Incoherent Scribblings

Saturday, September 20 – I had originally planned on starting my vegetarian experiment on Saturday, but I was invited to a Texas barbeque that day. As a result, I decided to push my experiment back a day. However, there were actually quite a few meatless dishes to choose from at the barbeque so in the spirit of my experiment, in addition to my barbequed chicken I tried the spinach salad (loved it), a spoonful of corn and black bean salad (didn’t love it), some type of risotto dish (didn’t really have an opinion), and some grilled Portobello mushrooms (loved them too).

Sunday, September 21 – I went to the grocery store with a meatless list in my hand and came home with stuff to make homemade macaroni and cheese, apple salad, and spinach lasagna. I made the apple salad and ate croissants.

Quick Apple Salad

• Apples
• Seedless Grapes (I prefer red)
• Pineapple Chunks (drained)
• Walnuts
• Cool Whip

In a medium bowl cut up the apples and grapes. Add pineapple chunks, walnuts, and Cool Whip. Stir up and serve.

Monday, September 22 – I ate apple salad and croissants for lunch and for dinner I made homemade macaroni and cheese. It had been a long time since I had made macaroni and cheese and I just made the recipe that I made when I was a kid with good old Velveeta cheese. It was edible, but apparently I have become a cheese snob in my old age because I kept thinking that next time I make macaroni and cheese I am going to make it with cheddar.

Tuesday, September 23 – Left-over macaroni and cheese.

Wednesday, September 24 – I had a long day at work and didn’t feel like left-overs so I went to Sonic… and had a hamburger and fries.

Thursday, September 25 – I had the last of my apple salad, the last of my macaroni and cheese, and some cheese and crackers.

Friday, September 26 – Mr G came over and I made the spinach lasagna (and cheesecake). The lasagna turned out wonderful! It was a recipe I made up as I went along, but I will definitely be making it again. In fact, even if my vegetarian experiment doesn’t work out in the end I seriously don’t think I will ever make hamburger lasagna again… that is how good my spinach lasagna was.

Saturday, September 27 and Sunday, September 28 – Lasagna (and cheesecake) left-overs.

Spinach Lasagna

• 1 (9oz) pkg frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• 1 tub Ricotta cheese
• 1 brick Mozzarella cheese (shredded)
• 1 brick Parmesan cheese (shredded)
• 1 pkg finely shredded Italian cheese
• Parsley
• Onion (chopped)
• Garlic (chopped)
• Oregano
• Basil
• Italian Seasoning
• Pepper
• Olive Oil
• Lasagna Noodles
• 1 jar Spaghetti Sauce
• 1/3 cup water

In a skillet sauté onion, garlic, oregano, basil, Italian seasoning, and pepper in olive oil. Add spaghetti sauce. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine spinach, cheeses (minus the package of finely shredded Italian) and parsley.

In a 9×13 pan, alternate layers of noodles, spaghetti sauce, and cheeses until finishing with a layer of noodles and spaghetti sauce. Add water to the ends of the pan. Sprinkle finely shredded Italian cheese on top. Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until noodles are tender and lasagna is bubbly.

One of the items on my 101 Things in 1001 Days list is to “eat a vegetarian diet for a week.” This is an item that I have been pondering off and on quite a bit over the past few weeks because once again, I have fallen into one of my I-hate-cooking-and-food-in-general moods.

This anti-cooking sentiment reached its peak last weekend when I thought I was in the mood for one of my favorite dishes. I bought all the ingredients and made it, but once it was ready and I sat down to eat I wanted to throw it out after two bites. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good. It was. It just didn’t appeal to me. So I put the left-overs in the fridge and the next day I tried to eat it again (usually it is even better the second day), but even then I didn’t find it appetizing. I gave up and threw it out.

As a result, last week I began to think that perhaps a temporary change in eating habits might lift me out of my mood. Therefore I began to wonder if I was ready to implement the challenge of eating a vegetarian diet for a week.

So I started doing a little research on vegetarianism. I found this somewhat difficult because a lot of information out there is little more than militant propaganda (PETA anyone?), but eventually I found some advice for people who are considering vegetarianism. One of the things most often suggested is to try vegetarianism for thirty days and eat meatless meals that appeal to you. You don’t have to eat asparagus and tofu right off the bat. It is OK to eat spaghetti with meatless sauce and baked potatoes. You also don’t have to wake up one morning and completely give up meat. You can gradually wean yourself off of it. This type of advice was what I was looking for and was all I needed to decide that I am ready to begin my vegetarian experiment.

When I wrote this challenge for my 101 Things list I wrote it fairly simple because I thought if I left it as merely “a vegetarian diet for a week” I might accomplish it. However, I had hoped to not just eat a vegetarian diet for a week, but actually sit down and do a vegetarian meal plan as well. I wanted to find vegetarian recipes that sounded good and give them a try.

However, I have not yet seriously looked for any such recipes and given my current mood concerning food, I am not sure that a week is enough to get me out of this funk. Therefore, as most places suggest, I have decided to try vegetarianism for thirty days as opposed to one week.

Nevertheless I have also decided that I will not completely forbid myself from eating meat. In other words, I will allow myself to eat meat only if I go out to eat. This does not mean that I will circumvent my experiment by eating out every night or require myself to eat meat if I go out, rather I will not deny myself a steak if I am at a restaurant and I want it.

As a general rule though, for the next month I resolve to no longer buy or cook meat and will actively search for and try one vegetarian recipe a week. In a month I will evaluate the state of affairs and at that point determine if I am really the carnivore I always thought I was.

Potluck Quiche
Originally uploaded by blondelibrarian

I made these quiches for the potluck that we are having at the library tomorrow. I never actually signed the sheet we had in the office because I couldn’t decide what to make, but about 4:30 this afternoon I started browsing through the recipes that I have archived from the daily recipe email that I get to see if I could find some inspiration.

Though neither of the recipes I ended up making were in my personal archive, I was inspired by one for a quiche. Since it wasn’t quite what I was looking for, I browsed through Allrecipes.com until I found three candidates. The first was a traditional Quiche Lorraine, the second a broccoli quiche, and the third was a zucchini quiche. Though the zucchini quiche sounded very tasty, in the end I decided to make the Quiche Lorraine (pictured on the left) and the Easy Broccoli Quiche (pictured on the right).

I chose the Quiche Lorraine because it is what most people think of when they think of quiche. I chose the broccoli quiche because I like broccoli and I always make things for potlucks that I like, but also because I know we have some vegetarians at the library and I wanted to make sure they had something to eat too.

After a quick trip to the store to buy some pie tins, a cheese grater, and the ingredients for both quiches, I began to cook. According to the recipes the prep time for each quiche should have been somewhere in the vicinity of 20 minutes, but it took me closer to 45 to prepare them simultaneously. I am not sure if I am badly organized or what, but the estimated prep time on a recipe is never how long it takes me! The cook time on the recipe indicated that each quiche should have been done in about 30 minutes, but the broccoli quiche didn’t firm up until it had been in the oven for about 45 minutes and the Quiche Lorraine took nearly an hour.

I watched them closely to prevent the pie crust from burning and thus far I am pleased with how they turned out. The real test, however, will be tomorrow at the potluck. Hopefully they will taste as good as they look and smell right now.

I have always liked to cook, but I will admit that when I was living with A. it got rather tedious. He was interested in the eating part, but was less than helpful when asked for suggestions as to what to cook. As a result, the entire burden of feeding us fell upon me and after a couple of years I was so fed up with being the only one to plan our menus that I began to dread the whole experience.

I was so tired of cooking that for the entire year that I lived with my mom I barely cooked at all. Every once in a while I would have a craving for my spaghetti or one of my other specialties and I would volunteer, but for the most part I was happy to let Mom do the cooking.

However, as time progressed I began to miss cooking and as the job prospects began to look up I began scouring the thrift stores in search of the basics that I would need when I finally had my own kitchen again.

I purchased an Armstrong knife set and couldn’t pass up the pasta maker when the little old ladies offered to sell it to me for a dollar. I bought a set of dishes for eight at a yard sale and Mom found a complete set of silverware at the consignment store where she works. I knew that once I moved my cupboards would be bare for a while, but I looked forward to filling the shelves with the types of kitchen accessories that I had always wanted.

Yes, there have been some frustrating moments in my new kitchen when culinary inspiration was paired with the realization that I lack ingredients or equipment, but my pantry is slowly accumulating the essentials and with each paycheck I replace those things that I left behind.

And someday soon when I am overcome with the desire to pull out the pasta maker and make ravioli just for fun, I will be able to do it.

When I walked in the door yesterday morning from work, Mom said to me, “Umm… I think you forgot something last night.”

I already knew this because I seriously considered calling her at about 12:30 am last night and filling her in on the incident, but after I realized what happened I also knew it wouldn’t do any good anyway.

On Wednesday evening (at midnight, Wednesday turns into my Thursday), Mom and I went out for pizza at the local pizza chain restaurant. Now, at this particular pizza place, I just so happen to enjoy their breadsticks enough that I will often order them for my meal and just skip the pizza. On this particular occasion I did so. However, about half way through my breadsticks, I thought it would be handy if I ordered one of those mini-pizzas to go so that I could take it to work with me for a midnight snack. (Pardon the pun )

15 minutes before I had to leave the house for work I gathered all the necessary items on the dining room table to get me through a shift: Coke (minimum 2 cans), flannel shirt (to keep warm in our chilly office), contact and glasses case with glasses (no matter how little I wear them during the day, my contacts insist on coming out around 3 am), and a few other items. And last evening, I also laid the pizza box containing my cold pizza on the table.

About 5 minutes before I left, I decided I needed a grocery bag to carry all my crap so I went looking for one under the kitchen sink. As I looked under the sink I realized I was out of luck as Mom had just donated all of our used plastic grocery sacks to the yard sale committee for the city-wide garage sales next weekend.

At this point I was afraid I was going to be late, so I gave up on the sack, blocked the kitchen door to prevent Olee (FYI: Olee is our 15 year old three-legged cat that terrorizes everything) from entering the kitchen overnight, turned off the lights, gathered up my stuff, walked out the door, and locked it. (I know I have mentioned that in Small Town Iowa we don’t lock out doors. That is usually true, except Step-dad insists we lock the door at night.)

When I got to work, the dispatcher that works the shift before me offered to leave me a couple of sandwiches that she had brought with her but not eaten. I turned her down, stating that I had pizza to eat…

But suddenly I couldn’t remember putting my pizza in the office fridge. I told her I would be back in a second, I had to run out to my car for something. I looked on the passenger seat, but lo and behold, I had forgotten my pizza and left it on the dining room table at home. The dispatcher told me it was OK, she would stay if I wanted to run home for a second and get my pizza, but I declined.

For you see, it wouldn’t have done me any good to go home anyway: Not only did I suspect it would take Olee all of 15 minutes to find and destroy the box before eating the cheesy pizza that I had left on the dining room table, I had locked the front door before I left home and I don’t have a key to the house!