Thursday, May 28, 2009

Kind of Drippy.

hey, yo.

wow, lots of foodstuffs for you today!

first up (above) we have some yummy pasta with sauce.

do you ever do this? where you mix it all up together and let it cook up hot? kinda reminds me of a cafeteria...

i used some fancy pants spaghetti sauce from the coop (no corn syrup) and doctored it to my taste. turned out pretty good!

2 T oil
1 onion, chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 t oregano
1 t salt
1 t italian seasoning (remember to crush those spices up between your fingers, folks)
splash balsamic vinegar
1/4 t ancho chile powder

Saute onion, then garlic in oil. Add spices, vinegar and salt. Add sauce. Simmer for a bit while your pasta boils.
Mix up with your pasta and serve hot.

oh, man, this was good! of course, everything was fried, so what do you expect?

1 can garbanzos, drained
1 1/2 carrots shredded
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 T oil
1 pkg water pack extra firm tofu
1 t cumin
1 t salt
1/2 t ancho chile powder

Heat your oil in a large cast iron skillet over med high heat. Add your garbanzos (watch out, those garbanzos can spit!). Stir around and add salt and cumin and ancho chile powder. Add the garlic in there and then the carrots. Keep stirring on high heat.
Lower heat and add the tofu- I boiled the tofu for ten minutes, as is my standard operating procedure these days (I think it makes it firmer), then cut it into cubes- stir around until tofu is hot and spicy too and then serve over rice! So good!


I made bagels again, this time with 3/4 C whole wheat flour replacing one of the cups of flour. I also added 1 t of cinnamon, just to mix it up a little. They turned out good (a little chewy, but good).
Here is an old favorite- Taco Ring! I think I got this originally from Fairly Odd Tofu Mom... I used the reduced fat crescent rolls and they weren't as insanely addictive tasting, but still good.

2 cans reduced fat crescent rolls
1 package Boca 'ground beef'
1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 C minute rice, uncooked
1/2 C frozen corn
1/2 C salsa
1/2 C bulk dry uncheeze mix
1 T oil
1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced

Take yer crescent rolls out of the frig.
Let 'em sit.
Meanwhile, boil up 2 C of water in your microwave safe dish in the microwave and then, slowly (I mean, add a few grains rice, first, to make sure it's not superheated) add rice. Let that sit.
Heat oil in a large pot, saute onion, then garlic.
Add Boca.
Add uncheeze, salsa, pinto beans and corn. Add rice. Mix well and heat on medium heat, covered.
Meanwhile, take a baking sheet and oil it well.
Lay out your crescent roll triangles with the points facing outwards. You will overlap the wider ends on the baking sheet, leaving a circle approximately 6" in diameter in the center.
Put 1/4 C of the bean mixture in the center of the base of every two triangles. Wrap the two triangle ends over the mixture and press them together with the dough in the center.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20m.
Cut into 8 wedges and serve with salsa, vegan sour cream and sliced black olives.

This was just some hot buttered pasta with tofu and fingerling potatoes. Sounds just like what it is- made the pasta, boiled the fingerlings right along with the pasta, boiled up some silken tofu, then cubed it then sauteed it with garlic and Earth Balance and added the pasta and potatoes in there too. Served with a side of green beans (from a can!) seasoned with sumac and salt. Nice and filling.
And here is the ubiquitous spicy peanut sauce spaghetti. It was pretty bland as I didn't add any ginger or basil or even cumin, oh well.

1/2 C peanut butter
1/4 C soysauce
1 t salt
1/4 C brown sugar
splash rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic

Blend. Thicken on stove (you can see I didn't thicken mine enough or drain my pasta enough- the sauce is kind of drippy). Mix with spaghetti. Yum, supper.


So, I finished The Stand with a side detour into "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies".
Okay, first off, don't read the unabridged version of "The Stand". I mean no disrespect to the King, but whoah. That was long.
SPOILER America sure loves it's sacrificial heroes, doesn't it?
Long on dread and short on action, NOTHING HAPPENED until way into the book, and then it was sadly disappointing when the bad guy turned out to be a straw man- or was he? Dun, dun, dun. I may try to read "It" some day, but I think after that, I'll be done with Stephen King.

The P & P & Zombies was fun! Don't go into it expecting a super ton of zombie action- I mean, it was there and all, but it sort of strangely ended up as an accompaniment to everything else. Funny, yes. A whole new thing, no. But that's not what it's meant to be.

I got "American Psycho" from the library. Hm. I have a hard time reading books where the goal is so obviously to make me ?hate? the protagonist... we'll see.