I have a fan!

[sagaciouslu]

Which is odd.  I don't think my writing, nor my life, deserve such.  However, said anonymous fan has requested more food posts.  Here is one such.

I love food.  Happily, I take immense pleasure in simple food.  Two meals of note in the last couple of weeks were a potluck I attended with friends, and a quick meal I made for myself before work one

Comments

[anonymous]

The soup sounds amazing! Barley is always a good start to a recipe. I am having a vegan for dinner soon (as a guest--not a meal) so will attempt it with a vegetable stock. I wonder how it would work with winter veggies, like a butternut squash?

[sagaciouslu]

It's okay to eat a vegan; they're so frickin' healthy you'd be doing your body a favour. And they're so frickin' sanctimonious, you'd be doing the world a favour....

Heh.

Seriously, however, this was one of the recipes I altered for a former partner who went from veggie to vegan. I commend a vegetable stock to your attention that is low in sodium (you can add salt yourself to taste), and suggest, too, that you use more olive oil and garlic otherwise it tends to be somewhat more bland than with chicken stock. Dunno why; that's just been my experience.

I guess I'll be posting the recipe here soon...

[sagaciouslu]

Ooops. I forgot. One of the keys is to add the veggies at the end, just to heat them through. If, however, you choose to use something like a winter squash, I would suggest either adding it much sooner (to give it lots of time to cook through) or, perhaps, roast it first (which might add a lovely, smokey flavour). Lemme know how it turns out if you do....

[anonymous]

And this, exactly, is what I appreciate. Unpretentious prose on the subject of things edible, and the opportunity to toss around ideas. I had been thinking some of spinach with the pine nuts, but am now drawn to arugula. Any butternut squash would absolutely be roasted. And extra garlic is a given. My intention would be to use a homemade veg stock, based on the recipe in the Taste of Lebanon cookbook. But with more garlic. For some reason, no matter how much salt I add to sodium reduced efforts, I can't seem to season them to the point I find them palatable.

I would eat the vegan, but I fear I might choke on her inherent superiority. Or at least suffer a bout of indigestion.

[sagaciouslu]

A thick coating of bacon grease makes vegans slide right down, without a trace of indigestion and certainly no choking. And it adds that little firsson, that je ne sais quois that's so hard to describe, but is inevitable when one combines the words 'bacon' and 'vegan' in the same sentence...

[anonymous]

Just a spoonful of bacon helps the veggiegirl...go down!
The veggiegirl...go down!
The veggiegirl...go down!
Just a spoonful of bacon helps the veggiegirl...go down
In the most deliiightful way.

Although perhaps I should not jest, due to the recent article in the Globe and Mail on "baconlube".

Actually, this one is most unpretentious, so I cannot complain of her, and rather than dining richly upon her carcass, I instead seek ways to provide her excellent dining experiences within her chosen diet. You can't argue with 80 lb banished, seemingly never to return! I'm just grateful she landed on vegan; when she was doing no sugar at all and no flour, menus were much more difficult.

[sagaciouslu]

And I jest, too; I love my vegans. I admire their tenacity, their moral stance, that they've the courage of their convictions, and the ridicule in the face of the rest of us omnivores. And I do everything that I can to accomodate them.

FYI...I have an awesome recipe for scallopini marsala that I make with wheat cutlets...

[anonymous]

Hmmm...I'll bite. She may turn her nose up at it (marsala being sweet and all--she spurned a magnificent dessert of pears, apples, almonds and *gasp* MAPLE SYRUP! at the dinner of another friend) but wheat cutlets sound neat enough that I might eat them myself!