Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Non-dairy Sweetened Condensed Milk

Right now, I am making my first attempt at cooking up some non-dairy, coconut milk-based sweetened condensed milk. I hear it will take 5-6 hours. Wow. I am not usually this patient; however, considering what is at stake here, I'll give it a shot.

What is at stake, you ask? Mrs. Mae's Peanut Butter Cremes. (Or is it Mrs. May? I'll find out, and get back to you on that.)

My mom made these delicious confections, along with her mom's chocolate-covered coconut and fruit & nut eggs, every Easter. As soon ass I was old enough to help, I did. So much fun! Mixing up the candy and forming it with our hands, dipping in chocolate and laying out all of those little chocolate eggs to set on waxed paper. We had candy eggs ALL OVER the place :) Sometimes, my best friend, Lucy helped. Sometimes, my brother walked through, snitched a bit of the candy to eat, threw a bit ofit up to ceiling to see if it would stick...It was a good time.

Now, fro years, I made these with my daughters, too, but the Peanut Butter Cremes have become problematic, as they contain sweetened condensed milk, which one of my daughters and I cannot have, due to a dairy allergy. In the past, I either a) made them anyway and said, "Sorry, kiddo ~ we can't eat these ones" or b) didn't make them :(

This year, I was determined to find a substitute for the milk so we could make (and eat!) them. I did some searching, but...well, frankly, I feel we eat enough soy, and I really wanted to find a soy-free alternative. In desperation, I posted a query to a vegetarian recipes group to which I belong. Another member posted a recipe, so I am giving it a shot. Wish me luck!

BTW, I am not sure if I will share the candy recipes or not. They're old family recipes, so I should check in with Mom. I promise, one day, I WILL post a recipe of some sort. For now, you can look at this as a sort of "Adventures in Vegetarian Cooking" blog. However, if I know you and you live nearby, I will definitely share the candy :)

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Eating Out

Kids had a cheerleading competition in Pomona, so we ate out. Unfortunately, we don't know of a lot of places to eat in the Pomona area ~ especially places that are kid-friendly and veg-friendly.

Eating out as a vegetarian certainly has changed since 1984 in Maryland, when I became vegetarian. I remember going out with friends and ordering the burger...with no burger..because there really wasn't much else on the menu I could eat besides salad. In some cases, even the salads weren't vegetarian. When I was doing a l0t of roadtripping in the early-mid '90s, it was hard to find food, sometimes. I remember joking that, in Montana, when you ordered a salad, they asked, "do you want the steak salad, or the chicken salad?" or that, if you ask if they had any vegetarian options, they would suggest the chicken. Only...well, we weren't really joking, were we? It really was like that.

Now, living in the Los Angeles area, I find that I can go pretty much anywhere to eat. There are lots of vegetarian options, and many places have vegetarian menus. Shoot, even the Denny's in Pomona offers a Boca Burger.

We have our few favourite places to eat with the family. there's that Indian restaurant in Santa Monica of which I can never remember the name (I feel like a jerk about that ~ I would love to recommend them). Kung Pao Bistro has an extensive vegetarian menu, and we love Pink's veggie hotdogs when we're in a real "hotdog" kinda mood (mine w/ mustard,relish and kraut ~ there is just not much better than that). But, you know, we can usually find something anywhere we go. Most Mexican or Italian restaurants have vegetarian options (you may have to ask about things like meat-based broths or lard in the beans, but they are usually pretty forthcoming, I've found).

Anyway, I guess I was just thinking about how much easier it has become to be vegetarian. Of course, this may not be true everywhere. Maybe I am just lucky to live in a veg-friendly city. at any rate, two of my little girls brought home 1st place medals tonight, and I had very satisfying Boca Burger w/ lettuce, tomato and pickles for dinner. Oh, and a side of celery and carrots. I really gave the celery to Shane, if you must know.

I promise, one of these days, I will actually cook something again.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Leftover Re-vamp

Yes, my very first actual post is about leftovers.

Well, I decided I will just post what we eat. Sometimes, I will post recipes. Sometimes (assuming I can figure out how all of this works), I will post pictures. Sometimes, I may post, "Tonight, we ordered pizza." Because, well, sometimes we order pizza.

Tonight's meal was a re-mix of leftovers from a couple of nights ago. On Wednesday evening, I got home from my girls' cheerleading practice to discover that I had not put anything in the crockpot for dinner. Hence, we had no dinner. I needed something quick, so I started a pot of brown basmati rice.

Next, I heated a little olive oil in the bottom of my soup pot and added one small head of cauliflower, cut into bite-sized pieces, four or five peeled and diced potatoes, and a few cloves of minced garlic. When the cauliflower had started to soften, I added a bunch of roughly chopped asparagus, a couple or three handfuls of organic frozen mixed vegetables, a can of organic diced tomatoes + one can of water. I seasoned it all with curry powder, dill weed, basil, mint and a generous sprinkle of onion powder (because I would have sauteed a fresh onion with the cauliflower and potatoes if I'd had one, but I didn't). Cooked it all until it was done, seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.

There ya go ~ dinner. Such as it was, anyway. It was hot, filling, nourishing and...well, it was there. So, it did its job, I suppose.

I had a lot of leftovers, so I decided that, tonight, I would dress them up a bit. I like to do that, if I am serving leftovers for another meal. You know, mix it up a little, keep things interesting.

I happened to have a package of Chicken-Less Strips from Trader Joe's, so I heated a tiny bit of oil in a skillet and tossed them in. They seemed a little bland, so I added some rubbed sage and a little bit of celery seed.

When the strips had browned a little, I added the leftover vegetable curry stuff, as well as the leftover brown rice. On a whim, I sprinkled in some Chinese five spice, a pinch of coriander, and a couple of dashes of cinnamon. Cooked it all until it was nice and hot. The eldest daughter and I agreed it would have been even better with a few nuts and maybe some golden raisins thrown in (it ended up like a sort of juicy rice pilaf, if you can imagine that).

Hopefully, I will be able to post some more interesting stuff soon.

I have to warn you, I don't always measure things, so I will often just sort of describe my process, as I did above. Maybe I will try to make myself measure things, if I remember. However, I have a terrible memory.

Friday, March 26, 2010

My blog has been created!

So...wow.

Here we are.

Possibly, you want to know who I am. I am Sam.

I am Sam.

I am Sam.

Sam-I-Am.

I will not eat green eggs and ham...'cause I'm a vegetarian.

Well, okay, I might eat eggs once in a while, but not often, and mostly if they are very well disguised ~ baked into things, or smothered with chili and cheese (cheese! Which I can't eat anymore, so...booooo!!!). I am not especially morally opposed to eggs. I just sort of detest them. They feel gross, taste gross, and might have been chickens if they had half a chance so...you know...GROSS. Nevertheless, I sometimes crave a really good egg salad sandwich.

I am allergic to milk protein, so that leaves me almost vegan, I guess. Except that I am too lazy to be truly vegan. I was, for 8 years, but now I am too lazy. Yes, I know, I suck. Like a Hoover. Moving on... I like honey, and I wear my dad's old Navy bomber jacket, which you'd better believe is leather. Oh, yes, and I would totally eat cheese, ALL DAY LONG, if I could. But I can't. It's sad. Soy cheese bites ass. I suppose I should make an effort to become more eloquent if I am going to write for an audience, but, as yet, I have no audience ~ score! So. Soy cheese bites ass. With the exception of the kind you can buy from Leonor's Mexican Vegetarian Restaurant, which fairly rocks. But, really, nobody has made a good vegan smoked gouda or ricotta. There's no passable soy jarlesberg or brie, as far as I know. Maybe I will discover one...or invent one. Who knows?

Well, anyway...

I have been vegetarian for something like 25 years. I am married to a wonderful man who tries to be vegetarian most of the time, but who, I suspect, would be thrilled if chickens grew on trees. Sometimes, he eats chicken when he is out and the kids and I are not around (yucky!). Shhh! We don't talk about that. He used to sneak in seafood sometimes when we were out, but my severe shellfish allergy has pretty much nipped that in the bud. I guess having to rush your wife to the emergency room because you gave her a kiss after you ate shrimp pretty much turns one off shellfish. Together, we are raising 3 wildly precocious vegetarian daughters, who are currently 12, 10 and 6 years old. One hates vegetables. Go figure.

I love to cook for my family (or anyone, for that matter), and they (with the exception of that vegetable-hating one) like to try new things. In fact, I like to cook so much that, when I am really pleased with a meal I have created, I sometimes photograph it and share the recipes with friends online. I didn't realize how often I did this until my kids started saying things like, "Mama, my food looks really good. Do you want to take picture before I eat it?"

Last night, over a dinner of curried vegetables, tofu and brown rice, they suggested that I create a vegetarian food blog. They even came up with the name. I think they are awfully clever, these little people I've spawned. I like them, and I like their ideas. So, here I am. And here is my blog, in all its vegetarian food-y glory. It won't be fancy. Nor will I.

I promise the next entry will actually include some kind of food...ish..ness. Foodishness?? That's a word, right. I think it is. I am pretty sure I just made it up, but I like it, so I think I will keep it.

Welcome aboard.