Zips Vegetarian

Extra Citrus? Make some candy!

2011-12-04T01:39:00.003-05:00

All of the holiday-themed magazines out right now are chock full of special goodies to eat and gift. Fudge, rum balls, cookies, breads-- Zips has caught the fever!

So in one of them (one of Martha Stewart's?), there were instructions for candied citrus peel. We have some excess lemons, a couple of oranges, and a new bag of limes. I only wish we had some grapefruit to add to it!

Candied Citrus Peels

Citrus! (2 grapefruits or 3 oranges or 4 lemons, or some of everything and throw in a lime while you're at it!)

4 c. sugar

water

The instructions are fairly simple, cut six slices into the peel of the fruit (but not through the fruit part) and peel away. Then use a small knife to slice away as much of the spongy, bitter white pith as you can. Slice into thin strips and cover in a pot with cold water. Bring it to a boil, dump the water, and repeat until you've brought it to a boil 3 times. Remove the peels and reserve in a bowl.

Then mix 4c. sugar with 4c. cold water. Dissolve and bring it to a boil, stirring and making sure the sugar doesn't crystallize on the sides of the pot. When it's boiling, add the citrus peels and lower the heat. Simmer (don't boil) without stirring until the peels are translucent (this takes about an hour). Turn off the heat and let them cool down. Remove peels and pat dry with a paper towel (you can reserve the sugar water-- you've just made a quart of citrusy simple syrup!). Then toss the peel strips into some sugar and spread out in a single layer on a wire rack for 30 minutes to dry.

I understand now that those jelly citrus candies I used to eat are basically a synthetic version of these candied peels!

We like them so much, they may not make it into the gift bags!

White Elephants, iEnvy, and Other Holiday Things

2011-12-03T23:18:00.007-05:00

I'll admit it. I'm a PC. I don't have an iPhone, and iPad, an iPod. Never have. Not sure I want one. It seems like switching from being right handed to left handed (or vice versa). All my music is on the amazon cloud, not iTunes. Like anyone else, I love the slick, feather weight, intuitive neato features of all of these iGadgets. I just don't have any and can't afford them and don't know if I'd ever want to make the switch. I've looked at the Kindle Fire thingy, and I don't know if I need one. I think I'm just working out iEnvy.

This doesn't stop me from going to a holiday party with a "white elephant" gift exchange where a contingent of the attendees do that thing where they bump their iphones together and whip out their ipads so they can shuffle through photos and play Angry Birds while everyone looks on with envy. Last time we got together, two of them set up their talking tom cat and talking ben the dog face to face and they repeated what the other said in their funny voices.

The gift exchange rules is under $20, and fair trade, homemade, or re-purposed. I decided to whip up an iPad cozy. Even better, I decided to whip up an iPad cozy that looks like an iPad!

I had to extract my felt from under Zipper, who has not moved from this stack (and is nestled in a ball in the same spot as I type this)

And did a lot of google image searching for the physical dimensions of ipads-- (and I'm not sure if they have a 1 or a 2!). And what the app icons look like. I'm also not sure what apps my friends have or would probably have. So I settled for Skype, Angry Birds, Safari, and the camera and photo album apps. I would've done the notepad, but didn't have a light yellow or brown. Same for the YouTube app-- that looks like a brown old-fashioned tv.

Stitching them on helped to add details.

I added a battery, and wanted to add more details to the top row, but decided to stick with simplicity

The cardboard inside is (hopefully) cut to the actual dimensions of the device itself. Secretly I hope the 3 ipad owners fight over who gets to take it home.

We figure this is the closest we'll ever come to owning one, but even holding the cozy makes me really wish I had something to stick inside it. Or maybe this is just iEnvy working on me again!

Starting the Holidays Early & Tarte au Citron

2011-11-23T23:45:00.005-05:00

After having such a rough fall semester, Zips is feeling even more festive than usual. We've got our Christmas tree all set up. I've got orders to climb up on the roof to string lights before the week is out. Mixes of contemporary and classic holiday songs are blaring from every room. We even splurged on a light-up flamingo with a festive red scarf for the front yard (it suits the Southern New Mexico climate. Her name is Babs Johnson.) Zips found an amazing pinecone garland from West Elm, but it sold out almost immediately.

So I took it upon myself to put something together that might make her happy and approximate how cool this would've looked. There are a few pine trees on campus, so we drove out there and filled two shopping bags with the nicest ones we could find (and only when I dumped them out on my living room floor did I think about the possibility that critters might live in them!). I tied them in slip knots to some jute twine and ended up with about 14 feet of it! (hey the West Elm one is only 6 feet!) Now that I have this down, I should go looking for acorns too!

I put the leftover younger pine cones into a glass bowl for decor too!

Meanwhile, we've been growing several scrawny citrus plants for more than a year now. We've got a kumquat tree, several lime trees, a satsuma tree, and a dwarf Meyer lemon tree that has finally borne some tiny Meyer lemons! They're lovely, very tart, and floral. We had four ripe ones at once, so Zips suggested we do something special with them. In that same Good Housekeeping, there's a recipe for a simple lemon curd. So we decided to half it and make some mini Meyer lemon tarts with our baby lemons! From scratch!

Tarte au Citron:

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. fresh lemon juice

1 Tb. fresh lemon zest

3 Tb. butter

2 eggs

**You should prep and bake your tart crust beforehand and let it cool. I use a 1/3 c. shortening +1/3 c. butter + 2 c. flour recipe. Baked 2 mini-tarts crusts for about 15 minutes at 400.**

In a saucepan, melt the butter with the sugar, lemon juice and zest. In a bowl, whisk the eggs. Once the lemon mixture is melted/dissolved/incorporated, spoon a bit out and whisk it into the egg bowl. Spoon a little more in and whisk (in order to warm the eggs up a little). Pour the eggs into the saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture thickens (about 15 minutes).

Then I poured the lemon curd into the tart crusts. I cannot wait to eat these! I'll wait until tomorrow, but it might be the first thing I eat on Thanksgiving morn!

Happy Holidays!

Back to Getting Crafty

2011-11-22T00:58:00.005-05:00

I can't believe it's been more than two solid months since I've posted anything. I'll have to compensate with plenty of fun projects and delicious treats. I've spent most of the today working on holiday decor -- driving past the local garden store to see if Christmas trees are in (they are), if I can have one (not yet), and figuring out how to stave off my desire to put replace orange and autumnal decorations with red and green winter ones. Zips spied a fun project in a Good Housekeeping magazine-- a simple reindeer head made from corrugated cardboard.

I'd seen more complicated ones everywhere from Urban Outfitters to instructables.com.

So I decided to come up with my own-- pairing it with Zips' immense love of classic Rankin Bass holiday videos. We have some cardboard boxes and newspapers in the recycling bin, so I made my own template for Rudolph's head, gave him a cross-piece for his ears and muzzle, and his mature antlers (more distinguished!).

I'm thinking of draping a wreath or some evergreen garland around where his neck meets the wall.

I'm happy with the way it turned out, and that I can post it in a rather central location by the front door. Next up? In addition to making Zipper's famously fortified rum balls for the end of the semester party, we're going to try out some spiced rum balls. And maybe something new for Thanksgiving? Mmmmm... Pie? Homegrown Meyer lemon curd? We'll keep you posted.

New Summer Food: Bun Xao Chay

2011-08-09T23:27:00.006-04:00

After a month in Vietnam, I've picked up a couple of tricks and dishes. I tried to keep an eye out for things I could replicate/duplicate once I got home. My aunt made Bun Cha Gio Chay (I'll try making it when it gets cooler so I can fry spring rolls without dying of heat), my cousin made a vegetarian version of Banh Xeo for me, and we went to countless restaurants and food carts all over the southern half of the country.

One of my favorite things that I couldn't wait to make at home is a cool beef noodle salad called bun xao. If I'm correct in my tiny knowledge of the language, bun refers to the rice noodles, and xao suggests the stir-frying of whatever protein is in this. I've made it now with both vegetarian beef and chik'n chunks (I use Trader Joe's meatless beef strips and Quorn chik'n tenders. Morningstar used to have a Meal Starters steak strips that's similar to the Trader Joe's, but I haven't seen it lately).

Bun Xao Chay

Heat 1 Tb. veg. oil and add a minced clove of garlic (or 2!) and some lemongrass. Because I haven't been able to find fresh lemongrass here, I bought lemongrass paste in a plastic tube next to the flat pack herbs in the produce section. I used maybe 2 Tb of the paste-- add it to the oil and garlic and saute for a bit. Be careful not to burn the garlic. Then add your protein-- and continue sauteing until it's browned and coated in the lemongrass mixture.

In the meantime boil a pot of water. When it's boiling, add 1/2 a package of rice vermicelli noodles. Turn off the heat and let the noodles soak for 3-5 minutes. Once they're tender, drain them completely. It's fine if the noodles cool while you're prepping everything else.

The dressing is a vegetarian version of nuoc mam-- substituting low sodium soy sauce (preferably Vietnamese soy sauce, but we can't have everything) for the usual fish sauce.

Nuoc Mam Chay (also great with cha gio chay)

(all of this can be adjusted to taste, esp. the hot stuff)

1 minced garlic clove

juice and pulp of 1 lime

2 Tb. rice vinegar

2 Tb. low sodium soy sauce

1 tsp. garlic chili paste (the stuff like Sambal Oelek, not Sriracha)

1 tsp. sugar

1/4 c. warm water

The rest is lettuce, mint, thai basil, cilantro, shredded carrots, thin slices of cucumber, bean sprouts, and crushed peanuts.

Assembly is a little messy. Usually each component is placed independently, rather than tossed together. Put down the greens and herbs, then a pile of noodles, then the protein and finish with bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. I topped mine off with some finely sliced jalapenos that went red on the plant. They were sweet and had just a little bite of heat. My relatives would probably throw on a ton of those tiny red and green bird's eye chilis. This is my humble approximation.
I topped everyone's serving with about 3 Tb. of the nuoc mam chay. I also added a little of my own pickled carrots and daikon radishes (just let them marinate in some rice vinegar, sugar, water and a little of those finely sliced chiles for at least an hour-- up to a couple of days). Pickled veggies were always present at every meal! I'm thinking of sauteing tofu with the garlic and lemongrass next time. We've had it twice in the past two weeks, so I guess everyone else likes it too!

Zipper's Homemade Spiced Applesauce

2011-08-09T23:10:00.003-04:00

As promised, during my month-long absence, Zips learned how to make applesauce with just a microwave and a food processor! Armed with a 5lb bag of apples and a couple of lemons and spices, we've had fresh applesauce 4 or 5 times in the two weeks I've been back. It's become a breakfast staple for me (with toast and peanut butter) and at dinner time too. It tastes like apple pie without anything bad! And no baking! And virtually no cooking!

Zip's Spiced Applesauce:

peel, core, and cut up 4 apples (your favorite crisp, tart variety)

place in a microwave safe bowl with

1/4 c. water

3+ Tb. sugar (to taste)

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

And for the intrepid, add whatever other apple pie spices you like.

Cover and microwave for about 10 min. or however long it takes for apples to get tender. Pour spiced apples all the liquid into your food processor and process to desired saucy texture. Enjoy warm or cooled. Keeps for 3 or 4 days in the fridge. You'll never ever buy it in a jar again!

How did I live this long without eating this?! Zips has never even liked applesauce before now!

Onigiri and Bun Bo Xao Chay

2011-08-02T23:42:00.003-04:00

I just got back from a month in Vietnam. Because of jet lag, I've lapsed a bit on my desire to post at least once a month every month, but to make up for it a little, I'm previewing my two newest additions to my recipes: onigiri (Japanese rice balls) that I had in an airport restaurant in Tokyo-- then became a little obsessed with, craving, etc. I discovered they're pretty simple to make.

And Bun Bo Xao Chay-- Bun is vermicelli rice noodles, Bo is beef, Xao is stir-fried, and Chay is vegetarian. Together, they make a fantastic Vietnamese "beef" noodle salad with some vegetarian "steak" strips (it'd work with "chicken" strips or tofu) stir fried with lemongrass and garlic and dressed with some nuoc mam chay.

Recipes are coming soon. And Zips has agreed to post her homemade applesauce recipe and/or her new specialty: homemade refritos. She kept busy in the kitchen in my absence!

New Quinoa Side Dish & Zipper's Divine FroYo (but not at the same time!)

2011-06-07T00:34:00.004-04:00

With dinner tonight, we needed a side to accompany baked Quorn chik'n cutlets and haricot verts. Seeing our bin of dry quinoa, Zips scoured the internets for a recipe for me to try out and found one that we improvised off of. The original called for diced bell peppers, which we swapped out for diced onions, and called for walnuts which we omitted. I also added parsley. It's fantastic, has subtle flavors, and makes a tasty, healthy side to your lunch or dinner. I bet it'll be good cold too!

Cranberry Coriander Quinoa (side dish)

Add 1 c. quinoa to 2 c. of boiling water and simmer for about 10 min. until the liquid is absorbed. While that's simmering, saute:

3 ribs celery diced finely

1/2 c. yellow onion diced finely

in 1-2 Tb. olive oil

and add

1 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. ground cumin

salt & black pepper

Saute until onions and celery are tender then add to the cooked quinoa. Toss in

1/4 c. dried cranberries

1/4 c. chopped parsley

and serve warm.

Afterward, we had planned on just macerated berries (that's fancy talk for slicing berries and tossing some sugar over the top and letting them sit until they get all juicy) for dessert, but Zips really outdid herself in deciding with all the yogurt we have in the house, it's a shame we've never tried to make frozen yogurt. So she did, ignoring all the imperatives she found online that you have to have full fat yogurt. We didn't, and it turned out just fine with the non fat Greek yogurt we have on hand.

Divine Blueberry Lavender Frozen Yogurt

2 c. plain fat free Greek-style yogurt

12 oz. (2 packs) fat free blueberry yogurt (we have Chobani)

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 Tb. vanilla extract

1 Tb lavender buds

Mix all the ingredients together until you're sure the sugar has dissolved. Then dump it all into your ice cream maker. The result is floral, tart, sweet, and heavenly (not to mention fairly guilt-free!)

I'm sure this is only the beginning of much experimentation in the FroYo genre of desserts I can't wait to see what she hankers for next.

Improving on Perfection: Crumble Topping

2011-06-06T01:05:00.004-04:00

After the success of the banana raisin muffins, Zips has been on a quest to discover more and even better breakfast recipes. So she found a vegan blueberry muffin that looked healthy-- and they taste healthy. For me they had all qualities that I avoid in baked treats-- they were a bit dense, grainy, not terribly sweet. But these same qualities are why Zips ended up liking them a lot. She agrees they taste healthy, but in a good way. She likes how they smell like whole wheat. I'll spare you the recipe so you go find a better one. But these'll do in a pinch.

So rather than strike off in new territory this morning, I decided to just swap the raisins in last week's banana muffins for blueberries. And to be extra delicious, I decided to look for a crumble topping recipe.

And am I ever glad I did! It's super easy to remember the quantities of the ingredients-- just grab your 1/4 c. measuring cup.

Crumb Topping for muffins (and other things, I'm sure!)

1/4 c. all purpose flour

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. oats

1/4 c. butter (best if kept cold and cut into small pieces)

1 tsp. cinnamon

mix everything together with a fork until clumpy but well incorporated. Then fork pieces over each muffin-- whatever sort of muffins you decide to make.

It made the muffins smell and taste like PIE! I look forward to making more kinds-- I'm thinking of looking up something with apples and raisins. Oh, and despite Zips' love of blueberries, she likes the banana muffins with raisins better. But she loved the crumble!

Midnight Baking!

2011-05-29T02:25:00.004-04:00

Summer has officially landed. We've had more than one 90 degree day and I've just finished my last official commitment on campus until fall orientation starts again in August. This explains why, at 12:22am I found myself hunkered over my oven waiting for a batch of muffins to rise.

Vegan banana raisin muffins discovered by Zips on stumbleupon (I tell you, it's an addiction!). She happened upon a wonderful vegan foodie blog that I've fallen head over heels for. In any case, "Super Skinny Banana-Pecan Muffins" definitely turned my head. Since we're cutting down on nuts for a bit (something complicated having to do with L-arginines and L-lysines and myelin sheaths), I swapped the pecans for raisins. We're going to have them for breakfast!

Skinny Banana Raisin Muffins (vegan!)

preheat oven to 350

1 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. oats

1/4 c. raw sugar (I just realized while typing this that I forgot to use raw sugar!)

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

pinch of salt

Mix these together and in a separate bowl, mix together:

1/3 c. soy milk

1 egg replacer (the original on Crunch & Chew uses flax "eggs," I use ener-g)

2 Tb. veg. oil (the original uses applesauce instead, which I don't have)

1 large overripe banana mashed up (we had 2 medium sized, so I used them both)

mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then add 1/3 c. raisins (or pecans, walnuts, etc) . Spoon into muffin pan and bake 15-20 minutes.

I accidentally spread a bit of veg. margarine onto one and ate the whole thing without chewing. I don't know if I'll even sleep tonight. It smells so good in here. Think I'm crazy? Go make some of these in the middle of the night and see how you do!

Decadent Dessert (toppings!)

2011-05-26T00:48:00.002-04:00

With Memorial Day weekend coming up and holiday weekend movies starting tomorrow, we decided to beat the rush and have a cookout today (Wednesday). After gorging ourselves on potato salad, veggie burgers and corn grilled over the fire, we scraped together change from the couch for some fresh strawberries and heavy whipping cream for dessert. Zips missed the episode of Barefoot Contessa I caught that featured her summer berry pudding (to be attempted sometime soon!) that she tops with some rum whipped cream. We still have some dregs of Bacardi, so we figured, why not?

Rum Whipped Cream (thanks Ina!)

half pint of heavy whipping cream

3 Tb. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 Tb. rum (the original calls for dark rum, I say use what you got!)

Since I've never actually whipped cream, I decided to be good and put the stainless steel bowl, the cream, and the beaters for the mixer in the freezer for about 10 minutes (this is supposed to be helpful). Beat the cream by itself until it's beyond frothy and starts to actually thicken. Then slowly add the rest of the ingredients and continue beating until stiff peaks form and all that. Goes GREAT with fresh strawberries. Would also be excellent on anything chocolate or coffee flavored. I'm interested in trying this with brandy instead of rum. We'll see. Enjoy!

Pineapple-Soy Glazed Tofu recipe that Zips stumbled upon

2011-05-23T22:44:00.005-04:00

So Zipper has stumbled upon the web discovery engine StumbleUpon.com and is completely hooked. It's her new evening pasttime. She's clicked off Vegetarian Recipes among her fields of interest, and so stumbled upon the basis for our new dinner adventure: Pineapple-Soy glazed tofu.

The original recipe called for pineapple preserves, orange or pineapple juice and diced pineapple chunks. Having just peeled and cored our first perfect pineapple of the summer, I just substituted finely minced pineapple for the preserves and juice portion. One of the user comments also suggested adding 1/2 c. sweet and sour sauce, which we don't have. So I looked up several recipes for that too, which I'm including. The result is deeelicious. I'm only sorry we didn't have any more bell pepper (used it last night in the tagine) or green onions. We agreed that cashews or peanuts would also be a great addition to this. But once you have the sauce down, you'll be great to go!

Sweet & Sour Sauce

1/4 c. ketchup

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white vinegar

1/2 tsp. granulated garlic

1/4 tsp. dry mustard

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1-2 tsp. soy sauce

1 Tb. cornstarch

Mix these together in a microwaveable bowl and heat it for 1 min. Stir and heat it 1 more minute until cornstarch is "cooked" and the sauce is glossy. Yields about 1/2 c. (would also be great with spring rolls!)

Pineapple-Soy Glazed Tofu

1 package firm tofu cut into cubes or slices (I sliced mine and pressed it to drain out the liquid-- lay them out on several paper towels, cover with another paper towel and set a cutting board on top. Then add weight to the cutting board to press the tofu)

1-2 Tb. oil (I used half sesame and half veg. oil)

2 cloves minced garlic

After the tofu has been drained/pressed for 10 minutes, heat the garlic in the oil and brown the tofu on both sides. Lower the heat and whisk together:

1/2 c. finely minced fresh pineapple (and whatever juice leaks out of the fruit while you're chopping it)

2-3 Tb. soy sauce

1/2 Sweet & Sour Sauce

Pour these into the tofu and add 1/2 c. diced pineapple (cut it the same size as the tofu). Now would also be a good time to add other veggies-- bell pepper, baby corn, whatever strikes your fancy. Simmer tofu and pineapple in the sauce until well incorporated and heated through. Serve over brown rice with sliced green onions and cilantro.

New Summer Tagine Recipe

2011-05-22T22:50:00.007-04:00

(First off, let me admit I do not own a tagine. Nevertheless, this is delicious and easy to make.)

Driven by the usual summertime necessities (65% poverty, 35% laziness) I found and tweaked a wonderful Moroccan-inspired chickpea/chik'n recipe for dinner tonight:

1 12 oz. bag Quorn Chik'n Tenders

1 14 oz. can vegetable broth

1 14 oz. can whole tomatoes

1 14 oz. can garbanzo beans

1 med. yellow onion

2 cloves garlic

1 bell pepper, diced

2 Tb. olive oil

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. chili powder

In your tagine (or dutch oven or other large-ish heavy-bottomed pot) saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil for about 5 min. Then add the quorn tenders spices and saute for another 5 min. or so. Pour in broth, tomatoes (and juice from the can), garbanzos, and bell pepper. Cover and simmer for about 20 minutes until everything is nice and incorporated and the aroma of everything drives you insane. Salt and pepper to taste (but you probably won't need it at all).

While that's happening, bring to a boil 1 1/4c. vegetable broth, a little of the juice from the canned tomatoes, and a sprinkle of cumin, coriander, and chili powder. Stir in 1 c. of whole wheat couscous. Cover and turn off the heat immediately, and allow the couscous to absorb the liquid (5-8 min).

Serve the "tagine" mixture over the couscous, and don't be stingy with that sauce. Garnish with fresh cilantro.

Another good protein, low fat dinner that we didn't even have to leave the house for!

Veg-Friendly in San Antonio!

2011-04-24T21:44:00.005-04:00

On a quick trip to San Antonio, we tried out the lone star's lone all-vegetarian restaurant (well, in that town anyway), Green Vegetarian Cuisine.

It has an eclectic, arty look on the outside, and I was encouraged by the fact that the small parking lot was full and that the street out front was lined with parked cars. A full restaurant is a good sign!

I was also excited to see they also have several thriving garden beds out front that are chock full of herbs, kale and other greens that are served in the restaurant.
The inside has two narrow, funky boho-chic dining rooms.
Since we're in San Antonio, Zips was feeling like Tex-Mex and got the chalupa plate-- with refried black beans, guac, pico, tvp crumbles that came with a side of quinoa with cilantro and red onions. (She was waffling between that and the taco salad)
I opted for comfort food and ordered their "neatloaf", (tvp and breadcrumb base) which was a little dry, but very tasty. It had a pleasantly tangy, smoky flavor. And the mashed potatoes & gravy were delicious-- there were pieces of carrot in with the potatoes. And the wilted greens (from the garden out front) have left me completely craving this again. I'm going to have to go out and find me some kale!
They came right up to the table with a platter of desserts (rather than asking if we want to see the dessert menu-- they make it impossible not to order dessert). They boast a whole case of vegan desserts-- cupcakes, cookies, and even offer whole cakes and wedding cakes!

We got a take-away cookies and cream and a chocolate peanut butter cupcake. My cookies and cream was tasty-- the frosting tasted a bit like cookie dough (in a good way). Zips' peanut butter chocolate was less of a hit-- a little dry and unexciting.

We'd love to try eating here again, though. Especially the breakfast menu! We had a whole meal planned out, but then found out they're closed on Saturday! Next time.

21 Needle Euphoria

2011-04-13T16:05:00.006-04:00

So one of the happier discoveries we've made has been Zips' acupuncturist up in Albuquerque. She's been dealing with an extremely painful and rare neurological disorder since December of last year. The seizures and waves of pain have gone into remission and returned. At our wits end in early Feb. this year, I started calling around to acupuncture places here in town. No one could get us an appointment within six weeks, so I looked online for clinics that could schedule an appointment immediately and also took our insurance, and that brought us here.

I was able to schedule an appointment for the day after I called. The clinic is on the northwest side of town. It has 2 treatment rooms and 2 walls of the office are completely lined with row upon row of Chinese herbs that can be ground into teas, capsules, etc.

It was fascinating and shocking to see what was in the them. A lot of botanical things (blossoms, roots, seeds, etc.), but I can imagine there could be anything in those jars (things with feet?)!

On the walls in both treatment rooms are charts for different points for pins to go into. Again, I'm completely fascinated that a spot behind my ear or near my thumb could relate to elsewhere in my body.

I think we were really fortunate. Dr. Dumont is wonderful. He's patient, gentle, kind. He listens to symptoms, asks questions, asks more questions. The office staff is equally friendly and nice. Since February I think we've seen him 6 or 7 times, and her level of pain has really decreased (more so before our trip to Chicago-- we missed seeing him). I wish he weren't a 3 hour drive away (we'd be seeing him a lot more than once every week or two!), but after seeing being treated by a different acupuncturist here in town, he's totally worth the drive. His manner of treating her, of explaining what he's doing, of how she might react, and generally caring about her is really wonderful. It also helps that at times she's gotten an acupuncture "high" -- a sort of vibrating sense of euphoria and well-being.

Here's hoping for total remission again!

Summer Fever!

2011-04-03T17:16:00.005-04:00

We went to the local farmer's market yesterday morning and found it swung into high gear already. Locally grown produce, starter plants for herbs and flowers, a lady selling agua fresca, long lines for kettle corn. It smells like summer. We've got it bad. Just planted tomatoes and basil for the patio garden. Then, covered in dirt, I built a fire in the fire pit and grilled some veggie dogs and corn. Rather than buying that lady's agua fresca, Zips bought me a small locally grown watermelon (it's a little early in the season), and cut out all the flesh, whizzed it up in the blender, and strained it twice-- creating an entire pitcher of juice for the same price as a single styrofoam cup filled with melting ice and a little melon juice! Wanting to contribute more (and not overindulge in charred processed veggie meats), Zips found a recipe on the label of a can of garbanzo beans that looked good. The recipe is called "Rockin' Moroccan Pita" and involves cooking chicken breasts in cumin and chili powder, then tossing with garbanzos and stuffing it all into pita pockets topped with yogurt. All the elements are there for a new twist on a bean salad, so Zips took a 12oz. bag of Quorn chick'n tenders and grabbed a couple of ears of roasted corn and invented:

Mexican Double "Chick"pea Salad

blend together

1 Tb. ground cumin

1 tsp. chili powder

4 Tb. olive oil.

and toss in chick'n tenders, coating them thoroughly. Heat chick'n tenders in a pot (you can add 1/2c. water-- we did this in a pot over the fire and heated it until most of the water evaporated).

In the meantime, combine

1 16oz. can of chick peas (drained, rinsed)

3 green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 tomato, diced

1-2 cobs worth of roasted corn, de-kerneled

1/2 c. parsley, chopped

juice of 2 lemons

drizzle of olive oil

Combine seasoned chick'n to the bean mixture and serve warm or cooled.

I realize the bean company called this "Rockin' Moroccan," but with the cumin and chili and roasted corn, we agreed this tastes decidedly south of the border. The "Double Chick" comes from the combination of chick'n and chick-pea (and it's more fun to say than chickenchickpea salad) It's delicious!

My other obsession this weekend is the memory of the crepe suzette haunting me from La Creperie in Chicago. I already had a crepe batter recipe, so looked around for a Suzette a la Germain that resembled the orange-y goodness that we enjoyed. I settled on one, and realized partway through it that I had misread the directions, so improvised what I think is an AWESOME sauce:

Crepe Zipzette a la Germain (just the sauce)

Juice of 5 oranges

zest of 1-2 oranges

2Tb. sugar

1 Tb. butter

Heat these in a small saucepan about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in 2 Tb. Grand Marnier. Once I'd made a batch of crepes, I folded one in half, dipped it through the sauce and folded it again (now quartered) onto the plate. Drizzle with more sauce, and sliced strawberries, bananas, orange, and some whipped cream.

Try not to let your eyes roll back in your head too much!

Other places you MUST get to in Chicago

2011-03-31T22:25:00.005-04:00

1. Molly's Cupcakes. On our favorite stretch of N. Clark St. This place is named after a 3rd grade teacher who would always bring cupcakes whenever a student had a birthday.

The place is decked out in a mix of styles: bare, industrial (lots of brown cake and cupcake boxes are stacked against virtually every surface and wall of the place); retro pop (some vintage 70's and 80's lunch boxes are displayed behind the counter); and playful (brightly colored round tables, swingset-inspired seating at one counter, board games you can play with as you eat)

The cupcakes themselves are the real deal. We went twice-- trying out their Blueberry Cheesecake (my favorite of them all!), Peach Cobbler (could have been peachier), Mixed Berry (meh), Tiramisu (delicious, but I actually think mine from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World is *gasp* better!) and brought home a Cake Batter for the crazy cat-sitter (reportedly it was delicious).

Supercute place. I'd bypass the other gourmet cupcake joints in town since this one's a local original.

2. Dave's Records a couple blocks further up N. Clark St. (see? I told you it was our favorite street!)
They offer an eclectic array of new and old vinyl and even 45's. Go.

3. Europa Books 832 N. State St. A couple blocks off the north end of the Magnificent Mile. Europa Books carries almost exclusively foreign titles, most formidably, French books. From French publishers. In France. Zips loves this place. I just wander quietly through the children's books and pick out Harry Potter books in different languages.

4. Quimby's Bookstore way down on W. North Ave.

It's an independent bookstore that carries TONS of zines, graphic novels, and arty books. In the future, I hope to mass produce my own zine and send it there to sell.

5. Fox & Obel Fancy gourmet grocery. Like Dean & Deluca's Chicago cousin.

This is like a foodie paradise. (Or a foodie hell if you have limited funds and only delayed access to a hotel mini-refrigerator!) In addition to a variety of produce, dry goods, regional honey, deli, (and yes, butcher), they have an amazing array of in-house desserts, bakery goods, candies, olives, cheeses, coffees. Look: Spices!

and Mmmmmm, the dessert case. They used to carry a creme brulee, which I didn't see this time. But their Fruit Tart looks fantastic!

5. La Creperie back on N. Clark. I'm telling you, I should just set up a cot.

So it's located conveniently across the street from one of our favorite movie theatres (Landmark Century Cinema), and tragically a couple doors down from a Borders Bookstore that's closing (*sob*). They offer savory and sweet crepes, both of which we've enjoyed. But most recently, food euphoria was achieved with their Crepe Suzette a la Germain. I think we've ordered this before (Zips is a little obsessed with Grand Marnier), but I don't remember ever having had this delectable orange reduction before. A-mazing.

It brings a tear to my eye now. And looking at this pic makes me want to scour the internet for a recipe to try out on my own. If I have success, believe me, I'll share!

That's it for now. These are some of our favorite haunts, both before we moved to New Mexico, and especially now that we've gone back a couple times for conferences. We still visit these places, and when we do, we feel like we've never left.

New Fancy Veg Dining in Chicago

2011-03-31T21:48:00.005-04:00

Since we visited Millennium in San Francisco, I've been looking for other fine dining opportunities for vegetarian foodies. Zips did a little research and found Karyn's on Green, an upscale vegan restaurant.

The place is a bit intimidatingly posh. Very nice neutral tones throughout the restaurant, brown craft paper with the restaurant's logo stamped on it cover all the tables.

To take the edge off, though, on the wall of the hallway leading to the restrooms, they've painted the names of famous vegans and vegetarians (misspelling at least a couple of famous names!). And Chicagoan rapper Common autographed around his name in Sharpie. And possibly Flea.

We got one of those flowering teapots of green tea, and it looked like this after the tea "bloomed."

The menu offered an appetizer of "chorizo sliders with portobello bacon, frisee, (soy) cheddar, chipotle aioli, and tomato pepper jam" , so of course we ordered it. The mini burgers (probably made with tvp) were a bit dry, perhaps overcooked and were served on mini ciabatta rolls (that were also a bit dry and tough). The portobello bacon is this crisp dark brown thing hovering on top. Eaten alone, it tasted like a burned bit of something. Eaten with the slider, it tasted like a burned bit. The chipotle aioli was delicious (served with the steak fries, which I'll get to in a sec), and the tomato pepper jam was also oddly tasty. It was sweet and tomatoe-y. I felt like it was something that would get concocted on Top Chef.

While the sliders were a bit disappointing, the side of steak fries was anything but. Amazing. Delicious. Piping hot. Just salty enough. Also served with the spicy chipotle aioli and bbq sauce (Zips didn't appreciate this at all. And it tasted exactly like something you'd get in the grocery store for a buck). But the FRIES. THE FRIES. Really gourmet fries. Totally worth it.

We shared an entree (since we mistakenly thought the sliders appetizer & side of fries would be the equivalent of the second entree) and went a bit more adventurous here. Zips had decided on the Seared Tofu Gumbo with red quinoa, radicchio saute, fried leeks, and spicy tomato broth.

The whole thing was quite tasty. We agreed that we might not exactly call it "gumbo"-- that such a name suggests more spice than the dish contained. The tofu was seared perfectly, marinated and crisp on the outside. The "fried leeks" tasted a bit pickled and not fried at all. Neither of us could discern the radicchio that was under the bed of red quinoa. I thought it might be pickled cabbage or even beets. It was tangy in a nice way-- a bite of everything together was really delicious. (and another perfect protein-eating experience!)

After the experience I had with dessert at Millennium, I was up to try the dessert menu here. Zips ordered some kind of mocha cheesecake (she found the texture a bit icy, as though it had been frozen)

And I thought I'd do something different and got poached pears with a citrus cream cheese

The pears tasted like they'd been cooked in mulling spices, but were cold and crispy. The citrus cream cheese had a sort of funny aftertaste (that I also tasted in the soy cheddar on the slider), but the cranberry coulis was fantastic. It was an interesting-- not lightning-y-- dining experience, but all in all, I'd definitely eat here again. I'd try different entrees and desserts, but ABSOLUTELY order a side of fries with anything I'd be eating!

Best Veg-Friendly Breakfasts in Chicago!

2011-03-31T21:23:00.004-04:00

One of the best places I've ever been to for vegetarian dining is Victory's Banner-- a brightly lit, quaint spot in Roscoe Village in Chicago. Although they're an entirely vegetarian restaurant, they're actually one of the best breakfast places I've been to EVER. They serve breakfast all day (well, they close at 3), and also offer a lunch menu after 11am.

Their website will tell you that the restaurant stands as a "spiritual expression," and that everything they offer, down to the sugar packets, adds to its uplifting atmosphere. And it's all entirely true.

From the lunch menu I've had the Neatloaf Dinner, which is a lovely old-fashioned "meat"loaf and mashed potatoes platter. The gravy alone makes me want to get back in the car to drive across the country to eat there again.But the star attractions are in the breakfast menu. Their scrambled eggs are fresh and fluffy, their grilled potatoes inspired my own breakfast potatoes, and their vegetarian breakfast patties are AMAZING. Really. I can't figure them out. Sage-y and hand-formed. Fried to perfection on the flat top. Here's their breakfast bagel sandwich which offers all 3 at once.
And a side order of the patties on their own.
But what Zips and I return for time and again is their French Toast. I don't know what they do. They are light, airy, sweet-- served with butter laced with peach, and maple syrup. Again, I've used this as my inspiration when I've made French Toast at home, or when I fancy-up some pancake butter with orange zest (a great trick!). I'm just trying to get at how delicious and perfect breakfast at Victory's Banner is.

Look. Even looking at the dining room makes you feel happy.

They also have excellent coffee and chai (spring for the bottomless cup) that they also sell to take home with you. Do it.

Seriously. I'm having withdrawal shakes.

Guilty Pleasures: Cincinnati-Style 4 Way!

2011-02-28T23:03:00.004-05:00

For me, one of the the quirkiest regionalisms in American food is the Cincinnati style of "chili"-- especially as offered by places like Skyline Chili. Complex spices in the sauce include cinnamon, bay leaves, whole cloves and allspice, worcestershire and even baker's chocolate. And you eat it atop thin spaghetti noodles or hot dogs in buns under heaping mounds of shredded cheddar cheese (3-way!) and if you like, diced onions (4-way) and even under beans (5-way!). I've had a hankering these past weeks, so I've whipped up a batch and ate it 3 meals in a row. I'm down to just a little left...just enough for a midnight snack!

"I Can't Believe It's Not Skyline" Cincinnati-style Veggie Chili

2 c. water

1 12 oz. bag of frozen ground "burger" crumbles

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1 onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves smashed

1 Tb. cider vinegar

1 tsp. anchovy-free worcestershire sauce (with none on hand, I substituted 1 tsp. of A-1)

1/2 oz. unsweetened chocolate (chopped finely)

1 bay leaf

3 whole cloves

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

dash ground allspice

1 1/2 - 2 Tb chili powder

In a large pot, boil water. Add veggie-meat, tomato sauce, garlic, and onion. Simmer 5 min. Add all remaining ingredients. Simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until everything is well-combined. I usually put a lid on it so the liquid doesn't evaporate.

While this is going, boil your thin spaghetti and/or veggie hot dogs (we love Yves The Good Dog). It's also good to get your shredded cheese to room temperature. I use the pre-shredded Mexican blend, but Skyline uses mountains of finely shredded mild Cheddar cheese. When you're ready to serve, steam your hot dog buns (or put them in the microwave with a cover for 30 seconds). To serve, top hot dogs/noodles with chili sauce, then cheese, then onions. To do it all the way, eat with oyster crackers and some generous doses of Louisiana-style hot sauce (Skyline uses Frank's Red Hot). It's an acquired taste. But one I whole-heartedly embrace!

New Soup: Zuppa di Zipper

2011-02-09T21:34:00.008-05:00

It's the week before payday again and I have the added hitch of having been teaching for 5 weeks now without somehow having been *hired* for one of my classes. So I received only 2/3 of my paycheck and am s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g my resources. In rooting through my pantry, my fridge shelves, and scouring recipes online, I decided to concoct an Italian-ish garbanzo soup that I figured would be high protein, low fat, comforting, and absolutely not costing me a dime. Everyone's really happy with the results, so I give you my

Zuppa di Zipper (Starving Artist Minestrone)

Saute 1/2 diced yellow onion with 1 minced garlic clove in about 1 tsp. veg. oil.

Add

2 medium peeled, diced potatoes

1 qt. vegetable broth

1/2 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes. I squished them in my fingers as I added them to the soup and also added half of the juice from the can.

1 can garbanzo beans (drained, rinsed)

1 carrot, diced

1 rib of celery, diced

1" whole sprig of fresh rosemary

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. dried thyme

Simmer these for 10-15 min. until the potatoes and carrots are tender. I also added about 1/4 cup of leftover cooked penne pasta noodles that I cut in half. Once these are heated and all the veggies are cooked and the herbs all mingle, you're ready to go. Garnish with fresh parsley, salt and pepper to taste, and maybe toss in a little parmesan cheese. When I do it again, I hope to have some zucchini in the fridge (or breadsticks!), but this will tide me over just fine!

Baby it's c-c-c-cold outside (Happy Lunar New Year!)

2011-02-03T14:58:00.005-05:00

It's record-breakingly freezing in southern New Mexico. We have our second snow day from the university-- not necessarily because of the weather itself, but because of the power company's inability to support keeping us all warm. During our two hour rolling blackout last night, all I could think of was what could I make to eat when the lights came back on. We lit candles all over the house and I laid under a blanket with a cat purring on my lap and though of soup.

So I decided to come up with a vegetarian variation on a Vietnamese comfort food: chao ga, or chicken and rice soup (also commonly made with crabmeat and corn, and also often called congee in English). When I traveled to Vietnam with my Vietnamese mother nearly eight years ago (almost exactly-- we were there for lunar new year!), I got sick with a persistant hacking cough (maybe it was SARS?). I loved rice soup. I haven't had it again since, so I sleuthed around for common ingredients and came up with my own.

Chao Chay (vegetarian Vietnamese rice soup)

3 c. vegetable broth

1/2 " piece of fresh ginger (cut into slices)

1/2 clove of fresh garlic (leave it whole so it can be taken out)

1/2-1 c. frozen corn

1/2 c. quorn chik'n pieces (or cube some naked cutlets)

1 Tb. soy sauce

1 Tb. corn starch

1/2 tsp. garlic chili sauce (sriracha)

1 egg (optional)

1 c. cooked jasmine rice

white pepper to taste

chopped cilantro

chopped green onion

Add ginger and garlic to veg. broth and bring to a boil. Add corn, chik'n, dissolve cornstarch in water separately and whisk into broth until clear and thickened a little. Season with soy sauce and sriracha to taste. Scramble raw egg in a bowl and drizzle in to the broth while stirring (pretend you're making egg drop soup). Add rice and bring to a simmer. When you serve, add white pepper, green onion, and cilantro. **note: the rice will suck up all the broth, so if you have leftovers, you'll want to add more broth to get it soupy again.

I googled "chao chay recipe" before posting this and used the translate function on a recipe. My favorite portion of the clunky translation was at the end:

Cook for instance, remove the seaweed and fried tofu and oyster mushroom give up no end. Tasting eating and asked to draw a bowl add pepper, and coriander on top for flavor. This soup is very cool food and supplements!

Wish appetite.

Wish appetite! ngon lam! and Chúc mừng năm mới

A Sad End to my New Quilt

2011-02-01T15:52:00.005-05:00

This has already been the craziest winter I've experienced in a while. In the fall I taught four classes while writing and finishing my dissertation. I drove 1600 miles cross country for my dissertation defense, and then AGAIN for my graduation. For the remainder of my winter break, I did very little aside from eating, watching movies, and getting back into quilting (modern quilting). The two trips and the expense of participating in commencement and buying a very serious-looking diploma frame embossed with the university logo (hey! how many Ph.D.'s am I gonna get?) forced us to have a modest Christmas and I wanted to make something nice for my parents gift. So I went through all my books, scoured the internet for a good-lookin', do-able pattern and found this tutorial for a quilt called Tunnel Visions, a nice simple pattern with measurements I could tweak for my crib-sized batting. So I pared it down to 20 blocks (5 across, 4 down), pulled out some leftover off-white squares and triangles from my first quilt, and cut some corresponding colors.

As it is here, all laid out, is how I had wanted it. I never anticipated I could mess it up. The darks and lights and the sort of three-D box repeating pattern makes sense to me. I even carried the pieces square by square to the machine, and row by row, so I wouldn't mess it up.

But no sooner did I start sewing than I started messing up my own plans. I messed up the positioning of the middle 1/3 of the blocks in an entire row. I sewed one row together vertically instead of horizontally, I sewed the blocks together backwards. Everything. Probably compounded with the fact that I was going to gift this to my meticulous mother! I just kept going and eventually had a quilt top that was (mostly) as perfect as I could get it.

Of course the fun part of quilting is making the top. The rest of quilting-- the actual "quilting" part is where everyone stalls (including me). I suck at basting. I'm too impatient (like my baking skills!). Zipper and Mini love to chase the tail of whatever thread I'm using, making all of my careful smoothing and taping and un-bunching of the layers completely useless.

But I did it. I made it. I finished and did the binding and made up my own quilting style.

Here's Bijoux enjoying its luxurious, colorful comfort under his paws.

When I presented my parents, who live three hours away, with my freshly finished quilt, a gift, after all, for Christmas, my dad shrugged and suggested my mom would probably be the one to use it, since she's the one who lounges under blankets on the couch (let alone brightly colored ones). While both of them were standing there, I self-deprecatingly told them not to look at the back, since that's where its pucker-y imperfections are the most visible. They promptly looked unfolded it and looked primarily at the back. Then my mom asked if I had washed it yet. I hadn't (I just finished it the night before). She took it, folded it back up, and put it in the laundry hamper in their bedroom.

Zips has half a mind to drive up there and get it back. I'm just going to keep sewing one for myself instead. It'll be even better, and more perfect. And I know Zips will love it and appreciate my hard work every day.

What's for dinner? What's in the fridge?

2011-01-10T19:17:00.006-05:00

Of course the down side to having a break from working is having a break from getting paid. It's dinner. We're out of everything. We've got a fruit bowl with oranges (3lb. bag on sale for $1) and some bananas. We have some frozen stuff we've stocked up on, but very little produce. We're sick of Boca burgers. I can't believe I'm out of soy sauce. (I can't believe I can't afford to buy soy sauce right now!) We have dry goods like rice and lentils but no broth.

So I did a little internet recipe searching and came up with:

Orange Sesame Ginger Chik'n with Brown Rice

Throw some brown rice (jasmine, basmati, whatever) in the rice cooker and whisk together this marinade:

2 Tb. sesame oil

1 Tb. soy sauce (I had 3 packets from a take out sushi from one of our travels)

2 Tb. honey

juice & zest of 1 orange

2 cloves garlic minced

1 Tb. fresh ginger minced

I thawed out a 12 oz. bag of frozen Quorn Chik'n Nuggets and marinated them for about 30 minutes. Then sauteed a little bit of onion (thinly sliced) and one more garlic clove in some sesame oil, threw in the marinated chik'n chunks and browned it, adding all the marinade. I sprinkled a teaspoon of corn starch so the leftover juice would thicken into a sauce (or at least a glaze).

Serve over the rice with some cilantro. Here I've pickled a little bit of red cabbage and carrot with rice vinegar, sugar, and a little sriracha garlic chili sauce.

It was a hit. And I didn't have to leave the house or do any shopping. Just gotta get to Friday!

New Quinoa Recipe for the New Year

2011-01-07T16:46:00.005-05:00

I'm so happy to have a little time to cook and try out new things. I have only a week before school starts again, so I'm going to try to get a lot in!

We got the latest issue of Vegetarian Times in the mail and it has recipes submitted by students, including an excellent quinoa salad. Which I made. And am eating as I sit here typing this. It has a lot of tabouleh/arabic salad components, which of course are Zipper's favorites. And it has the added bonus of quinoa's magical properties and toasted pine nuts for crunch.

Quinoa Salad (from Veg Times with Zipper modifications)

Boil about 6c. of salted water and add 1 1/2 c. quinoa. Reduce heat and simmer until quinoa is tender (about 15 min). Drain quinoa and rinse with cold water. Drain again.

Toast 1/2 c. pine nuts in a dry pan. Don't let them burn.

Finely dice

1 english or 2 regular cucumbers (peeled, seeded) (2 1/2 c.)

2 tomatoes (3/4 c.)

1/2 red onion (about 1/2 c.)

1 bunch parsley

Toss quinoa, pine nuts and veggies. Add zest and juice of 2 lemons, 1/4 c. olive oil.

Salt & black pepper to taste.

Makes a large batch (it's supposed to serve 12). It'll be great next time I have to bring something to a potluck!

Quilting in the New Year

2011-01-06T17:37:00.006-05:00

I've just discovered I fit into a category: Modern Quilter. This is an actual term. A glance at my list of crafty bloggers there on the side will give you an idea of what that entails. Mostly non-traditional forms, creative patterns, lots of bright colors with solids. And the celebration of a prevailing aesthetic of "wonkiness." Yay! (this means my inability to sew in a straight line will not deter me!)

For the past couple of years, all I want for my birthday is a gift card from the fabric store. Since my birthday is in late November, this gives me a chance to stock up on supplies to keep me busy through the holiday season. (one year I gave my parents handmade bathrobes and pajama pants and something like pencil cases for Christmas, thinking they would cherish gifts sewn by their daughter. I'm still not sure they realize I made them... they never said..)

This year, I didn't have a chance to buy fabrics until after the holiday, but I've blown through my fifty bucks, mostly in pre-cut quarters. I stacked them up with some of my leftovers from previous projects-- I like the spectrum! Oh the possibilities!

The local Jo-Ann's here is rather small and always packed, so just grabbing quarters gives me the chance to just grab a bunch of different bright colors I like and GO. And I got queen-sized batting. I'm excited. I am also the proud new owner of Boo Davis's Dare to be Square Quilting. I have a couple of cream and taupe fitted sheets that we no longer use, so I've had my eye on them to cut 'em up and work them into a quilt (I've also saved a lot of beloved pajama pants that I've worn literally to pieces...I'm thinking jammies and sheets used to make a quilt that I will continue to sleep under has a nice poetic quality).

I was initially going to make the "Does Not Compute" robot quilt for my first project for the new year, but fell in love with the look and name of the "Two Left Feet" pattern. So I cut and stacked the 304 pieces---
And started putting them together, one by one. This was mind-boggling because each of the 20 major blocks was TOTALLY different, but also because the colors of the one in the book were blue, gold, and brown. My dominant colors were red, blue, and "other" (green/yellow/orange). So for all the blue pieces in the pattern, I subbed in my reds. For the book's golds, I used my blues. This got REALLY confusing when I would look at a blue strip in the pattern and a blue strip of fabric in my hand and wonder what I was doing next...
But I made it through-- I think I started cutting blocks on Dec. 30 and finished sewing the rows together on the 4th-- and now have a great quilt top... that Zips won't get off of.

After I spread it out on the bed to take this photo, she parked it (as you see here), and then tuckered down and stayed there all night. Then all day the next day.

I'm glad she likes it. I worried when I was picking the colors that with all the red and blue and white, it would look patriotic-- but I think the blues are more mediterranean and the overall effect of the different fabric patterns is kind of Japanese. I'm going to use one of the taupe sheets and some leftovers to piece together the back of the quilt-- then comes the tedious sandwiching, machine quilting, and binding. I think I may do the pj pants mini-quilt before that happens. (to get back into the groove of quilting and binding before a queen-sized project) Hopefully before school starts next week!

Only the best Macaroni & Cheese Recipe Ever.

2010-12-13T02:19:00.004-05:00

At an end of the semester gathering, Zips and I were lucky enough to park ourselves in the best spot at a party: the kitchen. One of our favorite people to work with brought some homemade Mac & Cheese and promptly knocked my socks off. I kept going on about how this was like that episode of Bobby Flay's Throw Down. It has crunch. It has lots of cheese. It has complexity (a touch of garlic! Panko bread crumbs!). It feels homey. I begged and begged for the recipe, and took a photo so I could post it here for the world to enjoy. Believe me, I'll write again when I try this one myself. These are her instructions verbatim.

Macaroni & Cheese a la Diana

While 1 box of Barilla elbow pasta is cooking to al dente (5 to 6 min.) do the following.

3 Tablespoons of butter melted in a pan (a healthy margarine also works)

3 Tablespoons of flour into the melted butter

Stir until all the flour is incorporated into the butter as one usually does for a roux.

3 cups organic whole milk – add to the above, using a whisk, tiny bit at a time in the beginning so there are no clumps, until you get a smooth sauce. Keep stirring as you add the rest of the milk and while you cook the mixture over medium high heat to get it going to a simmer, then lower the heat to slow simmer to cook till completely thickened.

½ pound to 1 pound of American deli cheese, Dietz & Watson or Land O Lakes. Now is when Cheese is incorporated 3 slices at a time to the roux. Just keep tasting on a separate clean spoon till it’s cheesy enough for your taste and keep stirring.

Add ¼ to ½ teaspoon of dry mustard.

Dash or two of soy sauce (to taste) – instead of salt!

Dash of Worstershire sauce

Dash or two of white pepper

Tiny pinch of sugar

Taste and adjust as needed. Shut off heat. Drain pasta & put pasta back into the pot it was cooked in. Stir in the cheese sauce and let sit while you prepare crumb topping.

(save a cup of the pasta water to thin if sauce if needed after it stands in the pot while you make the crumb topping).

Crumb topping:

1 Tablespoon olive oil in a large pan

1 small clove garlic minced or from garlic press

1 Tablespoon or more if you like of fresh chopped Italian parsley

Handful of unseasoned Panko bread crumbs. (comes out to ½ a cup or so)

Heat olive oil gently. Add the garlic over low heat so it cooks very gently – but does not brown - and imparts it’s flavor to the oil. Remove the garlic with a slotted spoon and discard. Add the parsley and the Panko and stir till coated with the oil mix.

In a 13 x 9 casserole pan that has been greased or sprayed with Pam, pour the mac & cheese combo. Smooth down the top and then sprinkle with ¾ of the crumbs. Now use a layer (amount to taste) of Sharp Cheddar cheese either shredded or sliced to top the bread crumbs and then evenly put on remaining crumb topping. I used sliced Tillamook sharp cheddar and just covered most of the top with 4 whole slices and one more broken to fill in empty spaces.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 min. – you will see bubbling around edges. Then broil to brown the crumb topping – keeping a close eye on it so it doesn’t burn!

This is seriously the best mac & cheese I've ever had. Try it. It's worth the labor! You'll be hooked!

Oh. Diana supplied not only the Mac & Cheese, but also a lovely wine crate that I had big plans for. The kitties have taken it over, however, so I must be content to have a rather bohemian kitty bed in the window.

The cats also like the Mac & Cheese.

Happy Thanksgiving! Make Your Own "Tofurky"

2010-11-27T00:58:00.004-05:00

It's that time of year again, and I can't help but gorge myself all day on foods I spent the previous day preparing. Lately for the holidays we've roasted two "turk'y roasts" by Quorn and a Tofurky. But no one ever eats that wild rice stuffing that's stuck in the middle of the Tofurky ball. Last year I made my own vegetarian "tofurky"-- using a recipe and video I can't find now, but the result is absolutely delicious-- technically a "gluten roast"-- we'll have to work on making that sound sexier.

As soon as I re-discover the video and link, I'll attach it here, but for now, I'll just re-copy my gravy-spattered recipe sheet:

Sage-Roasted Gluten Loaf (or Homemade Better n' Tofurky)

Bring 2 gallons of water to a boil while you do the following:

In a bowl, combine:

2 1/2 c. vital wheat gluten flour

1/2 c. nutritional yeast flakes

1 generous tsp. thyme

1 equally generous tsp. sage

1 tsp. salt

In another bowl, mix together

2 c. vegetable broth (1 can)

1/4 c. olive oil

1 Tb. soy sauce

Stir the wet into the dry until well-combined and can be roughly formed into a ball. Roll the gluten-ball out onto some cheesecloth. Wrap it with the cheesecloth (forming it into the shape you want your loaf), twisting the ends and tying them off with twine.

Don't wrap the loaf too loosely, or it'll have air pockets. Don't wrap it too tight either, since the gluten will expand. Put the cheesecloth-wrapped loaf into the boiling water and simmer for about 1 hour. Unwrap cheesecloth and the roast can now either be eaten or basted with olive oil and herbes de provence (mmmmm!) and thrown into a 325 oven for about 3o minutes.

Here's our spread (with fried green tomatoes!). The gluten roast is the larger, darker of the "meats" pictured above.
And here's my favorite parts: my gluten roast and mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberries, and green bean casserole!
And this year, Zipper pretended to be a kumquat.

We also made a pear tart with an almond pastry crust and the best pumpkin pie in the world. But I'll save those for another day! Happy Holidays!

New Fall Soup: Potage de Crecy

2010-11-08T14:00:00.004-05:00

It's the time of year again when I could essentially live on a liquid diet. Soup weather! Accordingly I wanted to share an excellent Carrot Soup recipe. I know, I know, it doesn't sound that glamorous, but it's simple, silky and luxurious and fantastic garnished with croutons or eaten with some crusty french bread. And speaking of the French, apparently the carrots grown near Crecy are the most delicious in the country! (Which Crecy? I guess there are several villages with that name-- I don't know. It makes a good story, though). We're adding this to our Thanksgiving Feast this year. Unless I can convince everyone to try out the Butternut Squash soup recipe I've got!

Puree of Carrot Soup

In a big pot (I use my enameled dutch oven Zips gave me for a present), saute:

1 Tb. butter

3 Tb. olive oil

2-3 cloves of garlic (since they're cooked down, the flavor gets toned down and subdued)

1/2 onion, chopped

9 carrots, chopped (this isn't set in stone. If you use this many, you'll have a thick, hearty soup. If you use, say 7 skinny carrots, you'll have a thinner, but no less delicious soup)

Saute these together over medium heat, being careful not to burn the garlic or onions. Then add:

4 c. vegetable broth

1 c. plain soy milk

1-2 bay leaves

1 tsp. dried thyme

1tsp. - 1 Tb. grated fresh ginger (this depends on how ginger-y you'd like your soup. Even though I LOVE ginger, I use closer to 1 tsp. so it doesn't dominate)

Simmer all of these until the carrots are tender. Once they are, remove the bay leaves and carefully puree everything until smooth. I use an immersion blender. You could also do it in batches with a regular blender. Just be careful not to splatter the soup and burn yourself!

Return the smooth, pureed soup to the pot. Salt and pepper to taste. I don't usually add salt, just black pepper. Garnish with chopped parsley and possibly croutons.

Bon appetit!

The Glamorous Life of a Marathon Dissertation Writer and Cupcake Baker

2010-10-13T01:35:00.007-04:00

I spent a lot of time in the late summer cooking, trying out new recipes, making pasta and home-brewed limoncello, knowing that before long, I would be in the middle of a new semester, swamped with student papers to grade and feeling the deadline to defend and deposit my dissertation loom large.

That's where we're at right now.

A year or two ago, I went to an academic conference and saw many of the scholars who populate my bookcases and essays. It was exciting. One of my favorite brilliant professors met us for sushi and sake (I'd never had sake before! I'm a complete lightweight!), and chatted with us as though we were people, friends, rather than as students. When we parted ways we spoke about the difficulties in writing, and I expressed anxiety about writing this dissertation. She hugged me and encouraged me to write, saying simply, "let's make a pact." This was a humbling and exhilarating moment for me-- thinking that someone I admire so much, whose work has helped shape the way I think about my own writing and critical approaches, could make a pact with me to write. This has been at the back of my brain, quietly urging me to keep going.

So for the past two months, I've been essentially living at my desk doing nothing but reading, re-reading, and writing (and rewriting!). I drink a lot of coffee. I eat trail mix and ramen and nori (omega 3's for my brain!). I obsess over my word count. I go through post-it notes like there's no tomorrow. I keep a pitcher of water and two sets of headphones by my side at all times. I wear wrist bands to stave off carpal tunnel.

(I feel like I should take up smoking, since all the best writers seem to chain smoke. Since I don't I've developed a habit of munching on mints as I type-- until I discovered that the icebreakers I've been downing mostly contain sugar substitutes called malitol and sorbitol, which, if you have too much in your system, can cause great g.i. distress!)

In any case, it's glorious. The cats stay up with me until all hours.

Here Mini implores me to quit typing and go to bed.

Here is one of my 2 crates of research (it is no longer in this fastidious order.) not to mention the piles of books on my table, floor, and bookshelves. Or the library books I have. Or the inter-library loan library I've accumulated.

And yet, in the backyard, I'm reminded that life continues on, that new life is growing even as I'm sequestering myself away so that I can finish writing my dissertation and finally graduate with my Ph.D.

We transplanted a patch of grass about 5" square, and it's sitting at the edge of our backyard patio, at the margin of our zero-scaping. Under the sod, we put down a layer of our own compost that's been accumulating and cooking for forever. And in the corner of this box of grass (that we call the "pet patch") emerged a cantaloupe vine. That has SIX cantaloupes on it. We didn' t plant them. We had no idea what they were for the longest time (watermelons? cucumbers? squash? pumpkins?) It's miraculous. Sometimes in the evenings, Zips goes out to water the plants, including the pet patch and the melons.

Since I've churned out 3 out of 4 chapters that will constitute the body of the diss, I've eased up a little bit. I've made vegetarian spicy sushi. A wonderful new puree of carrot soup that I'll have to post here.

Last night, Zips found and followed an awful (awful) recipe for carrot cake that was on the back of a raisin container (it called for shortening. it ended up with the texture of cornbread and tasted salty). So I threw it away and pulled out the vegan cupcake book. Every recipe I've tried, I swear, is amazing. The carrot cake cupcake is FREAKING DELICIOUS. The recipe makes literally 8 cupcakes, so there's no danger in overindulging (but you'll really really want to).

Carrot Cake Cupcakes (accidentally not vegan...)

2/3 c. flour

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cinnamon (I used closer to 1/2 tsp)

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

(I also added 1/4 tsp. ground cloves and 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg... why not?)

sift together dry ingredients

2/3 c. sugar (I'm out of white sugar, so used brown, and it tasted FINE)

1/3 c. veg. oil

1/3 c. plain soy yogurt (I'm out of soy yogurt, so used plain dairy yogurt, and it turned out FINE)

1 generous tsp. vanilla

Mix wet ingredients together until completely combined. Then add dry ingredients. Then fold in chunky bits:

1 c. shredded carrots (I grated one large-ish carrot)

1/4 c. raisins (and dry cranberries if you want to trick it out)

1/4 c. chopped walnuts (I skipped this)

Distribute into cupcake liners (fill 2/3 of the way) and bake for about 25 minutes, until they pass a toothpick test.

When they cool, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting (which you can also make!) Take a load off and eat one. Save one for breakfast (since they have carrots in them, they're healthy!)

So I have something to eat as I get back to work. Hopefully I'll post happy news soon. Either when I finish writing... or when we eat the cantaloupes!

Can you boil milk? Then you can make Chocolate Mousse!!

2010-09-03T19:20:00.004-04:00

Easy Chocolate Mousse

1/2 c. soy milk

2 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. (or more) brandy (or other liqueur of your choice)

1 Tb. instant coffee powder

10 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips

12 oz. silken tofu

Blend silken tofu until smooth.

Heat the soymilk in a pan. When it boils, turn off the heat and add instant coffee. Pour chocolate chips in a bowl and add heated milk to it. Add vanilla and brandy and stir until chips melt into glossy melty deliciousness.

Add melted chocolate to blender and blend until completely incorporated. Pour out into serving cups and refrigerate at least 1 1/2 to 2 hours before serving.

Kettle Style Potato Chips... in your Microwave?!

2010-08-14T01:17:00.004-04:00

So late one night a couple weeks ago, I had a serious jones for potato chips. Which we didn't have. Nothing else really does it if all you want to crunch down on is some chips. So after Zips did a little web surfing, she announced that we would make our own. right now. ...in the microwave.

I was seriously skeptical. I thought potatoes would be floppy and perhaps eventually leathery if left in the microwave too long. But eventually, I gave in, and sliced a potato as thinly as humanly possible.

Then coated them with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and arranged them in a single layer on a microwave-safe plate.

We microwaved the plate for 2 minutes, flipped the chips over and gave them 2 more minutes. Then again. After about 6 minutes or so, the slices started to yellow. I gave it another minute and a half, then drained the chips on a paper towel.

When they cooled, they were crunchy. But more importantly, They Were Potato Chips.

We ended up making 3 batches, which isn't terribly energy or time efficient. But we just couldn't believe it! They were delicious. The thicker slices ended up tasting and crunching like kettle chips. The thinnest slices, the translucent ones I was sure would adhere to the plate and burn in the microwave ended up crisp and identical to original Lays. Curse my skepticism. Point: Zips.

Oh yeah...

2010-08-14T00:57:00.004-04:00

... we also made graham crackers (though, not technically, since we didn't use graham flour)...

They're actually pretty easy and don't require any special ingredients you don't already have.

...and black and white cookies. I even purchased an old school ice cream scooper for these so they would be perfectly round and uniform in size (although I didn't realize they'd be as big as a cookie at a Starbucks!

Both were huge hits in the household (even though the chocolate half of the b/w cookie isn't as smooth as the white half). Oh, and both are from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar! You may as well just buy the book. Vegan or no vegan, everything in this is freaking delicious! (see also the carrot raisin cookies). I'm going to miss summertime cooking!

Vicarious Trips to Italy and Accidental Lowry's Seasoning

2010-08-14T00:07:00.006-04:00

Another major project this past week has been a back-to-school care package of sorts for some of our favorite colleagues-- one of whom went to Italy this summer. Since I'm trying to become proficient with my beloved pasta machine, we decided to go all-out on a Little Italy extravaganza. I made a batch of spinach fettuccine (we bagged some and ate the rest!),

and an amazing raspberry vinegar, some of our home brew limoncello (which Zips has started referring to as moonshine),

some raspberry/strawberry syrups (not italian, but it goes well with the moonshine-- ooh, and you could use to make italian soda!), and some biscotti. (Chocolate and Almond Cranberry. I have the best recipe from a holiday issue of Vegetarian Times. I'll probably come back to this when we make it again in the fall!)

We got some cardboard boxes that looked like suitcases, so I painted and tricked them out to look like well-traveled steamer trunks.

Then packed the goodies in-- (this is before I had decided to make up a batch of the spinach pasta)-- Zips also made a great retro Franco-Italiano music mix that we dubbed "limoncello lounge".

In the process, we tried several other recipes for this and that homemade goodie, one of which was a "spice blend"-- that I realized, after whipping up a batch, tastes almost exactly like Lowry's Seasoned Salt. So much so, that after snapping this photo of it (with the Lowry's in the background), I literally dumped the entire homemade batch into my already opened Lowry's to top it off. (I decided not to gift it-- I didn't want our friends thinking I gave them a little glass jar of store-bought seasonings, pretending it was homemade!)

If you're interested, here's the recipe. It tastes fine. In fact, I will be happy to use this, since it is very flavorful and has no salt. Maybe I'll see if I can't whip up some Mrs. Dash's seasoning next!

The Accidental Lowry's

1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

3/4 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. oregano

1 1/2 tsp. onion powder

1 1/4 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. ground celery seed

1 1/2 tsp. white pepper

1 1/2 tsp. ground mustard

1 tsp. black pepper

New Projects

2010-08-13T23:28:00.009-04:00

I've been holding onto this window pane ever since I was an undergrad in northern California. My senior year, I lived (along with several other intrepid art majors) in one of the (poorly insulated, abandoned) bungalows at what used to be the Aetna Springs Resort, built in the 1870's and adjacent to a golf course (that I once snuck onto in the middle of the night for a picnic), and formerly occupied by the Moonies. The buildings on the property were all abandoned, filled knee-deep with molding books and rusting furniture. The cottages that were live-able still often contained baffling artifacts like a hatch from Lost-- I remember once crawling underneath the bungalow I lived in, finding a cache of mildewing cardboard boxes filled with slide carousels from what looked like a presentation about alcoholism. If I lived there now, I'd have to become a video artist and re-stage scenes from '80's slasher flicks!

In any case, it was a paradise for photographers and collage and assemblage artists. (Once my entire assemblage sculpture class visited for an impromptu field trip/scavenger hunt for materials for a group sculpture-- we all ended up making 2 nearly life-size elephants.) I've kept a ton of old books from there (literally, they're very heavy), the occasional salvaged antique doorknob and keyplate, and this wonderful old window pane with three original panes of glass-- intending to do something with it, especially after seeing several similar windows used as picture frames in different places over the years.

Zips finally compelled me to finish it. I cleaned it, painted it, collaged the gold from joss papers on the edges, and had some photos printed especially for this. Each of the photos evokes the time we stayed in a log cabin for the weekend in Brown County, Indiana, and most of them were taken that weekend.

There's a birdhouse washtub, and a slate board that says "Nothing Matters More than This Day", a snapshot of the koi pond, and the red metal rocking chair from the front porch of the log cabin.

I'm really happy with it. It reminds me to be serene. Here and on the other side, I've included a "double happiness" from the joss papers.

Farmer's Market Feasting

2010-08-09T18:12:00.008-04:00

Nearly a year ago exactly, Zips and I discovered the Albuquerque Downtown Grower's Market. And on a spur of the moment flash of madness, on Saturday we got up at 6 in the morning, to drive three hours to visit it again. We were reminded how much we love farmer's markets with their crazy abundant variety.

We picked up a dozen ears of corn, carrots, peaches, grapes, potatoes, lavender...

A basket of these adorable pear-shaped yellow tomatoes...

And if you go, you must swing by the booth belonging to Black Bird Pies. They often give out sample bites of pie (this time it was their sweet potato pie)...

...and they have the most amazing fruit juices. Again, Zips chose watermelon papaya and I picked the thai basil lemonade and the raspberry sage lemonade. They were all equally awesome (and inspired Zips to concoct Sweet Basil Watermelon Water with our feast).

When we got home (after swinging by Bella Luca on the way home. I'll have to write about their cannellini and greens that I ordered!), we decided to gorge ourselves to celebrate the end of another summer, and rather than just fix the usuals for our Sunday dinner, to make everything with some new recipes.

I already have a great recipe for peach pie, so decided to branch out and make peach galettes. The peaches we got were the size of plums, but they actually yielded more fruit than I expected (I could have more than made a pie!)

Peach Galettes

I used a different dough recipe for the crust-- but now that I've tried it, I think I'd just stick with my usual pie crust recipe, just roll it out a bit thinner. The dough recipe was 1 1/4 c. flour with 8Tb. butter and 1/4 c. ice water. It only gave me 2 crusts, so I had to half it and make a third galette when I had excess filling. If I did it all over again, I'd just use a regular pie crust recipe that would probably give me 4 galettes.

The filling was 6 c. of sliced peaches tossed with

2/3 c. sugar

big dash of cinnamon (1 tsp.)

small dash of ground cloves (1/4 tsp.)

small dash of nutmeg (1/4 tsp.)

1 Tb. flour

juice of 1/2 lemon

Place the peach filling in the center of each crust about an inch from the edges and then curl the crust around the filling. If you get greedy like me, you can stack the peach filling a bit more after you've created the edges of the galette. You can even drizzle in a little of the juice. Just don't over-do it like I did and get the bottom of your crust soggy even before baking it.

Then bake at 400 for about 30 minutes.

Zips sliced up the yellow tomatoes, sprinkled some of our sweet basil over it and drizzled it with olive oil. Then scooped out some of our locally grown watermelon before juicing the rest of it and adding some chopped sweet basil to the juice (it was delicious!). I cubed the potatoes and carrots and roasted them with some olive oil and rosemary from our garden.
But another high point and new discovery was corn pudding. Corn Pudding. Two words I never imagined together. I couldn't wrap my brain around it. I had no concept of what it would taste like. But nothing about it looked bad, so I gave it a whack and am so glad I did!

Zipper's Corn Pudding

2 or 3 ears of fresh corn-- de-kerneled

2/3 c. milk (most recipes call for whole milk. I used soy milk. It was delightfully light and fluffy. Perhaps when I try this again with the southwestern variation, I'll use whole milk to get the full effect before experimenting more)

1 egg

1 Tb. flour

1 tsp. sugar

salt + pepper

Handful of basil or cilantro (I used basil-- about 8 or 9 leaves chopped)

Pulse half of the corn kernels in a food processor. I did this until I had a kind of sweet corn mush. Then add the processed corn to the rest of the kernels, the dry ingredients, and the basil or cilantro.

In another bowl, mix together egg and milk, and add this to the corn mixture. Then pour into a baking dish and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. I finally got to use these little individual pans for like the second time in ten years!

It was an amazing feast-- that has left us both plagued with food ennui. I'll have to think up something quick to make life worth living after having eaten this sumptuously! Isn't that what summer's for?

Just Like Berry Pie a la Mode (without the hassle of making a pie!)

2010-08-04T23:29:00.003-04:00

Summer is ending too quickly. In just two weeks, we'll be back in school and then it's just full tilt until Christmas. Of course one of the best things about summer is fresh berries (even though we don't have access to a u-pick farm anymore), and Zips had a memory about vanilla ice cream with berries in a swirl of Chambord (black raspberry liqueur) syrup. There's literally no way to mess this one up!

Chambord Berries and Ice Cream

2 c. fresh strawberries

1 c. blueberries

1 c. raspberries

1/3 c. sugar

combine berries and sugar and simmer over low heat until sugar dissolves.

Add 1/2 c. Chambord

simmer for 3 minutes (don't stir too much...those raspberries are delicate!)

Spoon berries and syrup over vanilla ice cream. It tastes like the best berry pie a la mode!

New Art: Pop Culture Ikons

2010-08-02T23:51:00.008-04:00

One of the charming features of the new house we're renting is built-in nichos. We've got one on the front porch, one in the entryway, and one in the back hallway. But we haven't had anything to put into them until now. I've finally completed a project I've had in progress since we lived in our downtown 3rd floor apartment in Indiana. We've kept a running list of our favorite musicians and actors (mostly musicians) past and present, and created our own set of ikons.

The original set were images I had photoshopped to remove the backgrounds and heighten the images. But since I'm finishing this project several years later on a newer computer without photoshop, I did it old school and copied pictures into microsoft word, made them black and white, tweaked the contrast, printed them out, cut each image out, then photocopied them onto watercolor paper.

The rest is just some clever gold and copper paint, acrylics, and a red ballpoint pen.

We had many mutual loves (Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Ab Fab, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Shabana Azmi, George Michael, Margaret Cho), but believe me we also did some serious bargaining (I got Andrew Bird and Bjork; Zips demanded Catherine Deneuve, Marlene Dietrich, Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, Nina Simone, and at one point, Freddie Mercury). We've decided our overflow favorites (younger vintage pop culture loves) will be cherubs instead of icons. We're starting a new list; Zips gets Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lady Gaga, and Daft Punk. So far all I'm getting are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and they'll only count as one), and maybe I'll get the use the Lauryn Hill image I made. Yeah, guess which one of us usually buys all the music and movies...?

Happy Limoncello and Strawberry Syrup!

2010-07-29T21:13:00.004-04:00

It's been a week and a half since we parked our lemon rinds in the cool, dark pantry to marinate in a liter of vodka. The rinds did, in fact, lose their color and imbue the clear liquor with a nice yellow tinge (that this photo doesn't quite capture). I did a blind taste test of it against some Toschi lemoncello that we've probably had for too long. Our fresh limoncello was yellower, clearer, and had a lovely floral bouquet, while the Toschi smelled a little turpentine-y.

Ours is so lovely and fragrant and sweet. We ended up with about a liter of infused vodka that we added simple syrup (2 c. water + 3 c. sugar) to. Then strained and filtered into whatever glass receptacle I could find.

And then Zips had the genius idea of making some simple strawberry syrup, following the recipe by Vegan Dad. It was really easy (although we halfed his recipe. Had some leftover strawberries that I had cleaned and parked in the freezer about two weeks ago).

Since I'm a lightweight, Zips knew this would be ideal for sweetening the limoncello for me even more. We've dubbed this Zips Hard Strawberry Limonade!

It's just limoncello + strawberry syrup to taste over ice. MMmmmmm... happy happy strawberry limoncello!

C is for Cookie...and Coconut and Carrot and Cinnamon...and Crumbles!

2010-07-28T19:41:00.007-04:00

Since all of my adult life has consisted of being a graduate student and teaching, I associate summertime with being on a TIGHT budget. Since I have foodie ambitions, I'm learning to combine having no income with being creative in the kitchen. Since a staple for us is a vegetarian version of ground beef (for tacos, chili, spaghetti, lasagna, etc.) I've worked out a recipe that replaces what we usually buy (Morningstar Crumbles) that uses TVP. TVP is just soy-based textured vegetable protein. It's the major ingredient in a lot of veggie burgers and veggie sausages, and can be found (dehydrated) in the bulk sections of groceries and health food stores. (Not much to look at, I know. Just wait.)

"Ground Beef" Style Crumbles:

2 c. TVP

2-3 cloves minced garlic

2 c. boiling water

2 Tb. Kitchen Bouquet

3-4 Tb. soy sauce

garlic powder

onion powder

salt

black pepper

cayenne pepper

Measure out TVP and put it in a large mixing bowl with the minced garlic. When you water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and add Kitchen Bouquet (this makes it a nice brown color without adding too much sodium), soy sauce, and spices. Combine thoroughly and then pour it into your tvp bowl (if you don't mix these together, the Kitchen Bouquet will turn some of the tvp--whatever it hits first-- a very dark brown and leave the rest of it rather blonde). Be sure all of the liquid is combined with the tvp and leave it to absorb the liquid (about 15-20 min).
Once the liquid has been absorbed, the tvp should be evenly brown. Now heat a large frying pan with a little vegetable oil. When hot, add the tvp mixture and heat it. Adjust the seasonings. For me, the onion powder (or granulated onion) is what evokes a kind of beefy flavor. Oh, and I didn't list it, but I use Fiesta brand fajita seasoning in everything. Depending on what you intend to use it in, you may also want to add oregano and other italian seasonings, or cumin and chili powder. Once the tvp has been heated through and browned even more, turn off the heat and let it cool. I did a double batch (4 c. tvp, 4 c. water) and made about the equivalent of three or four 12 oz. packages of crumbles from the store. HERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP: Once you've got your crumbles tasting the way you want them, let them cool, put them in a freezer bag, and FREEZE IT! It affects the texture once you're using it in a recipe. You can use it "raw" no problem, but if you freeze it, and then cook with it straight from the freezer, it seems more toothsome.

And for a new treat we have a new cookie recipe! These are AMAZING. Like carrot cake. Only better. With a great lemon glaze icing. It's adapted from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, which, like its sibling, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World has the most amazing, creative, delicious treats. (including tiramisu cupcakes, which are the single best cupcake I've ever had in my life. Vegan or not).

But back to the cookies... These are the second recipe in the book. Second only to chocolate chip cookies (which I'll probably be trying out tonight). They deserve this position. They are soon to be classics in this house.

Carrot Raisin Cookies or as we call them Get Your Own

(Preheat to 350)

1/3 c. unflavored soy milk (or any other non-dairy)

1 Tb. ground flax seeds. (I didn't have this, so used 1 1/2 tsp. Ener-G egg replacer mixed well with 2 Tb. water)

1/2 c. canola. oil

1/3 c. dark brown sugar

1 c. sugar

1/2 tsp. orange zest

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

mix all these together. In another bowl, sift together

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

mix these dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Then measure out:

1 c. finely shredded carrots (I used about 2 medium carrots)

1 c. raisins

1/2 c. shredded coconut

1/2 c. chopped walnuts

mix the chunky bits into the cookie batter and spoon out onto a baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes (I did 18 minutes). Let them cool on a wire rack. The lemon glaze that I overdid it on (to GREAT effect) is made up of 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar, zest of 1 lemon, and juice of 2 small lemons). I drizzled mine on WAY too early when the cookies were still hot (couldn't wait). But then I drizzled more when they were cooler (too much of a good thing is even better).

This makes two dozen cookies. I made them at about 10:00 last night. They were GONE by about noon today. You do the math.

Homemade Tortillas and Decadent Desserts

2010-07-23T23:03:00.006-04:00

I've been a little ambitious lately. Especially since I've been kicking around a couple of kitchen gadgets like the pasta machine that I'm finally putting to use. Another gadget is a little tortilla press that's put ideas of making my own tortillas into my head. I found a recipe for flour tortillas that had ingredients that I already own, and I saw something recently with Bobby Flay or Rick Bayless using one of those presses, so I was inspired! Now this isn't something I looked in to extensively (for instance, I didn't even look at that link to see that flour tortillas are typically made with a rolling pin!). The recipe itself is a basic dough:

Flour Tortillas

3 c. flour

2 ts. baking powder

1 ts. salt

cut 4-6 Tb. vegetable shortening (I used about 5 Tb.)

1 1/4 c. warm water

The instructions I jotted down said to combine the dry ingredients, mix in the shortening until it's like a meal, and then to dump the water in all at once and mix it into a dough quickly. Then to knead the dough until it's no longer sticky, cover it, and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Then pinch off 1" balls of dough and roll it in your hands into fat disks. Let the dough disks rest another 10 minutes, then with a wooden pin, roll them out into tortillas on a floured surface until they're pretty thin (the thinner and more circular, the better. But don't fret. It all tastes the same!). While you're rolling these out, heat a dry pan or skillet and cook your tortilla about 30 seconds on each side. You'll see the tortilla starting to puff up and blister. This is a good thing.

When you flip it over, you'll see it looks like a charmingly rustic version of what you get in a store!

Of course, I'm leaving out how sticky my dough was. And how, like the gringa I am, I tried to press out my tortillas with the tortilladora. I mean I've had it for years without ever using it! I even used plastic so the dough wouldn't stick to the press! Then Zips came into the kitchen, told me to lighten up, and grabbed a dough ball and a rolling pin and said I wanna try.

As you can see, the little round ones are a bit too thick to pass as tortillas (as one of my dear friends cautioned me, "don't make them too thick and end up with fry bread!")-- but brushed with a little butter and drizzled with honey or cinnamon sugar, they're JUST FINE!

The tortillas were destined for greater things. I've never made fajitas, but I have to say this worked out great! I just sauteed some green and red peppers with onion, and then added some "beef-less strips" (Trader Joe's has good ones, Morningstar has some too) with just some fajita seasoning and cumin. Everyone loved it and we'll be adding it to the menu more often. I didn't even want to add the guacamole, sour cream, or cheese. It was that good.

And the latest on the decadent dessert front is that tonight I decided to make Bananas Foster. If your household is anything like mine, there comes a time when your fruit bowl only has one thing left: bananas. Sure they were light greenish yellow when you bought them. They had a nice bite in your cereal, but yesterday or the day before, they reached that point when no one is going to want to eat them. They're not black yet. But the only one in the house going for them is that damn fly you can't get rid of. Just a one-way train to banana bread. So since I had 3 that were speckled with brown and soft to the touch, I decided to look for a recipe to use them in. This one is a blend of 3 recipes and the fancy restaurant around here that does a whole floor show (table-side preparation with flambe) and charges you per person when you order. Even though bananas cost less than sixty cents a pound. Oh, and you don't have to light the sauce on fire with this. Your eyebrows are safe.

Bananas Foster

2 Tb. butter (I use Earth Balance margarine)

3 Tb. brown sugar

healthy dash of cinnamon-- you can always add more

2 Tb. rum

1-2 Tb. fresh squeezed orange juice (I had half an orange and gave it a squeeze)

(When I make it again, I think I'll do that with a lemon too)

3 bananas, sliced (not too thin)

Melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar, cinnamon, rum, orange juice. Let these mingle and begin to bubble. Once it looks nice and saucy, add the bananas. Cook until bananas are heated through. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Pass out from endorphins and sugar high. Enjoy!

for a very special reader...

2010-07-21T00:24:00.000-04:00

Adventures in Mozzarella-Making

2010-07-20T22:03:00.011-04:00

I have been holding on to a June/July 2008 copy of Mother Earth News magazine for, well, two years now because of a single page. It has directions for 30-minute mozzarella cheese. As you probably know, I am a HUGE fan of fresh mozzarella, and when I saw that this was even remotely do-able, I decided to finally tear it out, recycle the rest of it, and give it a whack.

It turns out to be really easy, after finding a couple of ingredients that were not hard to find at all, even in this po-dunk town, and finding a couple of websites for moral support and to supplement instructions and photos of the process, and how to approximate since I didn't have a thermometer that could measure as low as 55 through 175. Ricki the "Cheese Queen" has wonderful step-by-step photos, and a kind of shortcut using a microwave that I appreciated. And I found another link that had some helpful steps and photos.

30-minute Mozzarella

1 gallon milk (Mine's from Albuquerque, the closest to local milk, that I bought at the local hippie co-op. I also used whole milk.)

1 1/2 tsp. powdered citric acid dissolved in 1/4 c. cool water (this can be bought at a grocery store in the baking/canning supplies)

1/4 tsp. liquid vegetable rennet diluted in 1/4 c. cool water (I found this at the local co-op after asking. It was in the dairy case in a small box. I found animal rennet tablets at a different market, but had to keep looking: "complex of enzymes extracted from the stomachs of cows, often veal calves" *shudder*)

Begin heating the milk and when it's 55 degrees, mix in the citric acid solution and stir it thoroughly.

Continue heating it until it's 88-90 degrees. It will begin to curdle. If you don't have a thermometer, you can approximate this (in a super-hygenic way) by sticking your clean finger into the warm milk. If it's starting to thicken, you're good. Once it's 88-90, add the rennet solution and gently stir for 30 seconds. You'll see it's starting to curdle. This is good.

Continue heating until it's 100-105 degrees. Again, if you can't measure the temp scientifically, you'll see the curds begin to pull away from the walls of your pot:

The Cheese Queen has you note the clarity of the liquid, which is whey, and the color, which has a kind of greenish yellow tint (yum!). I guess if it's still white or milky, you need to keep heating. Once it reaches this temp/ stage, you can turn the heat off. At this point, I scooped out all the solids (curds!) and put them in a sieve over a bowl to let the whey continue draining out:
Now the instructions in Mother Earth News got really complicated at this point (it involved heating the whey to 175 degrees and dipping the curd into it with a ladle to heat it through until it's melty and stretchy), so I followed Cheese Queen, who said to put your curds in a bowl and microwave it for a minute. You'll see that more whey has separated out, so pour it off, and zap it for another 30 seconds. Repeat the draining of the whey and sprinkle in some salt. I used some fine popcorn salt, maybe a 1/2 -1 tsp. and nuked it for 30 more seconds.

When it was done, I dumped it out on the (clean) counter as you can see on the left:
You get to start kneading/stretching it and getting it all smooth and cheese-looking. Since it's so hot right now from the microwave, you'll want to start pressing and folding the smooshy curd pile with a wooden spoon:
And after a bit, even though it's still pretty warm, you can use your hand to press and fold the cheese ~~like kneading bread dough~~. **revision: Apparently draining out all the whey and stretching the curd too much results in a tough cheese. Mine's a little less than ideal now that it's had a day in the fridge, so next time, I'm going to follow the technique described in steps 7-14 in the link from chow.com. When I try it again, I'll post!**
When it's smooth, you can roll it into a ball and YOU'VE JUST MADE CHEESE!!!!
I immediately sliced up some tomato and avocado and basil. And then glutted myself.
Cheese Queen says to store it in cold water in the fridge for up to a week.

Decadent Drinks...in maybe a week.

2010-07-19T22:50:00.005-04:00

Very early this morning, Zips caught an old program on the Food network or the Cooking network or something that featured our favorite iron chef Cat Cora cookin' with Rocco DiSpirito and one of their projects was making Limoncello. Limoncello Lemonade is something we enjoyed in a rare moment of indulgence (and imbibing) in Chicago at a restaurant called the Grand Lux Cafe (make a reservation. order the beignets!!!!) It turns out it's basically vodka, lemon peels, and simple syrup.

We had some plain old vodka laying around in the seldom used booze cart we have in the kitchen, so I used a vegetable peeler to strip all the yellow (and none of the white) off 6 lemons and pour about a quart of vodka over them. It just has to sit (days? a week?) until the peels are no longer yellow (all the good lemony oils out of 'em). Then I guess we'll strain it and add the simple syrup.

Believe me. I'll let you know when it's ready!!!

More Noodles for Comfort Foods

2010-07-19T22:17:00.003-04:00

I spent a summer studying spanish in spain when I was an undergraduate. Even though we got awful cafeteria food for breakfast and lunch, all of my memories involve great food moments, from the avocado tomato bocadillos we bought downstairs in the snack shop to the enormous paellas cooked by the school's superintendent over outdoor grills to my first gazpacho. I haven't found a gazpacho recipe that's close to what I had, but in lieu, here's a DELICIOUS cold soup recipe. I've actually tried several different cold soups with cucumbers and avocados rather unsuccessfully. (one was waaaay rich and actually put me off avocados for a little while. that's just wrong) But this one is the one. Oh, and if for some reason you find yourself unable to eat solid foods, this is way better than a steady diet of protein shakes:

We call it Green Goddess Soup

1-2 cucumbers

1-2 ribs celery

1 ripe avocado

1/4 c. parsley

handful of fresh mint leaves (1/4 cup)

1 garlic clove

juice of 1/2 lemon

This has 2 major steps. The first requires a juicer, the second requires your blender

Juice the parsley, celery, and half of the cucumber (this means if you're using 1 cuke, juice half of it. If you're using 2 cukes, then juice one of them)

Blend garlic, rest of cucumber, avocado, mint and lemon juice together. Add juice to blender and blend until smooth.

Chill it. Garnish it with some finely diced onion.

And as you can see, I've been at it again with the pasta machine. Today, despite sunny weather pushing 100 degrees, I wanted to make some simple noodles for chik'n noodle soup. My absolute favorite. So I went on the prowl for some eggless noodle recipe.
It's surprisingly difficult to find "eggless noodle recipe" that actually yields a recipe. But I ended up simply (SO simple!) mixing

2 c. all purpose flour + 1/2 c. water

Knead it for 5 min. Let it rest 20 min. Then RUN THAT PUPPY THROUGH YOUR PASTA MACHINE!!! And afterward, well, isn't this exactly what tea towels and laundry racks are made for?
It was SO EASY. And produced the best, most velvety, freshest noodles in soup I've ever had. Zips went after the noodles when I cut them into little 2" pieces. Then proclaimed this the best chik'n noodle soup I've ever made, that she's ever eaten.
(just a box and a can of vegetable broth simmered with celery, a little onion, carrots, parsley, bay leaves, and some quorn meatless chik'n tenders. I think I'll add a little cilantro and of course squeeze of lemon and sprinkle of pepper). In Vietnam they eat soup for breakfast so you sweat and cool off. That's how I'm going to justify my soup dinner in late July in southern New Mexico! Enjoy!

Practice Makes Perfect (Pasta)

2010-07-14T23:24:00.008-04:00

One (okay two) of the amazing gifts I got last christmas was this pasta and ravioli maker-- neither of which have seen the light of day since December. In the great unpacking, I decided there was no good reason not to break it in. I'll spare you my lamentations-- I didn't read or follow the instructions very closely in my feverish desire for handmade noodles. It turns out I am as impatient and haphazard a pasta-maker as I am a baker. The pasta dough (very simply, 2 1/4c. flour + 3 eggs mixed, kneaded, rested) seemed incredibly hard and impliable. I didn't run it through the machine on its fattest setting 10 times before I started thinning it. I made fettuccine instead of spaghetti (I was too scared of them jamming, sticking, becoming a giant mess that I'd have to convince everyone was spaetzle!).

And yet it all turned out deliciously!!!!!!!!! I may have screwed myself into having to make fresh pasta from now on. Sure, it's a bit cumbersome, but the REWARD! Here you can see the evolution of my technique from the overfloured, crumbly noodles at the bottom right to the delectable longer noodles to the left.

Zips made up the sauce while I did the noodles. They literally cooked in boiling water for like a minute. ONE minute. Maybe one and a half.

Later that evening, with the handful of noodles left over (and okay that I hid from everyone else) I whizzed up some of my pesto and had a midnight snack!

And today I busted out the ravioli attachment. I decided to mix it up and follow the recipe for spinach pasta (whiz up a cup of wilted baby spinach with a tablespoon or two of water, mix the spinach paste in with an egg, then mix yer green eggs into 2 c. of flour, knead, rest) and add a simple ricotta cheese filling.

The ravioli attachment requires a more refined hand than I had. Although my pasta-rolling skills have improved exponentially from yesterday, I still had sheets that weren't quite wide enough to accommodate the ravioli-filling rollers. It was a mess. Technically, it still is a mess, since I haven't pulled myself up from my pasta coma to go clean up.

Zipper was fascinated. Interested in the machine itself (since I was paying more attention to it than her). Interested when I cut the raviolis apart. Really interested in the ricotta filling.*

The spinach-ricotta ravioli was another smashing success. I think tomorrow or soon I will whip up a ton of noodles and let them dry for us to use or freeze. It's really exciting.

* full disclosure: I couldn't keep Zips out of the ricotta. And I still ate these raviolis.

New Painting for Bastille Day!

2010-07-14T23:00:00.004-04:00

We're finally settling into our new digs, and hoping we can rent this home for more than a year! We finally bought some furniture to assemble and put our tv, albums and books in and on. With this new stab at sophistication, we had a vast expanse of wall behind the tv, and I've been toting this huge (30"x60") unpainted canvas that I bought at a goodwill store for like $3 (with this unbelievable print of a fish that I discarded immediately). With the desire for simplicity and elegance, I drew on my inner Agnes Martin and practiced a great deal of restraint.

I used quite a bit of my titanium white acrylic and some end papers of some old, old books I've been lugging around for this exact use. And then I stopped before I messed it all up. Here's more Agnes Martin, if you're interested. She worked in Taos, NM. I hope to be able to see some of her work in person.

Garden Rosemary Potatoes

2010-06-13T23:26:00.005-04:00

With our move less than a week away, Zips and I spent a little time digging up spuds under the sunshade in the backyard this afternoon. Not only did we want to enjoy our premature mini-harvest, we also plan to take our cultivated dirt with us. What with packing and moving, raking up the backyard and returning our garden plots to a solid patch of sand, we figured we ought to enjoy the fruits (tubers) of our labors. As you can see, I couldn't keep Zips from supervising the digging up of the yukon golds.

I had already dug up the plants that looked sickly or dying. But with the rest of the plants still looking so good and growing strong, I never imagined some of them had a cluster of fully formed POTATOES!

Bijoux also had to get in on the action.

All in all, here's the full harvest. I almost don't recognize the backyard when I look from my bedroom window, since all of my greenery in the smaller raised bed is gone.

They were enjoyed with dinner (along with some brussels sprouts and quorn turk'y roast) with some rosemary trimmed from the garden wall (and olive oil, salt and pepper).

Breakfast Quesadillas: Good Idea? or a Great Idea?

2010-06-12T18:05:00.004-04:00

This morning was crazy exciting. We had planned on having a yard sale today (saturday) to downsize a little before our impending move (next week!) (I haven't hosted a yard sale in over 8 years!). But we only decided at the very last minute to actually got through with it. So on Thursday I posted an ad on craigslist with a couple of bigger items we were selling and our address. Friday I fretted about not having advertised it in the local paper and not buying any posterboard to make signs. And after a fitful night of not sleeping and generally worrying that no one would come after all the trouble of tagging and finding surfaces to use as tables, we decided not to have the yard sale after all. But this morning, there were pickup trucks and early birds waiting a full hour before we had intended on "opening"-- so I went out to tell them all we were postponing our sale. But a frenzy ensued, and we ended up selling stuff for the next hour and a half before toting the scraps leftover to the local animal shelter thrift shop.

And then we feasted. Zips requested a special breakfast (it was all over by 10 am!) so I made her her favorite: breakfast tacos. That's just an egg scrambled with some chopped morningstar farms veggie breakfast sausage patty in a heated flour tortilla, with some salsa on top. The hot sauce of choice in this case is Tapatio ("es una salsa...muy salsa!"):

but since I'm not really interested in eating eggs right now, I decided to mix it up a little, and heated a tortilla in an unoiled nonstick pan, sprinkled a little cheese on half of it, and a little of the scrambled eggs and veggie sausage, folded it over again, and used a smaller pan to press it (macguyver panini!) as it heated. Then I flipped it over and toasted the other side too.

Now I have a new favorite breakfast too when Zips demands her tacos! I've been rewarded with a homemade "java chip"-esque frappuccino. Mmmmm. I may have to get Zips to write out the recipe for me!

Very Easy Jicama Slaw

2010-06-09T20:26:00.005-04:00

After writing out and posting photos of our salsa verde perfecto and guacamole, I've been salivating for a big taco extravaganza. As we were getting produce for dinner, I couldn't resist picking up a jicama, even though I've very rarely eaten it at home (what have I bought, like, one in my life?). Not knowing what exactly I was going to do with it, but positive it would be delicious, I brought it home and started looking for recipes for a jicama slaw. Frankly, they all looked weird (Bobby Flay's includes honey, Emeril uses yogurt!?) or really over-dressed (6 Tb Olive Oil??!). So I decided I'd start with the Mexican slaw recipe I worked out copying one of our favorite local place's slaw, and then modify it from there if it was too boring. It turned out to be delicious as is!

Jicama Slaw

1 jicama (peeled, julienned)

1 carrot (ditto)

1/4 small red cabbage (chopped)

1/2 c. cilantro (chopped)

And for the dressing, whisk together:

3/4 c. rice vinegar

2 Tb. vegetable oil

1 1/2 Tb. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp black pepper

(This dressing is good on just finely sliced green cabbage too. That's our La Posta-style slaw ). Zips is in the kitchen right now slicing avocados. I gotta go!

Homemade Pizza, Handmade Crust!

2010-06-07T22:40:00.005-04:00

So before I knew it tonight, it was dinner time and we had no concrete plans and no particular set of ingredients for anything special. After ruling out quesadillas or tacos (a favorite standby) and shoving the leftover lasagna to the side of the fridge to look behind it, I decided on a whim to try making pizza dough from scratch. Even though our kitchen is about 65% packed (both in terms of tools and pantry ingredients), I found a packet of active yeast-- possibly leftover from Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner-- and after looking through a couple recipes online, realized we had just enough of everything else for this to go down. Now I'm admittedly a haphazard and impatient baker. Despite my impatience, this turned out nicely, and much tastier than any prepackaged pizza dough we've ever popped out of a biscuit package.

Zipper's Easy Pizza Dough:

1pk active dry yeast

1 c. warm (not hot) water

let the yeast proof in the water for 10-15 min. (If you're impatient and paranoid like me, you can sprinkle just a little sugar into the water/yeast to make sure those little puppies are alive and, well, active.)

Meanwhile, combine 3c. all purpose flour (one recipe I found called for bread flour, which I didn't have. This worked just fine. Maybe I'll have to get some bread flour for future pizzas, though. Also, recipes asked for anywhere between 2 to 3 1/2 c. flour. I started with 2c. which gave me a gummy, gluey dough, and sprinkled in more flour until I got to a nice sticky dough at 3 c.)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. sugar

yeast/water mixture

2 Tb. olive oil

Mix these together until you have a stiff dough. Now recipes I found used conflicting terminology and actions at this point. One recipe describes what you may have as a "stiff dough," another asks for a "smooth elastic ball." What I had at this point was a sticky ball and no flour left. (Also, I mixed the dough with a fork then a whisk then my hands. I don't have a KitchenAid mixer or a dough hook. Yet.) So I winged it, kneaded it carefully to preserve as much as possible (about 3 min.) and left it in an oiled bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel over the top for about 40 min. Meanwhile I made PESTO (with sweet basil from our garden)!!!!

The dough rose and I pressed it down and let it rise more about 10 min. Then I cut of about 1/3 of it to make my own mini pizza with just pesto, mozzarella and slices of our roma grape tomatoes (from our garden). The dough was pretty easy to work into a flat, thin pie crust (and no, I don't know how to toss it. Yet.)

For the rest of the fam, I used the other 2/3 of the dough for a larger pie. This time it was harder to work. Some areas were too threadbare, so I balled it up and actually rolled it out with some effort, a sprinkle of corn meal, and the *very* last of the flour. The rolling-out actually produced a very nice, soft, smooth pie crust. So I topped it with tomato sauce, garlic, onion, tomato, fennel, basil, and some leftover veggie italian sausage (the best is Trader Joe's!)

Here's my finished pesto pizza! I baked them for 20 min. at 350. They were a huge hit!

In the future, I'll work on making the crust a little more exciting. They turned out a little blonde. Perhaps if I brush them with some olive oil? We're all in pizza comas now. nom nom nom nom.

What's Next? Homemade Vegan Donuts?

2010-06-07T19:10:00.005-04:00

After those donuts we had at Herbivore, it's been a new goal to create and perfect our own vegan donuts. Hell, we'd settle for perfected homemade donuts. Especially since we've discovered that the closest gas station to our house has our hallucinogenic narcotic of choice: Krispy Kreme blueberry cake donuts. (**mmmmmm oooooohh** )

I'm trying to wean the household from getting these every couple of weeks by looking for healthier alternatives, which brought me to Vegan Yum Yum's post on baked mini-donuts. Our batter turned out much more liquid than how hers looks, and yes, those are blueberries that I added. Since these are baked (and we don't have a donut pan, but apparently really need one now!), I spooned about 1/4 c. of the batter into each part of a cupcake pan. So our donuts turned out as kind of dense but delicious muffins. I followed her glaze recipe, but then added some lemon juice and zest (since lemon goes really well with blueberries). For my chocolate glaze, I melted about 6oz. of chocolate chips with a dash of brandy (old fondue trick), a dot of vanilla extract, some soy milk, and a tiny dash of vegetable oil (this is a trick to help keep your chocolate glaze shiny that I'm sure I got from some health guru like Paula Deen). They were delicious. Not terribly donut-y, but close enough to get your fix. Did I mention they're vegan?

Tiny Yukon Golds, Salsa Verde, and other Summer Magic

2010-06-07T18:08:00.004-04:00

I know it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to plant a whole bed of baby yukon gold potatoes in the middle of summer in southern New Mexico, but I was so excited when I saw them for sale at our local garden/hardware store, I couldn't resist. Even more thrilling was when they emerged from little eyelets into full grown plants. Almost ALL of them!!

Now I'm just waiting around for them to grow grow grow those magical tubers. Hopefully their harvest will happen to coincide with when we have to move (about two weeks). The other day I noticed a couple of the plants was looking wilty-- okay more like on death's door, so I couldn't resist feeling around its roots and voila!

Potatoes!!!!! Now I realize they're not going to win any ribbons at the state fair, but it brings back that amazing feeling I had when we had a plot at the community gardens in Indiana, and I grew a whole row of potatoes, soybeans, more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, celery, brussels sprouts, and what not (see the earliest postings, it's part of why I started this blog). I GREW FOOD in the GROUND! And I'm going to EAT IT!

One of my summer readings is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes in the very first pages "We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up out of the ground." I understand that sentiment, even after living only 2 years in the dry southwest. But it's nice to see that we can indulge green-thumbed desires here. Knowing that we'll have to pack up and move a little ways down the road, we're trying to emotionally part with the lovely backyard that we fell in love with, and planted all our tomatoes, lettuces, basils and catnips in pots.

In addition to my tiny potato excitement, Zips is thrilled to be growing several tiny tomatillo plants. When we had our garden plot in Indiana, we had more tomatillos early on than we knew what to do with. I wrote long ago about our "salsa verde crudo." But now Zips has perfected her Salsa Verde:

Zipper's Salsa Verde Perfecto

2 lb. tomatillos (husked, rinsed, chopped)

1 medium onion

1-2 whole serrano chiles

1/2 c. cilantro

1-2 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lime

salt & (secret ingredient) ground celery seed (or celery salt)!

Chuck everything into your food processor and chop until everything is well combined. It may help to start chopping the harder foods first (onion, garlic, chiles) then add the juicy parts that you wouldn't want to accidently liquify (tomatillo), before adding and adjusting the cilantro, lime, ground celery seed and salt. I've never posted a photo of our Salsa Verde before, because we usually eat it all before I've had a chance (I once posted a photo of an empty glass bowl). But we've discovered that this actually keeps in the fridge pretty well, and if the serranos start off too spicy, it actually mellows in the fridge.

The other magical summer staple that Zips has utterly perfected lately is her heavenly guacamole. The magic, in our case, is in the molcajete she bought me last christmas:
I had a revelation (way too late) that those little black plastic tripod bowls that you sometimes get salsa in at Mexican restaurants are, basically, fake molcajetes. So this is a rough, heavy mortar and pestle made of volcanic stone that you season by grinding rice and rock salt until the inside starts to smooth out. Then you grind raw garlic cloves, cumin, salt into a paste and let it sit 24 hours. If you aren't driven mad with how good it smells, it will give your guacamole the most amazing flavors. We use avocado, lime, and just a little onion, tomato, cilantro, serrano, and garlic and a dash of salt (no measurements you cry? tweak em till it's perfect!). If we have a bag of the local tortillaria's chips, and we make both of these, it will be a good night indeed!

Spring and Summer Eats

2010-04-15T22:33:00.005-04:00

Okay, first of all, I can't believe I haven' t yet posted a recipe for one of my favorite things to eat: Sticky Rice with Mango. And tonight's great new recipe is brought to you by a grocery store sample. Now, I'm not usually one to eat just anything that's sitting around in a dixie cup at the front end of a store. But we were stocking up on some munchies at our local veg-friendly co-op and there were little cups of a peanut noodle salad. Famished, I decided to check it out and feel so lucky that I did. I was also delighted that the recipe was printed out on a slip of paper, and is pretty much from scratch, with ingredients I almost always have:

Thai Peanut Noodle Salad

1 package stir fry rice noodles (Pad Thai noodles):

Bring a pot of water to a boil, shut it off and soak the noodles for 8 to 10 minutes until they are cooked, but still firm (not mushy). Rinse with cold water and set aside.

1 package firm/extra-firm tofu:

Cut into thin slices and saute until golden on both sides

Veggies:

green and purple cabbage, cucumber, carrots, bell pepper, green onions, cilantro

Sauce:

1/2 c. soy sauce

1/2 c. rice vinegar

2 Tb. sugar

2 Tb. minced ginger

1 Tb. minced garlic (2 cloves)

3/4 c. peanut butter

(the recipe includes 3/4 c. cold water, which I left out. I was afraid it'd be too watery.)

blend together in a blender and add

1/4 c. sesame

2 tsp. red chili flakes

Keep blending until sauce is smooth.

Toss everything together and chill or serve room temperature.

Sticky Rice with Mango

Sticky Rice with Mangos (quick n' dirty)

soak 1 c. sticky rice in 1 1/2+c. hot water for 10 minutes. Cover and microwave for 3 minutes. Stir and microwave 3 more minutes. Repeat until rice is cooked.

meanwhile, combine and bring to a simmer

1c. coconut milk

2 Tb. sugar

pinch of salt

pour 3/4c. over cooked rice and let it sit for 5 minutes. Spoon more over the rice and fresh mango slices when serving. (garnish with mint if you're feeling fancy). Aroi mak. Aroi mak mak. (that's Thai for "very delicious" and "very very delicious." Good to know.)

Promises, Promises

2010-04-07T19:49:00.003-04:00

So I've been re-reading my past posts with more than a little nostalgia. Especially the one's from the summers in Indiana when we grew virtually all of our produce. I realize I've made passing references to things I've made, things I plan to make. I sewed a laptop cozy that I've been using for at least two years now. I made our Christmas tofurky from scratch. I actually opened an etsy shop last summer. I've just gotten so bogged down with the everyday to make note of anything. So, I'm promising to at least post pics of the laptop cozy and the recipe for the tofurky (I'll have to think of another name for it). We had a major health crisis from thanksgiving through about March that seems to have healed/abated, so we're going to have a Holiday Dinner (a la Thanksgiving) sometime in the next month or so. When we do, I'll be sure to write about it.

New Adventures in Old New Mexico

2010-04-05T19:05:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend, Zips and I trekked an hour up north to Truth or Consequences, NM to see what could be seen. We were met with an odd mix of artsy-crafty hippies, hot-springs spa tourists, and economically depressed townies. We did go for the hot spring soaks and really can't wait to go back.

The geothermal heated mineral waters did, in fact, seem to have healing properties for us. We got to lounge around in thin cotton robes, slather ourselves in locally-made lavender and lemon balm scented skin care, and just in general chillax. We each bought cheap paperbacks and packed an in-room picnic (apples, grapes, cheeses, crackers, and cookies). Unfortunately, the beds were too high off the ground and, like the pillows, TOO HARD. (That was a bit counterproductive to the hot springs soak.)

One charming little shop we found is Black Cat Books & Coffee, a clean, quaint place with a nice range of used books and good-looking blank books, and a friendly owner more than happy to share pics of her adorable kitty, Leonore, and the original Black Cat, Mr. Po. I shared pics of Zips with her in return.

Another happy discovery is Cafe Bella Luca, a swanky italian joint that, while it doesn't have a ton of veg-friendly choices, the ones offered there are deeeelicious.
Zips ordered the daily special, homemade spinach ricotta ravioli, and feeling adventurous, I went for the eggplant parmesan (which was awesome). The pasta was indeed homemade and fresh. They also had the best cappuccino we've had in a while, and both of us have newly-formed addictions to it.
We were so stuffed and happy that we came back the next afternoon for their white pizza (roasted garlic, spinach, and cheese). It was one of the best that I've had. On our way out of town to return home, I realized I'd left my leftover eggplant parm in the fridge where we'd stayed, so I actually turned the car around to fetch it again. Totally worth it, I had it for dinner the next day.
We look forward to going up again, since it makes a nice day trip or a nice overnight. Because of the beds, Zips is reluctant to stay at the same place, but I would-- maybe if we brought our own pillows. It's nice to be someplace close to home, but with access to real water!

Check out the Rio Grande! It was surprisingly cold!

BEST RESTAURANT EVAR!!!

2010-03-26T22:32:00.007-04:00

So Zip scolded me throughout the trip (and cussed me out and punched me often) for making her my "budget buddy" and not pampering her with a relaxing vacation. So she made us reservations at Millennium.

Millenium, which is a swanky restaurant attached to the curiously named Best Western Hotel California (you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...) in downtown SF, is THE BEST VEG RESTAURANT I've ever been to. Ever. ever ever.

Although it's swanky and high-end, I felt totally comfortable eating there (in blue jeans and t shirt no less). The menu was utterly indecipherable but intriguing-- like watching Top Chef contestants explain their concoctions. I had no clue what to expect, so I ordered something Mexican-ish (Oaxacan green corn arepa with mango habanero salsa) that was delicious. ("sour orange and achiote glazed crimini and oyster mushrooms, tofu "chorizo" charred onion, Petaluma bean and espazote ragu, sauteed asparagus")

And Zips opted for this "Hedgehog Mushroom Roulade" with roasted celery root, tofu-meyer lemon "cheese" and walnut filling, apples and cabbage, beluga lentil ragu, citrus and current mostarda.
Now, I realize it's not much to look at, but it was AMAZING. The arepa was tasty, but this was one of the most complex, delicious meals I've ever had. It seriously made me giddy. I know endorphins create a sensation of euphoria. And I enjoy chocolate and other foods a great deal. And I like to think of myself as a fairly well-seasoned, well-traveled foodie. But I've never had such a happy food coma as I did at Millennium. I'm all zingy and lightning-y just thinking about it.

And of course dessert!

Zips got a lemon "cheesecake" with a rosemary huckleberry ice cream (which reminded both of us of the lavender blueberry ice cream we made over the summer), but I was the big winner here, with my Chocolate Almond Midnight:

I have no idea what the top layer is made of, the menu said white chocolate mousse. White chocolate is pretty much my kryptonite. I don't like it. Ever. But every single aspect of this was aaaaammmmaaaaazing. I got teary as my plate got emptier. I've never been so simultaneously euphoric and wistful. sigh. When we go back (and I think we will), we'll HAVE to make reservations. and rent a car.

Eating around SF

2010-03-26T21:51:00.007-04:00

Okay, since it's been too long since I've written here, I'm going to have to catch up, but not chronologically. Since I made my own delicious tofurky roast over the holidays (seriously, it tasted A LOT like Tofurky, only without that wild rice stuffing that I never eat anyway). I have a handful of new cooking adventures since January, but California beckons. And tales of the BEST VEG RESTAURANT EVAR!

We stayed in Oakland, near the 12th st. City Center BART station, and a vegetarian Vietnamese resaturant with this great sign in their window. They were NOT the best veg restaurant ever for either of us. Zips loves pho and theirs had all manner of unidentifiable vegetarian mock meats. I had a slightly better spicy noodle soup, with a smaller quantity of different mock meats. Still weird. They had pretty good goi cuon, though. A tad overpriced. If I had to do it again, I would've just stuck with those and spring rolls or ordered a rice dish.

In the morning we tried another promising-looking cafe (but it doesn't open until 9, that makes it suspect for a breakfast joint to me..)

The Breakroom Cafe has a cute locale and menu board (I'll admit it, I was seduced by their website), but the breakfast bagels we got were just m'kay. I liked the tempeh bacon on mine and the coffee was great, but overall found the place overpriced and underwhelming (not unlike the $8000 art for sale above my head there).

In Berkeley, there were a plethora of restaurants that boasted veg-friendly joints. We decided to go off book and picked Thai House, which I'm sure I ate at in my carnivorous youth. They had a wonderful pumpkin tofu red curry, and a HOT DAMN green papaya salad that you can ask for without fish sauce. I simultaneously salivate and cringe at the memory of that salad

mmmmmm... limey spicey crunchy tangy green papaya salad. Seriously. It made my eyes water.

In the Mission district, there's a charming little place called Herbivore (they have 2 other locations)

It's adorable inside and has a great menu, TONS of options. Zips got a southwest tofu scramble (they are unfortunately in the turmeric school of tofu scrambles) and I got a tempeh burrito...

and vegan donuts.

But that wasn't the best veg restaurant ever, either!

Four Months Later...

2010-03-26T21:18:00.004-04:00

I can't believe I haven't written in so long. My last post was just before our trip to Boston. And now we've just returned from a conference in Berkeley. Both incredibly unglamorous trips. To scrimp on money, for both trips, I decided not to rent a car and wing it via public transport. It worked just fine in Boston. Our hotel had a shuttle to the airport, which is where the conference was (the Airport Hilton-- not the airport). And when we did venture out, we took the "T"-- to the Science Museum to see the Harry Potter exhibition.

We also took the T to Harvard-- just to say we walked through Harvard. We did try out one veg-friendly joint, Veggie Planet, in the Harvard area, but were sorely disappointed. It certainly looks promising, and perhaps we simply ordered the wrong thing.

That's Zips' greek salad (they were out of kalamata olives, so doubled the quantity of feta thereby rendering it inedible). I had a half of some other kind of salad and a mushroom barley soup. The salad was soaked in lime juice and the soup was disappointingly watery. Like mushroom slices and barley literally floating in hot water. bleah. Traveling to Boston in November was not something I thought through entirely, and we packed for November in New Mexico. After the sour stomach effects of this outing, we spent the majority of our time at the Au Bon Pain in Terminal A downing fresh orange juice and the vegetarian soup of the day.

Again, I chose (stupidly) not to rent a car for our trip to SF. The public transport is supposed to be among the best in cities in the US. That may be, but I made us walk all over the place, block after block of "it's just up there." However, we had the FINEST veg dining we've EVER had. Ever.

Holy Crap I'm Going to Boston THIS WEEK!

2009-11-02T10:45:00.002-05:00

So Zips and I are off to the great Northeast this week for a conference. I've never been to Beantown, and am researching what it's like and where we might eat. I'm a little anxious and a little excited. I'll update as soon as I have some concrete ideas and plans hammered out!

Chickpea Croquette? Hummus Fritter? Whatever. Delicious.

2009-09-16T16:05:00.005-04:00

We got our new Vegetarian Times today and coupled with some mild food-blahs and no plans for lunch, we decided to get creative and try something new. Armed with some dry garbanzo beans, we happened to have nearly everything we needed for their recipe for Chickpea Croquettes with Greek Salad Topping (with some Zipper modifications). Given the challenge of making chickpea flour (see below), I actually halved the recipe-- but it gave us plenty for lunch for two.

the Greek Salad topping is very similar to our Arabic Salad (sans mint). Veg Times uses cherry tomatoes and low-fat vegan feta, which we omitted, and no parsley, which we added. :

1 cucumber diced

2 tomatoes diced

1/4 c. parsley chopped

2 green onions chopped

juice of 1 lemon

1 Tb. olive oil

Toss everything together and season with a little salt and black pepper

The Croquettes

1/2 c. chickpea flour (see below)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Chickpea flour is basically made with dry chickpeas, your food processor, and a high tolerance for noisy grinding. It took me nearly 20 minutes to pulverize the beans and sift through a sieve what turns out to be about half a cup of very flour-like chickpeas, indeed. I had to work in small batches, and initially, the huge, hard beans made a TERRIBLE noise-- like gravel stuck in a blender. Just keep pulsing. Eventually it'll break down, and down some more, and if you're impatient like me, you'll take every opportunity to process, dump the crushed mixture out, sift it, dump it back into the processor and repeat. Once you have about 1/2 c., whisk or sift in the spices until well blended, then mix in about 1/3 c. hot water (to get the exact measurement, fill up a half cup measuring cup 3/4 of the way). Once you have a delightful smelling paste, add:

1/2 can of garbanzo beans

3 green onions chopped

1/4 c. tomato diced

1/4 c. parsley chopped

1 clove of garlic minced

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 Tb. olive oil

If it looks and smells like chunky hummus, you're on the right track! Spoon out 1/4 c. "croquettes" in a lightly oiled, heated non-stick pan,and lightly fry over medium heat 3-4 minutes on each side until golden.

BUT WAIT! There's More!

As we were prepping this, Zips started wondering what else might go with these-- so I whipped up a nice vegan tzatziki sauce with our homemade soy yogurt. We didn't have a ton of the right ingredients, but enough to figure something out. When I nail down this recipe, I'll be sure to feature it here, but this worked out just fine, and was a delicious addition:

Vegan Tzatziki Sauce

6 oz. plain soy yogurt

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 cucumber peeled and seeded

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 c. parsley

dash of salt

Whiz the garlic and the cucumber up in your food processor (If I had some, I would have added more cucumber, and maybe some fresh mint.). Strain the yogurt (I didn't and had a soupy, liquid sauce) and add it, along with everything else in your processor. You're done!

We ended up pouring the tzatziki sauce over the croquettes-- they were a great cool, creamy addition that prevented them from being too dry. Now I can't imagine eating them without the sauce.

Long Weekend Cookout & Lavender Blueberry Ice Cream

2009-09-07T21:32:00.003-04:00

This was, of course, our last long weekend before autumn holiday season (halloween not withstanding). Since the weather is finally starting to ease up, not scorching the earth in every waking minute, we decided to have a cookout. We made a foil packet with red potatoes and diced new mexico green chile (it was actually Zipper's grandma-in-law-- notoriously new-food-phobic-picky-eater-- who thought up this one. Genius!), veggie hot dogs and burgers, a purple cabbage and apple slaw (yum!), and corn on the cob. We didn't have any buns in the house, so I thought I'd try my all-purpose shortcake recipe-- and simply bake it in the shape of a bun. Althought it turned out a bit dense, and even though everyone agreed it was a bit like cornbread, it sure worked well as a dog-conveyance-device:

But the real winner today comes from Cathe Olson's vegan ice cream recipe book, Lick It! I have kept some lavender buds that I bought in the bulk section of some co-op with my crafting supplies for quite a while--- great for making scented sachets as gifts. Zips was reminded of this when flipping through the cookbook for something special for today's dessert, and landed on the page for Lavender Blueberry Ice Cream. After ransacking my sewing boxes, craft baggies, and desk, I finally found my ziploc bag of purple-y goodness and the game was on.
It turned out such a lovely color. The darker pieces are actually blueberry skin (not lavender buds, those gets strained out). It's heavenly. We all agreed we'd like to take a bath in it. It's a little tart, mildly sweet, smooth and floral. You have to try it!

Lavender Blueberry Ice Cream

1/2 c. plain soy milk

2 Tb. lavender buds

2 c. blueberries

1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk

1/2 c. sugar or agave syrup

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Heat the soy milk until it boils. Remove from heat, stir in the lavender buds, cover and steep for 20 min.

Strain the milk (now purple) into a blender jar. Add remaining ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours (we poured it into a plastic quart container). Throw it in your ice cream maker and freeze away!

We served ours with a tofu 'whipped cream" topping from the same book (but it was just okay) and a sprig of mint. This has made Zips completely obsess over what else we can put lavender in to eat! Hopefully we'll try something soon. Happy Last Long Weekend!

Cookin' like it's Winter, part 1

2009-09-05T19:47:00.006-04:00

Tried out a new recipe for dinner. I'm really surprised by how delicious this turned out. It didn't sound like something I'd love so much! Zips has recently learned of all the health benefits of sauerkraut (!). So she's been looking for something to make to encourage our eating of the stuff and found this recipe for us. Initially beer-braised seitan with sauerkraut didn't pique my curiosity, but in the spirit of trying new things, I flung myself into the endeavor. The result: absolutely delicious! Even though I had to substitute dark beer for what we had: corona light (I know, I know. Beer drinkers and foodies may cringe over this substitution. We're just not beer people. I may just go out and find something nice and dark to keep in the pantry for the next time I make this. Okay?)

in case you're too lazy to click the hyperlink:

Beer-Braised Seitan (or as Zips has discovered: Vegan Carbonnade a la Flamande)

1/4 c. olive oil (sounds like a lot, but it isn't)

1 onion (diced)

2 tsp brown sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat your oven to 300.

Heat the oil and saute the onions with the brown sugar and salt for 10 minutes.

3 c. sauerkraut (this is 1 1/2 cans)

2 cloves garlic (minced)

black pepper

2 bay leaves

1 lb. seitan (diced) (I used 2 8 oz. packages of Trader Joe's Meatless Beef strips)

4 potatoes (diced in large chunks)

2 carrots cut into 1/2" rounds (I used 4. They were skinny)

12 oz. dark beer (or..er.. corona light)

After sauteing the onions, add the sauerkraut, garlic, black pepper, bay leaves, seitan, potato, carrot, and beer. Bring everything to a boil. Remove it from heat and throw it all into a casserole dish to bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until your veggies are tender.

As you can see, Zips approves. This will be even better when it's a little chilly out, and maybe we have some crusty french bread. and some dark beer.

Tofu Scramble, Homemade Pancakes and Blackberry Sauce from Scratch

2009-09-05T13:28:00.005-04:00

I'll say it. I'm a zombie in the morning. Can't think. Can't wake up. Can barely open a can of cat food. And can barely figure out how to feed the kitties without dumping the can onto their little furry heads. Last semester we relied a lot on quiche (egg/feta/spinach and egg/broccoli/cheddar) to get us out the door with little thought or effort. Now that we've been moving away from eggs, and breakfasts involving mostly frying, it's been really exciting (and, yes, challenging) trying out new hearty breakfasts. That's what led us to breakfast quinoa. And has inspired the creation of my tofu scramble:

I really really despise tofu scrambles at most restaurants. Anything that "scrambles" tofu to the texture of mushy cottage cheese and then tries to "trick" you into thinking they're eggs by dying them yellow with turmeric *shudder*. From awful places we've eaten at (Annapurna's in ABQ) and beloved places (Flying Star), a good tofu scramble seems like the vegetarian holy grail. (Here's the key: it's NOT EGGS! It's not going to taste like eggs! So it doesn't have to look even remotely like eggs!) So I've taken matters into my own hands.

I happen to really like tofu. The way it tastes "raw," its texture, the way it sautes, the way it takes on flavors. So I dice up an onion and brown it in a little veggie butter, then add tofu that I've squeezed the moisture from, and break it apart with my fingers. I guess this is the "scrambling" part. I don't mush it up. I don't break it all down. I haven't tried whizzing it in a blender with some soy milk and mustard (as Post Punk Kitchen has you try). I just leave it in fork-worthy chunks and let it brown in the pan with the diced onion. The fun bit is adding sazon. This is the secret ingredient to my mom's fried rice recipe. We get the culantro con achiote flavor of sazon. This is what turns it orange and delicious. I use about half a packet. And a little black pepper. When it's all browned (and orange-ed) evenly, it's ready to go. I add some fresh cilantro (and maybe some green onion) at the end. and NO turmeric.

Okay, and the promised pancakes from scratch are the Perfect Pancakes from Vegan Brunch. They're delicious. Rich, flavorful. Hearty enough to carry a couple slices of bananas in the batter. (There's also a recipe for Pumpkin Pancakes. Zips is waiting until it's properly fall before we crack into those!) So we made 'em and drizzled maple syrup along with a Blackberry Sauce I Macguyvered in the moment. (Maple syrup is sweet and rich. Blackberry sauce is tart and rich. Knock yerself out!)

Blackberry Sauce (perfect for pancakes, ice cream, cheesecake, whatever!)

2 c. blackberries (I used ones I had frozen)
2 Tb. water
1 Tb. sugar
1/4 c. apple (peeled, diced finely)

Put everything in a pot together and bring to a simmer. Mash the apple against the side of the pan as it cooks. The apple works as a natural sweetener (less sugar added), and the fruit pectin in it helps thicken the sauce (no extra thickeners to add). Once everything has simmered and broken down, puree everything (I used my hand blender). Then strain out the wicked blackberry seeds so your loved ones won't walk around all day trying to get them out of their teeth.
Zips liked it all. Especially the maple syrup. Couldn't keep her face out of the pancakes!

More Beans n' Rice: Gallo Pinto

2009-08-27T00:27:00.003-04:00

We plowed through the Lovely Lentils and Brown Rice, so there's not enough for our power lunch tomorrow. Having spent 2 weeks in Nicaragua long long ago, I have fond memories of my favorite part of nearly every meal, gallo pinto. Apparently also popular in Costa Rica, where it's made with black beans instead of red, gallo pinto is like the national dish (I guess Costa Ricans like it with a fried egg). And it's usually totally vegetarian, despite the fact that it's named after a chicken (it means speckled rooster-- because of how it looks). So tonight I made up a big batch of this and can't wait until I can eat it tomorrow!!!
Gallo Pinto

1 c. uncooked rice
1/2 c. onion minced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 ts. cumin
1 ts. coriander
1/2 ts. ground ginger
Saute these together in 2 Tb. veg oil until the rice is translucent. Then add 2 c. water, cover, and simmer until rice is cooked.

At this point, I dumped the rice into a big bowl, heated 1 Tb. veg oil and sauteed some diced hot/sweet pepper
*among the recipes I found, this was a bit vague, so I ended up using 1/2 a serrano diced finely for heat and about 1/2 a green bell pepper for flavor)
then I dumped the rice back in and added 2 c. cooked black or red beans and 2 Tb. vegetarian worcestershire sauce (this approximates some kind of sauce that can only be found in Nicaragua or Costa Rica). Heat through and finish with 2 stalks of green onion finely chopped and 1/4 c. chopped cilantro.

I'm gonna garnish it with some sliced avocado. I can't wait.

Veg Broth from Scratch and Perfect Protein Lunches

2009-08-26T17:16:00.004-04:00

Because school is back in, and Fall is my favorite season, and I am very fond of soup, Zips decided we ought to try our hand/paw at making our own veggie broth from scratch. I am delighted at how delicious and rewarding it was. We looked at many recipes online, and decided we were just going to take a whack at it and use whatever we had. So we chopped a whole onion, several carrots, some celery, 2 zucchini, a leftover sliver of cabbage, 3 or 4 parsnips, 3 mushrooms, a sweet potato, a couple of yukon gold potatoes, a couple spears of asparagus, and a bay leaf. Well, we heated these in a little olive oil at the beginning, and just piled in veggies as we chopped them up. Then we added about 16 cups of water. (That's right! Clear water!) and boiled it all for about 2 hours. I found some whole peppercorns and added them about an hour in.

Here it is at the beginning, and a little later once everything starts to jive a little:

After the first hour, it starts smelling maddeningly delicious. It is no longer water with veggies in it, but magical homemade elixer! It could probably have continued boiling, but I couldn't take the sweet torture for long. So I scooped out all the veggies after it cooled, and poured the broth into some freezable containers. We are thrilled! This has totally inspired me to make a vegetarian french onion soup from scratch. I can even make my own bread!
And in our continued search for perfect foods for our busy school days, we needed to concoct something for Thursday Lunches. Thursday is our killer day this semester, as we have to be on campus, essentially, from 11:30am to 8:30pm, (with a break between 1 and 3) We HAVE to bring us some vittles that will keep the candle burning. So I looked up a bean and rice dish, since they offer a complete protein. Now, lots of folks have a recipe for Lentil and Brown Rice Soup/ Stew/ Cassarole/ Salad. I don't know what I was looking for, so I kind of cobbled together several things that looked good to me. The result: delicious!

Lovely Lentils and Brown Rice:

1/2 onion. diced
1 clove garlic minced
2 Tb. olive oil
1 carrot finely diced
2 celery ribs finely diced
3/4 c. uncooked brown rice
3/4 c. dry lentils
3 c. veggie broth (even better if made from scratch!)
1/4 c. roasted pine nuts
2 Tb. fresh cilantro chopped
2 Tb. fresh mint chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
sprinkle of ground coriander and black pepper

Heat up the oil and add things in the order listed. Give the veggies and aromatics a little saute before adding the rice and lentils. After adding the lentils, thrown in the broth and bring to a simmer. Cover it and give it a stir once in a while until the liquid is absorbed (about 30-40min.) Stir in the pine nuts and the fresh herbs. Season to taste, and squeeze the lemon in at the end. Zips liked with a diced fresh tomato mixed in. I'm thinking I would like it with something like raisins or dried cranberry cooked in... I'll keep you posted.

Good for complete protein, good for fiber, and good for Zips.

Pesto Pizza and Oven Fried Green Tomatoes (but not together)

2009-08-22T22:14:00.003-04:00

Today's big adventure was some homemade pizza made with some pizza dough from Trader Joe's. (I've never bought a plastic bag of dough that I can stretch out and toss up in the air. How fun!) I know it's practically un-american for me to be a little ambivalent about pizza. I'm just not a rabid fan. As a teenager, my parents always encouraged me to have pizza parties (feed friends cheap), but I was not and still am not that excited about pizza.

But PESTO pizza is a whole other story! The short version: I made a pizza for everyone in the family. Green chiles, bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, and less cheese on one. No mushrooms and more cheese on another. And green chiles, onion, bell pepper, and tomato on my homemade pesto version. *drool* I can't WAIT to make pizza again!

I know all the components of Pesto, but didn't measure anything out, so here's my guess-timated recipe:

I Love PESTO

2 cloves garlic
1 packed c. basil (washed)
1/4 c. pine nuts
1 Tb. olive oil
1/4 c. parmesan cheese (I didn't have the fancy grated kind, so I used the kind that comes in a green plastic can from Target. It worked just fine)

I just put everything into my mini-food processor that I've had since undergrad and whizzed away. I processed everything in the order listed. Once I put some olive oil in, everything incorporated really well.

Now that school has started again, we're trying to prep a lot of our meals so everything is a healthy, hearty no-brainer when we get up... when we get home... when we get munchie. (While my goal is for these to be healthy, it is absolutely essential they be no-brainers, since I'm a complete zombie when I wake up and also when I get tired!) This weekend we're excited to pretend summer isn't over yet, so we made the pizzas, tonight I'm making soy yogurt for next week's breakfast smoothies. And we're going to try making veggie broth from scratch. Zips just discovered the blog Vegan Yum Yum who has a link to this Fat Free Vegan blog ("sinlessly delicious" I love it), both of which I have bookmarked. So we're going to try Yum Yum's vegetable broth. I'll post more when we have more to show for it.

AND I'm so excited to try baked green tomatoes! I'm thrilled. And perhaps tomorrow, after we go to the local grower's market, we'll have some green tomatoes to bread and bake. Zips is over my shoulder finding recipes for vegan quiche, tempeh potato breakfast patties, vegan paella, seitan stir fry, chickpea spinach soup... we already have designs to make a blackened cajun chik'n dinner tomorrow. SO I have a feeling I'll be posting again real soon.

How Feist made dancers disappear...

2009-08-18T12:09:00.006-04:00

While sprucing up my blog, I clicked on the Feist video for 1234 and am still in love with both the song and the seemingly improvised, endearingly kooky (intentionally graceless) choreography (gives me hope that I could appear in a music video). I love that it's one amazing continuous single shot. I love how flawless the timing is, and I still wondered how they did the trick at the end where all the dancers disappear (and I always imagined a director with a megaphone shouting "Purples! Go! Now reds and yellows! Go! Now everyone! Fall down!"). After a little searching, I found this making-of video. Scoot the slider to about 2:10 and you'll get to see the whole thing:

via videosift.com

Local Veggies for the Broken-Hearted

2009-08-16T22:16:00.008-04:00

This week marks the end of summer "vacation" and the beginning of fall semester. Before it gets too crazy again, Zips and I darted out of town for one last weekend adventure, and ended up in Albuquerque for their downtown farmer's market, and up to Santa Fe for a sweet vegetarian restaurant and a delightful French documentary.

We stayed the night at a hotel in downtown ABQ that I wouldn't recommend-- to anyone. ever. unless you want insomnia and a broken spine-- but the only perk is that when we stepped out of our door Saturday morning, the Albuquerque Farmer's Market was literally across the street! It was so lovely to see piles of produce in addition to local crafty stuff. There were apples, grapes, peaches, eggplants, onions, bell peppers, garlic, carrots, potatoes, O MY!

My heart breaks that our garden won't yield a tomato larger than a ping pong, and that our only thriving investment is a sweet basil plant that heroically refuses to die. How magical that these things grow. How tragic that they won't grow in our backyard! In any event, we splurged on peaches, some grapes(!), a bunch of purple carrots (purple!), some crispy, tart apples (that look like they actually grew on a tree, not in some lab somewhere), and a lovely bag of yukon gold potatoes. I am so jealous of the potato lady. Growing potatoes was my favorite!

The traffic at the farmer's market seemed to come to a dead standstill at the tent belonging to Blk Bird Pies-- an adorable couple who were selling all manner of tiny pies, and also servings of Watermelon Papaya juice, and lemonade with purple basil (the third was hibiscus-something or other, we'll try it next time!). We saw everyone carrying around and sipping these juices, so we had to come back and try them. They were so delicious, and I'm now utterly obsessed with the idea of infusing some thai basil or lavender or something the next time I make a lemon shake-up!

The other happy discoveries for the weekend were, in addition to the fact that The Screen at the College of Santa Fe was playing the enchanting documentary, The Beaches of Agnes, we ate at the equally enchanting Tree House Pastry Shop / Cafe.

It is an all-organic, entirely vegetarian, local food restaurant. Like D'Lish in Sedona, it was such a luxury to look at their menu board and know I could order anything!

For whatever reason, I played it safe and ordered the Black Bean Quesadilla-- I've never dreamed of putting black beans inside a quesadilla-- but it was really good!

But Zips won hands-down for this tempeh-lentil-hummus wrap and salad. After a weekend of sketchy dining out, this was the real winner. She was generous enough to share it with me, and neither of us was hungry for the rest of the night!

We're going to try to duplicate it in our future lunching endeavors! The Tree House is also a full bakery that does wedding cakes and the like, so we had to splurge for cupcakes: chocolate and caramel with pink sea salt (in the cutest little boxes ever).

We packed them up and had dessert at a picnic table in the railyard arts district, where an artist's market was packing up for the day. Hopefully this marks a sweet beginning to our new school semester.

Breakfast of Champions

2009-08-13T01:35:00.003-04:00

In more concerted efforts to have more healthful breakfasts, especially with school starting again next week, we discovered the joys of eating quinoa in the mornings. Zips found a fantastic recipe for Quinoa Porridge (sounds so English, I know..) Ours involves plain cooked quinoa soaked in an equal amount of soy milk (1 1/2 cups feeds both of us) overnight and heated in the morning with a drizzle of honey, a sprinkle of orange zest, some dried cranberries, and some chopped walnuts. It's like oats or grits and a complete protein to boot!

Baked Tortilla Chips from Scratch!

2009-08-08T02:10:00.003-04:00

(Okay, okay, it's more like Baked Tortilla Chips from Tortillas!) One of our greatest vices in the summer is chips n' salsa-- especially fresh, spicy homemade pico de gallo or a batch of salsa from a local restaurant (that I can buy by the quart in their shop!) with fresh tortilla chips from another local restaurant. We've discovered how shockingly easy it is to bake these at home, and they absolutely fulfill my crunchy chip jones.

Baked Tortilla Chips:

Lightly brush or spray veg oil onto 6" corn tortillas (I'm sure you can use flour, I'll take photos if I do that too)
Sprinkle a tiny amount of fine salt onto tortillas (optional--I used fine popcorn salt)
Stack tortillas and cut into quarters.
Lay these out on a baking sheet & bake @ 350 for 10 minutes, flip them over and give them about 5 more minutes. Watch them carefully, as they burn easily. Then indulge. *crunch*

Making Indian from scratch

2009-08-06T18:36:00.003-04:00

Zips and I have a been watching BBC America during the mid-mornings because How Clean is Your House and You Are What You Eat are a couple of our favorite shows-- certainly the most motivating to both do chores around the house and eat well and exercise. In fact, we just bought Gillian McKeith's books You Are What You Eat and the Food Bible. This morning, nearly a week into trying to follow a more Gillian McKeith-like food lifestyle, we hit a food lull (no idea what to fix today), and in the meantime, Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares came on with an episode of Ramsey fixing up an Indian restaurant in Nottingham called The Curry Lounge. Lamenting our current promise not to eat things like ghee (mmmmmm) and naan (ooooooooh), we wondered if we could scrape together enough change to hit the local organic-friendly Indian buffet, and then I said, why don't I make us something? SO I hit up a couple of recipes online for a good Chana Masala (this is adapted largely from a recipe purportedly taken from a cookbook called Heart Healthy Indian), and when I couldn't find my garam masala anywhere, I also found a recipe for that made up of spices I already have! I think a real version of this would involve whole spice pods dry roasted together and ground, but I'll wait until I have a spare coffee grinder to use as a spice grinder. Until then:

Easy Garam Masala:

1 Tb. cumin
1 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

I measured everything out and then poured it into an empty spice jar and shook it until a uniform color. Smells like HEAVEN!

The Chana Masala recipe is a little more fast and loose, I cobbled together two recipes (so I could use just one can of garbanzos), then tweaked them so I'd have more sauce, and added a small potato and a carrot.

So I chopped 1/2 an onion and put it into a food processor with
2 tomatoes from a can of whole tomatoes + 1/4 c. of its juice
1/2 serrano chile (use the whole thing if you think you can take it!)
1 inch ginger peeled and chopped
3-4 garlic cloves peeled

Process these together until a nice tomatoey liquid paste forms.

Then in a large saucepan, I put the other 1/2 onion (diced) with
1 small potato diced
1 carrot peeled & diced
2-3 bay leaves
saute until onion is translucent then add the tomato/onion/ginger/garlic/chile mixture & stir. (**note: Because Zips and I like plenty of saucey gravy to eat with the rice, at this point I actually went back and doubled the tomato/onion/ginger/garlic/chile mixture and added it to the veggies). Then add:

1 tsp. red chili powder
1 tsp. coriander
2 tsp. garam masala
1 15oz. can of garbanzo beans.

Heat together (I put the lid on) 7-10 minutes, or until your basmati rice finishes cooking! Garnish with cilantro leaves. We ate it with brown basmati rice (which I had never tried or cooked before)-- and it was hearty and fine. It smells SO GOOD in here! This has given me a boost of confidence in other Indian cuisine favorites that I have never attempted. Something with lentils next time, I think.

Black Bean Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries (bonus!)

2009-08-06T01:37:00.004-04:00

The Chicago Diner, which Zips and I only visited once (alas!), has a fully vegetarian menu which prompted both of us to try things we'd never think of making at home. Having devoured their amazing black bean burger with sweet potato fries, we're both obsessed with the idea of flying out there to eat it again. In lieu of a pair of plane tickets, we went looking for recipes to test drive, and landed on these. The fries were AWESOME (even if we didn't get them quite crispy), and the burger was DELICIOUS (but a tad wet-- I used a little store-bought breadcrumbs to even out the texture). We loved them both:

Black Bean Burgers:

1 slice whole wheat bread -- torn into pieces and pulsed a couple times in food processor. Then add:
1 grated carrot
1/4 c. cilantro leaves
1/3 chopped onion
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. salt

Pulse these together in the processor a until combined (but not mush!) Then add:
1 15oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed

Pulse with other ingredients until combined and the beans are chopped up (but not mush!). Of course, you want to shoot for a burger-y texture. Scoop out into a mixing bowl and add

1/4 c. prepared chunky salsa (I used some from our favorite local mexican restaurant. caliente!)

Mix into beans with your hands. If it seems too wet (as mine did-- the first burgers fell apart), at this point, add a little bread crumbs. I think I added about 1/4 c. This didn't seem to throw off the flavors at all.

The recipe I found divided the mixture into 4 burgers of equal size. This seemed too big for me, and so I divided it into 6. Heat some extra virgin olive oil in a large pan and fry about 3 minutes on both sides until browned. We served them in pita pockets with garlic aioli (see below), onions, lettuce, tomato, and avocado slices.

Sweet Potato Fries with Garlic Aioli

Okay, the garlic aioli is embarassingly easy-- just 2 garlic cloves grated into 1/2 c. veganaise.

The sweet potato fries involve just a large or 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into fries, then place into a mixing bowl and drizzle

2 Tb. olive oil
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dried parsley
and some pepper.

I combined all the spices together and then tossed them into the fries until evenly coated. Lay the fries out in one layer on a baking sheet and bake at 425 for 15 minutes, flip, and give them 20 more minutes.

Zipper approves!

Altered T's

2009-08-06T01:21:00.005-04:00

Zips has bestowed upon me a task to spruce up some t-shirts with spiffy vintage iron-on decals for the new academic year. Namely to turn throat-clutching crew necks into more shapely v-necks. Given this daunting undertaking, and my own marginal sewing skills, I thought it really necessary to figure out how. SO, to practice:

I've got this unglamorous, boxy speed racer t-shirt that I bought on a whim in the men's graphic t-shirt section at a target some years ago (before that appalling live-action movie). I wore it a couple of times, but mostly relegated it to sleepwear because I was always swimming in it, although the ringer neck always choked me no matter how much I tried to stretch it. SO, I found a couple of lovely specific tutorials on altering tees (hilarious, short video) and converting them to v-neck (scroll down a little, lots of photos). I have a couple of american apparel tees whose fit I love, so I traced the cut onto the big tee with a sharpie and went at it with a pair of scissors, lugged out my handy dandy Singer, and VOILA!

I'm not sure the v is quite centered, but at least I'll be able to wear it out of the house without being mistaken for a 9 year old boy! It didn't take long either. I'm going to go rummaging for more oversized tees that I can fix up. In the meantime, Zips is well pleased. I'm going to need a couple more practice tees to build up my confidence before I lay hands on one of her Fleetwood Mac and Purple Rain t-shirts!

Back from California...and I already want to go back!

2009-07-21T16:18:00.003-04:00

The Great California Adventure of 2009 was a resounding success. Having never particularly desired to visit Los Angeles or Hollywood or all the other crowded, sweaty tourist-y things evoked with the words Southern California, I can now admit to what an idiot I've been. Our week in L.A. was such an oasis from the heat here and, despite the notorious traffic, it was nice to be in a big city. We also found lovely places to go that totally by-passed a lot of touristy crowds. Aside from the theme park and one of the concerts being unfortunately during the opening weekend of the Orange County Super Fair (worst. parking situation. ever.), we really felt like we just lived there.

From our limited experiences, and despite my web research, Zips and I didn't find it to be much of an eatin' place for us. Although I did find this parking spot:
outside of a vegan Vietnamese joint called Au Lac. It was exciting to go to a Vietnamese restaurant where I could order anything at all, but I found it all a bit daunting. The place was fancier than I expected (it looks unassuming and strip mall-ish on the outside)-- everything was a tiny decorative serving on oversized and weirdly-shaped white dishes (the kind Cat Cora uses to plate stuff on Iron Chef America), and the items that won the most rave internet reviews were from the exorbitantly priced Raw section of the menu-- so I didn't try them. Overall the place made me miss my own Pho Chay and Cha Gio Chay (so I made them both on our second night home).

We also tried two vegan Thai places in West Hollywood. They were both fine, but nothing to write home about, although one of them boasted being a regular spot for the cast of Grey's Anatomy (flyers stuck under the glass on each table gush: "Sandra Oh is a regular and McDreamy Patrick Dempsy just loves our vegan chocolate cake!"). The most successful meal we had was a sandwich I made at a picnic bench in Griffith Park just before an Andrew Bird concert. I used hummus acquired at a Trader Joe's along with some microgreens and sprouts, avocado slices, lettuce and tomato. We had Coke from the cooler, sunchips and rice pudding from Trader Joe's. We were famished, and this was perfect.
We did, in fact, overplan for our five day vacation-- with two concerts, two screenings and a panel at a film festival, and a two day pass at Universal Studios Hollywood (oddly, Monday was far more crowded than Friday) (there is, incidently, NOTHING for vegetarians to eat here. Just a tiny cucumber roll at Panda Express, a tiny cheese pizza at Pizza Hut, or a tiny salad.-- or leave the park and try one of the many pricey restaurants at CityWalk). But we waded in the Pacific Ocean, collected sand and seashells, marinated in one of the hearts of American popular culture, drove over 2000 miles, and recharged our batteries a little. We can't wait to go back.

This week: Our first real vacation.

2009-07-08T00:08:00.003-04:00

Before summer is over and we head back to the classrooms (and glue ourselves back in front of our computers), Zips and I decided to have a Great California Adventure ('09). We've had one Great California Adventure ('06), but it involved getting stuck in an airplane in Phoenix for several hours in 106 degree weather, a case of pink-eye, a hotel with no a/c, and too many hard-boiled eggs. We did enjoy the great rolling hills of San Francisco, and made the most of the pink eye situation, but Zips is ready to give the Golden State a second go-round. You can see from our map that we're risking a little over-planning, but I think it's good to have lots of options to pick from. Most likely, we'll go to the things we have tickets to, and spend the rest of the time on a beach!

There are a lot of lovely sounding veg-friendly restaurants (of course), so I look forward to whipping out my camera at the table to post here.

And yes, if you look closely, you'll see that I've located all three of the Ikeas in the LA area. I don't know if we'll go to all of them, but better to be safe than sorry. curse you, excellent and affordable swedish home designs!

Vegan Italian Sausage and Tempeh Bacon!

2009-06-28T21:01:00.004-04:00

As a vegetarian convert, I can confess that I used to love bacon and sausage. I am happy to have given them up and don't miss them, but am always on the lookout for new delicious things to incorporate into my veggie lexicon. In a desire to work more with a new food and in an effort to re-create my delicious BLT from last week, I've been trying to approximate tempeh bacon. Zips recently gave me Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Brunch, and there are so many yummy things to try, including Tempeh Bacon! Unfortunately, though, after two approaches (one involved steaming the tempeh strips, then marinating, then frying; the other just marinate, then fry) I've decided to press on with my quest for a satisfactory recipe. There's nothing wrong with the flavor here, it's just that the texture wasn't crispy, just a little dry and crumbly.

But as I said, the flavor was just fine, very near to what D'Lish served. If you wanna give it a whack, I only modified Vegan Brunch's in a couple ways:

Marinade:

3 Tb soy sauce
2 Tb maple syrup (VB calls for 1)
1 Tb liquid smoke
1 Tb apple cider vinegar
1 Tb olive oil
1 Tb tomato paste (I didn't have any, so used *gasp* ketchup. I think it worked totally fine, though. Really.)
Whisk them all together (I omitted VB's 3/4 c. vegetable broth and 2 garlic cloves)

I used an 8 oz. package of tempeh, cut into about 16 thin slices. I laid them in a baking dish and marinated for about two hours. Then fried in a small amount of veg. oil.

I liked it, but didn't love it. The search continues. I hear light life has a nice "smoky tempeh strips" product, but can't find it 'round here. I'll have to use the rest of my tempeh for some other test kitchen adventure.

The BIG TRIUMPH of the day, though, was a happy coincidence of a recipe for Italian Sausages directly across the page from the bacon recipe. It looked weird (navy beans?!), but turned out amazingly! I can't wait to eat them the next time we make spaghetti!

Here's her recipe:

Before mixing everything up, get a steamer basket going over a pot of boiling water. I used a metal colander and lid over a kettle.

Also, get out four pieces of foil. These will be for shaping and cooking the sausage.

1/2 c. cooked navy beans, rinsed and drained (I used a can of Bush's)
1 c. vegetable broth
1 Tb. olive oil
2 Tb. soy sauce
1 garlic clove (or 2 if you like garlic) finely minced with a microplane grater
1 1/4 c. vital wheat gluten
1/4 c. nutritional yeast (I utterly forgot this, and will have to include it next time!)
2 tsp. fennel seeds, crushed (I couldn't find mine, but would have included it!)
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. sweet paprika
1 tsp. dried oregano
Several dashes fresh black pepper

Mash the beans in a large mixing bowl until every bean is completely obliterated. Add the broth, oil, soy sauce, garlic, and all the spices. (Here's where I depart from VB. She has you add the ingredients in the order listed, but once I added the vital wheat gluten, it was difficult to incorporate the spices into the dense dough that had formed.)

Pull dough into four equal portions, put them on the foil, and roll into 5" logs. Wrap in the foil (I used it to shape the dough more evenly) and twist the ends shut. Don't worry about how it looks, as she says, it will snap into shape while it steams, thanks to the magical vital wheat gluten. Place wrapped sausages into your steamer and steam for 40 minutes. You can use them immediately or saute in olive oil.

I was thriled with the results-- the texture, the spices, everything. I may even use the remaining 3/4 of the can of beans to make more on backup!

VB also has a recipe for chorizo, so maybe I'll try that too (once I have some pinto beans and some proper tomato paste!)

Quinoa Black Bean Salad

2009-06-26T21:24:00.004-04:00

So here's an easy new salad I cooked up today. I've been wanting to find a good recipe with quinoa for a little while now, a challenge since Zips is entirely ambivalent to the wonder grain. We were planning on having a taco night tonight, so I modified this black bean ensemble (originally called "Bean-Wah Salad" like Quinoa: "Keen-Wah." Get it?) The original recipe called for a lemon instead of a lime, and only 1/4 c. of quinoa, which I doubled, then quadrupled since it didn't seem very quinoa-y, and was also too mushy with dressing. So here's my adapted version:

1 c. quinoa
2 c. vegetable broth
Simmer the quinoa in the broth until tender, and most of the broth has been absorbed. I had to add a little water at the end.

While that's simmerin', combine:
1 c. corn
1 can black beans
1 diced tomato
2 green onions, chopped
2 Tb. cilantro, chopped

In a separate bowl, combine:
juice of 1 lime
2 Tb. extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
pinch of salt

Once the quinoa cools off a bit, throw them all together and mix well. Despite her ambivalence toward the mother of all grains, since Zips' favorite spices are cumin and chili powder, she proclaimed this "freakin' delicious." I am well pleased.

We had it as a side to the tacos. In the future, we decided it could totally stand alone in a soft corn tortilla with a little lettuce (top photo). And since quinoa and the black beans are both good protein sources, it'd make a great lunch option. MMmmmmm.

Great Vegan Eats in Sedona

2009-06-26T01:30:00.004-04:00

So we're back from a short vacation in beautiful Sedona, AZ, where Zips happily discovered a lovely vegan restaurant, D'Lish Very Vegetarian. Since Sedona seems such a hippie, yuppie, tourist-y little town, we weren't surprised to find there were several places to choose from (including a raw cuisine joint called Bliss Cafe that we'll have to find next time), but loved D'Lish so much the evening we arrived, we ate there again the next day!

The first time, I ordered and greatly enjoyed a Retro sandwich (avocado, sprouts, lettuce, tomato, etc) until I tasted Zips' choice, the BLT. Their tempeh bacon was INCREDIBLE, and made me rethink my entire relationship with tempeh. I mean I've tried making breakfast sausage patties with it, found a great recipe for tempeh bourguignon, but rarely fix it-- especially now that we live in a hot climate. Now I can't wait to purchase some again. I can't wait to test a couple of tempeh "bacon" recipes myself. So the next night I got the BLT with an avocado added (best of both sandwiches, too much of a good thing is even better!). Everything seems to come with blue corn chips and a little house salad whose dressing is also DELISH!

And for dessert, we shared a "young Thai coconut"-- which a guy simply whacked at with a large knife to open the top, and offered us straws. The fresh coconut water was excellent, and when we had emptied it, we fought over scraping out and eating the insides. Zips said it is among the most decadent thing we've ever done.

More Crazy Signs

2009-06-25T18:20:00.003-04:00

So we just got back from our great Grand Canyon adventure, and I have more less-sane signage from the road. The above is from a rest stop somewhere along I-40 in the eastern part of AZ. I saw a great deal of lizards. I hope they weren't poisonous.

The buffalo stands in front of a gas station in either Valle or Tusayan, AZ, not far from the Grand Canyon.

And this seemed a hilariously explicit warning posted both at the Grand Canyon, and at a scenic point along 89A between Sedona and Flagstaff.

Craft News, Finally

2009-06-22T01:21:00.006-04:00

Oh yeah! As a promise to myself and to my blog, I finally have some crafting/sewing news to post. I've finally cranked out a couple of cat toys and created myself an ETSY store! All I have right now is my own modified catnip-filled "kitten nunchuck" to sell, but I'm working our a couple of project in my test (craft) kitchen. Here's the first snazzy pair of nunchucks (wind up two cats at once!)

I've got another one listed, but plan to make more catnip-stuffed doodads soon! I'm a little intimidated, though. There are catnip tacos! Catnip fortune cookies! Catnip cupcakes! Catnip pizza! Where can I fit in?

The other project I completed is a new pillowcase for our body pillow. Not that I have anything against it... It just looks like it belongs in a dorm room (picture: red, white, blue, and black graphics with the Union Jack and handwritten font words like Girl! Love! Friends! Rock! Angel! with hearts instead of o's. Zips insists it's a riot grrrl pillow. I think it's more like a No Doubt knock off-- ANYWAY, I have a collection of flannel remnants that have a similar color scheme, and although it's summer and flannel seems too hot, they were really light, not to mention soft, so I quilted together a new pillowcase. Now we have dreamy clouds and pj pinstripes and a little dinosaur block here and there.

It was a much bigger job than anticipated! That pillow is 42" long! I ended up quilting blocks 8"in width (random lengths), into a 44"long strip, then stitching 5 of these strips together. This is only half of it-- hung over a clothesline.
Zips' favorite parts are the dinosaurs.

Gyoza From Scratch!

2009-06-22T00:37:00.006-04:00

So file this under "Really? that's all I do?" I made some wonton soup last night, but could only salvage half a package of wonton wrappers. So today I had to do something with all the leftover filling I made (tofu, cabbage, carrot, ginger, cilantro, green onion). I found a recipe for gyoza/wonton wrappers that is *literally* 1 c. all purpose flour mixed with 1/2 c. boiling water. Mix into a dough and knead for 5 minutes. That's it. I rolled mine out into a long rope and cut into 1/2 inch pieces, then rolled those out to a 3" or 4" round.

When I had a pile of these, I filled them with my mix and tried both lightly pan-frying, and also steaming them. They were awesome! Probably tasted better than the dried out, freezer burned Nasoya wraps I used last night!

Here they are in their first incarnation as gyoza-- with a little dipping sauce:

And here they are steamed in a broth. I should probably make them a bit smaller for a soup, but they ended up being an entire meal!

Great Summertime Eats

2009-06-14T23:15:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite foods that's a mix of flavors (mint, basil, ginger, soy) and textures (crispy lettuce, noodles, tofu) and only requires minimal cooking is Vietnamese goi cuon chay (or fresh spring rolls... some call them summer rolls or garden rolls). Ordinarily they would include pork or shrimp, but we sub slices of tofu, in addition to rice vermicelli noodles, green leaf lettuce, chopped cilantro, thai basil, and mint, and usually a little bit of onion sauteed with ginger in some soy sauce. Then wrap them all up in some rice paper and try not to overindulge. Just try!
Traditionally eaten with a hoisin peanut sauce, Zips prefers a peanut ginger dipping sauce:

2 Tb. fresh grated ginger
1/2 c. peanut butter (we use creamy, but I don't think chunky would be a problem)
2 Tb. white miso
2 Tb. soy sauce (we use low sodium)
4 Tb. rice vinegar
1/4 c. hot water

Whisk them all together (I like to add a swirl of sriracha) and dip away!