Stopping by for Lunch

Boy, this has been a busy week.

It’s been aggravating, because there have been a lot of elements outside of our control — people bashing holes in the wall with a sledge hammer, people tromping through and discussing things in loud voices. It’s not exactly an atmosphere conducive to work or story — so it’s Friday, and we’re way behind on everything. It’s a day for just a quick, one-handed-and-keep-going-at-one’s-desk kind of lunch. With a little quick bit of prep, this is good for any day.

As a reprise of Veggie Meat, we did up two kinds of gluten this morning. Rather than forming them into individual links, we figured we could slice off chunks of sausage and be just as happy, and wouldn’t have to take the time to do all of that fiddly shaping. (We apologize that there aren’t pictures this time of the steps, but we just didn’t have time!)

Here again is the basic recipe:

• 1.5 cups vital wheat gluten
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon or nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1-2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 Tbsp garlic or onion powder AND sage
• 3/4 cups water or vegetable broth or tomato juice
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp oil

As you can see, there are two colors of sausage; when using the basic recipe, we simply added 8 tablespoons of butternut squash purée and used veggie broth for liquid for the lighter colored sausage; the other has 3/4 c. tomato juice as its liquid component, and 1/2 c. chopped cranberries. In future, we’ll try adding the cranberries to the one without the tomato; though it is delicious, it tastes more like Italian sausage and completely loses the piquant sweet-sour zing of the cranberries. They would pair well with the butternut, which is quite mild, and would be a good candidate for inclusion in beans or with other things which have not so strong of flavors. The Italian Greatness is rather spicier, too, as we, um, *slipped* when tossing in the garlic, and so things are a little intensely flavored… but ignoring the garlic breath, yum. We don’t quite know what that will be paired with, but we’ll let you know, if we can quit eating it just out of hand.

As we have no central heat, and are reliant upon a small space-heater, we’re baking as much as possible, much to the joy of everyone at work and in the Arts department at school. Banana bread is on the agenda again sometime this weekend, as is Kansas’ famous carrot cake jam — a recipe we’ve feared yet been dying to try for ages (Look: she posted it with the comment “look out hips.” This is NOT GOOD. Yet obviously awesomely good, and needing to be made immediately!) We’re obviously going to have to make time to see friends again, and soon, or else we’ll be staggering under the weight of baking. However, we’ll be warm, so that’s what counts!

Yes, that’s a cup of unsweetened, black coffee. That’s about 1/3 of the daily dosage, now that school has begun. Detox / withdrawal will begin around about Christmas Break.

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