Monday, June 29, 2009

During and After Solstice

While I was at Solstice I ate a mono-diet essentially. Hard for someone who's used to the variety of macrobiotics.

Every night: mung beans and rice (spicy or non) with carrots, beets, and half a head of iceberg lettuce. Eaten altogether in one pile actually made it tastier, though I had to work my way up to the spicy mung beans by gradually adding half spicy and half non.



Every morning: potato and celery soup (spicy or non) with bananas and an orange. The soup really is much better with the bananas in it, kind of cuts the spice and makes it all sweeter. Many people stood in lines for oatmeal but I had it once and didn't think it was worth it. Traditionally you were supposed to eat the soup. It keeps you from having a lumpy gut of oatmeal during yoga classes later.



Lunches were different each day and I forgot to take pictures of them. The breakfast on the last day was also special, practically eggs and bacon. Cheesy potatoes, rice pudding, black garbanzos, with a sour cream sauce. Plus lots of yogi tea (chai) and raw chocolate goodness from the bazaar.





When I got back I was kindly picked up from the airport and driven to my favorite macrobiotic restaurant, Manzanita. We had a yam and miso soup followed by millet with cauliflower, roasted (or pressure cooked) root veggies with hijiki, collards with pesto sauce, kidney beans with a miso flavoring, and a fresh salad with a lemon tahini dressing. And the next day: vegan hemp cherry vanilla ice cream!

Friday, June 19, 2009

Before Solstice

This is my last chance to blog, update facebook, or tweet about anything for at least a week. I'm headed off into the New Mexico mountains for yoga, camping, and lots and lots of stars. And I really can't wait. The only thing I will miss (besides for my addiction to twitter and facebook) is food. We are guaranteed to have the same thing every night for a week (mung beans and rice and half a head of iceberg lettuce). Sigh. So I've avoided eating anything that reminds me of mung beans this week in honor of diversity!

Wednesday night was pasta night. We had that delicious broiled tofu from Veganomicon again. (I am so addicted to that recipe! I can't help myself. It's just so easy and fast and delicious.) Served the tofu with soba noodles and a quick stir-fry of broccoli, carrots, and kale.



Thursday night was taco noche (noche de tacos). Dandelion the Bitter Green made rice before he left for a rehearsal and I made pinto beans spiced with miso and garlic. Then a quick saute of two kinds of kale and baby bok choy.



Tonight we're having a quick dinner before a party of cupcakes extraordinaire. (Courtesy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, another awesome cookbook.) Leftover rice became risotto with broccoli and carrots and dried porcini mushrooms.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Weekly Recap

A great wrap up of a week's worth of food:

Wednesday: A one pot meal of leftover rice with cauliflower, carrots, and greens. Plus another fabulous version of the broiled tofu. I just can't repeat how much I love Veganomicon and the awesome recipes it's brought me.



Thursday was a liquid dinner for me. After a 2 1/2 hour yoga class I went to a show that Dandelion the Bitter Green was playing at and had beer for dinner.

Friday I cooked for my dear friend Ravi Inder Kaur who is moving to England to be with her new love at the end of the month. I made broccoli polenta from Veganomicon, which was essentially polenta with broccoli added, cooked in a pot and then poured into a mold, and then fried. I also made sweet potato fries and tempeh bacon. Plus I tried a quick trick a friend suggested for greens. I used collards that night, cut up some fresh ginger, and after a quick stir-fry I added almond butter. It cooked down into a delicious sauce.



Saturday was leftovers from Friday with an addition of a kidney bean dip using the last of the roasted garlic.



Sunday was more leftover polenta with a adzuki beans, kale and carrot dish.



Monday night take out. Tuesday night was my first ever Thai coconut soup! Made with leftover rice, tofu, carrots, and broccoli. I thought it turned out great though Dandelion the Bitter Green thought it was not spicy enough.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Secret Ingredients, part 2

I tried for another secret ingredient tonight. It's so secret, and in a soup, that you'll never be able to guess. For those of you playing at home I'll have to tell you what it is: roasted garlic. I made roasted garlic earlier this week because I'm reading Cooking Green: Reducing your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen by Kate Heyhoe. I was making something else in the oven and felt I should make good use of it being on by roasting some garlic at the same time. I also have a lot of garlic from our recent camping trip near Gilroy, garlic capitol of the world so it seemed worthwhile. Of course now I have way too much roasted garlic. Never, you say? I'm kind of sick of delicious walnut bread with hummus and roasted garlic, myself, after having eaten it for three days straight. So tonight I thought I'd try a different way to deal with the garlic.



Inspired by a recipe in Veganomicon (still my current fave) I made a broccoli-rice soup with adzuki beans. I added the garlic to the soup, but after I had blended it and I admit, I was too lazy to get all the gear back out and blend again. So it's a secret ingredient on many levels this time since you can't taste it until you happen to hit a lucky piece.

Last night was a quinoa one-pot meal but of course I forgot to add the canned beans. Thanks to Veganomicon (Thanks Isa and Terri!) I made a quick dish of basic broiled tofu. I've never used my cast iron skillet in the broiler but that was so much fun I plan on doing it again. I also made a quick sauce to liven up the quinoa. It's so fast and easy I've listed my (vague) steps below.



Super Easy Almond Butter Sauce:
A small amount of hot water (less than 1/4 cup)
Couple of spoonfuls of white miso
Couple of spoonfuls of almond butter
Dash of soy sauce (to taste)
Mix it all up until it's a sauce-like consistency and serve on anything.

Sunday was Thai food take out because I got a flat tire on our bike ride home and was feeling cranky.

Saturday was the day to finally cook the artichokes we got on the camping trip. I tried roasting them in the oven but it didn't really turn out that well. They remained tough yet tasty. Perhaps they were already past their prime. I also made these amazing seitan cutlets, again inspired by a recipe in Veganomicon that I didn't have all the ingredients for. The cutlets were a huge hit, a tad messy, and so delicious. I will definitely be doing something like that again. Hooray for cutlets!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Sweet week

Tuesday night I cooked for our visiting dignitary, MW, and made my favorite dish from a magazine. In fact, I almost never like recipes in magazines because they are either too complicated or don't taste the way you think they should.



This one, from Vegetarian Times in Jan. of this year, is an amazing roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli dish tossed with a tangy dressing of orange juice, soy sauce, and sesame seeds. It's so good I always want to lick out the bowl. We had that with greens and tempeh served over rice. I cooked the tempeh first, ala tempeh bacon, and then it was crispier in the stir fry. I'd have to get MW's opinion to confirm but I think it was a good combination.



Wed. night was pasta night which lived up to its tradition. Thursday night was finally taco noche, which we have not done in a long while. We ate frozen tamales and pinto beans on tortillas with salad mix. Nice and simple and required only the minimum of use of the heat producing stove.



Friday night required even less effort: Leftovers! We ate the rest of the curry that I made on Monday with a brown and wild rice mix, served with a summer solstice beer.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Feast or famine

Feast, or famine, or takeout. The last few days have been either leftovers, takeout, or a veritable feast of which I only made one of the many delicious things on my plate. (Such is the advantage of a potluck.) And to boot, I didn't even really make the one thing I am claiming to have made. Dandelion the Bitter Green made it, it being a brown rice salad with snap peas, broccoli, carrots and sunflower seeds. All I had to do was add some lemon juice and scoop it into an appropriate tupperware for transport. The other dishes that night: corn on the cob, potato salad, carrot salad, dahl, daikon pickles, and gingery kale. Plus vegan chocolate cupcakes and/or peach cobbler for dessert. So much food, so many people, such a good time!



To make up for all of that tonight I have spent about two hours making dinner which I haven't even tried yet. Red lentil and cauliflower curry with brown rice and blanched kale. I'm not usually a good curry person but I followed a recipe so hopefully that is a good sign. The recipe is from my new favorite cookbook Veganomicon. I trust that it will turn out beautifully (even though I had to substitute a few ingredients.)