Note to Self: Buy "Spelt Risotto with Vegetables and Chickpeas" from Trader Joe's again

Aww yeah, frozen food.

I didn't do this, but it rules: "Cook Your Comics"

http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/category/lifestyle/cook-your-comics/

Hey, look who's app allows links!!! That's right, we're super-fancy now.

And speaking of super-something, this link provides helpful recipes and tips for cooking an elaborate Thanksgiving meal that's inspired by superhero comics.

Disclosure: I don't know this writer socially, but Rachel Stevens is my friend and she does write for Women Write About Comics. I don't actually think that this constitutes a conflict of interest or anything, though. I'm mostly just using this disclaimer as an opportunity to brag about knowing Rachel, because she's awesome, and you should read her stuff, because she knows a lot about Transformers comic books.

You should also read the stuff that I actually linked to here, too.

Paneer cheese is no replacement for whipped cream, when served with pie

In good news, I still have a little pie left, and it's still delicious.

Everything else is bad news.

I think I've figured out the rules of my own vegetarianism?

Okay, so for right now, this is what I have:

1. I go 100% vegetarian about 95% of the time. That means pectin candy instead of gelatin candy, puddings from scratch instead of gelatin-based pudding from a box, and also grilled cheese sandwiches or whatever, instead of steak.

2. That was not a confusing use of percentages.

3. I am currently trying to cut down my dairy consumption, and I do my best within my budget to buy locally produced dairy, and lower-cruelty eggs. So, caged-free eggs at the least, and eggs from folks' pet chickens at best.

4. Death comes to all life, and minimal-cruelty slaughtering practices matter. Even when I'm not buying meat, I still want to encourage the best possible practices be applied when animals are harvested for their meat. I also come from a rural background, and I respect well-run, minimal-cruelty farms very much.

5. I will sometimes break my vegetarian prohibition of the consumption of meat, for culturally important occasions, although I still prefer to fill up on meatless dishes. 

For example, one of my cousins is from Oaxaca, Mexico, and he works in a restaurant, and he prepared chicken mole tamales for the family and friends on Día de los Muertos this year, and you'd better believe that while I filled up on the homemade black bean soup that he similarly prepared from scratch (he is a badass!), I also ate a tamale, because of course I did. I will also, a couple of times a year, eat a burger from Dick's Drive-In, because they take good care of their employees, and I consider that to also be a higher-good thing. This is higher-good kinda stuff, right here.

6. While I try to stay within close proximity to vegetarian sources of protein, if my blood sugar is dropping, I might eat meat if a meat eater offers some of their food to me.

7. I also taste meat dishes when I'm cooking for omnivores, which is especially important because from what I've observed, my husband reports feeling uncomfortable if he goes meatless for longer than about 18 hours at a time. 

8. I don't really know what to think about eating fish. I definitely have a strong taboo against eating cephalopods, because they're too much like cats. (Google that.) I'm originally from a very small island in the Pacific, just a little bit off of the coast of Washington State, way north of Seattle. So I respect fishermen. But right now I don't fish, because killing fish wigs me out. And I haven't eaten fish for a while, because I just haven't wanted to. I still eat mollosks when my family prepares them. My dad has an excellent technique for grilling oysters, and they're too much of a tradition to take lightly.

9. Tofu is genuinely fun, according to me. I also grew up eating tofu, prepared in ways adapted from the recipes of the American South, so it's a sentimental comfort food for me.

10. I don't have a prohibition against eating foods that were prepared alongside meat. For example, I love it when my husband makes breaded and fried cubes of extra-firm tofu for me while he's making breaded, fried chicken for himself. It's REALLY GOOD.

PIE DISCOVERY! 5 OUT OF 5!!!!!!

I FIGURED IT THE FUCK OUT!!!!!!! This, my fifth post about the same fucking pie, is the conclusion of the story about this pie. I think.

The pie was undercooked. I gave it another hour or do at 425F, and the peaches are now squishy instead of crunchy, and the whole thing looks WAY more like a pie than it did the first time that I took it out of the oven.

It also expanded and got way bigger, so eating two undercooked slices was a pretty crucial step in the process, because otherwise the thing would have kept boiling over into a soufflé-like science fair syrup volcano. Next time, I'll use 2lbs of peaches instead of the 3lbs advised by the recipe.

I feel a little sick. I'm not gonna lie about that. Eating a hearty sample of undercooked peach pie made with underripe peach slices is not the road to health, as far as I reckon. But I did it. I SURVIVED.

And this is the goddamned pie I deserve, for taking this hero's journey:

Thankee mightily, for joinin' me on this adventure, Reader. It's been quite a ride! A ride with lots of naps happening in the middle. My kind of ride.

FOUR PARTER!!!!! HOW BIG CAN I MAKE THIS STORY?!?!?

The crust was also undercooked, except for the pretty past if the top crust. So I think that the problem is one of the pie just being undercooked.

Gonna try to put it back in the oven. I will keep eating pie to test how done it is.

This may become a five or six-part writing extravaganza! 

Last post felt incomplete? Pie feels incomplete.

So, doing a meandering three-parter about not really thinking it through, during a pie experience, is exactly what I want for my food writing today. I have recently discovered my writing formula, and I've decided to experiment with it a little.

As for PIES, though...I don't think that I will ever cook "partially thawed" peaches straight into a pie like that again. Next time, I'm going to try cooking those fuckers into gooey pie filling in a pot on the stovetop before even putting them into the pie crust. These peaches are even a little crunchy.

I'm eating my second slice of pie, mind you. I may even eat a third, in a few hours. Who knows? So it's not BAD-bad. It's just...the pie did not reach its full potential.

Also, I am eating it off of a plate with raw flour on it, which just HAS to be a bad idea. *guitar solo*