Now mere days away from my half-way point of 100 Days Homemade, some realizations have become glaringly obvious:
- Mixology matters.
- My girlfriend really likes soup.
- Life is possible without a microwave.
- One can incorporate a LOT of lentils into their life.
- There is a seemingly never-ending supply of rice in my apartment.
- With a bigger focus on budgeting, I’ve lost a lot of my normal excitement for dining out.
- Equally worth note: my apartment surprisingly has a cooling unit while many Portland restaurants do not.
- I’m having a grand old-time and looking forward to VeganMoFo with a renewed, thematically-inclined enthusiasm.
With that, a look back, and a new-found appreciation for lentil soup.
Day Twenty-Eight, AM: Fresh peach & soymilk smoothies for breakfast
Day Twenty-Eight: Ctate’s Queso
Day Twenty-Eight, PM: Baked black-eyed pea burgers with queso, lettuce, tomato & avocado. Paired with tortilla chips and sesame green and yellow beans.
Life’s been about black-eyed peas, lentils, chickpeas, more lentils, and berries.
Weekend Berry Picking on Sauvie Island with my crew
Most summers, I try to make it berry picking on Sauvie Island at least once. Yes, it’s local, fresh and fun (and tasty), but most importantly, I’m telling you – it’s a therapeutic experience. This time, we were able to pick raspberries and blackberries, in addition to buying early blueberries from the farm, and I have three things in mind: 1) pie 2) pancakes and 3) liquor. That was possibly in order of importance.
Day Twenty-Nine: Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes, with the recipe from Vegan Cooking for Carnivores making it into my rotation.
Next up, a duo.
Day Twenty-Nine, PM: Vietnamese Bún with peanut curry sauce for me, and Hot & Sour soup with tofu and bamboo shoots for J. Legume.
The Bún had pan-fried lemongrass tofu, carrots and broccolini with sliced cucumber, cold vermicelli noodles and Thai basil. The peanut sauce, an Isa Does It tester, has been making an appearance in many meals lately. For me, a bún is one of those dishes that you kick yourself for forgetting about making for months and months. This was also my very first time making hot & sour soup, and I never realized it was SO EASY and that I had access to non-canned bamboo shoots. Thank you, Fubonn.
Day Thirty: VEGGIE GRILL BREAK #ACorDIEpdx
J. Legume is trying to get her Veggie Grillhabit down to no more than once a week. I can’t say I’m helping. I can say that I’ve found that subbing tempeh for chickin’ in burgers is my new favorite order.
Speaking of my lovely girlfriend…
Day Thirty, the J. Legume plate: mashed Yukons with roasted garlic, sauteed broccoli with General Tso’s sauce and simple brown lentils. The sauce recipe is from World Vegan Feast by Bryanna Clark Grogan and it’s just great.
Finally, we return to the important business of homemade liquors.
Day Thirty-One: The first steps for eventual blackberry brandy, cherry brandy, cherry cranberry liqueur and lemongrass mint liqueur.
About that…
In many traditional recipes, the sugar soaks through the fruit for 24 hours, the liquid is added, and you have two months to plan your cocktail party. All the fruit used above, with the exception of the lemongrass and cranberries (to add a tart element when not using sour cherries), is from my local farmers markets. Lemongrass can be found occasionally, but not any regular or reliable basis. Lemongrass in my fridge is another story.
Day Thirty-One: Lentil-roni topped with fresh basil, from the Isa Does It test kitchen
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Day Thirty-Two: Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes with our u-picked raspberries, another Isa Does It tester
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Day Thirty-Three: Pickled Thai Green Chilies – Heartichoke benefit prep
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Day Thirty-Three: Wannabe Kao Soi Curry Noodle Soup with fresh Thai basil
I crave Chiang Mai’s famous dish on a regular basis. This was the first time I’d attempted to recreate it – barring some changes – since I’d spent some time in Thailand over the winter. This was also the first time I’ve made it with wheat noodles vs. the rice noodles that are subbed for vegans. I’ve decided that I do prefer the silky rice noodles – which Pok Pok also does in town, but it comes no where close to the memory of Aum’s mushroom broth version. Sigh.
Day Thirty-Four: Brown Sugar & Chili Oil Roasted Red Peanuts – more Heartichoke prep work
The photo of the beet burger below makes me so damn relieved that I finally chose a new camera.
Day Thirty-Four, PM: Quarter Pounder Beet Burgers (from the PPK blog) with Red Hot tempeh bacon, chips and fixings
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Day Thirty-Four: Silken tofu chocolate pudding sinkholes
And then, this happened:
Day Thirty-Five: Heartichoke Vegan Supper Club’s Thai-inspired Benefit Evening
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Day Thirty-Six: Spicy sun-dried tomato & herb lentil seitan sausages, pre-steam. A nice afternoon project.
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Day Thirty-Six: Buffalo fried tofu burgers & tots
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Day Thirty-Seven: Cast iron pizza with homemade dough, marinara, Follow Your Heart mozzarella, yellow & red grape tomatoes, lentil seitan sausage crumbles and fresh basil.
This pizza was possibly the best part of 100 Days so far.
Day Thirty-Eight: Old-fashioned Chelsea waffles with fresh blueberries
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Day Thirty-Eight: Heartichoke green curry leftover incorporation time! Namprik green curry sauce, roasted root vegetables, rice & crushed peanuts
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Day Thirty-Nine: Korean Quick Pickles. Sometimes I make these with agave, sometimes with sugar. Always with garlic and a half white vinegar/half rice vinegar combination.
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Day Thirty-Nine: Rigatoni with marinara, pan-fried lentil sausage crumbles, side salads & really, really herbed breadsticks
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Day Forty: The start of sangria with blackberries, pluots, doughnut peaches and cherries
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Day Forty, PM: Mustard and sherry soaked, pesto-stuffed, grilled tofu with roasted tomatoes & garlic, sauteed chard and rice (I have a lot of rice around, okay?)
Goodness.
Day Forty-One: Spicy Syrian Lentil Stew from Bean by Bean, my current cookbook-devotion from the library.
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Day Forty-Two: Simplified ‘Smlove Pie (without the toppings)
Phew.
Curious about the current state of events? Follow along on my Instagram with the 100 Days Homemade tag.
51 days remain! A new camera has arrived! Pickles are trending!
I really love love this project. So inspiring.
You are so rocking this theme! And a new camera?!?!?
I’ve been obsessively jamming/pickling/canning. And loving every minute of it. I need to try liquor!
Oh. nice. The homemade liqueurs are especially exciting. Awesome
what delicious eats! and oh my gosh i am totally doing that with the liquor! AMAZING!!!
The pizza looks delicious. How I miss homemade wheat crust.
Love that post. You seem to eat something exciting and different everyday.