Today's study in contrasts is inspired by the fact that they are both roughly circular when you're only looking at thumbnail sizes in your photos folder.

First, some delicious FOOD PORN! (Oh, and to hell with those who say looking at food porn makes you fat: you're just not looking at the right stuff )

Anyway, above are vegan hot dogs from a couple nights ago. J's version on the left has (bottom) homemade sauerkraut, grilled poblanos, and dijon mustard; and (top) homegrown pineapple sage (about the most vigorous plant in our kitchen garden raised bed on the front porch), sweet (YUCK) relish, and dijon mustard. Mine on the right has pineapple sage, homemade sauerkraut, grilled poblanos, dill (YUM) relish, dijon mustard, and veganaise, with a side of grilled ONIONS!

And now to remind you of a previous fun topic, namely of the perils of not cleaning out your drains on a semi-regular basis (or at least the perils of you both growing your hair out.) The bathtub has been starting to not drain as quickly in the last few days, so this morning I cleaned out the drain. Big times here at Dangr-us Thoughts World H, lemme tell ya'.

Riding out now to bike bicycle tubes!

Kimchi!

also spelled kimchee, kim chee or gimchi.

Holy crap, I might be breaking my all-time single day blog posting record. But I'm not inclined to go check.

HOLY FERMENTATION, BATMAN!

This is a whole pile o' fermenting love recently made at a fermentation class that C and I co-taught for the Atlanta Free School.

From left, that's three 2-quart jars of sauerkraut, a 2 quart of kimchi, two jars of (turnip) sauerruben, on the bottom right a jar of mixed sauerruben (turnip and cabbage), and on top, another sauerruben.

The stuff I hung on to is starting to get deliciously funky!

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.