Alligators in My Pudding

As I attempt to climb up the healthy-living ladder, I worried that there would be a missing rung (I mean, I know there will be several, I'm looking at you, wheat-grass). The possibly rough transition to rawness is supposed to be ameliorated by the fact that most people already eat fruit, salads, and good ol' guacamole. Avocado is a very well-loved healthy food and I have encountered it in the most unlikely places (what? what are you thinking? I'm talking about food!). But I've always been a bit...indifferent...to avocado. I'm no guac-hating freak, don't get me wrong, but I'll admit that seeing someone with just half an avocado in one hand and a spoon in the other hand is enough to turn my stomach.

"Look! It has its own little nature-made bowl!" [exulting avo-enthusiast]
"Mhmm!" [me, trying to smile through the nausea]

But the creamy, greeny ahuacatl is very important to raw foodists, especially impoverished ones who can't afford to order vats of hemp butter over the internet. (If I crack, it's going to be because this diet tends to be so bourgie, please don't get insulted everyone, but I'm never going to have $400 for a blender). So today's breakfast pear got a little sexy stir time with a little organic avo. Zoom! Or bzzz bzzz scrape bzzz bzzz. (Man, I really really want a $400 blender).

It's going to be a long while until my kitchen creations are a) pretty and b) not green. I'm mostly okay with that. And while the first bite was a little, oh no avooooo, eventually the light sweet flavor of the pear shone through (and um, I added some raisins because I am an ADDICT).

I'm headed to the beach now to soak in a little Vitamin D. I'm bringing water and an orange, hopefully that should hold me since I need to go buy some more spinach. I know I'm not doing this quite correctly, but hopefully there will still be some good results (oh, mental clarity, come to me).

Life in the Raw

"You just like to construct new little food hells for yourself, don't you?" - Mark

I'm a little obsessed with food. Just a little. And lately I've been reading about raw food and fruitarians, and juice feasting and all of that.

[to be continued]

It was a dark and leafy green...

I have conquered kale!

(The urge to write "konquered" was almost overwhelming! Does the paucity of k's in the English lexicon make it so irresistible or are more sinister factors afoot?)

Kale is a dark leafy green. In fact, if you bring up kale, someone will almost doubtlessly say those exact words. It is the definition of kale that everyone knows. Much like the fact that everyone knows that mitochrondria are the "powerhouse of the cell." (I'm not kidding. Ask anyone.)

It's also a pretty intimidating green, possibly due to the darkness, but more likely the leafiness. Specifically the curliness of the leafiness, which is somewhat difficult to wrangle with. I mean, most vegetables don't even require "wrangling." But since kale is a "nutritional powerhouse" (What is it with science and the word "powerhouse"? No one else uses that word.), I decided it was about time to wrangle.

It went fine! There was a moment when the wrangling and slicing was creating a really enormous pile that threatened to take over my kitchen (much like last Thanksgiving, when I was nearly buried in a mountain of collard greens for days), but eventually I put them in a pot. I was following the "Garlicky Kale" recipe from VwaV, but I cut down on the oil because I'm a freak. It probably would have been better with more oil, but it worked out fine. The garlic was delicious and the kale cooked up tender and flavorful yet still dark and leafy.

Victory!

(Sorry these photos are so unappetizing, but I swear that the kale was delicious. I need a better camera. And, um, the will to cook before it's dark outside.)

Sexy Chipotle Lovin'

soup soup a tasty soup soup a spicy carrot and coriander,
chili chowder, crouton crouton crunchy friends in a liquid broth,
i am gazpacho, ooh, i am a summer soup, mmph!
miso miso fighting in the dojo, miso miso oriental prince in the land of soup!
- the mighty boosh

I love this sexy spicy soup. It's from VwaV and it was damn delicious. It went through stage after stage of deliciousness, in fact. Since I had a skewed view of crushed tomatoes, at one point I thought I was creating a tomato sauce, but it was a very delicious tomato sauce. It was good before the lime, even better afterwards, better with cilantro, and awesome a day later. Awesome two days later! (I definitely made this soup a week ago, and just didn't upload the photo until today.)

I added more chipotle peppers (um, 6 instead of 2) because that's how I roll. I also added cauliflower which turned out brilliant. I also might have cooked it too long. Whatever, still delicious. Next time I make it, I'll leave out the potato altogether and replace with cauliflower and maybe zucchini. Tasty soup!

The Shelf: A Reckoning

I suppose this may not seem like a lot of cookbooks to an actual cook, but cookbooks tend to be rather expensive and for a dabbler, I have no business having so many. There are a bunch more on my Amazon wishlist and, um, the mighty Veganomicon is on its way to me right now. But that's the last one! I will not buy any more cookbooks until I have made substantial progress. So here's the list and my opinion of each, which is not based on much.

• The Ayurvedic Cookbook by Amadea Morningstar (O RLY?) and Ursula Desai [Really helpful and lucid advice on Ayurvedic eating practices, but the recipes seem a little boring to me. Perhaps because I'm a Pitta and supposed to avoid garlic, onions, salt and all hot spices. Oh noes!]
  
• Essential Vegetarian Cookbook by Diana Shaw [A big fat book with lots of information and tips and what seem like fine recipes.]
• Grill It! Vegetarian ed. Anne McDowell [I think I was feeling left-out at summer barbeques or something.]
• Japanese Vegetable Cooking by Asako Tohata [I love Japanese food!]
• The New Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson [This just seems like such a nice book. Baking bread, making your own soup stocks, mac and cheese for the kids, etc.]
• Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home [It's Moosewood!]
  
• Moosewood Restaurant New Classics [An old roommate of mine had this cookbook, which started my mad rush to buy more Moosewood cookbooks. I actually made a handful of things out of here which turned out quite well.]
• New Recipes from Moosewood Restaurant [I've only made one thing out of a here--a mixed vegetable curry. It involved toasting and grinding whole spices and the result was delicious. I don't know if it was the Moosewood or the fresh spices, but yum!]
• Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant [Haven't made anything. But it's full of fish and cheese, boo!]
• Real Vegetarian Thai by [This was a gift from my beloved Glittahface and it's full of amazing things. The only trouble is that REAL thai cooking is very time-consuming and involves lots of ingredients. And I have this problem with not being super discriminating. Which is to say, I made the green curry paste from scratch and cooked the curry and it was hella delicious, but was it 1000x better than curry paste from a jar? Mmmm, not to me. But I want to try more things!]
• Vegetarian Times Cookbook [Bit of a battered old thing. Haven't perused it much.]
• Vegetarian ed. by Nicola Graimes [A sort of ridiculous, generic book full of lovely pictures of vegetables. I don't particularly trust the recipes.]
• Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison [I read so many good things online about this book that I had to buy it. It's intimidating. It's very large and heavy and the recipes seem sort of fancy and I'm sort of just scared. And she really likes butter and cheese?]
• World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey [Awww, I love this book. This was my first cookbook! And when Glittahface and I lived together, we actually cooked quite a bit, so we've made a number of things out of here and almost all of them were delicious. And there are so many more recipes in it!]
• How It All Vegan! by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer [Another book much lauded online. I was a tiny bit disappointed, but I should actually try the recipes, I suppose.]
• Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz [Love love love the PPK and so why haven't I tried more recipes out of here? I'm starting here for sure.]

And now it's dark outside, so I better get to the grocery store and get cooking!

[Addendum: After taking this photo, I stacked all the books on my desk. A day later, Mark walked in, stared at them for a minute and said, "You have a problem."]

Taking Off the Dairy/Egg Training Wheels

It's finally time for me to turn vegan and what better way to do so than by starting a blog? Woo!

I've been a vegetarian for years and have dabbled in the vegan arts from time to time. My ethics have always lined up under the vegan flag, I've just always had weaknesses. For nachos, for yogurt(land), for not having my friends groan when I turn some food down. The worst one is actually that I hate bothering servers by asking them what is in every dish. But I am going to get over that, and I am cooking vegan in my own little home. So here goes!