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In Which I am Helped by Tempeh

/ Kelly / 8 Comments

A couple nights ago, I made the Tempeh Helper from Appetite for Reduction. It was the first time I’d had *anything* Helper.

When I was a kid, my parents (by which I really mean my mom) refused to keep junk food in the house. While my classmates had Gushers and Capri Suns and those adorably small bags of Doritos overflowing from their Power Rangers lunch boxes, I had baby carrots and leaky thermoses of juice and homemade peanut butter and cracker sandwiches waiting for me. While my friends gleefully gorged on Captain Crunch for breakfast, I mournfully munched on cornflakes. While my peers sucked down Coke, I sipped on water. Soda and artificial colors and chips were just not welcome in my house, thank you very much. I always looked forward to road trips with my dad, because I knew he was more tolerant of junk food and would stock up on Pringles and Arizona iced tea. Score!

So, perhaps needless to say, we didn’t really keep any sort of Helper around the house, hamburger or otherwise. Therefore, my experience with Isa’s Tempeh Helper was my virgin foray into being Helped. Rawr!

The help.

I totally ignored Isa’s pasta recommendation for this dish and made it with my new favorite pasta shape, cavatappi. I can’t get enough of those big ol’ spirals! And I think it worked; they paired nicely with my “rustic” chunks of tempeh.

So, what did I think about this Helper experience? Well, it was tasty, but not mindblowingly amazing. I love me a nutritional yeast-based sauce, but I honestly felt that the Easy Breezy Cheezy sauce was a teensy bit bland. The sauce calls for two tablespoons of broth powder, and Isa recommends Frontier’s “chicken” broth powder. I was quite excited to discover that my co-op carries many a Frontier powder (thanks for the co-op membership, mum!), so I happily purchased a small bag of said powder. However, the Tempeh Helper recipe also calls for two tablespoons of the same broth powder, and I felt that the entire recipe (Helper + sauce) was sort of a one note deal – the “chicken” broth flavor overpowered everything else! Now, maybe that’s the allure of the Helper franchise, and perhaps anyone who grew up on Hamburger Helper would take one bit of the Tempeh Helper and be walloped with a massive smack of nostalgia. But my Helper-less childhood rendered me immune to those sort of attacks. That said, it was still a totally satisfying meal, and I’d probably consider making it again… but I’d mix up the spices for sure.

Were you a junk-food-deprived kid like me, or were your parents less strict? Have you tried Isa’s Tempeh Helper? What did you think?

Vegan Bake Sale for Japan!

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

Hey all! This weekend my Google Reader was filled with people excitedly talking about how much money they raised for Japan by hosting vegan bake sales. If you didn’t have a bake sale in your city, you can still help out! The ever-generous and compassionate Katie is hosting a blog-based vegan bake sale featuring dozens of scrumptious goodies. And it’s super simple to participate! All you have to do is:

1. Check out the bake sale.
2. Bid on an item by e-mailing Katie.
2a. Bid again, if necessary!
2b. Repeat step 2a until you WIN.
3. Make a donation to the Red Cross.
4. E-mail your receipt to Katie.
5. Receive baked goods in mail. Eat baked goods. Bask in the deliciousness of compassion!

Hooray!

Vegan Madness in RI, and Pasta con Broc-occoli

/ Kelly / 7 Comments

GUYS. Get this – according to Go Dairy Free, the world’s first vegan ice cream truck is based out of – wait for it – Rhode Island. For serious! I’m swelling with Rhody pride for my little Ocean State. Why wasn’t I aware of this when I actually lived in RI?! Not only can RI vegans get their ice cream fix from a bangin’ purple truck, but they can also satisfy sugar cravings at a vegan bakery and juice bar that opened recently. When my mom visited me in February, she brought a bag of their cookies for us to share, and they were yummy! Admittedly, they needed a turn in the microwave to restore them to optimal softness, but they’d traveled 1200 miles across the country, so can you really blame them? I’ll ask Mom to buy me a fresher cookie when I go back home in May for my little brother’s college graduation (eek).

Speaking of my mom, she has a weird little habit of saying “broc-occoli” instead of “broccoli.” Not all the time (that would be annoying), but fairly frequently. So sometimes, when I cook with broccoli (more than fairly frequently), I call it broc-occoli in my head. I definitely did that a couple night’s ago when I tried one of the recipes from Appetite for Reduction recipes that’s garnered the most attention – Pasta con Broccoli.

Now, lemme just clarify something here. I do not actually have an appetite for reduction. I am not trying to lose weight. Being a bit on the skinny side, I’m a bit hypersensitive about those sorts of misunderstandings; I don’t want anyone to think I’m unhappy with myself and am on a diet. I was even a little hesitant about buying AfR because I felt like people would see it on my cookbook shelf and make silent assumptions. :( But a good cookbook is a good cookbook, and I am not going to deprive myself of delicious recipes just because someone might silently assume things. Pshaw.

Anyway, Pasta con Broccoli. It’s gotten rave reviews from many of my bloggy friends, so I decided to give it a whirl a couple nights ago. I’ll admit that I had my misgivings; it seemed a little… boring. And, honestly, it doesn’t look extremely exciting.

PCB

It’s pretty, sure, but it doesn’t look like a dish that’d send you into throes of culinary ecstasy or make you starry-eyed with gastronomical pleasure. And honestly, I was a little underwhelmed at first. Now, I’ll admit that I omitted the balsamic vinegar because that shit is nasty (sorry, 99% of the world), so probably I lost some flavor there. It was tasty, sure, and the broc-occoli itself was excellent, but overall I didn’t quite get what everyone had raved about. But I had extra, and despite my distaste for leftover pasta, I ate it for lunch the next day. And you know what? Because the pasta had soaked up the leftover sauce, it was so much more flavorful! I can totally see why people add this to their regular dinner rotation; it’s easy and yummy. If I made it again, I’d let it sit in the pan for longer to let the flavors really get it on. Rawr. Nothin’ like hot broccoli-on-pasta action to spice up your night. ;)

Do you have AfR? Have you tried the Pasta con Broccoli? What do you think? And more importantly… how awesome is RI for sporting a vegan ice cream truck!?

Unintentionally Mushy Peas

/ Kelly / 9 Comments

Last weekend, I hosted a party.

Half of you probably read that and thought, “…yeah, okay?” You’re probably thinking, “Is hosting a party even worth mentioning unless something ridiculously awesome happened at said party, like aliens?” Well, haters, there were no aliens, unless my social ineptitude rendered me particularly un-humanlike. The thing is, my roommate and I are both rather introverted, and we. don’t. host. parties.

Okay, that was a lie, because obviously we hosted one last weekend. We had many things to celebrate, so we shoved our introversion aside and planned and planned and planned, and then we planned some more. As part of our planning (some might say “over-planning”), we created a [physical] drink menu for guests, and in preparation for making said drinks, I might have gone a little overboard on supply purchasing. Not only is our liquor cabinet now overflowing with more booze than I’ve seen outside of a bar (shut up; I’m sheltered), but our pantry is overflowing with citrus. We currently have a giant bag of limes and a giant bag of lemons to use up – turns out most cocktails only require a relatively small amount of citrus juice, not the juice of 5 lbs of fruit. Who knew?

So, in an effort to not waste said citrus, I’ve been on the hunt for lemon-y and lime-y recipes. I got to use 4 whole limes yesterday during a curry-making adventure with a delightful fella, and today I gave my lemons some attention with this Lemony Yellow Split Pea dish.

Cheery peas!

This is meant to be a side dish, but it totally works as a main dish. If you were not lazy like me, you might serve it up with rice or some veggies, but I’m super lazy and ate it all by itself. It’s surprisingly tasty for such a simple recipe; the major players are yellow split peas, garlic, lemon, and cilantro. The recipe also calls for freshly grated ginger, but I didn’t have any so I substituted the powdered variety, which was totally overpowered by all the other flavors. Even with the absentee ginger and the garlic I might have slightly burnt and my overcooking fail (it was much more mushy than intended), I really enjoyed this dish, and topping it with cilantro totally sealed the deal for me.

However, it only used 1.5 lemons. Curses! Help a girl out – what awesome lemon-y or lime-y recipes do you like?! Also, have you ever had intentionally mushy peas? Like the kind they serve across the pond? I tried some in Ireland, and I really enjoyed them!

Sicky McSickerson and the Inherent Awkwardness of Blogging During Major World Disasters

/ Kelly / 8 Comments

Hey y’all, guess what? I’m sick! I rarely get sick, so this is quite novel. I spent the weekend on the couch, reading and watching movies and bungling up my knitting because my brain’s so addled. It sucked. Except every time I think, “Ugh, this sucks,” I then feel ridiculously guilty, because you know what sucks a whole lot more than being congested and headache-y and sore throat-y? Earthquakes. And tsunamis. And definitely nuclear power plan explosions. Their suckage totally dwarfs my suckage.

Sometimes I avoid blogging when Major World Disasters happen, because… what do you do? Totally ignore it and go on talking about the mouthgasmic brownies you ate last night? Preface your post with a sentence about how shitty the Major World Disaster is, and how you feel guilty talking about your brownies, but then go on to talk about your brownies anyway? I mean, I guess I’m going to take the latter route (minus the brownies; sorry), but it just feels… inadequate. But at the same time, what else can I do? I can read news stories until I’m overcome with crushing despair, I can make offhand comments to friends and family about how unbelievable it all is, but is that going to help anybody who’s actually hurting? Nah. I can donate money. That’s about all I can do to tangibly help anyone, and it just feels like such a cop-out. Meh.

So… yeah. Here’s the part where I awkwardly transition into the food-related point of my post by saying “Oh, looks like I took option number 2; I’ve acknowledged the Major World Disaster, and now I’m a-okay to talk about food because y’all know that I know that things in the World at Large suck, so you won’t think I’m totally selfish.” Again… meh. Anyway… awkward transition, activate!

So being sick does suck. But I’ve managed to keep myself pretty well hydrated and pretty well fed. Between chain-sucking Ludens and filling a small forest’s worth of Kleenex with nasal excretions, I’ve been drinkin’ a lot of this:

Image nabbed from Google.

and slurpin’ down a lot of this:

Recycled image alert!

My current miso incarnation trades leeks and scallions for the tofu in this version. Ah, miso soup – so versatile! So delicious! So slurpable!

What do you eat when you’re sick? Do you get sick often?

Like I said, I really don’t… in fact, I’m currently taking my very first sick day since starting this job over a year ago. I actually feel better than I did yesterday, but not well enough to go into work, and I don’t want to spread my germiness to everyone else. I’m just glad I’m getting this out of my system now – tomorrow’s my 24th birthday (…), and this weekend I’ve got plans that would not play nicely with illness.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for ya. I think I’m going to put on some real person clothes and take a short walk to the drugstore to pick up another box of Kleenex… maybe the sun will kill all my germs. That’s how it works, right?! :)

Dusting Off Ye Olde Blogge

/ Kelly / 3 Comments

Oh.. oh, hi, blog! Yeah, I sort of ignored you for a while there. I pretended I didn’t see the WordPress Dashboard link in my bookmark bar, and I glanced the other way when I got an e-mail about a new comment. I don’t really know why, either. I’ve been eating food lately (shocking, I know), and it’s been yummy, but… I haven’t felt like blogging about it. And then I avoided you for so long that when I went to WordPress at long last, it didn’t even remember my username. Oopsies.

But I’m alive, srsly I am. And I’ll be back soon with food & photos & all things that are good, I promise! In the meantime, have a blurry photo of the ongoing protest in Madison, taken a couple weeks ago.

This is what democracy looks like!

More fun coming soon, for realsies. :)

Documentary Review: Chow Down

/ Kelly / 4 Comments

I got an e-mail recently, asking if I’d be willing to watch the new film Chow Down (available here on Hulu) and review it here on ye olde blog – grassroots advertising at its best! Directed and produced by Julia Grayer and Gage Johnston, Chow Down is the latest in what seems to be an increasing number of documentaries about the merits of a plant-based diet. Given my love for films, Hulu, and plant-based diets, how could I refuse?

Last night I watched the film while working on a new knitting project. The documentary tracks three people who, after being diagnosed with heart disease or diabetes, decide not to pursue surgery and pills but instead choose to adopt a plant-based diet. Some of the big-name proponents of vegan diets (Drs. Esselstyn, Campbell, and Fuhrman, to name a few) share their takes on why these diets work and why – frustratingly! – mainstream American medical practitioners tend to ignore them.

Although a seasoned vegan like me is very familiar with these arguments, Chow Down has the potential to serve as a powerful first introduction for mainstream America. Its strength lies in its people – hearing one person’s journey back to health is often more emotionally meaningful than being assaulted solely with statistics and hard science. The film handily brings together these individual stories and ties them to the larger issue – why the federal government and medical practitioners refuse to acknowledge the evidence in favor of more plants and less meat.

The filmmakers let the facts speak for themselves; they explain the USDA’s dual purpose of handing down health rulings and promoting American agriculture without sounding like conspiracy theorists. One doctor tell her memorable story of being offered upwards of $50,000 in cold, hard cash to shut up about her findings, and the filmmakers spare us any obvious comments – the story speaks for itself. When the superteam of doctors share scientific evidence in favor of a plant-based diet, viewers very easily get the point.

On the whole, it’s a very effective film. I particularly appreciated its honesty – some of the individuals who switch over to a plant-based diet don’t always enjoy what they perceive to be its limitations, and I think that’s a concern for many people. However, I did find myself wishing that we could hear more about what exactly these people were eating, along with the flip side of the coin – how delicious and fulfilling a vegan diet can be, when handled properly. That could’ve been useful information for viewers who might find themselves agreeing with the street interviewees, who all kept giving the same tired arguments: “I’m too busy/it’s too expensive/I love meat, lolz!” Sigh.

And I felt that the pacing of the film was a little off; some of the animated segments (there are a few, and they’re well-done) went on a tad too long, slowing the momentum of the film as a whole. I felt the tiniest bit disappointed at the end, too, because it seemed a little rushed and like there were a few facts thrown in there just for the sake of including them, when I thought they could’ve all been used to create a really powerful ending. That said, the filmmakers chose to end by showing how one individual’s dietary switch was influencing his children; they enjoy the way they eat and talked about how they’d feed their future families the same way, so that they could all live longer and healthier lives. Heartwarming and inspiring! So kudos to Julia and Gage for their film, and maybe it’ll help a few unsuspecting Huluers think twice about the next Big Mac they choose to eat.

Kidney Bean Lovin’ from the Happy Herbivore Cookbook

/ Kelly / 5 Comments

I have a friend who hates kidney beans. I shouldn’t say that – he definitely considers them the least appealing member of the bean family, but I don’t know if he actually hates them. Something about their skin (thicker than the average bean) and their shape (internal-organy) renders them displeasing to his palate. Personally, I have no quarrel with k-beans; they’re not my favorite bean, but I usually keep a can or two in my pantry, and they’re the quintessential chili bean for me.

However, I’ll freely admit that my usage of kidney beans is fairly limited. Without consciously choosing to, I tend to only use them in Mexican-based dishes. Last night, I learned what I’ve been missing by limiting my k-bean usage, thanks to the wonderful Lindsay of Happy Herbivore fame.

This is the Rajma Masala from Lindsay’s brand spankin’ new cookbook, and it is ridiculously delicious. Lindsay describes it as “the Indian cousin to vegetarian chili,” but really I just describe it as “my new favorite dish and why the heck didn’t I double triple quadruple the recipe?!?”

That's my Fancy Platemat.

I’ve been a Happy Herbivore fan for years now, and I love that Lindsay’s recipes are always super wholesome without sacrificing any flavor. With the Rajma Masala, for example, there’s no way that anybody trying this dish would complain about the lack of added fat. The dish has a fantastic blend of flavors, and I really appreciated that it wasn’t spicy for the sake of being spicy – sure, I sniffled a few times while eating my dinner, but I could actually taste all the individual spices. Too many recipes just call for gobs of chili powder or curry powder, and then you can’t taste anything except SPICY HEAT YO! and it’s just stupid. Thankfully, that offensive heat is missing here.

So, all this is to say that the new Happy Herbivore cookbook totally lives up to the high standards of quality you’ll find in all of Lindsay’s recipes. The book itself is gorgeous – I had no idea until I received it (as a surprise late Christmas pressie from my momma!) that it’s chock-full of color photos. I’ve become accustomed to cookbooks that merely include a sad couple of pages of photos in the center, so I appreciated the plethora of pictures in this book. And, perhaps needless to say, I cannot wait to try even more delectable dishes from this newest addition to my cookbook shelf!

Anyone else have the Happy Herbivore cookbook? Any favorite HH recipes?

Whoa, I wrote up this post last week and totally forgot to post it! Fail! Since then I’ve tried even more HH recipes, and I can’t wait to blog about them!

The Post-Holiday Rambling Rundown: Part 3, All I Want for Christmas is KNITWEAR!

/ Kelly / 5 Comments

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, you probably don’t know that approximately 78.536% of my Tweets are about knitting. I’m kind of addicted to knitting – if you were to become a creeptastic stalker and spy on me at around 8:00 PM on nearly any weeknight, you’d find me sitting on my couch or on my bed, watching something on DVD (more than likely Doctor Who), and knitting away. I swear I have a social life; I just cherish (and, truthfully, need) lots of alone time – I’m an introvert; what can I say. Watching nerdy TV shows while knitting is a little slice of heaven; if I could figure out how to read and knit simultaneously, I’d probably go into throes of ecstasy a la Saint Theresa (pardon my blasphemy).

Oh Bernini, you slay me.

Anyway, despite this mad knitting, I rarely ever knit anything for myself – I’ve always got tons of projects lined up for friends and family, for holidays and birthdays and just because they’re worth it. Case in point: Christmas. I decided to knit everyone in my immediate family something, and I was so gratified and happy when they all opened their gifts on Christmas morning and enjoyed and appreciated the articles I’d made especially for them. I know some of you are knitters or crafters, so I thought I’d share my Christmas knitting with y’all. :) If you’re on Ravelry, the links take you to the patterns there. And if you’re a Raveler, you should add me as a friend!

First up: My sister goes to school in Syracuse, so she and I both require lots of winterwear. Because she’s the bees’ knees, I made her the Entwined scarf, which is a garter stitch scarf with BUILT-IN FINGERLESS MITTS – how awesome is that?! I used Tatamy Tweed Worsted in Jungle Vine, and I loooved the yarn and the pattern both. Here’s me being silly in my pre-Christmas photoshoot for Ravelry (I’m not really this yellow… ick):

Goober.

And here’s my oh-so-gangsta gangsta sissy on Christmas (dunno why this photo is all squished):

Raisinet.

Next, I used this Basic Men’s Mittens pattern to work up two pairs of mittens, one for my dad and one for my brother, using Vanna’s Choice yarn (don’t judge). For my dad, I went for simple, classic heather grey:

Manly mittens?

He seemed to like them:

Mooseman?

For my brother’s pair, I used the official colors of his fraternity – I knit the mittens in purple, and used double-stitching to add the Greek letters of his fraternity in gold. I had a little trouble deciding on the placement of the letters – should someone looking at them be able to read them? Should he be able to read them while looking down at his hands?! This is what I came up with:

This is a little dark... :(

And then, for my mommy dearest, I made a scarflet – she’s always cold, but who wants to wear a full-on scarf all day long? Enter the Mustard Scarf! I also used Tatamy Tweed for this project, this time in the lovely Sea Blue. I made the button from bronze polymer clay, too. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of this one on Christmas morning, so I only have the Ravelry photo of this one:

Why do I look so glum?!

Finally, I just have to share one of my most favorite things I’ve made in the past year – Rose’s Wrist Warmers, based on the wrist warmers Rose wears in the ridiculously heart-wrenching Doomsday episode of Doctor Who. I made these for my bestest friend (though I’m modeling them here):

Purply prettiness.

ISN’T THAT A FREAKIN’ GORGEOUS PATTERN?! It was a bit of a pain (lots of cables, so it’s not mindless knitting), but totally worth it. :)

Yeah! Knitting! This is by no means an exhaustive compilation of the knitted items I’ve given away in the past year (dishcloths are sorta boring, y’know?), but these are definitely some of my favorites. Hope you’ve enjoyed this mini-tour of my FOs… I love seeing what other people are working on, so I figured it was time I shared, too. :)

Do you knit? If so, what’ve you knit lately? What’s on your needles now? I’m working on a belated gift for my BFF – I’ll show you when I’m finished!

Milk & Cookies

/ Kelly / 2 Comments

Sunday is my least favorite day of the week, but I might be willing to reconsider if every Sunday involved more cookies and less fretting about Monday.

Perfection.

Chewy Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies from Veganomicon, and vanilla So Delicious coconut milk.