big bowl of hug

Yup. It's a giant bowl of umami. The culinary equivalent of a hug, if you will.

1/2 cup dry aduki beans
1 large piece konbu
4 dried shitake mushrooms
1 onion, chopped
4 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup white wine
splash of mirin
1 heaping (and I *do* mean heaping. don't skimp) tbs chopped fresh ginger
1 cup butternut squash bits in cubes
1 leftover baked spud, chopped
1 tbs red miso
sesame seeds to sprinkle on top

Put the dry aduki beans in a pot. Add konbu and shitake mushrooms. Add about 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Now, go away and do about half an hour of yoga, or read a book, or whatever. Then, come back, top up the water, fish out the konbu and discard it. Fish out the shitake, chop them up, and throw them back in (discard the stems if they are too tough to eat). Go away for another 15 mins, or until the beans are soft. Add everything up to, but not including the spud. If you don't have leftover baked spuds lying around, add raw chopped one now. It will be almost as good. Almost. But not quite. Simmer until the squash is done. There should be just enough water to cover all the ingredients, but not much more than that. This is a pretty thick stew by the time it's all done. Add spud and miso and warm through. Adjust seasonings. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and eat. Feel better about the world.

Now, you could of course be all fancy and make dashi etc. etc. But I was not feeling fancy. And you know what? It worked out fine. Better than fine. Yummy enough to make again, just like this, all non-fancy like.

Umamusic: naive and simple music, by john adams.

when life hands you lemons

...make beans. It's what I do. I *am* vegan, after all. These ain't pretty (as you see in the photo), but oh sweet jeebus, are they ever a yummy and satisfying dinner.

Lemon-thyme beans

1 small onion

3 cups cooked black eyed beans (or other white beans such as butter beans)

2 heads roasted garlic

2 large, juicy lemons (you know ... the big sicilian ones that you can practically eat straight up)

a handful (yes a giant handful) fresh thyme. I mean it. Fresh thyme or bust.

salt and pepper.

Saute onion in whatever strikes your fancy. I used a splash of white wine. Add the beans, the garlic mush from the two heads of garlic, and the zest from both lemons, and a bit of water. Simmer for a minute or 5 while you separate the thyme leaves from the stems. You should have at least 1/4 cup of fresh thyme leaves. I had about 1/3 cup. It's a lot. Add the juice from both lemons, the thyme leaves, salt and pepper. Heat up to a simmer, then cover and turn the heat off entirely. Leave it for 5 mins. If you want, stir in two or three tbs of nutritional yeast. Eat the beans! Sing! Boogie! Be happy that lemons exist! Ahem.

I served this beany lemony goodness over baked potatoes. If you don't have roasted garlic lying around (because really, who leaves roasted garlic lying around for more than 30 seconds without eating it?), just throw the garlic in the oven with the potatoes, and add it to the beans whenever it's done.

Sexy in a garlic breath, full-of-beans kinda way: Queen Bitch, by David Bowie.

jumping on the bento wagon

...Well.. not really. I always brought a lunch to school, right through to the end of studenty days (which extended into my late 20s), and now I bring a lunch every day to work. Wanna know a secret?: I hate having to eat out at lunch. Hate it. It's almost invariably expensive, boring and never as yummy as what I could bring myself. Here's a standby for what I make when I don't have any leftovers from the night before. Also, when I just need a spud. Because sometimes one just needs a spud, ya know? Since a potato stuffed with something (think baked potatoes and beans) is pretty much the best simple lunch ever, here's a take on it that has veg and is a bit lighter than baked potato and beans, and is also good cold: a nice big spud, cut in half and boiled in water to which I've added soy sauce and a bit of sake. Said spud is stuffed to within an inch of it's life (and my lunchbox) with grated carrot salad: 1 obscenely large (and incidentally, obscenely shaped) grated carrot, 1 chopped scallion, about 1/2 cup of chopped seaweed (I used multicoloured, but anything will do), 2 tbs chopped pickled ginger, a few frozen edamame (they thaw out by lunchtime), salt, pepper, some vinegar from the pickled ginger, a splash of shoyu, and some toasted sesame seeds.

Also, I got onto this whole Health Blogger Network thing. I'm not sure what will come of it. I don't really think I'm a health blogger per se. I cook vegan food. I cook pretty much without fat and I use whole foods, tending towards lots of veg, grains and legumes, rather than processed omni subs such as vegan cheese or ice cream or other junk food. Frankly, I think this tastes *better* and is more satisfying than pretty much anything processed or pre-made that I can buy. I make treats, but they are very much treats, and with me, they almost invariably end up being chocolate. I do the first (the vegan bit) because I think it's the only ethical way to live and the second because I rather like being alive and being able to live in my body and that means taking care of myself. I'm 30-something now, and want to still be doing science, writing, riding my bicycle, cooking, travelling to places that cars just can't go, and generally raising hell when I'm an old lady. And more immediately, I want to keep feeling good now. Since I'm lucky enough to not have any major health problems, I want to be able to fully enjoy all the cool stuff that I can experience, such as getting up in the morning and stretching like a cat, running in the sun (and rain), walking on my hands, climbing big hills and looking down at beautiful landscapes, reading good books, hearing music, getting into interesting conversations, and having lots of sex. I think that my life, and my enjoyment of it, is worth the time and effort of cooking food that 's good for me and that I like eating. So, I don't generally wince at spending money or time on food. Being ill or constantly tired also costs money and time, so I look at what I do in my kitchen as an investment as well as a source of immediate amusement. I cook yummy fun food because, as I just said, I like being alive and happy, and yummy beautiful food is exciting and gives me great pleasure. I love cooking. I love eating. I love feeding the people I love. So, if there are any new readers, welcome to the kitchendancing cave. I hope you find stuff in here that will amuse and delight you.

happy bogle day! part 2

Oh yes, it's that day again: Bogle Day. Yes, Bogle Day. Don't you celebrate it? You should.

In my tireless attempt to vive the fine tradition of Bogle Day, I give you: Bogle Cake. Or rather, Bogle pudding. In honour of a) spring b) hygiene c) fine whiskey and d) fine vegan dessertery, this year's Boggle Cake is steamed rhubarb pudding with whiskey sauce, made in my supacool vintage pudding steamer. The pudding steamer makes all kinds of claims about hygiene, so this may be the most hygienic pudding I've *ever* made. Be impressed. Be very impressed. Also, go wash your hands before reading further. And, because it is Boggle Day, the cake includes spuds. Hey, my vived tradition, my rules. Vive your own damn tradition if you want spudless cakes. This is kind of like the Scottish version of mochi. Spring mochi. Spring mochi in Scotland. With Bogles. It's got that kinda chewy, not-too-sweet thang going on. The sauce, on the other hand, is very sweet, and not unlike a nice kick in the ass.

Bogle cake.

I medium spud, grated
1 scant cup rhubarb, chopped
1/4 c currants
3 tbs grated ginger
1 lemon of zest
1/2 c. sugar
pinch salt
3/4 c white self-raising flour
(or white flour + 1 tsp baking powder)
1/4 c arrowroot flour

Mix ingredients in order. Place in greased container suitable for steaming (closed containter). Steam for 45 mins. Let cool for a bit, and then attempt to liberate the pudding from the container. This will be difficult. I failed, which is why I took the photos with the pudding already in a bowl. So, on second thought, I recommend a *well* greased container, not just one that you've lightly greased in a half-assed manner. The Bogles get angry when you slack off, and pudding welded to the extra-hygienic pudding steamer is their swift and Bogley revenge.

Whiskey sauce:
1/4 c. whiskey
1/4 c. agave
lemon juice from that lemon
1/2 tsp arrowroot.

Heat sauce until it thickens. Pour over pudding.

Bogle music: Monster Mash.

spring soup

Wild garlic! It's here! Yay! This soup is simple, and perfect. The mushrooms add a lot of depth, the black pepper gives it heat, and the whole thing is satisfying but unstodgy. Kinda like spring.

Spring soup:

boil up:
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
lots of galangal (um, at least 4 large slices)
some lemongrass (2 stalks, bruised)
lots of black pepper (at least a tsp, more if you like the heat)
anisseed (1 tsp)
shoyu to taste (2-4 tbs should do it, but make your food how you want, not how i want)
a dash of mirin
a leek, chopped
a medium spud, chopped
some mushrooms
a chopped carrot
chicken seitan

when the spuds are done, declare the soup done, take it off the heat, pick out the galangal and lemongrass chunks, add a bit of lemon juice, and stir in 1 cup wild garlic, chopped.

exhuberant music for exhuberant soup: king of spain, moxy fruvous.

beets!

I love beets. I love the way they taste, and I love how beautifully red-purple they make whatever you add them to. So, I give you: Beet-ish dahl-ish soup. About half a cup of red lentils, 3 grated beets, a chopped onion, 4 cloves of garlic, turmeric, a few little chopped up spuds. Boil that up. Then add a whack of grated ginger, some grated garlic, salt, black pepper and lemon juice.

This is easy to make so long as you can keep yourself from accidentally dying the entire kitchen bright purple. I set it a-simmering after my run, and it was pretty much done by the time I had finished showering and getting into my jammies. I wanted something just simple tonight. I've been in London for the week at a conference, and have been fed really oily, rich food. Note: there is such a thing as too many dishes that have been "drizzled with olive oil", no matter how good that olive oil is.

And now, a rant from Ms.Manners to all the omnivores out there who eat lunch (or dinner, or whatever) with a vegan: your snide comments are not clever, nor are they new. I've heard pretty much all of them before. Also, I don't want to hear about your friend/coworker/second cousin who used to be vegan but now isn't. And shockingly, I don't want you to explain in gory detail to me how you butcher your own chickens, or catch and kill fish, especially while I'm eating. Basically, me being vegan does not give you permission to be rude to me. Get that through your brain. If I sat down to lunch with you and launched into mocking your food, followed by a diatribe about how I know omnis who are malnourished (and I do) or who have such horrible eating habits that they are heading straight for a lifetime of diabetes (yup, I see some of my friends doing that as well), and pointed out how this was connected to *your* food, it would be unthinkably rude. It would also be rude of me to detail how slaughterhouses and dairys get that food to your plate. So please, do me the same favour as I'm doing you: Shut up and eat your lunch.

One more thing. Please don't tell me that this will all change *when* I get pregnant, since "my body will tell me it needs meat". That statement is beyond offensive on so many levels. One, you assume that just because I am in possession of a working uterus that I intend to have children. WRONG. Sexist and wrong(and even the assumption that i'm in possession of a working uterus is a bit presumptuous). Second, you assume that vegan pregnancy is impossible. WRONG. Uninformed and wrong. Third, you assume that people eating whatever they want means that they're eating what their body needs. Uh, probably WRONG given the obesity epidemic in most countries where people are rich enough to eat whatever they want. So, on that one, we'll give you blatant denial of available evidence ad wrong.

Sheesh people. Fucking be a bit considerate.

dancing off the anger to: Joan Jett, bad reputation.

am vegan, will travel, will blog for peanuts (or peanut sauce).

I travel a fair amount. And when I travel, people invariably say "Gee, it must be hard to travel as a vegan." The last person who said this to me looked at me with pity as I danced gleefully in the rain atop a munro in the Scottish highlands during a lunch break. Yup, I'm sure my giggling, dancing chocolate-eating self was the very picture of hardship and deprivation. I handed out apples, nuts and chocolate to the two people who had come without a lunch. I made friends and had lots of fun. I've never had any problems traveling "as a vegan". It just takes some minimum amount of preparation. Like, really minimum, and then you can be happy and ungrumpy and show people how very easy vegan is. Here's what I do:

1. TAKE FOOD. I have a little red bag that is my "travel food" bag. In it are: individual instant miso soups with little packages of seaweed taped to them, a small pack of crispbreads (6), mixed nuts, dried fruit, roasted dried chickpeas, a small tin of vegan spread such as tartex and a small bar of ridiculously good chocolate. Sometimes some tofu jerky as well, depending on how long the trip is and how far from civilization I'm going to be. This is pretty much always packed, so I just grab it when I"m off on a trip. The key here is that even if there is nearly nothing for me to eat on the train/plane/research station, I can make at least 3 full meals for myself. Also, I can make a feast out of a plate of plain iceberg lettuce by adding nuts, and have something to spread on plain bread/baked potatoes/pasta. I take this when I go on work trips that last a few days where I may get somewhere late and then not have any time to do shopping while I'm there and where there isn't likely to be any real choice of restaurants (ie- I have to rely on cafeterias). Basically, I find that you can always get simple salads and plain starches, so I bring along stuff to dress these things up. If you are going on a plane, put this in your checked baggage so it doesn't get confiscated. Just bring a sandwich and apple or something on the actual plane.

2. TELL PEOPLE YOU ARE VEGAN WELL IN ADVANCE. Be very clear. I always send an email saying "By the way, I am vegan. This means that I don't eat any animal products such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey. Please let me know if you will be unable to accomodate this so that I can bring extra food along with me." Generally, people have been very good about arranging to go to restaurants with vegan options and/or providing vegan food for me at work. However, most omnis won't know what to feed you, and with the best of intentions, may just give you a salad. This is fine, but I find that I often don't get *enough* food, which is where the little red bag from 1. comes in handy.

Also, it helps to give concrete ideas of what you DO eat. If you have some idea of what is easily available where you're going, don't be shy about giving suggestions. For example, on a recent trip, I had the bright idea to point out that baked potatoes and beans were vegan, which saved me from a week of uninterrupted iceberg lettuce and nut salads. Working in Italy (where I usually have no time to shop during the work, and we eat at restos/cafeterias twice a day), I bring some food, but pointed out to my hosts that pasta and pizza crust are both vegan, which they didn't think of. They were stressed over finding a "special" restaurant for me, which is unneccesary. I was there to work, not for a free tour of veg*n restaurants (though there is the most adorable vegan bakery in Florence. OH YUM). I'd much rather they stressed out about lab space and such. People often confuse vegan with gluten-free, wheat-free, etc. diets. The more specific you can be with your suggestions, the more likely you are to get something other than iceberg lettuce. The less people have to worry about feeding you, the more you can get on with the point of your visit (unless you're on a food-based visit...).

3. SHOP WHEN YOU GET THERE. You need fresh vegetables. Stop at the first grocery store you see and buy stuff that doesn't need refrigerating: carrots, brocolli and apples are my staples. Also, most supermarkets (or even tiny markets here in the UK) sell bags of precut, prewashed mixed veg. You can keep these in your hotel room/dorm/backpack for several days and they'll be fine. Farmer's markets etc. are also fun if you can find them. Do not buy bananas. They squish.

4. BRING IMPLEMENTS. Bring a pocketknife, a spoon and a corkscrew. I find that a reusable container also comes in handy in case you want to make sandwiches or something. You will also impress people with your boyscout-like readyness.

5. SHARE. If you're going to a place where you're going to be eating with people, bring extra dessert (chocolate in my case). Don't go out into the world and give people the impression that vegans are all a bunch of deprived martyrs who have to pass on dessert while everybody else eats cake. Also, I find that if you're generous with others, they will be generous with you. If you're whiney and demanding, people won't particularly care about feeding you. If you're happy and generous, you may find that they end up doing all sorts of things that are suddenly "no trouble" to make your life easier.

6.OFFER TO COOK. If you're staying in someone's home, offer to make them dinner. Ask what they like, and make a vegan version of it.

7. SAY THANK YOU. This is the MOST IMPORTANT TRAVEL TIP. Whenever somebody makes sure that you have vegan food, thank them, no matter what the food was. This includes restaurant staff who have modified menu items for you, colleagues who have phoned ahead to restaurants, field station students who have left the cheese off the communal pasta dinner, or the organizer who brought you a pb&j sandwich from their home at the last minute when they realized that the cafeteria didn't have anything vegan. Even if it's iceberg lettuce.

Other minor things are: learn how to identify "eggs, dairy etc." in whatever language you need to. Learn how to explain what you will and will not eat. It is often more helpful to say "I don't eat any animal product...including...(insert list here)", than to say "I"m vegan". Most people don't konw what vegan means, or don't get it, in that they won't give you big chunks of meat, but often think "a little egg" is okay. Generally speaking, I prefer to shop in the produce aisle or go to the market for fresh veg and bread etc. than to eat out.

For dinner tonight, at home: roasted veg with peanut sauce. For the peanut sauce: Take 2 heaping tbs each of grated (ground, pureed, superfinely chopped...whatever) garlic and ginger. Fry up in a smidge of sesame oil and a larger-than smidge of peanut oil. Add about 2c water and 1/4c soy sauce, some sugar and chilis. Bring to a boil. Add 1/4c or more peanut butter (I use crunchy natural...no ingredients other than roasted peanuts). Simmer until thick. Turn off the heat and add lime juice (from 1 lime) and a drizzle of sesame oil. Taste and adjust salt/sugar/chilis. Smother veg. Top with toasted crushed sesame seeds. So easy to make. Eat. We had this on roasted spuds, carrots, kale, celery and tofu.

i wanna be a chocolate god post 6: fall

Fall food: Fry onions (2 small) and itsy-bitsy cubes of smoked tofu in a little bit of olive oil on low heat until they're done-ish. Add veg broth, water, smoked paprika, achiote and thyme (maybe some salt depending on the saltiness of your veg broth). Add a layer of green beans, and then a layer of whole cored nearly-ripe pears. Do not stir. Cover and simmer until everything is done.

Once this is done, make the sauce: Carefully pour any remaining liquid out of the pan into a small pot (hold the contents of the pan in place with the lid. Add an equal volume balsamic vinegar to the cooking broth and reduce by at least half. Add a few squares dark dark chocolate, and pour over the layered, simmered yum.

We ate this on mashed spuds/parsnips and a tomato and herb salad.

Also, a while ago I mentioned that I would send off microbreads (or other baked goodies) in returen for salmiakki... and someone took me up on it! Anni from Tofu for Two sent me a package of sweets in exchange for some truffles! Apparently there ARE finnish vegans who read my blog! Yay! Thanks Anni.

dancing to: it was an inpromptu dinner party. we did the "good friends, good conversation thing" or maybe we just talked about how airplane bathrooms are really much to small to have sex in. you'll never know.

just cook.

I very often hear people complain that they don't have the time or skills to cook. But everyone with an opposable thumb, passable hand-eye coordination and a few basic implements can cook. So I thought I'd take the time to write why I actually enjoy cooking, why I think it's worth the time, and what I do to make it something to look forward to rather than a chore.

First off, when I cooks, I cooks. I don't do a million other things at the same time. I may listen to music or a podcast, but I don't email, read, do work that I've taken home, fix the sink and change my bike tires while I cook dinner. I usually give cooking my full attention when I'm doing it. I don't rush (which means if i only have time to make pasta and chopped tomatoes, that's what I make, rather than trying to fit a dish with a 45 minute prep time into 10 minutes). Studies show that the more you take notice of an activity, the more you enjoy it. Cooking has lovely textures and smells and colours and tastes, and at the end of it, you have food! How satisfying is that? Cooking and eating are incredibly sensual things that offer so much pleasure if you just take a little time to actually notice them. You get to be creative, and with a little practice, you get to make things exactly the way you like them. Besides, what are you going to do with the half hour you would "save" by not cooking for yourself? Watch tv? Text message? Surf the internets?

Second, I have a realistic expectation of what I'm going to eat on a day to day basis. If you eat out all the time, every meal is Christmas-fancy. If you cook, much of the time food is plainer, in that I rarely make more than a single dish at once. Add salad, and you have a dinner. There is a reason things like lasagna, pilaf and biyriani tend to be featured on special-occasion menus in the backs of cookbooks. They take more time (and sometimes more money) than can be invested on most Wednesday nights. In this post, the soup is a weekday dinner. The pilaf (which was followed by cake and homemade sorbet) was a mini-dinner party that I spent about 2 hours cooking for, including making the seitan the night before). Many of the things in this blog are tagged "quickie". Those are simple things, as in they involve little time (though I do have a very well stocked spice cabinet).

Also, I accept and enjoy that there is a learning curve. When I'm just figuring out how to make a particular kind of dish, or working with spices that are new to me, I don't expect perfection right away. Remember when you were a kid and it was fun to see yourself improve? Well, cooking new stuff is like that. I ate a lot of misshapen and oddly-spiced potato roti while I was working out how to make them. Not that they were *bad*. They were fine, though one memorable batch required vast amounts of mango chutney.... and another batch simply got magically transformed into pizza crusts. But now they're better. When I was learning to make truffles, I botched a few batches and ended up with very very very expensive brownies. Some people (like me) are very adventurous cooks who don't really use recipes and don't mind the occasional disaster. Some cooks stick to a few basic techniques that they know well and follow recipes carefully when they deviate from it. Find a style that works for you. But if you want to know how to cook for everyday life, you have to learn to eat for everyday life. I don't know how people have the expectation that every day should be fancy food. Especially if you are just beginning to cook, start simple. Get good ingredients and appreciate everyday food.

Third, cooking lets you eat real food, not processed crap. What could possibly be more important than taking care of your basic health? Is taking half an hour a day to take care of yourself too inconvenient? Hmmmm.... last time I checked, being in bad health and having no energy was also inconvenient. (Plus, need I remind you that more energy and well-being equals better sex?) My health and sanity are non-negotiable. I will not give them up to crappy "food" and a lifestyle that makes exercise and downtime impossible.

Last, we have to eat. And life is short. If you can't take joy in everyday things, than what the hell is the point of life anyway? If there's something that gets done every day, several times a day (eating, moving from place to place, working), I *make* it enjoyable (cooking, riding my bike, having a job I love even though it pays less and is less stable than many other jobs I could have). I absolutely refuse to spend most of my life doing things I dislike, or even things that I'm indifferent to. That would just be a stupid waste. Those of us that are lucky enough to have the means (financial and mental) to be happy should. I have zero sympathy for those who live in self-imposed misery.

Okay, now the food. All I had left in the veg box was parsnips, spuds and a really sad looking carrot. I picked up some spinach on the way home and made this soup, which isn't terribly photogenic, but it was oh-so yummy. I didn't really know what I was going to do with the parsnips, except roast them, because I looooove roasted parsnips and am ambivalent at best about non-roasted parsnips. Soup: parsnips, sad carrot, onions and garlic, all coated with ras-el-hanout and roasted in the oven. Then I dumped the veggies into a pot, deglazed the roasting dish with some water and added that too, blended the whole thing, added some lemon juice and chopped spinach and topped it with pomegranite molasses. Yum. I ate it with potato roti, because I apparently can't get enough potato roti these days.

Also, apple pilaf from a bike-y dyke-y dinner this weekend: wheatberries and spuds boiled with cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaves. Apples (6), caramelized onions(2), toasted and ground cumin and coriander, mexican oregano, zuchinni (1 small), carrot (1 small, happy), maplesmokey seitan crumbles (homemade), toasted walnuts (generous handful). Served with salad.

august is the yummiest month

The new spuds are arriving in the veg box, and there are plums everywhere. I've been eating raspberries for breakfast all week and having a multicoloured tomato salad at least once a day for the past while. August is the yummiest month.

Trufflespuds: Boiled new potatoes, scooped out and then mashed with truffle oil, salt and parsley and then restuffed into the skins and baked, topped with slices of summer truffle. OH THE YUMNESS! *ahem* The poor potatoes have to go through a lot (boiled, mashed and baked), but it's all very worth it. On the side you see purple stuff (onions,purple kale, ungodly amounts of garlic, godly amounts of chili, nutmeg, raisins, sprouted azuki beans)

Plum Cake: Self-raising white flour, polenta (about 1:2), brown sugar, salt, baking powder, okara from almond-soy milk mixed with water to a yogurtish consistency, almond essence, rosewater, apple cider vinegar, Victoria plums, itsy-bitsy plums (the size of grapes!).

music: kd lang. all you can eat.

kale, spuds, chillis. what else do you need, really?

I wasn't planning on blogging this, but... yum!

Potato roti: About 3-4 spuds worth of leftover mashed spuds, or microwaved spuds that have been mashed. Mix in curry powder, mango powder, nutritional yeast. Roti dough: about a cup of whole wheat flour and a cup of ww spelt flour, sprinkle of crushed flax seeds, a nice sprinkle of white poppy seeds, dash of salt. Add water (enough that the dough is wet but not sticky), knead, and set aside while you make the greens. It is KEY to let the dough rest in quiet for at least 20 minutes, or you will rush it, which will upset the dough, and then it will retaliate and the roti won't be as wonderful as they could, all because you couldn't wait 20 minutes. So step away from the dough.

Kale: dry-roast a heaping tbs paunch poran, plus extra cumin, plus crushed chilli, plus asafoetida. Then add two large onions, chopped + water. When the onions have cooked through, add a handful of fenugreek (methi) leaves and um, 5 cloves of chopped garlic. Then all the kale you can handle and a few mushrooms if they're looking at you, all sad and excluded-feeling (like mine were). Cook the kale uncovered, you need to cook all the water off. ALL OF IT. When it's all cooked up, salt to taste, mix, and then add about half a cup of toasted chickpea flour. Mix. Turn off heat. Now, go back to your roti.

Repeat after me: The point of potato roti is to get as much potato product as humanly possible in the roti. Keeping this in mind the entire time, assemble your roti: Put a goodly layer of flour on the cupboard, or whatever surface you're using. Divide dough in 4. Take one chunk, knead, and form into a ball. The dryer you make the dough (ie, the more flour you knead into it), the harder it will be to roll out your roti. So knead just enough to make the dough unsticky. Squish the ball and roll it out in a smallish circle. Say.... the size of a saucer. Now, take a quarter of the spud mixture and put in in the middle of the rolled-out dough. Even though you don't think it will reach, pull the edges of the dough up around the spuds and seal it by pinching. See? It reaches! You will now have a dough-covered spud sphere. Do not get demoralized. Flip the sphere over so that the seam is on the bottom. Now dust the top with four and roll out the roti, squishing down gently. You should end up with a roti the size of a large dinner plate (do not exceed the size of your roti-cooking pan). If you cheated, and didn't let the dough rest, or were overzealous with the kneading just now, the roti will get back at you by exploding, leaving you with a mashed potato covered cupboard. Otherwise, you should be fine. Cook on a hot pan. No oil. The roti should puff up a little, which is how you know it's time to flip it. You'll just have to be figure out when to take it off the heat after flipping it. Good luck.

The whole dinner took about half an hour to make. Roti get fast to make, but you'll want to set aside a fair amount of time the first few times you do it.

Roti music: Cabaret. And I was singing along....badly.

just yummy

It's pretty rare that I post my lunch, but this one is two of my favorite lunch things. Potato salad: spuds and greens (though spuds and tomatoes also works), fresh coriander. Dressing: toasted and then ground cumin, salt, chilli, sugar, a whole lemon worth of lemon juice. The yum. Fun with okara: all in a food processor: 1.5 soy milk batches of okara, a small onion, a carrot, half a bell pepper, a few chives, a sheet of nori, two tbs or so of dry wakame, some capers, about a tbs of miso, a sprinkle of oregano, some lemon zest. When I have celery, I add a bit of celery too. Then when that was all blended, I added smoked paprika and some rice flour. The amount of rice flour depends on how wet the other ingredients are. Them made them into little patties and baked them. And I eat them with either ketchup or lime pickle, depending on how classy I'm feeling. I've heard these compared to crab cakes, and they are wicked good with sweet chili dipping sauce, but I've never had a crab cake, so I have no idea if they taste anything like them.

morning music: CBC radio 2.

...with fava beans and a nice chianti

The last of this weeks veg box (which is good, because the new on arrives tomorrow). Fresh fava beans, which make me love beans even more than usual. Such a treat. Fava beans, carrots, and onions, simmered in water/white wine, then lovingly schmeared with dressing made of umeboshi paste, lime juice, mirin, vinegar, maple syrup and salt. With mashed spuds and gomashio. And I did have a lovely glass of wine with this, though I have to come clean and admit that it wasn't chianti. Because finding vegan chianti is a bitch.

calm, traditional music for calm, traditional food: propaghandi

Why I *heart* humanemyth.org, or: Stuff I actually learned in grade 9 english but am only posting now.

Most of us have had to read George Orwell's 1984, and so are familiar with the term "doublethink". Also, most of us read 1984 with a smug sense of superiority that we were far too intelligent to get drawn into doublethink. Meh, I say. Every time I meet a compassionate and caring person who convinces themselves that using animals is somehow compassionate and caring (or even ecologically sustainable), I see doublethink in action. For starters, in what way is *killing* compassionate? At this point, I rant. I rave. I fume. And eventually, I inevitably reach the point where I decide that I won't discuss veganism with my friends anymore. Enter humanemyth.org, a bunch of really awesome people who have better anger management and diplomatic skills than I do who are "encouraging truth, transparency and integrity in animal advocacy". Which means that they are taking all the bullshit of "happy meat" and "humane slaughter" apart sentence by sentence, exposing the doublespeak of the animal use industry for...well... doublespeak. Instead of relying on shocking images (a la Earthlings) or blatantly sexist publicity stunts that make no sense whatsoever (a la PETA), they actually go through the media coverage of "happy meat" and show where it is inconsistent, where it is twisting language, where it is leaving key information out, where it is lying, and where it is just plain nonsensical. And they have piles of resources. And more information than you can shake a stick at, if you are the stick-shaking sort or if you have to convince another one of your ecosexual friends that no, the carbon footprint/energy consumption of happy grazing grain-fed, personally massaged cows is NOT smaller than that for tofu. (Oh, and you still kill them. Killing = not so compassionate. If this is unclear to you, picture someone killing your pet. Nicely, but for no reason other than they wanted a new dog-fur purse. Now see if you think that person acted with compassion. Right. That little outburst is why I'm stopping this rant right now and referring you to the not-ranty vegans with loads of cool info. And decent diplomatic skills.)

However, you *do* get a food post for making it through that rant. The most Scottish Bread Ever (TMSBE): mashed potatoes, kelpie seaweed ale, smoked salt, rosemary, whole wheat flour, baking powder, yeast. You can tell it's TMSBE because a) tartan oven glove and b) potatoes AND ale. Served with the chickpea cheese stuff from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook and sliced (scottish) apples and walnuts. Oh yes. Bring on the giant sammich. That'll be lunch tomorrow. Some of the bread got made into pizza dough, and I did this: TMSBE, chickpea cheez, greens, pear, olives, walnuts, dried figs. Dried figs go with everything, right? That was a rhetorical question. They do, and I don't want to hear otherwise. Oh yum. TMSBE is about to become a kitchendancing staple. The forecast calls for soups. Also, I think I will make the chickpea cheez with seaweed in it.

saffron and spring

Feed me!

Lately, I have been in love with saffron, especially since I found some saffron vinegar. So, I decided to make a saffron themed dinner. Leek pie (potato crust that I use for pizzas + thyme), leeks cooked in white wine and then mashed together with okara+miso+vinegar+salt, along with lemon zest, lemon juice and sumac. The crust is prebaked, and then filled and then the whole thing gets baked again. Lentil salad (puy lentils in veg stock, drained, then mixed with multicoloured tomatoes, toasted walnuts, roasted cumin, saffron vinegar, pomegranite molasses, pink peppercorns, chopped capers, salt and some cocoa. Topped with pomegranite seeds. Spring salad: strawberry and asparagus. Dressing is just saffron vinegar, sugar, salt, a few drops of very good olive oil, and a bit of black pepper. Oh, and that's all on my favorite plate, which is polkadotted and has *ears*. I found in at the Cologne flea market. It is the happiest plate I've ever met. Dessert: little rice puddings (jasmine rice cooked in almond milk, with saffron, rosewater and a little sugar and a pinch of salt added at the end, though it wasn't all that sweet. Topped with melted chocolate, a fig, and candied rose leaves.

It was a lovely afternoon and a wonderful dinner. I love making food for people I love. Mmmmmmm on so many counts. And this dinner was extra fun because M was here dealing with the lentils. I think that M and lentils have a special understanding.

running through my head: you and me, from Victor Victoria.

secret pizza

Potato crust pizza and new hoodie! I didn't eat the hoodie, but it did make me feel like a kitchen ninja because it is black and secret. I also have an apron. If you're very very good, I'll model it when I make something that goes with apron. Pizza crust (leftover mashed spuds, salt, wholewheat flour, rosemary, baking powder, water). I prebaked the crust, and while that was going on, I blanched some spinach and rocket and sliced up a pear. On the pizza: brie-like stuff loosely based on The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook (I used the seasonings, but used okara as the base), walnuts, spinach and augula, pear. Bake again to make everything warm. Oh yeah. The yum. I like the potato crust. I will do it again, probably often, perhaps requiring some sort of intervention in the future. I ate this with carrot sticks, and drank red wine out of a tumbler because the whole arugula/pear/brie combo was just a *little* too classy for me. I may or may not have used the carrot sticks to make vegan vampire fangs on myself during this picture. You'll never know.

pizza poetry: luna allison.

happy bogle day

Today is Bogle day. A friend of mine, who we will call the Mad Mathematician, decided to revive (or rather to vive) the Scottish "tradition" of a Bogle party. The nice thing about making up a tradition is that you get to do it however you want. So, a Bogle Day party goes thusly: The host makes Bogle cakes (which we decided should, traditionally be vegan) and provides gin, tonic and whiskey. The guests bring savoury Bogle-themed dishes. Plus, everyone is accompanied by their own personal Bogle for the evening. I thought that for my Bogle dish, I'd make something spud based, in celebration of (or to appease) Tatie Bogles, who hide in potato fields, which is good, because I don't think Bogles are the kind of thing I'd like to run into in a dark alley or a city park or a bike path. Also, since Edinburgh is on the coast, I thought seaweed would be nice, plus spuds and seaweed are a wonderful combination. Below is traditional Bogle day salad, when tradition gets to be defined by a Canadian vegan food-lover who misses the Japanese restaurants in New York and lives in Scotland. Bogle salad: spuds, onions and carrots simmered in water, soy sauce and sugar, cooled and mixed with wakame and some other random kelp and a few edamame (because the discovery of an asian grocery store today led to edamame. yay!). My Bogle was Animal, who has been my own personal scarecrow since I was a kid, plus there were Bogle puppets in Canada when I was in school. I didn't have one, but trust me, Animal is much, much cooler. Here, Animal is exasperated with my singing along Bogle bop music and/or just generally being un petit garcon niaiseux at the world today.

Boggle bop: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

take me to your leader

There were these little round zucchini. They kinda look like fat little aliens, don't they? I could practically hear them saying "Take me to your leader!" in the store. So I beamed them into my veg basket and took them home. Here's a photo of them all lined up, completely ignorant of the fate that awaits them. I have included a manga postcard for scale, both in terms of size and cuteness. The alien zucchinni got stuffed with onion, celery, parsnip, kidney beans in white wine, sage, garlic, smoked paprika, capers and some chopped up olives. Here, you can see me sneaking up on the stuffed, cooked alien zucchini. They were yum. We had some gnocchi along with it. Rosemary gnocchi in lemon-garlicky goodness. I wanted something that made the lemon-garlic stick to the gnocchi that wasn't just oil, so i used okara, which was a damn good idea, if I do say so myself. It was kinda like making a lemon-garlic ricotta sauce, and not alien at all.

lulling the zucchini into a false sense of security with: the scissor sisters

comfort food. or, more spuds.

Lately, things have been crazy, and tonight i just wanted something warm and comforting. So here is a tofu pie monster (because monsters are comforting). Mashed up smoked tofu, olives, some of which were stuffed with garlic, more garlic, artichoke hearts, capers, oregano, paprika, cumin, lemon. I added some leeks and boiled, cubed spuds to this, topped it with tomatoes, and baked it. This is pretty heavy, but oh so good.

comforting, calming dance-along, cook-along music: rocky horror picture show soundtrack.

dinner parties

One of my long-standing fantasies involves a dinner party. A rather specific one. For years, I've been compiling a guest list of the most interesting people I've met, and even though they're all over the world, one day I hope I can get them all in the same room. And when I do, I will feed them, because there is something about making food for people. And for those of you who know an obsessive cook, there is something about people who know how to be gracious dinner guests. Such people make me very very happy, and tend to get several cakes over the course of week-long visit... I really do have dreams about this. Occasionally, I even buy a lottery ticket. But for the time being, I have to settle for introducing people to each other when geography allows. Here's a dinner from one such introduction that took place in one of my favorite apts to stay at in Montreal (the people who live there are soooo fun to cook for) and a good friend from out of town, plus a mystery girl. It was one of those magic-tinged nights of good conversations, lovely people, yummy food, and just enough wine and chili to counteract winter. Greens (cumin, asafoetida, chili, onions, chickpea flour), ginger dal (red lentils and green peas cooked in tumeric and whole garlic cloves and cashews, with mustard seeds, onions, black pepper and lots and lots and lots of ginger fried up and added at the end, and a generous squeeze of lemon juice just before serving), coconut-lime-coriander chutney. Deep dark chocolate cake (2 smallish blocks tofu, 1.5 cups maple syrup, 3/4 cup cocoa, 1 bar worth of chocolate chunks (minus "quality control"), cardamom, pepper, flour...I didn't measure it... sorry, baking powder, salt) topped with caffeine-attack sludge (cocoa, maple syrup, espresso, cardamom).

Last night was a bit calmer. Only two of us. I was cooking for more, and I must say that my dinner guest held up admirably under the barrage of food. I was just trying out some fun stuff... sour potatoes (potatoes and parsnip in tamarind, tomato paste, tomato, green chili, onions, garlic, fenugreek, raisins, and fresh coriander) and tofu and spinach (roasted cumin and coriander, nutmeg, ground cashews, ginger/garlic paste, jalapeno, salt) on red jasmine rice. It was one of those long lazy evenings, so there were also leek mini pancakes (leeks, flour, curry powder, baking soda) with tamarind sauce. There was also a dazzling array of pickes, plus the lentil dessert. And gin.