Vegetable Paella

We loved this dish, a quick-and-easy Paella that is full of great summer vegetables, but empty of fish or meat.

I remember seeing Paella for the first time on Globetrekker, one of my favorite shows ever. They were in Spain and a community was having a town-wide competition on making the best paella. Which is neat, because that means it's a food like Spaghetti sauce...everyone has their favorite, best, most trusted, and it's a handed-down recipe that also gets tweaked along the way to suit modern tastes, adjust to conditions, etc.

At it's base, Paella is regional Valencian cuisine (no, not the national dish of Spain - I think Spain's cultural complexities are such that a national dish would be impossible...they'd probably settle for official regional dishes and let the idea of a national dish be the big elephant in the room), and some versions include meat and snails, while others just focus on seafood. But it's all the vegetables that make it special...along with a few threads of saffron and doses of paprika.

The recipe I used comes from Robin Miller; this is one of my first recipes I've used from her, and was really happy with it. Squash, asparagus, Zucchini, peas, wild rice, broth, tomatoes...mmm...



Herb Garden Update: It died. Seriously, we're on our 50+ day over 100 so far this year. We'll revisit that later in the year.

Squirrel Update: Romeo is still around, but has been absent the past two days. Grete's waiting for him. I think he's starting to get greedy with our ever-ripening pecans...while he's been busy scraping the hotter top layers of soil in our pots for cooler layers to rest on, he's soon going to be doing that to store his winter cache of pecans. Should we game the system? Store extras and periodically lay them around the yard for him? Hmm...

Tschüß!

Continuing the Meatless Cuisine

I didn't expect some of these traditional meat dishes to turn out so well with meat-substitutes! We've had some long-standing favorites on the menu rotation and the traditionalist inside of me can't just archive the recipes. So, we've adapted! Quorn makes these awesome "chick'n tenders" which essentially is a mushroom that looks like, has the texture of, and cooks like cubed chicken. We've tried sauteing it, and it was tasty. The true test - make our classic Cashew Nut indian sauce (made from scratch of course) and use it...the result is in...it's bliss!



In the background is Potatoes in Red Sauce, which is a tamarind/tomato goodie. It would have looked better with small red potatoes, but I only had big russets and stirring everything turned it into a mashed potato glob of sorts. So I added green and yellow beans to make it prettier...



While most italian food is fairly easy to veg out, what does one do for Fettuccine Bolognese?? I submit to you this picture and the fact that Ryan (who does not eat leftovers) at up all of our leftovers of this one:



I used SmartGrounds on this, which we've used for about 3 years now in other dishes to make them low-fat. It's a textured vegetable protein crumble.

We're entering month 3 of a veggie diet and we're feeling great, the cooking is fun, my workouts are still as productive, and I still get red-faced and flustered when someone asks me to explain why. I'm so happy, though, to have friends like Melissa and Bobby who made an awesome Indian Vegetable Curry this week...MMM!!!!

Tschüß!

Apfelrotkohl

One of the Central Market's in Austin just expanded its German offerings - they even had cute little signs separating the "German" items from the "Thai" novelties. I picked up a few things, but could not pass this packet - and it was tasty!



We also tried out Fabi and Rosi, a new European Bistro in downtown Austin, on the west-side. It was fantastic! Ryan tried to Schnitzel and Spätzle - his first question was, "is it deep fried or pan fried?" Our server, who was a bit blank in general, replied, "pan fried" and so he ordered it. My spätzle is better, in my unbiased opinion, but their Schnitzel was paper thin and fabulous! We will definitely return, although this vegetarian thing makes it super limiting since the only veggie item was a Vegetable Shepherd's Pie. I had that and it was awesome! Other than a bit of Schnitzel and some Proscuitto in Lasagna Rolls that I made for Ryan's family, we've not had a thing and feel great! After seeing about 100 dead chicken heads in a National Geographic article last weekend, it reiterated my feelings.

Tschüß!

Vegetarian Medley

Four weeks ago, after a particularly heavy gorge-fest weekend of eating out, eating in, eating heavy, eating whenever...we decided to lay off the meat for a week and see what happened. This presented a really huge challenge for me, because I'm responsible for the meals around here and keeping it interesting, tasty, and healthy. Most of my recipes centered around a meat product. Roasted Pork Tenderloin. Chicken Tikka Masala. Tequila Lime Chicken. Ground Beef Taco Wreath. You get the gist.

We're entering our fifth week of vegetarianism and I do have to say I feel great. All over! It's definitely an adjustment - we are both very ritualistic people. Which doesn't mean we're scared to try new things - we do try new restaurants all the time. But, when we go to a restaurant we've been to before, there is a 84% chance that we'll order the same thing we've ordered before. We're quality junkies and if something has worked in the past, it'll work in the future or by damned we'll be disappointed. Now, those stand-by dishes are off the radar. At Chuy's that means our chicken enchiladas become spinach/mushroom enchiladas. At Guero's it means we actually liked what we ate this time. At Outback...well, we'll just leave that off the list because our dear friends invited us to go and we ended up both having steaks - and regretting it later with stomach aches.

Rather than trying to build an immediate cadre of no-meat recipes in the house, I've been opting for buying lots of produce, some good veggie staples (black beans, noodles, rice, etc.) and then making it up as we go along. Here's a couple interesting examples...

Grilled Asparagus with Angel Hair Pasta and Garlic Toast





Yellow Squash and Mushroom Tacos



Me showing off some local multi-grain tortillas



Rice and Sauteed Veggies



This is essentially fancier version of the mixture I made for the tacos...it didn't turn out too well but that's because I used Lawry's Seasoned Salt and the flavor totally clashed

I saw my entire immediate family this week - on a bittersweet occasion - my dear grandma passed away and so I was off to Southern Utah. I will really, really miss her and her beautiful voice, smile, and humor. We both share a passion for travel and I am just happy to know that she's off running around in space somewhere, not bound to difficult joints from her body. Or cooking up a storm...one dish I make that comes from her is the Arnold's Family Cranberry Salad, which is made on Thanksgiving and Christmas. EVERYONE loves this dish.

After the funeral, a sweet neighbor of my grandparents released their doves in a symbol of hope, peace, renewal and freedom for my Grandma. It was so beautiful.



Tschüß!

Asparagus in Tomato Sauce

I still love Indian Food. Yes, I cheat at times and use the canned sauce...but recently have even started applying basics in one recipe to something different. Last year, I first tried Potatoes in a Tomato Sauce. Awesome, awesome, awesome! I used basically the same sauce but added cut Asparagus to it and it was amazing!





I will admit, this picture is from a few weeks ago - we've recently decided to go veggie for a while (which may be a long while). I've always had some serious meat guilt and struggle with my love of cooking and my love of animals. Using the "circle of life" justification only gets me so far...at the end of the day, I know animals are beautiful and deserve to live their own peaceful life. "But what about overpopulation?" There are always going to be meat-eaters and I'm sure I will eat meat in the future. However, we've created an industrial process that raises animals specifically for food, we raise too many of them, we spend too many natural resources to produce it, we kill and reap the harvest when they are too young, and I'm tired of being a contributor to that. It's the same thing with High Fructose Corn Syrup or other corn by-products. I don't have anything against corn or even goopy sugary syrup. I have a thing against nations, cultures, communities, and companies being dead-set reliant on one crop that's ruining the environment and is full of corrupt policies and practices/subsidies.

Wow, I needed that. I've been very trigger-shy lately about posting - this is a travelogue about our journey through food, through cultures, and through a very fun life in Texas - so let's get on with that, shall we?

I'm making good progress on planning our UK 2009 trip, which is coming this September. We'll be focused in London, Bath, and the Cotswolds, along with two days in Bristol for my BFF's wedding. I can't wait!

Tschüß!