Red Lentil Curry Soup

                                    from Happy Herbivore


So my soup totally looks like I fed it a ton of chocolate ice cream, never cleaned off its mouth with a moist napkin afterwards but instead realized I was running late for a lunch-date with its grandma and so dragged it quickly through the park by its arm, in the process making it lose its pretty red balloon which in turn made its eyes whell up with tears, causing me to yell at it--"Stop acting like a baby"--causing it to cry even more, and then, about 15 minutes later, when the tears finally subsided and the hiccups were nearly quieted down, grandma showed up and started taking cutesy pictures of it while it was still sloppy with chocolate ice cream and tears.

Point being: clearly I need to wipe down the rim before taking pics. (TWSS!)

As for the soup: good, autumnal, spicy as hell (I used 2.5 t. garam masala and 1/2 t. red pepper flakes, fyi, and it was flame-mouth all the way), and needs something a little more in it, though I'm not quite sure what but I'm thinking apples and then I'm thinking I need to kick my own ass because that seems to be my solution to everything nowadays. Car's blinkers stopped working? Apples will fix it. Got a toothache radiating up into your eye socket? Apples! Your mother just got mauled by what looked like a wilderbeest but couldn't possibly be a wilderbeest in the middle of upscale Manhattan? Apples will save the day.

Nonetheless: something.

*COU veganmofo GH*

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 small onion, sliced thinly


• 3 garlic cloves, minced


• 3 c. of water, plus a little more


• 1 c. uncooked red lentils


• 16 baby carrots, sliced


• 1 bay leaf


• 1 t. mild curry powder


• 1″ fresh ginger, minced (or 1 t. ground ginger)


• 1 T. minced fresh cilantro


• red pepper flakes as desired (or other heat spice)


• 1/4 t. cloves


• 1-2 t. garam masala


• 1 c. fat free soy milk or lite coconut milk


• salt/pepper to taste


• cilantro for garnish

DIRECTIONS

Line a large pot with a thin layer of water. Turn heat on high and add onions. Boil/saute for three minutes, then add garlic. Continue to cook until most of the water has cooked off.

Add water, lentils, carrots, bay leaf, curry, ginger, cilantro, flakes and cloves. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce to low. Simmer 20 minutes (or until lentils are cooked and most of the water has absorbed). Stir in garam masala.

Let sit (no heat, but covered) 5 minutes - optional.

Transfer to a blender. Add soy milk or coconut milk. Puree until smooth and creamy. Salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with fresh cilantro leaves.
Note: the older the soup gets, the more flavorful it becomes– if you can, make it a day in advanced.

(Recipe from Happy Herbivore)

Mystery Dish Contest!

You know how some of those kids magazines from your youth would have those features where they'd show you a picture of something, but it'd be an extreme close-up of some aspect of it, and you'd have to try to guess wtf the picture was just based on the tiny little scrap of visual info they gave you, and you'd be all TOASTER OVEN! And it would end up being a unicorn. Or you'd be CAT IN A BAG SITTING ON A STOVE IN EUROPE! And it would end up being a snowman?

Well, I've seen SusanV (at FatFree Vegan Kitchen) tease us with contests involving similar mystery pictures: CASE IN POINT. And since I'm trying to get in 5 posts a week for VeganMoFo (*COUpipedreamGH*), today I bring you my own version.

But instead of winning a measly cookbook or something, if you guess what ANY of these dishes are, you will win...

*DRUM ROLL*

One hundred bazillion dollars*!!!

TAKE THAT, SUSANV! ; )

3 out of 5 of these pics are pictures of meals that I made that were meh and not worth posting about. 5 out of 5 pictures are not your mom. 2 out of 5 pictures COULD be your sister, but that's for me to know and you to find out. And 1 out of 5 of these pictures I had a recipe for but lost.

You have til Thursday morning, 6:30am.

May the force be with you.

One hundred bazillion dollars.







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*Dollars may or may not be invisible and only redeemable at Chuck E. Cheese.

Curried Apple & Lentil Dal

                                    from Everybody Likes Sandwiches


So I love curry and apples. Love. There is something so sexy to me about the way the sweetness of the apples rubs itself all up in the spiciness of the curry powder. A couple of my favorite cold-weather soups are apple-curry based: Quick Curried Red Lentil Soup with Vegetables and SusanV's Curried Eggplant Soup. Plus, apple recipes have the sweet kiss of autumn to them, so they've been making their way to the top of my "To-Make" lists as of late.

VEGANMOFO!

Needless to say, when I saw this super-easy recipe on Everybody Likes Sandwiches, I figured I should whip it up for lunches for the week, seeing as it was simple and would therefore give me more time to be distracted by boys. *COUisaGH*

I didn't have garam masala curry paste, mostly because I don't know what the fuck that is or where to even get it. So I just used some powdered garam masala and a few hefty shakes of curry powder, and that did the trick. This is a spicy-assed little curry though, so be prepared to sniffle it up while you eat (you may wanna adjust the quantity of garam masala if you're on the wussy side when it comes to spicy). But you'll also be graced by the sweet commingling of two very compatible ingredients, curry getting you all hot and bothered and then apple cooling you the hell down afterwards.

(Oh, and for once I don't feel like my photo is all that bad, considering Everybody Likes Sandwich's pic looks sasquatch-ian as well. Hee hee.)



INGREDIENTS:

• 2 T. olive oil


• 1 small onion, diced


• 4 cloves garlic, diced


• 1 T. fresh ginger, minced (I used 1 t. powdered ginger)


• 1 green pepper, diced


• 2 small MacIntosh apples, diced


• 2 T. garam masala curry paste -or- 2.5 t. garam masala + 3 good shakes of curry powder


• 1-1/2 c. red lentils


• 2 c. vegetable broth

DIRECTIONS

Heat oil on medium-high heat in a large pot and saute garlic, onion and ginger until fragrant. Toss in green pepper and apples and the curry paste, and stir everything until well combined. Add in lentils and broth, cover, and turn down heat to a simmer and cook until the lentils and vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes. Add a little water, if necessary, to prevent the dal from becoming to dry. Serve on top of brown rice and top with some plain yogurt or mango chutney. (Or alternately, you can just eat it by itself.)

(Recipe from Everybody Likes Sandwiches)

When Hummus Goes Bad

A woman I work with brought me in an enormous bag of fresh dill from her garden a couple weeks ago, which is what prompted the baking of the Fucking Motherfuck, which didn't even put a dent in the amount of dill stuffed in my fridge. So when I realized that it was going to take quite a bit of dill-recipes to use up my enormous bag of dill, I decided to whip up some dill hummus as well.

Now, I've met a boy. His name is N-A. He has a nearly perfectly round head, has mad skillz in nearly EVERY artistic genre, and hates it when I flick his nipples (while also secretly loving it). Consequently, I've been a bit distracted lately.

So when I'm not forgetting to take pictures, I'm misplacing recipes. Case in point is this hummus.

When I make hummus, I tend to make a thick, non-oily hummus, one that's moreso close to a pate--it's a throwback to my days at OU where I'd gorge on the local bagel shop's hummus bagels which were basically just thickly-mashed chickpeas. And it actually was pretty damn good. But unfortunately I haven't a clue where the recipe is.

So all I can tell you is

a) this hummus isn't real photogenic (as you can see from this pic),

b) this hummus has an attitude problem about the fact that it's none too sexy on film (as you can ALSO see from this pic), and

c) basically you can replicate this hummus by whipping up any generic hummus recipe, cutting back on the oil significantly, adding in one roasted red pepper, and tossing a handful of fresh minced dill into the mix.

Voila: ugly roasted red pepper & dill hummus.

Oh, and VEGANMOFO!

Yeah That Vegan Crap

Firstly, I'm trying this VeganMoFo thing out this year, but I hate staring at the banner on each entry, so first things first: It's over yonder in the sidebar, bitches. Deal.

Secondly, what's most exciting to me about VeganMoFo is that I'm guaranteed to have more blogs to read throughout the day when I'm feeling so bored that I have the urge to stab myself in the eye with the office scissors. Which happens more frequently than most of us would like to think.

Thirdly, I will post every day I'm able (though I can't guarantee 20 posts this month, simply because some of us don't have computer access more than 4 days a week, so unless you want to buy me a computer--which I will gladly accept and lay nekkid with in my bed and pet like a little toy poodle--you'll have to deal with 4 days a week). ((Somewhere my parenthesis went horribly awry, and now I don't) know where ) to begin( or end them *sob)bing*).)) If I can bring myself to do it though, I will try to post 5 times in 4 days, just to keep the powers that be happy.

Fourthly, your mom.

Fifthly, I just happened across THIS BLOG and I think I wanna rip off all her clothes. Not in a pervy way, but because HER CLOTHES ARE THE CUTEST. Though I guess if an accidental clotheless makeout session took place, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Sixthly, it seems fitting to begin VeganMoFo with a tawdry, randy new list of The Most Bizarre Google Searches by Which People Stumble Across This Blog (click HERE for previous installments). Especially since the list has accumulated dramatically (and disturbingly) in a very short time.

This month, I offer you google searches in the form of a Q&A session between three stoned people, one of whom has Tourette's. We'll see if you can pick out which one that is.

DUDE #1: Why are vegans so thin?

DUDE #2: SPREADABLE MEAT. Chocolate covered banana shit. Chocolate turns your shit green. Tuna casserole tastes like shit. Picking peanuts out of shit. Expired tofu vomit.

TOURETTES DUDE: Motherfuck.

DUDE #1: Sexy parts of the body to lick?

DUDE #2: Hot dress ass.

TOURETTES DUDE: Mother fuck!

DUDE #1: Carol J. Adams will speak about her forthcoming book How to Eat Like a Vegetarian Even If You Never Want to Be One?

DUDE #2: Pussy licious!

TOURETTES DUDE: Vegetable fucking! Vegetable fucking ass!

DUDE #1: Cool vegans?

DUDE #2: Women eating shit porns. Women eating shit then having sex.

TOURETTES DUDE: Veganism is shit!

DUDE #1: Yeah i sometimes think things like that.

DUDE #2: I'm banging a vegan.

DUDE #1: Made little sister eat my shit.

TOURETTES DUDE: Motherfuck!