Adventures in Mock Meat: Part One Addendum

So the seitan is simmering away. The process of making it wasn't difficult, though I added a lot of extra gluten flour, maybe as much as 3/4 cup, just to be able to knead it without it sticking to my hands like crazy. The kneading was fun, though - a little easier than bread dough, maybe because of how little there was to knead.

So I used some Kosher pareve chicken-style bouillon powder, a bit of Italian Herb blend, and a tiny bit of cumin in the seitan itself, along with some chicken broth made of the cubey version of the same stuff, with one packet of light soy sauce. (n.b. I've decided never to buy soy sauce. Restaurants just throw it at you, and I can't think of a recipe where I need more than a few tablespoons at a time. Frugality!)

DBF is up and about, but just up enough to be playing Fable (one of my favorite video games to which to listen, because of the awful/awesome accents and fairy-tale tropes in it). So I continue with kitchen adventures. Making mashed potatoes for Vegetarian Bangers and Mash, using 'Kielbasa' and a Vegetarian Gravy recipe I found on allrecipes.

Adventures in Mock Meat: Part One

In researching that VegeUSA stuff, I've been led to believe that I may be able to make something comparable at home with stuff that cost me . . . let's see . . . maybe $3.

Apparently, seitan has been around for ages, and is meaty enough that some vegetarians think it's gross and won't eat it. Bingo! It even holds its shape well enough to be used in stews and things, provided you add it near the end. Can do! It soaks up flavors as well as tofu, and can be shaped however you like. Awesome.

So I have everything I need, though I'm using faux-meat boullion for the flavoring, rather than garlic and ginger, which is traditional, for Chinese cuisine anyway. I'm going to try two recipes, and see which suits my idea of what a meatlike stuff should be.

The first is from about.com, by Jolinda Hackett. It gets bonus points for pictures, and will be my first attempt at seitan-making.

The second is from the Vegetarian Resource Group, by Jill Nussinow.

Either way, I'm being vewwy, vewwy quiet, as poor, sick DBF is sleeping on the rocking loveseat my grandmother gave me, which made the long trek south. I have Django Reinhardt on the iPod, and intend to start making faux-chicken this instant, as soon as I wash the cat off my hands.

Incidentally, I'm pleasantly surprised that my allergies have been reasonably mellow, considering that I'm living with a cat who is definitely not short-hair. I only pop the antihistamines twice a day or so, less if I'm not in the apartment much. Hooray!

Hail Seitan!


(If you don't get this, check this out.)

NPC for you and me

So, I've managed to populate Greendale. The Freehold consists of just under thirty changelings, and the surrounding town's named, designed inhabitants is floating around twenty, with more to come once I figure out some geneology. I know perfectly well that my players will help inspire me to come up with more, and their machinations will requite a whole host of people to deal with them, and to be acted upon. But this is a good start.

Apartment: The Greening

. . . yeah. I read too much World of Darkness stuff, and am a huge geek to boot. (Please don't boot the geek! I'm really rather nice!) So the Noun: the Gerunding form is familiar, and promises hours upon hours of fun, either running or playing a game, simply reading the book, and in the case of some lines, mocking it mercilessly (Promethean: the Mocking).

So as you drive into California, there is a place where you have to stop and inform the nice gentlemen that you are not, in fact, a desperado verde, smuggling foreign plants, soil, insects, parasites, and diseases into the Golden State. "Yes, we have no bananas", you sing in your head, so as not to annoy the poor man, who is, after all, just doing his job, with something he no doubt gets all the time, to the point where it's in no way funny anymore. As such, I will not be bringing my houseplants with me, and since there is no native vegetation already in existence in the apartment, I'll have to step up and remedy the fact. Enter the Greening.



Preliminary research indicates that I may be capable of keeping orchids, and definately have the skills (and hopefully, the patience) for herbal topiary, forming lavender and rosemary into miniature orangeries, rocking the Versailles look.



No, not that one. This one. (Though I dig the quill pen accessory. Very Bas Bleu Barbie of la Princesse de Lamballe, I think.)



Though now I come to think of it, what's the point of living in California if one can't grow one's own Meyer lemons? Or limes?



I think the phrase "Whoa, there!" may be appropriate. Before I turn the place into a jungle. The cat would like it, as would the other beast, but humankind was not meant to live in a knee-high rainforest. It would be like a Lilliputian Amazon, dense undergrowth at the feet, then mostly clear until the canopy hits your lower thigh. Hm. Yes. Best to not.

Oh, yeah.

Bacon Salt is kosher. Watch out, soups.

T minus

So it's getting to be that time - countdown. Most of the "real" packing is done, and now it just comes down to picking up the truck and filling it, then driving away. So now it's all those last-minute things - the pastry cutter. Throwing out most of my old cosmetics and nail polishes. Taking things off the walls and ceiling (paintings, prints, and lamp, respectively). Picking up prescription refills. Doing all the last-minute laundry. Trying to calm down enough to sit still at work.

Lapsang Souchong

I'll admit it. I don't 'get' lapsang souchong. It's a wood-fired black tea, sometimes known as the "Tea of Mystery". Because it's smoky, like the eyeshadow of femmes fatales, like the bars and offices in Noir movies, like Billie Holliday's voice. Problem is, as far as I'm concerned, it tasted oddly like steeped beef jerky. Now I loved beef jerky, but the lack of any kosher stuff has made me not have any for the last few years, but that doesn't mean I want to drink a hot cup of it.

But I found the most amazing idea - brewing up a really strong few cups and pouring it into baked beans, chili, autumnal soups . . . someplace where that liquid smoke actually makes sense - someplace where it belongs. So, anon, when I'm hungry and cold (it'll be a while) and feel like making baked beans, I won't bother with trying to go buy 'liquid smoke'. I'll make my pot of smoky-sweet, slightly peppery beans with lapsang souchong and some bacon salt, and serve them up with cornbread or biscuits. And the apartment will smell like a campfire the rest of the night.

Veggie Research

No, this isn't exactly turning into a cooking blog. It's not much of a blog at all at this point. But it is what I'm thinking recently, when not preparing horrors beyond the ken of man for the Changeling campaigns I'll be running and cackling with glee over how clever some of the things I wrote in high school were (you find lots of stuff, cleaning out your closet for a big move).

I am so excited about a near-daily Farmers Market in Sacramento. In Boise, there's Saturday morning. Which *is* Shabbat, and even if I wasn't exactly in attendance for Shabbat services, going and buying stuff is a little bit out of my comfort zone, unless I'm travelling (which is, incidentally, another no-no, but what's to be done?), and then everything just sort of flies out the window. But this thing? Happens every day. Well, almost. But still! I am looking forward with great virulence (vigilance? violence? vigor?)to being able to go buy organic, locally grown stuff like figs, squash, herbs, fruits . . . Mmmm.

So I'll need to find/make recipes featuring fresh veggies, herbs I've never used before, interesting local cheeses, etc. And still be able to afford it, rather than bankrupt myself on the delightful sybian shores of Epicurianism.

Emerald City Confidential

Apparently Lucas Arts brought out a game in which the player is a hardboiled Private Eye in Emerald City, and takes a case from a strange dame, name of Dee Gale. I've never been that big a fan of Oz, but I love Noir, and especially Noir parodies (I watched Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid again the other day - genius. And Lucas Arts' Adventure games, especially the point-and-click kinds, are my most favorite thing ever (Grim Fandango, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Curse of Monkey Island), at least on computers.

Recipes for a Kosher Chick and Veggie Guy

I've been living more-or-less vegetarian for a while. Milchig and pareve, anyway. I decided a while ago to skip non-kosher meat from now on, knowing well that that pretty much rules out meat on most occasions, it being some expensive stuff to get in the wilds of Boise, idaho. Now I'm moving to California, where there are . . . more Jews than Idaho, I've been led to understand. There are even a few kosher options (apart from Hebrew nationals!) at Trader Joe's. It's still spendy, though.

And I'm moving in with a gorgeous vegetarian, so nix the idea of buying any of this kosher meat, because what's the fun of cooking for yourself? I've been looking up veggie recipes and writing down family classics that could be easily altered. But now, glory hallelujah: www.vegeusa.com.

First found out about this at Mai Thai, where we ate Smoked Duck that had never seen a feather, and chicken curry that had never been an contentious jerkface of a semidomesticated jungle pheasant. I'm looking into how much this stuff costs- because then, all of a sudden, so many more options open up.

Chicken with Weeds
Turkey on Toast
Shepherds' Pie
Fish Pie
Meatballs and Gravy
Pot Roast
Cholent
Maybe some sort of Chicken-alfredo Flammekuche

Hmmmmmmm.

Making a move

I like to make things. I like to sew fabric into tubes that go around my body, I like to make yarn into appendage-cozies, dice-cozies, neck-cozies . . . I like to make water and dried leaves into a delicious beverage, milled wheat into delicious cakes and muffins, dried legumes into delicious curries, and an unmade bed into a made bed. I like making my muscles harder/better/faster/stronger. I like making numbers on paper and some oddly-shaped dice into a whole fictional person. I like to make myself into different people with clothes and makeup. Occasionally, I even like making a sinkful of foodstained crockery into clean dishes.

Making a move, though? Oy. Maybe it's the nature of packing. Making all the things I've made and will make into . . . boxes of stuff. That's a devolution, I'd say, since, if anything, I want to make boxes of stuff into all the accoutrements of my fabulous life. I want to decorate, fill, feed, entertain, create, write, MAKE. Seeing my fabulous life in those boxes is disappointing. Not that I forget who I am with my things not immediately visible. Pas de tout! I just . . . kind of want to paint the boxes.

Eshet Chayil, or "A Woman of Valor", is the last bit of the Book of Proverbs, which is written by Solomon himself, so his legend tells. Though apparently the Aggadic Midrashim say it's Abraham's eulogy about Sarah Imeinu. Either way, it's become the thing for a husband to recite this to his wife at the end of the week, to thank her for all the thankless schlepping she's done all week. Which is nice.

Now I'm definitely not saying I'm the poster girl for this thing. I'd rather not rise in the middle of the night to begin my work, I'm rather partial to the bread of idleness, (with some cinnamon and sugar over a cup of tea, or with obscure cheese and red wine, yum!) and I'm not the perfect beam of womanly labour described. I imagine Sarah Imeinu could pack up the open-on-four-sides tent of Abraham, move it, wash and wax the camels (now I'm picturing a camel lying on a table in a spa, with the poor aesthetician looking at it in terror, holding the wax strips- Ha!), set it all back up, have cholent on the fire, bread coming out of the oven, homebrewed beer poured, and guests received without a kvetch. Then again, as the mother of the Jewish people, I expect more of her, and no doubt she managed a few pointed remarks (or at least pointed looks) to Abraham, Eliezer, and Hagar about the division of labor, even if she knew it would never be done as well if they did it. (Love you, Virgo Mom!)

But I seek wool and flax (though I'd say my weakness for yarn stores is not quite what was meant by that), make my arms strong (like ox!), and I smile at the future. I smile a lot. I guess it's worth the packing, my own failings, and seeing those boxes, and the mess surrounding them as more boxes are spawned from the wreckage, knowing that I'm going to be off, heading to a new fabulous life, and I can decorate Sacramento, or at least my corner of it, when I get there.