and things went downhill from there

When I posted this elsewhere, I had a family member weigh in to let me know that this product is an abomination, and that it made him question if humanity had any redeeming qualities.

Outwardly, I have to confess that it's a valid observation. But this beer was surprisingly good. The flavours worked together in ways that would not seem obvious if you considered them separately.

I bought it out of morbid curiosity, but it's good enough that I'll likely buy it again.

Once we decided that we were going to thaw out a couple of the "Beyond Meat" patties we had in the freezer for dinner yesterday (since it looked like it might be our last opportunity to use the grill for some time), I went shopping for buns and other accoutrements. I nabbed a 4-pack of brioche buns, beefsteak tomato and sweet onion for my own burger (atara isn't a fan of much beyond lettuce on her own burgers). As I was heading to the till a niggling bit of curiosity started churning in the back of my head. If this little store carries vegan meat replacements, I wonder if they carry vegan cheese replacements too.

My experiences with vegan cheese in the past have been ... mixed; generally ranging from bad to best forgotten. It had been a few years since my last encounter with it, though, and given how far they have come with meat replacements, I felt it improbable that they'd not made improvements with cheese. I found a small pack of "cheese" slices in a similar format to the Kraft slices, and against my better judgement, I tossed one into the basket with my other groceries.

The first thing I did with the fake cheese was to try an unadulterated slice of it. I set it down next to a slice of processed cheese, and although they were both the same shape and colour, they were easy to tell apart. The fake cheese was like a slice of cheddar rather than processed cheese. It was hard and had clear lines across it from being sliced off of a larger block. In terms of smell - well, it smelled like cheese. If anything, it almost smelled too much like cheese, as if it was trying extra hard.

I tried eating both slices after that. Even ignoring the textural differences, there was no mistaking one for the other. I definitely preferred the flavour of the "real" cheese, but the vegan stuff wasn't bad. If I hadn't known that it was vegan in advance, that probably wouldn't have been my first guess on tasting it. It was mostly something in its aftertaste that just wasn't quite right. It triggered a flavour response that I associate with bitterness, without being overtly bitter. But it was okay - and a far cry better than any of my prior experiences with vegan cheese.

Given its texture, I had reservations about how well it would melt on my burger, but gamely put a slice of regular cheese on atara's burger, and a slice of the vegan one on mine. As I had feared, by the time the processed cheese was nicely moulded to the top of its patty, the fake one still looked pristine. I took the finished burger inside and left mine on the heat for a little longer. After another minute or two, it started to look a bit meltier, but rather than conforming to the shape of the burger, its edges started curving upward. I finally decided that it was done, and I removed it to a plate.

I also flipped the slice of cheese to make it curve downward instead. In spite of looking fairly solid, it was actually very soft when I flipped it, which raised my expectations a bit.



Appearances aside, if somebody had given me this burger and not told me that there was anything special about the cheese, it would not have occurred to me that it was a vegetable product. It was good. I'd simply have assumed that it was a slice of cheddar rather than a slice of processed cheese. Although I have no compelling reason to use this product on future burgers, I would have no hesitation about doing so.

I gave it a second trial this morning by making a grilled "cheese" sandwich for breakfast. Since I knew that it needed a bit of extra effort to melt, I gave it some assistance by making the sandwich over low heat, in a frying pan with a lid. Other than using lower heat and covering the pan, I made the sandwich the same way that I usually do. I melted a bit of butter in the frying pan before adding the sandwich and then added a bit more butter when went to flip the sandwich. Then I just turned it a few more times until both sides were toasted to my satisfaction.

When it was adequately browned, I removed it from the pan and was a bit disappointed to see that the cheese overhanging the edges of the sandwich did not look like it had melted at all. As soon as I took my first bite of the sandwich, though, I discovered that appearances can be deceiving. It was thoroughly melted all through. In fact, this sandwich was better than just passable - this was a perfectly cromulent grilled "cheese" sandwich. If somebody had made this for me without any advance warning, I'd have assumed that they used a different brand of cheese than I was used to, but "vegan" probably would not have been my first guess.

atara took a reluctant bite of the sandwich, and declared that other than not quite having the right mouthfeel, it was not really a bad sandwich. Coming from such a grilled cheese snob, that's pretty high praise.

I bought this cheese out of curiosity, and as an experiment. Neither of us has any (current) health reasons to avoid the real product, but I'm pleased with the outcome of this trial. If I ever developed lactose intolerance or came under my doctor's orders to avoid dairy, I think that I could be content using this product. They've managed to cross the threshold into "pretty good" territory.

I made myself a baked pancake (aka Dutch Baby) for breakfast this morning to treat myself for being a big boy and not fainting or throwing up when I got my latest needle in the eyeball yesterday.

I'd actually been planning to make this earlier in the week after I brought up a bag of peach slices from the basement freezer that were marked "2014."

When I was done, the result looked passably edible.



I took a couple of pictures and then cut out a slice. I had hoped that the brown sugar and cinnamon would cover up any freezer burnt taste.

Ah, I remember those halcyon moments of eager anticipation before my first bite. Nope. These peaches tasted like they'd spent the better part of the last decade chilling on Lake Cocytus.

I think that doubling the sugar, and upping the cinnamon would have actually made this pretty palatable, but it was too late in the process to make that change. On the other hand, I wondered if caramelizing some sugar over the top might help, so I sprinkled a teaspoon of castor sugar over it and fetched my butane torch.



Other than the part at the back where I accidentally set it on fire, the fix worked remarkably well. It helped it both texturally (with a nice crunch) and the extra sugar made all of the difference. There was still a faint hint of freezer burn to it, but nothing I'd turn away if somebody else served it to me.

I thought that I was done writing for the Bolt fandom, other than a silly one-shot ghost story that's been simmering in the back of my mind for some time.

Then out of nowhere, the idea for Madame Bolt came slamming into my brain. So not only did I write another story for the fandom, but it's a ships a dog and a cat (which, if I remember from Ghost Busters, is a sign of the end times).

"Wags," said Mittens smoothly, "I want you to know that I am saying this in the most loving and unironic way that I can. I genuinely wish you had a day job so that I could tell you not to quit it."

I have two Transformers stories plotted out and waiting in the wings, but as quickly as I finished this one, I was slapped upside the head with another idea for a story in the Bolt fandom. I went as far as to hammer out a rough outline the other day for what looks (if I decide to write it) like it would be three chapters long and deal with some touchy subjects involving trauma and conflict. Filled with the usual silliness to keep it from getting too dark, mind you.

Bolt rounded the corner and scrabbled to a stop on the hardwood floor with a whimper of surprise as soon as he laid eyes on the cat. Mittens was lying on the edge of her cushion with one paw hanging languidly over the edge. She was slowly swirling its tip as if stirring a pot of ennui. The cat heaved a deep sigh and cast a brief sidelong glance at the dog as he rounded the corner into the room, but otherwise didn't acknowledge his presence.

"Why are you wearing Penny's spiked collar? And..." the shepherd frowned. "Is that black eye-liner and lipstick? Did Penny do this to you?"

Mittens gave another long, slow sigh as if the weight of the entire world was weighing down on her feline breast. "It is so that when I look into the mirror, it reflects the true Stygian pit of my hopelessness." she said in a tone usually reserved for announcing the death of a beloved friend. "The black, gelid ichor of my soul oozes from my lips and eyes, leaving me hollow and bereft of life's ephemeral joys."

"I... I don't know how to feel about this -- everything about it is wrong" said Bolt, rubbing his forehead with his forepaws and suppressing a whine of confusion. "On the one hand, I'm way more into it than I have any right to be."

There is this old joke that went, "How can you tell if somebody owns an iPhone? Don't worry - they'll tell you."

There were variants on it as well: "How can you tell if somebody is into cross-fit?" "How can you tell if somebody is vegan?"

In fairness, the last one makes a bit more sense since it's an important distinction when one is perusing a menu, or trying to determine if an item they want to buy is made from leather or Pleather.

So I thought this would be a good opportunity to stress that I'm not vegan, nor am I into cross-fit, and I don't own an iPhone.

But that doesn't mean that we've been eating a lot of vegan/vegetarian themed meals of late. That's partly by choice, and partly because we're cheapskates and meat is expensive these days.

Even when we have meat, it's usually chicken or pork. We don't dislike beef, but chicken and pork are perfectly cromulent proteins. And - generally speaking - they're a cheaper option.

When I went shopping on Tuesday to pick out some meal ingredients for the week, I got it into my head that I would do a pork roast for dinner on Thursday. Not just a roast, but one of those slow, all-day ones. I picked out a decent-looking rump roast (which, in spite of the name, is actually a shoulder cut) and while I was in the area, I had a quick look at the beef equivalent so that I could be smug about how much I was saving by having pork.

And to my astonishment, they had a sirloin roast of about the same size for cheaper. I had a closer look at the unit cost on both pieces of meat to make sure I wasn't getting caught up in different sizes, but the beef had a lower unit cost. Huh. We'd had ham for Easter, so I decided to treat us with a nice, slow-roasted chunk of beef.

atara picked up some cookbooks many years back that were aimed at families where both parents were working. Since we were both working full-time, they were a good fit for us. One of them had a recipe for an eight-hour roast, where you set it up in the oven and left it to cook unattended while you were at the office. The lone downside to the recipe is that if you happen to be working from home, you have to contend with a house that smells delicious for an entire day.



I also picked up some baby potatoes along with the roast, and I did them up in the toaster oven while the roast was resting. When I do these again, I'll skip the fresh garlic and just toss them with a bit of garlic powder. The garlic cloves burnt and turned a bit bitter in the high heat. Oh well - I was worried about that when I added them, and included them anyway.

The black thing to the right of this picture is a piece of garlic. The dark bits on the steak are in the gravy that I made from the drippings. I could have strained those out. But I didn't.

We went for a walk today to take advantage of the nice weather while it lasts. While we were in the area, we stopped at our local coffee shop for some afternoon tea to go.

I was about to order my usual "London Fog" when I noticed that the next item on their menu board was, "Smoked Tea Latte." I am not averse to trying new things, and the name intrigued me, so I ordered one.

I had some preconceived ideas of what to expect since I've had past experience with smoked teas (Murchie's "Baker Street Blend" is smoked). This latte was definitely not what I was expecting, though. Firstly because it was sweet (I should have expected that, but I assumed it wouldn't be).

Also, the smoke was much more pronounced than I was expecting. I don't know if the tea itself was smoked, or if the smoke was in the vanilla syrup or foam. In any event, it was sweet and smoky and delicious. I will definitely be adding this one into my regular rotation at this outlet if they keep it on the menu.

Tonight on "Cooking with plonq" ("vegan" chilli edition):

I had not been anticipating the fierce wind and snow when I planned to make chilli today, but I could not have asked for more appropriate weather.

I started off by making a mirepoix (sort of) by coarsely chopping a couple of small yellow onions, two stalks of celery, and one red bell pepper. I tossed that into a pot with some vegetable oil and chopped four cloves of garlic while the veggies sweated a bit.

I let them cook down while I dug out the next couple of ingredients, then scraped the garlic into the pot and let it get to know the other ingredients for a minute or so before I squeezed in the last of our tube of tomato paste, and a teaspoon or so of anchovy paste.

I stirred that for a minute or so to cook the raw flavour off of the tomato paste and then dumped in an unseemly amount of chilli powder, some ground cumin, and about a half-tablespoon of dark cocoa powder. As soon as that was starting to want to stick to the bottom, I reached for the can of tomatoes -- and caught myself just in time.

I'd totally forgotten the "meat".

I fetched the two packages of Impossible ground burger from the fridge and hastily dumped them into the pot along with a splash of more oil. Then I spent the next few minutes stirring it and breaking it up until it was cooked through before I resumed where I'd left off earlier.

Once the "meat" was done, I poured in a large can of chopped, fire-roasted tomatoes, a small tin of chipotle peppers with their sauce, and a large can (drained and rinsed) of red kidney beans. I swished some water into the cans from the tomatoes and peppers and added that but it still seemed a bit dry, so I mixed up about 300ml of vegetable bouillon and stirred that in along with a bit more chilli powder, cumin, and some ground black pepper.

I let everything simmer together for a few minutes before tasting it. Other than adding a few good shakes of hot paprika to give it a bit more punch, I didn't think it needed anything. I'm glad that I didn't add any salt - it got enough from the bouillon.

I think it might have been improved by the addition of a couple of bay leaves, and/or some fine-chopped fresh chilli peppers. But overall, it was good. Paired well with the honey cornbread I made as a side dish.

I don't often pour a fresh cup of coffee down the drain, but I made an exception this morning.

I'd had some earlier from the same batch of beans and it was fine, but when I ground my latest cup, the grounds had a weird funk to them. They had that slightly sour, stale smell that you can get from a bag of coffee that you opened six months ago and forgot about in the back of the cupboard.

I assumed that it was just early-onset COVID or the like, and I brewed a cup as usual, but the smell did not improve. And it tasted pretty bad as well. That is, the underlying flavour was fine, but it was intertwined with a slightly sour, rancid funk.

After a couple of sips, I just dumped it and ground some more beans. These ones smell much better. I guess one or two rancid beans mush have worked their way into this particular batch.

I think I'm going to clean the grinder's burrs before I make any coffee tomorrow.

I don't normally give my plants names - heck, I hardly even talk to them at all when I'm sober - but if I was going to call this one something, I would name it "Lazarus."

I transplanted it into a small pot and brought it inside at the end of summer so that we could have fresh chives through the winter. I know that I traumatized its roots pretty good when I repotted it, but chives tend to be pretty hardy.

At first, it seemed to be doing fine. After a couple weeks of inactivity, while it figure out its new paradigm, it sent up a tentative new shoot.

Then it stalled.

Over the course of the ensuing weeks and months, it did nothing but slowly wither and dry up. If it had been a cartoon plant, this is the point where it would have flopped onto its back with Xs for eyes, and clutched a lily to its stem.

Most rational people would have given up on it a long time ago, but against all odds, it still seemed to be drinking, even if it wasn't otherwise showing signs of life, so I kept faithfully watering it every other day and feeding it every month or so.

Then, a couple of days ago, it suddenly did this.

Today on Cooking with plonq:

I have been wanting something curried for lunch or dinner for the past week or so, but it didn't fit with any of our meal plans for dinner, and I've been eating mostly leftovers for lunch.

When I was poking around for some lunch ideas today, I started mulling on ideas for a lentil curry when I remembered that we had a couple of chicken thighs in the freezer downstairs. I brought them upstairs, tossed them into a bowl of warm water to thaw a bit, and then started prepping other things.

I rough-chopped half an onion and tossed it into a pot with a tablespoon or so of cooking oil. While that cooked, I fetched a knob of ginger from the fridge and coarsely minced it up, followed by two cloves of garlic. When they were all roughly chopped, I gathered both of them together into a pile and continued chopping them until the onions were cooked enough to be ready for them.

I stirred them in with the onion and then cubed up the still-mostly-frozen chicken thighs. While I waited for those to finish thawing and cook through, I mixed up a cup of warm water with some chicken bullion and a couple tablespoons of powdered coconut milk. Next, I started a second pot on the stove with a cup of water, half a cup of rice, a pinch of salt, and a bit more of the coconut milk powder.

While the rice and chicken cooked, I added a splash of fish sauce to the coconut milk mixture and then started hunting for the red Thai curry paste. Which we don't have. That gave me a moment's pause before I shifted gears and grabbed the Madras curry powder instead. I dumped a good tablespoon of that in with the (now cooked) chicken and stirred it a bit to cook the edge off the curry, then I dropped in two frozen balls of spinach. After a moment or two of waffling, I ended up following the spinach with a good shake of red chilli flakes.

When the spinach was mostly thawed, I stirred in the coconut mixture and let it come to a gentle boil before reducing it to a simmer. I gave it a taste and then tweaked it a bit with about a teaspoon of sugar and two crushed cardamom pods. I was going to toss in some raisins when I spotted the dried cranberries. To my mind, they would accomplish the same function and add a nice bit of colour to the dish.

I added about a tablespoon of cornstarch to the curry to thicken it up, and then let it simmer on low heat until the rice was done. As soon as the rice was ready, I folded some black sesame seeds and a splash of orange blossom water into it.

I scooped the rice into a bowl, hollowed out the centre, and scooped in about half of the curry (the rest went into the fridge). I garnished it with another shake of chilli flakes, and some fresh parsley from the basement.

Prognosis: this was really good. Mild, and packed with flavour. The cranberries turned out to be a great addition.



On a side note: I will continue cross-posting all of my entries to both Livejournal and Dreamwidth, but given the current situation with Livejournal's owners, I can't guarantee the continued availability that site.

As always, anything you see on LJ is also available on Dreamwidth under the user-name "Plonq"