Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

I think my photography is getting better. This is yesterday's lunch, made with water, soy milk, pureed (local) squash, spices, and lavender from the garden.

Autumn Sandwich, Breakfast, and Take Out

Inspired by Evan's post on Bjorkedoff, I sought to recreate some kind of Autumnal Sandwich. Jay made flat bread before I got home, sort of ciabatta style but with less air, from the Joy of Cooking recipe and added in some caramelized onions and herbs from our garden. We used a ton of local ingredients: red leaf lettuce, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, jonathan apples. We added soy nut butter and orange fig spread. It was exactly as good as it sounds ONLY BETTER.



Here are a couple of breakfast shots from the past week. One features local eggs, Gimme Lean sausage, homemade biscuits, and local muscadine jelly. The other is some mashed potato cakes with local BBQ sauce.




Finally, some take out from a Middle Eastern place called Ali Baba's. This is the vegetarian combo, which has two huge pitas, four dolmades, two falafel balls, some pickled salad, babaganoush, and hummus. It was more than enough for two people, and it was like $7. Kind of amazing.

Bean Burger, Shepherd's Pie, a Porch Party, and a Bento (sort of)

Okay, a few things to catch up on over the last ... however many months. New template with no dates makes me look like less of a slacker, I guess.

Here are some things I've made in the interim that I took pictures of. First, shepherd's pie with tempeh, local veggies, and local (dairy) cheese.


Nom. Next, homemade bean burgers. One shot of the patty cooking and one shot of the complete burger.



Finally, a shot of a few dishes from a big porch party we had this summer. Zatar bread, hummus, veggie roll ups, and a few other things I can't recall.


Not gonna lie, I love a potluck.

Now for something new. I've decided to try making a few bentos for lunch, and I attempted my first one last night. It's sort of a bento fail, but I'm posting it here hoping that the failure is at least a little bit endearing.


Steamed broccoli, veggie dog, baked tofu, sliced carrots, snow peas, prunes, a banana, and some graham crackers. Sauces and seasonings on the side, there.

We had a huge sushi party a couple of weeks ago, and made a big pot of chili this weekend. It's not that I'm not cooking, it's that I'm not taking pictures and, obviously, food posts without pictures are kind of like tits on a boar hog. But I am working on correcting this. I primrose.

Hot Soup and Rich Beer

It's one of those random cold days after it should be well into spring. Tomorrow I'll be lolling about on a sunny hillside, sprawling on blankets, laughing with friends, and snacking on hummus and flatbread. Today, however, it was seriously time for some soup. This is just water with some broth cubes dropped in, frozen spinach, frozen peas, penne, sauteed onions, and a few spices. I have also been loving the new Paradise Porter from Diamond Bear Brewing Company. It's a weird name, but a good beer.

Peach Cobbler

What? Stop looking at me that way. There has been weather and we've been cleaning the house and here I am with more food love for you.

This is a peach cobbler. I bought an enormous bag of frozen peaches from my local food co-op and I needed to use it. I was feeling sad about the winter and wishing I'd saved more lovely summer and fall fruit, and then all of a sudden there it was, like a beacon: ginormous bag of frozen peaches! I decided cobber was the way to go because it's so easy.

This one was made with flour and a five grain cereal blend and some baking soda and some soy milk and oil. Basically a rough biscuit dough. I put the peaches in a casserole dish, dumped a cup or so of sugar on top, and then spread the dough around. I baked it at 350 until the dough spread out and firmed up and looked dry. It was delicious and we ate it with vanilla ice cream.

Speaking of which, I posted something on facebook last week about the sausage apple stuffing and a friend posted a comment with something like "Sausage?! Was it vegan sausage?!" And I responded with this:

"Yeah, I actually am talking about vegan sausage. I dispensed with the superfluous words like soy or fake or vegan when describing my food a while ago. I just expect people who know me to assume, correctly, that I mean the vegan version of whatever I'm talking about."

If anyone reads this, what do you think about that? Do you generally modify the words when talking about your food? I just find it cumbersome and unnecessary. Thoughts?

Also, I added a tag. It's "local." I'm going to go back and stick it on a few previous entries.

Stuffed Squash and Sausage Stuffing

My roommate John had a birthday today. We had leftover biscuits and cornbread in the freezer, and a few leftover pancakes from breakfast. John had been wanting stuffing. Easy.

I crumbled up the bread products in a casserole dish, sauteed some sausage, diced apple, minced onion, and chopped fresh sage in a skillet, then mixed all that together and poured vegetable broth over the whole thing. I baked it at 350 for a while, until it looked done, maybe 25 minutes or so.

The squash was pretty easy, too. I sliced them in half, brushed them with olive oil, and baked them until they were sweet and mushy. I cooked some red chard, onions, and garlic in a pan with some nutritional yeast and other spices (I have no idea what I put in there, maybe some Cavendar's?) and dropped a spoonful in the middle of each one. Finally, I topped them with shredded mozarella teese. When John tasted the filling, he asked if it could be his boyfriend. This was an awesome birthday meal.

Sushi

Sarah sent out an e-mail planning a big sushi dinner for her birthday, only the party wasn't until next Saturday. Screw that. The Rosetta household got a mad sushi craving and decided to do something about it. After hitting the Asian grocery for nori and miso paste and a few other essentials, we came home and made two courses.

The first was a big pot of miso soup, with dried shitake mushrooms, baked tofu, and hijiki. We pretty much just added the paste to the water until it tasted right, then added the other stuff and let it simmer for a long time. No real science to it.

The rolls were a little more complicated, but no one should be intimidated by making sushi. We sliced up a bunch of kale, shiso, steamed butternut squash, baked tofu, carrots, and scallions (from our own back yard). We made a bunch of jasmine rice in the rice cooker, with extra water to make it a little stickier. If you don't have sushi rice, any short or medium grain rice will work fine. When the rice was done, we mixed it with rice vinegar, salt, and sugar and let it cool off some before making the rolls. Then we sat down at the table and just kind of went for it. Everyone grabbed a sheet of nori, spread it with rice, threw various combinations of the ingredients on it, and rolled it up. I even made one inside out roll and sprinkled it with sesame seeds. We made some wasabi paste (from the powder) and some spicy mayo sauce out of vegenaise and sriracha. We ate sooooo much.

If you've never made sushi before and still think it's scary, let me share two facts. Fact 1: we made about 14 sushi rolls for under $10 total. We fed 4 people with sushi that, at a sushi bar, would have cost close to $100. We had tons of leftovers. Fact 2: The very first episode of Post Punk Kitchen gives a step by step sushi making lesson in great, immaculate detail. No more excuses. You don't even need a mat. Just go for it.

Curried Pumpkin and Kale Soup

Oh, hello there. I'm a curried pumpkin and kale soup. I look delicious and innocent, but I have a dark secret. I started life, as do most pumpkin soups, as a can of pumpkin at the grocery store. Maggie and Jay brought me home and I sat in the cabinet for a few days, awaiting my debut.

Then, one night, among much revelry and perhaps a few drinks, Jay decided to make me into a pumpkin pie. Maggie wrote down the recipe that she likes, and brought it to him in the kitchen before returning to the living room to chat and watch movies with everyone else. I was delighted! A delicious pie! It was about halfway through the process that I got nervous. Jay didn't seem to be looking at the recipe much, and instead was tossing in ingredients without measuring them. Dubious.

Nevertheless, I trusted Jay. I mean, he made that great aioli last week, and delicious guacamole. Surely he wouldn't do me wrong. I was poured into a crust and put in the oven. I baked. And I baked. And then I baked some more until I was getting extremely worried. Everyone had gone into the backyard by the fire and seemed to have totally forgotten me. When Jay finally returned and alarmedly took me out of the oven, it was not a pretty sight. I was dark chocolate brown and, as Maggie quickly concluded, did not taste anything like pie should taste.

I was devastated. They banished me to the refrigerator and decided to think about me later. After waiting so long to satisfy them with my delicious, squashy goodness I knew I'd likely be thrown out into the compost heap. The next night, however, something magical happened.

Maggie, John, and Jay were again spending time in the living room, and John suggested that they might make a soup for dinner. Maggie volunteered to make some crusty french rolls to go with it, and while she was in the kitchen, ended up making the main dish as well. She started with 4 cups of vegetable broth made from bouillon. When the broth was simmering, she did something brilliant and magical. She scooped out most of my mushy, pie interior and dumped me into the broth. Jay whisked me into oblivion while she chopped kale. Once I was entirely incorporated with the broth, she added the kale, some more water, curry, ginger, salt, and sriracha.

I couldn't believe my good fortune. Instead of being tossed heartlessly into the compost heap, I had been reinvented as a delicious fall soup that everyone loved. I was soaked up into bread and eaten ravenously by the multitudes.

Pizza with Teese Cheese

Adieu, VeganMofo. I had a great time and it really kicked my ass into blogging again. I promise that even though October is done, the posting won't stop. It might lighten up a little, but who knows. This week I was out of town for work and then in stupid CLE all day on Wednesday. If a CLE is mandatory for all newly licensed attorneys, it should be equally applicable to all areas of practice and not some kind of civil lititgation love in. That's all I have to say about that.

I finally gave in and ordered some Teese. I was sort of holding out, thinking I'd make it back to Chicago soon and try more, but I heard they finally released the cheddar flavor so I caved. I'm so glad I did, because it's awesome. One of the good things about having a boyfriend who works at a pizza place is that you can bring your own ingredients and make pizza with their dough and their ovens. Actually, most of the pizza places here will let you bring in your own cheese, so it's not that big of a deal except that it's free. For this one, we brought the mozzarella Teese, fresh oregano, vegan pepperoni, and local shitake mushrooms. I ate like five slices last night and then another for breakfast this morning.

It doesn't taste like cheese. I cheat often enough that I remember very clearly what cheese tastes like, and this ain't it. That said, it tastes really, really good. And, of course, it melts. It melts and it browns and it looks just lovely. I mean look at it. While it didn't taste like cheese, it tastes close enough that it didn't make me feel deprived, and I think that's what's important when evaluating an analog. I'll post again when I think of something fabulous to do with the cheddar, but I definitely recommend the Teese.

VeganMofo 23: Baba Ghanoush

I had an eggplant that was about to be at death's door (pictured in the pantry below) so I decided to make some baba ghanoush. I've never been a big eggplant fan, but lately I've been trying to work on expanding my palate. I think people view vegans and vegetarians as picky enough as it is, and when you start excluding more foods it just gets overwhelming for people trying to cook for you.

I never have made it baba ghanoush before, but I've tried it at restaurants and thought it was okay. Jay smoked the eggplant on a fire in the backyard, then I blended it with tahini, olive oil, salt, pepper, a little curry, and lemon juice. I forgot to put garlic in it, but it was good anyway. Nevertheless, I'll remedy that tonight.

VeganMofo 21: Pantry

This is the shelf in the corner of my kitchen that serves as the pantry. I figured I'd share since I'm so excited about all the fresh things on there. Every Monday I make an order with the Arkansas Sustainability Network's food club, then pick up all my lovely veggies on Saturday morning. Pictured here: Sweet potatoes, eggplant, apple, butternut squash, turnips, potatoes, tomatoes, and summer squash. Everything but the potatoes are from ASN.

I've mentioned before that eating local food is really important to me. In fact, for almost the entire summer, I ate nothing but local produce save for one head of organic broccoli that left me guilt-ridden for weeks. It would take a long time to explain why this is so important to me, but if you ever get the chance you should take the Menu for the Future discussion course. Heck, just order a few of the books with your friends and do the course yourself. It doesn't have to be taught really, as it's more like a book club than a class. That will give you a much better understanding of the ethics behind my choices than I ever could articulate.

VeganMofo 13: Tiny Pear Pies

So, I'm like 30 minutes late for the VeganMofo Iron Chef Challenge, but I totally have a good excuse. I didn't think to actually check the challenge until 7. When I did check, the theme ingredients this week were pears and nuts. That worked out well for me since my friend Sally had just come by with a crapton of pears from her grandparents' pear tree, and these tiny pies were already underway.

Jay made a pie crust with flour, salt, sugar, smart balance, and a little water. We smushed it into muffin cups. I took the pears and left the skins on, cored them and chopped them up in the food processor with some sugar and ground clove. We put the filling in, topped it with another crust, and then I dropped a couple of almonds on top, sprinkled it with sugar, and baked it at 400 until it started to brown on the edges. Did I drop the almonds on top just so this would fit the Iron Chef Challenge? Yes, of course I am that transparent. The bright spot is they turned out really nice, all toasty on there, and added a lot to the pie.

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.

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.