Vegan MoFo Day 26: Nada!

I think this is the first weekday of October I haven’t had a post! I even have some pictures from last week waiting in the wings, but I’m sick today and just can’t bring myself to do anything. Except eat soup out of the freezer and sleep and watch television. I think it’s the flu… at any rate, I’ll be back tomorrow.

Vegan Mofo Day 22: Porcini Wild Rice Soup

To carry on with my soup parade, here’s the Porcini Wild Rice Soup from Veganomicon! I didn’t have carrot or any fresh herbs, so I added some dried thyme instead of fresh and just omitted the carrot and chervil. And the soup was great! Isa says to track down chervil because if anything, it’ll “make a great blog entry.” Well, I’m turning my lack of chervil into a blog entry instead!
Next day, the wild rice soaks up tons of water, so you need to add more. But the rice gets all curly and neat-looking!

Be right back

This week I’m off with the flu. Off everything: work, school, life in general. And blogging. I will be back within the next couple of days!

Lemon Caper “Chicken”

I wanted to dress up a Gardein fake chicken breast, so in its pan juices post cooking I reduced some white wine, lemon juice, capers, rosemary, salt and pepper. Sauce! Plus kale. And brown rice.

Another Mea Culpa

I’ll be back in a few days! For temporary reasons I haven’t been doing any cooking. I’ll be back at it soon!

Happy New Year

Hello all! Updates are forthcoming! I’m still out of town and away from my usual computer, my usual camera cord, etc. To come: some of the food I ate in San Francisco!

Chocolate Adventures

My friend Andrew got me some organic, fair trade, vegan chocolates in Austria! At the top we have ginger dipped in chocolate and rolled in turmeric. These were the best ones. Then at three o’clock we have chocolates filled with cacao nibs and rolled in cocoa. These were a bit crunchy and didn’t have as much flavour as I’d like. At six o’clock we have your classic chocolate-covered coffee beans. At nine o’clock we have my second favourite ones, pumpkin seeds dipped in chocolate!

Now below is another kind of chocolate I recently discovered at the fair trade shop in Westdale: it’s a dark chocolate bar with crunchy grains of sea salt distributed throughout. For fans of salt and chocolate, this is a mind blower.

Survey Time

I feel like my blog has a mandate: only pictures of food I make and descriptions of what it is and how I made it. But reading all the Veganmofo posts from other blogs, I thought I’d get in the branchy-outy spirit and post something else! So here’s a food survey that’s been making the Veganmofo rounds.

1. Name a song that involves food in some way.
“You Can Have Him,” Nina Simone. “I’d fix a breakfast that would please him most/ Eggs and coffee, some apricot juice and some buttered toast.”

2. What criteria do you use when choosing a new cookbook to buy?
These days it has to really have an interesting approach to recipes. I dunno, I haven’t bought a cookbook in awhile because I have so many already.

3. What did you eat today?
Hmm, I just woke up. Rye toast with Earth Balance and a couple of florets of roasted cauliflower out of the fridge.

4. Name a vegan food that you know exists but you have never tried.
All those new vegan cheeses that have been burning up the internet this year, Teese, Scheese, all those.

5. The Food Network just called and needs you to start your new show tomorrow. What will the title of the show be?
Pump up the Parsnips.

6. Favorite hot sauce or other spicy condiment?
I like them all! Sambal Oelek, uh, standard tex-mex hot sauces are favourites, I suppose

7. How old were you when you became vegetarian/vegan?
Vegetarian at 22
Vegan at 24

8. Favorite vegan cheeze?
The sauces from The Uncheese Cookbook.

9. Cutest baby animal?
Man, I usually find the adults of any given species cuter. Uh, elephants.

10. Favorite type of jam/jelly/marmalade/preserves?
I think basic strawberry!

11. Do you take any vitamins/supplements?
Some Jamieson kids vitamins, B12.

12. What food/dish most embodies the Fall season?
Root Vegetables!

13. What food would you have a hard time living without?
Greens and cruciferous. I get antsy after a couple of weeks away from these (as I probably should!) I think I’d have a really hard time living without toast. I eat toast just about every day, and I love its guts.

14. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?
Coffee. I really only prefer tea when I’m sick or overtired, or when I’m having a tea party with my friends.

15. It’s 10PM and you’re starving. What do you eat?
Hahaha, I’m rarely starving at 10PM! But I’d say toast. Or popcorn with nutritional yeast et.al. Or, whenever I’ve made tempeh or seitan or tofu for dinner, which isn’t often, a leftover slice of that.

16. If you have an animal companion, what is his/her favorite food?
Aw, don’t have one. But Hannah my late dachsund used to like everything but lettuce. Everything. She ate a whole stick of butter once.

17. Worst injury you’ve gotten in the kitchen?
I think just little burns and cuts. Unless I’ve blocked something out, which I wouldn’t put past me. I had e.coli once, but that sure as hell wasn’t from MY kitchen. It was probably from SOMEONE’s kitchen, though!

18. When you have a food-related question, who do you call?
Haha, I’m usually the one people call! But, definitely the internet.

19. Summer is ending- What food will you miss most?
Berries.

20. What snacks do you keep in your purse/backpack/desk at work?
I never bring snacks to work, which means I usually end up with an overpriced banana from the student centre, or just have another cup of coffee for a snack.

21. Favorite soup to make on a rainy day?
Oooh, Matzoh Ball Soup from Vegan with a Vengeance! That was what I made for my last rainy day soup session! Or Mushroom Barley, or Tarragon Lentil…

22. What’s your favorite combination of fresh vegetable and/or fruit juices?
apple ginger.
23. Favorite brand of root beer?
This organic kind, Santa Cruz Organic I think? Or am I thinking of their ginger ale, which is amazing!

24. Make up your own question!
What is your dream birthday cake?
I’m making it for my birthday this year: green tea layer cake with almond cream between and marzipan to cover.

Not Much Cooking

So it’s the Vegan Month of Food (VeganMoFO) and I’ve barely been posting at all! For once, and with bad timing, cooking is one of the last things on my list. I’ve been eating unphotogenic leftovers, grilled “cheez” sandwiches on the run, and stuff while I’m out.

Speaking of stuff while I’m out, a local coffeeshop in Hamilton, My Dog Joe, has made me two delicious sandwiches this week: the original vegetarian panini has lots of cheese, avocado, and tomato, but for me they make a special vegan version, with avocado, tomato, greens, balsamic dressing, sundried tomatoes, and organic mustard. Add to that that they always remember I take soymilk in my coffee and I’m a happy camper. It’s too bad I don’t have any pictures!

Fail

Yesterday it was my oven. Today it’s my computer! I made a colourful dinner on the stovetop with lots of summer produce. I noticed the internet isn’t connecting on my desktop. I decided to transfer the pictures to the computer, planning to copy them to a disk and bring them over to the laptop, where the internet’s working fine. Now none of my disk drives work! So the pictures are trapped over on the other computer. It’s times like these a USB key would be really handy. And I think my aging desktop needs a good onceover and reformat.