On Cooking

First, I seriously am on the verge of a heart attack because I’m so excited about this:

Opening two blocks from my house!!!!! Opening this Thursday!!!! I feel tears coming on right now. I went vegetarian when I was 14, which was, wow, a long time ago. At that age, Bread and Circus came into my life – which was the most amazing upscale veggie-friendly grocery store in Boston/MA (where I grew up). When I went to college (in Boston) I worked there and then it was bought by WF and I've hearted them ever since.

Second, I just want to say that I have cooked two times in the last month and both meals have come from Veggie Meal Plans, which is one of my new favorite things ever.

I frankly have a lot to learn and realize that I’m so underdeveloped in the cooking area that you will find humor in my commentary.

Dinner #1: Pineapple-Chipotle Glazed Tofu, Grilled Asparagus, Jasmine Rice

Rundown

Great – pretty easy except that I cooked the glaze too quickly. The tofu was great although it could have been cooked a bit more – I can’t seem to brown tofu all that well – it just seems to hang out and not cook. Can anyone at all help me with this?

Burned the asparagus. Pre-cooking I emailed my friend Lucy and asked her for advice on cooking asparagus. She said either broil it or use an asparagus cooker. You think I have an asparagus cooker? Nein. I opted for broiling but didn’t know that this doesn’t require a whole lot of time.

Dinner #2 – Spelt Linguine with White Beans and Vegetables

Rundown

This was awesome – a lot of moving parts (a lot of ingredients) but worked out great and lasted several days.

I didn’t realize that you could steam without a steamer (pause for laughter) – I had to call my mom after reading: “heat veggie broth and garlic in a sauce pot. Add cooked beans, broccoli and asparagus. Cover and allow vegetables to steam until they are barely tender”. This seriously almost threw me over the edge. Anyway – mom told me putting the lid on would steam it just fine. A few notes:

- This was my first time using broth.
- Didn’t need all that garlic – it was a little too much
- I used whole wheat spaghetti – this was in our cupboard and given that we cook twice a year – I knew I should use it up. Point is that I think this could have used a thicker/”meatier” pasta to suck everything up.

Conclusion

It was super fun and I’m ready for more. I will do a resolution round up (and it has to be before mid-2007) but I am committing, right now, that I will cook at least 18 times before 2007 is over.

“18?”, you ask. Well, it is basically equivelant to once every 2 weeks, but since that’s too much commitment, I’ll just say 9 months x 2 times/month = 18. Worse case scenario, if things don’t go well I’ll just cook soup for 2 ½ weeks straight in December.