very brief cooking notes from last week

[schmerica]

Salmon fillet = mmmm, yummy.

Ground lamb burgers = okay, but rather bland; need rather more flavoring.

Amy's non-dairy frozen pot pie = decent filling but the WORST pie crust I have ever tasted in my LIFE. Self, have you not learned about buying things labelled vegan-friendly? They do not love you. They hate you and want you to suffer.

Angel's hair pasta = quick and easy, but rather less tasty than most other pasta. Although maybe I just needed, like, three times as much garlic in with it.

Spoonfuls of Nutella from the jar = wrong, yet so tasty.

Comments

[ineke.livejournal.com]

Oh, I totally second the Nutella thing. I hadn't even thought of it, but then we had a temporary flatmate who just happened to leave behind her a jar of Nutella...

It's not really chocolately enough to satisfy a chocolate craving, but it's close.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

See, the thing is that all my bread went bad. Otherwise I wouldn't be thinking twice about it, but eating it pure seems so uncomfortably decadent.

[ineke.livejournal.com]

And, as our (peanut butter) advertisements say, it's 55% sugar!

[mollita.livejournal.com]

No no no nononononono.

There is *nothing* wrong with spoonfuls of Nutella. NOTHING.

Please do not burst this happy delusional bubble of mine?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I am sorry! Nutella is wonderful! Spoonfuls of it are one of the joys of life!

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I used to really like Amy's pizza pockets, and the lasagna's okay, but eventually it got to where I just went "ergh" at the food, possibly because of the Fake Vegan Food factor. I don't really understand the market for fake vegan versions of intrinsically non-vegan food; vegan bologna, for example. I sort of thought the point of vegetarian and vegan cooking was to make tasty things with non-animal products, not bend over backwards trying to make fake animal products.

Anyway, I think this is why most of the Amy's stuff kind of fails.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

The frozen pizzas are quite tasty, actually.

I agree with you on the fake vegan thing, actually but somehow I don't think of "pot pie" in the category as, like, vegan bologna and vegan turkey and vegan cheesecake and vegan mayonnaise and so on. If I had realized this was vegan, I wouldn't have bought it, actually; I didn't notice the big "non-dairy" labelling.

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

Oh me oh my... welcome to my vegan hell. No pre-fab vegan foods taste any good (except veggie burgers, 'course), so it's take-out or stove-slave every night for me and my vegan darling. It is to sigh!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Eee, that is unfortunate -- I am sorry. I am a ridiculously picky eater as it is; I can't imagine trying to survive on a really limited diet like that.

[miss-pryss.livejournal.com]

Let's put it this way... you know how cheerios are, like, the most important food to have around when you've got a little kid?

Same deal with vegans of any age.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

well, I don't know about the vegan stuff, but I do like a lot of the Amy's vegetarian stuff. Like the pot pie (not the non-dairy one), and the spinach-n-feta pocket sandwich. Mmmm.

I sort of thought the point of vegetarian and vegan cooking was to make tasty things with non-animal products, not bend over backwards trying to make fake animal products.
I used to say that all the time -- usually with more four-letter words sprinkled in ;) -- but now I've mellowed. ;) Hey, some vegetarians really do miss eating meat and appreciate having the fake substitutes around. And if you want to market a product to a broader audience, including people who aren't vegetarian at all, sometimes it's easier to have fake meat than tofu or (horrors!) only veggies.

I'm just sayin'. I don't really care for any of the fake meat products myself. Heck, I don't even like veggie burgers.

[gurrier.livejournal.com]

Ground lamb burgers = okay, but rather bland; need rather more flavoring.

I haven't found anywhere here (Hartford, CT) that sells ground lamb yet, and I am craving lamb meatballs. Pretty simple - 1/2lb ground lamb, 1 egg, 1 onion, 1 slice wholemeal bread, a handful of pine nuts, some cinnamon and parsley, garlic to taste. Soak the bread, dice the onion, put everything except the nuts and parsley in the food processor. Zoom for a minute, then stir in the parsley and pine nuts. Cook in tomato sauce, and serve with rice. Or use it to stuff zucchini or eggplant.

I'm also craving chicken soup. Hopefully when I find a ground lamb seller, they'll sell chicken frames too!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that sounds really good, actually.

I had actually been looking for lamb to cut up for stew or curry, but couldn't find it at the grocery, so I decided to experiment with the ground lamb they had instead. The recipe I had, though, was basically just the meat and salt and pepper and cheese, and even though I am a big fan of lamb in general, it was not quite enough.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Because of the my dairy/cow allergy thing, I've tried a lot of vegan products, and most of them I've found sadly lacking in taste, to the point that I'd rather make my own stuff from scratch instead.