your goose is probably only half-baked at this point

Funny story for you. Thursday, we ran out of fresh salad greens, so we popped by the grocery and picked up two big tubs of greens.  Saturday, our farm share portion arrived, containing a smaller-but-still-substantial tub of fresh greens, and a smaller-but-spicier tub of microgreens. Sunday, I drove my partner to the airport so he could go see his grandfather, who had had a stroke and was in need of family to keep him distracted from hating his physical therapist. Which meant that I was facing a week alone with what measured out to approximately one (1) metric fuck-tonne of fresh greens.  Like, enough that it would be PLENTY for two people. I am one people.  You may see where this would cause concern. Except not for me!  I've totally  got this.  "I'll just eat salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the whole week you're gone!" I announced to my partner, who looked at me like that was the worst thing he could imagine.  "Either I'll be the healt...

This coming November will be my third Thanksgiving as a vegetarian, but because we celebrate two Thanksgivings every year, one for just us and one with extended family, this year will technically be my fifth and sixth vegetarian Thanksgivings, and where the joke here should be "not that I'm counting," don't be confused, I am totally  counting, because it's been a long road getting here.  The trouble is always finding a suitable main dish to go with all of the tasty sides, something that's the perfect balance of bland and flavorful you get with a turkey or a roasted chicken.  I hadn't until today, but now I've got it and it's July and I'm actually looking forward to Thanksgiving now, will wonders never cease. We had this for lunch today with sides of roasted okra and a mix of cranberries and mandarin oranges, and it was delightful.  For Thanksgiving proper, it'll be served with Thanksgiving Dumplings , some Mos Eisley Roasted Vegetables , ...

I have a VIVID childhood memory of stopping somewhere between my grandparents' home in West Virginia and my home in Ohio to eat lunch at a Burger King that had a wall painted dark blue with stars and moons on it and a white quarter-fed pony ride indoors, near that wall.  I don't know if it's real or if I dreamt it, but I suspect the former because I also  have a distinct memory of eating a burger there that was burnt and dry and just really not all that great, and you'd not think that would feature in a dream about a magical Burger King.  Or at least I wouldn't. Anyway, that's kind of where I feel my relationship to burgers started, and started going downhill.  I'm just not really a fan of the things, for all that I get a bee in my bonnet every few years and decide I want to make them.  I've posted turkey burgers , blue cheese turkey burgers , and chickpea burgers over the last decade, and where the latter two in that list are legitimately good, they...

Either you get the reference in the title or you're in need of a few days' vacation to watch Seirei no Moribito/Guardian of the Sacred Spirit . Easily the best anime I've ever watched, and I rewatch it about once a year. Goes great with a beer and this soup, I'll tell you, though you could plop me down in front of it with a cup of lukewarm Natty Lite and a stack of stale saltines and I'd probably not complain. This is an adaptation of one of the first meals I ever learnt to cook, made vegetarian because that's how I roll these days, and boy-howdy is it good. Comfort food to the maximum, highly recommended. Tanda's Wild Root Vegetable Stew Ingredients 2 tbsp olive oil 1 lb sliced portobello mushrooms, sliced and rinsed 1 medium yellow onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, minced 4 carrots, scrubbed and cut into 1/2" coins 3 stalks celery, chopped 3 medium red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 3/4-1" cubes Gratuitous black pepper Shake or th...

Thanksgiving can be a tricky time for vegetarians. All the side-dishes we traditionally prepare at Thanksgiving complement the turkey, so if you're not eating any turkey, you usually get the sense that you're missing out. Well no more! These mushrooms are so good, oh my goodness. They're buttery, for all that there's no butter involved, have just the right amount of heat in them from the garlic, and if they were any easier, they'd probably be a Skywalker. I like them because I can roast them along with my  Mos Eisley Roasted Vegetables and the chicken breast I make for my partner, which means that the entire Thanksgiving dinner, aside from the dumplings and dessert, is in the oven roasting along merrily together all at once while I drink wine make the dumplings and set the table. And drink wine, because dear god is wine nice with a meal celebrating the good things in life. Kiss Me Anyway Garlic Roasted Mushrooms Ingredients - 1/4 lb sliced portobello ...

I've been accidentally making quite a lot of vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, low-fat, low/no-cholesterol dishes lately, which is interesting because a) I'm not a vegan, b) I'm not even trying  to make dishes that fit any of the above categories, and c) all of these dishes are wicked  tasty, which is not something one generally associates with vegan-gluten-free-soy-free-low-fat-nice-to-your-cholesterol cooking. I mean, I guess there wouldn't be any vegans if vegan food tasted bad or boring or whatever, but still, considering how devastatingly deep my love of cheese and eggs goes, I've been pleasantly surprised to learn that my twin vices aren't actually needed in every dish I eat. That said, whenever I take this soup to work for lunch, I find that I heat it up and expect it to be boring. Like, every single day. Even though I ate it the day before and loved it. I still  expect to dislike it the following day. I suspect this means that I am a) biased, b) indoctri...

I accidentally became a vegetarian back in May 2014, and where it's been one of the greatest accidents of my life (right up there with accidentally getting into a career in international education after accidentally getting into graduate school, which happened shortly after I accidentally married the partner I'd accidentally started dating in 2000), it hasn't been without its scant sacrifices, one of which being tatertot casserole , which was the very first dish I ever learnt to make and was one of my comfort foods before the whole no-meat thing happened. I am pleased to report that, much like meat being back on the menu for the Uruk-Hai in The Two Towers , tatertot casserole is now back on my meatless menu, and it is better than ever. I did not actually cry with the first bite of this version of the casserole, but it was a near thing. I have missed  this dish, so, so much. Related: How did I not know about mushrooms OR Star Wars until I was in my 30s? I mean, I've...

Being vegetarian at Thanksgiving is trickier than I'd thought it would be. My first Thanksgiving not eating meat, I was hungry after the big meal, which led to me pouting for a solid year. My second Thanksgiving not eating meat (this Thanksgiving), I ate so much I was actually concerned that I'd throw up after the meal because Aunt Linda recognized my plight and decided to be her usual awesome self about addressing it. One of the dishes she made for me was roasted portobello mushrooms. Now, I had never eaten a portobello mushroom before and was wary, but these things were AMAZING. They had an almost meaty flavor to them, which led me to think about turning mushrooms into a meat substitute, which led me to thinking about making a steak 'n cheese out of mushrooms, which led to quite a lot of steak 'n cheese happening in my house after we got home from visiting family. The filling is now how I like it, so it's the same if you're going to make a sub or an omelet...

Everyone I know is sick of hearing about my amazing veggie spiralizer . I'm aware of this. But I can't stop gushing over how much I love it because COME ON GUYS IT'S A THING THAT MAKES NOODLES OUT OF VEGETABLES. I can eat all those fabulous pasta dishes without getting all bloated and sick! And without boiling noodles forever in the summertime! It's F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. *cough* Anyway. So there's this place called Wagamama, and it's strange how you can go there sometimes and get a meal that's so good it makes you want to cry, then other times you go there and your meal is mediocre, at best. Complete crap-shoot. We've had more good meals there than bad, but enough bad meals there that we don't really feel  like going anymore because it's not inexpensive enough for us to gamble on getting a good meal. One of my favorite dishes at Wagamama is the chili ramen. First time I got it, I ordered chili fried squid as an appetizer, which was great, then a...

This winter - 2015 - has been an absolute pile of bullshit. We've gotten nearly 10' of snow (that's 3 meters for those of you not in the U.S.), today it happens to be 36*F and raining, and tonight it'll be 5*F and stupid. Guess what that means: ice for tomorrow's walk to and from the bus. BULLSHIT I TELL YOU. Currently, my long-suffering partner is outside hammering ice off our now-leaking porch roof. It's his turn to do this nonsense - I spent my day yesterday roof-raking 3' of snow off the top roof, then shoveling it off the kitchen roof, and attacking ice-dams with roof-melt packed into the legs of ladies' stockings. These are all things I'd never've guessed were things one could do until this year. BULLSHIT I TELL YOU. To make my partner's life suck a little bit less, I made him some delicious  green lentil soup  for lunch, and for dinner, I'm making pizza. I'm even going to fry up some chicken sausage for his half of the pizz...