Delicious Fake Chicken Curry

Quit Smoking Challenge Update:
I have smoked one cigarette in the last 50 hours

Alright, so my only thoughts for the last two days have been cigarette cigarette cigarette so I cooked up something delicious to take my mind off of smoking.

GET THE KITCHEN READY FOR THIS ONE BECAUSE IT'LL HAVE YOU EATING FUCKING DELICIOUSNESS FOR WEEKS.

PEPPERED CHICKEN CURRY (of the Gods)
You will need:
1 lb. chicken (or chick'n, more on that later)
1 bulb garlic
olive oil
half a lemon
ginger, turmeric, salt, and pepper
2 medium yellow onions

Now, I was making food for two of my friends (not vegetarians) and myself so I made a full recipe for them and a half recipe for myself with this:

This shit is DELICIOUS. It's made from...a fungus. Like mushrooms. Only not. And guess what it tastes like? FUCKING CHICKEN. Awesome. On with the recipe.

1. Chop up chicken ( or fake chicken) in to rough cubes. Put in a bowl big enough fer mixin'.
2. Finely, finely chop 3 cloves of garlic and throw it on top of the chicken
3. Add about a tablespoon of ginger, 2 teaspoons of turmeric, the juice of half a lemon, a shake of salt and triple shake of pepper to the chicken bowl
4. Mix it up and rub all the spices in with your hands. Cover the bowl with a paper towel and let it sit in the fridge for an hour.

5. Roughly chop the two onions.
6. Take chopped onion #1 and blend it, yes you heard right, blend it in a blender until it's an onion paste. Add a tiny bit of oil if it's not blending well.
7. Coat a frying pan in oil and add a 1 teaspoon pepper to it. Let it heat up.
8. Add the chopped onion that wasn't turned in to puree. Cook until slightly browned.
9. Add the onion puree. Cook for about 10 minutes on medium.
10. Add the delicious chicken. Cook for another 10 minutes.
11. Add a cup of water, turn down the heat a little, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Cook until the chicken is done if it's real chicken.

Serve it up with some rice and pita bread. Fucking win. Fucking fucking win. I was afraid I'd be jealous of my friends and their real chicken but the Quorn fake chicken cutlets were fucking amazing.


Now, we still aren't done with the cooking from today! I made some home made fucking ICE CREAM for dessert and let me tell you, I am never buying ice cream again.

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
3-4 drops of vanilla
1 mango and 2 bananas (or a heaping amount of any fruit you want)

Blend it all until smooth in a blender and then freeze it in any container you wish. Once solid, eat the shit out of it.

EAT ALL THESE AMAZING THINGS.

Jello?

LOCATION: Not in bed
MUSIC: Smooth jazz muzak and rain from a rain sounds website. Drinking cranberry juice from a wine glass. This is classy, America.
COLOR: That green color that the kooky Asian woman on the Behr commercial loves.

So, the 4th of July just passed. I'm sure you all went to family barbecues and were offered steaming piles of delicious meat and jello molds. I went to Boyfriend's house and was so tickled to see that his mother bought me veggie burgers. And not just any veggie burgers! They were Indian spice masala flavored potato-based veggie burgers. And they were vegan! How delicious.

Avoiding meat on a holiday isn't all that hard since there are plenty of other little appetizers to fill yourself up on so when you're just munching on corn on the cob and green beans come supper time you're not at all hungry or depressed. It's dessert where the problems start.

Now, dessert is usually a meat-free affair. But for some reason everyone likes to make this certain Jello cake at every barbecue for every 4th of July.


THIS FUCKER RIGHT HERE
It's white cake with holes poked in it and red/blue jello poured down into the holes. Everyone makes it. And Jello, as most people know, IS NOT VEGETARIAN.

Jello is made from gelatin which contains animal bones and cartilage. Once you know that, Jello seems far more disgusting, unnatural, and sinister. I ate the cake, though. It's very hard to not eat the cake your boyfriend's mother made for you, especially when you are still in approval stage. We took pieces home and I ate a tiny slice and of course it was delicious. But it got me thinking. IS THERE A JELLO SUBSTITUTE THAT IS VEGETARIAN? Of course there is. Somewhere out there. I mean, if you really feel the need to eat something wobbly and translucent you've got options, I guess.

Dole makes jelly cups that are called 'Gels'. Their gelatin substitute is some sort of bean gum but their coloring comes from insects (like most things, you knew that right?) So I would suppose it's vegetarian enough but probably not good enough for vegans.

Another gelatin substitute is agar agar which comes from seaweed. I suppose that's fine, too, but you'll be making the Jello from scratch and in the end you've just got yourself some Jello and you have to ask yourself, "was it worth it?"

The Week of Lazy

LOCATION: Alright, I'm still in bed. Again. Thanks for cutting my hours, Coffee Shop.
MOOD: Quitting smoking. Horrible headache.
COLOR: The color of the day is pink. I've been thinking of watermelon.

Alright, so I haven't cooked much this week. Not sure what happened there but it could very well be related to the tension headaches smoking has been giving me and the crabby-pants not smoking hath wrought.

Last night I made some thick rigatoni noodles with four-cheese alfredo, pesto, and caramelized onions. I chased it with some candy and a whole lot of Cheez-Its. Something about not feeling well makes me want to stuff myself with CHEESE.

But there are still things to share! A lot of things! I bring you plentiful knowledge about vegan/vegetarian restaurant enjoyment. FIRST there is THE LOVING HUT, an international vegan-friendly restaurant. The closest one is Chicago and boy, do I want to go there. I won't lie to you, the menu at Ecopolitan is kind of gross to me. Nut cheese and all. This sweet, sweet hut of loving, however, appears to have a menu of things I would totally make. Stir-fry, kung pao soy meats, fried spring rolls, vegan pho...VEGAN PHO! Too many places are like, "oh man, we're vegan, we have to make everything a substitute of the real thing." So you get a lot of mock duck and nut cheese. This looks like a menu that stands on its own that just so happens to not use dairy or meat products. Loving Hut is all like, "oh yeah, we just made all this delicious food. Oh? There aren't any animal products in it? Look at that."


Look at it. Look at this loving little hut. It looks like a fancy little Noodles and Co. with the interior inspiration by the California Pizza Kitchen.

LINK:
www.lovinghut.us/chicago/menu

I have to tell you. I have been craving a few things lately. The Subway Teriyaki Chicken sandwich. Burger King. Taco John's. I want these things but I know I cannot have them. I shouldn't have them. It's easy to fight off a chicken craving by thinking about the texture. But I've been wanting some onion rings from Burger King badly. Several sources report that Burger King's rings are actually vegan...there's no way to tell, really. I'm sure they get processed right along with tons of meat and cheese products but if you're a hardcore enough vegan to care about that you probably shouldn't be in a Burger King.

Dominos has proved to be pretty good in a lazy, lazy pinch. My boyfriend gets these little red envelopes delivered each week that contain DOMINOS MVP COUPONS. I guess he gets them for going there a lot? I don't know. But these coupons entitle us to all sorts of free pasta bowls and cheap pizza. If it's late, you don't want to cook, and you absolutely cannot fathom leaving the house then you could do worse than Dominos.

I don't think there's a lot going on there for a vegan (I doubt the thin crust is vegan...not sure, though) but the vegetarian options are palatable. The only specialty pizza that isn't a Triple Meat Disaster is the Pacific Veggie.


Here it is. Yum yum.

You got yer red peppers, olives, mushrooms, onions, feta cheese, and spinach. The weird thing is, there are patches of delicious spice in uneven parts all over the pizza. One bite will be unsatisfying and boring and then the next bite will be a symphony of oregano and happiness. A large will run you about $18 with the delivery charge but with coupons it's a nice deal.

The bread bowl pastas are also good. Only get the bread bowl part if you are famished. The pasta itself should do you fine and for the price of any of their pre-made ones you can choose your own sauce and three toppings. A place that lists their toppings as "meats" and "un-meats" doesn't sound really vegetarian friendly but, as with most pizza places, you can do just fine.

The place to BE however, is obviously Pizza Luce. Every day you can get a crazy specialty vegetarian slice of pizza for just $4 and it's huge. They don't play around with mock duck (which is disgusting) but instead they have mock chicken. It tastes like those delicious Morning Star Farms patties. Fake breading on the outside, soy on the inside. Delicious in everything. They even make sandwiches with it! But I didn't have to tell you about Luce. It's THE place vegetarians and vegans go in the Twin Cities.