Reduce them to crumbs.

Ahoy there! Long post ahead!!

Whoah, guess I got away from myself there... I'll plunge right in!

So, here (that is to say, in the above picture) we have a dish based on Pineapple Coconut Chicken and Rice Casserole. I ?guess? I had saved this recipe to sort of veganize? And then when I went to make it, what was it, last Friday? I decided that I didn't want to mix everything together into a casserole but make it all separately. So I suprised myself, because usually I like casseroles, right?

But it sure was fun and even if it didn't turn out how I'd planned it (not as fancy looking as I had hoped) it was still good.

For example, I had never grilled pineapple rings. Now that is cool stuff. They turned this gorgeous brown (I think some of the leftover soysauce on the pan helped with that).

And, I accidentally discovered that you can sort of make sticky rice from plain old white rice if you rinse the rice really well and then let it sit in the rice cooker in the water for a while.

Sauce;

juice from a 20 oz can of pineapple rings
Thai peanut sauce (you can make your own)(I used the whole can of coconut milk)

1/4 C raw cashews
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T oil
1 pkg Morningstar Farms chick'n strips
a few pieces of red pepper from a jar, chopped (real red pepper would be better, obvs)

Make your rice.
Heat up your sauce.
Toast your cashews and set aside (I threw some soy sauce in there)
Saute onion, garlic, chicken, adding red peppers at end.
Scoot that all over to one side of your skillet.
Place as many rings as you can fit in the remaining space and caramelize them.

Serve over rice.

Here is a different version of baked veggie stew with dumplings (but not that different).
I used Malt 'o Meal in the dumplings and I used a little bit different gravy recipe. Oh, and when I reconstituted the TVP I added some soy sauce and kitchen bouquet, but that was fairly unnecessary, actually (since it all gets mixed together).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

bag of frozen mixed veggies
1/2 C TVP reconstitued in 2 C water with a dash of kitchen bouquet and soy sauce, drained

gravy;
1/3 C flour
2 T nutritional yeast
2 C water
1 T oil
dash kitchen bouquet
2 T soy sauce
1/2 t garlic granules
1/2 t dijon mustard
pinch savory herbs (I used herbes de provence 'cause I had 'em and it sounded fancy)

Brown your flour and nutritional yeast.
Toss everything in the blender and blend.
Heat on stove (boil it)('till it's really thick)(I think next time I'll just use less water- mine always turns out too watery)

Nuke your veg, tossing in some paprika and pepper if so desired.

Nuke 2 C water (it takes about 5m in my microwave) and dump in your kitchen bouquet and soysauce if desired, then TVP.

dumplings;

1/4 C malt o meal
3/4 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T Earth Balance
1/4-1/2 C water

In your food processor, put in the malt o meal, flour, baking powder, salt and Earth Balance. Run it until the mixture looks like coarse meal.
Down the chute, slooooowly add the water until the dough forms a ball and clears the sides.
Take dough out, and set aside.

Oil a 9" casserole with a lid.
Mix the veg, TVP and gravy.
Pour it in.
Top with dumplings.
Bake at 400 15m uncovered, 15m covered.

Here is a shot of Butter Bean Burgers. I stumbled across this recipe and was like, wow! I have 2 cans of butter beans! I think I'll make them! These made a great, hearty burger that fried up great (no crumbling, yay!).

I did make a few changes-

2 cans butter beans, drained
1/2 onion, chopped
30 club crackers
1/4 C nutritional yeast
1 clove garlic
1/4 C cornmeal
1 t salt
1/2 t onion and garlic granules

Put club crackers in food processor and reduce them to crumbs.
Add beans, onion, nutritional yeast, garlic, cornmeal, salt and onion and garlic granules. Pulse until well mixed (I did this earlier in the day and then put it in the fridge until suppertime).

Make 6 patties and fry in 1 T oil. Yum! Thank you for this recipe!

Bagels again, you say? Why, yes.
This time I rolled them like in this video, well, more like this one- you can see the cracks I ended up with. It was sort of more fun to roll them than do the thumb thing.

And, after making my favorite muffin, the pumpkin chip muffin, I had pumpkin puree left, so I make pumpkin butter!!! That was fun, and it was good. I only had 3/4 C pumpkin left, so I reduced the recipe- here is roughly what I did...

3/4 C canned pumpkin puree
1/4 C + 2 T apple sauce (didn't have apple juice)
1/2 C sugar
1 t molasses (forgot to use brown sugar)
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t allspice
1/4 t nutmeg

Mix in a saucepan, simmer until thick, stirring v. frequently.

And last, but not least, I made Moujadara!! ZOMG! So good! Rilly! Go make this now!!!

I want to marry my cast iron skillet because it made these onions caramelize so nicely!

I made mujadara once a long time ago, using brown lentils, rice, onions, olive oil and nothing else. It was meh. But THIS, this was good- other people even said so! people not in my family!!

The only think I did differently was to use onion granules in the pot with the lentils and bulgur, thereby skipping the second paragraph of above recipe and not sauteeing the chopped onion. So then I added the garlic, cumin, cinnamon et al. to the caramelized onions and then put the some of this mixture right into the bulgur and lentils and reserved some for a topping. Clear as mud? I thought so.

Served with pitas, it was carb-a-licious!!!