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.