31 May 2006

Ray's 2006 Cooking Experience, MwM & Jazz

No, this is not a joke. Yes, this is real food being cooked! Welcome to Ray's 2006 cooking experience, most likely the one time this year he will be cooking in the kitchen. I decided to create evidence of this one! Let me say that he is super-enthusiastic about grilling foods, unlike me, and there will soon be some grilling photos posted. But, for now we have Ray in the kitchen actually cooking - and we ended up eating at 1:00am. This is also a rare occasion because he is wearing black. I'll start from the beginning: Ray had three gigs on Sunday, one of which didn't get finished until 11pm and he wasn't home until midnight. He called on a break and I exclaimed happily that I was making dinner and it would be all ready for him when he got back. Jordan and I were going to eat before him. Well, that didn't happen. I decided to make up my own recipe by throwing (not limited to) chickpeas, black beans, breadcrumbs, carrots, onion, garlic, tahini, parsely and a bunch of other stuff into the food processor to create patties to fry on the stove. The mixture looked and smelled good but dry. I let it chill in the fridge for an hour or so and it was still dry. I added more tahini, but I didn't really know what else to do. I decided to take the formed patties and just fry them up, but while on the stove they quickly crumbled and it almost looked like ground beef- but not. It smelled ok so I just went with it, trying to form them and press them together. No such luck. Finally, I just browned the whole mixture, crumbs and all, and poured a bunch of not-photo-worthy-crap onto a plate. It smelled good and Jordan walked into the room, looked at it and said, "I'm not eating that...". I convinced him to just try it and we both agreed to not eat it.

I was upset and frustrated that 3+ hours had gone by, food all wasted, and my energy drained and no dinner. I paced around and didn't even feel like boiling water for pasta or quinoa, even though my mind kept telling me to. Ray got home and the look on his face when I told him there was no dinner wasn't great. He had a long day and night and I confidently told him there'd be food, when there wasn't. In this rare occasion, he stayed dressed, black shirt, pants and all (which is unusual at home), and cooked up some penne with marinara sauce and sauteed veggies. The meal ended up being great, as Ray makes better red sauce than me, but it was a long night... for both of us.

Moving on... Now we have Midweek Munchies for this week as well as last week's combined. The * means organic, as always.


And now let me leave you with some jazz photos. This is more Ray in his element, polar opposite from the photos above in the kitchen. From left to right we have Bob on trumpet/guitar, Shea on sax and many other misc. instruments, Ben on drums, Ray on bass and Tom on guitar. Notice the empty chairs? It was the end of the night and many people go there to dine, not like a jazz club.
And Ray on the upright, with Ben again and Jesse on vibes.
Fin.

20 comments:

funwithyourfood said...

aww i'm sorry the cooking experiment didn't work out so well but it sounds like it all worked out for the best : )

What are LDO Sprinkles? and I have to ask, why did you buy NASTY coleslaw? hahaha

Teddy

Dori said...

Wow, so that is what it looks like to have a guy in the kitchen. Thanks for sharing this, I might never have known. However, I did enjoy my mother's day breakfast... I just didn't get to see them actually work in the kitchen.

RIP: chickpea mixture.

Eat Peace Please said...

Teddy, I guess it did work out because I got a photo-op. of Ray in the kitchen! LDO is Let's Do Organic, I have posted about them probably in some ice cream dishes and the banana-cicles. I just couldn't fit all those words on Excel and they don't have a website that I know of to link to.

About the coleslaw, Ray likes it, not me, although Susan (fatfreevegan.com) just posted some that may make me change my mind. She seems to do that to me with her creations! Ray got this coleslaw at Henry's and I thought it looked like crap from Safeway or Fry's or some conventional store like that. He took one bite of his forty-cents worth and made a face! We really need to start composting these days...

Dori, you made me crack up! I remember your post about mother's day, too bad you didn't see the action. I usually just see clean-up (25-50% of the time, still good!?) and minimal cooking. He'll chop the onion if I'm crying too much.

I also don't ask for much, and my cooking and experimenting is quite the given around here (hmph), and I can invision myself as being *controlling* in the kitchen anyway, such as "don't cut it that way, or pour this in first or the flame's too high"... It would make me crazy unless he was an experienced, professional, vegan personal-chef.

Julie said...

What a great post! Nice to see a man in the kitchen! When or if Matt cooks us a meal soon (it does happen on occasion), I should post about it! :)

Dreena said...

It is so precious when our 'not into cooking' men actually take on a cooking experiment! It usually takes them sooooo long, it is a riot!

On mother's day, hubby made pancakes for me with our older girl. It took a *little* extra time - ha! - and I said "at least let me get the ingredients you need for the batter and put them on the counter, otherwise you'll be asking a ton of questions to find everything". He agreed, and the pancakes were great! Very funny to watch him though, out of his element for sure.

My gosh, I am long asleep by 1 am, can't even imagine eating at any hour past about 7pm really!! Oh, and you shouldn't give yourself a hard time - you tried to salvage that meal - a couple of times, you were probably more tired than he was from all of the fuss! :)

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

ode to Ray:

WAY to go RAY
You saved the DAY
made the chickpea mixture go AWAY
after a full evening of "PLAY"
in the kitchen now you'll STAY?
No WAY! and that's OK.

fun post Leslie, and it is after all "The Adventures and Disasters of a Vegan Kitchen!"

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

i just had a thought - "vegan-stock" or "vegan-fest". a vegan potluck (real life) with music! i'd travel for it.

Eat Peace Please said...

Julie, you should post if and when Matt cooks.

Dreena, that's funny you put the ingredients out. If I were to have done that, I probably would have been in trouble and "hinting" that he couldn't do it. But that's pasta compared to pancakes, big difference! As for eating so late, I hate it. I actually put up a fuss and didn't want to eat, but there was enough (and I was hungry, afterall) so I ate it. It was good.

Vicki, your ode to Ray was great! We both got a kick out of it and I think it's hillarious! Ray wanted me to tell you that him and his friend Shea (see the sax player in photo) and him go back and forth all the time. "How ya doing Ray?" "How was your day Shea?" "No way", "ok", I could go on and on... they do and your ode reminded me of it! Thanks for the smile!

As for vegan fest, I would love that and probably go crazy eating so much. That would be ideal, to just have vegan food all over the place, no worries, no junk, no cruelty! And music, bring Art along too!

funwithyourfood said...

Start the compost with the coleslaw! : )
hehehe
I just added you to my blogroll too..
Talk to you soon!

Teddy

Flo @ Yielded Heart said...

Your blog subtitle says "The Adventures and Disasters of a Vegan Kitchen."

I was starting to wonder why your posts are mostly "adventures," except for one or two "disasters" from a while ago.

Joking aside, this is a great post and congratulations to you for getting Ray in the kitchen!

Jody from VegChic said...

At least you two ended up having a decent dinner! I've had a couple kitchen disasters, but usually don't post about them.

Actually, I had a little "issue" when I was making soap last time. It involved setting my spice grinder on fire. I've laughed about it a few times since, but I'll need to get a new one soon.

It was cool to see Ray's band. I used to play vibes/xylphone/marimba when I was younger.

I'm about to link to your site on my blog!

Carrie™ said...

Jim cooked for me once. Twice if you count the can of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich he made about 7 years ago. So, the one time he did cook, he did a really great job. I wish he would do it more often. Guys can make a really good meal when they want to. Hmmm, how do we make them want to more often?

Carrie™ said...

And by the way...what is "nasty coleslaw"? I'm intrigued. :o)

Harmonia said...

At least he attempted! haha.

Great music pics!

Awesome MwM list, too! You sure can find a lot of Organic Items in your area! Congrats on that! Where do you shop?

Virginie said...

My boyfriend isn't a musician but a visual artist. He doesn't usually cook as well because he does'nt like washing the dishes. So he eats sandwiches and cakes. We're totally opposite in food & cooking !

Shananigans said...

I love a man who cooks. I also hate it when I go to the effort to cook something and it turns out to be a complete disaster, waste of my time, food, and I just have no patience for that! I really like your frozen desert yumminess in the previous post. I’m gonna have to get some plastic popsicle molds. Yay summer!

Eat Peace Please said...

Have-a-Bite, I should start a compost pile. Don't I need a bit of nitrogen in there as well as a 3:1 ratio? The coleslaw was only thirty something cents.

Kai, I have only had a few disasters. Many meals that I cook that come out well I don't even post about. And then there's stuff I post that I probably don't need to be posting! I'll miss ya on your blogging break.

Jody (from veganchic), I set my oven on fire... a few times. I have an issue with appliances as well as flames. Why did you stop playing percussion?

Carrie, if you can think of a way to get guys into the kitchen more often, please do tell! Or I'd just be happy with voluntary-clean-up. As for the coleslaw, see my response to the first comment way up above.

Harmonia, there's lots of stuff near me. I'm hunting organic farms now, I'm sick of retail! I shop at Whole Foods a lot only because I am super-close to one. It is closer than crappy grocery stores! I also have a co-op down the road, Trader Joes, Wild Oats, Henry's and I hear that 2 more Whole Foods are opening in the valley area, so that will make 4. Spoiled=yes!

Virginie, I wish it were that one person would cook and the other do dishes and trade off, and I'm sure that could work, but not with men (ok, most men) and a schedule for it. I like to cook anyway, it's that pile of dishes that really gets me.

Shananigans, I have little patience by the end of the night after a disaster as well. And yes, go get those molds (or use cups or plasticware) because fruitcicles in the summer are great!

Freedom said...

Wow, your MwM is enormous compared to mine... but delicious looking! I particularly love all the fruits and veggies and their organic goodness. Mmmm, granny smith apples *drooling*

Eat Peace Please said...

Freedom, this is 2 weeks worth of MwM. And about the organic, I've become quite obsessive about it. I have passed up many things just so I can get some organics.

Flo @ Yielded Heart said...

>>I have passed up many things just so I can get some organics.

Leslie, goodness, I was thinking that a few minutes ago- how our family is doing that just so we could have organic!

Btw, your blog has been loading pretty quickly these days! Really nice!