dancing AND

When I listen to music, I dance. When I cook, I listen to music. Ergo, when I cook, I dance. Consequently, cooking can take me much longer than it should. Sometimes, I can dance in one place and chop veggies at the same time. I can definitely stir soup and dance. Sometimes, though, the music takes me and I find myself dancing all around the kitchen, over the dogs and around the kids. (I do try to remember to put the knife down first.)

The kids don't appear to think it's out of the ordinary, and I suppose, for them, it's not. I've always danced while cooking. Occasionally, they will join me. Liam likes to do the running man, and Aisling will jump around with me all over the place. They usually poop out on me, though.

Tonight, I discovered that dancing is a great way to shake up a can of coconut milk. Just take one can in each hand and wave those arms around while dancing. It's a fantastic workout, too.

I also dance and drive. I'm sitting, sure, but that doesn't stop me from boogieing in my seat. [Aside: I am not sure of the correct way to spell boogie-ing. This is what my computer suggested, and I have accepted it.] Fortunately, dance-alyzers have yet to be invented; I would fail every time.

When I walk for exercise, I plug into my ipod and dance in my head. It is hard to dance and walk at the same time, and I am, as yet, too self-conscious to dance down the sidewalk. It does affect my walking, though, at times, giving me a bit more hip-swiggle than an ordinary walk calls for. It makes me wonder what passing motorists think. Am I trying to attract attention? Do I think I am hot stuff? Do they even really notice? (It has been a long time since I've gotten a wolf whistle.) I notice people walking. Does that mean other people notice me walking? (I think I see a new blog post shaping up here.)

I used to dance while trying to clean. Unfortunately, I get very little housework done while dancing, so when I am serious about it (which I rarely am), I have to turn off the music.

I have said that I may love dancing more than I love reading, and some people who know me well have disagreed with that. After all, I spend almost all my free time reading. I certainly spend more time reading than I do dancing ... that is, if you don't count the time I spend driving and dancing.

So which do I love more, dancing or reading? I've decided it's a matter of place. When I read, I escape. I am no longer in the "real" world. I am away, I am absorbed. When I dance, I am in the moment, right there, in my body, sweating and moving, not thinking, just letting my body inhabit the music. I spend so much time in my head, thinking, thinking, thinking, that dance, ironically, grounds me while also somehow setting me free.

When I listen to music, I dance.

Vegan Peanut Coconut Sweet Potato Soup

I let Liam choose the soup tonight, and he said he wanted something with coconut milk and sweet potatoes. Here's what I came up with. It's quite mellow, so you might want to use more red pepper or lime or add some lemongrass or chives. Some strange people think cilantro (yuck!) goes well with this kind of soup, too.

Ingredients:

• Peanut oil
• Sweet potatoes -- about 6 smallish ones -- peeled and cubed
• 1/2 tsp grated ginger
• Minced garlic to taste (I probably used the equivalent of 4 cloves, but we're a garlic family; you might want less)
• 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper (or more if you like spicy)
• 2 cups water with vegetable bouillon
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1 can coconut milk
• Lime juice to taste (I used 1 tsp)
• Bragg's liquid aminos or soy sauce to taste (I used 1 tbsp)
• Salt to taste (optional)
• Red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

1. Heat splash of peanut oil over medium heat. Add cubed sweet potatoes and stir to coat.
2. Add ginger, globs of minced garlic, and red pepper.
3. Let cook for 5ish minutes (remember to stir).
4. Add water and bouillon, enough to just cover sweet potatoes. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer till sweet potatoes are tender -- about 6 minutes.
5. Add peanut butter and stir till it dissolves.
6. Add coconut milk and stir.
7. Add lime juice, Bragg's liquid aminos, and salt (optional), and stir.
8. Heat through and serve. You could also blend this into a creamy soup.
9. Top with red pepper flakes if you like it hot.

Notes:

• I am not a huge fan of ginger or lime. I like just a hint of their flavors, so I used very little in this recipe. You might like quite a bit more.
• I use full fat coconut milk. Fat is good. It's too much food that's bad.
• I prefer Bragg's liquid aminos to soy sauce because it has the same flavor (slightly more mild) but without the salt. Supposedly, it's good for you, too.
• I am a lazy cook. I use the pre-grated ginger and pre-minced garlic. Fresh ginger and garlic might have a stronger taste.
• I usually throw things together then cross my fingers and hope it will turn out. On this one, though, I did a lot of tasting and adjusting at the end.
• This might also be good with some kale or rice noodles added.

Bumper stickers

I have bumper stickers on my car. I have never considered myself a bumper sticker person; it was a side effect of being practical.

When my little Toyota Yaris was totaled, I was rather freaked out, so I decided we needed a BIG car. I couldn't do an SUV or truck, however, as I wanted something at least slightly fuel-efficient. I also figured that with super tall kids, it made sense to have something with room. So we decided on a minivan. Nice and practical.

(I have never considered myself a minivan person either. Am I in denial or in disguise?)

Except that every third person around here owns a gray minvan. Every time I went to pick up the kids from school, I'd watch them walking slowly down the line of minivans, peering in each window to see which one had me in it.

Thus, the bumper stickers. I got four and put them on the car just below the window, which makes for great line of sight. They are:

- Be the change you wish to see in the world
- Live simply so others can simply live
- There is not a blue America and a red America, there is the United States of America
- Well-behaved women seldom make history

I chose these particular bumper stickers because I liked them but also because they are fairly innocuous. They might identify me as left of center, but none of them are particulary super-political.

A few weeks ago, I was at school, and when I got back to my car, there was a note on my windshield.

It says, "COMRADE - You rock. love from the owner of the gray Odyssey you parked in front of."

Only in the midwest would such innocuous bumper stickers earn one the socialist appellation "Comrade." (Not that I mind. My views on food availability alone probably make me a socialist.)

Toilet paper

For many years now, I have had a paranoia about running out of toilet paper. We get down to about 5 rolls, and I panic and immediately run to the nearest store to buy a 24 pack of Quilted Northern. (They're double rolls, so that's actually 48.) Then I feel good.

It is ironic, then, that I somehow lost track of how much toilet paper was in the house when the blizzard came. I thought we had several rolls in the kids' bathroom. We didn't. So here we have been stuck in the house for 3 days ... and we have 1 roll of toilet paper. Just 1.

I decided to ration water and food. If we don't consume anything, there will be nothing to come out, so that 1 lone roll of toilet paper will last much longer. It seemed a perfectly resonable solution to me.

Aaron decided to go dig his car out.

Mexican Taco Casserole

I am so proud of myself when I concoct a new recipe all by myself that I have to share it! Here's a not-spicy Taco Casserole.

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped
minced garlic (I use lots)
1 package frozen Boca burger crumbles
1 package taco seasoning
8 oz can tomato sauce
14.5 oz can diced tomato, drained
4 oz can diced green chiles
14.5 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup cheese (I used almost vegan cheese)
1/2 cup cheese
Fritos (couple  handfuls)

Toppings:
Sour cream
Avocado
Whatever else sounds good. :-)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Saute onion for couple minutes over med heat. Add Boca crumbles and cook till mostly thawed. Add garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes longer.

Mix in taco seasoning. Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and diced green chiles. Let cook while you're opening, draining, and rinsing black beans.

Add black beans, stir, and heat through (just a couple minutes -- skip if you're in a hurry). Add 1 cup cheese and mix till blended but not too melty. (You could probably serve the casserole at this point if you want to skip the oven time.)

Place layer of Fritos in bottom of large casserole dish. Pour taco mix over chips. Top with another handful of chips, then top with 1/2 cup cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Serve with all sorts of yummy toppings.

Variations: I considered making this with diced potato, sweet potato, or macaroni instead of the chips.Could also probably layer it between tortillas in the casserole. Could also substitute enchilada sauce for the tomato sauce.

Vegan Stuffing a la Yara

I managed to make a recipe all by myself! I know many of you do that every day, but for me, it is a huge accomplishment. Here it is:

1 loaf  (~ 1 pound) bread, mild flavor, crusty or toasted, torn into large pieces
Vegan margarine
1 large shallot
1-2 cups mushrooms
1-4 cloves garlic
1-1.5 Not-Chicken bouillon cubes
Dried sage (1 tbsp maybe? Not sure)

Throw a couple dollops vegan margarine in a skillet and saute the shallots till softish. Add mushrooms and saute till soft, about 6 minutes or so. Add garlic and saute for another 1-2 minutes. Add more margarine at any point if it starts to look too dry in there. (This is not a low-fat recipe. Why should it be??)

Meanwhile, pour 2 cups boiling water over the Not-Chicken cubes and stir till they are dissolved.

Put bread pieces in mixing bowl. Pour broth over bread and mix till saturated; add a bit of water if needed. Add mushroom mixture and stir. Sprinkle dried sage over the top and mix.

Spoon into loaf pan, cover with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15 minutes. It will be pretty moist when it's done, and it will stick together loaf-style, not crumbly.

It is not a pretty stuffing, but it does taste yummy. Of course, you can add all the extra stuff, too, like celery, apples, nuts, etc. I prefer my stuffing mooshy. :-)

Cooking, carmelizing, craving

Did you know that when you brown pork chops, they don't turn brown, they turn white? Why call it "browning" in that case? Why not "whiting?" Anyway, when my stepmom asked me to brown the pork chops one night when I was 12 years old, I browned 'em. Not whited 'em, browned 'em. The dogs had a good dinner that night, and Tracey never asked me to cook again.

So I didn't cook for a long time, but when we became vegetarian, I discovered that if I wanted to eat tasty food, I'd have to cook. So I bought some cookbooks and cooked. I never felt I could take credit for the results cause all I did was follow instructions (I'm really good at following instructions); someone else did all the creative work.

Lately, though, I've been branching out. I've tried a few things on my own, and I've gotten brave about using a recipe as a stimulus -- rather than following it, I use it as a framework for my own creation. I've discovered that most cooking is really quite forgiving. You can play around with it and usually come up with something decent. I'm still not regularly throwing my own stuff together, but I'm getting better at trusting myself.

Here's what I've created recently that came out quite well.

Carmelized tofu
I wanted yummy tofu one night, but I didn't want to work too hard, so I went looking for a recipe. I found this one for caramelized tofu, but as I don't like cilantro and didn't have pecans and didn't want to mix it with veggies, I did it this way:

I put some olive oil in a skillet on med-high. Once it was hot, I added tofu that was cut into thin strips -- about 1" wide by 3" long by 1/4 " thick and let it get golden. I then added garlic (probably quite a bit more than the recipe calls for) and let it cook for a minute or so and then added three tablespoons brown sugar and stirred it all up. Once the sugar looked stuck onto the tofu, I took it out and we ate it and it was yummilicious! The next time I make it, though, I will press the tofu first, so it is a bit more durable. A lot of it fell apart when I stirred it after adding the sugar.

Potatoes and carrots without the roast beef
I was craving the taste of potatoes and carrots with roast beef, only without the roast beef, so I decided to try and simulate it, and it worked pretty well -- as far as I can remember, that is. I haven't had beef in about 10 years. Here are directions if you'd like to try it too:

1. Quarter several buttercream potatoes and cut baby carrots (real ones, not the slimy manufactured things you can buy in bags) into about 2-3" lengths and put that all into an 8x8" glass dish.
2. Dissolve one Not-Beef cube in one cup of boiling water (this was double-strength) and pour that over the potatoes and carrots.
   
3. Bake at either 350 or 400 degrees (cannot remember) for about 1 to 1-1/2 hours until the potatoes and carrots are soft.
4. Remove potatoes and carrots with a slotted spoon, leaving the liquid in the dish. Add about 1 tbsp flour and mix until it thickens. Pour this "gravy" over the potatoes and carrots and stir gently.

Next time, I might add some quartered sweet onions and maybe some mushrooms.

Mushroom gravy
For this one, I used this recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I love her recipes; they always come out yummy, although she sometimes uses ingredients that I simply don't have the time to hunt down. Anyway, this was the best vegan gravy I've had. It only made enough for about 2-3 people, though.

My variations: I don't like the texture of shitake mushrooms, never eat them. So I used an 8 oz package of plain ol' regular button mushrooms, sliced thinly, and no cremini mushrooms, either. (I didn't want to drive to the store.) I also did not add the soy milk at the end as I was afraid it would thin it out too much.