tired, happy, inspired, grateful
posted by molly under this and that, writing | permalink | | leave a comment | 2 comments
I just got done with a fun, busy week with my parents! They came into town last Wednesday and left Sunday morning. While they were here, we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens, did the Continental Divide drive, took a lovely hike in the Flatirons, went to the Boulder Farmers’ Market for fresh peppers and Colorado peaches and bread, visited Boulder Falls, and ate a lot of delicious food, including my parents’ first-ever encounter with Ethiopian food at Ras Kassa’s! While John took my father on a brewery tour, my mom and Raech and I all got pedicures at ten20, which is an awesome establishment for many reasons, not the least of which is that they TiVO What Not To Wear so I got to watch an episode for maybe the first time in a year. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but man, I am tired.
Now vacation is over and it’s back to work. I am anticipating receiving the edits from Strange Horizons for my interview with The Widow’s Bane (which is going up the 27th of September, so huzzah!), and working on another go-through of my novel.
Regarding the novel MS, I’ve received most of the comments back from my beta-readers, which have been incredibly helpful and not-discouraging, so that’s rad! It seems that, on the whole, everyone pretty much enjoyed reading it, and enjoyability was a huge concern for me. While I cannot be certain of the novel’s prospects, I am certain that I have written something genuine about things I care about, and I am happy about that!
In other news, I successfully veganized something I used to order when I was a vegetarian–baked goat cheese in tomato sauce. It came out amazingly well, and I plan on posting a tutorial ASAP. For any former Pinehurstians who might occasionally visit paper fruit, it’s totally that thing we used to order at Cafe Tu Tu Tango! OMG!
11:47 am, 14 September 2010
Tu Tu Tango! What do you use as a goat cheese substitute? It’s probably the single food I would miss most were I a vegan.
12:11 pm, 14 September 2010
I make it myself! It’s super-duper easy. The original recipe was courtesy Vegetarian Times but modified to be slightly better IMO by a vegan blogger whose site appears to be down, regrettably. . . the VT one involves like a 24 hour soak period and tahini (?) and then more time to make it into a log like you’d serve at a dinner party or something, but if you’re just using it as a spread or like in the application such as the Tu Tu Tango dish, you can get away with this:
3/4 c. raw cashews
1/4 c. canola oil (I used olive oil for the Italian baked one, just cuz)
1/4 c. fresh lemon juice
1 1/4 tsp. salt
Bung the cashews in a bowl and soak them for at least 4 hours but up to 24. When you’re done being patient, pour out the water, rinse them well, and put everything above in a food processor (a good one) with 2 tbs. of water. Set a timer for six minutes (hence the good food processor need) and grind it up, scraping down the bowl occasionally. I’ve never done the malarky with the cheesecloth and baking, for this recipe I just put somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 of the recipe in an oven-proof dish and poured jarred tomato sauce around it (leaving a white lump in the middle as per my memory) and baked it at 375 until the cheez was goldenish on top.
I’ve used it on pizza with fresh tomatoes and basil, and also pears and cracked black pepper. Both were amazing, but the tomato sauce wins.
OK, so I’ll still post a tutorial with pics at some point, but that’s basically what to do. . .