Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Wheat Week

It's been requested of me that I include some recipes on this blog so that those of you at home can play along. This week I've made some things that were not in my usual repertoire so I will do my best to oblige.

Last Friday Dandelion the Bitter Green had a show so I made a simple dinner of rice and lentils with steamed broccoli and our favorite almond butter sauce.



The recipe for almond butter sauce:
Bring a small amount of water (less than a 1/4 cup) to an almost boil.
Add 2 or 3 spoonfuls of almond butter. (I like crunchy but whatever.)
Add 1 or 2 spoonfuls of miso (usually white, "mellow" miso but you could also use a dark miso, like red, barley, or rice).
Add a dash of soy sauce.
Add a dash of sweetener (brown rice syrup is preferred but you could use honey or maple syrup too.)
Mix it all together until it's sauce-like. If it's too thick add more water, but very small amounts. If it's too thin, too bad.

Saturday night I think I ate nothing but popcorn and beer. Yes, living the healthy life style here.

Sunday morning we went to an early morning yoga class and then came back and had a tofu scramble with sweet potato hash browns. We ate it with some not so good bread that we bought which inspired me to try to make my own bread: whole wheat molasses. It was so much fun and delicious that I highly recommend everyone try it. I think I actually squealed when I punched down the dough. Such a great tactical experience.



Monday night was the red lentil cauliflower curry that I've made before plus steamed chard with lemon. This led to Tuesday night deciding to make roti, a whole wheat Indian flatbread. The recipe claimed it would only take 30 minutes. I had barely an hour before a booksigning and I only had time to make the dough and roll it out, not bake it. It was quite delicious especially with the leftover curry, but still, Veganomicon, don't lie to me! 30 minutes is quite different from the hour and half or more that it took me to make them.





Tonight, leftover rice, a stir fry of broccoli and carrots with a lovely broiled tofu (lime flavor this time).



Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Food Work

Due to lots of work related functions I've been able to eat leftovers for dinner more than once this past week. Usually I end up eating my leftovers for lunch the next day so this was a shockingly large amount of food left each night.

Last Wednesday we made the most excellent Midwestern meal. For the first time I made seitan from gluten flour. Seitan is wheat protein. When you start with gluten flour it is quite easy to make seitan. I added water, kneaded it until it looked and felt like playdough, then made "cutlets" and boiled them in a tasty broth. (Note: Getting cutlets out of a giant ball of sticky playdough is harder than it sounds.)

So for our Midwestern meal we made the equivalent of beef stroganoff with the seitan, onions, and mushrooms, a side of broccoli and cauliflower with herbs and lemon juice, served with brown rice.



We pretty much ate that plus takeout until Saturday which was seitan with carrots and chard.



Sunday was a quinoa pilaf with chickpeas and broccoli. A side dish of greens with roasted sunflower seeds and lemon juice.



Monday night I made pizza (using frozen crusts, I'm not that cool.) Zucchini, carrots, broccoli with a caramelized onion sauce.



Tuesday night was leftovers from what I made for the company picnic: a rice salad with broccoli and carrots, tossed with a Mediterranean dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs.



Tonight was a goulash of a stir fry: seitan, carrots, chard, and zucchini.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

My Own Private Idaho (Kitchen)

A week back and finally getting into the swing of things. Honestly I'm so happy to be able to cook our own food again. (And trust me, I never thought I would say that.) And just happy to be back in my own kitchen with familiar ingredients. I don't think we saw a carrot more than once on our trip and here I think we eat them every day.

Sunday of Labor Day weekend we made spicy red lentil dip with rice and broccoli, carrots, and onions sauted.



Monday was marinated tempeh with kale and carrots in an almond butter sauce. Served with brown rice. Note: the almond butter sauce makes everything taste better and is so easy to make! It's simply almond butter, miso, water, soy sauce, and a tiny bit of sweetener like honey or brown rice syrup. (More almond butter than miso and everything else to taste.) Mix it up with a little water until it's the consistency you want and you are good to go.



Tuesday night was a blended broccoli carrot soup with rice and lentils. Wednesday: a stir fry of baby bok choy and carrots served with tempeh and soba noodles.



Thursday night was taco noche, my favorite night. Corn tortillas with spicy pinto beans, blanched kale, shredded zucchini and avocado. My latest desire is for a tortilla press so that I can make my own tortillas. So good and so simple.



Friday night was a new favorite from Veganomicon, Broccoli Polenta. You add broccoli as you cook the polenta and then set it up in a pan. Ideally (if one has time for these kinds of things) you then cut pieces out and pan fry or broil them. That night I did not have time for it. Still delicious. I also made the famous broiled tofu. The tofu was weird that day though, way too soft, so the pieces kind of fell apart before they even got in the broiler.



Saturday I got clever with the leftovers. Polenta with broiled zucchini and carrots and a spicy bean dish on the side.



Sunday was stew with barley, lentils, carrots, and broccoli. Monday I made corn bread with onions and jalapenos to go with the stew. I've never made corn bread before (never even really liked it before) but I thought this one was pretty good. Plus it was so much fun to cook it in the cast iron pan. I wish our bigger cast iron pan didn't have a wooden handle. I just love putting them in the oven after using them on the stove.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Traveling and Eating, Eating and Traveling

The great thing about macrobiotics is that it's not about being strict with yourself. It's about finding balance. That's not always easy when traveling but having some food of your own helps. (As did the Philly airport having hummus. If I have to be stuck an extra three hours somewhere please let there be hummus!) We had granola made before we left and three hummus and sauerkraut sandwiches each. Which helped deal with the food on the flight there.

In a word: horrible.



The food on the way back: better. (Note: the vegetables actually look like the color they are supposed to be!)



In Austria, aka Sausagelandia, we had the best breakfasts (that were fully included at the hotel). Make your own muesli out of oatmeal, nuts, coconut, seeds (mine with fresh plain yogurt, Dandelion the Bitter Green with applesauce or fruit) plus awesome dark bread and homemade jam, or sometimes cheese, and a piece of fruit.



Lunches and dinners were a different matter. I had looked up veg places online but like restaurants everywhere most had gone out of business by the time we came a'knocking. We did eat at one fabulous organic Indian restaurant. Had an awesome rice, chickpea and lentil plate.



The rest of the time we ate pizza, fish, or a chocolate covered pretzel filled with apricot jam (kind of weird I have to say). One thing I tried to remember everywhere we were was to chew slowly and drink lots of water. I think both helped me digest everything I ate with minimal problems.

Spain was better for us mostly because we were staying with vegetarian Argentines so we could all cook together and they didn't think it was weird to eat quinoa or lentils. They ate way more fruit than we normally do but it's also much hotter there. Another great thing about macrobiotics is that it changes per the climate. If you live in a hot place (or happen to be having a really hot summer) you eat more fruits, salads, and spicy foods. All of these things cool you off more. In our typical SF cold climate we can get away with eating hot oatmeal for breakfast almost every day of the year. In Barcelona not so much.



I had also looked up veg restaurant options there and again several were closed, missing, disappeared. We did find two other all veg restaurants, one vegan and one vegetarian. The vegan one we found first and Dandelion the Bitter Green ate more than his body weight in tofu, greens, and fruit smoothies. I had an awesome polenta, black beans, and guacamole plate with a fresh fruit smoothie. At the second place I had a teriyaki seitan dish and gazpacho plus strawberries with chocolate and whipped cream for dessert.





We even found a veg restaurant in the tiny town where Salvador Dali lived. It was far on the outskirts of the touristy area but was doing quite a business. Low stools around wooden tables on (maybe I'm remembering this wrong) a dirt floor. Everyone smoked and there was a kitchen cat that hung out on the tables when you were not eating. I had a couscous and veggies dish and everyone else had rice and veggies.

And except for the time we ordered chickpea soup which came with half a bowl of meat in it (sausage, ham, bacon, ham, and maybe more ham) we did pretty well. We had the best falafel I've ever had from a small chain restaurant that apparently is styled on NY falafel places. You got the basic pita with balls in it and then added extras from a salad bar. Baked cauliflower and carrots, plus roasted red peppers made me so happy at that moment.



The only quest that was unfulfilled was my desire for churros and chocolate. Apparently it was a common dish, on many menus, but no one actually had any churros in stock. I take comfort in the fact that I had an "ice chocolate" in Sausagelandia which was unsweetened hot chocolate with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Amazing!