Vegan boots!

I am very excited about these, not only have i been able to feel all vogue september issue when I wear them, I found them at target, so the price was right. Plus the style is very reminiscent of my Mount Holyoke riding boots, which is perfect for fall, restarting school, and that general feeling of promise a new season brings.

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Millionaire Eggplant

Obviously this was the worst summer ever for growing vegetables in Seattle, but still this plant produced. Clearly Millionaire is THE eggplant to grow in our maritime climate.

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Aussie English Breakfasts

I was lucky to be able to take a trip to Australia with my high school marine science group the summer after my senior year. It was simply the best. Australia has fabulous birds and wildlife, including a pelican that is as tall as me. I really hope to go again one day. The trip was 3 weeks long and we camped in these cool almost hostel like campgrounds. We were fortunate to have Judith as a camp cook. She made what I thought were very unusual breakfasts and now are some of my favorites. Beans on toast, toad in the hole etc. I wonder if she is still cooking.

 
 
 

Black Pepper Scallops

This meal was inspired by a family dinner we had at the Wild Ginger. I found some black pepper sauce at Trader Joe's, which made the scallops super easy to make. You just saute them in the sauce. The side is shitake mushrooms and fresh snap peas from the garden, sauteed in a bit of teriyaki sauce thinned with soy. Super easy to make thanks to helpful store bought sauces.

 

Pasta is Splendid

Fast, versatile, and an easy way to eat a lot of vegetables. The combinations are endless.

Chow mein style, with tofu, snow peas, broccoli, mushrooms, and carrots in a light teriyaki soy sauce.
 

Faux Carbonara - cream, greens, "ham", garlic and wine.
 

Gnocchi with Porcini and Thyme. So decadent.
 

Roasted Baby Fennel

Super easy and tasty. I found these at the farmer's market and they were too cute to pass up. Just roast in the oven at 425 for 15-20 minutes or so. Olive oil, salt, and pepper. I love the licorice taste of fennel.
 

Bi Bim Bap

Dolset Bi Bim Bap is my favorite menu item in Korean Restaurants. It's a bowl of rice with veggies, a fried egg (of course) and usually kalbi beef, but of course here I subbed baked tofu. It arrives to your table in a smokin hot iron bowl, sizzling like fajitas. The desired effect of the presentation is not just to impress the diner, but to create this divine crust of rice at the bottom.

And I love the variety of vegetables the dish features. Variety being the key. I've made this version with shitakes, broccolette, carrots, and arugala, but you could use almost any combo.
 

I've replicated Bi Bim Bap by sauteing rice with a bit of hot and teriyaki sauce, and then letting it sit in the frying pan on medium hit to get the rice to form a crust. After a few minutes, I crack the eggs in and put a lid on for them to cook. The vegetables are sauteed separately in another pan with a touch of teriyaki.
 

Then you put it all together to serve. In Korean restaurants, Bi Bim Bap always comes organized like this for presentation, so that is what I show here, but I've also made this more like a stirfry, which is easier and tastes just as good.

 

Home, sweet home

We are back from a most excellent vacation (more later) and though we are mostly out of food, my garden welcomed our return with a fair number of green and yellow beans and a cup of sun gold cherry tomatoes. Eager to get back to cooking, I endeavored to make this salad I'd read about somewhere. The result was shockingly good. I seriously did not expect to be discovering my favorite new food. Granted, the dish was helped by being all picked within a few minutes of serving and the fact that sun gold cherry tomatoes are the best on Earth. But still! I can't believe what I've been missing out on!

Green Bean and Cherry Tomato Salad
Serves 2

2 Cups of green beans (or yellow or purple or a mix)
1 Cup cherry tomatoes (sun gold if you can)

Vinaigrette (this is what I used, but use your fave)
1 Tablespoon ev olive oil
1 Tablespoon white balsalmic
1 cube dorot frozen basil
1 cube dorot frozen garlic
(these are awesome trader joe finds that make life easy, you could also chop up a clove of garlic and a few basil leaves)
salt and pepper to taste

To prepare the salad, first wash and de-end the beans then blanch for 4-5 minutes in boiling water. Meanwhile chop tomotoes in half. When beans are done, run them under cold water and set them on a paper towel to dry. Toss beans with tomatoes and vinaigrette. Enjoy!

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Marination Mobile Tacos

Inspired by the very popular Korean Hawaiian Taco Truck. This version of the "sexy tofu" isn't that hard to make. I just marinated extra firm tofu in Soy Vay Teriyaki marinade overnight.
 

Grilled it up, and topped it was some bok choy and shitakes. Really super good! Easy! Not quite the real thing, but since I rarely get to go, it will do.
 

Cantaloupe Fantasia

I just got a cantaloupe in my CSA box and I was a little dismayed. It used to be prosciutto e melone was my favorite way to eat cantaloupe and at first I wasn't inspired to eat this one. So I bought some fake ham and faked it.

 

This was nothing to write home about, but it did make me realize cantaloupe is plenty tasty to just eat plain. But I also remembered the delicious watermelon salad we've had a few times and tried something similar with the cantaloupe. This is spring onion, purple basil and cojita with chunks of cantaloupe. Really Really Really good.
 

Soup and Sleep Days

When I get a cold, there are two things I like: soup and sleep. A trick I picked up during my study abroad days when I could just go to bed if I wasn't feeling good. I was feeling pretty crummy at the beginning of June, so Charlie made me his specialty: garlicky paprika tomato soup with toasted cheese. SO Yummy.
 

And later I made my other top comfort food, top ramen. This bowl featured shrimp, baby bok choy and shitake mushrooms. And of course and egg stirred in to thicken the broth.
 

Socca!

Socca will always have a very special place in my heart. Way back in the day, when I was 20, I took off on an a fairly epic journey. I drove with Jenny back to her school in Philly via the Southwest and then flew to travel around Europe for a month by train before meeting my study abroad group in Roma. Everything about it was totally brilliant, except that I was really hungry all the time.

I was vegan and fairly insistent about not bending the rule even the tiniest bit while travelling. Let's face it, I was 20, and when you are 20 you are naturally self-righteous. But I paid the price for it those first three weeks and I was getting more than a little bit cranky living on the road and eating only baguettes. I was on my way to Nice, when I read about their intriguing street food in the guidebook. Socca! Socca is a vegan (gluten free even) flatbread sold by street vendors all through this beautiful town. I went straight for the first vendor as soon as I arrived. It did not disappoint. Warm and peppery, this pizza like dish melts in your mouth and makes you feel totally content. The street vendors make it in these metal barrel BBQs so it has this smokiness to it. Plus it makes it that much more the perfect hobo food for the lost vegan girl riding the train around. I make this delight at home whenever I'm feeling nostalgic.

 

This is Mark Bittman's recipe for Socca, I use it for reference when I make mine. Since I am watching my calories, I only used 3 Tablespoons of olive oil and it's still good but doesn't melt in your mouth like the real thing. He's not kidding about the pepper, the more the better. I usually skip the rosemary and onion in favor of a teaspoon of cumin, which is how I enjoyed it in Nice.

Socca (Farinata)
Time: 45 minutes

1 cup chickpea flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon, at least, ground black pepper
4 to 6 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced, optional


1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, optional.

1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a well-seasoned or nonstick 12-inch pizza pan or cast-iron skillet in oven. Sift chickpea flour into a bowl; add salt and pepper; then slowly add 1 cup lukewarm water, whisking to eliminate lumps. Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Cover, and let sit while oven heats, or as long as 12 hours. Batter should be about the consistency of heavy cream.
2. If using onion and rosemary, stir them into batter. Pour 2 tablespoons oil into heated pan, and swirl to cover pan evenly. Pour in batter, and bake 12 to 15 minutes, or until pancake is firm and edges set. Heat broiler, and brush top of socca with 1 or 2 tablespoons of oil if it looks dry.
3. Set socca a few inches away from broiler for a few minutes, just long enough to brown it spottily. Cut it into wedges, and serve hot, or at least warm.

Yield: 4 to 6 appetizer servings.

To impart that same BBQ smoky flavor, I make mine in a cast iron skillet:
 

Socca is excellent on its own, but it's fun to dress up too. Here I've made it like a pizza, mimicking my favorite vegan pizza from carmelita. This is white beans pureed with truffle oil, porcini mushrooms, pecans, roasted garlice, and water cress. Yum.

 

And since I am definitely not a vegan anymore -- I actually gave up soon after leaving Nice nearly 14 years ago -- I thought I'd try it out with one of my favorite combinations: havarti and tomato. This was better than the toasted havarti and tomato sandwich I made a few weeks ago.

 

Shiritaki Ramen

Top Ramen is a favorite of mine. But I'm trying not to indulge too much because it's a bit high-cal and low-nutrient, so I've been making a variation with Tofu Shirataki noodles.

I put some onion whips and fava bean leaves from the garden, as well as peppers, tomatoes, and quorn faux chicken for flavor.

These are the whips and fava leaves.

 

The final dish. I'm really enjoying Better than Bullion's No Beef Broth for soups.
 

More Adventures with Watercress

We thoroughly enjoyed the first batch of watercress, but what really inspired me to buy it a second time is this pizza we had with Elizabeth and Sean at the Carmelita Happy Hour - which no one should miss - it was a flatbread with sunchokes pureed with truffle oil, hen of the woods mushrooms, pecans, roasted garlic, and topped with a watercress salad. So amazingly good.

Here's my version below:
 
I couldn't get sunchokes, but it's a newman's own four cheese, topped with rehydrated porcini mushrooms, slivers of garlic, pecans, and waterdress dressed with white truffle oil. Delicious.

And of course we had to have it our favorite way from last time again - pink lady apples, pecans, and gorgonzola.
 

A new favorite, truffle oil dressing, with hazelnuts, and pecorino.
 

And on top of ramen to add a little pepper to the soup :)
 

The Full English

I am a huge fan of the full English breakfast. I love the variety, heartiness and ingenious use of leftovers, this is a breakfast designed to get you through a full day of hard work. The leftovers usually appear in vegetables from the night before often as bubble and scrape, which is a mash up of potatoes cooked in the roast with greens made into a patty and fried. Unfortunately, the full English is a bit of meat fest. It usually has two kinds of sausage, bacon, bubble and scrape, beans, tomatoes and occasionally mushrooms! Oh, and of course a fried egg! Hearty is no joke here.

But a vegetarian version can be lighter fare for a day when you know lunch will be late or dinner early.

This one features roasted tomatoes, peppers, and shitake mushrooms for the vegetables.
 

Spinach, sauteed with white beans and garlic sub in for beans and bubble and scrape, though i added half a hash brown patty for good measure. And what would breakfast be without morningstar veggie sausage?
 

Vegan Shoes

I've been needing new shoes for several months now, but have resisted the temptation to buy new leather ones. My early sources for vegan shoes were either payless -- which has lots of cute ones, but I worried about longevity of the product and overall comfort since I walk a lot -- or style shoes from vegan boutiques, which also look uncomfortable and are pretty pricey. So I was at a bit of an impasse until I discovered REI, which is actually carrying quite a number of vegan shoes.

I knew about one pair going into the store, but the sales guy was all about helping me find more. He brought over 7 possible pair for me to try on (none of which were flip flops or crocs). Honestly, it was like how I remember shoe shopping at Nordstrom used to be when I was a kid. Totally awesome. We even found a pair for Charlie!

Here are the shoes we bought:
 
On the left are Charlie's Keen Coronados. They are made of canvas. In the center are Jambu Planets, this company is a bit of a mystery as they just appeared at REI with 5 or 6 different shoes, the inside of which are all stamped "man-made," but REI refers to them as nubuck leather. I checked with the company, it turns out their nubuck is synthetic and all their shoes are vegan and use recycled plastic in the sole. VERY COOL! The pair on the right are Clark's waterproof adventure ballet flats. They also had a similar mary jane shoe. I don't think these are vegan on purpose, but are vegan for the waterproofing, but we'll take it.

 

I felt really good about these purchases not only because they are vegan and support a local store (even if it is a bit of a corporate giant these days), but it was a good mix of supporting a vegan shoe line and supporting a vegan product in a big name shoe line. And after spending nearly all of my shoe budget on Dansko's for the past ten years, they seemed very reasonably priced. I've been really happy with my shoes too, but Charlie isn't as keen on his Keens. I'm hoping he'll keep them though because they are super, super cute.

Other Big Accomplishments - or Why I am on a Diet

Reflecting on my post about getting a medal for doing well in school it occurred to me that it correlates perfectly to why I have to diet now. There is a stark contrast between running pre-grad school vs. running now, I looked at my running log and crunched some shocking numbers.

Here are the stats:
In the 2 years before I started my grad program, I ran 1,242 miles.
In the 2 years since I started school (and working full time), I ran 635. Note that 83 of those I've run since joining the office diet bet and my decision to go one class per quarter for spring, summer, and fall.

Honestly, I think I am sharing this because I wanted to show off my other medals, because deep down nothing is cooler than getting a medal. My friend Amol says we run so we can eat junk food, which is kind of true, but I think I am more keen on the medals. And obviously I didn't give up the junk food until recently despite slacking on the running.

This is my homage to my first (and only) full marathon. I'm not going to lie. Running a marathon pretty much sucks. I tear up just thinking about doing it again.
 

Here are my numbers from every half marathon I've run. This is truly my preferred distance. My best race was the one with my name on it. I ran a 2:07. Which is no Boston Qualifier by any means, but it's a 9:45 pace and something to be proud of at that distance. I ran that the month before I started grad school.

 

These are all the short distance races I've run in, plus some numbers from the Chilly Hilly Bicycle Ride - which is chilly, hilly and brutal, I'm not sure that I could be talked in to doing that again. The 2:45 half sign is there because I was helping to pace the Seattle Half. For that you only run a 10k.
 

And for the grand finale, my running medals! They sparkle. Also now that I look, I realize one of them isn't here. For the Nike Women's Marathon, a hot fireman in a tuxedo hands you a Tiffany necklace when you finish. I should sign up for that race again.