Three Goddamn Onions.....

Hello World!

It's been a number of years since I've posted. I haven't strayed too far into experimenting with things now that I have 10-15 regular things I can make without usually messing them up. But lately I've been trying to eat more "plant-based" for health reasons. There are some easy ways to do this, like baked sweet potatoes or salads. Or you could go down the rabbit hole that is vegan cookbooks.

After rejecting a number of cookbooks due to their obsession with obscure ingredients (one of which required "White miso paste" for almost every recipe), I found one I really liked: "Naturally Nourished" by Sarah Britton. It had pretty pictures, accessible ingredients, and sounded tasty. Oh, but how it has led me astray.....

Tonight was a Chipotle Corn Chowder. It was a bit fancier than recipes I usually put up with. The recipe was very insistent about having 4 ears of fresh corn. It also wanted 1 cup of cashews soaked in water for "at least" four hours. And to top it all off.....3 GOD DAMN ONIONS. Every other recipe I've ever done called for 1/2 to 1 full onion, because a little goes a long way. Three seemed like madness, but I was willing to give it a try.

So you're supposed to cut the kernels off the corn....or remove them through some other magical method I couldn't fathom. Easier said than done. I just took a chef knife and tried to shave the things like a waiter in a Brazilian steakhouse. This results in corn juice and kernels flying EVERYWHERE. I swear I have some in my hair. For being uncooked, the corn is really sweet, so in frustration, I end up gnawing on the remaining flesh on the cobs like a starving wolf who has found some scrap bones.

So I destroy my kitchen for 15 minutes while I shave this corn, only to find that the amount of 4 shaved ears of corn is about exactly the same amount of a bag of frozen corn......which on top of storing well, being cheap all year, is ALREADY OFF THE DAMN COB.

Next I start chopping the 3 onions. At this point I'm frustrated and have poured myself some tequila to make cooking more enjoyable. I'm absentmindedly eating the corn while I chop the onions, until I accidentally eat a piece of raw onion by mistake. I reflexively swig some tequila to get the onion taste out of my mouth---THIS IS THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO. Worse tasting than drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. Much. Much. Worse.

So you're supposed to saute the onions and corn with a bunch of spices, including turmeric, so of course every inch of my kitchen is also now stained yellow and smells like Indian food. At this point you're supposed to dice 6 gloves of fresh garlic, but after battling the onions and corn I said to hell with it and just used garlic out of a jar.

You boil the corn until turns "yellow and sweet"....which god knows what that means because all corn starts off yellow and at least this corn was already sweet. At the end, you mix in the soaked cashews and blend it all with an immersion blender.

After all this work you are rewarded with a meal I can only generously describe as....spicy wood pulp. And despite only have 2 pinches of cayenne pepper, it somehow became so spicy I could barely eat it.

And so the final score is Plants: 1  Liz: 0.