The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

When I was four-years-old and living in Euless, Texas, my father came home from work one day and found my brother and I crying in the corner of the living room. He knelt down next to me and asked what was wrong. “Mommy’s . . . going . . . to make us eat . . . li-ve-errrr!” I sobbed, choking no doubt on snot and tears. “Kids,” he said, “we’re going to McDonald’s.” Now, I know as vegans we’re not supposed to support McDonald’s in any form, but that day, McDonald’s saved my life . . . or so I thought (kids can be melodramatic, no). Liver feeding is one of those things my mother did because she heard it was supposed to be good for us. McDonald feeding is something my father did because he hated liver, too. Cream of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches were more his speed when he could get into the kitchen. So when I was little they also became mine (and Brussels sprouts and lima beans).

Years later, grilled cheese and tomato soup still spelled comfort, but when I became vegan, the vegan soy cheese version was less satisfying. I’d still hit up some of the individually packaged slices when I was reaching cheese sandwich desperation, but in the beginning I thought that stuff was worse than the Velveeta mac ‘n cheese my mom tried to sub for Kraft one year. (There was mutiny at the table.) And then it all ceased to matter so much because the allergies came roaring in and I lost the soup, to boot.

For some reason, I never really tried to replace it until I starting thinking a few weeks ago that I really should just make cream of red pepper soup instead. Don’t ask why it took me years to get to this point. I suppose I was too busy tinkering with other things.

Roasted Red Pepper Soup (Serves 6 — guesstimate, of course)

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 medium Spanish onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 scotch bonnet pepper, finely minced

1/4 c. red wine vinegar

3 red peppers, chopped

1.5 c. raw almonds

5 c. water

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp. margarine

1 c. soft bread crumbs (I used leftover GF bread because I had some lightly corny bread from last week’s experiment. I suspect 1 c. or so of a cooked starchy white rice, like arborio, will work well here, too)

* Add olive oil and onions to a large pot. Caramelize onions, then add scotch bonnet pepper and garlic. Cook for 1 minute. Add red wine vinegar to deglaze — scrape up the bits on the bottom of the pot. (I highly recommend not sticking your face in said pot while doing this, because you know what stings more than vinegar coming back at you? Vinegar with scotch bonnet pepper coming back at you.) Add red peppers, almonds, water, bay leaves and marjoram. Bring to a boil and then turn down and let simmer for 30 minutes. Add bread crumbs and puree until smooth. I highly recommend a food processor or blender to get a super smooth puree. You can use an immersion blender, but there will always be teeny pieces of almond in the soup. It pains me to say this because I love immersion blenders. If you don’t mind a little texture in your “cream of” soup, feel free to use what you’d like.

So clearly, the soup is the good. I would never post a recipe for something I thought tasted awful. OK. Maybe I would. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post. But the bad is really just a little disappointing:

This millet-besan sweet dough looks innocuous enough. It felt like dough. It rolled like dough. Surely, it was dough. But behold! Gluten free flour seems to have succubus-like properties that causes it to cruelly remove every last bit of moisture from whatever you put it in. At least the package of coconut flour was honest. It mentioned the moisture-wicking properties, so I put it down, even though it probably would have been tasty in this experiment. I thought millet and I could be friends. Apparently not.

It made my tasty sweet rolls fall apart and ensured they are dry as sawdust. I suspect I know what hardtack biscuits taste like, now. But I’m having a dilemma. I hate throwing out food and they don’t taste bad, they’re just really dry. I’ll probably have to liberate the filling and dip these in tea. Fortunately, I only used half of the dough. Tonight, I’m going to triple the fat content in the one sitting in my fridge and see where it goes. It saddens me because I really wanted a breakfast roll that didn’t also clog my arteries.

The Ugly! The PPK forums went down. I had it cemented into my head that I must go to the PPK for injera. Goodness forbid, I remember that Kittee was just making some not too long ago. I thought that this injera could be saved. I tried dumping off the top bit, but it all came sliding out. Oh, well. I’m going to try again. And this time I’m following Kittee. The only thing is, she used atta as a starter and I’m not positive what the best GF sub would be. Right now, I’m thinking sorghum flour might be the best way to go since the GF beer brewers seem to like it.

Tomorrow, watch me torture celery!