And the one that started it all: a beautiful rendition of her cat Cormac wishing me a Happy Halloween:
This makes me miss my sister even more than I normally do, so I had to create a Henry one... it's a rush-job, nowhere near as cool as my sister's, but it will have to do. He's a commando for Halloween in honor of the A-man (please note the hat hanging from his neck; he wanted nothing to do with it).
There is something incredibly satisfying about making an entirely vegan meal and feeling full afterwards. Before I went gluten and casein(dairy)-free I equated vegan eating with salads and feeling hungry; little did I know that my gluten and dairy intolerances would lead me to eat naturally vegan foods that now make up a large part of my diet. Foods that are satisfying, healthy and simple to put together.
I don't know if anyone else out there is like me, but I often cook right when I get up in the morning. Sure, a lot people probably cook eggs and pancakes first thing in the morning, but for some reason this morning I wanted lentils -- so lentils it is. I adapted a lentil recipe in Mark Bittman's book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and I do enjoy it quite a bit. I hope you do too.
Simple Lentil (gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan)
serves 4
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 celery stalk (including leaves)
1 carrot, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads (optional)
1 cup of dried lentils
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
2 cups of water
salt and pepper to taste
Add the olive oil to a pan on medium high heat. Add the onion, celery and carrot and saute for about five minutes. Add the garlic, saffron, cayenne pepper and lentils and saute for one minute. Then, add the water, bring to a boil and then down to a simmer for at least thirty minutes until the majority of the liquid has reduced. It shouldn't be a soup, but it shouldn't be dry either.
I'm hoping at some point to ground dry lentil into a flour and create a batter to replicate the Indian daal wraps (they have a name that I cannot remember) that I get at Indian restaurants. They are amaaaazing.
If you can't tell by my Monday posts, Sunday is usually family day for the Good Eatah clan. In the past few months, the table has only been set for four people since my beloved sister, bro-in-law and niece moved to the mid-west. Come Thanksgiving though, we'll have a table set for thirteen which I'm really looking forward to. The A-man and his family will be coming down, my aunt and uncle will be in attendance and my sister, bro-in-law and niece are coming for a whole week! My mother is an amazing cook (or a "good cooker" as I used to call her when I was little) and always puts together an amazing spread and is now trying really hard to make her signature dishes gluten-free.
Mom's Wild Rice Stuffing in a Roasted Pumpkin (gluten-free, dairy-free)
And Henry wasn't sitting still long enough to take a picture of him with the food -- so Grandma gets to be in the shot again. She had never seen anyone stuff a pumpkin with stuffing and referred to it as "interesting" but still managed to gobble it up.
This is a photo of me and three of my girlfriends (all three are going to be in my wedding party - yay!) taken last Friday night at my place. If you follow the yellow arrows you will see Henry in the background attempting to steal pad thai off of my counter.
And so it begins: the cold, rainy, raw New England weather made it's first showing of the season today with temperatures in the forties (and a wind chill of 35), cloudy skies and cold rain. On days like these I need comfort. I need food. I need... comfort food.
Hearty Potato Soup with Crumbled Turkey Bacon (gluten-free, dairy-free)Add the tablespoon of cornstarch to the almond milk mixture and let sit. Cut the potatoes into small, bite-size pieces and microwave in a bowl for ten minutes, stirring halfway through (you could boil the potatoes if you don't have a microwave). Meanwhile, in a heavy saucepan, add the olive oil and the turkey bacon (the turkey bacon I buy has very little fat on it, so it requires the olive oil). Fry until crispy and remove from pan. Add the onion to the now bacon flavored olive oil and cook for at least five minutes. Then, add the mostly cooked potatoes to the pan and combine with the onions. Take a potato masher and mash the potatoes in the pan. Then, add the soured almond milk/cornstach mixture and stock. If it is too thick, add more stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes. Serve warm and crumble the turkey bacon on top.
Poor Henry didn't even have a chance of getting a bite (there are onions in it after all).
The afternoon of cooking stuffed cabbage with my nintey-five year old Grandmother began with a request from her: "Do me a favor and taste the meat. I can't tell if it needs more salt." The meat she was referring to was two and a half pounds of raw ground beef sitting in a bowl on the kicthen table. So I asked her, "You want me to taste the raw meat?" And she replied "yes." There's a lot that I would do for my Grandmother, in fact, anything if it's what she needed, but eating raw ground beef to test it's salt content wasn't something I was willing to risk, so I told her I thought it might upset my sensitive stomach and that was good enough for her.
Grandma's Stuffed Cabbage (gluten-free, dairy-free)
serves six people
2 1/2 lbs ground beef
1 head of cabbage
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 potatoes, cubed (any kind will do)
3 large carrots, cut into chunks
5 cups tomato sauce
Add the whole cabbage to a large pot of boiling water and cook until tender, about ten minutes. Be careful when taking the cabbage out and let cool another ten minutes before handling. Peel each leaf of cabbage off and set aside. Mis the rice with the beef in a bowl and season with salt and pepper (but please don't taste at this phase like Grandma).
Next, add about two tablespoons of meat per leaf of cooked cabbage and roll like a burrito. Place in a casserole dish, add the potatoes and carrots on top and cover well with tomato sauce. Cook for one hour at 350 degrees. 
Although our recent batch wasn't "her best" she stated (but really, she says that about everything), she still ate like a good eatah.
And it was perfectly salty.
Coming soon, Henry and Elsa's French Apple Pie...
When I got back from Taiwan in August, I got this feeling -- the same feeling I had when I was studying abroad in Australia during college: the urge to travel. Soon after settling back home, I booked a flight to Seattle and I'm happy I did. There's nothing like exploring new places, meeting new people, and of course -- eating new food to awaken the soul and put things into perspective.
