I ordered in from Golden Era again tonight, because hunger came on suddenly and I was waiting for my friend to call me upon her arrival from the airport. Above is a not-very-good-but-the-best-I-could do shot of the Spicy Beef Stew, which is really pretty good, although as there is no A/C in my room, a bit too warming! The “beef” has an amazing texture and the broth is a Vietnamese-flavored, spicy, warm yumminess. It also has potatoes, carrots, tofu, and basil. I was a little conferenced-out by the end of the day and wanted something comforting: this certainly filled the bill.

My friend called the very second I focused my camera for the shot above, and I’m off to her apartment in a few minutes. She lives near City Lights, and I’m about to finish The Secret Scripture, so I think I’ll be dragging her over there. City Lights is a must-stop destination every time I’m here; I think it’s my favorite bookstore in the world after The Strand (although Normals holds a special place in my heart as well). I stopped by the hotel cafe to get a beer to enjoy with my meal and noticed the bartender was reading The Trial, so I a bit uncharacteristically (being immensely shy) struck up a conversation about it with him and we consequently engaged in a little Kafka-love fest. Have I mentioned I love this city?!

OK, this is NOT turning into a book blog, I swear. Soon we’ll be back to all food, food, food! Ok: food, Tigger, food, Mark, food. I can’t believe I’ve been making all of these non-recipe posts. And in fact you wouldn’t believe how much I miss cooking. Don’t get me wrong, the food here is amazing and there are almost too many choices, but I really prefer it when I rent a flat when traveling so I can have a kitchen. Not only is it cheaper, but I have a perverse love of grocery shopping in other cities. I did go to Whole Foods today to pick up a lunch since I wasn’t going to have time to go out between conference sessions, but Whole Foods doesn’t really count. It’s not THAT different than my Whole Foods.

Good news everyone! I was reading The Secret Scripture between conference sessions today and happened to look at the author photo on the inside jacket cover and thought to myself, “hm, that doesn’t look anything at all like the vain man I saw on the website last night”. Turns out I had spelled “Barry” incorrectly as “Berry”! The real Sebastian Barry doesn’t seem to have one of those newfangled web sites I’ve been hearing so much about (here’s a page about him, however), and I can go back to enjoying this book very much, thank you.

Just got back from seeing Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, which I quite liked.

Sorry for the non-food post (and distinct lack of photos…forgot to get on that USB cord today; not that I’ve actually yet photographed anything other than some tofu yesterday); just didn’t want to look stupid for any longer.

I have had a great day despite being on my own in San Francisco! I’m here for a conference that begins tomorrow and although I am eagerly looking forward to meeting up with my dear San Francisco-resident friend, she had to be out of town today.

My flight was at some unfathomably early hour, so I arrived four hours too early to check into my hotel. No problem, I cheerfully dropped off my bags and hoofed it on down to JAPANTOWN! Man, I love Japantown! I bought a tsukemono recipe book (for way less than Amazon is offering it), a pickle press (that doesn’t look like that one because I finally found a more 2-person sized one at Soko Hardware; the reason I never bought one before was all the others I have found have been so huge), a bento box, a beautifully painted ceramic citrus reamer, a doo-hickey for brushing my cast iron pan with a thin film of oil (in lieu of the pastry brush I currently use, which never gets really clean and therefore makes a mess), and a beautiful scarf (the one non-food item I purchased all day). Have I mentioned my love of Japantown? Then I had a vegan soon tofu at a Korean tofu house that was really yummy. Soon tofu recipe coming to an ieatfood post near you soon! I generally don’t mind eating alone if I have a book with me, so I quite enjoyed my solo lunch. I wish I had brought my camera just to show you my delicious meal, but alas, lugging it around with all its accoutrements is kind of a pain and I knew I was going to be buying a lot of stuff, AND it was drizzling when I left the hotel, so the camera stayed behind.

After checking in at the hotel, waiting 45 minutes for a huge herd of French people to use the elevator ahead of me (they were there first) 4 at a time (the maximum capacity of said elevator) (I took the opportunity, while waiting, to practice my very rusty French (most of what I remember from my many French classes seems to involves bibliothèques and Barbu, so I imagine these people were wondering what’s wrong with the crazy American who wants to play cards in the library)), and then walking down to the civic center to check in at my conference, and THEN hitting up the thrift store near my hotel, I started to think about dinner. It was at this point in time that I realized my hotel is less than a block from Millennium! This would have been much more exciting if Mark were here, though. Although I don’t mind dining by myself in most circumstances, I think Millennium is a little too fancy for solo eating. It’s more the prices than shame at being alone. But then I learned that Golden Era was just a block away as well! DO I LOVE THIS CITY OR WHAT?!?

I phoned in an order of Spicy Gourmet “Chicken” for take-out, trotted on over there, picked it up, stopped next door for a big ol’ bottle of beer, and headed back to my room (congratulating myself on thinking to pack a bottle opener; I’m a genius). (The jolly man at the liquor store, seeing my take-out container and noting my beer purchase asked me if I were heading back to my apartment for a relaxing evening. I just smiled and said, “I sure am!” I love that I’m always taken for a local in this city. I tell you, the love I have for this city is completely reciprocal!)

I photographed the “chicken” for you! I really did! And then I realized that although I managed to bring a bottle opener, I completely forgot to bring a USB cord, so I can’t upload my photos! (Shows my priorities, I suppose.) I think I’ll pick one up tomorrow, though, so I’ll edit this entry and include a picture of it. It was pretty tasty, although slightly more authentic-tasting than I’m used to. Mark and I would LOVE to live near a place like this though. (Well, we sort of do, actually.)

Update:
Here’s the photo!

At first I was disappointed that my friend won’t be in the city tonight because it’s Saturday and it seems like I should be out doing something. But honestly, between getting 3 hours of sleep before my flight and just an hour or so on the plane, then walking further and up more hills than Mark probably did on his weekly hike through the woods back at home, all day long, I have to say that kicking back in my hotel room with some yummy vegan food, a nice, refreshing beer, and watching some Frontier House on DVD (because I’ve been on a big kick of re-reading all the Little House on the Prairie books lately and thought it would be a good tie-in) is actually a great way to spend my evening. AND I’ll be all perky for the conference tomorrow!

And now I have to confess something non-food oriented (those of you that tune in for food and/or cats only can sign off now). I’m still reading Infinite Jest (I mentioned in an earlier post how shocked I was that David Foster Wallace happened to commit suicide while I was in the middle of it), but it’s far too large for me to try to transport across the country and then carry around in my purse while walking many miles all day, so I had to choose a different book to travel with. I chose The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Berry because it’s the favorite to win the Man Booker Prize this year and I often (but not always) like Booker winners. So I was going to casually mention to you here that I was reading it (because you can see it in some of the pictures I took of my dinner), but when I did a quick google search to get a link for it, I accidentally found myself at the author’s website (WARNING! DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK IF YOU WANT TO TAKE ANY OF HIS BOOKS SERIOUSLY.) Apparently he believes himself to be male model or something. I don’t know; the multiple automatically-refreshing glamor shots really turned me off. Which reminds me quite strongly of the time Fortinbras forced The Corrections on me, but sternly instructed me, “do NOT under any circumstances look at the photo of Jonathon Franzen on the back cover, in fact, I PLEAD of you to cover it up with electrical tape so I never have to see it again”. (Oh, do both Fort and I labor under the strange and perverted impression that to be good an author must look like this?) I’m just going to concentrate on the fact that one week from today, I will be face-to-face (for a few seconds as I awkwardly shove this book at him to sign) with this man.

Update: Ugh. Just so you know, I happened to pause Frontier House to write this post just seconds before they murdered a chicken. I realize times were very different back then and I’m actually glad the participants are being forced to see where their sanitized chicken nuggets really come from (except factory farms are even worse than what they are experiencing), but the historian who has been teaching them how they will have to live was holding one of the chickens in her arms, saying, “in just a few moments we are going to kill these chickens…”, and it just broke my heart because the poor chicken was sitting so calmly, so friendly, so trustingly, in her arms, just as my cats sit in my arms, and then they just lopped its head off.

Well, apparently I’m not cut out for life on the frontier, that’s for sure.

Tempeh SUCCESS again! Yay!

I checked Asian Vegan Kitchen out of the library last week. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I couldn’t resist any book with a title containing the words “Asian”, “Vegan”, and “Kitchen”. In looking for a dish to showcase my homemade tempeh, tonight I chose Spicy Tempeh from this book.

2 Tbsp peanut oil
3 shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic
1 medium tomato, chopped
4 dried red chilies, sliced
2 slices galangal
4 Tbsp palm sugar
2 salam leaves
1/4 cup (60 ml) water
1 Tbsp tamarind juice
1/2 tsp salt
14 oz tempeh, sliced into thin strips, deep-fried
1 cup peanuts, deep-fried
2 Tbsp kecap manis
celery leaves, for garnish
red bell pepper, sliced, for garnish

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the shallots, garlic, tomato, chilies, and galangal for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.
2. Add the palm sugar, salam leaves, water, tamarind juice, and salt. Stir over medium heat until the palm sugar has dissolved.
3. Add the deep-fried tempeh, deep-fried peanuts, and kecap manis. Stir constantly over high heat until the sauce has caramelized.
4. Stir with rice, garnished with celery leaves, and red pepper.

I made a few changes, the most significant being I didn’t deep fry anything. I pan-fried the tempeh and just used roasted peanuts. Since the peanuts were salted, I omitted the salt. I used bay leaves instead of salam leaves, and I used tamarind concentrate, not juice, which made it sort of “sweet and sour” in addition to “spicy” (and salty), but i liked it that way.

Mark liked it!

Tigger was ambivalent.

In other news, I will be in San Francisco, my favorite US city (shh, don’t tell New York!) from Saturday through Thursday, so if you don’t hear from me for a while, that’s why. I’ll have my camera and laptop, though, and SF is a vegan haven, so I may pop in to say hi. I’m fairly familiar with SF, but if anyone has any suggestions for must-see or must-eat items, drop me a comment!

It’s another Pig-approved post!

When my mother saw my Smoked Seitan Butt post and noticed it included vegetarian bacon bits, she thought I might like to try veganizing the following recipe of my grandmother’s:

Bean and Bacon Chowder

1 lb. pea beans (washed)
16 slices bacon (1 lb.)
2 cups chopped onions
2 (28 oz.) cans tomatoes
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. basil
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
4 beef bullion cubes, dissolved in 4 cups boiling water
2 T. sugar

Simmer beans in 4 cups water for 3-4 minutes in Dutch oven. Cool 1 hour. Drain water. Fry bacon until crisp; crumble and add to beans. Save bacon drippings. Saute onions in drippings until golden. Add to beans with tomatoes, salt, pepper, basil, tomato paste, bullion and water, and sugar. Cover and simmer 4-5 hours or until beans are cooked. Makes 4 quarts.

So that’s exactly what I did yesterday! Here’s my version; I’ve also halved her amounts:

Bean and Non-Bacon Chowder

8 oz navy beans
1 small or 1/2 large onion, chopped
1 cup diced UnPork
1 28 oz or two 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes (fire roasted is good here)
2 tsp vegan “beef” bouillon
1/4 cup vegan bacon bits
1 Tbsp sugar or 9 drops stevia
1/2 tsp basil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 cups water

Soak the beans overnight. (Or you can quick-soak them as described by my grandmother above.) Dice the UnPork.

In a Dutch oven (preferably cast iron), heat some olive oil. Add the onions and UnPork …

… and cook until onions are beginning to caramelize and UnPork is crispy, deglazing the pan with white wine (or broth or water) as necessary.

Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a simmer, then add the bouillon and stir to combine.

Add the rest of the ingredients, …

… cover, and simmer for 4 to 5 hours or until beans are done.

If I had realized that this was going to take 4 to 5 hours even after soaking the beans for what turned out to be 24 hours, I would have made it in the pressure cooker, which I suspect would have taken 45 minutes. I was thinking it would take 2 hours. We probably could have eaten it after 2 hours, but I wanted the beans to be softer, so I kept staving off hunger with a slice of beer bread and waiting another hour…until it was midnight. I also had to add water to thin it back out a couple of times. Next time it is definitely the pressure cooker!

I can’t say that I remember eating this at my grandmother’s, but the aroma was very familiar, so I guess I remember smelling it.

Serve with a loaf of crusty (and preferably beer-filled!) bread and salad.

Something about this chowder made Mark want to pose like a senior portrait. Mark is a unique individual.

This is unrelated to food (although he did write an article for Gourmet magazine), but David Foster Wallace is dead. This is especially shocking to me because I am actually currently reading Infinite Jest. RIP, David.

The Smarkster isn’t feeling well today and among his complaints is that he’s hungry but doesn’t want food. I suggested soup and he asked if I’d make tomato soup. It’s so easy that although I wanted to make it as quickly as possible for him, I figured I might as well take pictures and write it up for the blog while I was at it. I just went to Penzey’s last weekend and have a bunch of new spices I’d love to have played with, but I figured if Smark wasn’t feeling well, it wasn’t the right time to experiment.

Quick and Non-Experimental Tomato Soup

1/4 onion, diced
1 small or 1/2 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
14.5 ounces vegetable stock or vegan broth (1 tomato can-full)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
fresh basil for garnish

Saute the onions, carrots, celery, and garlic in a soup pot.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.

Remove from heat and remove the bay leaf. Let cool for a few minutes, then blend, either with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender.

Reheat if necessary and garnish with fresh basil. I didn’t have any fresh basil so I threw a small cube of frozen basil in the pot and stirred until melted.

Here’s hoping Smark feels better!

Caution, soup is hot!

I forgot to give him a lemon wedge, but if I were serving myself, I’d probably squeeze a little lemon over it. I think fresh lemon brightens everything.

I put a loaf of Jeffrey Hamelman’s beer bread into the oven to bake just before starting the soup. I plan to serve it with dinner.

There are two things that bread bakers hope to achieve in every loaf of bread, but which sometimes seem to happen randomly, perhaps when Fornax is smiling upon you: oven spring and a crust that literally crackles as it begins to cool after removing from the oven. Oven spring is the extra rise you get a couple minutes after putting the loaf into the oven. This you can control a little bit, in fact, scoring (slashing) is done to control how oven spring affects the bread (by giving the crust a location to expand), but it seems like some loaves spring right up in the oven and others don’t much at all – and that the only deciding factor is luck! I’ve made three different kinds of bread from Bread so far and all of my loaves have had great oven spring. And when I pulled this beer bread from the oven, it started crackling delightfully as I was taking its picture!

I have been really happy with the loaves I’ve baked from this book, and there are so many, many loaves to go! It’s an excellent book and the loaves are a pure delight and joy to bake. Everything just seems to go so smoothly when I follow these recipes. If you are serious about learning to bake bread, I highly recommend this book, although it’s pretty intensive and there are only a few photographs (there are simple drawings that illustrate techniques where necessary). If you are thinking only casually of getting into bread baking, you may find Peter Reinhart’s books a bit more accessible. You could start with this book, but you’ll have to be prepared to read in order to learn the techniques…not look at pictures. For someone who pretty much has the hang of the basics of bread baking but who wants more practice, this book is absolutely perfect.

I can’t wait to taste the beer bread. It’s made with roasted barley, whole wheat flour, and BEER! I only made one loaf instead of the two the recipe was scaled for, which meant I had half a beer leftover this morning. Which meant I drank half a beer before breakfast this morning. Was that wrong?

I felt like veganizing another old recipe tonight. This is my grandmother’s recipe for Chili Con Carne, which I picked out because I thought topping it with one of the new Cheezly flavors that arrived Friday would be a good way to test the cheese out. I often find myself wishing I had discovered my interest in cooking long before I did so that I could have apprenticed myself under my grandmother before she died, or better, that she had lived longer. I’m positive she would have happily helped me make vegetarian meals. Here’s the original, rather vague recipe:

Cook ground beef, 2 onions, and pepper until brown. Add 1 can tomatoes and 1 can kidney beans. (Pour broth off kidney beans before adding.) Combine 3 Tbsp. vinegar, 2 tsp. salt, 3 Tbsp. Chili powder, and dash red pepper. Simmer 40 minutes.

So I set about looking for beef substitutes. First I thought of TVP, which would have also been good for nostalgic purposes, reminding me of all the times my college roommate and I made huge pots of Fantastic’s Chili, but I discovered I had less than a cup of TVP. Next I thought of bulgur, which is a great texture for chili, but I had even less bulgur. But I probably had enough of both combined, so that’s what I did. You could use one instead of the other and still have great results, although you may have to adjust the amount of water. Bulgur requires more water than TVP, so just keep that in mind.

Grandmother’s Chili Con Carne

1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
4 cups vegetable or vegan “beef” broth
1/2 cup bulgur
3/4 cup TVP
3 Tbsp vinegar (I used white wine; apple cider would have been good too)
3 Tbsp chili powder
minced hot pepper or hot sauce to taste (reduce the amount of vinegar if you use a vinegar-based hot sauce)

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add a small amount of oil. Add the onions and cook for 2 minutes.

Add the green pepper and cook for another 2 minutes.

Rinse the beans …

… then add to the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, …

… reduce heat to medium low, and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes, until the bulgur is soft and the chili is as thick as you desire.

If you like, top with shredded vegan cheese and/or vegan sour cream.

The Nacho-flavored Cheezly was really good, both by itself and on the chili. I love Cheezly. As for the chili, it was good. I will definitely make it again. It was simple, easy, and very fast: a great weekday meal.

As Tigger and I were busy in the kitchen prepping the chili, I heard thundering cat paws in the living room. Quickly and quietly, I grabbed my camera and tip-toed into the room, viewfinder to eyeball and finger on shutter. Despite my stealth, Brachtune, who had been enjoying a Tigger-free reprieve and batting around one of the Cat Toys For Cats, heard me approaching and immediately stopped playing and started walking towards me. It’s so impossible to catch her playing; she always abandons her games and approaches me looking for love.

Then she gets her face so close to the camera, I can’t focus.

It’s much easier when she’s half asleep.

I had a specific request for a bagel tutorial, from Fortinbras for his mother. So here you go! This is from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice, which I really must insist you buy.

Bagels
Makes 12 large or 24 mini bagels

Sponge

1 tsp (0.11 oz) instant yeast
4 cups (18 oz) high-gluten or bread flour
2 1/2 cups (20 oz) water, at room temperature

Dough

1/2 tsp (0.055 oz) instant yeast
3 3/4 cups (17 oz) high-gluten or bread flour
2 3/4 tsp (0.7 oz) salt
2 tsp (0.33 oz) malt powder OR 1 Tbsp (0.5 oz) dark or light malt syrup, agave nectar or brown sugar

To Finish

1 Tbsp baking soda
cornmeal or semolina for dusting
toppings (optional)

To make the sponge, add all of the ingredients to a large bowl, or the mixing bowl of an electric mixer, and stir until combined.

Cover and let sit for two hours or until it has risen to twice its size and is very bubbly.

To make the dough, add the yeast to the sponge and stir.

Add the salt, malt powder or sweetener, and 3 cups of the flour, and mix until it forms a ball. Slowly add the remaining 3/4 cup flour. Bagel dough is pretty stiff and especially if you are making a full recipe, you may find this easier to do in an electric mixer. However, my Kitchen Aid can’t handle kneading a full batch, so what I do is after adding the initial 3 cups of flour, I put bowl on the mixer with the dough hook and add the remaining flour as it mixes at speed one. It can handle this initial mixing phase. Once all of the dough is incorporated and the mixture is an admittedly somewhat shaggy ball …

… I remove it and cut it in half.

Then I use the dough hook to knead each half on speed 2 for about 6 minutes. When both halves are kneaded, I combine them on my workspace and hand knead to combine them for about a minute. If you are not using a mixer, hand knead the entire dough for at least 10 minutes.

Scale the dough into 4.5 ounce pieces for standard-sized bagels or smaller for mini bagels.

If you are into baking at all, a kitchen scale is really indispensable – and you really should use the measurements by weight above, not by volume – but if you don’t have a scale yet, try to divide the dough as evenly as possible so the bagels bake evenly later. I was so proud of myself yesterday because for the first time, I ended up with 12 bagels that each weighed exactly 4.5 ounces! Usually the 12th or 13th bagel is a little runt. This time it was perfect! Here are my 12 4.5 ounce dough pieces:

Round each dough piece. To do this, cup one of your hands around it and with the other, spin it around, forming a tight ball. I’m not very good at explaining this, which is why you should buy The Bread Baker’s Apprentice and learn from the master.

Cover the balls with a damp towel and let rest for 20 minutes.

Prepare two half-sheet pans by lining with parchment and misting lightly with spray oil. (Don’t omit the misting: I forgot to do so yesterday and my bagels were stuck the parchment this morning and I therefore ended up with a few misshapen bagels after prying them off.) Use your thumb to poke a hole in one of the rounds.

Gently use your thumbs to embiggen (what? it’s a perfectly cromulent word!) the hole to a diameter of about 2 1/2 inches, while keeping the the dough as even as possible on all sides. This one isn’t exactly a great example; try to do better.

Place each shaped bagel on one of the pans; you can fit 6 on each half-sheet pan

We have a small dorm-sized refrigerator in our basement, originally purchased as back-up beer storage for parties, but I’ve commandeered it as a proofing fridge during non-party times. I can’t fit half-sheet pans in it, so I use quarter sheet pans. I don’t know what I’d do without my proofing fridge, although I wish it were full-size!

Wrap the pans tightly in plastic wrap. I don’t like using all this plastic wrap and I’m trying to think of alternative but haven’t come up with much yet. The issue is you don’t want any air getting to the bagels.

Let the bagels sit out for 20 minutes, then retard in the refrigerator overnight.

When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Bring a large pot – the widest you have – of water to a boil, then add the baking soda.

Remove the bagels from the refrigerator …

… and add only as many as you comfortably can to the pot of water. Don’t allow them to touch, and realize they will embiggen somewhat in the water. Boil for one minute …

… then flip over and boil for another minute. Peter says you can boil for as long as two minutes on each side if you like chewy bagels and although I do like chewy bagels, I have found that one minute per side works best for me.

Remove with a slotted spoon and place back on the sheet pan, which you have sprinkled lightly with cornmeal or semolina. Immediately after placing on the pan, sprinkle with your desired toppings. I almost always make “everything” bagels, a mixture of sesame, poppy, caraway, and dill seeds and salt.

Bake for 5 minutes at 500 degrees Fahrenheit, then rotate the pan 180 degrees, reduce heat to 450 degrees, and bake an additional 5 to 10 minutes or until light brown. If you are baking on two shelves, switch the pans as well when you rotate them; I bake one pan at a time because I’ve found they come out more evenly that way.

Let cool on a rack for at least 15 minutes before serving.

I forgot to take a picture of one when I served them, so admire this second cooling shot in lieu of the usual “plated” photo, or see my earlier Entertaining the Vegetable-Hating Aussie post, which has a shot of a bagel in Tofutti and jalapeno jelly topped action.

In Tigger news, I stopped by Petco today to get some kitty litter and looked at the kitty toys while I was there. Tigger’s favorite color is red, so I always look for red toys for him. He goes bonkers for red toys. They happened to have cute little red cherry and strawberry catnip toys, so I got him a couple. I thought the packaging was funny:

Cat Toy…For Cats!

Tigger loved them. He loved them before I even removed the cardboard.

I love that cats always rub their heads on things they like. (Tigger often rubs his head on me, which is how I know he loves me.)

Silly kitty.

Of course, he even rubbed his head on the empty cardboard, so I don’t know why I bother seeking out particular toys for him.

Ah, we’ll be hearing the thunder of cat paws running up and down the hallway later tonight…

Until he at long last captures his prey.

As I promised in the Imperial Deviled Crab post, yesterday I attempted to make a crabby tofu. And I failed miserably. I was left with, however, an Old Bay and seaweed-infused mass of thick okara, so to keep the thing from becoming a total loss, I obviously made SusanV’s Okara Crab Cakes.

I actually had some tartar sauce already prepared, as yesterday I’d made us quick “fish” sandwiches, using some frozen vegan “fish” patties, but reading Susan’s suggestion of a “spicy cocktail sauce”, I decided I wanted some of that too! I looked up cocktail sauce recipes and quickly learned that horseradish is pretty much essential, but I didn’t have any and it didn’t seem worth a trip to Wegmans (despite my undying love for Wegmans). In case you ever find yourself in the same situation, here’s what I did:

Don’t Have Any Horseradish But Need Cocktail Sauce Cocktail Sauce

1 cup ketchup
1 Tbsp powdered wasabi
2 Tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
juice of 1/2 large lemon
hot sauce to taste

Mix all ingredients. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

Since I had made the tartar sauce the day before and wasn’t planning to post it, I don’t have any pictures for you, but in case you are interested, here’s what I probably did (I don’t remember exactly and I just make this stuff up as I go along…)

Tartar Sauce

1 cup Vegenaise
1/4 cup sweet relish, squeezed dry
1/4 onion, minced
1 tsp dry mustard
juice of 1/2 large lemon
1/4 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients. Refrigerate at least 20 minutes.

Now, I don’t know how many of you are into photography at all. I’m quite an amateur, but I consider it one of my hobbies. I like to think that most of my photography is better than the awful pictures I manage to take of food for this blog (food photography is a skill I’m trying to improve), but I still have a lot to learn. One thing I DO know is that my aperture was set way, way too low when I was taking pictures of my crab cakes tonight. Wow. This actually looks better in the smaller version (usually the reverse is quite true), but it is still an awful picture and I’m sorry. I’d have skipped posting anything tonight, but it’s been several days and I feel as I’ve abandoned you. I wanted to have an awesome tofu crab tutorial for you today but that didn’t work out!

I’ll leave you with a picture of some rolls I baked yesterday (in addition to a hearth loaf and a panned loaf that is currently in the refrigerator for baking tomorrow). The recipe was the Whole Wheat Bread with a Multi-Grain Soaker and Pâte Fermentée from Jeffrey Hamelman’s Bread.

This book has been on my wish list forever and I was ready for a new bread book, but since I’m a book-buying ban until I go to Sydney in February, I borrowed it from the library. I don’t want to hurt Peter Reinhart’s feelings, but I might have a new boyfriend now! I’m either going to have to keep this book checked out until my birthday in October, or I’m going to have to break the book-buying ban, because I need this book. (Fortunately, I’ve been very careful to say I’m only “cutting back” on my book purchases until Sydney…)

Oh yeah, and I found out that Fortinbras promised his mother that I would do a bagel tutorial, so look for that soon. If it weren’t so late and I weren’t so into reading Little House on the Prairie for some unknown reason, I’d start some bagels tonight, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait another week. Bagels are fun though! Get yourselves some high-gluten flour in preparation!

Remember the Anti-Tigger Shield in this post? Well, here’s why it’s necessary:

That’s Tigger sitting in a bread basket. On a loaf of bread. It was stale bread, so it didn’t bother me, but it’s even more weird that he wants to sit on rock-hard bread.

What, is he roosting?!

A very hungry Mark just came into the library where I am posting this, gnawing on a piece of the very stale bread. “You realize Tigger just laid that, don’t you?”