Of Drinks and Things

Day 20 of vegetarianism. Okay, now I'm starting to get cravings. I seriously want some pho. And smoked salmon. And sushi. And salami. Lamb. A freaking burger. I blamed Jason Segal from "How I Met Your Mother." I was watching a re-run of the show the other day, and boy, does that man know how to make burger eating look good. I was convinced and I'm not even all that into burgers. These cravings, they come and go, but they're not quite strong enough for me to break my vegetarian streak. They are, however, strong enough to make me really look forward to November 1. I'm still thinking about what to eat that day. It's going to be special.

In other news, I've had various other food thoughts knocking 'bout the old noggin this past week. Two of them are ideas I've been kicking back and forth for a while, which are 1) high tea and 2) fondue. Those, I'm sure, will happen sooner or later, but are on the back burner so keep your eyes and ears open for a future post, if I don't get lazy and abandon this blog in 2 weeks. I'm just saying, that's kinda how I operate.

Idea numero tres I hope to see come to fruition fairly soon. Lately, I've been flirting around the idea of making my own cocktails. I made a pretty smashing sangria a month or so ago and I've been thinking about infusing some vodka/Everclear so that I can make my own digestifs. I haven't made them yet because I need to cross state lines to purchase Everclear, and I just haven't had the opportunity to do so.

Anyway, I digress. For some reason lately, I've really been wanting some kind of cocktail that tastes of tea, specifically Earl Grey tea. I'm thinking I want to also add some ginger, either fresh or in the form of ginger beer, and maybe some pineapple juice. I really don't know since I've never made any sort of real cocktail on my own before, and suddenly I want to jump into something rather complex. It's rather ambitious and cocky of me.

I'll let you know if I pull it off.

p.s. After I drafted this post, I did some casual searching on the cocktail Dark and Stormy, which is essentially a mix of ginger beer and rum. So it appears ginger beer is super easy to make, which means I'm making ginger beer. Stay tuned because there's apparently a danger of explosion.

Cheater, Cheater

Day 14 of vegetarianism. Invoked the cheat meal on Saturday. I had dinner with some friends at a Chinese restaurant that was more suited to family style sharing, and it just made simpler to eat along with everyone else. And so it was that I ate some pig ears, beef soup, and pork dumplings.

Let's assess my feelings! Well, the food was delicious, as it always is at this spot. Did the meat taste so so sweet, like I was dying of thirst and precious water touched my lips? Not really. I have to say, in this vegetarian diet, I haven't missed meat all that much. I miss specific preparations of meat, like pho, but I have no particular craving for it at every meal. What I have experienced is more frequent pangs of hunger, and I do suspect that it is due to a drop of protein in my meals. I'm sure my body will eventually adjust, but it wouldn't hurt to bump up the veggie protein quotient in my meals and add more pulses, egg, tofu, etc. to my meals.

In other news, I made beet "ravioli" last week. I cheated and used gyoza skins because I've never made pasta from scratch before and didn't want to embark on such a project with a limited amount of time (I had to be somewhere after dinner). I added some chopped parsley because I'm not a fan of butter sauces without a little green or garlic to cut the straight up butter taste. I also accidentally (on purpose?) turned this into a browned butter sauce by cooking the butter longer but hey, it still turned out alright!

Final verdict: prett-ay tast-ay! The beet ravioli at least, although I will use less nutmeg next time. The butter sauce tasted good too, but I'm generally not a fan of butter as a sauce so next time I will probably use olive oil and maybe some garlic. What doesn't taste good with garlic? (Yes, I used the good butter. Kerrygold, baby!) I will also stir in more goat cheese v. ricotta because I think the beets need that flavor contrast.

I also included a picture of my hand after handling the beets. I always get a kick out of how beet juice turns skin an awesome shade of purpley-pink. I tried to take a picture of my hand that didn't make it look like I had a dinner-plate-sized palm and this was the best I could do. I guess a salad-plate-sized palm isn't too bad.

Reporting from the Trenches

Day 4 of vegetarianism. Honestly, it hasn't been that bad. I haven't had any strong cravings for meat, but I have noticed that I'm hungry more often after a meal. I guess all those friends who said, "Oh, you're going to lose so much weight!" are way off-base because my appetite has kicked up. Fat vegetarian, that's what I'll be, though I must say, if fat is my end-stop, I'd rather be an omnivore on my journey there. But a deal is a deal, even if it is with myself, and I am quite determined to see this through.

On Saturday, I went to the Renaissance Faire and was tempted to steal of a bite of the boy's steak on stake (everything comes on a "stake" there), but the temptation subsided and I was able to remain meat-free. Other than that, it's mostly mental slip-ups that I've run into during these early days. On Sunday, I needed to figure out a quick meal, so I opened up my fridge and then my freezer to see what I had. Spying dumplings up there, I thought to myself, "I'll have pork duuuuum...crap." I made myself a salad and quick bowl of re-heated couscous instead.

Most of my meals so far have consisted of salads, and while I love salad (no, I mean it, I really do), I'd like a little more variety so I'm going to have to start thinking up some vegetarian replacements for my old meat stand-bys. And remember not to put bacon on my salad at Ruby Tuesdays. Darn.

Going Vegetarian

Beginning October 1st, I’m going vegetarian. Dun dun duuuuun. Now before anyone freaks out, I’m only going vegetarian for a month. After having several friends dabble with vegetarianism, a sister who went vegan and back, and a mom who’s the occasional vegetarian (for religious reasons), I decided I’m going to check out what the hoo-ha is all about. I want to see if it would be hard to stick to a vegetarian diet and whether I’d get bored. To be honest, I’m not apprehensive. I like vegetables, often better than meat, and when I was younger, I gave some thought to being a vegetarian because I liked vegetables so much. In fact, if I eat a meal without enough vegetables, I feel dissatisfied and not satiated. However, I never gave it a good go, even though I eat vegetarian meals of my own accord all the time.

Since I’m not eating vegetarian for moral reasons, my ground rules do not give me a strictly vegetarian diet. For example, I’m letting myself have one cheat meal a week. This is just a contingency meal, in case I end up in a situation where eating vegetarian isn’t an reasonable option, such as dinner at someone’s house or a restaurant without vegetarian options. Friends with whom I’ve discussed this have challenged me to not have the cheat meal, but I honestly don’t see the point. One cheat meal a week is a tiny percentage of the many meals I will be eating over the course of the month, and I’d rather have the option to flexible. Though I’m happy to do it, having vegetarian friends creates more work for me when I play host to them and meat-eating friends. I am not capable of asking my guests to eat just sides while everyone else gets an entree. I imagine that it is the same for other people who would invite me over for dinner. For that, I built in the cheat meal so I wouldn’t create more work for someone who has been so generous as to have me over as a guest.

The other non-vegetarian option I’ve allowed myself is the use of chicken/beef/fish stock and sauces that may have a meat/fish component (such as Thai fish sauce). The reason for this is because I have a lot of asian sauces and condiments that do have some meat/fish component to them and I’m not about to go look for a vegetarian replacement to use for simply a month. Also, if somehow I ate unknowingly ate something that contained a meat component (like gelatin, which is made from beef), I’m not going to be beating myself up for breaking the rules. I want to adhere as closely as possible to being a vegetarian, but there are just going to be times when I won’t know all the ingredients that went into something, and there’s not a lot I can do about that. Again, since I’m not eating vegetarian for moral reasons, I don’t see a problem with a more flexible approach to it.

Ultimately, I believe that a well-balanced and carefully chosen omnivorous diet is healthier than a strictly vegetarian diet. So if my diet isn’t strictly vegetarian but 95% vegetarian, I can live with that. I’m doing this as an experiment, just to see what happens and with a desire to see something through. It will definitely be interesting, and I will try to chronicle my efforts and report back in on any effects on my body, mind, and spirit. I hope that my month of vegetarianism will teach me something about how I eat and how my body responds to food. I intend to return an omnivorous diet when the month is over, but hopefully with greater insight into the life of a vegetarian.

Made: The Tomato Chronicles 1.3

Part III: Pasta with Raw Tomato Sauce

So the last time I was here, on this blog, yammering away, I was going on and on about a summer composed lasagna or whatever the foodie term is. I had rushed out to buy even MORE tomatoes, and I was going to make this dish, and it was going to be fantabulous. And then I disappeared for a bit. You're probably thinking, girl, those tomatoes are going to be no good to you if you're going to let them sit and sit. Well, do not fear! I did not let those tomatoes go to waste. I did make a version of a pasta dish I described to you, but it was lunch time and I was hungry and I didn't know where my camera was at the moment, or maybe it was low on battery life, and the point is I ate it without taking a picture of it, so there.

However, I was thinking of you, dear reader (and that means you, Kev), the whole time and I knew I would have to make this dish again because it was 1. delicious and 2. easy-peasy. But in usual fashion, I did not make the dish I set out to make. Mostly out of laziness, but partly because I'm trying to clear out my fridge a little so I've been trying to minimize my grocery shopping (basically, it's impossible), I made a modified version of it.

Made: The Tomato Chronicles 1.2

Part II: Gazpacho

Let me start by apologizing for my horrible photo. I'm not a photographer in any sense of the word. I own a simple point-and-shoot, and I took this at night with horrible lighting. So if the soup looks less than appetizing, I'm sorry! It's delicious and more than worthy of being made and eaten.

With that out of the way, let's talk gazpacho. Cold soup is not for everyone, but to me, nothing is better on a hot summer day than a bowl of cool, delicious gazpacho. When the vegetables are at their peak, there really are few better ways to showcase their deliciousness. I've made all kinds of variations on gazpacho, mostly utilizing tomato juice (low sodium because I like to control the amount of salt added). However, I've experimented with some atypical ingredients and have whirred chinese white radish into a batch of of gazpacho, and made a raw beet gazpacho that is ridiculously amazing. I've made versions with a latin american slant, using lime, cilantro, and chiles. Every which way you can make gazpacho, you can bet I'll love it.

Made: The Tomato Chronicles 1.1

Part I: Tomato Jam

My friend's parents "gifted" (i.e. we don't know what to do with all these tomatoes) him with a bounty of tomatoes from their garden when they visited him recently. Being the hip young single that he is, he was all, "I don't need no stinkin' tomatoes," and promptly tried to the fob them off onto me. I was amenable to this since there's nothing I like better than to figure out a way to cook 5 lbs of tomatoes (this is a false statement; I do like some things better). And so it was that I embarked upon this mad mad project, at the end of which I should have four amazingly wonderful tomato dishes.

The first dish I attempted to make was Tomato Jam. I ran across this recipe after my friend asked me to what do with a huge bunch of tomatoes. I first saw it on the Homesick Texan, and found it also on the New York Times website, with a recipe by Mark Bittman. I showed him the link, and then somehow, he decided giving me the tomatoes was the better option. Then, coincidentally enough, a day or two later, one of the constestants on Top Chef DC made a tomato jam as part of one her dishes. It seemed the universe was telling me to make tomato jam, and I'm not about to ignore the universe.

Neither Pomp nor Circumstance

Without too much ceremony, this is my umpteenth attempt at a blog. Every time I try to start one, I inevitably stop after about 5 posts. At first, I was trying write down my thoughts. Turns out my thoughts were asinine, so I quickly gave that up. Then I tried to have a food blog. Unfortunately, I use recipes more like guidelines, never stop to measure how much of an ingredient went into a dish, and generally just wing it with whatever I happen to have in the fridge. Due this haphazard approach to cooking, writing out recipes for my own creations was difficult. The food blog fizzled.

So here I am again. I've decided not to post recipes, I'm not any good at that. But I do love food, talking about it, eating it, making it, the whole she-bang. It only makes sense that I write about it, and I've decided this time around, I will be documenting my successes and failures in the kitchen. No recipes from me, but reports from the front lines on how other people's recipes fared in my kitchen and in my (oh dear!) hands. Along the way, I may post other things of interest to me. If it's interesting to you, great! If not, well, that really is too bad.

Here goes!