Recent Food Developments

We'll get to the eel in green sauce in Belgium in a later post, despite it having been two months ago.

First, Cafe Green in Northwest DC is much tastier than a vegan restaurant with a large number of raw food dishes has any right to be.  Their not-quite-bibimbap was pretty tasty, even if not served in a superheated iron bowl.  And the Sherbs loved their raw food assortment. 

For dessert, the cake we got tasted like good pareve cake (better than meh), but the raw cashew "milk" shake I had was pretty fabulous.

Next, the Teet now carries individually packaged servings of freeze-dried fruits.  As they say on Twitter, #winning.  

Finally, I tried to use an online "healthy recipe" guide which advertised that it could give me a healthy meal just by inputting three items currently in my fridge.  I tried that, and these were the failures:

• soy chorizo + endive + mayonnaise
• cheese singles + tuna salad + tomato (despite this being a pretty regular weekend lunch standby; fat free cheese singles on Starkist's "tuna salad in a bag" is more than tolerable on toast).
• ketchup + onion + beans (okay, no baked beans recipes?)
• dehydrated onion + brie + vegetable broth (and I didn't even try to confuse it with the fact that I was using Ile de France's "mini brie" - which, for the record, is superior to Trader Joe's Mini Brie Bites; there's something off about the way the Trader Joe's ones taste)
• mustard + orange + beans

Okay, I do have some esoteric food in my house, but if I was down to just a couple things, I couldn't trust this recipe finder to help me with my "brown rice + whole wheat pastry flour + apple/grape juice mix."  Or my "Fiber One muffin mix + San Marzano crushed tomatoes + anchovies" (two of which, however, will make a perfectly fine pasta sauce - just remember that there's no "apples and cinnamon" buccatini).

Passover

I am one of the few people I know who doesn't mind passover and kosher for passover food. Sure, it's not the best thing ever and I'll take a serving of beans tossed in pasta with no hesitation right now, but in general, it's not so bad. I really enjoyed The Pedant's soup and matzah balls and made a matzah lasagna last night. It was actually fairly tasty. First, I made a fresh tomato sauce from about 5 Roma tomatoes. I chopped up some garlic and sauteed it in EVOO. Then I added the chopped tomatoes, some pepper and parve chicken soup mix for flavor and let it cook until it was kind of a soupy pomadoro. Next, I sauteed an onion in EVOO, added some chopped portobello mushroom and flavored it with salt and pepper. Since the pan was too small, I cleaned it out and sauteed a lot of baby spinach with salt. To finish it off, I threw in some balsamic to give it a punch. Then I ufgafished* the matzah, layered and added in mozzarella cheese. Sadly, the Parmesan cheese was moldy. But, it turned out to be really good! (I bet it'll be fantastic with real lasagna noodles!)

*To Wet the Matzah. I couldn't find a link to it, but my mother used the word and I'm sure it exists. Plus, it's super funny to say. Try it. Haha

Book Recommendations, Etc.

I have just recently acquired a copy of James Lileks's Gastroanomalies, the sequel to his modern classic The Gallery of Regrettable Food, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is hilarious.

I do not just say that so that Lileks's lifestyle, which is that of a stay-at-home dad who makes extra cash by posting funny things on the internet, is still available for me in twenty years. Lileks's witty mockery of bad food concepts of yesteryear (although, I must confess, I am tempted in an inexplicable way to want to try the corned beef in beef-flavored gelatin) is as good as it ever was (unlike, say, Toby Keith).

Currently, the Sherbs and I are trying a Grand Chili Experiment in the slow cooker. We put in corn, beans, two cans of tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, a small can of mild chili peppers, mustard powder, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic powder, half of a large onion, one whole bell pepper, and a whole mess o' TVP. We set the slow cooker on "forever" last night, and we'll see, come dinnertime, how it all turns out.

Yum!

The Sherbs's eggplant and TVP cutlet casserole (or was it a terrine?) in Parma style, was fabulous. I'll eat pretty much anything breaded in tomato sauce with cheese on top, but the dish was beyond the usual parmadelicious.

I made salad. It was also good, but not as incredible. Veggies go in bowl, dressing gets made out of vinegar, oil, mustard, garlic, and sweetener, dressing goes on veggies. Four minutes, tops.

We had wine with dinner in our Grey Ghost Winery glasses. Because we are in Virginia, and therefore must celebrate Confederate guerilla fighters.

Tomato Sauce

Last night at dinner at my cousins' house there was salad (and my cousin was good and left a separate plate of tomatoes and olives, cause she knows how fussy my mom and I are with veggies), fish (not for me) and ravioli. I like ravioli, especially the small kind. There was cheese and cheese/eggplant, and I enjoyed it. Also, she made her own tomato sauce with garlic, fresh basil and oregano, and mushrooms. It was so tasty.

I think homemade tomato sauce is totally underused and the cans are never as good. Mmm...sauce....

I Feel Like Something Tonight

I will be having a food-related event tonight. Technically, it's a food and the roleplaying game Ars Magica-related event tonight, but roleplaying doesn't require any special considerations for Passover, nor is it that germane to the weblog.

I have a decision to make - meat or dairy?

In the house is leftover turkey, Passover stuffing, and sweet potatoes. With a salad, that's a dinner.

But I could also make a Passover "lasagna" by layering tomato paste, matzah, mozzarella, and cottage or farmer cheese in a pan, then baking it for 40 minutes. I'd make a salad for that, too, and, frankly, I think I like the cheesy option better, but I feel like I need more side dishes or I'll end up filling up on ring jells because I'm still a little hungry after the meal (for the record, the Joyva web page is lame).

I'll let you know what I eventually decide.

An Ode to Eggplant

Last night, after a pilates class, Stoner and I cooked ourselves intense sandwiches. These sandwiches contained many of the important ingredients:

• Carbs (bread...mmm)
• Cheese (mozzarella in fact!)
• Onions
• Tomato sauce
• Eggplant

It was quite tasty. Granted, I pulled mine apart and ate it all weird and messy, but still delish. And so, even though I was up in the middle of the night (various reasons, one to be explained later) and am a little cranky today, I believe an Ode to Eggplant is in order, especially since I had some with lunch today. Similar to another ode, this will be an acrostic:

Eggplant - how I love thee!
Great, bit and Delicious
Gas comes forth after consuming you! So stinky, but worth it
Purple in color, delicious in taste
Lovely tasting with tomato sauce and pasta
And Chinese food and just baked in the oven
Never ending is my love for thee!
Tonight I will fart, again.