things i love this summer #4

CORN!
corn is one of my favorite foodstuffs and i'll eat it prepared just about every way i can think of. lately, i've just been typewritering it off the cob, raw. when it's sweet corn, it's a super-delicious treat on a hot day.

today was my first day back at work after a long, lovely summer off and i thought it'd be a good idea to make up a batch of soup to take for lunches. so i resorted to my favorite standby: isa's corn chowder from vegan with a vengeance. unfortunately, i only had purple carrots to use, so i wound up with this kind of maroonish dark mess. fortunately, this chowder is THE BOMB, so it doesn't matter what it looks like.



choosing to make corn chowder ranks as one of my better decisions today, right up there with taking a load of dirty underwear to the laundromat. and, you know, actually laundering it. now i can greet my kiddos for their first day of 10th grade nourished and not-too-skanky. i have work to do before bed still, so i might be a little cranky when i initially greet the kids, but i'm sure they're going to appreciate the fact that their teacher isn't rustling up dust clouds like pigpen.

things i love this summer #3

TESTING FOR ISA'S WEIGHT LOSSY COOKBOOK.

i ate and ate all kinds of junk this summer, so now that i'm back in NYC, it's time to start practicing some moderation. and what better way than by testing some of isa's delicious low-fat, low-calorie meals? hopefully the book will keep its testing title, appetite for reduction, because that kickass name, coupled with the awesome stuff to be found between the covers, is sure to make it a classic.

most recently: cauliflower pesto soup
comes together in two shakes of a sanctuary lamb's tail and tastes like OMG.


before that: vietnamese rice noodle salad with grilled tofu
the #26 lan bowl comes home, on the skinny.


this book is going to be so great. thanks, eesie!

things i love this summer #2

mostly-cold meals!
i'm feeling a general move toward less cooked food, even if this meal is not really evidence of that. and i know i'm not the only person averse to cooking in the hot summer months, so i'm not suggesting that this is some great revelation in eating. but i am SO into having meals that include cold foods. salads are the easiest way to achieve that goal, of course, and they have the added bonus of being super-convenient!

this was my go-to meal for a few days. there was a box of ditalini that was nagging me to cook it and i finally gave in, turning it into some brooklyn deli macaroni salad. i'm not complaining that making the whole recipe meant that i ate the salad for lunch and dinner more than once in a week, but i realize it's probably not the best idea to be eating so much pasta. i feel like i get a pass, though, because i usually had it with one of joanna's beer brats, cooked in my recently-pilfered-from-my-mother convection steamer! oh, cuisinart, it is SO ON.



this is the perfect appliance for summer, for sure, because it saves me having to sweat over the stove. i hope it's a bit of a workhorse because i fully intend to crack the culinary whip year-round, using it to steam sausages, rice and grains, dried beans, and veggies! i found it two days ago and have used it twice already. it just might be single-handedly responsible for getting me back in the kitchen!

things i love this summer #1

i am all about cold drinks, even when it's not a million degrees in the shade.
during the summertime in south florida, however, it IS a million degrees in the shade, so i am even more emphatically about them.

the only place i'd found near my mom's place in delray beach that even stocks soymilk is starbucks. and they've always used vanilla soymilk, which i have NEVER understood, but at least they used to use silk. now they've switched over to some new, i think proprietary brand, which is reason number 3847532 why starbucks is not the move.

one day, i wandered into the coffee district on NE 2nd avenue and found what i'd been missing. the folks that work there are super nice and when i ordered my soy iced mocha, the barista asked if i wanted vanilla or plain soymilk. i'm not going to lie, i might have shed a tear of gratitude into my coffee.

my one complaint is that they give you a cup wrapper for cold drinks. wtf?

THANKS BE TO THE NYCDOE!

(image borrowed without consent)

snow? so, soup!

i was wandering around the whole foods on houston last weekend with paula when i ran across some chickpea miso. i've heard of but never had it and i picked up a jar, mainly due to the promise of a soup recipe printed on the label. i got around to making it today, hoping to stave off dreadful sunday feelings and eager to keep things moving in the right direction around here. snowy weather is trying to trap me in a wintry mood, but i'm fighting it tooth and nail. it's march 1st and spring is around the corner, i tell you!

mother nature can stick her snow where the sun don't shine.

it cannot be overstated how simple this soup is to prepare. it takes all of 15 minutes, prep time included, and the end product so lovely it would easily be worth twice the effort. i just had a small bowl, eaten with a hunk of fresh baguette. warmmm.



i used south river chickpea miso and here's the recipe from their website, altered just a little. (the jar recipe doesn't suggest wakame, but i bet it would be a great addition! also, i used two leeks and three carrots because vegetable overload is how i roll...)

Chickpea Leek Soup

Serves 4

1 medium leek sliced
2 carrots sliced
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1 three-inch piece wakame (optional)
4 cups water
1-2 tablespoons Chick Pea Miso
Chopped parsley for garnish

Wash and cut vegetables. (Leeks need special attention when washing; slice lengthwise and rinse under cold running water.) With kitchen shears cut wakame and add to 4 cups water in 2-quart saucepan. Add carrots and bring to boil. After 10 minutes add leeks and chickpeas continue to boil for 3-4 minutes. In small bowl blend miso with small amount of liquid from pot. Reduce flame to low and add diluted miso; simmer 3-4 minutes. Garnish and serve.

beer: it's what's for dinner.

i'm so in love with the beer brats i made yesterday, i worry all my meals might be centered around them. it's not unlikely, but i figure one day is too short a time for the honeymoon to be over, so i built a beerific dinner around them tonight. while drinking a beer (stone ruination IPA), i combined...

1 medium onion, sautéed in some canola oil,
3 beer brats, sliced thick and lightly browned with the onions,
1 mess of potatoes, cubed, and
half a small head of red cabbage, roughly chopped...

...with a cup or so of water and a cup or more of beer, to get the steaming going. chucked a lid on the pan and tried to distract myself so i wasn't watching the clock.

some time later, i got up and found everything was cooked just so. i chucked in a few caraway seeds for good measure and let things sit off the heat while i opened another beer. (credit where credit is due: i loosely based this on the kielbasa/potato/cabbage combination my mom used to make, though she forewent the beer and caraway.)

i served it with a little bit of beer mustard for the brats and a beer for drinking. i thought briefly it might have been a six-pack kind of dinner, with 6 beer appearances, but now i'm only finding five. i can't be bothered to do the maths on a dinner like this.

also, the picture is crappy and purple-y from nighttime and red cabbage and a geometry book. whatever.

eat your veggies, brats!

i tested joanna's beer brats tonight and they changed my life.
steamed seitan sausages, pioneered by julie hasson, is so incredible. combine the great texture with joanna's knack for flavoring (and a palate that sees eye-to-eye with mine - never mind the nonsensical nature of that metaphor) and you wind up with logs of straight genius. i tried one tonight, grilled for a few minutes on the stovetop and slathered with brown mustard, and it was phenomenal. rumor has it they're even better when cooled and reheated. i can't imagine.

i was hanging out with handsome william a couple weeks ago and he was eating some mixed veg for dinner. i have to admit i snuck a few bites (taking veggies from babies?!) and realized i haven't been including enough produce in my diet. so i sliced and steamed some carrots and quick-cooked some peas + corn to serve with my seitan and dare i say they rivaled the star of the plate. i will never understand people who claim to not like vegetables.

the final great thing about this dinner is that it will make my, indeed would make any, mother proud!

veganmofo #5: girlcrush.

i know keep saying it, but i feel like isa is not getting sufficiently jealous, so i must AGAIN point out that it seems terry hope romero taps right in to what fuels me, foodwise. okay, yeah, i know food is my fuel but i'm not talking strictly of nutritional sustenance here.

the onset of fall has made me long for hearty stews and soups. ever on the lookout for a reason to cook with beer, i decided to make a batch of the gumbo terry created for veganomicon tonight. never mind that i was in the late stages of a migraine and i have (yes, have...not done yet) a class's worth of tests to grade and 2 tests to make for tomorrow, on top of about eleventy billion other nuisance tasks. oh, wait, those aren't nuisance tasks. those are my job duties. i think i'm going to pursue national board certification, so i guess it might be a good idea to tend to them. but i need energy to do these things! and food = energy! what the hell do you think a calorie is, anyway? ugh, someone needs to go back and review their notes from high school health class.

anyway, terry's gumbo is no frigging joke. it's smoky and packed with veggies and has a stick-to-your-ribbedness that can't be beat. temperatures here in NYC are hovering around the 50s & 60s, so it's the perfect time for a meal like this. i'm sure i'll be repeating it time and again between now and april. ugh, so far away.

speaking of repeating, i cooked so late that it was way too dark to take a picture, so i'm just going to repost the gumbo shot i posted last year. (i feel kind of bad that i took 2 weeks off only to come back and rehash old dishes, but these are tried-and-true won't-let-you-downers. some things bear repeating!)

veganmofo #4: blugh.

i have been so uninspired to even cook anything for a couple weeks, likely due to a low-level cold or flu that i've been more or less successfully fighting off for the past two weeks. i'm tired as all get-out, but at least the only symptoms i've succumbed to thus far are a wee cough around bedtime, some minor stuffiness, and a couple of headaches. it's the being freaking EXHAUSTED that has been most prevalent, though.

however, yesterday i had a rare day of productivity. not only did i get up and do laundry and clean my kitchen before 11am, i also managed to go food shopping for critical ingredients to three of my favorite dishes from veganomicon. as it turned out, i only had energy to make two of them yesterday, but the third is on deck for sometime in the next couple of days.

terry's caesar salad is my most favorite way to eat raw greens EVER. the dressing is so simple it practically makes itself and when combined with some romaine lettuce and croutons, it makes for a salad that i not only want to eat but find myself craving. who'd have thunk it?!

and since autumn decided to make itself known this weekend, i figured it was time for one of my favorite fall dishes - pumpkin ziti with caramelized onions and sage breadcrumbs. (i don't know if that's the correct name, but i'm barely keeping my eyes open at this point, so it'll have to do.)

since i've been so lax about updating my mofo, i wanted to make sure to record my recent productivity. i'm not such a deadbeat flight-of-fancier, after all!

then i realized that i made both of these dishes during last year's mofo.
what can i say, like leek & bean cassoulet and gumbo, these two dishes make me think of jumping in fluffy piles of redorangeyellow leaves and wrapping a scarf 'round my head to run out to get a beer.

it's gonna have to do.