Morning, noon, and night

Just about everything I did today centered around food. I went absolutely nuts. I'm exhausted but quite pleased with the fruit of all of my efforts. I started off by baking a lemon pound cake with a cherry compote topping, a recipe courtesy of Cooking Light. I creamed together butter and sugar, added a couple of eggs, and then alternated the dry mixture of flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder with lowfat buttermilk. Finally I folded in lemon juice, lemon zest, and a bit of fresh mint. I poured it into my greased and floured 10-inch bundt pan and baked it for 40 minutes at 350.

While it baked, I started in on the seitan chicken enchiladas, the experimental vegetarian version of Tyler Florence's chicken enchiladas, which Jim loves. I roasted tomatillos, jalapenos, onion, and garlic in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. On the stovetop, I sauteed diced onion, then added garlic, cumin, and flour before stirring in vegetable broth to make a vegetarian veloute. While it thickened, I went back to the roasted veggies, pureeing them in a food processor and adding cilantro, cumin, and salt. I put the chicken into the veloute and added some of the salsa verde and then headed out to church.

After church, I went back home to continue working on my food. I broke in my new cherry pitter by pitting 4 cups of cherries. What a freaking pain. If I had known how much work it was, I would have seriously reconsidered making any baked cherry dish. Guess that's why there aren't a whole lot of them out there--no one wants to put in all that work!

The cherries were cooked on the stovetop with sugar, cornstarch, water, and almond extract. Yum. I snuck a bite of the cake, which was good. I could taste the mint, but I would have liked more of a lemon flavor. But paired with the cherry compote, that cake is fantastic. It's hard to believe that it's a Cooking Light recipe. It seems just like a great regular dessert. My dad absolutely loved it.

While the compote cooked, I assembled my enchiladas. I realized too late that 3 pounds of vegetarian chicken is way more than 3 pounds of regular chicken because of the lack of bone deal. I felt kind of stupid when I realized this because I should have made the connection in a timely manner. But no matter. I pressed on, adding some extra vegetable broth into the chicken mixture for more moisture, since I couldn't spare a whole lot of salsa. I sampled the goods before starting to wrap the chicken up, and I was happy with the taste. I microwaved the tortillas and dipped them in a bath of salsa verde before adding the chicken and some low-fat Mexican cheese that I picked up at TJ's.

Assembling the enchiladas is actually a very quick process and they were in the fridge before I knew it. Jim called as I was working my way out of the door to go over to his place. We had an absolutely fantastic afternoon just spending time together.

For dinner we went to Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe. Jim is much more impressed with that place than I am. Don't get me wrong--I like it. I just don't love it like he does. I'm not going to rave about it, but it is still pretty good food. I got the same thing I did last time: a veggie triple decker sandwich with a salad. Jim got a chicken sandwich, and we had an appetizer of chili cheese fries, veggie chili of course. Besides the usual iced tea, we also split a Jessie's Shake, which may be even better than In-N-Out's milkshake. It's made of Guinness, espresso, and chocolate ice cream. It was absolutely amazing. I think I might have been able to drink an entire one by myself had I not held back.

My sandwich was pretty good, although for whatever reason, it seemed awfully greasy. I solved the problem by simply taking off the bread top, which had all of the oil. Jim's chicken sandwich had bacon and cheese and looked good. I do have to admit that their fries are super good--light and crispy. Mmm. I didn't really eat much of my salad because they didn't put the dressing on the side like I had asked.

So this round was a completely different experience. We ate outside and enjoyed the gorgeous day, plus it was an entirely different crowd. Because we came so early, the place was full of families and kids instead of the late night rocker crowd.

After dinner, we went across the overpass to walk along the Bay for a bit before Jim left for work. I couldn't get over how much cooler it was in Emeryville than at home. There was seriously a 20+ degree difference. I honestly thought my car's thermometer was broken when it said 80 degrees, because we had just left high nineties. But it made dinner and the walk so much nicer. Afterwards, I headed off to Whole Foods and did a quick bit of shopping before going home.

For whatever reason, I still felt like cooking that night, so after 10 pm, I started in on RFD's veggie burgers. I was much more efficient this time, and the entire process was much smoother, simply because I had a better idea of how to pace myself and what to expect. I shredded the tempeh and mixed in the tamari, water, oil, miso, salt and pepper, baking it off in the oven after mixing in some gluten flour. While that happened, I diced up all of the veggies and got to use fresh corn this time. I sauteed the mushroom, onion, corn, beet, carrot, bell peppers, and garlic and mixed it into the tempeh. Then the mixture went in batches into the food processor and finally I molded them into patties. The patties went into the fridge for the flavors to meld. Yeah, I was ready for bed after that.