Mac Daddy'll Make Ya Jump! Jump!

Yesterday I got a flat tire at work. Actually, it appears I drove to work on my flat tire. Without noticing. Let's move on. At my job this sort of thing is considered an occupational hazard and as common as it might be, it is no less a pain in the rear to deal with. Luckily at my job we also have on-site mechanics and understanding supervisors so I was able to get my tire pumped with enough air to get me to the tire place and then a nice coworker drove me back to work (and then back to the tire place to pick up my car). Things that are a pain to deal with alway call for comfort food, and when the call for comfort food is made, I turn to macaroni and cheese. And as if some force had pre-knowledge of how my day would go, I was already planning to make v-con's Mac Daddy. The title of this recipe makes me remember that song "Jump" by Kriss Kross. So then I remember how much I unabashedly LOVED that song when I was 13. Umm...and I think I may have had a crush on Mac Daddy. Or was it Daddy Mac?



What was I thinking???

The recipe calls for elbow macaroni, but I couldn't find that at the co-op but I did find this pasta on sale for $1.99 so I bought two. I have no idea how to pronounce chiocciole, but I have the feeling that if I ever did learn I would repeat it endlessly to myself.


See how the pasta up close kind of looks like the mask from the Scream movies? Doesn't that make it so tempting? Mmmm...scary pasta.


And here's the finished casserole, ready to go in my face! It was pretty damn good, good enough for a second happy helping, but it did not make my head explode with joy. It wasn't as creamy and saucy as I would have liked, but I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call it "dry", just not creamylicious, and I've identified why that is my fault. 1) I used too much pasta, and this kind of pasta swallows up a lot of sauce in those mouth-looking holes it has. 2) I squeezed too much water out of my tofu and never got that ricotta cheese-like texture I was looking for. Plus the brand of tofu I used seems to be firmer than all other brands based on previous usage. With only that going against it, I would still call this dish and unqualified success and it's still the best vegan mac'n cheeze I've ever had. The cheezy sauce was ridiculously good and I had the idea while I was making it that I would just make it all the time and have batches around the house to put on *everything*, veggies, pasta, my cat, everything.

Dinner was followed up with a smallish container of vegan chocolate mousse from the co-op, and after all was said and done, my goad of comfort through food was smashingly successful. Mission accomplished!

(and I apologize if I got that song stuck in your head. you can come over for leftover mac if you need some comforting)

Tiny Whisk, Cheap Wine, and FOOOOOOOOD!!!

(Sorry about the crappy photos in advance)

I covet kitchen utensils of all kinds. I stare at the food processor I want on Amazon when I should be working. I marvel at the sharpness of fancy knives on TV. Saddest of all, I lay in bed and imagine just the tiny whisk that would make my life 75% better by all measurable standards.

Today my tiny whisk dreams came true! I already have a whisk, but the problem is that it is ridonculously huge and when I am whisking a small amount of stuff, splashing ensues and if I try to rest the whisk on the bowl, it flips and FLOOP! sauce/dressing/broth/whatever all over the place. Not fun. Behold, tiny whisk!



See what I mean? Do other people get excited enough about kitchen utensils to take pictures of them and then post them on their blog? I didn't think so. That's fine. No, really that's fine.

Moving on! I had to buy a bottle of wine to make dinner with this evening, so I searched high and lo at PCC for the cheapest sale on white wine they had. And then I saw it. My destiny in fermented grapes was there on the second shelf from the floor, nestled humbly amongst the $13 bottles of wine. A 2006 Torres Vina Sol. Doesn't it just oooooze class?


And do you want to know what the final deciding factor was in choosing this wine? What made me exclaim out loud "Yay! This one!" (Outbursts at the fancy food co-op are frowned upon, it seems). Well I'll tell you. It was the TINY PLASTIC BULL. Like I was going to choose any other wine. Pss.



Finally, the main event! I decided 2 things today. 1) That just because I am single and eat most of my meals alone does not mean that they don't deserve to be fancy and delicious instead of quick and digestible. 2) What I would finally make from V-con. Because I have been on a severe mushroom kick lately I decided to make the Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach and serve it over quinoa. I loves me some quinoa. HOLY CRAP SO GOOD!!! It is just involved enough to make you feel like you're treating yourself like the awesome person you are, yet easy enough that you don't feel too tired to eat when it's done. Even when just the onions and seitan are in the pan it smells amazing, and then it's like a whole other level once you add the garlic and seasonings. Even if you don't like food, just make it for the smells that will fill your kitchen, that's enough reason. For serious. To conclude, it was really yummy. :-) See how yummy it looks? You want to make it so bad.

a simple hello

Hello there! My name is Bea and this is a sample of my cookbooks.

From left-to-right they are:
Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
Vegan on a Shoestring
How it all Vegan
Vegan with a Vengeance
La Dolce Vegan!
The Garden of Vegan
Veganomicon (!!!)
Skinny Bitch in the Kitch (it was a Christmas gift)
Please Don't Feed the Bears
Hot Damn & Hell Yeah!
Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker
Vegetarian Planet
Vegan Planet

I've been collecting cookbooks for several years, I got it from my mom, and half.com serves only to feed my addiction. My two most recent cookbook acquisitions are Veganomicon and Vegan on a Shoestring. I'm 28 now, I was a vegetarian for 2 or 3 years in high school, and then I reverted back to eating meat until almost a year ago. Some other post I will talk about what brought about that change. I calculate that I eat about 99.7% vegan now, I am strict at home and working on being stricter when the time comes. I started this blog to motivate and encourage myself to branch out into fancier foods more often, not just every once every few weeks while eating various grain/salad/prepared deli stuff the rest of the time. Being a single person it's not always easy to feel like it's worth the trouble to make something awesome just for yourself but if I'm going to be taking pictures of it that's a whole different beast.

I'm also hoping in the future my posts will have a little better writing/focus/point/direction to them but this is good for now. If this blog was the experience of making a recipe, this is the part where you go to the store for the stuff you need I think. Possibly it's the part where you're bringing it home, possibly.

My most notable food experience of late was making the Stewed Tofu and Potatoes in Miso Gravy from VwaV. It was the most ambitious thing I've ever made but so worth it. The gravy was savory and thick, I pressed my tofu for over an hour so it was super chewy, as were the potatoes (I used dutch yellows, so buttery). I ate it for the next week and literally said goodbye and that I would miss it when it was all gone. I am deciding between making it again or actually branching out and trying something from one of my new cookbooks or one of the older books I haven't used much. It's so very hard to decide.

Something else I made recently with only half-success was stuffed peppers. My friend told me her recipe for stuffed delicata squash which was shallots, quinoa, and pine nuts in lots of Earth Balance. I took it from there and added sauteed mushrooms and thyme and bits from the tops of the green peppers I was using. The pepper part turned out not so hot because I didn't parboil them, I think. But the stuffing itself was just fine on it's own, so it wasn't a complete loss. This is the sort-of recipe:

1 cup quinoa
big tablespoon Earth Balance
1 shallot, finely diced
6-8 crimini mushrooms, sliced
handful of pine nuts
1/4 cup or so of diced green pepper (or whatever pepper, I think red would be nice)
dried thyme, black pepper, salt to taste

Cook the quinoa with 2 cups water as you would rice, either on the stove top or rice cooker. I use my food steamer's rice bowl thing. This part is really up to you.

In a pan, melt the EB and when that's hot add your shallots and mushrooms, sautee until the mushrooms are browned and have almost released all their moisture. Then add the diced pepper and thyme, black pepper, and salt, however much you like is fine. I learned from Isa to crush the thyme before adding and have never looked back. Cook all that together until it's done, combine it with the quinoa. Add more seasonings if need be. At this point you can either stuff it into peppers (if you do, parboil the peppers in salted water for five minutes first) and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. OR! You can just eat the quinoa mixture with a nice salad on the side, it is up to you.

I am off to make breakfast and figure out what my next food adventure will be. Thanks for reading!

~Bea