Blow, Ill Wind, Blow Away

My schedule this term is slightly crazy. I pretty much felt like this all week:

It's really not so bad, but I'm still not used to teaching as much as I have to this term. I'll admit, I'm having a tough time finding a balance between teaching and working on my dissertation. But it's good practice, since I'm signing up to do this full time, you know, for my career. I love my students (mostly) and I love my dissertation (mostly), but I'm ready for reading week. 

But I'm also not ready for reading week, because I have to submit a draft of my dissertation proposal by then, and it's far from done. 

After a full day of teaching, office hours, a staff meeting, more teaching, and planning for class on Friday, I came home and did this:  

That's no cupcake. That's bubble bath waiting to go in the tub. After a long week of writing and teaching the kiddos, it was a perfect way to end the week. Also, bonus, I planned all of next week's classes, so I should be able to have more quality time with Rameau (aka, the star of my dissertation) next week. Here's to a more balanced week.

John and our friend Ian took over the kitchen two nights in a row to make Alton Brown's recipe for Coq au Vin, and they were not disappointed. 

                                        

They paired it with a really buttery, delicious Chardonnay that I hope to find again sometime. 

John has said on occasion that he wants to learn how to cook certain meat dishes, and I've encouraged him to find a meat-eating friend and go to it. Knowing I had to come up with something easy for myself that wouldn't take up a lot of kitchen resources, I made this: 

I call it the Lazy Girl's Pizza for One. It's a pita with melted herbed havarti, sauteed mushrooms, and arugula on top. I got to eat the whole thing while they waited for their coqs (heh) to finish cooking, and they were definitely jealous. Even with coq au vin on the way, melted cheese is still tempting. 

We also made some recipes from Appetite for Reduction.
Living in the age of Twitter means that anyone can randomly get in contact with famous people, or at least bug them more directly on the internet. So I decided to tweet to Isa Chandra that we are using her book. And she replied! Here's the email notification:

**Blush**. You guys, we're friends for life now.

This week we made: 

Red Thai Tofu and Pad Thai Salad.


                                       








Y'all, this salad dressing is delightful. It's mostly ground peanuts, a little soy sauce, water, garlic, cilantro, and sriracha. Super easy, lightly spicy, and it really takes the salad up a notch. The rest of it is simple to throw together: grated carrot, red onion, bean sprouts, and cilantro. She suggests bulking it up with the tofu recipe, which was also very straight forward and probably took 30 minutes, start to finish. Ian and John took a break from the first night of coq au vin work to eat this, and they were pretty impressed. That salad will probably become a staple recipe for us.



Mom's Marinara and Tempeh-Bean Balls

Isa Chandra suggests about 10 different variations on the marinara sauce, which is just a simple tomato sauce. We tried the mushroom version, which adds about a pound of sauteed mushrooms to the sauce, once it's mostly done. John and I also added about 1.5 tbs of balsamic vinegar to the sauce and that gave it an amazing flavor. I'm sort of mixed about the bean balls. On the one hand, they are way easier and faster than homemade seitan. But we left them in the oven to stay warm while the rest of the recipe was coming together, and they dried out slightly. Fortunately, that was easy to fix by smothering them in the sauce. This one will make for good leftovers.

Last but hardly least, I made Oh She Glows, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Larabars. 

If you have a food processor, then the active part of this recipe takes about 10 minutes. Then you freeze the mixture for about 15 minutes, and voila! Larabars. With chocolate in them. Just like the real deal, they have about five ingredients: cashews, dates, chocolate chips, vanilla, and salt. They'll be great little snacks to bring to school. 

And now, I'm off to eat dinner and cheer on the Hoosiers as they play Michigan. Let's go Big Red! 

Dave and Carla's Visit: A Photostudy in Food and Drinks

Dave and Carla's trip was mostly a beer and food festival at our house.

One night, Dave made a delicious almond cake.

After our second morning run in a row, I made a simple brunch out of tomato rosemary scones (Vegan Brunch), scrambled eggs, and melon. I love these scones! Tomato sauce, olive oil, and rosemary are a great combination.

I made the potato-based cookie dough dip from Oh She Glows, to mixed reviews. Personally, I think it tastes awesome. The likeness to cookie dough is uncanny! Others thought it tasted faintly of potato. But for the nutritional make up, you can't go wrong. It's basically potato, cashew butter, and honey.


 








 I added a few chocolate chips before chilling it so that it had a faint chocolate swirl.


 






One night, we made flatbread pizzas with dough from the PPK, and topped them with shaved asparagus and mozzerella, based on a recipe from Smitten Kitchen that Dave and Carla had tried. I loved it! We will definitely make this again.










And we drank it with a bottle of Strewn (Niagara) wine that we had been saving to share with them.












On Saturday, I went with Carla and John on a five-mile run. When we arrived home, Dave had already gone to the store for supplies and was making BRUNCH! I told him he could move right in.

 He made a fantastic egg/potato/fake sausage casserole.

Abby: I'm so touched that you bought vegetarian sausage!
Dave: Oh good, it was my goal to touch you with sausage. 










He also made pancakes so that we could have Pancake Friday (Observed).










Here are pictures of everything else we drank that I managed to take photos of.


A cucumber-melon-gin cocktail that I saw on No Meat Athlete, forever ago. The thyme syrup was an interesting touch! These would be good on a very hot day. But I didn't like it enough to want to make it again and again.










This Kentucky Ale is aged in bourbon barrels and it's delicious! I think it was my favorite of the whole week. It was one of the beers that Carla and Dave graciously brought to celebrate Beer Friday. We pretty much observed Beer Friday for 5 days straight. But we also consumed a lot of these tasting-style, where we each took a small portion of the same bottle. It was fun to try so many beers without having to drink an entire bottle of each in one sitting.

The Yazoo Sue. This stout is especially smokey, and when I sniffed it, I got a distinct whiff of S'nausages (as in, dog treats). But it was nice to have a small taste.

 The Southern Tier Double Milk Stout we'd had before, but it's still a very good one.

Dave and Carla also brought this Lychee-flavored sour beer from New Belgium, part of the beer-heaven where they live in Colorado. It was extremely flavorful, what with the fruit and sour flavors. Tasty, though I don't know if I'd order or buy it myself.

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. I didn't try this, but John enjoyed it.

Here's the final picture of them all. We made a trip down to St. Thomas, ON for the Railway City Brewery, and took home a few of their Iron Spike beers. John and I also bought some beers from Grand River Brewing in Cambridge, ON, most of which he really likes so far (more on those later).

 

And now I'm going to enjoy a week of non-alcoholic, non-dessert, non-cheese cleansing, to detox from a very delicious visit.

February in Food

Our kitchen didn't produce a high number of outstanding meals in February. Being busy meant turning to old stand-bys and only making a few adventurous dinners. But here are some recipes that stand out.

Black Bean Cakes with Corn Relish and Avocado Cream Sauce from Annie's Eats.


















My only complaints here were that this recipe took kind of forever and it has eggs in it, so it's not properly vegan. But they were SO flavorful! And I'm glad to have made the avocado cream, which is just lime juice, mashed avocado, and greek yogurt together. Dream come true.


Endurance Crackers from OhSheGlows.





















When I made these, I felt like I'd performed a magic trick! Chia seeds + water + time = glue. These are gluten free, soy free, nut free, and vegan. Just a bunch of seeds hugging each other in a delicious cracker. I think I'd add a little more salt and pepper, just because I expect a cracker to be salty. They were delicious and we'll definitely make them again. I loved taking them with some hummus for my lunch.



Quarter Pounder-Style Beet Burgers from Post Punk Kitchen.


















These may look and sound a little strange, but I cannot wait to make them again. We both drooled over these burgers. The texture is great, and they look disturbingly similar to ground beef! Cast iron worked perfectly to give them a little browning, and they held together better than any veggie burger I've made. This is my new favorite veggie burger by far.



Beet Bourguignon from Green Kitchen Stories.




















John has a thing for the real version of this dish with the beef, and when I saw a beet version, he was ready to try it. Neither of us is big on beets, but after the burgers went so well, we figured this preparation might also be good. It's basically just a stew made with wine - what could be bad about that?
I think we both wanted to tweak this recipe slightly. It calls for 8 beets, and we felt that was too much labor and too much beet. Four would be plenty, and we would up the mushrooms. Big slices of portobello give this a meaty flavor and texture, especially when combined with the lentils. We served it over mashed potatoes. I think I would also up the herbs (more thyme, especially as a garnish) and wine (maybe 1.5 cups instead of 1, and definitely an additional splash with every re-heat). Still, we were both pleased with it and it was a delicious way to end a cold, damp day in February.



I'll leave you with two images from our trip to Bloomington a couple weeks ago. First, this onesy I saw in the window at Greetings. Excellent.

















And last, John and Mark in the on-going arm wrestling battle. Even though John has built up a lot more upper body strength, he has yet to beat Mark. Ultimately, Mark has a fierce desire to win that John cannot seem to match. This month's battle took place at Nick's where we watched the IU basketball game with my mom and some other IU people. It was a great trip to Bloomington and I'm glad that we'll have more and more reasons to return there soon!

Niagara Engagement Vacay

WOOT! We're engaged! Several of you probably knew that we were headed to Niagara for vacation, but the engagement plan was in the works the whole time. Here's the long version of the story.

John and I decided a while back that he should get an awesome...thing when we got engaged, since I got a beautiful ring with a pearl that my mom brought back from Japan over 40 years ago (another story).




With historic items at the Niagara Historical Society Museum.














After a lot of discussion, it was decided that we would go on an awesome vacation to Niagara on the Lake, which would serve as the setting for us to actually get engaged. We had a wonderful time there in April and we were excited to go back.





John with other historic items in the War of 1812 gallery. The Niagara region in Ontario was the site of a lot of War of 1812 action. And you know what that means - 2012 is a big year! An issue for a separate post, I'm sure.




























We arrived in NOTL in time for some afternoon touristing and wine tasting. Our first stop was the historical museum, where we saw (among other things), a small table made in Paris during Rameau's lifetime.

























We stopped at this gazebo on Lake Ontario for some pictures (part of John's plot).







































He reviewed his notes while I snapped a few shots, and then he awkwardly said, "Hey...it's time." And proposed.

That night we had dinner at the Ravine Winery Bistro, concluding with chocolate pot de creme.

















Ravine was our favorite dinner of the two, though we also had a very nice meal at Strewn Winery. We tasted wines at both Reif and Stratus wineries. I think Stratus, the relatively new place with a modernist design scheme, was our favorite over all, though Strewn is arguably a better deal for their inexpensive, delicious wine. We fit in a 3 mile run along the Niagara parkway on a chilly cloudy morning, followed by fabulous diner breakfast for $3.50. This vacay was a good example of how you can take John anywhere - an upscale winery restaurant, followed by a cheap diner, and then episodes of Seinfeld at the hotel at night.

The vacay was the perfect start to our Christmas and a fun place for us to get engaged. By Friday morning we were itching to call our friends and family to announce the engagement, and we headed to Fort Wayne just afterward.