cyber-cooking

so mdm and I are foodies of the most obsessive sort. what better way to spend time together than cooking? unfortunately, 7 months ago, I moved about an hour's drive away from her. I know, I'm a jerk.

enter the interwebs! with the help of Gtalk, we can chat and cook nearly simultaneously, without the risk of dropping the phone in the pot. so far, we've had two cyber-cooking dates (we're busy!) but hopefully there will be more to follow. on "date" 1, waaay back last year, we made a borsht of sorts, which I must admit I still have one lonely helping of in my freezer. I realized too late that my camera batteries were dead for that one, but I was prepared this time around! well, I was prepared with the camera, at least. here was the state of my kitchen as I logged on to "meet" mdm.

in case you can't tell, that is every available counter space, most of the stove and the dish rack overflowing with dishes, pots, plates, etc. I spent much of our prep time intermittently doing dishes, which worked out nicely as mdm was making a double batch. thankfully, the pantry shelves were not nearly so disheveled and provided a nice space for the laptop (and my gingerbrew - too much drink the night before so I opted out on the wine portion of the "date").

speaking of disheveled...
back to the food, here was the recipe of the night http://urbanvegan.blogspot.com/2008/03/cashew-curry-casserole.html from pretty much my favorite blog (by a fellow Philadelphian).

ingredients...

check.

I could tell instantly, from the consistency of the sauce, that I was going to love this dish. Despite being a firmly committed vegan, I am quick to admit that my palate has a predilection for the creamy and so I am forever seeking ways to create that texture sans animal. I'm generally pleased with a nutritional yeast cheesiness, but the cashew butter blows that out of the water! I also liked that this was a curry that did not rely on coconut milk. not that I don't love me some coconut milk, but I'm perpetually displeased when we make curry at home with it. It always comes out runny, not creamy like take-out (oh, Tamarind, how I love thee).

It was as easy as pour...


stir...


and bake!


I moved the laptop to the (now clean) counter and pulled up a seat to converse with mdm as we baked.

We ran into some issues with our brown rice, in that mine cooked faster than expected while hers took longer. that, combined with the added time for her double batch meant that I was drooling looking at my completed dish while she still had a good bit of time left to cook. so we skipped the eating together portion of the "date":(

as you may have guessed, I *loved* the final product. my only suggestion for next time would be to maybe pre-cook the broccoli a little bit OR make the sauce a little runnier (blech) to provide more liquid to cook the broccoli. It was cooked, but still pretty firm. oh, and I put in the full 2 tsp. of red curry paste, but it was nowhere near hot enough for us spice-addicts. I'll do at least an additional tsp next time. don't get me wrong though, I'd eat another batch of this stuff as is (was)!