Eaten Up

Some eggplant, tofu, cauliflower, green beans…a bit of veggie to go with the starch and more of the same on top.

A tiny bit of this spice cooked in the red onion. The peas, chopped polenta and sliced garlic added in the last minute with some apple cider vinegar and avocado oil. (The olive oil would overcome the flavour too much.) And some of the seasoned herb sprinkled over the pasta directly.

It’s a tricky pasta in that a strong tomato sauce overwhelms it but a white sauce or lightly flavoured sauce is just competing blandness. This mix of veggies and peas seemed to compliment it. 1.5kg of pasta from a place on Wellington that makes fresh pasta. We’ll see how long the bag of it lasts.

Butternut squash soup. Pureed until smooth and then adding back bits of roasted squash to add texture. I forgot to photograph the veggie patch spinach nuggets since they were still in the oven when we started the soup. Strange to have organic spinach things from Israel since we can grow it here?

How can it work that it would be economical to import 5500 miles than make it locally? Yet, maybe the argument is false. With non-food goods, we don’t blink at a kitchen tool coming 7400 miles from Taiwan, music coming 4400 miles from South America or a book coming 3300 miles from England. Even if the production is in Canada, components and ideas come from several countries. That’s the global trade and the realities of one world which is not blocked by ideology or xenophobia. Food is a good too.

Spicy Parsnip Soup and a torn spinach salad. The spinach salad was a mix of baby spinach, romaine, roma apples, pecans, sliced almonds and currants tossed with a a raspberry vinaigrette (that I find too oily proportionally) mixed with apple cider:

I largely took the guidelines of recipe but thought the strength of the parsnip would stand up to a nub of fresh ginger chopped in and it did. It might be too intense for some tastes.

4 large parsnips, peeled and sliced into discs
½ red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
¼ anise bulb, chopped
¼ apple, chopped
1 low-sodium veggie bouillon cube
1 tsp coriander, ground
1 tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp turmeric
1 nub of ginger, finely chopped
½ tsp celery salt
½ tsp chili powder
1 tablespoons olive oil

I boiled it all for 15 minutes then took half and put it in the food processor until smooth then added back the whole chunks of veggies for texture.

Vegan chocolate chip cookies.

The first batch to the oven I overcooked and rolled too thick so they stayed a dense cake that didn’t crisp. They were ok but decidedly unexciting. (Those are at the back there.)

I added some ingredients to help it. And rolled it thinner as the recipe said: 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick.

Rolled about as thin as the mini chocolate chips would allow and lifted with the flipper.

Any thicker and the cooking time triples and it just doesn’t work for texture. Rolled thin it’s kind of like Peak Freans with currants. A little bit like biscuits, not overly sweet.

So what’s in the dough? The recipe is from p. 129 of Intuitive Cooking: A Vegetarian Primer by Chloe Fox (2004). It comes from Glen Roy, Ontario, K0C 1B0. Since that’s printed inside, I presume you can order thru there. It would probably be better with a more neutral tasting oil. Mine on hand was a pretty flavourful olive oil.

I modified it to:

beat smooth:
2 egg-sized pieces of soft tofu
1 cup brown sugar

add:
1 cup (less a couple tablespoons) of oil.
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon Crème de cacao (more reserved is dough too dry)
1 cup miniature chocolate chips
1/3 cup currants

mix dry:
1 1/4 cup unbleached white flour (because why bleach flour, really.)
1 1/4 cup whole wheat
1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup whole wheat flour to roll dough.

It cup back the oil slightly, removed 2 Tbsp of the sugar and added 1/4 cup flour but still, it is seriously oily. It needed a regular coating of flour on the rolling pin to not wick it up. I kept the dough in the fridge to keep it firm between goes in the oven. The amount of oil and sugar still yielded something remarkably unoily and unsweet. Pleasant for tea but not exactly a treat. They taste good, but they taste oddly nutritional.

The Carleton Tavern now has fare that isn’t deep fried. Huh. Maybe it has been there but I hadn’t noticed. Seemed a better than average hummus.

I seem to have the habit of skipping posting meals that are leftovers which seems a strange thing to do. A meal of apple seems sufficiently uninteresting to skip mention, but…the veggie dishes leftover and potato perogies topped with sun-dried tomatoes.

Pears almost too beautiful to cook.

Thinking about being called a foodie. Or loving food. I aim to eat to live not to live to eat. I would rather eat like a python once every few weeks, or take an astronaut pill. Most food is revulsive. I could happily live on apples and plain rice cakes but would fade in health. And would get cranky and tired from fatigue and not be interested in eating nor wanting to stay hungry. It’s important to keep diet interesting to keep engaging. If we’re going to eat and recognize it impacts health, it is best to do it well.

With food photography, I aim to pay attention. Food is a good subject for photos since we need to eat. It is a good place to stop and be awake to the beauty, train the mind to see beauty. It’s not about the food so much.

Poaching the pears in water and sugar from a jar where I put the scraped vanilla bean where it can infuse it’s flavour. I added a sprinkle of ginger, cinnamon and splash of vanilla as well.

The fruit removed after 12-15 minutes and the rest of the liquid reduced down to syrup or the thicker drizzle bit. Tricky to catch it at the right consistency and temperature.

A wholle meal from the organics delivery box, including the butternut squash, baked cut-side down to caramelize the surface.

Took this recipe for mashed celeriac and adapted it to be vegan.

2 large potatoes , peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 celeriac roots, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 small onion, peeled, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon brandy ice wine
1/4 cup margarine
1 1/2 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped