Q.E.D.

no, despite my official new intentions to post more about Pittsburgh related items and be more useful as a blogger, (perhaps offer some kind of information now and again instead of boring old pics?), I will not be ceasing to post food photos; however, the sun sets at an ungodly hour now, which means you will see hardly a decent photograph taken in natural light for the next six months. thank you, Pittsburgh. to bid farewell, I’ve included the last several photos from my camera at the end of this post.. it’s been good eats recently but lazy photos..

on a seperate note, the Patriots are still undefeated. in case you didn’t notice.

on a seperate seperate note, I am trying to buy a house. I decided to make a tag for it, even though I am note quite ready to discuss the details (don’t want to jinx anything!) but hopefully I will soon be writing about the trials and tribulations of original single pane windows and how I can’t afford my gas bill since I can’t afford new windows. and maybe advice for fellow Pittsburgh homeowners, or something.

whatever, you’re probably just here for the food..

homemade tarka dhal with wild rice and some zucchini; the tarka dhal is from a recipe I found online on a blog I’ve long forgotten. first attempt; note to self- don’t simmer all the liquids away from the lentils before finishing the dish:

you’se seen this dish before, but hell, it tastes awesome and it’s a really sunny photo, isn’t it? hot sauce tempeh nuggets and some salt & peppered greens:

ordinary tofu scramble with a bunch of chipolte pepers thrown in:

and why not some dessert? this is the only picture I have of these brownies even though I’ve made them three times now.. they are from Peter Berley’s Modern Vegetarian Kitchen. I’m iffy about posting book-recipes online but suffice it to say I found it with a little google reconaissance, hint hint. simply the best brownies I’ve ever had. previously touted Sinfully Vegan brownies come in at a close (and less fat-filled) second, but.. shiiiit. I’ll never bother with an ordinary brownie recipe again. (but I will try these soon..):

dark chocolate no-bake cookies:

peanut butter silk pie (from Vegan With a Vengeance):

and lastly, a batch of mini blueberry muffins I mailed to my brother; recipe is a mish mash of ones I’ve collected. the important thing is to top them with something that gets crunchy after baking, like raw sugar:

I tried to conjure feelings of fall.. but it didn’t work with the temperature behaving like August.. so I gave up and made ice cream.
this maple spice cake was for someone who requested I make a “maple cake or something like that” in reference to a cake on the cover of one of those “women’s” magazines in the check out aisle at the grocery store. so I went home and worked out a maple cake based on the maple cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, replacing the buttercream therein with a maple-y ganache on top. pretty good, but a little too sweet for me.. intended recipient liked it a lot though:

then I decided to hell with fall flavors, it was time to make some green tea ice cream.. so I tried this recipe from the have cake, will travel blog. pretty damn good. A++. will make again:

so I’m all sugared out. not sure how it happened; ’twas supposed to be an ordinary weekend spent visiting with in-laws, doing ordinary laundry, eating ordinary things, and watching ordinary TV. instead, between Thursday and Sunday, I somehow ended up party to more sugar (and delicious fat and a little protein too, I guess) than I have in a while. hm. “party to more sugar.” that’s a strange phrase I just considered deleting, but will in fact leave because it brings to mind the phrase “sugar party” which is what I’m going to title this post.

so I didn’t have my camera at the inlaws’, but I came home with some leftovers and thought I’d present evidence of said sugar party for others’ enjoyment; it might also be nice to look at tomorrow while I’m intentionally avoiding sugar and giving my poor pancreas a rest.

first, some run of the mill chocolate chip cookies left over from mid-week. these are made with a new (to me) ingredient: Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate chips. ooh-la-la. Giant Eagle’s chocolate chips now have dairy in them so I made the switch. quite pleased:

next up, my favorite oatmeal cookies- the plain old boring kind with nothing added. so good. the recipe is from the Betty Crocker “Cookie Book,” (veganized, of course). leave it to ol’ Betty to win the vegan oatmeal cookie battle in my heart:

three rotting bananas + nut allergy => slightly overdone banana bread - nuts:

and this last one isn’t mine but I think it’s time to share it’s awesome power with the world. it’s apple pie, and the best goddamned apple pie in the entire fucking universe. my mother in law makes it. I never even really cared about apple pie before I tried it several years ago. it’s amazing. I have her recipe, and if you want it, ask and I’ll give it to you. it’s actually not hard at all, nothing fancy.. just a perfect recipe. PERFECT:

that is all. still hoping to have some green tea ice cream to show off here soon, maybe a new concoction I’m working on involving brownies, fudge and mint, and maybe if you’re lucky something to read that involves non-food topics. stay tuned.

I don’t know why my previous blog post didn’t show up until today, since it was written back a week ago.. but anyway I guess it just means more updates for all three of you reading this to enjoy.

I don’t have much to offer except a few more food photos.. this week was brutal on several levels and I felt completely exhausted up until about two hours ago.. and now that I’m rested I have to go to bed. c’est la vie. what’s been on my mind?

1.) the teachers union at my school came to a tentative agreement last week and our ratification meeting is this week. while I’m happy that we seem so close to a conclusion on the matter after working the beginning of the year on our expired contract and coming precariously close to a strike, I’m also not exactly looking forward to a several-hour-long meeting after a long day of school in cramped auditorium seats listening to union representatives tell me why I should be happy to approve a contract requiring me to do more work for less pay and shittier health care. blah.

2.) my team has aparently been up to some shady business. if you’ve been even minimally aware of the sports media over the past several days, you don’t need an update from me; suffice it to say that I’m disappointed they were up to no good and completely agree with the punishment and general consensus that ol’ Bill wasn’t just “misinterpreting” the rules. but if I hear one more student, or so-called “friend” for that matter, ask me about the gigantic asterisk that apparently goes down next to every Patriots victory of the Belichick era, I’m going to puke. want to know what I think? not only are they going to go to the superbowl as many predict, and win the superbowl as a few are calling, they are going to finish the season undefeated.. yep. I said it. now they have something to prove. they haven’t had that in a while. and you know how that works.

3.) but I still made some food.

earlier this week I tried a new recipe from Voluptuous Vegan, whose recipes have never been less than amazing every time I’ve tried them, but tend to fall on the fancier and generally more time consuming side of things. most recipes aren’t great for weeknights unless you want to modify them or do some prep work in advance. we chose the former, and replaced the absurd variety of peppers required for this chili cornbread casserole with a boatload of garden variety jalapeno.. don’t know why I’d never heard of baking cornbread with chili in the middle before but it’s a damn good idea:

sometime this weekend I threw together a desperation meal, (don’t act like you don’t know what I mean).. I was hungry and writing a paper and probably would have happily scarfed down cardboard but somehow ended up with my head in the freezer thinking that edamame sounded good.. so I threw it together with some TVP and every herb and spice in the pantry, and roasted up what vegetables were getting old in the fridge.. then I was surprised at how appealing it looked so I took a picture:

then tonight it dawned on me that I needed a decent, non messy, and microwaveable leftover dinner to take for the hour or so I am stuck at school before our ratification meeting, so behold a quinoa/black bean/mushroom stuffed pepper:

and finally, I realized this afternoon that our household contained no dessert.. which is simply unacceptable. (especially with a football game that needs to be watched). with limited ingredients and time, here be the thickest peanut butter cookies ever produced:

yep. I’d comment on the Pats and Chargers but, well, it’s only halftime and I don’t want to jinx anything.

not at the same time though..

I’ve been wanting to make cola cake for a while, but haven’t had a chance to do so.. but the other night I had some extra cherry coke in the fridge so I turned a normal batch of chocolate chip cookies into double chocolate cherry coke cookies:

(just use your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, substitute cocoa powder for some of the flour and replace most of the liquid with cherry coke)

and these green tea cupcakes are just the latest method I’ve found to consume the bulk matcha powder I am buying in quantities that would make an emperor blush:

(buy Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and follow the recipe found therein)

just so you’re ready, I’m hoping to get to that cola cake in the next week or so.. and I forsee some homemade green tea ice cream in the near future.

ok maybe they are. if your mom’s vegan. it’s officially fall in my house because this is the kind of lazy sunday afternoon meal that becomes commonplace once the school year gets rolling and sundays are for grading papers and watching football. of course, neither of those were part of the gameplan today but I try not to let small things like that come between my junk food and me.

for a less lazy version, add some tofu sour cream, homemade guac and salsa and you could probably charge $7.99 for it as an appetizer somewhere.

goodbye days filled with doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, or better yet, nothing at all..
goodbye eating when I was hungry and not when I wasn’t, week day pancakes, 2am cookies..
goodbye 8am workouts, walking everywhere, forgetting what day of the week it was..
goodbye full night’s sleep..
see you in nine months.

hello lesson plans, peeing on schedule, 10pm bed times, parking lot duty, grading labs..

…at least some other folks go back to work right around now to keep me distracted.

how did I spend my last night of summer? with an old friend:

but I’m just not that into it. I’m not very into cake either, usually.. but with an excess of fresh blueberries and plums in my fridge, I figured it was time these two hook up.. and pies just seem like a harsh environment for the delicate blossoming of a tender young relationship.. especially if the fruit is claustrophobic.

so I melted some butter and brown sugar together in the bottom of a greased cake pan, layered some plums and blueberries in the caramelized goop as best I could, and threw together a batch of friendly golden cake batter (which can always be trusted not to interfere with this type of matchmaking process) to pour on top. 40 minutes and one precarious vertical flip later, I had this plum blueberry upside down cake:

I think they like each other.

I like food. all kinds. all times of year. but usually, I’d say I’m a pretty seasonally appropriate chef. for example: I’ve probably consumed 50 pounds of blueberries this summer; in a month or two, I’ll be craving butternut squash soup; after that, I’ll begin daydreaming about which pumpkin pie recipe I’d like to experiment with; eventually I’ll move on to sugar cookies and gingerbread men. (exception: ice cream. year round. very versatile!)

anyway, I’ve just taken stock of my eating habits over the past week or two and can’t help but wonder what’s going on.

my brain knows it’s August. in fact, most of me is pretending it’s June in denial of the school year looming in the immediate horizon. the weather is hot, humid, and August-like. so, why am I eating the comfort food people make when it’s cold outside? it’s not like I’m feeling that lame autumn-nostalgia people fall into (ha!) these days.

first I was craving falafel after a visit to the always delicious East Side Pockets in Providence. so I made some:

then I decided I hadn’t made any baked seitan in a while, and it always goes nicely in a chili con carne-style dish so I had to make some of that:

then, despite the fact that macaroni and cheese rarely sounds appealing to me, I just had to have some:

and then with all that baking and the apartment temperature at 88 degrees, I figured I might as well pull out that sourdough starter I made a few months ago and experiment with spelt flour:

who knows. maybe I ought to just freeze all the summery produce I can get my hands on now so I’ll be ready for whatever ironic need for light summer fare will beset me in January.

every summer I try to get back to my hometown for a week or two. sometimes I do interesting stuff while I’m there, but usually I just sit around my parents’ house and do the same types of things I’d do in Pittsburgh during the average summer week: sleep in, watch TV, and bake junk food.. but in better air conditioning, with satellite cable and a much larger kitchen. in lieu of the locally relevant information I should be acquiring and presenting as a True Spy, I offer instead the equivalent expense report pertaining to my time on the road (including limited photographic records):

meals
prepared
-whole wheat penne & marinara with gigantic fruit salad and corn (all produce fresh from local farm)
-sweet & sour tofu with more fruit salad and corn
-vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting
-mini peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate ganache drizzle
-chocolate chip cookies
-fudgy brownies
-cinnamon rolls, including mom’s post-it note evaluation
purchased
-falafel wrap from East Side Pockets
-garlic & mushroom pizza from Bertucci’s
-My Thai Vegetarian Cafe

missions accomplished
-extensive crucial hang out with parents
-extensive crucial hang out with brother and well-liked girlfriend
-extensive crucial hang out with parents’ dog and two cats
-critical analysis of new and old talent at Patriots’ 2007 training camp
-assessment of Providence hardcore & metal scene via trip to Armageddon Records

miscellaneous expenses
-two parking tickets. don’t tell mom and dad.