NYC, here we came.

We finally made it into the City on Saturday at 4:20 PM. The flight was delayed, and I was, understandably, swearing proficiently and colourfully under and over my breath. But, we made it in, and I took some pictures of our new home.

The picture below is how you see our bedroom as soon as you enter it. The fireplace doesn't connect to anything.


This is our palatial kitchen. It's freaking HUGE. It's also really pretty. It's granite floors, and marble counters. That's a hardwood table, and the appliances and utensils are all top of the line. I love my land lady.


To christen our kitchen with my mark, I created a few new dishes, and cooked. This one here is whole potatoes, tossed with some oil, and then combined with diced tomatoes, and sliced onions. I baked it at 350º until the potatoes were tender. They got crispy on the outside, and nobody needed margarine, because the oil and tomatoes and onions provided lots of flavour.


This is a dish of plantains, with the typical spices that I used to make Indian roasted potatoes, but I added crushed peanuts at the last five minutes of cooking. Very yummy, and the skins got all crispy, so the two textures of the plantains were cleanly balanced.

While I was waiting for the plantains and potatoes to cook in the oven, I dashed off and snagged a picture of Steve on the bed, checking his email and my blog.

On the way out, I snagged a quick picture of all of our luggage. To imagine that we managed to make the move with only five pieces of luggage in total is pretty darned good, I think. No need to tell you that the red suitcases are mine, as well my red purse. I hope you're all taking notes, so that you know what colour of stuff to get me!

I found some tinned beans, so I made a really quick bean soup with adobo seasoning.

I used the same adobo seasoning to give the rice a yellow tint, but then I thought it looked too boring. I quickly deep fried some onions to get them dark brown. It was still lacking. So, I sliced up a couple of carrots in thin slices, and deep fried them as well. I think it came out rather pretty. The sweetness of the carrots and onions offset the dark, earthy adobo seasonings in the rice. Quite yummy.

My landlady seems to enjoy my cooking quite a lot, and has been eating vegan since I arrived. It is her house, so I'm not going to make a fuss if she has animal products, but I think it's very sweet of her to be so accommodating. Dinner that first night gave us leftovers for a while. I froze half of the soup. In fact, I froze a lot of the leftovers, so that we don't get bored.

Now I need to figure out what to make for tomorrow!

Italian Stir-fry?

There. I'm doing it. I'm scraping down at the bottom of the barrel at this point, because I sincerely doubt that I'll get satisfaction from a restaurant, but I dislike going to the market, when I'm about to leave in two days! So, here comes what is left in my fridge. There was some broccoli in the freezer, along with some cut green beans. There were mushrooms floating about, so those got chopped as well. I had a tin of olives (sorry--I just love olives). Of course, I also used my old standard of garlic, onions, sesame seeds, and cumin as the base seasoning, and I added oregano, basil, and thyme to the dish for heightened flavour. I did it up like a stir-fry, keeping things moving constantly, and cooking it all over a very hot flame. It came out wonderfully with some pasta. I'm pleased.

For the birds

I was watching the birds early in the morning, and they were hanging out on this telephone wire. You'd see the large crow tend to stick toward the edges of the wire, while the small, noisy green parrots would congregate in the middles. It was a lot of fun to watch the parrots home in on a seemingly impossibly small spot, and come in for the landing. It was almost as if they've got visual spatial skills of an architect, the flying skills of an experienced pilot, and the ability to be boisterous and cheerful like a young child. Happy flying, my feathered brethren.

Massive Food Update

Two weeks ago, I went to the beautiful home of my friend Erica to cook with her and her daughter. Ever since Karen (her daughter) found out that her mom works with a guy that does Indian cooking, she's been bugging her mom to call me over to have us all cook together. Finally, now that I'm leaving town, Erica decided to get this thing off of the ground. She called me and Steve to come over that Saturday, and see what we could see.

We arrived bright and early at 11:30 AM, and went shopping at this fruit and vegetable store near her house. They had such an enormous variety that I was squealing in excited glee, and grabbing everything I could find. The entire trolley was overflowing with a cornucopia of colours. Erica could barely name half the stuff I was flinging into the trolley, but was happy that I was at least having a good time. $50 later, the car was loaded up, and we were ready to roll. We made a quick run to my parents' house to grab some curry leaves (again, which Erica had never heard of before!) and get things started.

Karen is an eager and talented cook. She knows her way around the kitchen, and is comfortable with pretty much anything you ask her to try. We chopped, peeled, and cooked. And cooked. And cooked some more. We started around noon, and rounded off the last dish around 4:00 PM. At the final count, we came up with 14 dishes. All of them were amazing. I decided to take some photographs of the event, but lost the camera that night. Steve found the camera, so I'm sharing now.


On the far left is lentil soup. It's a standard for me, and a crowd pleaser every time. In the centre is kale soup, with carrots. On the far right is kale and swiss chard soup. Yes, we had three soups to start.

On the left are plantains, done up like the Indian Roasted Potatoes from the cookbook. Since they were cooked in the oven, they all came out done all the way through. In the centre are roasted potatoes with whole cippoline onions. It was done in a cumin, sea salt, and turmeric base, in the oven. They came out tender on the inside, and crispy on the outside. The onions were sweet, and a little smoky from the cumin. Fabulous! On the right you see Karen, me, Erica, and Janice.


When Erica got back form Israel, she mentioned in passing that with every meal, they serve a chopped salad of cucumber, red onions, and tomatoes, tossed with parsley and lemon. Just by luck, the vegetable place had Israeli cucumbers, and good sweet plum tomatoes, so I couldn't resist! The only change I made was that I used shallots instead of onions, and cilantro instead of parsley. On the right is the Unslaw from the cookbook, with the addition of red peppers, and broccoli. I also added some hot Hungarian paprika to finish it off.


On the left is the unslaw, but without the broccoli or Hungarian paprika. I left out the broccoli, so that everyone could clearly see which one is hot, and which one isn't. In the middle are me and Steve. On the right is a blend of toasted ground cocoanut, with mixed nuts (also ground) that I seasoned with cinnamon, clove, fennel, and a bit of salt. We used it to sprinkle onto the soups, or salad, or rice, or whatever else we felt like eating it on!


On the left are red wine and brandy marinated beets (you can't see the nest of sautéed beet greens underneath, but they're there). On the right are the Indian aubergines from the cookbook.


No party is complete without silly poses after the cooking. I submit to you mine for that night.


This is what the spread looked like before everything came out. There's still a few dishes missing.


That's me and Erica in the kitchen, ready to break open the cocoanut with a hammer.

I'm sorry that it took so long to post the updates (which is why it's coming all at once!), but better late than never, eh?

Mornings. ::shudder::

I'm not a morning person by definition, but it looks like I may be by design. For whatever reason, I sat up at 3:45 AM today, and didn't feel like going back to sleep. After my usual glass of water, I took one look at the fridge, the living room, and the kitchen, and quietly screamed inside. This will simply not do. The fridge was outright empty, the living room had what seemed to be a quarter tonne of junk mail, old magazines, and random other flotsam washing up from the shores of the couches and tables and every other space open surface there was. I couldn't see much of a floor. And we're flying out on Saturday.

First thing's first, which was to work on the fridge. As I've probably mentioned a few million times by now, I like to make large quantities of soups, stews, and stocks, and leave myself my own version of a frozen food aisle in my freezer. They come in handy for rainy days, or for whenever you haven't gone shopping in a while, and need to crank out a meal in a hurry. I set the microwave to stun, and let a large bowl of mung bean soup defrost (and recook, of course). I also pitched in the flour, water, yeast, and salt into my breadmaker, so that I'd have a fresh steamy loaf when I get home this afternoon. I also managed to ferret out a dish of pasta that I'd left in the freezer for emergency rations. Having 2 pita breads, and a small pot of hummus in the fridge (along with bottles of water, because it's ungodly hot out here) and nothing more to eat is what I'd call a code red emergency. Also, we're not going to be here all that long, so there you go.

Hold on. I should qualify what I mean by nothing to eat. Since the world revolves around me (Galileo got it wrong), I mean specifically that there was nothing for me to eat. There is still a whole mess of aubergine and a bunch of red wine marinated baked beets. Technically there's plenty of food for people to eat, but none for me. Oh yeah, and the Venn Pongal, of course. Granted, I don't count it, because I've already had it twice since I made it.

Damn. I am spoiled.

Old standbys are there, as always.

Of course, since the move is coming up so soon, Steve and I are streamlining our lives, as well as our pantries and fridges and the like. Unfortunately, that means that we've more or less eaten everything else. It's vaguely embarrassing when the child of a mother whose cupboards are overflowing with food, who had to buy a second fridge to keep up with the amount of food, and whose family entertained almost every night is down to the components of food-like things.

There's split peas. There's oil, but I'd rather not bother with it, because I used it for frying a few too many times, and I think it answered back last night. Either that, or I was a lot more tired than I thought I was. Of course, there's rice. Spices are there, because my mother seriously has extreme stores of spices. No, I'm serious; she bought out stores with spices, and kept them in long term storage at home. Extreme, see?

It's not exactly torture, of course, when the pieces fall into place, and I make that old favourite, Venn Pongal. This time, I decided to be even more lazy than I normally am with this dish. I threw two cups of rice, and five cups of water into a large microwave safe dish. I microwaved it at 70% power for 15 minutes, then again at full power for 20 minutes. While that was going, I set a pot of water to boil (roughly 2 litres) and added 2 cups of yellow split peas to it.

As I said, that oil was giving me dirty looks, so I figured it'd be best to avoid that line of questioning, and tipped in a few stout teaspoons of my mother's Sambhar powder. (Google is your friend. I have a recipe in my book, but if you don't have my book, google "Sambhar powder recipe" and click around till you find one with the ingredients you have.) I also tipped in a scant teaspoon of turmeric, and a few scrapings of ginger root (fresh; powdered doesn't taste close to the same, so omit it if you don't have fresh). Of course, in went the ever present red chili flakes, and quite a lot of freshly ground black pepper. I could have added curry leaves, but I didn't feel like walking out into that rain.

I picked up my book, reclined on the couch to listen for the beep, and read avidly when the first 15 minutes were over. The water on the stove was cheerfully boiling, but the rice wasn't nearly cooked at all. In fact, at 70%, the water wasn't even boiling. I got annoyed, set the time for 20 minutes, and hit the start button. I added in the cooked rice. I replaced a bit of the water in the pot (as it was evaporating fairly fast), and put the lid on it. I dropped down the flame to medium low. Covering the lid and lowering the heat would maintain the temperature without my having to expend so much fuel. Besides, with Venn Pongal, you need the rice to be mushy in any case.

At the end of the 20 minute beep, the rice was done, and the split peas were almost done. I decided to have some toast, wash my face, do some tidying up, and get ready for dinner. The rice continued to merrily simmer away. About ten minutes later, the yellow split peas were done through (they sort of fell apart), and the rice was that proper mushy consistency. I generously salted the dish, and turned off the stove. It was still in that sloshy stage. I gave it a good strong stirring, to loosen up any bits that were stuck to the bottom of the pot, and covered the lid tightly. I relaxed with a glass of water, and knew that Steve would be coming home shortly. Just about ten minutes later, when the pongal had just set, he walked in, sniffed the air, and dug right in!

I'm surprised that it came out so well without any of the fat. Interesting ...

If, however, you don't particularly mind a bit of fat, here are some nifty and easy

Ideas for Jazzing Up Pongal

• Raw or caramelised onions, sprinkled on top of each diner's bowl
• Crushed toasted nuts
• A drizzle of tahini, thrown on just before serving
• Indian pickles (it's in the book, I swear)
  

Other than that, you really don't want to fuss around with the flavours or textures too much. Feel free to add more heat, or salt, or a kick more of spices. However, pongal is such a classic that it's hard to improve on something that's such a staple for so many people across the world.

That's right, world, not just India. I've noticed that all over the world, in the older civilisations, you had some mix of rice and lentils/beans/legums/pulses, that was cooked together, gently spiced, and eaten as a staple dish. The reason is that when you're feeding a family with such varied needs and tastes, as you did in those days when you lived with your family, you'd want to get something on the table that everyone could enjoy comfortably, from the very young to the adult to the very old. Regardless of what the culture would call it, it'd be fairly mushy, gently spiced, and cooked for a fairly long time (since the grain and the legume was cooking together). Cultures who don't quite have that art down (the younger, meat based ones) tried to emulate it, but would fall short of the whole point of the dish: it was meant to be a staple, it was meant to be cheap, and it was meant to be something that the whole family could easily enjoy.

Look at the traditional comfort foods of the American south. Macaroni and cheese. Smashed potatoes. You could certainly feed it to everyone, but it's not something you could eat every day as a staple. They're just searching for their lost bowls of pongal. It's OK, folks. There's a large pot of it waiting patiently on my stove. Come. Eat. :)

Public Service Announcement

My mom called me on Saturday afternoon to tell me that dad's wallet was lost. It was late on a Saturday, and Steve and I were out. Shipping would be, to say the least, a little pricey. Cue the mad dash of madness.

Since the US Postal offices were already well past closed at that point, the only other option would be to ship it with a different carrier, like DHL or FedEx. Meanwhile, none of them had a clue as to how expensive this can be. Take it from someone who's made some pretty big messes in his life that it's not cheap. DHL's 10 AM service alone is like $80 on a weekday. This was a Saturday night, and they'd need it before their 9:00 AM flight on Tuesday. There are just some chances you don't take.

They filed the police report, but would be unable to pick it up until Monday, when the station had regular business hours. Meanwhile, a call to the airlines revealed that there was a fair bit of other ... stuff to be done before he could get on the plane, so could they please show up a couple of hours ahead of time? As it is, you already need to be at the airport two or three hours early, to get through security and the rest. Whoof. This was going to be a challenge.

By hook or crook, I managed to contact a family friend, dash over to his place, and scan my dad's passport. I got it on my flash drive, took it home, and sent it in an email. My parents went ahead and took a colour print of the copies, and were ready to bring it on Tuesday before their flight.

The wallet turned up on Monday.

A jogger had seen it on the road, and took it to the station. Fortunately, all the money was still in there, and the guy was honest enough to leave it all in there. None of the cards were fussed with, and everything was in order. My parents managed to pick it up from the station on Monday afternoon. Bear in mind that from Saturday though Monday afternoon both my parents were on edge, because this was NOT a pleasant prospect (i.e., getting new bank, credit, and social security card) to face. Then calling the credit bureaus, and putting up a fraud alert. Then hoping against hope that someone doesn't steal his identity. It would have been an epic disaster.

My mom and I talked this morning, and she said that now that they have the copy of his passport, that they'd be making copies of the rest of that stuff. A thought struck me at that moment. What if that'd been me? I'm leaving to New York in a week, and don't know what I'd do if I lost my ID and credit cards. I don't even have the phone numbers for all those cards to call them. That in itself would take a while to sort out. Then I'd have to figure out how to handle the rest of it. Meanwhile, I'm a USA citizen. To have my stuff stolen would be a major head ache, because my information would go for a fair bit of money.

I told my mom that I had to go, and explained that I'd be going to make the copies NOW. I went in, scanned the front and back of my credit cards, then took a scan of my passport. I emailed it to myself, and have it for safe keeping. Please please do this as well. Have it there for yourself should anything ever happen to your cards. It's just nice to know that you have options.

Veganism != expensive

I've heard it once, and I'll probably hear it a few thousand more times, but let me be abundantly clear right now: veganism is not expensive. I got the comment just yesterday, and it annoyed me, but I chose not to say anything, because I was in a hurry, and a dirty look was all I had time for. If you're reading this, person to whom I shot a dirty look, this is to you. I'll try to make this as friendly as I can, and if you notice me getting ranty, forgive me, because this is about the millionth time I've addressed this.

Everyone needs a variety of foods in their diet, which include selections of dark leafy greens, vegetables, fruits, beans, legumes, nuts, grains, and lots of water. Not juice, coffee, tea, or soymilk, but water. All these things are dirt cheap no matter where you're going, especially if you're buying them in bulk, cooking them up in large batches, and freezing the leftovers. Ideally, we'd all be eating locally grown, organic, fresh picked produce, but for those of you who cannot afford that, buying the regular fruits and veg are just fine.

That being said, if it's a time issue, even living off of frozen vegetables (though not the best idea in the world) and tinned beans would still leave you at less than $5 a day for food. 1 lb of frozen veg generally goes for a dollar or two. 1 lb of tinned beans are generally around a dollar. A 20 lb bag of rice shouldn't be more than $7, unless you're buying something fancy. Even at $10 for a 20 lb bag of rice, you're still going to take some serious time to finish it off. Throw in the cost of spices, and you're still eating really cheaply, because you're not using them in large amounts.

So what if you can't afford cookbooks? There are sites like vegweb that have hundreds of recipes for each category in their site. They let you post your pictures and reviews of the recipes, so that others can see how it turned out. You can read other peoples' reviews, and get an idea of how it's going to turn out. This is not difficult at all. They've even got recipes posted for all levels of skill.

Maybe that's still not enough for you. Join any vegan forum on the Internet, and there's bound to be a food section, because vegans really like to eat, and love to talk about it. If you're on a tight budget, chances are that someone else is too, and can probably guide you along the path without too much pain. As long as you're not behaving like a jerk, people are willing to lend a hand.

I've met multiple people who've gone vegan at age 12 or 13, with or without the support of their parents, and still managed to make it work. Here you are, a full grown adult, whining about how it's too expensive? That's pretty sad there, buddy. If those young kids, with no car, no job, no money, and no support can manage to make it work for themselves, you as an adult who is infinitely more equipped to navigate life are not only capable of making it work, you're able to make it work very well.

Finally, if you really think it's all that expensive, let me cook for you for a week. I'll go shopping with you, and show you exactly what I'm buying. I'll keep the costs at around $20 for two weeks, and make sure to hit up the produce aisle regularly. This isn't $20 per week for two weeks. It's $20 for two weeks, full stop. Then I'll come over to your house, cook the whole lot of it, and chuck it in your freezer for you to have.

The reason you're saying that going vegan is expensive is because you're waffling around the national Health Food Store chains, and trying to find vegan versions of every single thing you've ever eaten, full stop. If your idea of going vegan is buying soy cheese, soy parm, soy milk, tofu, tempeh, seitan, mock chicken, fish, beef, hotdogs, burgers, and ice cream, you're not only going to get tremendously unhealthy, you're also going to be spending ten times more than any sane person needs to be spending on food. Remember kids: a cookie is a SOMETIMES food. I almost wish for a vegan version of that song, where they say "an omnisub is a sometimes food" but I'm not sure how much Sesame Street would care for that.

Saturday Cooking

On Saturday, a friend of mine (Erica) called me over to her house to get together to cook. This is probably going to be the only chance I'll get to go over there before I move next Saturday, so I figured it'd be a great opportunity to show her and her daughter how to get down the basics of cooking for vegans. Their food is mostly centred around a meat main dish, and a couple of sides, so I don't know what they expected when Steve and I came over!

We got in, and I immediately set a pot of lentils to start simmering, so that by the time we got back from the store, they'd be at least mostly done. We went to this place called the Fruit Emporium, where they had so many different kinds of fruits and vegetables, that I was running around like a kid opening presents on the day of his birthday. Kale, collard and beet greens, swiss chard, bok choy, cabbages as big as your head, cocoanut, yams, tiny little baby potatoes, yucca, cassava, pumpkin, butternut squash, eggplant (both Japanese and Italian), and so many others that I can't even remember them all. We piled the trolley full of vegetables, and went to pay.

Everything totalled up to $50.

She was quite shocked at that, because she's used to paying so much more for her weekly grocery bill. We lugged everything to her house, and started cooking. I showed her daughter how to do everything, from start a fresh soup to roasting vegetables in the oven with a spice rub. I kept the steps really simple, so that she could come back and try things out on her own.

All in all, we turned out 14 dishes. 3 of them were soups, there were four varieties of oven roasted vegetables, and the rest were random sides we composed on the stove top. Our friends who came over to help us eat all that food were raving about how it was so much fun to try out the different things we came up with, and enjoy everything so much! The star of the programme, however, was the lentil soup. For some reason, no matter how many times I make them, they always get big raves from the people who eat it.

Unfortunately, we lost our camera, so I can't upload pictures of all the food. :( I'm sure it'll turn up at some point when we get everything set up at home to move.

Gallopinto

I was up late last night, because I had a lot on my mind, and wanted to chat with a friend to clear said mind. Granted, I'd lost my mind years ago, but I can pretend, right? So there you go.

I think I got back in around 12:45 or something, and Steve, bless him, muttered something cute, and rolled over when I came to bed. The next morning, bright and early at 6:00, Steve cheerfully woke me up. I was still half asleep, when I figured out the best way to get him out of my hair so I could sleep in. "Steve could you please pop some cumin and mustard and sesame seeds, throw in some cooked beans, and throw in some garlic? Make sure to keep an eye on it though."

"Sure, no problem."

30 minutes later, he comes back. "Beans are done."

"Rice."

"We're almost out of rice."

"I meant uncooked. Throw in 1 cup of rice, 2 cups water, let it come to a boil, drop to a simmer for fifteen minutes."

Another fifteen minutes later, "Babe, the rice is done, and it's time to go."

I groaned, and silently cursed the need to go to the store, but I was fine once I got out of the house, because I had a yummy lunch to look forward to!

EDIT: Gallopinto is a delightful South American dish, where beans and rice are cooked together, and served as a main course. It's spicy, smoky, and yummy.

Damn home improvement shows.

When they told me that a Stud Finder had nothing to do with what I thought it was, I cried for days.

:(

Moving ramble: not for the easily bored.

If you're bored by my ramblings about moving, just keep going. Maybe read the veganfaq.blogspot.com for something more interesting and definitely more enlightening than my whinging. Either way, it's here so that I have some record of moving, and so that Steve can grant me a firm kick in the bottom if I ever suggest moving again. Onwards then!

So here we are, with a mountain of crap that we've managed to accumulate over the past year and change. Tonnes of clothes, lots of baubles, random books, books that aren't so random, accessories, and more stuff that I'm ashamed to admit. My mother rustled up some Club cookware, which I feel hideous leaving behind, as I've wanted to cook with it since forever, but was saving it for when I move. My set of Henckel knives that I got as a gift from Steve's brother (and sister—both bought us a set) that have served me so well. It's just about that time to get them sharpened anyway, but the lovely lady who's renting us the place has generously offered the use of her kitchen.

There's also a small mountain of miscellaneous crap that's sitting around and gathering dust. I can't take all those books with me, because I literally don't have the space in my suitcases. But what about that tome that I have for using Creative Suite 2? I read that damn thing constantly. I also have autographed copies of some books that I can't let go, because they came from friends.

Aside from all of that, however, I'm LAZY! I don't feel like going through that huge pile of stuff, and sorting it out and getting it into boxes. Boo. I can't exactly ask Steve to tackle it, because he doesn't get home until past 7:00 anyway. I know that when this is all over, I'll look back and laugh, but for now, it just feels good to whine. >_<

Soup

Of course I made soup. I had a bunch of disparate ingredients, and a hankering for something to battle that horrible rainy weather we've been having for the past few weeks. Contents of this soup include red potatoes, broccoli, and cabbage. Of course, it's got a metric tonne of curry leaves, some spices, and a touch of chili.

Then yesterday, I had some beans laying about. I was feeling lazy, so I tipped in a few cups of beans to the soup as well. Those lovely little gems launched my soup from wonderful to catastrophically delicious. I can't wait to have another go at it this afternoon.

I'll be moving from Florida to New York city really soon. If anyone would mind having a couple of cute vegan boys who will cook and clean for you for a few days in exchange for couch space, let me know.

Speaking of cooking, my friend Dana (I mentioned her a lot in the book) invited me over to come cook with her. She wanted to get in a couple more sessions before I leave the state, and I was more than happy to oblige her, because I enjoy being with her so much! And, you, my lovely readers, can enjoy the pictures of the food.


This is bajji. The larger pieces are actually bread that we used to use up the last of the batter. It was delicious. I was bursting with pride, because Dana managed this batch herself with no prompting from me at all. In the time I've known her, we've only made it a couple of times, because it isn't exactly healthy, and it uses up a fair bit of oil, and makes an enormous mess. So to have seen her triumphing over the recipe (from MEMORY, no less!) was a wonderful parting gift.


This is one of Steve and Dana's favourites: aubergine. I made version 2 from the book, with lots of whole cloves of garlic. It was another moment of pride, because as I was cooking in, Dana's daughter Noodle walked by, and asked "Did you just add cinnamon to something?" We were both shocked that this little five year old was able to correctly identify a spice by smell alone. We're making a future chef!


Wine, of course. The glasses looked really pretty, so I wanted a picture of them.


Courgettes and Squash. VERY yummy, with lots of basil, oregano, rosemary, and curry leaves. Piles and piles of curry leaves.


Saffron and cashew rice Basmati rice. Extremely yummy all by itself.


This stuff makes me ill to think about, but Steve and Dana POUNCE at it every time I make it. It's that okra buried treasure from the book. It's another of Dana's favourites, so she specifically got okra so that I'd make it for her. The things you do for friends!


Indian roasted potatoes with onions.

We had a really good time, cooking, talking, gossiping; all the regular stuff that we do when you get that many vegans in a room together. The food came out very well, and the house smelled divine for hours afterwards!

Mushrooms, Cabbage, Potatoes

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet, but Steve makes a very bad liar. He's also fairly bad at dropping subtle hints. But that's OK, because I can tell what he's getting at for the most part. A prime example of this was yesterday night after work. I'd asked him to snag some vegetables on his way back home. We had frozen spinach and dried beans, but we'd already had bean soups three times this week alone. I was wanting some actual vegetables. He said that he'd definitely hit up our usual haunts, and see what he could rustle up. "Oh, I made sure to eat already, so there's no pressure to cook, but I did clear out the dishes in the sink, and the counter, so it's there if you want." See what I mean? About as subtle as a flaming pink and neon green rhino at a tea party. In a sun dress and white gloves, no less.

We got home, and he showed me that he'd bought cabbage. And potatoes.

...

This would usually mean, on my side, a stew or soup of some sort. I'd whip out the holy trinity of ingredients (onions, garlic, tomato), and the holy trinity of spices (cumin seed, mustard seed, sesame seed), and make soup happen, with the addition of some lentils, or other beans. It would have been comforting and delicious. But last night, I was feeling contrary. I didn't want to follow predictable patterns. He knows what happens when he presents me with really scant variety of ingredients: I panic and make soup. It's what happened every single time in the past when the pantry has been bare.

Fortunately, this old dog has a few new tricks up his sleeves. I puttered around for a while, chopping up the cabbage, dicing up the potatoes, dicing up some onions, and musing on what to make. For good measure, I roughly chopped up a few handfuls of curry leaves, and had my spices waiting for me, depending on where to go. When I saw how much more cabbage there was to chop, I groaned inwardly, and decided on my old standby of soup.

Let me explain. The cabbage that Steve brought home was a couple of kilos at the very least. Something of that size takes some serious effort to break down. I managed to hack it apart enough that I could finish chopping half the head, but beyond that, I was far and away screwed if I were to chop through the entire monster. Considering that I'd just chopped up an onion and some potatoes, I was ready to call it quits at this point in the chopping department.

Good Dino: Wait a minute, Dino. Isn't the holy trinity of soup supposed to be onions, garlic, and tomato? You've only got one of the three handled now, and you know how we feel about starting something without having all the ingredients ready in front of us. Evil (AKA normal) Dino: Quiet, you. We'll figure this out.

In went some oil into a deep sided pot. When the oil got hot, in went some spices (the same spices I used in that lentil soup a few posts back). I pitched in the curry leaves and the onions, and a liberal dose of salt. While the onions sautéed, I fumbled around in the fridge, seeing what else I could rustle up. Aha! Sliced mushrooms! Suddenly, I knew that I could do this as a dry curry on top of the stove, rather than a soup.

When the potatoes were crusty and brown all the way around, I lobbed in the sliced mushrooms. See, my problem is that if I was going to add in cabbage, which takes a while to leak out its water and let you unstick the potatoes from the bottom of the pot, I would have to add some water first to deglaze the pot first. What the mushrooms would do for me is quickly leak out their water naturally, which would deglaze the pot. In the mean time, the water would also evaporate fairly quickly, so that I wouldn't end up with a wet dish, meaning that I could make a dry curry after all!

Once the mushrooms cooked down a bit, I threw in the mass of cabbage that I did have cut already (the other half comfortably sitting in the fridge), and added a bit more salt. I let the cabbage cook for about five or ten minutes or so, and stirred it around every two or three minutes to redistribute all the spices and salt and flavours. Once the cabbage was done to a T, I turned off the heat, and had the divine stuff with some steaming hot rice. It tasted wonderful, and was easy to make.

It all started with a slice of bread that I toasted on the stove with olive oil. I just needed the barest few drops to get the bread lightly oiled on both sides, and then a nice hot skillet to get that pretty colour on it.

Next came a clove of garlic, that I had sliced in half vertically. I rubbed the garlic all over the bread, on both sides and on the crust.

I wanted that garlic to permeate the bread thoroughly. It was quite nice.

Finally, I loaded on giant slices of fresh tomatoes, dripping with flavour.

Breakfast is served.

"But we are out of the soy cheese."

There's this restaurant that's a goodly thirty minutes away from my house. They serve vegan pizzas, but there's nothing else in there that really interests me. Meanwhile, their prices aren't exactly affordable, so going there is a special treat that I'd do only on special occasions and the like. If I'm making a trek to a place that's so far out of the way, they'd damn well better deliver.

So what do you know? We show up on Monday night, after flying in from New York (where vegan food surrounded us from sea to shining sea), and they tell us that they're out of the soy cheese for the vegan pizzas, and would we prefer the buffalo mozzarella. "That's OK, we'll find some other place."

Let me make this very clear: if you advertise something, have it in stock. If you find that you seem to be powering through the stuff, and people are purchasing it, get more. Don't make me travel all the way out there, only to be told you don't have any more. There aren't that many vegans in this region anyway. I'd never had this stuff before, and I'm probably never going to have it in the future, because I'm not about to go to a place that doesn't have its stuff together. Good job, you lost another customer. Go back to feeding the cow-sucking hippies.

New York Recap

New York City, was, of course, fabulous. We cooked, we ate, and we got to relax with friends for quite a while. Meanwhile, the weather was scrumptious, and the people were friendly as always. I'm definitely looking forward to moving there eventually.

I've started watching that new TV show, Ugly Betty. OK, it's not exactly new; it's been out for a year, but I am sometimes behind the times when it comes to popular culture stuff. It's an interesting show, and quite twisted at times. The stories are varying, and the characters are likeable (if so the character is meant to be liked) and loathable (as required, of course). The clothing is a LOT of fun to look at, because you'll see high Couture outfits being combined in interesting ways, in combinations that work (or really don't work, as in Betty's outfits). You'll see a $5,000 patterned skirt looking decidedly bargain basement, because Betty doesn't know how to pair clothing very well, and tends to wear clashing colours. It's hideously fun!

Friday on the way in

I fortunately managed to find a ride to the airport, and it wasn't that difficult at all, once I got there. It was more or less an issue of getting through security, and getting a bit of tranquilising stuff into me. Unfortunately, I was too keyed up all day to eat much of anything, so I'd been downing a few cups of coffee instead, and not quite enough of anything else. Of course, what ended up happening then was that my nerves were shot to heck, and I was a twitch (hah!) jittery.

Fortunately, I asked Steve to snag some nuts ahead of time, and we managed to snack a bit before heading onto the aeroplane. The flight took off on time, and is hopefully going to land a bit early. I'm definitely looking forward to getting off the plane, as flying makes me ridiculously nervous.

God bless Jet Blue airlines. They have very generous leg room, as well as individual television sets in the backs of the seats in front of you. Quite fun. Of all the trips that I've taken to New York, I'd have to say that tonight's flight was the absolute best of them. It took off and arrived exactly on time, and the flight crew was friendly and attentive.

In spite of the multiple times that I've gotten lost in the past trying to find her house, I managed to make it to my friend J's house without even calling her once for clarification on directions. I think that having the cheat sheet in front of me (thank you, Google maps) and poking at her guy earlier in the day helped matters tremendously.

Of course, as soon as we got in, Steve was hungry, and I expected as much. We'd both had a long day in getting to the airport (what with the rain, and traffic delays and such), and I was in the mood to throw together something quick. My friend had bought some wonderful rustic bread with a chewy texture, and thick hearty crust. I threw together a quick bruschetta. Here's what I did.

First, I sliced up the bread into thick~ish slices. Then, I combined:
- 2 medium sized tomatoes, finely diced
- 1 shallot, minced
- 1 clove of garlic, finely minced
- 1 TB minced fresh basil
- 1 TB minced fresh rosemary
- Splash of balsamic vinegar
- Splash of olive oil
- 8 oz tinned red beans, drained well

I tossed all the ingredients together in a bowl, and ground up a bit of sea salt and black pepper to round things out. Once the bread got toasty and crusty, I removed it from the oven, and let everyone pile on the toppings to her or his own liking. They enjoyed tremendously, because the bread was fresh, and the topping was that perfect blend of tart, sweet, salty, and peppery. The herbs provided a wonderful counterpoint to the strength of the garlic, and the olive oil took the edge off of everything. Quite a success, if I do say so myself.

More to come as the weekend progresses.

Dino Wallpapers

A friend of mine made wallpapers of me out of the header image when I let him play around with it:

My mom and I chatted ...

And she's going to Seattle today to visit my second brother there. She's been looking forward to the trip, although she is very nervous that things won't go right either in terms of the food situation, or a million other things that could go wrong. We caught up on all sorts of little things, and my phone promptly died. Of course it only died after we'd wrapped everything up, but there you are.

Seattle has a very active Food Not Bombs community, where they distribute food three times a week (according to mom), and even have a "Free Market", where people can come and take produce away for free. It's a pretty cool concept, I'd say, to have food that would have been wasted being given out to all takers. Meanwhile, the store gets a fat tax write-off for the donation, so everyone wins in the end. :)

New York is looming large, and I'm nervous because I still haven't bothered to pack. Of course I haven't packed yet; doing so would mean that I'm organised and have my stuff together. Such is not the case, of course. We'll see where it goes, hmm?

Last night, when I got home, I started to unwind. I had a quick snack, I lay down for a bit, and had a fast catnap. Finally, around 6:00 (an hour before Steve gets home), I had a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. I ran out of my room, and checked the fridge.

It was empty.

So there I was, trying to figure out what to make. The first thing I did, which I always do in moments of food crises, is make a pot of rice immediately. The rice cooker is a wonderful tool in taking care of that little step without my worrying about it. I have one of those basic models with a removable pot, a lid, and an on/off button. It keeps the rice warm, but doesn't DING when it's done. Like I said, it's a very basic model, but it does the job every time. That barely took me a minute or two to throw down. Then, I foraged around for vegetables. And realised that we didn't bother buying any, because we'd be leaving over the weekend.

Drat.

Fortunately for me, there are a couple of staples I always have on hand: tomatoes (either tinned or fresh, depending), onions, and garlic. That holy trinity is never far from anywhere I am, because it forms the baseline of so many dishes. Tonight, it would have to be a dish! Fortunately, I have the recipe for Tomato Rice memorised from making it so many times (I hope you're getting the point that I'm not always together when it comes to planning things out on time), and started in on chopping the vegetables, starting with the onions. Once the spices were popped, in went the onions. Once they had a couple of minutes to cook (I was on a time crunch here), I threw in the tomatoes, and let them simmer for a while. By the time they were mostly done, Steve walked in earlier than I'd expected. I sent him out on a really quick errand while I finished things off. By the time he got back (it took him only five minutes), the food was ready, and I could relax again.

Dinner was served.

Updates and the like

As I'd hoped, the VeganFAQ project is coming along swimmingly. I've got quite a few people on board, who are happy to share their wisdom, their humour, and their venting, all at the same time. It's very interesting to read people's take on various aspects of vegan life. If you're up to join in, leave a comment on here with your email address (so that it gets emailed to me), and delete the comment after doing so (so that nobody else gets it!) and I'll see what I can do.

Hopefully, on Wednesday, I'll have another segment on the Vegan Freaks podcast. If any of you have questions for me to cover, please leave a comment here, and I'll try to include them (as long as I haven't covered the information before). Barring that, it should be an interesting podcast and Cooking With Dino segment.

Steve and I leave for New York on Friday night, and will be back Monday afternoon. I probably will not get a chance to update here too much until I get home, but I'll try to remember to take pictures of our visit. We're staying with a friend, which means that I'll be cooking, and sharing photos, of course. After having been as many times as I have, I have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking to check out. I'll let you all know how it goes, of course.

My new iPod 160 GB came in today, and I couldn't be happier to have it. I finally have a large hard disk drive for backups. It's been such a pain working off the tiny 30 GB HDD on my little iBook G4, and this will be quite nice to have. Since it doesn't require an external power source, like my backup drive does, life will be far simpler this way.

I've been sitting on a minor case of writer's block again, so that's why this post utterly sucks.

New Project

I'm one of those people that likes to be involved in new projects all the time. I just enjoy watching my ideas unfold into something that's enjoyable for me and my friends. Here’s my latest one. The idea behind it is to allow vegans from different parts  of the world, all kinds of walks of life, and different perspectives to share how they respond to various questions that vegans get asked on a daily basis. I do this because so many FAQs are sterilised, washed out and so clinical. I enjoy my friends immensely, and I want to hear how they handle things, not how others handle them. Rather than having a large, faceless organisation tell me how to think, I'd rather have my friends tell me how they wanted to handle it, or how they did. When we can make our responses have a face, and a name, and a voice, we are no longer just “those damn vegans,” but rather become people, with lives, stories and names. 

Garlic

On my entry where I discussed the basics of bringing together a quick and easy dish, I posted some pictures of the food while it was cooking. JonBen asked about garlic in particular.

Why was the garlic whole?

First and foremost, it's important to understand the different levels of flavour that garlic can give. When it's whole, or just loosely crushed (but still mostly whole), you're going to get a very gentle gradation of garlic that permeates the dish, but never stands out in the dish. What I want when I leave the cloves whole is a dish that is OK for people who don’t care for garlic per se, but can tolerate it in their food, as long as it is not the main flavour component. Who hates garlic? Well, I know one of Steve’s aunts refuses to touch the stuff, but doesn't mind it if she can't taste it. I made a spinach dish for Steve and the rest of the people who had come over, but I did not want to exclude anyone from at least trying all the dishes. I left the garlic cloves whole, but put in a lot of garlic! This way, when the aunt tasted some, I served her a portion that didn't have the cloves of garlic. For everyone else, who loves the stuff, they still had whole roasted cloves of garlic in the dish now that they could eat and enjoy.

That's the other thing to note about whole garlic: the flavour of the garlic clove itself is mild, as long as you slow cook it (which is pretty much the only application where I would use whole garlic), or flash fry it in oil (which is how I get the recipes started in any case, where you start with the oil, move on to the spices, then the aromatics—garlic is an aromatic) and then quick cook whatever vegetables you want to eat that night. It is definitely worth a try if you like garlic. I encourage you to give the whole cloves a try. Just do not be afraid, and stop at one clove. Go nuts, and throw in lots and lots of cloves. If the dish is too strongly garlicky for you, you can always remove the whole cloves, and everything gets mild again.

When should it be added?

This will depend solely on what it is you're making. Let’s say that you are in the process of making a barely wilted spinach dish, and you want a very strong kick in the back side of garlic. Mince up the garlic as finely as you can, and add it in with the spinach. Suppose you get a call from your best friend that her new date is coming with her, and she would like to be able to have a little kissing after the dinner is over. No worries! Go back to the kitchen, and put the garlicky spinach in the fridge for yourself for later, when nobody else is around, and there to complain about your foul breath. Then, go ahead and peel up two or three cloves of garlic. In the skillet, start off with your spices.

Once they're popped, throw the whole cloves of garlic into the skillet. Quickly sauté it around in there until they're a toasty brown on the outside. Once that's done, throw in your spinach, and wilt it down. Throw in a pinch of nutmeg (because as we all remember from the book, a pinch of nutmeg makes spinach taste divine), and boil up some pasta really quickly (I would use farfalle). When your friends arrive, toss the pasta with the spinach, and set out some good crusty bread and a bottle of wine. When you serve your friends, quietly scooch the cloves of garlic over to the side, and serve them away from it. Then, when you serve yourself, throw it down onto your own plate, and have a ball! Everyone can walk away happy.

If the dish is going to be a dressing, add it in before you add in the oil or vinegar or whichever liquid you use to make your salad dressing. When you grind a dressing in a blender, the garlic pieces tend to stick to the sides. The liquids that you pour down the sides will help wash the garlic down towards the blades where they can get properly chopped up. If you are making a hummus, I have specific instructions on how to handle the garlic in the book, but the general rule is that you want to add it early on to give it a chance to grind down properly.

Thanks for the great question, John. I will be sure to look you all up if Steve and I are ever in Vancouver!

Brussels Sprouts

Steve bought Brussels sprouts, which I adore. Like any vegetable from that family (cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.), the Caraway seed is an excellent, and tasty addition, as it counteracts that sweaty socks smell that sometimes comes out when you're steaming or cooking these vegetables. Mind you, I'd never just steam a vegetable and call it a night! I toast spices (“popping” spices) in oil, then add the vegetables, let them get brown and toasty, then add any liquids, as needed. This is exactly what I had planned. Because I was feeling lazy at that moment, I had Steve remove the stem ends, and cut each sprout into fourths (lengthwise). What this does is gives you more surface area for each sprout to come in direct contact with heat, and more places for it to get toasty brown and lovely.

There I was, raring to go. The sprouts were cut up, I had a tomato roughly chopped, and my skillet was slowly coming up to the full, raring to go heat that I like it to have when I pop spices. And then it struck me: no caraway seeds in the pantry! Ordinarily, I would have gotten annoyed, and put the brakes on the dish right then and there, but I figured that I can just as easily experiment and improvise like I keep telling others to do, of course! So there I was, looking at my mother's masala dabba, trying to figure out what exactly to use. Duh! Cumin seeds with a hint of fennel, and lots of sesame seeds to offset the edge of the fennel seeds! I couldn't believe that I’d been so rigid in making Brussels sprouts! Just because I've always made it one way does not mean that I have to follow that same exact method for the rest of my life!

There's actually a story behind my Brussels sprouts recipe. My friend Dana has a five year old daughter, who is an adventurous eater, and an absolute ball of energy. I swear, that child stacks on a few centimetres every time I see her! I'm not too fond of children as a general rule, but little Noodle (our nickname for Dana’s daughter) is actually an adult who is still a bit on the short side. She can talk your ear off, and have you rolling with laughter for hours (that she'll cheerfully join in, of course), and adores having her uncle Dino and uncle Steve over to play (and cook, of course!). I definitely chatter on about Dana and Noodle—and how I would go over to their house to cook—in the book.

So there I was, in the car with Dana, on the way to her house for the umpteenth time. We were chatting about this and that, and nothing at all, as you do. Whenever the two of us get together, that first hour or so is filled with mandatory gossip, of course. She was telling me how Noodle is getting to that age where her school mates are starting to express their disdain for all things vegetable. Now Noodle, having grown up in Dana’s house, has been open to eating everything from Ethiopian food, to Burmese, to Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Mexican, and anything else that grows from the ground. She's gone to restaurants and ordered a stir-fry of broccoli, and shocked the waiter when she finished off the entire bowl on her own.

Unfortunately though, she had also started picking up the other little children’s bad habits of disliking things they'd never tried (or, in many cases, never tried cooked properly). To combat this, Dana put forth a challenge by having a large container of Brussels sprouts waiting for me when I got to her house. She told me what she was facing (giving something to a four year old who was being brainwashed by the idiot television and school to think that vegetables are evil), and that she'd never much cared for them herself. This was, to say the least, cause for alarm on my part, because I am adamant that people learn to enjoy vegetables and fruits before moving on to other more complex things.

Out came the caraway seeds, the oil, the other spices (yes, the recipe is in the book, of course!), and the skillet. I started to make the dish completely dry, but noticed that it was too hot for the sprouts and the spices, which is why I splashed in a bit of white wine, covered the lid, and let it simmer for a bit to steam through. I really do not care for undercooked Brussels sprouts. Finally, I finished it off with a hint of nutmeg, and a pinch of cinnamon, to round out the flavours, and a bit of salt to finish it off. The verdict was, of course, unanimously positive. We all loved it, and Dana requests that I make it whenever I come over, which I happily oblige (since cruciferous vegetables are good for you, of course!) in the guise of doing it for her (although my hands go into eating the final dish as well).

Whoo! That was a diversion if ever I saw one! Back on track, though. In the past, when I'd made Brussels sprouts, it was decadent, in that I never added anything extra to it. This time, because I was turning the recipe over on its head in any case, I decided to cut up a tomato, and add it to the roasting sprouts. I was not looking to get the tomatoes broken down, as I do in a traditional soup or stew recipe, but rather to have more bulk in the dish. A splash of water, and a quick steam later, the sprouts were done to a turn.

Lentil Soup.

I hope you remember the recipe I posted a few days back about how to make that soup base, involving the spices, and the tomatoes, and the onions, and all that jazz? Here is the post, in case you don't have it bookmarked yet. This morning, I did a quick check of the fridge, and realised that we had absolutely no daal or other bean type dishes of any sort at all! In a semi panic, I started foraging around in my pantry to see what I could come up with. I found a package of lentils that looked no worse for the wear, so I immediately decided on lentil soup. The lucky thing is that I still had a pot with the fat from deep frying stuff last night, so I decided to use that for the oil for the dish. After that, in went the spices, the onions, garlic, curry leaves, tomatoes, and all the other good lovely things in their correct order. After the tomatoes were cooked down, I added in the lentils (roughly half a kilo) and around two or three litres of water. I let the water come up to a full rolling boil, then dropped down

You may think that using tomatoes in a lentils dish is risky, because traditionally, acid added in while the beans are cooking will cause them to come out like bullets. Fortunately for us, lentil as split peas are the exception to this very sensible rule. This is why I didn't even bother to cook the lentils ahead of time. Instead, I just added them as is into the pot, and let them bubble away quite nicely. 

This is also why I would suggest to a new or unsure cook to start their tour of beans with lentils. They're not only lovely in texture and taste, but they're highly forgiving of inexperience, and will generally turn out well after about an hour or so of gentle cooking on the stove. This dish would have been divine if I'd thrown in a couple of potatoes, some kale, carrots, butternut squash, or whatever other vegetable I had lying about. That's how wonderfully forgiving lentils are. They'll even graciously accept the humble pumpkin or sweet potato into their midst without a complaint (just be sure to roast the pumpkin or sweet potato ahead of time, so that they have enough time  to get cooked all the way through).

This dish would also have been deliciously delectable with lots of thyme, rosemary, and basil, which would offset the smoky cumin and would have been a perfect counterpoint to the tomato. Additionally, lots of fresh cilantro, or parsley would have done equally well heaped on top just before serving. I could have used up any leftover steamed vegetables, added in at the last ten minutes or so of cooking, so that I could have a more complete meal in the bowl.

You can serve this dish with bread, or rice, or pasta, or whatever else your imagination can dream up!

Uppuma

Uppuma is so deliciously lovely. I'm adoring the flavour and the texture. To make this batch, I deviated a little from the straight recipe in the book. What happened is that I was using a combination of scallions and Spanish onions. I wanted to give them a fair bit of time to cook down and turn brown, but I did not want to spend a lot of time making my dish. While I roasted the sooji (farina, cream of wheat—they're all the same thing—or whatever you call the stuff), I allowed the onions and scallions (and mustard seeds, turmeric, salt, chilies, etc.) to brown in a separate pot.

I wanted them to get really well browned, so I let them do their thing over medium low heat. This allows the sugars to slowly come to the surface, and darken gently, rather than on high heat, where the sugars come to the surface quickly, and have a high chance of burning and stinking up your kitchen. I did roast the sooji over a high flame, but that is mainly because I have done it for a long time, and know what to watch for. When you do it at home, you might want to start off at a lower temperature, and maintain the even browning of the grains. Of course, the huge pain in the behind for making uppuma is that you have to stir so darned much! That being said, it is an extremely inexpensive and filling (and very delicious) dish, so it's not like I was complaining about a little stirring. After about fifteen minutes or so of stirring, the sooji transformed colour from a pale blond colour to a much deeper, richer tan colour.

See? Pretty, right? Notice how the colour isn't uniform, but rather graduated, from dark brown, to light tan. This is just perfect for the dish. The reason that we roast the sooji is to cook out the raw cereal taste from it, and to give it a depth of flavour. Once I got it to the colour that I was looking for, I poured it into a waiting stainless steel jug. The reason I do this is because the final step is to pour the sooji into boiling water. If you put it into a bowl, you're going to have to be careful not to spill anything, and you've got the weight of the bowl to contend with. With a jug, you've got a steady stream, no spillage, and very little weight (because mine is stainless steel, as yours ought to be).

In this incarnation, I was looking to inject at least a little bit of healthy stuff. I added in about half a kilo of spinach leaves (roughly chopped) after the onions got fully brown, and allowed the spinach to wilt completely, and to let out a fair bit of its water. Finally, when the vegetables were cooked, I added the water, waited for the boil, stirred in the sooji, and served it! 

Four Meetings and a Boner Pill

To the folk sending me those adverts in my email for “v1@gr@,” or whatever it is you're trying to disguise your grotesque wares as to bypass my spam filtering, please cease right now. It's getting annoying, and you're not convincing me of the pill’s efficacy when you have to flood my Inbox with requests to buy the garbage. Sorry, but I'm frankly not interested. I also don’t intend to purchase medications through sources that I can’t really verify. How do I know you're sending me the real deal, and not some sugar pills?

In other news, after what felt like the millionth endless meeting today, I'm free to roam the hallways of the building where I work and snipe computer issues out of the way as they come at me. So far, so goo, but I have yet to have a few moments to breathe, which is why I'm hammering this out in my lunch hour. Complaining gives me a chance to get it out of my system, and distance myself from it sufficiently that I can pretend like it’s happening to someone else. That being said, now that I’ve had a few moments to breathe, it seems far less bad than it was previously. Nothing like a good dose of denial to make one feel better instantly, is there?

In other other news, this will be the first weekend in a long time that neither Steve nor I have anything in particular planned. I'm looking forward to lounging around, and pretending like we’re actually being productive, when in reality, we will be nothing of the sort! I will most likely get some cooking done for the upcoming week, so that I can have meals at the ready. Maybe I can whip up a batch of uppuma? That sounds rather nice right now, as the polenta seems to have gone off rather well with Steve (although I'm not a huge fan myself), and uppuma is more of a complete meal all by itself, if I add in some vegetables. Yes, of course, the recipe is in the book.

Yeah, uppuma would be perfect, especially since it looks like it is going to be a rainy weekend. I checked the forecasts, and there are Dark and Fell predictions of doom as far as rain is concerned, and a hot steamy bowl of creamy uppuma would totally hit the spot, especially with some spinach, and lots of fresh curry leaves. I certainly hope there's some rava at home! If not, I'll be mildly disappointed, and use farina instead. It'll be just fine either way.

Much better. Now that I have things to look forward to, my mood has immediately lifted, and I feel better. :)

Booo, writer's block

You know how I'm generally fairly chatty, and ready to ramble on about anything and everything and nothing at all? Today, I got hit with a pretty big case of writer's block, and it's making me crazy. It hasn't happened in years, which is why it's particularly annoying. These few sentences alone are taking far longer than they should have in the past.

I've tried the hints to jog your brain into working for you, and none of them seem to be working.

I guess this is what I get for spending a three day weekend doing positively nothing at all in particular. I watched TV, ate junky fried food, and did as little as humanly possible. It was wonderful, because after all the weeks of doing ... stuff, it's nice to cut loose and let yourself be brain dead for a spell. Unfortunately for me, this also means that it's going to take some time to recover from the vegging out state that I've been so blissfully rolling around in.

What's even worse is the utter lack of ability to think of all things cooking, which I love above all else. Someone mentioned that she'd like to jazz up her hummus, and all I could lamely come up with was the addition of olives, sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts. That's so pedestrian that anyone could have thought that up! I know not to panic, and that as soon as my brain wakes back up, we'll be back to business as usual, but this is a decidedly disconcerting feeling.

Empty fridge ... again!

It's one of those times that we're all very familiar with—empty fridge syndrome. There is literally no vegetable sitting in there. I've got onions and tomatoes (because I always have onions and tomatoes) and all of three potatoes which I'm loathe to use, because they cost do darned much. I'm highly annoyed that there's nothing, because Steve gets in soon. Furthermore, I don't fancy serving my boy a mess of fried stuff. Not going to happen.

While I was swearing under my breath, I took a quick inventory of the pantry to see what I could rustle up. No tinned beans, no tinned veg, no nothing. I've got a large box of polenta in the fridge, but man cannot live on polenta alone. I continued grumbling under my breath, as I took an inventory of the shelves where we keep the dried beans. There you are! A pound of chickpeas, and a pound of mung beans. Hrm. There's no way I'm eating mung beans that are just soaked. They have to be sprouted to bring out the best taste. Chickpeas also need soaking.

I set both batches of beans to soak on Sunday night, and got them to start boiling on Monday. By Tuesday, we'll have daal. All I did was take that tomato-onion-curry leaf base, and add the cooked chickpeas to it. Gold.