I also realized that all week my stress level has been high, my energy level low, and despite all noble attempts, I splurged on one or two tremendously junky treats. The processed sugar kept me up all night, which in turn fostered the vicious cycle. The moral of this story is get your taxes done early and stop freaking out about it. It's done now, the money is paid, and so begins the scramble toward next April 15th.
In all my psychic glory, it stands to reason that you're thinking what I'm thinking, namely: when I owe money to the federal government I like to spice up my dinner plate with jalapeño peppers! And if you're thinking that, you'd be almost right, except of course, I made this lovely dish the day after I did my taxes. Good job though, you're powers are really developing!
In all my tax frenzy, I elected not to shop until last night, and then, in the signature manner of only those possessing a special kind of genius, I drove all the way to Whole Foods without my wallet. Upon realization of said brilliance, I then spent the next 30 minutes or so pleading with my local bank to please call up another branch and kindly vouch for my identity. In the end I was able to do this, so a big shout out to Debbie in the Guilford branch for having my back! It would probably help some of you head scratchers out there to know that my local area is a barren wasteland of decent food shopping, and WFM is about 40 miles away, so a trip home and back was, simply put, more than my post-IRS-sodomized little mind could handle.
After that, it was all smooth sailing, despite some rather turbulent/beautiful/much needed weather. As reported daily by several "news" programs, the lack of snow this winter has left the northeast primed for wildfires, so some heavy rain was just what the doctor ordered. As i pulled in to Trader Joe's parking lot, the sky was that exquisite kind of ominous electric blue gray color, bright but opaque, the kind of sky that often precedes a a thunderstorm, and which makes the color and depth of everything around you seem somehow twice as real and vivid as it did before. Here's an example:
Moving on...Jalapeños
Last night I whipped up a wicked-easy and flavorful tortilla soup with jalapeño-lime "cream.". This recipe comes from my newly acquired Ani Phyo book, "Ani's Raw Food Essentials," courtesy of the kind folks at Vitamix who let me get in on their promo. Thanks guys! Ani likes to make spelling distinctions to products that would normally be animal-based, like mylk, for example, or kream.
However, you will not find such frivolity here on Orbiting Vegan for two important reasons. Firstly, though much less importantly, I find it bothersome in the same way in which I find the word wymen bothersome in hard-core feminist literature. Frankly, making these silly distinctions creates more of separation than integration of communities, in my humble opinion. But second, and far more importantly, it just presents all manner of spellcheck and autocorrect nightmares, and I simply don't have the phuckyng payshents.
This is the most serious critique I have thus far of Phyo's book, which is nevertheless a treasure-trove of raw food wisdom. I do wish raw food books in general would include more recipes that don't involve an expensive food dehydrator in some way, but time and payshents will solve this matter eventually.
Ok, here come the peppers, I promise...
For the tortilla soup:
You can make your own "salted flax chips" to garnish the soup with, but requires a dehydrator, and frankly, I'm pretty sure you're garden variety unflavored corn chips are about as vegan as can be.
3 cups chopped tomatoes
1 cup olive oil
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp garlic, probably 1-2 cloves crushed if you don't keep it handy in a jar
1 tsp jalapeño pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
Garnish with chips, fresh cilantro, and..
Jalapeño-lime cream:
1 cup cashews
1/4 cup seeded chopped jalapeño
1 tsp lime zest ( I just zested the whole durn thang.)
1/4 cup lime juice (or more depending on your preference for zing.)
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (one of these days I will come up with a real doozy regarding extra virgins, just be patient.)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup filtered water, or more or less depending on consistency and how much lime juice you used.
On both counts, just throw it all in the vitamix and blend it until it is well mixed and lovely. Some people object to subjective terms such as lovely being used to give direction in cooking. To these people, I say, you'll know it when you see it. Trust me.
So, it was really tasty, not overly jalapeñized, and lovely. So lovely in fact , that my mother essentially claimed any and all leftovers as her own. I even think my father would have liked it, but he did after all just recently try my seared fennel, and I would be forced to interpret his eagerness to try new things as the potential onset of the apocalypse.
It was lovely to look at as well, and the creamy red-orange of the soup contrasted nicely with the light pistachio color of the cream. Sadly, I was too hungry for pictures, so instead you get one more weather shot.
On my way out of Whole Foods, the sun was shining brightly in the west, in the east behind the building the sky was completely covered in dark, heavy, slate grey and indigo clouds, on top of which, a steady rain glistened down onto the parking lot, shining in the sun and contrasting with the dark clouds, all of this underneath the most perfect, vivid, rainbow I have ever seen in my life. And literally as quick as this moment arrived, it was gone. I truly consider myself blessed to have taken a deep breath long enough to enjoy it.
The pictures don't do it justice, but I also choose to Internet this as living proof that if there is a god up there, he knew I needed to chill out for a minute.
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Location:Madison, CT
...potential onset of the apocalypse... Brilliant! Next time, less weather and more jalapeño soup photos...curb that hunger!
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