Yummus

      I would count myself as one of those people who is more than a little bit obsessed with hummus. It’s the absolute best. And, as a vegetarian, it is a godsend.

#mylife 

So in addition to Moosewood’s hummus, I made tabouli, a bulgur cold salad that is exceptionally simple but completely delicious. I also made white bean salad topped with pickled red onions. All together, this comprised of a meal called Mezza, which Moosewood describes as a Greek meal made up of a combination of smaller dishes (of which you can pick and choose).

            Now, the great part about all of these dishes is that they require zero actual cooking—except boiling water for the bulgur. But unfortunately, they all require chilling time, which is not great when you’re hungry and want to eat ASAP.

            Another major difficulty is not being able to open your jar of garlic (which is required in every single recipe). Seriously, it was impossible. After trying for literally 20 minutes to open this jar—hot water, rubber band, and duct tape were all to no avail—I went in search of some men in my building to help me out. It took three of them, and the one who finally got it open had to use his football gloves. All I can say is, I need to get me some football gloves.

            The hummus was really good; I added a couple sprinkles of cayenne to give it a little kick. My only critique is that it should be creamier. According to the Internet you have to peel the chickpeas, which is absolutely never gonna happen. It’s still really delicious anyway, and I wouldn’t describe it as gritty or coarse. It’s just not purely smooth. I’m wondering if boiling the chickpeas a bit before blending them would help. I did use canned peas, which were already cooked, but maybe blending them while tender would help accentuate the creaminess. I also added in some olive oil against Moosewood’s recipe because I thought it would help, which I think it did. It definitely helped the texture become smoother, but I didn’t want to add too much oil.

            Tabouli is quickly becoming one of my favorite things. It’s amazing how basic it is: bulgur, lemon juice, a few spices, chopped tomatoes, and green onions. But it’s so yummy!! And another vegetarian dream food. It also keeps well, which means I can keep on eating it all week!

            Obviously, I have been a bit neglectful of this project in the past couple weeks. I’m not too far behind schedule, but I have not been cooking nearly as much as I would like to; I’m sick of eating from the dining hall. But it’s just so comforting and easy to eat there instead of cook. I’ve done so many fewer dishes than usual this week! I am trying to get back to cooking more regularly as January turns to February. Tonight’s meal was a great way to knock out a bunch of recipes! Also, because of my schedule, I have a few days a week where I have to eat away from my apartment, which means brown bag meals or buying food. So I’m trying to find some things that I can transport easily and eat cold; another positive from tonight’s meal.

            The white bean salad and pickled onions is very similar to the recipe my sister made when we all had Spanakopita. It might actually be adapted from Moosewood but I’m not sure. It’s another simple recipe, which like revenge, is best served cold. The pickled onions make a really yummy topping on the salad, and the cider vinegar used gives a nice little tang to the whole dish.

            And addition to all these dishes, I complemented the Mezza with carrot sticks, slices of cucumber, and pita chips. It was a great dinner that I can’t wait to eat as leftovers for the rest of the week! 

Night Cheese

God I love cheese. It’s one of the many things I have in common with Liz Lemon (brunette, socially awkward feminists, ftw!) 

Homegirl just gets me. 

Seriously, cheese is actually the best. One time my sister told me that it takes all of her willpower not to eat cream cheese straight out of the tub. And the other one said sometimes she just wants to take a bite directly out of a block of cheddar. So clearly, this is a deep-seated and genetically based love.

I have been waiting for a long time to try out Moosewood’s ricotta gnocchi AKA “balls of cheese”. I also made a pasta sauce called “Mondo Bizzaro” which is kinda like a pesto on crack (if crack is spinach and tomato). The sauce probably would’ve benefitted from more garlic, but I ran out and forgot to get some at the store yesterday. But it also includes Parmesan, which upped the cheese ratio even more. Another plus was that I got to use my new handheld blender I got for Christmas (Thanks Grandma!) Although, blended spinach and basil looks kind of gross. It’s like a bright green paste. It smells pretty good though.

High five for cooking skills! 

            I don’t have a whole ton else to say other than this was a totally delicious and simple dinner that was much needed. My last semester as an undergraduate has been absolutely crazy so far. And it’s only been two weeks. I’m taking quite a heavy class load in order to be able to finish my program on time and I have to do 4.5 hours a week of in-class student teaching—up from last semester which was about 2 hours a week. Those placements haven’t actually started yet; Monday is day one. In addition to all that time in the classroom, I have to drive out a ways to get to the schools, and there’s no time to go back and forth. Which means I basically will have to chill out at coffee house in between placements. And, I mean, I love coffee, but it means I have to massively schedule my time even more to make sure I can get everything done. So stress levels are a bit high.

            To console myself, I will just keep eating cheese. Cheese and pasta: God’s gift to the world.

We do Saturday nights right. 

The Sorbet and Meringue Merengue

            It’s dessert time on the blog again, and the theme of today’s dessert is waiting. Firstly for the meringues to dry out and secondly for the sorbet to freeze. But believe me, it’s entirely worth it.

            Meringues are sort of truffle, bite-size, delicacies that Moosewood presents as either chocolate or lemon flavored. They’re incredibly light (no butter, oil, or flour) made mostly from egg whites. You bake them at a low temperature for about three hours. The consolation prize is the unreal and completely decadent smell that permeates your entire apartment. I wanted to make both the lemon and chocolate at the same time, but there wasn’t enough room on my one pan. I probably couldn’t fit two pans in my oven anyway. But this meant I got a round one and round two of meringues!

            The berry sorbet was another light and simple dessert that took awhile to make. Basically you make Moosewood’s berry sauce and then stick it in the freezer. Hilariously, Moosewood’s first recommendation was to make berry sauce and put it in an ice cream maker and follow the instructions there. Though I’m kind of offended that the author would immediately assume I own an ice cream maker, she does indicate that she herself doesn’t even have one. Though apparently this recipe is technically called “berry ice” rather than sorbet. And ironically, you have to defrost the berries before freezing them again.

            The meringues have the confusing quality of being both fluffy and crispy at the same time. To be honest, they’re very similar to Styrofoam. But tastier. They’re kind of porous on the inside, but packed with flavor and decadence. I wish I had a pastry bag so that mine weren’t just amorphous blobs of dessert, but for now, the deliciousness will suffice.

Gorgeous Eggplant is Gorgeous

            Eggplant is one of those foods that I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten before, but I couldn’t really tell you what it tastes like. But since I have no memories of it being gross and stuffed eggplant sounded really yummy, I decided to give it a shot! And it also meant that I could knock out another Moosewood recipe: Greek Pilaf. Pilaf is sort of like spiced/seasoned rice (although I used quinoa) that’s good for stuffing or as a side dish. To jazz up the pilaf, you stir in some feta and top with sliced tomatoes when baking in the eggplant; Moosewood calls it “Mediterranean Style”.

The battle wound. 

            Pilaf is incredibly simple and quick to make, especially if you don’t have to wait for the rice (or quinoa). Though I did find it to be a slightly dangerous recipe. In Medieval times, you weren’t a real knight until you’d bled on your sword. With that logic in mind, I am now a real cook. Of course, knights probably weren’t frantically washing their knives and obsessing over whether or not blood got on the onions. Also their biggest problem most likely wasn’t that it’s really hard to type with gauze all over your finger.

            You’re supposed to cut and bake the eggplant before stuffing and re-baking it. This means you can scoop out the insides and add it to the pilaf. I found it quite difficult to do the scooping bit. This was possibly because I didn’t let it cook all the way through—Moosewood recommends 20-30 mins and I did closer to 20. I like when there’s still a layer of innards attached to the skin (can you tell I watch crime shows while I cook?) so I did minimal scooping.

            The final result is an incredibly tender, melts-in-your-mouth dinner that’s absolutely packed with protein and deliciousness. My only critique is that it’s a little one-note. The eggplant soaks up the seasonings from the pilaf, which adds to the richness of the dish, but this leads to a slightly monotonous dinner. It would be better with a complementary side or maybe even a sauce of some kind. For the other variation, Moosewood recommends its Red Pepper Puree, and I imagine it would probably still be good on this one. It just needs a little something extra

YUM! 

Side note: by making this variation of stuffed eggplant, instead of the other, I get to check off a recipe and get a pass on a cottage cheese recipe. That’s 3 out of 11!

            

Easy as Pumpkin Pie?

Moosewood has a recipe called “No Fault Pumpkin Pie” which of course sounded like passive aggressive condescension to me. The book was challenging me.

“Can you infinitely mess this up? Probably.”

Desserts have been the main things I’ve struggled with since starting this project, which is kinda sad since desserts are my favorite. But I am not one to be deterred easily!

            Struggle number one is best explained through the photo below. So, yeah.

            Struggle number two is PIE CRUST. UGHHHHHHHHHHHH. Seriously, pie crust is the worst. It should not be as frustrating as it is. And there’s a distinct possibility that it’s my fault and I have a block in my brain when it comes to pie crust. But mine would not mix well and was poorly rolled out. I have a feeling it’s just going to fall apart. But the whole thing was not a total disaster.

Struggle #2.5= not owning a rolling pin so
using your molasses bottle instead. 

            Victory number one was the abundance of adorable jars you get to use! Ground ginger was kinda hard to find, but luckily Target had like four kinds to choose from and this cute little one was the cheapest. Also, generic molasses apparently doesn’t exist so I bought this (left) super cool brand. 

       



 Victory number two: Moosewood requires you to use “evaporated” milk for the pie filling. I assumed this was the same as “condensed” milk, but I made sure the can I bought said evaporated. After looking it up on the Internet, I discovered they’re actually completely different. Condensed milk usually has sugar added to it, whereas evaporated milk doesn’t.

            Victory number three: the pie was delicious!! It was less of a pie than an assembly of crust and filling that falls apart as soon as you cut into it. You also have to eat half of it with a spoon because it’s soupy and the other half with your hands because it’s too hard to cut into with a spoon.  

            So I would say that Moosewood is probably not a liar by calling it “No Fault Pumpkin Pie” and even with my many struggles, I still had more victories!

Luh-Sag-Nuh

Lasagna (note the entirely correct pronunciation in the title of this post) is one of my favorite things in the whole entire world. And I’m so pleased to discover how easy it is to make! My mom makes the most incredible lasagna and I recently learned that it’s basically Moosewood’s recipe, so I couldn’t wait to try it! I have also helped Mom make this dish before, so I felt okay about straying from the recipe a bit. Moosewood’s recipe is just basic cheese lasagna, but I prefer spinach because it’s more filling, and also spinach is delicious. I invited a friend over who shares my love of lasagna so we could emulate Garfield together.

Miraculously, I was able to find an illustration of my lasagna eating habits! 

            Before I could start the enthralling process of layering the lasagna, I had to make the tomato sauce. The sauce was a very simple recipe, and produces a really yummy thick marinara sauce. It is a bit chunky, but chopping the onion and bell pepper into smaller bits could probably solve that. When it comes to Italian food of any kind, I tend to prefer more sauce than most people find acceptable. Moosewood’s batch is a decent amount, but with the improper spreading that I did, some parts were kinda dry. Maybe like a batch and a half would’ve been enough. If (when) I make this again, I’ll try that. 

            The most difficult part about making lasagna is evenly portioning out your filling, sauce, and cheese between the layers. There are definitely some more highly saturated bits in mine, but I really enjoy all the elements of lasagna, so I don’t think it will be a huge problem. But I suppose if you’re a snob (and I did say to a friend that you’re allowed to be a snob when it comes to lasagna) you probably wouldn’t enjoy this. All in all this was a pretty delicious meal and very easy to make! Definitely deserving of the Garfield stamp of approval!