Finally, brownies.

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.

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.

Food plus gender? Sign me up!

Salon has an interesting piece today: “Men eat meat, women eat chocolate: How food gets gendered.” I encourage you to read it, then bring your love back here and talk about it with me. We already know what the headline points out: Certain foods are considered masculine (mmmmm, animal carcass), while others are feminine (gimme that candy bar, I’m PMSing). Of course, the heavy hand of marketing is everywhere we look, but what really captured my interest was this little factoid: In other countries, food is rarely gendered this way.

Call me a silly American, but I hadn’t ever really thought about that. The author, Riddhi Shah, points out that in Spain, men and women love chocolate equally, while in Egypt, no one really cares about chocolate at all, preferring salty snacks. (Egypt: Feel free to send me your chocolate.) In the UK, boys go for the sweet stuff, while girls are more partial to fruits and veggies. Come to think of it, our house is pretty much the same way. Red has a sweet tooth like none other, while I am pretty blasé about ice cream and candy. Geez, we are such iconoclasts, with our non-gendered, non-American food preferences!

What is really interesting is the ways in which this reflects US veganism. As Shah says, “[W]hile it seems possible that some food preferences could be put down to gender, it’s obvious that American culture has a way of exacerbating them.” US vegans are often written off as a bunch of educated white chicks, and many of us are. The movement has a homogeneity problem, and I am so grateful for those who are actively challenging this. (Sistah Vegan and Vegans of Color immediately spring to mind, as does The Discerning Brute.) It can’t be simply that men like meat, while women like tofu. (Because really? No one likes tofu in its natural state.) I wonder what the vegan demographics look like in other countries. We’re working against culture, not merely genetics, and that makes a huge difference.

Thoughts on gendered food on this Friday before a long weekend filled with gluttony and pyrotechnics in the name of US independence?*


http://www.marriedtothesea.com/


*I once heard it referred to (by a Brit) as “Good Riddance to Ungrateful Colonists Day.” I enjoyed that.

Transatlantic vegan lunch date.

I typically spend a portion of my day hanging out on the PPK. It is, in my humble opinion, the best forum there is: friendly, funny, active, and with a nearly nonexistent troll population. And, of course, it’s vegan. When Hannah posted that she and her partner would be coming over from England to do a little tour of the East Coast, I was delighted to learn that one of their stops was Baltimore. Seriously, no one comes here. Everyone skips us in favor of D.C., Philly, or New York (incidentally, those were Hannah’s other stops). Those cities are wonderful, and they have clearly figured out how to market themselves in ways that Baltimore hasn’t. So, I suppose, more power to them. Either that, or people really do think it’s like The Wire here. Which, of course, it is in places. Every city is like that in places. (Also, seriously, did none of you clutching your pearls over The Wire watch Homicide: Life on the Street?)

Ahem. Red and I made plans to meet up for lunch with Hannah and Linnea, another PPKer and Baltimoron. On a typically balmy late-spring day—so, it was probably nearing 90°F—we met at Hannah’s hotel and walked up the street to Donna’s. (Hannah’s partner was passing the time at Maryland DeathFest, and to him I say: Stay metal, my friend.) I was jonesing for an iced coffee, so Donna’s hit the spot. So, mercifully, did the air conditioning. Donna’s is quite vegan-friendly, and when the waitress realized she had a table of three vegans and a vegetarian, she promised to make sure the kitchen knew of our needs. I didn’t take a picture of my veggie wrap for you, because you know what they look like, but everything was delicious.

Hannah, sweetheart that she is, brought us a gift of the yummiest vegan chocolate caramels. I am not a particular fan of either caramel or milk chocolate, but these Choices have changed my mind. The best part? Hannah told us you can find these babies in regular grocery stores in the UK! Vegan candy, represent!

Look! It says “vegan” right on the package!

We had a great time and it was so refreshing to be among vegans. Thanks for a lovely lunch, ladies!

That’s me, Hannah, and Linnea after our PPK lunch summit.

Voracious chocolate.

As you all may know, I love me some chocolate. The darker the better, with just a little bit of sweetness. I eat a few squares almost every day at work, and that indulgence helps keep me happy. It surprises the hell out of people to find out that I’m vegan but that I can, miracle of miracles, still eat chocolate! I delight in dispelling the myth of the sad-faced, chocolate-deprived vegan.

When Tasha at Voracious Vegan posted her Chocolate Pots de Crème, I knew that I was in for something amazing. I can’t create a recipe to save my heathen soul, but with the ridiculous number of vegans working their culinary magic and sharing the spoils with the rest of us, I don’t need to! On Sunday, I whipped up the Pots de Crème and set them in the fridge to chill. Seriously, have you looked at that recipe? That’s all the procedure you’re getting from me, because unlike the Smlove, these babies come together in two sassy shakes of your sweet ass.

Five hours to the minute after I’d left them to chill (my husband does not mess around with dessert), we pulled the Pots de Crème out and had a ceremonial tasting. It was a pretty quick ceremony, because this is all that was left to photograph:

Do you like how I tried to arrange the tablecloth to make it look arty? Yeah, me neither.

“It tastes like a Snack Pack!” Red declared, and now you know which one of us got good dessert in elementary school and which one got apple-and-cheese toothpick kebabs. (Thanks for instilling healthy habits from the beginning, Mom.) My memory of Snack Packs and other non-vegan chocolate pudding is dim, but let it be known that I just spent several minutes trying to poetically describe the flavor palette or whatever of the Pots de Crème, and I failed. Everything I wrote sounded like amateur food porn, so I gave up. It was so good that my tongue-brain connection short-circuited. So good…so good that….

It was so good that, if Tasha and I were in the same time zone, I would totally make out with her.

Put that on your spoon and lick it.

That Smlovin’ feeling.

I am not much into baking. Baking generally requires time and accuracy, two things I have in short supply. Plus, it inevitably results in copious amounts of baked goods. While I’d be happy to eat muffins and cookies all day, I try to have more self-control than that. My self-control generally begins and ends with not having things around I know better than to eat. (See: potato chips.)

This is to give you an appreciation of what an insane idea it was for me to attempt this post’s titular confection. Red and I had a dinner date planned with a friend and her fiancé. Said friend was going to make vegan spanakopitas, and we’d sit around and drink wine and talk shit about people, which is pretty much my Wednesday night even when I’m home alone. I offered to bring dessert, but what kind? Since she was going to the effort of making spanakopitas, I couldn’t just show up with a quart of Soy Dream and some spoons. No, no, no. I had to show off. Her fiancé is omni (she is vegetarian), and I wasn’t going to let him eat half-assed vegan dessert.

Enter the Smlove Pie. The Rosemary’s baby of Veganomicon authors Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, it was allegedly spawned by the conjecture, “What would Paula Deen make if she were vegan?” And unholy it is, tempting the unwary with its potent combination of chocolate and peanut-butter caramel, punctuated with candied pecans and drizzled with extra chocolate. Also unholy is the Paula Deen impression that Red labored to perfect during the Smlove odyssey, squawking, “BUTTAH, Y’ALL!” at random moments.

So, how to make this beast? A graham cracker crust was the first order of business. Our hippie grocery does not stock vegan graham crackers, so I snagged a box of Annie’s chocolate bunny grahams. It took the whole box, plus two stale graham crackers I had laying around for s’mores, to make the crust. I had, in an unusual fit of foresight, borrowed my mom’s ceramic pie dish, which is heavy and handmade and deep enough to accommodate the heftiest of pies. The Smlove would prove to be a worthy adversary.

The bulk of the pie was easy. Blend melted chocolate and silken tofu, stir in the blood of virgins and a few other secret ingredients, pour into delicious chocolate crust, bake, and chill. There did not appear to be enough room left for the toppings, but I tried to keep the faith. I took a day off from Smlove-making, since it needed to spend a good few hours in the fridge. It lurked back there, though, hiding beneath its innocuous foil cover.

On Monday night, I tackled the rest of the Smlove. The candied maple pecans made me nervous, as I had never candied anything before and feared ending up with a molten lump of ruined nuts, but I prevailed. The peanut-butter caramel? Sticky and gooey and utterly delicious, spreading out over the pie like benign sugary lava. I tried to make a fancy symmetrical design with the pecans, but I suck at geometry and my mosaic turned into everyone’s favorite game of, “Oh, just shove them in wherever they’ll fit.”

Victory approached! I had but one step left, and I almost forgot all about it since the pie looked so damn pretty: chocolate ganache. How hard could that be? Boil soymilk, add chocolate chips, stir, and drizzle. Well, perhaps I added too much chocolate, or my soymilk didn’t boil enough, because while what I made was delicious and chocolatey, it drizzled about as well as Play-Doh. Frowning, I scooped it into a Ziploc baggie, snipped a corner, and tried to squeeze it out in graceful ribbons. I’ll refrain from describing what it originally looked like as it plopped onto the pie, but clearly I needed a Plan B. In desperation, I squeezed the mess out in the general shape of a circle, nudging it into place with a spatula. It looked better, but like a five-year-old had taken over my pie-making. In a last-ditch effort at artistic achievement, I gently scored the ganache with the spatula, hoping it would look vaguely intentional.

© World's Worst Photographer.

After that, I told the Smlove to go to hell and put it back in the fridge. I had neglected to eat dinner, preferring instead to lick all the bowls, pans, and spoons and rationalizing that the addition of a few handfuls of tortilla chips and some hastily gulped orange juice qualified as a balanced meal. As you might imagine, not only was my stomach unhappy, but I was totally pie-eyed with sugar. I snarfed a random Trader Joe’s Vegetable Masala burger (why did we only have one in the freezer? The world may never know) and brown rice, and slowly my glucose returned to its pre-Smlove level.

The Smlove waited, patiently anticipating the havoc it would wreak.

Last night, my friend called me. Could we possibly postpone our dinner plans? she asked. “I’m not making this goddamn thing again, but I think I can freeze a few pieces,” I told her. She agreed. No sooner was I off the phone than Red headed for the fridge, gleefully unwrapping the Smlove. With the ceremony befitting such a dessert, I carefully cut two of the smallest slices I could manage. They fell apart a bit as I pried them out, but that’s pretty much any first piece of pie. Red tried to give me the bigger piece. I laughed at him and took the one that looked less likely to kill me.

Reader, the Smlove lives up to its hype. (In case I haven’t hyped it enough, there are Smlove-eating contests on the PPK. The current champion ate more than three-quarters of one in about an hour. She is still alive.) It is rich and chocolatey, with a texture similar to that of chocolate cheesecake, a sassy saltiness from the pecans, and yummy peanut butter notes from all that caramel. I struggled to finish my sliver, and Red put the rest of his back in the fridge. I’m not exactly a girl who obsesses over the nutritional content of everything that goes into her mouth (TWSS!), but I found out how many calories are in this motherlover, and it is extreme. I refuse to feel guilty about food, however.

That suits the Smlove’s dark ambitions just fine.

Chocolate-marshmallow granola bars.

Do you like chocolate? Of course you do. Marshmallows? I know you like those as well. Would you like to eat them both at the same time, without the messiness of s’mores, and be at least kind of convinced that they are healthy for you?

Once upon a time, Red and I found ourselves with too many Sweet & Sara’s marshmallows. Unbelievably, there is such a thing. I love s’mores, but I was getting tired of making them every. single. night. I needed help. Kelly @ easyVegan helped me. Her recipe for Chewy Chocolate Marshmallow Granola Bars is here, and you should hoard all the chocolate and marshmallows you can find so you can make a massive batch of these and eat nothing else ever ever again.

These granola bars are ridiculously easy to make, and because they contain four cups of oatmeal, they are totally healthy for you. (Well, okay, I suppose it depends on your definition of “totally,” but I’m not your nutritionist, so there.) The hardest part was chopping up the marshmallows. I used our kitchen scissors, but the marshmallows were sticky and gummed them up. Regardless, my hand got a workout and the marshmallows were eventually sliced into small little niblets of sugary awesome. To make sure they stayed that way and didn’t glom into one huge monster ‘mallow when I mixed them into the granola, I tossed them with a little flour first. This is an excellent baking tip that my mom taught me, and it works for suspending anything you don’t want to sink to the bottom of your dough or batter.

Then it was into the pan with everything, extra chocolate chips sprinkled on top, and into the oven at 425°.

Ahem. Did you click over to easyVegan for the recipe yet? Because if you did, you may have noticed that these little beauties are supposed to be baked at 325°, not 425°. I overshot the temperature by a hundred fuckin’ degrees.

Happily, this potential epic fail ended happily. After 20 minutes in the superheated oven (which, we have recently realized, runs about 50 degrees cool), the granola bars smelled like heaven and looked divine. It took our combined willpower to let them cool before slicing into them.


The verdict? We shouldn’t have given as many bars away to our friends and coworkers. (It was a particularly sneaky form of vegan advocacy.) Damn our generosity! They were so incredible that we easily could have eaten the entire pan. I should have pre-melted the chocolate chips that I scattered on top (they stayed pretty solid), but that was our only snafu. The marshmallows were a perfect addition, and the oatmeal made the bars so hearty that I was satisfied after only a few bites.

In conclusion: Make these. But don’t have me pre-heat your oven.

Random food gift experience #1: Trader Joe's Seashells.

Technically, this should be #2, but #1 might take longer to write about, and it’s Friday, and I never said I was consistent, so there. I always thought I’d be the one to present people with nonvegan foods that were inadvertently given to me, but recently the reverse has happened.

On Tuesday, a coworker showed up at my door with a box of chocolates. Trader Joe’s 70% Cacao Belgian Dark Chocolate Seashells, to be precise. Now this dude has given me treats before—homemade trail mix at Christmas, and some kind of blondie-toffee bar that I gave to Red because it wasn’t vegan. My choice to be vegan is, I think, somewhat of a puzzlement to him, but he is very respectful about it and seems to enjoy the challenge of figuring out what I eat.

As it turns out, someone had given his mother the chocolates, and she doesn’t like dark chocolate. She gave them to him, but he’s trying to watch what he eats, so he understandably wanted them gone. We had established months ago that I can, in fact, eat chocolate, and that dark chocolate is my cacao product of choice. He ever-so-thoughtfully brightened my Tuesday morning with a box of dark chocolate deliciousness. As you can imagine, I thanked him profusely.

My printer, complete with the Evil Monkey.

But are they vegan? I wondered after he left. Dark chocolate almost always is, but I’ve been conditioned to check first. Trader Joe’s had slapped the kosher and gluten-free logos on the front of the box, but no magic V. I checked their list—not there either. I scrutinized the ingredients—no dairy of any kind. What gives, Trader Joe’s? The best I can figure is that since the chocolates are made on equipment shared with milk, Trader Joe’s won’t label them as vegan. Makes sense. If someone has a hellacious dairy allergy, they might want to stay away from these puppies.

And they are delicious, too. My coworker tried one once I opened the box, and now he’s kicking himself for giving them away. I’ve been limiting myself to one a day, though this is by no means a guarantee that I haven’t also enjoyed other chocolate during the day. They have some kind of fudgy dark chocolate filling, so they are more like truffles. Aren’t they cute?

Now, if you'll excuse me, my one-a-day truffle is calling.

I have been busy, darlings.

Please forgive my absence this past week. You see, my lazy ass went on a post-Thanksgiving honeymoon. A lovely one, to Sanibel Island, Florida. I did my best to ignore reality while we were there; hence, no bloggy goodness. I’ll do my best to make it up to you.

Oh, we had a wonderful time, thanks. It was warm and sunny and we lay on the beach and collected shells and found what is probably the only Steelers bar in Florida. I met a gopher tortoise, too. As usual, I am in one place and my camera is in another, so I’ll post those pictures soon. I also plan to do a “Vegan Sanibel” rundown, since I had a hell of a time figuring out where we might eat when we got there. If I can save another vegan the trouble of scrolling through dozens of websites and squinting at menu PDFs, it will all have been worth it.

I know, I owe you a Thanksgiving with the Turkeys post, too. For now, content yourselves with Deb’s awesome recap. Her photos are better and she’s a regular sanctuary volunteer who knows all the animals, so she’s pretty much cooler and more authoritative than I am in every way.

Thanksgiving? We did that too. It was surprisingly not fraught with angst and sadness over the murdered turkeys. I noshed on steamed asparagus and roasted butternut squash with shallots with Red’s family, washed down with plenty of Asti and a nameless drink that involved green apple rum and Sprite. (I might start calling it an “Uncle John,” since he mixed it for me.) At my parents’, my garlic mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie were well received. My mom made the stuffing with vegetable broth and I brought Sweet & Sara’s marshmallows for the sweet potatoes. I even introduced my family to the joys of Earth Balance! Two menu omissions yielded unintentional hilarity: my sister made a fabulous gourmet bisque, including vegan servings, and we forgot all about it until we were halfway through dinner. It has since been frozen, to be thawed and enjoyed this weekend. Shortly after that, my mom realized that we’d also forgotten to prepare the portabella caps I’d brought for Red and me. They were to be broiled with stuffing, but we didn’t miss them at all. Enjoy the free shrooms, Mom.

As I may have mentioned, Thanksgiving also marked Red’s first day as a vegetarian. Go, husband! I’m proud of him, so if you want to say hi, hit him up. I’m going to try to persuade him to post his thoughts on Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals.

On the Go Max Go front: We have since devoured both the Buccaneer and Mahalo bars. I was never a big Three Musketeers fan, so the Buccaneer was fine. I did love Almond Joys, though, and found the Mahalo a bit sticky and gummy. I mean, I’m not going to turn my nose up at almonds and coconut, but I won’t be longingly pining for one anytime soon. Look at that, I’ve gone and given myself a chocolate craving.

Random nibbles.

Apologies, dear ones. I have been a very lazy blogger. I have no excuse, save the usual cop-outs of lack of energy and/or inspiration.

Red and I are now the proud owners of each variety of Go Max Go’s vegan candy bars! I splurged a little, because I’m very curious and Red needs convincing that vegan chocolate can approximate his beloved milk chocolate. We’re planning to sit down and do a formal taste test. Rest assured, you’ll get to hear all about it!

I can't tell you when I last ate four candy bars in a row. Photo courtesy of Go Max Go Foods.

Because I am awesome, I also bought him Sweet & Sara’s strawberry marshmallows. This boy loves him some strawberry, so you know he was happy when he saw those. He smiled blissfully as he chewed, so I intuited that Sweet & Sara has created another winner. Strawberry s’mores…mmm.

You should eat these. Photo courtesy of Sweet & Sara.

I haven’t done much in the way of vegan activism lately. A coworker at a meeting this morning urged me to have a doughnut. I politely declined. “You don’t do doughnuts?” she asked. I told her that I was vegan, explaining that the doughnuts most likely had eggs in them. “You don’t eat eggs?” she asked, clearly surprised. I explained about the eggs. Her response? “But eggs are good for you!” I sighed. The meeting was starting, so I decided not to get into it with her.

Red and I made a tasty chickpea casserole from a New York Times recipe. Their recipes can be hit-or-miss. (Go to hell, sweet and sour squash.) This was pretty hit, although I felt like I did a lot of work for what basically turned out to be hummus with chickpeas on top, baked on toasted pita. The yogurt topping was tasty, but it started going green in tiny spots after a day or two in the fridge. I ate it anyway until Red pointed out that it was probably mold. In my defense, it had a lot of mint on top, and I thought it had just dyed the yogurt. Shut up. I was flexing my immune system.

Ooh, and we also followed through on experimenting with less-Indian dosadillas. These were just potatoes, mushrooms, and peas with some sage, salt, and pepper. We used apple-cranberry chutney instead of mango-ginger. I was not too thrilled, I think because the chutney had too much clove in it. The yumminess of the vegetable filling was overpowered, and I was sad.

Tragically, that’s all I have today. I’ve ordered Carol J. Adams’ The Pornography of Meat, and I’m sure I’ll have lots to say when that gets here. Brace yourselves!