Monday, March 5
morning:
set coconut milk for truffle ganache to steep (lime&coconut, Orchid Oolong tea)

evening:
empty dishwasher
reheat coconut milk
make ganache for truffles
coat candied tangelo slices in sugar and leave to dry longer
set yogurt to drain

clean downstairs bathroom
sweep front room
open tables and start setting up chairs

dinner:
onion, ravioli, meatballs, asparagus with pasta sauce

Tuesday, March 6
morning:

Shopping:
eggplant
butternut squash
1 lb of carrots
jalapenos
red bell peppers
chocolate chips
low fat coconut milk
whole milk (not ultra pasteurized)
soda water
vindaloo seasoning
2 packages of pita bread
paneer

empty compost into compost bin

breakfast:
last of the kale, tomato,

evening:
shape lime & coconut truffles
second sugar coat for tangelo slices and put up for storage – consider candying lime or lemon next
Make 1 cup of brown basmati rice
Make tzatziki
Roast butternut squash and bell peppers
Make raita (started)
Make black bean dip
Make matbucha

vacuum LiLi’s room

dinner:
chili

Wednesday, March 7th
morning:
coat truffles
Make paneer
wash dishes

breakfast:
nibblies?

evening:
unload dishes
Make Chana Masala
Make Biryani Sauce Base
First attempt vegan naan vs dairy naan
Make 1 cup brown basmati rice
thaw frozen spinach in a container

dinner: product test the chana masala

Thursday, March 8th
Gah! 7am yoga?
early day at work

get supplemental dishware from friend?

8pm play?
Make 2nd batch of chana masala
Make Spicy white bean dip
Slice and oil pita bread
set 1 pt lentils to soak
Drain thawed spinach (and reserve liquid)

Friday, March 9th
Bake dessert – either carrot cake or Lemon or Lime Cake (which would be better topped with candied tangelo and blood orange slices?)
Peel winter squash, cube, and marinate in vindaloo seasoning
buy, chop, and prep vegetables for the vegetable biryani (cauliflower?, string beans?, bell pepper, zucchini? – also more string beans and a bag of potatoes. Oh, and the lettuce for salads.)
Make naan dough
Make chapati / roti dough
Make first iteration of

lentil dish – Parippu
225g masoor dal (red lentils)
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 ripe tomato, roughly chopped
50g creamed coconut, mixed with 250ml water (or 250 ml coconut milk)
2 green chillies, chopped
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander

2 Tbsp oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1 onion, very finely chopped
10 curry leaves

Put the lentils in a heavy-based saucepan with 500ml water. Add the roughly chopped onion, tomato, creamed coconut or coconut milk, green chilli, turmeric, ground cumin and coriander, and bring to a boil. Simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the lentils are cooked to a soft mush (masoor dal does not hold its shape when it cooks). This will take about 25 minutes. If all the water has evaporated before the lentils are cooked, add 125 ml boiling water.

For the final seasoning (tarka), heat the oil in a small saucepan over low heat. Add the cumin and mustard seeds, cover and allow the seeds to pop. Add the finely chopped onion and curry leaves and fry over low heat until the onion is golden brown. Pour the seasoned onions into the simmering lentils. Season with salt to taste, and cook for another 5 minutes.

– source The Food of India by Priya Wickramasinghe

Peel and boil potatoes

Make

Make pita chips!

soak more lentils
soak hazelnuts

Saturday, March 10th
remove dough from refrigerator and bring to room temperature
Put white wine in the refrigerator

make salad dressing
toast nuts for salad

Cut up crudite

put vegetable biryani in a dutch oven and cook it.
Make soup (rosted butternut squash or carrots – coconut chutney esque)
Make more lentils

Take a break and buy fresh herbs: cilantro, parsley, methi, and curry leaves (if you can find them). Also buy some pre-made breads so you can quit worrying. They’ll freeze. Anything else pretty for crudite?

knead doughs

Assemble all components of saag paneer – cook and puree spinach, brown paneer

Puree soup smooth

When you panic about there being too little food – make some string beans with mustard seed and some methi potatoes

Roll out bread.

35 minutes til – Make tamarind rice with hazelnuts, pine nuts, and mustard seeds

20 minutes til – Put chips, dips, and crudite on the table; put as many condiments as you can wrangle on the table; pull white wines from the refrigerator; open a bottle of red;
Clear any surfaces possible in the kitchen; start oven preheating to 500F for bread optimism; Make plain basmati (burner 1); cook the Squash vindaloo! (burner 2) (soup = burner 3)

10 minutes til – (assemble saag in a pan ready to go on the stove)

Start: remove rice from burner, set squash to simmer, start cooking the saag paneer. Act social; offer beverages; (have place to stash coats!!); tell people to go visit your foster cat

Start + 10 minutes: Assemble the tarka for the soup; first batch of bread?

Start +20 minutes: Serve soup; Second batch of bread

Start +30 minutes: Add paneer to saag; Is the bread plan doomed?

Start +35 minutes: Serve dinner (if bread is awesome, cook a few more rounds of it)

An hour later – offer a salad course and see if people blanch

Boil water and make tea; offer scotch
Serve dessert

1 load of dishes before bed

Sunday, March 11
sleep
load of dishes in the morning

Mail truffles to recipient?

2:30 – Latin translation group?

After a long hiatus, one of City Kitties’ favorite fundraising events is back! Cooking with Cat Ladies is a delicious way to show your support for stray cats and kittens. This fine dining experience will be held the evening of Saturday, March 10th at a volunteer’s West Philadelphia home.

How It Works
I am preparing a mouth-watering menu for Cooking with Cat Ladies guests. A $50 ticket purchase reserves your seat at the table, where you will enjoy a five-course vegetarian feast and the company of other cat lovers and City Kitties volunteers. The menu is not yet set in stone, but it will be vegetarian with vegan and gluten-free options (see below).

Seats are limited, so don’t delay in purchasing your ticket! All proceeds benefit City Kitties. (And it goes without saying that this event is open to anyone — not just ladies as the title may imply!) NOTE: If you are unable to attend but would still like to support this event, you may purchase seats to the event and we will offer it to our dedicated foster homes to go as your guest. Just note your intention to donate your seat to a foster parent in the paypal notes section when you purchase the tickets.

rough menu (with recipes to follow)

Appetizers
tzatziki (dairy)
red wine and ginger black bean dip (vegan)
pita chips (vegan, gluten)
carrots and cauliflower (vegan)

Soup
Coconut Chutney Butternut Squash Soup (vegan)

Entree
vegetable biryani (vegan, gluten free)
hazelnut tamarind brown rice (vegan, gluten free)
Winter Squash Vindaloo (vegan, gluten free, spicy)
Chana Masala (vegan, gluten free, moderate spice)
Palak Paneer (dairy, vegetarian, gluten free, mild; possibility of home made paneer) or something else mild and vegan
assorted chutney (vegan) and raita (dairy)

Salad
Arugula and/or baby spinach
Nuts and cheeses
Lemon dressing

Dessert — to be announced

Go to the main event page for purchasing details

So I have some leftovers from the Catladies event that really need to leave my house. I have an incredibly tasty loaf of vegan challah I have been devastating (and have sliced and frozen more than half of it, like a responsible person.

And I have two ramekins of flavored butter: honey butter (a little too weak) and chipotle butter (a little too strong).

And I have a pint of heavy cream. From the farmers’ market. From happy cows. *clings*

I really must not eat all of these on my own.

However, for the foodbloggers potluck, I think I shall be making more cabbage/beet shred that was so tasty and healthy.

Can you think of anything else I could make that would use up a lot of dairy products? Without also making bread to go with it because baking is not my forte, and while I’ll go it in front of friends, I am not going to do it for food bloggers.

And I just don’t think a spicy, buttery bread pudding would work too well. …huh.

Okay, so if you got a tough multi-grain bread… like the spelt from Metropolitan Bakery, perhaps… and then cream, eggs, honey, dried cherries, and vanilla from a bean. Brown the butter? Ooo… kind of like with the toasting?

That’s an insanely complex recipe for bread pudding. And it’s something that I’d have to be able to take to work and still have tasty at the end of the day.

Right, so no experimental bread pudding for the pot luck. Does anyone else want to experiment and try a spicy heart attack of joy sometime? The butter can keep, but the heavy cream won’t last more than a month I don’t think.

So I cooked lots.

I was scarily organized.

I made a time line, and almost everything happened to or ahead of schedule – scary, I tell you.

And everything was labeled.

Also, I hear it was pretty tasty.

The carrot soup had a little bit more peanut butter than I wanted, but no one else knew that – and the rice turned out a bit overcooked, but that’s because it was a gas stove and it’s brutal trying to cook rice on a gas range (plus I forgot to time it and kept having to take it off the heat and put it back on again because the stove was working best for me with only one live burner).

The desserts I persuaded my co-worker and Sara Strickland to make were amazing!

Thank you to Laura for the loan of a hand blender with which to make whipped cream.

And I was even able to suavely pretend there was no such thing as a last minute vegetable stock crisis because Jude was online and able to supply all of my last minute stock needs with only an hour’s notice. Seriously, we were arranging pick up just as I was finishing loading my car to relocate my entire kitchen to lxbean‘s. MY HERO!

Oh, and the lovely two people who staying until midnight to make sure all of the dishes were washed that night! I didn’t wash a single dish, and it was pure luxury.

I got the general impression that everyone thought the food was awesome.

And we raised a bunch of money to help kitties.

And there were fun conversations

Because some of the guests were kind enough to do the dishes, I was able to go over this morning for coffee tea and pick up everything that needed to be schlepped over to my house.

Even the aftermath was surprisingly painless. By the time I left for work, everything was put away and tidy. Well, in the kitchen, at least. Now I have to put my laundry into drawers and vacuum the carpet, but that doesn’t count for this gloating post.

So I am calling it 100% successful.

And I want to do another one.

The people attending Cooking for Catladies will get to meet this adorable cat (ETA: I lied. You’d only get to meet his sister, Lucy, also CH. Cav was adopted to a forever home – still cute, though):

Awww! The head bob with the hat at 1:14… *flail*

Note from original poster, lxbean:

It’s Cav and his new buddy, Ollie.

(Cav, for those of you who are new to the story, was born with cerebellar hypoplasia, which means he’s missing the part of his brain that smooths motor coordination. It doesn’t affect anything else, and as you can see, he’s wringing every last bit of fun out of life. And don’t worry: he doesn’t care if you laugh at him. In fact, there’s a good chance he’s laughing at you.)

ETA: More Caverly videos from when he was just a wee CHitten being fostered:
Cav’s sister twirl walks
CHittens playing with tinfoil
Cav and the leaf
Breakfast of the CHittens
Cav demonstrated progress

This is big, so I’m being super-organized to keep track…

Tuesday, March 10th1:00-9:00pm – work
9:30pm – transfer last batch of leftovers into compatible containers
9:45pm – make chipotle butter
dinner = salad w/ beef and beets
wash dishes?
go to parents’

Wednesday, March 11thCollect from parents’:

• leftovers
• soup bowls
• hot sauces
• fancy olive oils

1:00-9:00pm – work
9:30pm – roast garlic, 3 sweet potatoes, 5 tomatillos
9:30pm – start vegetable stock
9:35pm – wash dishes
10:00pm – make sweet hot garlic sauce (requires: 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup cider vinegar, 3 Tablespoons finely minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 Tablespoon sambal olek)
make tomatillo salsa
experiment with savory mashed sweet potato recipes
dinner = sweet potato stuff
*set meusli to soak*

Thursday, March 12thguess what I forgot? —> breakfast = meusli
full day; no prep work
9:30pm – put coffee on to soak and yogurt to drain (not together)
At work – make label cards with ingredient lists of all the dishes. Make a few extra blank ones. Put nocounterspace URL on each.
dinner = pasta

Friday, March 13th8:00am – call out sick from work
8:00am – go to Studio34
8:30-9:30am – pilates
10:00-11:30am – vinyasa
1:00-2:30pm – go to Produce Junction (pick up
3:30-6:00pm – vegetable stock’s slow simmer
3:30-4:00pm – press coffee, pour off, clean press, put more coffee on to soak overnight
4:00-4:30pm – pickle carrots & cucumbers (requires: 3 cucumbers, 4 carrots, 1 purple onion, sugar, rice vinegar)
4:30-5:00pm – make tzatziki saice (requires: 1 drained quart yogurt, 1 cucumber, minced garlic)
6:00pm – strain vegetable stock
6:00-8:00pm – make pita chips (requires: pita, olive oil, ground coriander, paprika, ground cumin, powdered garlic, thyme or oregano, za’tar that has been ground smooth in a mortar, nutmeg, pepper, smoked paprika)
7:00pm – set kidney beans to soak (requires: 3/4 lb? kidney beans & water)

Saturday, March 14th10-11:30am – yoga
11:45-12:45 – pilates

1:00pm – put sweet potatoes in the oven to roast
1:00pm – accept delivery of vegan cookies and chocolate cake!!

press coffee, pour off, clean press

make curry black beans (requires canned black beans (5 cans?), onions, garlic, ginger, jalepeno flesh, red bell peppers?, vegetable stock, bay leaf, thyme, and curry powder and garam masala)

make chili kidney beans (requires: onion, garlic, pinch of salt, cumin, bay leaf, soaked kidney beans, canned tomatoes, dried onion flakes, chili powder, paprika, oregano, masa harina)

make – spice mix for carrot soup

poach pears

make salsas out of some of the fruit from Produce Junction

make thai-ish chickpeas (requires shredded fresh coconut, purple onion, garlic, ginger, jalepeno, cilantro stems, thai green curry paste, chickpeas (5 cans?), lime juice, lime zest, bay leaf, vegetable stock, water)

Save some minced purple onions

make salad dressing – southwestern ranch (ketchup, mayo, sour cream, packet of taco seasoning, maybe some drained chunks from salsa for seasoning

experiment with salad dressing – (I was thinking last night about cumin. Specifically whole cumin seeds all dry roasted in a pan. And how much I like that with honey. And mushed up roasted garlic. Only it needs more liquid, and I haven’t decided yet what will be the best sour note.)

Buy salad greens and tofu

Make savory mashed sweet potatoes

Slice tofu and marinate (requires: lemons, cumin, chipotle, oregano)

Sunday, March 15th10:00am-noon – Forrest yoga
12:30pm – load car and drive to ‘s
1:00pm – set someone to peeling carrots
2:00pm – set someone to peel and halve (lengthwise) the sweet potatoes
2:00pm – make carrot soup (requires: peeled & chunked carrots, full fat coconut milk, asaphoetida, ginger, spice mix, low fat coconut milk, vegetable broth, lime, creamy peanut butter) (1st burner!)
2:30pm – Make beet/cabbage shred (requires: 2 beets, 1.5 purple cabbages, 1/2 purple onion, 3 jalepenos, sugar, minced garlic, minced ginger, rice vinegar, red wine vinegar, olive oil, juice of 3 limes, ground pepper, fresh cilantro)
3:00-3:30pm – slice sweet potatoes into spears, toss in a bag to olive oil (requires: peeled sweet potatoes, bag, olive oil, cumin seeds, powdered garlic, ground coriander, ground black pepper, ground chipotle, and ground thyme)
3:00pm – set someone to slice onions and bell peppers
3:30-4:00pm – toast almond slivers for soup (3rd burner – brief)
4:00pm – set someone else to brush tortillas with water and olive oil and make packets for warming in the oven
4:00-5:00pm – cut up fruit into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temp out of the way (requires: fruit)
5:00-5:30pm – put bread fixings into bread machine(s)
5:15-6:00pm – wash and cut greens
5:30pm – heat oven to 400F
5:55pm – put first batch of sweet potato spears in the oven
6:00pm – put vegetable stock on stove to heat (2nd burner!)
6:15pm – transfer batches of the carrot soup to a blender, containers with finished soup, rinse soup pot, put soup back in pot and adjust the seasoning
6:30-6:50pm – Make Mexican rice for main course, set aside still covered (requires: 1 cup rice, 2 tsp turmeric, 2 cloves, jar of salsa) (3rd burner!)
6:25-6:35pm – take out first batch of sweet potato spears? and put in the second batch
6:45pm – put onions and bell peppers in a skillet over slow heat (requires: onions, peppers, penzey’s fajita seasoning) (4th burner!)
6:50pm – shred lettuce, dice tomato, mince onion, slice hot peppers, cover plate with plastic and pop in the fridge
—————————
7:00pm – guests arrive
7:00pm – put legumes and sweet potatoes in the oven to heat (requires: 4 casserole dishes. I have 2)

7:00-7:20pm – Appetizers – (standing up and mingling)

• pita chips
• fresh pita in wedges?
• tzatziki
• smashed chickpea salad
• Sweet Potato Spears
• Sweet hot Garlic Sauce

7:10pm – don’t forget the second batch of sweet potato spears. Turn oven down to 350F

7:25pm – halve avocados
7:30pm – pull butters out of the fridge
7:30pm – Soup (seated)

• Curry Coconut Ginger Carrot Soup (required: soup, toasted almonds, chipotle)
• Spicy broth (requires spicy broth, beautiful slices of avocado, marinated tofu)
• Fresh bread? No fresh bread? Oddly, I think it might be better with the salad course

7:30pm – take reject avocados and make guacamole (requires: ??)
7:35pm – Have someone else shred Cheddar Cheese
7:40pm – warm tortillas (requires: 3 baskets and cloth napkins)
7:45pm – cook greens (Kenyan collard greens requires: washed & cut collard greens, vegetable bouillon cube, 5 spice powder, 2 fresh tomatoes, diced; Asian kale requires: Alexine!) (carrot soup burner and rice/almonds burner)
7:50pm – Main Course

• Mexican rice
• tortillas
  • corn
  • wheat
  • whole wheat?
• Curry Black Beans
• Chili Kidney beans
• Thai-ish Chickpeas
• Kenyan Collard Greens
• Asian-ish Kale
• Mashed Sweet Potatoes
• Beet/Cabbage Shred
• Sauteed Onions & Peppers
• Shredded cheddar cheese
• Queso Fresco
• salad toppings
• Sour Cream
• Salsas
• Guacamole

8:10pm – rinse greens and set to dry
8:12pm – Make balsamic vinaigrette (requires: balsamic vinegar, mustard, red wine, (honey, if no one objects), ground pepper)
8:30pm – Salad

• large bowl of mesclun (bring colander to give it a quick rinse before serving)
• Replate leftovers from dinner into smaller bowls for salad fixings – esp. sliced tomato, onion)
• salad dressings
  • southwestern ranch
  • garlic/cumin thingy?
  • balsamic vinaigrette
  • fancy balsamic vinegar & fancy olive oil
• Fresh, hot bread (hopefully) – w/ butter, honey butter, and chipotle butter

8:50pm – whip cream (requires: 1 qt heavy cream, 1/2 cup sugar)
8:55pm – microwave poached pears (just to take the chill off)
8:55pm – put a kettle on to boil
9:00pm – Dessert

• Put out cookies
• offer platings of cake and/or muffins?
• big bowl of fruit
• big bowl of whipped cream

9:05pm – offer coffee or tea (requires: coffee concentrate, teabags, sugar, honey, fake sugar?, demerara sugar?, heavy cream, lighter dairy?, soy milk?)

—————————

Still unscheduled
– pick up dessert items from lj person

—————————-

Things for the sous chef to cut up on Sunday (in order)

• peel all the carrots
• peel and halve (lengthwise) sweet potatoes
• slice onions and bell peppers
• wash and stem greens

Dishes completed so far:
Chipotle Butter
Honey Butter
Tomatillo Salsa
Sweet-Hot Garlic Sauce
added 2 more habanero peppers to the pineapple salsa

I think everything else needs to be fresher or needs produce I’m buying on Friday.

Om nom nom

Dessert plans acquired!

There should be a vegan baked goods option – \o/!

and a cake-type baked goods option.

Woo!

That and a bunch of fruit and some whipped cream should be decent after a big dinner, yes?

I’m thinking of making truffles and poached pears, too, but they’ll probably accompany the vegan cupcakes. Eee! plating!

To Do List

Cooking with Catladies – experiment 1

• Thai beet slaw/salad (needs a better name)
  • peel and slice thinly 1 beet
  • shred a complementary amount of purple cabbage
  • halve a purple onion and slice one thinly
  • Jalapeno, seeded, sliced into thin matchsticks (core reserved for stock)
  • make dressing of:
    • 1 clove garlic, minced
    • 2 tsp sugar
    • 1 teaspoon vinegar (still haven’t decided between rice vinegar for the thai theme or red wine vinegar for the color theme)
    • juice of 1/2 lime
    • 1 tsp good olive oil
  • toss together with some generous grinds of black pepper
  • give a further toss with 1 Tbsp chopped cilantro
  • ETA:decided on 1 teaspoon of each kind of vinegar – needs more lime juice!
• Thai-inspired chickpea taco filling (version 1)
  • Drain a can of chickpeas
  • fry 1 tsp shredded fresh coconut (no really, from a coconut – no sugar added), purple onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, jalapeno flesh in 1 tsp olive oil.
  • Add half the can of chickpeas, juice of 1/2 the lime, 1 bay leaf, and some lime zest
  • Add a mixture of vegetable stock and water and cook until no longer thin.
• Thai-inspired chickpea taco filling (version 2)
  • fry 1 tsp fresh coconut in 2 tsp olive oil
  • add 1/2 tsp thai green curry paste
  • Add the rest of the chickpeas and a similar mixture of vegetable stock and water
  • cook until no longer thin
• ETA: Instead of one or the other, it should be both – add some green curry paste to the first recipe to give it a yummy base flavor. And don’t forget to add a little salt in the cooking

Vacuum floor
Hang up stuff in closet
Clean off kitchen table
1 hr pilates
shower