Archive for the ‘Other stuff’ Category

Graiiiiiins….

[Mushroom zombies, banana pirate, and peach bun creatures by Kaela.]

Lots of bits and pieces of projects today. Black beans on to soak, bread baking for the Lindas in our office, seitan on to boil for later. I’ll make a savory lentil thing with the lentils in the freezer, and maybe something in the spicy black beans and rice spectrum later in the week.

Terrific roadtrip yesterday. We drove down to Asheville – it’s just about an hour there – and stopped at Kim’s Oriental Foods & Gifts to stock up. I was tickled to find the green curry paste I’d first been introduced to when I lived in Victoria, BC. We also got a bit of sambal (that’s going on the seitan and on the guys’ chicken tonight), cardamom, star anise, red curry paste, and…well, here’s a picture:

We also wandered around downtown Asheville (sometime I’m going to have to spend a full weekend there) and window-shopped. I was quite amused by the disclaimer at the front counter of Chevron Beads – essentially a warning to all that enter that you can get hooked on beads and will from then on have beads all over the house. Millie, the éminence grise (er, jaune; she’s a yellow lab), wandered out to inspect, and Rosie, the store cat, allowed herself to be petted on her couch.

A highlight of the afternoon was a stop in the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. We sampled a few of their truffles – check out their amazing assortment – as well as their drinkable liquid chai truffle and a chocolate frappe. The French press coffee was just the touch to finish off a lovely afternoon.

Ever since I saw the Breakfast Club I’ve wanted a Bento box like the one Molly Ringwald had. More often than not I’ve had the ANSI-standard brown bag, give or take a half-dozen fractured thermoses (thermi?) from grade school. Or just the OMG-I’ve-overslept three-can-grab: can of tuna, can of fruit, can of pop. If I was particularly together in my mad dash out the door, I’d remember the can opener and possibly even the fork that I’d need to actually eat said lunch.

I move pretty slowly in the morning, so if lunch requires lots of thought or extensive preparation, well, not gonna happen, so my lunch will have to be something that I can assemble the night before.

I love some of the ideas over at Just Bento – Kaela is fond of onigiri and it’s not complex to make. Cook rice (sticky if you have it, otherwise stir regular rice to make it a bit stickier) and cool it enough to handle. If you’ve got some biscuit cutters or other open-topped cookie cutter molds you can use those as a rice mold; we take a plastic sandwich bag and press rice into the corner, tucking a bit of plum sauce or pickled ginger or sesame seeds with finely chopped nori inside. Turn it out of the bag and wrap a strip of nori around one side.

I love soups too, and I’m lucky enough to have a fridge and a microwave in my office.  The miso soup at the top of this page is just a tablespoon of brown miso, a chopped green onion, and hot water. Normally I’d add some small cubes of tofu, too. The components fit nicely in a plastic bag, and then I can add them to my mug of hot water at work.

So far this week’s selections also include a dollop of the quinoa and chickpea pilaf from last week’s leftovers, plus some of the southern peaches that are out now.

This week I’ve checked Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian out of the library and I’m going to be bringing some of the basic lentil dishes for lunch this week. Check back in in a couple of days and we’ll have our attempts written up.

I go on baking jags on the weekend. Every so often things surprise me in a good way. These baguettes were one of those things. The rest of the household is out camping today while I mind the menagerie and a few chores. And take time out for a nice meditative lunch with one of the yellow tomatoes from the garden.

I gotta tell you; I was pretty skeptical about the homemade seitan after we’d boiled it and stored the odd-shaped lumps and broth in the fridge. I’d had it before, but boy, this didn’t look quite like an appetizing main dish. At all.

But I figured a stir-fry would mix many tastes together even if it was pretty meh.

Boy, was I wrong. It browns wonderfully in a skillet, and the nice crispy crust and substantial texture worked spectacularly better than I’d hoped.

Start by slicing the seitan into roughly inch square bits, and stir-fry it in a bit of hot oil.

Add a clove of garlic, a dollop of minced ginger, and a green onion to the seitan once both sides are brown. Then add the sliced red peppers and a bit of bok choy, and cook that til the peppers are tender.  Mix a couple tablespoons of hoisin sauce (or to taste) with a bit of water in which you’ve dissolved a sprinkle of cornstarch, and stir that into the pan.  Serve with steamed rice.

Seitan’s definitely a win. Rachelle is considering making a faux chicken salad – I’ll see if I can get her to take pictures and post it.

I blinked, and all of a sudden, it’s August.

We’ve been leaning vegetarian for a month now, and while there are certainly some changes, it’s been surprisingly smooth. Or, at any rate, as smooth as daily life usually goes.

The six things I have noted about this month:

1) It’s not as expensive as I expected.

The largest expense this month turned out to be meat – we found a source for antibiotic-free, pasture-raised, humanely treated beef for our carnivores that was rated as “best steak I’ve had in 20 years”. Flour, rice, quinoa, tempeh is less expensive than an equivalent serving of meat, and we had snow peas, tomatoes, carrots, and mustards out of our garden. A bigger bump in the finances was caused by spices and condiments. There were a number of things – garam masala, more cumin and chile powder, allspice, Bragg’s aminos, nutritional yeast – that weren’t yet in the pantry. These shouldn’t be a monthly expense though.

2) I’ve lost nine pounds.

I’ll admit it; I have a soda pop habit. I can give up coffee, and I can cut down pop, but I feel particularly deprived without the fizz. I wound up cutting back (more due to finances and time than intent) but I certainly didn’t concentrate on avoiding pop, or chocolate, or pretzels.  The grain- and legume-based dishes seemed to be more filling than I expected, so I had the benefit of both lower calorie and more sustaining meals, so I was less likely to crave something at 3 pm.

3) The prep does take a significant time investment.

I need a large chalkboard in the kitchen with my intentions for the week. Then I’d actually remember that to have hummus for lunch on Monday, I’ll not only have to prep it Sunday, but I’ll have to soak chickpeas Saturday night.  And even for plain old daily fare, the chopping and cutting also takes time, so fewer of the dishes are suited to dashing in at 8 pm for dinner at 8:30 without planning well ahead.

4) The meat-eaters get grumpy if we have fancy food and they get hamburgers.

This is all my fault. I admit that we’ve gotten carried away with ‘ooh, new stuff – watch this with this new unusual ingredient’ while fixing something pretty basic B-flat for the guys. That’s not fair. Time to break out the better recipes again and make sure I’m not skimping on the equal time.

5) Discount beef really loses its appeal.

I wasn’t expecting to lose my taste for meat. I’ve never been a big fan of ground beef: it’s kinda OK in tacos, but shredded is so much better. But after a month of mostly vegetarian dishes, some shrimp, some fish, a dab of that excellent steak, the economy ground beef at the supermarket is, first, flavorless, and second, seems to have a strange consistency. I knew that it had far too much water in it when it would boil on its way to frying, but it’s completely stopped tasting and feeling like food.

6) We need better leftover logistics.

But, y’know, leftovers make you feel good twice. Did you ever think about that?
When you first put them away, you feel really intelligent: “I’m saving food!”
And then, after a month, when hair is growing out of them and you throw them away you feel really intelligent: “I’m saving my life!”
- George Carlin

This one is a little hard for me to quantify – I’ve never been great at using leftovers creatively, or in anything approaching a timely manner. I tend to be like Carlin’s Ice Box Man above. I know it’s most efficient to make a big pot of beans, or boil a good dollop of quinoa, and store it for later. I know the tempeh freezes well (and this is where the solution to #3 lies) and I’ll need to plan ahead here as well, and keep an eye on all those miscellaneous containers in the fridge.

On to month two! Thanks for reading.

When I see articles, blog posts or comments wherein the author states ‘food is only fuel, no more’, I feel kind of sorry for them.  Where did he grow up? Has she no taste buds? How did her family celebrate, and was food really not a part of that?

For me, both for good and bad, food is far more than fuel.  It’s the caring of my grandmother Agnes, fixing us strawberry-rhubarb pie to celebrate the return of spring and fresh fruit.  It was dinner as the meeting point where tales of work, grade school bullies, political follies, and hopes for the future were discussed. It’s a moment of creation, bringing something out of many elements to, with luck, a delicious new whole. It’s a place of adventure, tasting dishes from places we’ve never been, and revelling in how different the taste of fennel or poblano is from everyday fare. And it was a consoling pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream and bottle of Guinness when the world was falling down around me.

With the introduction of more vegetarian meals into the mix, though, there’s some tension added to these connections: “Are you fixing something I can eat? Where’s the meat? I’ll just get some cereal later.”  I apologize to the meat eaters in the family when I’ve made you feel left out or excluded from the family table.  I’ll keep that in mind as we go on, and be sure to emphasize meals that are flexible enough for all of us that we can still share the nourishment of self and family and spirit.