Curry patch for pasta sauce v.1.01

I hate pasta. Love noodles, hate pasta. I always saw it as emergency food; nothing else is left, not even the money to buy some bread - dig up the pasta in far and high cupboard. However, there is something worse, a true gastronomic nightmare. Pasta sauce. Aside from diced canned tomatoes, mushy overcooked onions, soggy peppers, it's the sour-ey liquid in which it all floats. While nothing can rectify the state of the veggies, there is an easy way to bring the whole mixture to the level above edible, at least where taste is concerned.

Note: I don't measure out spices, so all quantities are guesstimations; feel free to use your intuition.

Curry patch (v.1.01)
Ingredients:
- 1 cup nasty sauce
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1-2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- few drops hot chili oil (optional, can use cayenne, tabasco or anything else spicy)
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
- 1 tsp curry powder *
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 tsp oregano **
- pinch of salt (optional, adjust to taste)
- dash black pepper

* the amount of curry is directly proportional to how much you like Indian food, but if it exceeds 2 teaspoons you risk not to taste anything else.
** to let you in on a little secret - I'm not even sure it was oregano. My spices are not labelled, so when I cook I just smell them and use what feels right.

Making:
- saute garlic and ginger in olive oil for a minute or two on medium heat (optional)
- mix all ingredients together
- heat in a saucepan on medium-low, stirring occasionally

Breakfast of Champions

Not quite as literary intricate as Kurt Vonnegut's novel, but certainly more tasty than Kilgore Trout's finger, oatmeal! Dubbed the champion breakfast by a friend of mine upon hearing the account of it from another friend. This is not a rushed breakfast, since presentation plays just as much of a role as the food itself here. I have a couple of variations of it, one with oatmeal, one with cereals. The oatmeal is a bit time consuming, but unbeatable in cold weather, and leaves you time to make coffee in the process. Depending on your stove and kind of oatmeal you are using (assuming you are above the instant kind), it should take about 20-30 minutes in total, and here is how...

Version 1. Oatmeal
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup dry oatmeal (I used steel cut variety)
- 1 1/2 - 2 cups milk (soy, almond, preferably not rice - it's too watery)
- 1/2 teaspoon nutritional yeast flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 cup dry goji berries
- 1/2 apple, cubed into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1/3 cup nuts (i use walnuts and hazelnuts, but nothing prevents other kinds)
- 1 - 2 teaspoons honey, maple syrup, agave nectar (whatever floats your boat, can even skip it)
- any fresh fruit you like (my usual are bananas, kiwis and apples)

Making (note: for steel cut oats. rolled oats take less time to cook, I believe)
- bring milk to a boil, stir in oatmeal and cinnamon and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until soft (really depends on your stove here)
- while the oatmeal is cooking, cut up the remaining fruits and arrange in a pretty pattern on a plate. use the remaining time to make coffee ;)
- when oatmeal is about cooked (or even when completely ready), add nutritional yeast and goji berries, apple cubes and nuts
- add the sweet stuff (if you are using honey, especially unpasteurized, let the oatmeal cool a bit, ideally to 60 C) and eat!


The cereal version stems from my love for dry cereals and dislike for mushy ones. I used to just eat them from the box, dreading the moment when some internal voice would tell me to stop the massacre and do it the proper way (mainly because it was so dry and body requiring liquid would tempt the brain with the images of glasses of cold milk). This legitimizing cereal approach solves this dilemma - cereals are dry, and the whole thing is pretty damn healthy...

Version 2: Unorthodox cereals
Ingredients:
- 1/3 bowl of granola cereals
- 1/3 bowl of muesli cereals
- nuts, dry berries, raisins (anything goes here, really. I use the above-mentioned goji berries, walnuts and hazelnuts)
- fresh fruit (anything, but if they are not mushy they can go in the cereals)
- 4 - 5 teaspoons unpasteurized honey (here it's kind of the key ingredient, so not sure if it would work with other stuff)
- glass of milk

Making:
- Mix both cereals, nuts, dry berries and fruits (alternative A) in a bowl
- Arrange the remaining fruits in a pretty pattern on a plate (alternative B)
- pour 1 - 2 teaspoons of honey on top, mix as well as you can without destroying the fruits. I usually add more honey half way through the bowl, since it tends to stick to the top layers and not make it all the way down.
- sip the milk as needed, since the mixture its pretty dry and crunchy (the whole fun of it!)

Lingonberry jam!

Most definitely vegan; during my vegetarian days, smearing lingonberry jam on cream cheese, which in turn was smeared on toast was a nearly religious experience. Well, not the smearing itself, but the consumption of the said mixture. Despite vegan cream cheese being just meeeh, but lingon jam is still awesome, in its most traditional form - on toast or even toast with margarine. A random strike of inspiration today: adding lingo jam to corn flakes.

Recipe:
3/4 bowl of corn flakes
4 teaspoons (pretty much to taste) of lingo jam
rice milk to fill the remaining space

mix and eat!!!

Oh, and where to get the lingonberry jam? IKEA!

Inulin and maltitol

A post about something positive for once; I saw both of them on a wrapper of some chocolate, and did not buy it, because it I didn't know what they are. Both are plant-based, here's what the quick research yielded.

Maltitol is a sugar alcohol, a sweetener. Safe, although consumption of over 100  g/day (hundred grams!) can have laxative effect.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltitol

Inulin is much more interesting. It is also a sweetener, albeit much less potent (up to 10% of sweetness of sugar). It is found in "good for you" foods, such as garlic and leek. It is safe for diabetics and stimulates the growth of good bacteria in the intestine (i.e. considered to be a prebiotic); it could be beneficial in managing the cholesterol and sugar blood levels. Negative effect are the possible gassiness, and in people with fructose malabsorbtion could, again, have laxative effect, if taken in excessive quantities. Do check out the article, it has more interesting information, especially if you are into chemistry.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inulin

Lazy

The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question "How can we eat?" the second by the question "Why do we eat?" and the third by the question "Where shall we have lunch?"

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Either I remember incorrectly, or the translation which I read was imperfect, but in my mind the first two questions were "is there anything to eat?" and "what can we eat?" No matter which set of questions to choose, the three phases remain the same.
'09 was not the best year, nor was it the worst. It was lazy. I slacked off on quite a few things, including updating this blog and the very subject matter, *gasp* veganism and overall greenness. While there's no real feeling of guilt, nothing is particularly rewarding either (a lie, grilled goat cheese sandwiches!). Just lazy. Twenty-ten is not much different. Constructive lazy. Drunken master of consciousness. Path of least emotional resistance. One way or another, I'm going back to veganism, and to blog updates. Lazily.
No matter the means, the whole process of going vegan reminds of the quote above. First few weeks, or even couple of months: "is there anything to eat?" After the fifteenth "nope, not that" and desperate chowing down on carrots while sitting on the kitchen floor back to the impregnable fridge, one has no choice but the get creative and enter phase two: "what can I eat?" Veganomicon is dusted, password on Vegweb is reset, and experimentation begins. The blissful stage of discovery and colonization; savages marvel at tastes-just-like-the-real-thing-or-even-better creations, although don't manifest the urge to join the new faith. The tricky part here is feeding the troops during campaigns. While there is a fair number of foraging sites, they are oftentimes away from the main routes. Master Sun Tsu taught not to burden the army with excessive supplies, but dry provisions are a must. This brings about the third question; what to do, or more accurately where to go, when dry rations run out, but that is hard to answer out of the context.
There is a couple of things that hopefully will help to get through the first phase as quickly as possible. Since last summer I was planning to try this roasted asparagus recipe, and veganizing pumpkin cream cheese muffins has recently become one of the top priorities, aaaaaand...