09.10.08
Posted in food at 7:00 am by Hanne Blank
Due to the unfortunate conjunction of a rather expensive part having had to be ordered for repairing my oven, and that part’s not yet having arrived from wherever it was in Outer Kreplachistan that it had to be shipped from, I still haven’t got a working oven. One hopes this situation will be remedied soon, but one is not actually feeling any too sanguine about the chances.
This is, despite the fact that one can handily survive without using one’s oven — I have known people who use their ovens as bookshelves, believe it or not — still throwing me a little off my cookery stride.
I was even more off my game last week, when my kitchen sink decided it would no longer drain, and nothing I was able to do could convince it to drain again. For several days I ate small things that could be prepared in small dishes that could be washed in the bathroom sink, or else we went out for meals. Finally the plumber came and thrust yards upon yards upon yards of pipe snake down it and, after considerable mucking-about, got it more or less working again, though apparently there is still some vent gizmo that wants improving in that drain line. I can wash dishes again, at any rate, which is the important thing.
Further complicating matters, my schedule is insane with work. I’m terribly overbooked with freelance projects, plus the two books I’m theoretically working on at the same time, and so my cookery has contracted to fit the time I have.
In my house, this can mean several things, all of which have raised their heads in the past week or so.
- Sandwiches have been in evidence. I do not often eat sandwiches, but it must be admitted that they are a time-saver. I am particularly fond of egg salad (egg mayonnaise to you English speakers) when I make it at home, with plenty of mustard and chopped celery and some pickle, and pair it with a nice sturdy bread that has been well-toasted.
- Homemade pasta sauces and variegated ragouts, served over a starch of some kind. Taking advantage of a bumper crop of eggplants last week, and some nice sauce tomatoes donated by one of my Belovedary’s coworkers, I made a really fine eggplant ragout. This weekend, a fortuitous deal on some nice organic ground beef enabled me in the production of a ragu alla bolognese. These are nice when you’re busy because they take a long time to cook but don’t actually take a lot of time for the cook, since mostly they just sit and bubble and can be safely ignored.
- I have laid in a stock of tofu, soy hot dogs, soy yogurt, and apples. Quick proteinaceous lunches are easily grabbed. WIth a few more minutes I can yank some sort of vegetation out of the relevant fridge bin, wash it, and chop it into pieces convenient for eating.
- I have done ditto with regard to spicy Korean ramen noodles. These, with some additional vegetables and some chunks of tofu (or an egg poached in the broth while you cook the noodles) can be reasonably palatable, and are certainly zippy enough to answer at least partially to the feeling I get, when the cookery gets like this for a time, that I am not getting enough chiles, garlic, and ginger.
Just about the only Argh No Cooking Time standby I haven’t trotted out yet is the luncheon that consists of celery stalks filled with peanut butter.
And that is only because I haven’t any peanut butter in the house.
My sole culinary revelation of the past two weeks, pathetic as this is, is that light finally dawned on Marblehead over here and I realized that it was possible for me to make Thai iced tea with soy creamer. I’ll tell you what, my quality of life skyrocketed.
Sometimes it’s the little things.
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09.04.08
Posted in american, cooking, food, main dishes, non-casein, non-dairy, original recipes, vegan at 4:12 pm by Hanne Blank
This is a cellphone photo of my lunch yesterday, which, in this case, was, a serving of a dish I first devised in college when I was poor and had to make something hearty for a vegan potluck. My roommate at the time christened it, amusingly if not entirely charitably, “Hungry Hungry Hippie.” (The reference, for those too young to get it, was to the children’s board game Hungry Hungry Hippos, introduced by Hasbro in the late 1970s.)
Hungry Hungry Hippie is one of those dishes for which I will never publish anything like a precise recipe because there really can’t be one.
Nonetheless, I love Hungry Hungry Hippie to this day, and wish to spread the joy.
Hungry Hungry Hippie is, in its most elemental form and as pictured here, a sort of pilaf of cooked seasoned barley tossed with cubed tofu.
It can get plenty fancy if you have the scratch and the interest.
But usually, if you are making Hungry Hungry Hippie, you don’t.
How you make the basic version (and it makes plenty) is like this:
– you take about seven cups of water and you put it in a big heavy-bottomed pot what’s got a lid to it, and you start heating it
– then you flavor the water with a spoonful or two of Vegemite or Marmite, maybe some miso, and some onion powder and garlic powder; the water should end up pretty strongly flavored and a notch or so saltier than you’d want it for soup. You use the Vegemite or Marmite (I prefer the latter) because it has a lovely strong meaty flavor that goes really well with the barley, and also seems to penetrate and soak into the barley better than anything else. Don’t use boullion cubes instead of Vegemite or Marmite, it won’t work, it’ll taste of salt and nothing else.
–then you add a couple-three tablespoons of olive oil or whatever kinda oil you got. Bacon grease is amazing in this, but totally not vegan or vegetarian. You do what turns you on.
– then you pour in 2 cups of pearled barley and you stir it, and you bring it to a boil
– then you reduce the heat to a low simmer, cover it most of the way, and let it simmer until the barley kernels get to swelling appreciably
– whereupon you give it a stir, turn the heat off, put the lid on tight, and ignore it for a couple hours until all the liquid is absorbed
– at which point you drain and cube a pound or so of firm tofu and toss it into the barley, and reheat the whole thing a little (add another half-cup of liquid if you do it on the stovetop, or else put the whole thing (covered) in the oven at 300F for a bit)
And then you eat it! Unless, of course, you’d like to add something yummy to it first.
Many things can be added to Hungry Hungry Hippie along with the tofu. Some combination of sauteed onions, garlic, celery, and mushrooms is good. Thoroughly caramelized onions are super-duper rockin’. So are caramelized tomatoes, or little bits of sun-dried tomato. Sauteed cabbage (sliced thinly) goes into it nicely. So does chopped fresh parsley. And so do chopped up dried tart fruits like unsweetened dried apricots, or cranberries. When I could, I used to eat it with a dollop of sour cream on top.
But it’s also really tasty (and hella easy) on its own. I like it with a healthy wodge of black pepper ground on top.
Its many virtues include keeping well, reheating well, being very nutritious, being very filling, having lots of complex carbs that will handily carry you through the day, being high in fiber, and being extremely economical.
Good for hippies and other living things. Give it a whirl.
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09.03.08
Posted in law, links, outrage, patriotism, politics, violence at 11:15 am by Hanne Blank
This is the text of a letter I have just sent to Matthew Baise, Editor of the Baltimore Sun. I encourage those of you whose local newspapers or TV news outlets are similarly not covering the frightening and extremely violating events going on around the Republican National Convention in St. Paul to write a similar letter to the relevant editors.
Dear Mr. Baise,
Where is the non-canned, not pre-vetted, coverage of the current events taking place at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota? By which I mean to ask, where is the actual journalism, the reportage on what is actually physically happening on the ground–I believe such things used to be called “current events”– in the Twin Cities?
I have been following the Sun’s coverage of the RNC with deepening dismay, because the most politically significant story of the entire convention is going unreported–as far as I can tell– in the Baltimore Sun. Certainly the Sun has paid ample attention to the distraction of Gov. Susan Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy, on which I am utterly sure the continued security and safety of the American people does depend. But where is the coverage, any coverage at all, of the police-state style crackdown and intimidation of protesters and protest groups who are being systematically harrassed and deprived of their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly?
Oh, that’s right. It’s not there.
I had hoped I could expect more, and better, of a paper of such august reputation as the Baltimore Sun, but apparently you are editorially and journalistically unaware that these things are going on in Minnesota right now (an explanation I prefer to thinking that any major daily newspaper could simply fail to care about the Constitutional right to freedom of speech!).
I hope that you will agree with me when I say that I think it is worth the Sun’s time to report on events like:
- pedestrians being arrested without cause whilst walking down St. Paul streets, and not even being read their Miranda rights
- nonviolent protesters and others (including Donna Brazille, Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute) being gassed with pepper spray
- anti-poverty workers having their facilities raided without a warrant, by officers who do not have legal jurisdiction to perform such investigations
Please allow me to provide you some links with which you may relieve your ignorance of the events unfolding, and to which you might usefully point your reporters as a starting point for some meaningful coverage in the Sun.
When any person or organization, overtly or covertly, co-opts federal, state, and local law enforcement to perpetrate Soviet-style crackdowns on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly here in the USA, it should not only be covered extensively in the news media, but condemned strongly by any news media that has not already been bought and paid for by the forces of repression, as well.
I look forward to seeing at least cursory coverage of these ongoing events in the Baltimore Sun, if not the more in-depth coverage that such profoundly disturbing events surely deserve. Please notify me when this coverage will begin to appear.
Sincerely yours,
Hanne Blank
You know what to do, folks.
Credit where credit is due: thank you to K.L. for links.
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