Spinach Pie

Well, folks, I've decided to fast (sort of... aka to have a rather abstemious diet) for Lent. So, in celebration, to use up my butter, and to eat my feelings about the impending neuro exam, I made brownies and spinach pie today. The spinach pie comes from my Barefoot Contessa cookbook (a gift from Kate's family). Fortunately, I didn't have to type it up because the internets are wonderful. Here it is:
http://www.recipezaar.com/Spinach-Pie-141830
I used sunflower seeds b/c I couldn't find pine nuts. I also accidentally tripled the nutmeg, which tastes OK. It looked so beautiful coming out of the oven that I grabbed the handle and burnt my left hand. Sad. Oh well, it tastes delicious.
I'm planning to explore vegan cuisine more in the coming weeks--look forward to some delicious recipes! I'm planning to try sweet potato gnocci, tofu pot pie... mmm...

A buttock of bread

Suzanne is not fond of bread with wheatberry, which led to an opportune discovery: you can divide a loaf in half, put wheatberry in one part and not in the other, and place them side by side in the breadpan to rise. The finished product looks like it's mooning you. Each of us gets a buttock to share. Let's remember to take a picture, ok?

Sloppy Janes

Just tried to make sloppy Janes (or vegetarian sloppy Joes) today and they were delicious--unfortunately, I made way too much! The below recipe supplies about 5 sandwiches:
Cook 1c brown lentils
Saute 1 chopt onion
Add 2 cloves minced garlic
Add one generous handful sliced peppers
Add one generous handful frozen peas
Add lentils (I also added 1 handful of leftover chickpeas)
Moisten with 1/2 jar tomato sauce
Season with oregano, cumin, chili pepper, cinnamon, salt to taste
Enjoy on cheddar cheese toast!

Vary the veggies and accessorize with other beans if you have some on hand.

Citrus glazed tempeh

This recipe is a riff on an orange glazed tempeh recipe I saw on 101 cookbooks, modified to fit the ingredients I had around.

For the glaze:

1 C grapefruit juice

2 T agave nectar or honey

1.5 T sake or mirin

2 t soy sauce

1 T grated ginger

2 minced cloves of garlic

1/2 teaspoon cumin or ground coriander (it called for ground coriander, which I didn't have, but I had the vague notion that cumin was the same thing... was I right? I any case, it worked out okay).

Mix all the ingredients for the glaze together in a bowl. Heat some olive oil at medium high in a large skillet. Cut 8 - 10 oz of tempeh up - I like to cut three squares, then cut those into 6 triangles, then cut each triangle in half down the middle (making them thinner). Cook the tempeh for 5 min on each side, till its golden. Pour on the glaze and cook for 10 mins more until its very reduced. I threw in some tangelo slices towards the end. Right before you remove it from the heat, squeeze on half a lime. 

I served this with wild rice and broccoli. Oliver, once a notorious tempeh hater, even went back for seconds!

It was a very nice Friday night dinner at home. We had a bottle of Reisling to go with it. Unfortunately, I think I must cut back on cooking nice dinners for at least a week or so. I have a lot of lab work going on and I expect I will need to work late. Some nights, I just want to cook so badly I wait to have dinner until I get home at like 11, but eating after midnight is kind of hard on my system and I'm trying not to do it so much.

It was great talking to you guys last night! Sorry I missed the Italian oven and the Jolleys. I'd love to see some pictures of Marcella.

At last!! The 2008 Buche de Noel.

Every yard needs a tree like this.

M&M update

We finally had plain M&Ms in the lab! And I ate them all, mwuhaha!

Yellow Lentil Deliciousness

Stir fry onion, shitake mushrooms, carrots, tumeric, ginger, and some chili pepper. Add a can of diced tomatoes, cooked yellow lentils, and lastly some parsley. Hard to go wrong!

On the docket for this week - hella tofu. Oliver went to the store on Sunday and bought "hella tofu" (translation for you east coasters: we have more tofu than ever before in the fridge right now.)