A Disaster of a Dish

The first time I try a new recipe, I try to follow it as closely as written as possible. Then, if successful, I like to play with the recipe a bit and see if I can create something new and fabulous...Last night was NOT one of those nights...

I'd read quite some time ago on Vegan Dad's blog how he goes about creating his own "meats," and he noted how it was really all about the spices. Well, I love MorningStar sausage crumbles, so I thought maybe I'd try my hand at creating something with the same flavors, but without the sodium. I found a sausage seasonings recipe online, mixed up the spices in my mini-chopper along with some olive oil, marinated cubed tofu in it, then stirred it all up with cooked brown rice. It was truly delicious!

Last night, I thought I'd try to jazz up some quick-cooking barley with the same spice and olive oil mixture. I threw all the spices into my mini-chopper (along with some red pepper flake, which I didn't have on hand for my first stab at the recipe). Then, I thought about adding something sweet to the mix. Brown sugar? No. Maple syrup? Nah. Molasses!! Yeah, that'll add some good flavor, right? Um...wrong.

First, the mixture had the color and consistency of used motor oil. I stirred it into my hot barley and hoped for the best. It didn't look or smell any more appetizing. Then, I took a bite...Hmmm...interesting. I could definitely taste the fennel seed, and it was nice and spicy from the red pepper flake...but YUCK! I tried a few more bites, but just couldn't finish it. And I threw away the rest of the barley because I knew it wouldn't get better with age.

What a waste...all that food in the trash. Next time, I'll stick with the recipe and maybe add a drizzle of maple syrup onto an individual serving to see if it's any good.

(BTW - Despite my kitchen disaster, it was a nice Valentine's Day. Cute cards from Kids and Husband, and Husband bought a Whitman's sampler of chocolates like he does for me every year. Not vegan, of course, but I ate quite a bit of it, nonetheless - and he was super sweet to get it for me. Of course, then the floodgates were opened and I had a little more chocolate later in the day, some string cheese, and cheese popcorn. I did more than fall off the vegan wagon - I threw myself under the bus!! Oh, well. I've been pretty good for the last 1 1/2 months, so I was probably due for a binge...)

Sweet Surrender

I noted in an earlier post that my "near vegan" claim goes out the window around the holidays, while my status as a vegetarian stays intact. I guess I just don't have the willpower. This week has been a perfect example of my lack of restraint.

My office receives quite a few goodies from vendors with which we work during the year. Sometimes we get a nice fruit basket (but honestly, I have so much fruit at home in danger of crossing over to the dark side that I've been eating stuff at work that I brought from home). We get a lot of Hickory Farms meat and cheese boxes, too. I can resist those, no sweat. But when there are two ginormous barrels of cheesecorn and caramel corn in our kitchenette, I can hear the sirens' song calling to me. I cannot resist the cheesecorn in the least.

Plus, for the second year, my company has had an in-house bake sale to raise money for the United Way. I baked some banana walnut muffins that I got from an old church cookbook of mine, but veganized it with Earth Balance margarine and flaxseed/water egg substitute. I'm afraid they didn't sell very well, although I told no one they were vegan. (My office knows I'm vegetarian, but since I'm so unsuccessful in my vegan efforts, I haven't made mention of it.) So I brought home quite a few unsold muffins to keep in the freezer and thaw one at a time for breakfast.

Of course, my healthy offering didn't stand a chance when up against pecan pie, homemade cookies, Chex mix, ranch-flavored oyster crackers, cheesecake...I could go on. For $5, I bought a bag of Chex mix, slice of raspberry cheesecake, homemade turtles (circle pretzels with a pecan half pressed into a melted Rollo candy), and some sugar cookies for the kids. The cheesecake - devine! The turtles - faboo! The Chex mix - addictive! To make matters worse, I was asked to man the table for the afternoon and found myself with a dollar burning a hole in my pocket. Hello, pecan pie slice - goodbye, good intentions. (Gosh, I sometimes wish my co-workers - or their wives in some instances - weren't such good cooks.) I didn't even eat dinner last night, I was so full.

Then today, one of my co-workers handed out homemade peanut butter balls. Enough, already! Chocolate with peanut butter is my kryptonite! Luckily, I only got five of them. I ate three before lunch, then the last two in the afternoon. Followed by an unsold slice of leftover cheesecake. ("I can't believe I ate the whole thing.") Light dinner tonight - half of a leftover baked acorn squash with a little Earth Balance, and about a cupsworth of cold rotini noodles dressed with homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Oh, well. To quote Scarlett O'Hara, "tomorrow is another day."

Pie Anxiety

Around the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm a little less near-vegan than I try to be the rest of the year. I still avoid meat and don't drink milk or eat eggs or cheese on their own, but I let myself have cheese, eggs and milk in baked goods. So, for about 4-5 days, I'm purposely off the wagon.

Today, I attempted two pies. The first is a recipe I threw together on my own: Berry Cranberry Pie. However, I'm going to need to rethink this one. The flavor is wonderful (maybe a little too sweet), but the filling didn't set. I ended up breaking up all the crust and stirring it together with the filling and calling it a Berry Cranberry Cobbler instead. When I work out an official recipe to make it a cobber (and preferrably a vegan one), I'll post a recipe. In the meantime, I've posted a picture of my "pie" after I stirred it up (above).

My second pie is a recipe I've used before: Quick Quiche from the Food Network website. I mostly followed the recipe, but used 1 tbsp. cornstarch for the flour and I didn't add onions (my husband hates onions). I had a little trouble with this pie, too (see second picture, above).

For some reason, the pre-made crust (which has lard in it - I didn't realize that until I got the crusts home from the store - I used the other crust for the Berry Cranberry Pie - I'd already purchased them and I didn't want them to go to waste) broke all along the sides and the quiche rose like a souffle, along with the crust edge. Oh, well...I'm sure it will still taste great!

Coffee Conundrum

(I just wanted to use "conundrum" in a post title!) I try to keep a small container of soy milk in the office fridge to use in my morning coffee. If for some reason I run out and forget to refill, I skip the coffee and drink green tea with lemon. Today was a day without soy milk...and I really, truly, desperately wanted a cup of coffee. In the kitchenette cupboard - some store-brand non-dairy creamer.

Now, I know that the "non-dairy" part is false advertising. Read the label - sodium caseinate - a milk derivative classified as non-dairy. Huh? Definitely not on the vegan list. But I used it anyway because I wanted coffee and I don't like drinking it black. Now, I feel guilty because I fell off the wagon so early in the day.

One of my big issues with trying to eat vegan is that as soon as I make a conscious decision to eat dairy/eggs, I usually write off the entire day as a loss. I don't engorge myself with cheese omelets, but I make no effort to stop myself if a non-vegan food is presented to me. I didn't do that today (whew!)- I stopped at one cup of coffee - but I don't understand why I view the rest of the day as a "free pass."