Innovation

In the interests of showing Andy what he missed, I've been remaking a number of recipes I already posted here; thus the prolonged period between posts. Before the food, a little fun:

I did embarrassingly poorly on this.

This is amazing. I was on my obstetrics night float week at the peak of "Call Me Maybe"'s popularity. Perhaps New York City's Top 40 station figured nobody in her right mind would be awake and listening to the radio for more than 30 consecutive minutes at 3 a.m.*, because that song was on at least twice per hour. I got a little excited about some of the parodies. Baseball players be damned, this is the best by far.

And last but not least, Andy has come up with his wackiest and most entertaining get-rich-quick scheme** to date: Chopped: Philosophy Edition. Four unknown, poverty-stricken, aspiring young philosophers--likely from the New York metropolitan area--would go head-to-head to compete for $10,000. They would be provided with four "ingredients" that must be included in a philosophical argument, to be constructed within 20 minutes; the first item would be the principle or idea that the other three had to be used to refute or support. A library would be provided for references, but of course, the more the philosopher knows, the more time s/he has to construct an argument rather than look up ideas. Of course, philosophers could be criticized for insufficient use of the "ingredients" as much as they could for weak argument or oration skills. Andy's first combination was the Sartrian concept of judgment, Boethius's ladder of being, and pragnanz. A basket of pastry goes to the winner. Ready? Go!

Nearly a year ago--March 28, 2012, to be exact--my mother forwarded a recipe from a friend of hers. This friend, Myfriendnancyfrompittsburgh*** had obtained, from a book by a popular physician and diet guru, a recipe for cashew and date salad dressing. I am highly skeptical of most pop medicine, especially if it involves diets that purport to make diabetes vanish in 30 days (really, people? 30 days?), but it sounded delicious. So I fiddled with it a little bit, and this is what I ended up with:

Puree 2/3 cup raw cashews, 6 dried dates, 1 cup water, 3 small or 2 good-sized cloves garlic, the juice of 2 limes, 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, and salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste. Soaking the nuts and dates in the water makes the dressing even smoother. That's it.

The recipe for the entire salad follows. It's actually quite pretty, but we were too busy making the guinea pigs jealous with our piles of arugula to take a picture. Instead, here's an adorable owl!

Salad
1 recipe dressing as above
2 red bell peppers
1 large cucumber
1 pound tofu
paprika and cumin
lots of arugula

Cut the tofu into 1-by-1-by-1 cm cubes. Toss with lots of paprika, a little bit of cumin, and the tiniest bit of salt. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 325, tossing occasionally, until golden brown. Turn the oven up to broil. Halve the red peppers and lightly spray them with olive oil. Put them through red pepper hell in the broiler until they're devilishly blistered. Meanwhile, slice the cucumber. Toss the arugula with dressing to taste and top in pretty ways with the vegetables and tofu.

*They're sort of right. Night float was amazing, though.
**A number of you may be familiar with these. Another recent one: peddling left-handed jars to rich left-handed people.
***This is how Mom always mentions her. Every time.