My Old Pal Parsnip

Back when I was studying abroad in England, about four years ago now, I found myself eating a vegetable side dish that took me pleasantly by surprise.  Long strips of lightly sweet root vegetables fell apart just right between my teeth and on my tongue.  I recognized the carrots immediately, but what were the white ones?  Were they white carrots?  They were a delectable mystery.

I soon found out that these ground dwellers were parsnips.  If you've never run across a parsnip before, I am not surprised.  They taste like a cross between a carrot and a potato--that's the best comparison I've been able to think up.  They look like a white, top-heavy carrot with osteoporosis.  They are amazing.

Several times I have tried to recreate the mildly sweet parsnip at home, but each time I somehow failed.  Once, I learned the hard way that you should peel parsnips first.  Once, I boiled them first which proved fruitless.  They just never turned out right.

After several attempts, the dear parsnip faded into the back of my mind to be all but forgotten.  Some stroke of fate pulled it to the front last week and I was determined to find the recipe the top all recipes for carrots and parsnips just like that first dish I ate in England.  Not only that, but I would serve it at Thanksgiving dinner.  So I went to The Food Network and did a search.  Chef Danny Boome, a Brit himself, had a simple and mildly sweet recipe for carrots and parsnips calling for olive oil, honey, thyme, salt and pepper.  I nearly pissed my pants.  It was going to be the one.  It was written by an Englishman. It had to be good.

And it was.  Even my parents approved.  I was all set to buy more ingredients for Thanksgiving until too many people decided they were bringing vegetable dishes to our house for the feast.  Oh well, maybe next time!  At least my long quest for the perfect parsnip has been satisfied.

**The Vegan Issue**
Honey--it is not vegan.  This is another element of my almost veganess.  Vegans don't eat honey because it takes bees to create it.  Taking honey is like taking bees' food.  This is where I get confused.  I keep hearing that honey bees are raised and bred to make more honey than necessary so they have enough food and enough to give away.  That makes it *okay* to take their honey, but we're also manipulating the bees in some way (is this genetic engineering?  just breeding?).  Obviously we aren't killing the bees because that would make harvesting honey a fruitless industry.  I rarely use it and I don't like the taste of honey itself, so the idea of consuming honey rarely affects me until I come across a recipe like the carrot and parsnip recipe.  I am sure the honey can be replaced with agave or brown rice syrup.  That is the beauty of having so many sweeteners at your disposal.

In case I don't post beforehand, have a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Mushroom on a Stock

Ha, I got you with that title, didn't I?  Okay, so it was lame.  At least I tried.

Today I made mushroom stock, the first stock or broth I've ever made from scratch.  It was surprisingly easy and the aroma filling the kitchen definitely pleased my nostrils.  I was just sad to dump all those delicious mushrooms and onions and garlic and goodies after all was done boiling away.  I suppose I could have saved it for another recipe, but all the flavor had been juiced out.

I haven't used any yet.  We use broth and stock quite a bit around here, though.  Instead of using water for couscous and rice, we use vegetable or "fake chicken" broth to add flavor and depth to the dish.  I saw the mushroom stock recipe in my mom's latest issue of Cooking Light and thought it sounded not only unique and different, but fabulously delicious.  I love mushrooms.

You're probably waiting for the problem.  There's got to be a problem here.  Nope!  Well, I used celery instead of leeks, but that was by choice.  And the oil burned to the bottom of the pot, but I'm letting it soak and maybe I'll fall asleep before remembering to scrub again and then Dad'll do it for me.  Haha.  Wishful thinking.

In other news, today is Ed Asner's birthday.  Happy 80th birthday, Ed!  You're probably wondering what Ed Asner's birthday has to do with my blog.  Well, looking at his filmography (which oddly includes TV) I was reminded of Mary Tyler Moore.  I adore that woman for her charm, her work, and her activism.  And I just read that she's a vegetarian!  Go, Mary!



Sleep well--there's a full week ahead!

No It's Not!

I really shouldn't watch so many cooking shows.  I think about food far too often as it is.  And then you have the problem that 99.9% of the shows involve meat-based dishes so I either start thinking of ways to make them vegetarian or I start thinking about how unfortunate it is that there aren't enough vegetarian dishes on cooking shows.  Or I think about how absolutely disgusting that stuff on TV is.  Let's face it, some of that junk is absolutely ridiculous.

Anyhow, every once in awhile there is a gem.  Somebody decides to feature a meatless meal.  I dance in my seat for a moment before I realize what is wrong with the episode.

Yes, I always find some flaw.  I'm overly critical like that.  I'm trying to improve myself.

Take the episode of Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals that I saw today.  Portobello mushroom hoagies.  That sounds interesting to me.  Leave off the cheese and I'm good.  But then she gets down to it and starts actually making the hoagies, marinade first.

What is in the marinade?  None other than Worcestershire sauce.  I'm sorry, but Worcestershire sauce is not vegetarian.  It would have been all fine and dandy had she not gone off on a this-would-be-great-to-serve-to-your-vegetarian-friends schpeel.  No.  It would not.  


This vegetarian's enemy of a sauce contains anchovies.  Anchovies are fishes.  That is very un-vegetarian.  Yes, I rant.  Yes, I complain.  I do not complain about Ms. Ray alone.  She is not the only one.  


But instances such as this raise questions.  What do restaurants use to marinate their mushrooms?  Do we have to start asking everyone what ingredients they use before we order or eat?  Is food going to become even more of an issue that it already is and should not be?  


ACK!


There are vegan versions of Worcestershire sauce in health food and fine food stores, but I've never bothered to purchase them.  I hear much of the flavor of the original version comes from the fish anyhow.  I could be wrong.  


But the moral of my story is, even professional chefs don't always know what they're talking about and it is quite irksome.  Makes me want to write some letters.  

The Piggy Flew

Soooo...

I've been slacking again.

It's hard to post about food when you're sick with H1N1 and have to choose quite carefully what you are going to consume because wait, will a chocolate bar agree with tamiflu?  How bad will the stomach cramps be today with all this hacking-up-of-the-lungs?  


I've been very careful about my food consumption--faux chicken soup with noodles, scrambled eggs, glass after glass of juice-and-carbonated-water, etc.

I managed to keep down some roasted brussels sprouts tonight (lightly tossed in olive oil with salt, pepper, and thyme).  The left over noodles-mushrooms-and-vegan-sausage-combo at lunch didn't do as well.

Did I mention the juice?

Ordinarily I'd jump at the chance to dabble in the kitchen while under a week-long "house arrest" (as I affectionately call it), but I don't want to infect all of the household food supply.  And there's that stomach sensitivity thing.

So, until the piggy flies away, happy eating!

A Conglomeration of Notes

It's been one of those too-long-between-posts again.  What can I say?  Some weeks aren't very adventurous and sometimes I avoid the blog like the plague.  Why?  I don't know.  It's daunting.  I cook something new and think gee, now I need to blog it.  But I also think, who really wants to read about how I put pumpkin seeds in the brown rice and threw it into the hollows of a squash?  Whoopee!  It might have been a first for me, but I bet it's nothing new in the universe.  Blogging takes motivation and self-esteem.

Well, after a certain length of time, a new blog post is necessary so that the blog doesn't die and become just another speck in the universe (or is it already?  This is clearly not the time nor blog for metaphysics).

So now I get to tell you all how this is the first week I've weighed in at a gain since I've started losing weight.  Yes, I know it's natural to have plateaus and gains while trying to lose weight, but the first gain is always frustrating (not that the rest aren't, as well!)

I blame it on the vegan rice crispy treats, recipe courtesy of Alicia Silverstone.  Yea, I finally got around to make those little devils and I didn't even put the chocolate chips in.  Sure they're not bad for you (really only brown rice and peanut butter when you get down to it).  Not bad until you find yourself picking at them all...day...LONG.  I cannot keep my hands away from these things.

I wasn't Little Miss Perfect the rest of the week, either, but I still blame the treats.

In other news, the shelter I volunteer at had a Halloween party/bake sale on Saturday.  Needless to say, none of the goods were vegan friendly (aside from the chips that went with the $3.00 hotdog lunch you could buy).  I stayed most of the day to help out with the dogs and didn't eat anything from breakfast until I got home around 4:30pm.  That's when it hit me how hungry I was.  That didn't bode well when my parents and I went out to dinner at a local restaurant.

My parents really like this restaurant and I was so-so on it after turning vegan.  I decided to ask what the black bean burger was made of so that I didn't have to stick with a bald portobello mushroom on a bun again.  The waitress was amazing and brought out the book that had all the ingredients of the pre-prepared foods and she read off every last gorey detail (i.e. soy protein, wheat gluten, etc.)  I was shocked to hear a lack of cheese and egg proteins listed.  I should add that the black bean burger is actually two of these burgers stacked on top of each other.  Usually with cheeses, avocado, pesto, and crispy fried onion thingies.  I asked for it without the cheese and avocado (I don't like avocado which I guess is a sin against vegans everywhere) and they automatically put the pesto on the side.  It was delicious but my stomach paid for it the next day.  (I ate the whole thing...and despite my choosing the side salad instead of fries, it wasn't pretty).  I'm thinking of writing an email to the restaurant applauding them and the waitress.  Nights like that make me giddy.

Tonight I attempt cooking curry for the very first time.  Wish me luck!