Anyway, this January I went vegan for a week. Because it was only for a week, I gave myself certain restrictions. I’d avoid processed foods, I’d minimize my use of white flour and I’d avoid, for the most part, food masquerading as something else. In other words, no margarine, no veggie burgers, no tofurkey. My one exception was almond milk–I needed caffeine and I can’t stand black coffee.

After 7 days and samplings from 8 cuisines, the single most delicious dish I made was a potato-mushroom gratin from Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Of the ten or so cookbooks I used for this project, Madison’s was by far the most useful and consistent.

That said, this recipe involves some work and involves making first a stock (allow 45 minutes with soaking and cooking) and and then assembling and baking the gratin (which takes an hour and a half to bake.) So plan ahead.

Part One–Mushroom stock (DM says quick mushroom stock, but this is relative–much slower than opening a carton.)

Ingredients

1/4 c. dried mushrooms–DM says porcini, but I used portabello and all was well.

2 t. olive oil

1 onion chopped–I used half a large white one.

1 carrot chopped

2 fresh mushrooms sliced

2 t. tomato paste (or a tomato)

1 T fresh marjoram, or 1 t dried. I subbed fresh oregano. It worked

1/2 c. dry white or red wine

1 T flour

salt and pepper

1 t. red-wine vinegar.

DM also has one large clove of garlic sliced–I skipped this. Add it with the onions.

Cover dried mushrooms with 1 1/2 cups hot water and let soak for 15 minutes. Meanwhile heat oil in saucepan (fairly high) and saute onion, carrot, fresh mushrooms. Stirring occasionally, saute until brown–DM says around 10 minutes, but it took me less. Reduce heat and ad tomato paste, marjoram/oregano and wine. Sprinkle flour over mixture. Cover and cook until you have a syrupy glaze. (Takes a couple of minutes) Add the dried mushrooms AND their soaking liquid, salt, pepper and vinegar. Simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. Strain. Then pick out the dried mushrooms for use in the gratin.

You should have about one cup of hard-earned stock. Fortunately, it can be made ahead.

On to, then,

Part II–the Potato-Mushroom Gratin

Ingredients

Presoaked dried mushrooms left over from stock. (app. 1 ounce)

salt and pepper

1 1/2 pounds potatoes–around 5

3/4 fresh mushrooms–I used button

1 cup of the mushroom stock.

grease for pan–normally I’d use butter, but for vegan week I used olive oil. It’s not nearly as effective as butter for this–so solid fat of your choice here.

Preheat over to 350 degrees.
Peel and slice potatoes 1/16″ thick–a mandoline or food processor helps a lot.
Chop presoaked dried mushrooms and slice button mushrooms. Heat oil in frying pan and saute fresh mushrooms 3 to 4 minutes in batches. Do NOT overcrowd the mushrooms as they will be soggy if you do. Season with salt and pepper.

Grease gratin or casserole dish. Layer bottom with half the potatoes, season with salt and pepper. Layer in the mushrooms, then cover with the rest of the potatoes and, again, season with salt and pepper. Heat the mushroom stock and pour over the gratin. You may need to supplement this with additional mushroom stock or liquid (I did not.)

Bake until golden and tender–yes, it really does take over an hour. Goes well with green salad. Can’t tell you what the leftovers were like as there were none.

I actually didn’t realize until after I’d made this how many categories it fit.  And I didn’t even mention all of them.  It’s also fast and requires only one fresh ingredient–cucumbers.  It also lasts reasonably well.  I had some in the fridge for a couple of days and it was fine.

That said, there is one caveat–this is a dish best served cool–not as cold as revenge, but maybe as cool as a grudge.  So make it ahead of time, otherwise make sure you have some ice cubes around to quickly cool down things.

The following serves 2 to 4.  It is an adaptation of a Japaese non-vegan dish from Elsa Petersen-Schepelern’s Meal in a Bowl.  Supermarkets with pretensions will have these ingredients, otherwise an Asian market with Japanese food will.

INGREDIENTS

Two bunches dried soba (buckwhat)noodles
Around 10 dried Shitake mushrooms (bit less than the usual package)
2 T soy sauce
2 T mirin (rice wine–it’s boiled away)
About half a medium cucumber, seeded( if large-seeded), peeled and cut into rough match sticks
scallions or green onion tops or a few shallot slices.  to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Cover shitakes with one cup boiling water and let set for around 15 minutes

Cook noodles according to instructions–in other words, boil for almost no time and then toss into strainer and run cold water on them until they’re cool. Drain, set aside.

When mushrooms have softened, remove from water (but save the mushroom water).  Remove stems and and slice the muschroom caps into matchstick shapes.  Set mushrooms aside.

Combine mushroom soaking liquid, soy and mirin in saucepan, set on stove and bring to a boil.  Then lower heat and let simmer a couple of minutes until it thickens a bit.  Let cool.

Combine noodles, mushrooms, cukes and broth.  Top with some decorative rounds of green onion or scallions or desired member of the allium family.  Wasabi and dashi stock are traditional condiments, but it’s fine without.

Enjoy.

On the other hand, commercial popsicles can be very, very sweet and flavors like lemon, loaded with citric acid, can be a painful experience.

Popsicles are having a bit of gourmet moment right now–in other words, Gourmet magazine put out a page on boozy ones and Martha Stewart’s getting weirdly fancy.

These melon ones are inspired by the food magazines, but are very, very simple to make. Also no-fat, low-cal and mostly natural. More importantly for the sore-gummed, melons are non-fibrous, don’t have tiny-little seeds and are low in acid.

The following recipe makes about six small popsicles, or four servings of melon granita. Not sure how may ice cubes it makes.

1/2 a cantaloupe, honeydew or other sweet melon or about 3 slices off half a watermelon.

2T to 4 T sugar, prefarably extra fine

one lime

3 to 4 mint sprigs

dash of salt.

Seed and chop melon into large chunks. Put chunks and juice in blender. If melon is very sweet add the smallest amount of sugar, more if needed.

Add juice of half a lime. Taste. if it tastes great., stop. If melon is bland, add rest of lime and pinch of salt.

Take mint leaves from sprigs, chop roughly and add to blender. Pulse mixture until melon has liquefied and the mint leaves are tiny little bits.

Pour into molds and freeze at least three to four hours.

If feeling fancing, mixture can be poured into bowl, frozen and stirred every 30 minutes for granita. In which, serve with a mint sprig for decoration.

If desperate and lacing popsicle molds, small paper cups and yogurt containers work. After 30 minutes add popsicle sticks or even spoons.

Run under warm water to release from molds.

Carrot soup with ginger and coconut milk

Six medium-sized carrots
one potato
One shallot clove
1/4 chopped or sliced onion of some sort
1 1/2 inches of fresh ginger
1/2 t. Turmeric
Around 4 T. olive oil
16 oz. of low-sodium broth
one can (8 oz) unsweetened coconut milk.
salt
pepper
chile pepper (optional)
fresh parsley (optional)
yogurt or cream

Peel or scrub carrots, chop into rounds. Chop shallots and onions.

Grate ginger or peel and slice into rounds

Peel and dice potato.

Heat olive or other cooking oil in saucepan to medium-low. Toss in onions, let them soften for a couple of minutes. Then add shallots, tumeric, ginger, salt and peppers. Use only a pinch of chili pepper, but about 1/2 to 1 t salt and about three to four grinds of the pepper mill.

Saute for a couple of minutes, stirring every now and then to blend flavors. Add carrots and potatos. Cook another couple of minutes.

Add stock (I use chicken) and coconut milk. Stir. Increase temperature to boiling. Boil a few minutes, then cover and reduce heat and simmer away until carrots and potatoes are very tender–about 45 minutes.

Let cool a bit and then puree. I get the best results with a food mill, but whatever it takes.

Serve as is or with dollop of yogurt, sour cream, cream etc. and sprig of parsley. A few croutons would be nice for those without tender gums. This soup is nicely filling with the coconut milk.

Winter is easy–mashed potatoes: filling, not spicy, easy to digest. But I don’t feel much like mashed potatoes in August and while I love ice cream, my body doesn’t take well to an ice cream diet.

Which is how I ended up with soup–warm and cold. These are good enough that I had to share them with my family and mild enough that they don’t irritate the gum.

Cucumber buttermilk/yogurt soup.

This is an adaptation of a recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook:

2 cups buttermilk–the rich Bulgarian stuff is better.
1 cup yogurt. I didn’t bother draining it.
1 medium cucumber.
1 shallot clove
fresh mint and parsley
salt and pepper.

Combine yogurt and buttermilk in bowl.
Peel and seed cucumber–grate. If you had surgery that morning, use the fine holes, otherwise rough.

Add to yogurt and buttermilk.

Use a microplane zester and grate shallot into bowl–this is to taste. I used half a shallot. Shallot will liquefy. This is good. Add to bowl.

Chop up a few sprigs of mint and parsley. Add to bowl.

Salt and pepper to taste. Mix. Chill well. Makes about four servings.

And my memory went way back to my grandmother’s duplex with its Bermuda grass and a tree full of things that weren’t really lemons and weren’t really grapefruit. “Pomelo,” I said.

“Do you know what to do with them?” my fellow mother said. “I have no idea. Here, take one. I will give you as many as you want.”

One was all I wanted. I sort of knew what to do with pomelos–to some extent, citrus is citrus. Zest can add zest or be candied. Marmalade is an option. Drinks are simply a matter of estimating sugar . . .

But, anything else? Well, so far, not much. A pomelo seems to be a precursor to the grapefruit, not as tart though and with a rind thick enough to compete with that or citron. (What, you’ve never had fresh citron? Well, there’s a reason for that. It’s about 80 percent pith. Yes, seriously.) Smells great though and looks impressive in its nobby way. Chez Panisse Desserts uses it for ice cream–hmmm. Chez Panisee Fruit, which is my usual guide to preparing things that show up around here, seems to have omitted it–though it may be buried in the grapefruit session.

Preliminary Google recipes show recipes for candying peel–well, maybe, but I’m actually not that fond of candied peel and will go this route as a last resort.

The search continues

Nonetheless, my willpower’s been less than formidable these last few days. In an effort to fortify it, I hit the local healthfood store in an effort to seek out new grains and new weird raw adaptations. I didn’t go to Whole Foods, mind you, but the more hardcore and locally owned Country Sun. In I would go–seeking out raw buckwheat to sprout.

And promptly ran into the potato-chip aisle. Damn, it looked good. Resist, resist, seek out back of store–YES, I can do this. There are the grain, nut and dried legume bins.

And chocolate toffee almonds in bulk. Resist, resist. Ooh, what’s that dried papaya–okay, it’s sure not local, but the sweet tooth is leading a major uprising. And look, I’m getting buckwheat, raw cashews and MILLET. What could be more crunchy-granola than millet. I will be a whole-grain sprouted champion.

Okay in line with my bulk goodies–and there are the individually wrapped chocolates–there’s one with toffee bits. Okay, can’t take anymore, in it goes.

Whew. Safe at home. Damn, that chocolate is satisfying and I’m back to semi-virtue with that African chickpeas in coconut milk on whole-wheat couscous for dinner. (And, hey, the kid just ate *fourths*)

But I’ve never actually had an issue with binging. My weight issues are in the realm of vanity not health. But getting through a *health-food* store without getting snack food with too much fat and salt was hell. When I think of what your average supermarket stocks or upscale quasi-health-food stores like Whole Foods stock–and always near the front so you can’t avoid them–it’s little wonder to me that most of us are fat.

But I resisted and felt rewarded for my virtue when the news about peanut-butter recalls came out.  What a great time to be avoiding most packaged food.

That said, I’ve been slipping up this week–I had ice cream.  Yes, it was slow-churned and it was a child’s portion, but it had followed on a nonfat froyo earlier in the day.  And was followed by a cookie in the evening.  Or was it two?

And this is an excellent example of what happens to my self-discipline on dietary matters when I’m short of sleep, but bouncing up and down teaching very small kids to make music.

Well, tomorrow is another day as Scarlett said after no longer managing to squeeze into an 18.5-inch corset.

“Wow,” said my lunch mate.  “You’re being really good about the raw thing.”

Thing is–I hadn’t even thought about the salad being raw.  I was sort of avoiding the bread and that was about it.

Then I went to the supermarket to figure out dinner tonight and somehow found myself buying barley, whole-wheat pasta and wheat berries.  And somehow I ended up with mushrooms in the spaghetti.  And I’m now sprouting the wheat berries because, well, they were cheaper than spelt and I wasn’t sprouting anything . . .

I’m even thinking of dehydrating some more of that weird raw bread.  It’s sort of like eating granola.

But I’m still never making raw garbanzo hummus ever again.

After swearing never to eat raw garbanzo sprouts in bulk ever again, I’ve discovered that I like cooked sprouted garbanzo beans more than I like the plain old soaked ones.  The texture is better, the flavor slightly sweeter, it takes less time to cook them and they’re easier to digest.

Which is how I ended up making this African salad tonight–not sure that it should be considered uniquely African–this is simple, obvious and delicious:

cooked garbanzos aka chickpeas.

Dress warm beans with lemon, olive oil, salt and fresh chopped parsley.  Let cool.  Eat.

As with any simple recipe, the quality of the ingredients matters.  Use fresh lemon juice and fresh parsley.  (Both of these can be frozen and then thawed, but avoid the jarred and the canned here.)  I used extra-virgin olive oil, but I think I might prefer it with a milder olive oil next  time.