The Raven's Roost

 So this is the recipe as it's written in the Hare Krishna Cookbook. If you want a PDF of that book, one's available for free --> here. It isn't a terrific scan but for me, zooming in makes it a bit easier to read. The web page and the book itself have a lot of info on the "yoga diet," though I'm not an adherent. It's a good vegetarian collection, but does include dairy-based recipes, so if you're lactose intolerant or vegan, you can skip those parts. 

1 1/2 cup chickpeas
2 cups rice
1 Tb turmeric
1 fresh lime
1/4 cup ghee
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tb ginger
1/2 tsp cayenne

'Cook the rice as usual with the 1/2 tsp. of salt. Soak the chickpeas for 3 hours and drain. Fry the chickpeas in 1/4 cup ghee until crisp. Then mix them with the turmeric. Toss lime juice, spices, and salt with the rice. Garnish with fresh lime slices.'

Bird Says:

I couldn't tell from the recipe if the chickpeas were supposed to be cooked here or not, but I would assume so. I used a different type of bean and I assume you could as well - my next batch will likely have cranberry beans. 

2 cups dry rice yields 4 cups cooked. You can use white or brown rice, just follow the directions for whichever you choose.

I also assumed the recipe was calling for fresh turmeric, which I didn't have. I used one teaspoon of dried ground turmeric instead. I also added the spices and ginger to the pan with ghee (I used olive oil, actually) and beans in order to 'bloom' them. After the spices I added the rice, stirred to mix it all thoroughly, then added the lime juice last.

If I see fresh turmeric root when I'm out next I will try this recipe with it, but I've never worked with it before. 

I found this was a good accompaniment to crispy tofu nuggets, but it stands on its own really well. I warm mine up, but it would probably be fine cold, thus good for a bento lunch, but use caution if your bento is wood or light colored plastic since the turmeric will discolor it.

While I'm sharing, here's the quinoa salad recipe from Kusafiri Coffee Shop in Disney's Animal Kingdom, courtesy of D23. I will be leaving out the cucumber as I'm not a fan. You could either pay five bucks for a bowl at Disney, or spend five bucks on bulk ingredients and make enough to feed your neighborhood. Happy chowing!

Page five of The Cat's Inheritance got posted yesterday, I'm pleased with my ability to block out time to work on comics and get them done. Today I plan to lay out the final five pages in Clip Studio, create the panels, roughly sketch the figures, add text balloons and boxes, then convert all those files to Correl for color. I am poking around in my brain for the next story, which I'd like to be a bridge between where we are "now" and taking readers back in time to where Dee and Alia and still living in the Imperial capitol. But I'm also considering just creating a timeline or brief history and having a permanent front-page link to it. I think it might also be fun to create a page on sphinxes from Enguerrand's Guide to Magical Creatures. Enguerrand's Guides are the Peterson Field Guides of Muna.

So, confession time. Since we came back from Disney last month I have been more lax about my eating habits and it's time to straighten that out. I've previously been more of a flexitarian who leans vegan. But I have been finding myself eating more and more animal-based foods lately, so earlier this week I started getting strict with myself. And ... I haven't had problems with my heart arrhythmia, my anxiety has backed off, and I'm starting to sleep better again. Psychosomatic? Maybe. But I still feel better. Prepping dinner will be slightly more involved, since Fox is still an omnivore and I am not pushing him to change his habits. But at worst I'll need to use two saucepans or skillets, so it isn't adding that much more of a burden as far as cleanup. And making things like seitan in advance requires a little planning, and actually making the loaves is not difficult. Ditto pressing tofu if that's something I want. And I already use my Instant Pot to cook large batches of beans, so I can just start making more and portioning them out into quart bags for freezing.

I even feel well enough and less-anxious enough that I baked a pan of vanilla-chai oatmeal bars last night. I don't want something as calorically dense as some of my other energy bars, but the oatmeal ones make a good post-run snack when needed and they don't have a ton of sugar in them. When my training load increases later this year, I'll go back to making the "heavier" energy bars with black beans, dates, avocados and such in them.

Didn't get any test results this week. I know they'll post online well ahead of when the physical letter is generated and mailed, but I was kind of hoping to find out something.

Anyway, I only have one longer article today, The Most Radical Thing You Can Do Is Stay Home, by Rebecca Solnit. Perhaps more of us should begin making the choice to stay at home, so that other people don't have to make the choice to leave their homes.

I came across this recipe looking for some way to eat more of the seitan that I make. Especially as I found a new recipe for it that incorporates lentils and yields a sort of steak-like patty that tastes really good. Plus, I'm nailing my protein goals every day with this, and in general I'm okay with eating similar meals every day or week. 

Seitan and Pasta with Peanut Sauce

The pasta and seitan really drink up the sauce, so I'm going to try adding cauliflower puree' and vegetable broth to stretch it a little, but it's not unpleasantly dry. I found it did kind of need some extra salt to finish, as well. Since I make my own seitan I almost always have some in the freezer, meaning this is entirely made from pantry staples for me.

Now, I like a long run as much as anyone, and I'm always looking for something to challenge myself with, but this is not a race I want to do. The Sri Chimnoy Self-Transcendence is a 6-month daily run around a single city block in New York totals 3,100 miles. "Some runners report having out of body experiences during the race." Gee. I wonder why. But I will take a pass on that one. 

In the realm of "totally do-able" running, I found out there are almost-daily fun runs are different Disney World resorts! Most are 3ks, meaning about 1.8 miles, fifteen bucks to enter, and finishers receive a small prize like a pin or coupons for free food. Since "eat and run" is sort of a personal mantra for me, I'll take a plate of Mickey Beignets with gratitude.