POTD: What I Made with Baked Beans

Does everyone remember that post where I asked how I could serve up baked beans? Hmmm, me thinks not. {click here for a reminder}


A few days ago I made made myself up a plate of baked beans, complete with all the other unusual suspects.  Instead of the more traditional cornbread, BBQ, English toast, sausage or collard greens, I paired my saucy beans with crock-pot roasted parsnips, cheezy rice and onion jam. Unconventional, but it was what I had in the fridge.

This seems like the apt point to include a basic summary of how I roast vegetables in my crock-pot.  


Method: chop a variety of solid vegetables (such as carrots, parsnips, squash, onions, brussel spouts, beets, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, etc.) into 1 inch chunks.  I usually chop enough to fill my crock-pot about 3/4 of the way full.  Place all of the veggie chunks into the crock-pot, drizzle with 1/2 to 1 tbsp each of olive oil and vinegar depending on the amount of veggies in crock-pot.  Cook on HIGH for about 2-3 hrs, or until the veggies are soft and have a slightly "crisp" exterior.   Try to stir once or twice while cooking to ensure even "roasting."


But if we are being frank, this is a crock-pot.  Don't miraculously expect oven fries with this method.


Anyone have other suggestions on how to pair baked beans?  Would you like a separate post with more detailed picture steps on how I roast food items in my crock-pot?  Please comment!


On a side note, I mentioned earlier how mid-term weeks usually entail:  increased coffee consumption, repetitive drawings of molecules and body systems on my mirror, chipped nail varnish, minimal-to-no-showering, insomniac pacing blah blah blah. As today is Saturday, here is what my hand looks like at the end of said week... in a little need of TLC.

Needless to say, I am about to repaint me nails and give my digits a break. (Does reading psychology or about the cardiovascular system count as a finger break?)


What does everyone else do after a exam-packed week?  Do you have a personal pamper ritual or special activity reserved for "winding down"?


Cheers, kaite ;]

POTD: Broccoli + Cheeze Soup

Since I still had some frozen broccoli left in my freezer that need some using up (I detest freezer burned veggies), I made broccoli and cheeze soup. Yum. This soup recipe fit perfectly in with my frazzled schedule and the recent snow flurries around Missoula. Combine 1/2 cup soup mix + 1 cup water + 1 cup frozen broccoli + a few more tidbits floating around in the fridge = warm-me-up-ever-comforting soup.

A little more about the soup mix... It is a product from  Leahey Gardens, a vegan food company that makes soups, macaroni and cheeze, gravy, etc.  As an added bonus, most of their products are also gluten-free.  While the company does use some food additives (such as maltodextrin for thickeners), I was delighted by how much the soup tasted like "real soup." Often near-instant soup mixes can taste waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too salty, or garlicky, or the vegetables lack any lust, or the seasonings are just bland, or the texture is blah.  This soup, however, has me wanting to try other products by Leahey. The texture and flavor before adding all my extra tid-bits was creamy and rich.  I could even spoon up chunks of broccoli and onion in each bite.  (Sales pitch over).  Just go try one of their products and let me know what you think. 

More posting to come soon. But what would you like to hear about next?  I could do a "What to Love", "7 Favorites", a recipe, a Missoula coffee shop review or a restaurant review.  Let me know and I will start drafting new posts in my free hours. 


Back to the world of academia,


Cheers, kaite ;]

POTD: HerbTofu Bowl (with Roasted Roots!)

I apologize for my lack thereof recipe postings over the past few weeks.  But frankly, most of what I have been cooking since I returned to Missoula has not been very 'photo worthy.'   For breakfast: oatmeal! rice porridge!  For lunch and dinner:  rice bowls! soba noodles!    My food is one giant mush pile in a bowl.  Not the most exciting to take a photo of— or write directions on how to make.  

Such directions would read much along the lines of this: dump a little bit of everything in your fridge into a bowl. Reheat.  Add vinegar + seasonings to taste.  Stir and scarf.

But that is what I am going to give you.  A picture of my mainstay meal for the past few weeks.  The ingredients change a little as the contents of my fridge dwindle and are replenished with new food stuffs, but in essence, my rice/noodle bowl always ends up looking much like this:

This particular week's edition consisted of:

·      crock-pot roasted carrots + parsnips

·      brown rice

·      savory baked tofu, cubed (Wildwood or Trader Joe's)

·      medley of herbs, chopped (dill, green onion and cilantro!)

·     balsamic onion jam*

·     rice vinegar

·     tamari pumpkin seeds

·     nutritional yeast

*Crazy delicious. Go make a jar right now! Caramelize 2 jumbo onions over a low heat in 2tbsp of olive oil for about 1-2 hrs.  Add a few tbsp of balsamic vinegar and water to help deglaze pan as they cook.  I made this jam in my dormitory kitchen over the weekend.  Waaaaaaaaaay more labor & hoop jumping than should every be required to use a pan on a broken oven.  But that's another story.

Nomnom.

Many of my 'meals in a bowl' inspirations have come from the lovely Kathy Patalsky, author of the Happy. Healthy. Life. blog.  Many of her 'dump everything in a bowl and mush it around' recipes can be found here.  I made a variation of here Shiitake Balsamic Mushroom Spinach bowl and Peanut Ginger Kale Spinach bowl last week to use up my two bags of frozen spinach.

Anyone else love bowls?  Perhaps its just their convenience that makes me love them. (Uni student!)  But,  in the end, a bowl allows you to mix everything that strikes your fancy together in one big mess.  End of bowl story.  

Let me know if you have a favorite meal in a bowl combination I should try out.  Next week I want to tackle  a soup.  And baked beans.  Any  meal pairing  or inspirations are welcome.

Cheers, kaite ;]

POTD: Market Tamale

Mmmmmmm. I miss the farmers' market back home.  The hot beverages.  The monster sized pumpkins and kabocha squashes.  The berries galore during the summer. The smell of crepes.  But I especially miss Hermosa tamales.  I remember stocking the freezer last winter with gargantuan bags stuffed with hefty vegan tamales.  Those beauties barely made it past Christmas. 

Over this past weekend, my parents visited me here in Missoula. And the first thing my mother did, after she smothered me in a hug, was hand me a pack of frozen vegan tamales.  My hot-dog bun sized freezer is not officially "stocked" for the winter. ^_^ Thank you tamale gods and Mum.

For dinner tonight, after my much anticipated Chem 141 exam, I dressed up una tamale, then  sat down to a well-deserved meal.  For the moment, I am care-free. (Don’t burst my bubble, people.  I am well aware than the whole process starts over again tomorrow morning and I have two papers due next week.)

Cheers, kaite ;]

Nope, I am still alive.

I apologize for being MIA for the past week.  The academic world has become an insistent 3-year old lately.  Very needy, demanding, persistent and, dare I say, fickle.   All I can do as peon in the game is jump when the professors say "jump" and try to keep up the momentum.

Here are a few little tid-bits of what I have been enjoying betwixt the mayhem:

Move aside molasses, agave and beloved maple syrup.  I have found what the gods used to sweeten their nectar: BARLEY MALT!  Unlike most sweeteners, it is actually classified as "low glycemic" which means that it contains more complex carbohydrates than simple sugars. Thus, it produces a slow spike in blood sugar that your body can maintain, rather than than the quick energy burst-flop associated with cane sugars.  Anywho, it tastes ridiculously delicious regardless of the healthy science.  I keep eating spoonfuls out of the jar and mixing it into everything.  A little in my oatmeal, on top of some brown rice, spread on apples (vegan caramel dip, people!), drizzled on veggies, stirred into tea, or just straight out of the jar. Yum ^_^

I notice recently that someone, who lives at my dorm, owns a blue VW Jetta.  It looks strikingly like my car, Hal, at home.  How is my car doing, Eric?  Any new dings from the High School wrecking yard?

Cooking has become an out-let from school.  I look forward to every Friday when I head out to the grocery and return back to my dorm to begin the cooking jamboree.  It is conviviality in every sense of the word. Earlier, I showed you a picture of what my fridge looks like right after I return from the store.  While I would love to brag that I keep a well-stocked fridge of veggies throughout the entire week, my fridge Sunday through Thursday looks more like a cold pantry filled with boxes.  I make bazillion batches of rice, beans, roasted veggies and other such bits that sound good to munch on throughout the "work week".  

One of my favorite creations this past weekend was caramelized onions! Oh, boy.  These are like candy to me.  Seriously, 10x better than Justin's PB cups or chocolate.  I could (and do) eat spoonfuls of these puppies straight out of the fridge.  It's creations like these that are the reason I do most of my cooking on the weekend.  Onions + garlic + cilantro + shoyu + olive oil + fragrant spices = very pungent scents.  Mmmmm (if you are like me) or a little headachey for most... :/

During my 10min of blog hopping each morning over breakfast I discovered my dream "library" set-up.  Eclectic and functional.  One day, we will be united and have a long, fulfilling marriage.  Until, then I will swoon from afar.

And to end off this "throw together post" is a Plate of the Day.  Well, more like Plate of the Week.  I have been eating this mixture for lunch/dinner since Sunday evening.  It tastes crazy delicious, is a rounded meal and it is literally everything I have in my fridge dumped into one bowl and warmed up.  Mush to the max.  But that's how I roll. The more complex the flavors and mush-like my food, the happier I am.  For those interested in recreating this mushtastic meal, mix roasted squash & onions (follow the Kind Life recipe for a close approximation), brown rice, 1tsp miso diluted in 1tsbp warm water, pumpkin seeds, savory baked tofu (Wild Wood), chopped cilantro and green onions, nutritional yeast, drizzle of green tomatillo salsa and a heaping blob of caramelized onions. I think that's all... It changes slightly each time, depending on what I grab.

I hope to be back with a proper blog-post soon!  Until then, we will just have to make do with impromptu peaks into my bubble of studying.  Put any suggestions for topics or bits about my dorm/university life you would like to see in the comments.  I will take pictures accordingly.

Cheers, kaite ;]

POTD: Tofu Salad with Cheezy Rice

Another one of those creations inspired by what I have leftover in the fridge... I need do some proper grocery shopping.  Over the weekend I make an egg-salad of sorts, but with tofu instead of eggs.  On Monday, I cooked rice in my crock pot with garlic, nutritional yeast, coconut oil and miso.  It tastes kinda what I remember rice-a-roni tasting like, but with-out the "roni" and not nearly as salty.  Anywho, for lunch today I threw what was left of the cheeze rice, tofu salad, my remaining sprouts and mixed mustard with rice-vinegar for a dressing of sorts to dump on top of the whole food-pile.  It looks like a bit of a mess, but a heck of a lot more exciting than PB&J (--the other main-stay in my fridge).

What's everyone else cooking these days?

Over in the academic/non-kitchen arena, I am trying to hack out an Op-ed defending the right-to-suicide in respect to the Dr. Kevorkian trials from a legal-quasi-ethics perspective and nursing the world's greatest gut-ache in conjunction with a toilet marathon from consuming an Odwalla drink. Curse you companies who put pineapple in frexing EVERYTHING and then hide it at the bottom of the ingredients list.  Blah.  Kombucha and Pepto-bismol, save me from my sins!  

Here are a few fun pictures/images that I feel like posting, sharing, reblogging.  They are cheering me up :]

Mermaid with Lanterns, by Nizovtsev

Cheers, kaite ;]

Tour de Glacier + POTD

As promised, here are my photos from my weekend trip to Glacier National Park.  Enjoy, comment, vacation vicariously.

First stop: COFFEE.  When you leave at 5 in the morning, a little bit of espresso is in order.  Thankfully, Autumn is also a coffee drinking enthusiast, so I was not alone in mandating a stop.  Cafe au Laît with a healthy dump of cinnamon :)

While Clint purchases our park pass, Ellen, Autumn and I perused the general store.  At the register were a bunch of the buoy-like cubes attached to key-rings.  When we asked the cashier what the mini-buoys were for, he told us that they were key 'life preservers.'  Apparently the number 1 item reported lost in Glacier Park is people dropping their keys in the rivers/lakes.  It also happens that the number 1 cause of death in Glacier Park is also falling into a body of water (NOT bears as the scary literature leads one to believe).  Note to self:  avoid water in Glacier.

We entered from the West side of the park, so our first "attraction site" was McDonald Lake.

(Clint's shift on the camera...so, just us ladies)

 Eventually, we made it up into the trails and past all of the automobile tourists.  Very pretty and serene :)

We all loved this tree.  It looks like it has a giant nuclear tumor growing out of it.  To give perspective to the size: all four of us could stand right underneath the mushroom-like growth.

By about 4 in the afternoon we reached the far end of St. Mary Lake where it runs into the Black Feet Indian Reservation.  There were all took a giant PB & J snack break, stripped our hiking boots off to wade in the frigid water and sat down on the rocks to do some last minute school-work.  The never ending reading assignments are the bane of a college student’s life. Gah.

Plate of the Day (POTD):

It's amazing what dishes one comes up with when their fridge as a limited (and hodge-podge) inventory.  For breakfast I made a variation upon my crock-pot oatmeal...other than the ingredients were not your typical English porridge kind...

It is a mixture of leftover rice, oatmeal, nutritional yeast, tamari, chopped green onion, Italian parsley, handful of Shiitake mushrooms, couple heaping spoonfulls of toasted pumpkin seeds and the LAST BIT (rest in peace inside my tummy) of my dark-chocolate-quinoa bar.  Very strange, unexpectedly paired, but crazy delicious.  I may have to track down some of the ingredients again just to make "left-over-porridge" on purpose.

Cheers, kaite ;]