VeganMofo 5: Butternut Squash Spring Rolls, Take 2

Last time I blogged these, I followed Isa and Terry's recipe from V'con pretty precisely. This time I sort of winged it and used whatever I had laying around. I roasted half a cubed butternut squash in the oven this morning and managed to not eat all of it before lunch time. I had some leftover tofu so I diced it and deep fried it to a nice chewy consistency. We also threw in some raw spinach, rice noodles, and tempura portobello mushrooms. I made a peanut sauce with apple cider vinegar, homemade peanut butter, tamari, sriracha, oil, sugar, and cayenne pepper.

I just realized I don't really have much else to say. It's nice to be with someone who not only can appreciate my cooking but actually contribute and make it better, and has the same kinds of values I have when it comes to food.

VeganMofo 4: Sweet Potato Pancakes

I realize I just posted about sweet potatoes yesterday (and they even got a shout out in my entry this morning), but when you're eating local produce, this season entails a lot of sweet potatoes, apples, and squash. Just get used to it.

Fortunately, sweet potatoes are awesome and versatile. Plus, this from wikipedia: "In 1992, the Center for Science in the Public Interest compared the nutritional value of sweet potatoes to other vegetables. Considering fiber content, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron, and calcium, the sweet potato ranked highest in nutritional value." How about that?

I made these chunky sweet potato pancakes by using my favorite vegan pancake recipe and using a partly mushed up sweet potato as the egg substitute, as well as throwing in a little cinnamon.

Edit: I am internet famous, again.

VeganMofo 3: Mostly Raw Lunch

I've been trying to eat more raw food lately. I'm not going to get all crazy about it and start talking about live food, but I know it's generally healthier so why not try to incorporate? Here's a lunch I took to work last week. I had the apple and a few pine nuts for midmorning snack. For lunch I made a little wrap out of the spinach tortilla and the tomato, avocado, and lime. The celery was afternoon snack, along with the peanut butter that lives on my desk.

In addition to being healthy, I really like the simplicity of eating this way. I know raw food can get really fancy and complicated with all kinds of obscure ingredients and elaborate dehydrator techniques, but it can also be about finding fresh things and just eating them.

For me, the major drawback is that I think it would be nigh on impossible to eat both raw and local. Since the beginning of the summer, 90% of my produce has come from my amazing CSA. In the summer and early fall I'd be able to keep afloat on berries, peaches, tomatoes, apples, peppers, and grapes. We're coming up on the season, however, when I'd be stuck chomping on raw sweet potatoes for a good bit of the time.

Eating local food is important to me. It's more important to me than whatever health benefits might derive from eating raw. I had a great conversation last night with my roommate, John, and then later with a few other friends, about the need to apply what John called "a discerning mind" to religious and ethical choices. Every set of beliefs or principles is going to leave one with competing interests, from time to time, and it's necessary for a person to be able to practice awareness and choose the best course of action, weighing those interests.

About a month ago, my mom, who is a dean at the law school here, gave my contact information to one of the new law students. She was new in town and having trouble finding vegetarian options. My mom enthusiastically told her that her daughter is vegan and loves food and loves to cook. I was, of course, happy to help out. Once I started exchanging e-mails with this student, however, I realized she was one of those vegetarians that makes people hate vegetarians. She complained that she was from another part of the country and had never had any trouble with eating vegetarian there, but that here in Arkansas the a restaurant wouldn't even change out the oil to make her eggplant parmesan free from meat particles! I've had friends who are Jain, and while I don't know whether this student is, I understand ahimsa and the desire to keep your food free from any particle that would contaminate it with violence. As John pointed out, however, asking a restaurant to throw out perfectly good oil to accomodate one person's preference is a huge waste, and waste is a form of violence. This person seemed to be applying an ethical principle without approaching the situation holistically and discerning the best course of action.

I feel the same way about eating raw. Of course I care about my body, and there are great benefits to adopting a raw diet. For me, the benefits of eating local, sustainable food far outweigh those. For now, it's an occasional treat and a way of simplifying my lunch-packing process.

VeganMofo 2: Sweet Potato Fries

I have an obscene number of kitchen appliances. I have a food processor, a blender, a toaster, a toaster oven, a crock pot, and a microwave. I think those are all pretty standard. I also have a bread machine, a waffle iron, a deep fryer, and a rice cooker. I used to have a stand mixer but I lost custody in a messy break up and I don't like to talk about it.

At any rate, it takes a while for a new appliance to really work its way into the rotation. The deep fryer was a gift from my older brother in 2005, and it's really just now coming into its own with the debut of these sweet potato fries. I think the first time I had sweet potato fries was in Charlottesville, VA when I went to visit Jett during his MFA program. I was instantly in love, but I think they're more of a coastal south food because they're a little scarce here. Now I can make them myself.

Since sweet potatoes are kind of hard, I cut and boiled these before deep frying them. You could probably just parboil them but I got distracted so they got a full boil. The deep fryer is alarmingly simple, so after the boil I loaded them into the basket, set the thing to 375 and, after some preheating time, lowered the basket into the canola oil to the tune of a satisfying hiss. The ones in Charlottesville came with a brown sugar dipping sauce, but I went slightly less cloying and dipped these in bbq sauce. Served here with baked beans and tempeh bacon.

VeganMofo 1: Kitchen Makeover

Wow, look at that. It's October. And I haven't posted since May. I didn't even post my review of Chicago Diner, and here it is VeganMofo again and I'm feeling like a jerk. A lot has happened. I have a house and a roommate and a pretty boyfriend and life is generally of very high quality. Buying a house is a crazy process, so to kick things off I'll post some before and after pictures of my kitchen. This is where the magic happens.

As you can see, there was no magic happening in this kitchen before. The walls were some kind of putrid sunshine urine color, and the rest was stark white except for the oddly ecru dishwasher. Also, note the tragic laminate backsplash.

In order to remedy a lot of what was wrong here, I removed the doors from the three biggest cabinets, removed the backsplash, replaced the counters, painted the cabinets, painted the walls, installed new hardware, painted the hinges, and got rid of that weird shelf thing above the sink. When I put it that way, it sounds like a lot, but here it is in all its glory. Although the dishwasher is the same, the butter yellow on the cabinets makes it look a little less ridiculous, even though the stove is white and the refrigerator (not pictured) is stainless steel.

The other major problem was how claustrophobic the kitchen is. I like cooking and I like having people over, but whenever you have to disappear into a kitchen, it feels like abandoning your guests. This kitchen isn't small, but it's not big enough for a kitchen table. You can see the tragedy here, as you peek around that door frame into your living room, where the forlorn guests await your return as they stare awkwardly at one another. Not a good party.

The obvious solution here was to cut and frame out a big pass through area. I had it wired for the hanging glass lights so it wouldn't just look like a big blank maw into the dining room. It's pretty big, at four by six feet, and the ledge is wide enough to set drinks or plates on without them teetering over.

I also extended the countertop about six inches out from the edge of the counter on this side so that there wouldn't be that wasted space between the edge of the stove and the door frame. It created a little area that might be big enough for one of those rolling storage units, but I haven't had the time or funds to check that out yet.

You can also see that the counter is now flush with the stove, which was the result of removing the door and cutting park of the actual cabinet off. I need to go back and touch up with paint because of little changes like that, but it doesn't look bad enough that I'm desperate to fix it.

At any rate, this is where the vegan cooking takes place. I'm going to try to write twenty entries this month in honor of VeganMofo, and you can check out an explanation and the blogroll here.

Chicago Diner

I didn't have internet my first two weeks in my apartment, so posting would have been cumbersome. I just got back from an amazing trip to Chicago. I ate so much good food, and I want to make a post about my lunch today at Chicago Diner. I'll do that tomorrow, because I'm tired and sort of road-weary right now.

Box of Goodies from Taiwan!

I said way back in my first post that one of my exceptions to being vegan is when I have a chance to experience something from another culture. This is the first example of that this year. My friend visited Taiwan and brought back a huge box full of goodies, and none of the packaging is in English so I have no idea if anything in here is remotely vegan. I am assuming there may be some butter and gelatin tucked away in the plethora of luscious goodies. I'm trying a little bit of everything and passing some of it along to friends and coworkers.

While I think Anthony Bourdain goes a little overboard on his blanket characterization of vegans as the enemies of good food (I really love food) and says he couldn't live in a world without veal stock, I kind of see where he's coming from. When I heard him speak a few months ago, he talked about food as a cultural passport. He said when he was in Vietnam the people in the village where he was staying offered him a whole chicken. He knew it was all the meat they could afford in a month, and it was a huge honor to be offered that, and of course he accepted. When you travel, one of the best ways to show people that you respect them and want to learn more is to try the food without reservation or judgment.

While of course my friend who brought me all these goodies isn't going to judge me, a different Taiwanese friend commented on it last night. "It's weird that you like all that stuff. Most people don't like it unless they grew up eating it." I can't imagine what's not to like about flaky, delicious pastries and chewy soft candies, but it was noteworthy to her.

That leads me to believe it's not specifically a vegan or vegetarian issue. People are generally hesitant to open up to new foods, especially when they look totally unfamiliar or have unidentifiable ingredients. Vegans, I think, have a much better reason (whether it's health or animal rights or environment) than others (where it's probably just xenophobia). When it comes to opening up my world a little bit, I try to put all my reservations aside, including those that I find very important in other circumstances.

Hardin Farms Strawberries

I went to the new farmer's market in Argenta this morning and it was awesome. It was their first morning of operation but it's going to be a regular thing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The weather was comfortable and beautiful, but the 8 or so booths were fighting with the wind the whole time. The reason this market is so necessary is because the one in the river market tends to be overrun with people who import produce and just mark it up, or tacky craft booths which are fine in moderation but can be overwhelming in great numbers. The market in Argenta is all certified Arkansas-grown, which is absolute rocksauce. Here are the strawberries I picked up from the Hardin Farms booth. Beautiful.

Update: I am internet famous.