Emeril Cooks Calf Shins

Oh, it's so hard to take sometimes.
I've spent the day putting the finishing touches to the handouts sheets for the tofu demonstration I'm giving this weekend; listened to one of Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's podcasts ( a heart breaking one on a ewe's forgiveness of humans) while driving into town to make some copies. Experimented further with more tofu ( I brought home 15 pounds of various sorts earlier this week ! ), making some Oatmeal Peanut Butter cookies from the PPK website. Not that there is a ton of tofu in it, but I was looking for a recipe for oatey p butter cookies and this one came up, so I figured I HAD to use it ! ( http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=31 ). I also made some fabulous burgers this morning...consisting mostly of oats, garbanzo flour, sesame seeds, walnuts...lots of seasonings. Browned one up in a pan and sat down to a fantastic meal of two open-faced samis,with dijon mustard and some of the last tomatoes from our garden. But I forgot to add the final touch, the herb that carries Summer's sunshine in its very cells and holds it till you get it on your warm sandwich, between the veggie burger and the heavy tomato slice....ah. I'm feeling pretty positive about things ! So, I turn on the tube , and what the heck, maybe today's the day that Emeril's gone vegan...let's take a look ! And we were happily surprised to see him doing a segment on Asian noodles, even soaking some big sheets of kelp for a soup...oh, oh...maybe he's going to go a little further and do something with tofu ! ...but no...out comes of all things, veal shanks...cross sections of a calves's legs. All I could think of was the pain and deprivation of the creatures that brought those body parts to the Food Network. Emeril's picking them up, squeezing them, talking about how fresh and lovely they are. A dark bluish purplish blotch on the white skin encircling the pale pink flesh on one of the pieces revealed the little animal had had a badly bruised shin. Was it sustained while be transported hundreds of miles to its slaughter, in a filthy truck overcrowded with fellow undernourished calves ? Or perhaps it happened while on the kill floor at the slaughter house.
Oh...it's so hard to look sometimes.

Tomato Days

Just when I thought my enthusiasm for tomatoes was easing, and I could relax ( and having just last night reduced another 15 pounds of multi-colored toms into sauce ), I came across this article in this morning's NYTimes : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/dining/22appe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
It's worth checking out just for the gorgeous tomato picture !
So, now I must make the confit, the tarts, and possibly more soup. The recipes look easy to veganize...the confit is already vegan, and the tarts I'll just not spread the marscapone, or use some substitute...perhaps Better Than Cream Cheese, or some whipped firm tofu, seasoned with basil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar?
We have a volunteer Sungold Cherry tomato plant that is climbing up a sturdy sunflower...it's fruits ought to make a gorgeous confit ! we also have homegrown garlic and rosemary....I'll get started on that today !

The next day : I didnt get to the store to buy any puff pastry, didn't make the confit ( yet ), but I DID make a nice, though somewhat juicy, panzanella to take to Stitch Club. We had some left over ciabatta bread from a party last weekend ( I froze the bread till this morning ) and I thought that that would be a good way to use up bread and tomatoes. A few of my neighbor friends make vegan things to have at the meetings also, which is really sweet. Today we also had a fantastic bean salad that S pulled from her freezer ( and defrosted ! )...she had made it a few weeks ago, and you would never know it had been frozen. L made some salsa with guacamole and brought sushi, too...I pulled out the "crab" from mine and gave it to her. Now I want to make some veggie kind...with the shredded carrots, avocado, green onion.... I love the food sharing...what a wonderful thing to take part in :>

Our tomato plants continue to thrive...the recent rains have really revived them. I've only seen one smallish tomato hornworm, and the usual diseases that end the tomato extravaganza havent arrived yet, so I'm still hoping to make the tarts !

what to do with tofu

this is the first draft of a little poster I'm making to tack up around town ( and get a few text announcements in the local newspapers ) to advertise the cooking demo I'll be doing in late September. Working with Photoshop Elements is getting easier, but I never spend the hours and hours on it that I'm sure is required to really become good at it, so the poster looks pretty amateurish...but still...I'm making progress ! I really think people are a little afraid of handling tofu...not sure what to do with it, what's up with the different kinds ( soft, firm, extra firm...) My goal is to introduce folks to the idea that it's just beans...no scary ingredients... but it is also pretty magical, both in terms of its nutritional profile, and its versatility. I'll use the 'vegan' word liberally, to take some of the edge off of it. I did a tofu demo with a neighbor last week, and we had a great time, ate some good stuff, and I discovered the secret to deep frying the frozen/thawed tofu : tear it into chunks, roll it in seasoned flour, and deep fry it in hot, hot oil. I swear, it was just like fried chicken skin !!! hmmmm...not sure now, if that's a good thing...

The First Day for Vegan Exuberance

Summer seems just past the frenetic grow-feed-reproduce peak at this moment and is standing on tiptoe, waiting for that nudge to lean into Fall. What a great time to start a new blog !

Yesterday we hosted a potluck 100 mile party...the main ingredients of your dish was to have come from within a hundred mile radius. There are lots of small farms in the area nowadays, including several CSAs. A neighbor and friend belonging to one ( Tree and Leaf ) gave me two big, gorgeous eggplants, from her latest veggie installment , that sent me over the edge to start this blog. As I gathered the veggies up for the lasagna I was going to make for the party this picture presented itself : the taut, white , rotund eggplants; weighty, tangy tomatoes ; papery-husked garlic, our garden dirt still clinging to the roots; another neighbor's sleek zucchini so fresh they wept at the slightest nick to their skins. And while not local, I used some freshly dried Herbs 'd Provence given to me by a friend who had received it from a friend on the West coast who had GROWN the herbs. I think that qualifies, since she was on the coast , visiting her friend already :) Some basil and rosemary snipped from the garden had to have bugs shaken from it...how fresh is that ? Twin Oaks tofu comes from Louisa, Virginia, which my husband says is about 105 miles away......I included it because that's about as local a tofu that I know of, around here. There are also Shitake mushrooms , log-grown by a nearby farmer of mushrooms, roasted on the big griddle plate with a little sesame oil and garlic; and then layered with the other veggies.