Snuggle

I was getting dressed this morning and went to grab my navy cardigan, only to find it wasn't in the stack with the rest of my cardigans. Even though I was already running late I dumped out the laundry hamper. It wasn't there either. On the way out I checked the laundry room. No luck.

All day I wondered about where it could be. When did I last wear it? Did the washer eat it? It had to be in the house somewhere, unless I lost it. When I got home I checked my t-shirt drawer, thinking maybe I accidently put it in there. Nope. For some reason I decided to check the shelf where I keep my blankets. And there it was, right beside the Snuggie.

I think we all know what is going on here. The cardigan is getting cozy with the Snuggie.

Can't say I blame it.

New Recipes: Spinach Quiche

I have a hard time finding good quiche recipes. There is always too much or too little egg, or its too heavy or too watery. But after many adaptations, I think I've found a new recipe that works well for me. Maybe it will work well for you.

Ingredients

* 6 large eggs, beaten
* 1 1/2 cups half and half
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/4 tsp pepper
* 1/4 tsp nutmeg
* 1 T butter
* 2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach, packed
* 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
* 1 small onion, minced
* 1 1/2 cups shredded gruyère cheese
* 1 (9-inch) refrigerated pie crust, fitted to a 9-inch, deep-dish pie plate

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a frying pan, over medium heat, melt butter. Add onions and mushrooms and cook until tender. When the onions and mushrooms are almost done but not quite, add spinach and cook until wilted.

Combine the eggs, half and half, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl and whisk (if you let the eggs rise to room temperature first, your quiche will be fluffier-- a good tip for soufflés, also). Layer the spinach/mushroom/onion mixture and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, then slowly pour the egg mixture on over it. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the egg mixture is set.




Quiches are great because once you get the base, you can add whatever ingredients you want. If you don't like onions, don't put them in. If you want to add bacon, do it (though I recommend leaving out the nutmeg). If you want a heavier, richer quiche use heavy cream. If you want a lighter, more waist-line friendly quiche, use milk. If guryère isn't available or is too expensive, use Swiss cheese instead-- or whatever shredded cheese you're a fan of.

Another great quiche option, which I read online once upon a time, was mixing all the ingredients together and pouring them into muffin pans, baking, and then freezing the individual, muffin-sized quiches. I think this is a great idea for someone like me who is on the go all the time. I can just grab a quiche from the freezer, pop it in the microwave, and go.

One final note on the above recipe, I like to serve it with a side of oven-roasted asparagus sprinkled with butter and garlic. Yummy!

Reinventing Old Recipes: Ginger Tofu Stir-Fry

This was originally a chicken recipe. I thought first to try it without the chicken-- just the vegetables and sauce. And that works just fine (just use the ingredients labeled "SAUCE" and "STIR-FRY" and omit the tofu and marinade). For added protein, try it with the fried tofu. You don't have to put the tofu in the marinade, but I love the flavor the tofu picks up from the soy sauce and white pepper, not to mention that it fries easier when coated (something I just figured out).

Just an added note to those experimenting with tofu for the first time: when frying tofu, the harder the better. I didn't realize there was hard and soft tofu when I bought it for the first time. But the difference is exactly as labeled. Use soft tofu for smoothies or mixing tofu with fruit and granola, etc. Use hard tofu if you want it to maintain its shape. This is probably obvious to everyone else in the world, but I'm a little dense sometimes.


Ingredients

* 1 egg white, beaten
* 1 tablespoon soy sauce
* 1 pound hard tofu, cut into 1-inch pieces
* 1/8 teaspoon white pepper
* 1 teaspoon cornstarch


SAUCE:
* 1 medium green pepper, julienned
* 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
* 2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1 teaspoon sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
*

STIR-FRY:
* 3 green onions, cut into 1-inch lengths
* 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil, divided
* 1/2 cup canned bamboo shoots, finely chopped
* 1/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted
* Hot cooked rice, optional
* 2 to 3 teaspoons minced fresh gingerroot

Directions

* In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the egg white, soy sauce, cornstarch and pepper. Add tofu; seal bag and turn to coat. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
* For sauce, combine the cornstarch, vinegar, soy sauce and sugar until smooth; set aside.
* Drain tofu and discard marinade. In a large skillet or wok, stir-fry tofu in 1 tablespoon oil until browned. Remove and keep warm.
* Stir-fry green pepper and onions in remaining oil for 2 minutes. Add bamboo shoots and ginger; stir-fry 3-4 minutes longer or until vegetables are crisp-tender.
* Stir sauce mixture and add to the pan. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Add browned tofu and heat through. Sprinkle with almonds.
* Serve with rice if desired.

This Week in Happy News: Slow Loris with a Tiny Umbrella

The world can be dark and scary place. The economy (still) sucks, there's war, famine, inequality, global warming, etc, etc. But every so often someone will upload a grainy video of a Slow Loris holding a tiny umbrella, and for a brief moment all those depressing things will fall away as the internet utters a collective squee.

Dixie Benedict Recipe-- à la professeur

The Dixie Grill in Wilmington has a breakfast dish so rich and delicious it melts in your mouth. It involves an open face, buttermilk biscuit (soft, warm, and buttery) topped with fried green tomatoes (slightly salty, fried, and even a tad sour), scrambled eggs (soft but substantial), and vidalia onion gravy (savory, warm, and so delicious you want to lick the plate in public). It's called, if I remember correctly, the Dixie Benedict. I recently attempted to recreate that dish, vegetarian style, with a few twists of my own.

For fried green tomatoes:

Ingredients

3 or 4 large firm green tomatoes
Salt
2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions

Slice the tomatoes 1/4-inch thick. Lay them out in a shallow baking pan and sprinkle with salt. Place the tomato slices in a colander let drain for 30 minutes (the salt pulls the water out of the tomatoes).

In a skillet, heat the oil medium-high heat.


Thoroughly mix flour and black pepper.

Dip the tomatoes into buttermilk, then dredge them in flour mixture. Deep-fry until golden brown and drain excess oil on paper bags or paper towels.

Keep warm.


Roasted Red Pepper-and-Vidalia Onion Gravy:
1 large Vidalia onion, diced
2 oz. roasted red bell pepper, diced.
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups vegetable or mushroom broth
Black pepper

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, and saute 10 minutes or until onion begins to brown. Stir in flour; cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes, or until flour mixture is caramel-colored. Stir in broth and red pepper. Reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened. Season to taste with black pepper.



Finally, slice a fresh, warm buttermilk biscuit and lay open face on a plate. Add one slice of fried green tomato to each half. Top with scrambled eggs. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of gravy over the entire dish. Add a sprinkling of chopped chives or scallions and serve warm.

The New Old Standby

It has been 11 days since I forayed into vegetarianism. I did eat meat on Saturday though. I went to Arigato's Japanese Steak House with some friends and while I did order the Vegetable Hibachi (which was awesome, btw), I forgot about the hibachi shrimp appetizer that comes with it. And who can resist those golden little nuggets of shrimp cooked with soy sauce and butter?! I couldn't. But other than that, I've been surprisingly at ease with the vegetarian thing.

Not to say that I haven't had my moments. The other night, I was wandering around my apartment staring in the fridge and the pantry, and though I had plenty of options, nothing was appealing to me. To be honest, I had a taste for a philly cheesesteak. I hit up Burger King instead for their veggie burger. It's actually not bad.

But it did get me to thinking about when and how I eat meat. For example, if I'm up in the air about what to eat or don't want to cook, I hit up Wendy's or Arby's and get a burger, chicken sandwich or something else that is predominantly meat and starch. (Did you know that french fries is often the only vegetable American children-- particularly those under the age of five-- consume? Scary stuff.) If I order a salad, I always get meat on it. I'm used to planning my meals around meat; vegetables are an afterthought. Vegetables are an afterthought for most of the food I eat. In fact, the first food group in the USDA's Basic Four Food Groups from 1953 until 1992 (during the time I was growing up) was always meats (and I mean meats-- not proteins); fruits and vegetables were always last.


Pizza-- pepperoni was a given.
Stromboli-- a roll stuffed with meat? Yes, please! And my vegetable? Does marinara count?
Sandwich-- always a meat base unless it was peanut butter
Soup-- defaulted to chicken or beef broth (even my potato soup uses bacon fat)
Pasta-- meat sauce of some sort
Tacos-- ground meat or fish
Salad-- Do you want fish or chicken on it?
Stir fry-- chicken, shrimp, beef, or pork
Wraps-- usually chicken though I do like falafel a lot


Meat is the staple food source, the primary food source. When I'm thinking about what to eat, I always think in terms what kind of meat or how I want my meat cooked. The last week or so of vegetarianism has really forced me to examine how I conceive of the culture of my food, not just the food itself. That our food culture privileges meat is not a new revelation, but just how much has surprised me. The question is why?

My soups with a vegetable broth base are actually very, very tasty. Veggie burgers pretty good. A taco made with veggies and black beans is really tasty. Stir fry is so much less greasy with vegetables. Salads don't need meat to be good.

I know...protein, right? Beans, nuts, and seeds can be added to virtually anything for protein. I add a few beans to pasta sauces, soups, wraps, tacos, and stir fries. I've also taken to adding a teaspoon of ground nuts and flax seed to my cereal, soups, sauces, salads-- everything I eat really. The flavor is so mild and just barely nutty. It isn't, however, always aesthetically appealing, but it's something I'm rapidly getting used to.

Our food culture privileges meat and with that it privileges certain ideas about how, when, and what to eat, what are good sources of different nutrients, and even how our food should look and what food should be eaten by people of which gender. And while I've spent the last several years analyzing representations and significations people, ideas, institutions, etc., I've never given much thought about representations of food and food culture (though I do know this is an area of rapidly growing scholarship). When I decided to try vegetarianism, I knew I would be challenged to rethink my food choices regularly. But I'm beginning to see that rethinking personal food choices is only the beginning. There's a need to rethink the entire culture of food in order to understand why I feel compelled to make the meal choices that I do.

I always conceived of food as a deeply personal choice (more on this in a future blog). But I'm only just starting to see how those choices are influenced by much larger systems.

I WANT A PIECE OF COW!

I want a steak. I want an effing hamburger. I want a piece of cow! And make it a good piece! ... No tripe.

Just kidding.

Well, not entirely. Today was kind of stressful because of work and school. I've been up since six o'clock this morning working on a stupid response paper that I started three days ago. In my head it all made sense, but trying to put it on paper was not working. And so the paper was late AND it was crap, which made me very angry at myself. And then I had forgotten about a piece of campus bureaucratic BS that I had to turn in today and so after turning in my paper immediately began working on that. And now I have to finish grading papers, and I have a feeling that will take me until at least 12:30 tonight (or this morning-- I worked 3rd shift for years and still can't get that straight) if not later. Plus, I have some in-class writing from Thursday I have to comment on.

I know I have no one to blame for this but myself. I totally should not have gone for those walks in the park this weekend.

Actually, yes, I should have. They made me feel really good. (My psychologist would be so proud right now. Ha!)

Anyway, with today's stress I finally took a break to decide what I wanted to eat. Well, what I wanted to eat was a hamburger...or a steak...or a philly cheesesteak. And I thought about it. And I salivated a little bit. And I got my car keys.

And I put my car keys down, got out the romaine lettuce from the refrigerator and made a Caesar salad with lots of croutons. And I ate the whole damn thing. And when I was done, I washed my dishes, put them away, and grabbed my car keys.

And then I put my car keys down, opened the freezer, took out a bag of frozen seasoned potato wedges and dumped some in a baking dish and prepared to make cheese fries.

Eating vegetarian does not always mean eating healthy. Hey, a potato is a vegetable, right?! But, at least I'm eating vegetarian. Everyone's gotta have a release, right?

If you don't understand my Liz Lemon reference, you must click here.