Orphans' thanksgiving 2009

For the second year in a row it was totally and completely orphans' thanksgiving. I mean, I called my parents, but you know. That was it.

John and I had tasty business in the form of roasted cauliflower/potato/black bean soup and unveganized veganomicon cornbread and zinfandel from our friend Joann, who sent us wine for thanksgiving because she is awesome. She's also my new boss. How many bosses do you know who send their employees delicious thanksgiving edibles? Continually awesome!

Roasty cauliflower/potato/black bean soup

head of cauliflower
olive oil
onion
garlic
a potato or two
black bean broth
salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika
is that really all I put in it? I think so!

You guys, it's totally easy. Roast cauliflower, soften onion, boil broth with onion and potato, add now-roasted cauliflower, blend.

To roast the cauliflower: clean it and break/cut it into small florets. Toss them in olive oil, salt, pepper, a little cayenne, and a relatively large amount of paprika, then spread them on a baking sheet or two and roast at 425F until golden brown and nice. This should take something like ten minutes, but it can be pretty variable. Smaller florets mean smaller roasting time.

In the meantime, dice up an onion and soften it in olive oil in a big soup pan. Maybe add a couple cloves of garlic if you feel like it. Maybe even add some diced hot pepper if you want. It's all good.

I had originally wanted to make this soup with actual black beans, but lo, we were out of them. We did have a container of frozen black bean broth, though, so I chucked it into the pot instead. Excellent idea!

When the broth comes to a boil, add a peeled, cubed potato and simmer until tender and delicious. If you cut it into small cubes this actually won't take very long at all, maybe 15 minutes. Add in your finished-roasting cauliflower, simmer for a few more minutes, and whip everything off the heat.

Pulverize the business with an immersion blender (or I guess a regular blender, but who wants to deal with that?). My concoction resembled chestnut puree in texture.

Rewarm if needed, season with salt and pepper, and eat it!

I had green onions on one bowl and crumbly cornbread on another bowl. I'm just saying.


I also made the veganomicon skillet cornbread, except I used milk and butter for the soymilk and oil. Also I used wheat flour instead of all purpose, because all purpose flour is pretty much nonexistent at our house. Also I minced up a jalapeño and threw that in the batter as opposed to making it a topping. You know what? IT WAS AWESOME. Now I want to try a version with honey in place of the sugar, eliminating the probability of getting honey all over everything when eating said cornbread.

Then later (like, several hours later) in my quest to eat all the cornbread in the house before John, I crumbled a piece of cornbread into a bowl, threw some delicious delicious salsa on top of it, and put the whole business in the toaster oven to warm for a few minutes. OH YEAH. that is the stuff. If I had any more cornbread or salsa I would be making myself another bowl of this business right now, but I don't. I ate it all.

Something's hiding in here!

What is it what is it what is it what is it what is it?

This soup made me feel way better one night when I was starving and everything seemed like way too much work and it's all wrong and how can you expect me to get things done under these conditions!! In that situation you just need to shovel food into your gaping maw as fast as possible.

Hiding in the soup

olive oil
garlic/shallot
carrot
cabbage
broth (veg/chicken)
shrimpses
fresh mint and parsley
maybe some sriracha

In a nice soup pan, warm some olive oil. Mince several cloves of garlic or a shallot and add the bits to the pan. Scrub and dice some carrot and add those to the pan as well. Cook for a few minutes to soften. In the meantime, you can shred some cabbage, shell some shrimp, and rip up a handful of mint and parsley. Ok?

When the onion and carrot are reasonably soft, add several cups of broth to the pan. We had several big blocks of frozen chicken stock, so I used that. Bring the business to a boil (melting big blocks of stock as necessary), then add a handful of cabbage and however many shrimp you want to eat. Simmer until the shrimp is done, about 3 minutes.

Put it in a bowl, add sriracha, mint, and parsley, and eat it eat it!

HELLO SHRIMP!

One of these things is not like the others

Mushroom barley risotto; toasty tomato mozzarella sandwich of love and deliciousness; rice salad with roasted squash and broccolini; mushroom barley risotto fried into tasty yet completely prone to disintegration cakes.

Eat it! Food!

midNovember updateathon!

Oh! I am here! Still very busy, but here. Hey.

Back from California, great times, ate at lots of lovely restaurants and hung out with lots of friends. We took our friend Heather to Vive Sol and blew her mind with cheese enchiladas del sol--one enchilada with mole sauce and sesame seeds and one with awesome creamy guajillo sauce and thinly sliced almonds. I even managed to cook in CA, largely because John had the foresight to get a hotel room with a kitchen. Yay kitchen! One night I sauteed baby zucchini and green beans and tiny eggplant with garlic and olive oil and squeezed lemon over a big bowl of them for dinner: YES.

Then the night before we left I made us awesome sandwiches to take on the plane! John got this awesome non-crumbly black pepper-encrusted parmesany cheese and radish and cucumber and lettuce on sourdough; I got liverwurst and cream cheese and radish and mushroom and lettuce also on sourdough. Also we had six apples. Also IT WAS THE BEST PLANE IDEA EVER. We got to the airport and ate sandwich one while hanging out at the gate and watching these two rambunctious yet shockingly well-behaved on the plane tiny little girls run up and down the window. Sandwich two was on the plane (John) or after we got back and fell down all over our lovely comforting apartment (me). I ate British candy from the elusive unavailable in NY Cost Plus World Market on the plane instead. Yeah!!

Now we are back and doing work and being responsible setting up my new home office. I work here now! In our house! Ha ha! Granted, setting up the office will be easier when I, uh, buy a desk, but still.

Soon I will settle into some kind of normal schedule and actually edit a handful of the pictures I keep taking. In the meantime, here is a story. Before I went to CA, I was all "I will be responsible and boil a pot of black beans to freeze, so we'll have immediate supplies when I get back!!" So I boiled them and ate some of them the day before. Everything was fine until--you know it--I totally forgot to put the remaining beans and broth in the freezer before I left. Great! Fermentation ahoy! In conclusion, I had an excellent time cleaning out the refrigerator yesterday, why do you ask?