Low Bowl #26

 

This is plain RightRice, fishless filets over a Florentine sauce (recipe for filets and sauce from Chef Jana), steamed carrots, and steamed sugar snap peas, all with a generous sprinkling of fresh parsley.

In the pantry utilization quest, I faced down my last bag of RightRice. I fully intended, when I bought it, to have it with the fishless filets I once loved. The problem with this is multifaceted. One, RightRice was discontinued, leaving me with that awful feeling that once I made it, I would never have it again, which was kind of paralyzing for me. (I hate eating things I know I'll never have again. I'm weird that way.) But also, the fishless filets, being made primarily of mushrooms and all purpose flour and seasonings, do not have enough protein to be had without some sort of protein-boosted side. And thus, a stalemate, and the RightRice hung around for months.

But at some point, I have to face up to reality, so it was time. I was able to get some great-looking king oyster mushrooms for the fishless filets, too. They were from Canada, and knowing that soon I may not be able to get Canadian products as easily (sigh) sort of pushed me onward. Before you chastise me for my foreign produce, know that where I live, the Canadian mushrooms probably traveled less far to get to me than a lot of the domestic stuff available to me. This is a big country and I live in a northeastern piece of it. Canada is a train ride away--maybe not a super short one, but a much shorter journey than, say, visiting my parents.

This time, I decided to make the sauce, and also, to make the soy milk-based cream cheese. (I'm...not doing well emotionally. So I did too much to distract myself.) The soy milk cream cheese didn't work out that well, probably because I stirred the curds too much and my cheesecloth wasn't a narrow enough weave or something. I definitely did not end up with the intended thick cheese, but I figured that wouldn't matter too much in the sauce. It would just be thinner. I was wrong, for reasons I outline below.

I did not make my own butter. I've not gone all the way down into the dark place, and I already had vegan butter.

I used bell pepper rather than tomatoes, and I think that's probably why my sauce wasn't saucy at all. The original recipe says you can use either, but now that I think about it, tomatoes make more sense. The stuff tasted great, though, a nice lemony, buttery base of spinach, bell pepper, and capers, so it was fine. But peppers don't have juice to give to a sauce, really.

I love Chef Jana, but sometimes her recipes can be a bit hard to follow, and they don't always turn out as intended. They also often mean making a protein into a vegetable--i.e., yes, these fishless filets are undoubtedly a main dish, but they aren't fully satisfying without having some protein, at least for me. So I haven't been making her recipes as much, even though I love how many of them taste. Her kidney bean filets and Russian salad? Amazing. And I love the taste of the fishless filets, too. She's a unique voice out there in a world full of cookie cutter things and trends, and for that reason, probably, I still gravitate toward her cooking.

This was a good meal, though I realized that I don't actually like plain RightRice that much. It's great with a sauce or in soup, but I was hoping that the sauce would be saucier, and, well, it wasn't. It didn't matter. I now have a half a bag of RightRice left, and you'll see it in another iteration sometime soon. And also, I know now that there are also other things that are similar to RightRice, so if I do need to rely on faux rice made from beans to trick myself into eating protein, then I can do that.