Monday, November 23, 2009

Cookies and stew



I've been collecting recipes like crazy — actually printing them out instead of just bookmarking them — but have been cooking very little. We've been eating out much more than usual, and that always seems to dampen my cooking urges. Unfortunately, we haven't been very happy with the restaurant food we've been sampling except for one place. We really enjoyed our brunch at Wayward Café, and tried to go there two other times without checking their hours, only to find it closed. You'd think all these unpleasant restaurant experiences would inspire me to cook more, but it's not happening. Maybe I'm saving my food-cooking energy for Thanksgiving, or maybe I'm just in a rut.

Last night there was nothing planned for dinner when our son and daughter-in-law extended a last minute invitation to come to their house.



Our d-i-l was making Buckwheat Stew With Tofu and Kale from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," which they had just borrowed from the library along with "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar," by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romaro. She didn't have the right kind of buckwheat so she made the stew with farrow, instead, and it was absolutely delicious — rich and satisfying. The white things that look like potato pieces are actually whole cloves of stewed garlic — soft, fragrant, and tasting like it was roasted in the oven. Kale is one of my favorite vegetables, and this recipe really showcased its winning qualities. I wish I had some right now.

For dessert we had Peanut butter oatmeal cookies from the above mentioned cookie-invasion cookbook. These were some of the best peanut butter cookies I've tasted, with excellent texture and crunch. I think I ate four. Tsk.

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Animal, Vegetable, Miserable
by Gary Steiner

Have you seen this Op-Ed piece in the Sunday NY Times? It's pretty unusual to see such a blatantly unapologetic essay on the moral wrongness of killing animals for human needs, in the mainstream press. Take a look.

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Have a HAPPY and HEALTHY THANKSGIVING!