Scratch and Sniff

In Which I Finally Outwit the Insects

2011-05-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I poked 16 holes in the dirt, dropped in 16 carrot seeds, sprinkled everything with a bit of water, and crossed my fingers.

Today, my nephew and I pulled five full-grown carrots from the earth. I can't decide what recipe is special enough for these beauties, but I'm looking forward to finding out!

Please, Take My Photos

2011-04-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

I spent some time the last few weeks switching the copyright on my food photos to Creative Commons licensing. There's a lot of great vegan photography out there, let's share it with each other. When we all pool our resources, we can create so much more.

Edit: I spoke too soon! Chris and Crystal Tate, the lovely folks behind Food for Lovers Vegan Queso are working on a vegan stock photo site. Y'all, I'm ready for a group hug now.

Black bean soup with all the fixings

Puttanesca Scramble from Vegan Brunch

CSA veggies. This is the photo we used to build my banner.

Carrots fresh from the ground

Summer Rolls from Veganomicon

Seitan en Croute from 500 Vegan Recipes

Tot Salad

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls from Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk

Tortilla Soup

Giant Vegan Passover Post

2011-04-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

Clockwise from top left: roasted beets with horseradish sauce, carrot top (karpas), asparagus, carrot, haroset, roasted potatoes

Being vegan at holidays is a challenge for some people. It's a time when we confront our food nostalgia and our family's expectations. But Passover has unique challenges for vegans, especially if they are Ashkenazi.

There are two basic camps at Pesach. Those who eat kitniyot (beans, peanuts, corn, rice, and so on) and those who don't. If you noticed, most protein-heavy vegan foods fall into that kitniyot category. This makes it a challenge for vegan Ashkenazim who avoid kitniyot. My family's tradition, despite my European ancestry, is to eat kitniyot. We really weren't very strict about Passover growing up, and I don't find Passover too hard to negotiate now because of that.

Some general tips about being vegan at Pesach, and then I'll start with the recipe lists.
• Spring vegetables are starting to roll in, and this is a good time to focus on vegetables.
• Think like a raw foodist. Most of the foods that raw foodists eat are Passover friendly and free of kitniyot. Raw dessert recipes are especially helpful.
• Alternatively, think like an Eat-to-Live dieter. This eating plan is also very Passover friendly.
• Making your own plant milk is really easy to do. Cashew milk and almond milk are good Passover milk choices. And cashew cream is great for desserts. Leave out the sweeteners for savory uses.
• Speaking of nuts, if you don't eat kitniyot, tree nuts are your friend. Peanuts, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and sunflower seeds are all kitniyot, but tree nuts are OK to consume for everyone.
• Quinoa is a really popular grain at Passover because it's not actually a grain. Quinoa is high in protein relative to other grains. Quinoa is usually considered acceptable for Passover, though it can be hard to find quinoa with a Passover hechsher if that's your tradition. Use quinoa to make a breakfast porridge, pilaf, or even quinoa milk.
• The seder plate usually contains some non-vegan items. Using a beet instead of a lamb shank is a long-standing tradition. A beet on the seder plate is even mentioned in the Talmud. Wrap a beet in foil, roast it in the oven for an hour, and then peel or rub off the skin. The beet will look bloody, and that's the point.
• Instead of an egg, you can use: a wooden or plastic egg, an avocado pit, or (if kitniyot aren't an issue) mustard seeds. They're all symbols of growth and renewal.
• For those who eat kitniyot, 1/4 cup pureed silken tofu replaces one egg in a kugel. I've tried this substitution in many kugels, and it always works.

Vegan Passover Recipes without Kitniyot
• Latkes (replace the corn starch with potato starch and the flour with matzah cake meal or matzah meal)
• Roasted potatoes
• Matzo farfel granola (honey=agave)
• Baked apples or poached pears
• Haroset, of course!
• Nut roast
• Chocolate Toffee Matzo (non-dairy kosher for Passover margarine can be ordered online from a kosher retailer)
• Breakfast quinoa (use almond or cashew milk)
• Quinoa breakfast porridge (different from the first link)
• Potato Leek Soup
• Tzimmes
• Vegan chopped liver spread (no green beans or eggs!)
• Potato Mushroom Kugel (use KP margarine or just sub oil)
• Gefilte fish
• Quinoa Stuffed Peppers (skip the sauce)

• Tomato Bisque (saute in oil and use potato starch instead of flour)

• Sweet Potato Kugel

• Baked Eggplant Stacks with Roasted Tomato Sauce

• Roasted portobello mushroom

• Lemony Quinoa with Butternut Squash

• Creamy Zucchini and Basil Soup (omit nutritional yeast, depending on your custom)

• Artichoke Tapenade on matzo
• Smoothies

• Matzo ball soup

Vegan Passover Recipes with Kitniyot
• Potato kugel (replace the flour with matzah cake meal or matzah meal)
• Matzah ball soup
• Cauliflower-leek kugel (all the ?? are 1/2). This recipe always impresses people.
• Cholent (leave out any barley or bulgur)
• Mock gefilte fish
• Quinoa Pilaf
• Black bean mini-burgers

• Chocolate tofu pudding (put it in a nut and matzah crust for a pie)

• Cornmeal or rice porridge

• Italian Layered Vegetable Casserole

• Potato-Green Bean Salad

• Vegan Passover Macaroons (I'm unsure about some of these ingredients, so investigate them for yourself)

• Flourless chocolate cake

Helpful Cookbooks
Olive Trees and Honey, by Gil Marks
No Cholesterol Passover Recipes, by Debra Wasserman
The (Almost) No Fat Holiday Cookbook, by Bryanna Clark Grogan
Party Vegan, by Robin Robertson
The Vegan Table, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Elsewhere on the Internet
• Advice and recipes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz on Heeb'n'vegan
• Nut-based Passover cuisine, also on Heeb'n'vegan
• And one final Passover guide on Heeb'n'vegan
• PETA's page of Passover recipes
• VegNews

• Happy Healthy Long Life

I've done my best to spot errant cumin, green beans, and the like, but if you're cooking for someone else, it's always a good idea to ask what they eat at Passover.

Austin Bakes for Japan TODAY

2011-04-01T23:07:00.000-07:00

Austin Bakes for Japan will be going on at five locations in Austin today, beginning at 10 AM.

My hamentashen weren't quite as pretty as usual, so I made these shortbread cookies as well. You'll find both at the Central Austin location.

There will be vegan and gluten-free baked goods at all five sales tomorrow. Details about the sales plus pretty pictures of the baked goods can be found here: http://austinbakes.wordpress.com/

Austin Bakes for Japan

2011-03-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, there will be five bake sales across Austin to raise money for AmeriCares, a disaster relief charity working in Japan.

Downtown: Woof Gang Bakery, 1204 n. Lamar Blvd. 78703, 10 AM-2 PM
East: Nomad Bar, 1213 Corona Drive, 78723, 10 AM-2PM
West: The Shops at Mira Vista (between Keith Kristofer and Collectic), 2785 Bee Cave Road, 78746, 10 AM-5 PM
Central: Foreign & Domestic, 306 E. 53rd St., 78751, 10 AM-2 PM
South: Hotel San Jose, 1511 South Congress Ave., 78704, 10 AM-2 PM

I'll be at the Central location with poppyseed hamentaschen.

More information can be found at: http://austinbakes.wordpress.com/

Broccoli and Fried Rice

2011-03-17T14:53:00.000-07:00

We had a cold snap awhile back. For all my friends up north who are laughing at me, no, really, it got cold. The temperature was in the low 20s for a few days and there was just enough "snow" to cancel work and school. This is all to say, I had to harvest my garden. And by my garden, I mean these two stalks of broccoli. One of which probably should have been harvested a week earlier.

You keep your broccoli in a podiatry mug, too, right?

How do you feed two measly stalks of broccoli to two adults for dinner? Fried rice, of course! I made rice as part of a meal earlier in the week and planned ahead so we'd have some leftover. Fried rice (and really stir fries in general) is one of the easiest ways to get a vegetable-filled dinner on the table fast. Most of the time will be spent chopping vegetables, which means if you can get moderately efficient with your knife skills (check out some videos on youtube), you can make this meal in about twenty minutes.

The fried tofu was surprisingly eggy.

Most fried rice recipes call for 2 parts rice to 1 part vegetables/protein. We like to increase the amount of vegetables, so we usually do a ratio of 1 part rice (often brown rice) to 1 part vegetables. You want all your vegetables to be chopped about the same size. You don't see broccoli in stir fries very often, but it's actually a great use for it. All the tiny bits of broccoli mingle with the rice, and you can use every bit of the stem.

Vegetable-Filled Fried Rice

2 teaspoons canola oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 onion, any size, chopped

2 cups chopped vegetables [see note]

fried tofu, in cubes or slices (optional)

2 cups cooked rice

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon mirin or sake

salt to taste

Heat oil in a wok or large saute pan over high heat. We'll be adding all the food in shifts, and you'll want to keep stirring as you cook everything constantly. Add chopped onions and cook 1 to 2 minutes, until fragrant. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add chopped vegetables starting with those that are hardest and need the longest cooking times, like carrots. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, until the vegetables turn a bright color. If you're using spinach, bean sprouts, or scallions, add them just before you add the rice in the next step. Add the rice and the tofu, if you are using it. Cook 3 to 4 minutes longer, until the rice is heated through and slightly crispy. Add the soy sauce and mirin or sake and cook a minute longer. Season to taste and serve.

A note on vegetables: The thing about fried rice, and stir fries in general, is that any vegetable works. Use whatever is hanging around your fridge or freezer. Carrots, bell peppers, greens, scallions, broccoli, corn, peas, turnips, celery, green beans, asparagus, sweet potato, lima beans, greens, sprouts. Any vegetable that's generally cooked will likely work. Hard vegetables like carrots should go in first and quick-cooking vegetables, like many greens and bean sprouts, can go in briefly at the end until they wilt or warm. Alternatively, use a frozen vegetable mix that includes carrots, peas, green beans, and lima beans.

You can chop the vegetables any way you like, so long as they're all chopped the same. Cubes are easiest, but other shapes, like julienne, are fun for a change.

Weeknight Meal: Pizza and Imperfection

2011-01-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

I know that isn't pizza up above (smart readers, you!). But you've seen me make pizza before.

If you're going to cook at home more often (which we're trying to do), it takes planning and preparation. I am great at planning. I have four to-do lists going at all times, and our meal plan is on the fridge right next to the shopping list. I am terrible at preparation though.

We were supposed to eat pizza for dinner one night this week. We already had pizza dough in our freezer (preparation success!).

But I forgot to take it out to thaw in the morning (preparation failure!).

I remembered in time to email Dewey to ask him to take it out (preparation success!).

I did not remember to tell him exactly how to take it out of the freezer (preparation failure!).

So Dewey didn't remove one of the pizza dough balls from the plastic package, place it in a bowl, drizzle it with oil, and return the other dough ball to the freezer for another night. Instead he plunked the entire package down on the table to defrost, which is a perfectly ordinary thing to do.

When I got home from work at night, there was a bit of a crust on the dough balls because they weren't oiled. And they were still pretty cold from being in the plastic packaging. And there were two of them.

But I figured it would work out OK, and it did. This wasn't the best pizza we've ever made, but it certainly wasn't the worst. It was pretty good. That might be the third skill it takes to eat more meals at home, accepting imperfection.

I let the balls rise a bit more in a slightly heated oven, and then set out to making pizza. For us, one dough ball makes two personal sized pizzas. This has the advantage of letting us choose our own toppings so we can both be selfish and eat things the other one doesn't like. It's also much easier to work with 6-inch pizzas than 9- or 10-inch pizzas.

After dinner, we were still left with a dough ball, which I didn't think I should return to the freezer. So I tried my hand at making calzones, using some leftover steamed broccoli for the filling. I still need a bit of work on my shaping, but now we have leftovers for lunches or quick dinners this week. Preparation success!

Weeknight Meal: Italian Baked Beans over Polenta

2010-12-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

Last night we ate Italian Baked Butter Beans over polenta for dinner. Believe it or not, this was a pantry dinner. Frozen butter beans, canned tomatoes, a carrot, an onion, some spices, and stone ground cornmeal.

While polenta isn't usually considered an easy weeknight meal, it doesn't haven to be complicated. You really only need to stir every ten minutes or so. This meal bubbled on the stove and in the oven while I emptied the dishwasher, paid bills, and futzed around on the internet.

The bean recipe is a slight variation on the Italian Baked Lima Beans from Veganomicon. Dewey thought this meal tasted like lasagne. I haven't made many of the bean dishes from Veganomicon yet, and I think it's time to change that.

Weeknight meal: Baked Potato

2010-12-20T17:42:00.000-08:00

We've added another meal to our easy meal list. This meal relies a lot more on convenience foods than most of the other meals on our list, but we need more variety on our list if we're going to stick with eating more meals at home.

We've made this a few times now. It's a baked potato, with Upton's Naturals seitan, broccoli, and locally-made Nacho Mom's vegan queso. The Upton's Naturals seitan has been sneaking into a lot of our meals, lately. It freezes well and defrosts fast, and it's great in spaghetti sauce, casseroles, and anywhere else you might use ground meat. In the past, we've made our own cheese sauce, and I think we'll continue to do that in the future since it's cheaper and we can make it exactly how we want it.

To make a quick cheesy sauce for baked potatoes or broccoli: saute a few tablespoons of flour in nonhyrdogenated margarine or neutral oil for about two minutes over medium low heat. Slowly pour in a cup of unsweetened plant milk, stirring with a fork as your pour. Turn the heat to medium-high. As the sauce warms, sprinkle in a few handfuls of your favorite vegan cheese. (I've used both Daiya and Tofutti slices for this.) Stir until the cheese melts into the sauce. Add a pinch or two of paprika, and season with salt to taste.

Brunch: Raised Waffles

2010-12-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Dewey and I eat brunch out every Sunday. Since we're trying to eat in more often, we're going to eat brunch at home once a month.

This Sunday we made raised waffles from Vegan Brunch. These are the best waffles I've ever had. I've been getting more and more confident with yeasty recipes the past two years, and I wish I'd tried this one before. It doesn't have any of the fussiness of a lot of yeasted recipes: it only needs to rise for an hour, and you don't need to knead it at all.

Home Cooking

2010-12-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

Kris over at Two Vegan Boys has challenged everyone to eat more at home and less at restaurants. Really she challenged everyone to eat entirely at home for a year, but Dewey and I aren't up for that challenge yet. She'll be blogging what she eats for dinner every night here.

We have noticed over the past few months a rapidly rising food budget. Or maybe just a lack of a food budget. Either way, I'm committing to cooking more of our meals at home, and doing so with my eye on the food budget.

As part of this, I'm going to be posting more of our ordinary home dinners. They aren't always exciting, they won't always come with recipes, and (this one kills me) the photos won't always be pretty. But they'll show what one vegan and one along-for-the-ride omnivore eat for dinner. I'm also committing to trying more recipes from the cookbooks I've been buying faster than I can use them.

Above is last night's dinner. A thrown-together enchilada soup made from all the leftovers in the house: enchilada sauce, corn, carrot sticks, black beans, potatoes (leftover from making latkes), a minced chipotle chili, tofutti sour cream, and some seasonings. The only thing we bought to make this was a can of beans.

The biscuits are cornmeal biscuits from Vegan Brunch, and they're amazing. Really easy to make and the perfect pair for some Tex-Mex-inspired soup. I mixed the dough and put half of them in the oven, and while they baked I made the soup. I think the entire meal took about 35 minutes to make, including clean up. Half the rolls went in to the freezer for future lunches and dinners.

If you've hesitated about buying Vegan Brunch because you rarely eat brunch, don't let that stop you! I've made lots of great recipes from this cookbook, and rarely before 6PM. I think with the exception of cinnamon rolls, most of the recipes in the book make great dinners. And I promise not to judge you if you eat cinnamon rolls for dinner occasionally.

Help! There's Nothing to Pack for Lunch

2010-11-30T13:55:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, planning ahead doesn't happen. [See the entire last week.] But if you have a moderately well-stocked pantry, you can probably pull something out for lunch. Especially if you consider some often-overlooked foods for lunch. Most of these foods won't make anyone's top-ten list, but they're better than skipping lunch or hitting the vending machine.

Many frozen fruits and vegetables are great for packed lunches. They often don't even need to be heated up. Just toss them in a container and they'll have defrosted by lunch. For fruits, mango and berries do especially well. For vegetables, peas, corn, edamame, and green beans are my favorites. If you have time and motivation, make a compound butter or vinaigrette to go with the vegetables or whip up a smoothie.

Have a can of beans? Blend it together with some oil and whatever herbs you have handy. Even better with some garlic or green onions. Or skip the blender and marinate the beans in your favorite salad dressing. Canned beans mashed with salad dressing makes a great sandwich spread.

Have a can of refried beans? Mix it with canned tomatoes, rotel, or salsa for a great bean dip or puree. For bonus points, add cumin and a bit of chili powder.

Have dry oatmeal? Throw it in a tupperware with plant milk or water and whatever you can scrounge up (consider frozen fruit, jam, dried fruit, nut butter, flax, or nuts). Not into sweet? Make savory oats instead (I like soy sauce, ginger, green onions, and hot sauce in my oatmeal). If you have access to a microwave at work, wait until lunch to cook. Best to use a large container for this and watch closely, as oatmeal can expand and overflow the container as it cooks.

Consider often-overlooked ingredients to round out your meal. Sun-dried tomatoes, pickles, olives, crystalized ginger, nori, and miso are usually in the back of my cabinets or fridge.

This last suggestion is a favorite of mine: soup in a bag. [Note: if Sandra Lee makes you pull out your hair, now is probably a good time to go visit someone else's blog.]

Soup in a Bag

ziplock bag*

frozen vegetables (peas, corn, or vegetable mix)

couscous, broken up angel hair pasta, or fideo noodles (uncooked)**

garlic powder

ginger powder

vegetarian bouillon powder/cube

Add a handful of vegetables to the bag. Add 1 tablespoon couscous or a handful of noodles. Shake a bit of garlic and ginger powder into the bag as well and finish it off with bouillon powder or a bouillon cube.

At lunch time, heat water. Dump the contents of the bag into a mug or bowl. Pour the hot (boiling is best, but not necessary) water over the soup ingredients. Wait 5 minutes for the pasta to absorb water. Stir and enjoy.

*There's no reason not to put the ingredients straight into a microwave-safe tupperware, but I find that mornings where there's no lunch food in the house are also mornings where there aren't any clean tupperware containers.

**You want noodles that will cook in 3-5 minutes. Anything longer (like regular spaghetti), and they won't soften with just boiling water.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-29T07:34:00.000-08:00

VeganWhatFo?

Sorry for the absence, folks. I had a wee cold, and I was too busy sneezing, hacking, and whining to post pictures of the questionably-nutritious, questionably-food stuff that I was eating.

But I did manage to make the lovely gem above for Thanksgiving. And a pumpkin pie. And gravy (no recipe).

I'm pretty sure this is a keeper for Thanksgivings to come. It's pretty, easy to make, tastes great, reheats well, and makes a wonderful leftover sandwich. A hit on many levels.

The recipe is from 500 Vegan Recipes. I've been of two minds about this cookbook. I've tried some lovely recipes from it, but I've also had a few stinkers. But the recipe for Seitan en Croute has firmly pushed me towards "recommend".

My other favorites from 500 Vegan Recipes have been the butterbean dip (start with half the required scallions and taste before adding the rest), peanut butter muffins, and cheater mac and cheese. The baking recipes make use of a lot of alternative flours, which I like. For instance, the peanut butter muffins are made partially with pulverized dry oatmeal. And there are lots of recipes for grains that I've been trying to get to know, like bulgur.

Unfortunately, a few of the ingredient measurements are off, like the amount of chia seed in the Brazil nut bleu cheese. And a few of the recipes just didn't work for me. But overall, I recommend this book, especially if you are interested in baking or exploring new-to-you ingredients.

Announcement: Tiffin winner

2010-11-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

According to the random number generator, the winner of the tiffin is Seglare, who is MOFOing from Copenhagen! Seglare, email me your address at scratchsniff1 (at) gmail.com.

Recipe Thursday: Tot Salad

2010-11-11T17:59:00.001-08:00

I used to think I didn't like salad. In the U.S., we mostly eat Sad Salads™. You know, a few much-too-large pieces of iceberg lettuce, a tomato slice, and a cucumber slice. If you're lucky, there might be a few carrot shavings. These salads are solely vehicles for loads and loads of dressing. Why else would you eat them?

But salad doesn't have to be like that. Salad can be flavorful. It can be crunchy, tangy, salty, sweet. Salad can be the best part of the meal.

Here is a salad worth eating.

Tot salad
several cups of baby lettuce leaves
1 cup green beans (fresh or frozen)
1 cup tater tots
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 tablespoon oil
salt and pepper

Cook the tater tots according to the directions on the package. If using fresh green beans, trim them and cook them in boiling water for 4 minutes, or until bright green. Shock them in ice water to stop the cooking. Alternatively, remove frozen green beans from the freezer several hours in advance to thaw.

Combine the agave nectar, mustard, and oil. Stir vigorously to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Assemble the salad. This makes one large meal salad or two side salads.

Boxed Soups

2010-11-10T15:43:00.001-08:00

Leftovers and home-cooked foods are great, but sometimes you need to rely on Mama Grocery Store to provide something to round out your lunch.

I think boxed soups are great to keep around for lunches. Boxed soups, for whatever reason, tend to taste better than canned ones. And they don't require a can opener, which is a bonus for work or school meals. I often rely on them to boost the vegetable count in my lunches between grocery trips.

Due to BPA in can linings, there's been a recent explosion in boxed soups. And a surprising number of the new soups are vegan. I've been keeping a score sheet for every boxed soup I try. Here are my favorites.

Pacific Natural Foods Cashew Carrot Ginger My soup rating system is 1-4 soup spoons. When I tried this soup for the first time, it made me wish that it went to 5, at least. It's creamy, flavorful, and doesn't need any doctoring. This is the soup I'd serve to anyone who thought vegans eat twigs and berries.

Dr. McDougall Roasted Red Pepper Tomato This is my other hands-down favorite. This brand is marketed as healthy convenience food. (You can read about Dr. McDougall's diet here.) They're a little harder to find than the Pacific Natural brand. Locally, I buy them at Whole Foods or Fiesta supermarkets. You can also get them in bulk from Amazon. The Roasted Red Pepper Tomato soup is the perfect balance of tomato-y acid and red pepper sweetness, and there are nice chunks of tomatoes, too.

Honorable mentions: Imagine Foods Potato Leek, Imagine Foods Corn and Lemongrass, and Pacific Natural Foods Thai Sweet Potato.

The Fig and Colavita soups also pictured above are so new, I haven't had a chance to try them.

Diabetes Blog Day: 6 Things

2010-11-09T09:37:00.001-08:00

It's Diabetes Blog Day, one of many events during World Diabetes Month. Today's topic, blogged by diabetes bloggers across the Internet is 6 Things You Want People to Know About Diabetes

1. Being perfect isn't possible. But it's what we often expect of ourselves when we have diabetes. And despite knowing all of that, there's a lot of guilt that comes with each little failure.

2. Fear is a really poor motivator. Don't tell me about your grandmother who lost her leg/eyesight/kidney function thinking that it will convince me to take better care of myself. First of all, I take damn good care of myself as is. Second of all, while the DCCT tells us that good glucose control can reduce some complications by 42% to 76%, NOTHING reduces complications by 100%. I could do everything right and still end up with complications. So keep your fear to yourself.

3. Speaking of good control, in his book Think Like a Pancreas, diabetes expert Gary Scheiner defines very good control as having blood glucose levels in range 70% of the time. Fair control is having the numbers in range 50-70% of the time. Imagine that you made soup using the same ingredients every day, but it only tasted OK 70% of the time. And, your 70% success rated you a master chef.

4. No one knows what causes type 1 diabetes. We know that islet cells in the pancreas are destroyed by the body's immune system. But the why and how are still under investigation. Wheat, viruses, low vitamin D, cow's milk, lack of breast feeding, and aliens are all possibilities, but scientists are far from certain. Chances are, it's more complex than we think.

5. When you think I'm sick, I'm not. When you see me testing my blood glucose or taking insulin, everything is OK. That's what I do to be healthy. Just like you brush your teeth or eat food.

6. And when you don't think I'm sick, I am. Contradictory, I know. Just because I look OK at any given time, it doesn't mean I'm feeling OK. The signs of low/high blood glucose are often easy to miss from the outside.

Packing Drinks for Lunch

2010-11-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite drink to pack in my lunches. It's peanut- and walnut-flavored soy milk. And it makes my lunch feel luxurious. I buy this from New Oriental Market, but most Asian markets will have a few kinds of flavored soy milks. I like this one because it's not too packed with sugar and it tastes like nuts!

Water is of course healthy, affordable, and easy to find. But there's no reason to limit yourself to just water with your lunch. Packing a more interesting drink can make your lunch feel special, which means you are more likely to actually eat it.

Other beverage options:
tea (hot or iced)
coffee (hot or iced)
plant milks
hot cocoa
fruit juice
apple cider
kombucha
lemonade
tonic with a squeeze of lemon or lime
smoothie
coconut keffir
tomato juice
bouillon
miso
horchata
sparkling water

cafe au lait

I don't own a thermos, so I pack homemade drinks in a clean mason jar and reheat or refrigerate at work.

Hot Cocoa in a Jar
1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder
sweetener to taste
a pinch of salt
1 cup plant milk
flavoring (optional)

Pour a few tablespoons of milk in your jar. If you're using a crystalized sweetener like white sugar, microwave the jar for about 40 seconds. If you're using a liquid sweetener or sugar-free sweetener, you don't need to heat the milk. Add the cocoa powder, sweetener, and salt, and stir until everything is combined. It can take a lot of stirring to incorporate all the cocoa powder.

Add the rest of the milk and the flavoring if you're using it. Flavoring can either be an extract such as vanilla or mint extract (a few drops) or a syrup (1 to 2 tablespoons). If you're using a syrup, you'll want to reduce or eliminate other sweeteners. Cinnamon or cayenne pepper are great additions, as well. Stir everything together.

When you're ready to drink, shake with the lid on, and then microwave uncovered for 1-2 minutes.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

2010-11-08T11:50:00.000-08:00

Microwaves. Not everyone has access to one at lunch, and some people just don't like them.*

Lots of foods taste great at room temperature. Many sandwiches, fruit, raw vegetables, crackers, salads, and nuts are all traditionally served room temperature. Other foods are often served cold, like summer soups, yogurt, smoothies, dips, and pasta and grain salads. And finally, there are foods that are usually served hot that just happen to taste pretty good at room temperature or cold, particularly pizza and pureed soups like tomato soup.

I know that I often don't feel satisfied until I've eaten something warm. If you have an electrical outlet available, you might consider getting an electric kettle. Electric kettles are pretty popular in England, but you don't see them as often in the U.S. They heat water very quickly with little energy use. With hot water, you can have tea, hot cocoa couscous, bulgur, and quick cooking noodles (like angel hair pasta). Even just a cup of tea following a cold meal is enough to make a difference for me.

Alternatively, think spicy. If you're feeling one kind of heat, you might not notice the lack of another kind.

If you're on the go or there's no electricity, you might consider getting a thermos or a food jar to keep things hot. Heat the thermos with boiling water, drain, and then add whatever hot dish you want. Chances are it will still be hot, or at least warm, at lunchtime.

Or think raw. Raw foods aren't meant to be heated in the first place. So revel in fresh fruits, vegetables, and sprouted grains and beans.

As far as keeping things cold, an ice pack should do. But really, most vegan foods should be fine at room temperature for a few hours, with the exception of rice and yogurt.

100 Lunch Foods That Don't Require Heating

1. tomato soup

2. pbj

3. pretzels

4. frozen fruit (it will defrost by lunchtime)

5. nuts

6. popcorn

7. fruit leather

8. leftover pizza

9. sesame noodles

10. steamed vegetables (w/vinaigrette or plain)

11. crackers

12. cole slaw

13. granola bar

14. yogurt

15. plant milk

16. bean dip (homemade or commercial)

17. fruit salad

18. fava bean puree w/a drizzle of olive oil

19. pesto pasta

20. pickles

21. lemonade

22. avocado

23. trail mix

24. ants on a log

25. TLT

26. potato salad

27. tortilla and refried bean spirals w/salsa

28. nicoise salad

29. avocado and tomato sandwich

30. hummus and pita w/tomatoes

31. bagel with cream cheese or hummus

32. olives

33. any of the salads in my first list

34. iced tea

35. cinnamon toast

36. apple spread with peanut butter (core an apple, slice into wedges, apply peanut butter, reassemble apple)

37. veggies and dip (w/crackers!)

38. cereal (with or without milk)

39. tapioca pudding

40. chickpea salad sandwich

41. vegan sausage on a bun w/mustard

42. salsa and chips

43. crock cheese w/crackers and vegetables

44. tomato salad

45. roasted chickpeas

46. lettuce wraps

47. garlic bread

48. applesauce

49. seaweed salad

50. soy crisps

51. tapenade spread on French bread

52. juice

53. rice pudding

54. fruit cup

55. chia pudding

56. Waldorf salad

57. fruit and nut balls

58. cucumber sandwiches

59. apple chips

60. gazpacho

61. nori chips

62. vegan lunchmeat sandwich w/all the fixings

63. dried fruit

64. pan bagnat

65. fruit-and-nut bar

66. packaged Indian meals

67. creamed spinach

68. edamame (throw in frozen, they'll defrost by lunch)

69. Texas caviar

70. tofu satay w/peanut sauce

71. granola

72. massaged kale salad

73. marinated mushrooms

74. panzanella

75. no-cook oatmeal

76. three bean salad

77. equal parts tahini and agave nectar spread on a tortilla, rolled up, and sliced into spirals

78. broccoli slaw

79. brown rice w/peanut sauce (or curry sauce)

80. tofu (baked, fried, or aburaage) w/dipping sauce

81. cold baked sweet potato

82. marinated cucumbers

83. sushi rice with toppings

84. shredded carrots tossed with peanuts and raisins

85. banana chips

86. carrot sticks w/peanut butter

87. A roll sliced in half, spread with pesto, and filled with tomato slices

88. muffins (there's a great, filling peanut butter-oatmeal muffin in 500 Vegan Recipes)

89. seitan sub sandwich

90. applesauce

91. broccoli w/marinara for dipping

92. peanut butter and cracker sandwiches

93. dried figs stuffed with almonds

94. melon

95. guacamole (covered tightly with plastic) and chips

96. a soft pretzel w/mustard

97. ratatouille

98. cold roasted vegetables

99. baby spinach and mushrooms w/agave-mustard dressing

100. tabbouleh

*I think microwaves are perfectly safe to use if you microwave in appropriate materials (preferably glass. Old yogurt and margarine containers are not appropriate.). And they use less energy than most other heating methods. For the lazy, don't store any food you plan to reheat in a container you wouldn't put in the microwave. When you're hungry, you're more likely to throw caution to the wind. For the more prepared, cost-conscious, and waste-conscious, keep a bowl and plate at work so you can transfer food to a microwave-safe material.

Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cookoff

2010-11-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sunday, November 7, is the 22nd Lonestar Vegetarian Cook-off. I'll be competing for the second time. Last year, I won second place with this chili recipe. I still really love that recipe, but we've given the chili a bit of a makeover so it's fresh and new this year. It's still bulgur-based. It's still beanless. And it's still spicy. But we used a completely new spice blend.

The cook-off is really a great event. Last year there were lots of 100% vegan chilis to try, veg-related booths, live music, door prizes, and great food and beer. I except this year to be even better.

I'll be cooking up 5 gallons of chili (without electricity!) and serving it by the tablespoonful tomorrow. I hope some of y'all will come out to try it. More details are on the event's website.

I'll post the recipe, a contest recap, and the price of making 5 gallons of vegan chili tomorrow!

MoFo Lunches: Week 1

2010-11-05T07:57:00.001-07:00

Welcome to my early morning kitchen. The sun hasn't come up. I haven't had my coffee yet. I haven't eaten. I might still be in my pajamas. And I'm certainly grumpy.

But it's time to pack my lunch, and you're all invited to watch under the glare of my camera flash. The photos aren't pretty. Making lunch is hard enough pre-coffee and breakfast. There's no way I'm up for staging pretty photos.

Along with photos and descriptions of the food, I'm going to include carb counts and insulin doses. November is Veganmofo month, but it's also American Diabetes Month. And I don't make a single food decision without consulting the 'betes.

Monday. Leftover lo mein (whole wheat lo mein noodles, green beans, carrots, red onions, cabbage, tofu). I never can get the vegetables fully incorporated into the noodles, so the leftovers are 75% vegetables. But there are a few noodles on the bottom there. Pineapple. A few dark chocolate covered dried blueberries.

40g carbohydrate, 4 units humalog

Tuesday. Imagine Foods tomato soup. Salad of lettuce, golden raisins, and almonds with pomegranate vinaigrette on the side. A frozen chickpea cutlet from a bulk cooking session. The cutlet defrosted by lunch and I tore it up and added it to the salad.

45g carbohydrate, 4 1/2 units humalog

Wednesday. Leftover noodle soup (vegetable broth, whole wheat noodles, soy curls, carrots, celery, onions, and celery leaves). Whole wheat crackers. Soymilk (made from black soybeans, but it doesn't taste any different.) Two dried strawberries.

40g carbohydrate, 4 units humalog

Thursday. I forgot to make my lunch until 2 minutes before I had to leave, and it shows. So Delicious strawberry-banana coconut yogurt. A toasted slice of Rudi's part-whole grain cinnamon-raisin bread (I was so excited to find vegan cinnamon-raisin bread). Pineapple.

60g carbohydrate, 6 units humalog

Friday. Whole-grain vanilla cereal (I can't remember the brand). Ancient grains milk (This is new. I can't remember all the grains, but it includes quinoa.) Cole slaw.

50g carbohydrate, 5 units humalog

Artichoke Salad Sandwich

2010-11-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

Thursdays in November will be lunchbox recipe days!

First up is an artichoke salad sandwich. I got the idea for this recipe from muffin-tuffin on the PPK. Her description of the sandwich was "artichoke hearts, basil, garlic, mayo, roasted red peppers on bread with spinach."

I did things a little differently to fit what's in my kitchen. I never seem to have roasted red peppers, and roasting them myself doesn't seem to mesh with my goal of easy lunch recipes.

Artichoke Salad for a Sandwich

(makes 1 sandwich)

4 artichoke hearts (frozen or canned, but not marinated)

1 clove garlic, minced

2 green onions, chopped

handful of basil, chopped

1 tablespoon vegenaise

salt and pepper to taste

If you're using frozen artichoke hearts, thaw or cook them briefly. If you're using canned or jarred artichoke hearts, rinse them in water. Squeeze the artichoke hearts over a strainer to get out as much water as possible. Roughly chop the artichoke hearts, mix with the other ingredients. Taste and adjust the seasonings.

I ate my sandwich on pumpernickel (low GI!) with some lettuce, but I think tomato slices or thinly sliced onion would be nice as well.

Lunch Container Roundup (and Giveaway!)

2010-11-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is my lunch bag.

I pack the food in glass tupperware containers. For me, it's important that my lunch containers 1) can go in the dishwasher, 2) have standard cup sizing for easier carb counting, 3) are made of glass if they will ever go in the work microwave, and 4) minimize waste. The lunchbag was free. Before I had that, I just packed the containers into a canvas bag.

But there are lots and lots of other options out there if you want something made specifically for holding your lunch. (All of these can go in your dishwasher.)

Laptop lunchboxes are a homage to the bento boxes that are popular in Japan. You've probably seen them at the great Vegan Lunchbox blog. They're phthalate-, BPA-, and lead-free and microwave safe. Pros: they're cute, great for portion control, and encourage variety in your lunch. Cons: they're not as flexible as some options, and they're probably not the best option for packing lots of wet items like soups or marinated salads.

Tiffins hail from India. They're stainless steel, which means none of the worries of plastic food storage and they're practically indestructible. Pros: These are great for larger food portions for things like salad. They're also more "grown-up". Cons: again, not a great option for liquids, and they're not microwave safe.

Fit and Fresh Salad Shaker is exactly what it sounds like. You put the salad in the bottom, and there's a container for the dressing on top. At lunch, just dispense the dressing and shake! Pros: great for salads! Cons: not very good for anything else.

Food jars (or thermoses) are perfect for anything liquid or anything that needs to stay hot or cold. Pros: best option for soups or for anyone without access to a microwave. Cons: a bit of a unitasker, this won't be of much use for packing sandwiches or salads.

And now, a contest! The prize is a three-tier tiffin from Herbivore Clothing (paid for by me). The contest is open to international contestants. Enter by telling me your favorite food to pack for lunch in the comments below. If you don't have a blog where I can contact you, include an email address in your comment. I will choose a winner using a random number generator next Wednesday, November 10.

Fear of (Lunch) Commitment

2010-11-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

It's day two of VeganMoFo, and we're talking about our commitment issues.

It's hard for some people to commit to packing lunch. Some people aren't cooks. Some people aren't planners. And some of us are just lazy. Not to mention that in many places, there's delicious food around every corner just beckoning us to buy it. "Come on," these foods beg. "You can sleep in an extra 15 minutes and you won't have to do any dishes. Besides, we're french fries. You love french fries."

There are good reasons to pack your lunch. You probably already know them. Done right, it's cheaper and healthier. There's less waste, and you know exactly what you're eating.

So how can you learn to love lunch again?

1. Vary what you eat. When I was a high school freshman, I ate cheese pizza for lunch every school day. Then I refused to eat pizza for two years. Lesson learned. It's boring to eat the same thing day in and day out.

2. Make it special. Though a peanut butter and jelly sandwich may be tasty, it can be boring. An almond butter and mayhaw jelly sandwich is exciting. Exciting helps you resist going out for french fries or getting oreos from the vending machine. Special can also mean using your favorite lunchbox or napkin or the silverware your grandmother gave you.

3. Plan. At least a little bit. Keeping lunch staples around (and saving them for lunchtime only) keeps morning prep to a minimum. Even better, pack your lunch the night before.

4. Have a back-up plan. Humans forget things sometimes. It's bound to happen. Have a plan for days when there's nothing in the house to pack or you leave your lunch at home.

5. Pack substantial lunches. Try to pack a few things from different categories. Some possible categories are: protein, carbohydrate, vegetable, fruit, nuts, goodies, hot, cold, room temperature, crunchy, creamy, salty, sweet, spicy, green, red, yellow. For me, having variety is what makes food feel like a meal rather than a snack. Sometimes this means a soup of beans and greens and piece of fruit (categories: hot, cold, salty, sweet, protein, vegetable, fruits, blue, green). Sometimes it's a smorgasbord of leftovers. Besides being more substantial, variety in your meals means you're more likely to hit all the nutritional bases.

6. Be social. If your coworkers keep dragging you off to lunch, find other ways to spend time with them. Start a lunch swap. Organize a bring-your-lunch-to-work day. Meet up after work.

7. Or don't. Your coworkers are jerks? Getting out of the office doesn't have to involve food. Put on a pair of headphones, head out for a walk, find a place to eat outdoors, or read a book.

8. Keep yourself accountable. Make a lunch date with a coworker or friend. Keep track of how much money you're saving or the number of healthy non-fast food meals you're eating. Offer to cook for officemates occasionally as vegan outreach.

9. Reward yourself. Have a piece of chocolate or a great cup of tea after lunch. Or let yourself eat out occasionally.

10. Know your limitations. And work with them. If your idea of cooking is opening a jar of spaghetti sauce or microwaving an Amy's meal, don't plan to cook huge amounts of leftovers or bulk meals. It probably won't happen. And if you are a perfectionist, don't let that get in the way of packing your lunch. Meeting some of your goals is better than giving up and meeting none of them. Balance your expectations with your abilities.

100 Ideas for Vegan Lunches

2010-11-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

When Dewey and I started sharing kitchen duties, all my leftovers and meticulous meal plans disappeared. Dewey isn't a fan of repeated meals or planning meals ahead. We've forged some kind of cooking alliance that works for us, and dinner shows up on the table with little fuss most of the time. But when I finally found a job in Austin, I missed my constant leftovers for lunch. Being me, my first thought was a list. And so I bring you, 100 Ideas for Vegan Lunches.

The list is specific to my tastes, dietary needs, and cooking habits. So think of this as a starting place. Replace the meals that I like to cook in bulk with your own favorites. Some obvious foods don't appear, such as juice, because they're not diabetic friendly. The foods are more-or-less healthy, but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for dessert or chips at lunch. It just means I don't need a reminder to eat those sorts of things.

Without further ado, here are 100 things you could pack for lunch, with links available where possible

1. crock cheez, crackers, vegetables

2. hummus (commercial), crackers/pita, vegetables

3. taco salad

4. pbj

5. refried bean tortilla spirals w/salsa

6. brown rice w/seasonings

7. boxed soup

8. yogurt w/flax

9. chickpea cutlets

10. jerky

11. dal

12. cole slaw

13. TLT

14. avocado, tomato sandwich

15. roasted chickpeas

16. Caesar salad

17. graham crackers and milk

18. muffins

19. chili w/fritos, onions

20. packaged Indian foods

21. sesame noodles

22. nuts

23. fresh fruit

24. no sugar added dried fruit

25. plant milk

26. hot chocolate

27. tamales (frozen)

28. sausages (commercial)

29. sausages (homemade)

30. bean dip (homemade), crackers, vegetables

31. seven layer dip w/tortilla chips

32. lentil rice balls w/tomato sauce

33. falafel (frozen) w/pita, lettuce, tomatoes, tahini

34. ww English muffin w/EB and marmite (or jam)

35. pumpkin bread

36. salad: lettuce w/soba, tofu, red bell pepper, and peanut sauce

37. soy crisps

38. leftovers

39. avocado

40. oatmeal w/nuts, soy milk, and brown sugar

41. unsweetened applesauce w/walnuts or pecans and flax

42. waffles (homemade or commercial) w/maple syrup or peanut butter

43. Boca chik sandwich w/vegenaise on whole wheat

44. tomato salad

45. almond pate (from Wheatsville), vegetables, crackers

46.vegetable (or hummum) wrap

47. dry cereal

48. baked potato with toppings (salsa, broccoli, and so on)

49. ww couscous w/nuts and dried fruit

50. sliced mushrooms w/Goddess dressing

51. ww garlic bread

52. sun-dried tomatoes

53. miso soup

54. noodles w/esme's sauce and vegetables

55. smoothie

56. salad: romaine, apple, avocado, tempeh bacon, red onion, goddess dressing

57. olives

58. chocolate covered fruit

59. seitan sandwich w/all the fixins

60. artichoke salad sandwich with spinach

61. baked beans

62. pickle

63. bouillon

64. iced tea/coffee

65. celery (or jalapeno!) filled with peanut butter

66. popcorn (with nooch)

67. grain salad (grain+herbs+beans+sauce)

68. chickpea salad sandwich

69. tortilla chips and salsa

70. black bean soup

71. soup in a bag

72. grilled cheese and tomato soup

73. fruit and nut balls

74. edamame

75. frozen vegetables

76. roasted vegetables

77. bowls (grain/pasta + veg/beans/tofu + sauce)

78. cereal w/milk and fruit

79. raw vegetables w/ranch dip

80. lasagne

81. pasta salad

82. quick curry w/brown rice or pasta

83. fried rice

84. cornbread

85. frozen fruit

86.crackers and peanut butter

87. baked apple

88. peanut butter and apple or banana sandwich

89. tot salad: lettuce, tater tots (cooked), green onions, tomatoes, green beans, agave-mustard salad dressing

90. rice and beans (with hot sauce!)

91. baked sweet potato w/brown sugar-green onion compound EB

92. tofu scramble in a tortilla

93. steamed vegetables

94. side salad: arugula w/tahini-rice vinegar dressing

95. crystallized ginger

96. fruit crisp

97. tofu (baked, fried, or aburaage) with a dipping sauce

98. marinated mushrooms

99. kale and soba noodles dressed with soy sauce and sesame oil
100. BBQ chickpeas

The full version of the list is organized by work required (little work, bulk cooking, some work) and nutrient, focusing on the ones vegans or diabetics might need to pay attention to. You can find it here.

Announcing VeganMoFo 2010!

2010-10-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

It's time for another year of VeganMoFo! For the month of November, people from around the world will be pledging to blog about vegan food and issues every weekday.

There are rumblings of some great themes out there, including the history of vegetarian food (with recipes!), beans and rice, gluten-free vegan cooking, cookbook reviews, and vegan food from around the world. Check out the VeganMoFo headquarters for updates and roundups or to sign up to blog or tweet about vegan food (@veganmofo).

For the month of November, I'll be blogging about packing vegan lunches for adults. If there's anything you ever wanted to know about how one lazy person can save money, eat healthfully, reduce her environmental footprint, and prevent animal cruelty all through the power of a satisfying lunch, ask in the comments.

Celebratory zucchini soup

2010-08-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

I've left behind my crummy night job, and I'm beginning a new (sane?) daytime job tomorrow. That means more sunny hours for cooking, photography, and gardening. Ooo boy!

To celebrate, I scrounged through the produce lurking at the bottom of the fridge and came up with one zucchini and one yellow squash, a little worse for time. Coincidentally (magically?) I saw a recipe for zucchini soup in last week's Meatless Monday newsletter. I can't ever say no to soup.

[Meatless Monday aside. I really like this organization. They have a great nutrition news roundup, and I love the vegetable-packed message. But I've found the recipes to be hit or miss. This one was a hit, though.]

Here's my version of the soup, modified to fit the contents of my fridge.

Summer Squash Soup

oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 summer squash, cut into 1-inch pieces
vegetable broth
2 teaspoons dried tarragon
1/4 cup nutritional yeast

Sautee onion in just a smidge of oil until soft. Add the garlic, and cook 30 seconds longer. Add the summer squash, tarragon, and enough vegetable broth to just barely cover the vegetables. Simmer 10 minutes or until the squash is soft. Blend with an immersion blender (or transfer to a blender in batches). Stir in nutritional yeast. Serve hot!

Review: The Urban Vegan

2010-05-04T01:45:00.000-07:00

I was on a cookbook fast during the year that I was looking for work. Now that I've been working for a few months, it's time for feasting!

The vegan cookbook market has exploded over the past few years. One of the benefits of having so many new vegan cookbooks is that there's room for specialty books. 2009 and 2010 brought us vegan cookbooks on brunch, Latin food, cookies, diner food, entertaining, and fine dining.

My first cookbook purchase of the year was The Urban Vegan: 250 Simple, Sumptuous Recipes from Street Cart Favorites to Haute Cuisine. Each chapter has a theme such as "Cafe Culture," "All Night Breakfast at the Diner," and "The Melting Pot."

The chickpea paprikash (at the top) from the "Melting Pot" chapter was creamy and flavorful and made a great one-dish meal. I subbed Anaheim peppers because I couldn't find the cubanelle or Hungarian wax peppers the recipe called for. We easily got enough for two dinners and three lunches from this recipe.

The baked potato, roasted asparagus, and aioli (below) made a perfect light meal. I've always eaten baked potatoes with just butter and salt (and occasionally soy sauce!), but I really enjoyed the tang that the aioli brought to potato. I suspect the sauce should be a bit thicker than this. I used the vegenaise from the end of the jar, and it tends to be liquidy.

I also tried the Welsh Rarebit (on homemade bread!), and it brought back great memories of gathering around a dish of Welsh Rarebit with my family. The recipes just calls for beer, without specifying what kind. Dewey offered to pick something up for me, and he grabbed a stout, since it's my favorite to drink. The Rarebit came out a bit dark, so stick with a pale beer.

A few recipes require vegan dairy products or harder to find seasonings, but the majority of the recipes can be made with ingredients from an ordinary grocery store. Some other dishes I'm looking forward to trying are the Rapini Panini, Curry Cashew Casserole, Spaghetti alle Melanzane (spaghetti with eggplant), and Potatoes with 40 Cloves of Garlic. Trying hard to think of something critical about the book, the closest I could come is that the constant references to busy urban life and city dwellers begin to wear a bit thin if you read the book straight through like I did. In other words, I highly recommend this.

Success!

2010-04-16T07:10:00.001-07:00

I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions. Big sweeping changes are pretty rare and are usually motivated by something life changing. A life-threatening illness. The birth of a child. The loss of a family member. But, I do like to start the year off by taking stock and making a few, very concrete, goals.

In 2009, one of my goals was to get more comfortable with yeast. Yeast has always intimidated me. A lot of the steps are pretty subjective. (What does it mean that dough is "smooth and pliable"?) In 2009, I made bagels, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and lots and lots of pizza. Besides some mishaps with pizza baking at the beginning, it all went pretty well. I can easily whip up some pizza for dinner or a batch of cinnamon rolls. But at the end of the year, I felt like I had cheated because I never made a good old fashioned loaf of bread. So one of my goals for 2010 was bread.

Above is a loaf of white sandwich bread from a recipe on the King Arthur Flour blog. Those folk know their bread

I'm pretty happy with my first loaf. It's incredibly soft and pliant. I can't wait until tomorrow to make some toast and spread it with melty peanut butter.

I'm hoping 2010 will find me eating homemade challah, whole grains breads, and some of the more unusual breads from 500 Vegan Recipes, like Mole Bread, a spicy cocoa bread.

South Carolina Mustard Sauce

2010-03-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

Soon after I switched to a vegan diet, I made a list of my favorite foods that weren't originally vegan. My goal was to find ways to enjoy all of them in vegan form. Four years later, I'm about halfway through that list. Some things are beyond my cooking ability still (kolaches!). Some require vegan ingredients that just aren't quite good enough yet. And some, well, I just haven't gotten around to yet.

This South Carolina Mustard sauce is something my family ate every so often when I was a kid. Often my mother would ask me to make the sauce, and then she would cook the pork loin when she got home from work.

Unlike other barbecue sauces, South Carolina mustard-style barbecue sauce doesn't have any tomato products. They're usually based on a combination of vinegar, mustard, and sometimes brown sugar. The red color in this version comes from chili powder.

The barbecue sauce was nearly vegan already, but I was left with the dilemma of what to pour it over. I don't remember what pork tastes like (this dish and bacon were the only pork foods we ever ate at home when I was a kid). But when I made the courico tacos recently, I realized they were the perfect choice for this barbecue sauce.

I still need to perfect the cooking method for the soy curls, but the mustard sauce was just as I remembered it. Tangy, sweet, and just a bit spicy.

South Carolina Mustard Sauce

1 cup apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup yellow mustard
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons Earth Balance

Combine the vinegar, sugar, mustard, chili powder, and pepper in a medium sauce pan. Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Remove from heat source, and stir in soy sauce and Earth Balance.

February: Some Updates

2010-03-12T03:48:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy month. I (finally!) found a job. Unfortunately, it's third shift. It's put a bit of a cramp in my photography and gardening since both of these things need sunlight.

In general Dewey and I have been busy improving the house, introducing the cats to one another, and just generally adjusting to the new schedule. But I've found a bit of time to squeeze in my hobbies here and there.

At the top is a puttanesca scramble from Vegan Brunch. It's a tofu scramble with tomatoes, olives, and capers. I had a lot of leftover ingredients from an antipasto salad, and this was a perfect way to use them up. I wasn't sure what I would think of this, especially since the antipasto salad wasn't a hit. But it was great.

I never wrote a review of Vegan Brunch, but some of our favorites are the courico tacos made with soy curls, the chocolate beer waffles with sweet cashew cream, and the (virgin) Bloody Moskowitz.

This is the baked potato soup from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food. This cookbook has found a steady spot in our diet now that I have less time for cooking. Those are chopped green onions on top of the soup. I've been obsessed with them lately.

A little "aha" cooking moment from earlier this month. You have a microplane grater, right? They're lovely. They're great for zesting or grating small things like garlic or nutmeg. And they won't tear up your sponge (or your knuckles!) the way a traditional grater does. Anyway, if you turn the microplane grater upside down while you grate, it collects whatever it is you're grating.
I've put together the frame for my new square foot garden, but I've decided not to plant until we get the lawn regraded. Anything planted now will just get torn up then. Bummer for now, but in the long run, fixing the lawn so water doesn't drain under the house is more important.

And finally, I took Lizzie's advice (though her comment seems to have disappeared since then), and went with a chicken wire compost bin. Hopefully by this time next year I'll have enough of my own compost that I won't need to buy any to build a second square foot garden.

Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti Today

2010-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

I spent Saturday cooking for today's bake sale. I made thyme spiced mixed nuts, vegan rice crispie treats made with Dandies, and curry spiced cashews.

Come out to Ten Thousand Villages between noon and 4 PM to buy some treats and donate money to support relief in Haiti.

Curry Spiced Cashews

2 tablespoons non-hydrogenated margarine
4 teaspoons curry powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 cups roasted cashews

Melt margarine over medium heat. Add the spices and cook about 30 seconds or until fragrant. Take the pan off the heat and add the cashews. Stir to coat the cashews evenly with the spice mixture. Spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Austin Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti

2010-01-20T20:45:00.001-08:00

Come out to Austin's vegan bake sale for Haiti this Sunday, January 24th, from noon to 4PM at Ten Thousand Villages (1317 South Congress Ave). All money raised will be donated to Food for Life Global.

Many thanks to Ten Thousand Villages for letting us use their space and to Wheatsville Coop for donating supplies.

In Texas, vegan bake sales are also being held in Houston and Denton. There's a growing list of vegan bake sales for Haiti on the Post Punk Kitchen blog.

If you're interested in baking for the Austin bake sale there's information on Facebook and this thread of the VRA.

CSA and Moving Update

2009-12-23T16:02:00.001-08:00

Saturday morning, we picked up our CSA veggies. Look! Potatoes! And green onions!

Itty bitty thinned carrots! And carrot tops, which I use like parsley.

And turnips! Er, turnips. What do you do with turnips? (To start with, you refrigerate them. I learned the hard way.)

I thumbed through my eleventy-billion cookbooks and finally settled on Turnips in Mustard Sauce from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. This cookbook is great for "what am I going to do with this?" cooking. And it didn't let me down.

I don't like to post recipes from cookbooks unless I change them significantly, but let's take a look at braising. Braising is great for root vegetables. Carrots, potatoes, beets, even radishes, are great braised. So no surprise that it worked well for turnips.

To braise, cut the vegetables into equal sized pieces so it cooks evenly. This can be hard with something knobby, but braising isn't about perfection. Brown the vegetables in a bit of oil. Sprinkle with some good old salt and pepper. Then add about a cup of flavorful liquid (I used vegetable broth this time, but wine works great, too) and simmer covered until the food is tender.

And here is the beauty of braising. After the food is cooked through, remove it to a bowl and leave the drippings in the pan. This is where the magic happens. Add a bit of starch to thicken (the recipe called for cornstarch, but the only starch I had was mystery bulk bin flour. Possibly spelt flour. Or maybe whole wheat pastry flour.) It doesn't really matter what starch you use, what does matter is that you mix it with a bit of liquid before adding it to the pan. This will prevent dreadful clumps from ruining your sauce. Add any seasonings you like (like mustard!), and cook until reduced to a thickish sauce.

Drizzle your pan sauce over the braised vegetables and sprinkle on whatever herbs you have on hand. Braises aren't always pretty, but a sprinkle of herbs will cleverly disguise this. (Jazz hands!) I used carrot tops. Because it's all I had.

We just moved into a new house, and the kitchen is the only room we haven't unpacked yet. Which is why I cobbled lunch together from some soggy unrefrigerated turnips, carrot tops, and mystery flour. But it was a tasty cobble, so don't hold it against the turnips.

Ode to Soup

2009-12-18T23:35:00.000-08:00

1. black bean soup
2. yellow pea and coconut soup
3. squash soup
4. Asian-style cabbage soup
5. black bean soup
6. tortilla soup
7. squash soup
8. squash soup
9. broccoli soup
10. cashew butternut squash soup
11. Thai curry soup
12. matzah ball soup
13. tortilla soup
14. green coriander and ginger broth
15. cholent
16. rajmah

How to Roast an Acorn Squash

2009-12-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

We finally got something besides greens and radishes in our CSA box. And rumor is that tomorrow's box will have potatoes! Acorn squash was one of the vegetables we ate a lot of when I was a kid. Even though it takes awhile for squash to roast in the oven, the easy prep work and clean up make this a great weeknight dish.

Step 1: Cut the acorn squash in half. You'll want to use a sharp knife for this. Start cutting at the end opposite the stem. Carefully work your knife through until the squash is only held together by the stem. Wiggle your knife a bit until the stem pulls off, sticking to one side of the squash.

Step 2: Using a soup spoon, scoop out all the strings and seeds. You can separate the seeds later if you want to roast them. Don't worry if one or two strings remain. Eating the strings won't hurt you, it's just not the most pleasant texture.

Step 3. Drizzle the squash with a small amount of olive oil or put a small pat of EB in the cavity. Sprinkle with salt. You can also sprinkle a bit of brown sugar in the cavity at this point if you'd like. It makes a nice sauce with the squash juices and might encourage a reluctant squash-eater.

Step 4: Roast at 350-400 degrees for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours or until a fork easily pierces the squash. The amount of time the squash takes to cook depends on the size of the squash and the temperature of your oven. The squash cooks faster at the higher temperature, but I often cook something else in the oven at 350 degrees at the same time. Either temperature works.

What to do with the roasted squash?
1. Eat with a spoon. One half serves one person.
2. Add roasted nuts and a drizzle of maple syrup.
3. Scoop out the flesh, boil in vegetable broth, and then puree to make a soup. A bit of maple syrup is a nice addition to acorn squash soup.
4. Mash with a spoon and a bit of EB.
5. Use as a serving dish for grains like rice or quinoa.

Compost Bins: A Little Help

2009-12-15T15:33:00.000-08:00

We're moving into a new house soon, and I'm taking this opportunity to improve my composting system. I grew up composting in side-by-side open piles contained by bricks or concrete blocks, and this is pretty much what I have now. It's a bit slow, but really easy. I want something more contained this time around. Our new back yard has chain link fencing, and an open compost pile isn't very pretty to look at. Also, contained composting systems break down the organic materials more quickly.

I'm not interested in buying a compost bin. I want to make something so I can tailor it to fit my needs exactly and so I can control the costs. My main concerns are cost and laziness (as in, I am lazy). The two homemade systems I'm seeing are

1) Chicken wire supported by poles. Pros: we have chicken wire that the previous owners left, and this is a pretty easy construction. Cons: In order to stir the compost, you have to move the wire structure, stir, and then shovel the compost back into the container. This is a bit of work, though not too bad if I'm only stirring once or twice a month (note: see laziness).

2) An old metal trashcan with holes drilled in it. Pros: Stirring is easy since you just roll the can on its side a bit. Cons: I would have to find an old metal trashcan.

Have you had any success building a compost system? Are you lazy, too? What works for you?

Happy Chanukah!

2009-12-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

We had two things to celebrate today: the second night of Chanukah and Dewey's reintroduction to fatty food after having his gallbladder surgery.

This is not my family's latke recipe. My mother grates her potatoes and onions (by hand!) into a paste, much like her potato kugel recipe. I love her latkes. But the race to grate all the potatoes by hand before they turn pink and then brown is too stressful for me. Dewey and I have our own latke recipe that's easier. It uses the food processor to cut the potatoes and needs only pantry staples.

Not My Mother's Latkes

3 large russet potatoes*
1 onion
4 tablespoons corn starch
4 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper
oil

Peel the potatoes and onion. Shred the potatoes in the food processor. Remove to a clean towel and squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible. Shred the onion in the food processor. Combine the onion and potato in a large bowl. Sprinkle with corn starch, flour, salt and pepper. Use your hands to combine. When you squeeze the potatoes with your hand, it should form a loose clump. Keep the potato mixture covered with a damp towel while you work to keep the potatoes from browning.

Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a cast iron skillet on medium heat. Grab a handful of potato mixture. Squeeze, flatten, and then drop it carefully into the hot oil. Try not to crowd the pan too much. I can usually fit about four latkes into my skillet at once. Fry for about five minutes on each side, or until lightly browned. Remove to a rack to drain the oil. Repeat until done, draining any liquid that collects in the potatoes.

*It seems like you can only find giant russet potatoes at the supermarket these days. If you can find the much saner potatoes that are just about the size of a fist, use 4-6 potatoes.

The Words Out of My Mouth

2009-12-11T11:57:00.001-08:00

I don't often repost others' material, but Robert Steinback said what I feel about health care better than I've ever said it. Health care coverage in the U.S. has had a profound impact on my life. It helped me decide what sort of jobs I should persue (ones at big corporations with good insurance plans). It chose the day I would be married (just before I quit my previous job). Hopefully, it will never choose the day I die.

From the St. Petersburg Times, by Robert Steinback

I am scheduled to begin dying on Feb. 1, 2010.
Although I have been an insulin-dependent Type 1 diabetic for 22 years, my health has always been very good. My condition has never impaired my enjoyment of life; I've never had a diabetic emergency.
Luck, of course, has played a part, as has educating myself about diabetes management. By far, though, the single most critical element of my vitality has been excellent health insurance coverage.
That will end on Jan. 31, the day my COBRA insurance benefits run out.

Read the rest of the article here.

"Snow"

2009-12-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

Texas FREAKS OUT when it snows. Or "snows". Once when I was a kid, they canceled school because there was snow forecast. It didn't snow. Snow-less snow day!

But the freak out is somewhat justified. There aren't any snow plows, no one keeps salt around for sidewalks or streets, and few people know how to drive in the snow. The city puts a bit of sand on the bridges, but that doesn't really do anything. We're just not prepared for winter weather.

There are some plusses to the insanity though. No salt to clean off your shoes or pants. Cars don't rust. And you have an excuse to stay home cuddled up in blankets with a mug of hot chocolate.

I'm off for the pre-snow grocery trip, mostly because Desmond is just about out of cat food. I'm also getting,

jasmine rice
plant milk (whatever is lowest fat)
salsa
green onions
pickles
seltzer

Not exactly the standard milk, bread, and alcohol, huh?

Chili on My Mind

2009-11-25T17:31:00.000-08:00

Ever since the chili cookoff, I've had chili on my mind. The third place chili at the cookoff was a masala chili made by a woman who teaches Indian cooking classes here in Austin. Her masala chili and coconut chili were two of my favorites, and I'm glad she won.

I kept thinking about her masala chili all week, so I pulled out my copy of 660 Curies by Raghavan Iyer. Sometimes I think all the choices in this book have kept me from making more recipes. How do I pick which of the 660 curries to make? But this time, I opened the book with an agenda. I wanted to make rajmah, or kidney beans. I found a recipe for tamatar malai rajmah (slow-stewed tomato sauce with kidney beans), and it was exactly what I wanted.

The recipe turned out pretty well, though not as rich as I would have liked, but that's because I modified it. It calls for 1/4 cup fried onion paste, and that's one of the other reasons I haven't made many recipes from this book. Many call for small amounts onion paste or another kind of paste, but the recipes for these pastes make large amounts and don't keep long in the refrigerator. All that waste annoys me. And I'm pretty lazy. Instead I sauteed diced onion. I also left out the 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream the recipe calls for since Dewey is still on a low-fat diet.

But still, my chili craving wasn't over. Dewey has been asking for cholent lately, so it was the perfect time to make Jewish chili. Cholent is a stew that Jews make for Shabbat, when they can't cook any food. Cholent is started in a slow cooker or on a hot plate just before sunset on Friday night, it cooks all night long at low heat, and then it's eaten at Saturday lunch. Such a long cooking time, even at low heats, makes the beans and vegetables really soft, but in a good, comfort food way.

Vegan Cholent

1 T oil
1-2 onions
4-5 cloves garlic
3 red or yukon gold potatoes
2 carrots
2 1/2 cups mixed dried beans*, soaked for 8 hours
1/2 cup bulgur
vegetable bouillion cube**
water
12 ounces dark beer
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoons tarragon
2 teaspoons thyme
1 tablespoon paprika
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Turn on the slow cooker and heat the oil. Chop the potatoes and carrots into large pieces. You want them to be fairly large because they're going to cook so long. Add the onions and garlic to the slow cooker, cover, and let cook for about half an hour. Add the potatoes, carrots, drained beans, and bulgur. Add the bouillon cube and enough water to cover the beans. Add the beer, soy sauce and all the spices except for the salt and stir. Cover and cook 6-12 hours***, stirring occasionally. Once the beans are soft, add the salt. If the beans look dry, add more water. Eventually, the liquid will thicken into a tasty brown sauce. When you're ready to eat, adjust the salt to your taste.

*I used chickpeas, black-eyed peas, pinto beans, split peas, and lentils. Really, any combination of dried beans, peas, or lentils will work, just be sure to use at least three kinds.

**Feel free to use vegetable broth in place of the bouillon cube, or even just water and a bit more soy sauce.

***I know this is a big range for a cooking time, but this is a recipe that is meant to be flexible.

Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cookoff 2009

2009-11-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

Dewey and I won second place at the Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cookoff this year! Thank you to everyone who came out to support us.

It was a great experience. We were at the cookoff grounds at 7:30 AM. We shared our tent with a group from Fort Worth and another group from here in Austin. By 11:30 AM, we had cooked five gallons of chili over a propane stove. And by 3:30 PM we had served all five gallons, one half-ounce ladle at a time.

Our winning chili recipe is here.

CSA week 1

2009-11-13T19:45:00.003-08:00

This stir-fry used the bok choy, tatsoi, and purple beans from this week's CSA. We didn't have enough of any of these vegetables to feed even one person, but combined all together (and with the addition of green and red bell pepper), it made a great meal.

Whole wheat pasta with broccoli rabe and vegan sausages. I ate mine with a garlic olive oil sauce, Dewey had his with tomato sauce.

First CSA Pick-Up

2009-11-11T17:12:00.001-08:00

Our first CSA pick-up was just about what I expected. Saturday morning Dewey and I walked the .7 mile to the pick-up location. There were twelve identical boxes all lined up in a driveway. Our box contained bok choy, tatsoi, broccoli rabe, turnip greens, a small head of lettuce, two small yellow squash, a small handful of purple beans (like green beans, but purple), a sprig of rosemary, some basil-whose-name-I-can't-remember, and a couple of bonus radishes.

I expected to get a variety of greens, so that wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise were the small portions. The turnip greens, once cooked, yielded less than a cup of greens. Apparently the woman who is organizing the CSA expected mainly single people, so the vegetables are portioned for just one eater.

I nibbled on the radishes dipped in EB and sea salt while Dewey and I came up with ideas on how to cook everything this week. We had a few bell peppers lingering in the crisper drawer to use up as well. Here is what we came up with.

Saturday: Turnip greens, smashed pink beans, and rosemary baking powder biscuits.

Sunday: 2.5 gallons of our chili as practice for the Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cookoff

Monday: Pizza (using frozen dough I made earlier)

Tuesday: Stir-fry using bok choy, tatsoi, bell peppers, and green beans. The stir-fry also had tofu and soba noodles.

Wednesday: Pasta with broccoli rabe (quick dinner because I took the GRE earlier today)

Thursday: Take out (we're closing on our new house!)

Friday: Roasted poblano peppers stuffed with leftover chili and probably more chili in corn or flour tortillas

Saturday: Out to dinner (it's Dewey's birthday!), also next share pick-up

Sunday: Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cookoff! Come by and say hello!

For lunches this week, I'll eat the yellow squash, salad greens, and whatever chili we can't freeze or offload.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2009-11-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

I love our neighborhood. Most of the houses were built in the post-World War II boom. There's a good range of ages, from original 50s homeowners to young professionals and everything in between. People are constantly outsides walking their dogs or gardening, and it's great to see so many people walking and taking public transportation.

This is Domino the Pig. He's the neighborhood mascot. He escaped from a petting zoo at a neighborhood festival and roamed the neighborhood for months before he was adopted by a resident.

Here's Dewey posing with Domino at the Violet Crown Spring Festival, just after swine flu first appeared in the U.S. There's a spring festival and a fall festival every year featuring the work of local artists, musicians, and chefs.

Lala's is the neighborhood dive bar. It's Christmas themed. Really. There's a string of elves that dance when you open the door to the men's room. The juke box is half Sinatra and Elvis, half Christmas carols. A warning to Austinites, people still smoke here.
The heart of the neighborhood is the Crestview shopping center. Most of these businesses have been here forever. The pharmacy still sells flashcubes. The independent grocery store has a great beer selection and the cheapest avocados in town. The Little Deli is always mobbed when it's open.

The newest reason I love my neighborhood, though, is our new CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Community Supported Agriculture is when a farmer sells shares of his produce to a group of people in advance. CSAs are usually some of the most sustainable farms around, and they often hold classes on gardening, composting, and cooking on pick-up days.

This CSA is one of a kind. It's a non-profit neighborhood-based program, and there's a focus on making the shares affordable. All of the produce is grown in the neighborhood, and all the shares are sold to people within the neighborhood. It's a great combination of sustainable agriculture and community.

I pick up my first share tomorrow, and I'm excited to see what will be in my box.

Pantry Soup

2009-10-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

Dewey and I have something fluish. So there hasn't been much cooking going on. Lots of graham crackers and peanut butter and whole wheat English muffins with EB and marmite on my end. Dewey's been subsisting on frozen pizza and ramen. We're both topping it off with lots of gingerale. I'm trying not to remember the last time we ate a vegetable.

Yesterday, I was finally able to stand up long enough to make real food. So long as it didn't require too much standing up. So I threw together a bunch of pantry staples for a quick Thai-style soup.

This was half a bag of frozen vegetables, some pearl onions that have been languishing in the freezer, lite coconut milk, vegetable broth, noodles, a bit of red curry powder, and about a cup of basil from the garden.

Asian-style Cabbage Soup

2009-10-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

This soup, despite its looks, is one of my favorites. It's loosely adapted from this recipe on Epicurious.

I love this recipe the way I make it. It uses up that half head of cabbage that lingers in the vegetable bin. It has soba noodles, which are made from buckwheat, a diabetic-friendly grain. And it easily scales to fit whatever amount of cabbage or noodles I have on hand.

This is, very loosely, how I make the soup.

Asian-Style Cabbage Soup

1 head cabbage, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch ginger, minced
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Sherry
3 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce
vegetable broth
2 bunches of soba noodles

Saute cabbage in sesame oil until tender but not mushy, about five minutes. Add garlic and ginger and saute until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the other seasonings and enough vegetable broth to cover by about two inches. Bring to a boil. Add soba noodles, and cook according to the directions on the package.

My Spice Collection

2009-10-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

This is my spice collection. It actually looks smaller in the photo than it is in reality. That's a table that easily sits four. I have a lot of spices. Probably too many.

Everyone else loves lists as much as I do, right? Here's what's pictured, loosely categorized.

Spice Mixes
pasta sprinkle
za'atar
Cajun seasoning
Louisiana seasoning
seasoning salt (2)
herbs de Provence (2)
jerk seasoning
cinnamon sugar
Chinese five spice powder
taco seasoning
Old Bay-type seasoning
Magic Barbecue seasoning
pizza seasoning
English prime rib rub
creamy peppercorn dressing mix
phuket (green curry powder)
chiang mai (red curry powder)
berbere
panch phoran
quatre-epices
sansho
ras-el hanout
tandoori spice blend
fish boil

Salts and Peppers
black peppercorns
Balinese long pepper
kosher salt
sea salt
iodized salt
black salt
celery salt

Sweet Spices
whole nutmeg
cinnamon sticks
ground cinnamon
Chinese Cassia cinnamon
ground ginger
ground allspice
whole cloves
ground cloves
vanilla bean
green cardamom

Things Made from Red Pepper
pimenton (smoked Spanish paprika)
chili powder (4)
paprika
sweet paprika
crushed red pepper (2)
cayenne pepper

Indian Spices
whole mustard seeds
ground mustard seeds (2)
curry powder
black cardamom
turmeric
asafoetida
ground coriander
whole coriander
garam masala

Green Herby or Seedy Things
thyme
oregano
parsley
savory
rosemary (2)
whole cumin
ground cumin
tarragon leaves
marjoram leaves
ground marjoram
fennel seeds
bay leaves (2)
dill
cilantro
basil
caraway seeds
gumbo file
rubbed sage
ground sage
ground thyme

Other
garlic powder
onion powder
star anise
saffron
poppy seed
sesame seed
kelp granules

I honestly don't have any idea what to do with some of these. Some are spices that I bought on a whim (Chinese five spice powder). Some are gifts from family and friends (English prime rib rub). Some wandered into my cabinets when Dewey and I moved in together (Magic Barbecue Seasoning).

I spent part of the weekend looking up recipes to use some of these up. I hate throwing out food, but it really is time to pare down.

Review: Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food

2009-10-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about all the great new vegan cookbooks that are coming out. Thanks to a gift certificate that showed up at just the right time, I was able to try one of them out.

Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food by Alicia Simpson delivers exactly what it promises. The recipes come together quickly and without too much mess in the kitchen. The trade-off is that some of the recipes rely on vegan convenience foods such as chik'n patties, tvp, and vegan cheeses. There are a number of new vegan cheeses that actually taste good, including sheese and cheezly. Unfortunately, these are hard to find in most of the U.S. still. And, in general, I'm not comfortable using these highly processed foods in my diet very often.

But that said, those products are in just a small number of recipes. Probably less than 10%. There are still plenty of recipes using whole food ingredients. I can tell that some of these recipes will be going on our list of foods to cook when we just don't feel like cooking.

The first thing I tried was the Fettuccine Alfredo (sauce two). It was incredibly good. Dewey and I have tried a few Alfredo recipes, and I think we've found the one we'll return to. Very occasionally, since this is definitely not health food. [No photo of this one.]

I also tried the Caesar salad dressing (sans croutons so I could have stuffing on the side). Again, Dewey and I both loved this. We've been eating salads with every meal this week.

There's an interesting recipe for tahini coffee that I couldn't resist. I have a weakness for unusual recipes. The coffee part of the recipe name is just referring to the color, NOT the taste. So don't expect coffee. It's sweetened with blackstrap molasses. I have to admit I almost never drink sweetened beverages because of my diabetes, so I wasn't as fond of this as the other recipes. But if you like tahini and molasses, you'll love this drink.

This is red beans and quinoa, a riff on red beans and rice. I really loved this. I'm a sucker for meals in bowls. The beans come together in less than ten minutes, so you can make this meal in the time it takes to make quinoa, usually about 20 minutes.

Other recipes I'm looking forward to trying out are gallo pinto (a bean dish for breakfast!), spicy soba noodles in peanut sauce, and wait for you stew.

Grandmas Cook It Better

2009-10-21T21:01:00.001-07:00

It seems like everyone in MoFo Land is blogging about cooking with their grandmas or cooking their grandmas' recipes. It's no secret I love my grandmother, and I'm glad to see all the happy grandma posts.

Here's a sampling of the grandma love. If you posted about your grandma during MoFo, let me know and I'll add you to my list.

Bazu at Where's the Revolution? veganizes her grandmother's recipe for fesenjan.

Gwgjoan at The Geeky White Girl Grows Up veganizes her grandmother's stuffed cabbage.

Hannah at the House Vegan makes the Chex Mix her grandmother makes for holidays.

JohnP at The I-40 Kitchen talks about his first experience with raw food through his grandmother.

Kellybot remembers recording her grandmother making tamales.

Lazy Smurf's Guide to Life discovers recipes from both grandmothers in an old community cookbooks. She also cooks soup for her Baba.

Mihl at Seitan Is My Motor veganized her grandmother's sweet yeast bread.

Tara at The Snowy Vegan cooked a meal in honor of her great grandmother, who recently passed away.

Pesto By Any Other Name

2009-10-21T20:06:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year when gardeners are harvesting all their produce before everything dies off in a freeze. We're a long way from a freeze here in Texas and there's not much in my garden to preserve, but I put up a few containers of pesto for the freezer this week.

They'll make nice quick dinners for busy nights this winter. So far I've had some spread on a toasted whole wheat English muffin and mixed with orzo and tomatoes.

There are lots of herb sauces similar to pesto. Chimmichurri is a parsley puree used in Latin cuisines. Pistou is a basil puree without nuts that's often swirled in soups. But don't feel confined to following a traditional recipe.

I've made pesto from spinach, parsley, cilantro, and chives. I bet mint or dill would be good too. And I can't think of many nuts or seeds that wouldn't taste good in pesto. I've used walnuts, cashews, pepitas, sunflower seeds, and almonds before. Sunflower seeds are one of my favorites since they're so cheap.

This pesto is basil, garlic, olive oil, nutritional yeast, cashews, pepitas, and salt.

Use It Up Cinnamon Rolls

2009-10-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

I had about half a can of pumpkin puree leftover from making pumpkin muffins last week. After digging through my recipe collection, I came across this pumpkin cinnamon roll recipe. It fits in with my goals of not wasting food and mastering cooking with yeast, if not my goal of eating better.

The recipe uses 3/4 cup of pumpkin which is perfect. A can of pumpkin puree has about 1 3/4 cup of pumpkin. Most recipes use 1 cup of pumpkin, so this is the perfect recipe for using up the leftovers.

The recipe is from the cookzine Don't Eat Off the Sidewalk, issue number 2. I've tried several recipes from both issues, and they've all been great. Both issues can be purchased from Herbivore Clothing.

Easy dinners

2009-10-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Some nights, dinner doesn't look like it will happen. It's 8 PM and you haven't started cooking. Or the vegetables have spoiled. Or your cat peed on the bed again, and you're too demoralized to cook.

We have a piece of paper on our fridge to remind us that dinner doesn't have to be complicated. We usually have the ingredients for these dishes hanging around the house and they come together quickly and without too much effort.

Leafy Greens

2009-10-15T19:51:00.000-07:00

We all know we need to be eating plenty of leafy greens. Eating lots of leafy green vegetables is about the best thing we can do for our health. A diet with an abundance of leafy green vegetables is associated with stronger bones, better memory, and reduced risk of diabetes, colon cancer, cataracts, macular degeneration, and stroke.

But I'm often confronted with a vegetable drawer full of rotting greens at the end of a cooking week. If you're anything like me, you don't really know what to do with them. When I was growing up, the only greens that showed up on the table were an occasional salad, my mom's special fried cabbage, and Stouffers frozen spinach souffle. I'm sure my mom was served a pretty similar diet when she was a kid. It's challenging to include unfamiliar foods when you have no idea what to do with them.

We all know fifty ways to cook a potato, and it's no secret that Americans eat a lot of potatoes. So for a few years I've been collecting greens recipes as fast as I can. Kale hasn't replaced the french fries in my life, but I'm more likely to eat it if I know several ways to cook it.

At the top is an arugula salad with tahini dressing. Arugula has a strong, peppery bite to it. It's probably not a good green to start with if you're just branching out. Because it's so strong, I like to pair it with a really mild salad dressing. Usually I make one with tahini, rice wine vinegar, and a tiny bit of chili garlic sauce.

This is a salad inspired by my friend La. She grew up eating a salad with every lunch and dinner, and while we lived together I picked up her good habit. Too bad it didn't last when I moved out. La introduced me to fruit in salads. This one is romaine, half an apple, carrots, and pepitas. The dressing is Annie's Goddess Dressing. I would eat almost anything if you covered it in enough of that dressing.

I also love to eat saag (an Indian spinach puree), garlicky kale with tahini dressing, kale chips, and my mom's special cabbage stir fry (recipe coming soon).

How do you like to eat your greens?

Tortilla Soup Redux

2009-10-14T19:56:00.001-07:00

My friend Merf's tortilla soup is one of my favorite ways to use summer squash. This soup is never the same two times in a row. This time I added about a quarter cup of salsa to the broth. Dewey isn't really crazy about squash, so I was happy that he liked this.

When I planned to make this earlier in the week, it was about 60 degrees. It was in the 90s today when I finally made it. Whoops. So I had to follow it up with a mango fruit bar. To maintain balance in the universe and all.

Brown Rice and Bowls

2009-10-13T19:18:00.001-07:00

This is one of my favorite quick bites. Brown rice with EB, lemon juice, Tabasco, soy sauce, and a sprinkle of dill.

Gyoza

2009-10-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

When I was about eight, my older brother and I pooled our money together to buy my mother a wok for her birthday. (Happy Birthday, Mom!) She never really used it, but my brother and I did. I suppose not having to cook dinner actually turned out to be a pretty good gift, even if it's not the gift we were aiming for.

The wok came with a little red booklet of recipes that my brother and I would pour through. One of our favorite things to cook was fried wontons. We usually filled our little squares of dough with cream cheese and deep friend them, calling it crab rangoon.

Dewey requested wontons for one of our meals this week. Weekends are perfect for food projects like this. So we pulled out our copy of The Asian Vegan Kitchen by Hema Parekh and found a recipe for gyoza with spicy soy vinegar sauce. The gyoza are filled with a cabbage tofu mixture. Instead of deep frying, we pan fried and then steamed the gyoza. Dipped in the vinegary sauce, these were perfect.

Grandmothers and Brownies

2009-10-09T15:55:00.001-07:00

The world would be a much better place if everyone had a grandmother like mine. She is my biggest fan. I never finish a call to her without hearing gobs of praise. No matter how mundane or off-track my life seems to me, my grandmother always deems it "creative" or "adventurous." Every call ends with her asking me, "Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?"

In a world where we can be very critical of ourselves and those around us, it's comforting to have someone to turn to who will always be in your corner. It would be a poor life if everyone around us only heaped praise. But it would be pretty poor, too, if we only poured on the criticism.

Food is like that, too. Green leafy vegetables, beans, and whole grains are important. But a diet shouldn't list too far to either extreme. We need room for the things that serve no other purpose than to make us happy.

These are the brownies I made as a little kid, from a recipe written on an index card in my grandmother's handwriting. In jr. high, I made these moist brownies at least once a week, sending them home with my best friend without even taking a bite. (Sugar was strictly forbidden for diabetics in the early '90s.) But something about the motions of baking just seemed right to me.

Last Thanksgiving I found out that this isn't my grandmother's recipe after all, but Katharine Hepburn's. But that's OK. It will always be my grandmother's recipe to me.

Katharine Hepburn's Brownies, Veganized

1/2 cup Earth Balance (or other trans-fat free margarine)
2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup pureed silken tofu
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Melt the chocolate and Earth Balance over a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir in sugar until well combined. Add the pureed tofu and vanilla and stir together. With just a few strokes, stir in the flour and salt. Spread the batter in a well-greased 8" x 8" pan. Bake at 350 for 40 to 45 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Hostess Gifts for Vegans

2009-10-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

You're going to dinner at your new friends' house and you want to bring them a nice hostess gift. But they're vegan. No meat, no eggs, no dairy, no honey. Your famous cookies are out. As is your usual box of Godiva chocolates. What to bring?

It's actually not that hard. Most of the usual gifts are vegan or can be vegan.

It's probably not a good idea to give cats, but this box used to hold Dublin Dr. Pepper. Everyone loves Dublin Dr. Pepper.

Flowers are in.

So are beer and wine. Some beers and wines are vegan, some aren't. Those that aren't are filtered with gelatin or eggs or contain honey. Check here to see if your favorite alcoholic drink is vegan. It's not a comprehensive list though, and won't list things like local beers.

Chocolate is still in. Look for high quality dark chocolate. Whey is not vegan. Cocoa butter is.

Fruit is always nice.

Nuts are great, too. Check the ingredients for gelatin or eggs.

Nonfood items like napkins, dish towels, or candles are great. You can never have too many of these.

Finally, a garden success

2009-10-07T19:39:00.001-07:00

In the spring, with optimism I planted rows and rows of vegetables. And they all died off. First the kale, then the carrots, the tomatoes, the corn, the squash, the strawberries, and the cucumbers. I was attacked by spider mites, snails, squash vine borers, aphids, and drought. I watered, sprayed with garlic juice and neem oil, and set up beer traps. Nothing seemed to work. So I gave up and let the weeds and bugs grow.

Until yesterday, when I discovered an eggplant! Not just one eggplant, but several. I'm going to have a harvest after all!

Salad

2009-10-06T14:47:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to make an effort to eat more raw fruits and vegetables (and more fruits of any kind really). Whenever I get a perfect piece of produce, I thumb through all my cookbooks and scour the Internet for just the right recipe. But really, fruits and vegetables are pretty awesome all on their own. Sometimes, I forget that.

This salad is exactly what it looks like. Two mandarin oranges (so easy to peel and no seeds!), an avocado, 1/4 red onion, and lemon juice and zest. That's it.

Popcorn

2009-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Popcorn is one of the best snacks around. Cheap, healthy, easy to make, and pretty diabetic-friendly. Although popcorn is pretty high on the GI scale, a cup only has 5g of carbohydrate, so it's not hard to fit into a managed carb diet. And it counts as a whole grain.

The popcorn in microwaveable bags might be convenient, but you don't need all those added chemicals just for convenience. Making popcorn "from scratch" isn't any harder.

Popcorn and a paper bag are all you'll need. One pound bags of popcorn can be found on the same shelves as microwaveable popcorn for about $1 a pound. This is one of those cases where the cheaper option is better for you.

Pour your popcorn kernels into the bottom of the bag until they just cover the bottom.

Fold the top of the bag down. Alton Brown says you can staple the bag shut and the small amount of metal won't cause any microwave explosions. But really, that's not necessary. It's a waste of a staple; I've never had a bag unfold itself all the way in the microwave.

Place the bag in the microwave and set the microwave for 3 minutes. (There's no photo of this step, but you can imagine a microwave, right?) Stay within hearing distance of the microwave as the popcorn pops. When the popping slows down, stop the timer. For me this is usually around 2 minutes 30 seconds, but microwaves vary. The longer you leave the microwave running, the fewer unpopped kernels will remain. But you also risk giving the popcorn a faint burnt taste if you leave it in too long.

The bag expands a bit, but see, no popcorn explosions!

The angle is distorting this a little, but the bag is about 2/3 full now.

Pour the popcorn in a bowl. Choose a bowl that has more than enough room to hold all your popcorn, because now we're going to add our flavorings.

My favorite combo is Earth Balance (trans-fat free margarine), soy sauce, salt, and nutritional yeast. I mix the melted EB and soy sauce together beforehand so I don't end up with too strong of a soy sauce taste in any one handful of popcorn. Drizzle some liquid flavorings, sprinkle some dry flavorings, and repeat until you're through.

Top Ten Vegan Eats in Austin

2009-10-02T07:39:00.001-07:00

Lazy Smurf's Guide to Life did a top ten list for vegan food in Austin. I thought I'd do the same. There's enough great vegan food in Austin for multiple top ten lists, so I'll come back and add links to any other lists that pop up over the month.

So, in no particular order, my favorite places to eat in Austin.

1. Pars Deli. The family that runs this place is really committed to quality food. If you ask them about any of the ingredients, not only can they tell you what's in everything off the tops of their heads, but they'll also tell you their commitment to serving "real food". Their refrain is "this is the food that I serve my family."

My favorite order here is the salad plate, which is a plate of sides. The rice is wonderful, a bit sweet, a bit sour (be sure to ask for no butter). All the sides at Pars Deli are vegetarian (no chicken stock or meat), but not all are vegan. Be sure to ask about yogurt and butter in whatever you order.

2. Breakfast at Bouldin Creek Coffee House. Bouldin Creek serves the best tofu scramble in Austin, no contest. It might even be the best in the world. I like my scramble in a breakfast taco, but the El Tipico is good, too.

3. A burger at Burger Tex. There are a few caveats here. The burger is frozen from a box. And there are animal heads on the wall at the location near me. But, they make their own buns fresh daily, and sometimes a girl just wants to eat a burger. There's just something about the combination of the burger and the bun that transcends the ordinary ingredients. It could have something to do with the barbecue sauce and jalapenos I add to mine.

4. Titayas Thai Cuisine. Pretty much anything here makes me happy. About 90% of the menu can be made vegan. But I have a special place in my heart for Panang Curry and Pad Thai. See, whenever my mother and I are in the same city, no matter the city, we always get together to split Pad Thai and Panang Curry. And both of these dishes are excellent at Titatyas.

5. Banzai Grill. There's no one dish that I turn to at Banzai Grill. Like Titayas, part of the charm is the luxury of choice. I also love how knowledgeable the staff is about all the ingredients. Dishes I've enjoyed include miso soup (no bonito!), vegetarian bento box, and cold soba noodles. They've recently added bubble tea to their menu, and most of the flavors are vegan. (Some day, somewhere, someone will make vegan taro bubble tea.)

6. Celeste's Best cupcakes at Hey Cupcake! Vegan cupcakes about a mile from my house. Wonderful and dangerous. Flavors vary day-to-day and often sell out before the end of the day. Celeste's vegan cupcakes are smaller than the default non-vegan cupcakes, but in these days of super sizing everything, I think that's a good thing.

7. Sunflower. A little Vietnamese restaurant in a strip shopping center, Sunflower is surprisingly delicious. Unlike most Vietnamese restaurants in the U.S., the menu doesn't feature bahn or pho (though they do have a small selection of, I assume non-vegan, pho). I've never seen most of the dishes on this menu anywhere else. My favorite so far is the lemongrass tofu, but really everything has been good. After your meal, sneak next door to the Hong Kong Market and grab a box of peanut- and walnut-flavored soy milk.

8. Chile relleno at El Mercado. A roasted poblano pepper stuffed with mushrooms, spinach, and rice (ask for no cheese). El Mercado is a short walk from where I live, so it's perfect on those nights when it doesn't look like dinner is going to happen. Most of the items on the vegetarian section of their menu can be made vegan. Just ask for no cheese or sour cream. Everything comes with guacamole, which is just icing on the chile relleno. Or something.

9. The vegetarian sandwich at the Little Deli. Now, usually I grumble when I'm reduced to eating a vegetable (or hummus) sandwich. It's the uninventive vegetarian item on every restaurant menu. Lazy. But Little Deli's sandwich goes above and beyond the usual tiny slice of avocado with sprouts. Besides avocado, there are artichoke hearts, roasted eggplant, onions, tomato, lettuce, and olive salad. All the vegetables are cut paper thin and come in a roll big enough to hold it all. Divine. I have never met a better vegetable sandwich. (Order sans cheese.)

10. Peanut butter soft serve at Toy Joy. Walking around Toy Joy is fun in and of itself. But walking around with a butterfinger milkshake (vanilla soft serve with chocolate and chik-o-stick) is, well, joyful.

It was hard to stick to ten. I didn't even mention Dog Almighty, Elsi's, Wheatsville, or Kerbey Lane.

****

Other Austin lists

Lazy Smurf's Guide to Life
Pulling It Together (in ten installments)

A shortcut for roasting garlic

2009-10-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

I love the taste of roasted garlic, but I can't ever get it right. You're supposed to cut off the top of the garlic bulb, keeping all the cloves together, and then drizzle olive oil on top. But I can't ever get the cloves to stay together. And roasting garlic takes 45 minutes before you can even use it in the main part of the recipe.

So I cheat. Instead of roasting all the cloves together, I split them apart, removing the papery part of the garlic skin. Split apart, the cloves only take 20 minutes to roast.

To use them, just cut off the tops with kitchen scissors and squeeze out the insides.

Squash seeds and Vegan MoFo

2009-10-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to October everyone! It's getting to be fall. And one of the best parts of fall is roasting squash seeds. Everyone loves a snack that's salty, crunchy, healthy, easy to make, and practically free.

I have wonderful memories of carving a Halloween pumpkin with my mom and my brother. We crunched on the salty pumpkin seeds while arguing about how to make the scariest jack-o-lantern.

"Pumpkin" seeds don't just come from pumpkins, though. The seeds of any winter squash can be roasted. You know those boxes of processed foods that say "20% more free!"? Well this is the real 20% more free! For just a tiny bit more work, you get a second dish from your winter squash. It's even better if you're roasting the squash because you already have the oven on.

Here's the loose recipe I used growing up. You can change the oven temperature if you have something else cooking that needs a higher temperature. Just expect the seeds to brown a bit faster.

Roasted Squash Seeds

Separate the seeds from the pulp of the squash. Don't worry if tiny bits of pulp stick to the seeds. Just be sure to remove the larger pieces. Throw the pumpkin seeds in a baking dish with sides. Drizzle a small amount of oil over the seeds. (We always used canola, but olive oil would work fine.) Sprinkle the seeds with kosher salt. (Kosher salt is extra crunchy.) Bake the seeds in a 200 degree oven until browned. This will take about 20 minutes, but keep an eye on the oven. The seeds can go from browned to burnt really quickly.

Reason number two why October is going to be a great month: Vegan MoFo III! Vegan MoFo is the Vegan Month of Foods. For the month of October, bloggers all over the world who are interested in vegan food have pledged to post, post, post. Over 300 bloggers will flood the Internet with blog posts showing glimpses of their food worlds, from tonight's dinner to inspiring new food ideas.

Favorite childhood breakfast

2009-09-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

I think every family has a few unique food traditions. This was one of my favorite breakfasts when I was a kid. It's simply a bowl of broken up graham crackers with a glass of milk poured over it. If you wait until the last minute to pour your glass of milk over the crackers, you get a great combination of soft and crispy graham crackers.

Graham crackers are made with whole grains. With only 26 g carbohydrate* in a bowl of graham cracker "cereal," this is a great, quick diabetic breakfast.

*includes a glass of unsweetened soy milk

Our Trip: NYC

2009-09-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Dewey has always wanted to go to the U.S. Open, so that's why we chose New York for the first part of our trip. This is Safina, the number-one-ranked woman tennis player at the time of the Open. She has a really unusual and graceful serve. It's a little hard to see, but the tennis ball is about level with the umpire's right hand in this photo.

For some reason, my father always takes a photo out the window of his hotel room on vacations, and I've picked up the habit. If you could see through those trees, you would see the Manhattan Whole Foods. The neighborhood we stayed in was heaven for us. We had dessert almost every night. Every restaurant was organic or local or vegetarian or some combination. And it was a close walk to Moo Shoes, an all-vegan shoe store. (I got these.)

This is the only food photo I took during the entire vacation. But that's OK, because I think this was the best thing I ate. A block from our hotel was an appetizing store that has three different flavors of vegan cream cheese. And really, this was the best vegan cream cheese I've ever had. So fluffy! A pumpernickel bagel (pumpernickel bread is good for the blood sugar) with chive tofu cream cheese.

And here I am standing under the sign for Hair, which was wonderful. I love the crazziness of singing about your biggest secrets at the top of your voice, complete with jazz hands.

Not pictured: the Chabad rabbi who talked Dewey into being the tenth in a minyan in the garment district. I sat upstairs in the "women's gallery" (really, the men sat in the basement and we sat behind the banister upstairs) and had a nice conversation with a little kid about Harry Potter.

Coming up, the DC part of our trip.

Tofu Scramble

2009-09-14T07:12:00.000-07:00

August was a busy month! I got married and took a honeymoon to New York City and Washington, DC. And cleaned out my car! (For a frame of reference, I bought my car in December of 2005 and there was still a sheet of protective paper in my trunk from the car dealership. Underneath piles and piles of stuff.) Now I won't feel so guilty about driving around with all that extra weight in my car.

Vegan red velvet wedding cake! I didn't make the cake or take the photo, but I thought y'all would like to see. We got married at a peacock preserve, and somehow ended up with a peacock theme.

And finally, I have a backlog of food that I cooked in August and didn't get around to posting about. There's a bit of a nostalgic theme to the food. Lots of comfort food and foods I associate with certain people and periods of time. I'll break this up into a few posts.

This was the first tofu scramble I ever ate. Tofu scrambles are a vegan staple. They're eaten for breakfast or brunch just like scrambled eggs, though they're not an imitation of scrambled eggs. They are their own, savory dish. But much like scrambled eggs, they are really quick and simple to cook. And a great opportunity to sneak some vegetables into breakfast.

Most tofu scrambles use nutritional yeast (or "nooch") as a base for their savory umami flavor. The one I make most often is from Vegan with a Vengeance, and also include lots of cumin, thyme, and paprika.

But this is a nostalgic scramble. Think back to college. When I still thought tofu was icky and flavorless (it can be if it's not prepared well!). It was my roommate La's turn to choose what we ate for dinner, and I held back any tofu prejudice I had when I tried this. And I really liked it. Bonus points now because it doesn't have any nooch, which isn't always an easy-to-find ingredient.

Because this is a La recipe, there aren't many amounts written down. Just a list of ingredients and a general method. I've given an approximation for what I used in parentheses, but feel free to channel the spirit of La and use whatever amount seems right to you.

Nooch-less Tofu Scramble

14 ounces tofu (1 block firm or extra-firm tofu)
(oil for stir frying)
onion (1, chopped)
red bell pepper (1, chopped)
garlic (1 clove, chopped)
spinach (1/2 package defrosted frozen spinach or a few handfuls fresh)
onion soup mix (1 packet or 2 tablespoons)

Drain tofu. Break into large chunks and squeeze out excess liquids. Stir fry onion and pepper in oil (about 2 minutes on medium heat). Add garlic (for another 30 seconds). Add spinach and tofu. Add onion soup mix. Stir fry until brown (about 8 minutes).

Weddings and Diabetes

2009-07-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

Most of the time, I take care of my diabetes on autopilot. I test before I drive (or walk or ride) anywhere. When I walk to the grocery store, I grab some glucose tablets along with my reusable bag. But some activities require a bit more planning. Like tubing down the Brazos River (hint: diabetes supplies can be bungee corded to your inner tube).

I'm getting married in about a week and a half. Besides the usual decisions to make (what will we eat? how will I keep great aunt Martha from fainting in the heat?), I had a few diabetes related questions.

I don't pump, so I didn't need to sew a pump pocket into my wedding dress, but I still needed somewhere to put my supplies. I don't like to let my supplies get out of my hands anywhere I go, so letting someone else hang onto them wasn't going to cut it. There's actually a company that sews custom diabetes bags, including one meant for weddings. But I'm not really a pink and white flowers kind of girl.

So I sewed my own. It's a pretty basic bag, and I used a pattern. But it's definitely the most complicated thing I've ever sewn. Most of my pants need to be hemmed at least four inches, and my house is full of draw string bags that I've sewn. But this thing is lined! And there are round handles. Needless to say, I'm really happy with how it came out.

Pizza

2009-07-10T10:02:00.001-07:00

Turns out the second yeasted thing I made wasn't foccacia or challah but pizza. Dewey and I have been making our pizzas using dough balls from Whole Foods up until now. I think we'll be making all of our own pizza crusts from now on because this was one of the best pizzas I've ever had.

The crust recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance as is the pizza sauce. The pizza dough recipe made enough dough for four 6- or 7-inch pizzas, so we froze half of it for another time. Making your own pizza sauce is incredibly easy, especially if you don't mind chunks of tomato or have an immersion blender. (We blend ours. Tomato chunks are on Dewey's avoid-list.)

We each topped our own pizzas. I took this separate-but-equal food opportunity to eat lots of things Dewey won't touch. I topped my pizza with a thinly-sliced heirloom tomato, black olives, artichoke hearts, and pesto. Basil is the one thing I'm growing successfully in my garden.

Bagels!

2009-07-04T11:47:00.001-07:00

Recently, my grandmother bought Dewey and me a stand mixer (thanks Barbie!). One of my goals this year is to get more comfortable working with yeast. I've made bagels and pretzels a few times before, but I'm not very confident doing it. So Dewey and I knew exactly what we wanted to make first with the stand mixer's dough hook.

These are some bagels we made earlier this year with the recipe from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. This is the first time that cookbook has let me down. The instructions were both too complicated and not detailed enough. They suggested spritzing the oven with water to create steam, but failed to mention that the
water mixed with the yeast should be warm. They turned out too tough and unusually brown.

But with our new mixer in hand, we tried the recipe from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. And this recipe turned out perfect for us. Crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. And they're nicely browned (but not brown), too. Just perfect.

And this recipe has fewer steps as well. Only one rise instead of two. No fussy water in the oven. And Isa's instructions for shaping the bagels worked out much better for us.

Now I'm excited to try more yeast recipes. I think focaccia is next on my list.

Vegan Frito Pie

2009-07-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

Dewey has asked me to make my Texas chili four or five times since I first made it. He brings the leftovers to work for lunch (almost unheard of for him). He even brought a triple batch to work for a potluck and then called me up excitedly to tell me they made great frito pies.

So we had frito pies for dinner the other night. Fritos, Texas chili, chopped white onions, and Ctate's Queso. (The recipe is temporarily offline because they're going to bottle and sell it.)

Vegan Grilling

2009-06-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

It's barbecue season, and just because you're cutting out or cutting down on meat isn't any reason to retire your grill. Here are some tasty and healthful ideas for veggie grilling.

1. Vegetable slices. Eggplant, squash, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and probably whatever else you can think of. For smaller vegetables, you might want to invest in a grilling basket to keep pieces from falling onto the coals. Cut the vegetables into similar sized pieces, brush with a bit of oil, and grill until crisp-tender. (Alternatively, I have a friend who makes tinfoil packets of vegetables with marinade and grills those campfire-style.)

2. Fruit. Pineapple is the quintessential fruit to grill, but peaches, pears, apples, and bananas are great, too. Keep a close eye on softer fruits as they'll get a bit mushy if they cook too long. (Bananas can be grilled in their peels with chocolate.)

3. Kebabs. Either soak bamboo sticks or use metal skewers and thread them with whatever you can imagine. Try for lots of different shapes, textures, and colors. This is a good place to use a marinade. And don't be afraid to add cubed tofu or tempeh here. Try this recipe Kim O'Donnel posted for barbecued tofu skewers.

4. Pizza. Go easy with the toppings here, and feel free to precook vegetables that might need a bit more time to get soft. Here are Heidi Swanson's instructions for grilling pizza.

5. Burgers and sausages. Let's face it, vegetarian hot dogs aren't very good. But there are some excellent vegan sausages out there. I really like Tofurkey and Field Roast sausages. They're flavorful and grill up nicely. There are a million veggie burgers out there, so I'll leave that one up to you.

If you're up for making your own vegan sausages, try this recipe from Everyday Dish. It's really versatile. I've seen everything from chorizo to pepperoni to boudin come out of this basic recipe.

6. Portobello mushrooms. This is a great option if you're looking for something on a bun but you're not into veggie burgers. Marinate or brush with oil before cooking.

7. Corn on the cob. Remove the silk but leave the husks on. Soak the ears (with husks) in water. The wet husks help steam the corn. Turn the ears occasionally as they cook. More complete instructions are here.

8. Salad. I know, I know. But really, you can grill a head of romaine.

9. Polenta. Recipe from the NYT's great new "Recipes for Health" column. (Obviously sub Earth Balance or olive oil for the butter if you're cooking for vegans.)

10. Bread. Recipe from the Food Network.

11. Grill and mix. Use grilled vegetables to make fajitas, sandwiches, wraps, or pasta.

Teriyaki Eggplant

2009-06-22T20:09:00.001-07:00

Dewey and I have a culinarily mixed household. I'm vegan and health-minded and a treehugger. He's an omnivore, and while he's interested in health and the environment, he's not nearly as invested in it as I am.

Our meal planning has to take into account my diabetes, too. That means avoiding meals that combine too many carb-heavy options (like spaghetti and garlic bread). (Note: When they cure diabetes, my first diabetes-free meal will be pasta, garlic bread, tiramisu, and several glasses of wine.)

We combined our households about six months ago, and I think we've finally found a balance that works for us. We take turns choosing what to eat. I push for more vegetables, Dewey pushes for fewer of certain vegetables (raw tomatoes, mushrooms, and avocado are on his banned list). Most of the time, this means we eat the same food. Occasionally, we eat separate, but equal.

The meal above is an example of this. Dewey wanted to make teriyaki beef and soba noodles. So we made teriyaki sauce together (this video recipe), and I used my part of the sauce to make teriyaki eggplant.

I sliced my eggplant, brushed it with oil, and baked it in the oven for about half an hour. Then I finished my eggplant by glazing it in the teriyaki sauce following the directions for glazing the teriyaki beef. When I make this again, I'll peel the eggplant. It looks prettier with the skin on, but the texture of the skin was a bit tough and added a bitterness to the eggplant.

The way my garden grows

2009-06-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to think I should stop growing vegetables and start cultivating bugs. I'd be more successful that way.

Here are some adorable aphids sucking out the juices of a pepper leaf. With them, their friend the ant.

Here is a picture of a spidermite on a sheet of white paper. The mite is that light colored thing in the middle of the photograph. For size comparison, they're about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

I spent the evening washing aphids, ants, and spidermites off the leaves of my plants. Too bad the snails will love all that moisture.

Leaf damage on an eggplant leaf. The white spongy part is actually where a pest sucked the bottom layer off the leaf, leaving just a thin top layer.

And finally, a holey squash leaf. These holes are circular unlike the irregular holes above. I think the black bits are waste left behind by whatever is chowing down on the leaf.

Diabetes--does it get in the way?

2009-05-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of talk lately about Sonia Sotomayor and her type 1 diabetes. Will it affect her ability to be a Supreme Court justice? Of course not. Mostly.

Trying to tell someone how diabetes affects your life is difficult. It changes everything. And at the same time, it's not a big deal.

In a story about Ms. Sotomayor and her diabetes, Time Magazine ran this photograph of a woman injecting herself with something. And yes, you can take insulin injections in your arm by squeezing it up against a chair or wall, but there are easier ways to do it. (And ways that look less like a hype getting a fix.) The most common places to give yourself an injection are the stomach, legs, and butt. They're easier to reach and they have more fat as well.

If I were to pick a photograph to show what diabetes is like, it would be this:

Yup. Food. I eat a lot of food in bowls. When you have type 1 diabetes (which I've had for 23 years), you have to count every bite of food you eat. For me, the easiest way to do this is to eat out of bowls. This far up the bowl is one cup. This far, two cups.

Pictured there, one cup beans, half a cup rice, for a total of 50 g carbohydrate, which translates to 7 units of insulin. I do a mental calculation like that every time I eat.

And that's the hard part of having diabetes. It's counting everything you eat. Thinking about when your next meal will be every time you step out the door. Keeping track of five prescriptions that need to be renewed at different times. Carting around a bag of supplies everywhere you go. Noticing that you walked three miles today instead of two. It's six doctor's appointments a year. Four to ten blood sugar checks a day. No vacation.

But all these things I do, they're what keep me healthy. Sometimes I'll catch someone giving me a look when I test my blood sugar. I guess testing reminds people that I'm "sick". Which is ironic. Testing my blood sugar and taking insulin make me healthy. If you ever notice me ignoring my diabetes for days on end, like a normal person, start worrying.

Occasionally, my blood sugar goes low. And I lose fifteen minutes or so of time waiting for things to come back into focus. And that part isn't such a big deal.

Twenty-three years into this, I have no complications so far. Statistics tell me I'll die seven to ten years earlier, probably from a heart attack. I'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying about dying at 87, rather than 95 (the age my great-grandmother lived to).

There are a lot of factors that should be considered before choosing Ms. Sotomayor for Supreme Court Justice. Her diabetes just isn't one of them.

Vegan Texas Chili

2009-05-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Texas chili isn't like chili anywhere else. Texas chili never ever has beans. Ever. Once you add beans, Texans will politely call it a bean stew. Some people say that Texas chili shouldn't have tomatoes either, but no one pays much attention to that rule.

I've been wanting chili for a few weeks, and nothing is hitting the spot. Dewey makes a very nice, er, four bean stew, but it just isn't chili to me. The no-bean rule is always a problem for vegetarians because once you add those beans, it's not Texas chili anymore. A sausage patty recipe on A Veg*n for Dinner gave me the idea of using bulgur in place of the meat. And it worked wonderfully. The bulgur soaked up the flavors and kept a nice chewy bite. This was pure comfort food.

Bulgur Texas Chili

1 or 2 tablespoons oil
small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 cup bulgur
3 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 can rotel (I used mild)
1 can water
2 tablespoons tomato paste

Fry the onions in oil until they are soft, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook another 30 seconds. Add all the spices and stir to combine. You can leave out the cayenne to reduce the heat a bit. Add the bulgur and stir everything together again. Combine the soy sauce and ketchup and pour the mixture over the bulgur. Stir continuously until combined.

Pour in the can of rotel (or about 10 ounces diced tomatoes). Fill the can with water once and add to the other ingredients. Add the tomato paste and stir everything once more. Bring everything to a boil and then turn the heat down to a simmer. Simmer covered for 20 minutes.

Taste and adjust the seasonings. If the chili is too dry, add some water. Texas chili can be anywhere from moist to somewhat soupy, whatever your preference. Serve with tortilla chips, fritos, or cornbread but NEVER rice. (Another one of those rules.)

Zucchini Cakes

2009-05-09T11:41:00.001-07:00

My college roommate La and I used to make these great hashed brown zucchini cakes. We especially loved eating them at passover (subbing matzah flour for the bread crumbs). La even adapted the recipe into a sort of pizza crust. Unfortunately, that recipe used 6 T Parmesan cheese to bind the cakes together and to provide a bit more flavor.

So when I saw this recipe for zucchini cakes adapted by one of my favorite bloggers, I knew I needed to veganize it. The eggs in Kim's recipe are mainly for binding, so I knew pureed silken tofu would do a great job.

Zucchini Cakes

2 cups grated zucchini
salt for draining the zucchini
1 cup bread crumbs (I like panko)
1/4 cup pureed or mashed silken tofu
1 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon vegenaise (optional)
flour (optional)
oil for frying

Salt the zucchini heavily and let rest in a colander for half an hour to drain. Rinse the salt off the zucchini and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

Meanwhile, combine bread crumbs and Old Bay seasoning in a medium bowl. In another bowl, mash the silken tofu with a fork (or puree) and add vegenaise and mustard. The vegenaise adds a nice amount of flavor to the recipe, but you can leave it out to cut down on the fat.

Combine the bread crumb mixture and the zucchini and mix thoroughly. Add tofu mixture and combine well. You should be able to form the zucchini mixture into cakes with your hands. If the mixture is too wet and won't clump together, add flour by the tablespoonful until it reaches the desired texture. Form zucchini cakes about the size of your palm.

Fry the patties in oil over medium heat until browned on both sides (about 4 minutes a side). Serve with tartar sauce.

(For vegan tartar sauce, just mix vegenaise with a bit of dill relish.)

In gardening news, I have volunteer corn. My father tried to plant corn in Texas for years and couldn't get it to grow. And here two weeds I let get out of hand turn out to be corn. Go figure!

Happy Birthday, Eeyore!

2009-05-01T00:45:00.001-07:00

Eeyore of Liberty

Every year, Austinites meet up in Pease Park for Eeyore's Birthday Party. The festival started in the '60s as a spring party for UT students, and over the years it has grown into a large festival benefitting area non-profits. Every year's theme is the same: the birthday party for dreary Eeyore-who-lost-his-tail from the Winnie the Pooh books. Besides the Eeyore of Liberty and a donkey petting zoo, none of the festival activities have much to do with that story. But I think the carefree attitude of the festival captures the spirit of the Pooh books pretty well.

Thousands of people gather for drum circles, dancing, body painting, hula hooping, and costume contests. This was my first year at the festival and it was, well, relaxing. It's not often you see adults having so much fun.

May Pole

Hula hooping

Parachutes!

This was the drum circle early in the day when only about fifty people were drumming and a handful were dancing. By the afternoon, it was so crowded with dancers and drummers I couldn't get close enough to get a picture.

Only in Austin do the bikes grow on trees!

Look!

2009-04-23T13:20:00.001-07:00

There's an itty bitty tomato growing on my tomato plant! About a week after I planted these tomatoes, a herd of evil spidermites attacked them. Spidermites are so tiny, they're hard to see. I could tell something was wrong because the leaves were turning black. So I grabbed a piece of white paper, held it under the leaves, and shook my tomatoes. Sure enough, tiny red dots fell onto the paper.

Spidermites hate the damp. So for the next week or so, I watered the underside of the leaves on my tomato plants. I was able to save 4 of the 6 plants. And the largest one is blooming and producing tiny tomatoes now. I've had such bad garden luck so far, I'm tempted to eat the green tomatoes now just so I can be certain I'll harvest something from the garden this year.

New Baby Muffins!

2009-04-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

Dewey and I are an uncle and aunt as of late last night! So I've gone into cooking mode. Here is a Very Berry Muffin from Yellow Rose Recipes by Joanna Vaught. I used strawberries and blackberries. We'll bring these and a nice dinner for our nephew's mom and dad to enjoy tonight.

I've really liked everything I've tried from this cookbook. It's all very comforting and Texasy (Texasish? Texany? reminiscent of Texas?). If you get a chance, try the taco salad or biscuits and gravy.

Tex Mex leftovers

2009-04-01T11:44:00.001-07:00

Dewey and I eat Tex Mex pretty often. And this is how the leftovers usually end up the next day. Last night, Dewey and I ate tacos with Spanish rice, black beans, red bell peppers, and onions. Today, I made a bowl full of Spanish rice, black beans, and wilted spinach with garlic.

Often, I'll make the rice for this by replacing some of the water with leftover salsa. (Sometimes I feel like Steve Martin in Father of the Bride running through the aisles of the grocery store, ripping packages of buns apart. Salsa and tortilla chips NEVER run out at the same time. I always have too much of one or the other.)

I topped the whole thing with Crystal's queso. This is THE vegan queso recipe. The recipe is offline temporarily because Crystal and her partner will be mass producing it for sale. Congratulations, guys!

Garden update: The kale was eaten by SOMETHING. It is no more. The carrots turned out the be grass. I planted tomatoes, and half of them have already succumbed to spider mites. Good thing I'm not counting on this garden to provide all my food.

My first garden porn

2009-02-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

This is my first time ever starting a garden from seeds. Growing up, we always had a garden going in the backyard, and I did my share of weeding, watering, and harvesting (especially harvesting). But this is my first time ever planting seeds in the soil and holding my breath until they pop up. Just as I was getting ready to replant my kale and carrot seeds this weekend, I spotted some green! I have seedlings! I think.

Itty bitty kale!

And a carrot! Or maybe grass. Who knows. But did you see the kale?

And as Dewey and I were moving bricks to build some walls for my compost heap, we disturbed a gecko nest. (For scale, this is one of the holes in the brick.) The gecko ran off, but here are four tiny gecko eggs, three of them already hatched.

Quick, Easy Dinner

2009-02-07T21:23:00.001-08:00

Broccoli soup with garlic bread. This took maybe 15 minutes of hands on time and a bit of waiting for things to boil. A quick, healthy weeknight dinner.*

Dewey likes to watch "Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares." He's been wanting to try a recipe for broccoli soup from one of the episodes. The recipe: boil broccoli in salted water, puree with a bit of the boiling water, and serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of pepper.

*Dewey insists on adding "easy-peasy lemon-squeezy". There is no lemon in this recipe.

Vegan Crab Dip

2009-01-30T13:02:00.000-08:00

More eats from the upcoming Craw-Daddy zine. Vegan crab dip, so fishy Dewey won't eat it.

Okra stew

2009-01-29T14:34:00.001-08:00

I'm a tester for an upcoming vegan Cajun cook zine called "Cookin' with My Craw-Daddy," so no recipe this time. It's okra and spinach cooked with the Cajun trio of onions, celery, and bell pepper. Sort of like gumbo without the roux.

I can't wait to try more recipes from this zine. This okra stew was excellent. I've gotten into a bad habit of nibbling all day instead of eating meals, but at least today, I had a good, vegetable-packed lunch.

EDIT. Here's a link to the author's blog with lots of photos.

sesame balls

2009-01-16T18:55:00.001-08:00

After a meal at a local Chinese restaurant (China Palace), Dewey and I were served a plate of sesame rice balls. Crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, with a center of red bean paste, they filled us with ambition. Somehow, wanting to recreate this freebie dessert snowballed. The next thing I knew we were in Half Price Books buying a wok cookbook and making a pledge to cook all our meals in the wok this week.

Here's night one. Spring rolls (not pictured), followed by the sesame balls that started it all. They're just like we remember. We used this recipe (it took a bit more water than the recipe called for. And we made our own red bean paste, too.

Taco Salad

2009-01-15T21:49:00.001-08:00

In college every week, a lot of the Jewish students met up for a Shabbos lunch. Someone made this taco salad once, and for months after it showed up at every meal. There are so many variations though that no one ever got bored.

Taco Salad

lettuce
broken tortilla chips

toppings (choose several)
red, green, or yellow bell peppers, chopped
tomato, chopped (or canned in the winter)
corn (frozen is fine, it will thaw as you chop your vegetables)
peas (frozen is fine)
black beans
kidney beans
pinto beans
red onion, chopped
green onions, chopped
cilantro, chopped
pumpkin seeds
sunflower seeds
avocado, chopped
veggie pepperoni
veggie taco meat (the recipe from Yellow Rose Recipes is great)
other vegetables, to taste

dressing
salsa
vegenaise, or your favorite egg-free mayo

Tear your lettuce into salad-sized pieces. Don't worry about filling your salad bowl too full, the toppings will press the lettuce down some. Prepare all your toppings in bite-sized pieces. Be sure to choose a variety of colors. Spread your toppings on top of the lettuce, one topping at a time so you get a layered effect.

Prepare the dressing, mixing 4 parts salsa to one part vegenaise. (For a whole foods approach, just use plain salsa.) Just before serving, add the broken tortilla chip pieces to the salad. Don't add them too early or they'll get soggy. Serve the salad with the dressing on the side.

Office Party

2008-12-13T16:08:00.001-08:00

Terry and Isa of Veganomicon fame, quit making me like stuff! Before today, I would have said I don't like cranberries and that I can give or take cucumbers. But these two dishes made a convert of me. It goes to show that you really have to keep trying new ways of preparing produce until you find one you like. Vegetable haters, take note!

Tonight is the office holiday party. Another celebration, another chance to make healthy, tasty food.

Cashew Cucumber dip with olives and pita. Very Greek, very good.

Cranberry Orange Nut Bread. Tastes like Christmas, if you're into that kind of thing.

I make up the rules as I go along

2008-12-10T19:48:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to use up as much of the food in the house as I can before I move to Texas at the end of the month. The problem with having ten kinds of beans is that you have to pack ten kinds of beans. So that's how I ended up making chickpea polenta.

I only had about half a cup of stone-ground cornmeal left, not enough for a whole meal. So I added half a cup of chickpea flour (sometimes called besan) to my polenta. It worked great, and honestly didn't taste much different. I might be doing this more often since chickpea flour is lower in carbohydrates and has more protein. Besides, we eat too much corn as it is.

I ate my polenta topped with stewed tomatoes. (Tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, Italian spices, and a pinch of sugar simmered for twenty minutes.) A good dinner made from pantry staples.

Thanksgiving and more soup

2008-12-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

Third time is the charm for Thanksgiving. I made these mushrooms in puff pastry for the vegetarians at my Thanksgiving. It was a success, but what was even better was the pie. If you haven't tried Isa's smlove pie yet, do it now! My entire pie was gone before the family even sliced into either of the two Sara Lee pumpkin pies. Not that I bragged all weekend or anything.

I wasn't measuring since the mushroom puffs were just for myself, but it's onions, mushrooms, and pecans sauteed in oil with a splash of brandy, a big splash of soy sauce, nutmeg, and pepper all wrapped in puff pastry squares.

It's also soup season again. Here's cashew-butternut squash soup with red curry drizzle.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

2008-11-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

So a lot has happened since I last posted. Last you heard from me, I was exploring the storm damage from Hurricane Gustav in my neighborhood. Soon after that, I found out that my office building was badly damaged. We've packed up and moved to temporary offices way across town, and I am now a wretched commuter.

I got engaged. And I got a lovely kitten.

Meet Desomond. Some fool dumped this kitty off outside my work, and I just couldn't say no. Desmond enjoys sleeping in my lap and helping (or hindering) making the bed.

And lately I've been testing out Thanksgiving recipes. First I tried a Mark Bittman recipe: Autumn Millet Bake.

It's millet, squash, and cranberries with a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds. The very essence of all things fall. But this isn't The One for me. I don't think I really care for whole cranberries. I know the stuff is full of all that is wrong with food, but I'm an in-the-shape-of-the-can cranberry jelly kind of girl.

Next I tried a portobello mushroom en crote.

En crout is just of fancy way of saying wrapped in puff pastry. If you've been letting puff pastry intimidate you, don't. Working with this stuff is really easy.

This recipe is much more what I was hoping for. It's impressive (who wants dry turkey when you can have decadent, flaky puff pastry). I can serve at room temperature if I can't get to the oven to heat them up. And it's pretty easy. Unfortunately, it's just too much food. We'll be having salad (with my family's special only-on-Thanksgiving salad dressing), roasted Brussels sprouts, rolls, cranberry jelly, stuffing, and sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving. The side dishes are really the stars, and there's just no room for a main that will stuff you to the gills.

I think in the end I'll be going with some kind of cremini mushroom mixture en crout so I can make smaller portions. And I suppose I'll just have to suffer through a trial run. Mmm flaky.

Photos from my neighborhood

2008-09-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

This is just a sampling of the hurricane damage in my neighborhood.

The sidewalk here buckled probably from all the water in the soil. I walk here every day.

Many people in Baton Rouge are still without electricity. Some of my coworkers don't expect to have their electricity restored for a month. That's a month without air conditioning, hot showers, cooked food, refrigeration, or the ability to charge your cell phone. Some people and businesses have generators. This generator is powering a hotel where many first responders (and politicians) are staying.

Even though my neighborhood is powered right now, it's a precarious situation. Many trees like this one are just a good gust away from pulling down power lines. This tree was outside the oldest home in my neighborhood and was likely over a hundred years old.

All throughout the city, power lines are down and stoplights are out.

Many streets are blocked because of fallen trees. People are piling the debris on their sidewalks in an effort to get rid of it before Hurricane Ike's winds hit. Right now, all these broken limbs are potential flying objects.

This is the Old Governor's Mansion.

And this is why we shouldn't be complacent about Louisiana's levee system. The levee outside of Baton Rouge is the highest, and probably the safest, in Louisiana. But when even the safest levee is bulging and losing sandbags, something needs to be done. This bulge in the levee first appeared after the Mississippi flooded in the spring.

On ice cream and evacuation

2008-09-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. It's been a while. I evacuated from my hometown for Hurricane Gustav, and I'm so glad I did. Pretty much all of my city was without power for days. It's four days later, and my workplace and many of my friends are still without electricity. I lost several trees, and one narrowly missed hitting my house. The city is under a curfew to prevent crime and new emergencies. (Lots of trees in the roads and dead stop lights make driving interesting.)

I've been holed up in Austin for about a week, and the city has been very nice to me. On my first night here, Dewey and I stopped by Amy's Ice Cream, an Austin tradition. I had a lovely grapefruit sorbet, and Dewey had Shiner Bock ice cream. I was so intrigued I had to recreate it myself. Since I'm in the land of magical second-hand shops, I picked up an ice cream maker at Goodwill.

I took a basic ice cream recipe (the one from Veganomicon) and dropped the vanilla extract and replaced 1/2 cup of soy milk with 1/2 cup of shiner. Dewey has been dying for cinnamon apple ice cream, so that will be our next try.

My Weekend: A Photo Essay

2008-08-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

Indian food

2008-08-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

I used to be really intimidated by recipes for Indian food. They always had a mile long list of ingredients. Last year I took an Indian cooking class through the local university. Everyone in the class was intimidated by the instructor. "You didn't practice making all the recipes this week!" she would bark at people. "What could be more important than that?" The teacher didn't intimidate me though, and by the time the classes were over, Indian recipes didn't either. If you prep all your ingredients ahead of time and measure out your spices, all that's left is combining everything in the right order.

Going clockwise from the left, that's raita, pulau, rajma, tandoori tofu, and saag. And in English, that's spiced yogurt; rice with vegetables, fruit, and nuts; red beans; tofu baked with a spicy rub; and spinach.

Pulau, sometimes called pilaf, is really flexible. You have to have rice, but you can vary the vegetables, nuts, and dried fruit you use. Here's how I made it.

Pulau

4 cups cooked brown rice
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 onion, sliced
a cinnamon stick
a cardamom pod
2 cloves
1 clove garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced
1 teaspoon cayenne
bay leaf
salt
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, peas, lima beans, corn, green beans)
1/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds
garam masala (optional)

Combine all the spices and set aside. Heat the oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Add the spices, garlic, and ginger and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the onion and cook for another three minutes or until the onion begins to look translucent. Add the vegetables and cook until warmed through. Add the raisins and sunflower seeds and cook another minute. Salt to taste. (You may want to remove the cinnamon stick, cardamom pod, and bay leaf now.)

Combine the vegetable mixture with the cooked rice. You can sprinkle everything with garam masala if you want.

Ratatouille

2008-07-23T20:28:00.001-07:00

I once told my mom that she only made two vegetable dishes: stir fry and ratatouille. And the only difference between the two was that the ratatouille had tomatoes. My mom didn't find this funny.

And of course, I've inherited a lot of my mother's cooking style. She may have been right about this one. (Don't tell her I said that though.) This family recipe is another one of those 'throw a bunch of things in a pot and let it cook' types. The beauty of this Mediterranean peasant dish is that all of the ingredients grow at the same time. All of the vegetables in this dish can be found in my parents' garden (probably why it showed up so often). As an apartment dweller, I don't yet have a garden, but I found all of these vegetables at my farmers market (and I snagged the rosemary from a bush outside the museum. Shhh!)

Ratatouille

1 onion, chopped
1 medium eggplant, chopped
3 summer squash, a mixture of zucchini and yellow squash, sliced into rounds
2 tomatoes, chopped
6 mini or 2 medium bell peppers, assorted colors, chopped
2-4 garlic cloves, smashed
1/2 cup olive oil
rosemary (and/or oregano, thyme, marjoram, chervil, or basil)

Combine all the ingredients in the largest pot or sauce pan that you have. Simmer uncovered (don't brown) on medium low for 45 minutes to an hour, until everything is soft. Stir occasionally. The eggplant will be the last to soften. By the time the eggplant is ready, the tomatoes and the onions will have almost disintegrated.

That's it! Use what vegetables you have on hand. My mom sometimes adds mushrooms.

Other eggplant recipes
Eggplant dip
Spicy eggplants

Eggplant dip

2008-07-20T18:49:00.001-07:00

When I was learning to cook in college (not what I went to college for!), one of the things I did was keep a recipe box just for vegetables. I made it a goal to find five recipes I liked for each vegetable. I never got to five for everything, but I developed a good pile of recipes and ate a few more vegetables than I would have otherwise. Now that I've discovered some new vegetables (kale) and I'm trying to cook more seasonally, I've decided to revive the practice. So starting now, five recipes for eggplant.

Eggplant is one of the things my parents usually plant in their vegetable garden. And this eggplant dip, similar to baba ghanouj, is something my mom made often.

Roasted Eggplant Dip

1 medium eggplant
4 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
salt
cayenne pepper

Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise. Separate the garlic cloves from the head of garlic, but don't remove the skin from the cloves. Place the eggplant and garlic in your roasting dish and drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over them. Roast at 350 degrees until the eggplant and garlic are soft, stirring once or twice. The entire process will take 45 minutes to an hour depending on how big your eggplant is. The garlic may finish earlier. If so, remove the cloves and set aside.

When the eggplant is soft, remove from the oven. Scoop the eggplant flesh from the skin and squeeze the garlic from the skins. Combine the eggplant flesh, garlic, and remaining olive oil in a food processor and process until smooth. Salt to taste.

Place the eggplant in a bowl, drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with cayenne.

Other eggplant recipes
Spicy Eggplants

This post is not as graphic as it could be.

2008-07-18T09:05:00.001-07:00

So I've been sick. Again. Both times I suspected food poisoning. So, between sipping ginger ale and reading mysteries, I decided this would be a good time to challenge my beliefs a little. I'm a big advocate of buying local food as much as possible. Partly, I like the routine of walking to the farmers market every Saturday and returning with a week's worth of produce. I like being in the swirl of the community. I like handing my money directly to the person who plucked the food off the tree or out of the earth. And I like knowing where and how my food was grown.

I've always said, part of the advantage of eating locally is that it's so easy to ask questions. I can ask the nice man who sells me oranges what sort of fertilizer he uses or what his policy on pesticides is. If I want to know the same thing about the orange I got via Sunkist, who do I ask?

Raw garlic was the only connection I could find between the two times I was sick. So I looked up the number of my garlic farmer and gave her a call. The call went right to her home phone number. And we chatted for a bit. No one else had called her about food poisoning in the past few months. Matter of fact, she hasn't had a complaint in the thirty years she's been growing garlic. And what reassured me most of all, she told me about her dinner last night, served to her entire family, that included several bulbs of that same garlic.

So where does that leave me? There's really nothing you can do about food poisoning beyond prevention. There's no pill or medicine to make you feel better, and most people will recover fine without ever visiting a doctor.

You can report food poisoning to the health department. There's an "easy" form from Michigan State University. "Easy" because they want you to report what you ate the four days before you were sick, where you ate it, and where all the ingredients came from. I cook just about everything I eat myself, so that part was easy. But by the time I felt well enough to fill out this form, they were asking me to think back to breakfast five days before. That's pretty hard to do. And the canned beans I ate, were they the can I bought at the local store or the can I bought at Albertsons? And which brand were they?
You can be very, very careful cooking and cleaning up after the most easily contaminated foods. According to the Center for Disease Control, these are: raw meat and poultry, raw eggs, unpasteurized milk, raw shellfish, and sprouts. Foods that mingle lots of raw ingredients together from different sources are particularly at risk. These include ground meat, bulk raw milk, and bulk raw eggs. I don't really eat any of these. I have the occasional sprout when I'm on vacation eating the ubiquitous "vegetarian sandwich", but that's about it.
You can store your food properly. Don't store your meat with your veggies. Prepared food shouldn't be out of the fridge for more than four hours. This might be where I fell down. Where do y'all keep your garlic? I usually put it in my "root cellar" next to the potatoes. My mom always refrigerates it, but she puts tomatoes in the fridge, too.
I don't have to tell you to wash your hands, right? My high school Trig teacher told us we should wash our hands for the amount of time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday". Don't ask me why my math teacher was giving us hygiene advice. Every time I turn on the tap this song floats into my head now. Be sure to wash up after handling messes from babies and other animals, too.

Cornbread salad

2008-07-08T16:30:00.001-07:00

I was sick last week and then my boyfriend came for a visit, so my fridge is all out whack right now. Tonight's dinner mission: use up as much of the food as possible before it goes bad. There was half a pan of cornbread and my boyfriend bought me THREE avocados that were too hard to use until today, so this is what I came up with. Since I made this up by the fly of my pants, substitute away.

Cornbread salad with avocado-lime dressing

cornbread pieces, about two cups
tomato, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
2 scallions, green and white parts, chopped
an avocado, chopped
juice from a lime
jalapeno, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
salt
water

Mix together cornbread, tomatoes, bell pepper, scallions, and half the avocado. In a food processor, mix together the rest of the avocado, the lime juice, jalapeno, and cilantro. Thin the mixture with water until it's to your preference. I probably used two teaspoons water. Salt to taste. Dress the cornbread salad with the avocado-lime dressing.