Hot and Sour Soup: A Recipe Review

My sister and I have been obsessed with our crock pots lately. I've have had one for a while (it hadn't seen much use until recently) and my sister just got one. We have been emailing and texting each other for weeks detailing the contents of our crocks and what we are planning to make in them. That led to to come across this recipe. It pretty much had me at "frozen peas". For some reason, I am obsessed with them. I actually just scored a 5 pound bag at Sam's Club. Yep, that obsessed.

This soup turned out to be super tasty, but mine did not look nearly as pretty as the one on the recipe page. Thank goodness my sister is mailing me back my camera charger, because these iPhone pictures suck even more than my usual photography.

This soup turned out to be super tasty, but mine did not look nearly as pretty as the one on the recipe page. Don't let this bland soupscape fool you, there was plenty of flavor here. The only things I tweaked with this recipe was double the liquid, double the peas, quadruple the garlic, and use 100% shitake mushrooms, as opposed to a mixture of shitake and button mushrooms. Shitakes rock the house, and I know where to buy them almost as cheap as the much less exciting button shrooms. I also only cooked this on low for about 4 hours. Actually, if you don't have a crock pot, I am pretty sure you can just toss this all on your stove and have it ready as soon as the mushrooms are cooked. The most time consuming part is chopping everything up.

I ate almost half of this soup last night, and I enjoyed another bowl tonight with some baby carrots, and "omelets" I made with some okara leftover from my soy milk making adventures.

I'm full.

April Concert Bonanza

Oh boy...I just pulled a three day concert bender in two states and damn am I worn out! It was all totally worth it though. With all of my business trips and concert attendances, it seems that vegan cooking may have to take a back seat for a while. I am also being super frugal with food in order to fund my concert addiction. Here are some great finds from the past week:

Vegan Tempeh Reuben from French Meadow Bakery in the Uptown district of Minneapolis. Yes, I finally got to try an infamous tempeh reuben! It was pretty delicious, but it needed a lot more sauerkraut and the bread, though delicious, was a little greasy. I even got the choice of adding chips and salsa as my side. French Meadow blew my mind. They had an extremely extensive menu, loaded with vegan options. I really want to go back and try their tofu scramble, just to see if it's nearly as good as mine.

For dinner that same day I ate at Senor Wong in St. Paul. This place was crazy, just check out their menu. It's an eclectic mix of Asian and Mexican food, with elements of both in some dishes. I ordered the only item that already came vegan, the mock duck tacos. I wanted to get a picture but it was pretty dark in there. They were fabulous and came with a bunch of fun sides like pickled jalapenos. Dinner was very reasonably priced, even if the drinks were not. Plus, even if you order Asian food there, they still bring out chips and salsa. This was my kind of place.

Yesterday I stopped in my college town on my way back from Des Moines. I ended up eating at a plain little restaurant in the back of a middle eastern grocery store. Everything is made from scratch in house, and they have a pretty extensive menu that includes a lot of vegetarian/vegan options. Like this:

This was the best humus I have ever had in my life. I dove into it before thinking of taking a picture because it looked (and ended up tasting) super delicious. It was homemade and simply but elegantly garnished with olive oil, tomatoes, kalamata olives, little pickle spears, parsley, and big pinches of paprika. It came with some pita bread, which I was not too impressed by. I ended up eating most of it with a fork.

On to my metal binge. I will post the shows by day and add a quick review of each band.

Day 1: Decibel Magazine Tour @ Station 4, St. Paul, Minnesota

In Solitude: Power metal band from Sweden. They sounded really good, and were all very talented musicians. The vocalist was wearing some kind of dead animal around his neck. Perhaps a fox or a mink or something. It was interesting to watch him head bang with it on. Also, his English was not very good.
The Devil's Blood: Female fronted, mellower "metal" band. I did not care for them, too slow. My companion thought that they could have used an unusual instrument to complete their sound, like a sitar or synthesizer. I think they could have shut up and quit putting me to sleep.
Behemoth: The headliner and definitely my favorite black metal band. They are from Poland and have been around forever. They opened with my favorite song and ringtone of almost two years, "Ov Fire and the Void". It was performed well, but I kind of wish it wasn't their first song. After witnessing them perform "Alas, Lord is Upon Me", I am pretty sure it is my new favorite Behemoth song. They wore their corpse paint and had some neat light and smoke machine effects. It was really creepy to see the vocalist with a shaved head as opposed to his long black hair. This was probably a result of his recent battle with Luekemia. Overall, a great show.

Day 2: Soulfly's 15th Anniversary Tour @ People's Court, Des Moines, Iowa

I met up with my dear friend and guitarist from my college band for this show. It started early and there were six opening bands. Most of them terrible. The first one was a local act from Des Moines. They were decent I guess. The vocalist was super duper short, and had the bodily proportions of a rotisserie chicken. The next band was another local one and it pretty much all went downhill from there. I'm not even going to mention names because they don't deserve the recognition. One of them had a super nasty female "vocalist". She was obviously a product of her record company, and she sounded like a pinata full of bats being beaten by a flaming stick. The only opening band worth a mention was called Incite. They probably weren't even that good, but compared to the other turds that played before them they were gods.

Until Soulfly came on. I'm not even a huge Soulfly/Sepultura fan, but Max Cavalera is a god and they kicked some major ass. I even spent about half of their set in the mosh pit, that's how much fun I was having. I have some bruises from it, but that's all part of the fun.

Day 3: Cannibal Corpse's Torture Tour @ People's Court, Des Moines, Iowa

I have seen Cannibal Corpse several times before but HOLY CRAP THIS WAS HANDS DOWN THE BEST SHOW OF MY LIFE. Even better than the epic Meshuggah performance I witness in February 2009. Sorry Meshuggah, you will have a chance to redeem yourself next month. Here is a breakdown of the bands:

Arkaik: Never heard of them before, but they were brutal and definitely made a fan of out of me.
Abysmal Dawn: They were even better than Arkaik! I had never heard of them either, but now I want to buy all of their albums.
Exhumed: I had high hopes for this popular deathgrind band, but they really didn't do much for me. They sounded good and everything, but their stage presence came off as a little fruity in my opinion.
Cannibal Corpse: Wow, just wow. These guys were definitely at their best. They completely blew me and my buddy away. They are probably the fastest band you will ever hear live, and they are just too brutal for their own good. Just when you think that human beings could not possibly play instruments any faster, they speed up and a guitar rips out a crazy solo that sears over everything. The vocalist, Corpsegrinder, has an amazing stage presence, and is easily the undisputed headbanging master of creation. They played everything I wanted them to play also. I won't list the songs here, because their titles are pretty explicit. I left this show feeling like I never really knew what death metal was before I got there. A great end to a great vacation. Except maybe the getting punched in the throat in the mosh pit part.

Spring Cleaning

I have been heartily embarking on a mission to clean out my cupboards and freezer of all of the stuff I have been hoarding. An additional plan has been put into action to drain the condiment reserves from my refrigerator before the door falls off. So I haven't done too much exciting cooking lately besides thawing frozen soups, boiling dried beans, emptying cans of vegetables, and putting hot sauce on everything. I did manage to make some pretty tasty "cupboard soup" as I like to call it, made by dumping a bunch of random things into a stockpot and boiling with some herbs and fresh garlic. This batch turned out pretty tasty. And red.

To make this I used:

• One large can of Hy-Vee brand tomato juice
• One can of Sam's Club brand diced tomatoes with juice
• One can of Hy-Vee brand french-cut green beans with liquid
• One can of Hy-Vee brand diced beets with liquid
• One can of Aldi brand sweet peas
• One small can of Aldi brand sliced mushrooms

The reason I am naming names here is because ONE OF THESE CANS WAS FULL OF SAND!! I know that I am a cheapo, and I can I only expect as much from time to time, but seriously. I know that vegetables grow outside, in the dirt, exposed to any potential filth that may be tracked in by animals or whatever. I know that some vegetables are hard to clean due to their delicate nature. I still kind of wish I hadn't haphazardly dumped everything into the pot at once so I knew who peed in the pool, so to speak. Not that I would necessarily complain. I work as a quality control coordinator for a food company, so I know how much it sucks to get a customer complaint. But I expect bottom-shelf canned vegetables to be mushy and rubbery, darn it! Not peppered with crunchy sand! This soup cost under $5 to make and so far I have enjoyed it for 4 meals. And I still have half of it left.