For those of you who don’t know what to do with your abundance of summer squash, Elise at Simply Recipes has a fully loaded post of ideas.  These are great ways to use up all your squash yourself so you don’t have to gift it to your neighbors who have too many already and are contemplating their own ways of foisting them off.  Ah, zucchini… summer’s version of fruitcake.

And speaking of bounties, does anyone know what do with a bunch of jalapenos?  For some wonderful reason, my neglected Brooklyn fire escape garden is abounding with jalapenos! Taking inspiration from Christiane’s terrific-looking hot sauce at 28 Cooks, anyone have any spicy ideas?  Like Christiane, I’m a fiend for spicy foods (must be a vegetarian thing… hot is all we got!)

I’m thinking maybe jalapeno poppers, but how about main dish vegan recipe that uses 5 - 12 green jalapenos?  Help - jalapeno handiness needed!   

 

Those of you who have been following this blog (thank you, by the way, you’re very much appreciated) may have noticed that I haven’t added any new food drawings for, well, pretty much the whole summer. So, where I have been channeling my creative energy, you ask? Rest assured, I haven’t started making balsa wood birdhouses or taken up miming or anything, I spent pretty much all summer on the very enjoyable Mask Task.

The Mask Task was assigned to me and my two roommates/sisters The Sistaster and the L’il Sis by our older sister, let’s call her Miss Mousey. Miss Mousey got married last weekend to my new brother-in-law, Froggie. They decided to get married to the lovely little ditty “Froggie Went A Courtin’ ” (check out the Bob Dylan lyrics and music here) and tasked us Brooklyn sisters with creating a dozen (that’s 10 + 2, people) papier-mâché masks for their young friends to walk down the aisle in. I suppose this story is better illustrated than written, so behold below the cutest children ever wearing the strangest wedding attire ever:

^{Froggie
Miss Mousey
Uncle Rat
Flyin’ Moth
Juney Bug
Bumbley Bee
Broken Black Flea
Mrs. Cow
Little Black Tick
Big Black Snake
Old Grey Cat
Lily White Duck}So what does this have to do with food? Vegetarianism? Nothing. Everything. Being surrounded by family and the people you love, celebrating life and family cycles, honoring love and vows - what’s a wedding if not a corporeal event to commemorate some of life’s finest ideals? I didn’t plan on starting my 3rd official month of vanesscipes by getting all philosophical on you, but how better to honor your own corpus than by taking the time to create, enjoy, and appreciate every morsel of food that enters your body? Bonus points if it’s fresh, healthy, vegetarian, and delicious. I’ll spare you the symbolism of the wedding feast and the toast to the happy couple (you know… fertility, abundance, renewal… yada yada), but seriously, it’s not a special occasion unless you’re scarfing something yummy and washing it down with something yummier. And, let’s not forget everyone’s favorite part of the celebration: mmmm, cake!

While I’m recovering from my vacation you all can enjoy the second installment of pizza recipes from the L’il Sis. This one is a classic Pizza Margherita, but with a healthy wheat crust. Don’t be afraid to make this from scratch - it’s not as hard as it looks, I promise!

I was going to follow up the story of L’il Sis moving to the Big City with tales of the woe and misfortune that befall a wide-eyed young thing from the Midwest. But it would be lies. Lies!

The truth is, the L’il Sis hasn’t gotten bamboozled by smooth-talking New York men. She hasn’t lost her modest college savings. She hasn’t gotten mugged, lost, splashed by a cab, sneered at by Upper East Siders, or anything else like that.

On the contrary, the girl is doing great – a job, a place to live (well, my living room), money for beer, etc. Her spirits are high, and she’s a plain old joy to have around. In fact, if you could divide the world into joke-tellers and laughers, the L’il Sis would be laugher of the highest degree. She one of those people that make life a little lighter, a little sparklier, and if you’re a wannabe joke-teller she makes you feel like your very own Carrot Top. (Er, you know, someone funny.)

So anyway, this pizza isn’t going make you bust a gut in the proverbial sense, but you may want to eat a lot of it, so try not to bust your gut in the literal sense either.

Serves: 4 – 5 (makes 2 thin crust pizzas)
Time: Active time is 30 minutes for the dough, then at least 1 hour for it to rise. Assembling the crust, pizza and toppings takes 45 minutes, and then another 20 minutes for baking time.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust via Allrecipes

1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 Tbl active dry yeast
1 Tbl olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

(more…)

Here are some snaps of my dinners in San Francisco. I didn’t take pics of my breakfasts and lunches, though I wish I had documented the sourdough bread and Chinese noodle soup I had on the run. Everyone is right – the food in San Francisco is fantastic!

Swank late night at the Millennium Restaurant:
I had such a great time at this place and the food was so good I seriously contemplated going back the next two nights. Blame the wine for the blurry photos. I loved that it was dimly lit and romantic – isn’t anyone else get tired of the sunshine-and-patchouli vegetarian restaurant decor? This place looked as un-vegan as could be but even the bread comes with a complex and earthy tasting tofu spread instead of butter. I had a purslane & cucumber salad followed by an amazing grilled tempeh with orange wine reduction served over an incredible toasty brown rice. I was too full to get dessert, but the vegan desserts I checked out looked pretty amazing. My words and photos do not do this meal justice so please check out the online menu and photos for a better idea. This place is for sure on my list for my next trip to San Francisco. Does anyone have the cookbook? I may get it.

This right-coasty Brooklynite is spending the next week in San Francisco followed by Portland and Mount Hood. She’s so excited to be here that she’s writing about herself in the third person!

I hope to have some vegetarian food documentation up at some point, but I’m so busy seeing what I can see that you’ll have to be content with two mini-series of photos for now.

Vegetarian restaurant recommendations for Portland anyone?