Maybe Local Vegan!

So I have stuck to the meal plan all week, and I have to say that it pretty much rocks! Here are some (subpar) photos to chronicle our culinary delights this week:

Rustic Black-Eyed Peas and Mushrooms over (Leftover) Biscuits, with Simple Sauteed Kale

This was adapted from Rustic White Beans and Mushrooms from Vcon. I had planned to make it and then when I went to soak my white beans the night before I came to find that I had none. But I did have B-E Peas, so I figured, why not? I always leave the carrots in this dish, because we are big fans of cooked carrots. I had planned on serving this over the leftover Coconut Rice, but biscuits from Sunday were glaring at me from their place on the counter, so I dutifully heeded their call.

Silas had his beans earlier, and enjoyed some apple slices on the side.
Nearly Instant Thai Coconut Corn Soup
This is from Vegan Express, which I checked out the library recently, and it was AWESOME. I was kind of freaked by how much coconut milk was in it, but then I just got over it and enjoyed it. Plus it makes a lot - we froze 3 cups. Oh, and heres a mama tip: I knew Silas would turn his nose up at this because of the sliced scallions and red pepper, so I broke out my favorite kitchen utensil: the immersion blender. I blended his portion up and it was so pretty and orangey pink. He thoroughly enojoyed his "chowder."

Two Grilled Pizzas

I officially love my bread machine. It's so easy to dump in the ingredients for dough and come back an hour and a half later to make it into something delicious. In this case, I divided the dough in what I thought was half but turned out to be more like 1/3 & 2/3rds. I threw the dough on the hot grill while I prepped the toppings. One was leftover pesto (taken out of the freezer earlier this week), local sun-dried tomatoes and sliced kalamata olives. The other was jarred marinara, with sauteed onion, garlic, mushrooms, kale and a touch of white wine. OMGYUM! They were both sooooo good.

Silas kept saying, "'Hank you mama, for the dewishus food!" You're welcome, little buddy.
In other news, I took a Thai cooking class last night with Pranee at PCC - so fun! The food was so good - grilled shiitakes, homemade red curry paste made into Phanang Portabello Curry which was served over Grilled Eggplant, Stir-Fried Lemongrass Rice with Tofu and Edamame, some delicious Prik See Ew (a spicy soy sauce condiment - my new love!), and a delicious Pineapple-Lemongrass punch. Pranee was a really fun instructor with lots of good stories. She kept saying, "See? It's so easy," while we looked on in total bewilderment. I mean, it was great to demystify techniques (like how to deal with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves!) but it also looked pretty complicated to the Thai cooking novice. So I had to giggle every time she said that. But I'm sure, like everything, that with practice it will become easy. Just not quite yet. I predict that these recipes will appear on a menu plan soon!

Mindful Home Goals: Update!

So this week I've been really successful at sticking to some new goals. Here's what I decided to officially concentrate on this past week:

1. Keep the kitchen sink empty and shiny - this means dealing with dishes immediately. What a great one this is. It's so simple, and yet so profoundly affects my mood. It's so wonderful to go into the kitchen and have no guilt-inducing dirty dishes staring back at me. It's amazing to have every tool I could need to prepare the next meal ready and clean and waiting. It's just plain groovy to have a clean kitchen. And, like anything, it's easy to do if you stay on top of it. A few times I've wanted to leave a dish or pot in there to deal with later, but I forced myself to just deal with it now. And it only takes a few minutes! Really! Cleaning as you go is so much faster - 2 or 3 minutes here and there over the day instead of 30 minutes at once, where I stand feeling resentful and grumbly. I really thing that this goal (combined with meal planning) can save me a ton of money, because when I have a sinkful of dirty dishes, many times my mind has screamed "GET TAKE OUT!" instead of dealing with them.

2. Make the Beds Daily - another weird one, but like the clean sink, it greatly improves the overall feel of the house. It just feels more peaceful and streamlined to have made beds. And it takes like 2 minutes. It's a good psychic investment.

3. Meal Plan - This has been great. It's so nice not to have to worry what I'm going to make every day, because it's all planned out. It's a great way to use up the stores of frozen food and pantry staples that I have in the house instead of buying more. And I'm tracking my grocery budget really closely to see if we're saving money. I don't see how we won't, since nothing is wasted.

4. Keep the Dining Room Table Clear - we're REALLY bad at cluttering up every surface in the house. To cut down on this, I've implemented a new Inbox for incoming mail - now Chad and I both know where to go to deal with it. I also have to watch my piles of cookbooks and meal planning notecards (more on that another day). But I've been really good about keeping it clear and clean. Another psychic boost.

5. Get on Top of Laundry - sure I do laundry. But I almost always have a backlog. This week I've reduced the backlog significantly. I only do full loads, but this week, I've probably done 8 loads of laundry. I KNOW, right? But the plan is to get on top of it, and stay on top. Take the dirty clothes down every morning, assess to see if there is enough for a full load of anything, and do it. Fold and put away the same day, no excuses. We have been known to dress out of laundry baskets for weeks, so again, this might seem like a no-brainer, but not so much in our case. By next week I predict that we'll be down to laundry 2-4 times a week. And THEN I want to get my clothesline up! Bwahaahahaa!

At first I felt really boring and lame posting all this stuff, but then I reminded myself, "Hey! This is YOUR blog! You can put whatever you want on it!" And it's true, it's not like I'm trying to make money from this thing! So I hope I didn't bore you to tears.

Stay tuned to see if my dedication to a clean house flags! And what will be on the menu for next week! Hugs to all.

It's August! Woo-hoo! That magical time of bounteous produce, that gateway to the wonders of autumn (by far my favorite time of year), the days grow just a little shorter but the nights are still warm. Hooray!

And so it's a time for challenges. I'm participating in two challenges this month - Jennifer's Quit Now Challenge and Chile's Discretionary Eating Challenge.

I'm Quitting: Bananas and trying real darn hard to quit paper towels. So far, so good.

For the Discretionary Eating Challenge I'm in for 50% BUZZ (trying to have no more than 1 cup of coffee OR alcohol a day; ideally having no alcohol and very few coffee drinks in a week and only purchased during Espresso Happy Hour for half off!!!). I'm also in 100% for LITE (eliminating "white", refined products, except for sweets) and SOW (seconds only when hungry).

I'm doing well on this challenge so far, EXCEPT for this past weekend. We unexpectedly went to visit my parents in Portland and I ended up cooking a fair bit (blueberry muffins, biscuits) with white flour, because that's all my mom had. Like I said, last minute trip. I will say this as a consolation though: I made my blueberry muffins from scratch and my mom made non-vegan ones from a mix. There were 6 adults (2 were vegan) and one toddler (vegan). At the end of the meal, all 12 of my scratch muffins were gone but only FOUR of the mix muffins were eaten! It's clear that homemade (and vegan!) totally kicks Betty Crocker's ass.

It's fun to challenge yourself! And it's not too late to join, so if you haven't already, check them out and sign UP!

And now back to our regularly scheduled foodiness....

We've been chowing down on some fabulous eats this past week. It was the first week in a while that I PLANNED MY MEALS. Holy crap, but it's true. I don't know why I ever stop planning them, because everything is infinitely easier/better/amazing when I do. Even when I don't stick to the list, having the list there is a life saver. Because I forget things. I'm scatter brained. You know when you used to walk into the video store and stare and the movies blindly like here are all these movies and I can't remember the ones I really wanted to see? So you walk out with nothing or something really crappy? Yeah? Well the meal plan saves you from that feeling, seriously. Even when you decide to eat (or rent) something else instead, the list is good to have for when you feel uninspired.

The Ubiquitous CSA Stir-Fry Extravaganza!
Local: tofu, snap peas, green onion, mushrooms and garlic. Yum! Over rice. I thickened the sauce with some cornstarch this time, which I will do again. It was glossy and tasty!


Chickpea Sensation Patties with Balsamic Maple Sauce (And oven roasted potatoes!)
This meal was FABULOUS. The roasted potatoes were just thinly sliced yukon golds from our CSA share, tossed in olive oil and salt and pepper and roasted at about 400F for 30-40 minutes. During the last 10 minutes or so I added FRESH (from the backyard) rosemary and it made them crazyOMGdelicious. The husband was almost frantic with his worship of the potatoes.

I love experimenting with veggie patties, so I dove into this one from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. I made a LOT of substitutions and they were still amazing. Especially with Balsamic Maple Sauce!

Spicy Italian Cutlet Parmesan with Fresh Peas and More Potatoes!
Sorry for the sucky photo. I NEVER claimed to really know how to use my camera!

Anyway, this recipe utilizes Julie Hasson's recipe for spicy italian vegetarian sausages, only instead of sausages you make cutlet patties for steaming. Then you bread and fry those puppies up and (in my case anyway) with the aid of a half-used jar of marinara sauce and the hunk of Teese that is begging to be used, you transform them into something magical AND thrifty!

These were so great. Not a terribly fast recipe, but not hard either if you know what I mean. I will definitely make them again, they are great. And who can deny the wonder of freshly shelled peas? Or more rosemary potatoes?!

Perfect Pasta with Peanut Sauce and Green Beans
This is a recipe that I tested for Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's new cookbook, and it's tasty AND easy. It's just noodles, fresh lightly steamed green beans and a peanut sauce. YUM! Silas is a big fan.

Refried Bean Burritos with Funky Salsa Verde
Last week's bean was the chickpea. This weeks? The Pinto!!! I'm always kind of "eh.." when I think of pintos, but when I make them and eat them I remember why my husband always wants them - they're so good and creamy!

This was just a refried bean recipe from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman, with this amazingly delicious "salsa verde" - recipe courtesy of my CSA. I can't imagine that this is authentic salsa verde, but I don't care - it's soooooo good! I want more! I want to eat it on eveything! Anything is a vehicle for this delicious sauce! And in case you were wondering, that is a WHOLE WHEAT tortilla - I'm totally doing well on my challenge!

This is taken from the CSA's newsletter:
Salsa Verde:
We have made this sauce with marjoram, basil and cilantro so far and all have been incredibly yummy! The amount/variety of herbs doesn’t seem to be that important, but the lime zest and juice is! Serve with quesadillas, tacos, or roasted potatoes.

-Roughly chop up 1 bunch of dill and ½ bunch of chives and put them in a blender.
-Add the zest and juice of 1 lime, 2 TBS olive oil, 1 clove of garlic and a big pinch of salt.
-Blend until smooth.

That's all for now! Hopefully this week's meal plan will hold and I'll have some more goodies to showcase soon. :D

This was an awesome food week!

We started out with some Brown Rice Cereal with Raspberry Coulis. Sounds fance, doesn't it?

It's just leftover short brown rice with some almond milk, agave nectar and pureed fresh raspberries. But it was soooooo good! And a great way to use up leftover rice. Here's a link to a general recipe if you want proportions, etc.

Dinner #1!
I also tackled one of my fears this week - barbecuing pizza. It just always sounded so weird - like why doesn't the dough fall through the cracks?! I just didn't get it. Until I watched this Everyday Dish episode and was shown the light!
We made 2 smallish pizzas - one (pictured) was topped with leftover pesto, leftover grilled portabello mushrooms, sliced tofurkey sausages and fresh garlic. The other was similar but used marinara sauce. They were awesome! I will definitely BBQ pizza again in the future. A great way to enjoy pizza in the summer.

A note on pizza dough: I have been cutting out all the white flour in recipes in a test run of Chile's Discretionary Eating Challenge - and it's been going well so far. Which is why I made this ALL whole wheat flour pizza dough! I basically just replaced the white flour with half bread flour (locally bought when we lived in Michigan!) and some whole wheat pastry flour. I also added a tablespoon or so of vital wheat gluten, but otherwise I just followed a regular old pizza dough recipe with great results. Try it!

And a little dessert...
I also made a batch of Snickerdoodles (from La Dolce Vegan) using all whole-wheat pastry flour. Straight out of the oven they tasted a little wheaty, but the next day I really don't think you could tell a difference at all.

Another dinner - asian style!

Another fabulous stir fry using up bits from our CSA box and farmer's market purchases. This one utilized fresh peas (shelled myself, woo!), piopinno mushrooms, green onions, garlic, ginger, broccoli, fresh noodles and our favorite of all time local Small Planet Garlic & Herb Tofu. A little bragg's and sesame oil and we were good to go.

Dinner #3! Mexican-asian-italian fusion!
So another one of my own challenges to myself is to start utilizing the dry beans we have on hand. They are just so much cheaper than canned, and we are a bean loving family. So I made a batch of adzuki beans, but I seem to always mess them up. I didn't soak them this time (because I read adzuki's don't need to be soaked) but I overcooked them. It was like bean mush; the beans pretty much lost all their integrity. They tasted fine but it annoyed my sense of aesthetics. Grr.

Anyway, I warmed them up later with some sesame oil, braggs, garlic, green onion, and then added julienned chard to wilt at the end. Served over brown basmati rice (which I also kind of messed up. I blame the toddler for this one though!) and topped with chopped fresh cilantro. On the side is a green salad and...

Foccacia! Woo-hoo!!!! I love foccacia and I think I've only made it once before a LONG time ago. It's basically souped-up pizza dough, so I felt pretty comfortable. Again, I used a combo of whole wheat pastry and bread flour with some additional vital wheat gluten and it turned out great. I topped it with fresh rosemary, olive oil and salt, YUM!


Dinner #4: Awesome McAwesome-son!
So I still had the baby fennel problem to deal with. I knew there was a recipe I had made before that called for it (but I had always subbed onions, never being much of a fennel buyer). I found it, switched it up some, and therefore feel ok publishing it here. This recipe is based on one from Entertaining for a Veggie Planet by Didi Emmons.

Isareali Couscous Stew of Joy

2 T EVOO
1 C Israeli couscous (uncooked)
3 baby fennel bulbs, thinly sliced in half moons
6-7 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp fennel seeds
3-4 C julienned chard leaves
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes, liquid reserved into a measuring cup
Scant 2 cups veggie broth
1 cup boiling water
3-4 T Yumm Sauce (optional but delicious!)
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

In a large sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, fennel, fennel seeds and couscous and sautee for 2 minutes. Meanwhile, see how much tomato juice drained from your tomatoes. It'll be approximately 1/4-1/2 cup. Make up the difference with veggie broth until you have two cups total. Add that and the cup of boiling water and the chard to the pan. Cook, stirring often for about 11-12 minutes.

Add the Yumm Sauce, vinegar and s&p and stir. Taste, adjust seasonings as necessary. Serve hot with crusty bread!

I also made a batch of Parsley-Tahini Vinaigrette that I learned about from the Vegan Brunch class I took a while back at the Detroit Evolution Laboratory (miss them!). It is soooooo awesome. They are cool with publishing their recipes as long as I attribute credit to them. This recipe is under creative commons by Angela Kasmala.

1 c. oil (olive, sunflower, or grapeseed are all good choices)

Juice of 1 lemon

3-6 cloves garlic

½ c. fresh parsley

2-3 tbs. raw or toasted tahini

2 tbs. brown rice vinegar

1 tsp. each salt and pepper, or to taste

Add garlic to bottom of blender and blend. Add remaining ingredients and pulse a few times to combine.

That's all for now! Right now I've got Fresh Dill and Caraway Seed Rye Bread (longest. name. ever) cooling on the rack, and some chickpeas soaking for our upcoming meals. Stay tuned!

So I am officially in love with Veganomicon for giving me my two new favorite recipes: Backyard BBQ Sauce and Chili-Chocolate Mole! I've talked about the BBQ sauce before, but I had to use it up before it went bad (can! not! waste!) so I created this little meal on the fly:

BBQ Beans Over Capered Couscous with Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes

Every part of this meal owes some part of its creation to Vcon although I came up with the BBQ bean thing on my own. I just used (all measurements are very approximate):

1/2 C onion, diced small
3-4 button mushrooms, chopped
1 cup garbanzo beans
1 cup black beans
1/4 cup Backyard BBQ sauce
4-5 shakes Chipotle Tabasco

Basically, I sauteed the onion in some olive oil for a few minutes, then added the mushrooms. I cooked those for about 5 minutes and then added the rest of the ingredients until warmed through. So easy, but don't let that fool you! They are delicious!

Chili-Chocolate Mole!!!
Ok, so I don't have the opportunity have mole very often, so I get really excited when I do. Chad is out of town (mysterious, I know) so basically that means that everything I cook while he is gone will contain chocolate! (Because he's allergic, in case you missed my mentioning it like 500 times in past posts. It's my cross to bear. ;) ). So my buddy Brooke came over last night with her toddler, because her husband is out of town, too. She is like 90% vegan, so that just made cooking all the more enjoyable, because I didn't have to worry about representing all of veganism with this meal!

So to save myself from extra hassle I decided to prepare the seitan the day before. I used the Simple Seitan recipe from Vcon, which I hadn't used before (my tried and true is the Faux Chicken Seitan from La Dolce Vegan). It turned out really well! I was even able to slice it really thinly for sandwiches (on Chad's request, for plane food. Which he forgot at home and I ate.)

I also made the mole the day before, and I'm really glad I did that. It's not hard, it's just lots of little steps and uses several electronic devices (food processor, immersion blender). I ate some the day I made it (see the photo above) - leftover Chipotle burrito bowl in corn tortillas with mole on top. YUM! It was pretty hot though, and I was a little worried I was going to burn Brooke's taste buds off. Luckily, it had mellowed some the next day. Note to self: the chipotle chili powder I own is as hot as the fiery pits of hell!

So my "dinner party for two vegans" menu was:

Seitan Simmered in Mole (Vcon)
Mexican Millet (Vcon)
Steamed Broccoli with garlic and olive oil
Corn Tortillas on the side

She brought chocolate desserts: coconut cupcakes with chocolate frosting (from Vegan Lunch Box) and no-bake cookies (yayayayay!). She left me like a dozen full-sized cupcakes and like 25 tiny mini-cupcakes. And like ten cookies. Yeah, I'm going to gain like 10 lbs this week. Sigh.

It was all awesome! And she loved it, too, which was awesome. Silas likes the seitan plain and really enjoyed the millet. Her toddler was not such a fan of any food, but he's slow to warm up to most foods. He munched on baby carrots and soymilk. Little vegans, so cute.

Oh, this week I also made up a batch of the Curried Carrot Dip from Vcon, which I love! It's the second time I've made it, and it is great party food. I've brought it to playdates both times and people always love it and want the recipe. If you haven't tried it yet, do. It's tasty and really easy. It's great on crackers, bagels and as a sandwich spread. I have also been known to stuff whole wheat pits with both it and tofu "egg" salad - kind of sounds weird, but it's awesome!

Pizza night! I cheated a little and used a Trader Joe's regular refrigerated crust, and it was dang tasty. I topped it with leftover pesto (VwaV), sundried tomatoes, sauteed portabello mushrooms, leftover pine nut cream sauce (Vcon) and, obviously, sliced tomatoes. It was a really awesome combo. The pesto was nice and fatty and kept it from seeming dry, and the pine nut cream sauce dolloped on was just the touch of creaminess that was needed to imitate some cheese factor. I would most certainly make this combo again, it was deeeeelicious.

Power Lunch
I thought my lunch today was kind of impressive looking, so I decided to photograph it. The funny thing is, it took about 2 minutes to put together since it was leftovers. This is Quinoa Black Bean Salad that I got from Jenny at Vegetarian Adventure over romaine and baby spinach, with a whole wheat pita stuffed with tofu salad and sliced cucumbers. Oh, and some baby carrots. Cuz you can never have enough carrots. I looooooooove tofu salad, and I don't really follow a recipe any more, just add veganaise, relish, mustard, salt and turmeric to taste. I like it super creamy in these pitas, it's the perfect comb. The quinoa salad was a tasty surprise and used up a bunch of stuff that needed using up. And come on, it just looks beautiful and healthy, right? I felt healthier having just looked at it.

Of course, I had to sabotage that all by finishing the last 4 chocolate chip cookies from the other day. They had become really crispy and required dunking, and unsweetened almond milk is THE ticket for that. I can actually drink that stuff by the glass! I've never really been able to get into soymilk by the glass, it always set my stomach off just a little. Not so with my new love, almond milk - that stuff is smooth and fabulous and just the right consistency.