Asian Food for Christmas Eve

While most people are gathering around the tree with their families and destressing from a crazy month of shopping, cooking, and baking, I'm sitting at home with a week of break and not too much to do. It's a really good feeling. This has given me a little more time for cooking. While most of the Jews I know go out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve, I opted to stay home today. My parents, however, stopped off at the Asian food center today and picked up the following:

(soy puffs, vermicelli, and wonton wrappers, if you can't tell)

One package was mysteriously labeled, "Soy Puffs" and I decided to use it today. As far as I could tell it was some sort of deep fried tofu. Each puff was about 1-1/2" square. I cooked them in a non-stick pan without any additional oil and they browned a little and released a lot of oil. In the meantime I steamed broccoli and sliced carrots and made the sauce that goes with General Tao's Tofu from the ever-popular vegweb recipe. The result was just as good as any dish I've ever ordered at a Chinese restaurant. The soy puffs were chewy and airy and the sauce was perfect, as it had been every time I've used this recipe.

For dinner, my dad and I made the Scallion Flatbread from Veganomicon. It didn't vary much from other flatbreads I've made and basically tasted like a scallion paratha. I misread the recipe and only added 1/4 tsp of salt instead of 3/4 tsp (this is what I get for reading upside down) so it was a little bland. I didn't have the ingredients to make the dipping sauce, so we just had them plain, which was still pretty good.

Merry Christmas!

salad

Here I am, the stereotypical vegan, taking a salad (with sprouts!), fruit, and steamed vegetables for lunch. Half a cinnamon raisin bagel on the side.

I also made a peanut butter sandwich and I'll probably grab some chips and a soy yogurt when I leave the house because I'm staying at school until 9PM tomorrow for band rehearsal. For now I'm just hoping that there will be enough snow tonight to cancel school for tomorrow.

I'm really excited because last night I convinced my family to sign up for a community supported agriculture program for the spring through the fall. From mid-May until November, we will be getting weekly shipments of local, seasonal, organic produce from a family-run farm. I can't wait to get started!

Right now I'm into my busiest time of the year. I probably won't be around much the rest of this week. Between my classes, jazz band, wind ensemble, a performance for the Chinese department at my school, and a few other extracurriculars, I won't particularly be home. Happy Monday and I hope everyone has a less stressful week than I'm sure to have!

Spaghetti

I like leftovers, but there never seem to be any in my house. That's probably my fault. You'd never guess it by looking at me, but I, the tiny, barely 5' 2" girl can eat more at one sitting than most people can at two or three. Today, however, I did have leftovers that made it to my lunch.


Featured above, spaghetti with steamed broccoli, a little bit of olive oil to prevent sticking, and some red pepper flakes. Some pistachio nuts and pita chips on the side in addition to cantaloupe, carrots, and an orange.

(i just realized that I've had carrots in every single lunch that I've packed this year. What can I say, I'm a creature of habit!)

Ramen and veggies

Some people love raw food. Some people even go so far as to switch to a raw food diet. I am not one of those people. I love my cooked things, steamed, fried, or boiled to mushy oblivion. Whatever it is, if it's cooked, it's good with me. If it's hot it's even better. I haven't bought a Thermos yet (honestly, I'm probably to lazy/rushed in the morning to heat something up anyway) so I settle for cold cooked food. Today's lunch was steamed carrots, steamed broccoli, and cold ramen (hey, I'm a student, I'm allowed to eat ramen, even if it is sickeningly unhealthy!) .

Snack of mostly Cheerios with some pretzels, chocolate chips, walnuts, and peanuts. It's mostly Cheerios, it's just that they're at the bottom of the container.