Half Left #Vegetarian #Vegan

Well, I was going to do a post on the Roasted Butternut Squash Soup I made yesterday, but it turned out to look like hell, so I’m not. Oh, what the heck. Here is my Ugly Butternut Squash Soup.

The real recipe for Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, I found at The Minimalist Baker. It’s vegan, and so is my version.

What I substituted:

  • I’m out of carrots until I go to the grocery tomorrow, so I dumped some frozen mirepoix (carrots, celery, and onions) into the pot.
  • Instead of the salt, pepper, and other spices, I used the shawarma spice mix I made the other week.
  • I used olive oil, rather than avocado oil.
  • Instead of cooking it on the stove, I put it into the Instant Pot.
  • I figured (and this was my downfall) that if light coconut milk was good, full-fat coconut milk would be better.

Did you know that coconut fat will curdle? That’s what all those little pale yellow spots in my soup are from.

Tasted GREAT, but looked like hell.

Now, the thing I had decided to post instead, which isn’t vegan but is vegetarian:

I had some leftover mashed potatoes one day, so I bunged in an egg and some flour and made potato pancakes. A delicious, farm-fresh egg and the tag end of a package of shaved Parmesan, and I breakfasted heartily.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about something less than attractive that is nevertheless stellar. Not a swan who thinks it’s a duck; that’s been done.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Half Left #Vegetarian #Vegan

  1. Dan Antion

    December 15, 2020 at 7:08am

    The breakfast looks wonderful. I’ll skip the soup but I will pass along the coconut warning to my wife. Thanks for that.

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      Marian Allen

      December 15, 2020 at 10:08am

      I almost skipped the soup, too, but it did taste really good, even though it looked like it had already been eaten once. As Grandpa would have said, “That don’t the eatin’ of it.”

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  2. circadianreflections

    December 15, 2020 at 7:28pm

    That looks yummy. I can’t tell you how many of my homemade bread loaves looked like hell but tasted delicious! 😀

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  3. acflory

    December 17, 2020 at 5:11pm

    Thinking about your butternut squash soup. I make curry with coconut cream and it doesn’t curdle so I’m wondering if the sequencing could be the issue? In curry, the coconut cream goes in right at the beginning. Maybe if you put it in while sweating the vegetables so it becomes part of the ‘fat’ component instead of part of the liquid? Anyway, glad it tasted great. The breakfast looks great too. Now I’m going to have to go scrounge something up for myself. 😀

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      Marian Allen

      December 18, 2020 at 9:05am

      It could be the sequencing, or it could be that I cooked it in the Instant Pot under pressure. Maybe it wouldn’t have curdled if I’d cooked it gently. We live and learn.

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      • acflory

        December 18, 2020 at 4:33pm

        oh! Doh. Apologies but I only just realised that your Instant Pot is what we call a pressure cooker. I assumed it was one of those ‘slow cooker’ things. And yes, that could definitely have had something to do with it.
        Speaking of coconut milk/cream. Chatting about your soup yesterday inspired me and I made a small chicken curry with steamed rice and cucumber raita for dinner. Love coconut. 🙂

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          Marian Allen

          December 19, 2020 at 9:59am

          The Instant Pot can be used as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, and saute pot. Some versions can even cook sous vide, but not mine. It is, as my grandpa would have said, a handy little gadget. Your supper is making me jealous! I’ll be right over. Of course, going from America to Australia, I’ll have to be in quarantine for 14 days….

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          • acflory

            December 19, 2020 at 3:49pm

            I’ll pop your share into the freezer for when you get out of quarantine. 🙂

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              • acflory

                December 20, 2020 at 4:17pm

                Speaking of food, are you cooking xmas this year, or are one of the girls hosting? Getting away from the familiar can sometimes help. -hugs-

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                  Marian Allen

                  December 21, 2020 at 10:22am

                  It looks like we aren’t going to have the Christmas thing this year. We don’t exchange presents, and haven’t for years; we just give presents to the kids under 18. We’ve mailed or handed off those. We were hoping to have an outdoor gathering, or at least an exchange of dishes, like we did at Thanksgiving, where we each cooked a couple of things, packaged them in several containers, and traded them off, so we each had some of everything and each ate the same things in our own homes. Looks like that isn’t even happening. We’re all pretty blue this year. #4 Daughter says she’s coming to spend Christmas Eve with me, so we’ll probably cook something special. What are you doing? You can probably have a regular Christmas, since Australia has been intelligent about dealing with the virus.

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                  • acflory

                    December 21, 2020 at 4:45pm

                    I’m so sorry to hear that, Marian. Christmas can be the loneliest time of the year. I’m glad #4 daughter can spend Christmas Eve with you.

                    The Offspring and I will be a twosome as well on Christmas Eve. To be honest, we were always going to miss the family Christmas this year because of health fears, but two weeks ago it was mostly paranoia. Now? There’s a new outbreak in NSW this time and great fears that the xmas diaspora may have spread it to the other states. My state has closed its borders because we do NOT want to go through the 2nd wave again but…were we quick enough? Only time will tell.

                    Our outbreak is chicken feed next to what you’re going through in the States, but it’s ruined xmas nonetheless.

                    As we are having leftover duck for Christmas Day, I’ll probably spend most of the day playing Elder Scrolls Online. May I humbly suggest that you treat yourself, buy the game, install it and patch it [that could take hours so don’t wait until xmas day!]. Then, how about joining me online? I’m on the North American servers and you can find me by typing ‘/tell Miira Tahn’ and hitting Enter. I’d be happy to help you through the inevitable confusions of starting a new game.

                    How about it? Something to look forward to and a new challenge? And I can show you the houses I’ve built. If I know you, you will go nuts over what you can do. 😀

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                      Marian Allen

                      December 22, 2020 at 11:27am

                      Leftover duck sounds luxurious! I haven’t had duck in decades. No, I tell a lie: Charlie and I went to a Chinese restaurant and I got duck. Every bite I took, Charlie said, “Pooor little duck.” And I said, “Quack, quack.”

                      I would LOVE to meet you in Elder Scrolls, but I can’t. It won’t load on Linux, and it’s incompatible with my old iPad. I looked on my phone’s Android Store, and I see Elder Scrolls: Blades and Elder Scrolls: Legends. Do you play either of those?

                    • acflory

                      December 22, 2020 at 5:32pm

                      -grin- I’m glad you enjoyed the duck despite the Greek chorus!

                      And apologies. I remember you saying you couldn’t play before but my brain just stored it somewhere without telling me. 🙁

                      Just looked up ESO:Blades and unfortunately my smartphone ain’t smart enough [it’s very very basic].

                      Drat and damn. You’d think a game that’s so popular would get off its butt and port the game to Linux as well. Hmm…I wonder if there are any mmo’s that do. Let me do some research on this.

                    • acflory

                      December 22, 2020 at 5:49pm

                      p.s. Just did a quick check and found this article that talks about the current state of play re mmo’s on Linux systems:

                      https://www.mmorpg.com/guides/using-linux-for-mmos-2000117212

                      Right at the end, the article says ‘..and if all else fails you can dual boot’. I’ve never run a dual boot system, but I /think/ you partition the computer [this creates a separate ‘drive’] and install the second operating system there. When you start your pc, you get the option of starting in either Linux or Windows. The hardware doesn’t care which OS you use. If/when I finally save up for a new pc, I think I’ll dual boot it so I can finally learn how Linux works. Not sure if you can, or would want to, dual boot an existing machine.

                      If by chance one of the family decides to upgrade to a new Windows computer, maybe they could pass the old one on to you?

                      Wish I could come up with something better. 🙁

                    • Author

                      Marian Allen

                      December 23, 2020 at 10:37am

                      I have a laptop or two that runs Windows, but I won’t get online with them, since they’re no longer supported by Microsoft and are totally vulnerable to viruses. And I’d rather do without the internet altogether than run Win10. Got a real hate on for Win10. Tried it, and upgraded to Win7. Which I won’t use online because ….

                      Thanks for looking! I’ll read the article to see if I can tweak something without booting to The Spawn of Satan.

                    • acflory

                      December 23, 2020 at 5:44pm

                      LMAO! ‘Spawn of Satan’…YES! But I have to tell you that I’m still running Win7 [like you I loathe 10] and M$oft is providing almost daily security updates. I intend to stay with 7 until something better than 10 comes along. If it doesn’t… -shrug-

                      Micro$oft Windows has always been as full of holes as a swiss cheese so I’ve always run the best anti-virus I can find. For the last few years I alternate between Kaspersky and BitDefender. I also stay away from Google products and practise digital hygiene when I browse or download anything.

                      AND I’ve always been at least one OS behind, usually two. Stayed with 2000 long past its use-by-date before upgrading to XP. Stayed with XP past its use-by-date until a friend convinced me to try 7. Seriously, the last virus I had was about 20 years ago. -knock on wood-

                      That said, I hope you can find some workaround because I may be needing a Linux OS in the near future too. :/

                    • Author

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