søndag den 7. august 2011

please excuse my meat

up until now i've been posting a bit more about meat since i have pretty much just learned how to cook it. but recently i finished reading eating animals. now i'm a bit wary of consuming meat and cheese. of course the day i finished the book i had some idealistic thoughts of maybe turning vegetarian. but all those kind ideas fell apart (as many people predicted!) within just two days. it happened when i was over at a friend's place for lunch and she served a (free-range) chicken salad. mind you, it wasn't the only thing available to eat and there was even a vegetarian there who ate well. but i really love chicken! i felt extremely guilty for the following days but then i decided it's okay to eat meat as long as one does it responsibly. so no more buying meat or cheese unless it's free-range or something like it. less animal suffering (but still killing) and less harm to the earth (but still damaging). less is better than nothing, i guess. ):

right, enough with this silliness and onto the food!



there were two days out of this crappy, rainy week where the sun was shining and it was perfect grilling weather. luckily, my friends had the same idea and as i was cooking up my bbq-friendly food on the stove, i invited to their picnic. what you see above is jackfruit carnitas! although it may seem kind of strange, taste it before you knock it. the flesh of the jackfruit would have looked even more like shredded pork if i took out the seeds and pods encasing them. but when it comes to canned green jackfruit, you can eat the seeds and all. sadly we had no corn tortillas to put them in, so we ate them with rice and grilled vegetables. this is definitely a recipe i'm going to make again. the only thing i added was a bit of chopped chipotles and the adobo sauce in the can. unfortunately there wasn't enough left for my husband to try but i think he would have enjoyed the meaty texture.

last night, however, i made some mexican-ish bean mixture out of green mung beans. hey, i was in a hurry to make dinner and i wasn't about to soak some pinto beans right as my stomach started to grumble. and good luck finding canned pinto beans in denmark... anyway i boiled them with a bay leaf until soft, drained them, and added them to some minced garlic, cumin powder, and chopped chipotles that were frying in a pan. i think it tasted great and the silky texture of the mung beans was exactly what i was looking for to go in my whole wheat tortilla. i quickly chopped myself a salsa and wilted some spinach. my husband looked interested but didn't bite until later in the evening when all the ingredients were put away. "can i try a bit of that?" whenever i hear him say that, i get so happy! (i blame my korean roots for making me into a wife who yearns to please her man. =_=) i chucked together a burrito for him and he liked it so much that he made two quesadillas after that.

home-cooked vegetarian food - 1
pizza/falafel/sandwich takeaway - 0

3 kommentarer:

hellaOAKLAND sagde ...

cool logo/title!!! it's been awhile. nice photos! I will try to stop by more often. =)

Alex sagde ...

Where did you find your jackfruit? I found some in an Asian grocery here, but it was packed in syrup.

Also, where do you find pinto beans? I prefer dried anyway, so I'm not fussed about the lack of cans, but I'm not finding dry anywhere. I must be looking in the wrong places.

mina sagde ...

hey alex, i get the young green jackfruit which is packed in water. i've seen the ripe jackfruit in freezers, though. and i get dried pinto beans from middle eastern green grocers, usually from kabul marked by the central station. hope that helps!