Homemade tofu cashew ricotta, tomato, spinach, basil, balsamic reduction
So I was dusting off my cookbooks this weekend and I started bumming on the fact that I really don’t cook as much as I used to. I cook to eat, but I don’t play and invent the way I used to. As I stewed on it for a while I realized why: I am now cooking for one.
In college, when I first went vegan and fell in love with cooking, I had friends and roomies and a boyfriend to cook with, and for. Some were vegan, some weren’t, but they all wanted to eat, so eat we did. Living on my own after college for the first year, I still had a few foodie friends around to cook with, and I started an illegal home catering company out of my kitchen—so as long as I had clients, I was cooking.
When my ex moved in, we cooked together all the time. Cooking and eating is so social, and it’s fun picking out or making up a recipe together and trying it out, or cooking something up you know you will serve to someone else.
Now, when I cook, it’s for myself only. And as I’m busier than ever, it’s easy to get off with simple recipes I know well (like my cashew ricotta), salads and smoothies. I do a lot of veggie roasting and sauteing, and then pair that with a grain and a protein and call it a meal. Gone are my days of cook book leafing and highlighting!
And I miss it. It’s not that I don’t think I deserve to cook and eat delicious things myself, it’s just that I don’t get all jazzed up about creating for one. Sort of like sex. I still get off by myself, and I enjoy doing it, but I don’t light candles or put on my good lacies first. You dig?
I’m going to say I will make more of a commitment to cooking more intricate meals for myself, but cooking solely for myself just doesn’t thrill me in the way cooking with or for someone else does. I suppose I should look into rustling up some more food-centric, veg friendly friends in the area. Le sigh.
Here are some photos of what I ate during one day last week, because this is supposed to be at least partially a food blog, after all.
A Day of Foodgasms
Banana peach mango spinach. Breakfast in a jar.
Saladface
Baby bok choy, teriyaki tofu, avocado tomato salad
Beets and cacao before bed? Red velvet dreams.
heh foodie babe of mine…pick a weekend in the near future and lets rock and roll in the Sticks and Stones Farm Retreat kitchen and get into all kinds of messy mischief with our garden bounty, the juicer, vita mix, stove and a couple of knives…ya never have to cook alone for long when i’m on the east coast anyways…heh do you know anyone that has one of those spiral thingamajig gadgets I could borrow to play with before I buy one? (that’s what’s nice about kitchen gadgets as opposed to bedroom gadgets…you can lend and borrow them!) xoxoFarm Momma
Next week – LETS COOK and watch a film on my quest. I want to make the…uhh…Alternate Cheese. OR try to replicate The Stand’s delicious garlic cashew thingie. Pick a movie. Good talk.