Spicy Rice & Black-eyed Peas, New Farmers Market, Etc.

I recently made Spicy Rice & Black-eyed Peas from the fatfree vegan recipe index, which I highly recommend. I don’t eat black-eyed peas enough and they are so good!




Last week a new Wednesday farmers market opened. It’s within walking distance of my son’s apartment (that he’s moving out of in 2 weeks), and although it’s small, I got the first tomatoes of the season, some purple asparagus, and some squash. My son bought new potatoes and blackberries.

Here’s some quick dinners I’ve fixed recently. Nothing fancy, just light, quick, and tasty.

Leftover roasted squash with leftover jasmine rice and chickpeas.

Fresh & frozen veggie stirfry.

A pretty salad with lots of arugula.

Broccoli with leftover crepe sauce and salad with wakame and oranges.

Indian spiced mixed veggies.

Roasted purple asparagus, green beans, red pepper, and squash.

Tomorrow we are planning an outing to an Indian Fair, and then a pizza dinner at Casa de Luz, our delicious macrobiotic restaurant. Take a peek at the website if you have time. It's a beautiful campus. Hopefully the weather and my camera will cooperate!

Happy Mother’s Day to all who are moms, and if you are not, then Happy Mother’s Day to your moms! My mom is the kindest, most generous, and most beautiful person in the world, and I am so lucky to have her as a mom and a friend.

Have a super weekend!

Mother's Day My Way

Since I’ll be eating out on Mother’s Day at a vegan unfriendly restaurant, I pretended this Sunday was Mother’s Day and cooked whatever I wanted. I wanted to eat and play. There were some experiments, a pasta dish using my colorful corkscrews, sushi from my new cookbook, and dessert.

Our sushi appetizer was pretty basic (nothing fancy for our first attempt) - nori rolls with cucumber, red pepper, green onion, and carrots, sesame seed garnish, pickled ginger, wasabi paste and tamari for dipping. Sushi should be a meal in itself. It’s rather stressful to prepare as an appetizer while you have a whole dinner yet to make. But it was fun to see how the rolls turned out and of course yummy to eat. This was our first roll. Obviously we still need practice, but I got the wasabi leaf down!





Experiment #1 – Two-bean Loaf. I layered lima beans on top of red beans in a loaf pan. I pureed the beans separately and added ground oats and seasoning to each. I made a maple, soy, ketchup sauce for the topping. I baked it for 40 minutes, added the sauce, then baked another 10 minutes.

Before baking…..

…. and a slice.

A successful experiment in flavor. Not so much in appearance. It puffed up a lot while baking, then sank as it cooled. I think my pan was a little too small. The slice looks like it’s smiling. I will keep working on it because it tasted great, held together, and was very filling.


Pasta – the sauce is made with onions, roasted red peppers, peas, corn, olives, arugula, and a small amount of tomato sauce. I seasoned it with fresh basil, oregano, sea salt, and crushed red pepper flakes. I thought the sauce was so pretty.

For the noodles - once cooked I added a little olive oil, nutritional yeast, and fresh parsley.

I love the spiciness of arugula, and the sweet peas and corn were a great complement and just plain fun to eat in a pasta sauce. This was so colorful and tasted fantastic and there were no leftovers.


Experiment #2 – Broccoli Crepes. First I made “Tangy White Bean Sauce” from The Saucy Vegetarian. It’s tangy from Dijon mustard and lemon juice, perfect for broccoli, which is why I decided to go ahead and add chopped broccoli right into the sauce. Next I cut the broccoli into stalks, trimmed the stalks, then steamed them until they were tender. Just before dinner I heated the sauce and made “Savory Crepes” from VWAV. I wrapped the crepes around the broccoli, then topped them with the sauce. It was just as I had envisioned, like Crepes Divan without the chicken and cheese! This too was great and a nice departure from the usual plain old steamed chopped broccoli. This picture doesn't bring out its true beauty.

After finally finding the crepe recipe, Amey confirmed it was a good choice. Thanks, Amey! I made the first "throw away" crepe, then Chase took over and really got the hang of it. He did an outstanding job.

With the sushi rice, pasta, crepes, and oats in the bean loaf, we could have done without bread, but I baked one of my favorites, Oat Walnut Muffins from Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons. I love their sweet, nutty flavor.

I don’t know why I didn’t want a chocolate dessert, so I’m afraid you’ll have to endure ANOTHER strawberry dessert. I found beautiful organic giant strawberries for $2.20 a pound! I used “Blueberry Orange Crisp” from TEV as my inspiration for Strawberry Lemon Crisp. I now love the combination of sweet strawberries and tart lemons. I do not own an 8 x 12 pan as the instructions called for, so I made a thinner version in my 9 x 13.

I served it with extra strawberries on top.

What a great Mother’s Day! We were stuffed and had a blast cooking and eating. I’m afraid I must end with a complaint, though. What is up with quality control these days? Take a look at this mutant shaped pasta we found amongst our corkscrews!

;)

Chili Dogs, Chips & Guacamole, and Berry Tartlettes

I can’t believe I made a chili dog dinner! It’s okay that chili dogs were requested, but I felt so guilty that I wasn’t really cooking. In fact, I took a picture of “stuff I didn’t make” and should have included the smart dogs, soyrizo, and canned beans.




And I felt so guilty that I bought a package of tortillas so I could make chips for the guacamole. I’ve made these chips many times before. They are so good, lightly oiled, then sprinkled with a mixture of chili powder and sucanat.

We love Alton Brown’s guacamole recipe. I haven’t made it since February, so you have to look at it again.

For the chili, I sauted the soyrizo with some chopped onion and garlic, then added in a can of black beans and lots of chili powder and cumin, oregano, cayenne, and salt and pepper. I had never had soyrizo before. I had a taste of the chili and it was really good. Not pretty, but spicy good.

Here’s Chase’s dog, with lots of chili and some nutritional yeast. The green stuff on the top bun is wasabi mustard (yum!).

I also boiled some fresh corn on the cob and steamed some broccoli. I made a “butter sauce” for the corn by adding the leftover chili/sucanat to some melted margarine (yum again!).

I didn’t eat a chili dog. Not because it’s beneath me to do so, but my stomach has decided to rebel against tofu, which really sucks since being gluten intolerant keeps me from having seitan too. I switched to rice milk awhile back because I suspected soymilk was bothering me. I’ll keep making tofu and seitan dishes for Chase, and I’ll keep admiring all of your wonderful creations, but I’ll only be having a taste of stuff I make for others. Thank goodness I love my veggies!

We can’t get enough fresh strawberries! I “made” vanilla pudding and filled some graham cracker shells, and added in fresh strawberries, blackberries, and grapes. Are you impressed by the grape flower in the center?

It’s been SOOOO rainy here lately. But this past Saturday was sorta nice, so after I took Chase grocery shopping at the asian market, and saw the apartment he’ll be moving into at the end of the month (close to me – yay!), we went to the bookstore. I got 2 new cookbooks and I also got Chase “Students Go Vegan.”

I can’t wait to try making sushi! I was also very excited to buy this book as a birthday present for a friend of mine who needs to lose 100 pounds. She asked to borrow my copy, but I thought a copy of her own but would be a great gift. It inspired me to become vegan. I hope it inspires her to really think about her health.

After shopping, we needed an Indian food fix. We hadn’t eaten at Sarovar before, and we were not disappointed. We had Chase’s gf with us, and she snapped a cell phone shot. It’s blurry, but you can see we had a huge amount of food, all for about $10 apiece. We told the waiter we wanted vegan entrees, and he instantly pointed out about 10 choices. We had a masala entrée with basmati rice, lentil soup, dahl curry, tomato curry, sambar, and a huge basket of delicious naan. They also serve a lunch buffet which Chase can’t wait to go back and attack!

We’ll be going out for Mother’s Day dinner at the Driskill, a five star restaurant. You may remember that the chef was on Iron Chef and narrowly lost to Bobby Flay. Well, he has since moved on, and his right hand man has taken over. He posted his buffet menu, which is $48 per person, and I think Chase and I will have to eat $48 dollars of hummus and fruit! It's a beautiful spread, and all the moms get a gift bag from Saks or some such place, but my gosh, that chef puts butter and cream and cheese in everything! I was thinking for my next Sunday dinner, I’d like to fix some Mom’s Day food my style. One thing I would love to make is broccoli crepes – you know, with the whole stalks inside and the little trees sticking out. I guess that would be crepes divan? Does anyone have a savory crepe recipe? Thanks!

Wasabi Meal, Brownies, Store Finds

I recently found some tamari with wasabi and mustard with wasabi and was anxious to try them out. Both products are rather mild, so I wasn’t able to get my food quite as spicy as I wanted, but here’s what I came up with.

Wasabi Peas and Tofu



This was inspired by a recipe for peas and tofu in Asian Vegan Cooking. I marinated the tofu overnight in a mixture of wasabi tamari, wasabi mustard, Braggs, broth, etc. Then I stirfried a bag of frozen peas with the tofu and some onion, added more wasabi tamari, and wasabi paste. I served it over rice and sprinkled some sesame seeds on top. It was a very nice stirfry, but it wasn’t spicy. I couldn’t get wasabi peas. The peas are just too sweet. A spicy wasabi tofu steak alongside some sweet peas would have been a better idea.


Potato and Red Bean Salad

I must say this potato salad was awesome. I cooked 5 or 6 new potatoes, quartered them and put them in a bowl with a can of red beans, some green onions, sesame seeds, and cilantro. I made a dressing with the wasabi tamari, rice vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, crushed red pepper, and wasabi mustard. I marinated it overnight and served it slightly warm. It was spicy good!


I anticipated needing a cold salad to cool us off, so I made slaw/salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, and cilantro and made a peanut butter dressing using the wasabi tamari. Too bad we didn’t have to put out a fire with this, but you can’t go wrong with a fresh salad.

I made a treat too, those brownies Bazu posted about. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Perfection!

Thanks, Bazu!

On a shopping trip earlier this week, I picked up dinner and two new items. Dinner was a Thai Falafel Wrap from a local vendor. It had three huge falafel patties, carrots, and too many rice noodles, but a great spicy sauce.

I liked it okay, but I actually deconstructed it and put it on a salad.

I also found Eddie’s Spaghetti – ingredients are simply semolina, spinach, beets, red peppers, and paprika. (I may just like the name!) I haven’t used it yet, but it’s bound to make a beautiful pasta.

And I found roasted carob powder, a new item in the bulk bin. I don’t want to just put it in a smoothie. I’ll have to bake something with it. Any suggestions?

Lastly, I needed to use my yellow squash from the farmers market. If you haven’t ever roasted yellow squash, I highly recommend doing so. The insides don’t turn to mush, which for me makes them much more enjoyable. I roasted mine with some onions and green beans, and seasoned them with tarragon and dill. Mmmmmm!

It’s great to be vegan!

The Best Thing I've Ever Eaten?

Well, if not THE best, then certainly one of the best.



Broiled avocado. It’s like avocado buttah. It reminded me of the breaded and fried avocado a local chef makes. I filled mine with homemade salsa, knowing deep down it would be better with plain tomatoes, but there were no tomatoes at my farmers market, so the homemade salsa won out. When it was ready, I plated it and had a bite of just avocado. My spoon glided through the pulp like it was – well, buttah! The flavor was smooth. And after a bite with salsa, I broke down and had to get the store bought roma, chopped it, scooped out the salsa and added the tomato and yes, it was even better. So if you want to try this, here’s how: Halve the avocado and remove the pit. Leave the skin on. Fill the hole with chopped tomato and season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and broil for 5 minutes. I had a plain Sunshine burger patty with mine. Oh so good.


Here’s what I did get at the farmers market.

The purple lettuce is leafy and a beautiful color. I was told it is “firecracker” lettuce. It doesn’t have a lot of flavor, just slightly bitter. The swiss chard I used to make Chickpeas and Chard, simply seasoned with cumin, tamari, and pepper.

The strawberries – I sliced them and put them on top of pineapple, and topped it with chopped dates, toasted almonds, and powdered sugar. They were the second best thing I’ve ever eaten and unbelievably red!

I found some beautiful asparagus at Whole Foods, and at Laura’s suggestion, I roasted it with balsamic vinegar. Simply delicious. Laura is going to think I’m stalking her or something, but I also had to try amaranth after she posted about it. I didn’t pop it, but I cooked it up with some quinoa, then added some edamame, carrots, green onion, parsley, and lemon juice. It has a distinct nutty flavor that I would love to use to bake bread.

Thanks, Laura. It was a great dinner!

I used one of the roasted asparagus stalks to try out an old recipe I used to make. You take a slice of fresh bread, flatten it, brush it with oil and season it, then wrap the asparagus and broil it for a few minutes. I had some rather stale spelt bread so it didn’t hold together well. And it wasn’t as good as I remembered, but that’s probably because the roasted asparagus was just so good on its own.

I also roasted some cauliflower.

One more picture – Thai style salad, with broccoli slaw, sprouts, cilantro, green onion, and peanuts.

Have a great week!

Double Dinner

This week we had our Sunday dinner on Friday. My son is working all weekend and worked hard all day Friday. I knew he would come over extremely hungry so I was ready – 2 entrees, 2 veggie sides, and 2 desserts. It was nearly 8:00 by the time he came over and I figured his hunger wouldn’t allow for picture-taking, so I took pictures as I cooked.

Entrée 1 - Pureed Chickpea Pasta on soba noodles from Vive. This was delicious and so easy to put together.




Entrée 2 - baked tofu. Always great.

Side 1 - stirfried veggies: broccoli, carrots, sprouts, onions, red and green peppers, lots of ginger. (Somehow I let that d**n mandolin take a chunk off my right thumb knuckle. I also burned my right ring finger on the tray of baked tofu. Maybe I’m not supposed to work so hard on a Friday night.)

Side 2 - zucchini fries and herb dip. The fries are breaded with panko and cornmeal, and the dip is silken tofu with lemon juice and lots of spices and fresh herbs. The dip turned out really good.

How did Diann get her fries so uniform? She cheated! With this gadget…..

Put the veggie in, push down on the handle......

and out come the little slices!

I don’t use it that often because I actually love to chop. I’ve used it for sweet potato fries, but it honestly takes all my strength to get a piece of potato to go through that grate.

I did manage to get a quick shot of my plate.

I was worried that I was just throwing together a bunch of food, but it actually all went together nicely.

Dessert 1 - Peanut Butter Muffins from Peanut Butter Planet. These are not my normal healthy muffins. They have white flour (which you almost have to use for peanut butter, right?) brown sugar, pb, chocolate chips, and raisins. Oh, well. They were meant to be treats, not health food. Yum!

Want one?

I just got sad thinking about my old trainer. I worked out on Mondays with him and would always take him a sample of treats I made on Sunday :(


Dessert 2 – I finally made Fronch Toast, on spelt bread with fresh strawberries, powdered sugar, and maple syrup for some of us. Personally, I would rather eat plain strawberries, but it was very good and a nice change of pace.

Chase is working at one of our outdoor festivals all weekend. He wanted to take his own food and since we didn’t leave much in the way of leftovers from this meal, he basically cleaned out my refrigerator. (Laura, I even gave him my leftover Refried Lentils! That was quite a sacrifice!) I did pick up a few things from the farmers market this morning, so I need to get cooking and restock!