Tigger has barely budged from the wok box. Even when I need to make room on the kitchen island and move the box to the dining room table, he just remains in the box as I carry it. He also purrs loudly while in the box and seems particularly happy and peaceful.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but Tigger hates Brachtune. After 14 years of living together, you’d think he’d have learned to tolerate her, but he still hates her. I don’t know how anyone can possibly hate Brachtune because she’s the sweetest, most good-natured cat on the planet, but Tigger’s a bit of an egomaniac and only likes himself. Brachtune, on the other hand, looks up to Tigger and often mimics his behavior. So when Tigger took a short break from the box this afternoon, I was only half-surprised to see this:

When Tigger then hopped up on the table and caught her, I was pretty sure he was going to smack her around.

Fortunately, Tigger got distracted by something else and Brachtune then decided that sitting in a box was overrated and got out of her own accord.

Mark’s parents lived in Korea for a couple of years just before he was born so it is no surprise that it is through him and his family that I first fell in love with Korean food. When Mark and I were living in Baltimore and his parents were an hour north of us, near the Delaware border, we’d often meet at a Korean restaurant halfway between us. Now that Mark’s family has moved to Charleston, SC (where there are apparently no Asian grocery stores, a fact I find perplexing and upsetting), we live in a part of Northern Virginia that has a huge number of Korean restaurants and grocery stores, which I find reassuring and great. I honestly don’t think I can live further than 10 minutes from a Korean grocery store.

I will soon have to put up a tutorial on my favorite Korean dish, dolsot bibimbap, but today I bring you instructions on making a food even more important: the ubiquitous kimchi. Kimchi is often, but not always, made with fish sauce. Although cabbage kimchi is the best-known in America, there are many different kinds, including radish and cucumber kimchi. I usually stick to making cabbage kimchi, although I think I may start branching out. The mysterious ingredient I posted earlier in the week was Korean chili pepper flakes.

Kimchi originated when Koreans of long ago – as many as 3,000 years ago – learned how to ferment vegetables to in order to prolong storage time. Special pots of the prepared vegetables would be buried underground to regulate the temperature (thus controling the rate of fermentation), a marker placed in the ground to facilitate location of them after snowfalls. Many modern Koreans have special kimchi refrigerators instead: they sell them at Super H, one of my favorite haunts, for hundreds of dollars. You absolutely do not need a special refrigerator or even pot to make kimchi. I bought a kimchi pot when Mark was going through one of his kimchi phases: he’d eat bowls-full at a time morning, noon, and night and even a gallon-sized jar didn’t hold a week’s worth of kimchi. Before I bought the kimchi pot, I used a huge gallon-sized pickle jar that I recycled during Mark’s earlier dill pickle phase. If you have something like that, great. If not, you can use four quart-sized jars instead, and then you can share a jar or two with a friend if you don’t happen to eat as much kimchi as we do.

Kimchi

1 head Napa cabbage
1/3 cup kosher salt
1 bundle mustard greens (optional)
1 daikon, shredded (optional)
1 large or two medium carrots, shredded (optional)
1 bunch scallions, cut into 1″ pieces
1 head garlic, pressed or minced (I recommend pressing in order to exude the juices)
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, grated on a microplane grater or minced
1/2 cup Korean chili pepper: go out of your way to find Korean chili pepper as it tastes different than others, but you can use either flakes, coarse, or fine
1/4 cup soy sauce

Remove any unappetizing-looking outer layers from the cabbage, then cut it in half.

Remove the core from each half.

It happens that the prepared kimchi I find that is fish-free is often “whole cabbage” kimchi, which means I have to cut it into bite-sized pieces before serving, which irritates me. So I find one of the benefits of making my own is I can cut it to size before it’s marinated. Although you have to do some preparatory chopping, you also save yourself time later when you can just stir the marinade into the chopped cabbage instead of painstakingly coating each cabbage leaf with it. So I therefore cut each half into half again so I have quarters.

Then I cut each quarter into bite-sized pieces. Place a sieve into the kitchen sink (or a large bowl if you need to keep your sink free) and put the chopped cabbage in it as you go along. Periodically sprinkle some of the kosher salt over the cabbage pieces and toss thoroughly.

Most techniques I’ve seen instruct you to soak the cabbage in salted water for one to four hours, however, I like the technique I saw in this article (although I don’t particularly care for the rest of the recipe): place a weight on the rinsed, salted cabbage and wait 24-48 hours. It takes longer, but you end up with nice crisp, dry cabbage. As the article suggested, I use a large Ziploc bag filled with water:

Meanwhile, make the paste. Take the mustard greens, if using, …

… and chop.

Grate the carrot, if using …

… as well as the daikon.

Then take your scallions …

… and chop into 1″ pieces. I start off shorter at the white part and make larger lengths as I get to the tips.

Press or mince the garlic:

And grate the ginger. Place all of these ingredients into a large bowl.

Measure the chili flakes …

… and add to the bowl along with the soy sauce. Mix everything together.

Place into a jar until the cabbage is ready.

When the cabbage is ready, place it into your kimchi pot, a gallon-sized jar, or if you are using four quart jars, a large bowl (it’ll be easier to mix everything together at one time and then divide amongst the jars). Then add your paste ingredients.

Mix everything up very well.

Divide amongst the four jars if using quart jars. If using any type of jar with a lid that screws tightly, be careful not to pack the kimchi in too tightly, and leave some room at the top of the jar. It may bubble up as it ferments. I once filled a jar too full and woke up in one morning to find kimchi juice spilling all over my kitchen counter. Which is another reason I talked myself into buying a kimchi pot.

Set the jar or pot aside for a few days. I generally give it three days. It will look like this when it’s ready:

If you used a pot, transfer to clean jars. Otherwise, simply move your jars to the refrigerator.

I keep reading that kimchi is good for about 3 weeks, and after that it becomes too strong and you’ll only want to use it in soups and other cooked dishes, but I haven’t really found that to be the case. Of course, we both really like kimchi, so maybe the stronger taste doesn’t bother us. Frankly, I have a hard time keeping kimchi around for three weeks because Mark turns into a kimchi monster. I do make a lot of kimchi ramen though. You can also eat the kimchi before it ferments, although it will really be more a salad in its pre-fermented state.

Serve with anything. Particularly Korean food.

My mother-in-law said my kimchi is very good, and as her time living there qualifies her as an expert on the matter in my opinion, I was very flattered. Of course, my mother-in-law is the greatest mother-in-law ever and tells me everything I cook is very good, which can’t possibly be true, so you’ll have to make it for yourself and form your own opinion. Mark really does eat it by the bowl-full, though, so it can’t be too bad. (He’s also never gotten bird flu. Coincidence? I think not.)

On the subject of fermenting things, in bread baking, there is a technique in which you use a pâte fermentée, which is a starter dough that ferments for a few days before the rest of the dough is prepared. Because it seems I am always fermenting something, be it kimchi or bread or whatever else, I suggested to my friends that Renae Fermentée might be a good nickname for me. However, like Rimmer from Red Dwarf, I found that people don’t usually glom onto nicknames you choose for yourself, and the friends seem to be sticking with a resurrected nickname that was bestowed upon me in high school: Rogna Pasta. Which is fine. At least I’m not Ace-hole. But I still think that if I ever record an album, I’ll use the stage name Renae Fermentée.

I started hearing about the use of young green jackfruit as a meat substitute a few months ago, mostly in reference to veggie-friendly Mexican restaurants on the West Coast, I believe, and when The Urban Housewife posted a recipe for Jackfruit Carnitas Tacos back in February, I took note and started looking for jackfruit at my local Asian markets. Either I was too blind to see it during umpteen previous trips, or Super H JUST starting carrying it, but I finally scored some last week, and while I didn’t brag about it last night, in addition to making minestrone and seasoning my wok, I also prepared the taco ingredients for easy insertion into the crockpot this morning. Not because I have a fixed time I have to be into work that necessitates me rushing around in the mornings, but because I don’t always function well enough in the mornings to handle questions and decisions, even questions as seemingly innocuous as just how much smoked paprika is a good idea?

So this post is even less innovative than the last since I’m not using my own recipe or even putting my own spin on things. But I have been really curious about jackfruit, so I figured I’d share my first taste of it with you. Plus I’m getting better about remembering to take pictures! Maybe I’ll even get better at taking pictures!

Melisser’s recipe is great because it’s extraordinarily simple and can really be done in five minutes before you leave for work. Only someone as completely dysfunctional as I am in the morning needs to worry about this the night before. And I wouldn’t even have bothered if I hadn’t been so tired I was worried I was going to sleep so late I’d be late for my 11:30 conference call. (Yes, I realize how pathetic that is.)

So last night, I lined up the ingredients:

Eep! I put the Turkish oregano used in the minestrone in the photo instead of the Mexican oregano that went with the carnitas! Faux pas!

Then I removed the jackfruit from its can and rinsed it off:

So THAT’s what jackfruit looks like!

I tasted a tiny bit. It was pretty tasteless. Then I cut up an onion, pressed a bunch of cloves of garlic, and measured out the spices, all of which I threw in a container and stuck in the refrigerator.

When I got up this morning, Tigger was still enjoying his box.

He has a little mohawk because his head gets wet when he showers with us. He’s weird.

I put the jackfruit in the crockpot as directed by Melisser.

Yes, my crockpot is blue and ancient. I prefer “retro”, thank you. I then added the spices. My pre-planning had not been perfect because I’d just dumped the spices onto the onions last night, so I sort of scooped out the top layer of onions and just stirred everything together. I wasn’t up for massaging fruit at this stage – it sounds like a task I can’t handle until at least noon – so I didn’t rub each piece individually.

Then I added the remainder of the onions.

And the salsa.

Meanwhile, Tigger fell asleep in the box.

I wished I could curl up on some wadded-up paper in a box and take a nap, but instead I went to work and got on that conference call, my favorite thing. Eight hours later, I arrived home and anxiously checked the crockpot. The jackfruit, sort of pinkish, reminded me of ham.

Tigger got back in the box.

Then I messaged Mark and baffled him by announcing dinner was ready and he should come home. I’m sure his thought process was, “Huh? What? Dinner? At 7 p.m.? How is this possible?” I mean, it’s not unusual for me to spend two to three hours making dinner and we routinely eat at 10 p.m. or later. BUT NOT TONIGHT! So he came home and I set up a few dishes of toppings for the tacos. Then we ate them.

Here’s the bowl of jackfruit “carnitas”:

Here is Mark enjoying a taco:

Here is Brachtune thinking maybe she’d enjoy a taco (she didn’t):

Here is my taco:

And here is Brachtune being pretty while we ate:

As for the jackfruit as a meat substitute, it was pretty good. Mark said it tasted a bit like potatoes, but I didn’t think it had much of a taste of its own at all, rather that it absorbs the flavors its cooked in, like tofu. I like how healthy it is, particularly in comparison to most meat substitutes. It had a nice texture, sort of like very tender meat, I guess. I barely remember meat, if you want to know the truth, but it is sort of like what I imagine very tender meat is like. I have another can of it that I intend to be more creative with. Not that Melisser’s recipe wasn’t good, because it was quite good, and so, so easy, but I’d like to come up with something of my own.

As for Tigger, he’s STILL in the box:

How long can I drag out this Tigger-in-the-box thing? I don’t know; I really did intend this to be a food blog, not a Tigger blog, and certainly not a Tigger-in-a-box blog. Those cats, though. They have any number of specially-bought, comfy cat beds, a cat tree taller than I am, an antique velvet scratching post – no, wait, that WAS an antique velvet SOFA and was NOT intended for the cats, a fact with which neither one of them has come to terms – and a million toys, but all they really want is a free box.

Well, Tigger’s other favorite napping spot wasn’t free.

I got home at a (relatively) decent hour today so I had a bit more time to devote to dinner, although recent poor eating habits and lack of exercise, both due to being extremely busy, made me want to focus on a salad for dinner, which in my exhaustion I obtained from Wegmans’ salad bar. But because this busy-ness caught me by surprise, I realized I had a lot of veggies purchased last week that I was running out of time to use, so I decided to also use a bunch of stuff up by making minestrone. Soup and salad is always a healthy and light, but filling, meal in my opinion. It does not make for very innovative blog posts, but I was knackered today and not at my creative best.

Minestrone

(That’s a rather Albuquerque-skyline kind of ingredients photo, isn’t it?)

1 leek or onion, chopped
3 medium carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
6 cups veggie stock or vegan “chicken” broth (if using a high-sodium bouillon, make it half-strength)
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 red potatoes, chopped
1 handful green beans, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 tsp oregano
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup small pasta, such as macaroni, orzo, letters, etc.
1 handful fresh spinach
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
3 drops stevia or 1 tsp sugar, optional

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a large soup pot or Dutch oven. Add the chopped leek or onion, carrots, and celery and cook for 5 minutes or until soft.

If necessary, deglaze the pot with white wine, stock, or water. Add the garlic and cook for one minute.

Add the stock, tomatoes, tomato paste, potatoes, green beans, and zucchini.

Cover and cook for half an hour. Add the pasta and oregano and cook for 15 minutes or until pasta is thoroughly cooked.

Add spinach, salt, and pepper. Add the optional stevia or sugar if it needs a tiny hint of sweetness. Cook for 3 minutes.

Serve with a salad. I made the creamy Italian dressing from How it All Vegan.

The items balanced on my soup bowl are bread sticks. Mark thought they were chopsticks. Then he thought they were meant for spearing the annellini (rings) pasta I used. Then he figured out they were edible and ate ten of them. I actually bought them for you, dear readers, not to confuse Mark. I thought they’d add interest to what I knew was going to be a boring picture of soup. They did end up looking like chopsticks. (And it WAS fun to spear the annellini.)

Despite my fatigue, while making the soup, I seasoned my new wok, which arrived today. Tigger was very excited about the box. He sure loves boxes.

The first few times I captured the cats in mid-yawn, I thought it was an amazing stroke of luck. Then I realized that the cats are always yawning, and I am always taking their picture.

How does such a ridiculous cat sitting in a box end up looking so regal? Must be my fine photography skills.

In other news, Mark pointed out last night that I’ve left you hanging in regards to this post, but the fact of the matter is it’s not ready yet! Should be ready on Friday. Maybe tomorrow.

I am still extremely busy. I got home late from work (although much earlier than my close-to-midnight arrival last night) tonight, so something fast was in order. I’d bought a couple of bunches of basil a few days ago, thinking I would make pesto, and at some point between then and now, I’d thought it would be fun to use sun-dried tomatoes in the pesto, which is exactly what I did. I’m skeptical about calling this “my” recipe because it’s a pretty standard pesto and adding sun-dried tomatoes is certainly not novel, but I’m suffering from lack of posts lately, so I’m putting it up anyway! Toss this with pasta and you can have a meal ready in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

2 cups basil leaves
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted in hot water (if using oil-packed, cut back on the olive oil a bit)
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
4 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt

Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in hot water until soft (5 minutes or so):

Place all ingredients in a blender.

Blend until smooth.

To serve with pasta as I did, place pasta into a bowl, put a heaping tablespoon-sized dollop of pesto upon it, and dribble a little of the pasta-cooking water over it (I scooped some out with a Pyrex measuring cup before dumping into the colander), then stir everything together.

With a glass of much-deserved wine, this was a very fast but elegant way to wind down. I encountered a lot of interference on the way, though, I must confess. See, Tigger LOVES nutritional yeast; if I so much as go near it, he sinks his claws into my arm and drags me closer to him, head-butting me and meowing. So when I wanted to take a picture of it, he, of course, had to involve himself.

Look at his tongue!

And do you think I learned my lesson the first time and gave him some when he demanded it?

No, I did not.

Yes, I finally caved in and gave the poor, neglected cat what he so badly desired:

Then, while setting up the shot of the plated meal, the mischievous tomato-loving Mark seemed determined to ruin my decorative garnish:

Finally I sat down to eat with my book (the new Salman Rushdie, if you’re curious) and was immediately bombarded with Brachtune’s face directly in mine.

You can actually see my bowl of pasta reflected in her eyes!

But I don’t know, there are worse ways to end a day than in the company of Rushdie, Brachtune, and a big glass of wine, so I won’t complain.

And the pesto must have been good because I caught Mark dipping the extra tomato wedges into the leftover pesto after cleaning his bowl!

Ugh, I’ve been so busy this week, particularly this weekend. I’ve barely been in the kitchen at all. Late tonight I did start making something I’ll be sharing with you later this week, but it takes several days to make. It involves this:

More later.

Back when we lived in Baltimore, our favorite bar was Club Charles (affectionately known as Club Chuck), the world’s best dive bar, frequented by John Waters and quintessentially Baltimore. When the owner of Club Chuck bought the building next to Club Chuck and turned it into a vegan-friendly restaurant called the Zodiac, I was deliriously happy. The Zodiac used to have really cheap, really good food, including a tempeh reuben that I loved. Then a new chef came in and suddenly the reuben was gone from the menu, never to return, and the prices about doubled on everything else. We still go to the Zodiac when we need something late at night and are planning to hit the Chuck anyway, but I usually grumble about missing the good old cheap tempeh reuben days.

Fortunately I then discovered the vegan reubens at Liquid Earth, a cute little juice bar and restaurant in Fells Point. I generally scarf down two entire reubens whenever I’m in the city. I think the reuben on the menu is not vegan, but you can ask for a vegan version. I’ve heard the Liquid Earth vegan reuben even made an appearance on Homicide once, but I never saw the show. The Liquid Earth vegan reuben, although absolutely delicious, is not a tempeh reuben. When I haven’t been to Baltimore in a while and am in need of a reuben, however, I make tempeh reubens at home.

I should confess I’ve never actually eaten a “real” reuben, so I can’t compare the taste. But I don’t know what’s not to love about rye bread, sauerkraut, and tempeh. And today when I was wondering how to showcase my first successful batch of homemade tempeh, either Mark or my visiting best friend, Fortinbras, suggested reubens. Because they are yummy!

First, make the Thousand Island Dressing, because it needs time to chill.

Thousand Island Dressing

1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Vegenaise
2 Tbsp minced shallot or onion
1 Tbsp sweet relish
juice of 1/4 lemon
1/8 tsp dry mustard
1/8 tsp Indian black salt (optional) – I added this because Thousand Island Dressing traditionally contains hard boiled eggs

Mix all of the ingredients together and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Tempeh Reubens

For two sandwiches,

4 slices rye bread
1/2 package tempeh, sliced in half
1 cup sauerkraut
1/4 cup Thousand Island dressing
2 slices vegan cheese – honestly, the “cheese” is the least interesting part to me and if you can’t find a good brand, you might as well just omit it

By the way, do YOUR cats love to eat plastic? Mine do and it drives me crazy!

If your tempeh is uncooked, steam it for 20 minutes. I do this in a wok:

After steaming the tempeh, heat a skillet or cast iron frying pan up, add a little bit of oil, then fry the tempeh on both sides until slightly brown and crispy:

While the tempeh is frying, set up your sandwiches. Swipe one side of each piece of bread with the dressing, then top one slice with the sliced “cheese” if using and the other with some sauerkraut:

The tempeh will look something like this when ready:

Place on one of the bread slices …

… then grill. I used my George Foreman, but you can also grill them in a pan or under the broiler.

They’re ready when they are golden brown on both sides:

Serve with a pickle on the side and enjoy:

In other news, Fortinbras won Tigger a Scooby Doo doll at the fair last night because he loves Tigger.

That’s as much of that story as you’re getting, I’m afraid. I can tell you, however, that Joan Jett does not give a damn about her bad reputation.

When I first started making tofu last year, I included a tempeh starter with my first order of tofu coagulants. Unfortunately, although making tofu came naturally to me and I considered the result perfect on the first attempt, I had a lot of trouble when I tried to make tempeh. The first problem is you have to crack and hull the soy beans, a process I found tedious and annoying. Most instructions I’ve found say that after soaking the soy beans for 8 hours, you should rub them, squeezing each one between your thumb and forefinger in order to remove the skin and break the soybean in half. If you do this under water, the skins should float to the top of the container and you can just push them out. Not only did I have problems with the skins magically floating away on their own, but my hand ached after nearly an hour of soybean rubbing. I attempted to incubate the tempeh using a food dehydrator, but despite my best efforts to keep the temperature as close to 88 degrees Fahrenheit as possible, I think it got too hot and the tempeh didn’t look right. I threw it away.

The horrible process of dealing with the soybeans made me shy away from further tempeh attempts, until last weekend when I was looking at my favorite kitchen appliance and I realized I could use the mixie to crack the soy beans when dry. If I didn’t have to rub every individual soy bean, I was willing to try to deal with the hulls again.

So I fitted the mixie with the dry grinder attachment (which is not the attachment shown in the photo) and put some dry soy beans in it …

… and pulsed it several times until most of the soy beans had been cracked.

I was then very happy to find that the hulls actually floated better this time around and I was able to simply float most of them off this time:

After removing as many of the hulls as I could (but not driving myself crazy over removing every last one of them), I drained the water …

… then soaked them overnight. In the morning, I rubbed them a little bit to force any remaining hulls to float up, and skimmed off the few that I found.

Then I drained them again, put them into a pot, covered them with water and a tablespoon of vinegar and cooked them for half an hour. While they were cooking, I prepared a ziploc bag by piercing it all over with a thick needle at 1/2″ intervals, which is probably next to impossible to see in the photo.

After cooking, I drained them a final time and returned them to the pot, where I put them over medium-low heat and stirred for about 5 minutes, to thoroughly dry them. It seems that trying to incubate wet beans is a recipe for disaster. I’ve also seen it suggested to dry them in a towel. Heating in the pot seemed a lot easier.

Next I mixed in the tempeh starter. Tempeh starter is a mold called Rhizopus oligosporus. I purchased it from GEM Cultures, the same people I recommended for tofu coagulants. (And yes, I’ve been eyeing up those miso and soy sauce starters because I’m just crazy enough to make my own miso and soy sauce.) If you are interested in making tempeh, I don’t think there are any easy-to-find substitutes for the tempeh starter, like Epsom salts and vinegar for tofu coagulants. Here’s what the starter looks like:

The amount to use is one teaspoon per pound of dry soybeans. Because I failed the first few times I tried to make tempeh, I started using only 4 ounces of soy beans per attempt, so I used 1/4 teaspoon. This resulted in about the same amount of tempeh found in a commercial package (12 ounces), which is a good amount for Mark and me. I’ll probably use 8 ounces next time and freeze half after it’s made. Anyway, stir the starter in very well to ensure it is equally distributed.

Place the soy beans into the prepared Ziploc bag. You can fit 8 ounces of dry soy beans (after cooking) into each standard-sized Ziploc bag. Lay the bag flat and make sure the soy beans are equally distributed, and that the layer is not thicker than 3/4″.

Your next challenge is to keep the soy beans at about 88 degrees Fahrenheit for about 24 hours. This was something else I struggled with. I thought about leaving them outside yesterday but at 100 degrees, it may actually have been too hot! Plus I wanted to come up with a method I can use no matter the weather. What finally worked for me was putting the soy beans on a wok steamer nestled into a yogurt maker, the lid of which I kept partially on for the first 12 hours then removed. After 12 hours, the tempeh will begin generating its own heat, which you’ll want to compensate for. Here’s my contraption:

When the tempeh is done, it will have congealed together and somewhat disconcertingly be covered in white and black mold:

Here’s a cutaway picture:

My next goal is to think of an alternative to the Ziploc bag. I had to cut it away in order to remove the tempeh without breaking it, so I won’t be able to re-use it as I’d hoped. Although it’s still less packaging than buying tempeh, I’d really like to devise a more Earth-friendly method. I believe banana leaves were traditionally used in Indonesia, from whence tempeh originates, so I may see what kind of leaves I can find at the Asian market.

Incidentally, I read somewhere that although Indonesian tempeh contains the elusive vitamin B-12, pre-packaged Western-made tempeh is too “pure” to contain it (unless it is artificially added). However, the article further stated that people who make homemade tempeh probably end up “contaminating” it enough that it will contain B-12. I’ll have to see if I can back that up, although even if it’s true, you’ll never be able to control the amount of B-12 and should not consider homemade tempeh a reliable source of B-12. You can, however, consider it delicious.

It’s nearly 100 degrees here today and I decided to make something a little more weather-appropriate than a creamy soup in a bread bowl. It may not technically be summer quite yet, but it sure feels like it, so I made summer rolls. I just used ingredients I had around the house; in addition to the rice vermicelli, you can really use any veggie that you can julienne or shred. If I’d had any, I’d also have included shredded daikon. The essential part is the rice paper wrappers. I seem to always throw at least one esoteric ingredient at you, don’t I? They are easily available in Asian groceries. They are clear, brittle, and about the size of a small dinner or a dessert plate. The quantities called for below made 8 rolls.

Summer Rolls

4 oz rice vermicelli
1 large carrot, shredded or julienned
1/2 red pepper, julienned
1/4 cucumber, peeled and julienned
2 leaves Savoy or Napa cabbage, shredded
fresh herbs such as basil, cilantro, and mint (I used Thai basil, Vietnamese cilantro, and mint, because that’s what I haven’t yet killed in my herb garden)
rice paper wrappers
peanut sauce for dipping (recipe follows)

Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the rice vermicelli for about 3 minutes or until soft. Drain and run under cold water. Using kitchen shears, snip into smaller lengths. Prepare all other ingredients by shredding or julienning. Create an assembly line of sorts by arranging a large bowl of warm water, all of the ingredients in individual bowls, and a plate on which to place finished rolls.

Remove one rice paper wrapper from the package and place in the bowl of warm water. It will soften after about a minute, at which time you should remove it and place it on your work surface. Place a second wrapper in the bowl of water so it will be soft after you’ve finished rolling the first roll. Mound some rice vermicelli in a pile on the lower third of the wrapper, as shown in the photo. Because the wrappers are clear, they are kind of hard to see in the picture, but it should be visible in the photo above.

Add each of the other ingredients, except the herbs, one by one. Try to lay julienned pieces in the direction of the “mound”, otherwise they will try to poke through the wrapper, which is a bit fragile, when rolling.

Rolling the summer roll is a bit like preparing a burrito. Fold the bottom edge up over the mound of ingredients:

Then fold each of the sides inwards:

Then start rolling upwards, trying to push the ingredients in tightly as you go along. After rolling the roll over on itself once, tuck some of the herbs in:

Then continue rolling up until finished. The idea is for the herbs to show through like this:

Here is the other side:

Serve with peanut sauce:

Peanut Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup water
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1/2 – 1 tsp sriracha sauce (to taste)
10 drops stevia or 1 Tbsp sugar
1 clove garlic, pressed or minced
1 1″ piece ginger, grated or minced

Whisk everything together.

My mother reminded me a couple of years ago that in college I was a big fan of broccoli cheese soup. I recalled that I’d order it for lunch from a restaurant near the record store I worked in and my mother would put cans of the Campbells variety in the care packages she made for me, but my favorite way to enjoy it was in bread bowls at the Renaissance Festival. So I decided to veganize this old favorite, which turned out to be very easy to do and very tasty!

I’ve been making this meal for a couple of years now, but why I chose one of the first days it feels as hot as summer – and Mark’s whining about the heat hasn’t yet turned so insistent that I agree to turn the air conditioning on – to make what is usually cold-weather comfort food, I do not know. But we ate it both Saturday and Sunday for dinner and Mark was disappointed when there were no seconds available on Sunday, so even if you live in a climate that’s currently turning to summer, don’t be disinclined to try it. Even if you want to serve it in bread bowls as I did and baking bread heats up your kitchen to some hellish temperature.

Broccoli Cheez Soup

1 large onion, chopped
4 cups vegetable stock or vegan “chicken” broth (I’ve used the “chicken” stock here despite the fact that it used to really piss me off when restaurants would use chicken stock in an otherwise vegetarian soup)
2 small or 1 large head of broccoli
1/2 recipe pimiento cheez

Chop the broccoli, including the stems. You don’t need to be neat about separating the florets because most of them will be pureed. Heat a large pot on medium heat, then warm a little bit of oil and add the onions.

Saute the onions until begining to turn brown.

(Mine look extra brown in places because it was at this time when I discovered I couldn’t reach my server and I was away from the kitchen for longer than I’d anticipated.)

Add the broccoli and the broth or stock.

Turn the heat down to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes or until broccoli is very soft. Add the cheez.

Heat for 5 more minutes or until cheez is melted.

Puree, making it as smooth or chunky as you like.

As I’ve mentioned before, an immersion blender is great for this type of thing, however, if you are considering buying one, do NOT under any circumstances buy the Cuisinart CSB-77 Smart Stick Hand Blender. I have gone through TWO of them. They both worked for about 3 uses, then the blade stopped turning (the motor sounds fine). I can see what the problem is (two pieces of metal are not making contact as they should), but both of them had the same problem and neither one lasted a month. (If anyone wants to recommend another brand, please do so!)

If you don’t have an immersion blender, like me, suddenly, let the soup cool down before pureeing in batches in a blender or food processor. I know I stress this repeatedly, but do not put hot liquids into a blender, and even when blending warm liquids, fill the blender only half full. I pureed three batches and left a fourth un-pureed so I’d have some bits of broccoli floating around.

Serve in bread bowls.

Note: if you make a full batch of the pimiento cheez, one suggestion I have for the leftover cheez is to use it in a burrito, as I did for lunch today. I mashed up a can of pinto beans, added some of the leftover pimiento cheez and some salsa, and microwaved it for about 3 minutes. Roll up in a tortilla with chopped onions, leftover rice if you have any, and some hot sauce. Super-fast burrito!