10.31.2008

Happy Halloween!!

It's Halloween and I am at home. That's right, for the first time in three years I am not traveling on Halloween. Today I am putting the finishing touches on my ultra geeky costume and resting up for the wild night ahead. We aren't completely solid about what we are doing tonight, but we do know that it will start with Thriller and it might end with an 80's dance party. I also want to go see Sonya's fire dancing at Third Street. There is a lot going on so we will probably go where the night (or our friends) lead us. I hope everyone has a happy Halloween!!!

10.29.2008

Hot wings and things

Things have been pretty slow around here. We got Fable 2 last Friday so there has been a lot of video game time at the Casa de la Castlen. On the other hand, we have been staying at home so we have had some really good meals including awesome vegan meatball subs.

Last night for dinner I decided to try something a little different. Joanna at Yellow Rose Recipes posted this recipe for Chicken-style seitan cutlets a bit ago and I have been meaning to try it. We were running low on vital wheat gluten so I halved the recipe which made 10 cutlets. I took three of the cutlets, cut them into strips and used them in the tempeh buffalo wingz recipe (there is a mysterious tempeh monster in our house who keeps eating all of the tempeh raw out of the package so we didn't have enough tempeh for this recipe.) I think that this is the best vegan hot wing recipe out there, whether you use tempeh, tvp, store-bought analogs, or seitan. We loved the way it came out using the chicken-style cutlets.

Now for the recipe disclaimer. The first time I made these wings I followed the recipe exactly and I found that the buffalo wing sauce was too sweet and not spicey enough. It took a few tries, but I found that using 1-2 teaspoons of brown sugar instead of the agave nectar rounds out the flavor and cuts some of the sweetness. I also double the amount of hot sauce. This might not be necessary if you are using a high quality hot sauce, but we use Frank's Hot Sauce for this and you definitely need extra.

We have seven of these cutlets hanging out in the fridge so I think the next thing I try will be marinating and grilling a few of them. I also saw a few people who got good results breading and frying them so that is another possibility.

In completely unrelated news, I balanced our bank account this morning to see how we did with my first month of self-employment and even though we went out to eat a few too many times and had a few extra expenditures that I am not proud of, we stayed within our budget, actually a wee bit under budget. Ultimately, my goal is for us to stay $300 under budget so that we can continue to save, but that is going to take a little bit of practice.

10.23.2008

Time to heat the apartment

I can't believe how quickly the weather went from pleasant to cold. We have been avoiding using our heat and yesterday was the first day that we really felt cold. When we got into bed we were both shivering like crazy. We ended up snuggling together under all of the blankets to warm up. We talked about turning the heat on, but neither of us wanted to give up the warmth of the bed for the minute it would take to light the furnace. In a way it was kinda nice, it was really cold but we were victorious in making it another night without turning on the heat. Tonight we have a friend passing through and crashing at our place, my guess is that she will want the heat, especially since she will be sleeping in the coldest room of the house. This got me thinking of ways to save on heat in our new place. We still aren't sure what our winter gas bills are going to look like, but we are going to do whatever it takes to keep them low.

Tomorrow I will be winterizing the house which is the first step to saving on heat. This simply means putting in or pulling down all of the storm windows, removing the window unit in our bedroom, and weather striping any leaky windows and doors. These are just basic things, but doing them all last winter (as opposed to the two prior winters that we didn't) ended up saving us a few hundred dollars on heat (it is amazing how much heat you lose through a few drafty windows.) Our new place is a little newer and seems to have better windows so there probably won't be a lot to do there.

Next, we keep our thermostat set pretty low, as cold as we can stand, and we just wear warm clothes around the apartment. If you can stand it, turn the heat off during the warmest hours of the day or when no one is home (though keep your pipes in mind when doing this.) This is where knitting comes in handy. Both Philip and I have those Fiber Trends clogs which are very warm (and they are super fun on hardwood floors.) Both pairs were made by my friend Sarah out of recycled wool which is an excellent option for the vegans out there who don't want to support the wool industry. We also wear hats and gauntlets around the house along with extra layers of clothing for added insulation.

Another great way to save on heat is use all of the free heat that you can get. This means opening up your drapes and blinds and letting in the sunshine during the day. This is really one of the hardest things for us, we seem to turn into cave dwellers during the winter and tend to keep things a little on the dark side. We managed to do this about 50% of the time last winter and it did make things warmer and there was the added bonus of the extra light making things a little cheerier.

My final tip is to eat at home. Turning that oven on and preparing a nice warm winter meal will save you money on eating out and your oven will keep you nice and toasty while you are cooking. Alternately, you could bake a loaf of bread, or a pie, or a frozen pizza if you aren't the cooking type and you will get the same benefits. I should clarify here that I am not recommending that anyone use their oven as a heater, that is both inefficient and dangerous, I am just saying that cooking will add five to ten degrees to the temperature of your kitchen so if you are hungry and cold opting out of fast food and microwave meals and using your oven instead will help warm things up.

10.21.2008

Vegan Eggs Benedict

This was a really nice weekend. Philip was off work on Saturday so we decided to do brunch at the co-op since I didn't have to be at the shop until 2pm. After brunch we puttered around the house a bit and then I went into the store for a few hours. After work, we decided to stick with the brunch theme and make vegan eggs Benedict since we grabbed some Yves Canadian Bacon before we left the co-op in the morning. This is one of Philip's favorite dishes and we hadn't made it in quite some time so it was the perfect dinner option.


The recipe we use is the first draft of the recipe found here. I am not sure what kind of changes were made in the final version, but I am sure there are only minor differences. We actually just use the eggs and bacon part of this recipe and we use Robin Robertson's hollandaise sauce from Vegan Planet(though we have made the vegcooking hollandaise and it is fabulous, it is just a little too time consuming for us.) We added some sliced Roma tomatoes and basil to the top for a little extra color and flavor. I should also mention that we don't use biscuit cutters on the tofu. It definitely looks nicer with the tofu in rounds and we would do it if we were serving it to someone, but it was just us and we didn't want to waste the tofu.

After we made dinner we played Fable for a few hours which we are both totally addicted to now. I went to bed early and Philip figured out how to talk to people on xbox live so he stayed up late chatting with Robert on the headset. I woke up early the next morning and after walking Astrid I decided to play Fabel for a little while until Philip woke up. Evidently, Philip can't sleep if he thinks there is any video game play going on in the house so even though he had only slept for four hours, he draged his pillow and blanket into the livingroom and plopped down on the couch with his head in my lap so he could watch me play.

Now for the scary story of the weekend... On Friday Philip and I went to a Halloween party. It was a last minute decision so we had to throw together costumes. I put together a super lame pirate costume, but since Philip was working on a side project for the host he didn't have time to put a costume together so he went sans costume. On the car ride there, he picked up some Miller High Life and we decided that he could just say he was Joe Six-pack. All night Philip told people at this party that he was Joe Six-pack and not one person in attendance got it. This was a group of probably 25-30 adults with the average age around 26 and not one of them knew who Joe Sixpack was. Even more amazingly, one person came dressed up as Sydney Greenstreet and everytime a person asked him who he was everyone at the party would start heckling them. I am now convinced that there is no hope for America.

10.13.2008

A vegan MoFo quiz

Since I haven't been photographing my food for Vegan MoFo, I thought I would take a quiz. At least this way I am participating.

1. If you have to choose between locally grown or organic, which do you usually choose?
I always start with Elmwood at the farmers' market since they have local organics, but after that I think that I would choose local over organic.

2. Favorite way to prepare potatoes:
I love every potato preparation I have ever met, it really depends on my mood. Right now I am craving pirogies which I haven't made in years. I used to make a triple batch and just freeze the ones we didn't use for a quick meal later. I think that I will be making a batch this week.

3. Do you press your tofu before preparing/cooking it (if you eat soy)?
Yes, but I hate doing this with every fiber of my being.

4. Name your favorite recipe that is a tradition in your family:
There is this weird cream cheese candy thing that I used to make on Valentine's day every year. I remember the recipe was on an old recipe card, but I don't know if it came from my dad's side or my mom's side. I have been meaning to veganize it for quite awhile now. My dad veganizes his famous bourbon balls so that Philip and I can enjoy them at Christmas, that is pretty rockin'.

5. Any food allergies?
Yes, rose!! I also have a few non-vegan allergies, but I don't really have to worry about them.

6. When you want to go to a fancy dinner, where do you go?
I guess I can't choose Amalfi anymore. I guess we go to PF Changs or Banana Leaf though neither are very fancy.

7. When you have a cold, what do you crave?
Soup and tea. Really any hot liquid that will sooth my throat.

8. What kind of water do you drink? (Filtered, spring, tap, etc.)
Any and all, I am not picky. I try to avoid water in individual bottles, but other than that I will just take whatever is available. At home we filter our tap water.

9. Name a flavor of soda you'd love to see:
I would like to see more spritzers.

10. If the recipes you ate as a child were compiled into a cookbook, what would the title be?
How to eat out six days a week.

11. If you were allowed to grow one food that can't grow in your climate, what would it be?
Bananas

12. Favorite type of mushroom?
This is a tough one. I love it when the fancy mushrooms become available in the summer and the fall, but I guess a favorite should be more standard. I am going to go with the crimini/portobello (same mushroom, different stages.)

13. Most frustrating part of your kitchen?
I rearranged the kitchen last week which took care of most of the layout issues so I would have to say that the most frustrating part of my kitchen is the absence of a gas hookup for a stove. I loath the electric stove.

14. Last food you burned?
Pasta on my first attempt here to cook on the electric stove.

15. Usual response to a veg*n's favorite question, "But where do you get your protein?":
Beans, nuts, seeds

16. If you were baking your own birthday cake today, what flavor would it be?
Lemon cake with vegan cream cheese frosting and blueberries

17. Favorite brand of chocolate chips?
I really don't like chocolate and I seem to accumulate chocolate bars which I store in the fridge so when I need chocolate chips I will often just chop 1-2 bars.

18. You have $200 of your tax return reserved for Williams Sonoma- What do you buy?
My first though was a Le Creuset stockpot, but sadly that is nowhere near enough money. I guess that I would get a double-sided two-burner griddle with a panini press.

19. Do you plan your menus in advance? Any tips to share?
I am trying to be better about this, but I don't quite have the hang of it yet.

20. You have 3 minutes before you have to leave the house and you're starving- What do you eat?
Cereal or peanut butter and jelly

21. If Martha Stewart, Paula Deen, and Rachel Ray got into a fight, who would win?
Paula Deen, she is a tough Southerner

22. If you eat oatmeal, what do you add to it before serving?
This really depends on what we have laying around. Soymilk, cinnamon, fruit preserves, dried fruit, nuts, or flax seeds.

23. If you got to travel to one country and learn all the traditional dishes there, where would you go (ignore commitments in your current place of residence)?
It would definitely be India. There is no food that I crave more than Indian. The two runners up would be Ethiopia and Italy.

24. Favorite late night snack?
Popcorn

25. Favorite springtime food?
Asparagus, tastes great and makes my pee smell funny; what more could I ask of a food?

26. Favorite food-related magazine?
Since I left the Library I never read food magazines anymore, but before that it was either VegNews or the VGR Journal.

27. Which do you prefer: shoyu, tamari, conventional soy sauce, or Bragg's Aminos?
I go back and forth between tamari and Bragg's.

28. What vegetable or fruit do you dislike the most?
Green peppers, they taste like soap to me. Somehow I transfered my hatred to Philip who now hates green peppers so much he won't eat things they touch.

29. Name a holiday food you look forward to all year long:
Green bean casserole. My Vegan version is spot-on and I crave it all year long (though I only have it at Thanksgiving because those little fried onions are bad news.)

30. If you could convert anyone to veganism with your magic wand, who would you convert?
W. I don't know why, but it would be fun.

10.11.2008

My first week

Today ends my first week of self-employment and on a scale of 1-10 I would give it about a 4. Leaving my job seemed to shut down a few of my vital brain functions; I spent the first three days of this week running around doing things completely nonsequentially and getting frustrated when they didn't work out. Thursday was the day everything finally snapped back in place and I was able to accomplish amazing things. Friday was mine and Philip's first day off together which we were both really excited about, but then I woke up feeling really sick and thus killing the day. Philip was super sweet and he ran out to get me juice and medicine to make me feel better. I ended up sleeping almost all day while he played Rock Band. I finally woke up around 4pm feeeling really snuggly with Philip spooning me and I was starting to feel better. I had a sinus headache so my biggest problem was the light sensitivity and that had diminished. We decided to eat a fancy dinner and watch a movie and that would be our big day. Today I feel great and surely with all of the extra sleep I got yesterday my body should be completely caught up. I am going to take a shower, do the dishes, and then head out to the Farmers' Market to pick up a few things and then off to the store for what could be the slowest weekend in a while. (Note to anyone coming to ReBelle today: the city is capping all of the meters on Limestone today for tomorrow's closure, but they assured us that there will be no towing or ticketing until tomorrow.) Tonight is probably going to be a slow night at home with the boy since we both work tomorrow. I think that I am going to roast up an acorn squash and grill some tofu so I might have a Vegan MoFo entry tomorrow.

10.08.2008

Divinity comes in a spray can

So did you know that Our Lady of Guadalupe is available in an aerosol can? Neither did I until today at the Mexican grocery when I stumbled upon a divine can of her. I daydreamed the entire way home about spraying a little into the air to make her appear and provide guidance. I am a little sad that I didn't buy a can, but I am sure that if I did it would have disappointed and probably made my house smell funky. If you want to see the can, it is here.