moving in stereo
food with friends and the onset of soup season
Hello, my friends. I’m at a point right now where the passage of time is my enemy, even more so than usual, because I know we need to move by the end of the year, and we don’t know where we’ll be moving yet, and the end of the year looks a lot closer with October so near on the horizon. But as I can’t do anything more about that than I’m already doing, onward we go.
Last Saturday was car-free day at the Shipyards, which I’d forgotten about, but it’s pretty good: they close down the street in front of Lonsdale Quay and there are vendor booths, food trucks, live music, and stuff to see from the transit museum (the event is sponsored by Translink). It was also Oktoberfest across the Brewery District, so there was even more celebration at all the local breweries. Amanda and I met up at Cerveceria Astilleros for beer and tacos; I had the paloma grapefruit lager again because I love grapefruit, and also tried the yuzu rice lager, which was unique and amazing. Then we headed down to the Shipyards to see Devours play a quick set.
It was really fun to see an incredibly queer show in the middle of Lower Lonsdale, right in front of the Tap & Barrel. We danced in the rain in the street and afterwards, went to get ice cream at Welcome Parlour. I’d never been there before because we are so rich in ice cream and gelato options in this area, but I liked it. I got chocolate espresso, and Amanda got orange chocolate, one of the three vegan flavours they had. She was really excited because she says she misses Terry’s chocolate oranges, which she can’t eat anymore because they have milk in them. We walked out to the pier with our cones, watching the sunset, and I was home by 8pm. The perfect evening, honestly.
Tofu gets an unfair amount of disdain for how versatile and satisfying it is. I love it and cook with it often, but it’s less often that I really crave it like I did this week. Specifically, I wanted crispy fried tofu cubes with thick, spicy peanut sauce. There’s a curried peanut sauce rice bowl from Isa Does It that’s been on repeat in our house for years, but I hadn’t made it in awhile, and was happy to do so again, even if it meant Jeff had to run to the store at 6pm because I started making it without noticing we were out of ginger. I always add broccoli to the kale, and make everything but the sauce using just one cast iron instead of steaming the vegetables separately, because steamed vegetables are largely boring and also I hate washing dishes. The broccoli takes about half as much time as the tofu, so when the tofu starts to brown, I give it a toss and then squeeze the florets in around it. When I add the kale I put the lid on for a minute or two to let it steam itself on top of all the other stuff.
The sauce though is what’s really special. I know I’ve written about it here before, because it’s so bloody good. The recipe notes in the book say that you will find yourself wiping it off surfaces with your finger to eat it if you spill a bit while you’re cooking, because it’s really just that satisfying. I like an Asian curry here rather than the typical Madras curry powder, but honestly anything will be good. If you add a little more vinegar you can also use this like a satay sauce for tofu or mushrooms on their own as an appetizer, which I’ve done for parties.
One thing that happens fairly frequently in our house is we open a can of pineapple to put on pizza, but since we only make pizza once a week, we usually only use about half the pineapple before the juices start to get kind of fizzy and questionable sitting in the fridge. Our friend Jason is visiting this week from Chicago, and on Wednesday, he and Steph came over for dinner, drinks, and Star Trek (my three love languages), and I made us pineapple fried rice with tofu from the other half of the brick I’d opened. The sauce I used for the rice was just soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili crisp.
I was very excited to use the first carrot from our garden, which I think might actually have been a parsnip based on its size and flavour. I also added in a few torn-up slices of the dry chorizo we’ve been using on pizza. I’d saved the stems from the broccoli we used in the curried peanut sauce bowl, and chopped them up here for a little extra substance and colour— it ended up being the only real colour present, since I forgot to add the peas I meant to use. My loose method of making fried rice is here, but the most important thing is to use cold, pre-cooked rice. I am still haunted by a British cooking video where she cooks the rice fresh, RINSES IT UNDER THE TAP, and then throws it into the pan. Genuinely disturbing stuff. Anyway, luckily everyone agreed the rice was excellent, even without the peas.
Jeff had mentioned the gochujang cookies in passing sometime over the weekend, but they refused to leave my mind, so I made a batch on Tuesday. I haven’t made them since Christmas last year, and I’d almost forgotten how mind-bendingly delicious they are. They’re easy to make and the only note I have for the recipe is to do the gochujang butter step before refrigerating the dough rather than after, so that it’s less stiff as you’re trying to swirl it in. Otherwise it’s amazing, like most of Eric Kim’s recipes. We managed to still have enough cookies left to share with our friends on Wednesday night, and one each for Jeff and me on Thursday, but I really doubt that even on our own it’d be possible for them to last much longer than that.
I said last week that I knew it would soon be time to make the first soup of the fall, and then it was! On Sunday the weather was stormy and I had some wilting basil to use that wasn’t a large enough quantity for pesto, so I settled on tomato basil soup. There’s a great roasted tomato soup recipe in Smitten Kitchen Every Day which I like because it uses canned tomatoes— tomato season is nearly over, but soup season lasts from the first really rainy, cool day in September until at least that first 15-degree day in March or April. The recipe to make it with fresh tomatoes is here, and it can be adjusted to use canned, as in the book.
Separate the tomatoes from the juices first, and roast at 450 for about half the time as in the fresh tomato recipe. I chose to roast with the thyme and about half the basil I had, to flavour the tomatoes even more. You’ll also need less broth because you can use the juices from the tomatoes. And rather than blending the tomatoes before mixing with the broth and bringing everything to simmer, blend the whole thing at the end with the hand blender. I like making this on a weekend afternoon because there’s lots of downtime you can use to do other stuff. Unfortunately I had to use said time for cleaning my bathroom and do laundry rather than something fun like baking, but you know.
I skipped the broiled cheese toast topping this time in favour of a regular grilled cheese sandwich, because I got myself a little treat in the form of a block of dill havarti. It’s a treat for me specifically because Jeff won’t touch it, being that he can’t eat softer cheeses and doesn’t like dill, so it seems especially indulgent as I’m cutting thick slices of it to put into a sandwich. Grilled cheese and tomato soup in this fashion feels both wonderfully nostalgic and also a wee bit fancy because I know what efforts go into making the soup. Anyway, I think I bought this cheese on Friday and by Monday was making my third grilled cheese sandwich. Please don’t judge me for my simple, cheesy joys.
I also made a taco salad recently because I’d forgotten to make some crucial component of a planned dinner, and needed something quick which would use up most of a head of lettuce. The taco salad is one of the things that got axed in Meet’s last menu update, and while I understand the choice, I also miss being able to order it. For this I just crumbled a Beyond patty into a pan and fried it with some chopped onion and a mix of taco seasonings (oregano, cumin, chili powder, and coriander), adding some corn at the end. The sauce is based on the one in this recipe: a yogurt base with lots of garlic & onion powder, and more powdered chili of course. I used a mix of ancho powder and smoked hot paprika, but I think chipotle powder would have been really good too. We still had a few cherry tomatoes left from the garden, and obviously, you can’t skip the crushed-up tortilla chips and hot sauce.
Jason flies out again Monday morning and before he leaves has promised/threatened to share with the rest of the group chat some of the Chicago beverage I can only assume was devised as some kind of curse: Malört. Everyone is coming to our house Friday night and we’re going to get takeout nearby— we have yet to decide on sushi, pizza, or fried chicken. I’ll report back next week, assuming of course that I survive the Malört experience. I have my doubts.
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 (or moving costs 😓) are much appreciated.
This Saturday is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (observed as a federal holiday on Monday), and a cool move if you can afford it is to make a donation to an Indigenous-led organisation. I recommend RAVEN Trust or the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, but there are others that might be more appropriate to where are you are, and I encourage you to learn more about them!