Hot Sauce

It's amazing how much better a boring meal can be made by the liberal application of hot sauce. Cholula, I love you baby. Don't ever change.

Chipotle pasta sauce

Sounds maybe a bit weird, but try it out, I think you'll like it. This recipe comes from a co-worker of an ex-girlfriend, and it originally called for chicken, but f that.

start with some soy curls. A handful or two? probably two. Rehydrate them in some kind of liquid. I use water with some soy sauce mixed in. While they're hydrating, make the sauce.

2-3 cloves garlic
3 chipotle peppers (the canned kind in adobo sauce)
a couple spoonfuls of the adobo sauce
1/4-1/3 cup of white wine (I usually use a cheap chardonnay)
same amount of extra virgin olive oil

whiz all this together really good in a food processor of some sort. Then add some green onion that's been chopped up kind of finely.

once the soy curls are hydrated, squeeze them out a bit and put them in a container, and then pour the sauce over and stir and let them marinate for a little bit. This part can be skipped if you're hungry.

Boil pasta, sautee soy curls with all the sauce while the pasta is cooking, drain pasta and toss it all together in the end. I like to put nooch on this too, but that's totally optional.

Thanksgiving test run

Jess had some people over tonight to test her thanksgiving recipes on before she presents them to people at a talk next week about vegan thanksgivings. She made a pretty awesome pecan pie (recipe courtesy of Toddx on the PPK), and a sweet potato casserole. Plus she baked some awesome tomato-rosemary scones and mocha chip muffins from Isa's upcoming brunch book. Oh yeah and roasted potatoes factored in there somehow too. Tons of food, and it was all delicious...thanks Jess!

Favorite Things

My friends are posting lists of their favorite things on their blogs, and in the interests of killing time, I'm going to do so as well.

1. Avocados
Avocados are what got me off of cheese when I first went vegan. They're creamy and fatty and they've got kind of an almost-cheesy flavor. I probably eat too many avocados now, but they're finally back out of season so I'll be less likely to get them. Here's a few ways I like to eat avocados:
sliced, on toast
cubed, tossed with pasta and olive oil and nooch
with a spoon
sliced up, wrapped in a tortilla
mashed with some minced garlic and nooch, spread on toast
What do you like to do with avocados?

2. Video Games
Video games have always been a major recreation of mine, starting back in the day with the Atari 2600. I don't even remember how or why we got it, I was so young, but I remember playing the game with the tanks (Tank Battle?), and hangman on it. More recently, I have an Xbox 360, but it's at my parents' house, and mom won't ship it back to me until I get a job. So mostly I've been playing World of Warcraft. I got Fallout 3 recently as well, and that's a pretty cool game too.

3. Really hot showers
Pet peeve: luke warm showers. I want my shower water to be hot.

4. Riding my bike
Portland is awesome for this. There's a bike repair collective literally across the street from my apartment, for all my repair needs. Lots of grocery and restaurant options within easy biking distance. Riding my bike makes me feel more connected with my neighborhood. I can better see/hear/smell whats going on around me than if I were in a car.

5. Hoodies
Cozy, comfy, and secure. Zip hoodies preferred, but pullover ones are ok in a pinch. I hate the way the zippers get weird after you've had it for a while though, does anyone know of a way to fix that?