rants & recipes

A few thoughts, semi-food related and dinner.

Finally picked up a library copy of Stamet's Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms today. Ever since I was a little kid, I've had a thing for mushrooms. Our recent camping trip, seeing all the wild mushrooms was really neat. And now, we're thinking about trying to grow some. Oysters seem the easiest (too bad I don't particularly like the way they taste). We were especially happy to see okara listed as a fruiting substrate - could it be, finally, something to do with okara?! One can, or should, only eat so many okara brownies. We successfully made a sporeprint from a young button mushroom and oysters are easily available, so we could try to grow from storebought oysters. We have a pressure cooker for sterilizing stuff. If we get around to making soymilk, tofu and yogurt on a more-regular basis, we'll have plenty of okara. Anyway, something to think about.

Speaking of making soymilk, the plan was to make soymilk and yogurt today. I opened the refrigerator this morning to a small pyrex, nearly bursting its lid off - Evin had tried to soak 3 'milk batches' worth of beans in a container with less than 1/2" space at the top. Needless to say, the beans didn't all soak well - some of them didn't even get wet, I don't think - so soymilk and yogurt is on the menu for tomorrow.

Which left me wondering what, exactly, to make for dinner. I considered this vegan quiche but didn't have enough spinach, nor enough time, after a bit of mushroom reading.

So, I decided on spinach hummus and pasta instead. We may be a little strange, but we like hummus and pasta although I don't typically see people talking about this combination. But, really, pasta's a carb, just like bread, so it's not that strange.

Anyway, nothing terribly special. Just a typical hummus recipe with some spinach thrown in.

Typical hummus + spinach:

• 2 cans garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 4 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp tahini
• 4 tbsp oil (in a futile attempt to achieve smoothness from my crappy FP)
• pinch cumin
• salt to taste
• about 2-3 cups fresh spinach, wilted

Anyway, fairly quick and nice when a spread can serve as protein and vegetable!

We had this with orzo, onions, sun-dried tomatoes and asparagus.