Vegan Burnout

CSA Weeks 21-24: Done and DONE.

2011-12-07T14:04:00.010-05:00

Whew! That felt nothing like 24 weeks, darlings. Maybe it was because we only bought a half-share and were therefore less overwhelmed by random produce, but this year’s CSA was much more manageable than last year’s. Let’s see how it wrapped up (spoiler: anticlimactically).

Week 21 didn’t happen because it flipping snowed. In October! I hate the East Coast sometimes. The One Straw crew didn’t feel safe driving to the market, for which I couldn’t blame them. It was the first time in 23 years they missed a summer market day. Everyone stayed home, and we got twice the veggies for Week 22:

There we have some garlic, bok choy, sweet potatoes, multicolored peppers, broccoli, and it looks like some scallions. The bok choy, peppers, scallions, and broccoli went into this lovely stir-fry with some cashews:

I’m sure we added some garlic, too. Garlic is great because it can just hang out in the Crisper and keeps for a nice long while.

We’ve been really into dicing and roasting sweet potatoes this fall. Sometimes I do them plain, with just some olive oil and salt and pepper, and other times I add a little maple syrup and ginger. I can’t remember what I did this time, but it was delicious. Fun fact: roasted sweet potatoes are an excellent breakfast.

Week 23 didn’t happen either, but not because of any shenanigans by Mother Nature. Red and Lucy and I went to the beach because I had a three-day yoga training weekend. It was wonderful and exhausting and we took a huge pan of Vcon’s Pumpkin-Baked Ziti with us so we wouldn’t have to cook. Here’s a picture of my girl meeting the ocean for the first time:

So we got double the veggies for Week 24, which seemed an appropriate way to finish out the season:

So much leafy greenage! We got spinach, mizuna, mustard greens, bok choy, broccoli, and I think that’s it. We got two of a few of those, so forgive me for being a little confused.

We had to make space in the fridge, but in doing so we found some sticky grossness and also some random bits of onion skin and other detritus. So Red brought out the vacuum:

I suppose we didn’t use all the sweet potatoes after all, as we had one left over for to make this soup:

This is Double Mustard Greens and Roasted Yam Soup from Vegan Soul Kitchen. We made it last year and loved it, so I was glad to have it again.

We picked up some carrots and made this stir-fry with the mizuna, some of the broccoli, and one of the heads of bok choy. It doesn’t look like much in the photo, but it was yummy.

When we realized we had missed a bok choy and a head of broccoli, we kicked ourselves, then steamed up the broccoli and sautéed the extra bok choy with some garlic and all that beautiful spinach. Over rice, it made a perfectly simple and satisfying dinner. And thus did our 2011 CSA experience come to an end.

Like I said, this year was much better than last year, but we were still finding our feet then. This year, we’re old pros. I’m very thankful for One Straw. One of the things I love about them, aside from their excellent food, is their communication. Joan is always available to chat on market days, and she sends out emails when there’s something we need to know. I found her CSA wrap-up email especially interesting, because she explained how this year’s cracked-out weather really affected their harvest. We had a super-hot July and then a really rainy September, so the hard winter squash didn’t fare too well. The beets didn’t have a good time of it, either. The spinach was delicious, but it made only infrequent appearances at the market. Because of a lack of sunshine, the broccoli heads were very small (and being broccoli lovers, we noticed). Evidently many East Coast farmers experienced the same conditions, and flooding left some without a harvest at all. This is very sad, because I’m sure they are small family farmers, like One Straw, and the weather determines their livelihoods. It really brings into focus just how interconnected we all are, and I hope next year is kinder to those who dedicate themselves to feeding us healthy, natural food.

Southern-fried Thanksgiving.

2011-12-01T14:56:00.015-05:00

I love it when I start a post with an outright lie. We didn’t fry all that much, and certainly didn’t Southern-fry anything, however one does that. We did, however, make a ridiculous amount of delicious food.

Red and I, along with my parents, flew down to Charlotte (remember when I went there?) to spend the holiday o’ gluttony with my sister at her new house. Yay, new house! All that lovely space. I am so jealous. She and her boyfriend have done an admirable job of filling it, though, with the aid of this handsome fellow:

This enormous beast is Sampson, and he is still a puppy. When he finishes growing, I am going to laugh and laugh because he will almost certainly outweigh my sister. He is the sweetest, mellowest dog I’ve ever met—and not even a year old! Lucy is that calm when she’s waking up from anesthesia. We had many snuggles and even let him get up on the couch, which, strictly speaking, he is not allowed to do. He is a beautiful boy.

The day before Thanksgiving, Red and I learned of a new vegetarian restaurant in town. We absolutely had to try it! It’s called Fern, Flavors from the Garden, and you’ll just have to Google it because they’re too new to have an actual website. It is really lovely:

Such a great use for Mason jars.

Felt pockets on the wall! With living plants in them!

They poured us glasses of cucumber water, which is totally delicious and I don’t know why I’ve never made it myself. We started with jalapeño hush puppies (with Daiya, for those of you who worship the stuff), which I loved and I am no great lover of jalapeños, believe me.

Look at my pretty First Chakra Juice:

I know it’s ultra-hippie to have a juice menu named after the chakras, but we just covered them in my recent yoga training weekend, and I have a chakra poster (this one, actually) on my wall at work, and I have a chakra ring that I bought in Salem with my friend Jess, so I guess I am a little ultra-hippie, no? And yes, I brought my yoga mat with me to North Carolina.

My entrée was already vegan, and they veganized Red’s easily. Feast your eyes:

Green Goddess Soup

Warm Kale Salad

It was good we fueled up, because we headed downtown to the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. Red and I can be very snobby East Coasters, but we’ve decided we can visit any city with a modern art museum. Well played, Charlotte. It’s right next to the Mint Museum (which, no, is not about currency), which I visited last time, so there was a nice sense of familiarity. I did not see the sign banning photographs, so I took some.

Me and Marilyn.

The rest of our visit was very domestic, as befits a family holiday. On Thanksgiving, my sister, Red, and I cooked up a storm—no, a goddamn tornado, and I had to stay sober the entire time because it was a very small kitchen for three people and I didn’t want to injure anyone (or, worse, spill my drink). But the day started off right, with these yummy vegan pumpkin cinnamon rolls (made the night before, because can you imagine? you’d have to be up at 4 to have them ready for breakfast):

The recipe is here, and aside from its being a pain in the ass in the way that all cinnamon roll recipes are (knead! rise! roll! slice! roll! rise! KILL ME), I can’t say enough good things about it. The rolls were perfect. The icing recipe looked like it made a vatful, so we halved all the ingredients except for the spices and rum, because my family likes to party.

Release the Kraken!

Most of the day was pretty chill, and we played a very satisfying game of Monopoly. My sister has the set we used as kids, and man, it has survived some craziness. I’m pleased to report that I won, although Red did remarkably well for his first time playing Monopoly ever. We’ll civilize him yet.

Before we started cooking in earnest, we needed appetizers. The omnis had their own stuff, and Red and I made Tami Noyes’ Seitan Veggie Crowns. There’s a reason they were named Vegan.com’s Appetizer of the Year! Go, Tami! BTW, leftover filling mixed with a little extra vegan mayo makes for a delicious sandwich.

Once we started making dinner, it was on like Donkey Kong. We made garlic mashed potatoes (vegan and omni), green bean casserole, bourbon mashed sweet potatoes with pecans, Appetite for Reduction’s Sweet Potato Biscuits, stuffing from a bag (you know you love it too), and Sage and Pumpkin Seed Encrusted Gardein with Cranberry Cabernet Sauce (Gardein’s Thanksgiving menu is off the hook). We used malbec instead of cabernet, and it was a delicious substitution. Even my dad loved the Gardein!

We carved a V in our mashed potatoes so there’d be no confusion.

I was too stuffed to eat dessert, but the day before I’d made the Gingerbread Apple Pie from Vegan with a Vengeance. I made it last year, too, because it is easy and fantastic. Shout-out to Red for his peeling/slicing assistance. Actually, I made two pies—it turns out that the recipe makes one pie when you have a big-ass ceramic pie dish, but two when you’re using disposable grocery-store pie tins. So, a bonus pie! Who could complain? My sister didn’t have maple syrup, so I improvised and used a combination of molasses and rum. Again: Problem? Where? (I forgot to take a picture, so if you want one, it’s in here.) I ate plenty of it the next day, don’t you worry.

No trip to Charlotte is complete without a visit to Lebowski’s, so we made a family pilgrimage there on Black Friday. Vegan White Russians and french fries, you have my heart. I was committed to not buying anything that day, so I guess I failed, but it’s not like I got up at 3am to stand in line with hostile strangers jonesing for a discounted Xbox or something. That shit scares me.

Bar lighting is so flattering.

On Saturday, it was home again, home again. I am so thankful to have been able to spend Thanksgiving with people I love, in a city that cares about its vegans at least a little, remembering what really matters.

Giving thanks for Poplar Spring.

2011-11-28T14:19:00.019-05:00

I know I’ve said it dozens of times, but Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary is one of my favorite places. Yes, it takes forever to get there (okay, 90 minutes) and we can’t make the drive as often as we’d like, but it is always worth it. So, despite the fact that I was still nursing a sniffle and Red had gotten off a plane the night before, we packed up some cornbread and drove down for the annual Thanksgiving with the Turkeys.

Since we were early, there was plenty of parking, but from what we saw later, that didn’t last long. According to Deb at Invisible Voices, who has the inside track on these things, as many as 800 people showed up! I totally agree with her that Poplar Spring should start marketing the day as the World’s Largest Vegan Potluck. It was wonderful to see so many people excited about the animals—and so many kids, too!

Her favorite game was dropping armfuls of straw on her head and running around.

But first, we had to pass this understated marvel of good taste to get there:

This is the Casa de Amor, and by all that’s holy, if it isn’t the trashiest mega-mansion in the entire county. The fountain is out of frame, but the Internet tells me it’s illuminated by rainbow lights at night. If you’ve ever been to Vegas and seen the fountain display at the Bellagio, that’s what I’m envisioning. There are also big-ass eagles atop the fence. It is truly a triumph of drug money or other unsavory enterprise.

Once we made it to the sanctuary, we checked in on our friends the goats:

We then wandered down to the chicken yard to find Deb, but were distracted by this handsome fellow:

Would you believe he’s a pheasant? I always thought they’d be drab birds, meant to blend in with the forest. Not so, evidently, because he is as colorful as any tropical bird. Perhaps other varieties of pheasant are more sedately plumaged, but he is quite striking. I believe he’s a newcomer to the sanctuary, and I don’t doubt he’ll attract much attention.

Poplar Spring also recently welcomed two young turkeys, Tilly and Cosette (no promises as to who’s who, though Deb says that Cosette may be soon renamed something more appropriately masculine if suspicions prove correct):

Edward or Arthur (I can’t tell them apart) spent a bit of time hollering in his distinctive peacock way, though I didn’t see either peacock strutting around with tail unfurled. It was nice of them to let the turkeys have center stage.

True to form, the rabbits kept to themselves in a cozy pile:

Allison and Twinkle don’t need much personal space.

Here’s lunchtime for the turkeys, who are always very excited to be the center of attention:

Cosette and Tilly went back for seconds.

Once the turkeys had their buffet, it was time for ours. Red’s and my strategy is to split up and hit different tables, so we can try as much food as possible. I think we did exceptionally well:

I grabbed those strawberries for Red, because I am the Best Wife Ever.

I did sneak off to the dessert table first and snag two pumpkin whoopie pies because I was sure they wouldn’t last. I was right; when I went back after snarfing my lunch, the desserts were pretty well decimated.

Here’s an example of how well matched Red and I are: We each spied a crate of clementines, and we each grabbed one for ourselves and one to share with the other. When we met up with our loot, we had four clementines! I would have felt greedy keeping all of them, so we gave two to our tablemates, one of whom worked for FARM. You were all lovely, tablemates. (Protip: Get to Poplar Spring early and drop your stuff at a table so you’re not sitting on the grass. This is the first year we figured out that trick.)

This year, the party had a surprise guest speaker: Will Tuttle, author of The World Peace Diet (which I own, but haven’t read, because you know how it is). It can be tough to rig up a good sound system outdoors, and I’m not sure everyone heard him, but he was well received and I hope he had a good time.

After lunch, we moseyed over to the pig yard:

Piglets Paige and Patty.

If you look closely, you can see Red back there!

I couldn’t resist the ‘tock shot.

We needed to head home to Lucy, so we stopped by the gift shop for a new calendar (it’s almost January and I need to continue being That Person at work). Deb’s photos are beautiful and really capture the personality of each animal.

For all the beauty and joy of the day, I was saddened that Opal wasn’t there. Opal, grande dame of turkeys, passed on in April after kicking ass and taking names for seven spirited years. That’s a damn good run for a turkey who, like she was, was bred to be killed. She ran away from a slaughterhouse when she was just a youngster and came to Poplar Spring in 2004, after her kindhearted adopters realized that a sanctuary was the best place for her. Although her beak and toes were cut short and I’m sure this caused her pain (as well as made it difficult for her to walk and eat), she was unfailingly gentle and loved to be stroked. She was truly an inspiration and will be missed by so many, human and nonhuman alike.

Opal and I at last year’s potluck.

Another year, another early Thanksgiving. I’m so grateful for places like Poplar Spring, where animals can not only live free from fear and pain and express their true natures, but where we humans can remember that we always have the opportunity to be better versions of ourselves.

BRB.

2011-11-21T14:46:00.001-05:00

You guys,

I love you so much and I really wanted to get up a Thanksgiving with the Turkeys post today, but it is not happening. I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning and tonight I have a date with Mr. Gary Oldman. I am maybe exaggerating a little about that, but Red and I have tickets to an advance screening of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy at the AFI and Mr. Oldman is scheduled to be there so we are understandably just a little bit fucking stoked. I am totally not going to fangirl out over him if we should perchance to meet him, but I am really torn as to whether I like him more as Sid Vicious or Sirius Black. I think I’m leaning towards Sid. Discuss.

(We can then discuss my passion for his TTSS costar Benedict Cumberbatch. My mother thinks I have a screw loose but she has a mug that declares she’s saving herself for Tom Selleck, so I think the loose screw is a genetic problem.)

BACK ON TRACK, BURNOUT. Thanksgiving with the Turkeys was wonderful as always—Poplar Spring is, as I’ve said before, the happiest place on Earth, that Disney shit be damned. Red and I ate a bunch of delicious food, hung out with the lovely Deb, drove past the most ostentatiously grotesque house ever (or at least outside of California, where I imagine they have the market cornered on that sort of thing), and in general had an awesome time talking to people and meeting animals. After Thanksgiving, which will be spent in the bosom of family at my sister’s new place in North Carolina (re-read this if you want to see me drinking White Russians and making Big Lebowski jokes), I promise to do a full recap and catch up on the million other posts I owe you.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and let your vegan freak flags fly.

love and snuggles,
v.b.

Cider and pomegranates.

2011-11-16T17:02:00.007-05:00

Here’s a quick Halloween/Samhain rundown for you, my pretties. It was on a Monday, which is a pretty blah day for a holiday, but we do what we can, yes? Since we didn’t have lots of time to prep, we kept our celebration short and sweet and very tasty.

Red’s pumpkin, Robert O’Lantern.

Like last year, we set up our candy-distributing station in the front yard, in front of our firepit. It wasn’t too chilly, and the fire kept us warm. I tried to toast a marshmallow, but the firepit’s screen made it tough and sticking my hand into the flames didn’t work out so well either. So my s’more was a little half-assed, but still tasty. In case you’re wondering, Bug Bites are the perfect size for s’mores, and they come with cute little insect cards inside!

Red and I have acquired quite a taste for mulled cider during the fall. I use the recipe in Kristin Madden’s Mabon: Celebrating the Autumn Equinox. It’s basically a bunch of pumpkin pie-type spices and some brown sugar, simmered with your cider or unfiltered apple juice. While we drank it straight on Samhain, it’s also very delicious with a slug of spiced rum (Sailor Jerry, represent!).

Here be cider.

In keeping with the theme of seasonal snacks, we nibbled on some pomegranate seeds. While Red and I seeded the pom (not as hard as you’d think), I told him the story of Persephone and why pomegranate seeds are an appropriate Samhain snack. I have an abiding love for Greek mythology thanks to this book, which was a very influential part of my childhood.

Here is a more fun version of that myth, which you should totally read. In fact, you should read everything on that blog, then come back here so we can geek out about it. Red doesn’t think it’s as funny as I do, but then again he did normal-kid stuff, not hole up in his room reading about satyrs and centaurs and Zeus transforming himself into animals so he could get his freak on.

He is not thinking of turning into a swan in order to get into my pants.

Um, yeah, and we gave out candy, then went to sleep.

Final CSA roundups coming soon! (Soon being relative in blog-time, but you know.) Plus, this weekend is Thanksgiving with the Turkeys at Poplar Spring, so there will be epic awesomeness afoot. Kisses!

If it’s a day that ends in y, I’m probably wearing the panda ears.

Lord, there goes Johnny Appleseed.

2011-10-31T14:34:00.006-04:00

Recently, we found ourselves with a crap-ton of apples. (I believe that is a metric measurement.) Some were from the farmer’s market and some were from the grocery store, but the common denominator was that Red and I were tired of eating them. The Granny Smiths, in particular (from the hippie grocery), were notably less than juicy and delicious, which made me sad because I love them so. But they were still perfectly good. What to do with them?

I made Applesauce à la Burnout, basically. It’s a variation on the way my mom makes individual servings of baked apples, which is via the magic of the microwave. Probably I can’t call it applesauce as nothing gets pureed, but the apples do cook down and get soft, so maybe it’s chunky applesauce. Whatever. Here’s what I did:

Take your huge bowl of apples (10 or so).

Peel, core, and slice those babies. We actually have a fancy apple peeler that sits on the counter and you impale your apple on its spiky center piece, then turn the crank and it shaves the skin off, but it’s kind of only reliable for perfectly spherical apples. Organic, local apples are frequently lumpy as hell, so I used a hand-held peeler and it worked out great. I did use our apple corer and mandoline for the coring and slicing, respectively. When I was done, I had a mountain of apple slices:

Put them in your biggest skillet. Ours is 10 inches in diameter and is fairly groaning under the weight of all those apples. Well, there wasn’t much to do about it but crank up the heat and start cooking them down. A little brown sugar is nice for this, because it helps the sugar in the apples caramelize and get nice and gooey. At least that’s what I tell myself when I want to add more brown sugar. All told, I think I added about six tablespoons to this huge pan of apples, which is not so much when you think about it. I also added liberal sprinklings of cinnamon—you can never have too much!—and dashes of cloves, nutmeg, and allspice, because I have this problem where if I add one of those things, I have to add all of them.

How long the apples take to be finished depends on how many of them there are, how hot you have your stove, and how much you’re stirring. I think I kept the pan at about medium heat and stirred pretty regularly. It speeds up as they start to cook down and there’s more space in there, but it’s still a pretty variable process. Just cook them until they’re soft and juicy enough for your liking and they taste good. Then they’re ready to be eaten straight up (my favorite way) or in oatmeal (my other favorite way). It’s like apple pie without the dessert-for-breakfast guilt.

And now, bringing this all back around to what’s most important in life is Mr. Joe Strummer.

May you always have plenty of apples, my darlings.

CSA Weeks 18, 19, and 20: Potatoes, sweet and non.

2011-10-28T14:54:00.019-04:00

Guess what, darlings? I just realized that I have three weeks of CSA photos for you, and I’m gonna try to get it all done right now! Fun, yeah? No promises that I can remember what we did with every random carrot, but let’s do this thing. Hold onto your squash!

First off, a programming note: Astute readers will notice that this post covers Weeks 18 through 20, while the previous one covered Weeks 15 and 16. Whither Week 17? Damned if I know. Going back through my calendar, it looks like what I called Week 16 is really Week 17, which means I lost a week in there somewhere. Through the looking glass, y’all. Who wants their money back?

We had an insanely long day of outdoor apple butter-making that started before the sun had fully come up, so I hustled to the farmer’s market and back without stopping at any of the other vendors. Here we have sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, lacinato kale, and collard greens.

We freaking love kale, and collards are pretty tasty themselves. We combined them for Vegan Soul Kitchen’s Citrus Collards with Raisins Redux, which we tried for the first time back in July and have wanted to make again since it started getting autumnal up in here. Like before, I scorned the raisins in favor of cranberries. The kale was a welcome addition.

Pretty sure we just roasted up those giant sweet potatoes with some olive oil and a drizzle of maple syrup. Best way to do it. I think in my last post I mentioned some caulipots, too, yeah? Must be where the regular potatoes went. Caulipots are great because you don’t even notice the cauliflower. Insofar as there’s a recipe for them, I use Isa’s from Appetite for Reduction—which reminds me, I need to reclaim that from a friend I lent it to in August. Caulipots are delicious on their own, but Red was feeling experimental and decided we should try a vegan gravy packet in advance of Thanksgiving (we’ll be traveling to my sister’s in North Carolina, so we’re planning ahead). It was fine. Nothing exceptional, but it looked very homey on top of the caulipots.

CSA-adjacent but still delicious is this Spaghetti Pie with Arrabbiata Sauce (with Daiya on top) from American Vegan Kitchen. It is like lasagna without the drama. Actually, there was a little drama, because it turned out to be really hard to dish out spaghetti noodles using a spatula while trying to maintain the integrity of the casserole. It worked much better when the pie had spent the night in the fridge and I sliced it for lunches, but next time I think we’ll make it with penne or rotini or another, more scoopable pasta. Regardless of logistical difficulties, it’s super-tasty and very satisfying. We had too much sauce, which is a great problem to have, so we just boiled up some more pasta and were good to go!

Here’s Week 19:

That broccoli hung out until this past week (Week 20), but no worries—it has a happy ending. I made the prettiest miso soup with the bok choy:

It was good, Red was weirded out because I added some kelp granules to the broth, which it made it grainy. My bad, babe.

Here’s that butternut squash soup I couldn’t shut up about last week. It’s got squash, carrots, some of that ancient-yet-still-crisp cauliflower, and probably some onion and garlic. I am totally blanking on where the recipe came from. If I can solve the mystery, maybe I’ll update the post. Maybe I won’t. Anyway, it’s pretty basic, but good and very comforting as the nights get colder. As I was cooking, we realized we didn’t have any nice crusty bread to go with it. Red ran out to the crappy grocery store down the street (sorry, but it’s true), and the only vegan breadstuff was their generic dinner rolls. First-world problem, ahoy! Trust us, we survived.

Remember when I raved about Tami’s seitan cutlets? That was nine days ago, you guys. Anyway, the seitan recipe basically makes double what you need for any of the recipes in American Vegan Kitchen. Half became the Salisbury Seitan of my last update, and the rest met its destiny as Mexicali Seitan in some fabulous burritos:

When Red took a bite, he said, “Holy shit, this tastes like a grilled-steak taco.” I don’t speak the language of omnis very fluently anymore (what is this “bacon” your people rhapsodize about so obsessively?), but I could tell he was pleased that all the tastes of his former meat-eating life were not forever lost to him. They were goddamn amazing burritos.

Week 20, ready for its close-up:

More potatoes and sweet potatoes! Whatever will we do?

Here’s some excellent potato-and-corn chowder, veganized from a random Internet recipe:

There’s that broccoli, in addition to some carrots, corn and potatoes (obviously). We had bought oyster mushrooms because Red wisely thought they’d be a good addition. Unfortunately, I forgot to add them. Fortunately, we still had miso soup in the fridge, and oyster mushrooms seemed like they’d be a good fit. As you see, they were:

We’d also bought a bunch of portabella strips, some of which ended up in here:

That is Brewpub Tater-Tot Pie from American Vegan Kitchen, and it is why Tami is going to take over the world someday. Let me say it again.

TATER. TOT. PIE.

Regardless of your feelings on Napoleon Dynamite (I am apathetic but find it irresistibly quotable), tater tots are the shit. Red and I were stoked to be able to put them on top of a veggie casserole (carrots, celery, onions, shrooms, TVP, tomatoes) and call it dinner. Oh, there was beer involved, too.

The rest of the portabella strips we got for a dollar because they were getting old. The mushroom lady told us to cook them that very day, so we did:

We added them to the leftover spaghetti pie sauce. When in doubt as to what to do with your random/tired veggies, add them to a sauce!

Our final dish was African Sweet Potato Soup from 30-Minute Vegan. We’d made it before, but I couldn’t remember what it tasted like, so it was a pleasant surprise. Looking back through my old posts, I described it in 2009 as “half hearty vegetable soup, half creamy peanut-ginger bisque.” That is a pretty apt description, I must say. We didn’t have fresh ginger this time, but I think the powdered stuff worked fine. It’s a nice change from regular vegetable soup. We had maybe two cups of diced sweet potato left over, so I just roasted it while the soup simmered.

Thanks for hanging with me through this year’s CSA craziness! Four weeks left. You all are champions. Next week I’ll be back with a post about what I did with a million leftover apples and some Halloween/Samhain photos! Have a happy and blessed holiday (or just a fab weekend).

CSA Weeks 15 and 16: Finally, fall.

2011-10-19T14:04:00.009-04:00

For a summer-loving gal, I sure am happy with the change of seasons. Of course, it’s hard to feel autumnal when the odd 80-degree day keeps popping up, and the leaves don’t seem too keen on changing, but overall, I like it. Week 15’s veggies don’t look too seasonal, but just go with it:

There we have some beautiful chard, another green leafy thing, garlic, and spinach, all of which may have been from One Straw, although I can’t recall if they do spinach or not. The peaches and cauliflower definitely came from other vendors. I don’t even know, you guys. I was too busy mourning the last of the peaches.

I didn’t get too wild with this week’s haul, I’m afraid. The spinach went into this tester wrap (I’m lucky as hell to be testing for Tami Noyes and Celine Steen’s upcoming sandwich cookbook o’awesomesauce!), with some totally-out-of-season strawberries and a delicious hazelnut dressing:

Hold on, let me back up. I need to properly thank Tami and Celine for having me as a tester, because Red and I have enjoyed some of the most amazing sandwiches over these past few months. Both of them are recipe-creating geniuses, and it is awesome to eat food that doesn’t require silverware. Double-mega thanks to Tami, for whose upcoming book Grills Gone Vegan I’m also testing! It’s testing mania in my house! As if I haven’t been blessed enough by the vegan cooking goddesses, Tami was also kind enough to send me a copy of her first book, American Vegan Kitchen. I love it, and it is the best cookbook a homestyle-food-loving guy like Red could ask for. It is fan-freaking-tabulous. We love you, Tami!

Wow, it is so much better writing about how awesome other vegans are than about what we ate all week. Seriously. But I promised you I’d take you through our CSA, and I’m doing it—slowly and with long gaps between posts because I am by turns lazy and mental, but mostly lazy. So, back to my lackluster photos!

After those ballin’ strawberry-spinach wraps, we had…some other stuff. I honestly can’t remember what in hell we did with that chard and the other green leafies, but I am sure it was delicious. Some of the cauliflower went into (I think) a tester recipe, and let me just state for the record that cauliflower is perhaps the longest-lived fridge vegetable I have ever met, except maybe for garlic. We had a bunch of cauliflower left over and no desire to do anything with it, so it sat. And sat. And did not get moldy or mushy or gross. Finally, this past weekend (so, like, after it had been hanging out for three weeks), we used the rest in a squash soup and some caulipots. And it was as good as the day we brought it home. Cauliflower, you are the long-distance runner of the Crisper drawer.

I did a little better with Week 16:

I forget what kinds of apples we got, but they’re all good, so eat more apples, okay? The carrots went to a variety of uses, including just plain microwaved and diced into raw chunks for Lucy. One ended up in that squash soup, as well. You’ll see that sooner or later, I swear. I mean, it doesn’t look like much, but it was delicious. That smallish broccoli we just steamed and ate as a side. Here’s that butternut squash, roasted up all pretty:

I do love me some winter squash. The squash, broccoli, onions, and garlic all came from One Straw; the carrots, apples, and mushrooms were from elsewhere.

You can’t really tell from the photo, but that’s a whole bunch of shrooms. Enough for two mushroom-centric recipes. Here’s one of them:

That’s Salisbury-Style Seitan with Mushrooms from American Vegan Kitchen. The seitan recipe from that book is killer. I am by no means a seitan expert, but I’ve tried a few different versions, and this is one of the best. Those dumb-looking mashed potatoes are the byproduct of another AVK recipe, Tempeh Stroganoff-Stuffed Potatoes (no picture because I was mad at myself), and they are dumb-looking because the fuckers wouldn’t bake, then they fell apart when I tried to scrape out the insides for the stuffed part of the recipe. So, once I finished crying (because yes, I cried over my stupid defective potatoes), I put them in a pot and mashed them like I was mashing the brains of my worst enemy. They still didn’t get creamy and fluffy like proper mashed potatoes, but when you’re putting delicious tempeh stroganoff and/or seitan with shrooms on top, it doesn’t make much difference. The tempeh stroganoff was boss, too, in case you’re wondering.

Oh, right, here’s where some of those carrots ended up:

This is a tester recipe from Tami’s grill book, and it is enough to make you want to fire up your grill in the middle of winter, although I punked out and made it indoors, because when you have a cast-iron skillet you can take it from the stove to the oven to the flames of hell and it will be fine. Behold, Tempeh Chickpea Stew with Harissa Biscuits! I had never had harissa before, and this is but one example of why Tami is cool: She makes me buy weird sauces and things I would have ignored otherwise and now love. I’ve got harissa and sriracha and sambal oelek and I even made my own freakin’ berbere spice. This is the second time I’ve made this recipe, so you know I really like it. The next time anyone gives me shit about where I get my protein, I am handing them a bowl of this and saying, “You’re welcome, douchebag.” Chickpeas! Tempeh! A whole bunch of vegetables! Delicious savory biscuits on top! This will keep you full until you see that Chocolate Pirate’s Booty (Marla, you’re a terrible influence) on top of the fridge and decide it’s time for dessert.

And that’s all. In case you’re really excited for that squash soup, I’ll try to get the next recap up before Thanksgiving.

CSA Week 14: This should be more exciting.

2011-09-27T14:53:00.008-04:00

I mean it should be more exciting for you guys. I, for one, am having a blast picking out our veggies each week and cooking them up, and I am already enjoying being back on a regular schedule (see: no more class), but this most recent week might seems a little pedestrian to you. No matter! Pedestrians are better than the rest of us, because they walk while we drive our stupid polluting cars.

We already had quite a bit of food in the fridge, so we basically grabbed our One Straw stuff and went home. There you see another humongous sweet potato—even bigger than the one from the previous week! they grow them HUGE at One Straw!—some chard, a stalk of broccoli, and an average-sized butternut squash. I think it was average, anyway. Seeing it next to that mutant sweet potato makes me doubt myself.

I flaked out on the pictures, my darlings. The broccoli we steamed, and you don’t really need to see that, do you? I should have really done better on the rest of our meals, because Red took the lead this week, and his efforts are always exceptional. Example: We had that chard, some onions, and random portabella stems in the fridge. I had meant to sauté them, but I got busy or tired or sad or something and went to my last class after leaving him with vague instructions to…do something with our orphan veggies. When I came home, he had diced and stirred and simmered everything with marsala and Bragg’s for a lovely improvisational meal. It was excellent over rice. And you can’t see it, because I suck.

He brought the noise again on Friday, while I sat in traffic for two hours trying to get home. (It was rain, Baltimore. Not the zombie apocalypse.) Friday happened to be the autumnal equinox (remember?), so of course we wanted our food to match. While I sat at red lights and read random articles on my work phone (I still hate you, Crackberry, but you stopped me from committing rush-hour homicide), my awesome husband mashed that sweet potato into submission and popped our first risotto of the season into the oven. Soon after I finally stumbled through the door, we enjoyed cinnamon-spiced mashed sweet potatoes and that fabulous butternut risotto with sage and red onions. I didn’t get a pic of the mash, but here’s the risotto in all its glory:

If you get right up close to the monitor, maybe you can smell it.

He is a fucking keeper, I tell you what.

CSA Weeks 11, 12, and 13: Potatoes and power outages.

2011-09-13T14:38:00.008-04:00

Week 11 looks to have been a bust, since I evidently forgot to take a photo. Sorry about that. I’m guessing we didn’t make anything too special with it, either, because I only have this one meal photo:

And honestly, I think those were Week 10’s potatoes that we made a nice little pan of hash browns out of. Look at those beautiful matchstick potatoes—Red is a magician with the mandoline. The peppers, onions, and mushrooms were a great mix. I wanted to toss them with the potatoes, but someone likes his potatoes separate. And covered in ketchup.

Week 12 was much better:

Most photogenic peach ever.

Doesn’t all that stuff look fabulous? And we scored it all during the quickest-ever trip to the market, because Hurricane Irene was coming to visit. Luckily, she didn’t stay long and didn’t make too much of a mess, but we did lose power for two days. This was not impressive to me, because thanks to Hurricane Isabel in 2003, my personal best for rocking out sans electricity and hot water is six days. It was not as terrible as you might imagine, either. Bottom line, I was immune to the panic-shopping and hoarding of bread/water/toilet paper that heralded Irene.

(My poor husband. He hates extreme weather. But he tolerated it well and I am very proud of him.)

Cool thing number approximately one million about being vegan: When the power goes out, your food spoils much more slowly than your omni friends’. Soymilk? Fine! Produce? A little wilty, but totally edible. Ice cream? We ate it all as soon as the freezer crapped out. We lost a container of hummus and that was it. And, let’s face it, that hummus might have been fine, because it tends to smell kind of weird anyway, but I didn’t want to roll the dice on it.

A few weeks back, we had picked up an American Flatbread Vegan Harvest frozen pizza on a whim, so we slapped that baby on the grill:

It was okay. I mean, it was a frozen pizza. Vegan or non-, they are only so titillating.

We also had leftover spaghetti and un-chicken seitan cutlets in the fridge, so we heated all that up on the grill too for a fabulous dinner:

Aside from that, we just chilled. We read a lot, and snuggled Lucy, and took naps with the windows wide open to feel the breeze. I barely missed the Internet, and you know I love all of you very much.

We got the biggest sweet potato I have ever seen during Week 13:

That sucker must have weighed three pounds. Seriously, it felt so wrong to cut it up, like the biggest knife we have wasn’t sufficient. I needed a sweet potato butcher to do my dirty work for me, which was fine because Red was there. He slew the beast, and we roasted it with ginger and a drizzle of maple syrup. It tasted like fall, and I was happy.

Red had a birthday that weekend, so for breakfast, we roasted potatoes and made another pepper-and-onion hash. Here’s his plate, with the demon ketchup:

(I don’t mind ketchup, actually, but I wouldn’t be sorry to never eat it again. A little vinegar on my fries? Yes please. Ketchup? Away with you.)

Fall continued to creep up on us with the season’s first winter squash. I roasted this lovely spaghetti squash simply, and it was very warm and comforting. Of course, we’re still having 80-degree days here, but not long ago the temperature was topping 100, so it’s starting to feel rather autumnal indeed.

I’ll be back soon with more bloggy goodness. My summer class ends in two weeks, so feel free to poke me about getting back on a regular schedule, my darlings.

CSA Weeks 8, 9, & 10: Is that a watermelon in your basket, or are you just happy to see me?

2011-08-19T15:33:00.012-04:00

We had some great stuff during Week 8, which explains why I forgot to take a picture of it. However, I did get my shit together enough to take a picture of the best part:

A heart potato! We really felt the love from One Straw. Thanks, you guys.

We also got some tomatillos. “What are we going to do with these?” I asked Red, who had done the marketing solo that morning. (I had gone to aerial yoga class, which is a ridiculous amount of fun.)

“Use them to make tomatillo sauce,” he suggested.

“Uh, like the jar we already have in the freezer?” I asked, pulling it out to show him. I think I made him feel bad, so I quickly decided that we would use the tomatillos, together with the potatoes and our cute little Lodi apples, to make Veganomicon’s Manzana Chili Verde:

It’s never too hot outside for this chili, which is an automatic success with anyone you love. Well, I guess it was too hot for Red, because he added some ice cubes. His internal thermostat is set so differently from mine. It never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, this chili is delicious and I can’t recommend it enough.

Here’s a picture of a pita pizza, though I can’t remember where the spinach and tomatoes came from. One thing’s for sure—toaster-oven pita pizza is where it’s at if you want a quick one-person dinner.

I don’t remember where we got this squash, but it wasn’t from the CSA. Anyway, we sautéed it with some dill and olive oil, then had it with quinoa for a light but surprisingly hearty dinner:

This photo should hopefully make up for the one I missed:

Look at that watermelon! Look at those peaches! Look at those peppers!

No, really, look at them:

Have you ever seen a more beautiful pepper? My camera couldn’t do it justice. It’s a lush red color with shades of deep green, like someone painted it. Prettiest freaking pepper I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t bear to part with them, so it’s been only this week that one has met its destiny in this frittata I sort of ghettoed up:

I was feeling too lazy to follow the instructions, so I sort of just winged the bits I didn’t want to do. I was really psyched to add a bit of spinach, too, only to find out I’d left it on the counter for three days. In my defense, it was in one of our pillowcase produce bags, and spinach is so light and fluffy, I thought the bag was empty. Who am I kidding, I sniffed that wilted spinach and it smelled fine, so I chopped it up and threw it in the frittata anyway.

Red was over the moon for that watermelon. He loves it like whoa, and as you can imagine, this beast gave us a ton of fruit. We gave half to his parents and had pounds of it left over. Delicious, messy, sweet watermelon, you are summer itself.

Those peaches were pretty fantastic, but the apples were the star this week on account of their name: RAMBO. Rambo apples! For real! How could we not buy them, after that? They are similar to Granny Smiths, and a little firmer and tarter than the Lodis. Excellent eating apples.

Here’s Week 10:

This was just last Saturday. We’ve still got the potatoes, but I think we’re going to make a hash out of them and throw in the stems from those portabellas. Suddenly I can’t remember if we got those shrooms from another vendor at the market or from the hippie grocery. I’m losing it.

The chard went into that rice-chard-chickpea thing from Veganomicon that I make all the damn time. I haven’t made it since Week 1, actually, so I was overdue. I didn’t take a picture because you’re probably sick of seeing it, and you should make it yourself because it will rock your face off.

We ended up with a ton of tomatoes, most of which were from family. We made a great quick spaghetti sauce (we riff on 30-Minute Vegan’s recipe), then turned to bruschetta (also 30-Minute Vegan). We had quite the Mediterranean dinner the other night: bruschetta with artichoke hearts and two different kinds of olives. It was decadent.

And that’s it. I know I promised you an ice cream post, and I’ll do it, I swear! Just…not today. But it’ll be worth the wait. Dessert always is.

CSA Weeks 5-7: We ate some food.

2011-08-01T14:23:00.005-04:00

Like I told you last time, I forgot to take a picture of Week 5’s veggies, but I do know that we got kale, and that Red once again made Adam’s Kale Salad with it. I remember this mostly because he hit the Bragg’s a little too hard while whipping up the dressing, so it was a touch salty. Mouth-puckeringly so. Still, it was kale. Salty, overdressed kale beats no kale any day of the week.

God only knows what else we had that week. Whatever it was, we ate it and it was good.

Here’s Week 6, which should look beautiful to you after the picture-free-fabulousness of Week 5:

The red lettuce, peppers, and onions came from One Straw, and I’m pretty sure the tomatoes did too. Those were great tomatoes, and I am not a tomato-lover. We made many a tasty sandwich with them. We ate a lot of hummus with those peppers, too. It’s been too damn hot to turn the stove on very often, I tell you what.

More Lodi apples. Mmmm. I think. They could be Pristines, about which I will tell you in a minute. And don’t those peaches look amazing? They were, but the bastards wouldn’t slice. I could not split one in half to save my life. The halves simply would not twist apart. It made for some messy peach-eating.

Here’s Week 7:

Corn! Glorious corn! Red and I love local corn, and this was the first week that One Straw had it. There’s no picture, because we just boiled it and ate it, like you do. Rest assured, it was delicious, and I flossed after. We also picked up the lettuce, garlic, and onions at One Straw.

You see those tiny little two-bite apples? They are everywhere recently, like Lodi apples 2.0. They are called Pristines, and they are very small and green. We tend to buy twice as many, because we estimate that two of them equal one regular-sized apple. I find their size kind of annoying actually, because I could easily chomp right through one if I wasn’t paying attention. Still, they’re tasty.

Lots of greens! My mom wanted some mesclun greens, but not a whole lot, so we split a bag. It feels so fun to eat flowers, doesn’t it? So I made a couple small salads that I didn’t bother photographing, but they did the job. We still have some spinach, and it is delicious. Mmmmm, baby spinach. The only kind of baby to eat. (Okay, baby corn counts too.)

Though not strictly CSA-inclusive, here is a pizza we made with zucchini a friend gave me:

Red was inspired by this Vegansaurus pic, and I am so glad, because it was delicious. We already had the zukes and the artichoke hearts, so we scored some Daiya and a crust and went to town. Zucchini pizza FTW.

Did I tell you we got an ice cream maker? Hooooo boy, when I get some time to write that up, you’re gonna drool like whoa. For now, content yourselves with Fuck Yeah Vegan Ice Cream.

CSA Weeks 3 & 4: Yeesh, I’m a bad blogger.

2011-07-15T13:42:00.011-04:00

First, the good news. My awesome husband, who ably handled Week 3’s CSA run solo, took a picture for you. Like I mentioned at the end of Week 2’s post, I was in yoga teacher training all weekend and had not a moment to spare for all the foraging we vegans must do to feed ourselves. I haven’t mentioned it here before, but in April I started my 200-hour program, which I hope to finish within a year or so. Training days are tiring, but so much fun and I’m learning a lot.

The bad news is, I’m not sure I can remember what we made, and I flaked on taking a picture for Week 4 (and Week 5, so don’t expect much there). Anyway, you can see that he scored us some garlic scapes, broccoli, kale, and a cabbage from One Straw. The other stuff came from random vendors, but allow me to mention the Lodi apples. These freakin’ things are everywhere this summer. I never knew there existed an apple tarter or greener than a Granny Smith, but lo and behold, the Lodi is it. They’re supposed to be for turning into applesauce, but I eat them straight-up because that’s how I roll. Not as juicy as Granny Smiths, but they’ll do. Also, their seeds are white. White apple seeds! My mind, it was blown.

I just realized I have no idea what became of those carrots. Husband, what did you do with them?

Anyway, here’s this spinach-strawberry salad from Becoming Raw. It’s amazing. We made it once last summer, and only the short season for strawberries keeps me from making it every day. I even stuffed some into a tortilla and made a very drippy but delicious wrap. The dressing is this orange-poppy seed combination that is like being kissed by a unicorn.

Here’s a picture of the baby birds who lived outside our front door. They’re fledged now, and I miss them. It was funny to see them sitting on top of each other. You’d think Mom would get a clue and build a bigger nest, but maybe she doesn’t want her offspring to get too comfy. Empty nest, har har har.

Healthy dinner ahoy! Steamed broccoli, brown rice, and some spicy cabbage from Vegan Soul Kitchen. Even though on my best day I am sort of meh about cabbage, it’s tasty. I think I’m still recovering from childhood mushy-stinky-cabbage trauma. A head of cabbage goes a long way, so Red fixed himself some coleslaw as well.

You absolutely want to make this, but I’m a bitch and can’t give you a recipe, so I apologize. We call this Adam’s Kale Salad, because this dude Adam would bring it to Vegan Pledge Program meetings, and it always disappeared like rapacious vegan aliens had abducted it. I don’t think Adam used exact proportions, but Red is really good at approximating it, so I let him carry on. It’s garlic, Bragg’s, lemon juice, and maybe one or two other things? Ask Red, he’ll tell you. Then you just toss your kale with it and go to town. Anyway, Adam is a ferocious activist, and you can read a rockin’ interview with him here. He doesn’t talk about kale, though. MORE KALE, ADAM.

I think we’re into Week 5 now, but who knows. Our house is like a time warp sometimes. I’m lucky I even get to work. We picked up two purple peppers from One Straw, and I knew exactly what I’d do with them. I’d agreed to test this Greek barley salad for Tami, and it is like all of Greece is having a party in your mouth. Spinach, olives, sundried tomatoes, lovely grilled peppers and red onions…and barley! I’d never cooked with barley before, and I really like it. Oh, don’t be scared of purple peppers. They taste pretty much like green peppers, only they’re purple and therefore better.

Here’s the first frittata of the CSA season! I tend to stick to the Vegan Brunch recipe because it’s reliable and easy. Here we have red chard with garlic scapes and a few portabella stems mixed in. I didn’t really notice the shrooms, but I sadly noticed the scapes a bit too much in places. They tend to get woody, don’t they? Scape-lovers, how do you know how much to trim off so you’re not munching twigs?

We got some beets, too, but those are Red’s domain. He roasted them, dog bless. I don’t like beets, so I’m glad to have him.

Um. What else? Right now, when I’m not at work, my life is pretty much cooking/testing (I love you, Tami!), yoga (although I could use more), and school. I’m getting my certificate in web graphic design, and one day in the distant future I do hope to pretty up the blog a bit. Come fall, I hope I have time to read a book or maybe just comment on y’all’s blogs, but right now I’ve decided to just do my best to keep up with these recaps. Please love me anyway? I’ll bake you a pie!

CSA Week 2: Going somewhere in a handbasket.

2011-07-01T15:12:00.007-04:00

Dear readers, I have a confession to make: I don’t have a picture for you this go-round. I know, I’m a total failure as a blogger, and you should spend your employer’s time elsewhere. I know I would. But here’s what happened: There was a 10-mile race across the city that was poorly signed and extremely poorly publicized, because not even the people running the farmer’s market knew about it. So no matter which way Red and I tried to get into, and then across, Baltimore, we were met by roadblocks and bored cops and thousands of people dicking around in valuable travel lanes. Had I been driving, I’d probably be locked up for vehicular homicide right now. I love my city, but there is no 10-mile route nice enough to want to run through. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Anyway, we eventually managed to park about a half-mile away, then hoof it down one of Bmore’s sketchier streets, past a rusted-out car and a lady distressed that the stupid race meant the buses weren’t running on schedule (see, Baltimore? it wasn’t just my morning you ruined), and finally make it to the market. I’ve never been so glad to be somewhere and simultaneously wanted to go home so badly. We were not in the mood for market chaos, so we grabbed our veggies and ran. I think we ended up with spinach, collard greens, broccoli, and kale. Yes, that sounds right. From the other vendors, we scored some onions and strawberries. Or maybe I made up the strawberry part. I mean, I know we had them, but we might have bought them at the MOM’s afterwards. Whatever, I’d kneecap a nun for strawberries.

Our market highlight was this awesomeness:

As you see, that is mango-curry hummus from The Wild Pea, a small local hummus operation. One of their guys had given me a sample the week before, and I was so in love with it, I wanted to snarf it all down right then. But I still had some homemade hummus in the fridge, and I knew I had to finish it before it got moldy and I got guilty for wasting food. I promised him I’d be back, though, and this week I got my mango-curry hummus. You may be thinking, “WTF? Mango in your hummus? Bitch, please.” Scoff if you like, but this shizz is delish. Sweet mango and warm, savory curry…mmm. I don’t know if I’d try all their combos (does the world really need PB&J hummus?), but I sampled the pizza flavor when I bought my tub of mango-curry, and that might be on deck for next time. They even have a vegan sour cream-and-onion flavor!

By the time we finally got home, quite a bit later in the day than we had anticipated thanks to all the pedestrian mayhem, we threw everything in the fridge. As soon as we finished, I wailed that I had forgotten to take the photo, and that everyone would be so mad at me. Then I probably took a nap and got over it.

Red sautéed up the kale with some garlic, and we didn’t bother taking a picture of that because you all know what sautéed kale looks like. It made a great lunch over brown rice, spritzed with some Bragg’s. Is there a hippier vegan lunch imaginable? I doubt it.

Here’s the broccoli, next to couscous and some spicy tofu I tested for Tami at Vegan Appetite (it was good!):

I ate much of the spinach in hummus wraps throughout the week—hummus wraps are my favorite pre-yoga snack, and spinach makes them even better. There came a day, though, when the remaining spinach was looking pretty wilty. I didn’t have time to cook anything from scratch, so I dumped two cans of Amy’s lentil soup into a pot and added the spinach. I highly recommend sexing up your canned soups this way!

That left the collards. These were this week’s surprise hit, starring in Vegan Soul Kitchen’s Citrus Collards with Raisins Redux. We didn’t have any raisins and I don’t like them, so I used dried cranberries instead. AWESOME call on my part, if I do say so. These collards are sassy and bright, with enough garlic to keep them from being too sweet. They’d be a great holiday side. You should make them right away.

Week 3 teaser: Red hit the market by himself because I was in yoga teacher training all freakin’ weekend! Check back to see how he fared.

CSA Week 1: It’s that time again.

2011-06-23T11:31:00.005-04:00

Yes, beloveds, we have stepped once more unto the breach of local veggies and have purchased a share in One Straw Farm’s harvest! These roundups will probably be shorter than last year’s (did you actually read those? Good for you!) because we’re doing a half-share instead of a full one. Like I told you at the conclusion of 2010’s CSA, a full share occasionally left us with unused and deeply unloved produce (fuck off and die, endless heads of lettuce). As an added bonus, our pickup site is the 32^nd Street Market, so a half-share gives us room to browse other vendors and pick up extra produce that looks good without feeling overwhelmed or wasteful. The farmer’s market on a Saturday morning is chaos itself, but we like it. (Actually, we did not like this week’s experience at all, but you have to wait for that story.)

Here’s our first haul:

The garlic scapes, chard, broccoli, and kale are all from One Straw. The best part of the half-share is that we can choose our veggies, so we left all the lettuce behind. The strawberries were a little present they were giving out, and they were much appreciated! They were very small, but tasty. Red reports that they were delicious frozen. We also picked up some local apples (I am trying to love them, but it’s hard when I’m hooked on really tart, crunchy Granny Smiths), tomatoes, and coffee from Zeke’s, which is a Baltimore roastery. They have fair-trade!

So, what did we do with this stuff? I don’t have any pics of the broccoli, because Red sautéed it to perfection and you all know what sautéed broccoli looks like. I tell you what, my man can work a skillet. He also sautéed the kale with garlic, and we ate that with Veganomicon’s chard-rice-chickpeas extravaganza (you probably think I make that twice a month, and some months you are not far wrong).

Because Red was curious, we tried Field Roast’s Mexican Chipotle sausage. Kids, it is SPICY. I gave it one bite and nudged it off the plate and into a storage container for Red to eat later. However, I can report that diced small and added to a tofu scramble, it sort of redeems itself. Also, as we cooked it, we both succumbed to a wicked coughing fit. I don’t know what’s in it that’s released into the air when it hits the pan, but we ingested it.

In happier recipe news, our garlic scapes and tomatoes ended up in this salad:

This is a take on a salad from Barbara Lauterbach’s Pasta Salad: 50 Favorite Recipes. The book is totally not vegan and I have no idea where I got it from, but it has a few recipes that I’ve tweaked and fallen in love with. This one calls for couscous, but I subbed quinoa this time for a bigger protein punch. I subbed the garlic scapes for the scallions and garlic, and you should always feel free to do that, because it works out great. I had some leftover spinach from something pre-CSA, so that’s in there too. Also, pine nuts are freakin’ pricey, so I always use walnuts in this salad. It keeps well and you’ll be nomming on it for a week.

It is also entirely possible that we had spaghetti during the week. That’s our go-to “oh shit, we didn’t buy enough food” meal, and it does not bode well that I can’t remember if we’re already at that stage of CSA-dom. Whatever, spaghetti’s never wrong.

Stoner salad, fit for a Burnout.

2011-06-06T15:43:00.002-04:00

Recently, I made the yummiest thing, courtesy of the most adorable new blog:

That is Mango Quinoa Salad, and it is from The Vegan Stoner, surely the cutest website that does not include photos of baby animals. Seriously, take a peek at the little labels on the drawings! It’s like a scavenger hunt of whimsy.

[Just a note: Before you go making all sorts of punny observations about the stoner-burnout thing, kind of like I did right at the top of this post, let me state for the record that I’m not that kind of burnout. Not that I care if you are, or if your neighbor is, just saying. We’re all adults here. Like I need help getting the munchies, anyway.]

So! This salad! Once I saw the picture, I knew I had to make it. “Handful of quinoa” was a little vague for me, since in my experience, proportions actually matter when cooking grains, so I went with a half-cup. This was a good call. Also, I am not usually into celery and raw onions, even in salad and even when they’re red onions, which are pretty much the most inoffensive member of the onion clan. But I sucked it up and diced those babies, tried not to eat all the mango and strawberries before I could get the salad together, and broke out the mixing bowl. Let me tell you that the celery and onions are a perfect vegetable counterpoint to the sweetness of the fruit, so you shouldn’t skip them, even if, like me, you’re weird about certain veggies. Curry and a sprinkle of salt is all the seasoning you need, although I did add a drizzle of olive oil because it’s healthy and delicious. And with that, The Vegan Stoner has my loyalty, because this is the perfect summery salad.

Well played, Vegan Stoner. Well and deliciously played.

I am the queen of cupcakes. Or at least the duchess.

2011-06-02T14:38:00.004-04:00

So I made my first-ever cupcakes over the weekend. I am pretty sure they were my first cupcakes, and if they weren’t, they were most definitely my first vegan cupcakes. I used to be scared as hell of cupcakes because they are so dainty and precious and nicely decorated, not like cookies that you can plop onto a pan and if they’re lumpy, you can say they have character and if no one likes them, it’s their loss. No more! Now I am all, “Bring it on, cupcakes! I can take you.”

Backstory: My parents had a Memorial Day cookout with various neighbors and family members, and my sister and her lover-man were visiting, so it was kind of an occasion. I asked my mom what to bring, and she whipped out the Tiramisu Cupcakes recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (she found it online—my mom is awesome, but not yet awesome enough to have her own vegan cookbook collection). I was like, “Really, woman? Those are some involved cupcakes.” So we compromised. I baked the cupcakes and made all the fixings, and we gutted/filled/frosted/decorated them together. That way, if they sucked, I only had to take half the blame. Red took pictures:

When we were finished, I was amazed by how good they looked. I was expecting some malformed, poorly frosted cupcakes, and they came out beautifully. I couldn’t wait to try one.

You will not be shocked to learn that they were ROCKIN’. These are epic cupcakes, y’all. They are sweet and boozy and filled with delicious cream cheese frosting. It was well worth the time we spent delicately hollowing them out, soaking them with Kahlua, and carefully placing those chocolate-covered espresso beans on top. Afterward, I wanted to fall asleep on a bed of clouds and dream of dancing biscotti while a choir of baby angels sang opera. I am a cupcake convert.

However! My dessert adventure was not over. As I was baking the cupcakes (this is the day before the filling/decorating extravaganza, in case you are creating a timeline of my exploits), I began to worry that guests would outnumber cupcakes and called my mom to ask her opinion on this important mathematical problem. She suggested that if I wanted to make something extra, I should go for it. As I like to show off the delights of vegan desserts, I made Caramel Walnut Bars from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (they are supposed to have pecans, but I had a huge jar of walnuts and no pecans, so you know). Props to Red for making a crucial brown sugar run mid-project. They were much easier than the cupcakes, for which I was grateful, but no less decadent.

Two words can sum up these babies: SUGAR. BOMB. Holy tooth decay, that caramel is some serious stuff. Serious and awesome. (And of course all the walnuts = healthy, so you can have two!) Several minutes after I crushed a cupcake and one of those bars, all the sugar plowed through my brain and I spent the rest of the night bouncing around like I haven’t done since high school. Good thing I’d already done yoga.

So, to sum up: Dessert was a success (so was dinner because my mom made this pasta salad), cupcakes no longer intimidate me, and my dental hygienist will have her work cut out for her at my next visit.

Faux-tropical paradise, with ducks.

2011-05-27T16:45:00.017-04:00

Hi, my little sugarplums! I wish I could say I was writing to you from balmy Florida, but I barely looked at the computer while we were down there, so I’m writing it from where I usually write these things: the bathroom. (Kidding.) Anyway, Red had to go to Orlando for a conference and I wanted to escape a week’s worth of forecasted rain, so we jetted south last week. We were very lucky to stay on the Loews Royal Pacific Resort. It is basically a luxurious Fake South Pacific, but they had lots of sushi and vegan-friendly food (as opposed to Loews Portofino Bay, aka Fake Italy, where all the pasta at this one restaurant was made with eggs, but they did have Vespas). They also had a pool and sunshine and lots of ducks wandering around quacking for snacks. And dogs! They are a dog-friendly resort, and Red and I became BFFs with a hyper little corgi-Jack Russell sweetheart named Ike. It was a total win, is what I am saying. We did absolutely nothing photo-worthy, not even visit Hogwarts—and we sort of wanted to, but it is so expensive and we didn’t have a lot of time, so we bagged that—but I did take lots of pictures of our food for you.

But first, logistics. Just like I did before we went to Sanibel, I hit the Internet to gauge our options. Loews provided most of their menus online, so I was able to get an idea of what we could eat on the various resorts (Loews has three Orlando resorts linked by a shuttle system: Royal Pacific, Portofino Bay, and Hard Rock). It looked like we’d be good to go at Royal Pacific and okay at Portofino Bay, but we kicked Hard Rock to the curb for veg-unfriendliness. Red also found a Whole Foods nearby, for those urgent kombucha cravings. (I don’t know why I wrote that. I hate kombucha.) We were confident we wouldn’t starve, but we still packed granola bars.

The view from our room.

Our first order of business was dinner, because we were very hungry after we finally made it to the hotel and I get cranky if I miss meals. We wandered downstairs to the bar (‘scuse me, the Orchid Court Lounge) and begged some sushi and alcohol from Taren, my new favorite bartender. She is from Tasmania and gave us pieces of the pineapple she was slicing for garnishes after she saw me staring at it. Taren is the best.

We had a couple false starts at breakfast, because once we determined that they offered the particular variety of Kashi cereal with dried blueberries—the only vegan Kashi they had on hand—that’s what I kept trying to order. It’s called Blueberry Clusters or something. One morning I got the correct cereal with extra fresh berries (totally not a problem), the next I got the wrong cereal entirely and had to send it back, and on our final morning I gave up and had berries and potatoes. That was no hardship, believe me, but I had a hell of a time trying to explain that damn cereal. Red got off light, because he ordered Raisin Bran. Happily, only once was there confusion with the soy milk.

Behold, a breakfast montage:

Do you want to see ducks? Of course you do.

Not too sure what these are. Any ideas?

More french fries, please!

We were lucky to be able to have lunch together every day before Red had to go back to work. Mostly we ate at Emeril’s Tchoup Chop, which needs to up their sushi-rolling game because my poor chopstick skills do not make otherwise well-made sushi fall apart.

Our poolside lunch at the Bula Bar featured one of the tastiest salads I’ve ever had:

On my own, I usually read by the pool or the little canal thing they’ve got going on. Then I read some more. Sometimes I did a little yoga in our room, but mostly I wanted to be outside. This was the view from my lounge chair:

The day before we left, Red wore this shirt:

That afternoon, we were hailed by a fellow vegan! He was also in town for the conference and was peacefully eating his PBJ when he saw us. “Sometimes you’ve gotta pack your own,” I said. He agreed. Yay for finding our tribe, even in the unlikeliest places!

Twice we had pizza and hummus for dinner at Jake’s American Bar, which is what you’d get if you tried to do Rick’s Café Américain without the Nazis. Or Sam. (Also, holy shit, there really is a Rick’s in Casablanca now. I want to go to there!) The first time, I also had a veggie pita because we didn’t know how much hummus we’d be getting—so much, we took the rest back to our room. That restaurant was amazing: Upon hearing he had two hungry vegans, the chef came out and talked over our options with us, offering to make us something special. I don’t think I’ve ever chatted up a chef before. He rocked.

One night, we decided to dress up (for vacation, anyway) and check out Portofino Bay. We tried to go to Bice, their swanky restaurant, but that was the place with egg-tainted pasta, so we went to Trattoria del Porto, which was still very nice and not a bad Plan B at all. We both ended up with the same dish—whole-wheat penne with vegetables—but it was tasty and they had Italian beer, so we didn’t care.

A kind fellow tourist took a picture of us in which we both look decent (and, more importantly, I don’t look sunburned):

Portofino Bay: Come for the atmosphere, but the dining options need some work.

We had lunch outside right before we left for the airport, and this little fellow came to see us off:

Lizards are probably nothing special to Floridians, but I thought he was pretty cute.

Well, darlings, there you have our idyllic jaunt to sunny Orlando. I loved our time away, but I loved coming home and snuggling Lucy even more.

Finally home.

Grill, baby, grill.

2011-05-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

Recently, Red and I got a new grill. This week, we fired it up for the first time! On the menu? Veggie kebabs, savory tofu, and coconut rice!

Here are all the kebabs lovingly lined up on the grill. Notice how thoughtfully Red made an all-onion kebab so I wouldn’t have to pick them out!

We’ve got green peppers, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and fresh pineapple. Red so bravely slew and skinned the pineapple, fearsome prickly thing that it was.

Instead of adding the tofu to the kebabs, I marinated it overnight in a teriyaki-ginger sauce (this one, if you care, and you should because it was yummy) and Red grilled it in slabs. Notice how he got the perfect grill marks!

Onion close-up for all of you who, ahem, like that sort of thing:

De-skewered and ready for nomming:

Here’s the rice. We used 30-Minute Vegan’s recipe, which is reliably easy and delicious. The black-eyed peas make it really satisfying all by itself, too.

Final product:

It was the perfect almost-summer dinner. We felt so completely suburban that we had to watch The Wire to recover.

In which I didn’t mean to let the muffins get moldy.

2011-05-05T10:17:00.006-04:00

I don’t really like zucchini. I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t seem very cooperative. It turns mushy in stir-fries and gets squeaky when you bake it. It’s tasty if you shred it and make it into fritters and fry it, but that takes time and work and I quickly get sick of frying things in the summer heat (and since we’re talking about zucchini, it’s almost always in the summer). Zucchini bread is good, but trying to keep up with the never-ending stream of zucchini yields a shit-ton of bread and inevitably I run out of people to give it to.

I returned from my trip to Charlotte to find three zucchinis in the fridge. “Where did these come from?” I asked Red. Turns out, his parents had given them to us, which was very thoughtful but didn’t help me figure out what to do with them. I looked at them for a few days. They mocked me every time I opened the fridge. “Ha ha, now you have to eat us,” they sneered. Bastards.

Finally I cracked open Vegan Brunch and found a recipe for Zucchini Spelt Muffins. Well now, that sounded easy and wholesome, so I went for it. I cackled as I shoved my zucchinis into the food processor, jubilant that they hadn’t defeated me. To sweeten the deal, as I was preparing to pop the muffins into the oven, I received an invitation to a yoga class/vegan potluck at an acquaintance’s house! The timing couldn’t have been better. My muffins would be the perfect post-yoga snack.

They came out very well. They were a bit like a healthier zucchini bread—not as sweet, and I didn’t go as heavy on the spices as I normally would because I like to follow new recipes pretty closely the first time. My fellow potluckers agreed that they were a great counterpoint to our other snacks: super-sweet crumb cake (so good, I brought a piece home), baguette slices with a pesto-chickpea spread, and tofu scramble. I was happy. My muffins were a hit.

Since we still had plenty of muffins left over, I started taking them to work for a midmorning snack. Removed from their brunch companions, they were a bit blander than I had originally noticed, but I figured that if I toasted one and added a little Earth Balance, it would rock. Imagine my dismay when I went to do that, only to discover that my four remaining muffins were playing host to a very healthy colony of mold! What gives, zucchini muffins? You were a week old and I’d kept you in the nice cool refrigerator! How dare you repay me thus? Compost bin for you, ungrateful vegetable-based wretches.

I guess that explains why the muffins I’d eaten in the day or two before tasted a little weird. My immune system got a mini-workout there. For real, though, anyone know why my muffins went all moldy? I was pretty bummed about that.

Books, terrorists, and cupcakes.

2011-04-27T14:21:00.004-04:00

Surely you guys are aware that Will Potter, of Green is the New Red fame, has recently published his first (excellent) book? And, duh, you’re going to go out and buy it and politely ask him to sign it when he comes to your town, right? You really should.

Last week, Red and I went to our friendly locally owned bookstore, Atomic, for the Baltimore launch of Green is the New Red and a discussion of that most lighthearted topic, the intimidation and prosecution of environmental and animal-rights activists as terrorists. A slavering threat to the American way of life, we are.* I had read most of the book while I was in Charlotte, so I felt a little like Hermione having done all her reading before even arriving at Hogwarts. Only not at all, because 1) I didn’t get to marry Ron Weasley** and 2) Will talked about plenty of things not in the book, and did it in a really engaging way, so I learned a lot. I am not even going to attempt to break down the Green Scare for you, because he does it so well in the book and over on his blog. It is terrifying to realize that nonviolent activists have been convicted of terrorism and secreted away in illegal prison units, while people who have actually committed murder are excused as “angry” or “misunderstood.” Go educate yourselves!

On hand to make sure that no one’s outrage went down without a spoonful of sugar was Tamara of Brunie’s Bakery, the genius whose desserts Red and I have enjoyed many times. Tamara seems to have made it her mission in life to never show up without baked goods. Therefore, I have decided to always bring Tupperware with me to any event where I think she might be, because she made (nay, forced!) us take extras home with us. I was out of my mind on a wicked sugar high by the time we left.

[Bad blogger note: I didn’t get any pics, but you can see some on Atomic’s photostream. In you’re ever in town, show them some love! John Waters does!]

Then Will signed my book and told me he liked my “What Kind of Asshole Eats a Lamb?” shirt. I always love hearing that, because I only have two AR shirts and that one’s my favorite. I hope he enjoyed his visit to Bmore, and I have no doubt that much radical consciousness was raised during his evening here.

*Actually, yeah, kind of. And that’s a good thing, as Martha might say.
**I’m sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone, but the book’s been out for nearly four years. Do I need to tell you what happens in The Crying Game, too?

In the city of sisterly love….

2011-04-25T14:41:00.022-04:00

Like I told you (you didn’t forget, did you?!), I spent a few days chilling with my sis in her new hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. My mom came with, so we had a full-on female bonding fest. Of course, food played a major role, and I made sure to document everything. We ate so well, I barely needed the breakfast bars and other snacks I’d packed.

Our first day, we stopped for lunch at Zada Jane’s, aka the cutest place I’ve ever eaten. (That website is happening, I tell you!) It’s not all vegan, but I had an excellent hummus wrap and roasted potatoes.

I took the second half home and ate it for dinner. For dessert, we made espresso shortbread with an Irish whiskey glaze:

My sister ran me to the Harris Teeter so I could grab some Earth Balance and veganize my shortbread. It was epically delicious.

The next day, after a bit of museum-hopping, my mom and sis were hell-bent on stopping at this one place for a snack that I thought was kind of gross, so I won’t tell you about it. The joint was not particularly vegan-friendly, but the fries were yummy. Why am I telling you this? You know how good French fries are. You’re probably eating some right now. If so, I wish I were you.

As we left the restaurant, we saw this sweet pup lounging just inside the doorway of his person’s store, greeting prospective shoppers:

Then, it was on to the #2 reason for my visit (#1 being the family quality time, of course): Lebowski’s! I tell you, I have never been so psyched to visit a bar in my life, not even in college when this one place would let us in without ID (their incredible house beers were two for $3—it was sweet, I tell you). Anyway, Red and I are proud Achievers, so the opportunity to geek out over The Big Lebowski in a bar devoted to all things Dude was unmissable. I even painted my toenails green in homage to the one movie that Tara Reid can be proud of appearing in.

Of course, any Lebowski bar is going to specialize in White Russians, and this bar offers them with soy milk! But I ran into a problem: five different varieties of White Russians, only one Burnout. The horror! Luckily, my mom and sister ordered theirs with soy as well, so I could taste them. They were all delicious.

Oh, the food, you say? Well, it was a bar, so it’s not like I was expecting vegan paradise. Still, I got my snack itch scratched with no problem:

Southern-fried vegan noms! Fried pickles are kind of a food group down there.

Yeah, I ate a lot of hummus that week.

There was plenty more paraphernalia scattered around the bar—I put all the pics here so as not to turn this post into a Lebowski Fest (which would be okay with me, actually).

Our schedule was a little tight, and we had just gotten our happy hour on at Lebowski’s, but I couldn’t bear to miss out on Zizi’s, Charlotte’s only 100% vegan restaurant. We scurried back uptown and grabbed dinner, even though we weren’t the least bit hungry. This is where takeout is super-useful!

After a soak in the hot tub and few cocktails on the living room floor, we were ready for a late dinner:

Mac-n-cheese, wings, and collard greens

BBQ tofu

Veggie stir-fry

Can I just say, SO GOOD! Zizi’s is a tiny little treasure tucked into a strip mall, and I think that when a town has only one vegan restaurant, it’s inevitably some variation on the earthy-crunchy, Rasta/soul food theme. I love that, because it makes me feel like I’m at home, and Zizi’s more than delivered. My sister’s boyfriend declared my tofu better, but I didn’t notice him turning his nose up at that BBQ deliciousness in front of him, either.

There is a full-length version of this photo, but I’m far too shy to post it.

The next day, we tripped over to Asheville to tour the Biltmore, America’s largest home®. I am not even being sarcastic; they totally trademarked that shit. Anyway. On the rather long drive through the woods to the parking lot, we saw a few wild turkeys:

It amazes me how different they look from their domesticated, genetically engineered cousins. They can walk and peck with ease, not falling over from mutilated toes or too-heavy breasts. It was wonderful to see them.

We couldn’t take pictures inside the house, but you know. You can Google it.

All the look-don’t-touch action took it out of me, so I was ready for lunch. Plus, we were planning on a wine tasting, and it’s a bad idea for me to do those on an empty stomach. At Cedric’s, a little pub on the estate, our waiter paled when I told him I was vegan. I was momentarily put out, because I had asked about the hummus platter (there is always a hummus platter), and how can you fuck up hummus? Anyway, it was vegan, and so was the gazpacho that came with it. Really salty and good.

After lunch, we did indeed get to our wine tasting:

My mom is so cool.

The Biltmore wines were good, not great. Nothing I couldn’t live without, but things really got going on our way out of Asheville, when we stopped at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge.

Yes. You heard me. CHOCOLATE. LOUNGE. If you are a chocolate-loving vegan, I have found your heaven. They call themselves “a sacred space for chocophiles,” and they do not exaggerate. I wanted to die of a chocolate overdose and stay there forever, but I came back to tell you all about it. See how selfless I am? We shared a glass of cold drinking chocolate, which was made with coconut milk and was decadently rich. We also dug into their Theros Olive Oil Chocolate Cake, which has convinced me to consider olive oil a baking ingredient. I can’t believe I didn’t snarf it all myself, but my mom and sister will attest to my restraint. Anyone who whines about vegan baked goods being gross needs to be force-fed a piece of that cake. I will do the honors.

I couldn’t leave without souvenirs, so I bought an expensive chocolate bar and a box of their vegan truffles. It’s called the Buddha Collection. Isn’t that cute? Ahimsa, and whatnot. Okay, only the Buddhists got that one. The yogis, too. What up, my tribe!

The French Broad is also very eco-conscious, as I found this in the bathroom:

Oh my Goddess, what did we do then? Drove the two hours back to Charlotte, sank into the hot tub again, and passed out.

The next day, we kept it simple because I had to fly home that night. My sister had a surprise houseguest in the form of Rein, a friend’s adorable pup. So, we spoiled her with snuggles and took her to a mega-dog park that is basically a fenced-in dog trail in the woods. She loved it, and I loved meeting all the other dogs who happily bounced around.

Strange pup likes to sit on the floor.

We had one final stop on our way to the airport: the Diamond. My friend Kate, a Charlotte native, told me I had to eat there during my stay, so we added it to the agenda. It’s recently reopened and I don’t know all the drama behind its previous incarnations, but allow me to say that the Diamond made me one of the tastiest Greek salads I’ve ever had. The menu is definitely not tops on anyone’s vegan-friendly list, but our waiter hooked me up. Oh yeah, we ate more fried pickles, too. They are yummy. Then I got hemmed up by TSA for forgetting to empty my water bottle, but what’s air travel without a little bit of bureaucratic bullshit anymore?

Well, there you have it. My time in Charlotte, as told through food. I had a blast and enjoyed some much-needed sister time, but I was equally glad to come home to Red and Lucy. I wish you all many delicious vacations, wherever you go!

Hi and goodbye (but not for long)!

2011-04-13T14:27:00.005-04:00

Hello there, my darlings! This will be a quick post, just to show you a couple things we’ve eaten lately and to kiss you goodbye until later next week. I’m headed down to North Carolina to see my sister and partake in some Southern-style vegan goodness! I have a mile-long list of restaurants to visit, so I’ll try to hit as many as I can and take pictures for you. Three words: All-vegan takeout!

In the meantime, I have to admit that Red and I haven’t made that many interesting meals lately. You guys really don’t need to see any more pictures of spaghetti, and the risotto was very tasty, but it was out of a package. The Baja Fresh burritos and Chinese takeout probably don’t warrant a mention, either. Still, here’s something tasty:

Here we have Classic Black Bean & Veggie Chili from Appetite for Reduction. Confession time: I don’t know that I really consider this “chili” since it’s not thick enough to scoop up with a tortilla chip. It reminded me and Red of posole without the hominy. However, we love posole, so it worked out. As you see, I canceled out almost all the low-fat benefits by piling on the avocado slices. Avocado makes everything better.

We also made AFR’s Veggie Potpie Stew. We may almost be finished with stew season, which is a delight because I am sick as hell of gray, rainy weather. I want to be warm, dammit! This stew was a nice distraction, though. It was our first time cooking with yellow split peas, and I am pleased to have added a new legume to my repertoire. Isa is not kidding when she says it thickens up—this surpasses what I’d call fork stew and is basically yummy vegetables in yummy gravy. Liz at Cooking the Vegan Books recommends adding a splash of Worcestershire sauce, and I think that is a brilliant idea. Another reason she is cooler than I am is that she got her act together to make biscuits to go with it. I just had toast.

As you see, it also makes a great wrap! Versatile stew for the win! I think I am going to start wrapping everything now. Wraps are so much fun.

This is Southwest Roasted Asparagus and Corn from 30-Minute Vegan. This was so easy and tasty! Chop, toss, oven. Red bravely diced the jalapeño without wearing gloves, which is more than I can do. We scooped it up with tortilla chips for the perfect quick, light dinner.

That’s it for today! Keep an eye out for my North Carolina roundup in the next week or so. See you soon!

In which I pwn teh interwebz.

2011-03-29T14:11:00.003-04:00

Okay, maybe I exaggerate slightly. But La Burnout and her man do get a little blogular love from Animal Rights & AntiOppression, which is one of my very favorite websites. The divine Deb, who hung out with us at Poplar Spring last weekend, was so intrigued about Open the Cages Alliance’s Vegan Pledge Program that she asked to interview me and Red for AR&AO! We couldn’t accept fast enough.

My half of the interview is here, and Red’s is here. I loved thinking about Deb’s questions and putting my experience with the VPP into words (and not only the mumbly, made-up words I use at home). While you’re over there, spend a little time browsing AR&AO’s other articles. A smarter, more compassionate group of writers I have never found, and their commitment to combating injustice in all its forms is a breath of fresh air in the progressive blogosphere. I’m thrilled to be in such august company. Thank you, Deb and AR&AO!

This ‘n that.

2011-03-28T14:27:00.007-04:00

Apologies for the half-assed nature of this post, darlings. Since I’ve taken pictures of food we’ve made recently, I feel obligated to share them with you, my lack of photography skills be damned. Enjoy!

First off, three meals from Appetite for Reduction:

Smoky Tempeh & Greens Stew is a great example of a dish that I didn’t think would work, but it does. Splendidly. I was a little skeptical of the tomato base (wouldn’t it be like pasta sauce?) and lima beans (childhood dinnertime traumas), but when everything gets together, it’s party time. The greens are dealer’s choice, so we used kale. This is savory and satisfying, and prompted at least one, “Oooh, that smells amazing!” from a coworker. Cue impromptu tempeh lesson.

We don’t usually make multi-part meals, but this time we did, following Isa’s suggestions for complementary dishes. Here we have Broiled Blackened Tofu, Pineapple Collards, and Butternut Coconut Rice. The rice is creamy and satisfying enough to be a meal on its own, and the tofu is very tasty (I could have left it in the oven for another few minutes, but the broiler makes me paranoid). As for the collards—I love ‘em, and any dish that lets me eat pineapple out of the can while I cook is a winner. (P.S. You know I saved the leftover juice and drank it with some vodka later.)

“Are you sure you want that?” I asked Red when he chose Tempeh Helper for dinner. More accurately, I wasn’t sure I wanted it; nooch sauces tend to taste less like cheese and more like old socks, so I just avoid them. But we made it anyway, and lo and behold, it was yummy! So easy, too. I get what Isa was going for—that out-of-a-box weeknight goodness, with the powdered sauce packet that will still be good a hundred years from now and is probably flammable. Next time, we’ll add more peas. Or will that ruin the nostalgia factor?

From Vegan with a Vengeance:

Red wanted breakfast for dinner, so we made Fronch Toast and Tempeh Bacon. He has cemented his place in our household as tempeh bacon-slicer, because he gets the pieces perfectly thin and even in a way that I can never hope to. Knife skills, he haz them. And thin is definitely the way to go with tempeh bacon—the thinner the better, because then you get lovely little crispy strips of savory smokiness. Usually we make our Fronch Toast with sandwich bread, but this time we did it Isa’s way and used a baguette. Let me tell you: It’s tasty, but a pain in the ass to eat. Regular bread is easier to slice. If we never do the baguette thing again, I won’t miss it.

And finally, from 30-Minute Vegan:

This is the Monk Bowl, and it is super-delicious in that “I’m so healthy” way. Most of the 30-Minute Vegan recipes are like that, actually. I’ve never been good at baking tofu, but I tried it again this time, and it came out very well. It will never get as crispy as pan-fried tofu, but whatever, it’s less fat and much less work. To speed things up, we deployed some frozen edamame and a bigass bag of mixed Asian veggies from Costco. (I know, I know, Costco is evil and those vegetables sure as shit weren’t organic.) Topped with a splash of tamari, the Monk Bowl is good eating, even if it does have “I’m a damn hippie” written all over it.

Thanks for helping me clear out my camera! I’d promise you a more socially relevant post soon, but we all know it would just be pictures of Lucy and maybe some story about how I scandalized my husband by scooping mold out of the applesauce jar because the rest of it was still totally edible.

Vegans invade Poplar Spring!

2011-03-25T09:00:00.010-04:00

As I’ve told you before, Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary may be my favorite place in the world. I’m so blessed to live within driving distance of such a peaceful, nurturing spot. This weekend, Red and I had the chance to visit again, as part of the first-ever Baltimore Vegan Pledge Program, organized by Open the Cages Alliance. The program, which pairs newbie vegans with mentors for a month of potlucks, social events, and discussions, is the first of its kind here, and Red and I were happy to take part. Once we learned that a Poplar Spring trip was in the offing, though, that really sealed the deal. I had planned to write about the program once it ended (this weekend is the wrap party), but I have so many animal pictures to show you!

Charlotte (top) and Lily (bottom) are Holsteins. Charlotte is Lily’s surrogate mom.

Heidi saved herself from death by twice refusing to get on the slaughter truck, then jumping through a barn window. When the Poplar Spring truck arrived to take her to her new home, she happily climbed on board.

Here’s Dexter, who took a bite out of me back in November. Isn’t he handsome? I think that’s Hal munching contentedly, though it could be newbie mule Sal.

Julio is one of the newest piglets. He’s grown so much since I saw him and his sisters in November! All three are crazy smart—watch Deb’s video of them learning to sit! Not sure who’s chillaxing back there—Timmy?

Tiny Alina is a Seabright hen, and she’s fully grown. It was very nice of her to let me cuddle her.

Lenny and his brother were rescued as newborns from a small family farm. They had been left to die because male goats are useless for cheese-making, which is how this farm made their money. I hereby call bullshit on that “We’re a happy family farm, we care only about our animals” myth.

Malcolm mugs for the camera.

I totally got to first base with a baby goat. Yeah, I said it.

More pics are here. I think I’m breaking up with Flickr because I don’t feel like paying for a pro subscription. Google practically owns my ass anyway, so I might as well go with Picasa and enjoy the extra storage space.

It was wonderful to meet Poplar Spring’s founders, Terry and Dave, and learn about how they started the sanctuary. They are truly amazing people. Even better, we got to hang out with Deb. Go read her recap from the afternoon!

I’m so thankful every time I get to visit the sanctuary and see animals the way they’re meant to be—happy and free. This time, I got to bring a tiny bit of Poplar Spring home with me in the form of a wall calendar with photos by Deb. It’s hanging next to my desk at work, so whenever I start feeling bitchy or glum, I can glance over and remember what really matters, and that everyone deserves sanctuary.

Cookies for breakfast? Yes, please!

2011-03-16T15:05:00.007-04:00

Remember when I told you about my love for Fruity Oaty Bars? I still love them (and so does my mom! Go Mom!), but have recently explored some of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar’s other breakfasty options. Check it out:

Cranberries and walnuts are pretty much the best ever.

These are Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies, and, well, there you go. No explanation necessary. But if you’re not into bananas, fear not. These are not banana-licious at all. All the banana really does is bind the cookies nicely, and offer some of that delicious potassium. These are wonderful for breakfast: hearty and chewy and lightly sweetened. I ran the recipe through a nutritional-info calculator (there are plenty online; I used SparkPeople’s, which worked well except for not having agave nectar in the database), deciding on two cookies as a good breakfast serving, and was pleased with the results.

Next, I tried Apple Walnut Softies. You’ll probably make them more efficiently than I did, because I had the heat too low and my applesauce took twice as long to cook down as it should have. Oh well, next time I’ll know to crank that sucker up and dodge molten droplets of spitting, steaming applesauce. Anyway, once the applesauce was reduced and cooled, the cookies came together in a snap. The apple flavor is not very strong—again, it works more as a binder and liquid than anything else. They tasted almost like light molasses cookies, and you know how I love a molasses cookie. While delicious, these proved to not be the best choice for breakfast. Two cookies didn’t keep me full, and munching cookies all morning didn’t seem wise. Had they included something bulkier, like oatmeal, I think they would have been more satisfying. Still, I’ve been happily snacking on them just the same. If you want to bake something sweet for a loved one who’s trying to do the healthy-living thing, these would be received with delight.

Back to the banana cookies it was, but I was feeling lazy—yes, too lazy even for drop cookies, which is saying something. So, I mixed up the dough and spread it (smooshed it, really) in a pan, reasoning that even if it was a colossal failure, what the hell, I’d eat them anyway. Since I was feeling experimental, I only used one-third of the white flour called for, and made up the other two-thirds with spelt flour. As you can see, it was not a colossal failure, and these cookies work brilliantly as bars! I cut out 12 bars (each bar = 2 drop cookies) and have been trying to eat them before Red can spirit them away to his office. Laziness, thy name is breakfast bars.

When I bought VCIYCJ from the anarchists, I had no idea it would be worth its weight in gold. Delicious, cookie-flavored gold. For breakfast, and any other time of day.

Work people will eat anything.

2011-03-14T14:49:00.006-04:00

That, dear readers, is a fact of life I have seen borne out time and again. Indian takeout that spent a tepid evening being warmed over Sterno? Sad-assed fruit salad left to disintegrate in its own juices? Birthday cake the texture of Styrofoam, the frosting falling off like chunks of drywall? I’ve seen the stampede occasioned by the office-wide email heralding free food. You have too.

Yet, despite the fact that my job is not the paradise I was promised all those years ago when I was struggling with long division, I do like my colleagues. And so when the sign-up sheet to bring snacks to our weekly Friday meeting came around, I picked a date and started planning. The fact that I can only rarely eat what they bring (thank you for the bunch of grapes, lady from two weeks ago!) doesn’t mean I shouldn’t knock their socks off when it’s my turn.

And so I planned. Oh, how I planned. Red can tell you how I nagged him about which recipes to pick. “Well, scones would be good, but I’ve never made scones before, and what if they don’t come out? Do I need those paper things for the muffins? If I do the blueberry coffee cake, can I have fruit in something else, or is that too much fruit? Should I make something with chocolate? What if I don’t make enough for everyone? What if they hate it?”

“They won’t hate it,” he assured me.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, they did not hate it. Angels sang, rainbows sprouted over the conference room door, and everyone got a happy sugar high first thing in the morning. Here’s how I did it:

That is Veganomicon’s Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake. This is probably the easiest cake you will ever make, and it is certainly one of the tastiest. Slicing it was a bit of a pain, but Red saved the day with his skillful deployment of our bread knife. It’s very moist and a bit crumbly, but that’s part of the fun. I ran out of unsweetened coconut and had to make up the difference with sweetened, but we all know that feeding skeptical omnis requires extra fat and sugar. The full-fat coconut milk surely did the trick, as well. I am not ashamed to tell you that I tried to lick the inside of the empty can.

Here we have Blueberry Coffee Cake from Almost Vegan. I’ve been making this for years, and it’s always fantastic. I’ve actually begun halving the recipe, because it really does make a lot, but I put extra blueberries in. So, half the cake, all the berries! Win-win. The streusel-y topping is perfectly sweet and crunchy.

Finally, I made the Cranberry Orange Nut Muffins from Vegan Brunch. I was very nervous, because I can’t remember the last time I baked muffins and I was afraid they’d explode in the oven or something. I did have a brief “oh shit” moment when I realized that I’d used dried cranberries instead of fresh and worried that I’d ruined the muffins completely, but they were more resilient than my reading-comprehension fail. They were fabulous, and while I wish I’d gotten to nibble more than one, I’m sure I’ll make them again soon. I learned two things from baking these: 1) the batter smells exactly like amaretto and orange juice, which is one of my favorite drinks, and 2) your muffins get fluffier the longer you let the batter sit. It’s because the gluten relaxes, yo. Next time I’ll take a 15-minute break between mixing and baking, but for my first vegan muffins, I was impressed with myself.

After all that work and a few other close calls (emergency baking-powder run, scraping the bottom of the sugar jar), I was more than gratified by how much my coworkers enjoyed everything. I didn’t explicitly mention the vegan part, but the few who already knew were excited and curious, and the ones who didn’t seemed happy to be eating something other than, you know, doughnuts again. Even the guy who cracks on me about my “bird food” copped to being pleasantly surprised. Oh yes, he took seconds back to his office.

As of today, three coworkers have asked for the recipes. Vegan domination continues!

Finally, brownies.

2011-03-10T14:26:00.006-05:00

Remember when I told you how I got drunk and tried to bake brownies, only I didn’t have any of the ingredients, so I made those shitty peanut butter cookies instead? Yeah? Well, I finally got my chocolate-craving ass to the store for brownie fixings. Let me tell you, it was worth the wait.

Eat me!

The recipe makes 12 brownies; I took this after giving four to Red’s folks.

These are Chocolate Chip Deluxe Brownies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. The photos may not look like much, but that’s because their sheer mega-awesomeness defies any feeble attempt to capture it for posterity. Indeed, I soon regretted giving any to my in-laws and began scheming for ways to steal them back.

Darlings, I have not baked brownies for years, and even then, they were the boxed kind. These brownies are…I don’t have the word. Delicious? Amazing? Orgasmic? Yes, yes, and yes, but I’ve applied all those to foods before. These are something else. They are scrumtrulescent. (My heart breaks that I can’t embed that, but I beg of you, click through. A baby panda will cry if you don’t.)

Even my husband, who likes chocolate but does not share my slavish devotion to gooey, rich, dark confections, adored these. My chocoholic dad-in-law raved about them. Here’s one à la mode with Soy Delicious Dulce de Leche ice cream:

Melty.

These brownies are so easy to whip up that it’s only by dint of sheer willpower that I haven’t made them every weekend since. Though they are small, resist the temptation to eat more than one at a sitting. These are meant to be savored, one soft and warm bite at a time, and melted chocolate licked off fingertips (by whoever you choose, as long as it’s not your dog. Chocolate’s bad for them, you know).

Okay, that took a turn for the smutty, didn’t it? Whatever, chocolate does that to me. There, my secret shame is revealed. Brownie porn for everyone!

Cooking under the influence.

2011-02-18T15:18:00.006-05:00

Red was away for work this week, so once again I was left to entertain myself. I didn’t burn the house down, but I did decide to combine two activities that are usually better done solo: cooking and boozing.

On the menu was Appetite for Reduction’s Potato-Spinach Curry. But first, allow me to issue a brief PSA: Finish all your chopping before you start drinking. Safety first, darlings.

What was I drinking, you ask? Oh, I had a few bottles of Sam Adams in the fridge. My girl Liz came over the other night, and we went out for sushi and then came back for some frosty adult beverages. West Coast, do you have the deliciousness that is Sam Adams? You probably do, but I don’t want to fall into the East-Coast trap of thinking we’re the center of the known universe. Anyway, it’s mighty fine beer and I enjoyed it as I cooked.

This is a delicious curry that comes together very easily. As Isa notes, it’s extra-fun because you get to pop the mustard seeds at the beginning. Dodging the little bastards as they tried to escape the pot challenged my coordination, but it does that even without an assist from my friend Sam. Once you manage to corral your mustard seeds (now toasty and even more delicious), the rest is a snap. What am I telling you this for? You’ve probably made hundreds of curries.

I did tweak the recipe a little. It called for a pound of frozen spinach, but we only had a 10-oz. bag in the freezer. So I used that, then added a few handfuls of fresh baby spinach. The hippie grocery only had russet potatoes (no Yukon gold), but I couldn’t tell the difference. And I have an irrational dislike of chopping tomatoes, so I used a 14-oz. can instead of the two fresh tomatoes listed. Also, I had a few scraps of tofu hanging around from another recipe, so I added those too. Still, for all that, I think the finished product was pretty close to the original.

While the curry was simmering, it occurred to me that what I really wanted was chocolate. I wanted chocolate bad. I started scouring cookbooks and cupboards to see if I had enough of anything to make brownies, or half-assed cookies, or anything. Surprise: I didn’t. No chocolate chips, and only a measly quarter-cup of cocoa powder. Oh, the humanity. I had a fresh chocolate bar in the fridge, but I wasn’t feeling creative enough to smash it into chips or grind it into powder—besides, we all know that would have been a really bad idea. And I was psyched to get baking.

I did, however, have plenty of peanut butter. Jars full of it. Therefore, I would have peanut butter cookies. Red called me at that point, and I (drunkenly) hollered that there would be peanut butter cookies when he came home. I imagine that his dining companions were amused.

I ate a little bit of the curry (trying to save room for the cookies-to-be), then switched to wine. It seemed classier. I gathered the ingredients for Vegan with a Vengeance’s Crispy Peanut Butter Cookies and got to work. With only eight ingredients, how hard could it be? Clearly, this recipe was made with drunk bakers in mind.

I’m gonna cut to the chase: Sweet God Almighty, what a horrible failure these cookies were. I know you’re thinking, “Of course they sucked, you stupid lush. You probably added vinegar instead of oil.” No, I swear to you, it wasn’t me. I did everything right. I hopped on the PPK to check it out, and I am far from the only person to have had piss-poor results with these cookies.

After 12 minutes in the oven, I checked them. Too soft. Three more minutes. Still too soft. Three more. Not working. Grumpily, I set the timer for a final five minutes, determining that those cookies would be done or there would be hell to pay. After a grand total of twice the recommended baking time, they were still mushy and crumbly—the mere touch of a spatula made them fall apart. Their bottoms were also mildly scorched. I didn’t bother transferring them to the rack to cool, but after a few minutes, I took a nibble of one anyway.

It wasn’t good. Still, my anticipation had been building for a few hours, and I really wanted dessert. I placed three of the misbegotten cookies into a bowl, then poured chocolate syrup over them in an attempt to salvage a sugar high.

It will not surprise you to learn that the chocolate syrup resented being dragged into this atrocity, and refused to help the cookies taste better. I sadly sipped my wine and texted Red to say that both Leonard Nimoy and Stephen Root had cameos on TNG that evening. (Aside: I adore them both, and I think Nimoy looks like he’d give an excellent hug, but I find myself channeling Root’s Office Space character Milton more often than I do Mr. Spock. I’m working on it.)

In a last gasp at optimism, I put the cookies in the fridge, hoping that they’d firm up overnight and that my taste buds would recover from any booze-related trauma. When I woke up, the cookies would be magically delicious.

They weren’t. They found their end in the compost bin. I was crestfallen.

However, this weekend I plan to indulge in a fit of brownie baking like no other. I will not be denied again! I think I’ll bake sober this time, though.

Stuff we’ve eaten lately.

2011-02-10T14:14:00.006-05:00

While Red and I continue to nibble away on the vat of buffalo tofu we made over the weekend, here are some other things we’ve eaten over the last week or so:

This here’s a nice minestrone. I have a recipe I printed from some website a few years ago and veganized, but you don’t really need one. I like to think of minestrone as “Italian leftover soup,” because that’s basically what it is. Got some sad veggies languishing in that Crisper drawer? Chop ‘em up and throw ‘em in a pot with a can of beans, a can of tomatoes, a few cups of broth, a handful of small pasta, and a few shakes of Italian seasoning. When the pasta’s ready, chow down. Because my inner child demanded to be indulged, we used ABC pasta this time. I did not torment Red by insisting that we play Scrabble with our soup noodles.

I made a double batch of seitan last week. Some went into Appetite for Reduction’s Portobello Peppersteak Stew, which is delicious but not at all photogenic, so I didn’t bother with a picture. (It is incredible though, so you should make it.) Red sliced up the rest and we made barbecue seitan! This is one of his favorites. I sautéed the seitan for a few minutes in our biggest cast-iron skillet, then poured a bottle of Organicville Tangy BBQ Sauce over it and let it simmer until we got too hungry and had to eat it. Because nothing accompanies barbecue like cornbread, I made Cornbread Biscuits from Vegan Brunch. They were possibly even easier than regular cornbread, and very tasty. Them’s frozen green beans up there, if you’re keeping track.

This is Quinoa, White Bean, and Kale Stew from Appetite for Reduction. Isn’t it pretty? I love all the colors. It is a total color-texture extravaganza. This stew has damn near everything in it—kale, potatoes, carrots, quinoa, beans, parsnips, leeks, a bunch of spices, and on and on—but it comes together very quickly. I know I mentioned parsnips and they are kind of creepy to some people, looking like albino carrots like they do, but believe me, you won’t even notice them. They blend right in with the potatoes and you can’t tell the difference. I have examined spoonfuls of this stew, looking for something identifiably parsnip, and I haven’t found it yet. You should also know that the quinoa soaks up the broth like crazy, so after a night in the fridge, your stew becomes less stewish and more like a delicious amalgamation of veggies and grains that you need to eat with a spoon. It’s doesn’t bother me at all, but if you want to preserve your solid-to-liquid ratio, you might be SOL unless you eat the entire vat at once.

Last night, we made Pasta con Broccoli, also courtesy of AFR. It’s pretty obvious what this is, right? We cheaped out and used frozen broccoli, so it was extra-quick. Red was a little skeptical of a pasta dish that didn’t have an accompanying sauce, but he was pleasantly surprised. I was surprised by how filling it was—I didn’t expect that plain old noodles and broccoli would leave me satisfied for more than an hour or two. It is a garlicky delight that you could easily change up with whatever veggies in your fridge or freezer crave the loving embrace of pasta.

So there you have it. We’ve noticed that although we’ve loved everything from AFR so far, we seem to always end up with one less serving than Isa suggests. This isn’t really a problem for us—that pasta dish was supposed to make four servings at 300 calories each, so even if Red and I each snarfed down half the pan, that still would have been only 600 calories apiece for dinner—but maybe you care more about calories than we do. Anyway, all the AFR recipes have been so easy and tasty, three servings instead of four (or seven instead of eight) is totally justifiable.

Stain THIS.

2011-02-09T18:23:00.003-05:00

For all the time I spend in the kitchen, I am not one to be precious about my cookware. One of the best frying pans I ever had came from humble thrift-store beginnings to help me create many satisfying meals. (I think my sister has it now, so the cycle continues.) Last year, my mom gave me her cast-iron skillets, and you would have thought the Publisher’s Clearing House people showed up at my door with their balloons and giant check. I’m cool with hand-me-downs, is what I’m saying.

However, even though Red had a very serviceable set of pots and pans when I moved in, they were never meant to last forever. The nonstick stuff is flaking off. They’re all scratched. I was happy cooking with them, but we occasionally talked about what we wanted to replace them with. We ultimately decided that we didn’t want to go the nonstick route, as that leaches Goddess knows what horrendous chemicals into your food, and we didn’t want anything cheap. Whatever we bought would last.

Enter stainless steel.

We decided fairly quickly that we wanted to go stainless, but holy cats, there are a lot of stainless cookware sets out there. Some we could afford; others (I’m lookin’ at you, All-Clad) we most definitely couldn’t. After a few days of researching, we lucked into a gorgeous set of Cuisinart Multi-Clad Pro. The Amazon reviews, plus this in-depth comparison and recommendation, convinced me to whip out the old credit card and take the plunge. And I am so glad we did.

These babies are awesome, y’all. They are most definitely high-quality. They’re nicely weighted—no flimsy pans here. They heat evenly and the few meals we’ve made with them so far have been great. The handles stay cool (lids don’t). Pouring is easy. Cleanup is just as easy as nonstick. They fit in our cabinets. The lids have a mirror finish, so when I peek into a pot of simmering soup, I can smile at my reflection.

I think I’m in love.

How to get the pretzel you want.

2011-02-08T13:32:00.003-05:00

Pre-Puppy Bowl, Red and I found ourselves at the mall. He needed a cell phone case and I was trying to take advantage of a sale on pants. I also wanted a big soft pretzel, because it only seemed fitting to start my day of junk food off right.

Auntie Anne’s has my heart because right there on their website, for all to see, is their Vegan Guide. I think I danced for joy at my desk when I found it. With that, I decided to be uncomplicated in my pretzel desire and order an original sans butter.

The gentleman taking my order asked if I was allergic. Without thinking, I said, “I’m vegan. It’s an ethical allergy.”* To my surprise, he not only got it, he cracked up laughing. “I love that!” he exclaimed. It took a few minutes for my dairy-free pretzel to be ready, but when it was, it was hot and fresh from the oven. No languishing under heat lamps for my pretzel, no sir.

Let this be a lesson to you, my darlings. Never be afraid to ask for what you want, and don’t dumb it down for anyone. You deserve the very best pretzel.

Nommy pretzels ripped from EV Freebies.

*Feel free to use this! I stole it from some brilliant soul on the PPK.

Puppy Bowl gluttony.

2011-02-07T12:48:00.009-05:00

Unless you live under a rock on the moon, you know that yesterday transpired one of the most legendary athletic events of our time. I speak, of course, of Puppy Bowl VII.

If you’ve somehow managed to never experience the amazing cuteness and guileless joy that is Puppy Bowl, hie thee to that link up there and watch the recaps immediately. The suckiest of days can be brightened by puppies rolling and tackling and chewing on stuffed footballs (and, it must be said, occasionally on each other). If you fancy felines, the Kitty Halftime Show is a spectacle all its own. The chicken cheerleaders looked kind of bored and the hamsters piloting the blimp weren’t manning their controls very diligently, but luckily all disasters were averted.

Such a hotly anticipated sporting event calls for plenty of nutrition-optional snacks, am I right? Puppy Bowl is the one day a year when I deep-fry things. (I initially mistyped that as “deep-fry Tings,” and I don’t know about you, but deep-fried Tings might just kill me with awesome). Our game-day standby is buffalo tofu, but this year we decided to add to the fun with Hell Yeah It’s Vegan!’s mozzarella sticks.

I was quite nervous about the mozzarella sticks, because vegan cheese can be fickle even when superheated oil is not involved. Here’s me, mid-preparation, batter-covered Lady Gaga hands and all:

Ready for freezing (a crucial pre-frying step):

Red handled the frying while I hovered nearby. (Note: We used peanut oil, and I am a total convert now. It beats the hell out of canola oil for all your high-heat endeavors.) Despite my fears, HYIV’s recipe worked exactly as promised, and the rewards were reaped with a generous side of spaghetti sauce (out of a jar, because what else did you think?):

They were really good! Of course, deep-fried Styrofoam would probably taste good, but I quite enjoyed my vegan mozzarella sticks. They held together very well and were appropriately gooey, if only for a minute or two. They firm up quickly, as HYIV notes, but if you’re down for DIYing your own greasy diner food, these are right up your alley.

The buffalo tofu was less fraught, because we’ve made that before. We decided to go for the gold and make two pounds this year, and that almost did me in. It took a while, probably about an hour, to fry all of it. I was tired of battering by that point, and Red was tired of frying. It was all worth it, though:

This tofu is always delicious, with a nice crispy coating and messy sauce. Why am I trying to sell you on these? Just go make them. I have decided that buffalo sauce on anything is never wrong, and I never even liked buffalo wings, so there. We have so much left over, I’ll be snacking on it all week.

Red tried to be the healthy one by adding dippable veggies to his feast:

I didn’t even bother. We settled in to scarf our noms and squee over the puppies. This year, there were two adorable pittie contenders! Way to go, Animal Planet, for including bully pups and promoting their adoption.

This little lover is Thirteen, a pit mix from Ohio. Look at those ears! And that perfect little eyepatch! Photo courtesy of Animal Planet.

Sweet Sadie is an APBT from Connecticut. I love brindle pups! Photo courtesy of Animal Planet.

Of course, I also nibbled some Tings during the second half. I didn’t take a picture of them, though. Once the game ended, it started all over again in a never-ending loop of cuteness. Calorifically sated, I curled up in the recliner to doze off to puppy yaps and referee whistles (and David Duchovny’s wonderful voice during the Pedigree commercials) while Lucy, true to form, spazzed at the sight of a stinkbug in the dining room. If only every Sunday was this great.

Fruity oaty awesome, or how I learned to stop worrying and love parchment paper.

2011-02-01T13:50:00.002-05:00

I am a breakfast kinda girl. I have to be, because without it I either throw up or pass out. While either of those can be a serviceable ending to a hella fun evening, I prefer to start my mornings off with a little less excitement.

Anyway, breakfast. Cereal and PBJ on toast are both delicious options, but I found myself getting bored. I wanted an easy breakfast that was filling yet tasty and didn’t involve hauling out the pots and pans at 6:00 am. Imagine my delight when my newly acquired Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar featured an entire chapter full of healthy, won’t-give-you-a-sugar-high cookies!

I settled on making Fruity Oaty Bars, and they did not disappoint. I was a little leery at first, because the recipe calls for both brown rice syrup and barley malt syrup, but the bars aren’t too sweet at all (or sticky, which is a problem with some granola bars). They don’t jack up my blood sugar, either. The benefits of using unrefined sugar, represent. They were very easy to make, with the only minor annoyance being chopping the dried apples. But whatever, you’re probably tougher than I am and don’t mind hacking through desiccated fruit. After that, it’s a veritable orgy of mixing and smushing and squishing everything into a baking pan before shoving it into the oven and digging oatmeal out from under your fingernails. Half an hour or so later, you have 16 delicious little breakfasts waiting for you.

What’s in here? Apples, cranberries, ground flax, sesame seeds, pepitas, oats, cinnamon....

For my first batch, I stuck close to the recipe and only used apples and cranberries, which seemed like a safe combo. The second time around, I found some stray dried blueberries, maybe a quarter-cup, and tossed those in as well. They added a nice little something, so if you like blueberries, go for it. I’m sure they’d be extra-awesome with chocolate chips, but that might skew away from the wholesome aspect.

Here’s where my newfound obsession with parchment paper comes in. For batch #1, I lined the pan with my old standby, aluminum foil. It worked fine. I always thought that parchment paper was an extravagance I didn’t need; after all, what could it possibly do that foil couldn’t do better and, well, shinier? I like shiny. Ask my husband. Still, we ended up buying parchment paper out of curiosity and I gave it a try with batch #2. You probably already know this, my lovelies, but it is SO WORTH IT. You don’t have to grease anything. It’s amazing. It’s so easy. It’s even compostable. Once your bars have cooled, just lift that paper out of there and you’re good to go. Parchment paper, I love you. I even suspect that I can reuse you after baking non-greasy cookies, like dog treats.

Um, so evidently I have kind of a thing for parchment paper now, but you’ve always known I was a little weird. These tasty little granola bars are incredible, and you should make them. (Hint: Search on Google Books. Maybe that’s cheating, I don’t know. Take it up with Google.) I thought a single bar wouldn’t fill me up, but it totally does. I’ve given the recipe to two omni coworkers, both of whom are stoked to try them.

Best of all, they are perfect with coffee. Good morning, indeed.

Lazy snow day.

2011-01-31T14:17:00.005-05:00

Lucy and I had a snow day on Thursday. It was awesome, because I spent 75% of the day in my pajamas watching TV (there was an American Gothic marathon on, and I lucked into some Buffy and X-Files as well), and she hung out on the couch. She’s been dying to go out, though, so I managed to close off our deck so she could have some fresh air:

Not to be confused with Longcat.

She tolerates her coat. It’s the third one, so she better—she nearly destroyed the other two, which were made of cheaper stuff. This one’s L.L. Bean, and so far we’ve got no complaints.

Eventually, all that strenuous TV-watching got me hungry. The night before, I’d made dosadillas, and they are totally a gift that keeps on giving. Buy a pack of tortillas, make your filling, and you’ve got a 5-minute meal whenever you want it. Lately, I’ve been enjoying them with a bit of sour cream on top. We have Tofutti in the fridge (that stuff lasts forever—I had forgotten all about it), but you can use whatever. I won’t judge you.

Om nom nom, dosadilla will eat your face!

Here’s a picture of a nice salad I made last week. It’s only spinach, cucumber, and kalamata olives with some random vinaigrette on top, but it was incredible. The perfect pre-yoga dinner.

And that’s it for now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you about baking granola bars. You’d like to hear about that, wouldn’t you?

Noms of late.

2011-01-25T14:39:00.007-05:00

Here’s a random food post for you long-suffering readers. Still grooving on Appetite for Reduction, so that’s what we’ve been eating lately:

This is Ginger Bok Choy & Soba with some cubed tofu. It was really good, except for the part where soba noodles cost four times as much as regular noodles. Eff that, I say. I buy my pasta at Costco, even the whole-wheat stuff. Seriously though, the ginger adds a nice zip to this dish and the noodles are very comforting.

Arabian Lentil & Rice Soup may be my favorite soup yet from this book. Red compared it to chicken noodle, and it does have that homey, snow-day appeal without, you know, the carcass. We added extra carrots, because carrots rock. The rice soaks up the liquid after it sits awhile, but I just added a little extra water when I packed the leftovers for lunch and everything was aces.

We desperately need bowls that aren’t stark white.

Applesauce Soup! Okay, not really, but that’s what I’m calling it. This is Butternut-Apple Soup, and it is like Thanksgiving in a bowl. We had to hack this one a bit, as our hippie grocery was out of butternut squash. We bought three small acorn squashes instead, reasoning that it was a pretty fair substitution. The recipe calls for dicing the squash and adding it to the pot, but if you’ve ever tried to peel an acorn squash, you’ll know why I decided to roast them and then scoop the cooked flesh out instead. It worked like awesome. It gets pureed anyway, so where’s the harm? It tastes pretty good, too—a little sweet for me, but it all balances out. This is the kind of thing I would serve to guests at a fancy holiday party, with a little sprig of fresh rosemary on top. Like the lentil-rice soup, it thickens in the fridge, but that just means you’ll spill a little less.

And here, my darlings, is what I made last night:

This gorgeous specimen is Cauliflower Pesto Soup, and yes, I chiffonaded that basil and artfully arranged that pine nut just for the photo. One of my coworkers sent me this recipe that appeared in the Washington Post, which is basically the exact same thing. The fine print says that it’s adapted from the Appetite for Reduction recipe, but the only change I can see is the amount of pine nuts, and those are optional anyway. Oh, and a little extra olive oil, which the soup totally does not need. So, I wouldn’t really call that adapted, more like ripped off. Anyway, I made it Isa’s way because I don’t suck. And the soup is divine. So easy and so good for you, but luscious with basil and garlic. My basil lives at my in-laws’ house because they get all the sunlight that we don’t, and the basil was pretty pathetic when it lived here. Under my mom-in-law’s care, it’s perked right up. I love fresh basil.

I ate my soup with a side of this:

Sad puppy face is because Red is away for work this week. Lucy and I are both despondently lounging in front of the TV, nuzzling each other for comfort. God, I’m so dramatic. He’ll be back late Friday. Until then, the house will be quiet and the fridge will runneth over as I’ll have no one to help me eat everything.

Speaking of Lucy, she is still on activity restriction, but she had her stitches out over the weekend. The vet thinks she may have injured a tendon as she seems unable to retract one of her toes. This doesn’t hurt her and doesn’t affect how she moves; it just means that one of her toes sort of magically grew a couple centimeters. Leave it to Lucy, y’all.

Queen Puppyface: In stitches, yet again.

2011-01-18T16:39:00.005-05:00

There was suckage in Casa Burnout last week, but let me assure you that it all turned out fine.

Wednesday was a regular day, albeit one that was a little extra aggravating on the work side of things. I got home, made stir-fry with Red (side note: peanut oil really is better for crisping up tofu), and chilled out. Oh, it was peaceful and I was happy. La di dah.

Then Lucy came in from outside tracking blood all over the floor.

Now, this has happened twice before, so my panic instinct has been blunted. The sight of blood doesn’t faze me, and she didn’t seem distressed, so I got the bag of medical junk from the bathroom and we went to work. Red located her cut (a small one on one of her rear legs, just above her paw), then held her while I cleaned it with peroxide and wrapped it up. It kept bleeding, so we re-bandaged it with extra gauze. That seemed to do the trick, so we settled her on a blanket and loved on her for a while:

Woe, woe, woe, all is woe....

She really is a good girl about having her injuries dressed. She didn’t snap or growl at us, even though I’m sure we hurt her. She’s so gentle and sweet-tempered and I always feel bad when I have to break out the peroxide and medical tape.

Anyway, we were having a fine time down there on the living room floor when OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU BLEEDING LUCY PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP BLEEDING.

Our amateur wound-dressing efforts had failed, and how. At this point, the decision was made to head for the emergency vet. Our partnership has been a profitable one for them, so why fight it. We tugged an old sock onto Lucy’s foot, covered it with a plastic newspaper bag, and hustled her out to the car. It was 9:00 by this point and I was nearly in tears. Red and I both felt like shit for not going to the vet immediately instead of trying to handle it ourselves.

Picture us, dear readers, as we made our pathetic entrance to the vet half an hour later. I am panicked and blinking in confusion at the fluorescent lighting, Red is trying to be stoic, and Lucy has managed to put a hole in her plastic bag and is squelching blood all over the floor.

To top it off, the second they got us into an exam room, she peed everywhere. Combined with the bloody paw prints, the place looked like a crime scene. A sweet tech took Lucy away to fix her up and I started crying for real.

An hour and a half later, Lucy was stitched, bandaged, and feeling no pain. I’ve seen her more drugged before, but she was definitely stoned out. The vet assured us that the cut was minor, only four stitches were needed, and Lucy would be fine. I finally stopped crying, and we bundled her back into the car for the trip home. Sometime after that, we got her settled on her bed and covered her with a blanket, then tried to sleep ourselves. We both woke up several times to make sure she was still breathing.

It will not surprise you to learn that I called out of work the next day, and that Red went in late. He scoured the yard for pieces of glass or metal that might have hurt her, but couldn’t find anything. We have no idea how she might have done it, but this seems to be her injury M.O. Other people’s dogs eat chocolate or socks. Ours has a knack for hurting herself outside.

Once he went to work, Lucy and I napped. She was very good about staying on her blanket, and I bedded down on the couch so I could keep an eye on her. We went outside once or twice, and I must commend the vet for finding the perfect bandage covering: an IV bag. Seriously, you guys, if your dog is anything like Lucy, beg your vet for a few of these beauties. They’re tougher than newspaper bags and last longer. Lucy didn’t even bother chewing at it.

Since I had this unscheduled free day, I decided I might as well make good use of it. With the able assistance of my buddy Captain Picard and his crew, I cleaned up the kitchen and made Lucy a batch of Vegan Flower’s Oats & Molasses biscuits. Because I was still feeling awful about Lucy getting hurt, I cut them out in tiny heart shapes (ever-so-slightly smaller than the shot-glass cookies):

They are Lucy-approved.

Sometime around noon, Lucy decided she felt well enough to flout the doctor’s orders and hop up on the couch while my back was turned. Strict rest and no jumping, my ass.

Since then, Lucy has gotten a little better each day. It’s futile to keep her from jumping onto the couch or our bed, so we just let her do it, because one jump is better than the three or four subsequent jumps that would follow if we shooed her off. It’s hard to tell if she’s pulled out any of her stitches (black stitches on a black dog—really? no one thought Day-Glo orange might be useful?), but she’s getting around fine and mostly leaves her leg alone. She even tolerates taking her antibiotics, most of the time.

If you’re keeping score at home, this makes three extremities that have been stitched or stapled, plus one elbow (that was a benign tumor, though). We’re keeping our fingers crossed this is the last. In the meantime, Lucy will be ruling her kingdom from the sofa, snacking on homemade treats and gazing longingly at the snowy yard.

The Great Mouse Relocation of 2010.

2011-01-10T18:41:00.004-05:00

A week or so before Christmas, it became clear to Red and me that we were unwittingly hosting a phalanx of mice in our home. I found this kind of distasteful, because mouse poop is gross, but not cause for alarm. Red, bless his heart, took it much more seriously than I did. [Red: It made me feel dirty and become afraid that my mother-in-law would return to vanquish me and bring her daughter home on account of living in squalor.] Come hell or heaven, we were going to de-mousify our house. He threw himself into his efforts with a fervor rarely seen outside of gladiatorial combat.

(I may have made it worse by mentioning Hantavirus, but come on, like 30 people per year get it. Your hypochondria’s no good here.)

Hi! I'm super-cute but I'll poop in your cupboards. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Anyway, it quickly turned into full-on War on Mice in Casa Burnout, with the caveat that we endeavored to wage war in the most deathless way possible. Red agreed to try humane traps until New Year’s [my compassion-cup was sort of filled on account of the holidays – who knew there were more than just xmas]. I told the mice that they had about two weeks to vacate, be carefully and gently vacated, or start running for their rodent lives. Red procured several humane traps, which came with hilarious little admonitions to “Teach peace! Be nice to mice!” While I wholeheartedly agree with both of those sentiments, I really just wanted the traps to work. Red baited them with peanuts, secreted them around the basement, and waited.

We waited.

One enterprising mouse [or many] managed to eat the peanut without tripping the door. Wily bastard[s].

Red re-baited with peanut butter [and a single peanut] and scoured the basement, plugging any holes big enough to admit a mouse (which is pretty much any hole, no matter how small). I scrubbed the kitchen and prayed that if the mice explored the counters, they’d have the decency to not leave little presents for me to find as I fumbled my way to the coffee.

This is what I wish they'd gotten up to in my kitchen. Adorable drawing by House-Mouse Designs®.

After a couple days of this, we came home late one evening and checked the traps. SCORE! We had caught one tiny, nervous-looking fellow. However, because the universe has a sense of humor, we had no choice but to head back outside, at midnight in the freakish cold, to release our captive in a place where he’d be happy and not find his way back to us.

Because I am cold-hearted, I made myself a pot of ramen noodles before our excursion. I was hungry, and the mouse had already had his snack.

Everything I’ve read on the topic of mouse relocation suggests taking the mouse at least two to five miles away. For us, five miles meant a restaurant park near the mall. Being a mouse in a restaurant Dumpster sounded like a pretty sweet setup to me, and I hoped that any dismay he experienced over his eviction from our house would be temporary. I tucked the trap into a small box and held it on my lap while Red drove. I thought of taking a photo, but that seemed cruel.

The liberation went off without a hitch. I had to tap the trap a few times to encourage him to leave, but once he got the idea, he was outta there. That was good news for us both, because I was tired of crouching in the snow next to a Dumpster.

Thus was Mouse #1 relocated.

We repeated this scenario three more times, trapping and releasing another four mice. You did that math right: We caught two in our second trap, and they were even cuter than their predecessor. I like to think that they comforted each other on the trip to the Dumpster, but the exchange I scripted in my head went something like this: “Dammit, Carl, what’s wrong with you?! You and your stomach, always getting us into trouble! Don’t worry about the trap, he says. We can get the peanut butter, he says. You sonofabitch, now we’re God knows where in this dark box on some broad’s lap, all because you wanted a snack. From now on, I’m working solo.” [The other mouse’s name was either Esmerelda Villalaucha or George.]

These weren’t ours, but close enough. Photo courtesy of a satisfied Amazon.com customer.

With five mice caught and released in suitable Dumpster locations, we declared Operation Humane Mouse Relocation a success. I’d estimate that the traps had about a 50% success rate; plenty were raided, but it could have been that our mice were especially savvy or small enough to avoid tripping the door. Either way, between the traps and our cleaning/hole-plugging efforts, we seem to be mouse-free at the moment.

So. Teach peace and be nice to mice, indeed.

Soup to the second power.

2011-01-07T17:58:00.004-05:00

Because I was a good little Burnout all year, Santa brought me Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s newest book, Appetite for Reduction! I tested a few recipes before it was published, so I was excited to try the rest of them. Since it’s been cold and we’ve been busy, Red and I decided to start with soup.

First up was Lotsa Veggies Lentil Soup, which is just what it sounds like. I like cooking with green lentils, because I usually end up using red ones and the green ones are a nice change. Red lentils are awesome and I love them, but they turn into yellow mush when you cook them. Green lentils retain their recognizable lentil-ness. Anyway, this is an easy, tasty lentil soup with extra veggies. Finally, a use for the CSA zucchini and summer squash that I blanched and froze back in July, when it seemed that the tide of squashy goodness would never end! The recipe called for 6 oz. of tomato sauce, but the store only had 8-oz. cans, and what do you do with an extra 2 oz. of tomato sauce? I didn’t want to figure it out, so I plopped all 8 oz. in there and it was all good.

Why the hell is there a date stamp on my photo? Shit, guess I need to play with the new camera more.

The best part of this soup wasn’t the soup, though. It was that we ate it while watching Troll 2, which is pretty much the height of awesomeness. There’s a hilarious vegetarian subtext in there as well, and I shit you not when I tell you that the young hero is saved by the deus ex machina of a baloney sandwich.

Anyway, now that we’ve established that my husband and I are film connoisseurs, I ask you: What’s better than soup? A second pot of soup! Red was in the mood for a corn chowder of some sort, so I made Summer Lovin’ Curried Corn & Veggie Chowder. The rest of that frozen squash and zucchini went in here, along with frozen bagged corn (so not seasonal). It took a little longer than usual because I did all the chopping myself, but there was a Buffy marathon on, so I didn’t mind. This soup was delicious, but I bet it’s even better in the summer with fresh corn. It would probably be yummy chilled, with a side of lightly steamed veggies or a salad. I love anything curried, and this had a bold curry flavor that wasn’t too strong. Curry n00bs would probably love it.

It is the most gorgeous sunny yellow. Just looking at it makes me happy.

So far, I’m loving this cookbook. I think I usually stick to a very healthy diet, but during this past month, I’ve eaten more takeout and cookies than I usually do. It feels good to get back on a regular schedule and prepare my own food from scratch, and I think Appetite for Reduction will be a great resource for a healthy 2011.

2011 and gratitude.

2011-01-03T13:27:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year, darlings! As we’ve just come off the season of warm fuzzies (or of mass consumerist hell, or familial drunkenness, or all of the above), I have found myself ruminating on things for which I am grateful. (There will doubtless be repeats of October’s Happy 101 Award list.) I can think of worse ways to start the new year.

1. my health
In 2010, I deepened my yoga practice and watched my body change for the better. I’m stronger and happier than before, and I’m so grateful that I have the health and strength to continue to fall in love with yoga and see what else my body and I can do together. I won’t be running any marathons (I like my toenails where they are), but maybe I’ll get a little closer to Chaturanga.

2. Red
He lets me steal the covers and wakes me up with coffee on the weekends. I’m a lucky girl.

3. Lucy
I love you, crazy dog, even when you decide you want to kiss me directly after making out with your butt. Please continue to tolerate having your teeth brushed.

4. my mom
When I couldn’t decide which yarn to choose for the kitty-ears hat she’s going to knit me, she told me to get both. Soon I’ll have two kitty hats, and that’s why my mom rocks.

5. my dad
He always tells me how happy he is to see me and to hear my voice when I call. I hope I never miss a chance to tell my kids the same things.

6. my sister
I miss my baby girl, all the way down South with people who talk funny and vote Republican. Had I been an only child, I probably wouldn’t have been forced to watch Cinderella a thousand times or witness my Barbies suffer unconscionable haircuts, but I also wouldn’t have one of my best friends.

7. my in-laws
Mother-in-law horror stories? Not at my house. My other mom has baked me vegan cupcakes, and my other dad always makes sure Red and I have plenty of plant-based nibbles at family get-togethers.

8. my job
I try not to bitch about work online, because that way lies a pink slip. And yet: I am overburdened and undermanaged, not to mention sick to death of the batshit organizational culture of my office. I plot my escape from corporate hell daily. Still, I have a job, am paid to do work at which I’m reasonably skilled in a cushy environment, and have time and money to do things I love. Most days, it’s a fair trade.

9. you
Without you, my friends (commenters and lurkers, online and off, and everyone who defies categorization), there would be no Vegan Burnout. I mean, I’d still be vegan and I’d still be burned out on any number of things, but this blog and the lessons I’ve learned over the last year-plus of writing it wouldn’t exist. Thank you.

Tomorrow, it’s back to your regularly scheduled snark and shenanigans. I’ve got a new cookbook and a new camera, so hold on!

What do Maryland and holiday trees have in common?

2010-12-22T17:43:00.004-05:00

Okay, so that’s a trick question, and this post is all about getting our holiday tree (more accurately, Yulemas tree, per EcoYogini. Pagans represent!). But first, you know that song “O Tannenbaum”? Duh, of course you do. Well, our state song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” is sung to the exact same tune. It’s a long-ass song, too. There was a bit of a dustup last year over a proposal to change, like, the ninth stanza because it mentions “Northern scum” and people who had nothing better to worry about were scandalized. I guarantee you nobody even knew the song had nine freaking stanzas until then, but anyway. If I have to choose between Northern scum and the Confederacy, I’ll take the former. (If you care, large parts of Maryland remain, shall we say, unreconstructed.)

That was probably the most labored introductory paragraph ever. State song, evergreen trees, whatever.

One bright cold Saturday, Red and I warmed up the truck and met my parents at Feezer’s Farm, where my family has harvested Christmas trees for years. We chose a lovely Douglas fir, and after asking the tree if it wanted to come home with us, we (well, Red) cut it down and we were on our merry way to Chinese takeout. Truly, it was the quickest tree-cutting trip of my life. I wanted to get pictures, but it was cold and I’m sure Red was glad I opted to help him instead of stage-directing his efforts while snapping away.

In case you’re all, “Hey, why’d you cut down a living tree? We need trees to breathe! Man, you’re a shitty vegan” right about now, slow your roll. Farmed evergreen trees are grown as a crop, just like fruits and vegetables. The tree we chose was 1) local and 2) organic. We supported a family farm, just like we try to do when we buy food. After the holidays, the tree will be recycled and returned to the Earth. Bonus: Plenty of deer and other wildlife live in and around the tree farm.

By contrast, fake trees are just that: fake. You really want to spend money on a petrochemical-laden monstrosity made in some factory overseas? Then you want to breathe in all the toxic shit that it off-gases, year after year? Then you want to throw it out and pretend it’s gone, when really it’s just languishing in a landfill somewhere, poisoning our soil and water? Well, do you?

Okay, so that was a no-brainer. Here’s our Yulemas tree, all dolled up:

With bonus goddess prayer flags as a backdrop.

Mama Burnout is, as you know, the best mom a girl could have. Red would agree that she is the best mother-in-law. Every year since we were kids, she’s given my sister and me a new ornament each Christmas. When we moved out, we had a box of ornaments, thoughtfully chosen year after year, all ready for our first Christmas on our own. She is also crafty as all hell, and made us these sweet little Nativity ornaments:

I requested ethnically diverse wise men.

I love all the Christian iconography tricking out our pagan tree. It’s a fabulous metaphor for Red’s and my relationship. (Note for next year: Find Buddhist ornaments!)

So, darlings, that is our Yulemas tree. Whatever you celebrate or don’t, I hope that you get a few days off work to spend in whatever way is most meaningful to you. Pass the soy nog!

Cupcakes with Jess: an East Coast odyssey.

2010-12-15T19:25:00.013-05:00

Back in October, my friend Jess had a birthday. She’s the first person I ever baked a birthday cake for, way back in 2004, in our pathetic little apartment kitchen. I only baked one more birthday cake after that before deciding that frosting was for suckers, so Jess’ cake remains my crowning glory. See?

You see why I stopped with the cakes, right?

Anyway, Jess and her awesome husband Matt live way the hell up there in Massachusetts. They are the sweetest, goofiest couple and they have a kitty named Luka. (You can sing the Suzanne Vega song; they do.) Anyway, for her birthday, Matt surprised her with a trip to Washington, D.C.! I was super-happy because I missed my friend.

Jess recently celebrated her first veggie-versary, so we spent quite a lot of time on the phone and over email planning where we’d eat. We settled on Soul Vegetarian’s Exodus for lunch and Sticky Fingers for dessert. I’d never been to either place before—I know, I know, bad vegan who’s never experienced the glory of Sticky Fingers!

Soul Vegetarian was great. I had to be different, so I ordered a Garvey burger (YUM) while my companions sampled different items from the buffet. Matt, our lone omni, admitted that if he could eat Soul Vegetarian’s mac-n-cheese every day, being vegan would be a snap.

Jess’ birthday present: chocolate-chip cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar!

Then, we set out for the walk to Sticky Fingers. Normally it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Jess was nursing a sprained ankle and the Metro was of no use. So, hoof it we did, slowly and gingerly. The lure of vegan cupcakes is most powerful.

This is when Jess and I wanted to die, because we realized that Sticky Fingers has lunch, too. Instead of our death-march from Soul Vegetarian, we could have saved ourselves (and her ankle) and just met up at Sticky Fingers to begin with. It was not our most brilliant moment. But, the day was sunny and the company grand (plus Sticky Fingers was packed with hungry dessert fiends), so we splurged on tasty vegan cupcakes and grabbed a table outside to enjoy them.

They were delicious, indeed. I surprised myself by ordering a Coconut Delight cupcake instead of something chocolate. Red surprised himself too, by ordering a Peanut Butter Fudge cupcake. He hadn’t realized it was so densely chocolatey, but it took care of his chocolate fix until New Year’s. Here’s Jess’ sweet little Cookies ‘n Cake cupcake:

This look of disapproval was brought to you by the pot-smoking gutter punks at the next table.

After all the drama we had getting there, I wasn’t leaving Sticky Fingers without a souvenir. I bought a cinnamon bun and a Little Devil to take home. They were awesome the next day. Thanks for making my breakfast memorable, Sticky Fingers.

It was quite a large cinnamon bun. The Little Devil was long gone at this point.

Following our cupcake binge, Jess and Matt needed to get back to their hardcore sightseeing routine. (I saw their list, and it was epic.) I’m glad we loaded them up on sugar to power them through the rest of the day’s itinerary. See you soon, guys!

Get Frogged for the holidays!

2010-12-12T16:27:00.004-05:00

Since I was a wee Burnout, my mom has been making Joe Froggers at Christmastime. More than gingerbread angels or sugar Santas, these spicy molasses cookies define the holidays for me. Until I started writing this post, I hadn’t thought to look them up to see if anyone else had a recipe—but wouldn’t you know it, the Internet is full of them! As it turns out, Joe Froggers are a seriously old-school cookie, originating in Marblehead, Massachusetts during Colonial times. Because they’re thick, sturdy cookies, they were the perfect snack for fishermen to take with them during their days at sea. They’re also the perfect snack for Mama Burnout, who likes her cookies heavy on the molasses and ginger.

They’re sassy, like my mom.

This weekend, Red and I made this winter’s first batch of Froggers. Would you like to know how? Of course you would! Read on, it’s easy:

Joe Froggers (courtesy of Mama Burnout)

½ cup vegan butter (I use Earth Balance)
1 cup sugar
4 ½ cups flour
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½-3 tsp ground ginger
½-1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 cup molasses*
1 tsp baking soda
⅓ cup dark rum** (we used Sailor Jerry’s because it’s what we had)
3 T hot water or rum**

*This one time when I was in college, I had almost but not quite a full cup of molasses, so I shoved it to the back of the counter while I went to get more. When I returned, my parents’ dog Duke had eaten the. entire. cup. of. molasses. You can guess what happened to the carpet later.

**If you avoid alcohol, I bet spiced apple cider or chai would be great in these!

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. In another bowl, mix flour, salt, and spices (the spice amounts are really just guidelines; because I am my mother’s daughter, I always go heavy on the spices, but you might prefer a less aggressive cookie). Slowly add to sugar mixture. Combine molasses and baking soda, then add to flour mixture. Beat until well mixed. Combine rum and water, then add to dough and mix well. At some point, your electric beaters may start to give up and you’ll have to grab that wooden spoon. The dough may still look pretty crumbly, but it should stick together if you pinch a little between your fingers.

At this point, the dough needs to go in the fridge for a while—at least half an hour, but a full hour won’t hurt you. Mama Burnout likes to gather the dough into a big ball or two, then wrap it in plastic wrap. The other day, I simply scooped all the dough into a plastic bowl just barely big enough to hold it all, smushed it in there, popped the lid on, and put it in the fridge. Your call. If you’re my mom, you’ll wash all the dishes you just got dirty while the dough chills.

After your dough has chilled, clear off your counter and flour it, because things are gonna get rollin’. (Ha. See what I did there?) Have your rolling pin, cookie cutters, and extra flour handy, and keep your extra dough in the fridge until you’re ready for it. If the dough gets too dry while you’re working, I find that a spritz or two of water from a spray bottle does the trick. Roll your dough out ¼” thick and use a 4” plate to cut out your cookies. That’s the traditional way—if you like thinner, less massive cookies and want to use festive cookie cutters, go for it. We like ours thick, and we used a combo of cookie cutters and a drinking glass. We ended up with several dozen cookies, so that’s as good an estimate as I can give you. You know the bit about greasing your baking sheets and putting them in the oven, so do that. Bake at 375° for 12-15 minutes, depending on how big your cookies are and how crunchy you want them. Slide ‘em onto wire racks to cool if you want; for years I didn’t own wire racks, so I just used plates, and all my cookies came out fine.

I have never frosted these, but I won’t hunt you down and murder you if you decide to deface them in such a way. They’re amazing dunked in tea or coffee, or eaten straight up. Red swears he’s gotten buzzed from eating too many, so that information may be useful to you. However you enjoy them, happy holidays!

That’s flour, not powdered sugar. You can tell I care about presentation.

Hearts and stars and teddy bears, oh my!

Veg Edgin’.

2010-12-10T17:35:00.004-05:00

Last night, I actually scheduled a time to watch TV. In our current age of Netflix and On Demand and DVR, it felt very archaic, like I was in high school again and planning my Friday night around The X-Files. But thanks to the vegan blogosphere (and Facebookosphere), I knew I had to make time to tune into the Cooking Channel for The Veg Edge, a special all about vegans and vegetarians and the weird shadowy corners we inhabit. My plant-based posse, represent!

Having never even heard of the Cooking Channel before, I tried to temper my expectations. I mean, really, how much AR rhetoric were they conceivably going to include in 47 minutes? (Answer: just about none.) Still, I was willing to give it a shot, because if we don’t know how we’re being portrayed, we can’t get out there and change it.

I figured it would be like any other cuisine-scene special, with a cute host running around various cities sampling fancifully arranged meals. For starters, there was no host—not even a voiceover. I was very confused when the program simply launched into sound bites with members of Austin’s restaurant scene—which I’m told is bangin’, so my Texan brethren, I do hope to visit one day. It continued like that, with further vignettes highlighting people and restaurants in Seattle, New York, Portland, and LA. I would have liked a narrative thread of sorts to tie it all together, but instead, questions like “Why are you vegetarian?” and “Are vegetarians sissies?” flashed on the screen before diners or passersby responded. It gave me the feeling of a documentary whose editors had run out of time, but like I said, expectations.

Things I enjoyed: Isa Chandra Moskowitz rocking it out, as usual; learning about all the restaurants I hope to visit one day (click on that Cooking Channel link up top—it takes you to many of the recipes that were highlighted!); and one of the guys from Food Fight! responding to the “sissies” question with, “Sometimes you get pushed. That’s when you wear this shirt.”

Yes, I have it. It is hella cute.

It was also interesting to meet a chef who was raised vegetarian and had never tasted meat—I wondered what that must be like, and for a moment I was the tiniest bit jealous of him. It almost made up for the “Do you miss anything?” segment, where almost everyone interviewed confessed their longing for bacon. We can stop with the fucking bacon worship, people. It’s time for the hipsters to find a new plaything. Bacon had a mom.

Since it was a food show on a food-centric network, I wasn’t shocked by the lack of any mention of the ethical or philosophical grounds for the choice to be vegetarian or vegan. It’s all about the food porn, after all. I was a bit surprised that the restaurants and people showcased leaned more towards the vegetarian side of the seesaw; once more, vegans were nudged to the fringe, even on a show ostensibly about us. I love you, vegetarians, but most of you have no problem going out to eat. You are the harmless eccentric cousin, while we vegans are the anarchist hitchhiker your sister brings home for Christmas.

Overall, I’d give it a B. An engaging tour guide would have really amped it up, as well as some more vegan love, but for a channel I didn’t even know existed, I was pleased. Besides, now I know about Heavy Metal Vegan Cooking, so it appears that the Cooking Channel has done me a solid, after all.

So long, and thanks for all the greens: a CSA postmortem.

2010-12-09T17:21:00.001-05:00

Whew! That was a wild 24 weeks, wasn’t it? Well, maybe we have different definitions of wild. It feels odd to not get our vegetables midweek anymore, though I’m sure Red is happy to be able to come straight home after work on Wednesdays instead of trucking on down to our hippie grocery first. Thanks for your dedication, love. Thanks also for eating most of the cabbage.

We’ve learned a lot these past few months. I learned all about new-to-me vegetables: garlic scapes, mizuna, tatsui, fennel, celeriac, escarole, sweet potato leaves, bok choy, various squashes. I pride myself on being a well-rounded vegan, but I had never even heard of mizuna or tatsui! It was truly enlightening to expand my palate and cooking repertoire, especially because, left to my own devices, I probably never would have bothered with sweet potato leaves or bok choy.

As you saw, all our random veggies didn’t always go together in any intuitive way. That meant quite a few curries and stir-fries. I didn’t really mind, but sometimes it got a little boring. I know that Red, in particular, likes a little variety, whereas I’ll slog through a whole pot of mediocre whatever just because I made it and it’s gotta get eaten.

We also learned that our lettuce threshold is extremely low. Like, one head per month. It is just boring stuff. I like salads and all, but I like cooked food more. Unless we’re talking pasta salad, but even then, I’d rather have my pasta warm and comforting. Anyway, if you join a CSA, there’s no getting around the fact that you will be snowed under with lettuce and similar greens. I’m proud of us for rocking all the spinach and chard and kale that One Straw threw at us, but you can actually cook those. You can’t really cook lettuce. I’ve heard tell that you can kind of stir-fry it a little and it works out, but just…no.

Which brings me to my next point: compost. Namely, we composted more food than I would have liked. Composting is awesome and I’m glad we’re doing it, but I felt awful every time we chucked a sad-ass head of lettuce or forgotten beet. Some weeks, we simply got too many veggies. We cook a lot, and we eat a lot, but sometimes we couldn’t keep up. If we do this again next year, I think we’ll only buy a half-share. That might leave us needing to buy more at the grocery store or the farmer’s market, but I’d rather do that than have to throw some away. I split a half-share with my mom a few years ago, when I was cooking only for myself, and I really liked it—it was cool to go to the farmer’s market, talk to Joan from One Straw, and pick out whatever struck my fancy. The downside is that once or twice I ended up at the market in the bitter November cold (or the cold November rain), but that’s what gloves are for.

I’m not sure we saved much money, either. We don’t really buy too many extras or junk food, so we weren’t trying to trim our budget, but saving money is always a nice perk. Even if we didn’t, I’m glad we were able to support an organic local farm. I’d happily spend a little more for that.

All in all, I would call this CSA experiment a success. It was interesting to fit our meal plans to the veggies we had on hand, rather than choosing recipes and then shopping for ingredients. Like the damn hippie I am, I felt very in tune with nature, eating corn and watermelon in the summer and root vegetables and winter squash in the fall. We take for granted that we can get anything at any time, when for most of history, it wasn’t like that. For many people today, it still isn’t. It’s good to remember where we come from.

So, thank you, One Straw Farm, for feeding us these many weeks. And thank you, blog friends and lurkers (I know you’re out there!), for coming with me on this journey.

CSA Weeks 23 & 24: Tat-what?

2010-12-06T17:05:00.017-05:00

We’re in the home stretch, kids. Here’s Week 23:

Aight, let’s see what we’ve got here. I have a confession about the turnips. I was really excited for them, because I don’t think I’ve ever had turnips before. So I saved them to roast for Thanksgiving—they were in the fridge for about two weeks, mind you, and they got all soft and mushy. *sad panda* Really, turnips? You’re a root vegetable! You’re supposed to last all winter in chilly conditions!

Okay, turnip fail acknowledged. Once we determined that the weirdo squash was a delicata, we roasted it for Thanksgiving (I told you about that here). It was quite yummy.

I was super-excited about the red chard, because I’d been craving Vcon’s Chard with Chickpeas. I can almost make this recipe by heart by now, and it never fails. We even had a bit of lemon zest in the freezer, which was a treat. Usually I skip it because it’s a pain to go buy a lemon and then zest it when I can just cheat with lemon juice.

Pointed cabbage, ahoy! Red’s grandma never fails to take extra cabbage off our hands. Yes, this one was going to be cooked with ham, same as the last one. *sigh*

We made a really nice salad with those salad greens, spinach, and green peppers. I tossed a few kalamata olives in there too, I think, and some cucumber and shredded carrot. Annie’s Woodstock salad dressing was a great find. Red didn’t like it as much as I did, but if you’re like me (if you are, I am sorry for you), you’ll find it very tasty.

We had friends over for dinner and roasted the cauliflower with some broccoli as a side dish. The main course was Vcon’s Pumpkin-Baked Ziti, which I like more every time I make it. Our omni guests were appropriately amazed at its deliciousness.

So, we had kale, but I can’t remember if it was the same kale we had for Week 24 or not. I wrote it down twice, but you know how I am. My record-keeping suffered during the last week (see below), so whatevs, there was kale, but whether we had one bunch or two is anyone’s guess.

There is no picture for Week 24, which is a shame. Our routine was off: Red picked up the veggies as usual, but I went to yoga after work and didn’t get home until late, then I didn’t feel like wrestling everything out of the fridge and posing it for a photograph. So, use your imaginations.

This incredibly beautiful but alien vegetable appeared as though from the mothership:

Red reported that it had been labeled “tot soy.” Given our CSA’s track record with labeling some of the less-common-to-us vegetables, we were in doubt that it was actually named tot soy. Google confirmed that for us, then helpfully suggested that perhaps we were looking for tatsui. Praise Google, we were.

Our tatsui made a lovely stir-fry with some tofu:

Red cabbage! This one we kept. Some went into 30-Minute Vegan’s Peruvian Quinoa-Vegetable Soup, which is delicious and very easy. It reminds me of an upscale minestrone. Bonus points: It freezes well. Because it was a large cabbage, Red made Vegan Soul Kitchen’s coleslaw as well.

Continuing with our accidental soup theme this week, I made 30-Minute Vegan’s Pleasing Greens Soup. I was a bit apprehensive about this one, but since its genesis was a problem similar to ours—too many random greens and a shortage of ideas—I figured, what the hell. We used kale for our base and fennel stalks instead of celery, and I am glad we did! This soup is quite tasty. Yes, it is extremely green, and that is a little weird. I wouldn’t serve it to omnis, because it really does look like a cliché of what us poor deprived vegans eat regularly. But once you get past its looks (we can’t all be beauty queens!), you can enjoy its taste. Plus, I love any recipe that is basically “Chop some veggies, throw them in a pot, boil for a few, blend, eat.”

Please join me in playing the world’s smallest violin for the last salad of our CSA. This salad was a total failure, and it was probably my fault. Not even the Woodstock dressing could save it. Maybe it was the greens—they looked a little sad, and didn’t taste very good. I tried to liven them up with some arugula, carrots, and kalamata olives, to no avail. Bummer, because olives ain’t cheap.

The arugula soldiered on, however. We made a few lavash pizzas, although Red’s only had Daiya and peppers because he’s not a fan of greens on his pizza:

Turns out that lavash, or probably any flatbread, is an excellent pizza base.

More greens! Not really feeling another batch of green soup, I had Red chop the collards and the red mustard greens, then cooked them up. The mustard greens got with some garlic (Vegan with a Vengeance-style, though it is so simple as to not even need a recipe), and the collards became 30-Minute Vegan’s Gingered Collard Greens. Overall, I think I like collards better than mustard greens, but both were good with brown rice.

Top: collards. Bottom: mustard greens (they made the garlic purple, which was bizarre.)

It wouldn’t be a CSA week if we didn’t forget something in the back of the fridge, and this week it was the fennel. Sorry, fennel.

Okay, I realize that this is kind of anti-climactic, so let me make it up to you. I’ll be posting a CSA follow-up, complete with lessons learned over these almost-six months and whether we think we’ll do this again next year. Deal?

Bonus Lucy, with a napkin on her head:

In which I get bitten by a horse and eat lots of dessert.

2010-11-29T20:05:00.016-05:00

Last weekend, Red and I trekked on down to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary for their annual Thanksgiving with the Turkeys. This is our third year, and it’s easily one of the best days of the year for me. I always feel so awesome at Poplar Spring, like I’m in a safe place. I think the animals who live there must feel that way too. I wish we lived closer, because then we could visit more often.

And yes, I got nipped by a horse. Keep reading for that nugget of awesome.

Anyway, food! And animals! And new friends! The weather was so gorgeous—warm enough for me to shed my sweater and walk around with my jacket over my “Save a Turkey, Eat Tofu” t-shirt. We were expecting a huge crowd, because the Washington Post had run an article about Thanksgiving with the Turkeys. Way to go, mainstream press! We later found out that at least 800 people showed up, and possibly closer to 1,000.

When we arrived, earlier rather than later, the crowds weren’t yet huge. We walked up to visit with the goats and sheep, and I received sweet kisses from Malcolm, a baby goat. He’s such a little love bug! Then a bigger goat named Lenny jealously head-butted him away from me, no doubt thinking that would earn my affection. I reproached him for his rudeness, then scratched his ears anyway.

Malcolm seeks sanctuary in the goat barn.

Red and I spent a few minutes with Chelsea, a sweetheart who was happy to stand by the fence and be petted and nuzzled as long as we wanted.

Kiss me!

Random pastoral images:

Next, we visited with the pigs. Izzy and Morty are massive compared to the tiny eight-week-olds they were last year! The sanctuary has new piglets, though:

I can’t remember their names, but as you can see, they are very cute. The big pigs were happy to see us as well.

Telling secrets.

The geese and ducks couldn’t have cared less.

Then, I had some people-finding to do. I was hoping to run into Deb of Invisible Voices (read her recap!), who volunteers at Poplar Spring, and Jennie and Alex of That Vegan Girl and City Pittie. We had all agreed to try and find each other, but with lots of animals and a huge crowd of people, it wasn’t exactly a sure thing. Deb is pretty much the Annie Leibowitz of Poplar Spring, so I sort of wandered around the chicken yard, looking for someone official-looking with a camera while trying not to give off Internet-stalker vibes.

On our way, we spotted this bunpile:

There are three of ’em in there. Poor light + hiding buns = crap photo.

We found Deb! And she didn’t think I was creepy! We found Jennie and Alex, too. Here’s Jennie holding Horatio. He and his brother Jethro are Japanese silkie chickens.

Jethro and Horatio treated us to an impromptu cockfight, which in no way resembles the brutality of a human-engineered cockfight. They squared off, puffed up, and rushed at each other, flapping. The whole thing lasted maybe five seconds. Deb explained that in nature, squabbles between chickens are more about dominance and posturing than causing injury. A few moments later, Horatio and Jethro were buds again.

As you see, Poplar Spring is home to lots of other birds:

Me ‘n Opal.

Gratuitous peacock shots:

Edward displays for Angie, his guinea hen lady love, who cruelly rebuffs him.

Surprise!

Lunch was great, as always. We ran into Linnea, who I’ve mentioned a few times. We filled our plates with tasty noms, and I was pleased to see that the cornbread we’d brought was almost entirely gone. People love cornbread. There was no decadent mint-chocolate pie this year, but I nibbled on lots of other desserts. After lunch, we visited with Deb a little more, then realized that it was getting late and we needed to go home and take care of Lucy.

And now for the part you’ve all been waiting for—the horse-biting.

As we neared the pig barn on our way back to the car, we saw that the horses and mules had come in from their pasture for some attention. I noticed a new horse, and went over to say hello across the fence. I rode horses as a kid, and I’m not nervous around them. I offered my hand, and he sniffed it and let me rub his muzzle. We were getting along famously when I felt a chomp on my forearm. It was very high indeed on the novel-sensation scale, but relatively low on the this-hurts-so-bad-I-want-to-die scale. Until he hung on. That part wasn’t so fun, and I found myself wondering what I’d do if he didn’t let go. Smack his nose and bark, “No!”?

Anyway, Bitey McChomperhorse let go, and I pulled up the sleeve of my jacket to survey the damage. It didn’t look like much, but I knew it would soon. We were an hour and a half away from any ice to prevent bruising (La Burnout’s first rule of injury care is to sit down and put some damn ice on it, whatever it is—unless it’s bleeding, then you need to grab a towel, but not one of the good ones), so I sucked it up, bid the horse a hands-free farewell, and headed for the car.

Later, I learned that His Biteyness is named Dexter, and that he is by turns sweet and mouthy, so I shouldn’t take it personally. The bruise looked very impressive a day or so later, and while I tried like hell to get a good photo for y’all, it was not to be. Next time Dexter and I meet, I will come bearing apples and carrots so he gets his nibbles out of the way before he spies my fingers.

And that, darlings, was Thanksgiving with the Turkeys.

Ye olde Thanksgiving post.

2010-11-27T14:03:00.009-05:00

This year, I didn’t have the energy to rant about all the shitty aspects of Thanksgiving that usually chap my vegan ass. That’s okay, because I checked that box last year. My outlook hasn’t mellowed, but the day itself was less dramatic since Red and I had only one family observance to attend. (No, I haven’t been disowned—my folks went down South to visit my sister and her significant other.) Once we figured out where to go and when, all that was left was to hash out what psycho-delicious foodstuffs to make.

And make them we did, readers.

Here we have Vegan with a Vengeance’s Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables—specifically, butternut squash, delicata squash, sweet potatoes, and multicolored carrots. Did you know that carrots come in purple? Well, now you do. I even had some fresh ginger hanging around, and it added a brightness that powdered ginger doesn’t always have. Everyone loved these.

Garlic-roasted broccoli! It never fails. Red and I haggled over the amount of garlic to add, because while neither of us is happy until we’ve ingested enough garlic to render us unkissable, not everyone feels the same. We compromised, and ended up with broccoli that was just garlicky enough.

Green bean casserole. Every year I make this to take to my granddad’s house at Christmas, and every year my aunt complains that it’s all gone before she gets any. Red says that’s because half of it immediately ends up on my plate. I first made it the first and only time I ever hosted Thanksgiving, a few months after I moved to Boulder. Now, it’s become a tradition. I can’t find the recipe online, but this one is pretty close. Skip the diced onion and instead of those stupid French-fried onions, sprinkle sliced or slivered almonds on top. Also, use fresh or frozen green beans, not canned. Canned veggies are gross (except for tomatoes and legumes). I used fresh because I had Red to trim and slice them. He reports that kitchen scissors are very good for this.

This will give you an idea of what the recipe I have looks like:

I was so poor I didn’t want to waste printer paper or ink by printing it out.

Sweet potato biscuits:

Since our CSA is over, we bought sweet potatoes and were surprised to be reminded that most sweet potatoes are orange. Our CSA ones were always yellow.

Once it was established that the biscuits contained sweet potato and not cheese (WTF?), they were a hit. I ate the last four all by myself, but three of those were for breakfast the next day.

Here’s my plate, with all that yumminess piled on it:

Of course, I couldn’t show up without dessert. Red’s parents had given us a bag of Granny Smith apples (my favorite), so an apple pie or crumble of some sort was the logical choice. I went with Gingerbread Apple Pie from Vegan with a Vengeance, and it was an excellent decision. Make this pie! Now! Even if you skip peeling the apples like we did, it’ll rock your socks off. It is awesome for breakfast, as well.

And that was pretty much it. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, happy Thursday, and happy day in general.

CSA Week 22: Fennelicious.

2010-11-22T19:33:00.006-05:00

These last few CSA recaps are gonna be kind of weird, kids, because we did some random things with our produce. (Minds. Out of the gutter. Now!) So, here we go:

Our first fennel! What an odd vegetable. It took me a little Internetting to figure out what to do with it, but eventually I put the feathery little leaves in a baggie in the freezer (to flavor a soup or something later) and roasted the bulb with the broccoli and purple cauliflower. It was yummy! The cauliflower wasn’t nearly as purple once it was cooked, though, which was a disappointment.

Another pointy cabbage! Half of this one went into a tofu stir-fry. The other half…is still in the fridge. I know, I know. It’s still hanging in there, though. Cabbage seems pretty resilient.

By this time, we had so many goddamn sweet potatoes I couldn’t tell you when we’d accumulated all of them. I think they multiplied, like mogwai. Red baked three of them, one of which went into biscuits and the other two we ate straight up. After that, we still had six pounds of sweet potatoes left. I know, because I weighed them. Rather, I weighed myself, then hopped back on the scale holding the bag o’ tubers. I gave half to my parents and half to my friend Kelly, and sweetened the deal with Sparkled Ginger Cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance. If you have unwanted veggies you need to unload, I highly recommend making them part of a package deal with delicious baked goods.

I was tired of thinking about what to do with all our veggies, so the green peppers and spinach went into a skillet with some garlic, then into some pasta, then into my belly. That, darlings, is my fallback. I could probably live on pasta with sautéed vegetables.

Oh, and we got a butternut squash too. That’s still hanging out, waiting for Thanksgiving!

CSA Weeks 20 & 21: Pizza!

2010-11-10T19:37:00.009-05:00

Here’s Week 20’s festival of greenery:

Pizza was easily the best thing we made during these two weeks, so I’ll tell you all about it. We bought a crust and can of sauce, because figuring out what to do with all these random vegetables week after week has made us lazy. We did sweeten up the sauce with some extra garlic, mind you. As you see, we chopped some spinach and arugula, then added sliced tomatoes and Daiya mozzarella. I believe some fresh thyme and oregano were involved, too. Props go to our new salad spinner for being the awesomest use of plastic since, I don’t know, plastic isn’t used for very many awesome things, but the salad spinner is one of them. See below for delicious pizza noms:

Oh, it was tasty. I think we finished it off the next day. The tomatoes made it a little soggy on the bottom, but so what. Soggy pizza beats no pizza at all.

Umm, what else did we have this week? Thyme. We froze it. Cilantro. We tossed it, because we have a ton of it and it’s tough to give away cilantro. Try it if you don’t believe me.

We had a veritable roasted vegetable orgy: beets, white radishes, acorn squash, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and broccoli! Not all in the same pan, but close enough for an orgy. Here’s my plate, sans beets and radishes because I don’t really swing that way:

You’ll notice some parsnips and carrots among all the squash and sweet potatoes, because we used Vegan with a Vengeance’s Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables recipe and they really do add to it. I love that flavor combo so much.

In this week’s biggest fail—and really, we haven’t had all that many fails since this CSA experiment began—we tried to reinterpret Vegan Soul Kitchen’s Yam and Mustard Greens soup using escarole. Oh, sweet merciful kittens, I did not like it. Sweet potatoes work fine in this soup, but mustard greens have a je ne sais quoi that is really essential. Escarole is just too…lettuce-y? I made Red eat it. He’s the best.

Onto Week 21 (or rather a continuation of the above, as both weeks really just smushed together):

I think we were still eating the roasted root veggies and broccoli, so not much new on that front.

See that weird-looking cabbage? Okay, maybe it’s hidden behind more of that goddamn escarole. Anyway, we got this cabbage that looked like it had come out of the cabbage mold all funny. It didn’t look sick, just misshapen. Pointy, like this:

Ripped from Hub UK. Don't sue!

As you will no doubt be unsurprised to learn, it is a pointed cabbage. Or sweetheart cabbage, if you want to be romantic like that. It behaves just like a normal, round cabbage, so don’t let its looks deter you. Red made coleslaw with half of it, and the rest was once more smothered with mustard seeds à la Vegan Soul Kitchen. That really is a delicious way to eat cabbage, and I recommend you try it.

It was pizza time again, this time with lovely green peppers and kalamata olives:

This pizza was even better, with the notable exception that I threw up right after eating the last piece for Sunday breakfast. I don’t know if the spinach or arugula got poisonous or what, but I was seriously pissed that our toilet got to enjoy the pizza longer than I did.

This, on the other hand, was a triumph. Veganomicon’s Sautéed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach is really delicious, but Red wanted tofu instead, so tofu he got. I crisped it up, then went ahead with the recipe. We had it over rice, and it was amazing.

You’d think we’d have been happy to get mustard greens given the disaster with that escarole soup, right? Well, we were, until we forgot about them in the back of the fridge and they got too wilty to salvage. I hang my head in shame. As for the new batch of escarole, I pawned that and the radishes off on my parents. Papa Burnout loves radishes, and Mom is always willing to try a new vegetable.

After that, we still had some green peppers and mushrooms left, so we thawed some spaghetti sauce (made back in the summer when we got tomatoes every week!) added the veggies, and voila! Super-quick weeknight meal. Sometimes simple really is best.

Trick or treat, Burnout-style.

2010-11-01T20:08:00.005-04:00

Did you celebrate Halloween or Samhain, my darlings? I hope so, if only because dressing up and eating candy every now and again is good for the soul.

Red and Lucy and I had a pretty average Sunday. Laundry, dishes, naps—you get the point. Samhain is one of those holidays I always intend to celebrate grandly, but the mundanities of life tend to get in the way. So I’ve been contenting myself with simple observances, which leave me less stressed-out and just as connected with the divine.

Once the sun set, we built a fire in the front yard:

I arranged a few seasonal accoutrements on our front steps:

As you see, we didn’t get around to carving or even painting the pumpkin. That’s okay, though. It will last longer this way. The skull is my friend Horatio. I found him in a shopping cart near the Dumpster outside my apartment a few days before I left Boulder. I had sworn not to accumulate anything else, but I made Horatio a deal: If he was still there the next day, he could come with me. He was, and he did. Red bought me the cauldron at the Maryland Renaissance Festival a few years ago. Every witch needs a cauldron, and this witch has a man kind enough to find her the perfect one.

With the fire burning well, Red and I cracked open a few hard ciders and handed out Skittles to the neighborhood kids. (Yes, Skittles are vegan now! So are Swedish Fish, but Red kept those in the house because he loves them.) Lucy stayed inside with her Kong, because even though she wouldn’t bother the fire, I could easily see her knocking over a wee princess or Spider-Man in her quest for affection. I wore my panda ears. Actually, I wore them all weekend, which is not as uncommon as you might think. Here we are in New York, the day I bought them at the Rubin Museum:

We had fixings for s’mores, but didn’t get around to making them. Rest assured, there will be s’more action in the near future: We have a fresh box of graham crackers, plenty of chocolate, and a container of Sweet & Sara’s coconut marshmallows at the ready. We did share an ABC Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookie—I love you, ABC, but you gotta stop with that “each cookie is two servings” bullshit. No one eats half the cookie now and the other half later. Okay, maybe I’ve done it once or twice when trying to be virtuous, but it just feels wrong.

Once the trick-or-treaters tapered off, we spent a few minutes talking about the changing of the year (Samhain is the pagan New Year), then I dropped into the fire pieces of paper on which I’d written things I’d like to banish from my life. I poured a little cider out for the ancestors, then we covered the fire and went inside to warm up. Lucy was very glad to see us.

Happy November, everyone. (It’s World Vegan Day, in case you were wondering!) Tell me all about your Halloween/Samhain/Día de Los Muertos/Secular Day of Candy and Costumes festivities!

Gettin’ happy!

2010-10-30T18:17:00.012-04:00

The wonderful Molly at It’s a Vegan Dog’s Life bestowed unicorn kisses and fairy dust upon me with a Happy 101 Award! Whatever I did to deserve it, I have no idea, but Molly seems entertained by the thought of ten things that make La Burnout happy. Without further ado, the most random list ever:

1. my husband
Need I say more? He’s the love of my life, my stabilizing influence. That he’s great at vacuuming, chopping vegetables, and putting up with my shit are fringe benefits. He’s a pretty awesome yoga buddy, too.

2. Lucy, the Wonder Pit
My sweet snuggle-pup. She’s taught me so much about patience and unconditional love. Her frantic kisses makes my arms itch and she still can’t be left alone outside her room when we’re gone, but I wouldn’t trade her for any other dog. My Earless Wonder is such a blessing, even when she’s barking at the prissy German shepherds next door or releasing a suffocating death-fart. It’s worth it for the full-body wags when I come home and the sound of her snuffly breathing as she falls asleep next to me.

After the first glass of wine, playing tug while holding the second seems like an excellent idea.

3. Tom Waits
Mr. Waits’ particular brand of growly, tied-to-the-railroad-tracks doomsaying may not spell “happy” to most people, but some days he’s exactly what I need. Listen to “Hold On” or “Picture in a Frame” and tell me you disagree.

4. chocolate
Why yes, I am eating some right now as I write this! My staple bar is Equal Exchange Organic Very Dark Chocolate. It’s got 71% cacao, which means it’s lusciously dark and satisfying. Chocolate has all sorts of happy-making properties, and it’s my way of being extra-nice to myself every day.
5. lavender lotion
I am very particular when it comes to lotion. My skin dries out easily, especially on my hands, and then it hurts and cracks and I’m a grumpy bitch. I’ve gone through more crappy, watery vegan lotion than I care to admit, just because it was less expensive, and I am here to tell you that scrimping on skin care is a highway to hell, darlings. Currently I’m in love with Avalon Organics Lavender Hand & Body Lotion after I get out of the shower, Kiss My Face Lavender Shea Ultra Moisturizer for my hands at work, and Alaffia Lavender Mint Shea Butter for my hands and feet at bedtime. My skin has never been happier, and the scent of lavender chills me out. (Lucy hates it, BTW.)

6. naps
My name is Shannon, and I’m a napaholic. If I could, I’d nap every day. I frequently did when I was unemployed, and it was lovely. Nothing beats snuggling under the covers for a mid-afternoon snooze. That lazy, refreshed feeling when I wake up is just delicious.

7. the vegan blogosphere
Who says you need to meet face-to-face to be friends? I’ve gotten to know so many compassionate, wise, and funny people (vegan and otherwise) since starting this wee blog. Even though I’ve only been lucky enough to meet a few blog-friends in person so far, I am truly thankful for all the support and advice and “She thought ‘vegan’ meant I ate fish” stories that come across my reader every day. Without you, my world would be smaller, my Facebook friends list shorter, and my heart less open.

Vegan Feminist Agitator and I at the Chicago Diner in July.

8. yoga
My journey to yoga has been a long one, starting with random classes in college, a complete absence of any time on the mat during and after grad school, and finally, over the last year, a regular-ish practice that has had huge benefits. It’s been a privilege to get to know my body better and experience its changes as I’ve become stronger, more flexible, and more present and comfortable with my own mind. At the same time, I’ve become more aware of my own limitations, which is humbling but also empowering. Red and I have been fortunate to find a teacher whose knowledge of yoga and Buddhism is (maybe) surpassed only by his Jedi powers and nerd-tastic sense of humor.

My mat. Well, not mine specifically, but you know what I mean.

9. art museums
I may be biased, but the very best museums are art museums. I love science and natural history museums, too, but I feel most at home surrounded by classical paintings, bizarre installation pieces, and everything in between. You know that feeling like you need to lie down because your eyes are so tired from all the beauty you’ve taken in? I adore that. That’s when I know I’ve seen all I can for one day, and there will always be more when I come back. Favorites: the Baltimore Museum of Art (hey there, Cone Collection), American Visionary Art Museum (where gorgeous chaos reigns), and the Rubin Museum (art of the Himalayas? yes, PLEASE!). Oh, and the Met, obvs. Honorable mention: Glasgow’s St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art.

10. Buddhism
I’m not a Buddhist. Well, maybe I am. I prefer to say that I study Buddhism, because there’s an awful lot of it to study. I went to a Buddhist university and wanted nothing to do with it while I was there, but a few seeds must have been planted, because a few years ago I felt drawn to Buddhism and started researching. Learning how to manage my crazy-ass mind and act with compassion (toward myself as well as others) has helped me become more grounded, thoughtful, and definitely happy.

His Holiness has quite the popular Twitter feed.

Now, I get to (lovingly) whack ten people with the Happy 101 Award stick!

1. Vegan Feminist Agitator. I think of Marla as my vegan fairy godmother. She’s a smidge older than I am, so it’s been very valuable to hear about the evolution of the vegan/animal rights movement from someone who remembers the days of buying your tofu from that one health-food store run by unwashed hippies. She’s been a mentor and a friend, and is funny as hell.

2. EcoYogini. Lisa graciously welcomed the weird vegan who wandered into her yoga blog, and we’ve been having thought-provoking conversations ever since. She’s teaching me about Canada, too!

3. Voracious Vegan. Tasha is a fierce activist who throws her whole being into everything she pursues. Whether it’s food justice or feminism, she’s there, with plenty of animal pictures.

4. Red House Over Yonder. Take that, husband! It’s been ages since you blogged!

5. Plate+Simple. Hilary’s on a blogging hiatus, but you should read her archives. She has great taste in interviewees. Bonus: a super-cute toddler!

6. The Deportee’s Wife. Giselle and her husband’s story is far too common and completely unacceptable. Do yourself a favor and spend some time on her site. She has one of the strongest spirits I’ve ever met, and I’m better for it.

7. City Pittie. All pitbulls, all the time! No BSL bullshit! Lots and lots of pictures!

8. Lazy Smurf’s Guide to Life. Like the Smurf, I am lazy, so I love this blog. I also love learning about Austin and all the amazing vegan options there. WANT.

9. The Preconceptionist. A pregnant yogini/writer? Maybe that will be me someday! I love reading about Melissa’s journey and gathering tips for when Red and I spawn. Don’t miss her yoga blog, either.

10. Book-Love. Libby and I have been friends for…holy cats, ten years! It’s been joyous to be a part of her life, and I can always count on her for a smile.

You know the drill, or maybe you don’t: Make your own list, tag your own beloveds, or…don’t. As Kerouac said, I insist on your freedom. Know that I love you—jeez, isn’t that enough for your people, anyway?