I Will Squash You

Whenever I emerge from the kitchen with a delicious vegan meal that a) involves actual vegetables, grains, and legumes and b) did not come from the microwave, I get lots of impressed noises from my roommates. What they don't realize is that a meal like this is just about the easiest thing I think one could make. All I did was hack apart an acorn squash, cover it in some salt, pepper, and oil and throw it in the oven for about 45 minutes. Bam. Done. Delicious.

If you're me, you top it off with come chili-garlic-lime sauce, but any old topping will do. Hell, you could even turn it into somewhat of a sweet indulgence with brown sugar, a fate that will befall the other half of the squash for leftovers lunch in approximately 3...2...1...

You Love Tofu, You Just Don't Know It Yet

I am the self-proclaimed Queen of Making Tofu Delicious. My go-to standard when I'm feeding non-tofu lovers is Isa's Orange Ginger Tofu. Seriously, everyone loves this recipe. Even my grandparents, who raise happy meat, love it. I brought it to a potluck yesterday and got rave reviews. Someone even put chocolate fondue on it and proclaimed it just as delicious. I think that idea has some real merit, but it was milk chocolate so I didn't get to test her ingenuity.

Tonight's creation, seen above, was an effort to use up the leftover ginger from last night and a half a can of coconut milk that I used for a curry earlier in the week. So, after frying slices of tofu marinated in soy sauce, I sauteed garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes before adding green beans, red pepper, coconut milk and lime juice and letting it all simmer to delicious perfection. Served over rice noodles (which are one of the more difficult foods I've eaten in a while. They really test my fork-spinning skills.), and with some sriracha and this was a perfect Saturday night dinner.

Of course, since it is one AM on a Saturday, I made the executive decision to accompany it with a pumpkin beer. Truly, beer and spicy foods are a match made in heaven.

Soup!!

There are few things I look forward to more than the coming of soup weather. In honor of that fall chill in the air and that fall soreness in my throat, I decided to spring for potato-leek, an easy, creamy and cream-less favorite.

It doesn't look like much, but trust me, it's delicious.

Cooking for One

My preference for improvisational cooking without recipes is due in large part to the difficulty of finding recipes geared towards cooking for one and my general lack of desire to adapt those that are designed to make eight main course servings. Hence I turned one marinated and broiled portobello mushroom, two roasted beets and a half a tomato (plus some impromptu bread crumbs made from rye crisps) into this creation here. I called it a stuffed mushroom at first, but "mushroom with stuff piled on top of it" would be more accurate.

Those beets were very tasty but suffered from a problem I'd never before realized could afflict beets: after too long in the refrigerator they get slightly softer and more difficult to peel, even after roasting. Now, you might just say "Then eat them up right away and don't give them the chance to sit in the fridge." That is, however, easier said than done when you're the only person in your household who eats fruits and vegetables (Well, that's being a little less than fair to my roommates. They eat them, they just don't ever buy them or cook them.). I roasted some beets earlier this week and served them over lentils and topped with a chard pesto, but using a whole bunch of them for one meal is too much and I'd rather not have them two nights in a row.

Hence, the problem of cooking for just myself. It's an inconvenience, but I cannot stress enough how much I enjoy it. There may even be (yes, I admit it) a touch of moral superiority in there. Hopefully someone will keep me in check before I build myself an elite fortress.

Tuesday Night Celebration

Voilá! Two Asian-inspired meals I've made recently. The one on top was tonight's: fried tofu, yellow beans, and shiitake mushrooms with a spicy peanut-ginger sauce. The one below I made on Sunday: a Thai red curry of tofu, yellow squash and yellow beans. Both were very tasty, but I definitely need to get better quality spices if I'm really going to be able to recreate my favorite flavors at home. More interesting vegetables would also go a long way.

Luckily, I have a trip to Philly planned on the Chinatown bus, which should afford me ample food shopping opportunities in the Chinatowns of both cities. I'm looking forward to coming back inspired and ready to cook.

Tonight, however, I recieved inspiration of a very different sort. I had a generally excellent day today: my Spanish and ballet classes both went well, and after ballet was over the best dancer in the class told me I was really good and that I should audition for the student-run dance group on campus. Then earlier tonight I went on a very successful food recovery (read: dumpster diving) mission and even completed all of my work before I even got home.

To celebrate, I'm going to sit back, watch Center Stage, possibly my favorite movie (though I don't go broadcasting that fact) and indulge in the three main bad-for-me food groups: salty, sweet, and alcoholic. There's nothing like popcorn, Tofutti Better Pecan, and a beer to cap off a good day.

War Wound

My first battle scar of the new kitchen. It's actually quite comforting, because it means my knife is nice and sharp. That's a chef's way to look at it if there ever was one.