Life is an experiment

Yep, it is best when life is a series of experiments, and I hope that you are planning and/or implementing your next experiment right now. Remember one of my last posts about searching for meaning? Well, experiments are the approach of this search.

My experiment today is modest and not too impressive: I  will prepare a Christmas Eve dinner that is VEGAN. That is right, according to my ethnic background, on Christmas Eve, we do not eat any meat or any animal products.

So, I am planning on: red peppers stuffed with spicy chickpeas, roasted walnuts, potato-onion salad, homemade high-fiber bread, and baked apples. Here are the details:

1. Stuffed peppers. The peppers are coming roasted and peeled from a jar. The chickpeas are from cans, I already made them crispy and spicy in a pan with olive oil, garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, mint, and winter savory. I crushed them a bit. (If the bean mixture is too dry, add a bit of salsa or cut tomatoes.) Later on, I will stuff the peppers and bake these quickly (just to warm up) in a pan with olive oil.

2. Potato salad. I will boil some red potatoes (cleaned and cut) with the skin and mix them with one sweet onion. The onion will be cut thinly, crushed with salt and covered in olive oil and apple cider vinegar before the potatoes are ready.

3. Spicy walnuts. I will mix the walnuts with spicy Buffalo wings sauce and bake. The sauce sticks to the nuts better if it is thicken with starch or arrowroot powder.

4. Bread. I will use my recipe for fried dough. In this case; however, I will divide the dough into fist-sized balls and baked them on an oiled cookie sheet to have individual breads for everyone. The breads are usually baked at 350 F for 35-40 minutes.

5. Baked apples. I will cut these in two halves, remove the core with the seeds with a little teaspoon, then arrange them in a spayed pan, sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake at 400F. I usually cover the apples with foil for most of the baking time. Depending upon the type of apples, baking time differs, so I would recommend to try for readiness by piercing an apple with a fork. If the fork goes in easily, the apple is ready.