Lazy Saturdays

The last couple weekends I've done some fun cooking and baking with local fruits and veggies. I made some cute tiny blueberry-peach pies in muffin tins, but didn't take a picture. I also made this tart with the same filling and crust. The peaches were from the farmers market, and the blueberries were frozen from picking a couple months ago.





The other weekend I made a really good tempeh scramble for breakfast. I steamed the tempeh to make it less dry and take away the bitterness, and steamed some chopped potatoes along with. Then I browned the potatoes in a little oil, added the tempeh, garlic, and onion, seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, and sesame oil. Then I added zucchini, tomatoes, and scallions, and when they were cooked and the potatoes and tempeh were brown, I added some soy sauce and nutritional yeast. I ate it with some salsa and spinach salad. And probably coffee.

Okra and Risotto

I've never really known what to do with okra, and always worry it'll turn out slimy. But I had a few pieces of it in a CSA share my roommates couldn't use, so I thought when in doubt, fry. I dipped it in soymilk, then a mix of flour, cornmeal, chickpea flour, salt, and pepper. I pan-fried it and seasoned with more salt and pepper. It didn't turn out slimy at all! But it definitely could have used a little more oil in the pan.





So that was last week.

Today I bought some oyster mushrooms at Eastern Market, as well as a couple of shallots and a bunch of fresh thyme, because I've been wanting to make some risotto. I rehydrated some dried morels and chanterelles in veggies broth, then strained them and added them to sauteing oysters. In a separate pan I sauteed shallots and garlic in a mix of EB and olive oil, then added arborio rice, stirred a couple minutes, added about a cup of white wine, stirred til it was absorbed, repeated with veggie broth, and so on, until risotto was born.

I added the mushrooms fairly early on, once they were cooked, and periodically added some thyme. Then at the end a little nutritional yeast. Chef roommate said it was good, especially because it didn't have any [insert long list of dairy products here].