bread & circuses
getting tired of winter vegetables, and using up two loaves of bread
Spring is finally clawing its way through the last dregs of winter— though reluctantly, it seems. The days are longer, the afternoons warming, but the mornings and nights are still irritatingly cold, meaning the jacket that felt insufficient at 8:30am seems completely unnecessary at 5pm.
I’ve arranged to take next week off work, for no other reason than I had a couple vacation days left from last year to use up, and the fact that I haven’t taken much of a break since last August. Purposely, I haven’t made any real plans so that I can spend the time however I want— hopefully, doing some reading, knitting, and project cooking or baking, and maybe tidying up a little (there are a bunch of picture frames on my floor just waiting for me to have the time and energy to put art in them). Hopefully, I’ll have some interesting things to share with you next newsletter. Until then, here’s what I managed to cobble together during this busy week.
On Sunday we held this month’s cookoff, which was sandwich-themed. Thankfully it was a smaller one, so we didn’t have to worry about getting so so full, or else trying to figure out how to cut sandwiches small enough that we didn’t. And we could all fit around Tim & Liang’s dinner table, too. The beauty that exists in the diversity of what constitutes a sandwich meant that each of us went in a pretty different direction, so we got to enjoy a cold sandwich (chickpea tuna salad), a hot sandwich (tempeh Reuben), a burger (pictured and described below), and an ice cream sandwich (chocolate and banana) to finish it all off. Let’s not get into whether or not a hot dog constitutes a sandwich, though.
I made sourdough rye using this recipe— omitting the seeds— which has a shorter fermentation time than the more traditional sourdough boules I make almost every week. That and a little oat milk created a nice soft loaf that was sturdy enough for a deli sandwich but didn’t have a super thick crust. This was really good and I would definitely make it again, maybe even using the caraway seeds (I feel anise and cardamom are too strongly flavoured and might make it unsuited for anything but toast).
For the chickpea tuna salad, I mashed chickpeas to a chunky paste-like consistency, with only small pieces and a few whole ones remaining. I mixed in chopped pickles, shallot, and capers, a little of the pickle brine along with the mayo, and of course salt and pepper. The capers help some, but a teaspoon or two of dulse flakes really give it that sea-like element that’s needed here. Crumbled nori could work, too. It’s not that this is exactly like tuna salad, but it does hit a lot of the same notes— my preference for most vegan versions of things. Why try to create an exact replica of something when that’s never going to be possible, and you can satisfy that itch with something similar and delicious in its own right? Anyway, it was agreed, via our extremely serious voting process, that this was the most ‘sandwich’ of all the entries.
Now that we’ve passed the vernal equinox as of Monday, my tolerance for anything relating to winter and the many sufferings it inflicts on us have waned exponentially. I’m ready to start seeing my fridge filled with asparagus and fresh herbs and baby greens again, but unfortunately, we aren’t quite there yet. And as someone who hates unnecessary waste, this week I am sighing deeply as I bring yet another aging beet out of the produce drawer to roast for some purpose I’m not excited about but nevertheless beholden to.
While I didn’t exactly approach this meal with enthusiasm, it was still enjoyable: a warm farro and kale salad with kalamata olives and roasted beets, and a little pecorino. I like to cook grains for salad in sort of a weak broth to give them a little boost in flavour, but not so much that the broth overpowers the taste of whatever I’m using to dress it. I made a dijon mustard vinaigrette (a go-to for heartier salads), and crisped up some leftover chickpeas in a frying pan like in this recipe, with a little lemon zest and chili flakes to toss them in at the end. The light and fresh flavour of the lemon zest made this a little less solidly wintry and more transitional, the way these late days of March often feel.
I needed to use up the last of the rye bread I made for the cookoff before it went stale, and considered making another type of chickpea salad filling, but ended up going the lazy route and make a grilled cheese with some arugula pesto from the freezer. I ate this with the leftovers of the farro salad from the night before.
Knowing I was going to be making a dinner that only takes about ten minutes, I had the freedom to use that time to make cookies instead. For expediency’s sake I gravitated toward my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe, from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, which I love because it doesn’t involve softening butter or mixing things in more than one bowl. Then I had the galaxy-brained idea of subbing in trail mix for some of the chocolate chips. We buy the Kirkland brand mix from Costco, which has three kinds of nuts, two kinds of M&Ms, and raisins— a good way to get some flavour and texture variety in the cookie without having to pull out a bunch of different jars of things to mix in. I used twice as much trail mix as chocolate chips, and I have definitely already eaten a significant number of these salty-sweet beauties.
One more thing to eat when you have too much bread: eggs in purgatory! Like an Italian shakshuka, this is just a nice tomatoey base to poach a couple of eggs in, melt some parmesan on top of, and serve with toast or fresh, crusty bread. It makes for a nice quick meal you can throw together with a can of tomatoes and whatever else you’ve got around. This is also one of those dishes that works great served and eaten right out of the pan. I like a puttanesca version myself, but any tomato sauce recipe you like will probably work. And fire-roasted tomatoes, as always, provide a lot of rich flavour without a lot of time on the stove. I’m still perfecting my egg poaching techniques for this, in that I usually overdo them, but they did come out pretty jammy this time.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. Anyway, here’s this week’s shitpost that made me laugh.