Food

For some reason, wintry weather makes me feel like cooking. Last year I became pretty dedicated to regularly making my own veggie broth and seitan, and to cooking big potfuls of tasty food for the whole house (eggplant and peanut soup, some dal-like thing, delicious miso soup, chickpea noodle soup, chili, some other stuff). Maybe it's because cooking is a comforting, warm activity in the Minnesota winter, getting  to stand over the stove and and thaw. Maybe it's because I get really excited to cook for Thanksgiving and it carries on from there. Maybe it's because I get bored more easily. Maybe it's because our yellow kitchen looks nice in that snowy, white-gray winter light. Whatever it is, I'm getting that feeling again.

I've started out the season with a few mini-inspiration dishes over the past week. Just now I finished off the last of a pasta dish I made; I used up the last of my acorn squash and tomatoes from my garden by roasting them up all tender (roasted some garlic for good measure), and threw that all in the pot with lots of salt, olive oil, black pepper. Super simple and tasty. Then today Joe made a delicious rendition of his ever-delightful beans and rice. We ate it with a perfectly ripened avocado and celebrated the snow by cracking open a jar of the salsa my mom and I made out of garden tomatoes and peppers (we canned it ourselves!).


My family never leaves town for Thanksgiving anymore, and this year it looks like I'll have a few good friends around to share the holiday with too--unfortunately Anya might be included here since she broke her foot and probably can't go to New York, but I will try my best to heal her with scones, chickpea gravy, and squash soup.

For good measure, here's some stuff I from my kitchen that I like.

For instance, my totally awesome vintage blender. I had a cheap blender for a while that was light and flimsy, and the screw-on part on the bottom kept cracking. Stupid! But I found this lovely baby at the antique store up the street from my house, and it's really sturdy. Even better, it's a great kind of pukey-green retro color that this photo does not do justice. I love my blender.

Then there's my beloved pink electric mixer. This little guy came from the vintage store next to Eclipse, and not only is it adorable but it works like a charm!
And while I'm at it, here's a picture of the cats being cute.

Update

How did I not mention this here already? Such an awesome discovery, and I love that the people who found it were from la Musee d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris because that is one of my favorite places on earth (and I saw an amazing whale exhibit there a few years ago!). 

In other news, I had my first big cooking day in a while. Over the course of the evening I made seitan, two different kinds of tofu, and raspberry scones. I don't know if it's because I really felt like cooking or if I was just trying to avoid doing homework, but it worked out pretty well; the seitan turned out to be one of my best batches yet, and my newest room mate, Dan, has never had my scones before. Now I'm just bummin' around, making pathetic attempts at revising my French composition before I go to Joe's parent's house for the 10 o'clock Mad Men, though I'd rather continue reading "Richard II" for Shakespeare class. It's so good! I think I'm going to like the histories best.

Harpies take on Pollan's bullshit

God I love this blog. The Pursuit of Harpyness is full of super thoughtful, intelligent, funny women with enviably sharp critical thinking skills, and now they're the latest "ladyblog" to call out Michael Pollan for his nonsense and point out the overall weirdness that is the new food movement's attitude about women. All I can really say about that right now (supposed to be awake for work in 5.5 hours, aaaah) is WORD.

Michael Pollan and I Are Offcially Breaking Up

Michael Pollan. Seriously. Stop it right now. I want to like you! I want to believe everyone who says you're the savior of food in America! That would make my life so easy. But instead I keep noticing that you have a hard time wrapping your head around feminism's role in the U.S.'s approach towards food over the past 50 years, and you don't seem to be all that interested in the complexities of women's relationship to food either. Other people have called you out about this, thankfully. Plus you seem to have some freaky grudge against vegetarians, who you claim are naive and sentimental. Just shut up and eat the $10 local grass fed burger you guys!

Recipe time!

Yum. After a couple nights of uninspired cooking, this meal was a great treat. This is a recipe adapted from a chili-lime shrimp recipe my roommate Nora found on the internet--she didn't have all the right ingredients, so she did her own thing with it. She makes it with shrimp all the time and I am always jealous because the marinade smells so damn good, so we set a goal to make the recipe using tempeh sometime before she moves across the country. Today was the day, and it was awesome.

Nora's Chili Lime Marinade with Tempeh
2-3 avocados
1 package tempeh

Marinade:
2-3 cloves garlic, pressed or grated
2 tbsp brown sugar
6 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp lime juice (lemon works too)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
4 tsp olive oil

Avocado Dressing:
4 tsp lime juice (or lemon)
4 tsp olive oil (less would be fine)
salt and pepper to taste


Cut the tempeh into slices about 1/2 inch thick. Bring a small pot of water to boil, and simmer the tempeh pieces for about 10 minutes to make them tender and ready to soak up marinade. While the tempeh simmers, mix all the marinade ingredients together in a shallow dish. Use tongs to transfer tempeh to the dish when it's done simmering, and let marinate for 15-30 minutes--you will have to turn it two or three times.
While the tempeh marinates, prepare the avocados. Cut the avocados into bite-sized chunks, and place in another shallow bowl. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour over the avocados. Allow to sit while the tempeh cooks.
Heat about 2 tsp of olive oil in a pan at medium high heat. Place a few pieces of tempeh in at a time, pouring spoonfuls of marinade over the pieces. Cook until the tempeh is tender and glazed with marinade, about 5-8 minutes.
Once all the tempeh is cooked, load up a plate with tempeh and avocado, sprinkling a little lemon or lime juice on top, then eat!

Recent stuff, summer plans

I made really good scones the other night! Anya and Patrick thought they were my best, but I still just barely prefer the ones I've talked about here before. These just had cranberries and Trader Joe's orange-flavored cranberries in them, but I made an icing for them with orange zest and cinnamon that made them exceptional (if I may say so myself). The icing ended up tasting kind of like that stuff that comes with the cinnamon rolls in a tube, except better and with less suspicious ingredients. Proud of these!

I also made a good batch of lasagna rolls last night, helped in no small part by the fresh basil that is finally available at the co-op. It was hydroponic so I imagine it's just been growing inside all winter, but it was still so good. Mmmm, that smell. The other residents of the FP and myself devoured the lasagna over the course of our designated roommate night, which was delightful. We just hung out in the den and sang to music videos--Patrick insisted on TLC, Anya and I were all about Destiny's Child and Beyonce, Brendan (honorary roommate) reqeusted old Usher singles and there was some Lady Gaga thrown in. Ha! It was great.

In spite of my really unfortunate bout of nausea this morning, I went out to brunch with my mom at the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the food, it was so good! I had the Grilled Tofu and Spring Vegetable Hash: wild ramps, asparagus, nettles, zucchini, fennel and yukon gold potatoes with preserved lemon and fennel coulis, accompanied by mixed freens with orange champagne vinaigrette. It sounds like a lot going on, but all the flavors were actually very simple and totally delicious, and I'm excited to go back soon--it's a pleasant bike ride's distance from my house, and I can't see any reason not to go eat wonderful local grub.

And I'm making more plans for the summer. If I ever get up the energy to go talk to someone in Financial Aid I may still take a summer class. There's literally no way I can get my double major in English and Art History and my Women's Studies minor and three years of French if I don't take summer classes, so I may as well start now I guess. Probably with Math or my stupid non-credit fitness requirement. I may also plan a few fun rendez-vous for me and Joe over the summer, like spending a few days in Red Wing at this really nice B&B. I've never been to Red Wing before but it's supposed to be beautiful, and the rooms here and lovely and inexpensive. Last summer we basically just spent all of our time watching Homicide in Joe's parents' attic because I was stuck in the weird situation of not being able to move into my house, so this year I would like to have adventures. 

For good measure, I bring you cats.

Update/Likes

Oh my god! Jonathan Richman has such dance moves! Awesome. I love this song, and everything else on this album, especially side one. What a weird, wonderful, goofy group of people, and what a great band.

I started Leviathan today, and 30 pages in it's so good! Philip Hoare bounces a lot of his own great insight off of already good ideas from Moby-Dick, and he does it in a way that's sensitive and exciting rather than just redundant or unimaginative.

I also have been productive in the kitchen again recently; no pictures, but in the past two days I've made a good pasta sauce, homemade seitan, chocolate chip and walnut cookies (to go in the cat shaped cookie jar I made in Ceramics this past semester!), seitan steak sandwiches which involved homemade steak sauce, veggie burgers, and a roasted red pepper and sundried tomato spread. I've also discovered that avocado with Annie's Goddess Dressing is the best thing on planet earth. I've been putting that damn dressing on EVERYTHING lately, and hopefully Jordan and I are going to try to make it before she goes back to Alaska in a few weeks.

Also, did I mention the butter sauce? Oh. Oh wow. I guess maybe I've been on a fat kick lately (remember what I say about dressing on avocados?) but man, this stuff is so good. I came across the recipe on Yummy Vegan Dinners, and have made it a few times in the past month or so. It is amazing. Like, probably the best sauce I have ever made. I dice my onions, mince my garlic and just leave them in the sauce 'cause I roll like that, I cut down the amount of Earth Balance by a tablespoon or so, and I actually like mine better with just Hunt's canned tomatoes rather than the fancy schmancy organic ones from the co-op. For some reason the fancy tomatoes taste kind of bitter or something? Maybe I'm just unsophisticated. But anyway, this stuff is the best.

That's all for now. I can be more blog-productive now that I am out of school for the summer!