Souperb chowder: a corny play in two acts

ACT I
Scene 1
Two people are seated at a dining room table. The table is covered with newspapers and mail, which the two are reading. The clock reads 6:00 p.m.

He: What do you think we should have for supper?
She: I don't know. I saw a soup recipe on a blog that looked good. Why don't you make that.
He: Do we have the ingredients?
She: I don't know. I'll go print out the recipe.

She leaves the room.

Scene 2
She comes back with the recipe and He goes into the kitchen and putters about.

He: We have all the ingredients so I guess I'll make the soup.
She: Cool.

Act II
Conclusion
The table is set with two steaming bowls of beautiful, golden soup filled with corn, peppers, potatoes, beans, etc. He and She are seated at the table. He tastes the soup.

He: The soup is good.
She: Was it hard to make?
He: No.

She tastes the soup.

She: OMG. The soup is amazing, fantastic. I can't believe how rich and fabulous the flavor is; like it's been cooking for hours. I really love it. I LOVE IT. We should keep the recipe handy and make it again soon. Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Wonderful.
He: Yeah. Good soup.

The End

Sometimes you just know when you read a recipe that the result will taste delicious. That's how I felt when I saw Helen's recipe for Southwestern corn chowder on her blog, Vegtastic. Helen used fresh corn for her chowder, but we used frozen corn and it still came out great. I recommend you scoot over to Helen's blog and try the chowder. It's souper good!

So ends Vegan MoFo week 1, at least for me since I will only be blogging weekdays. Next week my theme will revolve around food and humor — as in, funny but not funny.

Real Chinese food part 2

On Monday I posted about an amazing dining experience at a Chinese restaurant in Butte Montana, and a wonderful dinner cooked by a Chinese friend in Madison Wisconsin. Today I'm posting pictures from a memorable dinner cooked for us last spring by one of my husband's doctoral students, who also happens to be Chinese. A couple of the dishes were Western in nature, but with a Chinese twist, except maybe for the elegant dessert. But never having been to China, what do I know.



We started with an outrageously colorful salad. Then came a stunning assortment of vegetable dishes, all of which were vegan.



There was tofu in a fragrant and delicious sauce.



Delicate snow peas.



Fresh asparagus.



Yuba with wood ear, (also known as black fungus or tree ear), mushrooms and peanuts. And maybe other things that I'm not remembering.



A giant bowl of oyster mushrooms, which I loved, and a bowl of okra, which you can see peeking from behind the mushroom dish. Apparently it didn't get its own photo.



And a most elegant poached pear with blueberries and raspberries for dessert. I didn't bring my camera, because although I've become somewhat accustomed to feeling a little odd taking food photos in restaurants, I still feel way too weird showing up at the home of someone I don't know, and proceeding to photograph all the food on the table. It turned out I needn't have worried in this case. The hostess already knew about the blog and was perfectly happy to have me take photos. Too bad I had to take them with my phone, but you get the picture, so to speak.

Do you want cake?

Lovely lemon pound cake with blueberry topping

My daughter-in-law is not a vegetarian, but she goes out of her way to find delicious vegan recipes to serve to her veg family members. And that includes cake. She used to claim that she wasn't a good baker, but I don't think anyone who has tried her confections would believe that. Her vegan cakes are amazing.


Dad is Great chocolate cake

She found a copy of Kris Holechek's baking book, "Have Your Cake and Vegan Too" at the library, and created fabulous cakes, two of which I've pictured here.



I think you should go buy this book, but if you want a little taste first, you can go to Amazon and take a peek inside the book. There are quite a few recipes you can look at — or try — to get a feel for the book. (I get nothing for sending you there. I'm just providing a convenient link.) Happy baking!