A Trip Home

The last month has been a lot busier than I like things to be!  It started in mid-March, when Grandma Dorothy, my last McGinley grandparent, died and I headed back to Missouri for the funeral.

I took about sixty pictures of Sully and almost none of anyone else.  Haha!  But he's SO CUTE.

Such a charmer!

Hillary and I took the older kids to see our other Grandma in St. Joe one day, and then went to the Patee House Museum, which is a staple for St. Joe Public School field trips but which I had not been to in probably 25 years.  

It was much more impressive than I expected!  A completely haphazard, sort of random collection of artifacts from St. Joe's history.

This big train is the only thing I remembered from visiting as a kid.  Griffy loved it!

Here's some other random items in the museum.

Ben texted me, "is there a collection of terrifying dolls anywhere around there?" and I said, "No," but then we came around the corner into a new room and BEHOLD.

The tallest man in the world visited St. Joseph one time!  I still remember the line from the Guinness Book of World Records: "People found his height of nearly 9 feet tall difficult to believe."  It IS difficult to believe!

Then we went to my all time favorite St. Joe restaurant, Barbosa's.  Mira was suspicious of the whole operation.

These cheese enchiladas are one of my Top 5 Food Things of all time.

YuMMMmm.  I have considered calling and see if they'll give me the recipe, but I'm pretty sure lard and Velveeta are probably involved.

Homemade Ethiopian Feast

The thing most people do the day after food poisoning is spend two and a half hour making a big Ethiopian feast, right?  Or not.  And to be honest, there were moments when I doubted this was an undertaking I wanted to follow through on.  But I did it! and it was worth it.

I made the mushroom tibs and ye'abesha gomen (stewed collards) from Appetite for Reduction, and this Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Curry I found on the internet.  All of that stuff was great.  

However.  I tried to make the injera-style crepes from Vegan Eats World and they were a total disaster.  I asked around and it seems like I'm not the only one to have trouble with them - you're supposed to pour the batter in the pan, cover it with a lid, and let them "bake" for 2-3 minutes.  Well.  After 2-3 minutes they were still gloppy, with big holes, and when we scraped them out of the pan it seemed like they returned to their previous batter state.  How is that even possible under the laws of physics???  Anyway, after attempting 2 of them we threw the batter away and made our standard crepe recipe, which worked fine.

This was an awesome dinner!  Worth the effort for sure.

Spicy Drunken Thai Noodles

I made these delicious noodles last night from a recipe in Vegan Eats World.  Harris Teeter doesn't have the sort of noodles (wide flat somethings) she tells you to use so I bought some other random Asiany ones and they were fine.

This recipe called for three of the Thai soy sauces I went to the Asian market for a couple months ago - it's fun to have all that stuff on hand so I can make a wide variety of noodle dishes for quick weeknight dinners.

Kung Pao Tofu

Last night I made the Kung Pao Tofu recipe in Bean by Bean and it was wonderful.  The tofu first has to be briefly marinated in mirin, garlic, and cornstarch, then baked at high temperature, which makes it crispy and chewy even before it goes into the stirfry.

Next time maybe I will not chicken out and will add as much spice as I'm supposed to.

My Favorite Things

One of the reasons I post less than I used to is because I've built up a nice stable of vegan recipes over the past few years that have become part of the regular rotation.  The other night for dinner I had some collards and soy curls to use up so I threw together three of my absolute favorite things in the world to make a quick, balanced, delicious dinner:  yellow garlic rice from Viva Vegan, smoky soy curls from Vegan Diner, and my own basic collards recipe.

I could eat these things every day for a long, long time - the collards especially.  I recently found out that collard greens are not readily available year-round for dirt cheap outside of the South, and now obviously we can never move.

"KFC" Sandwiches

It has been ages since I've made seitan, mainly because Ben has decided he doesn't like it.  I do, though, and I thought maybe he just didn't like the specific recipes I've been making, so I decided it would be a good idea to try some other ones and try to win him over.  This seitan is a recipe called No-Cluck Cutlets from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day, and in this sandwich it's coated in batter and crushed cornflakes and fried, which I thought might help disguise the seitanness of it.

I thought this sandwich was KILLER.  Ben said, "it tastes like seitan."  Dangit!  I think I'm going to start using tofu for his portion of sandwiches like these and keeping the seitan all for myself.  I like it!

The best part of this sandwich was the sauce, which was mayo with diced pickles and onions and black pepper mixed in.  Why did I  never think of mixing stuff into mayonnaise until I tried veganism?

Black Bean Chili & Bundt Cake

I always have a Netflix show that I'm working through while I cook - right now it's a re-watch of one of my all-time favorites, Alias.  I noticed on Saturday that I had not watched any in eighteen days!!  That means I've barely been cooking anything of significance at all, which is also apparent in the lack of blog posts.  I've been missing it (both the cooking and Alias), and put a bunch of new stuff on the menu this week to get myself back in the habit.

So the first thing I made was this ridiculous black bean vegetarian chili from Bean by Bean.  I cooked the beans Friday night and then did the rest of it on Saturday.  It probably should have occurred to me that there are only two people in my household when I was boiling up an entire bag of black beans - the chili ended up filling my stock pot almost all the way to the top.  Chili freezes well, though, so it will be okay.

This recipe is really good, too.  It has potatoes in it (always a plus) and five tablespoons (!) each of cumin and coriander.  I also made my own chili paste from dried chiles!  It was all very exciting.  I served it per her instructions with crushed tortilla chips, shredded cheese, sour cream, and scallions, and somehow this stuff was way more than the sum of its parts.  Really delicious.

I also made a chocolate bundt cake recently posted on the PPK blog.  I forgot to take a picture while it was still pretty!

It turned out great, though.  I've made bundt cakes before that I've basically had to scrape out of the pan, but this one fell right out and held its shape perfectly.

Peanut Noodles

Noodles + peanut sauce are one of the best things in the world!  I've been making the same recipe for years but saw this one on Veggie Belly the other day so I decided to mix it up.  The best thing about this type of recipe is that I almost always have all the sauce ingredients on hand, and then can add whatever protein and vegetables I have lying around.

I added some tofu (fried first in my nonstick electric skillet), broccoli, and green onions.  It was great - the sauce was thicker and smoother than my usual recipe so I think this is going to be my go-to in the future.

Orlando 2013!

My internet friends have started a tradition of having a big meetup at least once a year.  This year we went to Orlando.  It was a smaller group than previous years, but that ended up being perfect because we rented an awesome house for a fraction of what a hotel would have cost.

The first night we went to Ceviche for tapas, which was amazing.  

The next morning we got up and made pancakes!  The house came "fully equipped" but some of their kitchen items were questionable.  We had a hard time getting going with the pancakes but they ended up turning out great in the end.

We started the day wandering around a little neighborhood checking out some antique stores and getting snacks. MMM SNACKS.

Then we drove to Lake Jesup for our first big adventure, an airboat ride to see alligators!  It was super windy but not too bad once we were actually on the boat in the swampy areas.  We saw tons of babies and a few big alligators, too.  And a turtle.

Afterward we each got to hold an alligator!  She was about three years old and much mushier than you would expect.  I felt a little uncertain about holding her.

Then we drove to the beach for dinner!

The next morning we started off with a delicious mimosa!

And then headed to Universal Islands of Adventure to see Harry Potter World.  Universal was INTENSE.  It took ages to get through the ticket line because they were upselling each customer on all sorts of expensive options and then Harry Potter World was completely packed with people.  Still, it was very well done and you felt like you were walking right down the street in Hogsmeade!  

We got some butterbeer which was 100% as delicious as you would imagine.

And went to Honeydukes!

There are only three rides in Harry Potter World.  We went on two of them (the grown-up rollercoaster and the big castle ride) and both of them were pretty serious rides, definitely aimed at adults.  We noticed more adults than kids in the park, too, maybe because it's during the school year.

After Harry Potter World we went out for dim sum, which I had never done before.  Dim sum is AWESOME.  You order a million different things and they are all like $3 each and every bit of it was delicious.  There is a place here in Raleigh I'm going to make Ben go soon.  

Orlando 2013 was a huge success!  It was a great trip and I am already looking forward to Milwaukee 2014.

Broiled Vegetables in Yogurt Sauce

I finally caved last week and bought How To Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.  I kept going to look at it on Amazon and finally realized "it is NINETEEN DOLLARS" so I went for it.  It is completely enormous and overwhelming and I had a ton of fun reading through it over the course of a couple of days.  This week's dinners are all from the book - I think I could probably cook from this thing for the rest of my life and not get everything made.

The first thing I made was a basic baked mac and cheese, which was a little weird because it turns out my unsweetened soy milk was a little sweetened after all.  Ben liked the weirdness but I was not too much of a fan.

Last night I made his Broiled Eggplant with Peppers & Onions in Yogurt Sauce.  The recipe title pretty much says it all - you broil vegetables in the oven (first eggplant, then peppers & onions, then tomato), season with salt, pepper, and thyme, mix the vegetables up with 2 cups of plain yogurt, then return to the oven for a little more broiling.  It was a little time consuming as you have to watch the oven to make sure everything cooks for the proper amount of time, but it was really basic and simple and surprisingly delicious.

Look at all the peppers! (pre-broil)

And this is the final product, which looked very restauranty if I do say so myself.

I served the vegetables over a rice pilaf with slivered almonds and dried cranberries.

We made crepes!

I've been wanting to make crepes for ages, but it always seemed so intimidating somehow.  I am not very good at pancakes, so maybe that's why.  But I got a crepe pan for Christmas (thanks, mom!) and finally got up the energy on a Sunday morning to give it a try.

I started with a classic, non-vegan recipe, from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I wanted to be sure I could handle the basics before trying vegan versions.

SUPPLIES

Everything I've read says the first crepe never turns out and to throw it away.  This was the first one.  It wasn't pretty but why should you throw away perfectly tasty food?  I ate it.

They definitely did get better after that, though!

"Smile, Ben!"

Yummmmmmmmm

So the verdict is that homemade crepes are easy and super delicious.  Next attempt will be vegan!

Ben says I have to post this picture of him to prove he doesn't look like a cancer patient in real life.

Black-Eye Pea Fritters

In the South you are supposed to have black-eyed peas and collards on New Year's Day, for good luck.  I did my black-eyed peas in fritter form this year, and we also ate it on January 2nd because it turned out that we were too lazy on New Years Day and decided to go out for Mexican food instead of cooking.  So hopefully that will not negate the good luck effect!

This recipe is from Vegan Soul Kitchen, and the fritters are supposed to be deep-fried but I pan-fried them instead.  They were still good!  They were sort of like falafel, except with black-eyed peas.

I did the collards my usual way (boil for a long time while cooking other things, then drain and saute with a chopped onion and some garlic, adding soy sauce & liquid smoke to flavor).  And then also made my old standby yellow rice from Viva Vegan.  Delicious!

Tempeh Mafe

I made this last week (or maybe the week before?? I'm getting bad at updating).  Mafe is an African peanut stew typically made with meat, naturally, but in this version the protein is baked tempeh, which really goes well with the peanut flavor.

The recipe is from Vegan Soul Kitchen and I felt like it was a touch fussier than it needed to be - the tempeh  had to be baked in marinade first, but as it was then just dumped into the stew, I think I will probably just steam it a little bit first the next time I make this dish.

What really makes it are the roasted seasoned peanuts ("Spicy Goobers", also from Vegan Soul Kitchen).  We still have a bunch of those in the fridge and they are great for a little snack.

Asian Groceries

I went to Grand Asia Market last weekend in search of wonton wrappers, which for some reason Harris Teeter seems to have quit carrying.  I found them!  And naturally they were practically free.

While I was there, I picked up a full range of sauces that Terry Hope Romero uses in her new cookbook Vegan Eats World.  She has a lot of awesome-looking noodle recipes I've been wanting to try, but you need Thai Thin Soy Sauce or whatever.  I was kind of surprised I was able to find all this stuff!  And again, it was way, way cheap.  I love the ethnic grocery store.

I also picked up various weird tofus.  The tofu section in this place is incredible!

I already used this stuff in a rice dish - it was not spicy at all, but was flavored nicely and really dense and chewy.

Yet to be used:

This one says "halogen taste-flavor dried TOFU" in case you can't read it.  How could I not buy that?