Day 86/240: Vegetable Rolls

These were just a modification of the previous recipe. This time I filled them with carrot, celery, scallion, daikon, and marinated baked tofu. The dipping sauce was made of tahini, dark sesame oil, sriracha sauce, and with a little water to thin it.

Day 85/240: More Lentil Soup

I made a lot more than I thought I had and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste it.

Day 84/240: Quick and dirty lentil soup

Throw two cubes of no sodium vegetable bouillon into about two quarts of water with several handfuls of lentils, some dehydrated vegetable flakes, a two finger pinch of caraway seed. Cook on low on the back of the stove all day.

An hour before dinner find some celery, carrot and any other fresh veg that might be tasty, chop it up and add it to the soup along with some orzo.

For dinner, thick slice some sunflower seed bread and slather it with mushroom paté, Serve some soup with some fresh scallions dusted over the top.

Day 83/240: New Year's Day

I made up a slaw salad with carrot, broccoli and red cabbage shreds mixed with some of my tofu mayonnaise.

I should say something about the tofu mayonnaise. It's a really easy recipe and takes spicing and flavoring well, but a lot of the formulas for it call for the use of silken tofu. I don't agree.

Silken tofu does not press easily and because of its consistency it makes far too soupy a product. The consistency ends up closer to a "ranch" salad dressing. This is fine if that's what you want, but I like a thicker result. I'm also willing to put up with a slightly grainier mouth feel for it.

At some point, I'm going to try hanging the silken tofu (like you do when you make panir or Greek yogurt) and see if I can improve the texture and thickness simultaneously.

That, being said, I have a couple of tips:

1. Making zkhuk yarok with basil instead of cilantro gives you a high octane pesto! I think that there are many ways these two sauces might intersect to my tongue's advantage.
2. Making tofu mayonnaise with either zkhuk yarok or zkhuk pesto is a grand idea and works really well. Start with a small amount and scale up according to the flammability of your taste buds.
3. Using serrano peppers in zkhuk significantly increases the SHU. Be forewarned and taste test before slathering it on.

  

Day 82/240: New Year's Eve

The rest of the family, including my wife's sister and her grandson (my grandnephew) had take-out Chinese (damn them!), I had the Spiced Melitza again, this time with some mushroom paté experimentally slathered on. It was good, but not as appreciated as it should have been since it had to compete with General Gau's Chicken, Chicken Pad Thai, Sweet and Sour Chicken, and Crab Rangoon.

Day 81/240: Mushroom Paté

This wasn't for dinner but it's worthy of a recipe.

Mushroom Paté

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbs olive oil
• 1 medium white or yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried tarragon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• 1 lb portobello mushrooms
• 1 cup lightly toasted walnuts
• 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• Up to 1/4 cup cold vegetable broth, or water

Process:

1. Dice the onion (it should yield app 1 cup).
2. Peel, smash, and mince the garlic.
3. Chop the mushrooms (coarse dice).
4. Toast the walnuts lightly in dry skillet.
5. Put walnuts aside to cool.
6. Heat 2 Tbs olive oil in the skillet on medium. 
7. Add onions.
8. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes until translucent.
9. Add garlic, thyme, tarragon, salt and pepper.
10. Cook for a minute. 
11. Add the mushrooms.
12. Cook for 7 to 10 minutes (until mushrooms are very soft).
13. Put walnuts into a food processor and pulse until very fine. 
14. Add the cooked mushroom mixture to the food processor.
15. Add the balsamic vinegar, whatever's left of the olive oil. 
16. Process until smooth, drizzling in the stock until the pate is a smooth, thick paste. 
17. Put pate into an airtight container. 
18. Chill for at least an hour before serving.

Disloco

I have to say that I was disappointed in the vegetables I picked up from a farm stand in Sudbury. The place was very Whole Foodsy for such a small place, but I suppose that's to be expected in such a ritzy suburb.

I picked up an English (seedless) cucumber, an eggplant, a bunch of parsley, a bunch of cilantro, some purple potatoes and some baby Yukon gold potatoes. The prices were what I would have expected at WF.

The vegetable quality, however, was not!

The next day, the cucumber was covered with soft moldy spots. I recovered what I could, but my frugality lost out to disgust and most of it ended up in the compost bin. I turned to the eggplant. It had no obvious faults but it was going soft far faster than I'd expected. I decided to cook that immediately to forestall any loss. That was the Melitza recipe on the 29th.

What had been a nice bunch of parsley the previous afternoon was now slimy with half-rotted dark green glop. Some of it was salvageable so I rinsed it really well and used it and what was left of the cuke to make a tabbouleh.

I had gone through the zkhuk yarok from mid-December faster than I'd expected, so, while I was in the kitchen I decided to replenish the jar. I pulled the bag of cilantro out of the veggie bin. This was completely unusable. I couldn't even discern any leaves in the dark green sludge. With some trepidation, I checked the potatoes. They looked okay.

But the next day, I decided to slice up some of the purple potatoes and roast them. I have to say that I was surprised and disappointed to find that they were not what they seemed. Rather than purple-fleshed potatoes they were merely purple-skinned.

On the whole, I have had better shopping experiences, and for less money.

Although tempted, I decided not to document the rotting veggies with photos.