Lentil Soup + Beet Salad

Roasted Beet and Green Bean Salad and Lentil Soup
Tonight for dinner I made a beet salad and French Lentil Soup with Tarragon and Thyme. It was all yummy so I took a picture since I want to try posting more about recipes I’ve tried, etc. on here.

The idea for the salad came after I ate at Andaluca for my birthday on Saturday. The “Green Bean” salad there had roasted carrots, beets, goat cheese, marcona almonds, and a sherry shallot vinaigrette. I had been wanting to “get into” beets for a while now, and the salad convinced me that I should give them a try.

To make my beet salad (I didn’t use a recipe for it), I first roasted two beets. I hadn’t done this before and roasting things is pretty new to me. Per the advice of my chef friend Troy, I wrapped the beets in foil and drizzled some olive oil and salt and pepper on them. I also roasted some green beans.

For the dressing I just mixed together a little olive oil, black pepper, red wine vinegar, and balsamic vinegar. I also chopped up some shallots and threw those in.

One thing that the Andaluca salad had that I felt mine was lacking was something like the goat cheese. Since I wanted to make this all vegan, I intentionally didn’t buy goat cheese. And then I realized that I had some vegan cream cheese. I heated that up and added it to the salad — and it was very goat cheese like!

The lentil soup recipe came from my favorite cookbook: Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook. I would have never thought to make this soup (I don’t really like tarragon) but my friend Shannon highly recommended it. And to my surprise — it was great.

Overall, I think I can definitely improve on the salad. I forgot that the Andaluca one had nuts in it so I should’ve included candied walnuts or something. I also want to work on refining the dressing to be perfect. And next time I doubt i’ll include the cream cheese — if anything I might add some pieces of tofu.

So there you have it — another yummy vegan dinner!

Everyone’s Waiting

The dinner for Claire in the finale
I watched the final episode of Six Feet Under again last night. This is the second time I’ve gone through the entire series start-to-finish. I’m not one to cry very often from movies/TV shows (I can pretty much count the times: I cried once during Buffy the Vampire Slayer and twice during Friday Night Lights). But both times now I’ve completely lost it during the final scene of Six Feet Under (the final episode is titled “Everyone’s Waiting”).

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t watched this episode, I wouldn’t continue reading…

Continue reading Everyone’s Waiting

25 Things

There is a Facebook meme going around where you are supposed to post 25 random things about you. I guess my list isn’t so random, but whatever. I figured I’d cross-posted it here.

01. i first used the internet in 3rd grade (around 1990) when i was one of the few people in my school to get a chance to use prodigy. i remember their main feature at the time was some NOVA special about sleep.

02. my first online obsession (starting in 1993) was an online game called MUDs (multi-user dungeons/dimensions). imagine world of warcraft without graphics (all text). my favorite MUD was called dark saga.

03. eventually i created my own MUD (and was called a “god”) and that’s where i learned how to do computer programming (in a C-like language). strangely enough, the name of my MUD escapes me. i remember my part of the MUD was called deluge and it always rained there.

04. i’ve come to the realization that i prefer reading critical theory/philosophy more than standard fiction.

05. my favorite writer/philosopher is slavoj zizek. he’s the perfect balance of high culture/low culture for me. i wish i knew about him in college so i could’ve incorporated him into every paper i wrote.

06. my other favorite writer/philosopher is laura kipnis. she’s the perfect mix of freud/marx.

07. one of my favorite books is gravity’s rainbow by thomas pynchon. i read it the summer before college and probably understood only like 5% of what was going on. i want to re-read it but it’s so long and very daunting…

08. i wore glasses until i lost them in a mosh pit at a smashing pumpkins concert. ever since then it’s been contacts for me.

09. i love paintings by rothko (honestly and truthfully) but my favorite visual artist is magritte.

10. i’ve been a “strict” (whatever that means) vegetarian since 2000/2001. i’ve only ate meat once (knowingly) since then and it was when a “vegetarian” housemate of mine put chicken in a dinner. they tried to remove the big pieces but there were still little shreds of chicken. i felt sick for the rest of the night.

11. i try to be vegan as much as possible and it’s my ultimate goal (though i’m making slow progress). i own a bunch of vegan cookbooks and i cook mostly vegan, but i love pizza and delivery pasta too much.

12. i love the television show dallas even though i never watched it before it was on dvd.

13. i did, however, watch the final 3 seasons of knots landing (which was a spin-off of dallas) and that’s why i started watching dallas once the dvds came out.

14. my two favorite film directors are david lynch and wong kar-wai.

15. when mulholland drive came out in theatres, i saw it somewhere around 10 times.

16. by the time i saw 2046 at SIFF (i saw it both nights), i had already watched a bootleg dvd version of it at least 3 times.

17. my favorite drink is captain and coke.

18. i don’t like typical “comedy” movies. i think movies like i heart huckabees and best in show and drop dead gorgeous are hilarious. so i guess i like deadpan/dry/dark humor.

19. likewise, i hate sitcoms. but funny shows i like are arrested development, weeds, 30 rock, the office, drawn together.

20. i pretend to be a DJ meaning i have tons of music (currently 19,948 songs in itunes [and this is after a bunch of “great purges”]) and sometimes make mixes. i haven’t “remixed” anything yet though and i’m really struggling to learn ableton.

21. my “dj name” is who shot JR? which is a reference to dallas (see #12) and my initials.

22. until very recently, the only video games i would ever play were games in the final fantasy series. i’ve started to branch out and now i’m totally loving fallout 3.

23. random things i’ve been obsessed with at one point in my life: star wars, bettlejuice, oingo boingo, the pixies, linux,

24. the magazines i read are: entertainment weekly, wired, mixmag

25. this list was written while i listened to: “happy up here” (boys noize remix) by röyksopp, “your disco needs you” (casino radio mix) by kylie minogue, “there there” (the twelves mix) by radiohead, “love etc.” by pet shop boys, “meddle” (AC slater & dj skeet skeet remix) by little boots.