Ditalini with Salsa di Limone

I'm sick today. I think it's probably a kidney infection, which sucks, but I've already started popping cipro. I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow. For lunch I had some classic comfort food: potato soup and rolls. For dinner, I still wanted something warm and filling, but I wasn't in the mood for soup. Ever since I bought the Sunergia Soy Feta I've been sprinkling my salads liberally, but dying to see what it was like with pasta. I went to the food network website and dug around until I found a Giada recipe for Rotini with Salsa di Limone. I substituted ditalini for the rotini, and I used more lemon and more salt than she calls for. I used the Mediterranean Herb flavor feta, which is the only one I've tried, but I can't recommend it enough. It turned out really nicely, very fresh but still substantial enough for a sick girl.

Spaghetti and Beanballs

Tonight I made the spaghetti and beanballs from Veganomicon. There has been some twitter on various blogs about the texture of the balls, but I liked them fine. A little mushy, but I think if I cooked them longer or at a higher temperature I could fix that. I did use red beans instead of kidney beans, but I doubt that made much difference. I also used diced tomatoes with a little tomato sauce instead of crushed tomatoes in the marinara, just because I like my sauce a little chunky.

Sorry about the weird food close-ups lately. I'm just playing around with different angles and different styles. At this point, I'm not sure which I like better.

Lunch Time!

I'll go ahead and make another post, since I'm sure Sarah will be thrilled to see the corn chowder pushed off the bottom of the page. Here are a couple of things I've made for lunch this week. The first is hummus, which I ended up making with no oil or lemon juice. So, just chickpeas, tahini, cumin, and garlic. Loads of garlic. I finished off the rest of it in class last night and felt inhibited about talking to anyone afterwards. The salad has cabbage, sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, and I think some baby carrots with a honey mustard vinaigrette.

The second one is my lunch from today. On New Year's Day, my mom had me run by the store and get some cabbage since she's super traditional and insists on black eyed peas and cabbage for good luck. I was going to skip out this year but she sent me an email saying she'd already made vegan black eyed peas and rice with vegetable broth. How adorable. I couldn't say no. When I got to the store, cabbage was on sale for 25 cents a pound, so I bought two heads thinking I'd just nosh on them for a while. I'm totally in love with this vegetable now. Not only is it in the salad pictured above, I've also started making this stir fry every other day. It's cabbage, soy beans, and a little rice. The sauce is a rough approximation of the one from Veganomicon that accompanies the butternut squash spring rolls, using rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar (I use splenda), sesame oil, sriracha, and some ginger.

Apple Spice Cupcakes

This is from a while ago, but here are the caramel apple spice cupcakes with caramel fudge frosting from Veganomicon. I have a weakness for baked goods. The frosting required more soymilk than the recipe called for to get it to a consistency that I liked, but was really, really yummy.

Tea Obsession

Even though bar review class is trying to crush my delicate little soul, I promised an entry about tea. When I was in high school, everyone always wanted to go to coffee shops. Something about the 90's and being too young for bars. I quickly discovered, however, that I really don't like coffee. I'll drink it every now and then with lots of milk and sugar, but it's not the kind of thing I really enjoy. This led to me drinking a lot of hot chocolate and steamers, as well as a decent amount of tea.

I prefer loose teas, but I try not to be a snob about it. I've had some perfectly good bag teas, especially now that some mainstream companies are making the bags big enough to let the leaves expand. However, my favorite way to make tea is in my adorable cast iron teapot, pictured here. I got it last time I was in St. Louis visiting my friend Shane, and it's amazing. So, here are my three favorite online tea shops. Take a look, have fun, you know.

Teavana, where I got my little teapot and some delicious jasmine green tea pearls.
Adagio Teas
Tea's Me, where I indulged my habit when I lived in Indiana.

I wish I could talk more about tea, but I really enjoy it all too much to be picky. I can say that if you have a nice glass tea cup you should check out the display teas at adagio. They're kind of trendy but really fancy looking.

Holiday Update

The holidays were crazy. My best friend Jett was in town and I've spent most waking moments with him. I'm currently moving (back in with my mom while I study for the bar exam and look for a place of my own), so I may not have a good update again for a while. I got a beautiful rice cooker from my mom. She's been so adorable about me going back to being vegan. She let me bring my own dinner over on Christmas without fussing about it (Chickpeas Romesco from Veganomicon) and she even made vegetarian black-eyed peas, rice with vegetable broth, and cabbage with no butter for New Year's Day.

Updates to come: tea obsession, as promised, and apple caramel spice cupcakes.

If you need a refreshing dose of food porn, try the Vegan With A Vengeance flickr group. I drool over this shit daily.