Amy’s triumphant return from Budapest brought Grab ‘n’ Growl week to an end, as well as a large bag of authentic Hungarian paprika. Given these two fantastic new developments, it was time to cook it the hell down.

We’d been searching for a good recipe for Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup for quite some time, never really satisfied. I recently stumbled upon this one from Sweet Cheeks in the Kitchen, in turn nabbed from the Candle Cafe Cookbook. It was sufficiently awesome that it required almost no modification–we added half a cup of soy creamer; that’s it. I also learned something really interesting: when a recipe calls for a dry white wine, it’s acceptable–nay, preferable–to use a dry vermouth. It’s cheaper, dryer, and saves better than an average white wine.

Not surprisingly, we rounded the soup out with breadsticks and an amazing salad based on our recently acquired paprika.

The salad was inspired by VeganYumYum’s Avocado Wasabi Salad, with paprika taking the central role in place of wasabi.

Check it:

Paprika Cashew Chickpea Salad

Cashews & Chickpeas

• 1 cup raw cashews
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 1 cup cooked chickpeas
• 2 tsp sugar OR enough maple syrup to coat the cashews
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp soy sauce/tamari/shoyu
• salt & pepper, to taste

You can approach the cashews one of two ways: baking or sauteing. We sauteed them, but our friend Ryan has baked them with better results. So.

Baked Candied Cashews

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium-sized bowl, coat the cashews in maple syrup. Once thoroughly coated, toss in 1 tbsp paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper. Bake until brown, stirring often.

Fried Candied Cashews

In a medium-sized pan over medium heat, saute the cashews in high heat oil, coating in sugar, 1 tbsp paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper. Cook until the spices and oil have congealed. Remove from heat. Note: they’ll seem soft at first, but they’ll firm up.

Paprika Chickpeas

In the same pan (if such a beast was used) as you cooked the cashews, saute the chickpeas in the soy sauce and remaining spices, until well coated and no liquid remains, salting and peppering to taste.

Salad Dressing

• 1/4 cup hummus
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp honey/agave
• water, to desired consistency

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Finally, the salad

Toss the chickpeas, cashews, some diced purple onions, and cherry/grape tomatoes (optional) in with some fresh lettuce and enough dressing to coat lightly.

Growing up, I ate a lot of leftovers. My parents both worked two jobs so it was much more efficient to make a few big meals and then eat leftovers on off nights–especially since I could heat them up myself. Since you can’t always eke out a full meal from a single leftover, you often have to combine things or eat separate dishes. My mom referred to this as “Grab ‘n’ Growl”, a term passed down through the generations in my family’s unique (read: very bizarre) lexicon, which posits a family as a bunch of Neanderthals scavenging the fridge for food, battling over the best bits. Closer to the truth, perhaps, than we’d like to admit.

With Amy in Budapest, it’s officially grab ‘n growl week. This is sort of weird, since it’s just me, but I feel less lonely if I growl. Since I tend to do most of the cooking, the swingin’ bachelor life doesn’t necessitate eating cold beans out of cans, scratching my crotch, and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. I may prowl the house growling, but I can still drink whiskey from a glass. What the bachelor life does invoke, however, is my occasional need to purge the refrigerator of leftovers and about-to-go-bad food. On a small scale, this is best accomplished in a single meal. But with Amy gone–taking her need for delicious, inventive cuisine with her–I’m free to do a major purge, using up everything in strange and sometimes wonderful/sometimes not combinations.  In other words, this isn’t generally the kind of food I’d foist on other people.

But from the ashes doth arise the phoenix! Behold these Curried Potato Everything Cakes aka Poor Man’s Pakora:

These puppies used up mashed potatoes, mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, kale, and a scosh of raw sushi filling, as well as some leftover Chik’n Almond Bake and crushed crackers for the breading. For combining so many different–and somewhat disparate–ingredients, these were actually pretty awesome. The cracker/Chik’n Almond Bake combo was the key.

I enjoyed this with leftover Avocado Wasabi Salad ala Vegan Yum Yum:

Remember that Roasted Poblano Chili? The leftover beans (I still haven’t mastered the exact yield of dry beans when you cook them) were a perfect base (along with rice, obviously) for beans and rice.

On Saturday, I made a green Thai curry out of a small smattering of frozen veggies (ack! I know), tofu, and the leftover raw Siamese Dream Soup.

And finally, last night I made a version of Zuppa Toscana, using up the rest of the mashed potatoes; some dilapidated turnips that didn’t make it into the Potato, Turnip, & Rosemary Soup; and the unused tempeh (we get it in bulk) from the Smoky Tempeh Hummus Wraps.

That’s a lot of food! As I’ve chiseled away at out leftovers (and this post), it’s become clear to me that we both cook and shop for our palettes, not from our resources. Forgive me if I’m stretching here, but this, in a general sense, is one the key problems with the American food industry. You can get as much of anything, from anywhere, at any time, as you want.  The variety comes from the store, not from your kitchen and brain.

Equally problematic is the amount of time between trips to the grocery store. Like most Americans, we tend to go once a week, if that. We task ourselves with predicting what our future selves will want to eat–based on what? How can we know what we’ll want to eat 3 days from now? This means that as the week wears on, we become less satisfied with our choices and less likely to cook with what we bought. Scanning our half-full fridge, nothing looks good. So we either (a) settle on something merely “acceptable” or (b) give up completely and go out for dinner. I’m not against going out to eat, but I think it should be a deliberate choice–because you want to, not because you need to. But (a) is a bit of a crapshoot; on nights when I’m feeling creative, it’s a fun challenge and usually turns out pretty tasty. On off nights, it’s a burden and “edible” suffices.

One solution to this is to shop more frequently and buy less. This also helps ensure the freshness of your food. The other solution, I’m afraid to say, may be getting comfortable with “pretty good” some of the time. Maybe it’s been a good week for culinary creativity, but I feel like I’ve eaten pretty well with nary a thought of hitting up the grocery store (okay…that’s not entirely true…when I ran out of soy sauce, I felt a ripple of panic). This may owe, in part, to the very fact that I’ve used up almost everything in the fridge; my choices have dwindled as the week wore on. While some choice is certainly good, a lot of choice, it turns out, is actually rather bad (think about your occasional trip to an all-vegan restaurant–it’s almost paralyzing; you’re not accustomed to so many choices). The problem with too many choices is our tendency to weigh any single choice against the combined best parts of all the other choices. While this doesn’t actually change how good any single choice is, it does change how satisfied we feel.

So my final thought, in this lazy cognitive meandering, is that our enjoyment of our food is often based on our frame of reference. Given my limited options, what I came up with seemed really good–as soon as I’d eliminated the other possibilities. This is the fulcrum on which “leftovers” become “leftover surprise”.

Rrrrrooaawww!

Amy left last week for a return trip to Budapest to finish a video collaboration, make new work, and prepare for an opening there (if you’re in or around Budapest, be sure to check it out). She’s kicking so much ass it’s hard not to feel ineffectual!

Since she was flying at night, we had time for a nice dinner. Here main requests were “protein power and potatoes”. After rummaging around the intertubes for a while, we decided to kick it eclectic-style and settled on:

• mashed potatoes
• sauteed mushrooms
• Vegan Dad’s Crispy Cajun Chickpea Cakes
• steamed broccoli
• carrot, beet, and lettuce salad, tossed in a light vinaigrette

Chickpea Cake Mixins

Bright, crispy, and delicious

Amy decreed yesterday that today would be Raw Food Tuesday (stolen shamelessly from What the Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway), which probably means that we shouldn’t have had that Chik’n Club Sammich for lunch…we did, however blaze a new trail in raw food dinners. Well, a new trail for us: rawsage & pesto-laden zucchini-based pasta with mushrooms.

Eating raw is something you hear about or read about and know that it has to be awesome, that you’d feel like a new person if could get over your need for hot things; if you didn’t love cooking; if bread weren’t so tasty. You even know that you don’t have to always eat raw, just that now and again it’d probably be really good for you. But when it comes time to dig in, you give in to the temptation of cooking. Well, if you’re anything like us you do.

Not that we’ve never eaten raw–just had a big ol’ salad for dinner or gone to a raw restaurant–we just don’t tend to “cook” raw.

This recipe is from The Complete Book of Raw Food, a book we’ve owned for years and scarcely cracked open. The results from our first foray were largely good, with a few minor caveats. The rawsage, while delicious, was pretty much just a zesty pesto. It wasn’t at all solid and tasted closer to pesto than to sausage. The zucchini turned out pretty tasty, and worked fairly well just using a grater. It probably would have been fluffier–and thus more enjoyable–if we had one of those spiral-y duders. I halved both recipes (since they were supposed to serve 4) and was surprised at how little there was. I thought we’d be scavenging for more food within minutes of completing the meal, but it was astonishingly filling. One small plateful and we were both very satisfied. In general, I hear that raw food is more filling (since none of the nutrients have been cooked out), so you typically don’t need to eat as much of it.

We made a few modifications, so check it:

Pesto Pasta & Rawsage

Rawsage (aka Zesty Pesto…errr…Zesto!)

• 3/4 cup raw, shelled pumpkin seeds
• small handful of fresh basil
• 1/4 head of lettuce
• 2 – 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup onion powder
• 1/4 cup olive oil (less if you’re going for something more solid)
• 1.5 tsp dried sage
• 1/2 tsp fennel or caraway seed
• 1/2 tsp salt (optional)

Grind everything together in a food processor. Try it without the olive oil if you want to get these into proper patties. Just add it little by little to get the desired consistency. For this recipe, you’ll use half of it in the pasta; so if you’re going for patties, start with no olive oil and use half of ground mix to make patties. Then add 1/8 cup of olive oil and grind some more for the pesto part.

Raw Pesto Pasta

• 1 medium-sized zucchini, spiraled or grated
• ~ 6 small-medium-sized mushrooms, sliced very thinly (optional)
• sun-dried tomatoes, soaked until soft and sliced (optional; we didn’t use these this time)
• 2 large handfuls of spinach
• Zesto! from above, or perhaps a few frozen pesto cubes
• olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and/or pepper to dress

In a medium-large-ish bowl, mix the zucchini, mushrooms, and Zesto!/pesto. When the zucchini-noodles are nicely coated, toss a handful of spinach into a plate, bowl, or, ideally, bowlplate. Spread the pesto pasta over the spinach. Garnish with sun-dried tomato strips, rawsage patties, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and/or pepper. Be forewarned: this is really filling!

If you’re like us, you often feel nostalgic for things that maybe aren’t that awesome. But there’s a context, a larger experience that imbues them with something better, gives them a prominent place in our happy memories. The Olive Garden is one of those for us. For both of our families, it was one of the “going out to eat someplace ‘fancy’” defaults. When we (independently of each other) became vegetarian, it became an even better option, since there were still many things on the menu we could eat. Once we became vegan, though, things got a little dicier. Depending on who you ask, the minestrone, breadsticks, capellini pomodoro, and salad are or aren’t vegan. The pasta may or may not have eggs. The marinara may or may not have meat broth. The salad dressing definitely has cheese in it–there are no vegan dressings.

Since (a) we’ve never been able to get a straight answer and (b) we now live in an area with other family-suitable options (namely, Chinese), we don’t eat at the Olive Garden any more. But every once in a while, we get the hankering for the enveloping warmth of minestrone and hot fresh breadsticks–and a big ol’ vegan salad. So last night, we created some real “hospitaliano”–vegan style.

The minestrone was only slightly modified from this excellent recipe.

Olive Garden-style Minestrone

• 1 medium-sized white onion, diced
• 4 – 6 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
• 1 stalk of celery, diced finely
• 1/2 medium-sized zucchini, cut into small one-inch pieces or half-moons
• 1 small carrot (or half of a large carrot), grated
• a large handful of Italian/Spanish-style green beans (the flat ones–you can sub normal green beans in a pinch), cut into one-inch pieces
• 4 large stalks of kale (the curly kind), cut from the stalk and chopped coarsely
• 4 cups (2 cans) of cooked kidney beans
• 2 cups (1 can) cooked cannellini beans or white beans
• 4 cups (1 large can or 1 large jar) cooked tomatoes, with their juice
• 4 cups veggie broth
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cup small shell pasta
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
• 1.5 tsp dried oregano (1.5 tbsp fresh, minced)
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (1.5 tsp fresh, minced)
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme (1 tsp  fresh, minced)
• salt & pepper, to taste
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup red wine (optional)

As you’d expect, saute the onion, garlic, and celery in a large pot over medium heat–in the oil of your choice (I recommend choosing safflower). When the onion has gotten soft, add in the broth, water, tomatoes, carrots, and herbs/spices. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. In a separate pot, cook the shells. When they’re done–but al dente–remove from heat, strain, and blanch with cold water. This will help prevent them from getting as bloated and mushy in the soup. A lazier person may decided to add the shells directly to the soup. But you wouldn’t do that. This is hospitaliano.

Once the 20 minutes is up, add in the remaining ingredients and cook until the zucchini and green beans are tender. It’s this crucial step that allows you to trump the Olive Garden–you can add veggies in at the end, ensuring their crispness, a paean to non-flaccid vegetables.

Now let’s trump their bread.

We used this recipe, unmodified, but reposted here for your convenience.

Breadsticks

• 1 1/3 cups of water
• 4 tsp melted Earth Balance ™
• 4 cups of flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp yeast
• additional melted Earth Balance ™, for brushing on top
• additional salt, for sprinkling on top
• granulated garlic, for sprinkling on top

Combine all of the dry ingredients, minus 1 cup of flour, ideally in a mixer, using the bread hook attachment.

(We like to keep a giant thing of flour on hand so we can make bread any time we want.)

If you don’t have a mixer, you can theoretically mix by hand and then knead (we just got one for christmas and this was it’s maiden voyage–it was awesome). Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl/cup and then add slowly to the dry, while mixing. Now add in the remaining flour. Once the dough is mixed well (about 2 minutes in the mixer), roll out in to 16 long pieces. (We made about 12 and they were slightly fatter than the Olive Garden’s, but still awesome.)  Cover them and let them rise for at least 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, Fahrenheit. Brush the bread with Earth Balance ™ and sprinkle salt on top.  Bake for 15 minutes. When you take them out, brush with Earth Balance ™ again and then sprinkle with granulated garlic.

And finally, the salad.

The salad, to be faithful to the OG original, should have lettuce (obviously), croutons, purple onion, roma tomatoes, black olives, peppers, and shredded carrots. We didn’t have any fresh tomatoes or black olives (which I don’t like) on hand, so we had to make due with some sliced zucchini instead. We made the croutons fresh, from a piece of bread cut into squares, lightly doused on olive oil, salt/pepper/garlic-ed, and toasted. The original salad should also have some sort of cheesy mayonnaise vinaigrette dressing, which we didn’t deign to copy. Instead, we made this vinaigrette, slightly modified.

Italian Vinaigrette Dressing

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tsp fresh dill
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp agave nectar
• pepper to taste

Combine ingredients in a cruet and shake well.

When you’re vegan, you’re family!

There’s nothing like the holidays to totally derail your best efforts to  be healthy. With family wanting to take you out to dinner, friends it would be criminal not to share a vegan pizza joint with, and the liquor. Oh, the liquor. So. After the holidays, Amy and I found we were desperately craving a nice big salad. And soup…well, we’re pretty much always all over that–and this simple acorn squash soup leaves enough room to really enjoy a giant salad.

We got the idea for this salad from an Italian restaurant we went to with friends a few weeks ago–it was chocked full of pomegranate seeds, which are amazing (if not quite a lot of work). These things are great to feed to guests who you’d like to keep around for 6 months out of the year. Both pomegranates and clementines are traditionally more abundant (though not very local to the US Midwest) in the winter months.

We got the idea for the soup from ourselves.

Pomegranate Winter Salad

• Lettuce of your choice (unless you choose iceberg, in which case you’re disqualified)
• 1 clementine, peeled, cut in half, and separated
• 1/4 cup almond slivers OR pecans
• seeds from 1/2 of a pomegranate
• 1/4 small purple onion, cut in rings and quartered
• 1 tbsp Earth Balance ™
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp cayenne

First things first, you’ll need to address the pomegranate–which is not a trivial task. Prepare a large bowl of clean water. Slice the end off of the pomegranate and place the pomegranate in the water. Carefully tear it apart under water (so the juice doesn’t splash out on your clothes–it stains!), allowing the seeds to sink to the bottom of the bowl and the pith to float on top of the water.  Skim the pith from the surface of the water and discard.  Pour the seeds/water into a colander, rand rinse with cold water. This takes quite a bit of work, but produces a pretty large quantity of seeds. Believe me, they’re well worth it.  We had two pomegranates and had a lot of seeds left over, which keep for up to two weeks in an airtight container in the fridge.

Now you’re going to candy the almond slivers/pecans. Toast almonds/pecans in Earth Balance ™ over medium heat.  When lightly toasted, add sugar, salt and cayenne and stir until coated.  Allow to brown and transfer to a bowl to cool.

Shred the lettuce into pieces, big or small to your preference. But not too small. You’re not making tacos. Toss it in a large salad bowl, arranging the other ingredients on top. Toss lightly with Amy’s Red Wine Vinegar Dijon dressing.

Serve with Acorn Squash Soup (or any light soup, really) and crusty bread.

Last year for Amy’s birthday, we went out to a local bar that we’d been meaning to eat at–and they served the most amazing taco salad we’d ever eaten, made vegan just for us. They never seemed to have served it again, though, much to our dismay. So we’ve had this year-long hankerin’ for taco salad which, I’m happy to say, we laid to rest on Sunday.

The secret, friends, is making your own refried beans. We’d been using canned refried beans for years and no combination of spices, veggies, shortening, unicorn tears, etc. ever made them even half as delicious as the kind you get in a good Mexican restaurant. So, having just gotten a pressure cooker, what better time than now to try to make these suckers from scratch–and holy hell does it make a difference! I don’t know if we can ever go back to canned refried beans again. Maybe in a pinch, I’d use canned pinto beans to make refried beans.

We also experimented for the first time in making our own taco bowls. This was really easy; we just soaked two soft taco shells in a very shallow layer of oil, placed them in oven safe bowls (to shape them), and cooked them for 10 – 15 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. We did we never think of this before?

The rest of the taco salad is pretty easy–in the baked shell, layer the beans, taco tempeh (follow the recipe for the tempeh), chopped lettuce/onions/tomatoes, guacamole, and salsa.

Here’s how to make the beans:

Refried Beans

• 2 cups dried pinto beans pressure cooked in 10 cups of water for 30 – 35 minutes
• OR ~ 3 – 4 cups cooked pinto beans (using your preferred method)
• 3 cups veggie stock
• 1/2 white or yellow onion, diced
• 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup shortening (we used Earth Balance)
• 2 – 3 tbsps chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• salt, to taste
• 1 cup (2 small cans) mild green chilis (optional)

In a large (ideally big enough to hold the beans and stock) frying pan, sautee the onions and garlic in shortening over medium heat, until tender. Add in the beans and 2 cups of the stock and cook for about 20 minutes. Mash the beans to the consistency you like (some people like some whole beans left, some don’t). Add the final cup of veggie stock, stir well, and add in spices. Cook for about another 20 minutes, until the excess liquid has boiled off. Adjust spices to taste. This will put any canned refried beans to shame. I’m for serious.

Hi ya’ll.  Amy here filling in for Mark with my first post on IV.  He spent the entire evening helping me stretch the canvas for a ten-foot painting, so he deserves a break.  It’s salad time…just in time for your fall crop of lettuce.  Sadly ours got eaten by hoggish vermin.  We’ll take better precautions next year.

Mark and I each take different approaches to preparing a salad.  I tend to put ANYTHING in the fridge on some lettuce and voila!  Mark has a more regimented approach.  We can agree that any good salad has some sort of protein such as nuts, seeds, or beans.  We both also really enjoy a good homemade dressing.  So here we have, for your consideration, two salads- the first is a collaborative effort and the second is one of my weird (but delicious!) creations.

Salad 1: We had this one the other night.  Let’s call it Chloe’s Fall Salad.  I’m giving cred to our friend Chloe for the dressing recipe.

So of course you can put anything you like on this salad.  The apples are what make it a “Fall” salad.  Copycat these moves if you want to replicate the tastiness in the photo.

Salad:

• mixed red leaf  and green leaf lettuce washed and torn into shreds
• shredded carrots (we use a cheese grater for this)
• toasted pine nuts (pop raw pine nuts into a pan on medium heat, stirring constantly until aromatic)
• thinly cut apple slices
• pepper to taste

Chloe’s Dressing:

• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1 tsp pomegranate molasses (you can get this at Whole Foods or Middle Eastern grocers)
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• fresh chives, finely chopped
• water to desired viscosity

Mix all ingredients in a blender.  Measurements are approximate.  I just kind-of keep dumping ingredients in until it tastes right, so feel free to doctor to suit your preferences.  Stores for weeks in the fridge (if it lasts that long!)

Salad 2: Amy’s “Everything Goes” Salad (furreal people)

This particular salad contains:

• green leaf lettuce, washed and torn into shreds
• chopped red onion
• cooked corn from the cob (we save ours in the fridge so it’s cold when put on the salad)
• blueberries
• hemp seed
• pepper to taste

Dressing (my take on a Japanese sesame ginger dressing):

• 4 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 6 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tsp sake
• 4 tbsp freshly grated ginger (or from a jar)
• 3 tsp vegan sugar
• 10-12 baby carrots (or 2 medium-large carrots)
• 5 tsp tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup chopped onion

Combine all ingredients in a blender starting with liquids and gradually adding solid ingredients and blend until smooth-ish.  Add water if necessary to thin.  Again, measurements are approximate.  We like this dressing to be rather sweet, so feel free to cut the sugar down some.  You can also substitute agave nectar or another sweetener of your choice.  This one saves for weeks too.

Let us hear your favorite salad mix-em-ups and dressings.  The more unexpected, the better!

Hulk love salad. Hulk green. Salad green.

This salad was kinda fun. Yes. I just said a salad was fun. This is a cooking blog and I am vegan…so…this can’t be that big of a shock. Instead of lettuce, it uses raw kale marinated in a creamy Asian avocado dressing. For additional power and/or flavor, it features wakame (a seaweed) and sprouts.

Salad Fixins

• 4 – 6 cups chopped kale (ideally lacinato/dinosaur)
• 1/4 cup dried wakame
• 1/2 cup (alfalfa/bean/broccoli) sprouts
• 1/4 cup almond slivers
• 1/4 cucumber, cut in to small wedges

Dressing

• 1/2 avocado
• 1 clove garlic, pressed or grated
• 1/2 – 1 tsp ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 tsp soy sauce/tamari/shoyu/Braggs
• 1/4 cup water
• juice from 1/2 of a small lime (~1 tbsp)

You can start this one out with the dressing–just combine all of the dressing ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Simple!

Now on the the salad part. I’d been wanting to revisit the kale salad idea since Breaded Tofu and Mushrooms on Steamed Kale. Strangely, VeganYumYum posted a kale salad recipe at almost the exact same time (even cutting the kale the same way!). Hers used raw, rather than steamed, kale, though. The trick is to put the dressing on in advance and let the kale marinade for a bit, softening it up. Genius! I love steamed kale, but you usually want a cool, crisp salad, and steaming makes it warm. Warm makes hulk angry.

So.

Cut the kale into thin strips (if using lacinato/dinosaur kale) or in to thicker strips and pieces of using “normal” kale. Now you just toss the kale in the dressing and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the wakame by soaking it in water for 5 minutes. Use a lot of water. These bastages expand a lot. Strain. You may even want to squeeze them out a little bit. Cut them into thin strips (in piles…unless you have like 6 thousand years to spare).

Once the kale is done marinating, toss into serving bowls/plates/bowl-plates. Pile wakame in the center of each bowl. Place sprouts around the edges and sprinkle on the cucumbers and almond slivers. For added deliciosity, douse lightly with soy sauce and fresh ground black pepper.

Become calm once again. Revert to human form.

A few nights ago, we had a Mediterranean feast.

We had a falafel plate with toasted pita and hummus

and fattoush

The hummus turned out great. The fattoush was okay–the Mediterranean place down the street makes a better one, though. I’m not sure about using mint in the dressing. The falafel was total blandyland. We baked it instead of frying it, which maybe explains a little, but in general, it didn’t have any kick to it like a good falafel does. Also, it wasn’t very firm. Has anyone had any luck with homemade baked falafel?