Monday, April 27, 2009

A compilation



Thursday: Stir fry of carrots and kale with a side of spicy red lentil puree served over millet.
Friday: Pizza. Love that take out.



Saturday: Asparagus. Cooked in the broiler with lots of garlic and oil. And grilled seitan with collards and carrots.





Sunday: Pancakes. Plus roasted veggies (cauliflower, carrots, burdock, and leek) with a black bean dip and a garnish of braised baby kale served over rice.


Monday: Soup. Barley, lentil and leek soup with carrots and baby bok choy.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Anxiety dreams and food comas

I had an anxiety dream last night. I dreamt my boss was pregnant, all the more unlikely because she is a 60 year old lesbian. I'm realizing tonight how else I deal with stress. It's not just that I eat (I do) but I cook. I've made more food tonight (post giant re-org at my work that kept them from laying off anyone but makes us all nervous) than I probably will need for several days. Perhaps the inverse is also true. On Sunday when it was ridiculously gorgeous outside I didn't cook at all. I think I mostly ate chips and strawberries at a birthday party.


Monday night it was also still hot so I tried to do the least amount of cooking possible. It was still too much: quinoa with garbanzos, broccoli, mushrooms, and baby bok choy. All as a one-pot meal. Did I mention I'm queen of the one-pot meals?

Last night was Dandelion the Bitter Green's birthday so I spent all evening making vegan chocolate mousse. The recipe is from the Simple Treats cookbook which I can't recommend enough. For one, this is the best vegan mousse and it doesn't use any tofu! For two, this book has the best vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. It's not full of weird ingredients and it tastes like the classic choc. chip cookie you've been craving all week. So after all the mousse making we got falafel take out.



Tonight I literally almost set the house on fire. I was making the blackened brussel sprouts with garlic and came back to write more of this blog when I saw flames coming from the oven. (Note to self: blogging and cooking don't mix.) I ended up making the blackened brussel sprouts, roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli (based on a recipe from Vegetarian Times that I've mentioned before) and a carrot soup with rice and adzuki beans. Yes, I will be eating leftovers for a week. Hopefully while I eat chocolate mousse and watch old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to make myself feel better.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Nerd alert

I think I've crossed the line into big nerd territory as far as macrobiotics is concerned. (As far as other things are concerned I've been a big nerd for a while now.) Last Saturday I happened upon two big bags of books out on the street. Not such an unusual occurrence in my neighborhood, people leave out clothing, books, pots and pans, whatever they don't want but are too lazy to take to Goodwill on their own. That night it was books. As I looked through the bags (because I couldn't pass them up) I found at least 5 or 6 books on macrobiotics. Everything from dessert cookbooks (thank you!) to philosophy (Macrobiotics and the Spirit of Christianity? I really didn't think this book needed to be written.) So now I've gone into full geek mode with some of the down and dirty details of macrobiotics. It's beyond just eating whole foods in line with the seasons. It's about phases and zones and I'm not even sure if there's food involved.


Thursday night's meal was quinoa with fried tempeh "bacon" and vegetables in a peanut sauce. We almost never make peanut sauces because we never have peanut butter (usually just almond butter). Dandelion the Bitter Green doesn't like peanuts even though I do, so I buy it but take it to work. I think he actually thought it was almond butter until it was too late to turn back.

Friday night was when I started to look at the food through the nerd lens. I was trying to get us a balance of phases (earth, fire, wood, water, metal) though I think we only got a few but not all. We had brown rice with a navy bean dish (highlighted with tarragon and basil, yum!) and broccoli, kale, and mushrooms.


It wasn't until the next day that I read further in the book and discovered that you don't really want all phases in one meal. You'd end up with a really unattractive goulash that no one would want to eat. So I felt better about last night's dinner. Since Saturday was a show night I made a quick one-pot meal, trying to channel my inner fried rice. It was leftover rice with carrots, baby bok choy, cauliflower, garlic and ginger. Oh, and some slices of pre-made baked tofu. I don't usually use that stuff unless I'm in a hurry or out and about but I thought it would add a nice texture to the fried rice.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Day of rest


Sunday I don't think I ate anything. I mean, I did eat things. I had pancakes for breakfast. (Alas, no strawberries until Wednesday's market.) And I think I ate bread and hummus in the evening. But I certainly didn't cook. It was my official day of rest after the all-day meditation on Saturday.

And on Monday we ordered pizza. It's actually a really healthy pizza which you could make yourself if you are not close to my local pizza place (Bambino's in Cole Valley). Pesto sauce (with no cheese, just basil, pine nuts, garlic, and oil), arugula, broccoli, and mushrooms. No cheese on the top either. Quite good and healthy too. (And Bambino's is now used to us calling for pizzas with no cheese.)

Tuesday was the exciting night this week. I still had my overdue copy of Veganomicon, which I love so much I plan on buying this weekend. I highly recommend it for the witty banter plus the lovely recipes. Everything is vegan but quite flavorful and delicious and some of them are super quick and easy. Good categories too, like brunch food or one-pot meals. (I'm queen of the one-pot meal, by the way.)

So I made Lemony Roasted Potatoes and Braised Seitan, Brussels, and Kale. And I also made stock because both of these recipes called for it so I felt like that would be too much cheating. The potatoes totally rocked though they took a lot longer to cook. Maybe because I used a different kind of potato (new potatoes vs. russet?) or maybe my oven is not right. But once they came out they were awesome! I have been eating them as leftovers since then and still loving it.

I was scared about the Braised Seitan because I'm hesitant to eat brussel sprouts any way except roasted. If they are not fully cooked they are nasty. But this was delicious. Cooked with red wine, garlic, tarragon, thyme, and basil. It had a very meaty flavor to it because of the spices and the wine and it was quite good.

Plus I want to make a plug for the authors of Veganomicon. They also wrote the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook, which is so over the top amazing I can't even describe it. Omnivores are super impressed by the cupcakes even before learning they are vegan. And apparently they are coming out with a brunch cookbook soon too. I am lining up now for that.

Wed: pasta!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Weekly recap


Wednesday is pasta night (soba noodles with tofu and veggies). I am finally getting the hang of frying the tofu separately so it's nice and crispy.


Thursday was roasted vegetables (brussel sprouts, leeks, butternut squash) with brown rice and lentils. All topped with the most delicious almond butter-miso sauce.


Friday night was taco night. I bought some tortillas, though really I should figure out how to make some myself. I have masa flour (corn flour with lime) but no tortilla press, which is apparently the secret ingredient. So I heated up the tortillas, made a quick bean dish with two cans of pinto beans and garlic, sautéed some broccoli and chard, and even had a little bit of brown rice leftover. Plus an avocado cut up with half a lemon.


Saturday Dandelion and I went to an all day yoga meditation event in the East Bay. So afterwards we all went to Manzanita our local macrobiotic restaurant.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Leftovers


I've been sick and we've been busy so we've been eating lots of leftovers (or eating take out). Friday night was leftover soup from a few days before plus one of those pot pies (Peasant Pies, I think?) Saturday night I made another soup with the yin yang beans. They ended up keeping their yin-yang ness in the soup which was quite nice though they lost some color, more brown and cream now than black and white.


Then I got the stomach flu but not before I had a chance to eat strawberry pancakes Sunday morning. I even tried putting some chopped strawberries into the batter for the last couple. (Note to self: cut the strawberries much smaller for the batter.)


Sunday night was take out because I was watching a True Blood marathon. Monday night was take out because I was sick and too tired to make anything.


And tonight is leftover soup. The key to good leftovers is adding something new. I've added parsley and sauted collards to tonight's soup. I've also made a quick batch of sliced potatoes, baked in the oven with rosemary (from the garden), parsley, and soy sauce.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Golden sunshine


Tuesday night was polenta, which Dandelion the Bitter Green claims I never make correctly. Apparently it requires hours of stirring, worse than risotto. I can't be bothered so as soon as it looks remotely done I take it off the stove. But the other night I was apparently getting better at it because he didn't make a face when he saw what I had done. (The other main difference is that I usually do the 2 to 1 ratio for water to grain, which works great with rice, but not so much with polenta. Polenta needs way more water according to some people. On Tuesday I started with a 3 to 1 ratio and then he added a bit more when he took over the stirring. It seemed golden and delicious to me.)

The polenta was served with black eyed peas, cooked in a cast iron pot with garlic, onions, and soy sauce. Simple, but interesting enough to make me actually like black eyed peas, which I never have before. (Dandelion the Bitter Green bought them, not me. I would never have touched them if they weren't already here and needing to be used.) Plus a simple stir-fry of veggies.

Speaking of stir-fries I had a brilliant idea in my yoga class last night for what to make for dinner. Yoga is frequently when I have brilliant ideas so I'm not totally surprised but then I had to spend the rest of class time a) remembering it so that I didn't get home and think, now, what was I going to make? and b) salivating over what I was going to make because I was super hungry. My new innovation: walnuts! And cooking the tofu until crisp on its own. I added both of these to my standard carrots, broccoli, kale stir-fry and it was awesome. Added soba noodles and was quite happy.


Tonight is falafel from our local place. Not the best falafel in the world but definitely the closest.