Whip-it-up dinner featuring super-greens that you can FEEL gettin' in your cells

Today was an annoying weather day. I discovered while standing in the locker room at the gym in my underwear, that Punky actually had a snow day and not a delay. I swore under my breath and reorganized my day, including not getting my work out. Getting to lift and throw and grunt around with weights is really important to me and I'm training for a sprint triathlon and considering starting striking/boxing in the summer. Not being able to exercise pisses me off. BUT I did a good job rallying. Today was another day when I loved loved loved my job. I am really lucky.

Enough of that. Let's get some recipes going, eh?

I have a cooking problem. I am really bad at cooking rice. Really bad. It's a running joke with Pants. I even texted him the other day when I blew it, and he said "good to know some things never change." I fucked up an entire pot of brown the other day...just underdone and swimming in water. Today I fucked up wild rice and this is the kind of rice that comes so that it is easily made...any American should be able to do it. I salvaged it but it's kinda weird and chewy and hard.

Fett digs the wild rice so I'm getting into it too. Hadn't been in my rotation. I did a millet recipe recently--Ethiopian--and it was wonderful. I made a hot cereal mix of toasted millet and amaranth grains. It's pretty good though strongly nutty.

These are easy recipes and are great for a night when you don't have a lot of time and want to talk to your dearest friend ever (whom I will call Significant Other, Mrs. White) while cooking. That reminds me, I need to get my voicemail fixed.

Did you guys click on the links in my blog last night??? I felt really clever.

Really I think it behooves  all of us to eat more greens. This post will give you 3 different ways to have them and they are all very different and very delicious and very easy and quite fast.

Sauteed Chard and Tofu

I like tofu. I know that people think we all eat too much soy, that tofu is boring etc etc. I like it, Punky likes it, and it's really versatile. Another time I will post Dr. Sarah's smokey tofu.

If you haven't had chard, it's a great introduction to the kale and heavy greens family. It's intense like kale but softer, more tender, and not as cabbage-y. It's really good. Trader Joe's has it in bags along with bagged kale and bagged mustard/collard greens that I'm psyched to use. I use my cast iron pot, not just a sautee pan, because you use a lot of chard and it's in a big pile until it cooks down.

1 medium shallot-minced (pretty small)
3 cloves garlic-chopped (not quite as small)
Olive oil, enough to coat the bottom. You could easily use spray. 
1 block of extra firm tofu. 
1 whole 16 oz/1 pound bag of chard. It's a lot. Trust me on this
Salt
Pepper
Seasoning of your choice, in the Italian realm. I used an oregano/marjoram/thyme/basil blend and some random Penzey's blend I had lying around. WHAT??? You aren't familiar with PENZEY'S. OMG I'm obsessed.

1. Press the tofu. Some of you poor saps don't have the Tofu Express. It ain't cheap but it's worth the money. It is very sturdy and really presses the water right out. Perfect for marinating. If you don't have it, you need to put the tofu between plates and stack a bunch of cookbooks or something on top. It really helps to press tofu. It keeps it from falling apart and lets it soak in flavor. Don't scrimp on this and if you don't have the press, try to do it for 1/2 hour at least. The press is really quick though.
2. Preheat pan with olive oil over medium-low heat. 
3. Add shallot and garlic. Stir them around until they are nicely browned but NOT burned.
4. Cube up the tofu: Cut it longwise, as though you are making 2 layers. Then cut those layers into long strips and then crosswise into 1/2-1 inch cubes...I can't believe how long it took me to figure out how to type that and really, you probably know what I mean. And put it in the pan
5. Sautee tofu until it's starting to brown and  maybe even sticking a little. 
6. Add the seasonings. I have no idea how much. Tablespoon?
7. Add the chard, just throw it all in and try to stir it. It will be hard to stir cause it's in a big pile and will fall out and be annoying. It'll get easier when it wilts. Hang in there!
8. Cover and stir every once in a while. 
9. Check it occasionally and once the chard starts to really wilt, take lid off and let it sautee and give off it's water. 
10. Stir it often enough to scrape up the little fried tofu and shallot/garlic bits. Yum! 
11. Tofu will scramble a little and some of the pieces will fall apart a little (not too much if you pressed it right) but those bits get yummy and sort of crispy. 

Make rice while you're doing all this. Serve it up! 

Kale chips aka Shrinky Dinks

Punky helped me make these. He ate 1/2 bag of kale...that's 8 oz, 1/2 a pound of kale. And kale is mad good for you. These are easy.

1. Preheat oven to 275. 
2. Pour 8 oz (1/2 bag )of kale into a big bowl. 
3. Put olive oil on one hand or drizzle a LITTLE bit on the kale. Only a little. 
4. Optional: sprinkle with maybe 1-2 tsps of balsamic vinegar
5. Sprinkle with salt. I like it pretty salty but start easy. 
6. Options: Add nutrition yeast, one of the most famous/infamous vegan seasonings. Add chili powder, cayenne, curry powder. Be creative! 
7. Put them on baking sheets. Don't let them overlap, spread them out a bit.
8. Bake at 275 for about 5-10 minutes. Check them every once in a while. They should shrink and get crispy, really crispy. Watch that they don't burn!
9. I made these with spinach the other day and they were kind of cool. I'm going to work on that more. 

A massaged kale salad: One of many variations

I have noticed that I really like colons. ::: Punky helped me make this one too but wouldn't let me take his picture.


IMPORTANT: As you massage the kale, pull the leaves off the woody stem parts and set the stems aside. Also, save the stems of parsley and the leftover parts of carrot if there is any. I hate wasting food and like to use as much of my ingredients as possible. I have a little recipe below that uses this stuff.

8 oz of kale, washed and trimmed. Don't be a sucker! Buy that prebagged stuff!

A lot of parsley. I probably had 1/3 cup minced up really small. It was a handful+
1/4 cup of veganaise (you could use mayo, yogurt or eliminate if you want)
1-2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
Olive oil, enough for your hands to massage and a little more
Agave nectar, maybe 1-2 teaspoons
Salt
Pepper
1/3 cup toasted pepitas/pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup dried cranberries. We used the orange ones from trader joes and they were fantastic.
1 carrot, grated or julienned very small

1. Massage the kale with olive oil and a little salt
2. Throw in parsley
3. Add veganaise and lemon juice. Toss it around really well.
4. Add agave, pepitas and toss some more
5. Add cranberries and pepper and salt if needed.
6. Add carrot
7. As always TASTE AS YOU GO and change as you see fit. 
8. I added some leftover strawberries, sliced up. I hesitated in this. Adding strawberries to salads is totally passe, totally last decade. I know this because Eat n' Park used to have a salad with strawberries in it on their menu. They are the epitome of uncool and behind-the-times. Oh well.

Leftover Kale Butts Relish

You saved the kale butts/woody bits and the parsley and carrot, right?

Making a broth: ALWAYS if possible, throw the butts/bits/leftovers of your vegetables into a bag in the freezer. I often use an old plastic lettuce container (Yeah...I buy prewashed lettuce too). Then when you have a bunch and have an afternoon or morning to hang around, put it in a pot and make your own stock. I'll post more about that some time cause it is TOTALLY worth doing. Most store bought broth is nasty. I have shittons of vegetable butts in my freezer so I wanted something different to do with them.

1. Chop up the kale butts. I sliced them longways so that I was exposing the more tender part. Make them diced pretty small cause this is a relish-y thing. You want as much surface area of your veggies exposed as possible.
2. Chop up the parsley butts. 
3. Chop up carrot butts. 
4. In a large bowl add 1/2-1 cup of cider vinegar (Bragg's if possible).
5. Add vegetable butts.
6. Add 1 Tablespoon-1/8 cup of Sriracha
7. Add salt, a bit
8. Add Bragg's Liquid Amino Acids, maybe 1-2 Tablespoons
9. Toss around a lot in the bowl. 
10. Store in a glass container (use glass, pickley things can make plastic or metal weird) and chill.
11. Truth be told, I haven't actually tasted this yet. I know it will need to marry and pickle up a bit. It coudl be good on a hummus wrap or something like that.

Ok...one more....

Creamy Coriander dressing (This is almost exactly like the pale green dressing at an Indian restaurant)


One more recipe. I love this dressing. Fett and I made a chili the other day (that I should post) and it was SUPER-easy and used the Laxmi Coriander Chutney paste which is absolutely amazing. You can see it in this picture, a gorgeous bright green. As an aside, this company has cheap spices and grains. I buy them sometimes. The only perfume I wear is their Rose Water. It's like 3 bucks and lasts a long time and I can put in my hair and on my clothes etc.

If I wasn't mostly vegan, I would use a nice tart non-fat yogurt for this. I think soy yogurt would be disgusting. Try if you must but don't say I didn't warn you. I only eat that crap when I'm really hard up for probiotics/cultured products.

1. In a jar, add 2-3 Tablespoons (maybe more, depends on how strong you want it) of coriander chutney paste to about 1/4 cup veganaise or yogurt.
2. Add 1/2 cup of lemon juice
3. Shake that shit UP. 
4. Check for salt and general taste. 

So, those are the recipes for today. Lots of green stuff. It's all very healthy and very easy.

Things I plan to post about soon: vegetable broth; injera; Fett's Fire-roasted chili; smokey tofu; the other kale salad I made that was amazing; more cocktails; artichoke pasta;

Hey so how is my layout treating you guys? Do I need to space it more? Not putting pictures in sure is faster but this entry has taken quite a while. Argh. God damn it. I just realized I made tea water an hour ago and still didn't make it. Crap.

This entry isn't as entertaining, is more food stuff. I hope that's cool. Want to keep it lively still. I do use the word shitton a lot lately, so that's fun.

Hot Legs Cabbage Salad and Miso-Tahini spread/dip. Bonus: Cocktail recipe by Fett!

**Note: I try to embed at least 1-3 fun links in each entry so don't miss them!** or miss them and be really sad and miss out.

I've been missing blogging. It's fun. I'm going to try to be faster about it so I don't feel the whole: "Oh shit, I want to blog but I don't have 2 hours to set aside." I'm trying to go to bed on time, drink less, eat in a reliably helpful way, and to generally be more mindful of my own health. If I want to take good care of Punky, I need to care for myself. It's totally trite and totally true.

When Fett came back from Philly, we did some cooking that night. I made a dip/spread thing that was really good. It tastes vegan. That's all I can say about that...tahini, braggs, miso...those things taste vegan. And by that I mean that it tastes very different than a typical spread/hummus/American thing would taste like. I guess it's sort of Asian-y but not exactly. It's a far cry from ranch or french onion dip. But it's tasty!

The thing about being vegan is that you get creative about spices, flavor profiles, and texture (in all its forms). It's either that or everything tastes flat. Meat and dairy give depth and body to food. They give it true umami. You can get pretty close to the umami and depth and body without meat and dairy but it isn't easy and isn't a true simulacrum. I usually find that it's not worth trying to recapitulate and approximate anything that is truly meat/dairy. Mac n Cheese? Don't bother unless you're willing to really enjoy butternut squash and cashew cream instead of rich Gruyere and cheddar. Hamburgers? Bacon? Sausage? Don't. Bother. Those things are amazingly delicious and cannot be imitated. A veggie burger is just that and nothing more. I think veggie dogs are revolting. I love hot dogs and I just suck it up. My reasons for being vegan are motivation enough and reason enough for me to sacrifice. Frankly, I don't believe vegans who say the smell of bacon, cooked meat, cheese sauce is nauseating. It is delicious smelling. My response? So what. I get really tired of hearing "I could never give up cheese." Yes you could. You just choose not to. That's fine, but don't state it as something that is inflicted upon you and out of your control.

And do me a favor: Don't tell me that when I crave meat, enjoy smelling it, that I must be missing some nutrient or vitamin, that I probably "need" it. I crave fucking margaritas and beer and chocolate and potato chips. That doesn't mean I need those things. My brain is an idiot and I don't trust it.

The other thing that I've been thinking about lately is flexibility in food and life. I eat fish occasionally now, in the form of sashimi and sushi. I also ate a few eggs lately. They were raised by Fett's friend and they were amazing and beautiful, saffron-colored and rich-tasting. I have no regrets, don't feel bad, and simply know that I can make a choice any time I have options and I don't have to be rigid.

So on to some recipes!

Hot Legs Cabbage Salad

You guys, this salad is intense and gets more intense over time. I ate the last of it this afternoon after a workout--and I scarfed it--and my stomach is like: "Hey! We're digesting some cabbage and garlic over here! Have a whiff!" It's really good though. I did not like it at first but it definitely gets better with age. Fett liked it and he's kind of a kim chi connoiseur.

1/2 head of green cabbage: sliced across the bias so it is in lacy ribbons like cole slaw
1/4-1/2 cup of cider vinegar: I use the Bragg's version. The label is silly and fun and I think it tastes MUCH better than the standard.
A bunch of Sriracha, probably 1/4 cup eventually I kept adding it. I started with a teaspoon and added it along the way. Probably ended up with quite a bit. It adds the garlic edge.
1/4-1/2 cup agave nectar You could use sugar or brown rice syrup but the concentrated sweetness of agave is perfect here.
Salt I used a lot cause I like it salty. This will make the cabbage give up some of its water, which is good i think. You can always salt your cabbage ahead of time and drain it so it stays crunchy (according to Cooks Illustrated).
Mirin, maybe 1-2 teaspoons Which is made from sake. It's a little sweet and has an aromatic edge.
Ume Plum Vinegar 1-2 teaspoons. This is a good thing to have in your pantry but don't go get it just for this. It's sort of sweet/tart.
Lemon juice Not much, just a splash.

It occurs to me that with all the vinegar and sriracha, that the mirin and ume plum might be wasted and barely detected, masked. But whatever. It made me feel like a really good cook to be putting dashes of this and that in the bowl, playing chemistry or something.

Taste it. Throw it around with tongs in a big bowl. Keep shaking and tasting and tossing and tasting. It's good after about 2 days and then keeps getting better. I might have forgotten a couple ingredients but try adding other stuff too: peanuts? sunflower seeds? pumpkin seeds? raisins???

Miso-Tahini spread/dip

My mom made a dip very much like this that inspired me to attempt to imitate it. I got close. It's super easy.

1/2-3/4 cup tahini
1 Tablespoon of WHITE miso I think it would be really different if you used the non-mellow, strong stuff. Good maybe, but really different. It is worth having a range of misos hanging around your fridge. They are cheap, last forever, and are so good in soup, dressings, marinades and other stuff.
5-6 green onions Chop them up pretty well.
1/2 tsp ground ginger (maybe a little less, taste as you go)
1/2 Tablespoon of Bragg's liquid amino acids Bragg's aminos is totally necessary if you are vegan. It has umami. It's kind of like soy sauce with a more grainy edge. Hard to explain. It's necessary in this recipe. Soy sauce would be okay but not as good.
Don't add salt unless you really think you need it. Bragg's is salty.

Mix it all up in a little dish. You could blender-ize it but it's not necessary. The miso makes it a little sweet-ish. We found this went very well with a spicy tangy dip.


Fett's Raspberry-Lime Rickey

Little-known fact about Fett: He knows a shitton about liquor and cocktails. He's really creative and has made drinks with pickled ginger and mirin, to name 2. This one is more traditional and I will try to add more of his stuff in later posts. Be sure to click that link in the title for a really interesting quick bit about the history of lime rickey's.

Handful of raspberries We usually use frozen and have lots of frozen fruit around for this kind of thing including whole strawberries, raspberries, mixed berries, peaches, and we've tried mango and pineapple. Blueberries SUCK for this kind of thing.
Lime-Juice it. I like using a wooden reamer for juicing citrus.
Agave nectar (2 teaspoons or to taste)
2-ish shots of vodka (Luksusowa (awesome link for MMA people!) is absolutely my favorite kind but we drink New Amsterdam usually)

1. Muddle the lime juice and agave and raspberries. Muddle is smashing it up at the bottom of the glass, preferably with a wooden implement (I think).
2. Add the vodka and stir it up
3. Add 1 can of seltzer.
No need to shake it if you have seltzer. It's sort of self-mixing. You can gently stir it around. Try not to chug this cause it's so good.

And next time you're making a vodka and soda, throw in some pickled ginger. It is really good.

Well what do you know! It only took 1/2 hour to do this entry! Not posting pictures helps. And it was fun. Sorry I went off up there about meat and vegans. I don't like offending people but I also like offending people...it's a hard way to be sometimes.

Recent cooking events -or- obfuscation in vivo

I'm on my ipad so this is slow going. I need one of those great keyboards. I hate the apple brand one.

So I have made some really silly mistakes lately. These are the kinds of things I haven't done in years. And it is because I am trying to do too many things at once.

-Over the weekend I broke Pyrex bc I put water in a hot pan. Duh.
- i read a recipe wrong REPEATEDLY and missed the fact that the dough needed to rise...twice. So it took way longer than I budgeted for.
-I have added too much salt or forgotten to take salt content of other foods into account
-I overcooked the poor broccoli
-I made a bad kale salad which in and of itself isn't bad because that's how you learn, but I sort of gave up instead of trying to fix it
-I tried to short-cut my roasted Brussels sprouts and they were too crowded on the pan. Further, I tried to use the oven for several things and so the temp was wrong for the Brussels so they are soggy and barely reminiscent of the wonderfulness they become when roasted.
-tonight I broke another glass container. This time it was a quart of wonderful, precious homemade vegetable stock that was still defrosting and I absently put it on the hot stove. KER-SMASH. Shattered all over stovetop, counter, under pans on the stove, glass in my chopped shallot. Kind of demoralizing.
-I have continually grabbed very hot pans.
-I cut myself on my mandolin, which if you've never done it, is awful.
-tonight I also over salted my peanut sauce which was otherwise AWESOME.
-when Fett and Punky and I sat down to eat last night, I was up and down almost every minute checking something that wasn't done, responding to my phone, or getting something I had forgotten.
-the worst part of tonight: I actually burned my pan-fried tofu. It was because I wasn't paying attention to the temperature or placement of my cast iron skillet, wasn't moving the pieces around and forgot about it because I had 4 other things going on as well as trying to clean up, put dishes away, do laundry and set the table.

I need to slow down. I need to choose fewer things to cook at any given time. I can't multitask as well as I think I can and it is starting to feel frenetic.

I have noticed lately that it is very hard for me to not move, plan, organize, schedule, balance, coordinate. If Fett and I have a quiet morning on a day without Punky, it is VERY hard for me to just chill on the couch and cozily watch TV or read or nap. I instantly want to vacuum, launder, plan menus. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't feel compulsive. I catch myself organizing papers at home and work in a very systematic but somewhat rigid and strangely superstitious way. It does not feel relaxing and satisfying usually when I do this but instead compulsive, compulsory, and sad. I want to be able to just relax and stretch out my legs. I can sometimes do that in the evening but I won't lie: it requires alcohol.

I feel pretty fractured and even frantic some days. I exercise often and that helps but it is partly because it is a useful way to discharge the anxiety and not be still. It feels deeper than anxiety. It feels like fear. I am afraid if I stop moving, if I stop shuffling papers, stop cooking, stop planning....I'm afraid I will fall apart. I don't even know what that looks like. I don't have an image or an outline even of what The Fall Apart Monster looks like. But I fear it.

Sometimes in my work, when a client is busiedly talking about something irrelevant or she is running around in session or in her life, when the concern she brought to me is conspicuously absent, when I sense frenetic distraction I just sit quietly. i stop encouraging her to talk or move. Usually the behavior increases and anxiety peaks. then i can ask:
"If we weren't talking about your shopping list/your stress/your annoyance at the car place, what would fill that space?" Usually she doesn't know but sitting with that anxiety for just a little while can quickly put into stark light what is being obscured, smoke-screened, or ignored. Ignored. Itmis so easy to just describe the trials of life, the little funny events worthy of a facebook post. So often we ignore the pure, powerful feelings of fear, sadness, anger, joy, existential pain and loss. These things deserve to be seen and to be bathed in the light of awareness and EXPERIENCING.

What the f*ck does this have to do with cooking? If I wasn't cooking 5 things--focused on the ways to use sorghum flour and millet and turbinado sugar while also using up those leeks and making lunches and snacks, if i wasn't organizing my papers chronologically and by importance....what would fill that space. What might I be obscuring or ignoring? Who inside me needs to talk and I keep suppressing that voice?

Failures! Plus: How to Massage a Kale...watch the fingernails

So I decided to say "Fu*k it!" to this:

 and write a post.  I've been wanting to write. It will probably be more than 1 post. I have a few things to share.

Well I just had a really annoying conversation with Pants. He would agree that it was annoying. I doubt he'd care that I said it publicly. But really, who cares if he would? Haha! The conversation felt like a failure. We have had many successes lately, including fun conversations about terrible names on the playground, joining together to be proud of Punky, generally encouraging and being supportive of each other. Today was a far-cry from that. I feel resentful and he feels oppressed. Neither of us really have much to complain about.

That conversation was a failure. So, here are some failures of my kitchen variety.

I made two things that were not great. Being vegan, people think you eat salad and vegetables all the time. That is mostly what I ate tonight. I'm hooked on kale salad. Whenever I get "into" something  like that, I try to make lots of variations. I've got a variety of kale salads and the one I made tonight was pretty lame. It had so much potential. The really funny thing is what happened while I was diligently making my trite kale salad. Yes, massaged kale salad is kind of trite for vegans. Those Eat More Kale shirts are soooooooooo last year. Meanwhile, I still don't have one and I want one.

Here's what happened while I made the kale salad (it is so embarrassing):

Rookie mistake. Totally a rookie mistake. Overcooked. Mushy. Fett will be here from teaching in a little while and I'm embarrassed to feed him this broccoli. No one should ever EVER steam a vegetable and then leave the god damned lid on after taking it off the heat. SHAME. The hilarious part is that I was feeling very foodie and superior as I made my Asian-themed kale salad, which had me so engrossed that I steamed up some farty broccoli.

Here's the salad [i'm showing the picture now, not in the middle of the recipe. you're welcome]:

Look, I'm going to give you the "recipe" for this kale salad but it wasn't that great. It was greasy. It didn't have enough crunch and I missed a bite-y-ness that my kale salads tend to have. I'm learning more and more that I really like sour things. I'm not a huge sweets fan.

That being said, those gluten-free vegan cinnamon buns were pretty good. They got hard as rocks since then. Coincidentally, so did my intestines. I was bung'd up and pretty bloated for at least 36 hours after eating them. I think maybe I'm not used to eating that much flour of ANY kind. It took 4 fucking hours to make this recipe (http://www.theglutenfreevegan.com/2011/10/gluten-free-vegan-cinnamon-buns/) It's a good recipe. It works. The best part is her tutorial on how to roll and cut them. Fett and I decided that if they tasted like shit, this was what I had to show for it:

Yeah. I put a pyrex dish in the sink and promptly ran some water in it. Another rookie mistake. But they were pretty good even if they made me constipated. Fett liked them. Punky liked them.

I made a kale salad the other day that was fucking amazing. It was SO good. I'm sad there isn't more of it. I will post a recipe of it in a separate place because this blog is called failures and it is a far-cry from failure.

Below is the massaged kale salad I made today. I will call it "Uncle Honeybun's Crappy Asian Kale Salad" because it is crappy "asian" flavor and not very clever even though I wanted it to be. There used to be a Chinese takeout place here in Big College Town called Uncle Chen's and it was the crummiest awesomest Chinese food you could ever want. I visited a dear friend who was hospitalized with food poisoning from there. Anyway. I'm going to give you some tips on kale salads.

Tips for Massaged Kale Salads

1. There are plenty of recipes for massaged kale salads. You don't need a recipe! You just need a sense of what to do. 
2. Use a lot more kale than you think you need/want. It breaks down and shrinks similarly to spinach and other greens when cooked. 
3. Massaged means massaged. You really do rub stuff into the kale. 
4. As you massage, pull out the stems/woody parts. They do a great job of removing most of the wood (haha) but there will still be a few pieces with very rough stems. Just rip the leaves away from those parts and either compost, pitch, or save for stock the stem bits. 
5. Massage with oil...if I have to explain why you always use oil when you give a massage then I have a question for you: Do you enjoy chaffing?
6. Only use 1 hand. Your left will feel like someone else is massaging. I know it's faster with two hands (*snicker*haha) but you'll be really annoyed when you can't turn off the water or flip the tofu or check your phone or whatever because your other hand is covered in oil. 
7. You should massage for quite a while. Your kale is going to go from that olive green, sort of dusty and gray to bright green and soft. It takes a little while, especially only using one hand. Really rub it nicely. Here is a pic of it when it is massaged with a piece of sad, stressed, bung'd up kale on top:

(also-get one of these huge steel bowls, like they use at restaurants. they are amazing)

When you make a kale salad, use a huge bowl and tongs to throw it around and toss it. In a later post I'll give you the general formula for kale salads. here's my crummy one. 

Uncle Honeybun's Crappy Asian Kale Salad
*Credit given: Fett came and doctored up the salad. He added MORE Toasted Sesame Oil and way more Rice Vinegar. He was totally right. It's a lot better. The recipe below will reflect his additions...but that isn't helpful because I didn't measure any of my stuff. 

That reminds me. Here's one of the reasons I don't measure things. Don't be TOO impressed that I eyeball stuff. I kind of don't have a choice and plus I'm lazy. Here are my cup measure-ers. They aren't marked:

Ok. Recipe.

1/2 bag of prewashed kale. I don't remember if I said this before but DON'T be a sucker and buy your kale and wash it yourself. Prewashed kale is the greatest thing since precut butternut squash. It's worth the extra money. Your cells will thank you as they get buoyed and tough from kale. Kale: You can FEEL it gettin' right in your cells.
Peanut Oil 1/8 cup MAX. This is what I used for the massage. DON'T use all toasted sesame or even all sesame for that matter. You will barf. Just do a little at a time, like a couple teaspoons or so.
Toasted Sesame Oil I put it on my hand as I massaged and added a bit more, as did Fett, so maybe 1-2 Tablespoons. Look. Toasted sesame oil is REALLY strong. Go easy or you will regret it.
Rice Vinegar (unseasoned): Maybe 1/8-1/4 cup. Fett added more and it was correct.
Mirin I added at least a tablespoon, maybe more
Tamari (soy sauce to the layman) Not much, a few shakes, maybe 1/8 cup total
Sea Salt I added it while massaging, maybe 1/2 tsp
Sesame seeds Toast about 1/4-1/2 cup of sesame seeds in a dry skillet and toss them in.
Cashews Toast up some chopped cashews, maybe 1/3-1/2 cup. Cashews are awesome and why the hell not.
Carrot I used my julienne peeler to zoodle a carrot into the salad
Green Cabbage  It needed something radishy so I added chopped cabbage, not a lot. Maybe 1 cup. It is raw.

The thing about this kind of salad is that if you aren't used to this roughage, you are going to get gas. I mean GAS. I do not get a lot of gas from veggies or roughage. But you might if you're not used to raw cabbage and kale. The kale is technically raw but is sort of broken down but it will get your gut going. It doesn't phase me at all.

People ask me if I get a lot of gas from the greens and beans. Yeah, people think when you're vegan you want to talk about your digestion. Well, in my case they are RIGHT! I'll tell you, meat and cheese kind of mess me up but it's baked goods and flours. Baked goods make me miserable and gassy and plugged up. Give me handfuls of kale and pounds of beans and I'm ready to roll. TMI? Welcome to my blog.

THE Quinoa Bean Salad...Yes. THAT one.

Down below, I'll give the recipe of something I made tonight. It wasn't anything fancy. If you've ever been to a potluck where I've brought anything in the past 3 years, it's almost certainly been my Quinoa Bean Salad. You poor souls at Punky's school are probably sick to death of that huge pyrex container that shows up at all the luncheons and potlucks and cultural dinners. People who live with me are sick to death of it...BUT NO THEY AREN'T. Because it is fucking amazing! It's good for all meals and great for after a workout. It's perfect for taking for lunch. It's cheap. It's easy. It's great with hot sauce all over it. It's TOTALLY a Honeybuns Classic. Can I get an amen from those of you who've had it? Seriously...everybody likes this. It's also pretty easily modifiable. It's gluten-free and vegan. It's soy, corn, and nut free. It's perfect for potlucks. Man...this entry is boring so far.

BUT that is not really what I want to talk about the most today. I will give you the recipe. It's nothing fancy or special.

I want to talk to you about this.

Chaos

Bowl on stove. Computer about to fall off cutting board. Garbage in sink and all over counter. Things are not organized and I can't find anything. I don't think the pictures quite capture it.

I've worked in a few restaurant kitchens in my time. I learned quickly that you have to keep your station clean and organized. When we got really busy, one of the most important things for me was to keep up on cleaning shit as I went along. I'd have like 5 of those white bar towels. Things can get a little disorganized but cleaning up and tidying and keeping track of that stuff has to be part of the program, at least for me it did. I could tell we were in the weeds--or I was in the weeds--when shit started to pile up and it got messy. 1/6th pans pulled halfway out of the rack, doors of fridges open. Dressing lying on its side. Dirty dishes everywhere, including the floor. Etc. See up there? That's me in the weeds. Normally, I have a great system in which I'm coordinating the order of dishes and knives to use. Things are washed as I go along. Room is made in appropriate places for various implements and foodstuffs. Tonight, that was impossible. Shit was everywhere, nothing was organized and it showed. My roasted cauliflower was a little overdone as was the smoky tofu. The bean salad did not turn out as good as it usually does and Punky said it best when he said "This doesn't taste the same." It took forever to clean up the kitchen.

So, why did this happen, Tempehest? I noticed what you see in those pictures. I noticed and I paused. I knew that I am normally very good at taking care of the mess and organizing everything as I go. It's one of the ways I get satisfaction from cooking. I thought, "I'm not in the weeds. It's not late. Punky is happily playing. I have nowhere to be. Why does the kitchen look like this?"

When my therapist asks me what makes me feel grounded and when I try to think of when I feel tallest, happiest, most confident and best I always envision cooking. This is not because I'm a great cook, necessarily. I'm a pretty good whip-it-up cook. No, it's because I can feel my feet on the floor and see my hands chop with a knife and have a systematic way of being and doing. It's systematic yet creative. It's tactile and full of the 6 senses (umami FTW). POOF I come up with something that nurtures the people I love. I can summon that confident and satisfied feeling as I sit here now. I can feel the texture of tofu, smell the shallot. I can see myself poking around in my spice cupboard.

So when the place where I feel happiest and most confident looks like this (ok, that's a wee bit of exaggeration), I know that I'm not taking care of myself and that there is chaos inside too. I'm not feeling so sparky in my head the past few days. Not on my game. Pretty wobbly. I'm trying really hard to maintain and be positive, but generally not feeling very grounded or centered or happy, frankly. This is to be expected when you start working more hours, don't get enough sleep, drink too much wine and vodka and gin, and are going through a divorce. I couldn't keep up on...anything it felt like... tonight. I felt confused and clouded and made silly mistakes as I cooked.

My kitchen and my cooking is a window into me, apparently. I learned this tonight.

So, from now on I will ask myself as I cook "Does it look like Thunderdome in here?" If so I will ask "What do I need to do in this room and inside Ms. Honeybuns to tidy the chaos and prevent violent anarchy?"

Recipe time.

The Tempehest's Quinoa (pronounced Kwin-oh-ah)* Bean Salad 
Remember how I said in the caveats entry that I don't really measure? This recipe is a good example of one in which I have never, ever measured (except the quinoa) and will have to guess what the ratios and stuff are. The important part of this is: You're making an herb vinaigrette and tossing around a bunch of stuff in that.

Note: there is nothing sweet in here. I think that would make it vile. But if you try it and it's good, let me know!

Basic rule of thumb: You can always add more. You can't add less! So try it first. It's easy to add more oil or vinegar. Once it's in there, it's there to stay.

Ingredients in-short: Quinoa, water, shallot, cilantro, 3 cans of beans (garbanzo, black, dark kidney), red wine vinegar, olive oil, can of artichoke hearts, lemon juice, salt, pepper, maybe dried Italian herbs. Also, a really big glass bowl with a lid.

What you will do:

1. Put 1 cup quinoa and 1.5-1.75 cups water in saucepan and bring to a boil. Quickly bring it down to a simmer and cook it for 15-20 minutes. Check it after 15 by tilting pan to see if water is still rolling around. Don't check too often or you'll let out too much steam.

2. While it's cooking you will make your herb vinaigrette. Make the vinaigrette IN the big glass bowl! Why make another dish to wash?!

3. Put in the big glass bowl that has a lid:
1/2 cup - 2/3 cup GOOD extra virgin olive oil ((DON'T SKIMP ON YOUR OLIVE OIL. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS DON'T SKIMP ON THE BRAND AND TYPE OF OLIVE OIL.)**
1/2 cup - 2/3 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon to 1 and 1/2 tsp salt 
an assload of FRESH GROUND pepper (stay away from that crap that is already ground). 

Yes I know those proportions are way off for a real vinaigrette but this salad is really tangy and you want that much vinegar. You might even want more. And also, remember that I never measure this so feel free to tweak it to your liking.

4. Mince and chop up 
at least a cup of packed cilantro
and throw it in the bowl  (or parsley or other fresh herbs if you really hate cilantro, weirdo). It will be 1/3-1/2 cup once you've minced it. It's hard to have too much.
Optional: dried Italian herbs, herbes de provence, etc.

5. Mince:
1 good sized shallot. Mince it up really small. You want lots of surface area and lots of bits so it really permeates the salad. Besides, no one likes to get a big huge chunk of onion or shallot. Hey! You made a vinaigrette!

I have used red onion instead and find it is a little rasty and sharp. It works but only marginally. Green onions are ok but not quite rasty enough. Raw garlic is way too much for me and remember, I'm vegan so that's saying something. You need a certain piquante level of rast that is hard to articulate but you know it when you have it. That's not very helpful.

6. Rinse the beans really well. REALLY WELL or you and everyone with whom you share a tight and enclosed space will regret it. If you were really smart and made your beans from dried ones, well fucking bully for you for being so organized and suzy homemaker. I keep canned ones around for this kind of thing. Don't put them in yet!
Wait for it...wait for it.....

7. Now the quinoa is almost done. When it is done (it should be fluffy, water should be gone) put it in the vinaigrette. It's hot and the vinaigrette will really get in there and season the quinoa. Toss it around a lot.

8. NOW add the beans and toss that salad (*snicker*) around a lot.

9. Then drain the artichoke hearts. Cut them into 8ths. So, put the flowery part face down on the cutting board and cut it into quarters from up above and then crosscut the quarters. Or just chop them up however you want. Whatever. Throw them in. Toss it all around.

10. Now add maybe 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice. Taste it!

11. Now chill it. Stir it around and taste it again.....It probably needs salt and more vinegar or lemon juice. Tweak it.

Dude, kids like this. Omnivores like this. Really. It's damn good. And I came up with it all on my own when I was first becoming vegan. It's like an old friend. And now it can be your friend too! :)

Variations:
-different grain (brown rice, bulgar wheat, couscous, israeli couscous, millet, farro...etc)
-different fresh herb
-mustard
-horseradish (?!)
-different aromatic if you want to try onion or something
-add cucumber, peppers, or sweet potato curls
-add massaged kale
-maybe raisins although it makes me gaggy thinking about it
-hot peppers

What else??? Share in the comments, eh?






*I know that's not how you say it. I hate how they spell it phonetically everywhere so I thought I'd initiate a trend to start saying it wrong.
**Other things you should never ever skimp on: black pepper/corns, chocolate, coffee, tea, rice, flour (King Arthur ALL the way), liquor, beer. I think skimping on wine is fine. As long as it doesn't make me shudder, I think it is passable. I know many will argue with me on that point.

Spring rolls...now unveiling a bizarre secret ingredient (not vegan)

[the secret ingredient is down below but i spent a lot of time working on these paragraphs so feel free to read them...]

I took pictures but I won't post them til the end. I love cooking blogs with a hot burning passion but I really hate how people intersperse pictures of cilantro and lemon zest gently resting on a mortar and pestle among the recipe. I'm trying to make your god damn recipe. Don't make it harder by forcing me to scroll past your artwork. No one cares about your lemon zesting skills. Really.

I'm trying to figure out how to make a blog post about this that is easy/fun to read and also useful in creating spring rolls if you want to do it. Here's the thing: I'm not teaching you how to roll them out or use that rice paper stuff. It's annoying and takes practice and that's all there is to it. I don't like the Blue Dragon brand I got recently. The real deal that I found in the unAmerican section of Wegmans are better and cheaper and sturdier. The truth is, these little fu*kers easily rip and you have to kind of work that into your rolling time and your patience quota.

The main reason to bother with spring rolls: They are the perfect canvas for experimenting with random combinations of stuff in small packages.The best part is that you can be really creative and they are kind of like little sculptures visually and taste-wise. You basically have the boring canvas of rice paper and you can stick all kinds of shit in there.

I'm not very good at rolling them or making them pretty, so that's not why I make them. That doesn't mean that how they look isn't fun and important.They can be cool looking from the outside because the wrap is see-through--try putting heart-cut strawberries or star-shaped peppers in there! They can be beautiful when you cut them, along the cross-section.

Recipe is a misnomer cause this is just a conglomeration of stuff I put together. My prep entailed gathering stuff I might want to stuff in a roll. I didn't use everything I gathered (see picture below that doesn't even include everything). The only cooking I did was toasting the sesame seeds and quickly searing the tofu. I made normal ones that I consider kind of boring and just full of veggies, some with rice. You can add noodles too. To me, spring rolls are kind of a vehicle for sauce. So, it's a rice wrapper with maybe a starchy filler (rice, noodles) but DEFINITELY with veggies (cabbage, peppers, sweet potato, cucumber, avocado, carrot, celery, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, mint, parsley, whatever!), and a clever garnish inside (pickled ginger, sesame seeds, nori, sprouts, hot peppers, fruit, sauce, meat, etc) that is kind of dippable until it falls apart. I made 3 sauces.

Yes, we associate spring rolls with Asian flavors but I made 2 kinds tonight that were, emphatically, not Asian tasting. I'm not giving the ingredients or procedure for the uninteresting standard spring rolls. I'm sure allrecipes.com has some shit on that or something. I'm here to give you my wild ways.

The general procedure is to: put in your ingredients and roll it up. I don't know how to explain how to do it other than to say a few unhelpful sentences: You use less than you think you should. You should do it in stripes.

So, a rice stripe with avocado on it. Then you can have a stripe above and below the rice. Maybe one is yellow pepper and another is cabbage. Then on top of your stripes you can put light squashy things like tofu or bean sprouts or whatever. Just try stuff and try different ways of layering and rolling. There's no best way, in my experience. Be gentle with your little wrappers and kind of tuck them as you roll.

Sauce 1 and Sauce 2  

ALWAYS **taste as you go a whole bunch. I ended up with a bunch of sauce because I kept having to add shit to tweak it until I liked it**

SAUCE ONE Sort of smokey and spicy. I wasn't a huge fan but maybe you will like it OR you can tweak it and make it really good. As I look at the "recipe", I'm disappointed in myself.
-1/4 c soy sauce
-Sriracha...some squirts, maybe 2
-Hoisin sauce, the bottled kind, maybe a teaspoon. Maybe it needed more

This sauce was good on the plain rolls.

SAUCE TWO Peanut butter salty sauce. It's what I think of when I think of truly inauthentic Thai Cuisine for Americans
-2 Tbs peanut butter
-1/2 tsp sriracha
-1 tsp ginger powder? Less? My ginger powder is like 4 years old (I use fresh whenever possible...don't judge me) so it isn't very potent. BE CAREFUL. Ginger powder will f*ck you up if you aren't careful.
-1 tsp of onion powder. I don't know if it's necessary. I used it cause I used it last night with success and I was like "Hey! I remember you! Let's give you another spin!"
-Soy sauce...I don't know how much. I used too much and it was pretty salty. Less than a TB
-Bragg's amino acids. Adds an important briny overtone but DON'T overdo it so use VERY LITTLE. Like 1/4 tsp. This sauce is still good on sardine rolls but if you use too much Braggs it will make the sardine rolls gag-worthy.
-1 Tb Agave Nectar: this is the secret. It keeps it from being too umami, salty, or sour.
-Water to thin.

I have NEVER found a bottled peanut sauce I like. Dr. Sarah, a friend of mine, swears by Wegmans but I'm not persuaded. I think the best probably include fish sauce.

The Traditional-ish rolls with the secret ingredient: 

The special ingredient is....SARDINES! HAHA!! You never would have guessed it, right?! Don't go yet. It's good. Trust me.

By the way: It is not lost on me that the blog is vegan tempehest and I used sardines. Whatever. Enjoy the irony or the dissonance or the hypocrisy or whatever. I'm not totally consistent and never will be. I think it's healthy to break the rules sometimes. Even--or maybe especially--my own rules.

Ingredients:

-Can of sardines. I tried to pull out the little backbones that look like centipedes (**shudder**), with mixed success
-brown rice seasoned with: soy sauce, brown rice vinegar, and Mirin (taste as you go. I don't know how to explain how I needed it to taste.)
-chiffonade cabbage (google chiffonade..it's just a fancy way of cutting leaves)
-yellow and red bell pepper
-sesame seeds, toasted in a dry pan
-Nori, cut into triangles or other shapes (looks good on the outside of the roll, see-through the wrapper for decoration)
-broccoli sprouts

Sauce for Sardine Rolls:

So you want this sauce to compliment the VERY fishy flavor of sardines without masking it and without amplifying it too much while maybe even dampening it a little. I tried a variety of things and here's what I thought was best:
--a few tablespoons of corn syrup (dark is better than light). If I'd had molasses I would have used it.
--a few squirts of sriracha
--1-2 tsps of powdered sugar
--maybe 1 teaspoon of rice vinegar. I put more in than I meant to.
Yeah, you could use brown rice syrup or agave or something like that but i wanted the really neutral taste of corn syrup.

Italian Spring Rolls! Bella!
-On your unrolled floppy rice wrap, sprinkle a bunch of dried Italian herbs.
-Next make your stripes. I didn't use any rice or noodles but both would be good in these. Tortellini?
-I used cabbage, peppers, cucumber, and pan-fried tofu on my stripes.
-Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. And I mean sprinkle! Go easy! I have a teeny spoon that I use for this kind of thing.
-Wrap it up. It doesn't need sauce. I like it!
-Yes, this is just a salad in a rice wrapper. It's still good.

Dessert Spring Rolls: I got tired and made way fewer and no variations. Sorry. 

I would have made more if my spring-roll-partner-in-crime had been around but he's off rolling around on smelly mats somewhere else. These aren't the kind of thing that you save either so he's shit out of luck this time. But I do want to work on these dessert rolls. I have lots of ideas for them. Here's what I did tonight and I'm finding I crave these now.

Ingredients:
Toasted coconut flakes/bits
Bananas
Peanut Butter OR almond butter or sun butter for those who cannot or do not indulge
Trader Joes Crack I mean Toasted Coconut Chips
Prunes or raisins or
Toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

My procedure was to:
1. sprinkle coconut bits on open wrapper
2. put about a teaspoon of PB across in a stripe
3. layer about 4 slices of banana, cut on the bias a bit
4. another teaspoon of PB
5. some pepitas
6. more PB!
7. MORE BANANAS!
8. MORE COCONUT!
9. Wrap it up. Garnish with peanut butter and coconut crack.

I have made these with strawberries in them, with oranges. They'd be good with chocolate of COURSE. Whipped cream. Silken tofu cheese stuff. I have plans. But I wanted you to know how easy and good the banana and peanut butter rolls are. They are really good. 

From beginning of spring rolls to this moment, this has been nearly 4.5 hours. Jesus H. Christ. I was going to do an entry on my massaged kale salad. F**k that. You can google a recipe for that.


So pictures below in order:

-Impending chaos
-Sardine roll
-Sardine roll from the top, with all the ingredients
-A stupid busted roll that ended up as a handful of salad smashed in my face with sauce. Just wanted you to know that they fall apart and that's okay.
-The rolls, laid out and cross-section. Pretty, even though I didn't really aim for that.
-Dessert rolls.

These are not the prettiest pictures but they are kind of fun!

Black Olive Bits: trashy and kinda cool

Black Olive Bits--kind of like shriveled up croutons

**edit...I"m realizing I'm pretty wordy. I like rambling. Sorry. Enjoy.**

Canned black olives are kind of crummy but also a classic. You can put them on your fingers, they taste like a tin can, and they are good on pizza. They remind me of the salad bar at Elby’s. They’re cheap and good in pasta salad so I have them around. I wanted something briny and salty the other day so I cracked a can and was both pleased and disappointed. I could eat a couple but then I felt a little barfy but I did keep eating them, truth be told. I needed to do something with them though. Here's what I did. It took quite a while and I walked away from it a lot which only adds to my enjoyment of a recipe. That's why I don't bake much...it's too exacting and fussy. These are fishy sort of... but better. 

I used maybe 10-15 olives and they really shrivel up (tee hee) and so they don't make very many. 

1. I preheated a small cast iron skillet with a little olive oil. Next time I might not use oil. It was pretty low heat.

2. The key for this recipe is to have the heat low and long. 

3. Cut the olives into the little rings you see on pizzas. 

4. Once the pan is preheated, put them in. They should be a little sizzley. 

5. I wanted them to be kinda crunchy. The idea is that they are for putting on salad or maybe a sandwich or maybe as a snacky bit. So...what to use? 

6. Add poppy seeds! I put maybe a tablespoon in first. Then I decided I needed more. Every time I walked by, I added some. I don't know how much. I was dumping out of a shaker. Maybe it added up to a 1/4 cup? Give or take. You need to consider maybe how much you like poppy seeds and more means you have a higher likelihood of getting them in your teeth. So, yeah, watch for that. Make sure the person you're dating is the kind that will tell you or you'll feel like a douche when you go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. 

7. Stir them around occasionally. I also added them in stages so some of them were really shriveled at the end and quite crispy and some were still a little soft. 

8. Add onion powder. I know it can be a kind of gross spice but in this case it adds a kick and flavoring that masks part of the tinny trashiness of the black olives and brings out the briny part. I added maybe 1-2 teaspoons total. 

9. You have to keep tasting these as you go. The poppy seeds should start to really get dark and stick to the olives. 

10. One of the great things about these is that they are kind of crunchy and salty and even nutty but there is a briny backend in the flavor (backend..hahaha). The onion powder isn't very strong and I might use more next time or maybe cayenne or garlic powder (though man does that give you gas...or just me?). I wouldn't go too fancy because then they will just be spice flavored bits that would either mask or clash with the briny part of the olive. Mediterranean spices might be good. I wouldn't waste good olives on  this. Really, those are too good alone.

VOILA

Caveats and introduction

So here we go with the first entry. I plan to write cooking and eating stuff on here. But it’s not going to be like all the other blogs.

1. I don’t take pretty pictures. I’ll take pictures of what my versions look like, but I won’t be posing anything or coordinating plates or any of that. It’s very nice if you can do that. I can’t and I don’t care about it. I like garnish! Don’t get me wrong! I LOVE me some black sesame seeds and nysteriums or something. But I won’t be checking the lighting and getting stuff sitting “just so.”
2. I am not very exacting in my cooking. People ask me for recipes and I always sigh and often “forget” to give them recipes because I don’t measure much and am pretty good at eyeballing. So be prepared for directions including: handful, a few, maybe a 1/3 cup or some shit, twice as much oil as vinegar, enough salt that you taste it, a little bit, or not too much. I don’t have time to measure everything ahead of time.
3.  I like swearing. I’m going to swear.
4. I’m using pseudonyms. It’s fun, it’s private and it’s better for me as a psychologist. For that reason, I probably won’t post real personal stuff on the blog. Maybe. We’ll see.
5.  Most of the stuff will be vegan, gluten-free, both, or easily made into that. That does not mean that sometimes I won’t put stuff on there that’s not vegan or gluten-free but don’t expect stuff about how to cook chicken. I’m not very good at cooking meat. I will cook the shit out of some tofu but I couldn’t cook a steak medium-rare if my life depended on it.

 A have an idea of a way to make it fun for people who want to read it: suggest ingredients you’re interested in. Like, hook me up with a combo you have in your fridge: black beans and kale; sweet potatoes and cauliflower; kohlrabi, turnips, tomatoes, and tahini. Yeah? Does that sound fun?

Ok I’m going to start a new entry for the first food thing.