MoFo Day 6: Fancy Leftovers

In keeping with my MoFo theme, I ate restaurant leftovers on a plate for possibly the first time in my life. I would normally eat noodles like this straight out of the container while standing in front of the refrigerator, but MoFo is forcing me to be a civilized human, so I put the food on a plate, waited 60 seconds to warm it up in the microwave and ate at the table, even using my fancy chopsticks.

I went to Wasabi in Midtown for dinner on Wednesday. I was starving when I got there, so I inhaled a few gyoza and a Sapporo beer upon arrival. Once my blood sugar returned to normal and I was no longer hangry (hungry+angry) at the world, I tried the tofu yakisoba. I normally get sushi or a bibimbab, but I wanted some noodles, so I ventured out. It was good, and I think it actually tasted better as leftovers.

MoFo Day 5: Desperation cookies

Sadly, I LOVE peanut butter and will eat it by the spoonful, so I generally don't keep it in the house. I'd been craving PB cookies for a while and finally got desperate enough to not only make them, but to make peanut butter as well. I had some roasted peanuts in my cupboard, so with 1.5 cups of those + 60 seconds in the Vitamix, I was ready to bake.

My favorite PB cookie recipe (and believe me, I've tried a lot) is the Thin and Crispy Peanut Butter Cookies from Vegan Cookie Connoisseur (the recipe is visible on Google Books). The recipe says to refrigerate and slice the dough, but when I want cookies, I WANT cookies, so I always just roll them in balls and press them so I don't have to wait for the dough to chill. They sometimes turn into funny shapes, like this one with cat ears. Regardless of how it looked, it tasted delicious crumbled over vanilla ice cream.

Also, I know dessert is kind of a departure from my MoFo theme of sitting down to meals. But of all the things that I should eat without distractions, dessert has no other value than the taste, so I should concentrate and enjoy it.

MoFo Day 4: Kale - it's not just a garnish

Prior to going vegan, my only experience with kale was using it to cover the metal on the salad bar I worked at in high school. I don't think I even knew it was edible back then. The first time I ate it, at Om Cafe in Ferndale in spring 2005, I was blown away that it could taste so good.

I've never been able to replicate the steamed kale I had back then, but I did find a really good recipe base for a raw kale salad here. The proportions are way off in that link, but it's a delicious concoction that covers all the basic tastes - bitter (kale), sour (lemon juice), sweet (tomatoes), salty (miso) and umami (nutritional yeast). The idea is that you take kale, massage in some lemon juice and white miso (about 1/4 cup of each), add nutritional yeast (another 1/4 cup) and as many cherry tomatoes as you have. It tastes healthy, but in a "wow this is delicious. I'm so happy I'm eating it" kind of way. I threw in some baked tofu from AFR and sat down to a delicious MoFo dinner.

MoFo Day 3: BLTs - even better than the real thing

Bacon is the bane of my vegan existence. Not because I want to eat it, because I don't. But because of all the "what do you mean, you don't eat BACON???" and "OH MY GOD, how do you LIVE without BACON?" remarks I've heard over the decade I've been vegan. To be fair, when 19-year-old-me first decided to try veganism, I remember thinking "this will only last a few months. There's no way I can go the rest of my life without bacon." Much to my surprise, within a month, I had no desire to eat it. And within a year, I found the smell disgusting. I'd argue it's not bacon people love, but the smoky, salty, sweet flavor combination. I even argue (though no omnivores have ever agreed with me) that a BLT is just as good with tempeh as with bacon. The BLTs I grew up eating were bread, tangy mayo, lots of lettuce, and thick slices of garden tomatoes, plus maybe two pieces of bacon. The bacon just gave flavor, but it wasn't a huge part of the sandwich. So naturally, I don't even notice swapping out something that gives the same flavor (but is easier to bite and doesn't splatter animal fat all over the kitchen when I cook it). Here's all the ingredients, ready to become a delicious TbLT:

One of the myriad perks of living within walking distance of work is being able to come home for lunch. In keeping with my MoFo theme, I sat at the table and ate my lunch like a civilized person, rather than a cube-jockey at my desk, eating while staring at spreadsheets.

I made the mistake of grabbing an apple from my apartment lobby. It's September in Michigan. In a month, we'll have amazing apples everywhere. Sadly, this mealy thing was from New Zealand and I threw it away after eating two pieces. Yuck!

MoFo Day 2: Capellini Pomodoro (aka tomato noodles)

Tomatoes are my favorite thing about summer. When I opened my CSA basket and saw a bazillion, I was ecstatic. Then I saw the basil and imagined myself in a Tuscan paradise of (vegan) caprese salad, panzanella and margherita pizza. Sadly, I soon remembered that I'm lazy and didn't want to buy any more groceries, or make fresh mozzarella or pizza crust. So I used my stand-by noodles+grease+garlic recipe and made an approximation of Capellini Pomodoro (or cap-pom, as we called it at The Olive Garden during my brief stint as a waitress there. Lasagna will always be "lasa" and fettuccini alfredo will always be "fet-alf" to me.)

I just used what I had, which ended up being not nearly enough basil or garlic, and spaghetti instead of angel hair pasta. I mixed the pine nuts with some nutritional yeast and almonds in the food processor to attempt a parmesan-like topping. It somehow turned out more reminiscent of bread crumbs, but whatever.  Paired with a glass (or three) of wine, it made a quick, easy dinner after a ridiculously dumb day at work.

Apparently Bill-cat approves. He snuck a longing glance while being shooed off the table.

MoFo Day 1: Undistracted eating is not easy

Happy Labor Day and Happy first day of Vegan MoFo! As I mentioned in the previous post, my plan for MoFo this month is to sit down and have a real meal, even if by myself, every day. That means setting the table, then sitting and eating the entire meal without distractions. I must admit, it took more willpower than I was expecting NOT to start writing this post while eating. But I soldiered through and ate while composing it in my head, but not on my computer.

Over the years, I've subscribed to a few CSAs. When I lived in Nevada, Great Basin Basket was fantastic. They had a huge variety of produce (from watermelons to pine nuts) due to the micro-climates in the area. When I first moved back to Michigan in 2011, I subscribed to the (now defunct) Royal Oak Community Farm. Last year, I heard about City Commons and vowed to sign up for the 2014 program. I love that the produce is all grown in Detroit, but even more importantly, they have a bi-weekly share. That's perfect for me because, let's face it, being dressed before 1pm on Saturday EVERY WEEK isn't feasible. They also have multiple pick-up locations and times, and it's the least expensive of any I've joined. I'll definitely be joining again next year and I'd recommend it to anyone who lives near by.

This week's share was a bonanza! There was chard, kale, arugula, parsley, basil, pickling cucumbers, pears, cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes and mild peppers:

I vowed not to waste any of that beautiful produce, so I immediately got to work creatively using what few things I had on hand to make a ton of meals. I had some tempeh and an onion, so I made a variation of Basic Scrambled Tempeh from Vegan Brunch. Unlike almost all of Isa's (the author, foundress of The PPK and Vegan MoFo) recipes, I didn't like this one as written. I'd made notes in my cookbook to halve the tempeh, double the chard, and add soy sauce and water at the end. That worked out perfectly since I only had 8 oz of tempeh and a huge bunch of chard. I didn't have a red pepper, so I added some of the mild peppers from my basket and cherry tomatoes. 

not pictured: soy sauce

With some Avalon toast, this made the perfect Labor Day breakfast.

Vegan MoFo 2014: Entertaining Me

I'm very excited to participate in the eighth annual Vegan MoFo! Last year was my first time participating and I really enjoyed it. I had a huge stack of cookbooks back then and vowed to blog a recipe from each. I made it through most of them and learned a very important lesson - I don't need that many cookbooks! When I moved this summer, I cut my list down from 24 to 14, which is probably still too many, but much more reasonable. The culled version (minus VCTOTW which I loaned to my sister, plus cat):

But that's old news. On to 2014: I have a lot of cooking and entertaining stuff. The reality is that I rarely cook, and even more rarely entertain. When I do eat at home, it's usually a bowl of cereal as I walk around getting ready for work or a sandwich standing over the sink. NOT THIS MONTH! To combat my feral tendencies, I decided my 2014 Vegan MoFo theme would be "Entertaining Me." Every day, I plan to set the table, sit down, and eat a meal that I prepared. I might have guests a few times, but the point is to remind myself that dining alone doesn't mean a carton of ice cream in front of the TV.

Wish me luck! And good luck to all the other bloggers participating this year. I can't wait to see all the clever, delicious posts they come up with!