Monday, March 30, 2009

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

(Singing) When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you’re feeling down….

I apologize for my previous downer post, but your comments sure cheered me up. Thank you all so much. I especially enjoyed Carrie’s comment on how to pretend my pulled muscle could be treated with a boytoy, the ever cheerful Katie’s comment “as long as we’re pretending, let’s pretend we’re in Hawaii,” and Erica’s comment, “couldn’t you just eat some of the food?” Well, I couldn’t eat any of the soy or wheaty foods, but I did top a green salad with the Red Lentil Hummus.




And I baked the sweet potato fries so I could have the yummy Homemade Ketchup. I’m going to be making this ketchup a lot for grilled burgers this summer.


If you have Get It Ripe!, you need to make these recipes!

Oh, yeah, I also sampled one of the Nicer Rice Krispie Treats. I used ALL the optional ingredients in them, dried cranberries, chocolate chips, and pistachios. These are deeeelish and I can’t wait to make them again with gluten free brown rice krispies.


I have recovered from all of last week’s disappointments and body aches. I didn’t mention then that I also had my car in the shop. I need to come up with some big bucks in two months, so now I’m taking inspiration from Melody to be a frugal shopper yet still prepare delicious vegan foods. I’m also inspired by Amanda to revisit some old vegan cookbooks. I’ve found some quick and easy recipes and I’ve come up with a new recipe I’m still tweaking. Like Melody, I tend to cook in bulk on the weekends since I’m so busy during the week. I’ve got tons of food to share, but for now I’ll post a couple of my favorites.

Cabbage and Lentils with Mustard Sauce


Cook ½ cup lentils in 1 cup broth for about 30 minutes. Steam ½ large head of cabbage, shredded, in broth for about 5 minutes. In the meantime, mix together 2 T. Dijon mustard, 2 T. rice wine vinegar (or whatever kind you have handy), a couple of crushed cloves of garlic, and a little black pepper. Toss altogether and serve.

Steamed Broccoli with Quick White Bean Sauce



While your broccoli steams, make the sauce. Put the following into a blender or food processor: 1-15 oz. can white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. broth, water, or olive oil
1 T. lemon juice
2 t. AP seasoning or Italian seasoning
S&P to taste

Process until smooth. Serve immediately over hot broccoli.


And finally, a sweet treat! A super delicious, super easy, gluten free, no sugar added muffin. I don’t normally post published recipes, but I love this recipe from Simply Vegan. You know my love for oats, peanut butter, and chocolate, and that’s what this recipe includes. Okay so it calls for raisins and not chocolate chips, but I couldn’t help myself. The recipe is called Banana Muffins, but it tastes more like a bowl of oatmeal, so I’m going to call them Oatmeal Muffins.

The recipe makes 18 muffins, which frankly annoys me since I only have one 12-muffin tray. I made a half recipe, and again, subbed chocolate chips for the raisins.

Oatmeal Muffins

2 cups very ripe bananas, mashed well or pureed
1 cup raisins
3 cups gluten free rolled oats
1 T. cinnamon
1 T. baking powder
½ cup almond or peanut butter

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put all ingredients into a large bowl and mix well. Pour batter into lightly oiled muffin tins. Bake 25 minutes. Cool muffins completely before removing from tins.

How easy is that!



They really are delicious – give ‘em a try!

34 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

HUMMUS!! MUFFINS!! SWEET POTATOES!! BROCCOLI!! Too much goodness in one post, dear Diann :-D

nora said...

I love how simple those muffins are--so few ingredients! Like the Larabar of muffins! lol

Carrie said...

Everything looks AWESOME! I am especially intrigued by homemade ketchup.

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

I spy: our favorite green veggie!

Forget Hawaii. I wanna visit Austin and get me some oatmeal muffins ;)

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Ooh, those Sweet Tater fries look amazingly good! The Cabbage & Lentils totally look like a cabbage & peas dish I make!

Jes said...

The cabbage and lentils looks surprisingly yummy! But almost anything is delicious with mustard. :)

Amy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amy said...

I want hummus! And rice crispy treats with ALL the trimmings! YUM!

(and the carrot mini loaves made 7, but I think my loaf holes are kind of on the largish side, it would maybe make a dozen muffins, possibly slightly more.

(Excuse the deleted comment, I mucked up the number of mini loaves!)

Making Love In the Kitchen said...

Look at all that goodness you've been cooking up. I will have to check out that kechup recipe (I have one here http://meghantelpnerblog.com/2008/11/19/what-did-the-big-tomato-say-to-the-little-tomato/ with a silly video of my momma and I cooking some up)

The oatmeal muffins look amazing. Going to bake those up today with my sad overripe bananas.

Virginia said...

i love the muffin recipe, anything simple i can make ahead for breakfast to feed impatient kids and a hubby is perfect in my book!

jessy said...

i'm glad you're more happyfaced this week, Diann! that stinks about your car - but what a great idea on budgeting! i think i need to tighten my spending belt a bit, too!

your cabbage and lentils with mustard sauce looks great! i love cabbage, mustard, and lentils - looks like i'm gonna have to make this! hooray for some seriously yummy broccoli goodness - and hooray for some deeeelicious oatmeal muffins! definitely gonna give them a go! and good call on subbing in chocolate chips for the raisins! mmmmmmmm!

miss v said...

that cabbage/lentil/mustard sauce recipe looks like it could have come straight out of my kitchen! three of my all-time faves!

glad things are turning around for you!

Jackie said...

Sorry to hear about the pulled muscle last week.

The Cabbage and Lentils with Mustard Sauce is just the recipe I actually want for supper tonight...how did you guess? I got some cute little organic cabbages today and was wondering what to do with them and there are always lentils and mustard in my kitchen. Perfect!

The muffins also look great as even I should be able to bake them.

Unknown said...

:D

I thought you would have some sweet potato fries!

Unknown said...

oh yeah, forgot to add, I'm all over the cabbage these days like brown on rice, i'm definitely going to try the cabbage and lentils w/mustard sauce. thank you!

Unknown said...

(and I have no idea how my blogger profile became private!)

allularpunk said...

glad you are getting out of your funk! and that you got to eat hummus and sweet potato fries...yum! the cabbage also looks great, and those muffins...mm!

MeloMeals said...

Those muffins look awesome.. I'll bet my kids would love them for bfast..

I am very intrigued by your first dish.. the lentils and cabbage with mustard sauce. YUM!

Sheree' said...

Thank you for helping me perk up. I am in a terrible rut and if it could go wrong it is or has. I really need to think of my favorite things too.

A_and_N said...

Love the white bean sauce. Will work perfectly for me. So does that hummus. I can eat hummus 24/7 and just like that ;D

River (Wing-It Vegan) said...

Your homemade ketchup is so impressive! The Krispie Treats look sensational! Are those little chef guys behind them? They look cute!

Mihl said...

I am glad you have recovered and feel better! Who wouldn't with all those great foods! I also feel very inspired by Melody's posts!

The rice krispies look amazing! I think I spottet pistachios in there. :)

Anonymous said...

I just had homemade ketchup the other day for the first time, it was awesome, almost salsa like. I will have to try the Get it Ripe version

Vegan_Noodle said...

Glad to hear you are feeling better!! I love cooking up my favorite things when I'm a bit down.
I made those nicer rice krispie treats a loooong time ago... your post has me wanting more. And those sweet potato fries, oh my.

Hannah said...

Oh I love rice krispy treats in any form! Those even sound like less of a guilty pleasure, so I must look into the recipe.

Not Another Omnivore said...

I cooked up a whole lot of lentils yesterday and man I've been loving it!

NAOmni

jb said...

Everything looks so delicious, especially that cabbage with mustard sauce.. and the nicer krispy bars!

Anonymous said...

I hope things are getting a bit better, Diann! There is a lot of deliciousness here, so things must be a least ok! And I've bookmarked this muffin recipe!

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

Glad you are feeling better Diann! And I love the sound of those sweet potato fries and homemade ketchup. Lovely :)

Ricki said...

Everything sounds so good! I will definitely try those muffins. And the cabbage and lentils is such an intriguing combination--never would have thought to combine the two.

Bianca said...

Glad you're feeling better! Those muffins look super oaty. I'll have to give that recipe a shot one morning.

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

homemade ketchup? girl, you're amazing!

Steph (I am Bee) said...

yum! you know i love muffins =)

Erin said...

Sometimes simple foods are the best! The muffin recipe looks great, thanks for posting it. I can't believe there are so few ingredients! I bet they'd be great to stick in the freezer and pull out for breakfast.