A kid at heart

I love to make messes. I love piles of odd things, gooey messes in the kitchen, quirky craft projects, arts projects that are destined to be left undone. I'm a kid at heart.
Lately I've been pursuing some strange culinary projects: One Saturday night a few weeks ago I made seitan. Yeah, so it took a whole bag of flour and about four hours. Then I simmered it in broth for a couple of hours, and it was a bit too tough. Do as all the smarter-than-I vegetarians and vegans out there do: Buy wheat gluten ready-made!
By the end of the night, Fred's kitchen was covered in starchy flour-water and sticky bits of gluten, and I was left with a pot full of "brains" as Fred and his friend John called it.
My next two projects are a bit less messy.
I bought soybeans at Whole Foods today. (I was in Columbus visiting my dad and seeing a friend, Erin, and her husband, who were in fro England.) Not edamame, but soybeans.
Guess what I'm going to make?
Tofu, yes, eventually. But tofu requires more equipment than I currently have. (molds, mostly)
I'm going to make my own soymilk. I'll soak the soybeans after I finish blogging. In a couple of days, I should have rich, creamy, delicious, fresh, homemade soymilk. Or I could have a giant mess of beany water.

Monday night: tempeh tacos

I tend to hoard groceries. For a single woman, I eat and buy WAY too much. I might eat a somewhat limited diet, according to some people, but I eat A LOT! Way too much, I think. I get so excited about cooking when I go to the grocery that I purchase a surplus. I'm pretty good about eating the fresh veggies that I buy, but I stock up on surplus items. (Don't even ask me how many boxes of Silk Unsweetened Soymilk, bags of assorted grains or cans of chickpeas I have in my pantry!)
Tempeh is not a protein that I have much experience with yet; I'm still experimenting. As a result, a block will tend to sit in my fridge for weeks until I use it. I admit; I'm still a bit cautious when using it.
I was feeling experimental Monday night, so I decided to try tempeh tacos. They were a success! Ok, so tempeh "tacos" is a misnomer; Mexican-style tempeh would be more accurate.

Mexican-style tempeh
1/2 package tempeh (I used three-grain), minced/crumbled
1/4 c onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, any color, chopped
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1/2 c Trader Joe's mole sauce (or to taste... a shortcut, I know! sorry!)
drizzle olive oil
3 tablespoons water
The tempeh cooking:
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat and add the tempeh. Stir frequently and allow it to brown and crisp a bit, maybe two minutes. Then add the peppers, pepper flakes and onions and cook until vegetables are a bit brown. Add the mole sauce and stir well. Add 3 tablespoons water and cook until bubbly.
I served this with 1/2 cup of a whole-grain blend that I cooked with handful of cilantro (add at the end), garlic (1 clove minced during cooking) and 2 tablespoons lemon juice (at the end).
I added a slice of cheddar soy "cheese," which is a bit processed in its flavor for my liking. I served a salad on the side and added Trader Joe's cilantro-lime salsa and fat-free Greek yogurt to all.
Yum! I ran out of fresh tomatoes or I would have added some. Oh, and this would have been fabulous with some avocado or guacamole.

A failure of sorts

So remember that post a couple of days ago when I said I was going to eat vegan for a week? Yeah, well, didn't happen. That night, I went to Green Papaya with my Freedom Porject group. I was tempted by sushi and quickly gave in. Delicious, succulent, sweet, oh so good.... mmm. We got some funky rolls, and while I'm usually a purist, I do love a good spider roll.

You see that, I heart fried things sometimes, too.
Other than that meal (I had tofu choochee curry again, but it was NOT very hot.), I have stuck to the cruelty-free diet.

Eating tofu/soy substitutes makes me feel like I'm indulging myself. I felt slightly guilty yesterday and today when I ate a bacon-egg-cream cheese breakfast sandwich... but no pigs, chickens or cows were harmed in the making of my breakfast! Morningstar Farms makes a fabulous -- yet funny-looking -- fakin bacon. I ate two of the marbled reddish-pink and white slices (just 50 calories, take that, Piggy!) between two slices of Ezekiel 49 bread slathered with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese. To this I added a slice of soft tofu. Looks and tastes just like egg whites. Fool your friends by adding turmeric.

Delicious!

I stole a Rachael Ray recipe for spicy chicken satay sauce (Holy yum, Batman! Here's a recipe that sidetracked me while looking for the above link: salmon dumplings with coconut curry sauce. Omit the pork fat, s'il vous plait!) I've got a mild peanut/cashew allergy, but I love spicy peanut sauce. (Loved, is the correct verb, je pense.) So I swapped soynut butter and added extra red pepper flakes to this sauce. I also added crystallized ginger instead of sugar. I've been eating it for lunch all week with mixed veggies and my new Trader Joe's find (thanks to Polly!): orzo-red quinoa-baby chickpeas. Fantastique!

A side note: Quinoa is a phenomonal food. It's a whole grain, which keeps your insides happy, and is a nutritionally sound grain. It provides more protein than most grains (12-18%), and it has a wide range of amino acids! Throw some in with your rice, and you'll never know the difference.

An experiment

I'm going to try eating completely vegan for an entire week, starting today. I'm trying to explore meatless, dairyless cuisine and branch out my recipe repertoire.
A rather large Sunday brunch

1 tofu omelette with scallions (200 calories) and 1 slice cheddar-jalapeno soy cheese (35 calories)
1 slice Ezekiel 49 bread (80 calories) with 1 t Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese (20 calories)
2 slices Morningstar Farms faux bacon (60 calories)
395 calories
And a word of advice. When handling turmeric, wear gloves or be very careful! I (temporarily) dyed my fingernails, a spatula and the counter a nice shade of neon yellow.

Spicy, spicy, and some soy!

Work friend Kristin and I have had trouble getting our schedules aligned lately. First the cabin, then her mom's visit and wisdom-teeth surgery, then meetings at night for me and work for her. We've started a tradition of eating at a different (ethnic) restaurant each Wednesday, but we've skipped a few weeks. Green Papaya was her choice this week, and it was delicious!
I'm always on an unofficial quest to find my heat threshold, and in the U.S., Udipi's chana batura was the only dish to reach it -- and that was just one of a handful of times I ate it!
We arrived after 8:30, both famished: She'd had a couple of whiskey sours on a date, and I'd worked out beforehand. Sushi, curries, pad thai! Decisions, decisions.
I got choochee curry with tofu; Kristin got some basil noodles. We also got some sushi .(salmon skin roll and scallop nigiri for me. Yum!)
The heat scale was 1-4, so I got a 4. Heat aside, the curry was chock full of squash, eggplant, pineapple, tomatoes and red peppers, along with lightly fried tofu. The sauce was spectacular -- rich, coconuty... and spicy! It was perfectly balanced: sweet, sour, creamy, spicy, salty. An orgasm in the mouth.
My eyes welled up, my nose ran a bit, but I kept eating. Every bite made me feel better and better. Spicy food releases endorphins, so after a meal with a kick, it's like that post-sex feeling sometimes... although in a smaller dose. (The heat is pain, which tells your brain that to release the endorphins.) It causes a rush. This is why people like spicy food.
I ate it all.
I want more.
Sigh.
It was good for me.
Another great discovery this weekend: soybean butter.
I've got a little bit of a peanut allergy. (No anaphylactic shock, just gastrointesinal malaise and hives.) Growing up, my mom packed a PB-n-J sandwich in my lunch almost every day. Natural PB, even in the 80s, wheat bread and strawberry jam. By first grade, I'd decided I didn't like grape jam. My sister didn't like strawberry. This made for drama if the sandwiches were ever mixed up.

I haven't had a Reese's cup, a PB-n-J or a buckeye in more than three years. I've tried almond butter, but ce n'est pas pareil, as Colette was fond of saying. I'd given up on PB-n-Js, and then I noticed the soynut butter, which probably has been at Trader Joe's all along.
I fell in love with PB-n-Js once more.
I've eaten them for breakfast every day this week, on Ezekiel bread from TJ. It has no actual flour. It's all sprouted grains. I love it.

Soy and spice. I'm a happy girl!

Oh, and I've been experimenting with TVP. I'm sure everyone's anticipating an entry on the wonders of TVP. Wait for it. It's coming!

just one more thing

I've lost count how many times I've posted during this blogging binge, but I've been saving up thoughts all week.
After my weekend of debauchery at the cabin, (When, I cooked refried beans, eggs and Smirnoff ice at 2 a.m., and the next night assaulted a man with a spatula who stole my grilled cheese! I'm told. I don't remember the former!) I stopped by to see my dad, stepmom and precious little sister, Bella. I opened their fridge to get a Diet Coke, and I was surprised by what did and didn't see. First off, I took the LAST Diet Coke! There's always Diet Coke there, which I like. In its place were three (!) cartons of Silk soymilk (two fortified and one chocolate), soy Swiss cheese and tempeh! What? I closed the door, shocked and asked my stepmom about the soy infiltration.
"I read your blog, and I've been making some changes," she said. I'd forgotten I'd sent the link to my family, too. I'm so happy someone reads it and heeds it! I love her, and I am always happy when anyone makes changes to better his or her health. (And again, I'm so far from perfect, but I try. I think that's all that matters.)
"Now if only I could your dad to give up his 'yard of beef,'" she said, laughing. My dad, a skinny guy, has an unnatural liking for unnatural meat products: SlimJim -- he travels for work, and I always laugh at the number of wrappers that litter the floor of his front passenger seat!, summer sausage and beef sticks of all kinds. She did, however, switch him from white to wheat bread. My sister loves that she gets to drink chocolate milk (well, soymilk).
So for Robin, here are some tips for cooking tempeh:
Dice it and saute (I can't get blogger to make accent marks. I really dislike that!) it in a bit of olive oil.
Bake it with pasta and tomato sauce.
Serve it instead of meat in a stir fry.
Strong sauces (teriyaki, sweet and sour, etc.) work well with tempeh.
Mushrooms compliment the flavor well. Depending on what kind you get, it has a nutty flavor and a chewy texture. (I made a tempeh-mushroom stroganoff recently that was good. Saute 1/2 an onion, some minced garlic, mushrooms and tempeh in olive oil over medium heat. Remove when browned. Add 1 T red wine vinegar -- it will sizzle, so stand back! -- a cup of plain yogurt and some dill. Cook until heated through, add the tempeh, onion and mushrooms back to the pan and season with salt and pepper. Serve with whole-wheat, yolk-free egg noodles.)
Crumble it (dice and then break up as you cook it) and mix some with meat to cut calories. Don't tell Dad.

At my mom's

My mom is into nutrition, too, and she always has great books that interest me. She has been telling me about these two for a long time, but I just started to peruse them this weekend.
SuperFoods Rx is a fabulous book. Everyone should read it.
I'm really into nutrition, especially since losing more than 30 pounds in Korea. The book doesn't really introduce anything earth-shattering, but it does provide a list of foods that provide maximize nutrients with minimum calories.
The 14 SuperFoods are:

1. beans
2. blueberries
3. broccoli
4. oats
5. oranges
6. pumpkin
7. salmon
8. soy
9. spinach
10. tea (green and black)
11. tomatoes
12. turkey (100% white meat)
13. walnuts
14. yogurt (not the sweetened kind that Americans eat, but the kind that has actual live cultures)

My mom swears by Eat Right 4 Your Type by Dr. Peter J. D'Adamo. We're type A's, and according to the book, we should avoid meat and dairy (along with kidney beans, lima beans and excess wheat) and focus on soy, vegetables and pineapple. (In addition to other foods.)
The author, a naturopathic physician and researcher, maintains that our blood type reflects our immunity, health and nutrition preferences and sensitivities. For my mother and me, he's spot-on. I have trouble with dairy -- I've been drinking soy milk since junior year of college and ice cream hurts my tummy -- and meat -- I get really sick from it.
Forgive me for climbing upon my soapbox, but I heart soy. It's an amazing plant, perhaps the most versatile food plant. Think about its wonders: It can replace almost any food in the pyramid.
Don't ask why, but once I thought "What plant would I choose if I had to live on just one for the rest of my life?" I'm odd like that. Soy, of course, was the answer.
Dairy: soy milk, soy "cheese," soy butter, soygurt, even Tofutti!
Meat: tempeh, tofu (soft and firm), TVP -- which can make any number of meat substitutes! Soft tofu can also be used instead of eggs to bind baked goods, and semifirm tofu can be "scrambled."
Vegetables: Soybeans
Grains: Soy flour
Fats: Soybean oil, soy margarine
Oh, and soy sauce. Plus it can be used for nonfood purposes.