Spring desperation

I find it much easier to eat local/seasonal food in winter than in early spring. It's finally starting to warm up around here, and there's buds on the trees and bulbs are starting to sprout, so where's the asparagus and rhubarb? And how about some strawberries? It's going to be a while...

In desperation, I bought California asparagus and cherry tomatoes from who knows where. I browned the tomatoes quickly in a very hot pan, and then dressed them with soy sauce and sesame oil. (This is based on a warm salad in Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.) Then I mixed in some fake bacon and snow peas. The asparagus was done under the grill (=broiler).

Gone native

When I first arrived in America, I was regularly horrified in diners. Specifically, I was horrified by the jam (or jelly, if you will) that would be placed -- for no discernable reason -- on my plate alongside my eggs, toast and butter. But it wasn't just that: I would look around me and notice people dipping sausages in maple syrup, and for the life of me I couldn't understand why menus would offer combination plates of, say, eggs and sausage and pancakes. Shouldn't that be "OR pancakes"?

When I arrived here I was a simple soul. Hell, I was kind of blown away by the places that Americans find to put peanut butter (e.g in ice cream, inside pretzels, inside pretzels in ice cream, etc).

I am still horrified by the thought of jam on the same plate as eggs. But apparently I am softening my stance on savoury + sweet combinations -- here's what we had for dinner: waffles with FAKE BACON INSIDE, along with apples sauteed with cinnamon and chili. (Idea stolen from Tigers and Strawberries.)

A few notes:
* The best thing about this meal was the apple -- the combination of chili, cinnamon and the sweet/tartness of the apple was insanely good.
* (As if it needs to be said) fake bacon is nothing like real bacon. I found the flavour too weak in this. I think next time (next time!) I would cut the fake bacon into larger pieces, so that when you hit a piece you could really taste it.
* I was out of powdered cinnamon, so had to grind up cinnamon sticks in the spice grinder. It was delicious.

Ode to HM

One need not eat the steamed rice separately from the steamed cabbage and broiled tofu.  This is a lesson from HM, and a lesson the single (read: lazy) cook likes to forget.  But I was scheming the moment I saw that head of cabbage... and loosely followed Heidi's recipe for miso dressing (101 Cookbooks) and tossed it with chopped cabbage and grated carrot.  I timed the rice cooker to finish its business when I got home, and these nori sheets were hanging out in the cupboard.  An episode of Star Trek and it's a great night.

Flirt

I don't think I believe my luck here this spring... and find myself wondering what I'd do if I had to work for these strawberries.  Like convince them to come home with me rather than hand over a fiver for them.  (Yup, that's all.)  "Why, you're making me blush, too!"  Oh dear... best to stop there.

Beet and Potato, Spinach and Mushroom

For those of you Vegans or good Vegetarians, forgive me the egg slices here.

These are salad leftovers -- and there are still some hanging out in the fridge. I forget that salads don't age like soups... there's still quite a bit of the potato-beet mixture in the fridge. I could have held on to some of those beets for a little while longer -- overheard someone at the market talking about chopping beets with celery and onion and some hard boiled eggs... I lost him at the "Catalina" dressing, though. I think it once appeared in our fridge during one of my mom's diets in the early 90s. Yuck.

Cookie experiment

Inspired by the technique in this recipe from the New York Times, I bring you a cookie experiment: chocolate chip cookie dough based on the one in Vegan With a Vengeance, with one batch baked immediately, and the other 27 hours later.

Exhibit A: the immediate one.
Exhibit B: dough baked after 27 hours.
The verdict: Exhibit A was fine, but Exhibit B was better. The edges were crisper and there was a nice caramel taste. Yay science!

Limas, polenta, and kale chips

Last night we had lima beans in a simple tomato sauce over polenta, with kale chips on the side. The limas cook in 7 minutes in the pressure cooker; the polenta was done in about 15, so this was not only very satisfying but quick too.

The kale chips were just so-so; the texture was amazing (papery and melt-in-your-mouth), and the taste was very reminiscent of my favourite: roasted cauliflower. But they had a bit of an aftertaste that I didn't like. This didn't stop me from eating quite a few -- such a great texture, and so salty!

I just had leftover limas and polenta for breakfast. No kale though.