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Friday night (near-) freeganism and other post-punk culinary exploits. 14 March 2008 8:42 pm

Posted by Tracy in : Morning Glory, books, cooking, pictures, time versus money, vegan, vegetarian, work , trackback

Subtitle: with pictures!

So Peter’s away at a big nerdy conference in Portland until tomorrow, and I’m home alone except I’ve been working a lot this week — which is great, because we need the money something fierce. But speaking of money, I really need to invent a good word for the weird but delicious mix of cheap and/or free stuff I’ve been eating for the past few days. It’s semi-freegan, 100% opportunivore, and 150% TracyFood. Anybody got any clever ideas? I’m very open to suggestions. But I digress. Let me tell you all about my thrift mode eating habits.

First and foremost there’s Morning Glory shift leftovers, of course: most recently a sugar-free (except for the chocolate chips) blondie with my tea, and before that a wheat-free chocolate chip walnut brownie cookie (yesterday was a good day for day-old pastries, oh yes). For breakfast today I had a pancake made with the leftovers of last night’s batter for breakfast, and last night I had some homefries and a little bit of Fusion tofu-veggie filling (yum).

I am also a big fan of whatever’s on the dinged produce rack at my friendly local hippie markets. On Wednesday Capella’s not-pretty-but-still-edible offerings made me feel like I’d won the lottery:

As I wrote in my paper journal, “Woo! Instant cooking projects!” The sweet potatoes went into experiments which deserve their own entry, and anyway that was on Wednesday, and I’m trying to keep this post focused on this fabulous Friday night. So. Where was I? Well, the only thing not fabulous about tonight (besides missing Peter) is the weather, which sucks out loud — it started raining hard last night and got so bad I actually dreamed the roof was leaking catastrophically. Boy howdy was I glad to wake up from that one. But I digress (again). Rainbow! Since today was my first day off since Monday, and the weather was ever so very not conducive to gardening (or any other outdoor activity), I decided to at least warm things up in my kitchen. And wouldn’t you know it, I was rewarded by a sunshower and a rainbow outside my kitchen window just as I set to cooking. So awesome!

First I started a mess of pinto beans boiling, then transferred them into a covered baking dish and a 350 degree oven because I needed all my non-stockpots for other projects. Meanwhile, I used the eggplant for a batch of tempeh marinara, like so:
Tempeh marinara. That filled one big pan; next up was the Dutch oven, for another round of post-punk chili sin carne a molé. Which reminds me: I am still deeply in love with Vegan with a Vengeance so much so that I must shamelessly plug it (and my not-quite-brand-new venture into the land of “I told you we need the money” Amazon Affiliate-hood). Twice. Seriously. This cookbook, it just plain rules. I can’t believe it’s already due back to the library tomorrow. Tragedy! (Until I get my own copy, that is.) Okay, back to tooting my own horn, because I have to brag a little about my cunning foresight and time management and so on: I had made extra onions and garlic when I did my marinara prep, and set them aside along with some canned tomatoes, ready to use in the chili. Also, the marinara and remaining chili prep kept me busy while the beans were cooking, and after I had pulled them out of the oven but they were still a little too hot to use. All told, I went from zero to two big pots of delicious all done but the simmering, in just under an hour and a half. Then while everything simmered to completion, I put on the quinoa (a vehicle for chili and also an ingredient in my next post-punk cooking adventure, aw yeah) and did the dishes. I am awesome.

So, where was I? Oh yes, about to show off the aforementioned chili:

Chili sin carne al mole.

Mmmmm. I am hungry just looking at it, which means I should hurry up and post this so I can get to the eating already. Happy weekend, all!


Comments»

1. CJ - 14 March 2008 10:48 pm

You too! Be well. Thanks for the cheery post.

2. Tracy - 15 March 2008 1:32 pm

You’re welcome, CJ! Thanks for TracyFood’s 300th comment!

3. Linley - 17 March 2008 2:33 pm

Tracy, I have something I want to email you–what email address are you using now?

This post made me hungry, by the way. I may need to make some chili.

4. Tracy - 17 March 2008 4:41 pm

Hi Linley! We’ve already exchanged emails, but I forgot to say: it sounds like I made you a good kind of hungry, which is exactly what I aim for. Enjoy your chili (or whatever other deliciousness ensues from good hunger).