Vegan MoFo: Making Something Out of Nothing

This is a backdated post, it's true.

On this day, Susie came over to hang out and cook food, and as often is the case when we get together, we had a fun project. This time, we would make something out of the varied vegetables in my fridge into something of sustenance, and with any luck, we would make tasty sustenance.

First we pulled out the bins to have a look-see. Never underestimate the depths of those vegetable bins -- Just when you think there is NOTHING inside, out comes all kinds of glorious delights. We found lots of peppers of various kinds, shiitake mushrooms that were very dry that we believed we could hydrate, kale, broccoli florets, leek....


On the left is Susie, clearly in the running for cutest vegan ever, though if that were an actual contest it could get very complicated, as all the vegans I know are completely adorable.

We composted all that we couldn't save and then displayed the rest on the table, pulling out possible condiments we might use. Like so. Though this picture was taken after most of the vegetables we decided to use were chopped. Anyway.

Then we decided we wanted to eat some tofu to go with, so we went to the coop, picked up the tofu, a free ear of corn, and some other sundries, and we had at. It was pretty late until we had a meal (and this would be the first of four late meals in a row for me) but it was fun and worth it, even if the results were iffy.

The quinoa we made had an interesting flavor-dimension cause of the dried shiitakes, all puffed up and beautiful upon contact with the quinoa-cooking water. But the quinoa never fully cooked, remaining crunchy through to the end, even when we returned our quinoa portions to the pot and added more liquid and cooked some more. The vegetables, cooked in a sesame-oil marinade were quite tasty, though not without price. The scent of sesame oil filled the house for hours and made it difficult for Aaron to fall asleep! Of course, the winner was the tofu, the one thing we went to the coop and bought, the one thing we didn't have in the fridge. The marinade for that baked tofu was a quick one, featuring garlic chile paste and this sweet orange chili mustard from the farmers market.

I'm almost glad that I've got insomnia at this unthinkable hour of the night (remember, this is written in the future), cause this post is reminding me to try to recreate that tofu before I forget.

And now that Susie has a two-zone bus pas, it won't be long till we can do it again!