Food.Gameluv.com

While one of the new multigrain Pringles flavors is called ‘Truly Original‘, I doubt that the founding fathers of potato chippery ever grew their own supplies of triglycerol mono-oleate. Yup, it’s still junk food but with the appreciable removal of dairy products and that annoying MSG these new chips finally give us an excuse to Pop the Top. Whatta ya mean, they don’t say that anymore? That was the last time I ate a Pringle!

The look of these chips is decidedly multigrain with little seedy things and a slightly browner color but the crunch and flavor is pretty authentic to my mouth memory. Salty, crispy,  kind of oily and hard to put a lid on. I’m glad that Pringles finally came around and offered a tube of snacks without MSG coating its shiny innards but for the same price nowadays you can get a bag of infinitely more wholesome chips like almost anything from Garden of Eatin’ or Kettle Foods.

I’m sure there are years of embarrassing hand-in-tube rescue scenarios ahead for me but I’d be much more supportive of Pringles if they’d done this ages ago instead of hopping on the eco-green HealthWagon like everyone else.

Burgundy Stew ala “Vegan Dad”

This afternoon I made Burgundy Stew from the recipe at Vegan Dad. Other than a few hiccups, it turned out great!  The recipe is as follows:

INGREDIENTS
- 2 tbsp oil
- 1 leek, white and light green part, thinly sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 15 whole pearl onions
- 3 turnips, cubed
- 2 parsnips, sliced
- 2 large carrots, sliced
- 2 large potatoes, cubed
- 2 cups red wine
- 2 cups veggie broth (more, if needed)
- 1 19oz can white beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 tbsp basil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 4 cups baby spinach
- 1/4 cup tomato paste

METHOD
1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Saute leeks and garlic for 5-7 mins, until softened and beginning to brown. Add onions, turnips, parsnips, potatoes and fry for 2 mins.
2. Add wine to deglaze the pan, then add veggie broth, beans, and basil. Season to taste, then bring to bubbling. Reduce heat, loosely cover, and simmer for about 20 mins, until veggies are cooked. Add more broth if stew gets too dry.
3. Mix tomato paste into the stew, adding more broth if needed to get a nice thick consistency. Add spinach to the pot and cook for a min or so, until spinach wilts but is still a vibrant green. Adjust seasonings to taste and serve.

My only problems were, either my pan was considerably smaller than his (he doesn’t specify) or the potatoes and turnips were considerably larger than his.  What I ended up doing is, after I did step 1 part 2 and saw that I couldn’t remotely stir the contents, I dished back out lots of the turnips and potatoes into a bowl.  That bowl is now in the fridge and possibly will be boiled to make some sort of mash later. Also, he doesn’t mention when to add the carrots.  I added them with the onions, turnips, parsnips, potatoes in part 1 and it worked fine.

The rest of the recipe stayed the same and the stew was quite good and very hearty as stated on his site.  Shawn and I both liked it, but Shawn would have liked a fake beef-ish product in it with it being a stew.  I have gotten to the point where some fake, heavy wheat derived products make me sick, so I’m cool as is.

Side note, the white beans came in 15 ounce cans, so less of those.  Spinach came in a 6 ounce bag, so I have more than 4 cups, but I could see adding more, and I have more, so YAY!  I used a generic cooking wine for the red wine since I did my shopping before 11 am on a Sunday and couldn’t buy real red wine.  It was good enough, I would’ve bought some cheap-ass red wine anyway haha!

If you make this, please take a photo and let me know…let Vegan Dad know too while you’re at it ^_^