's too strong for me. This dessert was so easy I feel guilty putting it in a cooking blog, but oh well!

One of the better photos in the bunch, Carrot-Coconut cake, "adapted" from the Carrot-Coconut-Macadamia nut-something else cake from Vegan with a Vengeance. This cake is my dad's favorite, and he HATES carrots!! I brought this one to college and served it to people I wanted to be my friends. It worked. My RA at college didn't believe it was vegan, either.

Chocolate chip cookie dough brownies. Oh. My. God. If only the brownie part was less like cake and more like a fudge-like brownie. Even so, they're AMAZING. These will win anyone over. I've made these many many times and I can't get enough. They were on vegweb but I can't seem to find them there. Here's the same recipe.

Adam's birthday cake. His only parameters were "chocolate with chocolate frosting" and I complied. Well, at first he wanted a chocobo-shaped cake, but since it was a weekend and I had to get back to class early Monday I didn't have the time. I will try next time though! This chocolate cake recipe is the best, though the instructions are a little confusing. Just double the recipe (or if you want to go the crazy math way, divide by .5). The maple syrup is undetectable. The frosting is just some version of vegan chocolate buttercream. I think for this particular cake I used the frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. (Yes, I do love Isa and all her books)

Coming up, Nom-stalgia Part II; All Things Asian! There will be plenty of sushi in it, don't worry.

College food. Yuck.

2009-01-21T14:37:00.001-08:00

How can they feed me stir-fry for dinner 7 days in a row? HOW?! MY GOD.

Is it spring yet?

2009-01-15T12:36:00.001-08:00

Reason #1 why living at a college in the rugged Upstate NY mountains is no fun:

(Click for full-sized image, though it doesn't get any better than this virtual snow storm)

The college blues

2009-01-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

I'm back at college up in the cold and windy mountains. I don't have a kitchen. I don't even have a plug-in burner. I have a microwave and a mini fridge and full reign over the food hall. This blog is officially on hold. Until next time!

The cats.

2009-01-08T07:51:00.001-08:00

I feel like I should explain my cats since I'll be putting photos up and talking about them with no background. Neither of them like to be involved in my cooking, luckily. (This means I have no real excuse to be putting them in posts other than my cats rock.) Ray is blind and doesn't know the counter top exists, and I screamed at Wendy when she attempted to step on my open, and hot, Foreman Grill, so now she knows to stay out of the kitchen cuz she can't stand the heat. Wendy sometimes sits on the washing machine (next to the kitchen) and watches me cook.

Ray Charles

He can't figure out why only part of his body is in the step stool.

Ray is blind, and he used to step on Adam's piano all the time, startling himself, so now you know where his name comes from. Boyfriend Adam's mom got him from a lady giving away kittens on the side of the road. They had him for at least a few weeks before they figured out he was blind- I had to tell them. They didn't believe me. They told me "Aww, quit being so mean!". What eventually tipped everyone off about Ray's sight problems was that he fell from the third floor stairs to the second floor, which is easy not to do- there's a big fat railing. Also, his eyes were always dilated and he had that "I'm confused" look all the time. He is now about 4 years old, which is how long Adam and I have lived in this apartment. He's gotten rather fat and lazy (the cat, not Adam). The highlight of his life is going outside when the weather is nice in the summer and fall. I think he's suffering from cabin fever because all this winter he's been begging at the door and as soon as he hears shoes being put on he runs to the door and scratches, wanting to be let out. Adam has put him in the snow and he doesn't like it. He'll just have to wait a few more months.
When he's outside he's supervised, obviously. There are some mean feral cats around here, and we have listened to some gnarly fights during the spring. The sound of fighting cats is terrifying.
Ray mostly likes to eat grass and wander around. He uses his whiskers as a cane, swaying his head from side to side while getting around. He usually goes in straight lines inside the house because he knows the terrain. If we move furniture and he finds it he must inspect it, even if it's the same couch that he sleeps on all day. He likes fighting with Wendy. Even though he is twice her size she still has the upper hand. Sometime Ray goes into Tank mode where he stalks around like the big burly tomcat he is and plows into anything in his path- this is the method he uses to get Wendy, though it's not fool proof, first he has to find her.

Wendy

Mini-Wendy, the day I brought her home from the shelter.

Wendy is judging my taste in blogs.

We adopted Wendy two winters ago. That makes her two-ish. I always visit the shelter I found her in and all the cats are always so nice and every time I visit I want to cry- I'm thankful that it's a no kill shelter. On this visit I noticed, in one of the bottom cages, there was this a tiny, elegant, black and white cat sitting calmly in the middle of her kennel with her tail curled around her white toes, watching me. When I bent down she went to the back of her cage and looked at me as if to say "uhm, what do you want?". One of the kennel helpers let me take her out of the cage and I sat her in my lap- she jumped out, made a circle around the cat room and promptly went into her cage and sat down. Her face was the most handsome of any cat I'd ever met. A perfect little black nose and chin- she ripped my heart out the second I saw her, and I didn't get it back until I took her home, out of that barren cage. I was so worried someone would snatch her up I went home and forced Adam to come to the shelter with me the next day to sign papers. I was 20 at the time, only a few months away from my 21st, and they don't let anyone under 21 adopt. I always want to adopt every animal in the shelters I visit, but Wendy was special. I knew she was a very intelligent cat, and she is. Thoughtful, even.
When I brought Wendy home, Ray was instantly angry. He was angry all day. He went into Tank mode and stalked through the house with his head down for hours, trying to find the smell of the new kitten. I had hidden her in a closed off corner with all the necessities. I left her alone for about an hour and came back to an empty corner! I freaked out! Ray was sitting on top of a blanket on the couch, looking content. I looked everywhere for the kitten, and then I picked Ray up off the couch because I was mad at him for making Wendy hide. Then I picked up the blanket, and out popped and tiny and scared kitten! Somehow she got out, got under the blanket, and Ray sat on her. And he loved it. After a few weeks of Wendy avoiding Ray, they got along fine.
She is not an outside cat since she can see and will most likely bolt the second she touches grass. Her favorite winter pastime is sitting on the bar watching for squirrels to pass by on the roof- she is doing it as I type. Her favorite place is sitting on top of the washing machine, partly because it's perfect height for lots of love from Adam and me, and partly because the window there seems to be a favorite spot for squirrels to hang out and taunt Wendy.
Her second favorite pastime is squeezing herself onto my lap while I'm at the computer. It was easy when she was smaller, but now that she can reach her paws up to my keyboard and likes to type, it's hard to enjoy computer time with Wendy. She enjoys chasing the computer mouse while I'm trying to do "very important" things. She loves to tease Ray by biting his back legs, getting him into chasing her. She loves laps. If any opportunity arises to crawl into a lap, she will. She loves watching TV, especially animal planet, and sometimes tries to chase the little animals like mice and hamsters. I don't think she hates many things, other than her inability to catch the squirrels she devoted most of her time watching.

Now it's time for a photofest. Weee!

Wendy and Ray enjoying a dog bed. I didn't realize how fat Ray was.

Wendy pretending she's innocent and adorable.

Ray showing his pink belly.

Wendy, Queen of the tissues!

Getting ready to go on a date.

Hah! Wendy got the bed that time. She's looking a little uncomfortable.

End

"Red alert. Put the kettle on!"

2009-01-07T07:45:00.003-08:00

Thanks to my BFF Aubrey who had me drive her to the Shirt Factory in Glens Falls to get tea for her mom from Sensibiliteas, I am now addicted. Aubrey, you enabler!
We first wandered around the mostly abandoned shirt factory, which is a building full of art galleries and one acupuncturist (who was open that day). I was convinced the place was haunted by people who had been mangled to death by shirt-making machinery. We went into the basement- it was like T.A.P.S. We had to go into the basement to get to the other end of the first floor! How absolutely frightening is that? Besides me being totaly afraid of anything resembling the undead (except zombies) I thought the place was pretty interesting. I'm sure it's lovely when the studios are actually open and living people are in there. We eventually made it to Sensibiliteas, which is a name my boyfriend would scoff painfully at. Every time we drive by the hotdog stand in Schuylerville we both groan at the name- "Frankly Speaking". Auuuggghh. But anyway. I think the name of the tea shop is fitting and not too corny. The smell you're confronted with when talking in is amazing and undescribable. There are so many different types of teas on the wall- huge tins that hold probably 5lbs or more- and all their scents are mingled together. We were specifically looking for cinnamon plum for Aubreys mom, but they were out, so she had to pick something similar-ish. She chose cinnamon apple rooibos and I took one wiff of it and had to buy some! It reminds me of hot apple spiced cider in the winters, but in a more healthy tea form. I also bought a cute tea steeper. Since then, a little over a week ago, I've had two or three cups a day! Breakfast is not the first thing my stomach wants when I wake up, but a morning cup of tea doesn't upset it. Tea is very good a curbing hunger or cravings. I wouldn't use tea to replace a meal, but drinking a cup before or with a meal can help you eat less (it helps me!), plus the dose of caffiene in tea pokes your lazy metabolism into doing something for once. I'm very sensitive to caffiene also, but I don't get jitterly after a cup of tea. There's nothing worse than the coffee jitters- I liken them to fever shivers. No fun.
I was so excited about my tea, I set up a little tea station on my counter with some more kitchen items my mom gave to me recently.

Inside the vessle that says tea is... tea. Bags of loose-leaf tea. I was running out of the cinnamon apple rooibos so I went to the Sensibiliteas website and ordered a bunch of other teas- mostly samples.

This time around I purchased 1oz of White Blueberry, 1oz of Blueberry Roobios, and three samples (which are .5oz), Berry Green Rooibos, Wild Cherry Rooibos and Red Raspberry Rooibos. I am very into the fruit teas. I've tried all of them, and they're all really good. I'm unsure about the White Blueberry though. White tea is the most unprocessed type of tea and is said to have the most cancer-fighitng agents, so there are whole dried leaves instead of chopped up little fragments. I didn't like the taste as much as the stronger rooibos.
You can read all about tea on the Sensibiliteas website too. I never knew as much about tea as I do now. White, green and black teas are basically the same- they're just processed differently! Who knew.
Also, sorry for plugging this store so much but it's amazing. The owner is a very nice woman, and she recycles material! I love it. Small stores ftw. Fuck corporations. Down with the system! Ahem. Anyway. Yum, tea.

The title quote is from Monty Python, by the way.

Oh! And I used Blendera yesterday to blend up Broccoli "Cheez" Soup ("i eat food" is a great blog!) and it is literally better than the Kitchen Aid. First of all, when you depress a button, like puree, the Kitchen Aid takes one step to get up to that setting- so the blades go from not moving to moving really fast in no time which leads to molten hot soup hitting the blender lid with such force I have to brace myself. Good Old Blendera took three cautious steps for the first setting, which is chop- and I pureed the soup in chop mode also. This thing has a lot of power, I love it. Slow and steady wins the soup. The only draw back is the motor sounds like a small plane getting ready to take off.
I thing I emotionally scarred Ray with the blender (he's blind and scared of most noises). The only other thing he is this traumatized by is the vacuum, so our carpets aren't the cleanest around for fear of Ray having a heart attack.

Here he's making one of the few expressive faces he makes. This one is "content". The others are "frightened", and "no idea what's going on". Those two look mostly the same.

Chompy Makes Waffles

2009-01-07T07:45:00.001-08:00

It seems that every time I go to my moms house she has a car load of old stuff ready to give me. Clothes, furniture, appliances, random junk. I'm excited for the kitchen things, because they're usually great, though she has also given me some good pairs of gym pants over the years. Thanks mom.

I recently became the owner of two ancient (at least to me) appliances.

Chompy the gator goes chomp chomp chomp, down in the bottom of the swamp swamp swamp

Blendera, the God of the blenders.

I remember making milkshakes on that blender when I was about 10, before my mom decided to modernize her kitchen once every six months (most likely the reason she always has stuff for me). That waffle iron has been in some undisclosed location in the house since the mid 80's, because that's the last time my gramma had seen it. Well, they are mine! Muhahahha!

It's a general rule of thumb, which my grandparents can attest to, that older appliances are better than their modern counterpart. This blender has seven functions! That's more than my Kitchen Aid blender and my food processor combined. And it has a classic and very awesome glass pitcher which I love. The weight of it is just great. I'm not sure how soon I'll be testing it out, now is not the time of year to be making fruit smoothies- the average temperature in my house in the winter is 65 °F. It's a balmy 68 right now. At night it gets down 60. Ugg.

However, once I set eyes on the waffle maker I knew exactly what I wanted to make. Can you guess? Waffles is right! If you said anything else, you are very wrong. This morning I woke up excited to have a breakfast item I haven't had since circa 1999 when they were frozen and "leggo my eggo" was a popular phrase. As a teen I had grown into having no breakfast at all, which I do not reccomend. Even eggos were better than nothing.

I got a delicious sounding recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen recipe database (I'm happy it's back up and running). Apple Waffles. I plugged in chompy the waffle maker and made my batter. The plug was alarmingly tiny and I felt like my finders were practically in the sockets while I was plugging it in.

The top plug is the mini food processor, the bottom is the waffle maker's.
It's abnormally small and hazardous, like most thinks from the 80's and beyond.

It heated up SO fast. Practically a quarter of the time it took for my relatively new George Foreman grill! And I could see through gaps that the inside was casting an eerie red glow from the heating coils. Even more dangerous! That thing got so hot I was sure it would melt the cheap counter top in my apartment. But no such thing happened. In fact, the first batch came out great and tasty and I ate it with zeal while the second batch was cooking. Delicious and perfect. I could have left it in for slightly longer to let it crisp but otherwise, yum.

It came out like a big flat brick of waffle which was interesting, but it broke apart and made my morning just a little better. (All the while the durian was staring me down) It went perfect with my cinnamon apple rooibos tea. The second batch however, I had made a fatal mistake.

Can you guess ? I'm sure you can. I failed to oil the griddle like I did for the first one, and upon opening it up it ripped my poor waffle apart not unlike some medieval torture devices. It's in the kitchen cooling down while I think about the best solution.

Oh well! So much for waffles. I'll try again another day. I still have plenty of batter left!

Wendy staking out for squirrels among the tattered ruins of breakfast.

Durian, the king of fruit.

2009-01-06T16:12:00.001-08:00

Today I went to the good old state capital Albany today where I visited the only Asian market within an hour of me. I bought so many noodles and rice, I feel insane.
The highlight of my trip was buying a durian (which my computer insists is misspelled). I stood over the cardboard box that contained four sad, spiky durians and remembered seeing a show about how they were banned from hotels in asia because of their odor, you could even be fined.
In a weird way it seemed like a very good reason to buy one. I would be considered a rebel in Asia, apparently.
I picked one up in it's handy little sack bag and bought the 5 pound beast for only 7$.

The first challenge was getting the fruit out of that little mesh bag. Someone was very thoughtful to have put an extremely spiky and heavy fruit into a small, stretchy mesh bag that has tiny little holes which are the perfect size for durian barbs to fit into, thus making it impossible to get the dang thing out of the bag without taking a knife to it. This was about the time I found out just how sharp durians were. I felt like I was stabbed by a porcupine! A very very angry dead heavy and pungent porcupine! It looks more like a curled up hedgehog though.

Here it is, intimidating the other fruits.

So. The durian's smell. The famous smell that I've read and heard all about. The smell that has been described as wet onions left to rot, overripe cheese, rotting fish, stale vomit, skunk, dirty socks, a city dump on a hot summers day, and a wet corpse.
Well. It's not bad to me, not too bad at least. My kitchen smells worse than the fruit put to my nose. It's sweet, kind of sickly sweet. It brings images of embalming in ancient Egypt, the smell of dead bodies and sickly sweet spices. But if I were to liken it to real food, it smells like a rotten pineapple in wet cardboard, and it's not very strong. I wasn't even sure it smelled at all when I brought it home, but it soon faintly overtook the kitchen. My boyfriend likened it to something that was in the freezer that went bad. I can't stop sniffing it either.
...
About five hours after emerging of the cold depths of my trunk (it was a long car ride home) the durian is nearly bursting at it's seams. It was cracked when I bought it, very slightly, but now it looks like an alien is about to pop out and suck my brain out of my eye socket. The seams are right at the pointed end of it, making it look almost like a mouth. A very scary parrot/kermit mouth that has soft innards that I will eat tomorrow. Just thinking about it is making me hungry- I mean, frightened.

Eat me, I dare you.

...
The next day it's mouth was so agape I was sure it ate one of my cats. But alas, both were sleeping cozily in the dog bed.

I didn't even have to cut into the durian, it practically fell apart in my hands. I was worried.

The husks left over after extracting the flesh and seed look like a formidable weapon.

The bulbous flesh themselves look like testicles, from what I remember while working at the Vet and seeing cut-out cat testicles all day. They didn't smell any worse or better or more pungent than the durian yesterday. Some of them broke a little and yogurt-like substance got on my fingers. I washed it off, forgetting it was edible.

I picked up the most plump and uniform flesh (the size of my fist) and took a bite.

Alien baby.

My first impression was that it was like smoked meat. It has a very deep flavor, coupled with a sweet aftertaste. There's supposedly a lot of sugar in durian but I don't think I tasted all of it. After biting through the skin, as delicate as the skin on pudding, the texture inside was like thick yogurt. There was no tang of citrus or bitterness, it was not a dramatic flavor. The flesh fell apart once the skin was broken, it really felt like I was eating someones organ. It didn't taste bad, just unpleasantly different. I don't hate it yet, though the texture is not something I enjoy. Right now my mouth has the gross aftertaste of drinking extremely sugary tea. Bleg.
I'll chill one of the fat cells and freeze the rest for a later date. I heard that chilled durian is very good. Maybe with the frozen ones, durian icecream?

Delectable durian testicles.