I saw this in the grocery store and knew Mark would find it amusing. (He did.)

It is, of course, fresh horseradish. I’m a fan of horseradish, fresh or prepared. I like the sinus-clearing bite it gives to food. I did a little googling and decided to make this recipe, using tempeh instead of the unspecified meat. If you use vegan stock, it’s vegan as written. I made it pretty much exactly as directed, although some of the measurements are a bit vague, so I’ll clarify what I did.

1 package tempeh (no time to make my own recently, alas)
1/2 small onion, minced
1/2 small to medium horseradish root, or about 1/4 cup prepared horseradish
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp brown sugar (I used 3)
2 Tbsp cider vinegar (a bit less if you use prepared horseradish)
2 bay leaves
2 cloves
1 to 1/2 cups vegan “beef” stock
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Chop the tempeh into 3/4″ cubes. Fry lightly in a skillet and set aside.

Peel the horseradish.

Grate the horseradish. I highly recommend using a food processor if you have one because freshly-grated horseradish fumes are quite noxious.

Heat about a tablespoon of olive or other oil in a skillet, then add the onions and brown.

Add 2 tablespoons of the grated horseradish and the flour, and fry for a minute or two.

Add the broth, cloves, bay leaves, brown sugar, and vinegar and bring to a boil.

Allow the gravy to thicken up a bit, then add the tempeh and the rest of the horseradish (you may want to taste it before dumping all the horseradish in), seasoning with salt and pepper as well.

Leave the burner on low until thickened to your likeness. Adjust seasonings if necessary. (I added an extra tablespoon of brown sugar.)

I also made some roasted mustardy potatoes.

I whisked together equal parts olive oil, German mustard, and white wine vinegar.

I tossed this with some teeny tiny potatoes, then spread them on a toaster oven-sized baking sheet. Whenever possible, I like using my toaster oven for small roasting and baking jobs. Then I roasted at about 400 degrees until everything else was done, about half an hour. Larger potatoes will take longer.

For the green counterpart of the meal, I made Elise’s Sautéed Kale with Smoked Paprika. I blanched the kale for 5 minutes …

… then drained, remembering (for once) to save the kale nutrient-filled water (I used it in the gravy above).

I gathered the spices:

Sauteed the onions, then added the spices.

And finally added the kale and sauteed a few more minutes.

And here it is all together:

Any Nabokov fans out there? I got The Original of Laura!

I was so excited about it I actually had to buy the December Playboy to get a preview, but the real thing makes for a bit classier of a read:

Each page is printed on heavy card stock with a scan of the actual index cards on which VN wrote the incomplete novel. The pages are perforated so you can re-order them. That’s how VN wrote all his novels: on index cards that he would rearrange until the story formed itself in the correct order. Because he died before the book was finished, we don’t know for sure in what order the cards would have ended up.

Yesterday I bought some pretty rainbow chard at Wegmans, and I also had the rest of a box of silken tofu leftover from the substitution I did for egg yolks in the babka recipe I tested for Peter Reinhart, so for dinner tonight I googled “chard silken tofu recipe” for ideas on how to use these two items for dinner. And guess what I found? Chard-Filled “Omelette” on Cupcake Punk! So that is indeed what I made for dinner tonight.

The only problem was I’d used a quarter of the box of silken tofu already and although I have another box, opening it would leave me in the exact same position I was already in: three quarters of a box of leftover silken tofu I have no idea what to do with. So I pondered this predicament for a few minutes and then realized I had some leftover cheeze sauce that was sort of the same consistency as mushed up silken tofu. So I substituted the same weight in cheeze sauce as I was missing from the tofu box. At first I also omitted the nutritional yeast and salt, both of which are in the cheeze sauce, but when I tasted it, it was too tahini-y so I added them in their full amounts anyway and liked it better. I won’t bother writing up the recipe, but here are some pics:

Pouring the “batter” into the frying pan:

Toping with the chard:

Folding the omelette:

Serving:

I don’t know that tsukemono is a traditional accompaniment to omelette, at least outside Japan, but I’m obsessed with the “sweet cucumber” tsukemono I made last week and am eating them with everything. I plan on making them again as soon as they are all gone and this time I’ll document it for you. It’s actually very much like an American pickle, and isn’t very sweet. It IS yummy.

Anyway, that worked out perfectly – thanks, Jes!

Last night I made a caramelized onion, sun-dried tomato, and soy pepperoni pizza for dinner:

Yum!

Today my 00-style flour was delivered. I’ve been using various Peter Reinhart recipes for pizza dough for ages now but I think I’m going to try to make up my own pizza dough recipe. It’s not that I don’t love his recipes, it’s just he never uses Italian flour and I wanted to play around with it. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’ve gotten a few requests for the skillets and a couple for the bread pan, so I’ll do a random drawing for each Friday evening. I wish I had skillets to give to everyone – now I feel bad I don’t have more to offer!