Today's lunch was leftover sweet potato and chickpea curry.
So, curry. Ah curry. Curry and me. Me and curry.
Pomegranate curry does not yet exist (but it's going to happen. Just you wait, 'ungry vegans! (...meant to rhyme with Henry Higgins...yeah, ok, lame, I know)). The name of the blog stems from a combination of Pomegranate BBQ Tofu - the recipe almost singlehandedly responsible for drawing me into vegan cooking - and curry, my Achilles' heel. And the great curry I will invent by combining the two. Anyway.
Curry has been a little like a myth in cooking-land for me. I've heard people swear that it's soooo easy and they eat it everrrry day and blah blah blah. This has not been my experience. My experience has involved getting jalapeno juice in my eye, faulty tofu preparation, two hours of cooking when I expected about half of one, cutting my fingers while zesting a lime, a generally soupy consistency rather than stewlike...in short, nothing like the thick creamy veggie crammed goodness I had hoped for.
This curry ended up cooking too long (that's what I get for making a big batch of chili at the same time) and I didn't have jalapenos on hand the night that I made it, but it was pretty good despite that, and, of course, excellent reheated.
For the base, I used peanut oil, yellow onion, garlic, fresh ginger, curry powder, and coconut milk. Veggies were sweet potato, chickpeas, tomato, and broccoli. I added the tomato and broccoli (after blanching the broccoli for about 4-5 minutes) just long enough to heat through.
Today, I added some fresh jalapeno, some hot sauce, and topped with a bit of fresh cilantro. The jalapeno and hot sauce definitely gave it the kick I was looking for! The consistency is still not as thick as I would like - even after thickening in the fridge - but that may be partly due to using lite coconut milk. I'll have to experiment. The cilantro was piquant, but I will probably not top with it regularly, as the flavor distracted from the curry, rather than complementing it. Also, carrots would make a great addition....
Anyhow, I am progressing in my study of curries. Please let me know if you have any tips!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Shake shake shake
For me, it seems, the Holy Grail looks something like a clear plastic cup. With sharp metal pieces at the bottom.
Somehow, despite wanting a blender for years, I've never managed to either justify the purchase of one or make a sneaky impulse buy that I justified later. This is probably because after the fiasco with my dad's smoothie maker (I swear I didn't do anything. It's like it just exploded in my hands) I don't trust cheap blenders, and I don't have the money for a good one.
However, I have taken the plunge (literally) and used my immersion blender twice to make peanut butter-banana-chocolate smoothies.
I chucked a few bananas in the freezer two days ago, and learned things - saw things - experienced things I never wanted to know! Now, I'm not stupid; I just tend to leap before I look. The internets said to freeze the bananas, and who am I to question the internets?
Well, the bananas froze. They froze but good. I extracted three hard-as-ice (because, um, they were) bananas, still in their skins, from which they would fain be parted.
Now what? I wondered. Am I supposed to wait for them to thaw? How long will that take? The internets didn't say anything about thaw-time.
Giving up, I used a fresh banana and gingerly used the immersion blender to crush two cubes of ice, shivering with fear (or because I was holding a few extra ice cubes in my hand, your call). The smoothie was ok, but weak. Health-food like. Which okay, it is supposed to be healthy, but it's not supposed to TASTE health-food like.
I left the frozen bananas out to thaw and later in the evening, I removed their (now black) skins and transferred them to plastic baggies. This was a sticky, gross endeavor reminiscent of grade school lights out horror houses that unexpectedly plunge peeled grapes under your fingers.
However, this morning, I was rewarded by a sadly phallic frozen banana in a bag. The banana at first compressed well into my blending cup, giving me hope that it would blend nicely - but it took twice as long as the ice cubes had! It did, in the end, give way beneath 3/4 c of light chocolate soymilk (I used 8th continent) and just under two T of peanut butter. Plus a scoop of soy protein powder my mother passed along. (I wonder if I could get her to eat it in a smoothie like this?)
The smoothie blended out to a little more than 1 c. Next time I might make it a bit bigger, by using a bigger banana or a little more soymilk, but keeping the peanut butter and protein powder measurements the same. It was wonderfully smooth and creamy with just a hint of graininess from the natural peanut butter and the protein powder.
I also got a wonderful surge of potassium-laced, soy-protein-goodness energy.
But the immersion blender is not going to cut it for long - literally. I still need a blender.
Somehow, despite wanting a blender for years, I've never managed to either justify the purchase of one or make a sneaky impulse buy that I justified later. This is probably because after the fiasco with my dad's smoothie maker (I swear I didn't do anything. It's like it just exploded in my hands) I don't trust cheap blenders, and I don't have the money for a good one.
However, I have taken the plunge (literally) and used my immersion blender twice to make peanut butter-banana-chocolate smoothies.
I chucked a few bananas in the freezer two days ago, and learned things - saw things - experienced things I never wanted to know! Now, I'm not stupid; I just tend to leap before I look. The internets said to freeze the bananas, and who am I to question the internets?
Well, the bananas froze. They froze but good. I extracted three hard-as-ice (because, um, they were) bananas, still in their skins, from which they would fain be parted.
Now what? I wondered. Am I supposed to wait for them to thaw? How long will that take? The internets didn't say anything about thaw-time.
Giving up, I used a fresh banana and gingerly used the immersion blender to crush two cubes of ice, shivering with fear (or because I was holding a few extra ice cubes in my hand, your call). The smoothie was ok, but weak. Health-food like. Which okay, it is supposed to be healthy, but it's not supposed to TASTE health-food like.
I left the frozen bananas out to thaw and later in the evening, I removed their (now black) skins and transferred them to plastic baggies. This was a sticky, gross endeavor reminiscent of grade school lights out horror houses that unexpectedly plunge peeled grapes under your fingers.
However, this morning, I was rewarded by a sadly phallic frozen banana in a bag. The banana at first compressed well into my blending cup, giving me hope that it would blend nicely - but it took twice as long as the ice cubes had! It did, in the end, give way beneath 3/4 c of light chocolate soymilk (I used 8th continent) and just under two T of peanut butter. Plus a scoop of soy protein powder my mother passed along. (I wonder if I could get her to eat it in a smoothie like this?)
The smoothie blended out to a little more than 1 c. Next time I might make it a bit bigger, by using a bigger banana or a little more soymilk, but keeping the peanut butter and protein powder measurements the same. It was wonderfully smooth and creamy with just a hint of graininess from the natural peanut butter and the protein powder.
I also got a wonderful surge of potassium-laced, soy-protein-goodness energy.
But the immersion blender is not going to cut it for long - literally. I still need a blender.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Genealogy of a vegetarian
In the beginning, there was steak.
Raised in a meat and potatoes family, I cooked, well, meat and potatoes for my family until my conversion to vegetarian at age 18.
In my first memory of cooking by myself, I am only a few inches taller than the oven, and I am putting tenderized steak inside it. I am probably about ten years old, and a responsible kid. My parents asked me to turn the oven on and put a pan inside it. In a few minutes, I'll make a salad of iceberg lettuce, sliced cucumbers, and tomato - which I'll put on the table in the same bowl we always use, with the ranch dressing conveniently situated between it and my plate.
My parents were good cooks - not "serious" cooks, not in a world where they both got home from work around 6 p.m. and wanted nothing more than to collapse for awhile. We ate balanced meals that tasted good. My favorite foods: buffalo wings, ranch dressing, BLTs, and pepperoni sandwiches (Um. Those are my favorites...not examples of our balanced meals).
When I went to college, I knew how to make kick-ass chocolate chip cookies (my mother said once she stopped making them after I started, because my brother and sister liked mine better. I can't touch her molasses cookies or her chocolate crinkles, though). I could make hamburger helper, steak, or chicken, and I had even tried my hand at meatloaf and baked a cake from scratch once.
But cooking the SAD (standard american diet) for five in a kitchen has nothing in common with cooking veg for one in a dorm room - and until a year ago, I would have told you I hated to cook.
A couple of years ago I saw a brilliant vegan cookbook with a recipe for pomegranate bbq tofu. I drooled over the damn book for almost a year, but I knew I was unlikely to cook anything in it.
Maman witnessed the pitiful drooling on one occasion, and bought the book for me. I drooled for another year, too intimidated by names of things I had never heard of: pomegranate molasses, liquid smoke, liquid aminos, shallots, Chinese five-spice powder, vital wheat gluten, chickpeas...yes. I had never heard of chickpeas. C'mon, I never ate an avocado - I even thought I hated guacamole - until I was over 20 years old!
Eventually, a brief love affair with the brother of a French chef (which, in an interesting twist, led to the procurement of pomegranate molasses) and, oh yeah, a love of all things delicious and unusual have inspired my Great Vegan Adventures.
I'm a broke student - food is my biggest splurge. I am not yet vegan. My alimentary ideology is unique, so far as I've yet seen (and as most are, really) - I'll have to go into that at another time. But it's been more than six months since I cooked a non-vegan meal.
I am also in the process of applying for the Peace Corps, which lends a special tinge to learning more about veg nutrition - I need to be prepared to have very limited resources.
So here it is: the chronicles of my attempt to understand nutrition, cooking, and planning well enough to eventually go veg!
Raised in a meat and potatoes family, I cooked, well, meat and potatoes for my family until my conversion to vegetarian at age 18.
In my first memory of cooking by myself, I am only a few inches taller than the oven, and I am putting tenderized steak inside it. I am probably about ten years old, and a responsible kid. My parents asked me to turn the oven on and put a pan inside it. In a few minutes, I'll make a salad of iceberg lettuce, sliced cucumbers, and tomato - which I'll put on the table in the same bowl we always use, with the ranch dressing conveniently situated between it and my plate.
My parents were good cooks - not "serious" cooks, not in a world where they both got home from work around 6 p.m. and wanted nothing more than to collapse for awhile. We ate balanced meals that tasted good. My favorite foods: buffalo wings, ranch dressing, BLTs, and pepperoni sandwiches (Um. Those are my favorites...not examples of our balanced meals).
When I went to college, I knew how to make kick-ass chocolate chip cookies (my mother said once she stopped making them after I started, because my brother and sister liked mine better. I can't touch her molasses cookies or her chocolate crinkles, though). I could make hamburger helper, steak, or chicken, and I had even tried my hand at meatloaf and baked a cake from scratch once.
But cooking the SAD (standard american diet) for five in a kitchen has nothing in common with cooking veg for one in a dorm room - and until a year ago, I would have told you I hated to cook.
A couple of years ago I saw a brilliant vegan cookbook with a recipe for pomegranate bbq tofu. I drooled over the damn book for almost a year, but I knew I was unlikely to cook anything in it.
Maman witnessed the pitiful drooling on one occasion, and bought the book for me. I drooled for another year, too intimidated by names of things I had never heard of: pomegranate molasses, liquid smoke, liquid aminos, shallots, Chinese five-spice powder, vital wheat gluten, chickpeas...yes. I had never heard of chickpeas. C'mon, I never ate an avocado - I even thought I hated guacamole - until I was over 20 years old!
Eventually, a brief love affair with the brother of a French chef (which, in an interesting twist, led to the procurement of pomegranate molasses) and, oh yeah, a love of all things delicious and unusual have inspired my Great Vegan Adventures.
I'm a broke student - food is my biggest splurge. I am not yet vegan. My alimentary ideology is unique, so far as I've yet seen (and as most are, really) - I'll have to go into that at another time. But it's been more than six months since I cooked a non-vegan meal.
I am also in the process of applying for the Peace Corps, which lends a special tinge to learning more about veg nutrition - I need to be prepared to have very limited resources.
So here it is: the chronicles of my attempt to understand nutrition, cooking, and planning well enough to eventually go veg!
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