Earth Hour was great!

We spent two hours in the dark last night, enjoying a candle-lit meal and a board game with my wonderful sister. It was great. Maybe we should do Earth Hour once a month, just because it's lovely.

Honoring our ancestors

Taking a break from the rigors of being sick (I've pretty much been in bed since Thursday, although I did make it in to work for a couple of hours today), I made a little green dinner for St. Patrick's Day.

Now, St. Patrick's has always been one of my favorite holidays. I've always loved the fun of wearing green (and pinching those who forgot). Food, of course, in our family really makes or breaks a holiday, and I have fond memories of two favorite foods my mom would treat us to, every year: Green SnoBalls and Corned Beef & Cabbage. Corned Beef has to be one of the all-time greatest foods known to mankind. There's nothing better than biting into a salty pink chunk of goodness and letting the greasy brine drip down your chin. I love to get a thick slice with a nice fatty rim and frost it with a tasty mixture of mustard and horseradish. Wow. And the heavenly marriage of fat, salt and cabbage! The sweetness of the vegetable comes through, mellow and heady.

However, as a vegetarian, the spotlight has shifted a little. No dead animal parts means no corned beef and no marshmallows. But in some ways, it's nice. I can remember why St Patrick's Day really means so much to me. It's because most of us are the descendants of people from far distant countries, who worked hard to come here. March 17th is a holiday created by one group of folks to remember those ancestors. In this modern era, that's a pretty rare thing.

So tonight I made us a mess o'pottage--a stew of split peas and vegetables--with rye bread, saurkraut and hot mustard as accompaniment. Dried peas were one of the primary foodstuffs of the Northern Europeans, long before the beans of the Americas arrived, or before the lentils and garbanzos of the Middle East had caught on. Rye is one of the hardiest grains, far more cold tolerant than wheat. And cabbage is the quintessential food of the poor. I tried to honor the ancestors of my little family, a mess of Scots, German, Irish, English and Polish farmers.

Sometimes changing your food habit lets you change your feelings about a holiday. And sometimes it lets you see it in a whole new, beautiful light.

Sour Kale

With nobody feeling 100%, we haven't been doing a great deal of good cooking around this place, and let's face it, nobody wants to hear about boxed soup and orange juice. So yesterday marked my first good and healthy meal in about a week and a half.

It was pretty simple. I just marinated some cubed tofu (in pineapple juice, Bragg's amino acids, two pressed garlic cloves, a tablespoon of tomato paste and sherry) overnight and then baked it about 40 minutes. Then I quickly steamed a bunch of kale with about a cup of leftover sauerkraut and salt & pepper. All of that together over rice, with a little green onion sprinkled over the top for that crunchy touch.

But wow! Who knew sauerkraut could take kale such new and fantastic places? It was zippy, zesty, cheerful, and tummy tingling. And super energy-filled, too. The tofu-marinade, which reduced as the tofu baked, was a sweet sauce that harmonized with the sour really well.

Sometimes, even when you're lazy, you get lucky.

So many great thoughts ...

... so little posting.

Sorry there's been a bit of a drought on this site. Unfortunately, Wednesday afternoon I pulled a muscle in my neck and typing makes it even worse. You should have seen me leading kids' yoga that day ... "Bendy Wendy," my butt!

Cauliflower is cool!

Tonight I made pasta with a creamy sauce made from mashed cauliflower and white beans, with some vegan mozzarella, lots of garlic, and some chopped spinach for color. Yum! Who knew cauliflower could impersonate junk food?

What a beautiful morning!

In an attempt to cut down on our car usage, I have been getting up early and walking down to the train station instead of mooching a ride off John on Sundays. I've always felt a little guilty about the extra car trip, and now that I'm trying to get more exercise, this is the perfect opportunity. Oddly enough, I find myself really excited about it. I'll wake up, bouncing around, ready to go, go, go, go!

This morning waking up early was a little tough, but completely worth it. There was a wispy fog all over the city and the birds were talking their little lungs out. Just as I turned the corner on Ivon, I saw a hump-backed shadow stalking across the street. It snuffled back and forth, stopping on the sidwalk to watch me approach. A raccoon! It waited until I was within about 6 feet of it, then disappeared into the grass and the fog.

Sometimes we forget that nature isn't just out there, somewhere. Even the city is nature.

Sick kid

One week later, the midget is still a little under the weather. She's had a bit of an earache and her nose just doesn't stop running. She says her ear doesn't hurt today, but that may be because I had John give her a classic ear ache treatment: a hot onion in a sock, pressed to the ear.

We're just enjoying the beautiful weather and trying to nurse our little loveling back to health. It's been a quiet week!

No-Bake Vegan Cheesecake (Creamy Meyer Lemon Pie)

I made this for John's birthday last week. I wanted to make a raw cheesecake in a graham cracker crust (John loves graham crackers), but the raw cheesecake recipes all sounded too fatty, so I compromised and used a container of soy yogurt to reduce the fat content. The results were amazing--creamy, tangy, delicious, with the solidity of a good New York Cheesecake. The raspberry sauce on top elevated it to celebration status!

No-Bake Vegan Cheesecake (aka Creamy Meyer Lemon Pie)

If you substituted rice yogurt for soy yogurt, this could easily be made soy-free. It's very important to use organic lemons, because the skin of citrus fruits really soaks up pesticides. Make sure you wash them well to remove any wax, or all the flavor will not come through.

1 prepared 9-in graham cracker crust (see Better-For-Ya Graham Cracker Crust, bottom)

zest, pulp, and juice of 1 1/2 lemons (I used Meyer lemons, because they are in season)

6 oz container of vanilla soy yogurt

2 C raw cashews, ground to a fine powder (I used a coffee grinder)

1/4 C coconut oil

dash of salt

3 Tb agave nectar (or sugar or lightly colored honey)

Pour the lemon zest, pulp and juice into a blender and add the yogurt. Blend on low to combine. In three batches, add the cashew powder. When combined, add the coconut oil, salt and sugar. The mixture should be quite thick. Pour mixture into prepared graham cracker crust, cover tightly, and refrigerate two to three hours until firm. Serve with fresh fruit or Raspberry Glaze.

Raspberry Glaze

1 1/4 C frozen raspberries

3 Tb sugar

juice of 1/2 a lemon

Stir all ingredients together in a small saucepan, and bring to a gentle boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low and cook until sauce coats a spoon. Thoroughly cool before using, but do not refrigerate, or it will not spread nicely over the cheesecake.

Better For Ya Graham Cracker Crust

Sometimes you just want a graham cracker crust, but when you read the recipe, your arteries begin crying. This is the fix for you. It is particularly thick and hearty, with a tasty, grahamy flavor.

1 Tb ground flax seeds

1/4 C water

1/2 tsp corn or sunflower oil

1/4 tsp salt

10 crushed graham crackers (they should be about the texture of sand)

2 Tb brown rice syrup, at room temperature

Mix the ground flax seeds with the water and let it rest while you crush the graham crackers. The flax seeds should turn into a thick and gooey paste. Stir in the oil. In a large bowl, sprinkle the salt over the crushed graham crackers, then stir in the flax seeds. Add the brown rice syrup. Stir until the brown rice syrup is evenly distributed and the mixture begins to come together in one big lump. Put the mixture into a 9-inch pie pan or springform and pat into place. Bake at 325 degrees until browned and firm, about 12 minutes.

Old favorites, new colors

Today was a great day in Garden Club. We played a smelling game where everybody sniffed different samples of food with their eyes closed and then had to guess what the food was. All the kids were astounded when they saw the blood oranges--their noses had the thing pegged, but their eyeballs were confused.

We had the same experience for dinner. When Fi and I were at New Seasons, they had a beautiful arrangement of cauliflowers in white, orange and purple. Fiona really wanted to try the purple kind. She actually begged for it, and since I'm a sucker for kids who beg for veggies, I totally bought a head. Tonight I decided to cook it up.

We had an Indian-themed dinner, with rice and lentils, and then I toasted some cumin seeds in a dab of olive oil (a lot more than I usually cook with, but I had a hunch the cauliflower would appreciate it), with a little salt and a dash of curry powder. The cauliflower soaked up the delicious cumin flavor as I tossed it around in the pan, and the curry powder gave it a well-rounded flavor profile. The best thing, and the thing I'd been most nervous about, is that the cauliflower stayed purple when cooked! I was very, very pleased, since I thought I remembered that purple cauliflower cooked to green. Maybe that's broccoli ...

As a little accompaniment to the cauliflower, I tried a veggie mentioned in Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian (which is probably my favorite cookbook for its treatment of vegetables, including many obscure varieties of veggies I can't wait to dig into): garbanzo fronds. To prepare for this experiment, I began growing some garbanzo plants in January. They are very beautiful plants, and I got a little teary-eyed cuttng them for dinner. I don't know if I could have done it I hadn't just planted some more out in the garden this afternoon! I cut back the entire plant, which was still very young and tender, and quickly stir-fried it in a little garlic, olive oil, and salt. Wow! They have a flavor reminiscent of asparagus, and were tender and lovely. Wow. Run out and buy some dried garbanzo beans today so you can try the fronds soon!

Cuminy Greens and Tofu (Vegan Saag Paneer)

I made this one night when I was craving saag paneer. It recreates some of my favorite elements of the dish--mellow cuminy spinach goodness--without the dairy and long-term commitment of traditional recipes. I can't say it's an exact match, but when I found myself craving it today at work, I knew I'd done something good. We were too hungry to find the camera and take a picture--you'll have to picture the beautiful greens and little tofu cubes.

Cuminy Greens and Tofu (evocative of Saag Paneer)
1 package firm tofu
1/2 C kombucha (or 2 Tb apple cider vinegar with enough apple juice to make 1/2C)
1 tsp miso soup base (I used yellow)

1 tsp olive oil
1 Tb cumin seeds, whole
2 tsp coriander seeds, whole
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced

1 box of frozen spinach, thawed
2 1/2 C shredded cabbage
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 carrot, shredded

Press tofu for 10-20 minutes. While pressing, stir together miso and kombucha (1/2 an inch of grated ginger would be a nice addition here). Cut tofu into cubes and toss with marinade. Allow to sit as long as you can.

Rub olive oil all over a non-stick pan; bring pan to medium-high heat. Add seeds and allow to toast about thirty seconds, or until they start smelling good. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion and cook until onions are translucent. Add the tofu and garlic.

When the tofu is beginning to get golden, add remaining ingredients and cook until cabbage is tender. Serve over rice.

Bird brained

I needed a little adventure today, and since I've been really interested in birds lately, I took Fiona to the Portland Audubon Society. They have a really beautiful visitors' center with a wildlife health care center, and there is beautiful hiking to enjoy in the surrounding sancturary.

Today was great. There were volunteers taking the education birds around to visit with people. We got to meet Julio, a great horned owl, and Finnegan, a peregrine falcon. They are both unable to live in the wild and make the wildlife care center their full-time home. It feels really special to get up close to these really quite dangerous predators and see them moving. Hear them talking. Even just watching them blink is pretty darn cool.

Another really cool thing about the care center is that the hospital window is mostly glass on one side, so you can watch the volunteers at work. They had a number of birds resting in cages and aquariums, including a robin snuggled up in a towel and a little brown bird pecking at some seeds. These guys were so close to the viewing window that I could see the glass fogging up as the robin breathed in and out!

After we saw all the creatures, we hiked down the Macleay trail, following Balch Creek down into the city. It was a truly lovely day, warm and sunny, the perfect day to be out enjoying the forest and the water. The kind of day that makes you glad to be alive!

Hot, hot vegetable love!

Around our house, Valentine's Day is practically forgotten. You see, my sweetie-pie's birthday happens to fall on February 14th, changing the day from a pink-and-red holiday to "Let's Celebrate John!" day. (And have I mentioned that he hates chocolate?) I don't really mind. It's still romantic and loving to celebrate my guy.

Anyway.

The Fatfree Vegan blog is holding a recipe contest for Valentine's Day called Vegetable Love. Since I was already planning to make John a super-healthy and romantic sort of dinner, I thought I'd go the extra mile and make an entry for Vegetable Love.

I thought long and hard about what I'd make. It needed to be comforting and rich. It needed to be earthy, but still vibrant and flavorful. And since it was for John, it needed to have a spicy component--he loves spicy food, and let's face it: he's a hot guy. I spent the last couple of days wracking my brain and tried a glamorous take on mashed potatoes and gravy, with herbs and sherry and shallots. It should have been good.

Ummn. No. I learned something in the process though--I don't like tarragon nearly as much as I thought I did. And I also learned that sometimes mysterious magic happens in the kitchen. I just happened to throw this carrot dish together as a side dish, and it turned out delicious, spicy, tangy, sweet, rich. John really liked it! So here's my tribute to love this February:

Hot Love Carrots

3 large carrots, cut in matchsticks (about 2 cups)

3/4 C orange juice

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tb pepper jelly*

Scrub carrots and remove tops. Cut into matchsticks and place in saucepan with orange juice and salt. Cover and simmer until tender. Remove cover and allow orange juice to reduce by half. Stir in pepper jelly.

*Obviously different brands of pepper are spicier than others. Use one you like, and if it's not spicy enough for your hot love, give it a sexy swirl of Rooster sauce!

Sorry the photo is grainy--I have no idea why, but Blogger keeps making all my pictures funky!

Uno & Jerusalem artichokes

Sorry the last couple of days have been so quiet, but my brother has been in town, and I've been busy playing Uno like a fiend. Uno is a great family game--we play it with evil rules when we play at night, and easy rules when we play with Fi. She's getting pretty good at it, too!

It's pretty hard to get worked up about gardening while it's pouring torrentially, but I found some Jerusalem artichokes at New Seasons the other day, and I am going to plant them tomorrow. I tried in the fall, but something kept digging them up, and then one day they were just gone. Darn squirrels! I hope these do a little better, because Jerusalem artichokes are pretty tasty in their own weird way.

Out of the mouths of babes!

Let me preface this story by explaining that in our house, when you pee, you use a toilet hankie instead of toilet paper. They're reusable fabric wipies that are really handy for a kid who's just learning to wipe. We just toss them in a bin under the sink and throw them in the washing machine when we are doing laundry.

Anyway.

Last night Fiona's cousin Amelia came over for a sleep-over. Fiona was instructing Amelia in the fine art of toilet hankie usage, and she said, "the great thing about toilet hankies is that you don't waste trees."

What a great kid!

Closing the loop

Today it was time to transplant my baby garbonzo bean plants out of their egg shells. (We save the halves of our egg shells and put them back in the egg carton to make a no-mess seed starting pot. It beats the heck out of those peat pellets, which are environmental nightmares!) It's too cold to put their fragile selves outside, so I just took a couple of Trader Joe's Graham Cracker boxes, filled them with potting soil and a special amendment, and then popped the little egg cups full of baby plants into the dirt. Okay, first I squeezed the egg shells so they would be full of cracks and holes at the bottom, giving the plants' roots plenty of places to creep out and find their new soil.

That special amendment? Worm castings! I finally got enough worms out of one end of the bin to harvest the castings today. I've been feeding only the front end for about three weeks now, just waiting until I needed some delicious compost. It looked like pipe tobacco, a rich warm brown, and smelled nice, very earthy. Not stinky at all! Then I threw down some more bedding and rotated the bin. I'll be ready to collect the next half in a couple of weeks, and then I'll let it hang out for a few months, building up matter.

I love my worms!

Ecotips!

So another goal for this blog is to post regular ecotips, with labels, so they are findable.

Right now I am happy to say we are the proud non-owners of plastic wrap. During the Christmas season, I used the last of the roll that we brought when we moved into this apartment, and now we have NO PLASTIC WRAP. It's a good, but challenging situation. I find myself saving the plastic bags that tortillas and tempeh come in and reusing them. That's a good feeling. But my main tip is: you can use a plate to cover bowls of leftovers, just like your mom (or grandmother) did in the 50s! It works fine, although for the bigger bowls in my house, I had to use an inverted aluminum pie plate.

Simple food, simply great!

So here we go. New look, new focus, new Opera Buffo. I'm pretty excited, although I have a feeling the picture of the squirrel won't last long. The biggest excitement is the labels. They matter because I plan to finally post recipes here, and the labels will let you find something good to eat! Let me know how it works for you.

A lot of the food projects that I will be posting will be easy, easy weekday recipes, and they should all be vegan. It's fun to share the mad brainstorming that can happen in the kitchen when you just throw together a meal, and I really want to help more people tap into that. I keep meeting people who only cook from recipes and it blows my mind. Recipes are fun, but it's like following a paint-by-numbers kit: confining and style-less.

So let's jump in! Here's the bare bones of a great soup that you can tinker with by adding or subtracting spicy elements and crunchy toppings.


Corn Chowder

This recipe is modified from a chowder recipe in Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, and it just doesn't get easier than this.
Basic soup recipe:
2-3 cups corn; if using frozen, run under warm water to thaw
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup pine nuts
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp salt
3-5 cups hot water (3 cups to start, add water if you prefer a thinner soup)
Bells & whistles (optional):
1/2 tsp - 1 tsp ground cumin
1 chipotle chile and 1 tsp adobo sauce (more to taste)
Handful of cilantro leaves
1 or 2 chopped green onions

Place all the basic soup ingredients in a blender. Add as many or few optional ingredients. Blend on medium until smooth.

Top with any of the following ingredients:
Salsa
Black beans
Avocados, sliced
Sprouts
Corn
Green onions
Corn chips

YUM!

The times, they are a-changin'!

Prepare to see a new look coming to this blog! I've gotten a little bored with the look and content of Opera Buffo and I hope to do a little bit of remodeling.

See ya soon!

Seed Catalog

It's officially seed catalog season, friends! I keep finding myself going through mine, over and over, visualizing this year's garden. Could I really put in enough stakes and strings to support all those beans? And how much space does a zucchini plant need, really? Visions of weird lettuces and obscure herbs are dancing in my head.

I can't wait to get planting! In fact, now that I know that Everybody's Garden Center has moved, and is now only ten blocks from my house, I just might pick up some grow lights and start spring early!

Sleep is good food

Okay, that is a nonsensical title if ever there was one. But it is amazing how much better the brain works when you've had a little extra sleep. Instead of struggling for words and logic, I'm actually putting ideas together with ease and facility. Or at least I sound like English is my native tongue.