Oy Vey...What A Bahgan

Who knew the treasure trove you could find at an Anime convention. Before we hooked up with my sister and her crew, my son and I went to the Museum part of the gardens. They had Japanese art, a outdoor cafe, theatre, souvenir shop and a library. The library had a wide variety of books, but it hung on the side of anything related to Japan...Duh!

So my son and I are browsing through some of the books as we always do everywhere we go and he spots a vegetarian cookbook. I go to where he is, pick it up and see that is one of the Vegetarian Times Cookbooks. Why, this thing was a beauty. Then something caught my eye, a tiny little sticker that had $.50 marked on it. This could not be happening to me, not today, could it be? So I asked. "Excuse me ma'am, but is this book for sale?" As I pointed to the tiny sticker on the front of the book. "Yes." she said, "Everything in here is for sale." Little did she know that I could give a rats hiney about everything else, I just wanted this particular book and be gone with it. So I dug in my fanny pouch and found a single dollar bill. "Here, and keep the change, for you have made me the happiest lady in the world right now." I told her as I glowed all the way out the door with my new cookbook.

I have not even had a chance to skim through it, I am still recovering form the Anime convention. Either I am old or out of shape, or a bit of both. I will let you all know as I begin to pull recipes from this delicious (pun completely intended) hunk of a book! Wish me luck.

Japanese Anime

Yesterday (3-21-2009), I took my son, daughter and her boyfriend to an anime convention down in Fort Lauderdale to a beautiful Japanese Garden called Morikami Museum . Now I know Jack Diddly about anime, in fact I think it is totally weird, but then again I am a Trekkie, and I know how we are perceived. With that said, I was a bit concerned with what our food choices were going to be when we got there.

So, we packed a lunch of sub sandwiches just in case our potions were limited. Well, we had soooo many choices. Usually there is cultural food at these events, whether it be Japanese or Mexican, or German, but there is always your good old vendor with a slice of pizza, or a hot dog or burger. Well this time the tables were turned. I went up just to check out some of the food and all the ethnic food vendors were lined up. You had vegetable tempura, Japanese cabbage salad, and a plethora of other items. So us vegetarians, and yes, even vegans could have survived for one meal.

My sister treated me to lunch, which was actually quite affordable for the amount you were given. So I opted for the eggplant and rice (which was white). Well well well, I no know what to do with Japanese eggplant. It is so cool when you eat somewhere and eat something and you have a good idea what ingredients are in there (Go River!). This dish was so delicious in its simplicity.

If I had to say, it was sauteed in a mixture of Hoisin and some soy sauce. But it was not too salty or too sweet, so it was the perfect blend of the two. It was a great day despite the downpours. Here in Florida we needed the rain, but it would have been nicer if the skies had waited until we left the Gardens. We are already planning our next years convention.

How Do You Like Your Pancakes?

Well I thought I liked mine with a bit of butter and maple syrup and maybe with some sliced fruit on top, maybe some homemade whipped cream, peanut butter and jelly perhaps, but never in a million years would I have thought to put garlic on my pancakes. Wait, this is so worth the telling.

We made pancakes this morning and everything was going along fine and dandy when all of a sudden I get this garlicky taste in my mouth, but it is not super over powering, just enough for you to wonder. But I keep on eating. See, here is the deal.

Last night Savanah made garlic bread, and there was a bit of butter left over in the butter dish. Well, me being the ever frugal mom, did not want even a tablespoon of butter to go to waste. So I gets me my spatula and scrape that butter plate like there was no tomorrow. Little did I know that that was the same bowl that Savanah had used for her garlic bread last night. Hence our pancakes having a tinge of garlic this morning.

Do not attempt this at home folks.

Chopped Mock Liver

I am totally in love with my How it all Vegan cookbook.

I am not a mushroom lover. I cook with them, but then I pick them out. It is a texture thing. But I had run across this recipe in my cookbook and thought I would give it a whirl. All I need to do is get some crackers to put this lovely appetizer on. Make this stuff after you read this recipe, you will not regret it...I did not.

1 cup mushroom, roughly chopped
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1 T olive oil
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper (we used freshly ground)
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In a medium saucepan, saute the mushrooms and onions on medium heat until onions become translucent. In a blender or food processor, chop the walnuts and add the mushroom/onion mixture and salt and pepper. Blend together for 30 seconds. Serve chilled. Makes about 3/4 cup.

I did add about 1 t extra of olive oil to help it blend together, and I could not wait for it to cool down before trying.I am now a lover of mushrooms. And in my opinion, do not skimp on the pepper, it gives it a lovely kick.

Saving My Assetts

We have recently started composting, which I will eventually post about, one day soon in this century. But I have had cause to appreciate my composting, especially today.

I have been sick lately, and will cover that as well in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say I wanted to get as much cleaned with as little effort as possible. Insert children. My daughter took all veggies out of their perspective drawers and lay them upon the counter tops of the kitchen. The only item that was close to being lost was my 3 bunches of parsley. So I threw them into an ice bath and them puppies came back to life.

I ran them through the salad spinner and began chopping off the stems separating the parsley into 3 bowls, yes, 3 bowls. One was for tonight's tabbouleh which was about 85 %, the next bowl was for juice, meaning it was not up to par for the salad, and last but certainly not least was our composting bowl. Man, are we good or what?

See, nothing goes to waste any longer here in our home, or at least since we started composting.

Raw OMG Chocolate Pudding

For those of you who do not know, I am NOT a chocolate lover by any stretch of the means. But here I am posting about this chocolate dish I stumbled upon quite by accident. I went to our local health food store and dropped off a raw video I had gotten form the library to one of the workers there. Hi Kim! I went in to give her the DVD and she was in the middle of her weekly weight loss class. I apologized for interrupting her class, but then began to tell the ladies sitting there about this lovely little treasure I found quite by accident.

The first part of the DVD is about raw foodism. And the second half is all recipes. What I found most interesting about the recipes was that for the most part they were all normal ingredients (for us at least). So she was glad to see me and told some of the ladies there in her class the lovelies of eating raw food. There is a point to this story.

As soon as I sat down she pointed to the little card table that usually housed flyers and the such in regard to whatever class was going on at that time. I saw what looked like something chocolaty. And boy was I right. She had made, get this, raw chocolate mousse. Now you notice my title is pudding. For, to me at least, it has more of a consistency of pudding then mousse, but why quibble of things like this when we are speaking of chocolate.

I practically ran home and made it immediately, but I can tell you this. If there are any chocolate lover in your house, please double this recipe and if for a party, then quadruple. Trust me you will not be sorry. But in my own defense, I love chocolate pudding. So please make this and tell me what you think. I just hope there is still some around by the time Mr Cooking Lady gets home.

4-5 pitted medjool dates, soaked(this is a must)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup or agave nectar
1/2 t vanilla
2 avocados (we used haas)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup water (possibly more)
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Place the dates, syrup and vanilla in a food processor until smooth. Add the avocado and cocoa powder and process until creamy. Stop occasionally to scrape down sides of the bowl. Add the water and process briefly. Store in sealed container (I have no idea what for, this dish will not last until supper time).

Extras: Add chocolate protein powder when ready to eat. You may have to add a little more water if needed.

*For more of a frosting consistency or for a substitution for frosting, omit the water.

* For chocolate sauce, increase the water to 1/2 cup

* For ice cream, freeze for at least 4 hours

For those who make this one, let me know what you think. This dish may convert even the stubbornest of non-chocolate lovers yet.

Everything In The Frig Egg Rolls

Well since our pot stickers episode, I have been on an Asian roll...get it...roll. Anyhow, on to the recipe. I picked up the egg roll wrappers and headed home form my weekly shopping trip. We had not gone produce shopping this week when I said to Savanah, "Let's make egg rolls." And she wanted to know with what. And I told her, "With anything we have in the frig that doe snot need to be thrown into the compost bin (Yeah, we are composting now, but that will be for another post). So rummage through the frig we did.

We came up with cabbage, carrots, onions, some green, and tofu, oh yeah, ginger and garlic. We sauteed them and began wrapping. We heated up our little deep fryer and off we went. Savanah had said that Alton Brown did not saute his veggies before wrapping them, but I am not ready for crispy insides to my egg rolls just yet.

Our saute juice was:
1T sesame oil
2-3 T tamari
1-2 t sweetener

We just poured that over the veggies as they sauteed and Viola, we had dinner. We heated some left over rice and had a salad and we were done. Darn it's good being a vegetarian. Who has time for meat to defrost if you forgot to pull out the meat. Woo Hoo to those of us who need not defrost meat. Sing it with me girls. Oooo Oooo!