Supper and the Single Girl

Vegan Meals and Random Thoughts

Sunday, February 18, 2007

By the power vested in me, it's SOUP!!!

Okay, that's a line we used to shout when I was with the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show 18 some-odd years ago.

I'm weird about soups. I'm not a huge fan of thick, creamy soups, preferring consomme-type broths with a few bits and pieces. Tonight, I did not feel like leftovers. I wanted soup. Something soothing and warm and savory. I also needed to use some mushrooms sitting in my fridge. So I found an onion soup recipe on Vegweb.com and changed it up a bit.

Here's my recipe:

1 onion, chopped
a handful of cremini (sometimes called Baby Bellas), sliced (I got a mushroom slicer at Bed Bath & Beyond that I adore beyond belief.)
1 tablespoon of flour
1 cup of water mixed with 1 tablespoon of Fantastics Onion Mushroom Soup Mix
8 oz of Pacific Vegetable broth. They have these little four-packs of eight-ounce containers of soup. (I hate the waste, but I'd rather do that than risk wasting stock. And I still do buy the larger containers for making bigger amounts of soup.)
1 tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce

I started sauteeing the onion and mushrooms, added the flour and half the water and made a sort of paste. The I added the rest of the ingredients, brought it to a boil, and simmered for about five minutes. It's the easiest soup in the world.

While I was doing that, I fixed some very easy biscuits from How it All Vegan!, tossed a biscuit in a soup bowl and poured the soup over it. This is comfort food, folks, pure and simple. And it took me less than 45 minutes to fix both, start to finish. It is not the most nutritious dinner in the world (add a salad if you want something nutritious), but it is filling and satisfying, and that's what makes a good dinner on a miserably cold night when you're feeling out of sorts.

I will absolutely make this soup again, and if so, will have another recipe I have perfected. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture, but I wasn't sure if I was going to post this.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

*sniffle* *cough, cough*

Yes, 'tis the season for respiratory distress and the winter doldrums. We got a succession of snow dustings earlier this month, and much of it has hardened into ice, making it someone tricky to get around. But that is not why I did not leave my home for two days last week or cook. I caught a nasty cold. Some sort of virus or what-have-you is always going around, but there was a nasty bug going around my office, and I caught it last week. I don't know if many of my coworkers were out last week because of the snow or because they were sick or a combination of the two. Most of the sniffling and sneezing have gone, to be replaced by coughing. Ick. My boyfriend tries to shove all sorts of nasty zinc drops and medications at me, which I hate. Even before I was vegan, I HATED taking medicine. I did buy some Ricola drops, though, to try to soothe my cough.

I have gotten out. Last night, I met my boyfriend at the local Border's before we went to dinner. I found a cookbook called Enemy of the Steak by Nikki and David Goldbeck. Based on that name alone, I figured I had to have it. Most of the recipes are vegan or could probably be easily veganized(wonder if you can make yogurt cheese with soy yogurt) and appear fairly simple--one recipe for mushroom barley soup calls for dumping the ingredients in a pot and cooking it. So I made an easy Savory Baked Tofu and served it with leftover quinoa and the last of sauteed veggies:




Because it calls for more soy sauce than any other ingredient, it was a tad salty. I think I need to start getting the low-sodium tamari. Still, the crispy tofu made a nice textural counterpoint to the soft veggies and quinoa. I think it would be a really nice taste contrast paired with yams, which I still have left over from the last time I cooked. My appetite gets weird when I'm sick and I either have no desire to eat or want food that is not the healthiest. Like veggie chili fries. I'll eat really healthy and lots of green leafies when the weather gets warmer and they get back in season. Or at least I will try.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Chili on a chilly night

So sorry. I was halfway through my bowl of chili fries when I realized I'd forgotten to take a picture. But it was freezing, and I thought chili would be nice for such a cold night. It got down into the 20s today, with serious wind gusts. I think NPR said we could get wind chills down near zero degrees--yikes! I ran to the Whole Foods to pick up a few things, and while waiting for the bus, my hands started hurting because of the cold and not because the bags were particularly heavy.

So on such an ugly cold night, what could be better than chili? Besides maybe a stew or hearty soup. I made tempeh chili again, but while the recipe calls for cubing the tempeh, I mash and crumble it as much as possible. It seems more "authentic" that way, although I never did have chili before I went vegan. I heated up some leftover fries and poured the chili over them. It's a very mild chili, and I am still debating how to spice it up just a bit. Maybe increase the chili powder a bit. And replace the cumin with something else.

I was a little freaked when I read about the tornadoes that tore through Central Florida last week. I was concerned because Seminole County, where I have family, was considered a state of emergency. But the storms affected the northern part of the county, while my family lives in the southern part. So I'm relieved that nobody I knew was harmed by the storm.

Speaking of storms, yesterday's Superbowl was the first one played in the rain. How a team that plays in a fershtinkiner dome beat a team who plays in all sorts of bad weather is beyond me; I watched for the commercials anyway, and they were all lame, lame, lame. Screw Superbowl commercials. Maybe next year I won't bother watching.