After 18 hours on the road yesterday this vegancowgirl and her trusted cowboy were exhausted, and hit the hay as soon as we walked (crawled) through the door. Italy was a remarkable country, with an interesting pace and culture to life, it challenged my thoughts about many things and the history that was at every corner has left an indelible finger print on my thoughts. We have already started to think about the possibility of Venice. I will be back for sure in April, when work will take me to Florence for a week of adventure.
In food news - the last day was a wash. We actually made our very first totally CRAP dinner. The veggies were under done, the beanie buddies, in my attempt to play with the ingredients and remove all traces of fat and gluten, fell apart, and the corn was too new. Interestingly, it was also the first time, in our entire time as vegancowgirl and cowboy that we almost had a fight. We cooled our cranky jets in enough time to avoid saying anything mean or unfair, but we were a little grippy with each other - which is what we blamed the bad meal on --- warning: do not piss off the food goods with silly squabbles about art galleries.
Today's dinner was great - minus some rice paper wrappers that had obviously sat on the shop shelve for much too long. I picked up some interesting greens today and made a great garlic chives and young kale side dish that reminded me of my lunches in China. It was so nice and light, a perfect accompaniment to the heftier wrappers, which I decided to stuff with some tempeh that I grilled briefly.
Garlic & Ginger Greens
Ingredients
-500 grams of garlic chives, remove only the stem ends
-1 bunch of young kale, remove ends and slice to your liking
-ginger, sliced and diced
-water to boil/baste, using only the slightest bit of sesame oil
-juice of half a lemon
I used my cast iron pan and brought a small amount of water and oil to a rolling boil and literally just through all of the greens on top, adding the ginger to the top. I let it cook down, adding water occasionally and turned everything over after about 7 minutes. This cooking technique was totally inspired by the Aie (aunty) who cooked at the work place where I nearly died of heat exposure while living in China. She was a really amazing women who went out of her way to veganize everything she brought to the staff table.
The rice paper wrappers had the following good stuff jammed into them: peppers, cilantro, carrots, cucumber, tempeh and ginger. They were great with the mushroom/chili sauce we dunked them into.
I am so glad to be home! Thanks to all the readers who came to Italy with me.
5 comments:
Thanks for your comment on my blog. I have to admit that I first found your blog when I googled "International School of Brussels" I have been reading your posts all summer and secretly hoped my twins would have you as their 5th grade teacher. When I read that you would be looping with your class, I was disappointed but hopeful that there are many more eloquent writers such as you at ISB. All of us have enjoyed reading your recipes and look forward to meeting you in the near future!
It's sad to read that you've almost fight with cowboy and have a bad dinner...
But all this green it's wonderful :-)
Florence is a beautiful city with incredible museum
I wish I see Venise.
Hey Lily, Yah...it was quite yucky...and unusual to be snarky with someone who you have never had a fight with...it makes it hard to know how to deal with. But all is well! Thanks for the concern.
Thanks for visiting Altered Plates! Your dishes look delicious. I really enjoy garlic/ginger combos. :)
Welcome home!
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