Speaking of caterpillars...

Look what I found munching on my tomato plant!


It is, of course, now in a container on my counter where, for the past five days, it has been fed a steady diet of tomato branches mostly because I am fascinated by how much the thing can eat--and how quickly it goes to town on those leaves. As a result of his steady gorging, Mr. Hookworm is ginormous. I almost fear for my cat.

Shall we name him? Any suggestions? I kind of like Captain Hookworm...

The far reaching effects of half-assed vegetarianism on my children

My three-year-old made this at preschool:

AWESOME.

May is Strawberry Month at Half-Assed Vegetarian!

It's strawberry pickin' time, folks! Here are a few tips for how to get the most out of your strawberry picking experience.

1. Bring your children so you have someone to smash the strawberries. Make sure they are slathered in sunscreen and dressed in ridiculous outfits, preferably ones that will showcase strawberry stains.
2. Don't forget the jewlery.

3. Bring your own baskets. This way you can make sure they 1) match your outfit, and 2) are of the kind that the most conducive to stabbing and crushing your berries, as well as awkwardly shaped so as to maximize their tipping over capabilities.

4. Sample, sample, sample.

5. Take at least one horridly cheesy strawberry related photo.



Sort, but DO NOT WASH your berries as soon as you get home. The berries should go in three separate containers:

In good shape, slightly bruised so eat soon, and mortally wounded/stabbed and bleeding so use today or forever hold your peace. Line the bottom of the latter two containers with paper towels so the berries don't sit in their own berry goup. We'll deal with these three piles in the upcoming weeks, so get out there and pick some berries! Plus, send me your strawberry picking photos and I'll post them throughout the month.

It's the Cirrrrrrcle of Life...

Does this post make me a bad Half-Assed Vegetarian? I mean, it's not like I'm eating the squirrels...
In Other Nature News...

Greens and Beans, the Musical Dish...

Like most grandmas, mine just cooks from the heart and knows exactly what to do as she goes along. Trivial matters such as amounts, timing, etc. matter not because grandmothers just use their 6th sense, the good cookin' one, which makes delicious meals as natural as breathing to them. My grandmother makes a different kind of greens than I do, so the last time I was home I tried to pin her down for the recipe. Here are the notes I took:

Once I got home I looked at this piece of paper, realized it was nonsense, and a subsequent call ensued. Here is my adaptation of her greens recipe, based on what I think she said and what Jesus told me to do. (See Just Barely's Cooking with the Lord)

Grammy's Greens and Beans

Here's What You're Gonna Need:
Note: All amounts are based on, well, nothing at all. Like I said, grandmothers don't work in measurable amounts. They say things like "a couple of handfuls," and "some," and "depending on what you like," and "Do you want a Werther's Original?". This is what works for me. Feel free to adapt at will.

We're going to make a lot here so we can either freeze some or share with our friends and loved ones.

3ish tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (a couple of times around the pan)
4-5 garlic cloves, smashed then finely chopped
2+ teaspoons of crushed red pepper seeds (I like my greens spicy, so I err on the side of more.)

1 onion, chopped

3-4 stalks of celery, chopped, save the leafs if you have them
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded or finely chopped

3 lbs greens, using any combination of greens you want. My favorites are chard, turnip greens, beet greens, and spinach. You can also use collard greens, kale, etc.

1-3 12 oz can of vegetable broth or chicken broth (depending on whether or not your not eating animals includes not drinking them as well), or as much as needed to reach desired consistency. Before getting Grammy's recipe, I always made my greens something you eat with a fork as a side dish. Grammy makes her greens and beans almost into a soup, which is excellent and can serve as a main course. It's up to you.

6ish 12oz cans of the musical fruit. DO NOT DRAIN. Like the greens, there are many combos that will work here. Grammy's top two picks are butter beans and kidney beans so that's how I roll, but great northern and garbonzo beans are fine as well.

And Here's What You're Gonna Do:

Saute the garlic in olive oil over medium low heat until the garlic begins to speak (in tongues is preferable, but if you don't have garlic infused with the holy spirit, making little sizzling noises is okay, too.) Add the hot pepper seeds and saute for one or two minutes longer, being careful that your garlic doesn't burn.

Add the onion and continue to saute for another two minutes, or until onions begin to soften.

Add celery, cabbage and celery leafs and give it another two to three minutes.

Add greens, a couple of handfuls at a time, the toughest kind first. Add broth as you go to help the greens to cook down before you add the next round.

Once the greens have turned bright green and have had a chance to soften, add the rest of the broth and the beans, as well as the liquid from the beans.

Simmer for at least fifteen minutes, but you can really let this stuff go on low for hours. Like Grammy says, you can't overcook it.

Enjoy! Love, Grammy and Amy

A less soupy version makes for a great side dish.

Smitten By My Stove Zucchini Banana Bread

Disclaimer: I can't personally vouch for the awesomeness of this creation since mine turned out, well... in the garbage can. But that's because the kitchen gods smote me, not because the recipe sucks. Here's what happened. I wanted to bake something for my friend Meg, who was good enough to find Ella some hand-me-down uniforms for this upcoming school year. Meg wears ironed aprons, has perfectly parted hair, and served us grilled angel food cake with strawberries on china for a play date snack. I even had a saucer for my coffee. This, after I offered up a frozen pizza and whatever the kids could find on the kitchen floor when she came to our house. Needless to say, I needed a pretty good baked good for this domestic diva, so I fancied up a traditional banana bread recipe, poured the batter into my best bread pan--the one without the rust on the bottom--popped it in my oven, and waited for its glorious completion. I wasn't sure how long it would take since this was a new creation and I like my bread moist (that sounds like it should be dirty, but I can't think of how), so after 30 minutes I pulled it out to check on it. After stabbing the bread with a kabob stick I decided it still had a while to go and opened the oven door to put it back in. Only instead of opening like a normal oven would do for a normal cook, my oven door fell apart in my hands. With an underdone bread in one hand and an oven mitt in the other, I first caught the door handle as it pulled off the door, then the door frame and, finally, the glass panel from the front of the oven. Yet somehow, through all of this, the door itself did not open. "Steve, I need you!" I shouted to my husband upstairs. "Come quick, it's an emergency!" "Oh, *%$!," he proclaimed as he ran into the kitchen and grabbed a screw driver. "No time for fixes!" I shrieked, "Get the crow bar and pry open the oven! I'll hold the glass and the front of the stove for the next 15 minutes! We need to get Meg's banana bread back in there, STAT!" Steve, who knows nothing about aprons, or play dates, or parted hair, did not share my sense of urgency to save the bread and instead saved the oven door. By the time he was done, it was too late. I tried to make him eat the underdone bread as a punishment, but the batter stuck in his throat. Anyway, mine ended up in the garbage can, but if you're not in possession of demon appliances I'm sure yours will be divine.

Smitten Zucchini Banana Bread

Here's What You're Gonna Need:
(as always, divided into groups for those like myself with kitchen ADD)

1 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 cup oats (rolled or quick or stolen from a horse or whatever)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

4 eggs

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2-3 overripe bananas (The grosser the better. Unless they have fruit flies. That's too gross.), thoroughly mashed.

1 tsp vanilla

2 smallish or 1 big honkin green zucchini--shred, then give it a quick squeeze in a paper towel to get some of the moisture out.
1 cup walnuts and/or whatever makes you happy (raisins, chocolate chips, bacos, whatever)


And Here's What You're Gonna Do:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 9X5 loaf pans or at least 2 muffin tins.

Whisk together the first group of ingredients (flours, wheat germ, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt).

In a different big bowl, beat the eggs. Add the sugars, oil, applesauce and mashed bananas. Add vanilla and mix it all up.

Pour the dry ingredients into the big bowl of wet ones and stir until just combined. Fold in the zucchini, walnuts, and whatever else you got.

Pour into loaf pans.

Bake, I'm guessing, 45ish mins for bread, 35ish for muffins, or until your favorite baking stabber comes out dry.

Then please mail to my friend Meg and say it's from me.

What to do when someone at your table wants to eat something that once mooed, clucked, or oinked: Tomatilla Tortilla Casserole

What to do when someone at your table wants to eat something that once mooed, clucked, or oinked:

At first you say "Then YOU go out there and stab a cow and get your own ()(*^$ dinner, *(&%#ing ) &*%$, &*&^$, (&%$!." But then they present you with a pet hen that lays golden eggs, and they promise to never ever eat YOUR new hen if only you make them a dinner involving a different chicken just this one time. And so you decide to sell out and make them some chicken and tell yourself that a) the chicken you're about to make died peacefully of old age and b) you'll donate the money from two of the golden eggs to saving goats in Africa or some such animal friendly cause. And if you're making chicken anyway, you might as well make the poor bird's life worth two meals, so here's is a very inexpensive way to hit 'em with some meat (awww, yeah) twice:

Go to the grocery store or Sam's Club and buy one of those already cooked rotisserie chickens (this is going to provide you with enough meat for two carnivorous meals). Then, if you're a half-assed vegetarian who eats things of the sea like myself (only not manatees, because they're endangered and also because they called "Sea Cows," and eating a cow isn't cool, even if it does live in the sea), march yourself over to the seafood area and get yourself a lobster. Or, if you are against eating Pinchy, put some sort of an expensive exotic mushroom in your cart. You deserve it for putting up with these people.

On the first night, feed the bird eaters the white meat of the chicken (i.e., the breasts. Make them carve it their own selves, unless you're giving it to a two-year-old. Three is definitely old enough to yield a knife, but two is just plain bad parenting.) and you eat Pinchy or Shroomy or whatever trips your trigger. Make loud, frantic squawking noises every time someone takes a bite of the chicken.

Have someone who ate the bird shred about one and a half cups of dark meat. If they can't get one and a half cups out of the dark meat, adding white meat is fine. Put the shattered remains of the bird in the fridge for the Tomatillo Tortilla Casserole you're going to make tomorrow or the next day.

Tomatillo Tortilla Casserole

(we're going to make a big one here and feed about six people--three veg, three chicken eaters)

Here's what you're going to need:

Corona and limes

20ish 6 inch corn tortillas

1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken (This is assuming your casserole is going to be half meat, and half non. Adjust the amount according to the number of chicken eaters you're feeding)

1 bag of frozen corn kernels

1 18-20 oz jar of salsa verde (Target makes a great salsa verde (Archer Farms) but, if you want to make your own like a sucker, here's a pretty good recipe: http://closetcooking.blogspot.com. I recommend roasting the tomatillas.)

2 cups sour cream

A whole mess of shredded Monterey Jack cheese (about a cup and a half, for those of you who like to measure by numbers and not "mess"s)

And here's what you're going to do:

Preheat the oven to 375.

Get out your big ass short order cook Saturday morning pancake griddle and toast the tortillas. (What's that? You don't have a giant griddle? Then heat a couple of skillets on your stove, but this might take you a while. Go ahead and drink a Corona or three while you wait.) We're just looking to make them a little sturdier and perhaps a touch brown--don't over do it.

Layer a 9x13" casserole dish with seven of the toasted tortillas. Feel free to bend them, shape them, anyway you want them, you got the power to turn on the light... (Sorry, I was distracted by the thought of the guy in the white suit's mustache. Focus, Amy, focus!) ...I mean, you can break some of them in half if you need to to make them fit.

Add about half of the chicken to one half of the casserole, then a third of the corn, salsa, sour cream and cheese to the whole thing. Repeat for another layer, then top with the rest of the tortillas, corn, salsa, sour cream and cheese. Be sure to create some sort of line of meat demarcation, such as a kabob stick or a line made out of food coloring or sprinkles. Or, if you don't have kitchen ADD, just remember which side is yours. (If you're using a kabob stick, make sure you've soaked it in water first--otherwise it might light on fire in the oven which would be pretty sweet, but perhaps not what you're going for. Or maybe you are. Your call.)

Put the casserole in the oven for about 35 minutes, or until it's golden brown and bubbling. And voila! That was easy, and now every one's happy, except for the bird (insert pathetic squawk).

The end. (Squaaaaaaaaaawk.)

---
Addendum:
Awesome: http://failblog.org/2009/05/09/late-night-snack-fail

Being a Vegetarian is Making Me Fat and Crazy and Stuff Your Face Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

When I tell people I've become a vegetarian, they often times ask if I've lost weight as a result of cutting out meat. The answer is no. In fact, being a vegetarian has caused me to gain weight. Maybe it's the fact that I've replaced meat with doughnuts, but I've been telling myself it's more likely the vegetables' fault. Right?

But then, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to my psychiatrist that I was heading to the new Dunkin' Donuts that just opened down the street from her office. "One opened near my house, too. It's changed my life. I eat about 60 doughnuts a week. Want me to pick you up anything before I come next time?" I should have just kept my mouth shut because it was then, with T minus 30 seconds to go in my appointment, that she had an Alleluia moment. "You know, your lack of concentration, the trouble you've been having falling asleep, and the fact that you're tired all of the time may be linked to the sugar from all of the doughnuts you've been eating. Maybe you should try cutting back." So now Dunkin' Donuts is not only making me fat, it's making me crazy as well. Perfect.

Now eat this:

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

First, get yourself some big ass portobello mushrooms--one more than servings you need (so if you're feeding two people, buy three, etc). Scrape out the gills and cut off the stems. Toss the gills, but save the stems in a bowl. Check out your mushrooms. Take the one you've butchered the most, cut it up, and toss it in the bowl with the stems. Put the pretty ones in a shallow baking dish and throw some red wine on them--you don't need to completely cover them, just use enough to fill the caps a little. Drink the rest.

Meanwhile... Preheat your oven to 375. Smash up two or three (or four, depending on how many mushrooms you're making and the number of vampires in your area) cloves of garlic, chop them up, and saute them in some EVOO (two or three times around the pan) over medium heat. Add some hot pepper flakes to the mix. After your garlic has had some time to hang out and flavor the oil (about three minutes or so--don't burn it), add your mushroom pieces and a 1/2 can- 1 can of diced tomatoes (with most, but not all, of the juice drained). Saute for another two minutes, then add a couple of hand fulls of fresh baby spinach. After the spinach has had a chance to wilt, take your creation off of the heat and mix in enough Italian breadcrumbs to make it stuffingy. (You can add a little more EVOO if it needs it to reach stuffingish consistency.)

Drain your mushrooms of any wine they haven't soaked up (Don't drink this wine, unless you're desperate--in which case, go for it. We're here to eat, not judge.), rub the bottoms with a little olive oil, put them on cookie sheet lined with release foil, and stuff those bad boys. Top them off with some grated parm and shredded mozzarella--any amount your little heart desires. Put your mushrooms in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese melts and your mushrooms are nice and soft when you stab at them. Bon Appetit!

Note: I usually serve these mushrooms with a side of spinach and pine nut pasta because it's easy, I'm lazy, and that recipe calls for a lot of the same ingredients. These suckers are FILLING, though, so only make a smallish amount of pasta. Or make the whole damn thing. Again, I'm not here to judge.

Crimes against Potatoes

Okay, this was originally for Just Barely, but it has to do with vodka, and vodka is made out of potatoes, therefore, this is a vegetarian issue. One that I think you need to hear about.

Last week my husband found the following "tip" on Google's blog: Freshen Laundry with Vodka. It was under the link, www.tipsandtricks4me.com. Why he would click on such a thing, I don't know. Perhaps he thought it was about how to tip tricks. In which case, he must have been very disappointed. Unless he wanted to spritz a trick with vodka--then this was the site for him.

Anyway, the person who left this tip suggests you use a few spritzes of vodka to "freshen" your clothes instead of washing them. Their rationale:

"We all need clean clothes, but actually doing the laundry uses a lot of resources and cuts into our free time."

It's called Fabreeze, Mr. Tipsandtricks. It's a hell of a lot cheaper AND less delicious than vodka, and it has the added benefit of making your clothes smell like lilacs instead of hobos.

Appalled by what I had just read, I decided to do a little research on other misuses of vodka. Here is what I found:

The DIY network actually advocates using vodka to kill bugs.

Similarly, some people who use it for keeping aphids off houseplants. (Which begs the questions of why you have aphids in your house to begin with. Maybe it's because they heard you're cleaning your house with vodka.)

You can use vodka to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke. (Because it's better to smell like an alcoholic than a smoker.)

A British site suggests you apply vodka to your face "to tighten your pores" and tells us that you can remove a bandaid painlessly by soaking it in vodka. (Why not just drink it? Then I bet that bandaid wouldn't hurt so much.)

There are countless sites out there suggesting you use vodka to kill mold and mildew in your shower.

More than one person admitted to using vodka to cure foot odor, and I even found someone who uses vodka to preserve her herbs.

And, of course, there's the old standby of applying it to the gums of teething babies, which is the only one of these wayward applications I approve of.

I always thought vodka was for drinking. Maybe that's why my feet smell bad and there are aphids eating the mildew in my shower. But at least my kids' don't go to school smelling like hobos.


Here's a picture I found of some homemade Bacon Vodka--do you think it counts as vegetarian? I mean, it doesn't have any (noticeable) pieces of bacon floating around in it or anything... Maybe I'll try making some out of bacos...

There is a God! And her name is Bacos.

Fantastic news, everyone. Bacos is not made out of pigs. In fact, bacos is in no way composed of anything even remotely related to meat, a fact which I've always suspected but am elated to have finally confirmed. Now don't get me wrong--there is absoluetly nothing natural about bacos. In fact, I think 45% of the ingredients are man-made, 45% are celestial, and about 10% are of the earth.


These add up to 100% delicious in my book.
--
My God, my husband just revealed something divorce-worthy. He doesn't like Bacos. Says he, "They're gross. They don't even taste like bacon." These are the things you don't learn about in those marriage prep classes you have to take. No wonder the divorce rate is 43%. Forget questions like "Do you want to have children?" and "Whose job is it to replace the toilet paper roll?". "Do you like bacon flavored bits of defatted soy flour?" should top the list.

Your opinion and why it doesn't matter

Day 10

So the numbers are in, and over half of you are of the persuasion that fish is delicious, and that's all that matters. Good for you. I was still going to eat fish no matter what you said, but thanks for playing along. Now that I'm not worried about it tainting your vote, I want to share with you a couple of informative sites that address the doesn't matter question in front of us.

My favorite answer is from WikiAnswers: "yes it is. you must be dumb to think otherwise." Nice.
Other favorites are the site called "Things That Are Meat" which is just that--a list of things that are meat. The list includes things like sea horses, slugs, people, and animal crackers that are "pinkish white with a little yellow." Also worth visiting is Things That Are Meat's sister site, "Things That Are Not Meat," which lists wood, skin, and stuffed animals (phew!) as fair game. I wonder about the "skin," but I appreciate the addition of "the word meat is not meat."
--
Made the Pasta with spinach and pine nuts last night. Would have made out with it, but there weren't any leftovers. Will have to make double recipe next time...

Soy Boobs

Last night we went out for pizza with some long time real-vegetarian friends (the kind that don't dream about bacos or Arby's). First, they informed me that fish IS meat. I informed them, shut up. Then they warned me about not going overboard with... soy. Now I can see how stuff could go horribly wrong for a newbie carnivore, but I never really thought plant eating as a dangerous thing. Get this, though--it is! Apparently they knew some people who had two or three servings of soy a day for X amount of time, and the guy grew man boobs and the woman's period got all jacked up. All I want to know is, why can't I be the one growing the soy boobs? It hardly seems fair that Steve would get perky new ones while I'm left with my post-breastfeeding saggers.

Vegetarian Day 4:

Breakfast: Went to Dunkin' Donuts. Ordered two jelly doughnuts to make up for the one I forsook on Sunday. Went back for a third. When I approached the counter five minutes later for my fourth doughnut of the day, the lady gave me a free jelly doughnut because I had already eaten four that morning.

Lunch: Hummus on pita bread. Didn't mind lame-o hippie lunch, seeing as how I was still riding high on jelly doughnuts and coffee.

Dinner: Some sort of black bean chili concoction and cornbread.
Amy: What do you think?
Steve: It needs some pork fat. But I could see how if you were a vegetarian you would think this was really good.

Went to the neighbor's house to watch some basketball after dinner. My previously awesome recently turned jerk face neighbor kept offering me things like pepperoni pizza and pigs in blanket. I plan to put termites under his house. The good thing about eating a bowl of floating beans and corn for dinner, though, is that three beers pretty much does you in. Now who's laughing? Me, that's who. Because I'm drunk. Hooray, vegetarianism! My favorite part of the game was the huge banner that read "Beef: It's What's For Dinner." I wish.

Want some meat with your laughs? Try Just Barely at www.justbarely.net!
Just Barely isn't really giving out meat. We're giving out cookies to the first 1,000,000 new subscribers. Each of our new readers gets one, so you better go there now to claim yours!
There are no cookies. Just Barely's a liar. Go to the site anyway. www.justbarely.net

The Nature of Meat

Vegetarian Day 3:

Breakfast: Meatless smoothie--not the same w/o bacon in it.
Lunch: Some sort of grain and peanut salad thing I got at a hippie store and a handful of cookies.
Dinner: Mushroom pizza with real-vegetarian friends. Thought about eating the pepperoni I saw a little kid throw on the floor, bought another beer instead.

My friend Danielle posted the following on my facebook wall yesterday: "That's great. I thought that I was the only half assed vegetarian around. By the way, shrimp totally counts as meat!!" Danielle brings up an interesting point. Does fish count as meat? Steve says yes, I say shut up. Cast your vote on the poll to the right and let me know if you think yea or nay. I know some vegetarians eat fish and some don't, but I'm a self-proclaimed half-assed vegetarian, so no matter what the consensus is I'm going to eat fish as well as assorted tasty crustaceans. This is the benefit of doing something half-assed--you get to make up your own rules. Unless those rules involve running over puppies or shooting nuns. Those you shouldn't do.
---
I just found out sea lice, fish lice, while lice and tongue worms are all crustaceans. Those I will not be eating.

At least the salad was pretty.

Vegetarian Day 1:
As is our Sunday morning custom, Ella and I made a pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts to fortify ourselves before church. Ella ordered her usual, a doughnut with white icing and all different colored sprinkles. "And I'll have a medium coffee and a chocolate doughnut with bacos sprinkles," I told the lady at the counter. Then I remembered I was a vegetarian now, and glumly canceled my order. "I'll just have an apple fritter instead," I said, punishing myself for my forgetfulness. The fritter turned out to be highly unsatisfying and, actually, a little gross. Next week I'm going back to the jelly doughnut sans ham filling.

For lunch I had a yogurt and three chocolate turtles. They were they kind of turtles that involved peanuts and caramel dipped in chocolate, not actual turtles dipped in chocolate, as that wouldn't be vegetarian.

Sunday night is traditionally pasta night at our house. This seems like it would be a gift from the born again half-assed vegetarian gods, but no. As I rifled through the freezer I realized all I had in there were sauces involving cow, turkey, and assorted sausage animals. As it was too late to start a new pot of moo-free sauce, I settled on some Pesto Tortellini Bowls that I bought from Trader Joes on a wild spree of meatless shopping. They looked pretty lame-o, but ended tasting reasonably good so I decided to stay on the wagon for another day.

A little ghetto looking, yet tasty ghetto.




At least the salad was pretty.

Quick! Get the mutton!

Vegetarian Eve:
At 11:53 last night I realized our vegetarian month was about to begin. "Quick!" I told Steve, "We're about to become vegetarians! Let's go eat a mutton chop before it's too late!" To the best of my knowledge, I've never eaten a mutton chop in my whole life. In fact, I'm not even sure exactly what a mutton is, but I'm pretty sure it's some sort of animal, or at least part of one, and it seemed of utmost importance that I had a chop of it in the next seven minutes. Steve did not share my urgency and he rolled over and went back to sleep. I rushed downstairs to look for some mutton and, finding none, settled on a handful of bacos.