Radiohead Etc.

Well, it happened. It was a dream come true. Seeing my favorite band from just a few feet away. I can't even describe how freaking awesome it was. Totally surreal. Perfect setlist. I loved every second of it and never wanted it to end. It will happen again. I look forward to it. I feel myself becoming Radiohead-obsessed for a while. I'll probably be mostly listening to In Rainbows for the next year or so, with a little Kid A, Amnesiac, OK Computer, The Bends and Hail to the Thief thrown in for good measure. (I'm kidding, people! Kind of.)


Now for the food...The swimming lessons every evening have been killing me. Some days, I spend the morning/early afternoon in the kitchen preparing the dinner we will eat at 8 p.m. It's exhausting. I've been doing mostly really simple things. Last week, I did a really cool stir-fry with vegetables from the CSA. (Note the really cool carrots. Red/purple on the outside, orange inside.) I also added some black beans just because I had them in the fridge and needed to use them. I got all the veggies stir-fried, and at the end I cranked up the heat and added this:

1 TBS brown sugar
3 TBS shoyu
1/2 tsp Thai chili sauce
tiny pinch of Chinese five-spice powder
splash of water

Whisk until combined.

It was exceptionally tasty. Maybe the best stir-fry I've ever made. Great way to use up all the CSA veggies.

Instead of making rice to go with the stir-fry, I made the Soba Salad with Soy-Wasabi Vinaigrette from the July issue of Cooking Light. I subbed sugar snaps for snow peas, and left out the radishes. It was really good, but the wasabi nearly lit my nasal passages on fire. It wasn't spicy to my mouth at all, but boy my nose felt it! Didn't stop me from eating nearly the whole batch, though. (Not all in one day. I had lots of leftovers. Sleek thought the wasabi was a bit much.) So, if you're sensitive to wasabi-type heat, you may want to cut back the amount of paste you use.


Another thing I'm really into these days is making homemade granola. I made my first batch last Saturday, using this recipe. I subbed brown rice syrup for the honey, and used almonds instead of peanuts. I also used some chopped, dried apples as well as raisins. It's so good just to grab a handful as a snack, but it's extra-good in a bowl with some vanilla hempmilk. (I ordered a case of the Living Harvest vanilla hempmilk, by the way. That stuff is so good!) We finished that batch off, so today I made another. This time I used pecans instead of almonds, and dried cranberries instead of apples. I just can't wait to experiment more and make lots of different kinds of granola.



This evening for dinner, I made a zucchini orzo dish. (I left out the parmesan and used whole wheat orzo.) The recipe was given to me by Kathy Evans, of Evans Knob Farm, which is where our lovely CSA veggies come from. She had printed it out from the Animal Vegetable Miracle website. I've looked at that book many times in the bookstore, thought about getting it, and haven't done it yet. Have any of you all read that? I'm curious. I also made some beans from the CSA. They're a lovely heirloom bean. Light green/yellow in color with lots of purple stripes. Unfortunately the stripes fade when the beans are cooked, but holy smokes! They were absolutely delicious. I really wanted to get the full-flavor of the beans, so I cooked them simply. I started by sauteeing a chopped onion in just a little canola oil. After the onion was soft, I added the beans. I lowered the heat and covered the pan. After about 10 minutes, I added two cloves of minced garlic to the pan. I put the cover back on and let them steam for about 15 more minutes. I seasoned them with salt and pepper. They were nice and crisp, but not too crisp. Just incredible. I hate thinking back to the fresh beans my grandmothers would cook. They cooked the hell out of them and they were mushy and bacon-y flavored. I've found that fresh beans are so much more flavorful when they're nice and crisp. They also seem so much healthier.




For dessert, I made a batch of the oatmeal-raisin cookies from V-con. They are so freaking good. So chewy. They were a little difficult to remove from the baking sheets. The recipe advises a lightly greased sheet. I always use parchment, so I decided to go ahead with it as usual. It was not easy removing them from the sheets. So, I decided to lightly grease the sheets for the next round. It still wasn't easy getting them off. I think the parchment was actually easier. It just took some patience. They didn't tear or get destroyed in the process, at least. I'll definitely be making these again. They're really easy, and they're whole wheat and full of oats and raisins. They also contain brown rice syrup, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite ingredients! I think it's what gives these cookies the gooey-chewy texture. YUM!

Chickpea Cutlets, Quinoa Salad, and Stir-Fry

I cooked up a massive batch of chickpeas over the weekend, so be warned--lots of chickpea dishes coming this week! Last night it was the chickpea cutlets from V-con. These are a definite favorite around here. I didn't have all the ingredients for the mustard sauce that I made with them last time. I decided just to wing it with a onion gravy. It turned out really, really good. As a matter of fact, I think I liked the cutlets better with the gravy than the mustard sauce. I started the gravy by sauteeing a small onion in a smidge of canola oil. While the onion was cooking, I wisked 1/4 cup of flour into a cup and a half of No-Chicken broth. When the onion was soft, I reduced the heat to med-low and poured in the broth mixture. When it got to the consistency I wanted, I turned off the heat. Then I added a splash of soy sauce, a good pinch of thyme, a pinch of paprika, a pinch of sage, salt and pepper. Mmmmmm. It was so good. I made some steamed cauliflower and broccoli to go with it.

Yesterday for lunch I made some black-bean quinoa salad. I saw it on Keeta's blog, and she got it from Jenny's blog. LOL It's a trickle-down recipe. It's so easy to make, and just so good. I just put a tiny drizzle of olive oil over it, and gave it an extra squirt of lime since I went light on the oil. It was perfect over a bed of baby lettuces. Who needs dressing when you have something this good on your green salad?



Tonight I just wanted to do something really simple for dinner. I did a garlicky veggie stir-fry. I stir-fried an onion, a couple carrots, a couple zucchini, a bit of broccoli, half a red bell-pepper, and several minced garlic cloves. I sprinkled it with salt and pepper at the end, and served it over brown rice. It's nice to do something simple like that and actually let the veggies themselves flavor the dish.




I haven't really been writing about any music these last few days. That's because I'm slightly embarrassed about how much I've been listening to In Rainbows. I'd say it's an average of three times/day. It's got me.