Spring Green Quinoa

I love a good one-pot dish, but sometimes it's just not possible. This simple recipe is a good example. Oh, how I would have loved to have figured out a way to make it without using three separate pans. I combined steps as much as possible, quick-cooking the asparagus and zucchini in the same pot as the edamame, but my husband was still greeted with a pile of pots to clean after dinner.

Nevertheless, I think he'd agree that the meal was worth the clean-up. I served the quinoa along with a simple green salad for a meal that tasted fresh, healthy, and decidedly springish. (Yes, springish. It's my new word and I plan to spread it around!) I kept the seasoning light to allow the fresh flavors of the vegetables to shine though, but feel free to add more to your taste. Or, if you have fresh herbs on-hand, I know they'd take this dish to a whole new level of deliciousness.



Spring Green Quinoa
(printer-friendly version)

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 clove garlic, minced
4 (about 1 ounce) sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil), chopped
10 ounces frozen edamame (2 cups)
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1" pieces
1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch slices
3 -4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup vegetable broth
1/2 teaspoon oregano (more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon basil (more to taste)
1 generous pinch red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon lemon juice (more to taste)
salt and pepper, to taste

Rinse the quinoa well in a fine-mesh strainer. Put it in a pot with the water, 1 clove of minced garlic, and the sun-dried tomato and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and cook until water is absorbed and grain is tender, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and keep covered.

While the quinoa is cooking, bring a large pot of water to boil (Dutch oven sized, about 1/2 full). When it reaches a boil, add the frozen edamame. Return to boil and cook for 4 minutes. Add the asparagus and zucchini and cook until they are tender but still crisp, about 3 minutes. Drain well, and place in a large serving bowl. Add the quinoa and toss well.

In a small non-stick pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the vegetable broth. (If you're not following a strict fat-free diet, you may use 1 tsp. of olive oil.) Add the minced garlic and cook for one minute. Add the remaining broth, oregano, basil, and red pepper. Simmer, stirring, for about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Pour over quinoa and mix well. Taste and add additional seasonings, including lemon juice, as needed. Serve warm.

Makes 4 large servings. Per serving: 270 Calories (kcal); 6g Total Fat; (19% calories from fat); 15g Protein; 44g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 168mg Sodium; 8g Fiber. Weight Watchers CORE/ 5 Flex Points.

The Lucky Winner

Thanks to all of you who took the time to share your favorite recipe. What a goldmine of recipe resources! With thousands of vegan recipes in books and on websites, it's hard to tell the great ones from the just okay ones from the truly inedible ones. Cooking something new is always a gamble, but the odds of finding a winner are better when a recipe is recommended by people you trust. And it goes without saying that I trust the readers of my blog to be pretty discerning folks!

If I could, I'd give everyone who entered a book. And I'd give everyone who picked one of my recipes two books. (Just kidding about that last part. Really!) I wasn't about to try to pick the best recipe myself, so I let the random number generator at Random.org do the choosing for me. And this is what it said:




Lucky number 13 is Lori, who offered this recipe as her favorite:



Congratulations, Lori! (Email me your mailing address and I'll get your book in the mail.) That hummus was chosen by a couple of people, and if you don't have a copy of Cook's Illustrated, you can find the recipe at What Did You Eat?

If you didn't leave a comment because you already had Veganomicon, feel free to leave one on this post and share your favorite recipe. And if you haven't already, look through the contest comments--you'll find a lot of great recipe recommendations.

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free

Spinach-Matzo Pie

When I saw the Spinach and Matzo Pie recipe in this month's Gourmet, I thought, "Wow, an easier way to make a spinach pie! No fooling with thin sheets of phyllo, just lay down some matzos instead." I figured it'd be a snap to take my Spinach and Artichoke Pie and just substitute matzos for the phyllo. But then I read the recipe.

Since matzos are on the dense side, the Gourmet recipe would have you soak them in a mixture of cottage cheese, whole milk, and eggs for 15 minutes before picking them up and layering them in the baking dish. Never mind that I wasn't planning on using any of those ingredients; I just couldn't imagine picking up soaking wet matzos, which are basically thick crackers, and being able to transfer them intact to the baking dish. But since there wasn't that much liquid in my original recipe, I also couldn't imagine them getting soft enough if I didn't add some more moisture.

In the end I wound up with a recipe that bears little resemblance to either Gourmet's recipe or my old recipe. Instead of cottage cheese and eggs, I used a mixture of Toffuti cream cheese and soymilk, and instead of the feta that tops Gourmet's pie, I used pine nuts. I stuck with the seasonings of my original recipe--oregano and cumin--and skipped the dill in Gourmet's (besides the fact that we're not big fans, I had no fresh dill on-hand). The result is this delicious, though not really easy-to-make, main dish.

A Couple of Caveats

The addition of vegan cream cheese and pine nuts takes this out of the realm of low-fat eating and right into feast-food territory. If you want to cut the fat, I suggest sticking with my Spinach and Artichoke Pie. Or, if you want to avoid the problem of soaking the matzos altogether, try using matzo meal instead and skip the Tofutti mixture. For a gluten-free version, try using either gluten-free bread crumbs or crackers.

I should also mentioned that though the Gourmet recipe was kosher for Passover, this one is not: The soy products make it off-limits for anyone observing the Passover dietary laws. (I took this to a Unitarian-Universalist Seder where, like most things Unitarian, anything goes.) I was unable to get a photo of it once it was cut, but you can see an important detail in the photo below: the matzos don't reach all the way to the edge of the pan, so keeping it intact after cutting is nearly impossible. For a beautiful presentation, phyllo dough wins hands-down.



Spinach-Matzo Pie
(printer-friendly version)

1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
20 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and most liquid squeezed out
1 8-ounce package Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, divided
3/4 cup soy milk, divided
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
14 ounces extra-firm tofu (one 14-16 ounce pkg.)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 teaspoons oregano
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons kalamata olives, minced
1 pinch cayenne
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (or to taste)
black pepper, to taste
6 matzos (about 6 inches square)
1/2 cup pine nuts
olive oil spray

Spray a non-stick pan with olive oil. Heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and spinach and cook, stirring, until hot. Then add 1/2 of the Tofutti and 1/4 cup milk, stir until well blended, and remove from heat.

Put the remaining Tofutti into a blender along with the rest of the soy milk and the nutmeg. Blend until smooth. Set aside.

Mash the tofu well with a potato masher. Add the nutritional yeast, oregano, lemon juice, kalamata olives, cayenne, and cumin. Mix well, then add it to the pan with the spinach. Stir until combined and then add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with non-stick spray.

Place two of the matzos in the bottom of the baking pan. Pour about 1/4 cup of the Tofutti mixture over them and use a brush to coat the matzos well. Cover with half of the spinach. Put two more matzos over the spinach, coat with another 1/4 cup of Tofutti mixture, and top with remaining spinach. Put the final two matzos on top, cover with the remaining Tofutti, and sprinkle with pine nuts. Spray lightly with olive oil.

Bake uncovered for about 20-30 minutes, until golden and set. Cool for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Makes 8 servings: 336 Calories (kcal); 15g Total Fat; (39% calories from fat); 13g Protein; 39g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 662mg Sodium; 5g Fiber. Weight Watchers: 7 Flex Points.

---

Don't Forget: There's still time to win a copy of Veganomicon! Just tell me your favorite recipe of 2008 (no matter when it was written) and you'll be entered into a random drawing. Contest closes tonight, so don't wait!

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free

Top 10 Recipes and Earth Day

Erik Marcus over at Vegan.com has polled the top vegan cookbook writers to come up with the Top 10 Recipes of 2008. He started by compiling a list of ten of the best recent vegan cookbooks, including two that I've reviewed here in the last couple of months, Vegan Express and Vegan Fire and Spice, and asked each author to pick one favorite recipe from his or her book. I know one thing: It's given me some new recipes to try!

Speaking of top 10 cookbooks, how would you like to win one? I have an extra copy of the bestseller Veganomicon, and I really want to share it with someone. Leave a comment below telling what your favorite recipe of 2008 is (just the name and where it can be found is enough), and I'll have Random.org pick a winner on Friday morning. Comments will close at 10 PM Central time Thursday, 4/24/08, so work fast. And please, if you already have a copy of the book, let someone else win! (It's a heavy book, so I'm sorry but I can't send it overseas; North American addresses only.) Sorry! Time's up! A winner has been chosen.

Now, no blog post is complete without a photo, and since it's Earth Day, I think it's fitting to post a couple of photos from my (organic) garden.



Remember the tomato plant I showed you, the one that was blooming even after being knocked over during a tornado? Well, here's how those flowers look two and a half weeks later. They've miraculously turned into grape tomatoes, and the biggest ones are almost fully grown. After the storm, I just picked the plant up off the wet ground and tied it to a stake to keep it from rotting. I like to think of this as a small example of how the Earth can heal itself if we only make the effort to help it.



If this rose illustrates anything, it's that growing things organically is easy. All this rose seems to need is periodic watering and a place in the sun. Other than a little trim in the winter, that's all I've given it, and this year it's exploding with blooms. Mother Earth gets all the credit.

Happy Earth Day to you all. If you have time to do a little reading, check out these Earth Day posts on other vegan blogs:

Vegan Bits tells us how research shows that eating vegan does more for the environment than eating locally.

Food Snob lists her Earth Day Resolutions for the year.

Living Vegan is celebrating Earth Day by voting in Pennsylvania.

Vegan Chai links to several interesting Earth Day posts.

Vegan Vice lists her Earth Day goals and sees some hope for the future.

An Animal-Friendly Life says that eating vegan can, of course, help the environment, but if we want people to stay vegan, it has to be about the animals.

And finally, several Vegan Etsy stores are having Earth Day promotions in their shops, offering discounts and/or donating part of their sales to Earth-friendly organizations. Buy handmade and help the environment!

Don't forget to check back on Friday to see if you've won the book.

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food

Cinnamon Swirl Muffins

It sounds a little pathetic, but these days the only dinner guests in my house are of the 11-year-old girl variety, so I never get the opportunity to pull out all the stops and make a five-course dinner and blog about it. Not that I'm complaining. No, I'm more about feeding my family than impressing guests, the rare exception being those Sunday mornings when I wake up and remember that I have some other parent's child under my roof--and that it would probably reflect badly on me if I let her go home hungry. (I can hear it now: "They only have soymilk and weird brown bread and there are cats everywhere and Mrs. V kept talking about Satan!*")

So I'm always a gracious host and do my best to feed the little visitors. But when the visitor is used to bacon, cinnamon rolls, and Fruit Loops with whole milk--and my usual breakfast options are oatmeal, smoothies, and whole-grain cereal with soy milk--then we have a problem. Even my special occasion, tofu-based breakfasts of omelets or quiches or frittatas are out of the question when the guest thinks that tofu is "pukey" and wants nothing to do with it, even the deep fried kind in the Chinese take-out she refused to eat the night before. [Note to parents of E's friends: This guest-child is a composite, exaggerated for effect, not your little princess. Rest assured that when she spent the night with us, your daughter was a perfect angel, eagerly eating whatever was put before her at the table without making gagging sounds or miming barfing into her lap. Your child has never done that in my house. Really. Almost never.]

So, to my way of thinking, it comes down to two options: pancakes or muffins. D is more of the pancake maker of the household, so if he happens to be awake (ha!) I'll usually pass the spatula to him. I personally prefer making muffins because, frankly, they're easier. Mix 'em up, pour 'em in, and let 'em bake--no standing over a hot skillet waiting for bubbles to appear. I can be checking my email or reading the Sunday paper while the house fills with the heavenly aroma of muffins baking. They also keep well, so if the rest of the house sleeps for another hour or two, no harm done; I'll usually save them a couple.



Since I don't cook breakfast very often, when I make muffins I like to shake it up and try different recipes, never cooking them the same way twice so that I'll have something new to blog about, something that isn't made of eggplant. Consequently, I'm never exactly sure that they'll be edible. Once I tried to make quick cinnamon rolls, adapting a recipe that was on the Vegetarian Times website, but the fat-free vegan treatment just didn't work for them and they came out misshapen and tasting like cinnamon-flavored dog biscuits. The kids called them "Cinnamon Splats" and used them to play hockey in the driveway. [Children are such a joy.]

So it was with some trepidation that I tried another cinnamon-heavy recipe, especially since the guest last Sunday morning was the same girl I'd tried to poison with Cinnamon Splats. I managed to be out of the room taking photos of the muffins (just in case) when the rest of the family sat down to eat, so it was only after the fact that I heard that they were, indeed, delicious. Actually, I didn't hear that from our guest, but D and E insist that she did, in fact, give them the Omnivore Seal of Approval. I ate mine a little later, after it had been photographed half to death, and I found it tasty but a little on the bland side. D and E apparently ate theirs with margarine--so much for fat-free--and E liked them so much that she asked for them again the next morning. (Sorry, they're all gone, but have you tried my licorice version?) So consider these kid-tested, mother...yeah, whatever.

*The only "Satan" I ever talk about is seitan. But yep, that's how I pronounce it.



Cinnamon Swirl Muffins
(printer-friendly version)

1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
1/3 cup soy yogurt
2/3 cup orange juice
1/2 cup soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup agave nectar

4 tablespoons sugar (substitute agave nectar if you dare)
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin tin with non-stick spray. (I find it best not to use paper liners--the muffins will stick to them.)

Mix together dry ingredients (flour through flax seeds) in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix wet ingredients (yogurt through agave). In an even smaller bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon.

Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir just until thoroughly moistened. Do not beat or overmix. Spoon about 1 heaping tablespoon of batter into each muffin cup. Sprinkle each half-full muffin with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar and fill with remaining batter. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon sugar over each muffin. Take a toothpick or thin knife, insert it into the batter and swirl gently.

Bake for 17-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

Makes 12 muffins. Per muffin: 146 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (4% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 33g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 278mg Sodium; 2g Fiber. Weight Watchers: 3 Flex Points.

If cinnamon swirl doesn't float your boat, how about trying one of my other muffin recipes (Cinnamon Splats not included):

St. Patrick's Day Zucchini Muffins

Berries and Spice Muffins

Carrot Spice Muffins

Cranberry-Orange Muffins

Banana-Date-Walnut Muffins

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free

Cherry-Chocolate Mousse Pie

E had a wonderful birthday yesterday and appreciated all of your comments. She spent the afternoon playing with her new basketball goal, the present that she asked for and got early because it took D and me two weekends to put it together. After eating the dinner she requested (Mac and Cheese), she opened her other presents and ate a slice of her birthday pie.

Why pie? Well, I guess we're just non-traditional like that. E will have a cake at her official birthday party, but just for the family, I wanted something simple and easy to throw together on a week night. I really hadn't planned to post the recipe here, but after so many people wrote to ask about it, here goes:

The basic pie, which definitely fits into the Ridiculously Easy category, is impossible to mess up; I've thrown everything from almonds to oranges to peanut butter in it, and it always comes out delicious. It's a variation on the chocolate mousse that every vegan knows, the first vegan dessert that many of us learned, the one that's printed on the back of your Card Carrying Vegan Card. (Just kidding--I think it's the wacky cake recipe on the card.) This time, I had some dried cherries that I wanted to use, and I have to say, I think I like this variation best of all. It reminded me, in a good way, of the chocolate cordial cherries my parents used to buy every Christmas.

Warning: This recipe is nowhere close to fat-free. Though I've heard of people making a lower-fat version by using cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips, I've never been brave enough to try. My philosophy is that certain occasions, such as your only child's birthday, call for real chocolate chips.



Cherry-Chocolate Mousse Pie
(printer-friendly version)

1/2 cup dried cherries
1 12-ounce box light silken tofu (or extra-firm silken tofu)
2 tablespoons agave nectar (more if you want it sweeter)
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 prepared Graham cracker crust

Cover the dried cherries with 1/2 cup of boiling water and soak them until soft. Drain (and reserve) the water, and put the cherries into the food processor. Pulse to chop. Drain the tofu and add it to the food processor along with the agave nectar and vanilla. Process until smooth.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave. Pour it into the food processor and puree, scraping down the sides as needed to make sure it's well blended. Pour into a prepared crust and chill for several hours.

Makes 8 servings. Each slice contains 341 Calories (kcal); 16g Total Fat; (39% calories from fat); 5g Protein; 49g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 155mg Sodium; 3g Fiber. Weight Watchers: 8 Flex Points.

(See, I told you it wasn't fat-free!)

If you'd like to make it without the crust, here's the info for a crustless version: 231 Calories (kcal); 11g Total Fat; (38% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 35g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 40mg Sodium; 3g Fiber. Weight Watchers: 5 Flex Points.

Serving Suggestion: Take the reserved cherry-soaking water, add some sugar, and simmer it on the stove until it's reduced to a syrup. Drizzle over pie just before serving. (Here's a sneaky photographer's secret: I added some grenadine to the cherry syrup to brighten the color.)

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free

Happy Birthday to E!

E. at Eleven

It's hard for me to believe that it's been eleven years since I gave birth to this amazing person who, though smart and sensitive...

...is just about impossible to get to hold still or be serious for the camera!

Happy Birthday, E! Now, come help me make your birthday cake pie!

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free

Curried Eggplant Soup

Things are getting back to normal here, at least in my house, after last week's storm. Though I've been slow in returning your emails, I want you to know that each one was read, sometimes several times, and appreciated. I feel very lucky not only to have survived the storm with so little damage but also to have the supportive thoughts of people like you.

I've had weather on my mind lately but not, apparently, when I was deciding what to cook this week. I seem to have been stuck in "soup mode" since this fall, and when I decided to cook this roasted eggplant soup, I did it not realizing that the temperature here was expected to be in the high 80's; otherwise, I would never have chosen to cook something that required me to turn on the oven as well as the stove. Fortunately, this is a soup that tastes great hot or cold; I can't decide which way I like it best, but I do know that it made a refreshing cold lunch on a day when I had all the windows and doors thrown open to drive out the midday heat.

Before I get to the recipe, let me take a minute to discuss curry powder. You may have noticed that when one of my recipes calls for curry powder, I usually specify "good quality" or "best quality" curry powder, and you may be asking yourself, "What exactly differentiates regular curry powder from 'best' curry powder?" The simple answer is You. Your own taste is what separates a good from a not-so-good curry powder, and if you've found one you like, by all means use it. But, if you're using McCormick's or Kroger's or whatever store-brand's curry powder because it's all your grocery store had and you've never tried another curry powder, it might be time for you to do some experimenting. For one thing, supermarket spices are often old and past their prime before you even buy them. If you have a chance to shop at a store that specializes in spices, do it--the turnover is quicker, and the spices are much less likely to have gotten old and lost their flavor. As I've mentioned before, my personal favorite mild curry powder is Penzey's Maharajah, mainly because it contains saffron and I love saffron; since I discovered Maharajah, I actually use curry powder more often, instead of mixing my own individual spices, because I like the taste that much. But you don't have to use it just because I do. Another good one that I've tried is The Spice House's Sweet Curry Powder (though they have a maharajah-style curry powder, I've never tried it, so I can't say how it compares to Penzey's). If you live close to either of these spice stores, I envy you; if you don't, please consider ordering by mail, as I do. (And no, I don't receive any monetary compensation from either of these companies, though I'd be glad to be hired as their spokesperson; they could pay me in Maharajah!)

Armed with a really good curry powder, you can make a soup that will make even eggplant-haters forget that they're eating the dreaded purple fruit. The idea for this soup came from a book called Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon. Though most of the recipes aren't vegetarian, they're inventive and interesting, and many can be veganized with a little creative substitution. This one began as Curried Cream of Eggplant Soup-Stew, but in my veganized version I've substituted white beans for the dairy with, I think, wonderful results.



Curried Eggplant Soup
(printer-friendly version)

1 large eggplant (or 2 smaller ones)
1 large onion, diced
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced
1/2 cup diced tomatoes (drained canned tomatoes or fresh)
1 1/2 -2 tablespoons best-quality curry powder
1 pinch cayenne (or more, to taste)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons agave nectar (or other sweetener)
1 15-ounce can great northern beans, rinsed and drained
4 cups vegetable broth, divided
1/2 cup soy milk or other non-dairy milk
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 tablespoons soy yogurt (optional)
Parsley or cilantro, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F. Peel the eggplant and slice it 1/4-inch thick. Place the slices on a sprayed baking sheet and cover with foil. Roast until eggplant is very tender, about 30 minutes.

Remove the eggplant from the oven and allow to cool. Put half of the slices into the food processor. Chop the other half coarsely and put them in a large pot. Add 3 cups of the vegetable broth and bring to a low simmer.

Spray a non-stick skillet with canola oil and get it hot. Add the onions and sauté until tender, about 3 minutes. Add the diced apple and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato, curry powder, cayenne, soy sauce, and agave nectar and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the reserved 1 cup of broth and cook another minute. Pour this mixture into the food processor with the eggplant.

Add the beans to the food processor and puree until it forms a thick paste. Scrape the paste into the pot with the broth and eggplant, stir well, and add the non-dairy milk. Season to taste with salt and pepper (and more curry powder if necessary). Turn down to very low and barely simmer for 15 minutes.

Serve hot or chilled, stirring in one tablespoon of soy yogurt into each bowl (if desired) and sprinkling with parsley or cilantro.

Makes 6 servings. Per serving, without yogurt: 143 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (7% calories from fat); 7g Protein; 28g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 183mg Sodium; 7g Fiber. Weight Watchers: 2 Flex Points; Core (omit agave nectar).

Tags: vegan recipes vegetarian cooking food fat-free

Unexpected Storm

Friday morning started off like any other. After my morning coffee, I took the dog for a walk around the neighborhood, both of us glad to be out on such a beautiful day. When we got back to our yard, I grabbed my camera to take a shot of the first blooms on one of my tomato vines--they'll be tomatoes in a couple of months, I thought. While I had the camera out, I snapped photos of some of the flowers blooming as well as the new fence we just had installed; its golden cedar color will fade to gray quickly, and I wanted a record of how new it looked.

The rest of the morning I spent cooking and doing sporadic cleaning. We'd made plans to go away for the weekend with a bunch of friends, and I was planning to bring a big pot of chili and a chocolate-orange cake for Saturday night's dinner. I'd gotten the chili on the stove and was eating lunch around 12:15 when the tornado siren went off. At first I ignored it, but as it continued shrieking, it started to dawn on me that maybe I should turn on the TV to see if there really could be a tornado in the area.

Every local station was broadcasting weather alerts: the storm was crossing the interstate, and its projected path went directly over my house. "Get into a closet or central hallway and cover your head with pillows and blankets," the meteorologist advised. I took one look at the black skies out the window, grabbed the phone and a few pillows, and crouched down in the hallway. I fumbled with the phone, trying to call my husband at work to tell him I'd taken cover, but just as I managed to punch in the phone number, the electricity went off, making my cordless phone useless. As the wind began roaring louder and louder, I heard a strange thing--a knocking on my back door. At first I wasn't sure what it was, but it came again, an insistent knocking on the door farthest from where I was huddled. The wind was pounding at the windows and I was hesitant to leave my nest of pillows, but I thought that a neighbor might be in trouble so I ran to the door.

I called out "Who is it?" but the storm was too loud for me to hear if there was a response, so I opened the door to find a woman I didn't know standing in my carport. She'd been driving down the street, she said, on her way to her child's preschool, when a huge pine tree fell in front of her car. She'd pulled into the closest side street and then realizing that her car was not a safe place to be, she'd knocked on a stranger's door--my door-- seeking refuge. I told her to come in and apologizing for the messiness of my house (that Southern hospitality thing is ingrained!) led her to the hallway in the middle of the house to wait out the storm. As the wind shrieked and hail pelted the front doors and windows, we talked nervously about the storm and our children, and when I mentioned E's name, an uncommon one, my visitor realized that we weren't such strangers, that her daughter and E had taken dance lessons together a few years ago. I'm sure she felt better that the stranger whose messy house she'd entered wasn't such a stranger after all.

The storm lasted maybe 10 minutes. Once the threat was past, my guest went on her way, eager to get to the preschool to check on her child, and I went outside to assess the damage: an apple tree uprooted in our backyard and a pine tree broken about a quarter of the way up, the top having smashed through our new fence and into our neighbor's yard. Shingles from the front of our roof were now in our back yard, but other than that, our house looked fine. Across the main street from us, however, it was a different story. Pine and oak trees criss-crossed the street, their tops and trunks piercing the roofs of houses and crushing cars; it looked like a giant had played a game of pick-up sticks with them. All I could think was that if my surprise visitor had turned right rather than left onto my street, she and her car would have been under one of those trees.

The rest of the afternoon is a blur. Neighbors gathered outside to compare damages and commiserate. D and I canceled our plans to go away for the weekend and began cleaning up the yard. Late in the afternoon, we took a walk, trying to navigate the same route I'd walked with the dog that morning, but downed trees made the streets impassible. Most of the houses we passed had severe damage; one had been hit by three different trees, each of them about 2 feet in diameter, evenly spaced so that no part of the roof remained intact.

It's been four days now, and fallen trees and power lines still block some of the streets in my neighborhood. Our electricity was turned back on this morning, but after 4 days of making cold sandwiches and reheating chili on our camp stove, I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to make the transition from emergency cooking to food blogging. Perhaps if I were a more creative cook I'd be able to whip up some wonderful concoction from the thawed contents of my freezer, but I just don't have it in me. I'll get my bearings soon, I'm sure, but for now I'm just riding the waves of mixed emotions, grateful to be safe but dismayed at how quickly the landscape around us can change.

Gerbera Daisy Before the Storm



Our Tree, Our Fence, Neighbor's Yard



Gerbera Daisy After the Storm--Like us, wet and grimy but still standing.



Coleman Stove and Melitta Coffee Pot to the Rescue



Bent but not broken, the tomato plant still has two flowers.