Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Pumpkin Pandamonium

For Thanksgiving, my fiancée and I made a delicious pumpkin pie. I'm not going to go through how it was made, because it's baking and we just went through this recipe. It turned out beautiful though (and now we have a lifetime supply of cloves):
















One result of the pie, however, was that I now had a surplus of pumpkin and wasn't quite sure what to do about it. After a bit of brainstorming, I realized I should go back to my roots - lentils and rice - but jazz it up with some pumpkin.


Lentils with Pumpkin Coulis

















Oil
1 1/3 cups pumpkin
2/3 cups tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon cumin
salt

1/2 cups lentils
1/2 cups rice

Cover the lentils in boiling water and cook on high. Meanwhile, put the rice on.

Combine the other ingredients and cook on medium low, stirring occasionally. When the lentils are cooked, but still have some crunch, add them into the mix along with the rice.

Serves 2

The precision of the ingredients above is chimerical; as I just eyeballed everything. Still, I was very happy with how it turned out (and we had the leftover pumpkin pie for dessert).

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

The Empty Month

Due to medical reasons too boring to get into on this blog (don't worry, I'm not dying or anything) I have been put on a very... interesting diet for the month of January. I have become a walking caricature: no dairy, no soy, no gluten, no corn (might as well start crossfit while I'm at it). Also, a whole host of other non-trendy things to avoid - of particular interest to regular blog readers, no red kidney beans or lentils.

Needless to say, this is a bit of a shock. Any one of the above would be a big change, but all combined just seem a bit ridiculous. Basically all my conventional protein sources are gone, along with essentially all fake meats (But what about Daiya you say. It has pea powder in it. Peas are also on the verboten list because why not). Beer and scotch, my alcohol favourites, are offline.

Most restaurants are no-go, as there's corn syrup, butter or soy sauce (depending on the restaurant) in so many things. Even at home, there are going to be big changes in what I eat. Of the six meals on this blog's front page, all are vegan yet all would run afoul of the new regulations.

However, things aren't that bad (and not just because this is a very trivial problem in the grand scheme of things). I'm not completely vegan because I can eat eggs, so that's a protein source right there. Same with nuts. Chickpeas are still in the green list and there are all sorts of other high-protein beans I can try. Like Mung Beans! That's a thing.

And even though all the recipes on the front page were offside, they can be reigned in. In some cases, it's as simple as not adding soy sauce.

Moreover, it's a good opportunity to try new things and really think about what I'm eating. Like this noodle soup that I whipped up.


I'm not going to blog the recipe because it was very spur of the moment, but the broth was veggie stock with mushrooms, red wine and cayenne pepper. It tasted good and fit all the new criteria.

I was going to blog about recipes under the label "The Empty Month". But after thinking about it, "The Experimental Month" is much more apt (and optimistic).