Zen Cooking

Joe’s trying to lose weight, so I decided to take it upon myself to eat all of the fattening foods in our house (I generally have trouble getting enough calories each day). We had an avocado, so I was delighted at the thought of making one of my favorite lunches: the avocado and Lightlife bacon sandwich. Except that we didn’t have bread. Or bacon. And the avocado was a stupid Bacon Avocado, a variety which completely sucks compared to my beloved Hass. The flesh is barely even green for heaven’s sake.

I don’t realize any of this until I already have my avocado split open, so now it has to be used. Guacomole? No, apparently we do not have a single carbohydrate anywhere in the house. I can’t have chips, a wrap, a sandwich– nothing. Nada.

And then in the crisper bin of the fridge I find LETTUCE. Lettuce has to be my least favorite food without eyes. But what else can  I do?

So I wash the lettuce, and it’s all wet because I don’t have a salad spinner, and not being a big salad eater I have no idea how normal people actually prepare this shit. I put my avocado on top of my wet, limp lettuce in the bowl.

Now what? I decide that since I’m inevitably not going to enjoy this anyway, that I should take this as an opportunity to play. What would make this even more unappealing to me?

We have about one tablespoon of Vegannaise in the fridge. It’s lived in this apartment as long as we have. Since one of my goals is to get rid of all of the extraneous condiments in my fridge, I grab it and make a salad dressing with it. I use the remainder of a jar of minced ginger, a dab of liquid smoke (to make up for my missing fake bacon), and some agave nectar. I mix it all together and toss my avocado and lettuce with it.

The result? Taste wise, it’s actually not too bad. I feel like I’m shovelling death into my mouth, however, because every time I eat mayo, even vegan mayo, I can just feel my arteries hardening and clogging up with cholesterol. But I adverted Joe from having to eat it, right?

This is definitely the most disgusting meal I’ve eaten this year.

I went to the dentist in the first time in 7 years, and they finally made me pull my wisdom teeth. Until my mouth heals I can’t really eat food like I normally do. Instead, I have to swallow it as quickly as possible, chewing with my front teeth, then making sure it goes straight to the back of throat with no detours. The result is that I can’t taste anything at all. I bought a can of the absolutely most disgusting soup. When I opened it and upended it, it all came out in one piece, like spam or compacted dog food. I had to cut it up with a fork and then heat it. The instructions said not to add water, but that was preposterous considering that soup is not intended to be a solid mass. Even after I added my own broth and spices, it was the most unappetizing looking food I’ve eaten in ages.

The amazing thing was that because I ate so quickly, I couldn’t taste it at all. It was a strangely disorienting experience, to see something so disgusting going into my mouth, but not being grossed out by it at all. I wonder if there are people eating the Standard American Diet who eat like that all of the time? Disgusting processed foods because they can’t make their own for whatever reason… or foods that are not necessarily bad but they eat them so quickly, in their cars, or in front of the television, that they don’t even taste them?

Last night was just pure torture, because I attended a meeting at a restaurant, and the gentleman next to me was eating a delicious curry with scents of lemongrass wafting in my direction. Meanwhile, I had ordered the only soup, which had large pieces of carrots in it that weren’t cooked long enough. I could chew them so I had to avoid the larger ones and just inhale the smaller ones. It smelled delicious, but all I managed to taste was raw carrot.

The blog Steamy Kitchen has tips on how to work with ginger. Very timely since this week is my adzuki bean week and I often pair adzuki with ginger.

In case you’re wondering what I mean by “adzuki bean week”– I soak large batches of dried beans at a time, then use them all throughout the week. It’s fun because I’m challenged to come up with creative ways to use the same ingredient night after night. So far I’ve used the adzuki in a sweet winter soup and mashed them up with breadcrumbs to make little nuggets which I will probably fry. (I baked them in put them in the freezer, so I haven’t eaten those yet.) Tonight I’m going to just saute them with generous quanities of ginger and eat them along side shredded spicy greens. Yum!

Because I have not yet shaken off my cookbook addiction, I, like everyone else in the vegan world, plus all of their aunts, uncles and third cousins, got Veganomicon on the day that it was released.

I knew the recipes would be amazing, but I didn’t expect it to be so darned handy. This cookbook is great for someone, like me, who wants to be able to cook spontaneously, and regularly, without it being a giant hassle. All of the recipes are creative and delicious but easy enough that most can be made the second time around straight from memory. This is what most cookbooks aspire to, but few attain.

In addition to that, they have brought some completely new, or at the very least, undeservedly overlooked techniques to the realm of modern vegan cookery. If I had the foresight, I would have bought stock in chickpea farms before Vegan With a Vengance was published because that book revitalizes the overlooked little legume. Who knew that chickpea flour, once incorporated into a batter, tastes and acts like eggs? Another favorite new trick of mine is to add vital wheat gluten to items like patties, to make a half-ass but wholly delicious pseudo-seitan. Even when cooking my own impromtu creations or recipes from other cookbooks, I now tend to modify them using Isa and Terry’s techniques.

If you need one cookbook (but honestly, why would you?) this is the definitive one to get. Not a lot of photos, but you can take your own, dammit.

My food-related resolutions for 2008:

1. Post more! With photos!
2. Incorporate more calcium into my diet. I rarely eat fortified foods, so the vegetables and beans in my diet are my sole sources of calcium. I don’t eat calcium-rich veggies everyday though; it fluctuates depending on what’s in my produce delivery that week. I’d rather not rely on a supplement, so I’m going to start planning my meals to deliberately include more calcium. For breakfast, I’m going to try mixing blackstrap molasses with the maple syrup that I pour on everything. (And I mean literally everything). For lunch, I’m going to try eating more hummus and white bean dips, maybe with almond butter mixed in for even more calcium. For dinner, I currently eat kale a few nights a week, but I need to find a way to include calcium on the other nights.
3. Eat more raw food. Not in the sense of becoming a raw foodist– just simply eat more raw food. I am not a fan of raw vegetables and I hate salads. It’s not very convenient to be a vegan who hates salad, however, so I’m going to try to forcibly change my palette.
4. Write down recipes. I suck at writing down recipes while I’m cooking, but I would like to learn how to do it efficiently.
5. Clean the freezer. Nuf said.
6. Use up all of those wierd condiments in the back of my refridgerator. Before it was demolished to make way for a new commuter rail, a small Asian grocery named Manila Market was the closest store to my apartment. In the year that I shopped there, I accumulated vast amounts of jars of mysterious food items, some of which have no English on the label indicating what’s inside. This year, I want to either use them or throw them out.
7. Make preserves. I now have own books on how to can my own food. It’s time that I get over my fears and finally buy the supplies to make some.
8. Cook for my family. Getting over to see my family is so much of a hassle that I rarely bring food along with me. When I do, they’re such picky and unadventurous eaters that the experience usually ends in disappointment. Honestly, I just don’t know how to please a group of people who only like Southern and Mexican food but won’t eat anything too spicy, with visible onions, with cilantro, etc. Still, I believe that it’s important that I show them that veganism doesn’t equal starvation, and to get them to try something new for heaven’s sake! I’ll keep up the good fight.
9. Create more make ahead meals. Vegetables should never spoil in my fridge– if I don’t have anything to use them in right away, I can cook something and freeze it for later.
10. Make fried/toasted chickpeas. I’ve always wanted to but never got around to it. This year is the year of the chickpea.

I know it’s horribly out of season in the states right now, but I just can’t stop thinking about asparagus. I didn’t get my fill of it this year, and now my supermarket only carries a few limp bunches. Yesterday was the last day of our farmer’s market, which meant our last chance to get yummies from the Canby Asparagus Farm*. Although their food is a little too greasy for me, they use asparagus in some inspiring untraditional ways, such as deep frying it or in tamales. Watching Joe enjoy an asparagus burrito yesterday inspired this list, Ten Ways to Use Asparagus.

1. Wrapped in buttery phyllo dough and baked.

2. For breakfast! Serve it steamed or roasted alongside your hashbrowns, or chop it up to incorporate into an omelet.

3. With mushrooms. The richness of the mushrooms helps downplay the distinctive taste of asparagus, which is good if you have guests who are wary of it. Plus anything with mushrooms and asparagus in it has a gourmet feel, no matter how simple it is to make. Just steam the asparagus and set aside. Saute scallions in butter, then add in chopped mushrooms. Which mushroom you use would depend on what theme you’re going for. Are your other dishes Asian? Use shitake. Is it a quick fix meal? Use cremini or whatever’s on hand. This dish would really shine if you use morels though. Once the mushrooms are are tender, add in the asparagus and seasonings and cook until warmed through and coated with mushroomy goodness.

4. To continue with the mushroom theme, try using cooked portabello slices instead of bacon to create those cute little aspargus roll-ups that you always see offered as appetizers.

5. Covered in a creamy bean and citrus sauce. I have a recipe for this in my “Keepers” notebook, but it’s out of reach. When Joe wakes up and grabs it for me, I’ll edit this post to include it.

6. Roasted and served over a spicy pilaf. Use this recipe from Ann Gentry as a starting point.

7. Mmm. Asparagus and pea risotto. Nothing says spring like green against white.

8. A traditional side dish would be simple roasted asparagus drizzled with a garlic aioli or vegan hollandaise sauce. Make your own aioli by blending silken tofu with garlic, lemon juice, and whatever else suits you. Dill or tarragon would be nice additions if you’re serving it with asparagus.

9. My omni family grills everything, so I’ve eaten every vegetable grilled at least once. Asparagus wasn’t my favorite because I didn’t enjoy the texture of it. Joe loved it though. We served it alongside grilled corn.

10. Blended in soup. Ann Gentry (apparently an asparagus lover!) has the best asparagus soup I’ve ever tasted in her book Real Food Daily. It uses cilantro as the main flavoring, which is a little unusual, unless of course you’re the Canby Asparagus Farm. When I first made it, before we were finished with our first bowls Joe and I were already planning when we would eat it next.

*(Apparently one can still order their tamales online, but for some reason they don’t put asparagus in any of the vegan ones!)

I rarely use any convience foods. It’s simply less convienent for me to do so. I don’t have a car, so I rely primarily on the vegetable basket that gets delivered to my house for food. When I do walk to grocery store, I stock up on bulk dry  items, such as beans, grains, pasta, and spices, and other staples like nut milk and olive oil.

Every now and then, however, Joe and I find an excellent product that is worth its weight. (I don’t mean this as a figure of speech. When you’re going to be carrying the groceries home by hand, that’s how you judge these things. Is it worth its weight?) Rising Moon pastas are one of these indulgences.

On one shopping trip, Joe brings me two frozen packages of ravioli and says, “We have to get this.”  Sorry, I say. It says ‘creamy’ right on the package. That’s code for ‘full of dead animal.’ This time, turns out, I was wrong. Their Creamy Artichoke and
Organic Olive Ravioli is completely vegan! After that, I was hooked.

They have several other flavors, my favorite being the butternut squash, which is easy to dress up with a quick butter sage sauce. All of them can be ready in minutes and taste good tossed with nothing but just a little bit of olive oil. The only problem is the size of the packages. We usually eat them as snacks rather than with meals. If you have a few other courses though, or if you eat less than me!, they’d be a great first couse.

I recently finished The Way We Eat by Jim Mason and Peter Singer, a book that dissects just about every food choice you can make and its impact on humanity. It gets into these nitty gritty comparisons of, say, the energy used to grow a tomato hydoponically in the US versus importing it from a country where tomatoes are in season. The one topic that wasn’t covered that I’m still curious about are the comparative effects of different methods of cooking.

A little web research has forced me to consider it an almost moot point. Apparently the differences are extremely minimal. This website, dedicated to saving money, makes the case that the oven and stovetop are far and away the worse choices, while smaller appliances such as a microwave will always be better. My problem with the microwave is keeping it plugged in all of the time, which I am wont to do since we use it as a clock as well. If I use it once every three days, its still sitting there and sucking up electricity for the other two days that its not in use.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that microwaves are right up there with flouride as far as potential threat should people like this be right. I work with several people who do not use microwaves; in fact, we now have a toaster oven at work specifically to provide an alternative.

As far as using the stovetop, cooking with a pressure cooker would be the way to go. Unfortunately, I am terrified of pressure cookers. I am working up the courage to buy one, but then it might be another year or two before I am brave enough to actually use it.

The one question I can’t find an answer to is whether it’s more efficient to eat at a restuarant (presuming that you walk there) or at home. I took one of those online tests that measure your footstep, and despite the fact that I’m vegan, it said that my food choices alone require “4 earths”. (These tests rate you based on the number of planets that would be needed to support human life if everyone had your lifestyle.) I noted on the test that I eat out maybe twice a week, so I can only suppose that that’s what the test considers so wasteful.

On the one hand, restaurants do waste more food. They prepare items in bulk, and much of it gets thrown out. The same could be said of me, however. I by no means make use of every item that comes into my kitchen. Joe gets creeped out easily, so if anything looks remotely spoiled, we have to discard it. Also, it’s hard to prepare food for just two people, so a lot of it goes to waste.

It seems to me, however, that restaurants would be more efficient in their preparation of food. Everything is down to a science, rather than the on-going science experiment that is my kitchen. I’m sure that I waste a lot of time and energy in projects that never exactly come to fruition. I think I’m going to pass this question on the Umbra at Grist and let her do the research.

The recipe for the world’s best peanut sauce still eludes me. The Thai restaurant that we get take out from changed owners, and now their peanut sauce is different. It’s even better than it was previously, making my pathetic attempts seem even worse. Their new one is extremely pale, more the color of tahini with spices than peanut butter. Maybe next time we eat in the restaurant I’ll ask for the recipe. That’s always a little scary though, because you never know what you might discover. I don’t want to know that the ingredient is something horribly inhumane like shark fin or baby koala feet.

Maybe I’m just using the wrong peanut butter… Hm…

In other news, I made the world’s best jambalaya last night, completely without a recipe. I never even made jambalaya before period, so I’m extremely impressed with myself. When Joe took his first bite he let out a little “oh!”. It was completely spontaneous, as if he was surprised by the quality. It was the best compliment my cooking ever got, due to its unintended nature.

Unfortunately, I didn’t write the recipe down as I made it. I never wrote a recipe of my own before, so the skill is foreign to me. I’ll try to recreate it again before tomato season is completely over. My secret weapons, besides awesome tomatoes, were red miso and tamari.

Tonights’ challenge is fennel. I bought it completely on a whim and now I have to find something to do with it.

My boyfriend posed me this question recently, “When you tell me to get onions at the grocery store, which type do you mean?” He’s clueless about all things food related, so he tends to buy whichever looks the most appetizing and exotic. Except in the case of onions. Although he was quite tempted by the cippolinis, he assumed that that wasn’t what I wanted, so instead he had been buying me the most “generic” looking ones.

Now I have a general idea about what type of onions to use but I have been wrong before. So, just to make sure, I decided to look it up. That’s how I found the very helpful Cook’s Thesaurus, which gives brief descriptions of the most common varieties.

It turns out that I’ve been exactly dead on with my knowledge and use of onions. I used the page to teach Joe which each type were and which ones to get when asked. He’s still quite enamored with cipploinis, so I might have to cook him some sometime soon.

One allium which I admit to being unfamiliar with is the leek. I only seem to see them appear in recipes for leek and potato soup, which never really intrigued me. In my attempt to become more familiar with the allium family, I decided to buy some leeks and give them a shot.

One thing I did know about leeks is that they are supposedly difficult to clean due to the propensity for dirt to sneak down between the layers. I chopped them in half lengthwise down to the white part, leaving the layers still connected near the bottom. The pieces fanned apart, making them very easy to clean with running water.

Since I didn’t know any other uses of leeks, I opted for the standby potato soup. I’ve made potato soup before, so I followed the same general recipe but added in two chopped leeks, which came out to approximately two cups. The soup was rather bland, I ended up having to stir in tons of herbs at the end to give it any flavor. I’m not sure if I should have used more leeks, or if the flavor of leeks are just too subtle for my palatte, considering how fond I am of spicy, vibrant dishes.

Next time I plan to try a sauté of some sort in which leeks are a more central element of the dish, such as the Fennel, Mushroom, and Leek Sauté over at Veggie Venture or this simple dish of leeks sautéed in wine. Any other suggestions?