Curried Carrot (and Tomato Soup) and Scalloped Potatoes

The kitchen was a mess for about a week during the Kitchen-painting Project. (The name of the color is "Lady Liberty"!) I don't think I did any decent cooking (other than grilled cheese or other non-worth-mentioning items) for a couple of weeks until I got the kitchen functional again.

I made this soup on Saturday, I think, but I don't have a picture of this one. Just imagine a nice creamy bright carrot soup. I added too much curry seasoning and wanted a fast way to make it less spicy so, instead of boiling and pureeing more carrots (which is really what I should have done) I pureed two fresh tomatoes and added that to the soup. It was still too spicy so I pureed two more tomatoes and added those. That definitely made the soup tolerably spicy for me, but it now just tasted too much like tomato to call this a curried carrot soup, so I guess what I ended up making is a curried carrot and tomato soup.

I had four potatoes I needed to use. I just sliced them up, "scallop" style, tossed the slices in some margarine and a dried herb-and-spice blend, and laid them out in three different pieces of cookware in a single layer. I put the oven on 400 degrees F for 30 minutes and they weren't as browned as I wanted, but I was dying to eat, so I served them as they were and they were really yummy.

Quinoa and Tempeh Stew

Yesterday I threw together a quick stew for lunch. It was a quinoa and tempeh stew. I was rather disappointed with it for two reasons. It could have been really delicious. One reason was my fault, the other reason was not my fault.

1-I undercooked the quinoa. I had the heat on too high for too long, and the liquid from the can of stewed tomatoes evaporated too quickly before the quinoa had a chance to be correctly cooked through. The quinoa was still edible (and Charles loved it) but I knew better. ...after all, I am a culinary school drop-out.

2-The can of whole tomatoes (365 brand from Whole Foods Market which Charles brought me...I hate shopping at Whole Foods Market...I'll always choose to shop at my local natural foods store or any other non-corporate natural foods store) had WAY too much citric acid in it! The tomatoes were plum tomatoes, which I love, but either they were just way too acidic and tart to begin with, or there was just too much citric acid added to them. It ruined the whole dish for me, which otherwise I would have been proud of, especially if the quinoa had been fully cooked.

I cut half a slab of tempeh into small cubes and browned it in some safflower oil in my beloved All-Clad saute pan. I also chopped up about three carrots (I have a ton of carrots, so I'm putting it in everything lately), two celery stalks, and about five small cloves of garlic. Everything cooked together (the tempeh was quite tasty), before I added a 28-oz. (?) can of the stewed tomatoes. I brought that to a boil, then threw in a cup of quinoa.

I stirred it up and then we ate.