Spicy Peanut and Eggplant Soup

Here's my second recipe from Veganomicon.  I picked it because the only ingredients I had to buy specially for it were the fresh veggies.

It was another unmitigated success.  Creamy and spicy and satisfying, with smoky, chewy chunks of eggplant and sweet carmelized shallots.  I don't know if it was the salting before cooking that they recommend or the long saute, but the eggplant had a particularly nice, rich flavor.  And I love eggplant, anyway.

Spicy Tempeh Nori Rolls

I've decided to cook all the way through Veganomicon!  I'm so excited about this book.  Every single recipe sounded wonderful to me (with the exception of one casserole with a sauerkraut filling.....not a big fan of sauerkraut, anyway, but baked in the center of a casserole....???), so before I even made it to "Soups" on a read-through, I knew this would be my cook-through book!  I'll go recipe by recipe starting from the first page, with one recipe per pay period (twice a month).  But I'll use other recipes to fill in my menus as they work out seasonally or according to my whim...!

Recipe number one in the first chapter, "Snacks, Appetizers, Little Meals, Dips, and Spreads" is Spicy Tempeh Nori Rolls.

This was a terrific first impression.  I was so surprised by how good the tempeh filling tasted.  It was just as savory and satisfying as spicy tuna, but without the slightly repulsive (though oddly refreshing) raw fish texture.  It was not as spicy as spicy tuna rolls I've had, so I could have added more chili oil (the recipe calls for "hot chile-sesame oil" which I don't have or know of, so I used equal parts "fire oil" chile oil and toasted sesame oil).  I ate it with a simple miso soup with scallions and sauteed mushrooms.

I've made sushi rolls twice before.  In Ann Arbor, my friend from Japan had me over for a sushi tutorial.  Our making of the rolls almost kept up with our eating them!  We made something like five different fillings, and they were wonderful and beautiful.  We even did inside-out rolls and hand rolls.

Then, more recently (though still quite a while ago!), in Manahattan Beach, my friend Heather and I attempted a big plate of sushi rolls for a party.  They were so ugly, everyone was afraid to eat them!  But those of us who did eat them had a treat, because they tasted excellent.  So there you scaredy cats...

So, I'm not exactly an expert, but I've had a little experience.  These turned out quite pretty as well as tasty.

Poor kitty

So my cat Milo had to have a third of his tail amputated this week, after I closed a door on it Sunday night.  *warning: gory details* He jumped up in a horrible twist that a 20-pound cat doesn't usually have the energy or grace to pull off.  I looked down and there was a two inch long clump of fur..and it had pulled the skin right off with it.  Blood splattered all over.  It was so awful.

I can't tell you how badly I feel about it--I went to work all puffy-eyed Monday.  But I paid my penance at the vet Monday.  Literally.  With a check.

Here he is in his outer compound, my bedroom, where he is confined during the day.  At night I close him up in those two crates (door to door) because I've been worried that Parsley would bother his tail--Parsley is a wound-licker.  I also like the crates because he is so incredibly messy with that collar.  It acts as a scoop for anything he's trying to get at or see--food...or litter.  Eww.

It's been pretty hard to get a cat to eat a pill.  What's worked best so far is to chop it into small pieces (not ground to a powder--he could taste the powder and he was so mad at me for ruining his favorite part of life) and put in his food.  [Update: It turns out he only ate a couple bites!  Back to shoving the pills down his throat...]

But it looks like Milo is going to pull through!  I might let him out of the bedroom tonight after the dogs calm down (I'm sitting for another young dog, Jelly Bean.)  He'll be so happy about that.

Vegetarian again

I've been considering it for a while, but I've quit eating meat, as of a few weeks ago. What really made me finally go ahead and do it was watching Food Inc.  Of course, it's nothing we all don't already know about how terrible factory farms are for both animal and farmer, but it felt like a call to action for me.

I rarely cooked with meat products, anyway, though I usually used chicken broth, and I occasionally used bacon or sausage.  But I almost always ordered something meaty when eating out, and I ate anything offered me by anyone!  I had been on a ham and cheese sandwich kick for a while, and I suppose that's what I'll feel nostalgic about for a while.

Speaking of cheese, I'm aspiring to eventually become vegan this time.  I will have to have in place a suitably decadent cheese substitute, since being without the real thing seems almost like an insurmountable challenge to me.  So I'll probably phase in veganism first by cooking vegan at home and only eating dairy and eggs socially--at restaurants and when it's offered me (I worked with a vegan once who said he only ate "free cheese"--hi, Ryan!).  I am also considering making exceptions for humanely acquired dairy and eggs.

I was a vegetarian for about five years in high school and college, but I'm certain I'll be better at it this time.  I subsisted mainly on different combinations of bread, pasta, cheese and tomato sauce back then!  My friend Heather recently reminded me, too, of my fondness for Campbell's Vegetarian Vegetable Soup sprinkled with Kraft Parmesan--I actually did a homemade version of it the other day for old time's sake.  She's given up meat recently, too!

I'm excited about this new adventure.  I've only used vegetarian cookbooks for about 5 years, now, so I recently bought my first vegan cookbook, Veganomicon, and I'm sure you'll see some dishes from it here shortly!

In the meantime, here is a vegetarian "shepherd's" pie I made shortly before I made the big switch.  I used this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Cheap Healthy Good. (Click on the picture to see a larger version--it actually looks tastier close up...)

Sunshine Cleaning

I hadn't heard about this movie before I saw it last night on Netflix Watch Instantly.  Starring Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, it didn't get great reviews from critics--A.O. Scott of the NYTimes, especially, panned it, though I usually agree with his assessments.  It's a dramedy about injured pride, career disappointment, cleaning up after violent crimes, and why suicides are really missing the point of life.  Although Norah's side story (Norah is played by Blunt) with Mary Lynn Rajskub's character gives a through-the-looking-glass sort of view on those subjects. 

But I found it rich and moving.  Maybe it just resonated with a particular mood I'm in these days, but it made me a little happier to be alive.

Magenta Soup

This soup has such a wild color...you have to love it just for that.  Plus, it tastes great.  It's a little spicy, and, served with a dollop of plain yogurt, a little creamy.

I roasted the veggies one night for dinner (I made more than it reads in the recipe), then finished making the soup the next day.  I ate it for lunch 4 days in a row.

Magenta Soup
serves 4
3 tablespoons light olive oil, divided (it's refined enough so that it is stable at high temps, unlike extra virgin)
1 russet potato, peeled and chopped
1 beet, peeled and chopped
1 half of an acorn squash, peeled and chopped (which is hard to do, of course, though not impossible.  You might try roast larger pieces with the skin on and chopping later)
1 small onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon dried thyme
salt and pepper (you might want to salt at the very end if you're using a salty, canned broth)
8 cups chicken broth


Preheat the oven to 400 F.  Drizzle half of the oil in a jelly roll pan or something large enough for the veggies to lay in a single layer.  Add the veggies and spices and the rest of the oil and mix to evenly distribute.  Roast for about 40 minutes, until veggies are soft and turn a little golden.

Transfer the veggies to a soup pot with the chicken broth.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Puree with an immersion blender until smooth.

Strata for the New Year Part I

Here's 2010.  It still sounds futuristic....and yet we're a decade into it.  And here I am, finally joining the 21st century with a blog of my own.  It will be about eating well, living lightly, and my dog Parsley....!

So I made strata.  This version is rich with egg and cheese, warm with nutmeg, and crunchy with a thin brown crust all around.  Obviously, it's great for a special brunch.  But according to Recipezaar, one serving has almost 24 grams of fat.  How could it be healthier so it could be eaten a few days for a quick breakfast?  I think it could use about twice as many veggies and half as much bread to make up for all those eggs and all that cheese.  The bread also keeps the cost down--it takes up a lot of room for the price.  So the additions need to be economical.  The Gruyere cost me about $5, plus it is a little fatty.  So the cheese could use a change, as well.  If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments.  I'll be trying a healthier version soon!

Spinach Mushroom Strata

serves 4 (or double it and use a 3 quart casserole)

5 oz frozen spinach, thawed

1 cup finely chopped onion (1 medium)

5 oz mushrooms, chopped

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon salt (divided)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

4 cups whole wheat bread, cubed (1 inch)

3 oz coarsely grated Gruyère (1 cup)

1 oz finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1/2 cup)

1 1/2 cups milk

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

(the wine is for the cook!)

Squeeze the liquid from spinach and set aside. Heat butter over medium heat and cook onion and mushrooms until soft.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and the pepper and nutmeg and cook for one minute. Add spinach, stir, and remove from heat.

In a lightly buttered 1 1/2 to 2 quart casserole, spread one third of the bread cubes across the bottom, then 1/3 of the spinach mixture, then 1/3 of the Gruyere, and 1/3 of the Parmesan.

Continue layering ingredients, finishing with a cheese layer. Whisk together the milk, eggs, and mustard. Pour evenly over casserole.

 

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, until golden brown and puffy in the middle. Casserole can be refrigerated overnight before cooking.