A Birthday Dinner

With the pizza long gone, it was time to try the Grilled Seitan Caponata with Lemon Pilaf from The Sexy Vegan Cookbook.

Let me start by saying that I began this recipe on Tuesday so that it would be ready Thursday night. Brian Patton says upfront that the dish is "quite a production," and he wasn't kidding. This recipe requires 5 recipes from the book. I cheated just a little though. I had seitan cutlets from American Vegan Kitchen in my freezer, so I used those.

On Tuesday morning I took said cutlets from the freezer to thaw, since I'll need to marinate them for 1-4 hours. I also soaked the beans, salted the eggplant, and roasted the tomatoes. I made the Tomato Killer, which is the sauce that forms the base of the Caponata, cooked the beans, and made the Caponata that night. It took forever with all the chopping and simmering. I did this in part to save time Thursday, but also to make pizza for dinner, which I'll write about later.

On Wednesday, I marinated the seitan, and I made the dessert, which you'll hear more about later.

Finally, on Thursday, I grilled the seitan, made the pilaf, and put the whole thing together.

It's not necessary to begin so far in advance, but there is a lot of down time that makes this impractical without planning ahead. This is definitely a Sunday dinner scenario, where you have the whole day to roast, and soak, and salt, and wait. Also, I was working late on Thursday, so I knew I couldn't come home and try to put together a smashing dinner in record time. Even still, I put way more time into this meal than I have into any in a long time. So was it worth it?

I know that having to make a bunch of recipes from one book to make a single dish is a sticking point for a lot reviewers. I always grumble at first when I see that, but it's not so bad. In fact, making stuff from scratch is one of the real joys of cooking. You can exercise some serious quality control that way.

In this case, I have mixed feelings.

I do like the Caponata. It's all veggie and it you can't help but feeling you're getting a better nutritional experience than you might be with plain old marinara, which is the suggested substitute if you're feeling lazy. Plus, the texture really adds a lot in terms of making it feel like a full meal.

The Lemon Pilaf was bright and zesty. I liked the contrast with the heavier tomato flavor of the sauce. However, I wish I would have made this dish in the early spring or late summer. The veggies make more sense during those times, and the flavors just make more sense then.

Like I said earlier, the seitan was from another book, but I don't think that was a problem. I should have grilled it in my new George Foreman rather than laz-ing out and pan cooking it, so that it would have been crisper. I know that's user error, but one recipe complaint that I have is that it was too lemony. In the future, I'd reduce the amount of lemon juice by half in the marinade.

So in the end, this dish didn't knock my socks off as I'd hoped, but it was pretty good. I can't say that I'd make it this way again as it was so involved, but it might be interesting to play around in order to come up with a simpler, more flavorful version.

Pizza!

I've broken from the hold of 5 Spices, 50 Dishes and cracked open one of my other books! I chose Grilled Seitan Caponata with Lemon Pilaf from The Sexy Vegan Cookbook for a birthday dinner for my gentleman friend. Since the recipe for the Caponata yields more than I would need, I went ahead and took Brian L. Patton's advice and made some pizza.

One of the things I'm starting to think about this book is that nothing is easy. I would have to make 4 different recipes to make the Grilled Seitan Caponata with Lemon Pilaf (keeping in mind that I already had seitan made), and to make the simplest of his pizzas, I made 6! Now, I had already made the Tomato Killer, which was part of the Caponata, so maybe that was a bit of a freebie. But I still have a LOT left over for which I'm going to have to find a purpose.

With that made, I still had to make the dough, which was easy, but took a hella long time to rise. That's fine by me though, and it's one of the better doughs I've made at home. My major complaint is that Patton claims that the recipe will give you three 14-inch diameter thin crusts or two thick. As far as I can tell, that's not true. I used all of it to make a a thick crust pizza for The Mario.

I'm glad I did though. Once I rolled it out, and topped it with Caponata and Patton's Not-zzarella Sauce, it was so heavy, a thinner crust might have perished. The Not-zzarella Sauce is unlike any cheese-style sauce that I've ever made because it's a thin liquid. Additionally, I found it a bit bland right from the blender, so I added a bit of lemon and pepper. As with the Caponata, I had way more than I needed, even after loading up the pizza with more than the recipe mandated.

So after all of that, I got the pizza in the oven, and I still had to make the Parmesan Topping and the Balsamic Glaze. At this point, I was tired and indignant about making two more recipes with such a tremendous yield. The Parmesan Topping was easy though, and I just reduced the amounts. It is really good and will probably be my new go-to.

The Balsamic Glaze annoyed me though because even if I had two cups of Balsamic vinegar hanging around, I'm not going to make that much glaze. So I halved that one too, but I have to admit, it was unbelievably good, and I'm sure I'll pour it on all kinds of things.

Finally, after all of that, the pizza was out of the oven, and doused in the glaze. I skipped the arugula garnish because the grocery list for these recipes already broke the bank this week. I did add the basil leaves I wouldn't be using later in the week though. It didn't look like the pizza you'd get in a shop, which I expected, and it was not an elegant eating experience - if you're not comfortable licking your fingers, then you'll need a fork, because you're not going to want to leave anything behind.

This pizza was fantastic, and incredibly filling. Additionally, I felt like I got a lot more nutritional bang for my buck with this than I might have from a Johnny Rads or Tofurky pizza. I'll undoubtedly use his dough from now on, and maybe even the Not-zzarella Sauce, but I'll probably stick to more basic sauces and just add veggies unless I happen to have another odd gallon of Caponata lying around.

Rethinking Grocery Shopping

My Google Reader has been informing me for the past few days I have 1000+ unread items. Oh man. If I like an entry in a blog, particularly a vegan blog, I'll throw it in the list. Some days, when work is slow, I'll add one person's entire blog role to my list. So I have a very full reader.

But then I don't feel like reading, and I let it go, and next thing you know I have 200 posts on squids to read.

So I removed the ones I've stopped reading or that haven't been very interesting, but I kept all of my vegan blogs. (And just now, I added a new one - I usually write in snippets throughout the day).

All of this led me to actually reading my blogs, including the four unread Savvy Abby entries. A particular post repeated an idea I'd read there before and also in Robin Robertson's work, and this time, it really struck a chord.

The brilliant idea was this: put off grocery shopping and clean out the fridge/pantry.

Time to Clean!

I am definitely guilty of over-stocking. I love food, I love shopping for food, and I love sales. Sales are only economical if you use the products you buy though. I also love new things, so I've amassed quite a few exotic ingredients that don't get used much.

In the past few months, my household of two found that it was hemorrhaging money at the grocery stores. I'm fine with that in some ways. Waste isn't much of an issue and quality food is worth the price. Even still, it was out of control. And I'm normally quite frugal.

Robertson authored a guest post some time back on Savvy Abby, and I revisited it for what might end up being her most important tip:

Postpone Grocery Shopping. See how long you can put off going to the supermarket by using up what you have on hand. You may actually be able to go nearly a week beyond your normal shopping day, cutting the total monthly grocery budget significantly. This also encourages you to rotate on-hand items such as frozen foods that are approaching their "use by" date and nonperishables from your pantry, as well as stray produce that might otherwise go bad. It also stimulates your creativity. I like to choose a few items from my stash and put them on the counter, then let my imagination take over how to combine them. For example, a can of white beans, crushed tomatoes, garlic, and a box of pasta have "yummy dinner" written all over them. Some rice or quinoa, walnuts, frozen peas, and an onion can make a flavorful pilaf [...]

So this is my new project. I already subscribe to a CSA and already have to figure out how to use up loads of greens each week. Maybe this will free me from scouring my cookbooks for ideas. Now I have to get creative.

But I've been having to do that thanks to CSA and I don't mind admitting that I sort of resent it. I have a nice little cookbook collection and the vast majority of the recipes have gone unmade. Restricting my ingredient list annoys me at times, but I know that it's the better option.

The good news is that I have loads of canned goods and spices and sauces. I also have jar after jar of rice, grains, beans, and nuts. And you know what those go well with, right? Greens!

So I may get a little bitter and resentful at times, but I'm confident that this experiment will do a few things:
1. Clean out my cabinets
2. Inspire and foster (and probably demand) culinary creativity
3. Save me some money
4. Get me to rethink my buying habits

I'm really curious to find out how many days I can put off grocery shopping. (I'm declaring coconut coffee creamer exempt from this arrangement now). I can't start for another week, since I'll be out of town, but Tuesday is my normal shopping day, so I'll post my innovations, frustrations, and durations. (OK, I know, one duration, but can you blame me?)

Oh I'll be starting this at the same time I begin my bike commute to work!

Who has the time?

You do, for one. People are busy, I get that. I'm a busy person myself. I have full- and part-time jobs, I'm in grad school, and I take three non-academic classes a week. Some of my days begin at 5 a.m. and don't end until the next day around 2 or 3 a.m. (This isn't a who's busier contest, it's just a statement of fact).

And yet, somehow, every day, my coworkers peer over at my desk and ask what's for lunch as I unveil my home cooked vegan offerings. I don't hit up the fast food joints and I don't bring frozen or microwave meals and I sure as hell don't eat the pathetic pizza management orders every Thursday. I load up my little purple bag with my Pyrex containers and pull from it three to five times a day.

Today, breakfast was Chia Pudding, lunch was a Southwestern Bowl from Get it Ripe and Cornbread from The Joy of Vegan Baking, and my afternoon snack was a slice of Peanut Butter Cup Cake from Sweet Utopia (I usually follow a fruit-only policy for workday desserts, but I need to finish that cake before it goes).

Every day people tell me they want to cook or eat healthier, but that they don't have the time. These people are wrong. What you really don't have the time for is anything that distracts you from caring for yourself. And I say this as a person who pulls that line all the time. Even now, my teeth are bothering me thanks to a rogue blackberry seed, but like some kind of jerk, I'm very insistent that I haven't the time to go to a dentist this week.

Well I had the time to watch NCIS and Southland Tuesday night. Sure the dentist isn't open that late, but had I gone to the dentist early, then done my cooking and working out later in the evening, then my teeth wouldn't hurt today.

The point is this: we're busy, and yet we find the time for FaceBook, YouTube, TV and that BBC America Dr. Who marathon.

So when you say you don't have the time to cook, chances are that what you really mean is that you'd rather do something else. And that's fine. There's a lot of fun stuff out there. But I'm telling you to make the time.

Make the time to cook (or prepare raw foods) for yourself. It's not as hard as you think. The more you do it, the faster you'll get. You'll learn to multitask and work intuitively. You'll also learn to love it.

I do have some advantages in this. I love to cook, so I never think of it as a chore. Also, my intense need to get my money's worth out of anything I buy means that if I don't make every recipe from every cookbook I have, I'll feel that I've been wasteful. I have a lot of cookbooks, and a long wish list, so it's no time to procrastinate.

Finally, it's easy for me to combine my biggest time drain and cooking. I love the TV and I know that's dangerously unhip to admit to these days, but I have a group of shows I can't get enough of. I don't have a television in my kitchen, but I have a laptop and Hulu. Rather than watch my shows when they air, I watch them when I cook.

However, as much as I'd like to agree with USA, no one needs six hours of NCIS in one night (forgive me Special Agent Gibbs!). So if I can't watch and cook, I remind myself that TV will wait for me, my body will not. I need to care for it now. So be mindful about your time. If you love the internet, set a reasonable limit, and then take some of that time and make yourself a sandwich.

If your schedule keeps you from your kitchen, as mine often does, then deal with it. Start meal planning. I very often cook a bunch of dishes on Sunday and eat them throughout the week. It's a very small time investment and if you're making one dish, you may as well make two. Sometimes I just prep; I soak beans or nuts, I chop veggies, or measure out spices. Then when it's time to make the dish, it's half done.

I'll make you a deal: you make yourself a splendid dinner one night next week and I'll make my dentist appointment.

Besides, you can't very well self-righteously declare that your vegan dinner is better than any restaurant meal if it came out of a box.