Short and Sweet Celebration

Even though I didn't do a whole Thanksgiving spread this year, I still want to make good on my MoFo promise and explore Alicia Simpson's Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations for the holidays. In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I did so by making the Classic Macaroni and Cheese and Southern-Style Greens, and ate them with some Chipotle Lime Crispy Fingers.

Quick, easy, and crazy delicious. As with her nachos, Simpson's mac and cheese required no cheese analogs, no nutritional yeast, and no plant milks. I'm not opposed to those things, but it's impressive that she creates such smooth flavor using veggies and spices only.

This book is pretty awesome, and though the chapters by holiday are fun, this is more of an every day book than I remember to give it credit for.

This picture isn't as good because of the light, but when I realized that my Pika Chu stapler was in the frame, I had to post it.

A few days later, I decided to tackle the Raw Sweet Potato Pie to make a complete meal out of the meager leftovers. That didn't go as well.

When someone says "raw" and "in your high-speed blender" in the same recipe, they do not mean in your food processor. They probably don't even mean in your Magic Bullet. They probably do mean in your $400 kitchen Sarlacc pit/Vitamix. I don't have one of those.

The pie blended up eventually, but it was frustrating and I lost a spatula in the process. All that and the flavor wasn't great. The spices were perfect, and the crust was fantastic, but raw sweet potatoes may not be right for me. No pictures for that one though. It's ugly.

It's still haunting my refrigerator, but I'm starting to have some ideas for how to re-purpose it with other leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner.

Oven Night!

Oven Night is a product of my love of efficiency and environmental efforts. Sadly, ovens are inefficient little beasts and so consequently, part of my meal planning involves oven use. When I choose my meals and desserts, I try to double up on anything that's going to be using the oven. This means my oven only has to heat up once, my air conditioning only has to battle it for one evening, during which I adjust it to a higher temp, and I don't have to work in a hot kitchen for more than one night.

So last night's menu was:
Green Mashed Potatoes
Stuffed Acorn Squash
Chocolate Chip Cookies (double batch)

I had planned on Lavender Tea Cookies as well, but the dough did not firm up in time, so it's stowed in the freezer until the next Oven Night.

Moving on, last night's haul from the CSA was oddly bereft of greens. All that I got was one bug-nibbled bunch of ... something. I don't actually know what this is:



But it, along with a bunch of kale, fulfilled its destiny in the Green Mashed Potatos I mentioned awhile back.

The shopping ban has been lifted, by the way, but I still haven't done a big shopping trip. I picked a few staples at MOM when I picked up my box, and already obtained potatoes from the Farmer's Market.

In addition to the mystery green, I got another bunch of carrots, some Japanese eggplants, and a variety of squash.



Last week also brought a tiny bunch of carrots, but they were quite limp by the time I got to using them. They perked right up after a short soak in a bowl of ice water, however.



In addition to all of this fun, there was still an acorn squash from Mr. Miller's garden that needed cooking. The first one I did simply by roasting it after coating the inside with Earth Balance, brown sugar and maple syrup, but I wanted to stuff this one.

For this task I turned to Coleen Patrick-Goudreau's Vegan Table. This seasonal cookbook suggested a harvest-stuffed acorn squash, assuming fall availability, and used many ingredients I did not have, but I knew that going in and was ready to improvise.

First of all, I had scored two purple peppers at the Farmer's Market and wanted them to be a part of it. I had also pre-soaked and cooked some black-eyed peas, so they were part of the mix.



When it came time to measure out the spices, I realized I did not want the sweetish mix of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg going over my peppers. I love that mix, but this called for a different combination.

Consulting The Flavor Bible. I settled on Basil and Coriander. This is when I realized that my recipe was similar to Goudreau's only in baking directions, and even then, I might go a little less the next time around.



The final result was stellar. I made way too much filling for one squash, but I ended up eating a lot of it out of the bowl anyway and then for lunch today. I'll probably tweak it a bit in the future, but I've included my recipe below anyway.

And I've obviously switched from iPhone to real camera for the most part, but I'm still learning what makes a good photo, so bear with me!

I still don't know what this is.

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!

More CSA Weeks

Yesterday marked week four of collecting CSA boxes. I dropped the ball on photographing the last two, but the recent weeks brought leeks, cauliflower and broccoli, which was a welcome departure from the radishes and greens onslaught.

Though I admit, I have a new fondness for roasted radishes.

And even the new-to-me white radishes are lovely.


The biggest issue so far is using the greens before they go bad. I get dandelion, spinach, radish, mustard, mixed, and a few unidentified greens. And then lettuce to top it off. I have to make it a point to prep them immediately and use them right away.

First thing now, I clean and pack them all in (reused) ziploc bags. My mom got me a salad spinner years ago, and I used it occasionally - I'm not actually one to eat a lot of salad - but now I'm gaining some serious arm strength spinning bags and bags of greens each week.


Second, I've employed some new cooking habits. I've double up the greens in the daily green smoothie. It means a lot less fruit, but fruit is easy for me to eat throughout the day, so no big loss.

I've come to love the Stir Fried Greens recipe from Veganomicon. It's a quick and flavorful bed for millet, barley, beans, rice and leftovers. The Vegan Brunch recipe for Swiss Chard Frittata is another easy way to get through some greens fast.

Of course, you can always throw a handful into any soup or pasta, but I'm on the lookout for more creative ideas. Vegan Burnout has a similar abundance of greens and linked a recipe for Green Mashed Potatoes that I'm going to have to try. I notice that it requires an oven temperature of 400°, just like roasted radishes. Extra points for efficiency!

CSA Week 1!

Every Saturday morning, I walk up to MOM's for breakfast supplies. I used to plan ahead, but now the morning walk has become part of the process and guarentees I won't spend the whole day as a laze-about. A few weeks ago, a woman had a table covered in greens with a sign that said "CSA." The one I've been eyeing for over a year now runs out of membership space almost instantly, but Allison assurred me that there were shares left from her farm AND that the pick up location was MOM's. Perfect!

I signed up and last night walked up to MOM to get my first share! It was like vegan Tuesday Christmas and the excitement was palpable. I pictured my rustic wooden box, overflowing with veggies every color of the rainbow. Perhaps a bunny waering a hat would poke his little head out and I'd pet him the whole way home.

The box was waxed cardboard and I could only see green peaking through just a bit. But I was not dissapointed, I knew my vision was a bit grand.

Upon getting home, I unloaded bunches of green - several bunches of greens, and a bag of greens and one bunch of radishes. Great! I love green smoothies and salads. But this was a lot of greens.



Today, for breakfast, I had the greenest smoothie I've ever had. Except for 1/3 cup each of mango and blueberries, and a tablespoon of hemp protein powder, the smoothie was all dandelions and spinach. Oh and one radish, just for some spice. It was pretty good too!



I'm looking forward to more smoothies, salads, SusanV's Roasted Radishes and Pearl Onions and VCON's Stir-fired Greens recipe.