Assorted Eats and Snow Day!

First things first – it snowed all day today! Of course it didn’t stick because it was 80 degrees on Sunday, but it was beautiful. Such a rare sight for Austin and a great pick-me-up after last week’s pilot suicide attack on one of our buildings.

I’m so proud of myself for remembering to take my camera to work. Scenes from outside my office right in the heart of downtown.

I’m still eating and taking pictures, but with the wedding a month away I find myself away from home a lot and when home, on the phone. One of the best things I made myself was a veggie burger pita. I was extra hungry (what’s new) and put two Chipotle Gardenburgers in one of my homemade pita breads with some iceberg lettuce and tomatoes and onions.

I also made a homemade tomato and spinach soup. It’s not very pretty and it wasn’t all that good now that I think about it.

Spaghetti squash with mushroom sauce.

Leftover casserole of broccoli, spaghetti squash, and soup – the soup was good in this!

Some greens from my farm box, lightly steamed with raw carrots and corn.

Marinated raw veggies – purple cabbage, mushrooms, broccoli, daikon, red pepper, zucchini, and green onions – so yummy.

And a spicy homemade slaw with carrots and cilantro.

The wedding plans are all in place. Tomorrow Chase and I are going to pick up his suit and have dinner together. Chase and Cat are moving to their new place this weekend. I’m having so much fun.

And it’s still snowing!

Daring Cooks Challenge - Sushi!

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

Hooray for a fun vegan challenge!

The challenge was in four parts:-

Part 1: Making proper sushi rice – wash, rinse, drain, soak, cook, dress, and cool short grain rice until each grain is sticky enough to hold toppings or bind ingredients. Then use the cooked rice to form three types of sushi.
Part 2: Dragon sushi roll – an avocado covered inside-out rice roll with a tasty surprise filling.
Part 3: Decorative sushi – a nori-coated rice roll which reveals a decorative pattern when cut.
Part 4: Nigiri sushi – hand-shaped rice rolls with toppings.

I’ve mentioned many times how poor my rice making skills are. Part 1 was obviously my biggest challenge. I prepared the rice exactly as per the instructions. After all the rinsing and soaking, I put the rice in a big pot along with a piece of kombu.

I am thrilled to report that my sushi rice turned out perfectly! Quite unlike my usual attempts at making a proper rice. Look at all those individual grains.

For the rest of the challenge I made a small batch of each type of roll. The inside out roll took me a couple of tries, but surprisingly I had a rather easy and fun time making all the sushi.

TexMex sushi is quite popular here, so that was the inspiration for Part 2. My Inside-Out Dragon Roll was filled with spicy sweet potatoes and black beans.

I topped him with avocado and then plated him with cilantro and sriracha legs, and a green onion tongue and head decoration. He was deeeeelicious!

Part 3, the Spiral Roll, was simply filled with colorful veggies – cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, and red bell peppers.

Nothing fancy, but quite pretty and so fresh tasting.

Finally, Part 4, the super easy Nigiri Rolls. Simply topped with a smear of wasabi paste and shitake mushrooms.

Chase and I ate as much as we could for a fabulous late lunch. Thanks again to the hosts for providing such great instructions. Click here for recipes, including the perfect sushi rice.

End of Summer Food

Finally the 100 degree weather has gone and we’ve actually gotten some much needed rain. Perhaps I’ll feel like doing some real cooking soon! Until then, here’s some of what I’ve been eating recently.

First the raw foods:




Raw spaghetti sauce made with sundried and fresh tomatoes over zucchini noodles and shredded romaine lettuce. I wasn’t crazy about the sauce, but I loved the lettuce mixed with the zoodles.

Raw broccoli salad, with mango, avocado, green onions, and dried cranberries – very yummy.

Marinated portobello salad from Whole Foods raw bar – fabulous!

A green salad with mango tomato dressing and sprouted legumes.

And a couple cooked dinners:

Yellow squash stirfry with mushrooms, tomatoes, and green peppers over zoodles.

And a Lentil Veggie Wrap (from one of Dreena’s books – can’t remember which!) wrapped in romaine instead of a tortilla. This was so delicious. I ate a ton of them!

Have a great weekend!

Love Soup

I recently received a copy of Love Soup to review. Love Soup is a huge collection of soup recipes by Anna Thomas, author of The Vegetarian Epicure. The book is very nicely laid out by seasons, and broken out further into subchapters such as Green Soups, Hearty Summer Soups, Holiday Soups, Cold Soups, and also includes recipes for broths, breads, salads, sweets, spreads, and other accompaniments. There are 160 recipes provided, and the recipes are very creative and utilize fresh seasonal vegetables and herbs. While not all the soups are vegan (and this is acknowledged in the introduction), most could easily be made vegan by using nondairy creams, cheeses, and yogurts. I love to use coconut milk and coconut yogurts, and usually find most recipes don’t REALLY need cheese. Ms. Thomas offers variations and loads of helpful tips with each recipe.

As you know it hasn’t exactly been soup weather here in Texas, but I did find nice soup and salad recipes to try. For my soup I made Mung Bean Soup with Spinach and Tomatoes from the Hearty Summer Soups chapter. I have had a 2 pound bag of whole mung beans in my pantry forever. There is lots of information about split mung beans, but I’ve never been able to find proper cooking instructions for the whole mung beans. I learned from Love Soup that mung beans are easy to cook, have a delicate flavor, are high in protein, and burst open when they cook! This soup is perfectly Indian spiced and completely delicious. I did have to deviate slightly and use a large can of fire-roasted tomatoes, because our fresh tomato season only lasted a month. It’s nice to know canned tomatoes work, because I would definitely make this soup again anytime.




For my salad I chose Heirloom Tomato Salad. I had a giant heirloom in the fridge waiting to be dressed up, and finding this recipe was perfect for a hot Labor Day lunch. As you can see, it is simply tomato, onion, fresh basil, and seasonings. In my opinion, heirlooms don’t need much more than that.

If you LOVE SOUP, I would definitely recommend LOVE SOUP. Honestly, it contains wonderful background with each chapter and recipe, and the instructions are about the best I’ve ever come across. Also on my “must make” list are Kale Salad with Tomatoes and Corn; Brown Rice and Chinese Cabbage Salad; Cucumber, Rice, and Fresh Herb Salad; Eggplant and Roasted Garlic Pesto; Deconstructed Hummus Soup; and Butter Bean and Summer Vegetable Soup.

And now I get to have a delicious soup and salad dinner!

Fresh Foods and a Good Burger

We have some rain in the area and the temp has dropped 20 degrees! Although it hasn’t rained at my house yet, I did get to enjoy watching a nice shower from my office downtown. The heat and drought has taken its toll for sure. Here’s a portion of my last CSA box.

Two nice sized melons, and very puny onions, peppers, eggplant, and okra. Pretty slim pickin’s. You may remember that okra (eggplant too) has never been a favorite veggie of mine. I read recently about a cooking method that promised to take away the slime. I started with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, added some thinly sliced onions and okra, and basically cooked the crap out of it. It worked – there was not a bit of okra slime.

However, there was definitely oily slime and that didn’t appeal to me either. I’ve still got a bunch of okra and I’m going to try again with half the amount of oil and see if some broth will work just as well.

I’ve still been eating lots of fresh salads. One I’m particularly fond of is Tomato, Mango, and Avocado, and just a pinch of sea salt.

It’s heavenly, and something I almost always have on hand.

My usual salads are a combination of greens and beans.

There is still a bit of squash and zucchini at the farmers markets, but not near the usual squash overload typical of the summer season. I made the Salsa Verde Yellow Squash from VegTimes, and it was pretty good, with onions, garlic, black beans, and cilantro. It called for tomatillos, but I only had tomatoes.

Most of you know I’m not a fan of packaged foods, but I do buy them for Chase. I found the new Vegan Gardenburgers at Costco and bought him a big ol’ box. My mom even bought herself a box. The picture on the box looked really good.

I saved one for myself to try. I sautéed it and got all my toppings together, then wouldn’t you know I couldn’t find any bread in my house. Except some leftover gluten free cornbread I had frozen. I didn’t actually get to eat a burger, but I built myself quite a monster.

That’s about all the food porn I have for now. Are you watching Top Chef Masters? I’m looking forward to tonight’s episode and Rooting 4 Rick.

PS – Don’t forget to enter my Flavor Tripping Contest!

Lunch Fun

Well, hello there! My body is back from vacation, but mind is still on the beach. I’m having a hard time readjusting to real life. I made myself a silly salad lunch to lift my spirits.





As soon as I organize my thoughts and pictures, I’ll post about my beach trip. Until then, here’s a sneak peek of my week of bliss.

I look forward to catching up with all of you this weekend!

A Whole Lotta Green!

I’ve been eating lots of fresh greens, salads, and zucchini lately, so this post will be pictures of how I’ve been enjoying them.

My CSA box and trip to the farmers market 2 weeks ago was quite nice. Hooray for fresh, local foods!


Radishes, dill, cucumbers, flying saucer squash (very delicious), broccoli, romano beans (my fave), tomatoes.

Orange cauliflower, carrots, red and gold beets (yay for more beet greens!), swiss chard.

Zucchini, squash, and peaches.

Salads I’ve had:

Beet greens and sunflower sprouts

Mixed greens, radish sprouts, beets, and Green Smoothie Dressing (and a side of orange cauliflower)

Spiralized zucchini and radish sprouts with Green Smoothie Dressing (I just can’t eat store-bought dressing anymore!)

I ate quite a few raw spiralized zucchini salads. Then I decided that just because I spiralized them didn’t mean I had to eat them raw. So one evening I made a big pile of ribbons and then just gave them a quick sear. This was delicious with lots of saltfree seasoning on top.

I also cooked a big pile of squash and zucchini noodles. These I put in my wok with some onion, let the water release, then they just sort of steamed themselves and turned bright green and yellow. Wow, this was the most delicious simply prepared squash ever!

Another night I added some of the leftover noodles to a veggie curry.

I made another curry with the chard. (See end of post for explanation of curry cravings.) I put on a pot of red lentils for my sauce, and while they softened I prepped my chard. I had the loveliest striped stems!

This dish turned out quite nice, topped with some cold chopped tomatoes to balance out the heat.

Then I had to clean the stove where the lentils boiled over.

Gee, it’s weird what I take pictures of sometimes….

Spring is over here and now it’s just downright hot. I’ll be anxious to see what veggies survive the heat and arrive in my CSA box this weekend. I hope there will be lots of tomatoes, peppers, and chilies. That means I can make fresh salsa, and fresh salsa is great on everything!

So, do you know why spicy foods are craved and appropriate to eat in the summertime? Because they make you sweat and your sweat cools your body! And I don’t know about you, but I always crave ice cream after a spicy meal this time of year. Another appropriate way to cool the body down. I think I just figured out why I love summer.