White Pita Pizzas

Definitely not the most gorgeous of photographs, is it? I'm none too certain what actually happened with it, other than it came out way too blurry. The meal itself was very good, though, so I'm including it on here. Please forgive the poor photo quality in the meantime.

I went through a stage not that long ago where all I wanted to eat was pizza with white sauce. My stomach being what my stomach being, I couldn't eat anything else until I had had what I was craving. Thankfully, though, this was a fairly quick and easy dish to make. It just takes a little patience and creativity.

White Pita Pizza
A recipe by Kat

Ingredients

• 6 whole wheat pitas
• 1 medium onion, sliced or diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoon of margarine, divided
• 2 Tablespoons of whipped cream cheese
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of soy milk
• 3 drops of hot sauce
• 1/4 cup of sharp Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Put pitas on baking tray and warm them slightly while oven is warming. Remove from oven and set aside.
2. Heat 1 teaspoon of margarine over medium heat. Add garlic and onion. Cook until onion is tender. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. While onion and garlic are cooking, begin on the sauce. In a small saucepan, melt remaining margarine over medium heat. Add whipped cream cheese and stir constantly until both are melted. Add hot sauce. Add soy milk until the sauce reaches desired consistency. 
4. Smooth sauce over the warmed pitas. Add garlic and onions on top of sauce. Add Cheddar cheese on top of everything. 
5. Cook in 350° oven until Cheddar cheese has melted and browned slightly. Remove from oven, and cut into halves. Serve hot and enjoy!

Grown-up Ramen with Peanut Sauce

I used to have a scale for determining just how broke D and I were. I'm not sure I can recall all of the steps, but I do remember that the bottom rung was (less than) affectionately called "ramen broke". That's below peanut butter sandwiches broke and below macaroni and cheese broke.

Now don't get me wrong: I do love ramen noodles. It's just that they don't love me back. I do eat them when I crave them (usually at breakfast, oddly enough), but sometimes you just want some grown-up ramen noodles.

I designed this to be a quick-and-easy meal. I believe, including prep time, it took less than 20 minutes to make the entire meal. So that is definitely something to keep in mind. It's also a two-pot meal, because it was definitely easier to do the sauce separate from the rest of the dish.

Grown-up Ramen with Peanut Sauce
A recipe by Kat

Ingredients

• 2 packets of ramen noodles (discard the sauce packets)
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced thin
• 2 medium stalks of celery, sliced
• 6 green onions, chopped and divided
• 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, divided
• 3 Tablespoons of peanut butter (I used creamy but crunchy would also work)
• 2 packets of takeout soy sauce (this is about 3 teaspoons)
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• 1 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 to 3 teaspoons of hot sauce
• 1 to 3 teaspoons of chili powder
• 1 Tablespoon of Red Star Nutritional Yeast
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups of vegetable broth

Directions

1. In a medium pot, add one teaspoon of sesame oil. Set heat to medium-low. As it grows warm, it will pop and sizzle. Add the carrot, celery, and white parts of the green onions. Allow to cook until carrot and celery are tender, about five minutes. Set aside.
2. Briefly rinse out pot and add enough water to cover ramen noodles, at least 3 cups. Turn heat to high. Bring water to boil and add noodles. Cook according to package directions, about 3 to 4 minutes.
3. While ramen is cooking, heat peanut butter and soy sauce over medium-low heat. Add other ingredients from honey to nutritional yeast, stirring constantly. Add remaining sesame oil. Add vegetable broth in stages, continuing to stir, until sauce has reached desired consistency. Remove from heat.
4. Drain ramen noodles and divide them between 2 bowls. Add vegetables to bowls, dividing them in half as well. Pour sauce over noodles and vegetables. Top with remaining green onions. Serve hot and enjoy!

Very Cheesy Risotto

I wasn't completely sure that this recipe was ready to go live. I've been messing around with it for weeks now. Though I'm happy with the taste of it, I can never quite get a photo of it that pleases me.

The major downside of trying to do a cooking blog is that photos of the recipes are necessary. However, I also have four cats, three of which are constantly curious about what's going on in the kitchen. It also means that my kitchen and eating area remain in a constant state of disarray, making photos less than easy -- and potentially less than appealing. (Seconds after I snapped this photo, Roo decided the cheese in this smelled delicious and he needed some Right Now. See? You could have had a giant orange feline head in the picture.)

I can't say for certain that I got my risotto recipe anywhere in particularly. I took many various recipes and edited them and messed about with them, until I had something that was delicious to both D and me. This is the result of that. At this point, I'm willing to say that this is now an original Kat creation, yeah?

See? We do eat things beside soup!

Very Cheese Risotto
A recipe from Kat

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup of arborio rice
• 4 to 5 cups of vegetable broth or water and vegetable bouillon cubes (1 cube per cup of water)
• 1/4 cup of dry white wine (I used Moscato because I like the dry-sweet taste of it)
• 1 medium onion, chopped (I used Vidalia)
• 1-2 medium carrots, skinned and chopped
• 1 Tablespoon of margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 Tablespoon of olive oil
• 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
• 2 Tablespoons of reduced fat Cheddar cheese
• 2 Tablespoons of reduced fat Mozzarella cheese

Directions

1. In a large saucepan or pot, melt the margarine over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil. Add chopped carrots and onion, and cook until carrots are tender and onion is translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the vegetable broth in a large pot. It should be just below boiling or at a rolling boil when added to the rice.
3. Add arborio rice to the pot.
4. Add the white wine to the rice, carrots, and onion. Stir until it has been absorbed by the rice.
5. Add the vegetable broth a half-cup at a time to the rice. You will need to stir the rice until each half-cup of broth is absorbed before you add the next half-cup. 
6. Keep adding the liquid until rice is tender. This will take about 20 minutes. I can usually set a timer on this.
7. Remove from heat and stir in cheeses. Serve hot and enjoy!

Gnocchi Soup

So I've been meaning to make a post here for the last week or so. However, I have been down with a nasty sinus infection and haven't really been cooking... at least unless everyone wanted vegetarian noodle soup, since that has been my breakfast and my dinner most days.

Yesterday I was feeling a bit more human, though, so I decided I was going to try something new. This recipe is based on one from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. However, it turned out that we were short on potatoes. We did have some small gnocchi going spare in the pantry, though, so we subbed it in instead. It turned out very nice and relatively filling. It's definitely going to be a repeater in our house.

Due to some poor planning on my part, this recipe does require two pots. It might work out better that way for most people as well, but it's probably possible to make this using only one pot.

Gnocchi Soup
Based on a recipe by FatFree Vegan Kitchen

Ingredients

• 1 packet of Gia Russa Mini Gocchi with Potatoes
• 1/2 small red onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon of margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil 
• 1 cup of vegetable broth 
• 1/4 teaspoon of dried rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon of fresh rosemary
• 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of (white) pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 Tablespoon of Red Star Nutritional Yeast
• 1 1/2 cups of soy milk

Directions

1. In a large stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat with the olive oil. Add the onion and stir until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes.
2. Add the rosemary and vegetable broth. Add the pepper, salt, and nutritional yeast. Reduce heat to medium-low.
3. Meanwhile in another pot, bring the mini gnocchi to boil. Cook according to package directions, 1-3 minutes (or until gnocchi floats to the top). Drain and add to broth.
4. Slowly add the soy milk to the broth and gnocchi. Allow to cook until warm, stirring frequently. Serve hot and enjoy!

Miso Soup

Miso soup was one of the first things I learned to make on my own. It remains one of my favorite things to have for breakfast or part of a dinner. I have even stretched it into a one-pot meal all on its own. I'm going to include both of these in this post. Pictured at left is my one-pot meal version of miso soup.

When I first started making this, miso paste was not easy to find. It pretty much meant a trip to the local Asian import store. Thankfully, though, it is getting easier to find. Generally, it can be find in the cold food section of organic grocery stores. If that isn't an option where you are located, you can always get it through Amazon.com.

This would normally be made with dashi or instant dashi, but this is my vegetarian version. To make with instant dashi, replace the vegetable broth and water with 3 cups of water and 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant dashi.

It's a very simple but very enjoyable dish, and there are plenty of variations to the dish that you can try. Just about anything that is used in Japanese cooking can be added. Shitake mushrooms are one popular addition, though not one I enjoy due to a lifelong detesting of any member of the mushroom family. Pork can be added as well, but then it is tonjiru or pork soup. Adding rice to miso soup makes a kind of nekomeshi, but this is not really done in polite society; it best translates along the line of "cat food" or basically the leftovers you would give your cat from the morning's breakfast.

Basic Miso Soup
A recipe from Kat

Ingredients 

• 2 cups of vegetable broth (or 2 cups of water and 2 cubes of vegetable bouillon)
• 1 cup of water
• 1 long section of wakame seaweed, cut into tiny bites, or spinach, cut into tiny bites
• 1 12-oz block of firm or extra-firm tofu, cut into bite-size cubes
• 1 to 2 Tablespoons of white miso or to taste
• 1 green onion, chopped

Directions

1. Reserve miso in a bowl or large cup. Miso must NOT be boiled.
2. Mix water and vegetable broth in large stock pot. 
3. As it approaches boil, add tofu cubes.
4. Once the soup reaches a boil, scoop some of the hot liquid out into the miso and mix into a fine paste. While mixing, add wakame seaweed.
5. Remove the pot from heat and add miso, stirring well to mix. 
6. Top with green onions and serve hot.

One-Pot Meal Miso Soup
A recipe from Kat 

Ingredients

• All ingredients as above for Basic Miso Soup.
• 1 carrot, washed and skinned, shaved or cut into matchsticks
• 3 oz of somen noodles

Directions

1. Cook as above for Basic Miso soup. 
2. Add the carrots and somen noodles with the wakame. They will not need to cook long. Somen noodles ideally need to be cooked no longer than 3 minutes.

Vegetarian French Onion Soup

I'm actually generally better at taking photos than this. The photos you are seeing here are ones I've taken for Facebook or Google+ to brag to my friends see if anyone wanted the recipe. Most of the photos are done on my iPhone with one to four cats in the photo somewhere; they can be such helpful food critics!

This recipe is a favorite of D's -- and one of mine as well. French Onion Soup was not something I thought about loving until going vegetarian meant giving it up.

I've played around with this recipe for months now, trying to come up with one that was absolutely what D and I were looking for: the taste of French Onion Soup, not terrible for calories, and vegetarian. Of all the versions, this one is my favorite. It is also one of the closest to Bella Bella's, a restaurant here in Tallahassee, FL. This will not be the last of their recipes I tried to puzzle out; their Bubble Bread is definitely on that list.

I do sometimes add toasted bread cubes or croutons to this recipe. They tend to be very good additions. Italian bread and French loaves have been particularly great with this dish. Most of the time, though, I do prefer to eat this soup plain, so that is how I have .

French Onion Soup (Vegetarian)
A recipe from Kat


Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 2.5 cups of vegetable broth
• 3-5 cloves of minced garlic (to your taste)
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce or vegan Worcestershire sauce (I prefer the latter myself)
• 1/2 teaspoon of dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 1/2 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the onions. Stir until tender, about 20 minutes. Add minced garlic cloves at about the 10 minute point.
2. Add flour, stirring constantly so that it does not stick. Slowly add broth and water in stages; this helps to prevent lumps of flour from forming. 
3. Add soy sauce, parsley, and thyme.
4. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low (if your stove burner dials use numbers, around a 1 or a 2) and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Serve hot with shredded Parmesan cheese.

The Four Things About Weight-Loss That Folks Often Forget

I have a support staff meeting this afternoon that I really, really would like to skip, but plan to suffer through because I'm a good person like that. Plus, it's one hell of a way to kill a full hour at work without actively seeking distractions such as Cracked or Wikipedia. However, while not preparing to sit for an hour and be actively bored, I decided to make a small post in regards to the four things I think are important to remember when trying to lose weight that tend to go by the wayside as soon as the going gets rough.

1. Portion control is not just a suggestion.
   So you've decided to lose some weight, which seems to be everyone's number 1 New Year's resolution. You decide that you need to make some changes in how you eat, always a step in the right direction.
   
   However, while changing the type of food you eat is a method of dropping the weight, sometimes it's as simple as changing how much you eat of something.
   
   For example, you can go on an all-carbs diet, or a no-carbs diet, or completely vegetarian or vegan and still find that you can't drop the pounds. The problem isn't necessarily what you eat, but how much of it you're consuming at a time. And restaurants in the U.S. don't make this easy. I can't recall just how many times K and I have been out dining and can't finish what's on our plates since it's about twice what we would serve ourselves at home.
   
   The best thing, so far as I'm concerned, is to follow the rule of "everything in moderation." Yes, by all means make dietary changes if that helps you towards your goal, but if you want a small slice of cake or a miniature chocolate bar have it by all means! Just don't make that your entire meal or something you do automatically every day twice a day. I try to keep these sort of little treats something I only do once a week (at most!) or even a once-a-month treat.
   
   
2. Exercise is just as important as dietary changes.
   Have you ever tried to just diet and not do some sort of exercise along with it? It makes losing weight about twice as difficult as it could be, from what I've experienced.
   
   Saying "exercise" doesn't mean you have to join a gym or spent a couple hundred dollars on home gym equipment. The simplest way to get some exercise in and help in your journey to losing weight is to walk. Even 30 minutes of walking a day can burn up to or more than 100 calories, plus it's good to help build endurance.
   
   Although illness has kept us down for the past couple of days, K and I tend to get up at 5:00 every weekday morning in order to walk at least 20 minutes (which is a full mile on the route we follow). More often than not, we get in a full 30 minutes (1.7 miles) or sometimes 40 minutes (2 miles total). We're planning to add in a minute of jogging for every 4 walked by mid-December, and slowly building from there to a 30 minute jog by the middle of 2012. It's a slow process, and I know it, but I'll stick with it.
   
   
3. Measure loss in inches, not just in pounds.
   So you've been working out and eating healthy, and you can see results in the mirror. Yay! Feeling good about yourself and your new body, you step on the scale to see how much weight you've dropped - let's say you started off at 165 pounds and are trying to lose 25 of those. You're pretty sure that you've lost at least 10 of those and are eager to see the number pop up--
   
   And your scale must be broken, because it's telling you that you're currently 163 pounds. All of a sudden those smaller portions and working your ass off seem to have been a waste of time, and you're ready to say "to hell with it" and grab that cheesecake you've been denying yourself.
   
   Don't do it!
   It's very easy to get discouraged when the scale keeps fluctuating up and down on you, I know. Boy, do I know! I may not have mentioned it previously, but I'm trying to get down to the 130 pound range - the weight I was in my early 20s - and drop from a size 14 (and not those fake-ass "new" sizes where in another couple years I'll be a size 4 at the rate the industry keeps changing the labels) to a size 10. In the past month my weight has hovered between 155 to 160 pounds, and it is discouraging.
   
   However, the thing to keep in mind is that while you burn fat exercising - even just walking - you're also building muscle. And muscle is more dense than fat, so if you work off 10 pounds of fat you're likely replacing it with at least a pound of muscle; the harder you work out, the more quickly you build that muscle, and the faster it shows up on your scale.
   
   We're also stuck, as a society in the U.S., on the idea that Body Mass Index is the end-all-be-all ideal. Be aware, however, that it's an imperfect unit of measure; after all, if you weigh 158 pounds and work out a lot, the BMI counts that muscle weight in your total and may tell you that you're overweight.
   
   The best unit of measure to see progress? Checking in the mirror and seeing yourself trim down is awesome, but pull out that tape measure and check your waistline. Even as you build muscle and lose weight, you lose inches as well. Like I said above, my weight keeps fluctuating up and down, but my waistline is starting to slowly trim down. No matter how badly I feel when I see the digits on the scale creep up again, I still feel damned good looking in the mirror and seeing the results.
   
4. Results may vary, but are definitely NOT instant.
   This is the big one that nearly everyone forgets about. Most people who make that "lose weight" resolution start off strong in January, but have all but given up by the end of March because they aren't seeing any real results. Sure, they've lost a couple pounds, but shouldn't three months of hard work show more than that? Time to just give it up and try again next year.
   
   I say again, don't do it.
   Television shows like The Biggest Loser and its ilk has put many people in the mindset that weight loss must be instantaneous for it to be working, and the expectation is that a few short months of working out will have you ready for bikini season before Valentine's Day if you're doing it right. The fact of the matter is, however, that losing weight and getting in shape is a process; and like many processes, it takes time to yield results.
   
   I think my favorite story of weight loss was a blog I stumbled across once called "The Slowest Loser." The blog's author, a man in his thirties if I recall correctly, had made a goal to lose something in the neighborhood of 40 pounds and decided to do things right. He changed his dietary habits and took up running, and chronicled his progress. The blogger did indeed lose the 40 pounds... over a course of two to three years.
   
   And that's the thing to remember, really. If you want instant weight-loss results, you've likely already doomed yourself to fail in your goals. Sometimes it's better to take the long and winding road, enjoy the scenery, and eventually get to your goal without making yourself crazy.

So next time you think that you're not getting anywhere with your diet or workout regime, stop and try to remember these four little things. It's difficult, I know, but anything worth having in life usually isn't.

Barley and Vegetable Soup

Through some impressive mishaps regarding the grocery list, hurried shopping, and general forgetfulness, somehow D and I have ended up with more pearl barley than we really know what to do with. I'm not sure I can accurately guess how much we actually have, but it has to be over 5 pounds. With that much barley in the house, it seemed wisest to try to find uses for it.  Since Autumn is trying very hard to arrive in Florida, soup seemed most appropriate.

Most of the soups I found using barley were variations of Scotch Broth. Since I am mostly vegetarian and D doesn't eat beef very often, I had to discard all of those.

Finally I happened upon one that would be very easy to edit and make vegetarian-friendly: Food.com's Shuzbud's Warming Barley and Vegetable Soup. It turned out to be even better as a breakfast than as a dinner, so that's what we eat it for. It does a pretty magnificent job of keeping us full all morning.

So this is my version of this soup. I usually double the recipe, so that we have enough for breakfast for a few weeks, but this is the basic version.


Barley and Vegetable Soup
Originally found here by Shuzbud on Food.com.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of pearl barley, uncooked
• 8 cups of water
• 6 cubes of vegetarian vegetable bouillon 
• 3 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, chopped
• 1 large sweet onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 can of diced potatoes, drained
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cube of vegetarian vegetable bouillon, crushed, or 1 tsp of Nature's Seasons

 Directions

1. Rinse the pearl barley in water. You may need to soak it if the package directions call for it. I tried to find "no-rinse".
2. Put the barley, water, and 6 bouillon cubes in a large stockpot (I used a 6 gallon stockpot). Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low/medium-low, and cover. Cook covered for 45 minutes.
3. Stir in all the vegetables, from the carrots to the garlic. Add the two bay leaves. Add additional crushed bouillon cube, Nature's Seasons, or flavoring of your choice. Cover again. Cook for one hour.
4. Remove bay leaves before serving. Serve hot.
5. If soup is too thick, add additional broth.
   

Greetings from the Co

Good afternoon and welcome once again! As Kat said, it's been a very long time since I've actually used Blogger as well.

Basically, what my posts will consist of for the most part will be exercise and musings about the attempt to lose a few *cough*25*cough* unnecessary pounds I've been having trouble with for a while. Probably dull stuff, yeah, but I'll try to be entertaining!

And now, back to Kat and the recipe portion of this blog.

Welcome aboard!

So, everyone, I'm Kat. Of the authors of this little blog, I'm going to be the one you see doing most of the food talk.

It's been a very long time since I've been on Blogger. I feel like I should say that to start off with. The last time I used it, in fact, it was still possible to host a Blogger blog on your own domain without it having to be a top-level domain, if that says anything.

 I'm hoping to use this blog to post recipes, either my own or ones I've edited. There will probably more of the latter than of the former.

And so, without further ado, it's time to start this blog.