A little bit of Summer

I'm usually 100% on the bandwagon of eating as seasonally as possible.  I eat citrus in the winter and apples in the fall.  I eat berries in the summer and asparagus in the spring.  

The food is fresher, makes more sense for our bodies, and is usually a better price when you shop this way.  

But sometimes, after having a taste of above-freezing temperatures and then being plunged again into ice cold temps, a girl just needs a taste of summer.  In February.

Taste of Summer Salad

1 bunch of curly leaf parsley, thick stems removed

4 roma tomatoes, diced

1 cucumber, diced

1/4 cup black oil cured olives (or kalamata), chopped

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. umeboshi plum vinegar

sprinkle of salt

fresh black pepper

Coarsely chop the parsley.  Add parsley, tomatoes, cucumber, and olives to a salad bowl and combine.  In a little bowl or jar, whisk together the oil, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Pour over the salad and toss to coat.  

We enjoyed this on the side of a hearty- seasonal- winter dish: Brown rice with chili.  The kids had not seconds, not thirds, but fourths of this salad.  Pretty amazing.  We all licked our plates to get the last of the dressing.  Yes, really.

*I know what you're thinking.  "Why the heck aren't there any onions or garlic in this recipe?  Liz must not have thought this one up herself".  Well, you're wrong.  And if you make it, you'll see that it doesn't even need any onions or garlic.  The flavor of the parsley and olives and lemon vinaigrette are amazing!

Late Night Sandwich

My partner already gave his review of this Zukay salsa, but I haven't had a chance to give my opinion of their other products.  

Like Mike said, the salsa kinda weirded me out.  So I expected not to like the relish.  Boy was I surprised!  Granted, I was STARVING when I ate it.  But it was really good!

I got home from Mike's old-time show at around 1 or 1:30 am.  I went to the show straight from a yoga class and the only thing vegan on the venue's menu (ha, that rhymes!) was french fries.  Even after eating an obscene amount of those doused in high fructose corn syrup ketchup, I was really hungry.  So I whipped up a really good improv sandwich when I got home.  I wish I had a picture, but I ate it before I could even think about finding the camera.

Here are the layers of the sandwich, in order:

Whole wheat bread, toasted

Thick slather of Veganaise

hot Yves breakfast sausage

Shredded carrot

salt

Zukay horseradish dill relish

More Veganaise

Whole wheat bread, toasted

I actually ended up dipping the whole sandwich in more relish.  And then I dipped some chips in the rest.  

I can't wait to open the garlic dill one!

Quick cupcakes

Left: Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with French Sel Gris and Hawaiian Red Clay Salt

Right: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Ganach Drizzle

These are both based off the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World Gluten Freedom Cupcakes...with a few adaptations to fit my pantry and these flavors.  And to add more chocolate. 

It's ALIVE!

Liz and I had the task of sampling Zukay’s hot salsa today.  The deal here is that this stuff is highly fermented and raw.  I always wish that the products I am eating are organic, but when it comes to salsa I can meander.  The first disclaimer is that I was eating it with my favorite chip ever- Whole Grain Milling.  These organic corn chips are so good and produced in my Dad’s birthplace of Welcome, Minnesota.  Nearly anything tastes good on these.

The first thing to notice upon opening is that the salsa bubbles out of the jar, which I found awesome but disturbed Liz a little. I knew I was in for an adventure.  They call this a hot salsa but I would call it a medium.  I would, however, call it explosive as the fermentation feels like it is exploding in your mouth.  This was my favorite part of the experience.  It is the kind of food that makes you feel like you’re either going to die tomorrow or it will make you live forever (with more of the latter).  The heavy fermented sour flavor turned Liz off but I found it very enjoyable.  It helped to give the salsa a full body flavor.  I would have liked it to have more heat, though, as it was labeled a hot salsa.  Now that I have eaten most of the jar, I should have enough positive bacteria floating inside me to start a colony.  Adventurous food to say the least.  A solid 3 out of 4 stars.

Next up: Relish!

I'm a superstar now.

Your wishes must have worked...  I think the segment went pretty well.  And the producer did, too, because within an hour after I got back to work they contacted us asking to have me back in April!

You can watch it here.

EDITED: Nevermind, folks.  It appears that the video is gone.  I'll try to get another copy.

Sorry!

Watch me on TV today!

Well, we didn't find the Winter Medallion.  But it sure was fun looking for it!  Sorry for the relative absence during the hunt.  I didn't even do laundry, much less blog!

Right now I'm getting psyched up for my appearance on Showcase Minnesota, a show on Kare 11 at 10 am for you local folks.  Hopefully I won't spill the soymilk burn the corncakes or anything...

I'll post the video here if and when they make it available.  Wish me luck!!!

Follow Up

After the post about my Sunday routine, someone asked me to lay out the times for everything.  So today I kept track of my timing for everything.  Here it is:

1:00-1:20 Mixing and kneading bread dough

1:20 Bread starts first rise

1:20 Prep applesauce

1:30 Put apples in to roast at 400F

1:30 Prep granola

1:38 Put brown rice on to cook

[Down time: blog, laundry, soymilk or beans in the pressure cooker, etc]

2:13 Turn off brown rice

2:30 Take out apples, mash.  Turn down oven to 325F

3:00 Bake granola

3:30 Take out granola.  Turn up oven to 350F

3:40 Bread finishes first rise, starts 2nd.  (This took way longer than usual today.  I used different yeast and wasn't really happy with it.  Usually I'd put the bread in the oven by now)

I didn't need to make any soymilk today, so I left that out, but I usually do that during the down time or at the end.  On a good bread rising day, I'd say that I'd be done in 3 hours.  Today I'm just now putting the bread in the oven at 5pm- 4 hours total.  

Hope this helps!  I'd love to see others' cooking/baking routines!