Ah! Where did Monday go? We had an exciting outing... I took the Emperor on the bus for the very first time. This is a big thing, as I don't drive (at all) so once my husband is back at work full time, we'll be taking the bus basically anywhere we want to go other than the grocery store that's in walking distance. We were only out for about four hours total (maybe five) but it felt like about a century.
Today we went out AGAIN-- this time for about eight hours (!) while my husband went to work for a day. Excitement all around. I'm kind of fried now, though, so... no real post until tomorrow.
My plans for the rest of the week involve staying home all day (Thursday and Friday) and going to the farmer's market (tomorrow). Really. I don't think I'm going to do anything else. We need to rest.
That should give me ample time to catch up on MoFo posts! My goal was to get 20 done during October, and that's only four more to go.
I think that they'll be:
My favorite vegan beers
Something to do with persimmons
A post about whatever I bring home from the farmer's market tomorrow
A whirlwind tour of my favorite vegan-friendly food places in Santa Cruz
But we'll see!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
MoFo Day 16: Simple delicious peanut sauce
So we've discovered that Emperor Babykins seems to be sensitive to almonds. Every time I eat almonds, he gets super fussy, and then he gets a rash in an unpleasant place. I stop eating almonds, he goes back to normal, rash goes away.
This is extremely sad for me, as I put almond milk in virtually everything and almonds are one of my all time favorite snacks. (Interestingly, I don't like almond butter.)
I was casting about yesterday, trying to think of things that I like to eat that are made with soy milk rather than almond milk. My mind must have been in total nut mode, because what came to mind was udon with peanut sauce. Mmm.
Now, I don't like peanuts. I think I've told you this before. They're the only nut I can think of that I'm not particularly thrilled by. (Eh, I can go either way on Brazil nuts, actually. Sometimes I really like them, sometimes I think they're very boring.) They're... dull. Insipid. There's nothing wrong with them exactly. There's just nothing right, either.
So you might think it's weird to hear that I like peanut sauce a LOT. My husband called me on this the other day after I posted peanuts as a food dislike, and I had to stop and think about it. You know why peanut sauce is good? Because peanuts are just a base. They contribute a little to the flavor and a lot to the texture. Most of the flavor actually comes from what you put in your peanut sauce!
My basic peanut goes something like this:
~1c soy milk
1/4c peanut butter
1 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and minced
several cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1-2 tbsp soy sauce (to taste)
a single squeeze (maybe 2 tsps?) agave nectar
Mix it all together over low heat, then taste. It should be creamy in texture... not so thick that it forms clumps on your noodles, not so thin that it just slides off. If it's too thin, add more peanut butter OR let it simmer to reduce. If it's too thick, add more soy milk.
See! Super easy. We made this last night (swapping off mincing duties and Emperor-watching) and served it over udon, swiss chard, and plain broiled tofu.
Mmmm. Tastes like lazy!
This is extremely sad for me, as I put almond milk in virtually everything and almonds are one of my all time favorite snacks. (Interestingly, I don't like almond butter.)
I was casting about yesterday, trying to think of things that I like to eat that are made with soy milk rather than almond milk. My mind must have been in total nut mode, because what came to mind was udon with peanut sauce. Mmm.
Now, I don't like peanuts. I think I've told you this before. They're the only nut I can think of that I'm not particularly thrilled by. (Eh, I can go either way on Brazil nuts, actually. Sometimes I really like them, sometimes I think they're very boring.) They're... dull. Insipid. There's nothing wrong with them exactly. There's just nothing right, either.
So you might think it's weird to hear that I like peanut sauce a LOT. My husband called me on this the other day after I posted peanuts as a food dislike, and I had to stop and think about it. You know why peanut sauce is good? Because peanuts are just a base. They contribute a little to the flavor and a lot to the texture. Most of the flavor actually comes from what you put in your peanut sauce!
My basic peanut goes something like this:
~1c soy milk
1/4c peanut butter
1 inch piece of ginger root, peeled and minced
several cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1-2 tbsp soy sauce (to taste)
a single squeeze (maybe 2 tsps?) agave nectar
Mix it all together over low heat, then taste. It should be creamy in texture... not so thick that it forms clumps on your noodles, not so thin that it just slides off. If it's too thin, add more peanut butter OR let it simmer to reduce. If it's too thick, add more soy milk.
See! Super easy. We made this last night (swapping off mincing duties and Emperor-watching) and served it over udon, swiss chard, and plain broiled tofu.
Mmmm. Tastes like lazy!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Too tired for a real post today...
Instead, here's a picture of the Emperor!
I'll MoFo sometime this weekend.
I'll MoFo sometime this weekend.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
MoFo Day 15: Why I'm still cooking, blogging, etc
So this is a post I've been turning over in my head for about a week now. (It feels like forever. Boy, days seem really long lately.) A lot of people keep saying things to me like "wow! I can't believe you're cooking with a newborn!" or "wow! I can't believe you're already leaving the house with your two week old!" or "wow! You must be some sort of superlady to still be blogging!"
The truth is that I'm not any sort of superlady. What I actually am is terrified of succumbing to post partum depression.
In my day to day life, I suffer from more or less permanent low level depression. The way I like to explain it to people is that it's like my "normal" is on par with the average person's "sorta low." My baseline starts out lower. This doesn't mean I'm super depressed all the time. I'm not. But it means that I'm a lot closer to seriously depressed than the average person is on a day to day basis. It takes less to push me into a major depression than it would for many people, and it's harder for me to climb back out of such a depression.
When I hit upon this way of thinking about it many many years ago, it changed my life. I realized that I don't HAVE to be seriously depressed all the time... but I have to make a concerted effort to keep my mood from getting too low. I need to be proactive. It's like how when you start to get a migraine, you need to take painkillers right away, before the headache gets really bad. I have to do that with my emotions, if that makes any sense.
(As an aside, it doesn't always work, of course. Depression isn't JUST a matter of will. I firmly believe in the chemical/physical nature of it, and I really dislike people who imply that depression is just some sort of excuse or something.)
My pattern of depression often goes like this: I stop doing little tasks because I'm depressed and that makes them difficult or unappealing. Then, because I stop doing the little things, they start piling up. I get anxious because of how many piles of little stuff I have waiting to get done. Then I start to feel totally incapable, like I _can't_ do these little things. Then I feel like a useless person. This makes my depression worse, so I stop doing even MORE things. And it just spirals on and on until I'm basically hiding alone in the house in bed all day.
So it's extremely important for me to NOT STOP doing the little things. I need to keep washing the dishes. I need to keep showering. I need to go see my friends in town. I need to pick up the phone when it rings. I need to brush my hair. Because if I stop doing any of these things, I'm that much closer to losing my grip on my real life.
Cooking is an important part of all of this. It's important because it meets basic needs, y'know, eating and all that. It's also important because it's something I genuinely enjoy doing. It's also something that I know that I do well, which is also an important part of the staying not depressed strategy... I need to do things that make me feel like I have some worth and like I'm good at something.
Does that make sense? This is a lot longer and more rambling than I expected it to be.
So far I think I'm doing a pretty good job of fighting off the depression. Do I feel lower than usual? Yes. I'm stressed out. I'm not sleeping well. (Well, duh.) I cry more or less every day, and more of these tearfests feature hysterical wailing than I really care to admit. I spend a significant amount of time feeling hopeless and stressing out about all of my effing medical bills. (Anyone who thinks the health care/insurance system in the US isn't broken should talk to me about my current insurance debacle, seriously.) I'm really, really unhappy with the state of my body and have settled on basically just trying not to look at myself where possible. And I periodically think that Emperor Babykins hates me, for no reason I can pinpoint.
This is doing well? Yeah, this is doing well. I'm still bathing. I get out of bed. I'm eating. I'm talking to people as much as I can. I'm trying not to shut down and get reclusive.
I'm doing what I can. I'm still cooking. And that's all I can do. I just need to ride the rest of this out.
The truth is that I'm not any sort of superlady. What I actually am is terrified of succumbing to post partum depression.
In my day to day life, I suffer from more or less permanent low level depression. The way I like to explain it to people is that it's like my "normal" is on par with the average person's "sorta low." My baseline starts out lower. This doesn't mean I'm super depressed all the time. I'm not. But it means that I'm a lot closer to seriously depressed than the average person is on a day to day basis. It takes less to push me into a major depression than it would for many people, and it's harder for me to climb back out of such a depression.
When I hit upon this way of thinking about it many many years ago, it changed my life. I realized that I don't HAVE to be seriously depressed all the time... but I have to make a concerted effort to keep my mood from getting too low. I need to be proactive. It's like how when you start to get a migraine, you need to take painkillers right away, before the headache gets really bad. I have to do that with my emotions, if that makes any sense.
(As an aside, it doesn't always work, of course. Depression isn't JUST a matter of will. I firmly believe in the chemical/physical nature of it, and I really dislike people who imply that depression is just some sort of excuse or something.)
My pattern of depression often goes like this: I stop doing little tasks because I'm depressed and that makes them difficult or unappealing. Then, because I stop doing the little things, they start piling up. I get anxious because of how many piles of little stuff I have waiting to get done. Then I start to feel totally incapable, like I _can't_ do these little things. Then I feel like a useless person. This makes my depression worse, so I stop doing even MORE things. And it just spirals on and on until I'm basically hiding alone in the house in bed all day.
So it's extremely important for me to NOT STOP doing the little things. I need to keep washing the dishes. I need to keep showering. I need to go see my friends in town. I need to pick up the phone when it rings. I need to brush my hair. Because if I stop doing any of these things, I'm that much closer to losing my grip on my real life.
Cooking is an important part of all of this. It's important because it meets basic needs, y'know, eating and all that. It's also important because it's something I genuinely enjoy doing. It's also something that I know that I do well, which is also an important part of the staying not depressed strategy... I need to do things that make me feel like I have some worth and like I'm good at something.
Does that make sense? This is a lot longer and more rambling than I expected it to be.
So far I think I'm doing a pretty good job of fighting off the depression. Do I feel lower than usual? Yes. I'm stressed out. I'm not sleeping well. (Well, duh.) I cry more or less every day, and more of these tearfests feature hysterical wailing than I really care to admit. I spend a significant amount of time feeling hopeless and stressing out about all of my effing medical bills. (Anyone who thinks the health care/insurance system in the US isn't broken should talk to me about my current insurance debacle, seriously.) I'm really, really unhappy with the state of my body and have settled on basically just trying not to look at myself where possible. And I periodically think that Emperor Babykins hates me, for no reason I can pinpoint.
This is doing well? Yeah, this is doing well. I'm still bathing. I get out of bed. I'm eating. I'm talking to people as much as I can. I'm trying not to shut down and get reclusive.
I'm doing what I can. I'm still cooking. And that's all I can do. I just need to ride the rest of this out.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
MoFo Day 14: Autumn Vegetables and Tofu Roast
Towards the end of last year, I had the awesome opportunity to be a tester for Joanna Vaught, the author of Yellow Rose Recipes, one of my all time very favorite cookbooks. Joanna was working on a book that's now going to be a zine instead and I just happened to be in the first x number of people on the PPK to post in the testing thread. I tried out a lot of the recipes she posted at the time and mostly had great success with them. When the zine comes out, you better believe I will be pimping it out left and right and pointing out all the delicious things in it that I've tried before!
All this is just backstory to tell you how I came across the awesome dinner that I put together tonight. Autumn Vegetables and Tofu Roast was one of the test recipes. I'm not sure when I actually made it, if it was the end of 2008 or if it was 2009 already. But the sad fact of the matter is that I made it once and then aside from reheating frozen portions of it, I never made it again. Wah! I have thought about it a lot and recommended it to a lot of people, though, and finally tonight I got around to making it a second time!
Tonight I used parsnips, butternut squash, and yams as my fall vegetables, and fresh sage and oregano as my spices. I doubled the recipe, making roughly a metric butt ton of deliciousness. It's just finishing cooking now and let me tell you, my house smells delicious.
Anyway, you should follow the link to the recipe above and consider making this yourself! It's very easy. I managed to put it together while my gentleman entertained Emperor Babykins for about half an hour. If a lady with a crabby baby can make it, you can too! (Unless you're a lady with two or more crabby babies, in which case, sorry!) Not only is it fast and easy... it's also delicious... filling... and healthy.
And if you use all in-season produce from your local farmer's market or other source of cheap vegetables, it's cheap, too! A double batch (which is eight VERY generous adult portions) cost me about $12 in supplies, and $6 of that was the tofu.
Basically a perfect dinner in every way. Highly recommended!
All this is just backstory to tell you how I came across the awesome dinner that I put together tonight. Autumn Vegetables and Tofu Roast was one of the test recipes. I'm not sure when I actually made it, if it was the end of 2008 or if it was 2009 already. But the sad fact of the matter is that I made it once and then aside from reheating frozen portions of it, I never made it again. Wah! I have thought about it a lot and recommended it to a lot of people, though, and finally tonight I got around to making it a second time!
Tonight I used parsnips, butternut squash, and yams as my fall vegetables, and fresh sage and oregano as my spices. I doubled the recipe, making roughly a metric butt ton of deliciousness. It's just finishing cooking now and let me tell you, my house smells delicious.
Anyway, you should follow the link to the recipe above and consider making this yourself! It's very easy. I managed to put it together while my gentleman entertained Emperor Babykins for about half an hour. If a lady with a crabby baby can make it, you can too! (Unless you're a lady with two or more crabby babies, in which case, sorry!) Not only is it fast and easy... it's also delicious... filling... and healthy.
And if you use all in-season produce from your local farmer's market or other source of cheap vegetables, it's cheap, too! A double batch (which is eight VERY generous adult portions) cost me about $12 in supplies, and $6 of that was the tofu.
Basically a perfect dinner in every way. Highly recommended!
MoFo Day 13: Tofu Yu Garlic Pepper Tofu
This is my Tuesday post... on Wednesday. Sheesh, I can't believe October is 2/3rds of the way over already! Sure has been a busy month around my house. It is sort of amazing that I have even managed 13 blog posts so far!
The Emperor continues to do well. He's about 12 pounds now. We took him to a new parents group at the birth center he was born at yesterday. The group is for 0-3 month old babies. Most of the other babies there were at the 3 month end of the spectrum... and he was bigger than most of them! Oh my! See, you can be vegan and have a healthy roly poly vegan baby.
Anyway, that's all the baby talk for the moment. Today's real topic: Tofu Yu Garlic Pepper Tofu! Tofu Yu is a tofu company up in Berkeley. I saw their tofu at the store yesterday morning. It was labelled a bit erroneously as a local product. Berkeley's not really local to us. I mean, it's closer than Colorado or Mozambique but it's still not exactly local.
Local or no, their stuff seems to be a new entry into the tofusphere around here and you know I'm a sucker for trying new things. I actually don't usually buy flavored tofu, because I am extremely cheap and it's not like I don't know how to marinate tofu. (Smoked tofu, though... I'd buy it more if I wasn't so cheap, because I _don't_ smoke my own.) What caught my eye was a package of tofu balls by Tofu Yu that looked really tasty. Plus, ball shaped! But they cost like $6 a package so I started casting around to see if there was anything else interesting in the tofu case.
And that's when my eyes hit on the Garlic Black Pepper tofu. Ooooh. I've only just recently started to be able to eat garlic again-- it made me horribly horribly ill throughout my entire pregnancy. Very sad. Garlic is one of my very favorite things on earth, as is black pepper, so this tofu sounded pretty tasty to me. The package was fairly small, maybe 12 ounces? It cost around $3, which is as much as I usually pay for 20oz of plain firm tofu. Not impossibly expensive, but still a bit of a treat.
The tofu is heavily flecked with black pepper. It's got a pretty thick layer on top, and then more pepper distributed throughout the rest of the block. The tofu has a pleasant smell right off the bat... you get a nice whiff of garlic. Not overwhelming, but enticing. Since I usually use the super extra firm (or whatever) Wildwood tofu these days, I was a little surprised by how much liquid the Tofu Yu tofu had and how crumbly the texture of the tofu was. I had a little trouble slicing it up without accidentally crumbling it, but managed to do okay in the end.
I prepared it by broiling it, because broiled tofu is the best. (No arguments!) I brushed it with a very small amount of soy sauce ahead of time, broiled one side for 7 minutes, flipped, brushed, broiled the other side for 7 minutes. Then I served it on top of a bed of plain quinoa and broccoli.
On its own, the tofu is surprisingly salty. Like, I would argue that this should really be called Garlic, Salt & Pepper Tofu. Not that that's a bad thing-- on the contrary, it's tasty. But I was kicking myself for not tasting it raw. The brush of soy sauce was absolutely not necessary and made the crunchy skin of the broiled tofu just a tiny bit too salty. Aside from the saltiness, the tofu has a really great flavor that's more or less exactly what you'd expect from something labeled Garlic Pepper Tofu. Fairly mild but delicious level of garlic, lots and lots of zesty black pepper.
Mixed with the plain quinoa and broccoli, the tofu was transformative. It managed to flavor the entire dish, which was pleasantly surprising considering how little tofu there was relative to grain and veg. The tofu made the meal excellent rather than enh, which is great, because I had to do just about zero work and got something awesomely delicious out of the deal. Woo!
Overall, I really enjoyed the Tofu Yu Garlic Pepper Tofu. I'll probably buy it again next time I see it. One thing I'd like to do is try the salt & pepper tofu recipe that's in Veganomicon (I think? maybe it's just on the PPK somewhere? It's Terry's recipe, I think) and see how that compares. Again, cheapness. But I'm also really lazy and this stuff is not prohibitively expensive, so I expect it will make future appearances in my shopping cart. Mmmm.
The Emperor continues to do well. He's about 12 pounds now. We took him to a new parents group at the birth center he was born at yesterday. The group is for 0-3 month old babies. Most of the other babies there were at the 3 month end of the spectrum... and he was bigger than most of them! Oh my! See, you can be vegan and have a healthy roly poly vegan baby.
Anyway, that's all the baby talk for the moment. Today's real topic: Tofu Yu Garlic Pepper Tofu! Tofu Yu is a tofu company up in Berkeley. I saw their tofu at the store yesterday morning. It was labelled a bit erroneously as a local product. Berkeley's not really local to us. I mean, it's closer than Colorado or Mozambique but it's still not exactly local.
Local or no, their stuff seems to be a new entry into the tofusphere around here and you know I'm a sucker for trying new things. I actually don't usually buy flavored tofu, because I am extremely cheap and it's not like I don't know how to marinate tofu. (Smoked tofu, though... I'd buy it more if I wasn't so cheap, because I _don't_ smoke my own.) What caught my eye was a package of tofu balls by Tofu Yu that looked really tasty. Plus, ball shaped! But they cost like $6 a package so I started casting around to see if there was anything else interesting in the tofu case.
And that's when my eyes hit on the Garlic Black Pepper tofu. Ooooh. I've only just recently started to be able to eat garlic again-- it made me horribly horribly ill throughout my entire pregnancy. Very sad. Garlic is one of my very favorite things on earth, as is black pepper, so this tofu sounded pretty tasty to me. The package was fairly small, maybe 12 ounces? It cost around $3, which is as much as I usually pay for 20oz of plain firm tofu. Not impossibly expensive, but still a bit of a treat.
The tofu is heavily flecked with black pepper. It's got a pretty thick layer on top, and then more pepper distributed throughout the rest of the block. The tofu has a pleasant smell right off the bat... you get a nice whiff of garlic. Not overwhelming, but enticing. Since I usually use the super extra firm (or whatever) Wildwood tofu these days, I was a little surprised by how much liquid the Tofu Yu tofu had and how crumbly the texture of the tofu was. I had a little trouble slicing it up without accidentally crumbling it, but managed to do okay in the end.
I prepared it by broiling it, because broiled tofu is the best. (No arguments!) I brushed it with a very small amount of soy sauce ahead of time, broiled one side for 7 minutes, flipped, brushed, broiled the other side for 7 minutes. Then I served it on top of a bed of plain quinoa and broccoli.
On its own, the tofu is surprisingly salty. Like, I would argue that this should really be called Garlic, Salt & Pepper Tofu. Not that that's a bad thing-- on the contrary, it's tasty. But I was kicking myself for not tasting it raw. The brush of soy sauce was absolutely not necessary and made the crunchy skin of the broiled tofu just a tiny bit too salty. Aside from the saltiness, the tofu has a really great flavor that's more or less exactly what you'd expect from something labeled Garlic Pepper Tofu. Fairly mild but delicious level of garlic, lots and lots of zesty black pepper.
Mixed with the plain quinoa and broccoli, the tofu was transformative. It managed to flavor the entire dish, which was pleasantly surprising considering how little tofu there was relative to grain and veg. The tofu made the meal excellent rather than enh, which is great, because I had to do just about zero work and got something awesomely delicious out of the deal. Woo!
Overall, I really enjoyed the Tofu Yu Garlic Pepper Tofu. I'll probably buy it again next time I see it. One thing I'd like to do is try the salt & pepper tofu recipe that's in Veganomicon (I think? maybe it's just on the PPK somewhere? It's Terry's recipe, I think) and see how that compares. Again, cheapness. But I'm also really lazy and this stuff is not prohibitively expensive, so I expect it will make future appearances in my shopping cart. Mmmm.
Monday, October 19, 2009
MoFo Day 12: Five awesome food related songs
Okay, I am ripping off Vegan Eats & Treats here directly because 1) I was at her house yesterday! and 2) she's had a great idea! Here are some songs about food that I love:
Life's too short to refrain from eating jam out of the jar. It's true.
The Mountain Goats - Golden Boy Peanuts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h27E9cXhozw
There are no pan-Asian supermarkets down in hell, so you can't buy Golden Boy peanuts there. What's not to love about a song that encourages you to be on your good behavior so that you can eat your favorite treat for all eternity?
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - The Candyman Can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9B_6PH4dhU
The candy man can, because he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good. I think a lot of us equate cooking with love on at least some level. I certainly do. This is a big childhood nostalgia song for me too. I swear I can picture most of the video footage in this song with my eyes closed.
The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkYVIcVIaU
Okay, not an entire song about food, but you've got to like a song that includes a passage about liking to watch your loved one eat a midnight snack.
Iron and Wine - Bird Stealing Bread
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K0yU1VzwII
And a sweet sad song to end this list with.
Boy, this is hard! I don't seem to KNOW that many songs about food. Baby requires snuggling (one of the better tasks of parenthood) so I'll have to leave it here and keep thinking about food songs.
The Mountain Goats - Jam Eater Blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdcrpimoBig
Life's too short to refrain from eating jam out of the jar. It's true.
The Mountain Goats - Golden Boy Peanuts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h27E9cXhozw
There are no pan-Asian supermarkets down in hell, so you can't buy Golden Boy peanuts there. What's not to love about a song that encourages you to be on your good behavior so that you can eat your favorite treat for all eternity?
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - The Candyman Can
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9B_6PH4dhU
The candy man can, because he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good. I think a lot of us equate cooking with love on at least some level. I certainly do. This is a big childhood nostalgia song for me too. I swear I can picture most of the video footage in this song with my eyes closed.
The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkYVIcVIaU
Okay, not an entire song about food, but you've got to like a song that includes a passage about liking to watch your loved one eat a midnight snack.
Iron and Wine - Bird Stealing Bread
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K0yU1VzwII
And a sweet sad song to end this list with.
Boy, this is hard! I don't seem to KNOW that many songs about food. Baby requires snuggling (one of the better tasks of parenthood) so I'll have to leave it here and keep thinking about food songs.
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