Peanut Udon Noodle Bowls

Food Prep and Cooking

Katie:

The food prep was simple and quick this time. We did skip the mushrooms and edamame so there's some time saved there. I had fun grating the carrot, something I haven't done since I was a kid. Although, I remember grating a lot of cheese. I don't remember why but we bought cheddar cheese in this big long block and grated it ourselves. Did they not sell grated cheese in the late 80s? Or was it just for fancy people? I don't even think you can buy blocks of cheese like that now, can you?

Nick:

Sure you can! Next time we actually go to the supermarket (like CHUMPS) I'll get you a $600 wheel of that parmesan cheese you like. Just make sure you eat it all before it goes stale! Ha ha!

As for the prep, like Katie said, very simple - I think this was the easiest one we've ever done. Boil up some noodles, cook some peppers in a pan, combine, add sauce, plate, and put a ton of shredded carrot on top. I think it would have been more complicated if we hadn't skipped the mushrooms, but I hate the texture of mushrooms. Fuck mushrooms. All my homies hate mushrooms. #killallmushrooms

Post-meal thoughts

Katie:

Oh my gosh, my friends. I want 3 or 4 more bowls of this. We weren't halfway through before we started talking about making this ourselves (and also if we wanted to have yogurt because we were still hungry). This is the first time we are going to keep the recipe and attempt to make a version on our own. The sauce was delicious, the peppers were in that sweet spot of being a bit burnt and sweetish, and the carrots added a yummy texture to the dish. In all serious, I want way more of this than we got. I'm guessing the bowl would have been more full with the stuff we left off.

Nick:

I know it seems kind of silly to throw a bunch of ingredients away and then complain that the finished dish doesn't give you enough to eat, but, uh, here we are. You could easily stand to double the noodles on this bad boy and I think it would still be great. What we did get was excellent; as Katie said the peppers were done just the right amount, and the noodles, sauce and carrots all combined wonderfully. The only problem is that I wanted more, and not just I wanted more as in it was great and I want to eat more, but I wanted more as in it wasn't enough to fill me up and I'm going to have to go eat something else. Double the noodles in this and I think you have a sure fire hit. As it is, it tastes great, but this is more like an appetizer than a meal that's going to fill you all the way up. 

Pesto Penne Primavera

Food Prep and Cooking

Nick:

Little more hectic than usual, but not too bad; cook the penne, reduce the vinegar (which apparently just means simmer for 4-5 minutes?), combine it all in a big sauté pan with the tomato, squash, and pesto dressing. This is the first time I think we've ever actually used the back burner (to create the reduction), but nothing super exciting. 

Katie:

I thought a reduction would be more complicated. Maybe we had the most basic form or something. The steps fell inline nicely, a big improvement over the last time. The whole prep was fairly easy and straightforward. Not much to comment on here other than it all went smoothly.

Post-meal Thoughts

Nick:

OHHHHHHH NOOOOOOO. This had two problems, one big and one small. The small one is texture; I apparently like little baby cherry tomatoes, but just hacking an adult one into hunks and tossing it into a reduction... very bad. And the butternut squash... very bad. Just gross, squishy, yucky vegetables. Whenever you see an ad on TV and it shows a kid eating vegetables and they're upset and the narrator is like "TIRED OF THE SAME OLD VEGETABLES?", that's what these are. Blech.

As for the big problem... that pesto. This tasted like going outside and eating the lawn. Why does it taste like grass??? Apparently I have the doesn't like pesto gene, and it's very powerful in my family. Just like the Force, except instead of giving me awesome super powers I can't eat this penne dish. I took one bite of tomato and went "oh no", one bite of squash and went "oh NO" and then one bite of penne and yelled "OH NO!" and ran into the kitchen to microwave some Spaghettios. Just awful. Truly terrible. I hated everything about this. No sir, I did not like this. Mm-mm, nope. No.

Katie:

I have the complete opposite reaction as Nick. I really enjoyed this. I thought the balsamic reduction added a great element to the dish. Any time I found a tomato piece, I was quite pleased. I wasn't too keen on how big the squash pieces were (at the best of times, I think squash is fine enough but these pieces were way too big) and found myself digging them out to devour first so I could enjoy the penne, tomato, and little bits of roasted red pepper in peace. 

We actually got a decent amount of penne too. Usually, you get maybe a mouthful or two of pasta in frozen meals and any pre-prepped stuff. I was delighted to see how filling the meal would be. I did eat Nick's half so I'm extra full but I think even with just my original, I would have been satisfied.

As a small bit of housekeeping, we are switching meal box subs. We have this week and one more with Green Chef then we're trying Blue Apron. Looking forward to seeing how we fare!

Sweet Potato Quinoa Bowls

Food Prep and Cooking

Katie:

With most of the Green Chef meals we've tried so far, the prep proceeds with each step falling neatly in line with the next. We have perhaps had a few extra minutes here and there but things are usually quite on time. For this recipe, we were stuck waiting on the roasted sweet potatoes and peppers for over 10 minutes with everything else being already completed.

Nick:

I think the problem here is the quinoa going 14-16 minutes against the roast veggies going 20-22; on top of that the quinoa finished a few minutes early, so we just sat around for a while and then went to watch Father Brown. Nothing too exciting here, though; cook quinoa, roast veggies, make "colelsaw" (cabbage and mango with dressing on top), combine. We'll come back to that "combine" later. (ominous music)

Post-meal thoughts

Katie:

We'd come to an agreement after the last dish with the 'put most of this dressing on then save some to drizzle at the end' instructions; we're not doing that anymore. The kale--or slaw in this case--doesn't have enough flavor on its own to warrant shorting it on dressing for a drizzle. I think we're going to have a new agreement...put the kale/slaw/whatnot in a separate bowl. Having the slaw in with the quinoa made everything taste not so good. The bites with just slaw were fine, as I said, we learned our lesson last time about saving some for the drizzle. The bites with just quinoa and roast veggies were fine but the bites with a combo of all three or some variation were not great. The dressing on the mango slaw just did not go well with the quinoa flavoring and the roasted veggies.

I think we would have liked this much better in two separate bowls or on two halves of a plate.

Nick:

Hooh boy, I did not like this. I think the problem with this dish comes down to one instruction: "Top with the slaw." On their own, the quinoa is fine, the roasted veggies are great, and the - I guess I'm going to call it slaw - are good. Mixed together, though... there's some kind of unpleasant sour flavor produced when it's all mixed up that I really didn't like. If I got a bite with enough roasted veggies to overpower this, it was absolutely delicious, but that was not easy to do. Katie was guessing it was the agave dressing from the coleslaw; I don't know enough to say for sure, but I think that's right. Having the slaw in a separate bowl I think would have made this quite good - one or two bites of mixed up quinoa and veggies, a palette-cleanser bite of the, umm, "slaw". All mixed up, though... this had a date with the garbage disposal pretty quick. Well, now we know for next time, AndKnowingIsHalftheBattleGIJoeAmericanHereo etc.

Maple-Glazed Carrot & Farro Bowls

Food Prep and Cooking

Nick:

Nothing too surprising - cook the farro in a pot, cut up the carrots, roast 'em in the oven. The biggest problem we had was, as always, with the kale; the instructions have you put oil, salad dressing and salt and pepper on it, then like massage it? How am I supposed to do that? I'm not touching it with my bare hands after pouring all that stuff on, right? The instructions act like everyone learns how to massage kale in school. What do you want from me, Green Chef???

Katie:

I echo Nick's sentiments, especially regarding the kale. Shouldn't we be massaging it before dumping all the gunk on it?

On a positive note, the sealant did not fail on our powder packet of seasoning this time. We got the full pouch.

Post-meal Thoughts

Nick:

Whooh boy, I did not enjoy this. In fact, I think I would put this as tied for the worst meal we've had. There are three big components; the carrots, the farro (plus walnuts and tomatoes), and the kale. The carrots are fine; they don't really taste like much, and we were instructed to cut them up too big to make them bite-sized, which was kind of annoying, but fine. The farro was good, nice and salty and mildly spicy. The problem is the kale, which is absolutely nasty. I have come to realize that I really don't like kale, and taking a bite that includes kale just tastes like kale. From the name of this dish, I was expecting something sweet and maple-y; from the ton of seasoning we dumped on the farro, I was expecting something spicy; from that combination, you might expect a delicious dish, but guess what? It just tastes like kale. I didn't even want to eat all of mine. What a disappointment. The kale really ruins this dish; take the kale out and it would probably be pretty good (a bite of farro, tomato, and walnut was wonderful, but it's hard to find a bite that doesn't have kale ruining it). Swing and a miss here, guys. To improve this dish, aside from removing the disgusting kale, I would cut the carrots in half to make them bite-sized. F+

Katie:

There are some problems with this dish. First, the kale. Kale tastes like bitter leaves to me. It takes a lot of flavoring to mask the bitterness. I thought there was a dish we had that smothered the kale enough so it wasn't bad but I can't remember. We were instructed to dump only a tablespoon of the green goddess dressing on the kale, saving the rest "for taste" at the end. Big mistake. Kale needs a lot of help to not be a bitter, depressed mangle of leaves, still angry at its ex over that divorce 10 years ago. She's moved on, Kale. Stop being bitter and move on with your life.

Second problem; the farro. I know Nick said he liked it. It was fine. There was some good smokiness to the flavoring powder but not underlying flavoring to elevate it beyond just being smoky. There was no hint of the wood smoked...just the smoke like it was off any old backyard summer bonfire.

Third problem; the carrots. As the item I liked the most, it still wasn't that good. Maybe they needed to be cooked longer, they definitely needed to be smaller, and they never developed a good caramelization glaze. They were cooked carrots tasting of maple rather than maple-glazed carrots.

Copying Nick's bit, I'm going to suggest how to improve this dish. First, make the kale its own bowl if you are hellbent on keeping it. Throw all the green goddess at it along with something else to flavor and texture it. Second, keep the tomatoes in with the farro only roast them. I don't know if you can maple-glaze tomatoes but why not? Third, provide more direction on what 'lightly oil' means. If getting a maple glaze on your carrots is important, direct your readers further on how to accomplish it. I have a feeling our 'lightly oil' was not the same amount of oil as the recipe author's. 

Perhaps Green Chef needs different cooking levelled recipes. Beginners get the version with everything explained (medium-low heat to lightly oil are spelled out in actual measurements) while more advanced home cooks can get the more vague directions.

Disney Part 3

This part of our Disney trip included my Mom who surprised us on the trip. We were genuinely surprised and it was awesome. For today's entry, we'll be covering some of the food we tried during the Festival of the Arts at Epcot.

France

Creme de Brie en Petit Pain

Rating--Katie and Mom gave this a 5. Nick didn't try much because he's lactose intolerant and we didn't have any pills.

Katie:

I remember this being absolutely amazing. The brie, which I'd only ever had cold in wedge form before, was creamy and so so good. The bread was the delivery mechanism for the cheese. I would happily have this as an appetizer anytime, anywhere.

Nick:

I tried a tiny little lick because if I had any more I would have been transformed into a fearsome biological weapon destroying the World Showcase with mega lactose farts. Everyone would have been like "Oh my god, did a sewer break? The smell seems to be coming from that extremely handsome and charming man!". Anyway, from the tiny little lick I had, this seemed good; almost like very high end cheese you would get on a $25, too big to finish Druther's mac and cheese. 

Trio de Macaron

Rating--Mom 2, Nick 2.5, Katie 3.5

Nick:

Hmmm. These are a little hard to judge because the different flavors were very different. One of them was like lemon or something? and it was horrible, which gets a zero; one was red and green and tasted like, ummmmm, cookie, which was fine and a 2.5; and one was like coffee or something and I only got one little bite because it was so good it went very quick. Add those all together and you get a 2.5!

Katie:

The coffee one was by far the favorite. One of them I remember being terrible and one was fine, if odd. I think we got another sleeve of these (they came in a little plastic bespoke container) just so more of us could try the coffee one. My 3.5 score was to account for the ones we didn't like.

Morocco

Mediterranean Flatbread

Rating--Everyone gave it a 3

Nick: 

Pretty good! Think Mediterranean pizza  -well, I guess pizza is already Mediterranean. OK, think Moroccan pizza with no sauce or cheese and instead it's covered in vegetables and fennel cream. So I guess not really like a pizza, but that's what it reminded me of. Because it's... flat. Katie, help.

Katie:

Oh gosh, I remember I liked this but not much of what it tasted like. We really have to take notes right after eating next time. I think I would have it again even though there was fennel in it.

Harissa Roasted Rack of Lamb

Rating--Unanimous 2

Katie:

I'm not sure why I gave it a 2. I remember not liking this at all. I can't recall a single time I've liked lamb. I had it right off the...thing...at Texas de Brasil and I didn't like it then either. Yuck.

Nick:

Ohhhhhh no. I don't like eating meat right off the bone; I'm a soft boy and it reminds me that the thing I'm destroying with my gnashing teeth and swallowing into my acid-filled pressure pit used to be a living creature with its own hopes and dreams whose burned flesh I'm ripping off its bones with my teeth right now. Sorry, little lamb kids! Nick ate your mom at Morocco! Anyway, this was a little too chewy for me. Also, Katie told me I should actually be apologizing to the sheep moms for eating their children. Oh no. And I gave their children a 2! I'm a monster!

Mouskoutchou

Rating--3.5 across the board

Nick:

Mouskoutchou!!! Let's banish thoughts of softly weeping sheep moms, upset that their children's flesh only got a score of 2 out of 5, with some mouskoutchou!!! I don't know why I didn't give this a higher score, because it was really good; very nice and tasty and orange-flavored without being too sweet. And it came on a cool mousse edible blue and white tile! Look, a complete monster wouldn't say that! Mouskoutchou! Ha ha!

Katie:

I liked this about as much as I will ever like something chocolatey and moussey. I thought the tile plate was really cool. I greatly enjoy things that are one thing but look like another thing. Like a candle I bought for my dad once that looked like a to-go coffee cup. I had one that legit looked like a blueberry scone...but it was a candle! Things that look like other things!

Dark Chocolate with Marzipan

Post-bite thoughts

Katie:

I only recently tried marzipan. I had been warned for years about how it was not well liked by most people and was an acquired taste. When I finally tried it, it was pretty good. The almond taste was strong enough to be felt but not so strong that I wanted to never hear the word almond again.

My past experience with dark chocolate is less positive. Over a certain percentage over pure cacao and I can't take the bitter taste. Up to a certain point, the bitterness can be quite pleasant, especially if the chocolate is mixed with another flavor like orange. 

I am actually going to pause my thoughts on the dark chocolate marzipan to have another bite. I need to more fully formulate my thoughts in light of my recent introspection. 

Okay, I'm back after having a little more. Overall, I like it. I believe I have said before that I can only handle eating so much of any chocolate at any given time so the small amount I had was enough for me for quite some time. That being said, I thought this was good. The kind of good where if a friend or relative has some and asks if you want some, you'll say "sure, I like that!" and enjoy it. It's not something I'd buy to just eat on my own or split with Nick. This is more to do with me not really being into chocolate rather than this being bad. If you like dark chocolate and you like marzipan, try this out for something different. It comes in squares so you can easily share with friends or dole it out to yourself bit by bit over time.

Nick: 

Hmmmm.... kind of a mixed bag here I think. The dark chocolate is good, the marzipan is good, and they actually go together very well taste wise; the chocolate really covers up the sometimes unpleasantly strong almond flavor that marzipan usually has (especially the aftertaste). In that regard, I think this is better than eating marzipan straight. The texture though..... hmm. Both Katie and I don't really like chocolate with differently-textured stuff inside it; I'll eat mint or orange or whatever flavored dark chocolate all day, but that's when the chocolate itself is flavored; when it's around something, that's when I start making a face like a cat who just tried to eat a bread twist tie he found on the ground. I think that's where this falls down a little bit; the texture of the hard, brittle chocolate and the thick, gritty marzipan don't quiiiiiiite work out. I think this would have been better as dark chocolate with the marzipan mixed directly into the chocolate (and it's not like marzipan isn't a strong enough taste for you to notice it's there). Overall, not bad, but I think I'd rather just eat some nice dark chocolate. 

PS: 60% is my line - once you go over that, you're on very risky ground with dark chocolate. Give me that 60% Lindt. No, seriously, give me some. Do you have any? Give it to me!

Maple-Mustard Sweet Potato Bowls

Food Prep and Cooking

Nick:

Little bit hectic this time; farro goes in a pot to boil for 30 minutes, sweet potatoes go in the oven to get roasted for 22 minutes, throw the pepper in a pan, cook it, add onion and garlic and collard greens, go to the bathroom and play Pop Town, take the sweet potatoes out, coat them in maple mustard sauce, back into the oven, the farro's done, strain it and return it to the pot, cover it with BBQ spice, stir, plate, then the veggies, then the sweet potato on top. Whew!!

Katie:

Another cooking first for me; wilting something. The collard greens needed wilting in the veggie mixture and I think I pulled it off pretty well. It certainly was not the overly stiff kale we had in previous dishes. There wasn't as much for both of us to do the entire time. While the farro and sweet potatoes were baking, we finished the other stuff with time left to have to actually have a conversation. I kid. We talk literally all day and night, it's kind of impossible for us to get sick of each other's company. Unless Nick knows something I don't.

Post-meal thoughts

Nick:

Hmm, not quite what I expected. This is supposed to be BBQ, maple, and mustard flavored; despite dumping half the BBQ spice over the farro and the other half over the veggies, this only tastes like the maple syrup. Both the BBQ and mustard flavors are almost completely smothered; any bite with maple-coated sweet potato - and that's basically all of them - just tastes like, well, maple-coated sweet potato. Not that that's a bad thing! Give me the choice between salty, peppery, BBQ-y farro and maple sweet potato, and I'm probably going to pick maple sweet potato. Very good, but not what I was expecting it to taste like. To improve this dish, I might remove the collard greens; they were fine, nowhere near as nasty as the bok choy from last time we threw leaves in the sautee pan, but they didn't really add anything, they just made me chew a little longer any time I got a bite with one.

Katie:

I noticed someone deftly avoided addressing my statement about not getting sick of each other. I see. Well. This will long be remembered. In 5 or 10 years, I'm gonna bring this up. "Remember that time in our blog when you said you were sick of me?!". You know, typical wife stuff.

I echo Nick's comments about the BBQ flavoring. There was simply not enough of it. I am all for maple paired with BBQ--heck my favorite BBQ sauce is Sweet Baby Ray's Maple--but the maple definitely outweighed any BBQ flavoring for the most part. The sweet potatoes were absolutely the best part. I could have just eaten a whole bowl full of those. I thought the collard greens were fine. I've never had them before so I thought maybe they'd have more of a taste. I'm not sure why I thought that because dark leafy greens just taste like leaves to me. I'm sure someone out there is aghast at my uncultured palate. 

PS from Nick:

I'm sorry, I thought we were reviewing food. Everyone welcome to Hammer Down Relationship Review. I am going to give me and Katie a 9/10, based on a strong foundation of shared interests and mutual respect. To improve this relationship, I would remove Katie yelling "Come over here, I want to kick you," and also it would be cool if we could read each other's minds, or perhaps physically become one creature like the changelings on Deep Space 9. Also, Katie and I are that annoying couple on the local news where it's like "They met at age 16 and they're still together even though they're old and gross in the nursing home" and who hold hands while they're out to eat. 

PPS from Katie:

It's pretend kicking. The kind where you're like several feet away throwing kicks into the air at a safe distance. It's fun. Just don't accidentally hit like a chair while you're doing it because that hurts. I am stealing Nick's gimmick of suggesting improvements by suggesting we remove Nick's tendency to say "Ew, this is nasty. Here, you try it". 

Creamy Truffle Penne

Food prep and cooking

Katie:

I misread teaspoon as tablespoon and vice versa at least three times while cooking. Luckily, I noticed before we actually measured out the ingredients. I thought the prep was straightforward this time but we did leave a few things out. I'm sorry, I will eat something with peas or mushrooms in it if someone else makes it and they're only a tiny amount...but I'm don't want to add them myself. Plus what does a pea even taste like? Nobody is like, "damn, gotta have some tasty ass pea-flavoring on my food!". Mushrooms I get because they are flavorful...just oddly and wrongly textured for my mouth.

Also, whatever kind of coconut milk that comes in a can as a thick, fluffy paste tastes pretty good. Even Nick liked it and he's notoriously not about coconuts, coconut flakes, or things flavored with/by coconuts.

Nick:

I have to agree with Katie; I've never taken a bite of something and been like "This sure could use some disgusting, mushy peas!". Admittedly, I'm sure they're good if you slather enough butter and salt on them, but you can probably make an old boot okay enough to choke down if you slather enough butter and salt on it. Fuck off, peas. Prep for this was pretty easy; throw peas in the garbage, cook some pasta, roast some veggies and combine them all in the sauce. 

Post-meal thoughts

Katie:

We yet again had trouble getting the sauce to thicken up. We don't have a full array of pans and pots so maybe we used one that was too small. The sauce being more liquidy than creamy didn't take away from the flavor. It was good--the truffle zest and mushroom concentrate gave it a savory, earthy flavor that I really liked. The roasted veggies were a great addition, giving surprise bursts of flavor. I'd order this again in our box for sure.

Nick:

This was pretty good! I'm not sure I've had creamy pasta and sauce before, and this was very tasty; who'd have thought I would have enjoyed coconut milk and my old buddy mushroom stock topping some pasta? That being said, I don't know if I would get this again; it was good, but for the amount of work we put in, I would probably just make ziti and crack open a jar of pre-made red sauce with a lot of garlic in it. Like Katie I liked getting a bite with tomato, but it got a little annoying trying to make sure there was one in every bite. If nothing else, these meals are making me appreciate roasted grape tomatoes. To improve this dish... hmm, I am kind of at a loss here; it's fine, it does everything it sets out to do. If you could order it out of a replicator, that would be great, but we're talking about the same company that sent us a free sample of yogurt in the box but put it UNDER the heavy ingredient bag where it exploded, so I'm trying to stick with the possible here. 

Disney Trip January 2021 Part 2

Liberty Tree Tavern 

All-You-Care-to-Enjoy Plant-based Tavern Keeper’s Feast

Impossible™ Meatloaf

Plant-based Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes, Mushroom Gravy, and Seasonal Vegetables

Nick: I will admit right off the bat I was a little afraid to order this. I've never had meatloaf that I remember, let alone plant-based Impossible(TM) meatloaf, and I was half afraid I was going to get some kind of weird frankenfood that I'd pick at and just eat the mashed potatoes and then the waitress would come by like "what's the matter, didn't like the Impossible(TM) plant-based meatloaf??" and then yell at the back "HE DIDN'T LIKE THE IMPOSSIBLE(TM) PLANT-BASED MEATLOAF!!". As it turns out, the Impossible(TM) Plant-based Meatloaf was so much like the Platonic ideal of perfect Meatloaf that I ate a ton of Impossible(TM) Plant-based Meatloaf. I did a Google search later and apparently this was some kind of mixture of beans, soy protein and spices, but I swear to you if the menu didn't specifically call this out as Impossible(TM) Plant-based Meatloaf I would have thought it was the real thing. And it was very tasty! Somehow, this really did deliver, in taste and texture, the perfect, even slightly burned meatloaf. Amazing. I only ate half the mashed potatoes because I filled up on Impossible(TM) Plant-based Meatloaf, a sentence I never thought I would write. What a time to be alive.

Katie: We also had a salad that was good. The real star was this meatloaf! I swear I thought I didn't like Impossible meat the last time I had it but I think it might have been that particular restaurant's attempt at mimicking it. This was amazing! I would happily swap this for any type of beef, any time. 

Oooey Gooey Toffee Cake

Vanilla Toffee Cake, Chocolate Sauce, and Vanilla Ice Cream

Katie: Oh. My. Gosh. There are no words. Should have...sent a poet. Okay maybe there are some words: joyous, scrumptious, and still-telling-people-about-it-months-laterness.

Nick: Well, now I wish I'd saved some of the energy I put into talking about the joy of Impossible(TM) Plant-based Meatloaf to describe this oooey gooey toffee cake, which was absolutely delicious. Like Katie, I'm not sure I really have the words for this; I'd recommend just clicking on the picture to make it full size. It was just as delicious as it looks. Man, I want oooey gooey toffee cake now.

Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano

Margherita Flatbread

Nick: Pretty good! This is basically pizza dough, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and big tomato slices. I will admit that I picked the mozzarella off this, but only because it upsets my stomach; I ate the big tomato pieces, which is unusual for me. I'm such a brave boy. The world's bravest boy, some say. No, no, there's no time to go into who says that, let's see what Katie has to say.

Katie: I remember liking this. Nick was an extremely brave boy. 

Mama's Italian Pasta

Nick: You know, it's pasta. I ate a bunch of it. It's fine. Fills you up. Gives your cells energy to divide or whatever they're doing in there. Gave my body the energy for my lungs to keep breathing and my legs to keep walking and my brain to come up with thoughts about Mama's Italian Pasta and my fingers to type on a keyboard. You know, pasta. This also came with four huge meatballs I couldn't eat; I like meat more than Katie does, but just biting into a huge ball of it gets old pretty fast. I'm sure they were fine too. End communication.

Katie: My aversion to meat is less "this used to be a cow who was alive and liked being alive somewhere" than I really don't like the texture, taste, and look of putting it in my mouth. It is a huge deal when there is meat I can handle in my mouth and eat. It is somewhat about the whole cow thing (like some I didn't eat any pigs for years after Babe because that scene where he's crying for his mom is heartbreaking) but mostly because I have a thing with food texture. I'm sure some of you can relate.

Anyway, the pasta was really good. I'd order it again but maybe without the appetizer so I can have dessert instead. Yay for cake and ice cream!

Plant-based Protein Taco

Food prep and cooking

Nick:

Interesting food prep this time; one pot had the corn and half the onion getting quick pickled (boiled in vinegar, which did not smell nice, and that's coming from the guy who can rub an onion on his face without adverse effects now), toasting the tortillas in the oven, mixing up the crema - literally just sour cream with a tiny bit of spices in it - and in the main event, stir frying the other half of the onion, green pepper, and the fake meat in a savory broth made from a cup of water, tomato paste, and condensed mushroom stock. Did I like the fake meat broiled up in the mushroom stock water? The answer may surprise you! (That's called a teaser.)

Katie:

I cannot believe how many stages of the cooking process for the recipes we've done so far include "a pinch of salt and pepper". Is all cooking like this? It seems very salty to me but then these past few weeks I've cooked more recipes than I ever have in my whole life. Actually, folks, let me get real with you for a second. I know how to make 3 things that would involve what some would refer to as "cooking" and "effort". They are; pasta soup, fajitas, and a variation of stir fry. Don't be fooled by those, they are all basic dishes with steps like "chop it then put it in a thing until it's hot".

Returning to the prep for this dish, I am pleased by my progress over the past two times on gaining onion chopping skills. It's amazing what you absorb from watching shows like Beat Bobby Flay, Guy's Grocery Games, and Great British Baking Show. I can't say I can pull off a bain-marie or whatever but it definitely helped with knowing certain things. Kinda.

Post-meal thoughts

Nick:

Hey, I didn't even know what a bain-marie was until you told me, and I think I forgot it now anyway! To pay off the teaser, here is what I thought of the fake meat boiled in the mushroom stock water: I think this may have been the most savory thing I have ever eaten (that's called a swerve!). Somehow, the fake meat boiled in mushroom stock concentrate was more meat-flavored than actual meat. The whole dish really works, from the crunch added by the pickled corn to the slightly tomato, sloppy joe flavor added by the tomato paste, to the main event of the fake meat, which is really amazingly lifelike. I never would have guessed this isn't real meat, and it tasted absolutely delicious. In fact, this was so savory it was almost too much. My mouth could not handle the big savory meat explosion. I may have to re-think mushrooms; I hate the texture, but the condensed mushroom stock, I think, really lifted this dish into something special. To improve this dish... you know, I might not have any suggestions for the first time I can think of!

Katie:

So, if memory serves, a bain-marie is a baking method where you get a bowl of boiling water then put another bowl of something that cooks from being in the boiling water. I think. 

Anyway.

This was so flipping good! Think of the best sloppy joe you've ever had; the kind where it's really savory but has that little hint of sweet and you'll have an idea of what the faux-meat tasted like. We made 2 tacos each then Nick had a 3rd. I'm not ashamed to say I scooped what was left of everything into a bowl and ate it. So so so good. I keep wishing we had more so I could keep stuffing my face with it. Nick hit all the marks on describing the food and there are only so many times I can say I really liked this so...the end.