Fancypantsy Steakhouse* Valentines Day Dinner

Look, just 'cause we don't do gifts doesn't mean I can't make J a fancypantsy steakhouse* dinner for Valentines Day.

(*Vegan, of course.)

Here are the plates. Clockwise, from the top of the lower plate: grilled marinated tofu "steaks", "creamed" spinach, caramelized onions, and in the center, fresh tomato salad with organic julienned basil from our herb garden. And a dessert wine. Yeah, for dinner: we're sophisticated like that. (Which is clearly further shown in the bottom of the image, by J dressing up for dinner in her very fancypantsy painting scrubs.)

We apparently liked the food. This is after seconds for both of us.

I have to say I didn't like the creamed spinach as much as some past recipes I've made, but it was still pretty good, and J liked it. It was a little sweet for me from the soy milk (I used plain, but next time will go get some unsweetened.)

And here are another couple random things I've been making lately. On the right is a big ol' jar of homemade sauerkraut, which turned out delicious. And on the left, cayenne infused olive oil, with cayenne peppers from my friend L's farm in Kentucky.

Here is some of the sauerkraut plated, along with a tempeh breakfast wrap, the likes of which TSA is so concerned about. We initially feared it would taste strongly of anise, which the mason jar a friend gave us smelled heavily of, but it's actually just a tiny little hint. J's sister A (ummm, let's make her A3) liked it, and a little more biased, I think it's fantastic.

I'm going to continue experimenting with fermenting foods, in part using a recent purchased book I'm very excited about: Wild fermentation: the flavor, nutrition, and craft of live-culture foods, by Sandor Katz. I'd really like to make the red miso on p.60, but am not at all sure I have the patience (or pantry space) to wait out a full year of fermentation. For comparison, the sauerkraut fermented in the mason jar on the counter for about three weeks before I liked the flavor well enough to put it in the fridge.

ONIONPALOOZA!

Well, not really, but it's a hell of a good idea, no? Stay tuned!

I did caramelize a bunch of ONIONS last night:

Not great images, but rest assured, the ONIONS tasted WONDERFUL!

Cookin' em up, to go with:
Tofu, zucchini, and curried carrots (which were particularly tasty, fried with chipotle powder, garam masala, and salt.)

Arizona food porn!

Rest assured that I maintain my readership's addiction to food porn when I'm traveling. This is cooking with friends in Tucson:



And here are said friends prepping avocados and limes:
By this time in the day, J3 and I had eaten about ten avocados between us, mashed in to guacamole.

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of brussels sprouts. And here is a picture from the brussels sprouts Throwdown! that my sister-in-law and I did last Christmas.

We both used fresh brussels sprouts, olive oil, salt, and pepper. She cut hers in half and roasted them in the oven; I halved mine, then carefully removed the stems with a diagonal cut, which took about four times as long as her process.

I hate to brag, but: I won.

The Making of a Salad

Our good friend A2 was in town, and we cooked our asses off. Even when A2 was too smart to bottom line annoying, ultra time-intensive projects like vegan croissants. (J headed up that project, which is good, since I, as executive chef, was far too busy to head it up.)

This is a salad, step by step:

VEGGIES. (Duh?)


Organic salad greens.

With green peppers added.

The green peppers were feeling kinda lost in the forest, so they got some yellow friends.

Then the orange peppers barged in, and

some carrots crashed the party.

Then some GRAPEFRUIT(!) which I love in salad.

And who doesn't love ONIONS in salad?

No worry, A: when you come visit, we can cook MUSHROOMS!

For my friends

Since I now understand that two of my closest friends whose names start with A detest onions and mushrooms, dinner two nights ago is a call out to both of you, A and A2:

Let's start with some white onions, shall we?

And how about some red onions?

Let's get those red onions up close, yeah?

And let's cook em! (not that raw red onions aren't DELICIOUS, since they are.)

Okay, sure: since you asked, we'll add the white onions to the cooking red onions.

Then toss it all together.

Then caramelize it all. YUM.

Let's cut up some delicious bell peppers: yellow, orange, red, and green.

And hey, how about some more ONIONS?!?

If A2 felt left out so far, here are some MUSHROOMS!

Oh, yum. Let's make a MUSHROOM based curry sauce.

WAIT! MUSHROOMS! YAY!

And if the MUSHROOMS weren't delicious enough, let's add some ONIONS!


And here is the DELICIOUS finished product: an ONION and MUSHROOM vegan curry! WOO WOO WOO!

FAJITA FAJITA!

I wasn't teasing, I really do have plenty of food porn to post. Here are fajitas I made when J2 came over a few days before my bike trip:

The produce before cooking, and:

after cooking, with the tempeh thrown in. Tempeh, you say?

Oh yeah, tempeh! Cubed and uncooked, and then:

fried with olive oil and salt.

Some reasonably good looking organic bell peppers.

And a side profile. You can see a seam on the green pepper, the kind of thing that "perfect" conventional peppers wouldn't make it to supermarket display with. You would probably have to dumpster them, if they made it as far as the store.

Cut and cleaned, and ready to FRY!

And the peppers, with a little olive oil and fry lovin'.

More before and after magic, with organic zucchini:

FRIED! Woo woo woo!

Green onions, and

broccoli.

Made for some damn tasty fajitas, lemme tell you what. So much so that when J got home from work last night, she wanted fajitas, too! So, with (no) apologies to a nasty pizza chain which shall remain unnamed for the play on words, I made fajitas fajitas!

Of course, any proper meal that any reasonable person would eat starts with ONIONS!

We were hungry, so I was working quickly and don't have many prep pictures this time. Suffice it to say that they look a lot like the prep pictures above. Here is the veggie mixture cooking.

And fully cooked.

And fully cooked.

And I had a hankering for more fried food, so I did a slightly lower-oil version of battering and deep fat frying. Here are some onions, about to get bathed in batter, and:

FRIED! I mean, for real: how can you not want to eat these?

Here are some similarly frying green peppers. J made a wasabi veganaise for a dipping sauce. Yum yum yum!