Cooking

[pameladean]

At the beginning of this year I got tired of buying random vegetables and protein sources and hoping I could make them match up into dinners, so I started doing an abbreviated version of menu planning. I write the dinners I want to make down on a Post-It and then do the actual shopping. This week's Post-It says "Pad Thai (REMEMBER THE CABBAGE -- well, I did remember it but I didn't put it in), Grogan's Minestrone (frozen multigrain ciabatta rolls), ALL THE PIES."

I have saved, or more accurately, failed to recycle, a random assortment of these Post-Its, which I reproduce below for my own reference and possibly for your mild interest.

Tempeh Mushroom Stroganoff
Carrot Cashew Curry
Sardine Pasta (GET GREEN VEGETABLE)

Fish Masala, Aloo Gobi
SOUP, bread
hoisin explosion tofu (Tropp)
chickpea and sweet potato curry

Mimi's Spaghetti (Grogan again)
fish masala, green bean and potato curry
beans and kale (check to see if enough canned black-eyed peas)

Tofu Tacos
Tempeh Mushroom Stroganoff
Salmon, sweet potato, broccoli, frozen rolls

Carrot Cashew Curry
Sardine Pasta, green beans
MAKE BANANA BREAD
Curried red kidney beans with mustard greens

Vegan Lasagna (spinach mushroom Gimme Lean mock sausage)
Tofu vegetable quiche
Tofu fried rice

Very spicy delicious chickpeas (Jaffray), curried peas and mushrooms
macaroni and goat cheese, vegetable casserole (Grogan)
pasta with soy chorizo

Pasta with cauliflower, feta, and walnuts (add broccoli)
Tortilla casserole
lentil cassoulet (get mock sausage, price shallots)

Tuna curry, steamed broccoli
Lebanese/Canadian macaroni and bean casserole, add kale or else GET GREEN VEGETABLE
Vegan chili, ditto cornbread


That does look odd. Vegan food is always safe for me. I can't have cow's-milk products. I can have sheep or goat's-milk cheeses, but they are expensive, so we don't have them that often. I don't eat eggs or meat but I do eat fish and seafood, which are also expensive, except for sardines and canned tuna. Mock meat is fairly pricy too, except at Trader Joe's.

Cooking anecdotes welcome in the comments.

Pamela

Comments

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

[being That Person because this ought to have been a top-level comment, not a reply to minnehaha; I blame sleepy fingers]

I am particularly taken with ALL THE PIES as an annotation.

My only expected dinner guest this season will be getting roast beef and carrots because it's a change from turkey and they really don't like the texture of onions. (With perhaps one or two other things. :)

(I like doing roast pork, which is at least Yule-ish, in a dutch oven with onions sauteed in duck fat and dried cranberries and a dark fruit juice, like currant or blackberry, and a bit of maple syrup. But there are texture issues.)

I can't have dairy, gluten, or soy, so we have rather disjoint menus, alas. Though I did manage to come up with a no dairy, no gluten, no soy vegan pie so I had something to take to potlucks:

cup of quinoa flour
cup of amaranth flour
half cup of canola oil
~1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

water to correct consistency (between 1/2 and 3/4 cup)

[roll on one of those thin lexan cutting board sheets so you can get it into the pie plate]

bake at 350 for ~22 minutes.

1 cup maple syrup [250 mL]
1 l (almost) cranberry juice [weird American 983 mL bottle size]
2 packs "Mother Hen" organic raspberries [2 @ 300g/10oz individual packs; 600 grammes of frozen raspberries]
200 grammes tapioca starch

reserve 1 cup cranberry juice

remainder and maple syrup into a sufficient pot
keel the tapioca starch into the reserved cup of cranberry juice

Add, once the juice is medium warm; stir until thickening occurs, stir in the raspberries,
add to baked pie shell

chill

Pray the pie shell's strong enough to serve.

Which concludes the recipe notation. I find the pie shell is generally strong enough; the tapioca may help hold it all together. Not everyone likes the texture.

[pameladean]

ALL THE PIES because Christmas, which is also Eric's birthday, so really, ALL THE PIES. I need to get started on those.

I am unenamoured of tapioca generally (WHY DO THEY PUT IT IN ALL LOCALLY AVAILABLE GOAT YOGHURT, WHY WHY WHY), but the insides sound lovely.

P.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Birthday-Christmas collision does indeed sound like grounds for ALL THE PIES. :)

I'm pretty sure one could use something other than tapioca as the thickening mechanism; I like tapioca, even in fish-eyes-in-glue form, and it's reliable about setting fruit juice for relatively small volumes of thickener, but I can't see why cornstarch wouldn't work. It would just need to be rather more cornstarch for an equivalently firm consistency.

Putting tapioca in yoghurt seems bizarrely odd. I suspect them of yoghurt that won't consistently yogh and they have to cheat.

[pameladean]

I think goats-milk yoghurt is indeed runnier than regular. I base this thought on my experiences with the Minnesota Dairy Goat and Fantasy Society, which used to attend and host parties at Minicon, with accompanying generous ladlings of yoghurt, goats-milk ice cream, cheeses, and other delicacies.

I personally would rather have runny yoghurt than have it thickened up with anything at all. But apparently this is not the majority opinion.

P.