Bother.

Cashew Alfredo Sauce

So, another quick supper...

Tried this sauce and it was goooood...
V. nice.
This was just roughly half a box of pasta, the sauce and a can of peas.

Here's how I made it;

1/2 C raw cashews
1 clove garlic
1 T olive oil
1 T Earth Balance
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t salt

1 1/2 C pasta water

Boil up your pasta.
In a blender, blend the cashews, garlic, nutritional yeast and salt.
Scrape down sides and blend again until all cashew pieces are roughly uniform.

Take 1 1/2 C of your pasta water (you can even let a few of those noodles 'accidentally' slip in there- the starch is what thickens the sauce) and pour it into the blender and the blend! blend! blend!

Drain pasta, return pot to stove, toss in your Tablespoon of Earth Balance and your T of olive oil, toss in the pasta and peas and dump the sauce over all that. Mix well and serve hot.

Gah, no progress on the reading, I know, I know. Those Chabon books are taunting me from the bookshelf- 'read us, read us, elizabeth, we're so entertaiiiiining'...
Hey, I read somewhere that he never even ties up the loose ends at the end and there's no closure, surely that's excuse enough to stop, right?!?
Bother.

Tedious and Time Consuming

Here is WWHFDLN...
I think Sundays are becoming soup night. My husband requested red lentil soup, but I just couldn't bring myself to make the same thing again, a week later. So I did the next worst thing, I made the lentil soup I've been making so much this fall and winter!

Middle Eastern Lentil Paprika Soup

1 C brown lentils, rinsed
2 T oil
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T parsley
1/4 C ketchup
2 T vegetable broth powder
2 T HP sauce
1 T paprika
1 t curry paste
2 bay leaves
1 t salt
8 C water

Saute onion, then garlic. Add everything else except the water and let cook a few minutes. Add the water, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 30m.

Made this with my go to bread recipe, left out the vital wheat gluten, let it rise a lot longer on the first rise (do breads with potato tend to have longer rise times, or what?).

Good bread

4 heaping C flour
1/2 C potato flakes
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C oil
1 scant T yeast
1 T salt
2 C water

Preheat oven to 170 degrees. Grease your loaf pans.
Mix 'er all up in your big 'ol mixer, change to the knead hood and knead 3m or so.
Dump out the dough, oil that bowl and put the dough back in, turning to oil both sides.
Cover with a damp tea towel and place in oven to rise 1+ hour.
DON'T FORGET TO TURN OVEN OFF!
Ahem.
Preheat oven to 170 degrees again.
Knead dough for 10m or so. Cut in half, shape into rectangle, roll out into even bigger rectangle. Roll up short side, tuck under ends and place, seam side down into loaf pan.
Cover with tea towel and place into oven, turn off oven. Rise 45m.
Take towel off.
Leave loaves in cold oven, turn to 400 degrees and bake from cold oven for 30m, cover with tinfoil and bake 10 more minutes.

Boy, typing that all out makes it seem so tedious and time consuming.

Okay, here, above, we see the progression of what really occurred when we ate this quick and easy black bean and potato skillet dinner... yes, I do live in Minnesota, why do you ask? Hey, it was very tasty that way! I think it tasted better!! Food snobs...

Oh, and in the background there you can see the homemade tortilla chips I made... mmmm.

Quick and Easy Black Bean and Potato Skillet

1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T oil
5 or 6 small potatoes, scrubbed or maybe 2 med large ones
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 C your favorite salsa
1/2 t cumin

Saute your onion and garlic, add the beans, cumin and salt and mix well. Add salsa and mix well. Cook for a few minutes until salsa liquid has mostly evaporated and then add the potatoes and mix gently.

Serve with chips.

And finally, here we have Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon. I paid really good attention to the directions this time (go, me!) and fried them instead of baked them and they were yummy!! Much better than the chewy patties I made before...
Served with some cheezy sauce, sorry, don't have the recipe before me, I think it was my latest incarnation of that bean based one (a can of white beans, undrained, 9 green olives, clove garlic whizzed in blender and heated up).

No news on the "Infinite Jest" front, not much reading this weekend.

Well as well.

WWHFDLN

Mesir We't

Man was this good!

I was just cruisin' the PPK forums and found this, was like, Hmmm, I've got those curry spiced moong dal and rice just lingerin' in the fridge... I have all those spices... I think we'll have this for dinner!

I was a little leery about the cloves and allspice, but was like, what the hey and just added them in there. So good. Seriously, I did not monkey around with this recipe at all (which is unusual. I just left out the tomato paste). Go make it.

I also made pitas to go with, which was just an excellent choice, if I do say so myself.

Of course, I think it was the 1T of paprika that sold me.

Pitas

2 1/2 C flour
2 t salt
1 T sugar
1/4 C vital wheat gluten
2 t yeast
2 T olive oil
1 C warm water

In your mixer, mix 1 C flour (can use ww), vital wheat gluten, salt, sugar and yeast. Add oil, then water. Mix until smooth approx. 3m.

Stir in the rest of the flour 1/2 C at a time. Dough should form a rough shaggy mass that will clean the sides of the bowl.

Change to hook and knead 3m.

Divide into 8ths, roll into balls on a flour covered counter and cover with a wet tea towel to rest 20-30m.

Rip off 2 lengths of foil the width of your oven rack. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

When dough is ready, roll out into circles on flour covered counter. Place four onto one of your foil sheets, run over to the oven, open it and pull out your rack, run back to the counter, carefully pick up your foil with the pitas on there, walk over to the stove and put them on the rack. Bake for 5-7m until browned and puffy.

Roll out your other 4 pitas and repeat.

Stack and wrap in foil to save, if you have any left.

These freeze well and the recipe doubles well as well.

Still enjoying "Infinite Jest". Glad I didn't bail.

Actual Farmwork

WWHFDLN*

So, here it is, my lovelies...
A riff on my Camel Pockets, basically the same dough/pastry with different innards. Yum! Okay, okay, I know it's a calzone, peeps, don't get your undies all in a twist!

Crust;
5 C flour
1 T yeast
1 heaping T salt
1/2 C oil
2 C water

Mix it all up in the mixer, rise, covered with a wet tea towel, in a turned off 170 degree oven for 30m. Scrape onto a floured counter and knead a little, adding enough flour to prevent sticky mess.
Cut into 8 and cover with wet tea towel again.

While dough is rising, prepare your innards.

I used the recipe for Tofu Basil Ricotta
using some of the basil I had pureed with oil this summer... so good. Oh, and I used frozen tofu, it crumbles really well into a 'ricotta' like texture.

I also used the last of the tomatoes from the summer out of the freezer, just blended them up with oil and salt and oregano and garlic and cooked it on the stovetop until it was thick.

So, ricotta like substance and tomato sauce. There you go.

Now, roll out your dough balls into ovals, place half of the oval (you know, the half where you're going to put your fillings?) right on to your greased cookie sheet.

Place a big spoonful of each filling on there, wet the edge around the filling with water (I keep a bowl nearby for this), fold over the dough and press shut with your fingertips.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15m or until golden brown.

*What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Yikes! I'm burning through the freezer goods at a breakneck pace! And here it is only January. Whatever shall I do? It's just sad when you're nearing the end of the CSA produce, plus my CSA is not going to be existent next year, boo. I will miss seeing the chickens, the horses (doing actual farmwork like plowing!), and of course all the good people there.

No news on the reading front.

No Suprise

WWHFDLN

Fava bean dip!!! I tell you, the life of a vegan is a life of an adventurer! I was at my local big box grocery store the other day and I saw a can of fava beans! Check that, first I saw a bag of fava beans in the 'ethnic' aisle and grabbed them, THEN I saw the can and was like, ahhh, who'm I kidding, I'm never going to soak and cook these beans, and I put them back and grabbed the can.

ANYWAY, I always am reminded of some sketch my husband quotes about some fava beans and a nice Chianti- would that he were here to clear the mists in my mind and reveal what exactly that sketch is from... the Tick? a Simpsons episode? Spongebob Squarepants? (no, not that last one).

So I was wondering what I'd do with these fava beans, when I saw Jewbacca's post on her lima bean hummus and then I think I plugged fava bean into food blog search which I believe led me to Fava Bean Dip.

So I decide to halve the recipe because I only had one can of fava beans and then I dumped them into the food processor, added the FULL amount of oil, dumped some of that out into the rice cooker, and realized I was out of cumin. AAAAaaaaagh!

Anyway, it turned out fine, so phew. Pretty darn good, in fact. If I ever see another can of fava beans, I'll snap them right up!

Then, since I was at food blog search, I looked up whole wheat flatbread and found this at bitchincamero (which in turn reminded me of a Dead Milkmen song I used to listen to). "Skillet flatbread?!?", I says to myself. Well, it had to happen. I love the cornbread I make in the skillet, and this sounded good, plus it hailed from Mark Bittman!

So I made that, too. It turned out really crispy (I used the lower end of the continuum of water- anywhere from one cup to three and I used 1 1/2). Next time I may use more water, or flip it at 20m instead of 30m. Soooooo easy and so good! Whee! I'll be making this again.


And finally, I made (sortof) Spiced Lentils and Rice from Fat Free Vegan. And I learned something new! A long time ago when I made Mallika's Rajmah, I complained about how when I make rice in my little cheapo rice cooker (no fuzzy logic here, oh wait, there IS lots of fuzzy logic, just not with the rice cooker) it foams and spurts all over, so my solution had been to rinse very thoroughly the rice, and that has worked pretty well. But, in reading Susan's recipe, I discovered that she has had the same problem and just coats the bottom of the rice cooker with oil! So I tried it, not rinsing the rice or even the lentils (notoriously foamy) and it worked!!! Whee!

So I made my rice and lentils a little differently, but it was so simple and easy I'll probably make it again. Nothing beats throwing stuff in a pot and letting it go!

1 1/2 C rice
3/4 C moong dal, or yellow lentils
1/2 t curry powder
1/4 t turmeric
1 t salt
4 C water

This takes about 45m or so. If it's not dry, add 1/4 C more water and restart.

Oh, and we had green beans from our CSA that were frozen in the freezer. With fake bacon bits.

Here is another lovely dinner. Tofu with peanut sauce.

In the background there is some butternut squash I roasted for like, an hour at 350. I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, coated the cut sides with oil, added a sliced clove of garlic to each little cup and added some more oil in there and mixed it all up. Then, when I scooped it all out, I just mashed the garlic in there. Yummm....

For the last half hour the squash was baking, I added the tofu marinating in the peanut sauce and let that bake, flipping the triangles over halfway through.

Oh goodness, I liked this sauce.

1/4 C + 2 T smooth peanut butter
1/4 C soysauce
2 T brown sugar
spash of rice wine vinegar
1 clove garlic
1/2 C water

Whizz in blender. Press your tofu- cut the block into thirds longways and then in half the other way and then into triangles. Place these on a cutting board or countertop and cover with a tea towel. Put your heaviest pot on there and add some cans of stuff in there too. Let sit for up to 30m.

Pour a little of the sauce into a 9 x 13" pan, to cover the bottom. Place the triangles of tofu in the pan, and cover with a little less than half of the sauce. Put in 350 degree oven for 30m, flipping halfway.

Meanwhile, cook the rest of the sauce on the stove on med low heat, to thicken it.

Serve over rice and top with the rest of the sauce.

Still reading "Infinite Jest". No suprise there.

Hooray!

WWHFDLN

Another attempt at perfecting my tater tot hot dish...
This time I forgot to heat up the green beans (used 2 cans this time) and the sauce- d'oh!
I canna' believe I didna' nuke the beans!!!

So here's what I did this time;

1 pkg tater tots
2 cans green beans, drained
1 package Morningstar crumbles
1 T oil
1 onion, chopped
1 t paprika
1/2 t chili powder
1/4 t pepper

sauce

1 can pinto/navy/northern/cannelini beans, not drained
1/3 C nutritional yeast
8 green olives
1 clove garlic
1 t salt or to taste

Bake tater tots as directed.
Blend sauce ingredients, adding a little water to get a thick, pourable consistency.
Pour into a medium saucepan, add green beans and heat on med low.
In a large skillet, saute your onion in oil, then add the crumbles and spices and mix well. Heat over med high heat until browned.
In a 9 x 13" pan, layer the tater tots, green beans in sauce and crumbles on top.
Nom.


We also had red lentil soup this weekend, which I've made before. It turned out very tasty. For some reason, this time I used 3 C red lentils... and I changed the spices... so I think I'll repost it here...

Red Lentil Soup

3 C red lentils
1/4 C olive oil
1 onion, chopped fine
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
8-10 C water
1 t cumin
1 t coriander
1 t sumac

In a large pot, saute the onion in the oil until browned. Add the garlic and saute for a few minutes.
Rinse lentils until the water runs clear.
Add spices to onion garlic mixture and mix well, stir over med high heat for a few minutes.
Add lentils and mix well.
Add water and bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer 20m or so until lentils turn mushy.
Remove in batches to blender, or if you're fancier than I, use an immersion blender.
Serve with bread.
Makes a lot of soup, but it's good and freezes well.

Still reading "Infinite Jest" people.
Gonna be reading it for a looooong time.
Really enjoying the AA parts.
Renewed it! Hooray!

If Someone Has Requested It

Hello! Happy New Year! I'm excited about this year... so many possibilities!

Here (above) is What We Had For Dinner Last Night (WWHFDLN). It was pretty good, almost like creamed spinach, although I haven't had anything 'creamed' in a while so I really don't know. It was tasty, anyhow.

I had 2/3 of a extra firm silken tofu left from the cabbage dinner (I used 1/3 of the tofu for a 'sour cream') so I decided to make Esme's Special Sauce (a staple in our house), and add the tofu to that. I blended it all up and then put it over the noodles and spinach.

Of course then I added too much of the pasta water to the sauce when I dumped in the pasta, so then it was like all soupy. So then I put it back in the pot, back on the pot, and stirred in 1 T of cornstarch mixed with 1 T hot water and stirred and stirred until it got thicker. Hoo boy!

So finally dinner was served.

Here is a rough approximation of the sauce;

3 T tahini
2 T miso
2 T soysauce
2 T olive oil
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T nutritional yeast
1 t salt
plus the silken tofu

Boil up your pasta, steam/defrost your spinach, and mix it all together, hey!

I liked the sauce, I'll probably try it with something else, perhaps one of my beloved casseroles...

And here is the Earthy Lentil Soup from "Vive Le Vegan". It was good! It's nice to have another lentil soup in addition to my other favorite lentil soup...

No news on the reading front, I'm kinda nervous because it's due in a few days and I'm only halfway through and if someone requests it then I'm doomed, DOOMED! I tell you! because then I can't renew it (if someone has requested it). You understand. Feel my pain.

There Was An Endnote to the Endnote

Good Evening (said in a voice like that Masterpiece Theater guy), no actually, it's morning, but I just wanted to imagine saying "Good Eee-ven-ing" with a deep voice, stuffy English accent and especially with that three syllabic stretch on evening, emphasis on 'Eee'.

Hey, what did you get for Christmas? I got a soapstone deep dish pizza pan (woo!), a clay baker (to make fake turkey in), some Chabon books, a gift certificate for our local kitchen shoppe (again with the woo! I'm torn over 1)many little things or 2)a pressure cooker), a book called "Curly Girl" so I can start to get a handle on the girls curls and Bryanna Clark Grogan's "20 Minutes to Dinner".

So I made a recipe last night from it- cabbage and noodles which is just as it sounds! It was good, although we are not huge cabbage fans. The cookbook has many great recipes and ideas in it, I'm glad to have it for inspiration.

I am of course still reading "Infinite Jest". It's gotten more interesting to me as more characters are added and it's not quite so masculine as the beginning was when it was super focused in on the main character. I will be interested to see if these different plots are ever woven together? And I also must amend a statement I made earlier about footnotes having footnotes- my good husband reminded me that the notes at the end of the book are called ENDnotes and the notes at the bottom of the page, you know, with the asterisk, are footnotes. My apologies. So I was reading an endnote when I discovered there was an endnote to the endnote. Whatever.

A Footnote to the Footnote!

Well, it's snowing here- slated to storm, actually. I just got a good night's sleep in who knows how long, we've got most of our Christmas stuff done (did all the cards last night- phew!) and so now we have just a few trips planned today to run errands to the COOP, the library and the Bikery, our local coffeeshop. I hope you and yours have a great Holiday season and get to spend lots of time with loved ones!

Here is some spaghetti with bottled peanut sauce and some of that fake chicken stuff and a bag of frozen vegetables. Yes, we like to live it up here...

But, even better yet, here are Snickerdoodles!!! Whee! I got to use my whisk attachment for my mixer which I hardly ever get to use. Oh, baby, were these good, it was a good thing my husband took them to work and I only got to eat a half of one! Next time I will roll them in the cinnamon sugar, roll them in between my palms to soften them a little and reroll them. Yes, I am AR, thank you very much. Isn't the cracking bee-yoo-ti- ful? I guess that's from the chilling of the dough. What a great thing to know. Go, make these now. They are really simple and really good.
And lastly, inspired by Guava's Shepherd's Pie, I made this! Man, I didn't even get you guys the money shot it was just so good. Imagine some peas and corn and carrots floating around in the gravy. I used some red wine in the gravy and the mashed potatoes mixing with the gravy... mmmmmm... heaven! I used my favorite Baked Veggie Stew with Biscuits on Top recipe. Maybe I'll have to try Vegan Dad's version next...

Still reading "Infinite Jest"- I got to the part where I quit last time, you wanna know how I knew it? I was filled with the same bafflement, that's how. I was reading a footnote and THERE WAS A FOOTNOTE TO THE FOOTNOTE!!!!! Srsly, folks, this book truly takes a commitment to read, not to mention that it's sort of hard to read in bed when you have to hold up this thing that weighs like a ton. Really, I can read a big book, I'm a big girl now, but when I have to keep flipping to the back to read footnotes, it gets exhausting. I should skip the footnotes, but I'm paranoid I'll miss something crucial and you really can't let things go with this story. Well, anyhow, I'm commited. We'll see if it's fate is better than that of "In the Name of the Rose".

Pay More Attention

Ohhh the excitement!
Well, it was good, if not real pretty...

I used Your Vegan Mom's Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix (thanks to her handy dandy widget search box I found that so quickly!). Thanks, Vegan Mom!

Cheesy Vegan Rice and Broccoli Casserole

2 C rice, uncooked
1 C Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix
1/2 bag frozen broccoli

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Oil your 9 x 13" casserole.
Nuke your broccoli and chop into smaller pieces.
Get your rice started.
Mix 1 C Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix with 2 C water over med high heat, stirring until thick. Remove from heat and mix together with broccoli and rice in a big bowl.
Pour into casserole, cover with foil and bake 30m, last 10 uncovered.

So, nothing fancy, but it was good hot food on a cold, cold night. Plus I have a cold, so, blah. Not much energy for inspiring foods.

Started "Infinite Jest" which I requested from the library...
Okay, I have started this before, I don't know when or how or why, but everything I'm reading is familiar. This time, however, I have a lot more patience and interest. So we'll see how far I get. It is a huge tome. I've told myself that if I bail, I will at least write the page number down somewhere so I can pick it up again later. Now I'm faced with either re-reading what I already read, or trying to skim ahead to find where I left off. I think I'm just going to reread and pay more attention this time.

So Fun!

What We Had For Dinner the Other Night

Again with the chili topped sweet potato! Yes, but it's so good! I must have a vitamin A deficiency or something...

this time with black beans, added some cocoa to the mix...

and served with Grandma's Cornbread Made Vegan. Oh, and I've made that cornbread quite a few times, never with the energ egg replacer and it's been juuuuust fine. Make it in a skillet, make it now.


And hey, I tried Vegan Mom's Vegan Cheese Sauce Mix, and lo, it was good.

I did not have raw sunflower seeds on hand, so I used 3/4 C rolled oats and it was fine.

Boiled up half a box of elbow mac (2 C worth), mixed it all up, topped with 10 crumbled Ritz crackers (yes, Virginia, they are vegan). Baked at 350 for 30m or so. Verrry nice. Even better the next day, reheated with a little added oil and some broccoli... for lunch, of course!

That's all I gotz for ya today, have given up on "The Name of the Rose" or whatever it's called. Reading another Aubrey-Maturin O'Brien novel, this one's not as good! Boo! It starts out on land, or as seagoing folk say, shore. Booo-ring.

Christmas presents are rrrrrrollin' in!!!! So exciting. Frigid cold here, snowing. Ahh, Winter.

Oooh, oooh! Not least but last, here's my presents for various and sundry people (neighbor who we hope to have watch cats, daughter E.'s teachers).


So fun!!

Too Saccharine Sweet

WWHFDLN

Yes, that perennial favorite, Baked Veggie Stew with Biscuits on top.
Well, I had been trying to get my hands on some wine to use in this gravy (Bryanna suggests port/sherry/Marsala), for example I stopped at a liquor store on the way home from our cut your own tree expedition (St. Croix Valley Tree Farm is really nice), but just came home with a bottle of Merlot mixed with something that starts with "C". Black Opal. I have no idea. It didn't even have a cork in it!! It was a twist off!
But I digress, so we had this last night and this time I used the gravy recipe with nutritional yeast where you toast the flour and nutritional yeast and it came out lumpy and liquidy but that was okay. And I spiced up the veggies and Boca by adding some paprika, pepper, garlic and onion powder.
Next time I will add a T of Earth Balance to the gravy. Sorry Bryanna, but it's got to be done.

1 16 oz bag frozen mixed veg
1 pkt Boca 'ground beef'

gravy
2 1/2 C water
1/3 C flour
1/3 C nutritional yeast
2 T soy sauce
1/2 t salt
few shakes Kitchen Bouquet

dumplings
1 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 C water

Oil a 9", round, covered casserole. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Nuke veg and Boca together in microwave safe bowl, covered, for 10m with 1/4 C water.
Prepare gravy; brown flour and nutritional yeast over high heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add water, soy sauce, salt and Kitchen Bouquet. Whisk well, return to high heat and whisk until thickening, reduce heat and simmer 5m.
Stir together dumpling ingredients with a fork to make a stiff dough.
Add a dash pepper, salt, paprika, onion and garlic powder to veg and mix well. Pour into casserole. Pour gravy over veg and then top with spoonfulls of biscuit.
Bake uncovered 15m, covered 15m. Yum!

Ain't it purdy.
Here is another repeat, pasta with lentils.
Very yummy, filling and cheap, cheap, CHEAP!!!
I spiced it up with some cumin because I can never leave a recipe alone and it was good. Also some onion and garlic powder, sensing a theme here?

Pasta with lentils

1/2 16 oz package pasta
1 C brown lentils
1 1/4 C water
1 T olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C tahini
1/4 C water
1 t cumin
1 t onion powder
1 t garlic powder
1 t salt
dash pepper

Boil pasta.
In a large pot, place lentils with 1 1/4 C water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 30m or until lentils are tender.
Saute onions, garlic in skillet.
Add onions and garlic, tahini, water and spices to lentils in large pot.
Mix well.
Toss in pasta and mix well (it helps if you just spoon out the pasta with a slotted spoon right into the large pot because the extra pasta water makes it easier to mix).
Serve hot.

I made my bread recipe and added some potato flakes which I had read about somewheres. Yo, it was good!!! I get ridiculously excited when I can change a recipe for the better. Note, I also added more oil and sugar. The kind of potato flakes I got at the coop come in these little packs so all I have to do is rip one open and it's so easy! Whee!

My Bread Recipe, the newest incarnation;
4 heaping cups flour
1/3 C sugar
1 pkt potato flakes (about 1/2 C)
1/4 C vital wheat gluten
1 scant T salt
1 scant T yeast
1/4 C oil
2 1/2 C water

Mix it all up, oil a bowl, plop it in there and turn to cover with oil, cover with wet tea towel and place in low oven (170 degrees) turned off for 45m.
Plop onto flour covered countertop, knead a little (10m), cut in half, roll out into rectangle, roll up short side, tuck ends under, plop in greased loaf pans and place back in low oven, turned off, again with the wet tea towel 45m.
When risen, take off towel, turn oven to 400 (you're starting from a cold oven, here) and bake 40m.
If having a really dark top bugs you, cover with foil toward the end.

And here is another repeat (sensing yet another theme here, now I'm repeating my 'sensing a theme here' statements, gah I'm repetitive). Yes, this winter will be the winter of working through the classics, I believe. Quick Tofu Mutter.
Anyway, this time I used more potato and peas to balance out the tofu and more curry paste, soy sauce, garlic.
Yum!
Make this today!

Quick Tofu Mutter (I think I found this on vegweb or somewheres, but I can't find it again)

1 pkt extra firm tofu, chopped
1 C frozen peas
3 potatoes, cubed
2 T Patak's curry paste
2 T soy sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced

Start rice.
Start water to boil for potatoes.
Dice tofu, place in 9x9" microwave safe dish and nuke 1 1/2 m.
In a small bowl, mix curry paste, soy sauce and garlic.
Pour over tofu and mix well.
Cook potatoes until tender (10m?), remove from heat, do not drain and add frozen peas to thaw.
Nuke tofu 1 1/2m, stir, then nuke another 1 1/2 m.
Pour tofu into serving bowl, drain potatoes and peas and add to tofu and mix well.
Serve over rice.

Reading "The Name of the Rose" or whatever that Umberto Eco book is called, man is it tedious. Sorry, literary people. There's a lot of talk and theology which is very interesting and all, but man is it slow!
So, to reassure myself that, yes, I can actually read quickly, I guess, somehow I ended up getting "Bridget Jones Diary" and and Elizabeth Berg book from the library yesterday and read them both in one day!!!! Bridget Jones Diary was fun in a fluffy way, the format got sort of ridiculous after a while. Then the Berg book I really super enjoyed, it was the third in a series, "True to Form". I liked what she had to say, her insights into life, didn't think it was too saccharine sweet etc. etc. Feel like I'm wildly vaccilating in my choices of reading material.

Oh, P.S. thanks for all the great feedback about the tater tot hot dish... was kind of embarrased to post it, but so pleased with the reaction!

Hooray For Food!

Hokay, lotta catch up to do here...

I made a Tater Tot Casserole, and lo! it was good.

1 pkg tater tots
1 can green beans
1 pkt Boca crumbles
1 T oil
1/2 onion, chopped
dashes chili powder, pepper and paprika
salt to taste

sauce
1 can pinto/northern/cannellini beans, undrained
1/3 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C (half a small jar) pimentos
6 green olives
1 t garlic powder

Blend sauce ingredients. Mix with green beans in a med. saucepan over med high heat.
Bake tater tots as directed (yes, they're vegan).
In a large skillet, saute onion, then Boca. Season with spices and salt to taste.
Place tater tots in casserole dish (I think mine's 3qt), pour sauce with green beans over and top with Boca.
Yum!

This is a variation of a sauce I use pretty often, it's nice because it's lowfat and so then the tater tots aren't so bad, right?, right?!? Anyway, I didn't have any lemon juice so I thought I'd try olives and it worked!! I am also sick of hunting down jars of pimentos so I think I'll just use green olives and if it turns a weird color I'll just add some paprika. Hoorah.

Yo, I am fancying it up 'round here! I made French Lentil Soup from Veganomicon with 2 C Merlot and it was good! This was my first venture into cooking with wine land, so that was fun. It was some cheap brand called Barefoot. Next up in Cooking With Wine, Marsala/Port/Sherry in my new favorite gravy recipe.

I made some Cheezy Quackers to go with some veggie soup. I thought they were great, but my husband did not, boo!
Oh, and soooo long overdue, I won! I won!!!
Thank you For The Love Of Guava!!!!! You are too sweet!
I felt so warm and fuzzy when I found out she had nominated me, so I love to pass on the love by nom-nom-nominating these fine bloggers...

I nominate
Cooking For A Vegan Lover because she has a cute cat and she posts great recipes (she actually made VeganYumYum's Seitan Roulade! Kudos!). Check out her Holiday Menu- drooool!

I nominate
The Pink Apron because she ate vegan for November, and because she needed some cheering up, plus I love her recipes and funny anecdotes (gosh that sounds weird, but it's true!)!

I love
That Pain In The Ass Vegan (already nominated, d'oh!) because her posts are informative and funny and personal and righteous.

I nominate
Adventures in Vegetarianism becuase she has a well stocked freezer, she introduced me to Hummus en Fuego and because she made the effort to travel vegan stylee!

I love
I Am Not A Rabbit (already nominated too! Geez!) because her household is now completely vegan!! And because her cat is cute! And because I like to read her posts and she photoshops turkeys for American visitors!

In reading news, I finished "Master and Commander" (you know, the book the movie was based on?) and it. was. teh. awesome. No, really, I did really enjoy it and I even made a special trip to the library to get the next one in the (16 BOOK) series, but of course they did not have it. Boo. So I think I have the 9th one or something. We'll see if they're stand alone books or not. You cannot beat a book about sailing, I mean, it's practically pirates, and the author really makes you love the main characters.

Currently I am reading "In The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco, I have heard lots about this author and I saw it at my library run, so I grabbed it and so far so good, although it is quite long, it's turning into a whodunit which is not usually my usual thing, but hey! why not, right? Lots of interesting theology details and so forth and crazy characters. So far it's working.

A Doughy Coupla Days

First up, Coconut Curry Tofu Bake with Mushrooms and Chickpeas, sans mushrooms.
This came from one of my favorite sites, Just the Food.
This was very good, especially with the sauce. The base of the casserole was a dough and tofu mixture and mine came out a little gooey... perhaps next time I'd prebake the bottom a little to crispen it up and then put the toppings on. Another fun idea would be to combine the sauce with the chickpeas right in the casserole. Holy cow this was rich and good, though.
Thanks Joni!!

And next up is Beans 'n' dumplings (scroll down)
This was a good supper, but next time I'll just make my dumplings the way I always do- separately and without the tofu in there.
I think I mismeasured the amount of silken tofu to make the dough for the dumplings (I used 2/3 of a package silken tofu)- I had to add quite a bit of flour (more like 2 C instead of the 1 C called for in the recipe) to get a dough. And then these were chewy, not fluffy. Now, I'm not saying they weren't good, but they were doughy. It's been a doughy coupla days.

Well, I feel like I'm living in a fable or something... you've heard of nursemaid's elbow? well I've got washerwoman's wrist (really it's washerwoman's sprain, but I like the alliteration). Yes, Flylady gave me washerwoman's wrist. Why oh why can I never do things moderately??!?

So of course, now all of a sudden I've got a million knitting projects I want to be working on, plus I still would like to clean my house, plus writing and so forth... but I have to rest my wrist. I'm trying to take the long view, like, not damaging myself and stuff, so moderation here I come.

Finished Good Omens, a lovely book. Really enjoyed it and so, so much fun. Glad I own it, to boot! If you like Ray Bradbury crossed with Douglas Adams, you're in business (just kidding, I hate it when people compare authors to other authors, but there you go).

Not going to finish "Twilight of the Superheroes", could just not figure out where she was going and it was a little too introspective or something...

Started "I Sailed with Magellan" reminds me of "Middlesex" for some reason, maybe it's this plunge into another persons worldview that's so strong. Interesting so far. Characters that are larger than life.

Snarky Humour

What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Chili Topped Sweet Potatoes
with Mole sauce

This time I just sauteed up a small onion and quite a few cloves of garlic and then added a couple of tablespoons of prepared Mole sauce. And a can of black beans. It was good, and now I know what to do with that jar of Mole sauce in my refrigerator.

Oh, and I also washed and didn't dry the sweet potatoes and placed them in the bottom of my rather large slow cooker and cooked them on low all day. So good. I highly recommend.

This was Cabbage Dal. I used my Fail Proof Dal recipe, plus a little curry powder. Now, it's not real pretty, but it did the trick and somehow, miraculously, the cabbage made it oh so much better without leaving any cabbage taste. Bizarre.

Here we have the lovely Blueberry Muffin. Started making this before I realized I was out of all purpose flour... so I used 1 C whole wheat and 1/2 C some fancy flour I got at the coop like pastry flour or something that I'm never going to use properly. Used the frozen blueberries we picked so late in the season at Cain's Orchard. Very yummy. Ate way too many.

And another repeat, Garbanzo Paprikash with Dumplings. Love. It. Decided to not make the dumplings green by using celery seed powder this time.

So, I started reading "Twilight of the Superheroes" because the author was recommended by Francine Prose who wrote "Reading like a Writer", actually I just took the back section where she has her list of books to read right now and opened it up and just walked the stacks at the library looking for the authors. So I found some books.

BUT THEN when I was at Goodwill yesterday morning I found "Good Omens" which I've been trying to get at the library forever and there it was- it was like a light streamed down from the heavens, yea and I arose from my shopping cart and procured it. Hooray!

And what with my newfound Terry Pratchett love, I find it so fitting to be reading this now.

Lots of snarky humour.

I think the reason I like Gaiman is because he writes the stories that I fantasized that the goth boys I had crushes on in high school lived. And how's that for escapism, huh?

So, Good Omens, very good.

"Twilight of the Superheroes" was about 9/11 and so, there's that. Maybe I will get back to it.

How Red It Is

What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Bread and Soup!

I got this Shepherd's Bread recipe off of a Ravelry forum and in my quest to try lots of different white bread recipes, gave it a shot!

It is very similar to other bread recipes I have tried, just without the butter (read; Earth Balance).

So I mixed it up yesterday and it made a quite nice loaf, very serviceable for a soup supper. Then, because the loaf baked for 45m and I didn't have enough space on my stone for both loaves, I punched and kneaded down the second loaf, shaped it and put it in a loaf pan to rise for a second rise during that 45 m. Woo! A loaf of sandwich bread which we had for breakfast this morning with almond butter and homemade jam. Nice. This was fun and useful and I may just do it again! Perhaps I will even monkey with it and add margarine and potato flakes and vital wheat gluten...

Then, to go with it, I made Split Pea Soup from the awesome 101 Cookbooks site. Yes, you can see that I made this exactly as she did, even down to the garnish (okay, I did use 1 C yellow split peas for one of the 2 C)!!

I must admit, this recipe inaugurated me into the world of using freshly squeezed lemon. Usually I sort of think it's a bit pretentious to use freshly squeezed lemon but that's a hangup I'm going to hang up. Now to see if I can actually have them at hand when I need them.

This was another quick supper (like the Pasta Alfako dinner) that turned out well. Everyone ate it, even the baby! I was sort of weirded out at how red it was, guess I haven't had Manwich in a while...

1 can Manwich (yes, it is vegan- yay!)
1/2 C TVP
1 C elbow macaroni
1/4 C ketchup (you could use tomato paste if you do not consider ketchup an ingredient as opposed to it's just being a condiment)
2 T HP sauce
2 T oil
1 onion, chopped

Put on your water to boil up the pasta and boil it up when the water boils. Drain. Set aside.
Nuke a 2 C Pyrex measuring cup of water in the microwave for 5m until it boils. Add the 1/2 C TVP and let it hydrate while you saute the onion. Drain.
In a large pot, saute the onions in the oil. Add the drained TVP and macaroni and mix well. Add the Manwich, ketchup and HP sauce. Simmer until thick.

Not much reading.
Left my knitting at a friend's house, d'oh! Finally got the gumption to get out some yarn and needles and then I go and leave it somewhere! Heavens!

Looking Forward to Leftovers

What We Had For Dinner Last Night

I have had this recipe for Rotini Alfako by the fabulous VeganYumYum for what seems like forever, let's see, posted Dec. 11th 2006- not sure if I got it then or shortly thereafter, but anyway, SERIOUSLY it's been a long time coming. I know I've pulled it out to make and then put it back without having made it. Finally I mentally designated one of our cans of coconut milk for this and this week it finally got made! I am so glad I finally did!!! People, this is good! A quick, rich pasta sauce? Sign me up! I can guarantee that we'll be having this again.

I made it just as written, except I used soy sauce instead of tamari, used ground pepper instead of fresh cracked (I'm so unfancy), and 1 T cornstarch.
Oh, and I also blended everything together instead of just stirring it together in the sauce pan- I'm crazy like that.

Boiled up my spaghetti, tossed in some frozen peas (right into the spaghetti pot! with the spaghetti!), drained it all and slathered with the sauce! Boom! So good!

This makes a fair amount of sauce, I used it over a whole 16 oz box of spaghetti. So it makes a lot, but I'm really looking forward to leftovers!

No reading. Hope you have a great weekend.

'Kay, So Why Did I Blend the Tomatoes?

What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Nacho Chips!!

Finding this queso recipe (love that Pyrex, btw!)
+ some roasted chilis from our CSA that needed to be used up
+ nacho chips on sale at the coop
+ Boca ground 'beef' in the house
+ a can of black olives
= Nacho Chip Dinner!

Here's how I made my queso, it's mostly the same...

Whizz up your roasted chilis (I think they were jalapeno?) with some water, then decide you're going to add this to the queso.
For some reason add the tomatoes plus everything else excepting the paprika, plus a few cloves of garlic (like, many). Use oil instead of Earth Balance margarine (I'm cheap these days!). Oh heck, I'll just type it out for you...

Queso Why Did I Blend the Tomatoes? (Get it, 'kay, so?, ha ha maybe not)

1/3 C nutritional yeast
1/4 C flour
1 t salt
bunch of chiles, roasted
1 t cumin
4 mild cloves garlic (this is stuff from the grocery store, not the CSA)
1 C water
can diced tomatoes
2 T oil
2 t prepared mustard

Blend all in blender. Cook on stove until thick. Add 1 T cornstarch mixed with 1 T water if you're impatient like me...
Makes a full 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup full.

Brown your Boca in a Tablespoon of oil and add taco seasoning;

Homemade Taco Seasoning (couldn't find the original recipe to cite, but there are many)

2 T dried minced onion
1 T chili powder
1 t cumin
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion powder
1/2 t oregano
salt to taste
1 C water

I didn't have chili powder (what's wrong with me?!?) so I subbed some cayenne powder and ancho chile powder and WHOO! was that hot!!!

Then slice up your can of black olives and serve.

Next time, use RoTel tomatoes with chiles, and don't add the tomatoes, or maybe I will...


Then, the other night we had soup. I am on a soup kick, hey?

This made a lot of soup, like, 14 C. The original recipe calls for a 4 quart soup pot, but, ah, I used my giant soup pot when it didn't all fit into my 6 qt. slow cooker.

Cranberry Bean and Root Vegetable Soup
loosely based off of Cranberry bean, lacinato kale and pasta soup

13 C turnips, parsnips and rutabegas, chopped into 1/2" dice (this was about 2 large rutabegas, 6 parsnips and 5 turnips, your mileage may vary)
3 C dried cranberry beans
14 C water
1/4 C oil
4 T paprika paste
6 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 T parsley
1 t sage
salt to taste

Saute the garlic, then add the paprika and spices. Stir in the cranberry beans, then the root vegetables and then add the water. Simmer all afternoon until the beans are tender and the veggies are mushy. Add salt to taste. The end.

Still reading "The Steppe" by Chekov. Verrrry interesting. Stopped at the bookstore to look at "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day" to see how many of the recipes are vegan to decide if I should get it, will put it on my wishlist.

Stunt.

Good evening!

So here is a good soup we had last night. I was pretty impressed.
I had some wild rice that needed to be used up and all I could think of was cream of wild rice soup or whatever that's called. Well, poof! into my brain came Lachesis' Alfredo Stroganoff sauce, begging to be made into the base for this soup... who was I to argue? And, boy, was that a good call!! If you are a fan of the cream based wild rice soup, do give this a try.

Vegan Wild Rice Soup

2 C cooked wild rice
1/2 pkg soft silken tofu
4 C water
4 cloves garlic
2 T Earth Balance
2 T oil
1 C soymilk
splash white wine
1 T onion powder
2 t garlic powder
2 t salt
dash pepper
pinch nutmeg

Place into the blender everything except the wild rice.
Pour sauce into soup pot, add wild rice and bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer until it's thick how you like it.
If it's taking to long to thicken, add 1 T cornstarch mixed with 1 T water to simmering soup and mix well, bring up heat a little and stir until thickened.

And here is a tamale pie type thing. I was so excited to make this!!! Finally, a way to use up my masa flour! Whee! Well, I must admit, I do believe this casserole should be baked COVERED because my tamale pie came out all dry! Boo hoo!
Also, I would double the filling next time by adding another can of black beans and another can of pinto beans and maybe even another can of tomatoes.

Tamale Pie, recipe based off of this.

For the dough;
1/2 C vegetable shortening
3 C masa harina
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 C water

Filling;
2 T oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 t salt
1 t cumin
1 t ancho chile powder reserved to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease a 9 x 13" casserole.
Beat shortening in mixer, add masa, baking powder, salt and water gradually until like a paste (when I added the 1 C water it just got where it was little pea sized balls so I added about another 1/2 C water to get the 'paste' consistency).
Press half into the bottom of the casserole and set aside the other half.

In your big pot, saute the onion and garlic, add the cumin and salt and beans and tomatoes and simmer until most of the liquid is gone (again, my tamale pie turned out really dry, so next time I might leave some of that liquid). Pour on top of the masa in the casserole and top with the other half of the dough (again, I might add more liquid to the second half of the masa dough to make it 1) more spreadable and 2) again with the not dry thing.

Bake 1 hour, covered.
Boy howdy there are a lot of tamale pie recipes out there! Some have pimentos, some have olives, some have corn, some have paprika, some have peppers... whoa! Pick yer poison!

On the reading front, instead of edumacating myself with Proust (ha! I lied, I set it aside and did nary pick it up again!), I will now proceed to tell the internets how I am frittering my time away... with THIS! Ha-hah! It's the first 12 chapters of Midnight Sun, the story of "Twilight" told from the vampire's point of view. Okay, I just had to know what all the hubbub was about these books. So I thought that the first 12 chapters of Midnight Sun were great fun. Fast driving, clumsy girl, vegetarian vampires, near death escapes, first love... lots of fun. Maybe a little patriarchal, a little contrived, but I thought it was a great story. Here's a little history on why you can read this online. I must say that I smell a publicity stunt. That is all.

Okay, I did start reading some Chekov, short stories, so good so far.

Steam Leavened

What We Had Last Night

Baked Veggie Stew with Biscuits on top

Yum! This was good! Nice and easy and quick and and and... you'll just have to try it yourself. Have a mournful can of mixed veggies stuck back in your pantry somewhere? Got flour? Soy sauce? Then you're in bizness. Add some Boca 'ground beef' and it's even better (actual preference may vary)!

So I did try to find this online, but couldn't. Innernet, you have failed me. But I did have some info on my printout, so... thanks Jan Tz! Is the vegsource.com website down or something? I think that's where I got it from...

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Oil a 9" round, covered casserole dish (I used a 9" square baking dish, but then I didn't have a cover and so I used tinfoil, but something with a cover would have been better). I digress.
Nuke a bag/open a can of mixed veg- I used a 16oz bag of frozen veggies (you can also nuke the packet of Boca in the same dish at the same time).
Oil your casserole dish.
Pour the veg and Boca into the casserole dish.

Prepare the gravy;
2 C water
1/4 C flour
1 T + 1 t soy sauce

Find an old spaghetti jar with a lid and put everything in there and shake, shake, shake. Or, just add a little liquid at a time and whisk it together so there's no lumps. Put on high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until thickened. Season to taste with salt and pepper and spices (I used a tee-tiny pinch of every single savory spice I could find- sage, thyme, mustard, oregano, Italian seasoning, basil, rosemary etc., also onion and garlic granules).

Pour the gravy over the vegetables.

Now at this point on my printout, the author says 'this recipe is from Bryanna Clark Grogan's book, "The Almost No-Fat Cookbook" p75'. But the 'this' is unclear... is it the gravy or the biscuit recipe to follow? Anyway, the biscuits or the gravy are from Bryanna, I'm hazarding a guess here and saying it's the gravy. If you go to her page here and scroll down, you'll find a more highly evolved version of this recipe, Bryanna's Rich Brown (fat free) Yeast Gravy (note to self; use this next time).

Prepare your biscuits

Featherlight Dumplings

1 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 C plain soymilk or water

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add water/soymilk until a stiff dough forms.

Drop dumplings by the spoonful on top of the gravy soaked vegetables.

Bake uncovered 15m, then covered another 15m.

Whee!

Reading "Swann's Way" by Proust. Man alive, I'm in X pages and really, not much has happened. I sure know a lot about the town he grew up in, though. Honestly it's not too bad, because I can put this down and pick it up at will and it's not too hard to get back into the swing of things. Unlike some other long-winded books, I'm still interested and I'm enjoying the ride.

I found some funny threads when I was trying to locate the above recipe online. I somehow stumbled across this. Hilarious! My favorite line was "It tastes a little like strawberries, and a little like failure.". Also the people at MetaFilter tried the microwave cake, with mixed results. I learned that said microwave cake is 'steam leavened'. Cool.