3 posts tagged “cooking”

Tonight for dinner I made sautéed lemon sole with linguine and spinach in a lemon caper white wine reduction.  Fabulous!  The pic you see here is actually leftovers.

lemon sole

I went to my dealer--Eli Z.--for the fish.  One (admittedly big ass) filet was $12.  I almost cried.  I was so scared of possibly ruining it, this, my first time cooking fish ever.  But it really makes me wonder why do I bother cooking.  I mean it's fun and creative but the expense and planning and time involved is killing me.  And I have no dude or brats to be feeding.  I have access to cuisines from all corners of the world, and a guy on a bike to deliver them to me in less than 30 minutes.  For not too much more than $12.  And most importantly NO PANS TO CLEAN.

Can anyone tell me where to get Passover Coke?!  I went to the KOSHER GROCERY up in my 'hood and they didn't have it.  Or Coke didn't bother to change their nutrition label?  What gives?

Sometimes vegans have no idea what they’re missing. Case in point: the Vietnamese hoagie. Anyone who has tried one will tell you of the near religious experience it brings along with the dichotomies of sweet and salty, hot and cool, tender and crisp.

Maybe it was crazy for me to think I could replicate this at home; crazier still to think I could substitute delicious pork with a texturized vegetable protein. But judging from the reaction of vegans and nonvegans alike the first-ever vegan bánh mì knit night was a total success. It was so good we almost forgot to knit.

mise en place

ingredients:

1 daikon radish
3 carrots
2 C water
1 C white vinegar
1 C sugar
2 French baguettes
1 English cucumber
3 jalapeños
bunch of cilantro
2 packages Smart BBQ
1 package Smart bologna or other fake meat bologna
Asian chili garlic hot sauce
Nayonaise

Directions: Cut the daikon and carrot into julienne strips. Combine water, sugar and vinegar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Transfer to a bowl, add daikon and carrots, and refrigerate 30 minutes or overnight.

Prepare cucumber and jalapeño into slices. Separate cilantro into sprigs. Heat up veggie BBQ on stovetop. Cut each baguette into quarters, crisp in 400° oven. Assemble and enjoy!

vegan bánh mì

1 comment

Serves 8.

Today it rained nonstop.  Rainy Sundays can be good for being hungover, being lazy, drinking tea and listening to Rachel's and Galaxie 500... but I'm upset that I haven't had any quality time with my bike lately.  I thought about calling friends for dinner but it's really just too gross outside, plus I don't want to spend any more money this week.  But the day was not wholly unproductive.  I invented a recipe, and it doesn't taste weird or anything!

Last night's bachelorette get-together (yeah, I think the wildest moment was probably during pin the "tail" on the "donkey") featured a fabulous dip that our hostess claims she made up right there on the spot.  I forced her to write down how she did it and so now I have a piece of paper with the ingredients and no measurements or other guidance.  Apparently it involves cilantro, pumpkin seeds, lime, silken tofu, tahini, salt and pepper.  I'm afraid I will never be able to replicate that dip... my brain needs clear, step by step instructions in order to cook, knit, or assemble something from IKEA.  I'm a librarian.  I like order.  Almost to the point of OCD but not quite.

So normally I don't trust myself enough to "wing it" while cooking.  But today I did and I'm pretty proud of the results.  A couple days ago I made tuna and artichoke panini with a recipe my mom told me about from Giada (my mom has a little bit of a girl crush on Giada, it's cute), so today I still had some artichokes left over.  I wanted to use some of my spinach too so I did a quick search to see what kind of recipes there are. I couldn't find any.  If the internets are to be trusted, no one has ever attempted to cross the Spinach Artichoke dip threshold into the realm of pasta.  So I made something up.  (In the interest of Type A cooks everywhere I will try to make my measurements a little more precise than Sabre's.)

tbsp butter
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
couple handfuls of spinach
half a can of artichokes, quartered
crushed red pepper
1 C penne, uncooked
small cube of fontina cheese, chopped up

So you saute the garlic in the butter, add the spinach and cook until it's all wilted.  Add the artichokes.  Add a little crushed red pepper.  If you haven't already boiled water and started cooking the pasta, get your freaking act together.  Once the pasta is al dente, drain and return to the pot.  Add the spinach artichoke mixture.  Add the cubed up cheese and stir until it gets all melty and delicious.  Grind some black pepper all over that; devour.

Vegan version: substitute olive oil for butter.  Take out the cheese.  But are you really, really sure you don't want the cheese?  It makes life worth living if you ask me.  With that said, let me give props to Whole Foods Union Square for their little basket of sample cheeses you can pick up for a buck or so each.  That's where I got the fontina and a little comte.  Cheeses I wouldn't normally buy in a big brick but that are perfect in small, adorably priced packages.  Eli, are you listening?

Also, Whole Foods' sweet chili pecans are delish, as is the whole "nut bar" concept they have going on over there.