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Category: Cooking Stuff

Summer Cake, Simple Lunch

Sacrificing virgin coconut oil. With my apartment’s thin windows chilling the kitchen, my coconut oil was in the solid phase. To utilize it for a summer-inspired Bahama cake, I let her toast ‘er bottom on my stovetop, very briefly. Anyone who’s ever had a bowl of pyrex [or multiple glass Read more…


Me encanta la comida vegetariana

I recently stopped by Ms. CP‘s new apartment for some fierce empanadas. With scratch-made sausage and sweet potato-filled pastry, they were mucho delectable. Using Viva Vegan!, CP and her sous chef Em created these love pockets. ¡Me encanta la comida vegetariana! (I used google translator for that. Did it conjugate right?) There Read more…


Snow Days and Nights/Pantry Turnover

My buddy and I woke up to the chime of my phone. 10 minutes before I received the NYC Alert text, The Electrician delivered the sweet, sweet news of the snow day. I texted the other 5th grade teachers and went back to bed, lulled by the exclamations of the Read more…


All the Food Groups In One Bite

Wanting to use up my potatoes, I tried something like this. I mashed up the boiled Yukon gold beauties with some veggie stock, soy milk, nutritional yeast and assorted spices. Bam! That’s the bowl on the left. I steamed up some spinach and Brussels sprouts for some added texture. Pictured Read more…


To Do Monday

With the day off, the list of to-do’s was long and scroll-like, starting with two classes at the gym. I did the pilates stretch and alignment class. Given the early morning hour and Park avenue address, it was me and a studio filled with lively blossomed senior ladies. The instructor Read more…


January Pantry Turnover

I miss my good camera, my SLR. While my baby is getting a preventative maintenance and cleaning, here we are. This ol’ point & shoot 6 mega-pixel is hardly the powerhouse it was years ago. And so in the midst of January Pantry Turnover, an annual purge of dry goods Read more…


The Elvis Presley, Sans Bacon, Sans Leather Suit


Random Food Things

I got a TofuXpress for Christmas. Yes, a handy dandy tofu press that squeezes out excess water. No more balancing books on plates and no more slanted bricks of tofu. This heavy duty spring keeps pressing, and pressing hard, as excess water pools above. It’s sturdy and spacious… I shoulda Read more…


Congee, the Chinese Risotto/I ♥ Ginger

This made me want to make congee. That and I have so much fresh ginger lying around. You see, I love fresh ginger. Whether it slowly grows tentacles on my kitchen table; whether I actually peel, slice it and eat it; whether it’s pickled pink in a pile next to Read more…


Pounding the Dough

How to start a new year right: Don’t do anything all day. Load up on carbohydrates; it’s going to be another swift year. Clean out fridge leftovers by piling them on pizza dough. Eat the pizza. Eat the pizza twice. $4 from the local pizzeria and you need not waste Read more…


New Years Eve Dinner: MMX meet I

he couch is a nice place to welcome in the New Year, especially when one has drastically altered their sleep schedule since the start of winter break. Head-bobbing by 11:15 p.m. and already hung over, dinner in was a deterrent to an unproductive morning after: 1.1.11. Truthfully, I have been Read more…


Visions of Sugar Plums

Snowflake time. Christmas morning and Santa came! Making quick use of the Electrician‘s new waffle maker and Williams Sonoma waffle tongs. Christmas sugar cookies. All dressed up. Banana everything cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar Santa came again at my folks’. Pancake in her festive collar.


Torch Yr Own: Vegan Crème Brûlée

Burning your own dessert with a butane torch is not only exciting, it is an interactive way to spark up a holiday potluck! After committing to this dessert some time ago and purchasing all the special supplies {10 ramekins, butane torch, butane, arrowroot, fruit sugar, etc}, it was time to Read more…


Lotza Vegan Latkes

We celebrated Chanukah in my classroom last week. That meant the motherload of potato latkes, fried to perfection right there next to the math bulletin board. Though the wonderful morning already seems like months ago, the classroom still smells of bubbling oil. My kids’ parents are awesome at making sure Read more…


Dumpling Soup

This week’s lunch needs to be simple and hearty. It needs all my servings of vegetables; it needs carbohydrates. Most of all it needs taste. With Herbs de Provence, a vegetable bouillon, rosemary, fresh parsley and more basil, the thick soup packs a flavor punch that will get better everyday… Read more…


Deep Fryday

Deep-fried vegan Twinkies. Deep-fried vegan chocolate bars. Deep-fried vegan cupcakes {not pictured, eaten too soon} The Electrician and his dedicated fryer crisped up a slew of vegan goodies for Deep Fryday, proving that vegans can be greasy and gluttonous too. In my quest to never sacrifice for my eating ethics, Read more…


Food & Song

The cold weather means a weekly batch of soup. Soul-warming soup. We’re still here in autumn so here is a preview of my looming soup-a-thon, a scrumptious carrot and coconut milk soup in autumn’s color. Acorn squash stuffed with wheat berry, pecans, cranberry and green onion. A hearty edible bowl. Read more…


Wheatberry Salad

Somewhere, sometime, I must have been privy to regular acts of gastronomy. I must have been a royal member of the court of Epicureanism of the highest rank. I must have tucked these food standards in the pocket of the soul that passes from life to life, like a little Read more…


Na-cho Ordinary Nachos

  Whipped up a batch of vegan nachos… mostly to utilize the cheese whiz-type stuff I made a couple of weeks back for the Phillies ballpark jaunt. Although I completely forgot to ground up some Amy’s burgers for the protein, they were very good! I used some refried kidney beans Read more…


I made enough chili in my crockpot.

There’s no time of year I like more than autumn. Crisp and rustling days with their Earth tones, a thick-socked morning giving way to as-long-as-you’re-in-the-sun afternoons and a fleece blanket draped night, draped–not buried. And chili is appropriate again. Chili, the perfect cool-weather eat. With some heart and some heat Read more…


Bring on the winter.

I’ve been working on my layer of blubber, getting myself ready. Inadvertently. Here’s what’s anchoring me in for a long winter: Roasted zucchini sandwich with way too big a bun X’s 5 days a week. Huge tofu dosa from House of Dosas in Hicksville, Long Island.  Vegan cheese whiz. What Read more…


Reduce, Reuse…Eat

I will not eat Thai lunch specials. I will not eat Thai lunch specials. I will not eat Thai lunch specials. Now that school is in session, I am surrounded by good Thai, contrary to my home neighborhood. This school year I am going to resist. More. And without the Read more…


{I’m Not Hungry} You Will Be. You… will… be.

Can you figure out what these are? They’re kind of the coolest thing ever to happen to pancakes. Star Wars pancake molds from Williams Sonoma. Yes, that’s an Imperial stormtrooper, Darth Vader and Yoda, a great birthday gift The Electrician received. Of course I just had to break them in Read more…


Nervous Energy

Tomorrow is the first day of school. So tonight I had lots of anxious energy to burn. I had to get in the kitchen and bask in a fragrant medley of like 40% of my spice rack… freshly-ground coriander, a heavy twist of the garlic mill, best buddies in dying Read more…


The Real-Deal Vegan Brunch

On sunny Sunday, August 1, 2010, I found inspiration in the pages of The Electrician‘s omnivorous cook books as he manually labored in his yard. A proper vegan bunch! Complete with the works: traditional brunch staples, both sweet and savory, served on vintage China and vividly colored fabric with tasty Read more…


Starting to say goodbye to Summer

Stop. Remember this moment. Summer has peaked. We’re about to descend down its slope, quickly. Halloween is already in the stores. We’ll pass through September, transitioning into the swift sweep of Thanksgiving and into Christmas and 2011. And repeat. But now, stop. Commit the clam behind your knees to memory, Read more…