Poached egg and noodles

Last week I went vegetarian. It was part of a seven-week yoga challenge to live my moksha off the mat.

I love meat — a lot — so it was a difficult task at times. While my fellow yogis sip on zen tea after class, I'm often found devouring roast beef sandwiches. The hardest part was deciding what to eat. My inner voice (or probably my devilish taste buds) would whine, "This would be easier if I could just have meat." But once I resisted my animal urges, I enjoyed discovering veggie alternatives, including the mix-and-match salad bar at Pumpernickel's featuring such delights as couscous, bean salads, and roasted beets.

My most triumphant moment was at home. I created a three-ingredient dish with my favourite Chinese noodles, baby bok-choy and a poached egg. I love watching gold spill out from the delicate white pocket of this unfertilized chicken spawn. (There was lots of talk among carnivorous friends if eggs are meat.) This sunshine-in-a-bowl atop slippery sweet noodles and some greenery is a fine meal for even my non-vegetarian days.

A woman of great taste

It would be too easy if I were talking about myself.

I'm talking about my friend Yasmin (@yasminATlesauce) who runs an amazing food blog at lesauce.typepad.com. She's a true lover of food -- someone who if feeling lazy about dinner would braise leeks as the easy way out. Her blog consists mostly of her vegetarian recipe creations, and she believes in eating well from tomato on toast for lunch to day-long cooking feast for friends and family.

This past summer, she recently resigned from over eight years at St. Joseph's Media working in various marketing roles in the consumer magazine industry to embark on a career that intersects her love for food, photography, writing and publishing. I love when people reach that point where they're ready to leap into the unknown. I strongly have faith in the idea that when you have nothing, everything is possible. (Not to say she has nothing but you get the idea, I hope!)

In any case, after a year of being one of her religious blog followers, I finally pushed my own lazy butt to cook one of her drool-over-the-computer-screen-worthy recipes.

I was poking around my fridge and noticed some parsley that I just knew was going to go bad any day now. Then it clicked in my head -- I remembered I read a post by Yasmin about how herbs never go bad in her house because she uses it in all sorts of creative ways. So a quick search and I found the fried almond and olive pasta with fresh cilantro and parsley recipe.

I was amazed at how simple it was to make yet so, so delicious. I shared the meal with a friend who came over last minute and doesn't even like olives but he was so impressed at how good it was. Below is the photo he took on his Blackberry but it doesn't really give the dish justice, so you have to check her photos out. (P.S. I just used rotini instead of linguine because it's all I had.)

If you're looking for food inspiration, I highly recommend you check out lesauce.typepad.com.

Sick on Meatless Monday, Week 6

I went to Montreal last weekend to visit my sister Martha. My eldest sister Marie came as well with her husband Georges and their son Raja, but they drove while I took the train. We basically spent the whole of Saturday eating. (What else is new, right?) But throughout Saturday, my slightly Friday-morning sore throat blew up to a full-scale hacking cough with runny nose and I felt absolutely horrible by night dessert time.

On Monday morning, back in Toronto, I woke up, got ready for work, and realized what a very foolish idea that was. I sent some work off, crawled back into bed and prayed that my body wouldn't feel like an anvil had smooshed me.

Lacking energy and taste buds (my mouth felt like sandpaper...), I made plain congee with... you guessed it... frozen peas! And ginger-honey tea, with real ginger and honey.

I felt better but my head still hurt and a 3-hour nap following didn't really cure it.

A little less means a little more: Meatless Monday, Week 5

Last night I went to dinner with my friends Karen and Steph. Steph was already well aware of my Meatless Monday pledge, as we went to New York together, and that was plenty of quality time for me to ramble on about sustainable fish and reducing your carbon footprint by giving up meat one day a week, etc., etc. Karen, on the other hand, I haven't seen in awhile so this was all brand new territory for her.

She, of course, said the obvious thing I knew she would say because I've thought about this *problem* myself -- that what's the point? If the non-sustainable fish (or any other animal for consumption) is already caught, killed and prepped, if you don't eat it, someone else will.

I think in some distant past of mine, I used to make this same argument or at least come to this same conclusion for myself. For instance, if my dad makes a meat-ful meal on Monday, and I don't eat it, it'll eventually be consumed by him or my brother or even myself on Tuesday, so how does this equate to a reduction in meat consumption? For that particular problem, I reasoned the way I eat and the way my brother eat (i.e. a lot), I am giving him the chance to eat my meat-ful portion, which means he won't have to cook or buy something else containing meat for another *extra* meat-ful meal.

So if I use that theory stretched to wider consumer demand, I do feel my little decrease of demand can make a difference. In theory, at some point in the chain, there will be an *extra* helping of meat for someone else to eat and thereby they won't need to consume or purchase another portion, thus reducing my carbon footprint.

As an aside, yesterday was the first week since I started Meatless Monday that I had seafood too instead of just vegetables and grain. It was just shrimp, which is sustainable.

Meatless Monday, Week 4

There were only two occasions when I wanted to consume meat, and neither time did the desire arrive when I was actually eating my meatless meal, which I think is a huge step.

Breakfast: Banana and peach. (I realize this may not qualify as breakfast to some, but I'm not exactly an early riser.)

Lunch: Leftover fusili pasta with red&orange peppers and frozen peas that I made for Sunday night dinner. Are you starting to see a theme here with peppers, peas and pasta? It seems to be what's always available in my house. I'm not sure why my dad is obsessed with buying peppers, but they are always there, newly bought, without fail, every week. I've also taken to adding butter and 35% cream to everything. Butter and cream makes life better in every way.

Meat "craving" No.1: Kenzo Ramen noodles thanks to @chantalbraganza's post yesterday. I was meeting Irene later that day for dinner and a TIFF movie. I had already decided on Jules Bistro at Queen and Spadina, but thought of changing it to Kenzo at Dundas and Bay. (We rushed The Invention of Lying by Ricky Gervais -- of The Office and Extras TV shows fame -- at the Elgin theatre at Queen and Yonge.) Then I realized, a vegetarian ramen would not fulfill my desire to recreate my Momofuku Noodle Bar experience. So stuck to Jules. Later, I would find out vegetarian ramen -- even bad vegetarian ramen -- would have beat Jules without a blink.

Meat "craving" No. 2: Jules Happy Hour special is steak frites for $12.95. I contemplated breaking my Meatless Monday vow for a total of five seconds. French bistro vegetarian food was tempting enough to sate my craving. Again, how wrong I was.

Dinner: Jules Vegetarian Sandwich of ratatouille and dijon; plus vegetarian French onion soup ($12.95 all together). An incredibly small portion for 13 bucks. Food was fine but seriously I felt jipped. Plus, I wasn't keen on the service. I get really annoyed by servers who are sweet from the onset, and slowly become more stiff and curt, and are outright rude by the end of it just because I'm not ordering an expensive meal. At one point, I also thought the streak frites may have been better value but probably not. It probably would have been a cracker-size and cracker-thickness piece of flank with possibly 10 frites for accompaniment.

Dessert: Small coffee and chocolate chip cookie at Le Gourmand. Thank gawd for that monster cookie. It filled me right up and gave me the fuel I needed for a two-hour TIFF rush-line wait.

P.S. The Invention of Lying was so much better than I anticipated. Not sure if I would recommend watching it in theatres but it's definitely an unusual (in a good way) storyline.

***Update: Apparently all of Kenzo's broths are pork-based. There are no vegetarian options, which seems very un-Japanese to me.***

Redemption for Week 3: Meatless Wednesday

I love bechemal. Velvety, creamy, ivory white bechemal sauce. When I first started making bechemals, I looked up recipes and followed measurements. Now I wing it: butter, flour, milk/cream, cheese -- done.

Some bechemals have been terrible. Others have been divine. And sometimes I stumble upon new creations, like once I somehow ended up with a brown butter sauce. The nutty, buttery flavour was a stand-out.

But I've been trying, as I'm sure many, many cooks have tried in skipping the separate sauce pan part, and make my pasta creamy and buttery in one shot. And you know what? It worked. After draining my pasta, putting the stove at low heat, I added a couple of tablespoons of butter and slowly worked in 35% cream right over the cooked spaghetti. Mix, mix, mix and suddenly I was done. (No cheese because I had nothing in the fridge but those processed Black Diamond singles I stupidly put in the quasedilla last week.)

I added a little jarred tomato sauce, a handful of frozen peas, chili flakes, chili olive oil and instant creamy pasta for me. I was sad when I failed Meatless Monday this week, but I think I definitely made up for it yesterday.

Meatless Mondays, Week 2: Deprivation Sets In

Looks yummy, right? Yellow&red peppers, mangoes and peaches dressed in sesame oil, honey, chili flakes and lemon neatly packaged within a romaine lettuce leaf and tortilla. And it was yummy. But not at all satisfying, because yesterday I did the exact same thing for a beach picnic with girlfriends -- except for stupid peaches, I had turkey slices in that baby. Moist, salty turkey. So all I could think about when I was eating this at lunch was, "Hmm. This is good. But turkey would make it a whole lot better."

Cut to dinner.

I've had a sore throat since Thursday morning, slight cough. My dad works nights and has heard me coughing around the house so he made me congee for dinner tonight. I love congee. If you didn't grow up with it, it's just slimy white goop, but it is very soothing and you can add virtually anything to it for flavour. Including chicken. I hadn't told my dad about my Meatless Monday pursuit so he callously threw chicken into the congee.

How do the rules apply in a situation like this? I haven't figured it out yet but it was the type of thing I used to use as an excuse to convince myself out of (non-)eating commitments like this. So I carefully ladled around the chicken pieces as best as I could (forgive me if I consumed a couple of strands) and added a huge helping of frozen peas when I heated it up. I will tell you right now -- I felt like I was depriving myself for reasons unknown.

Congee wasn't enough though. I didn't feel full even though it was a considerable helping. So I scraped through the fridge and made a quesadilla from Black Diamond mozzarella cheese singles, yellow peppers, button mushrooms and tomatoes. What I learned from this: processed cheese in a quesadilla still tastes like processed cheese. I soothed my pain with a Dairy Milk vanilla ice cream bar.

 

Tuesday has never looked so good before.

Meatless Mondays: Week 1

This was supposed to be my awesome overdose of grilled veggies: skewered eggplant, red & green & yellow peppers, and button mushrooms, lightly covered in olive oil and a dried Lebanese herb mixture my sister gave me, which I'm going to assume is za'atar (thanks to my foodie Twitter friend @yasminATlesauce); whole scallions (a.k.a. green onions); tomato halves; and some fun with lemon, oranges and pear.

I was psyched to do a few more playful things -- such as brush a couple of the vegetable skewers with different glazes/oils: chili olive oil, toasted sesame oil, and Trader Joe's sweet Thai chili sauce. And of course, squeeze the grilled lemon on top.

I was also planning to melt some chocolate chips for a drizzled sauce over the grilled fruits but alas, it wasn't meant to be. I wasted four matches trying to light my barbecue. It was no use. I was out of gas.

So I threw the skewers on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet, preheated the oven to 450F and roasted them instead for 20 minutes. In the meantime, I made buttery, creamy mashed potatoes (with real butter! and real cream! 35%!) and chopped up the scallions to mash up with the spuds. The pears became snacks as I prepped; although I contemplated poaching them but didn't have any suitable liquid for the task. Oranges and tomatoes ended up in tupperware in my fridge.

After the veggies were done, I tossed them with romaine lettuce, chili olive oil and squeezed the (raw) lemon over.

Albeit a boring little meal, it was successfully satisfying and made up for the greens I lacked earlier in the day.