Domestipithecus

Yesterday I received the Cafe Paradiso cookbook I had ordered shortly after arriving back in the states. Creative Nickname, his sister, brother and I went there while in Cork. It was fantastic. The parsnip mash was so yummy I needed to reproduce it exactly.

All the recipes in this book are amazing sounding. They do have a couple of the dishes that we had there in the book and so much more. I can’t wait to make the Pumpkin gnocchi with spinach in a roasted garlic cream. How good does that sound?

The rat’s cage should arrive today. I am looking forward to putting the boys in their new home. I am sure they will love all the space.

I am thinking of making some pasta today. I only started making it by hand after we got the KitchenAid mixer and pasta attachment. We had no idea how good fresh pasta tasted. Now we can’t go back. We like to toss it with some olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and parsley. I think I have some old pictures…

Making the pasta:

The olive oil cooking the diced garlic and the chopped parsley (that and the red pepper flakes go in right before removing from the heat):

Tofurkey kielbasa. This stuff is amazing tasting and it’s vegan!

The finished product (tossed the pasta in the olive oil mixture):

I make egg pasta, though I have made it with Ener-G egg replacer for CN’s sister. The pasta was ok, a little more slimy than I am used to, but not bad.

I’m going to go knit some on the Alphabet Blanket. Maybe next post I’ll have enough done for a picture.

My fiance (I am going to have to come up with a clever nickname for him) and I are both vegetarian. His sister and mother are both vegan. This means that all recipes and the like will be either of the above and will contain no meat. We do use dairy and eggs still, though we use Earth Balance, vegan “butter” and Veganaise, vegan mayo. They taste pretty good.

You will probably notice that my blogroll has links to blogs that cook with meat. I sometimes use them as a reference for non-meat dishes, substituting tofu or some other meat replacement in place of the meat. Sometimes that isn’t possible, but I still like to get inspiration from others. The sauce, method of preparation etc, can all be used for non-meat dishes.

That said, yesterday I made some Agave Wheat bread in the bread machine. Agave is a substitute for honey. A good one at that. I originally got agave nectar so his sister would have something to sweeten her tea and other things when she was over for a visit. The first time I made the bread, the recipe called for 3 tbsp of honey so I thought I would give the agave a try. It was very good. This time around I added 3 1/2 tbsp which made the bread a little more moist and a tiny bit sweet.

I also made “loaf”, as the family calls it. It’s a variation on a recipe that my future mother-in-law found. She simplified it to within and inch of it’s life and now we have turkey. chicken and beef substitute, depending on the flavoring put in. The texture is perfect, unlike some other meat subs, and it tastes great. Sliced, it makes great sandwich fixins.

Of course, I had to round it out with dessert so I made brownies. I didn’t have any solid chocolate, so I needed to use cocoa. I located this recipe. I had to cook it longer than it said and used a microwave for the cocoa mix like some commenters did. They came out ok. Nothing spectacular. It may have been the cocoa (Tollhouse) though so who knows.

So this morning I sent my fiance off to work with a loaf sandwich on agave wheat bread and a brownie for dessert. He was pretty happy.

Today probably won’t have a lot of cooking, just a lot of cleaning and getting into costume for handing out candy. I wish I had decorated, but we just got back from three weeks in Ireland on the 21st, and my car was in the shop, we just didn’t have time to buy/make any and put them up. I’m thinking having one of my ratties on my shoulder while handing out the treats will either creep out the kids or they’ll love it. I’ll report tomorrow.