The attempt

Feeling in an especially domestic mood after moving all weekend and hosting the long awaited, much anticipated meeting of the parents I made my first cooking endeavor as a resident of the Mills. First I made Graham and myself some delicious Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls for desert because gender roles are fun.

Since I don't like to make more than one large meal a day I figured I'd make my lunches for the week in one fell swoop. After a day of Pepe's pizza, beer and pasta I feel vegan lunches will be a healthy balance. So I started on the squash, veggie burger casserole. Very helpful in this was the giant box of Boca burgers Graham's parents bought us at BJ's. That is possibly the best place to shop ever, mainly because everything is in bulk so you feel like your saving oodles of money. Yes it's enough paper towels to last me for the next 10 years, but it's such a good deal!!!

The first step was defrosting the veggie burgers. This may not have been necessary, but I didn't want any frozen patty so I wasn't taking any chances. I then cut up the squash and onions and combined. I was very proud that I chopped a whole onion without crying. Then I was supposed to saute it. This is where I ran into my first of many problems. I should note to people who haven't witnessed my cook something, I'm horrible at judging how much of an ingredient, especially vegetables I need. So I used an entire onion (the recipe called for 1/2 a cup), and 4 summer squash as well as about 2 1/2 cups of rice (I needed 2). This lack of measuring properly may hurt me down the road when I attempt to bake something, but for now the only problem was not everything fit in the saute pan so I had to do it in two batches. This was quite funny to Graham. While this was all cooking away I shredded up the vegan cheese and combined the rest of the ingredients. Let me tell you the upside of vegan cheese's unsettling texture while a solid block makes it a joy to grate. I actually just pushed the end piece through the grater. I know, appetizing. Aside from a small meltdown when Graham's (I guess technically now it's "our" but I refuse to claim it) can opener refused to work and just mangled the jar of chilies, I managed to combine everything into the baking pan with little trouble. The tomatoes are really necessary to this dish, otherwise it's just one large pan of beige, and that's not appetizing. The recipe calls for zucchini, which would have helped immensely, but Big Y was out. Any other colorful vegetables would probably be helpful as well. I'm looking at you bell peppers.

After baking for 20 minutes (vegan food doesn't brown) I removed it from the oven. This is an after picture, but again it just kind of warmed through and got gooey rather than browning. Graham and I both tried it and we came to a consensus: pretty decent. It needed more salt, but I think if you used actual cheese that would take care of that. I'll leave of declaring it a success until after I eat it all, it came out to six very large lunch portions (again spatial reasoning not my strong suit, it could have made more). So after I eat it every lunch for a week I may feel differently. But as of now I'd say a tentative victory for vegan Aubrey. Confession: I made Graham taste it first because I was afraid it would be awful. But he said it was ok, and he wouldn't subject me to a week of gross lunches.

That's all for now, I have some interesting dinners planned this week so I'll keep posting. Including one Graham opened to randomly in my new cookbook and demanded I make for the blog, so we have that to look forward to.

In which Aubrey tries to make decent food and goes vegan

So I decided to start blogging. However, not having the most interesting post-grad life and being slightly left brained I felt I needed a topic to write about. So I chose that thing I love most . . . food. This came out of my love of the trailer for Julie and Julia and the fact that I got a giant cookbook for Easter. I'm going to try and randomly select a recipe each week to make. I'll post pictures and write interesting tangents as they come.

Also, I've decided to try being a vegan. But only during the day during the work week. Mainly I'm doing this because it's better for me and environmentally friendly. Plus I like strict rules for diets and challenges and have been exposed to Skinny Bitch. I figure I'll eat anything once and you can all watch the hilarity I'm sure will ensue. Especially when I try to feed Graham leftovers.

So I guess to start this blog off right I'll give you the first of what I'm sure will be many vegan anecdotes. I found a recipe for the something that looks like a decent lunch this week. Unfortunately it is vegetarian not vegan having Monterrey Jack cheese (delicious delicious cheese, how I'll miss you during the day). So today I ventured to Whole Foods to buy that which dare not speak it's name: vegan cheese! When the main selling point on the packaging is "It melts!" you get a little suspicious. I also made the mistake of reading the ingredients I stopped after pressed Canola oil. I tried some and it was kind of like what cheese would taste like if the person who made it had never actually eaten cheese, just read about it. I'm hoping it will taste better when I melt it into the casserole. You have that to look forward in the next post! Always leave your audience wanting more.