So Incumbent Upon

Good morning to you, hope yours is going well...

I have been craving pea soup lately and last night I decided to make some!
My most recent attempts have involved a sort of "throw every pea-soup compatible spice you own into a pot and cook" and this time I decided to make it a little more pea-centric and less spice-centric. And I was so pleased with the results. Sometimes it's just better not to muck things up, isn't it? I even resisted the temptation to add liquid smoke and I'm glad I didn't.

Pea Soup

2 C dried split peas, rinsed and picked over
1 T olive oil
1 T Earth Balance 'butter'
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t salt
1 t onion granules
1/2 t garlic granules
1/4 t pepper
6-8 C water

Saute the onion, then garlic in the oil and EB.
Add the onion and garlic granules, salt and pepper and mix well.
Add the peas and mix well.
Add the water and bring the temperature up, cover and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat a little and let the soup simmer until the peas are tender (maybe half an hour?).
Blend depending on your preference for smooth soup and serve.

So nice on a cold Winter's evening.


Here is something of a mixture of success and fail. Well, it didn't really materialize like I had planned, or something. It tasted great, though.

Basically, I sauteed some onions and garlic, added salt and cumin, a can of black beans rinsed and drained and a can of sweet potato puree. Oh, and maybe 1 1/2 t cocoa. It was meant to be a cross between chili topped sweet potatoes and skillet black beans with potatoes and tortillas. Sans tortillas. What it was was something tasty, but mushy... like a stew, but not.

Okay, the potatoes, now, the potatoes were excellent!
I washed some of the purple potatoes we still have left from our CSA and then nuked them (don't forget to prick them) for 6 minutes or so and left them to cool down while I did the bean stuff. Then I sliced them into rounds, heated up some (2 T veg) oil in my handy dandy skillet, sprinkled salt all over the oil, tossed those puppies in and fried them!

I guess that since I really didn't learn how to cook until we became vegan, I didn't have any frying experience, and I've generally looked upon it as 'from the Devil' fat wise... well, I've only just started frying things up in a skillet and boy is it fun and yummy! You can only have a few though, and not that often, I must remind myself.

Well, I finished reading Infinite Jest. No, he didn't wrap up all the loose ends, but I was really suprised at how un-irritated I was by this. It is sort of a pet peeve of mine when authors fail to bring it all together at the end, but for Infinite Jest, it was fine. I enjoyed the ride, it was great writing, and somehow it wasn't so incumbent upon him to tie everything up. Anyhow, I've been reading it for so long, hauling it around, flipping back and forth to read the endnotes, I sort of feel like I've lost a friend. But no worries, I'm reading "The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and enjoying it. Onward!