staying safe in boston

It's been a while since I've posted, and I was writing up a big post for this week, but all of the events of the week in Boston have just put me off of the idea of posting about cake icing or gardening.

I moved to Boston fresh out of college in 2007. I made friends right away, I went out to dinner and to shows and to dance nights all the time, and in less than a year of being here, I met and fell in love with the man who would later become my husband. I've worked several jobs here, went to grad school here, made huge life decisions here. I recently bought a home in a suburb of Boston. I don't know whether it's more apt to say that I adopted Boston or that it adopted me, but either way, in the last six years, Boston has become as dear to me as family member. My thoughts and prayers are with all the people struggling and hurting in our country right now (the explosion in Texas, flooding in Chicago), but I can't help but be partial to my city, where my heart is, in more ways than one.

Everyone deals with strife or fear or terrible news differently. Some people reach out to others, and some people turn in. In the last week I've discovered about myself that I am one of the people who turn in. After receiving bad news, I like best keeping my thoughts and feelings to myself, to my very close family, at home. This morning my suburb (and later most of the Greater Boston area) went into lockdown as the manhunt for the suspected marathon bomber continues, so we were literally all forced to "turn in." I can see from friends' blogs and facebook pages that this is a problem for the people who turn to others in times of strife, but this is exactly how I would choose to spend a day like this. So I'm sorry for the relative silence, and though I was about to pick up blogging again this week, bear with me while I get my footing again. I need to turn in a little.

To end on a nicer note, we woke up to find that the orchid a coworker had given me as a housewarming present last summer had bloomed again overnight. It was a really beautiful contrast to all of the dire news this morning.

I'm literally a fair-weather blogger, and now that the warm weather is back, so am I, so expect future entries on the before-mentioned icing and gardening, as well as nightshade-free Tex-Mex cooking (I promised a reader I'd write an entry on that months ago!). In the meantime, please stay safe, everyone, and love each other as much as you can.

halloween pumpkins, and goodbye VeganMofo!

Happy Halloween! This is one of my favorite holidays. Kevin and I carved pumpkins earlier this week so we could put them on the porch in the hopes of luring trick or treaters! (Since we moved this summer, we're not sure how many trick or treaters we're likely to get.)

Kevin's is on the left; mine is the cat on the right.

After we finished carving, Kevin roasted the seeds. I've tried this in the past and not had the best luck--the shells always stay too chewy. His recipe involves boiling the seeds first, which softens the shells.

 

They're really crunchy and tasty, without being too chewy. I was finishing up my pumpkin when he was making them, so I'm not sure what seasonings are on there; onion powder, cumin, and salt, maybe?

Finally, though this soup wasn't made from the pumpkins above, just last week we had a pumpkin soup that I made from a pie pumpkin we got in our CSA.

I added pea tendrils just after it finished cooking, which are another veggie we'd gotten in our CSA. I'd never cooked with pea tendrils before, but they were good! Served with some nutritional-yeasty bread and roasted chickpeas.

With this entry, we close out VeganMofo, the Vegan Month of Food. I hope you've enjoyed it! And have a great Halloween!

roasted cabbage slaw

I really love roasted cabbage, so when I found this Kitchn recipe for Roasted Cabbage Slaw with Hazelnuts and Lemons, I had to give it a try.

Soup, sandwich and slaw! I love all the colors on this plate. They call for half red cabbage and half green, but all I had was a lot of red, so mine is especially purple/pink.

The slaw itself was decent, and didn't require as much chewing as normal cole slaw because the cabbage was softer, but I'm not sure I roasted/broiled it long enough to really get a good roasted flavor. I didn't let any of it blacken, since I was afraid of burning, but next time I'm going to wait till the edges are charred to pull it out of the oven.

One thing I like about cooking is how much chemistry and science are involved; if I had been taught real-life (okay, fine, just food-related) applications of science in school, I would've liked it better. Like beets, the color of red cabbage depends on the chemicals around it--acids in the recipe (like lemon juice) make it pinker, while more basic ("basic" as in the opposite of acidic, not as in "easy") ingredients keep it darker purple/bluish. You can see the chemical reactions in action in the picture below, which is the step at which I added the lemon juice, but had not yet stirred it in. See how the lower edges of the slaw in the bowl are a more blue-purple? You can tell where I sprinkled on the lemon juice, because it's where the cabbage starts to turn more pink. (Mostly at the top and right of the bowl.)

This all reminds me of that T-shirt that says "Baking is Science for Hungry People." Science is really cool when you can eat it!

korean bbq marinade

I've used Emily Ho's recipe for Korean BBQ Marinade several times for tofu and tempeh dishes. I've never had Asian pear juice, so I usually add a splash of lime juice to help give the recipe a little acidity.

Here served over stir-fried bok choi and carrots, with rice. I almost always add some homemade kimchi to the top.

I love Korean food to begin with, and I like that this is one recipe I don't have to adjust because of my allergies to hot pepper--it's not spicy at all. It's also gluten-free if you use gluten-free tamari instead of soy sauce, which I do for most recipes. It's a little sweet, a little salty--in short, it's my favorite marinade.

Sunday Brunch: my favorite: tofu "eggs"

This is the last Sunday Brunch of Vegan Mofo! So I'm posting a couple brunch-y dishes I haven't had a chance to write about individually: tofu "egg" dishes.

Back when I was vegetarian, my favorite brunch/breakfasty foods were egg-based dishes: scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelettes, French toast, etc. So as you may have noticed, our Sunday Brunches tend to be veganizations of eggy things. Tofu, in my opinion, does a good a job of mimicking the texture and ease of all the above dishes, and with a bit of black salt (a sulphur-tasting salt used in some Indian cuisine) to top it off, the flavor is essentially the same as well.

Tofu eggs florentine, made with fried tofu. It's only sort of "florentine," since I used spring greens instead of spinach.

Tofu eggs benedict, only Kevin's famous tofu bacon is on the side instead of on the "eggs." And a side of Japanese (white) sweet potato hash browns.

And, of course, scrambled tofu. It's not exactly easier than frying tofu to resemble fried eggs, but it's still really easy, and just strikes me as being a heartier breakfast.

 

 With sweet potatoes, the natural (or at least, ubiquitous, in our house) accompaniment to tofu "egg" brunch dishes.

Saturday Snack: Fomu: Boston's tastiest vegan ice cream

Fomu is a vegan ice cream parlor that has been open in Boston since this summer, but I haven't been able to get there until this month. They have a wide variety of flavors available as scoops or in pint containers. You can have your ice cream in a bowl, in cones, or IN VEGAN WAFFLE CONES (even gluten-free ones!), and they have a large selection of vegan toppings, from fudge sauce to gummi bears.

Most of the ice cream is made with a coconut base (but tastes less coconutty than the Purely Decadent brand ice cream), though they have a few flavors made with nut bases. When I was there, of all the possible flavors, only 2 (cake batter and cookies and cream) contained wheat-the rest were gluten-free! The employees are friendly and will let you try a tiny bit of any flavor if you're torn between options.

This is a "single scoop" of cookies and cream and was actually too much ice cream for me. In the best possible way.

I also got pints of Strawberry (because it's tied with cookies and cream for my favorite ice cream flavor), Salted Caramel (because when the lady behind the counter let me try it, I knew I HAD to bring some home for Kevin), and Bourbon Maple Walnut (for my mother's birthday, not pictured).

Fomu is in Allston, two doors down from Peace O' Pie, Boston's vegan pizza parlor. It's also just down the street from Grasshopper, a vegan Chinese restaurant, AND a short walk from Genki Ya, our favorite, organic, not-vegan-but-very-vegan-friendly sushi restaurant, so heading out to this neighborhood means you can eat a great vegan meal and have a fantastic vegan dessert afterwards.

Friday Dessert: soy panna cotta

A couple years ago, I needed a light dessert for a small dinner I was hosting. The dishes were almost all Italian and a little on the heavy side, so I wanted a light, Italian dessert. I started browsing and found the Vegan Bicyclinguist's Panna Cotta. In a recent search for vegan panna cotta, I've noticed that vegan adaptations abound, but at the time, his was the only one I could find. So, in my normal spirit of ignoring the rule that you shouldn't make a recipe you've never made before for a dinner party, I decided to give it a try!

Sorry about the dim photo--I sneakily took this shot just before bringing them out to the table.

It was delicious, though I had my doubts in the making. The batter itself wasn't delicious. You combine soy yogurt, soy creamer, water, and agar. and before it set, the mixture had a tang I did not like. Figuring I had nothing to lose and just wouldn't serve dessert if it failed, I put the panna cotta into little bowls to set, just in case. After they set and chilled for a while, they were awesome! I used vanilla yogurt so that they had a slight vanilla flavor, and I topped them with canned peaches, some of the syrup from the peaches, and a couple pinches of cinnamon. I've never had non-vegan panna cotta, but from what I've read about what it should be, the texture was spot-on.

There may be other, newer vegan panna cotta recipes out there (point me to them if you have any favorites! I'm interested in trying other approaches too!), but this one will always have a special place in my heart for being the first one out there.