Cooking every night? Just crazy enough to work.

I've been making an effort to cook healthy, especially things from my new favorite cookbook, "Appetite for Reduction". So far, everything I've made out of there has been a winner. This is saying something! I'm one of those people who writes in my cookbooks, so I can remember what I thought of a recipe or adjustments I think would improve it. I forgot that I did this until I lent out my copy of "Deceptively Delicous" (that one Jerry Seinfeld's wife wrote where you puree fruits and vegetables and sneak them into everything under the sun) where I'd written "NOT GOOD. Tastes like wet bread. Not enough marshmallows in the world to save this." on her coffeecake recipe. This was before I was vegan. Anyway, my lucky friend Jessica knew not to try that recipe, for sure.

Now I've traded in this

for this


I bought a huge amount of "great northern white beans" (aka those white beans that are bigger than navy beans) from the bulk section of my grocery store the other day, and cooked up a gigantic pot of them. I usually make hummus out of them, since they puree up easier than chickpeas and I like them that way. I got a really easy recipe for that online, and I go by it, basically, adding or subtracting whatever I feel like. Here it is, if you're interested:


Take about 3 cups white beans, 1 tsp salt, a pinch of pepper, a few shakes of thyme, 3 TB olive oil and 2 TB lemon juice, and 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced. Puree that in your blender or food processor, adding warm water as you need it to make it smoother. Usually 1/4-1/2 cups of it.

pretty easy!

Anyway, I've been coming up with ways to use all these cooked beans, now, and there's a great recipe for Pasta e Fagoli in Appetite for Reduction. I tried it out and took some pictures.

It starts with a pretty basic tomato sauce (I even found some old sherry cooking wine in my cupboard, so I did it like a big girl instead of with vegetable broth like usual - score!).


I picked tricolor shells from (natch) the bulk section for my pasta.


Added the beans to the sauce ...


and when everything was cooked, mixed it all together with a bunch of spinach while the sauce was still hot enough to wilt the greens. Hooray!


Very good, and it's got everything all in one bowl, which is awesome. Less packing for me in the morning. I'm one of those dorks that literally packs a lunchbox for work. And it's a pink one, too. I usually bring some leftovers from the night before and some fruit. I might be one of the only people in the world that works in a nursing home and actually still likes and eats applesauce. I even pack it in my lunches sometimes. Even now that I sometimes give people meds crushed into it.

Me and my applesauce are freaky like that. And me and my kitchen are BFF these days.

Project!

I think I've mentioned on my blog here before that I'm vegan - I have been for about 2 years. That means I do not eat animals (including fish or other sea creatures), milk/dairy, or eggs. When I first realized I needed to become vegan (when I found out about the horrible abuses on factory farms) I was PISSED. I didn't want to have to make all those changes, and I was afraid it was going to be really hard, and that I'd never eat out again, and that I would be deprived of good food. Turns out I was wrong, it's waaaaaaaaaaaay easier than I could have guessed, and I can eat out whenever I can afford to.

My Mom gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday this year so I used it to buy a food processor and...

So exciting! I have and love Veganomicon, and I'm a big fan of cookbooks in general. Recently I've been trying to lose weight - we're playing The Biggest Loser at the GreatRep and the winner gets $3.50 per pound donated to their favorite charity in their name. So far I'm totally not winning. I've lost 2 pounds in 2 weeks. Shoot.

I've wanted a food processor for a while now since I love grated carrot salads and I have a bunch of raw food recipes that I've never tried to make because a blender really doesn't do everything a food processor does. But I got my big box of delights in the mail today, so look forward to some recipe reviews and hopefully I won't slice off any of my fingertips trying to learn how to use a food processor for the first time. When I nannied the family I worked for had one and I would look at that sumbitch and then just put it away in the cupboard because it was too intimidating.

Now I've got my own sumbitch and I'm gonna learn how to use it, too. And hopefully lose some more weight in the process. Wish me luck!

Day 21: One of Your Favorite Shows

I thought about writing about Scrubs for this, but a) I write about it all too often (and post clips to illustrate medical conditions, ha ha) and b) I've only seen it up through season 5.

So instead, let's take on one of my other favorites: Top Chef. I love all the Top Chef seasons, including Top Chef Masters and Top Chef: Just Desserts. It probably seems a little ridiculous that I'd like that show so much given that I'm vegan and would never make or eat 99% of the food that they do on it, even though they put the recipes online. Although they did have a vegan challenge episode where they had to cook for Zooey and Emily Deschanel!!! They must be some of the most adorable vegan sisters ever in life. Look at them!

and p.s. It was on Top Chef Masters and one of the "Master" chefs got sent home because his brilliant idea for dessert was to take rice milk ice cream and mix some strawberries into it. I mean, really? Sheesh. Here's a link to a blogpost by someone else with more info about that one:
Top Chef Masters: Vegan Challenge!

But even when I wouldn't eat what they're making, I love watching how they do it. I like the knife skills challenges, and am much faster at chopping my own veggies after seeing how the pros do it. I get lots of ideas from them about different dishes I could make or modify to make vegan. And I love seeing the really fancypants ones like Richard Blaze who uses liquid nitrogen on everything possible.

I also get a kick out of the judges, and I think Padma Lakshmi is so pretty it should be criminal. I think Anthony Bourdain is very funny, and I also watch his travel show and read his novels.

So yep, Top Chef. Watch it with me, buddies. It's almost the end of the Top Chef: All Stars season right now. Spike Mendelson went home a while ago, but I do have his burgers & milkshakes cookbook and I make things for Mr. Polly from it for holidays and I give him "A Spike Meal" coupon for a gift sometimes. So I've made several of Spike's burgers and shakes, and they've been a big hit so far.

Ugh, now I'm hungry. Time to go cook my last artichoke - that is seriously one of my favorite after-work meals. I loooooooooove artichokes!