Friday, October 10, 2008

Paella. Kinda sorta.

For the Mediterranean-Europe section of VFaS, I chose to make the Paella because the best way to judge a cookbook is by it's most involved recipes. At least it is for me.

Anyway, I set out to pick up some tempeh tonight because I had everything else, and planned to make Isa's chorizo sausages for the sausage portion of the recipe, but then don'tcha know Tofurkey Italian Sausages were on sale, so I got those, too.

Well, I should have got some green beans, because the farmers market batch didn't hold up well in the fridge. Slimy. I went down to the corner store, where I picked up the lone, frost-covered bag of frozen green beans and when I got them home and dumped them into a colander to thaw them, they were beige.



So, I chopped up a red bell pepper and threw it into the pan with some kale. It's not true to the recipe, but hey. I'm on a tight schedule here, and nine o'clock at night is no time for a babe like me to be traipsing about the city looking for green beans. I also wasn't prepared to do any of the other chapters, so it's bell pepper and kale or a bunch of excuses and another picture of Mischka, and I'm starting to scare myself with my obsessive cat picture-taking.



It turned out fantastic. I underguessed on the kale, and it barely causes a speck of green in there, but I added more peas and we're good. Hey, and I got to use my gigantor pan! Next time I make this (and I will), I will a) add more liquid, b) leave out the tempeh because with all those meat analogs, it's a friggin' sausage party in there, and c) add artichoke hearts. It's not as spicy as I'd hoped, so I'd say add more of the red pepper flakes.

6 comments:

Bex said...

This looks great. The cookbook is on my wishlist so I'll be sure to make this (with your mods in mind) when I get it. I love it when a recipe has some flex and can take some changes in stride.

Jen Treehugger said...

BOY that looks good Paella!
I've not heard of that cook book before so thanks for mentioning it.
:)

River (Wing-It Vegan) said...

I love paella!! Yours looks delicious! Every time I open your blog, that big header with the kitten and the piglet makes me smile! :)

jessy said...

WOW! i think you paella looks AWESOME! the colors are sweet - and i like the kale 'n peas in there, too - it sounds so damn delicious!

adding artichokes to anyting is pretty much the best ever! i just love those little buggers! mmmmmmmm! and do you have sriracha? it's one of my favorite ways to add a little spice. but what out - it's addictive! once you start use'n it you may not be able to stop! muuahahahahaa!

i don't think you could take enough kitty pictures. we have 4 and you wouldn't believe how many photos we take of them all - how can you not, you know? they're so cute and always doing the cutest stuff, too! hooray for kitties!

allularpunk said...

haha, sausage party. love it. and i like paella, but the one that i actually made with saffron sucked. does this one have saffron? (it's too expensive for me to buy and then not like!)

Megan said...

This does have saffron, but it's such a tiny amount, it's not detectable. I have a ton of saffron. I don't know how that happened.