Stunt.

Good evening!

So here is a good soup we had last night. I was pretty impressed.
I had some wild rice that needed to be used up and all I could think of was cream of wild rice soup or whatever that's called. Well, poof! into my brain came Lachesis' Alfredo Stroganoff sauce, begging to be made into the base for this soup... who was I to argue? And, boy, was that a good call!! If you are a fan of the cream based wild rice soup, do give this a try.

Vegan Wild Rice Soup

2 C cooked wild rice
1/2 pkg soft silken tofu
4 C water
4 cloves garlic
2 T Earth Balance
2 T oil
1 C soymilk
splash white wine
1 T onion powder
2 t garlic powder
2 t salt
dash pepper
pinch nutmeg

Place into the blender everything except the wild rice.
Pour sauce into soup pot, add wild rice and bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer until it's thick how you like it.
If it's taking to long to thicken, add 1 T cornstarch mixed with 1 T water to simmering soup and mix well, bring up heat a little and stir until thickened.

And here is a tamale pie type thing. I was so excited to make this!!! Finally, a way to use up my masa flour! Whee! Well, I must admit, I do believe this casserole should be baked COVERED because my tamale pie came out all dry! Boo hoo!
Also, I would double the filling next time by adding another can of black beans and another can of pinto beans and maybe even another can of tomatoes.

Tamale Pie, recipe based off of this.

For the dough;
1/2 C vegetable shortening
3 C masa harina
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 C water

Filling;
2 T oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 t salt
1 t cumin
1 t ancho chile powder reserved to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a 9 x 13" casserole.
Beat shortening in mixer, add masa, baking powder, salt and water gradually until like a paste (when I added the 1 C water it just got where it was little pea sized balls so I added about another 1/2 C water to get the 'paste' consistency).
Press half into the bottom of the casserole and set aside the other half.

In your big pot, saute the onion and garlic, add the cumin and salt and beans and tomatoes and simmer until most of the liquid is gone (again, my tamale pie turned out really dry, so next time I might leave some of that liquid). Pour on top of the masa in the casserole and top with the other half of the dough (again, I might add more liquid to the second half of the masa dough to make it 1) more spreadable and 2) again with the not dry thing.

Bake 1 hour, covered.
Boy howdy there are a lot of tamale pie recipes out there! Some have pimentos, some have olives, some have corn, some have paprika, some have peppers... whoa! Pick yer poison!

On the reading front, instead of edumacating myself with Proust (ha! I lied, I set it aside and did nary pick it up again!), I will now proceed to tell the internets how I am frittering my time away... with THIS! Ha-hah! It's the first 12 chapters of Midnight Sun, the story of "Twilight" told from the vampire's point of view. Okay, I just had to know what all the hubbub was about these books. So I thought that the first 12 chapters of Midnight Sun were great fun. Fast driving, clumsy girl, vegetarian vampires, near death escapes, first love... lots of fun. Maybe a little patriarchal, a little contrived, but I thought it was a great story. Here's a little history on why you can read this online. I must say that I smell a publicity stunt. That is all.

Okay, I did start reading some Chekov, short stories, so good so far.