12/04/2006, Home.
Serving Mama
Mom came over for dinner after a meeting in LA so we tossed a few things together and came out with an Indian feast - palak paneer, lentils in gravy, and spiced rice accompanied by yogurt, a medley of veggies and some (slightly out of place) fake chicken nuggets! On the side we had hot naan and a beautiful salad. Yes, we were hungry!
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11/21/2006, Home.
Pizza for Four, Eaten by Two!
+ Corn crust, sprinkled liberally with sesame seeds;
+ A tangy peanut/tomato sauce with a spicy kick;
+ Roasted tomato mozzarella
+ Grilled corn kernels
+ Green and red peppers
+ Pineapple
+ Morningstar Farms’ veggie bacon
= Julia’s favorite pizza ever!
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11/05/2006, Home
Satay, Salad and Soup
This cold/flu thing is getting to be a real drag - not least because my taste buds are all but shut down at the moment, and my appetite (and Julia's) is hard to predict. But last night there was one thing we could agree on - salad! A big salad started us off with all the fixin's - greens, sprouts, cucumber, carrot, tomato, hardboiled egg, fresh croutons, and I'm certain 4 or 5 other things, with a raspberry vinaigrette. On the side we had a grilled lemon-herb vegetarian chicken satay which was an instant favorite, and what remained of the incredibly spicy, sweet, rich apple butternut squash soup. Took about 10 minutes to toss this all together, and I'm still licking my chops!
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11/04/2006, Home
Seasonal Comfort Food
Saturday we did some grocery shopping at Whole Foods and at Trader Joes, so we're fully stocked. When we got home it was just starting to cool off, and I felt like cooking. I started by freshening up our crouton supply with another loaf; 6 cloves of garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper, fresh basil, and a mix of two types of parmesan and a bit of feta. After the croutons I made a batch of stuffing with cranberries, nuts and veggie sausage. At the same time I put some soup on - apple butternut squash with nutmeg and cayenne, a great conflict of hot, spicy, sweet and savory.
Eventually Julia demanded I bring things back to the task at hand: feeding her, now! So I quickly roasted half an acorn squash with cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, and served it with stuffing, a bowl of soup with a dollop of sour cream, and a garden salad with raspberry vinaigrette. We both gave it 2 thumbs up.
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10/20/2006, Home
Busaba: It's Thai for "Woman"
Every great once in a while I have a dining experience that's nearly an epiphany. I've always considered myself a lover of Thai food and though I knew what was good, and frankly what Thai food was about. I've done high and low, fusion and folk Thai, and am pretty critical of Thai - it's almost always good on some level, but I want to be tickled with my Thai, not just sated. I'd been waiting to try Busaba, a completely vegetarian (and mostly vegan) Thai restaurant at La Brea and Melrose for a while. It's owned and operated by an all-female team of Thai food industry veterans who wanted to do something different. They have not only succeeded, they've really managed to blow me away. First, I've struggled with Thai since going vegetarian, as so many of my favorite dishes just didn't seem to be possible without chicken or shrimp. Boy was I wrong. Second, I thought I knew what to expect from something labeled Thai food. Wrong, way wrong, again! This was certainly among my favorite, if not simply my absolutely favorite, Thai food ever. We had a crispy rice salad I can still taste, a "duck" curry that was sweet, spicey and ducky, and just wonderful, and sizzling pra ram with tofu. There are so many things on their menu we have to try that we're going to be visiting the busaba for our Thai fix whenever the jones hits.
Oh, and "busaba" apparently means "woman" in thai.
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10/9/2006, Home.
D-lux Veggie Burgers
Tonight we both had a serious jones on for burgers so planning our meal was pretty easy. A quick hop over to the market and we had some fresh, sprouted wheat buns - in our ghetto-tastic grocery store those are not only the best, and most healthy, but they're by far the cheapest buns to be had. The "meat" was Morning Star Farms' Tomato & Basil Pizza Veggie Burgers; not exactly health food, but not too terrible either. The rest of the sandwich construction project is deeply personal, so all I know is what I did for mine: dijon mustard, avocado, swiss cheese, sprouts, sliced pickles, tomato, grilled red onion, and maybe one or two other choice toppings. Julia suprised me by suggesting we have some fries, so I whipped up some fried red and white potato rounds. And, of course, we had our mainstay, a veggie salad with egg and croutons.
At very least, this beats the heck out of Mickey-D's.
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10/7/2006, Home.
2 Pizzas for 4 People
Julia's friend Berl came over with his pal Lauren, so we grabbed some corn meal pizza dough on the way home and made two pies. The first had broccoli, goat cheese and smoked tofu, and then the second pizza with feta, veggie chick'n, artichoke hearts and roasted corn. We tossed together a quick salad with herb greens, carrot, croutons and a raspberry vinaigrette.
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10/5/2006, Home.
Apple Stuffed Squash and Salad
I think we're on a real autumn theme here. Our entree tonight is a Sweet Dumpling Squash shell stuffed with squash and a sautee of green apple, shallots and spices, served with vegetarian "meatballs". Warm, sweet and savory, mmmmmm. On the side is a salad with fresh garlic-basil croutons, carrot, cherry tomato, garlic almond slivers and a soy ginger vinaigrette.
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10/1/2006, Home.
Pumpkin Lentil Stew Stuffed Tomato, Cauliflower and Salad
Tonight’s feast was put together from leftovers. I made bowls out of large tomatoes, and filled them with a spicy pumpkin lentil stew, topped with a crust of veggie-bacon bits, homemade croutons and parmesan cheese, kosher salt and pepper. Served with tahini-lemon-garlic cauliflower from last night. Julia prepared a killer salad from herb greens, carrot, Gala apple, red grapes, walnuts, dried cranberries and feta cheese with “Our Daddy’s” secret recipe vinaigrette dressing.
On the music box we had Simon and Garfunkel.
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