Does"cooking up an idea" count?

Rather than actually cook this week, we did some eating out as we were on the go running errands most of our two precious days off (and struggling through the kind of clean you do right before someone you don't know comes to stay the weekend). This last week however, we weren't in the slightest bit adventurous or even a little curious. We ate the same things we always eat, from the same places we eat them from. Throw in one new salad, and one added pizza topping, and we've been here before. I did have someones homemade tiramisu last night, and it was awesome. Its also one of those things I would never make for us at home, so a nice treat. NOT a nice treat: I just found out about the horrible death sauce that they call "butter topping" at the theater!?!?! The extra stuff you put on yourself by the extra salt? It looks like liquid msg, and the work of the devil. 

Ah well, I did manage to catch some food network before work yesterday.....its counts as food stimulation. Which is something Ive totally now just made up. Its like, when you cant eat interestingly....you can watch other people cook interestingly....and...then, because of the....right? It counts!! 

Besides, I am too busy cleaning the outside of the backs of all my drawers in case one falls out by accident when our guests are here. And making sure none of our books smell funny or anything. The shame. 

Also, lets all be friends and share....we need a logo made. Know someone who might want to do something like that? Email me at:  vicariousvegatarian@gmail.com, or post the link in the comments, or on twitter. 

SPRING!!!

Its the first day of spring officially!! Its been a lovely week as you all well know, we didn't need jackets to go to the park, its been sunny and I'm walking to work again.

We have gardening on the brain!  We are fortunate enough to have, in our rented paradise, a large backyard. Which is ours to do what we will with, so last year we used the existing vegetable bed to try our very rookie hand at a vegetable garden and had, very surprisingly,  more win than fail. Even with the barrage of heat waves, our little garden managed to produce way more tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers than we could eat. We knew nothing of yield, and were taught a lesson when we were harvesting somewhere around 100 cherry tomatoes a day. I have very itchy green thumbs right now, with plans to expand the garden out a few more feet, throw in a separate herb garden, add some berry bushes and fill the space formerly zucchini (menace) occupied space with new and exciting....i don't know what yet, but lord knows i will never make the mistake of thinking that one couple needs 4 zucchini plants. Onions and potatoes?  Artichokes?

Hopefully we can grow enough produce at home, that we wont have to buy any all summer. Planning the backyard oasis to get me through that last long day of work before our weekend starts...

Cooking tomorrow(yay!), maybe we can prematurely break out the bbq for lunch!

We've been working. 

Not cooking, not shopping, eating at work(which anyone who works in the industry will agree, gets old and boring after the first 6 months and is usually a last resort),  and picking up subway/burritos because they're cheap and in between the cab and the back door of work. Also, the weather sucks, and I don't want to go out in it to shop. There is nothing more frustrating than walking around shopping bag laden, in the rain, through the sea of brown slush that the city becomes in the winter. Its depressing, uninspiring and I want no part of it. 

But the clocks go ahead to give us that precious extra hour of sunshine we need desperately, and I have a plan...

I want to challenge my skills, and the palates of my carnivorous friends. I want to make meatless comfort food, and I want them to like it. I'm talking Shepard's pie, meatloaf, tortiere. GRAVY. Plus, we like any excuse for a dinner party. Winter comfort food feast-fest. Sayonara snow. 

Busy, busy, busy...

Usually, we get to cook a lot. These last few weeks ave been busier with a business opportunity, and have prevented us from doing so. However, we have eaten out more, and tried to go to all new places. All vegetarian, apart from the chicken tikka masala i ordered trying to be a good sport, also trying to forget that I very rarely like Indian food (The place I wanted to go to was closed, and Kensington doesn't offer you many Monday night dinner options once the sun goes down). We've been trying to hit a lot of the t.o vegetarian spots, for a few reasons; we like to support, we like to have options, and learning is fun. (Geek, yes, but proud.)

Last night we ate cheese, cheese and more cheese. For dinner. And I've decided we need a better system for remembering what in the hell the names of the bloody things are by the time I get home. We have a great system for buying it: we ask for recommendations of a hard, a soft and a weird. Then we taste, and more than likely take them up on their suggestions. The plan has holes which let the names of some of these wonderful cheesy delights slip right through into the abyss from whence they came. Forever. We can never recall, in our excited walk home, with dancing remains of the samples we just had teasing us every block we shave off, what the blasted names were. A cheese journal? A sharpie at the ready to label the wedges prior to exiting the gate of cheese heaven? 

We often indulge in mass amounts of cheese, olives, dips, breads and wine as a dinner. It works for us both. Sometimes, when you're cooking for a vegetarian.....its nicer to spend the time not cooking, and trying desperately instead to remember what it is you're eating. :)'

Do these pants come in cranky?

I work weekends. And I HATE Saturdays. So you wont get too many adventures in the kitchen out of me in between bartending shifts.

I do my best to be ambitious and rise at an hour the rest of the world would find satisfactory, I really do. Its just that I don't know if any one else is noticing this, but.....getting old sucks. I am no longer at an age where 4 hours of sleep still allows me to look human and function on anything other than a base level. So, I need sleep. But once a week or so, I wake up truly refreshed and feel like making breakfast. Last week it was smoky paprika homefries, eggs with leek and artichoke hash, toast, brand new coffee. We cant get through a meal without some sort of cheese, and tomatoes, so they are always a given, even if they're just thrown on the side of the plate as is.

Todays brunch activities involve trying to feed both of us for the very long night ahead (Saturdays are a marathon for both of us), celebrating the dogs birthday (laugh, go ahead),  working on the business (all the time), and trying to come up with something to do with the blasted semi-soft tofu thats been in the fridge. To the Internet!

Its rainy and gray, Irish Breakfast tea is going down good, theres a friend a miss and want to catch up with, so I think Ill just wait to send the boys to get supplies while I sit in the warm glow of the  food network and languidly complain about being sore and tired.

Hand me those prunes over there.  NO, to the LEFT of the knitting needles, UNDER the afghan....

The point is...

...that it is hard to cook and shop for a vegetarian, specifically when you enjoy cooking.  I could slap together a couple of tofurkey sandwiches while I'm slaving over the completion of some meaty creation, but it doesn't seem fair does it? Also, I subconsciously stopped bringing meat into the house months ago.

But how many eggplant lasagne's can we eat? How much zucchini can you grill? How many ways are there to roast various veggies? Tons, I know.  Were on the brink of exhausting all the ideas....and I really want meatloaf, or Shepherds Pie. But that is the point....so does he. Just without the meat. And I want it without the crappy fake meat taste.  The quest continues...



By the way, did TVP/ground round burgers the other night.  Ended up like sloppy joe's. Form fail, taste win. We've tried to do TVP meatballs before and they worked sans ground round, so next time, I think thats the way to go...suggestions are welcome....

I date a vegetarian. I, am not.

He does not cook, I do. This poses problems when you had decided tofu was disgusting years ago, and you have never heard of tempeh, or seitan, or any other alternatives to meat that I might be able to construct an acceptable meal out of. 


Tofu? Not that bad. Now that I'm not scared of it.Still cant cook it, but ill keep trudging along until the territory is no longer unfamiliar. Because, eating meat makes me feel guilty. I'm by no means any sort of environmental crusader, but the older I get, the more I realize how important it is to be better to our planet. Plus, there have been little clues all along. Eating meat off the bone freaks me out, chicken wings remind me that my delicious pile of saucy snacks was a number of chickens who came from bad homes. Ribs have me visualizing the part of Porky they came from. Liver is called liver, kidneys called kidneys, hearts called hearts. I happen to possess all of these organs, so they're off the menu as well.


And yet......STEAK. Tacos. Burgers. Spaghetti Bolognese....I'm not ready yet!


So, here is my effort to document warts and all, our culinary adventure into making meatless meat dishes that taste like meat, in an effort to fill our lives with guilt free alternatives. 


**For my friends....don't think I've gone completely off my rocker and become all healthy and granola...we still use salt ,butter and sugar, and cheese (lots of cheese!) and all the things that make life bearable.**