What I eat, apparently

So this was technically supposed to be soup. I, however, am a non-believer. I was baffled that the recipe actually expected me to fit several quarts of water into a large saucepan. Apparently it’s definition of ‘large’ does not mesh well with mine. This baby took 2 hours to cook (compared to the recipe’s paltry 45 minutes) due to me constantly having to add more water, but not too much so as to keep the saucepan from peeing all over the place.

Witness for yourself the vast and mighty acres of beanage:

There was enough for several days, as well as a chunk which is now napping in my freezer. It worked out well, I dumped in curry powder because the already dumped in cumin was begging for it, despite the recipe not calling for it. I also made the fabulous decision of eating this with barley rather then rice, meaning my mouth was filled with thousands of teeny tiny lumps and balls! It was an adventure in texture.

So the beauty of the bean concoction that I made yesterday lies strongly in its cheapness. $.60 for a can of beans, $.60 for a can of tomatoes, a scoop out of a large bag of frozen corn that cost $1.50, a chunk of cilantro for a buck, and misc. seasonings already sitting around. And the rice: a scoop out of a 10 lb bag that cost $6. Oh how I love Asian grocery stores.

And the beans go on forever, as beans are want to do.

My lunch. Or rather, half of my lunch, as the other side of this baby was rather identical to the first.

I got bored and soaked some chicken parts in bbq sauce for awhile, baked them, and they worked as excellent accompaniment to the Delightful Bean Scourge.

I cropped that, not necessarily for the artistic feel, but because the chair that plate sits on isn’t exactly promoting of a healthy appetite, if you know what I mean. And by this, I mean it had been sitting in the sun for a few days and had accumulated the sort of look that such a piece of furniture is apt to acquire, especially considering the feisty tree and bushes nearby.

I still have beans left, somehow. I promise I won’t take any more pictures of them, really.

There really are very few things that wouldn’t benefit from having a large quantity of chipotle tabasco sauce dumped on top of them. Well, maybe not ice cream I guess. Or my car. Nonetheless, the point here is that chipotle sauce is the Sauce of the Gods.

So I was feeling Tex-Mexey tonight and decided to dump a bunch of crap in a pan and see what happens.

Ingredients used: Can o’ black beans, can o’ diced tomatoes, a pile of frozen corn, a pile of cilantro, a bit of cut up onion, vegetable oil (with the onion at the beginning, before dumping everything else in), vinegar, cooking wine, chili pepper, chipotle sauce, and cumin. Err, and rice.

First lesson of the night: don’t dump in the cilantro until the last minute. It may be tempting to just fling it into the pan all willy nilly whenever it strikes you, just don’t do it. It may be begging you on it’s flimsy little legs flashing you cilantro currency, but don’t do it. I put it in at the beginning, and not too long after that was met with some severely spinachey and flaccid Cilantro. Flaccid Cilantro! No good at all! Luckily, I had some extra that I dumped in at the end, for maximum cilantro-ness.

It really was quite tasty. However, you know what I completely forgot about that would have seriously maximized the taste? The cheese! I had gotten some cheddar explicitly for this, and of course I only remember this fact several hours later.

It means that this dish is officially vegan! That is, unless I got the can of meat-eating killer tomatoes. Again. Oh well, At least they’re high in protein.

So there are few things I heart more then food festivals. Got the chance to attend Richmond’s Asian American Festival this past weekend, and it was delightful indeed. Most food festivals tend to focus on a particular country (for instance the local Lebanese food festival is absolutely fabulous). However, the Asian festival focuses on an entire region of the world, meaning there were food stands for 15 or so countries there. And I was forlorn for not getting the chance to gnaw on something from every single table. Alas.

So I took pictures of the few things I ate that were a.) photogenic and that b.) I actually remembered to photograph. See, I was mesmerized by this gigantic inflatable lobster that sat atop a moon walk, such things make it difficult for one to remember one’s camera-ey duties!

This is a soup from Bangladesh called chat pati, and was quite tasty. The ingredients are: chickpeas, potato, egg, cilantro, onion, tomato, cucumber, green chili pepper, and tamarind juice. And this indeed contained all of those, it started as mostly just the chickpeas with the option of sprinkling other things on top, and of course I got everything. Mind you, afterwards I picked out the chili peppers, as a.) my mouth has a difficult time dealing with Death, and b.) the cha (chai?) tea I was drinking was still entirely too hot to function as a decent means to cool one’s mouth from spices. I would love to make this sometime.

This is a Filipino dessert…of some sort. A cross between a pudding and a cake, it seemed. I would be able to tell you the name, but the handy dandy booklet I got upon entering the festival that lists all of the countries, their foods, plus ingredients in each, sadly fails to mention it. It’s spongy and yellow and delightful, seemed like it had coconut milk in it, definitely had shredded coconut on top, and, as a bonus, I totally discovered bits of corn in it. According to Google, it might be maja mais? Not sure. One thing I learned from my Google search is that I apparently need to try more Filipino dessert products, so much glutinousness!