New Vegetarian: Omelets & Empanadas

Okay, first off, omelets and empanadas are obviously not new, magical vegetarian recipes.  Instead, New Vegetarian refers to one of the first vegetarian cookbooks I ever bought.  Let me start off by saying that the title is deceptive, unless in fact they were referring to how this is some sort of new-age vegetarian book.  The recipes are not for beginners, or really even your average cook.  Almost every last recipe has some odd, can-only-be-found-online ingredients, and figuring out how to substitute them can be a massive pain.  But I've done it.

Thai Omelet

We'll start off with a recipe that is different to mess up: a Thai-style omelet.  The description in the book says something about how most restaurants serve something more like a "frittata with veggies".  I think Thai restaurants have better authority on a Thai omelet than a random chef, but whatever.  Pretty much you take tofu, jalapeños, cabbage, scallions, and a few other things, stir fry them, then place them inside an omelet.  Pretty straight-forward.

I, of course, made a bunch of substitutions (I hate carrots.  Seriously), and then made too much filling.  And adding that much cheese on top of the omelet made it look disconcerting.  Regardless, though, the meal was a success.  I've made this before and knew it was good, and found once again that the instructions for making the omelet are very helpful.  I'm hopeless when it comes to maneuvering eggs; I can't even boil them correctly.  So for me to be able to made a foldable omelet is nearly miraculous.

Taste-wise, it's an omelet.  No complaints.  8/10; it's a good hearty meal, but it's nothing special.

Sweet Coconut Empanadas

Oh, this recipe.  I have a bone to pick with this recipe.

In addition to bragging about omelets, this book spends the page before the dessert recipes talking about how people always assume vegan dessert recipes are dry and flavourless, and how the average baker is confused or some such by having to make desserts without eggs or lard.  That's a load of crap, but I haven't tried many of the dessert recipes, so I gave this one a try.

Sad trombone.

It is not the sheer ugliness of this recipe that gets me.  Oh no.   I ran out of freakin' filling.  I NEVER run out of filling.  I always have too much.  I followed this recipe exactly, and I was not even HALFWAY THROUGH making the empanadas when I realized I was about to run out.  I don't know how in the world that happened.  The recipe said 2tbsp of filling per empanada, which was a lot, so I wonder if it was a typo or something.  You'd think someone would catch it.  Those pretty strawberries are there because I last-minute substituted strawberries to fill the remaining empanadas.  And made too many, of course.

And their method for making the actual empanadas (make a cone of the dough and put the filling it)?  Totally useless; the dough is too sticky and flimsy, so I pretty much had to put the filling on there, then just wrap the dough around it.  No cone was happening here.  Finally, the "coconut caramel" sauce was NOT caramel.  It was much too liquidy.  Maybe I didn't cook it long enough, but I don't think that was it.  Thug Kitchen has a very good caramel coconut sauce recipe that I've made successfully, so it's not the concept that is off.  I think the recipe just sucked.

As for the taste, meh.  I preferred the strawberry ones, to be honest.  And -- surprise, surprise -- the empanadas were much too dry.  Another recipe I've tried from this book -- Upside-down mango cake -- had the same problem.  Go figure, considering the boasting about moist vegan recipes.

My coworkers really enjoyed the recipe, so I guess it wasn't an utter failure.  I still don't plan to ever make it again.  4/10.

In conclusion: you can probably skip New Vegetarian unless you want the challenge of five billion substitutions.  I may try a few more recipes to put up here, but I really don't use it much compared to my other, easier books.

I hope to make something tonight since it's a long weekend and I've been utterly lazy, so maybe you will see something up here soon!

Tschüß.

Strawberries & Cream Cake Roll

Whoa now, what's this? A post, from Brittany, onto Dinner Time?

I make no guarantees this will happen again, but I seriously keep taking pictures of food and never talking about them. So it's about time I do so it doesn't look like I have a food fetish.

Strawberries & Cream Cake Roll

It's been so long since I updated that I'm pretty sure I have never mentioned Farmers' Market Desserts, a lovely book chocked full of recipes involving fruit. I am a huge fan of fruit, but especially of cooked fruit, because I love things that are warm and juicy (maybe I do have a food fetish). I've made various recipes from this book with general success, but then I had a bumpercrop of strawberries I knew I could not finish on my own.

And thus I decided to try out a recipe that appears on the back of the book and generally looks gorgeous: the Strawberries & Cream Cake Roll. This required me to dice, slice, bake, roll, etc., and I'm sure anyone who followed this blog knew that presentation was not my strong point.

Well...



Boom.

It's been a long time since I made this, but I remember it being a hell of a lot of work -- I may have halved the recipe or something because I remember being worried about the cake part, and also I probably substituted Greek yoghurt for the creme fraiche/sour cream, because I never have either around. I remember the actual cake roll part being a massive aggravation because I used the technique suggested by the recipe and it just did not want to work for me. Yet when I saw how lovely it looked on the plate, I had to share it on Facebook.

And taste-wise? Massive success. My coworkers (that photo was taken at work, hence the different surroundings) devoured it within an hour or so, and it's hard to go wrong with strawberries. I don't remember much about it, probably because I made it in August 2014 and I barely remember to refill my car's fuel tank. I think this was a recipe that actually was worth the massive effort and overhaul, unless the one I am taste-testing right now (it'll show up on here eventually. New Vegetarian, you have betrayed me once more!)

Rating: 9/10. Apologies this post isn't full of my usual snark and knowledge, but I was chopping strawberries because I ran out of FILLING for the recipe I'm testing (NEW VEGETARIAAAAAAAAN!) and wanted to make a quick replacement. Which sadly, may have been a better choice than the original recipe.

Tschüß.

Meat Recipe Converting: Tomato Bulgur Soup with Tofu & Crumbles

Some recipes just rely on meat or meat products. You can't really make a steak vegetarian. A New England Clam Bake without the clams is missing something rather vital to the recipe. Sure, there are a lot of meat substitutes these days and still more being made, but really, becoming a vegetarian may just mean giving up your favourite foods, because there is no real substitute.

It's been six years since I left meat behind, and at this point, even shrimp has finally stopped calling to me. I've found myself using fewer of these meat substitutes as well. But limiting myself to JUST vegetarian recipes is not necessarily my only option. And in these posts, "Meat Recipe Converting", I will be taking very meat-laden dishes, and turning them into vegetarian lovelies.

These posts will focus on recipes that cannot be easily converted to vegetarian. They aren't ones where you substitute veggie broth for chicken. These are ones where the meat is a key part of the meal, and thus, converting requires creating almost a whole new recipe.

Algerian Green Wheat Soup with Meatballs becomes...

This recipe comes from a large book of soup recipes called Best Soups in the World, and it features soups from all over the world. I adore this book; it is complete with good food, interesting information, and classic chef snobbery. The recipe that caught my attention, Algerian Green Wheat Soup with Meatballs, is a meat-heavy tomato soup with one of my favourite underutilized grains: bulgur (substitute for the original freekeh, but eh).

Converting a recipe like this may look as easy as just replacing all of it with tofu or vegetables, but this uses two very different kinds of meat, and replicating that sort of texture/blend requires a bit of thought. And so...

Tomato Bulgur Soup with Tofu & Crumbles



THere are two aspects of this soup that need to be replaced:

1) The broth is chicken-based.
2) The main chunky parts of the soup are two meats, one grain.

As such, here are the ingredients I used:

1lb firm tofu
7tbsp unsalted butter OR oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2lbs ripe tomatoes, chopped OR 2 cans 14.5oz chopped tomatoes
1tsp cayenne pepper
1tsp salt, if even that (I'm sensitive to the taste of salt)
6 cups vegetable broth OR 6 cups water flavoured to taste with concentrated broth. Or any mixture thereof.
1 cup freekeh or course bulgur
2tbsps tomato paste
1 package Morningstar Farms Grillers Recipe Crumbles (one of the few meat subs I still buy; very versatile and great if you're too lazy to flavour and crumble tofu or tempeh)
Black pepper to taste

The instructions to follow are a shortened version of the original recipe:

1. Add onions, tomatoes, cayenne, and salt to butter or oil and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes. You can add the tofu at this stage as well if you like firmer tofu. Pour in cups of broth and increase heat to a simmer. If you didn't add the tofu to sautee, you can add it here as well, to let it soak up the flavour of the broth.

2. Similar to step 3 in the original recipe, however, don't throw away any of the solids. Also don't grind up your tofu if you added it in the first step at any point. Grind up all of the solids if you like a thicker soup; grind up half if you want a thinner soup and like having vegetable chunks in your soup. Return blended broth and solids to pot, heat until boiling, then add bulgur and tofu. Lower heat to simmer. Halfway through cooking the bulgur, add the recipe crumbles (you can just add these frozen, or you can brown them in a pan first). Cook until bulgur is ready (as the recipe says, tender but chewy).

And there you have it. I didn't make meatballs with the crumbles because I am embarrassingly bad at making meatballs, stuffed rolls, etc; they just fall apart in the broth for me. But if you're more talented than I am, I'm sure they'd come out fine. Also I'm sure freekeh would do just as well as bulgur, especially since freekeh is the original ingredient in the first place.

As for taste? Good! The tofu absorbed the flavour very well, and the crumbles make a good contrast to tofu's texture and flavour. The broth was good if a bit thick. The flavour was nice and hearty. Overall, it's a great comfort food, especially on a cold or dreary day. It stays decent as leftovers as well. And if you replace the butter with oil and sub the crumbles for something else (crumbled tempeh?), pretty sure it's vegan!

8/10 from me. Of course, you're welcome to try out the original meat recipe as well. I'm sure it's as good as the vegetarian recipe, if not better because it's, well, the original.

Tschuess.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Taking a break from Good & Bad posts, this is a recipe I made back in March. However, it does not really have a true counterpart that I can compare it to; I looked through my photos, but did not see anything that could really stand up as its equal. Thus, back to a more traditional post. And this one, like one or two I've had before, is more BASED on a recipe than actually following it.

Stuffed Sun Island Acorn Squash

Hari linked this recipe and I treated it with some skepticism. First off, I don't even KNOW where you can get a sun island squash around here, and furthermore, squash isn't my favourite thing. But I saved it anyway, since I do love mushrooms, and one day at the hippie grocery store I found some in-season squash. In particular, they had some large acorn squash, perfect for stuffing.

Had I only changed the squash type, we'd be good. But I didn't. This recipe is like that recipe only in that they both involve stuffing squash with vegetables and mushrooms. The rest is drastically different:



As this photo very much shows. So! This will be more of a legitimate recipe post.

Ingredients 1 large acorn squash
A handful of cherry tomatoes (who needs REAL measurements? Just use whatever seems like it'd fit. Any leftovers will be tasty eaten alone).
~1cup or so of raw mushrooms (if you use dried or canned, lower the amount slightly, since raw mushrooms shrink quite a bit.)
1-2 cloves of garlic (whatever suits you. I love garlic so I usually bump it up in recipes.)
Dried hearty herb of your choice (I think I probably used either oregano or basil, since I don't generally have thyme on hand)
Butter and/or olive oil
Crumbled goat cheese of your choice

First, scoop the insides out of your squash, but save the seeds! Rinse the seeds off to get them free of squash tendrils. Then, similar to the recipe linked, preheat your oven to 350F, wipe the inside of the squash with oil, then put it in the oven until the edges brown; this can take a while depending on the size of your squash.

From there, take your butter/oil and heat it in a pan, then add your mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. You only want these to be partially cooked; near the end or separately (whichever you prefer), add the seeds to toast for a couple of minutes. They don't usually pop for me, so just use your best judgement. Mix the goat cheese in after you saute everything, then stuff that squash full of the mixture.

Pop the stuffed squash back in the oven until it is wrinkled or, if your squash is a superhero like mine, until it looks like it is slightly drying out at the edges. Eat leftover filling while waiting for squash to be done. Serve with side of your choice; I chose roasted fingerlings because I needed to use them up anyway.

So how is the taste? Pretty good! The acorn squash can be tricky to eat since the skin is more like plate mail for the fruit, but the filling is tasty and lends itself to many vegetables, spices, etc. I'm not sure how smart an idea it was to stuff a squash with cherry tomatoes -- they take up a lot of room! -- but I didn't have zucchini so I went "Close enough." THe seeds also didn't add as much as I wanted; I think maybe they should be roasted alongside the squash initially, then mixed in. Perhaps that will improve the mouthfeel. Hard to go wrong with goat cheese, though.

I imagine almost any variation of mushrooms would do the job -- shiitake, bella, whatever -- but in terms of vegetables I recommend something with a good water content so it won't dry out. Pretty much ANY sturdy squash that can be squashed could be used.

Perhaps someday I will find sun island squash and legitimately try out the recipe. But until then, this will have to do, and it does just fine to me. 8/10.

Tschuess!

Good & Bad: Pumpkin Cheddar Mac & Cheese vs. Pasta Presto's Red & Yellow Cherry Tomato Saute

I know I've mentioned this before, but I am a huge pastaholic. I attribute it partially to growing up in a very Italian part of Connecticut, which to most parts of the country probably sounds a bit strange (aren't we more known for our Puritan rudeness?). Waterbury, CT is the place I refer to; I grew up in one of its suburbs, and thus grew up in a place where even chain restuarants like Olive Garden and Bertucci's have to step up their game if they want to survive. Let me tell you: the SF Bay Area is woefully lacking in real, GOOD Italian food. The two places I've found are a walk-in-and-order place, and a super-expensive place. No middle ground.

So today's post shall deal with that most wondrous of comfort foods: pasta.

Pumpkin Cheddar Mac & Cheese

Hari, of course, was the one to find this recipe; really, this blog probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for Hari. I am not the biggest fan of pumpkin OR mac & cheese, but this still intrigued me. After all, there's a truly odd list of ingredients in there. Whole wheat pasta! Honey! Pumpkin puree! Allspice! It's like someone tried to turn pumpkin pie into mac & cheese.

Pasta Presto's Red & Yellow Cherry Tomato Saute

I stumbled upon this cute little recipe book when exploring Ithaca, NY's used bookstore on the Commons. It had been marked down from $10 to a mere dollar, so of course, as a pasta lover, I had to snatch it up. It is a series of sauces that you can quickly make and serve over pasta. I've made quite a few of them, including converting some of the meat ones to vegetarian. This one recipe, though, I make often when the summer bumpercrop of cherry tomatoes shows up.

Since this is an older recipe book when the internet was barely a thing, I'll give a quick list of the contents, but not the full recipe for copyright reasons:

Olive Oil
Garlic Cloves, chopped
Red & Yellow cherry tomatoes
Fresh Parsley (I use dried and it's fine)
Fresh Chives (I don't use and it's fine

Pumpkin Cheddar Mac & Cheese vs. Pasta Presto's Red & Yellow Cherry Tomato Saute: GO!


(Fun Fact: I made this a year ago.)


(Fun Fact: This may not be the recipe I think it is, but it looks close enough.)

So as I mentioned, I'm not a big fan of pumpkin or mac & cheese. Furthermore, as I recall, I had to use mozarrella or something like that since I didn't have cheddar. Also pretty sure I had to sub the ground mustard for something else. Basically, the test could very well be my fault. But? It tasted like pumpkin to me. Overwhelmingly so; I didn't taste any of the spice or the cheese, just the faint sweetness of pureed pumpkin. Now, if you love pumpkin, that means this recipe will probably work out fantastically for you! But if I were to make it again, I'd half the amount of pumpkin. Also probably use cheddar instead of mozarrella but that's a whole different story.

As for the tomato saute? I recently discovered that I love cooked cherry tomatoes, especially if they are cooked whole. Then you bite into them and they release hot delicious juice into your mouth... I don't get why I didn't discover the wonders of these guys until... This year, maybe last? So this recipe, which depends entirely on the quality of your tomatoes, gives them a chance to shine. The spices don't matter much here; I've substituted basil, I've not used them at all, etc. What matters is that you use top-quality, fresh cherry tomatoes, or this will be a failure. Use the best olive oil you have as well. A recipe with this few ingredients relies on all of them being top-notch.

So for those of you who live in places with legitimate growth seasons (or really just real seasons), you're going to want to make this during the height of summer. For those of us in places with tomatoes year-round, so long as the crop is good, you can make it.

For what it's worth, I think the pumpkin mac & cheese would pair easily with gluten-free pasta, since most of the flavour is in the sauce. By contrast, you need to either really love the taste of gluten-free pasta or just have some godly stuff for the tomato saute, since that sauce is much lighter.

Pumpkin Cheddar Mac & Cheese: 7/10 (again: everything went fine, just not my cup of tea*)
Pasta Presto's Red & Yellow Cherry Tomato Saute: 10/10

Tschuess!

* This is my cup of tea:

Good & Bad: Poaches Eggs & Fried Croutons vs. Food Network's Eggs Benedict

When it comes to creative food dishes, I struggle the most with breakfast. For some reason, my mind has latched on breakfast consisting of maybe a few basic foods: eggs, protein sides, and grains. Despite the fact that this obviously opens up limitless opportunities, I tend to be stuck thinking that my only option is eggs, eggs with veg bacon, or cereal. The last Good & Bad unintentionally showed off two unique approaches to a grain-based breakfast; this one, again unintentionally, highlights eggs.

Poached Eggs & Fried Croutons

This recipe was introduced to me by Hari, I think, and what caught my attention was the mushroom duxelle -- I'm sure this blog by now has highlighted my love for the fungi. Croutons are not something I keep in the house, so I knew I'd have to make those from scratch, but I don't usually back down from such challenges.

Food Network's Eggs Benedict

Ah, the classic Eggs Benedict. I had an eggs benedict of sorts at a diner that combined goat cheese and spinach with eggs benedict, and it was a match made in heaven. This isn't that level of creative, though -- this is just classic eggs benedict, done Food Network style. Perhaps it's unfair to use a professional recipe against something on a random blog... But this network is the same thing to feature Guy's Grocery Games, so I think it's a fair comparison.

Poached Eggs & Fried Croutons vs. Food Network's Eggs Benedict: GO!





Those poached eggs on top of the croutons may be the best poached eggs I've done. Seriously. I don't think I could replicate that with hours of training.

Now, how did these recipes fare? Both decently. The problem with the eggs & croutons was, once again, that it did not impress me. I was expecting a much richer taste from the mushrooms, and also was very apprehensive about cooking mushrooms for so long. Why do so many recipes call for cooking mushrooms for 10-15 minutes? What is the goal? I do not understand.

As for the croutons, well, you can see my stable of whole wheat being used there. I'm sure if I followed the directions and used french bread, it would have worked out better.

Now, for the eggs benedict... First off, that weird pink flat stuff is veggie bacon, Morningstar Farms to be exact. I really like their stuff; they make a wide variety of veggie meats, though their veggie burgers are meh. Their breakfast foods and BBQ veggie ribs are awesome though. And so how did they fare in this recipe? Pretty good! Like any eggs benedict, the hollondaise sauce is what makes the dish hit or miss. This was my first time making hollondaise, which is why it looks rather goopy and unattractive up there, but the flavour was pretty solid; as I recall the lemon juice and yolk weren't quite mixed as well as they could be, but it didn't really detract from the tastiness. I also think that's all on me and not the recipe; you should have seen my first attempt at homemade French-style ice cream.

So which wins? Really, they're both decent recipes. I'm more partial to the eggs benedict because it was just pure fatty comfort food, but I am sure if you used French bread that the other recipe would come out fine. But for me, it's hard to beat that combination of carbs, egg, and butter.

Poached Eggs & Fried Croutons: 6/10 (giving benefit of doubt)
Food Network's Eggs Benedict: 8/10 (note sure if the Hollandaise fail was them or me, but either way tasty)

Tschuess!

Good & Bad: S'More Stuffed French Toast vs. Bulgur Breakfast Cereal

So in between my lately very busy schedule of playing on virtual pet sites, running around at work, and annoying my cat, I've been cooking up storms of dinners and lunches and cookies to bribe my coworkers to love me (I'm QA. I have to do SOMETHING). However, I've also become piss-poor at socialization, which explains why this blog basically stopped updating.

But! I'm going to try and get back into it. To help me catch up, I'm going to do a series of Good & Bad posts. These posts are basically going to present two different meals, with one coming out as the victor. I'm going to keep them to, say, two breakfast foods rather than breakfast vs lunch, but otherwise, it'll be random glory.

So let's begin.

Food One: S'More Stuffed French Toast

Doesn't this recipe look and sound like indulgent perfection? I Know when Hari shared it with me I immediately made it my goal to find vegan marshmallows and recreate this recipe. I love sweets, especially chocolate, and so this sounded like some sort of amazing dream food.

Food two: Bulgur Breakfast Cereal

Putting this recipe right after one starring copious amounts of sugar almost seems unfair to me. But having a giant bag of Goya bulgur, I'm always looking for different ways to use it, and my body's opinions of oatmeal can be best summarized as "the toilet". So this recipe seemed intriguing.

S'More Stuffed French Toast vs. Bulgur Breakfast Cereal: GO!





Pictures are worth a thousand words each, especially if it loooks like you set things on fire before the photo.

Now, despite its charcoal top, you can see delicious melted chocolate oozing from the center of the whole-wheat bread. And as I recall (this photo dates to January!), it wasn't that the French Toast tasted bad. You can't really go wrong with chocolate and marshmallows. The problem was that it was underwhelming. There was a lot of set up and effort that went into making these things (and perhaps into just finding vegan marshmallows alone). Assembling the sandwich, dipping it into the egg mixture without the whole thing giving up, then actually cooking it, again without everything giving up? It's hard. Maybe too hard for me in the morning judging by the burn, but hard! So I wanted it to taste like goddesses singing outside my door, and it just didn't deliver.

The bulgur cereal, however? Very good and hearty. First off, it is the easiest thing to make, which is great if your morning function limits itself to pushing buttons and tripping over a hungry cat. It's also very versatile -- I didn't have the flaxseed it called for, so I just threw in white chocolate chips, because that's how healthy I am. I also didn't use raisins because I don't like them, but that's what's great about this recipe. As long as you have the basics of bulgur, water, salt, and brown sugar, I am fairly certain you could put pretty much anything sweet into this, and it'd work out. Also I just have a major softspot for "cooked" dried cranberries.

So between these two? The humble bulgur cereal came out on top for me. Simple, variable, doesn't require dipping sandwiches in batter and trying to fry them. That being said, if you tried it with smaller slices of bread, you may have much better results.

S'More Stuffed French Toast: 4.5/10
Bulgur Breakfast Cereal: 8/10
Tschuess!

Cooking Light's Hot and Sour Soup

Late Friday night (it was early Saturday morning by that point actually), my throat and chest seemed to burst into acidic flames. Pain burned at the base of my throat and seemed to travel until it ignited in my sternum. Recognizing it as heartburn, I tried my usual routines. They failed. And so, come Saturday morning, I found myself in the ER, pain radiating from my chest and back, absolutely miserable.

I have never had heartburn so awful before, and apparently it was awful enough to actually cause damage. A diagnosis of reflux esophagitis followed after they determined that my cardiovascular system is as healthy as a horse, and I was sent home with prescriptions for some heavy-duty acid-reducers and the instructions to eat a bland diet, without coffee, tea, chocolate, peppermint, tomatoes, citrus, or anything acidic.

Usually I ignore those types of instructions, since my GERD is usually not triggered by acid. But in this case? I am following it, because my esophagus needs a break.

Bland diet doesn't mean it can't be tasty, though, and so I present...

Hot and Sour Soup

There are millions of recipes for hot and sour soup out there, each with their own variations. I know I probably have at least three or four recipes among my books alone. This one is from Cooking Light Vegetarian, and it's incredibly simple. The soup's biggest player is its broth, with mushrooms, tofu, and egg being the only chunky aspects. I followed this recipe exactly, except I used only shiitake mushrooms (fresh, so no reconstituting in water), used ground ginger instead of fresh, and skipped on the scallions, cilantro, and sesame oil (sesame oil is strong stuff, and I thought it may be a bit much for my poor esophagus).



Does this not look like something you'd order at a Chinese restaurant? Though I do recommend you beat the egg white a bit like it recommends -- I didn't, and I had giant glomps of egg white in my soup.

This soup? Tastes incredible. It honestly tastes like something I'd order at a restaurant. I'm usually awful at making broths, but this has a very nice, earthy flavour that is perfect if you've spent the entire morning in the ER and need some comfort. The mushrooms add a unique meaty taste, and the tofu actually absorbs a decent amount of flavour, leaving it not tasting like water.

The only thing I will note is that is neither hot nor sour. Definitely add ginger or sesame oil to taste if you want something spicier. Also consider adding white vinegar in addition to rice vinegar -- the latter is known for being quite mild. Also, you can definitely use less than the number of egg whites requested; I cut the recipe in half, and as you can see, two egg whites took over the soup.

Otherwise though? 9.5/10. It was just what I needed to assure myself that bland does not have to mean "tastes awful".

Tschuess.

A Very Vegetarian Christmas

I have about five days to try and write five stories for a prompt event, because depression sucks and made me lose a ton of time. I'll be spending today try to get at least one or two of those done, but first, I'm going to make a very quick Dinner Time post.

A Very Vegetarian Christmas

For those who haven't figured it out yet, I'm a vegetarian, and have been for coming on six years now. This means that I can't have the traditional meat that our culture enjoys associating with holidays. For this holiday, my mother and I worked together to make Christmas dinner -- she made the meat and potatoes for my brother, I made the vegetarian options for us.

The pictures are unfortunately quite crappy, as I was in a hurry to take them so we could start eating. But here it goes.

Roasted Vegetable Bisque

This recipe has been on my list for AGES to try out, and I finally chose it for this Christmas. Funny story while I was chopping the vegetables to make it: my sister, who has Down Syndrome and autism (this is an important point for this story to make a bit more sense), was wandering around the kitchen trying to find food. Typical behavior, she loves to eat. She walked over to me chopping vegetables, then reached out and snatched a vegetable from the plate -- again typical behavior; stealing food is a habit we can't seem to break her of. The thing is, she had grabbed 1/8 of a whole raw onion, and she shoved it into her mouth.

She didn't seem to like her choice very much, but she DID eat it, which is more than I could do if I shoved a raw onion into my mouth. I gave her some water after that adventure, and then she left my vegetables alone. XD



Why does my food always look so much more disgusting than the original maker's does? Hers is all red and lovely; mine looks like baby vomit. Good news is, it didn't taste like that.

This soup tasted very light, even with the cream cheese added in. It also is a very sweet flavour, which I think comes from using so much butternut squash in it. It was a bit too sweet for me -- I like my soups to be very rich and savory. However, I also failed at using the pepper shaker, so I imagine with some pepper and salt, this would taste fantastic. For the record, dried herbs work just fine if you don't have fresh, as do canned tomatoes.

So about 7.5/10 for this one, and I'll try to make it again and see if I can improve on it.

Portabello Salad with Maple-Mustard Dressing

Hari knows I'm in love with portabellos and linked this recipe a while back. I decided it would go well with the bisque, and red onions excluded, even followed the recipe near-exactly, despite my dislike for cooking wine.



The pictures don't get better.

So yeah. I don't really like salad dressing, or cooking wine, or vinegar. And you know what? This salad was fantastic. It's given me faith in salads. I feel like salads can be more than just rabbit food now. The mushrooms added a nice meaty texture to the salad, while the dressing turned the leaves from rabbit food to actually edible. The whole family enjoyed it (brother excluded. Vegetables are POISON don't you know?)

I can't say how well avocado goes with though, because our avocado was NOT ripe and I refused to eat it hard as a rock.

So yes. 9/10 is what I'm thinking. I'm not sure why not 10/10, I think maybe because it IS still a salad.

Baked Beans with Mint, Peppers, and Tomatoes

Some recipes you just can't get right. This recipe is one of them. A year ago I tried making it, and the beans were not soft at all, and I had to basically force it into my meals for a few WEEKS. I decided to give it a second shot.



I think it went even WORSE this time around.

Compared to the rich salad and soup? This was bland. No flavours stood out, not even any richness from the tomatoes. The beans were not soft once again, and if it is all because I didn't use mint (mother hates it), then that's stupid because foods should rely on more than one flavour.

There really isn't much to say here. I've given up on this recipe. 3/10.

Bonus picture!



Dinner candle trying to set the house on fire. It LOOKS like it is sitting up straight and tall. Looks are deceiving.

And now to shower and laundry and write. Until next time...

Tschuess.

Apple-Brie French Toast

So back in September, Hari visited. It feels like a million years ago -- we were still dating, I still had my best friend, I still didn't have insurance. It's only been a little over three months since then, but it feels like a whirlwind.

Some things don't change, though. Like me cooking.

Apple & Brie Stuffed French Toast

Hari linked me this recipe a while back, and I told him I would make it when he visited. I kept to my word.




Whole wheat bread doesn't make the most attractive French Toast.

I followed the recipe more or less exactly, except that I used whatever apples I had, not Granny Smith specifically. I'm one of those people who can't really taste the different between apple varieties. Or pears. Oranges and clementines taste different though!

But anyway. I'm not a fan of French toast. I associate with slimy bread and general "No". But this French toast? Fantastic. The apples and brie went very well together, and the whole wheat bread gave it some extra depth. It was also extremely filling. One French toast is more than enough for breakfast, trust me.

If I recall, making these was a trick and a half; the bread I was using was big and bulky, and the apples did not want to stay in between. This wasn't a huge issue, though, especially since I love sauteed apples. Once the cheese started to melt, things held together a bit better, but I would recommend cutting your bread in half to do this regardless, so you aren't struggling with batter, bread, and hot apples.

Overall, 9/10. Not a full 10 because it was a bit of a pain, and also extremely rich food displeases my digestive system. But it really was quite delicious.

Tschuess.

Butterscotch Sauce

So I'm not the biggest fan of alcohol. I don't like the taste, alcoholism runs in my family and I've had a couple of bad experience. But one thing I have always liked is some hot cocoa with butterscotch schnapps.

One day I was contemplating become a teatotaler, and realized that would mean no butterscotch schnapps. So I searched the internet...

Butterscotch Sauce.

And found this.

"Butterscotch is a thing?" I thought. "Like, a legit thing, not just a flavour?"



Indeed it is!

So. This butterscotch recipe is very easy to follow, includes pictures that are actually HELPFUL, and furthermore, is from what I can understand the original way to make butterscotch. It tastes just like the flavouring from the schnapps, and FAR better than your standard butterscotch ice cream topping from the store. I probably could have drank the whole bowl of it right then and there.

I will note, however, that I'm not sure how to keep it. I put in the fridge and that caused it to become rock solid. I reheat it when I need to use it, but then the sugar starts to caramelize further, and it gains a somewhat granular texture, even if the flavour is still okay. So I think a sealed, heatproof jar at room temperature may be your best bet.

Oh, and it tastes FANTASTIC in hot cocoa and ice cream.

10/10. Seriously. It's awesome.

Tschuess.

Spicy Vietnamese Lemongrass Tofu Adapation

So I had plans today. Plans to wash the towels and laundry, scrub the stove, do yoga. PLANS.

Then my stomach suddenly freaked out, shortly followed by my head. These plans are being postponed, and replaced with a post and some videogames.

Spicy Vietnamese Lemongrass Tofu Adapation

I'm calling this an adaptation rather than the actual recipe, because I ended up making so many substitutions that I'm pretty sure this dish is nothing like the original recipe. Here is the original recipe. Now, for what I ended up doing (I'm converting it directly from their recipe, because I can't remember how much exactly I used):

2tbsp Black Bean Sauce
About 1tbsp fresh ginger root
2tbsp curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2tbsps plus 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 pound tofu
1tbsp soy sauce
2tbsp olive oil
3tbsp water
3tbsp peanut oil
1 small onion
1tbsp chili paste, or to taste
Peppers, Tomatoes, or whatever vegetables you like
Brown Rice

From there, I think I recall screwing up royally. First off, I'm not sure I actually MARINATED the tofu in soy sauce like the recipe calls for. I do remember I pressed it to get the water out of it, because tofu is near-impossible to stirfry unless you do so. Then I coated the tofu with the black bean sauce, ginger, curry powder, salt, and 1/2 teaspoon sugar.

Then when making the caramelized sugar, I failed to add the extra water, and the caramel solidified in its container. That was interesting. But then I stirfried everything else and let it simmer and got:



A food that won't photograph well.

But taste-wise? It was pretty amazing. All of my haphazard substitutions somehow blended together very well, and forgetting the lemongrass did nothing noticeable to the flavour. It had a good kick to it, though it wasn't as sweet as you may expect from the caramel, likely because I messed up making it.

Of course, I will need to make this again without substituting half of the recipe, but the fact that I did and it still tasted great? Proves that either I know how flavours work better than I realize, or that the recipe has a solid foundation.

8.5/10 either way. I even enjoyed the leftovers.

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Roasted Portobello with Eggs

Spent most of today cleaning... Fun times as an adult!

Roasted Portobello with Egg

So I love portobellos, and so the idea of pairing them with eggs with tempted to me. Hence me trying out this recipe. It's extremely straightforward, and in a fantastic fit of laziness, I just microwaved some scrambled eggs to go with it.



The bowl I made them in perfect fit the mushroom. Which makes for a very amusing picture.

As for the dish?

Meh. So very meh.

The thing is, the mushroom had almost no flavour; you can't even tell I ROASTED it. Maybe I just got a freakish portobello, since they are usually fantastic, or maybe it should have had a marinade.

Paired with the eggs, it really wasn't the most fantastic meal. Maybe it would have helped if I made the scrambled eggs the nonlazy way, but since the two are cooked separately, then thrown together, I doubt it would have mattered much.

It's possible that it may test better with eggs with a liquid yolk, though; then maybe the yolk would give the portobellos a boost. Or just try marinating it. As it is, though, there are way better uses for portobellos.

5/10. Giving it some benefit of the doubt since microwaved eggs are not exactly gourmet or fantastic. Otherwise, though, not going to try it again.

And that's about all I have to say about that.

Tschuess.

Pasta with Tempeh and Roasted Garlic Sauce

It's a warm day today -- and it has my apartment humid and kind of unpleasant. It probably doesn't help that I just deep cleaned the bathroom, which leaves me wanting to just lay around and be like "See, I did work, I can play Sims the rest of the afternoon right?"

The answer is no.

Pasta with Tempeh and Roasted Garlic Sauce

So this is a bit awkward. I've been meaning to put this recipe up for ages, and now that I'm finally getting to it... the blog is gone :(. So you all can have SOMETHING to check out, I quickly found this recipe which looks very similar... Once I got to the recipe. However, the original recipe was based mostly on just tempeh, tomatoes, and roasted garlic, without the extra veggies.



It also looks pretty unflattering when paired with green pasta.

It's been a while since I made this recipe, but I still recall that I found it kind of meh, at most. It was a bit watery, hence why it doesn't seem to be covering the pasta very well at all, but I've found that true of many homemade sauces. I actually cut back on the amount of tomato used, so perhaps it was partially my fault; the tomatoes I had were huge and I didn't think I needed both of them.

The tempeh itself still retains a lot of the original flavouring that I think is from preservatives or SOMETHING. Basically, it just didn't seem to cook all that well in the sauce. If I recall, the leftovers that I microwaved with some pasta fared a bit better than fresh, which really is just bizarre.

So overall, I think adding some tomato paste could help give the sauce some body, while perhaps cooking the tempeh then adding it to the sauce would help with the flavour. I'm noticing that the recipe I linked as a substitute has you BOIL the tempeh which strikes me as a bit "Huh?". I don't know how the texture of that would be.

Overall rating? 5/10. It wasn't that impressive but it wasn't awful either.

Bonus Rating! The spinach noodles you see up there are Garden Time Fancy Spinach Ribbons, which is really just a ridiculously pretentious name for cut wide spaghetti. They brag about their pasta on the bag, and it's expensive stuff.

It also doesn't taste any better than Target brand. Raw it has a odd texture but I can taste the spinach, but once cooked? Pretty bland flavouring. I'm pretty neutral on recommending it, really. I guess that's another 5/10? 6/10? Something around there.

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Tempeh Fakin' Bacon

It's been a while. Sorry for that; I've been busy. Since I'm now SO backed up, I'm going to try and write quite a few posts tonight, and just set them to be posted later.

Today's recipe is from a site I used to go to quite often, years ago, but since have left since I have found it to go downhill, and also it's not nearly as effective as it claims.

Tempeh Fakin' Bacon

This website is Care2, and the recipe has this lovely picture of tempeh/tofu (it looks like a weird mix of both), while the recipe itself is super easy. It's also basically taken from here (though they do credit it), so I'll just let both of them be around.

So. I cut the recipe in fourths or something but otherwise, same recipe.



On a scale from 1 to 10, guess how much I recommend it just based on this photo alone?

That's right, it's pretty bad.

So this does take that bacon. And I quickly realized why. It tastes like pure salt.

Soy sauce is choked full of salt, especially apparently if you buy a rum-sized bottle of it for only about $2. Simmering the tempeh in soy sauce then did very little to make it taste like soy and a lot more to make it taste like salt. I'm VERY sensitive to the taste of salt, so I actually ended up throwing this poor tempeh away, as I just couldn't handle it.

Luckily, this is a very easy fix; just use either much less soy sauce and substitute a different marinade (maybe a vegan/vegetarian BBQ sauce? Homemade BBQ sauce is very easy to make. Or something smokey?) or use reduced sodium soy sauce. This may help save the recipe.

However, I am perfectly content to let Morningstar Farms make me some veggie bacon, even if it has a list of ingredients big enough to build a house, and skip this recipe. If you're vegan or just against foods with a huge amount of ingredients, though, perhaps try the modifications and tell me how it goes!

On its own, without modifications, I give this a 2.5/10. It had to be thrown away and was a waste of a great food (tempeh), but there is room for modifications and thus hope.

Bonus Photo!



Plum and chocolate ice cream. If you're going to make plum ice cream, don't use that much extra sugar! Ripe plums have plenty of it :)

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Chocolate Banana Breakfast Quinoa

I'm in a half-fog and my web browser is freaking out, so apologies in advance if this post has a few weird issues. I'll fix them as I catch them.

Chocolate Banana Breakfast Quinoa

For once I think I found this recipe instead of my (now) ex-boyfriend. Or maybe he did. I'm not sure even WE know at this point. By the way, that's an example of a GOOD food blog, in my not-so-humble opinion. One picture, only one paragraph of explanation (and it's actually fairly interesting!), and then the recipe. Stamp of Approval for presentation.

As for the recipe... I don't like almond milk so I just used normal dairy milk. Otherwise, same recipe. And, well...



No.

I love quinoa. But either this quinoa is awful, or this recipe is. I'm not sure if perhaps I boiled the milk too high, but as you can see it was very soupy, with the quinoa unable to absorb it all, and the flavour left much to be desired. As I recall, it wasn't even that chocolaty, while the texture and mouth feel of the dish was all wrong. I was so unimpressed I actually ended up throwing about half of it or so away.

Maybe the recipe does really need to have almond milk, but even then I believe the amount of liquid needs to be cut down substantially, or the cooking method for the quinoa changed. As it is, it becomes soupy, almost like a liquidy porridge.

My recommendations then are to not use dairy milk (don't know if it matters if it's almond or something else), cut the liquid down, and possibly add a bit more sweetener, to taste. That may save it, but I'm not going to try and find out.

3.5/10. It's no good if I have to throw the food out, but at the same time, I DID change the recipe, so credit given where it is due.

Until next time...

Tschuess.

Cookies. Two Batches of Them.

So apparently I was planning to put these cookies, baked and eaten weeks ago, onto the blog. I forgot until I found their pictures on my Photobucket account again.

Both of these recipes come from the same book, Green & Black's Organic Ultimate Chocolate Recipes: The New Collection. Green & Black's Organic is a fantastic chocolate company that offers fair-trade, organic chocolate bars and products. The recipe book was given to me by a friend, and since then, I've been trying a recipe or two here and there.

A few weeks ago my coworkers were planning an event, and I offered to bake for it. I brought two recipes: a new one I had never tried, and then one I've been trying and trying to get to work the way it does in the book. I'll introduce them both.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe calls for muscovado sugar, which I certain do not have, so I substituted brown sugar. Otherwise, it's exactly the recipe offered in the book.



This recipe is supposed to make 16 cookies. It so doesn't. I can't recall the exact amount but I think it was like, 12, maybe.

They were, however, quite good! I thought the oats would make them taste like weird quasi-oatmeal cookies, but instead the cookies were quite chewy, while the chocolate chips were still very gooey. Furthermore, they stayed this way for quite some time; I forgot about the cookie leftovers I had after the event for over a week, and after that time, they were not stale. So I recommend you seal them in tubberware for long-term storage, since that seemed to work.

So yeah, I'm giving them 8/10 for being tasty, just wish the recipe made as many as it said.

Truly Gooey Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

I've struggled with this recipe before, so I tried following it EXACTLY this time around...



Yeah, that title is such a lie.

These cookies are not "truly gooey". They are more like brownie-cookie hybrids. The cookie itself is very brittle, and so full of chunks that it's more like a pile of hazelnuts and chips barely held together by chocolate. This probably because the "dough" is basically just chocolate, and so while cooking it just spreads out ridiculously in the oven.

Adding more flour did not help, the last time I tried it. Perhaps you need to add more than I did. They are pretty tasty, don't get me wrong. The taste is fine, but the texture is not what it's supposed to be, and there's a bit too much filling (two types of chocolate chips AND hazelnuts). I much prefer the chocolate chip cookies, above.

It's possible baking these for a shorter amount of time may help, I have no idea. Giving them a 6.5/10 for being okay-tasting, but the wrong texture and all brittle. ALso this didn't make 16 either.

So that's about all I have. Short post, kind of too unfocused to go on and on. Next time: more food and probably more silliness.

Tschuess.

Red Quinoa with Mushrooms and Kale

So I've been having nasty insomnia lately, and right now am all happy to finally have talked with people who are up when I am (most of my friends are East Coast), and also possibly wired up from stress. This means, of course, I should write a blog post, right?

Red Quinoa with Mushrooms and Kale

Once again, my boyfriend linked a post that led me to this one. It has everything that drives me nuts about food blogs: long story, moaning about food, and too many pictures. But I love quinoa, and mushrooms, and kale, so I had to try it out.

I used regular quinoa since I do not have red, along with a chopped portobella cap instead of shiitake. I used this No-Chicken broth by Imagine instead of chicken stock because it's a fantastic substitute. I also added a tomato because I need to use them up, and once again pearl onions instead of diced because I have still failed to buy real onions. Followed the same instructions on that blog post though (basically sautee onions in butter, then add quinoa to toast, then add broth and simmer. Then sautee other vegetables, then add kale until wilted).

This is sounding like those annoying comments on recipes that go "LOL it was great I substituted the apples in the pie for blueberries and used cake batter instead of a crust!" Sorry about that.



So enough babbling, here's the food. I added goat cheese after this photo (SERIOUSLY what was I doing).

Overall? This was quite good. The kale was cooked properly unlike the last recipe I had, leaving it quite crunchy while still having a great colour and flavour. Portobella mushrooms worked well here. Once again, though, be careful about tomatoes adding a lot of extra liquid; you may want to consider draining some of the liquid before combining the vegetables to the quinoa if you use them. Otherwise, it shouldn't be a huge problem as mushrooms and kale shouldn't release too much moisture.

Goat cheese was a good addition, but if you're vegan and want to add an extra bit of flavour, I'd recommend dried cranberries. Moosewood has a recipe involving kale and cranberries, and it is EXCELLENT. I imagine cranberries would do well in this recipe as well.

I will note, however, that overall this was more filling than expected. I only ate half of it in one sitting even after halving the recipe. This is probably because 1 cup of dried quinoa makes FOUR cups of cooked quinoa, and two cups of quinoa is apparently just too much for my stomach.

This reminds me: I have a nice, simple lentil/rice recipe I should share sometime.

So basically? This recipe was good, filling, but I'm not sure on its own, without my additions, it would have been amazing. So it's getting a 7.5/10. I like being able to give recipes good ratings; world, MAKE DELICIOUS FOOD.

I'm so sorry for this post.

It appears I forgot to put two recipes up on this blog, since their pictures are on my photobucket. I will try to do those next. Not tonight, though, this insanity has gone on long enough.

Tschuess.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato with Avocado

College instilled one weird OCD exception in me: soup foods are totally okay late at night so long as they are fast noodles. Right now it is Annie Chun's Kimchi soup, which is spicy and tasty.

This has nothing to do with today's food, so let's move on.

Stir-Fried Egg and Tomato with Avocado

Hari found a recipe on this website that disinterested me, as I recall. So then I found this and found it interesting. Today's recipe is based off of this, but not quite the same.

This is mainly because after a "flaming oil" incident when I was 15, I don't like to add oil to a hot pan.



So here we are.

Start off with a bit of oil in a pan. I recommend peanut oil as it's very good with heat. THEN heat it up to about medium, medium-high. At this point, we go back to the recipe's instructions. I used a whole tomato, chopped it up, and then added it to the pan and stirfried it until it was basically what they said.

I then took two eggs, cracked them in a bowl, and beat them well. Then I added a splash of 2% milk (I wouldn't add more than 1/8 cup), and then some goat cheese. beat it all together. I then added them to the pan with the tomatoes still in there, and removed the pan from the heat while stirring the eggs and scraping the bottom and sides.

Then once the cooking was slowed I put them back on the heat and basically just stirred them until they firmed up to a consistency I liked. Remove from heat, put in bowl. Slice up some fresh raw avocado and add it to the top.

It was quite a tasty, nourishing breakfast. Now for a few things.

First off, I DO recommend you listen to that website and remove the tomatoes and rinse the pan, THEN add the eggs. This is not due to taste or cooking, but to remove excess liquid. I had some unsightly liquid in the bottom of my bowl of eggs, and so to remove that, it's best to just separate the cooking processes. If liquid in the bowl doesn't squick you like it does me, then you can keep everything in the same pan.

Goat cheese really didn't add what I wanted to the eggs; you could barely taste it. Feel free to leave it out.

This basic recipe would likely go well with many other vegetables, including spinach, kale, MAYBE broccoli. It's very versatile and there are many options.

Oh and I don't know how adding the sugar works out since I didn't. My guess is it brings out the tomato flavour, I don't know.

Finally, you could probably translate this into a vegan recipe pretty easily by using tofu. I have made a pretty good tofu scramble in the past using a pile of dried herbs and some firm tofu. Perhaps someday I should add it to the blog so I'm not just stealing other people's recipes.

Speaking of this recipe, 8/10. It was good, and has great potential for modification.

Bonus Rating! So I was at the natural grocery again and I saw that they have this, except in a "one packet to try it" size.

For the love of all that is holy, DO NOT FALL FOR THOSE REVIEWS:



This is one packet, which is the equivalent of one serving, in 16oz of coconut milk (which is also gross btw). I needed a blender to stir it. The blender could barely even process it.



"Shake or dog poop, which could it be?"

The consistency was of a paste, and I wanted to chew it before swallowing it. When I could swallow it. I only tried twice. The flavour, oddly enough, was not BAD -- it actually tasted vaguely like the coconut milk it was in, basically. But I knew I wouldn't drink it so I brought it to the sink to pour it out.

IT came out like honey at first, then there was a little pop, and the whole thing slid out leaving barely any trace it was in the glass.

Food shouldn't DO THAT, guys. Please do not buy this. If you're starving and have no choice, use double the liquid it recommends. Garden of Life may like eating paste but it can't be good for you if you're already having food troubles and need to drink this instead.

Also bonus from someone who was pissy that someone dared give such a healthy, hippy product a two-star review:

"Your comment is your own personal opinion." (From here)

Unlike every other comment, which clearly is based in SCIENCE.

On that charming note,

Tschuess.

Mini Peach Tarts

I had a busy day on Sunday baking, churning, and cleaning. Unfortunately, the only thing that really went right was the cleaning. Nonetheless, I present...

Mini Peach Tarts

This is another one that my boyfriend found, and I accepted it whole-heartedly. Peaches are delicious after all, and mini peach pies? Yes, please. I didn't have any graham crackers though, so none of those are in it.



The Pepto-Bismol is actually plum ice cream. It had too much sugar :(

And now for the poor tarts. I want to say they were delicious and the greatest use of my peaches.

But no. Even with a homemade, from-scratch pie crust, no. And I know exactly why.

The recipe calls for WAY too much cinnamon and nutmeg. My two peaches actually made twice the amount of tarts the recipe called for, which means I used half the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg the recipe technically wants, and yet the spices completely overpower the peaches. I can barely even taste them, and when I can, it's not a mind-blowing flavour. It doesn't help that I had to cook them for roughly 30 min to get the pie crust to brown, which may have burned the tips of the peaches.

The homemade crust is okay, crispy, not too flavourful but it IS just a crust. The filling? Meh. So meh. Cinnamon and nutmeg are very strong spices, using 1 tsp each of both is so inappropriate. I should have known better.

It MAY be possible to salvage these by significantly lowering the amount of spice (by half at least). It's also possible my peaches just sucked (They were still hard and not ripe/soft after over two weeks of owning them). But honestly I'm so off-put by how it turned out that I don't really want to try it again.

4/10. Sorry peach tarts. Even a sprinkle of salt did nothing.

I MAY be able to manage to wake up in time to make a good breakfast that I could post to here. Until then...

Tschuess.