Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Potatoes

Here's a one-dish quick vegan thing.  By quick, I mean, there's roasting time, but you're not busy then, you're on the couch then.  It's winter foods but bright and pretty enough to remind you that spring is coming. You can use different veg, use different spices, whatever, just toss in some potatoes with your veg and roast away. 

Buying Club 2011 - The Goods - Week 9

Ok, so a week ago I thought I'd find some clever way to do the buying club posts, and honestly, there's been a holiday and whatnot and so instead of being clever, I've come to terms with it.  You may not seek these posts out.  That's cool.  But I'll have them there to refer back to at least for the local folks ("wherever does she get that fluffy kale?")

Buying Club 2011 - The Goods - Week 8

I've joked about how when I was posting the CSA hauls, Facebook friends facetiously suggested I should post pictures of my groceries.  But now that's exactly what I do with The Goods.

Sure, they're local and wonderful, but in the end, you're looking at pictures of my yogurt and vegetables.

Actually, you're not looking at it.  I check.  Even Sous Chef Brian doesn't read these posts - which pisses me off, because then when he's like, "What's there to eat," I'm like, The Goods.  The Goods are what there is to eat.

Anyhow.

This week the broccoli didn't make it (weather too cold) and the tofu was expired.  So we got carrots and onions and potatoes and beef cubes for stew.  And we got leeks for potato leek soup, and brussels sprouts and both kale and lettuce for salads.   We got apple cider and milk and granola and some flour and amazing local hummus.

I'll think of something more exciting to do with this space - I want you to see the bounty of local foods.  If you have ideas, let me know.

Norwegian Cookies

Most of the time, that's what we call them.

"Norwegian cookies."
"The cones?"
"Yes."

Coffee Spill

Remember to take yesterday's coffee out of the pot before today's coffee brews. 


Also, we're kind of digging the ripply, bubbly look of this dried on spill, so we're not doing anything about it. 

French Onion Soup

I love this soup.   Who can beat cheese and onion in rich broth?


But like so many restaurant foods, when we started cooking at home a lot, the restaurant versions all seemed too salty.  I don't order it anymore because there is just too much risk of it tasting like a salt lick.  Soup's tricky that way.  But if I make it, I'm in control. 


There are a lot of onion soup recipes out there, with some variation.  Some folks insist you need to use yellow onions, or white, or Vidalia or red.  There's the white wine camp and the red wine camp and the cognac camp.  There's apple cider in some, and balsamic vinegar in others.  Some recipes include three hours of baking onions.   Some use chicken stock, some use beef stock and some use a mix. 


This is a fairly quick*, delicious soup.  It's hearty and cheesy and warm and rich and a bit sweet.  You could even make a vegetarian version with mushroom stock. 


Let's do this, shall we?

Turn your regular pasta sauce into vodka sauce

There's a whole debate over whether vodka sauce is really a food, or if it's a 1980's food trend that refuses to die.   Chowhound has some decent conversation on the topic, and folks land on both the "vodka makes tomatoes taste better" side and the "this isn't really food" side.  More than 10 years ago, NYT said it was food, but that might have been too close to the 80s.  If you were to Google it, you'd find additional sources on the debate.

I think it's food.  But since I wasn't all that aware of what was food before the 80s, what do I know?  I make cream sauces without vodka, and they're good, but in my silly little opinion, vodka sauces get you to the magical place of pepperyness balanced with sweetness, and I don't think a sweet cream sauce with some pepper in it does that as well.  

Buying Club 2011 - The Goods - Week 7

I thought I'd give the goods some context this week.  This is my fridge.  It's older than me, but it works most of the time.  This is the stuff inside of it.  A lot of this stuff came from this week's buying club order.  That stuff is bolded.  Let me tell you what I got and where it's from. 

English Muffins - not quite there yet

Seitan and Collards Quesadilla

Do you know what goes inside a quesadilla?  Whatever you want.   That's the beauty of it.  Ok, so really, it's whatever you want, plus cheese, but you wanted cheese, right?


It's a grilled cheese sandwich on a tortilla.  With stuff inside.  And it's great for using up what needs to be used.  Last time I posted a quesadilla, it was a clean-out-the-fridge meal.  This time it was just the collards that needed to be used.   And of course, we bought five pounds of seitan a while back, so we're all set on proteins.

Buying Club - The Goods - Week 6

Sometimes stuff doesn't show up.  We get reimbursed, and if it's something we really need, we pick up it's equivalent at the supermarket.  Sous Chef Brian is getting irritated about this, but in a surprise move, I am not.  So we're missing some stuff, and more weeks than not so far, that's happened.  


Here's what we do have:

Gorgonzola and Caramelized Onion Pizza

Yeah so I've been on the road.  At one point, my GPS said I was nowhere, which freaked me out.

...and the winner is...

Want to see who won the oil spritzer and the silicone baking mat in our second Saturday's Mouse Freebie/Contest/Giveaway??  

Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Dip

I had this butternut squash, and I didn't want to make soup, or lasagna, and it was sitting on the counter for a little while, in fact, it was from the CSA, so it was getting on in weeks.   It was time to roast it up.  I also needed to make some appetizery-things for an event.


Butternut squash is sweet, but it goes very well with savory things.  It likes to be with cheese.  It likes to be a little bit spicy.  I'm not one to make up sweet potatoes and top them with marshmallows, so while other people swear by adding brown sugar to winter squashes, I like to add onion-y flavors and saltiness and heat.  This is that, on a cracker.

Buying Club - The Goods - Week 5

There is no week 4.  What with the holiday, we opted not to pick up last week, which means we haven't had groceries.  Like, at all.  I mean, we have a freezer full of food, so we ate, but whoa. 


I thought it'd be easier with two pictures.  How do you photograph your groceries?

So we have milk, and sadly, the chive chevre was cut out of this photo.  Eggs and spinach and beef jerky and popcorn and lettuce and yogurt and cilantro. 

More of the amazing but expensive granola, and some hidden cheese, and - brace yourselves - beef soup bones.  Yeah.  I'm making french onion.  Hummus and heavy cream and collards and broccoli and apple cider and in the plastic bag, chicken breasts.  Whole.  This will be an adventure.  


The popcorn was an impulse buy.  Impulse buys are tough, since I ordered this three weeks ago, but maybe 6 weeks ago I was like, "Hey, I'll make popcorn."  And then I realized I don't do that.  So I looked in the cabinet of boxed food (this exists. most of it moved with us 2.5 years ago) and thought I'd find microwave popcorn but I didn't.  So hey, real popcorn.


Only I don't have a popcorn machine like I grew up with.  I also don't have a non-nonstick pot, other than my ceramic ones.   How do you make popcorn?  I could Google it, yeah, but how do *you* do it?

There is still time to enter the Freebie/Contest/Giveaway, but this is probably my last post between now and then, so if you've been putting off entering, you're going to have to mark your own calendar, I'm done reminding you here.  Seriously, we're giving away some good stuff, like this:

And this:

So enter here by Monday.

Pasta with Broccoli and White Wine Sauce

When it's cold out, I want food with rich sauces.  Two weeks ago I said I wanted lasagna or beef stew or something like that and ended up pretty happy with barbecue seitan.  This was like that.  I wanted mac and cheese or pasta with meat sauce or ... mmm ... white wine sauce.

I don't think you're going to dig through your pantry and pull out the same experimental spelt noodles I used, and I don't think you're going to have one inappropriate mushroom to add to the dish either.  But you can do this with what's in your fridge.  Let's focus on the wine sauce and leave the rest aside for now.