catching up
an assortment of weeknight meals, and a vegan cookoff (finally)
Hi everyone, apologies for the unexpectedly long absence. I’ll keep the tale of woe short, but two weeks ago, around the time I would normally sit down to write this newsletter, I had vertigo that was getting so intense I ended up going to the ER. I’m on treatment and starting to feel better, and I have an MRI scheduled for next week (I’ve been on a waitlist for awhile, so this is maybe just one of those oddly timely coincidences), but my ability to do anything as usual was pretty much shot for awhile there, as you might imagine. I did get an outrageous amount of reading and writing done last weekend, being that I still wasn’t up for doing much other than sitting in one place, so it’s not all bad. Bear with me as I jog my own memory about the edible highlights of the last four weeks!
It was ages ago now, in the last week of May, but for Jeff’s birthday, we did the same thing we did last year: get a couple of people together for drinks around the Shipyards. It was a warm, sunny Saturday we knew there would be competition to get seated at most of the breweries, so we started at Copperpenny right when they opened at 2. When they opened a few years ago, they only made gin, and it’s been amazing to watch their offerings slowly grow and their menu change with it. Still, it’s always hard not just to get a dirty martini whenever I go there because the martinis are perfect. Jesse, Krystyna, Steph, Chris, and Denai all came out to join us and most of us couldn’t resist ordering a second drink there before we moved on. Apparently that weekend a bunch of places along the brewery row were doing a tiki theme, so that was kind of fun. I forget what the one I ordered was, but I know one of the ingredients was blue curaçao.
We tried to go to Beere after, but it was full up. Some of you may already know that our beloved House of Funk has rebranded, portioning itself into the new House of Lager in Squamish, and House of Pandemonium in their original location (House of Funk is now used only for the coffee roasting aspect of the business as far as I can tell). I can’t say I understand the motivation behind it, and I’ll miss the massive church door tables, but I suppose if there is a market for more of a dive bar experience, then more power to them. They also have more bar snacks now; tater tots and a variety of hot dogs and things. I did get the Big Mac veggie dog and really liked it. Although the beer list did seem less creative overall, the quality of the new core beers still lived up to my expectations from them, and we still had a good time, so I guess I don’t have any big complaints except that I am a person who dislikes change. Oh, I wasn’t going to mention this because I’m fairly sure this was for the event and not a permanent change, but since I’m complaining: I want my beer in a fucking glass. Don’t humiliate me with a plastic cup unless the drink costs less than $4.
Also at the end of May, we at last held another vegan cookoff! The last one must have been ages ago, because I seem to remember it being at Tim and Liang’s old apartment. Lindsay and Neil hosted this at their place in the West End. Now that Neil is no longer a chef professionally, he said he was able to feel good about making food in his off-time again, which is how we ended up talking about this and scheduling it in the first place while at Malloreigh and Robyn’s housewarming party awhile ago. Anyway, the theme was ‘botanicals’ (for spring? groundbreaking), but I’d accidentally told a couple of people ‘greens’ so the results were somewhere in the middle. I made a version of this dip, which I’ve made as written before and really liked, and it wasn’t hard to make it vegan: vegan mayo and yogurt, and added caper brine to make up the tang from the feta cheese.
Neil was the winner, with an outstanding dish of wild lily shoots and morels with sea asparagus and a smoked onion & tofu cream, but clearly we were all excited to be cooking for each other again, because everyone made really nice things. And we were reminded of possibly the best part of cookoff: putting all the leftovers out on the table and eating them in as many combinations as possible.
I had leftover vegan yogurt, and leftover herbs, so I made this avocado ranch and really liked it! I used more vinegar than the recipe calls for, and I would definitely not advise substituting dried herbs for fresh, although the recipe does offer the conversions if you want. I’ve been using this as a sauce for salad-y rice bowls, or dipping cucumber and carrots in, rather than salad proper. To me ranch is more of a sauce or a dip rather than a dressing. But I’m not here to judge you. Just use an avocado that is exactly ripe, or even one day before ideal ripeness if you’ve got a good blender; the kind of ripe you’d use for guacamole will make the dressing’s colour less appealing.
I had a big craving for tofu pad thai recently, so I picked up some bean sprouts in order to make it. I never buy them because you have to use them so quickly it’s absurd, otherwise you have a puddle of horrible slime in the produce drawer. I didn’t have rice noodles, only soba noodles, but obviously the important thing is the sauce, so it was still delicious. I tend to use this recipe from Isa Does It for the sauce, because it’s vegan and I always have everything around. The next day I made a green curry to use up as many of the bean sprouts as I could, and was almost successful! Next time I buy some I definitely want to try making banchan.
While my vertigo was at its worst, Jeff was busy with work and I was eating girl dinners because I couldn’t handle moving about in the kitchen for as long as it takes to make dinner. Mostly this was Costco spring rolls with salad and some grapes, but sometimes some cucumber and bread with hummus, or a cheese and tomato sandwich. Or else giving up entirely and ordering a pizza or some sushi.
When I started to feel better, I had some grape tomatoes to use up and I slow-roasted them with the intent of making this pasta salad again with a slight adjustment, since we’d used up the last of our big jar of kalamata olives the last time we made it. But alas, the big jar of castelvetrano olives had mold it in and I had to toss it, and it just wouldn’t be the same without olives. So I melded a few different ideas together, and added the roasted tomatoes to pearl couscous with spicy corn butter, herbs, and some white wine vinegar for acidity. It was incredible and I will for sure be making the corn butter again (as in this recipe, but I added more chili).
Also, speaking of butter making things better (and pastas that have never steered me wrong), zucchini season is coming: please make this recipe. And if you like olives, please add kalamata olives toward the end of cooking the zucchini.
My produce box has gifted me with a few winter squashes recently, and I was dragging my feet on using them because butternut and acorn squash just don’t feel like things I should be eating when it’s 21°C out. But I got around to roasting a couple, and with one, I made a tart with some frozen puff pastry, caramelized onions, and some taleggio I’d had Jeff get for me at the Italian deli a couple of weeks ago when he went by to pick up pizza flour. The vibe was not precisely summery, but it turned out so good, and a crisp green salad in a vinegary dressing brightened things up nicely.
While putting the other roasted squash in the freezer, I found a previously frozen container of squash from a few months ago and sighed heavily. Then I took it out and used it to make a black bean and squash burrito. I’d bought tomatillos on sale recently so I roasted them for salsa verde, which made me more excited about exchanging one freezer squash for another. My recipe for the salsa is here if you want to try it! No picture of the burrito because I am not enough of a food stylist to make mashed black beans and green goo look good on camera.
For father’s day, my dad and my sisters came over for dinner. For an appetizer I made hummus using my double-cook instant pot method, which has yet to fail me. For dinner, we’d picked up a steelhead side at Stong’s and grilled it in foil with a maple-soy marinade from The Main cookbook. Jeff loves this recipe. We haven’t made it in a long time because we don’t buy meat too often, and while we were prepping for the grill someone mentioned cooking salmon on top of onions and lemons so they caramelize and flavour it as it cooks, and Jeff did end up slicing onions to put in the bottom of the foil. It came out just perfect. To go with it we had a salad with carrot-ginger dressing (a Lucky Peach recipe, but this one is similar), and oven-fried potatoes (as in this method). We sat around the table for ages talking about food and art and things we’ve learned, the kinds of conversations that are a balm to the soul, especially after you’ve spent a lot of time alone.
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 any donations are greatly appreciated. Anyway, everything is horrible, but it’s always worth it to do something good.