Eat Peace Please

The Gypsies Have Returned

2007-05-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's just that damn good that's why they're back. Every time I make this it has some different veggies in it. Yum. It's one of the most "interestingly simple" soups I've ever made/tasted... Gypsy Soup.

But the real honest reason I am posting about this and not wonderful baked goods like cookies, cakes and everything else that gets baked in an oven (I still don't broil), is because I am procrastinating... This early-mid part of May is just crazy busy for me and I am just not uploading all my new pics for the new posts. I will for sure be blogging about baked goods towards the end of May. For now, I hope you don't mind seeing this soup again, especially that many of the veggies in it aren't in season anymore, oops. We've hit the 100 degree mark already a few times here but maybe some of you won't mind seeing this instead of a smoothie.

Speaking of smoothies, I have to announce my new all time favorite concoction. Of course it features blueberries, but I also add 1/2 soymilk and 1/2 lite coconut milk as my liquid instead of just soy. It's the combo of the blueberries and coconuts that just can't stop me from making it! Also in my smoothies, as per usual is flax oil and shelled hemp seeds, all organic of course. I now keep canned organic (lite and regular) coconut milk in my pantry. I only like coconut with sweet things, not spicy stuff like curries. Anyway...

Featured here (of what I can remember) is sweet potato/yam, purple potato, green bell pepper, chickpeas and white beans, among the rest of the ingredients. I think I up the spices each time I make this, I keep loading more and more... Did I mention before how much I love the hint of cinnamon that shines through? I love how it almost "sweetens" it, but not really. Oh yum, this soup freezes well to me, but others have claimed not so well. It's up to you to determine.

The recipe is on my Eat Peace Please Recipes page (eatpeacepleaserecipes.blogspot.com). I'll be back 'round soon.

Lazy Rice Noodle Tofu Stir-Fry

2007-04-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

I am posting this to tide you all over (and myself) while I upload my huge backlog of photos to share with you all. For now, here is some more un-baked goodness I've had sitting as a draft for a long while. A simple, quick, standby for a lazy night. I got some baby bok choy at the co-op (now you have reference to when I made this since the co-op's been gone since late Feb) and knew it had to be thrown into a stir-fry. I love how the greens not offer nutrition and color, it also adds a nice combo of textures, both silky smooth from the leafys and that nice little crunch from the stems. And I love how cute and little they are, especially as you peel down...

I can't remember exactly what is in this, but I do advise you to follow the recipe for the sauce on my recipes page, the "Best Spicy Stir-fry" one. Now if you are super-lazy like I was that night, most of your ingrdients should be pre-cut in bags (organic of course) in the freezer. I simply cut the tofu earlier in the day and marinated it in the sauce until I was ready to cook. If you are super lazy, skip the marinated step altogether. Now that the tofu is ready to go, pull out your ingredients. I first start with taking out a pot and boiling the rice noodles. You don't have to start with this since they are so quick, you can actually end with this step, but I like to know they are done and I just let them sit while I'm cooking. Plus, rice noodles are made in a matter of three or four minutes, rather than almost an hour like grain rice, hence the laziness...

Back to the ingredients... In my case, the only necessary chopping/cutting was half an onion, a few cloves of garlic, carrots (you can see I cut them lazy-large) and the baby bok choy. The rest is simple, just pull out whatever you have suitable in the freezer and dump in in a heated wok with olive oil. I like to keep tri-colored bell peppers in the freezer especially for times when organic bells are $6 a pound fresh! I also keep edamame (a great snack) and cashews of course. Dump it all in the wok and heat on high or med-high until everything is nice and browned and steaming hot. Pour it over the noodles and consume.

This looks a lot "blander" and beige than it really is... the spicy sauce really ties it all together, you just can't really see it. There you have it, a lazy stir-fry. I will post more drool-worthy stuff soon, stay tuned.

Long Time Gone

2007-04-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

Just like the CSNY lyrics ("it's been a long time comin', its goin' to be a long time gone"), although I don't plan on being gone-gone for this long again. I'm sorry I was away for as long as I was, it was unintentional but a good break. I don't know where to start... it's been so long.

I think I'll start with telling you all how wonderful, thoughtful, caring, and meaningful you are to me. And that I am sorry for being gone so long. I have received a slew of comments for the longest time now, from people who are my friends to bloggers I don't even "know". All of your notes, emails, pop-in's, and pressure, each one has made me smile (or feel bad and guilty, but still!) and I am reminded how many amazing, kindred people read my blog and care so much! Thank you all... And please do know, people on my links among others, I am always reading your blogs and I enjoy them all so much. I have not been completely gone, just very very quiet...

It's been a long time since I've posted and I have a lot of "news" that's not new anymore. First off, I owe you all photos since Thanksgiving. Geez! Well, it hasn't been *that* long but I do have my thanksgiving feast to share before the next one comes again. At this rate, I really better get to it... I have had a lot going on, been busy, been lazy, and have had some serious personal revelations/changes lately... more on that later on (later as in a few weeks). I also had a birthday come and go. Oh, and I started running (rather than no exercise at all) and it feels really good on many levels. Killian is just as fat (and cute) as ever but he did bite me again. I was really hurt from it but turns out he had a bladder infection, among other things. We're both ok now, I think.

Let's get back onto the food. I have some serious news here people. If for whatever reason you aren't sitting down, please do so right now... Take a moment... ok... Guess what?!!?

Keep guessing...

I baked. Yes! I freakin' baked again (yay)! Some of you already know and thank you for keeping my "secret". While all of this excitement is going through your head, please know that I am also sorry for not sharing with you earlier... I almost feel sneaky... I've been baking since December 11th, 2006 again! But it's great, I just went for it that day and all was well. I started with Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip cookies because, how could I not?! I've heard so much about them, a fellow blogger sent me some of her homemade ones (thanks Jody!) and now I have my own. Plus, I love anything by Dreena. Here you see them modified with macadamia nuts (when they were 35% off at the co-op). I started baking before the holidays, through the holidays, and I just couldn't stop until about a month after the holidays! They're the best cookies ever. I ate sooo many cookies in a 6 week span. Hence the running...

Speaking of the co-op, I have some very sad news. As of late February, Gentle Strength Co-op (Tempe, AZ) closed it's doors. And they just moved in November... there weren't enough investors and to be honest, this city is really changing fast (daily, before my eyes) and many like-minded co-op people have moved up and on. I'm sad by these facts, but there will be "something" I hear... for now the only 2 CSAs (lame) are not taking new members, WF raised its prices ridiculously and changed certain distributors and I've always had produce issues with them anyway, and I really need to get my ass to some farmers markets (besides The Farm at South Mountain, which is still good enough for me) because I'm super sad I can't easily obtain local organic produce. But this also puts it in perspective for me how fortunate I was (and am) for being able to just go to the co-op whenever I wanted, purchased local organics for good prices. Those days are over but I have a lot of good memories... and I'm sad I can't get Wildwood chocolate milk (or any of their milks), bulk organic hempseeds, ricemellow, the best tasting organic fair trade oily coffee beans in the world, local greens from Matt's house, prepared organic vegan deli foods, personal care items, avocados, and a few other novelties only my precious co-op had. I am constantly saddened by the closing of this, but it is really also a slap in the face as to how much this place is changing (as if I haven't noticed already)... I am going to take my cooler and go down to Tucson one day soon and shop at their co-op... I ideally want to go to New Frontiers or the co-op in Flag but it's a bit of a longer drive (but prettier) so I will save that for sometime in May and I can go camping woo hoo! Ok, enough ranting, onto the photos...

Featured above: Vive le Vegan (Dreena's) Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies with added macadamia nut flare. Look at these fluffy babies! Yum.

More cookies... flatter cookies, but good cookies. With walnuts. I managed to only stick with the homestyle cookies of Dreena's. They are the best ever and can be modified with any additional flare. I swear I can't make any other kind of cookie... And back there you see my lovely (old and gone) co-op purchases, precious avocado (for a good price and USA) and bulk organic maple syrup. I'm soooo sad I can't get either of these anymore.

Looks like I gave in and bought WF maple syrup. Totally not the same (and my wallet knows that too). These are more of Dreena's cookies... who knows what I put in them this time. Sorry for so many [boring] cookie photos. I'm sure it's all old-hat to a lot of you but for me not having homemade cookies straight out of the oven for over a year was pretty rough! So, just be thankful I only posted these, as I took tons of the same sorts of cookie photos.

More of Dreena's cookies... This time just being lazy and dumped all the batter into this 8" pie pan. Yum. With ice cream it is even better (duh). Ok, I promise to show more than just these same types of cookies. I have so many baked goods to show you. One of my all time favorites is Kris' (squirrels vegan kitchen) Boston Cream Pie. I made it twice in a week! Stay tuned.

Again, thanks to all of you awesome bloggers for your support, kind words, advice and pop-ins. I appreciate it so much. I promise to get back to normal blogging sometime in the near future, for now things are pretty up in the air. Thanks for still reading my blog, even if it was a long time gone...

Eat Peace Please Recipe Collection

2007-02-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

So, I did the dirty work and managed to compile a years worth of my "new" recipes along with corresponding photos.

You can get to this page from my "about me" page, or you can simply follow the link.

http://eatpeacepleaserecipes.blogspot.com

I will try to be good and update frequently.

Note: These are only my own recipes. I adapt many from cookbooks, but these are either 1, completely my own, or 2, completely adapted.

I hope you all find this useful (I even have had to google my own recipes). Oh, and they are all labeled accordingly.

Behind the Apron

2007-01-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Behind the Apron, presented here by me, Leslie. "Behind the Apron", was created by Fiber at 28 Cooks and is a compilation of bloggers faces, not just photos of our food. This photo of me was taken 1 mile away from the Grand Canyon (the South Rim).

A bit about me: I'm almost 26 years old, I was born and raised in Chicago and moved to Arizona when I was 18. I earned a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition (slash Food Service Management) from Arizona State University in 2005 and I love food, cooking and food science. Oh, and eating too. I care passionately about my impact on the world, hence my vegan diet and just my ways of life. I love animals, and all things and people of good nature. I enjoy music, particularly live music, and more specifically jazz/funk and music from around the world (like African drums and music from India). My favorite color is brown, but I don't have a lot of favorites. I like the simple things in life, yet complexity fascinates me too. Oh, and since you can't tell from the photos (unless you know me in real life), I'm barely 5 feet tall.

The photo above is at a music festival selling jewelry and organic aromatherapy pillows, all designed and handcrafted by me. I would love to learn how to crochet/knit one day soon.

And here you have my super cuteness below, Killian. What a guy! Killian is about 4 1/2 years old and about 16 pounds. He is the ultimate fatness and here he is, as per usual, hangin out in bed all day. There you have it... a bit about me.

Back on the Blog Wagon

2007-01-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

I'm here. I'm alive. I'm just being a terrible blogger, oops. I have so much to post about!

Because so many of you have been wondering and asking, I am just letting you all know I am still alive, still in AZ, still waiting for spring to come, still cooking (and doing the dishes), still doing alright, and well... just "busy". Busy is in quotes because some of my busy-ness is laziness as well. I know I'll make up for it real soon... just you wait and see.

Happy, healthy and a peaceful New Year too.

African-Inspired Quinoa Peanut Soup

2006-12-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share this recipe today since I made it for the second time last night and really enjoyed it once again. This is African-Inspired (but not) Quinoa Peanut Soup from Nava Atlas' soup book. I seriously love this book, I have the newer all-vegan version. I tend to modify from it, but come on, what cookbook don't I do that from (maybe Dreena's?!). Anyway, this soup is more like a stew or a hearty protein-filled all-in-one bowl of goodness.

I created the soup the first time with a few modifications, specifically the following: I added paprika to the recipe, about a teaspoon. I also added a bunch of red pepper flakes to oomph up the spice. I didn't have zucchini and I didn't care, so I subbed one green thing for another, using a small bell pepper. I also had a yam instead of sweet potato, but at this point I am so confused as to what's what, I don't care what it is called... they are good, both yams and sweet potatoes. Finally, the last and what I think is the most important modification, is that I used a lot (like, a real lot, for me) of salt and pepper. I probably used at least a teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper (maybe more?) and at least 1-1.5 teaspoons of salt. The boullion I use is low-sodium, so that could be the reason I added more salt. Anyway, I swear, it's the salt that perks it up, which is weird because I usually don't say that about salt and spices. So, those were my modifications and it came out really earthy and good.

I like how this soup is creamy from the peanut butter and not runny because of the quinoa and at the same time it has a nice kick of spice. I like peanut butter with spicy foods, sort of reminding me of a Thai dipping sauce, but not. It is more like a regular veggie soup, just with a hint of pb kicked in. Vicki posted about this soup one time and said she didn't really care for it. I wonder if it was the spices (or just not a soup for her). She posted about this around the time when I first made this. I was hesitant during the cooking because it was a different recipe by a longshot than what I am used to... stirring peanut butter into a stew that seems to be "done" already? But that was the best part, seriously, this soup rocks! I made this soup again last night and used pretty much the same modifications:
I didn't have as chunky peanut butter. I grinded my own at the co-op yesterday and it was pretty smooth. I enjoyed it better the first time (peanut-wise) with more chunks. Yesterday I didn't add a green bell pepper, instead I added red and yellow and a few local green chilis. Yum! I also think I had a yam again, but I am still confused. All of these photos you see are from round one. I took photos last night but they pretty much look the same... just with more red and yellow. I highly suggest trying this soup. The flavors are unique and interesting and very tasty.

5-A-Day My Ass

2006-12-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

These are crepes again along with maple butter cream that I can't seem to get enough of. The crepes and creme are from Dreena's upcoming book, and wow, they are good. They are made of whole wheat spelt and have 5 types of fruits to go in and on them. I want to mention that simply pureeing foods, such as fruits and veggies, offers a person to cram so much more good stuff into the diet without eating more bulk or at least it mentally seems so. For example, what you see here is more than 1c of each type of fruit, simply pureed down for faster and easier consumption. Plus, that type of presentation goes well with crepes. And don't forget hiding greens in other meals, simply chop them super fine so they are mixed in.

Thinking about people counting and cramming in fiber and good stuff, made me think of that one ridiculous commercial where the woman wakes up in the middle of the night and chomps into a raw bunch of broccoli and then goes back to bed. Come on, after all, she needs at least 25 grams of fiber in her diet daily. Then she wakes early before the alarm, and continues to eat raw veggies while getting dressed and driving to work. She is desperately trying to squeeze in some raw carrots while at her desk at work. Then this crazy lady is even eating raw veggies while walking on the treadmill later in the day. Doesn't she eat meals? Or is it assumed that she is not eating any good foods (drive-thru burger and fries on her way home from the gym?!) and that she needs to spend free moments (and not-so-free) gorging away at raw produce?!
Wait... the point of the whole commercial... there's a pill for all that. Just take a few pills a day because after all, it is "so hard to get fiber in the diet" and continue to eat a bunch of crap instead of eating whole colorful, and fiber-containing, among other things-foods.

I decided not to rant about this (politics, obesity, socioeconomic issues, NSLP, etc), so here I am providing you with my "more than 5-a-day" from a vegan with a nutrition degree. And all in one meal, all on one plate (smoothies take care of this too!). All organic, some of it local: I present to you, Dreena's wonderful spelt crepes with maple butter creme (coming up in her 3rd book), and I served it with local gala apples, peaches that were frozen, frozen strawberries, a fresh banana and always-frozen-blueberries. All more than 1c of fruit each, pureed and gobbled up (divided by two servings). It is so simple and quick and easy to get so much fruit/veggies/good stuff if you simply puree it (starting from whole form not adding anything. Agave nectar is ok, but not necessary).

Weird Fondue

2006-11-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

For some weird reason, a couple of weeks ago, I made the "Vegan Lunch Box" Fondue recipe for my first go at the cookbook. It's weird because I don't care for cheesy things (except the artichoke dip at Green) and I had no idea what I was going to dip in it. It's also weird but more on the stupid side, that this recipe has been posted on her blog for months and I never had a desire to make it then, so why would it be the first thing I made with the book?! Weird. Anyway, I made this fondue and modified it a lot. I didn't take notes because I wasn't that thrilled in the first place. I know I added garlic and made it spicy, added more nutritional yeast and a few other things. Basically, I made it as-is from the book and it was too bland for me (and weird) so I doctored it. Let's just say this needs work. I can understand how a child would like this dip because it is creamy, simple and bland, but Ray grossed me out by saying (at the end of the "meal") that it reminded him of either cafeteria cheese or the cheese that pours out of those metal square boxes at gas stations. When he said that my whole opinion of the meal went downhill. I am willing to give this another go, just modified a lot more and possibly by having it not as thick. It was sort of dance-y and wiggly. It was a weird meal that I quickly threw together. I served it with way too old bread, some purple potatoes (aka smooshies), raw carrots and raw green bell peppers. It pretty much wasn't the best but the idea was good (yet at the last minute). Then, about an hour later I wasn't feeling so grossed out, so I ate half a pint of Turtle Trails. Then I was happy.

PS... Sorry for a crappy "disaster" post.
PPS... I don't have a fondue maker/set. This was made with a saucepot and consumed with a regular fork.

Soup of the Gypsies

2006-11-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

This is one of the best soups I have ever consumed in my whole life and where I got it from it's called Gypsy Soup, but I prefer to call it Soup of the Gypsies. Same difference. It is up there with Tofu Noodle Soup and Sloppy Lenties and VwaV Corn Chowder (my variation, anyway). By the way, tonight I made tofu noodle soup for the 9th time. Yes, I'm keeping a tally. I felt something weird coming on and decided to kick it early. Back to the Gypsies... I got this recipe from Kris who adapeted it from someone else. So that means I adapted an adaption of an adaption that most likely was already adapted. Anyway, this soup we all created (like the "telephone-game") by passing it on, has turned into something that is going into the routine. At least the fall-winter routine. I have made it three different ways, but with the same basics.

This is my version of the recipe. I hope you all like it. If you are going to modify, please at least keep the spices, it really is a nutritional party in a bowl.

Leslie's Soup of the Gypsies
~serves a lot (use a 6qt pot)~

2T (or less) olive oil
1 large onion, chopped small
3 stalks celery, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 sweet potatoes, peeled, diced small
1 large or 2 small yams, peeled and diced small
2t paprika

1t ground tumeric
1t basil, dried
1t sea salt
black pepper to taste
1/8-1/4t cinnamon, ground
1/8t cayenne pepper, ground
1 bay leaf
5-6 cups water
1 bullion cube or stock equiv.
1T tamari
2c chickpeas (or a 25oz can)
15oz can great northern beans (or white beans)
1/2 can diced tomatoes

My variations include: one time I didn't use northern beans, just a lot of chickpeas, the next time I also didn't use any tomato, which I prefer. The second time I made this I also used 3 purple potatoes which made the soup even more colorful along with a jewel yam and garnet yam, both locally grown at the co-op. My green bell pepper was also locally grown at an aquiantance's home.

Method: Heat olive oil in the soup pot over medium to high heat. Saute the onion, garlic, celery, green bell pepper and sweet potato (or equiv) for about 10 minutes, until semi-soft. Season with paprika, tumeric, basil, salt, cinnamon, cayenne, salt and pepper and the bay leaf. Stir to blend and then add the water, bullion and tamari. Cover and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Add beans and tomatoes if using and simmer for another 10 minutes, uncovered, until all the veggies are tender. If they aren't close to being tender, keep the lid on for a bit longer. Remove the bay leaf and consume.

This soup makes the house smell amazing and it is even better the next day once the flavors have married. I highly recommend trying this very soon, it leaves lingering flavors that seem exotic, but are not (see simple ingredients). Enjoy!

Amazing Snacks!

2006-11-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

Featured above is a spread of soy ice cream, local granny smith apples and homemade creamy caramel sauce from Vive le Vegan. I made this once before with turbinado sugar and decided to have a go at it again, but with darker, muscovado sugar. Oh, yum. This had strong accents of molasses from the dark sugar. At first, I wanted to sweeten it with agave but decided to let it do it's thing, and I'm glad I did. This was wonderful, having apples, ice cream and caramel all in one. Plus, plenty of caramel sauce for apple dipping. I also topped it with Soyatoo whip, not pictured.

This was a nice, dark, creamy caramel sauce. And easy, hence the name.

I didn't know what to do with myself one day, it was late afternoon, I had only consumed a small amount of food that day and needed something substantial- fast. Good fats, protein, veggies and carbs (and more)... I pulled out two processed items (aka, pre-made, not homemade leftovers), crackers which are light, yet super crunchy and heavy duty at the same time. They are made with everything from quinoa to flax and sesame with a nice japanese-style-cracker-crunch. I also had some pita bread leftover from falafel delivery (yes! vegetarian delivery!) a few nights ago. I whipped up some creamy hummus from one of my favorite books, Vive le Vegan, peeled and chopped a few carrots and took raw cashews out of the freezer. I think it may have been between 5 and 10 minutes, this snack was complete. I ate so much hummus, I'd call it lunch.

It's been a while... I love ice cream pie. I love just taking pre-made whole wheat non-bake pie crust, and filling it with a food-processor-mixed blend of ice cream, nut butter (in this case cashew), sunspire chocolate chips, pecans, maple syrup, tons and tons of blueberries and a lot of love (and probably other things I'm forgetting and anything you want). I topped it with Ahlaska chocolate syrup and the Easy Caramel Sauce from Vive le Vegan. Oh, yum.

I usually eat most of this pie myself. This time was no exception. I could probably have 2. Notice how blue it is from all the blueberries... my favorite.

Warning, if you thought all of the above looked awesome (or not), check this stuff out...

...This creamy cashew dip is courtesy of Dreena Burton. I can't get over how quick, easy and awesome this dip is. I could go on and on about all I'd dip in it, but I just ate it with some local organic granny smith apples. This dip has 4 or 5 ingredients and is going to be featured in her upcoming third cookbook. I however, have a subscription to VegNews and within 24 hours of reading the recipe, this fabulous, creamy, healthy, addicting yet filling dip was created. The main ingredients consist of vanilla soy yogurt and cashew butter. Yep- killer. Go make it now. Go get the magazine. Seriously people, this is some intense, wonderful stuff she creates!

The Best Stir-Fry I've Ever Made (Twice)

2006-11-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

I randomly came up with my own spicy stir-fry the other night. It was quick and easy. The spices lingered the rest of the night (most likely the red curry paste) and the thought lingered in my head a few days later. I decided to make it again with the same spices, except the second time I made this I served it over quinoa. I can't decide which way I like better. They are both spicefully fabulous. It's the curry paste that ties it together. I get the Thai red curry paste kind, it's about 2 dollars and lasts for many many uses.

I recommend using firm or extra firm tofu, pressed well and marinated for as long as possible.

Leslie's Special New Stir-Fry
Serves 3 hungry people (probably 4)

Marinade:
5T tamari (or soy sauce)
2T rice vinegar
juice of 1 lime
1.5t red curry paste (this is the part that gives it spice and ties the recipe together)
*red curry paste ingredients: red chili, garlic, lemongrass, thai ginger, salt, onion, kaftir lime, coriander, pepper*
2t agave nectar
1t fresh ginger, grated, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced

1T olive oil (optional)

Stir-Fry:
1/2c edamame
1c thin sliced bell peppers
1/4t red pepper flakes
14oz rice noodles
2-3 carrots, peeled, cut
1/2 small onion, cut
1t arrowroot
2 more cloves garlic, minced
10oz firm tofu cut into triangles

Method: In a container with a lid, combine marinade ingredients and place pressed and cut tofu in the container. Let sit for at least an hour, shaking or stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, fill a saucepot with water and bring to a boil. Take off the heat and add rice noodles. Soak for 10 minutes then rinse and drain with cold water. Set aside for later.

Heat a wok with olive oil and add stir-fry ingredients, minus the arrowroot. Cook on med-high for a few minutes and then add the tofu. Keep the marinade in the container and add the arrowroot, stirring to dissolve. Add arrowroot-marinade mix to the wok and heat until it is a thicker sauce and veggies are cooked and heated through. Serve over rice noodles or quinoa.

I like to mix up the sauce with the noodles on my plate, not before hand. Plus, I think it makes the presentation better and the noodles not soggy. The second time I made this I served it over quinoa. Eating this with quinoa made me 100 times fuller, faster (duh).

Edit to Add: I finally responded to all the comments in the post below.

Whole Fennel, Cranberry Almond Bark & Coconut Chocolate Pudding

2006-11-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is fennel. I always used to just pass it by in the produce section having no idea what it was like or knowing what on Earth to do with it, until the day I needed it for some nasty potato leek soup. As you know, that went to shit, and I still had a fennel bulb in the fridge. Surprisingly, I do like fennel, just not the first way I prepared it. I decided to make these and I like fennel now (or at least prepared a certain way). So here's a photo for all of you (in whole form) who have always passed it up like me. You can save the little hairs and dry them and use as dried herbs.

What you sort-of see above (sorry, this is around when I messed up my camera) is some Cranberry Almond Bark from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer. It only has dried cranberries, raw almonds, cocoa powder and maple syrup. All organic and all yum. They lasted in the fridge for about 10 days. They were easy to make and you don't need a double boiler or anything fancy. I already have variations lined up in my mind...

Above is some very wiggly chocolate coconut pudding from VwaV. This is nothing like I have ever made before, hence me using tofu for pudding all the time. I'd say this is more like a real pudding and my regular recipe is more like a mousse, so it is unfair to compare- they're different categories. I enjoyed this because it is made with soymilk, coconut milk and arrowroot to make it wiggle. I think I had more fun wiggling it like a child would do (holding it upside down above my head and all), than making it and eating it.

And lastly, another photo of moroccan chickpea patties... I made them for a second time only a few days later, but served it the same way both times with the ginger dipping sauce and raw cashews. I forgot to post about this last week, so here's a look.

Also, if you haven't noticed yet, I've been posting more often. I plan on keeping it up...

Tofu Noodle Soup (Post 1 of 2, #2's Below)

2006-11-11T22:25:00.000-07:00

I am absolutely hooked on this tofu noodle soup. Talk about comfort food, this soup is so flavorful and seriously addicting, I have made it five times in the past two weeks. It's just all around soul-soothing. It all started when Ray started coming down with the flu. I told him I'd kick it for him with my cooking (lots of garlic, ginger, tumeric, etc.). It was only the day before that my wonderful soup book by Nava Atlas came in the mail. I decided the first recipe I'd make would be Mock Chicken Noodle Soup (page 54 if you have the book). I didn't like the name at all since I'm not a fan of real dead meat nor fake meats, but reading the ingredient list, it didn't sound chicken-y at all, especially with tofu (I think seitan can be subbed easily). I decided to have a go at it, especially because I convienently had all the ingredients on hand. Minus the baked tofu, but I fried (lightly) up my own and it came out wonderful. My only issue with this book is that it calls for one teaspoon of "salt-free seasoning", forget the salt-free, that's fine, it's the whole mix up of spices in one container (minus good curry powder) that I don't care for. I don't like seasonings like this guy does. So, I decided to think up what the hell would be in mock chicken noodle soup. Besides the called-for dill (which totally ties the whole soup together). I made up my own spices using almost everything in my spice rack, sort of, and the soup came out wonderful. I used way more than 1t. of spices!

Since I have made this recipe 5 times now, I made it the first time following the recipe almost exactly, minus the baked tofu and my own seasonings, plus more. The next few times I tweaked it around, and I'd say I've come up with close, but my own modified version of this recipe. The photos you see here are from my modified and very different, more medicinal than the original version. It is so wonderful, the leftovers are good but the noodles absorb a lot of the water so you have to either add more water and add more seasonings or just eat really non-brothy soup.

Leslie's Tofu Noodle Soup (adapted from Nava Atlas Vegetarian Soups for All Seasons and modified by me, Leslie)
This yields about 4 quarts.
1T olive oil
3 large celery stalks, diced small
4-5 carrots, peeled and diced small
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
2t. minced or grated fresh ginger
1 yellow onion, small, diced
8c water
2 boullion cubes (or broth equiv)
1 to 1.5t dried dill (you must add this!)
1t. oregano (all seasonings are dry)
1t. basil
1/4 to 1/2t. paprika
1t sea salt
1t black pepper
1t tumeric
1/2t thyme
8oz thin noodles broken into 1.5" sticks
8oz firm tofu, pre-baked, pre-fried, or make your own like I do using firm tofu, pressed, heat up a bit of olive oil in a pan, place 1/2" thick squares on the pan and add all of the same spices you put in the soup plus optional breadcrumbs and heat until golden brown. Dice small.

Method: In a large stockpot (I use 6 quarts), heat olive oil and add carrots, celery, onion, garlic and ginger. Heat on medium and add 2T of water (I just grab a bit from the sink in my palm). Put a lid on and let it "sweat" for 10 minutes, stirring once or twice. Carefully take the lid off (the steam is quick and hot) and turn up the heat. Add the boullion or broth, water, and all the spices. Bring to a rapid simmer and then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the veggies are soft. Take the lid off, increase the heat again but not as high, and add the noodles. Cook them 5-8 minutes, until al dente. As soon as you throw the noodles in is a good time to start sauteing the tofu. Heat the tofu in a bit of olive oil, and a pinch of each spice in the soup, plus 1T soy sauce (optional, but good) and mix and heat until crispy and brown. The noodles should be soft but not mushy now. Lower the heat even more, add the tofu. Stir, serve immediately. If you don't serve immediately, you can choose not to add the tofu right away. I like to put it in at the last minute and Ray likes it soaking, even overnight. It's up to you. There are many spices total, but they totally make the soup wonderful. I even use a lot more tumeric and ginger, as I said above, we were trying to kick the flu.

Oh, and Dreena told me about a ginger tea that I think also helped kick it. Not to mention I didn't even get one symptom of illness (hence the veganness). No one needs to be sick or even close to love this soup. It is wonderful, healthy, full of healing ingredients and easy and quick to make. I'm addicted I think. You should be too.
See the next post below for post 2 of 2.

The Potato Trio (Post 2 of 2)

2006-11-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

I found these local purple potatoes at the co-op for $1.49 a pound. Usually I prefer cheaper deals, but these were so vibrant that day they were hard to pass up. Since they were a bit costly, I didn't want to buy 4-5 pounds of just those so I got some yukon golds and red potatoes. There was a man who was curious about them while I was checking out and he was very surprised that I exclaimed with enthusiasm that they were just as vibrant on the inside (he thought they would be white). Check them out all cut up.

I decided to make mashed potatoes. And mashed taters are not even close to complete without VwaV Chickpea Gravy (I love that stuff with a big part of my heart). Here you see the very creamy mashed potatoes. I was so excited to eat that I almost forgot to take a photo so this is the very very creamy bottom part that my handheld mixer didn't get to (too much Earth Balance at the bottom). Oh well, they were still fabulous and super-colorful. I left the skin on but peeled the skin on the red ones beacause I couldn't get all the dirt off. I love colorful potatoes. I have a few more and I plan on dicing them up and doing something with them on the stovetop. These were served with Sunshine patties (SouthWest kind, of course) and a side of sweet corn. Yum.

Moroccan Chickpea Patties, Lentil-Quinoa Stew & The New #1

2006-10-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

I think I have found something new to add to the list of foods I make over and over again. "Moroccan Chickpea Patties"!!! These wonders come from page 97 of Vive le Vegan, delicious and creative courtesy of Dreena. If you are like me and have never made these before and have owned the cookbook since it practically came out, make them very soon because you are missing out. I cannot wait to make them again! I served these with the recommended Ginger Dipping Sauce. So good...

I have had my eye on this recipe but passed it by many times due to the ingredient called fennel bulb, but if it weren't for the fennel incident, I would possibly never have tried these. After I decided to throw away all that nasty potato leek soup as described in the post below, I still had a fennel in the fridge that was lonely and yearning for my attention. I decided to email Dreena and asked for her suggestions for some non-oven fennel recipes. Among others, she suggested the Moroccan Chickpea Patties from one of my favorite cookbooks, and my tastebuds will never be the same again. I cannot give away too much, but just be prepared for some ginger, cinnamon, cumin and fennel = amazing.

Next up is some lentil-quinoa stew. Specifically, red lentil. I made this once or twice before but I believe I based it on a recipe or a few recipes combined. This time I just used what sounded good. I have a real recipe to provide (I'm on a roll, huh?!).

Leslie's Special Lentil Quinoa Stew
*yields aprox. 3 quarts (probably serves 6, I served 3 super-hungry people and have leftovers for 2 more)

1T olive oil
1 med-large onion, diced
2 celery stalks, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
5c total liquid (H2O, veg broth, etc)
1c red lentils, sorted and rinsed
1/2c quinoa, rinsed for 2 minutes
1t basil, dried
1t oregano, dried
1t sea salt
1t black pepper
2t salsa (or if you actually have real tomatoes use 1)
1/2t cilantro, dried, or 1/4c loose fresh
2T apple cider vinegar

Method: In a large stockpot on medium heat saute onions in olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the veggies and spices and stir. Turn heat up to medium-high and add the water (or equiv), lentils and quinoa. Stir. Cover. Bring to a boil and lower the heat. Simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. With an immersion blender (or in 1/2 batches, carefully), puree only 1/2 of the soup. This step isn't necessary, but blends everything nicely (highly recommended). Turn off the heat and let it chill. Finally, add the salsa (or equiv), cilantro and apple cider vinegar. Stir and serve.

I bought my first sweet potato. I plan on making a soup from Nava Atlas' soup book which I love (more on that in another post). And an organic pumpkin. And 2 russets but those aren't exciting. I do have exciting purple creamer potoatoes in the pantry keepin' cool (yeah right) and dark. The stem came off the pumpkin, but I really don't know what to do with it since it needs to be un-baked. I am really more excited about looking at it than eating it. I'm not really a pumpkin-eating person. I do love the seeds though.

Yum. Need I say more?! Yes...

This is totally my new favorite ice cream flavor. I am super-happy that it finally made it over to AZ and I am even happier that I know someone who loves it just as much. This ice cream has also changed a few things in my ice-cream-standards world and it has moved up and kicked cookies and creme out of the #1 spot (for now?). I have mixed feelings about admitting this (as if I am really *admitting* anything), but I am on my second pint of Turtle Trails in barely over 24 hours. That's how freakin' good this is and I don't really say freakin so you must know how amazing this is... Imagine... thick, creamy swirls of caramel, not skimped at all, swirling around creamy vanilla with--- get this--- chocolate coated candied pecans and the candied part is made of beet sugar. All organic too. I can't get over how good this is.

At first my main reason for talking about the ice cream was the following (I got held up in describing how amazing it is): I knew this was coming one day soon, but it has slowly arrived... safety seals! I am so happy about this. For those who don't know, I've read books, been through microbiology labs, and I am picky, so I get concerned of my ice cream tops lifting off so simply. Ray eats StoneyField Farm organic (dairy but non-egg) ice cream and it has a plastic seal like yogurts have. This is hard to see in the photo, but it is a safety seal that uses minimal (I think?) plastic and is just around the outside of the lid. I feel so much better about eating ice cream now... I didn't even think it could get better. It has! The only 2 flavors I've seen so far that are safety sealed are the Turtle Trails and Cookies n Creme pint size. I am so happy about the new advances in the [soy] ice cream world.

Authentic Faux-Baking, Piano, Tofu Scramble & A Disaster and a Half

2006-10-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

I recently faux-baked some apple crisp and it came out wonderful. The fake-coming-from-the-oven-smell was exactly what I needed after almost a year with no oven usage. The very next day I decided to faux-bake again, and this time it was the real deal. I'll get to that in a minute... First a non-food rant: I would like to exclaim how happy I am that we (Ray and I) have an electric piano (aka, not a crappy keyboard with a lot of stupid buttons and sounds, yet not a performance piano). It came at an odd moment, I'd been thinking about playing again recently since I was taught to play at an early age. I really miss it in a weird way. Now, don't think I can really play, I can't. I can just read music (to a point) and play mostly with my right hand... Ray, on the other hand is a musician, a music student, a teacher, and a music-student-teacher. He needs the piano for various reasons (as well as his double basses, electric bass, violin, viola, cello next semester, trumpet, and we have even had an oboe, bassoon and french horn here). I love it. I have mastered "Puff the Magic Dragon", a Danish Folk Song, and "Conjunction Junction" and have moved on to the Real Book vol. 4 (I think), therefore I can now play "Autumn Leaves" and I am sort-of working on "So What" and a few other jazz tunes that I probably shouldn't say I can play. But it is really fun. We had to move Killian's condo and his box (see below) and he is surprisingly very happy about that.

Back to the authentic faux-baking. I have been wanting to try a Grunt for a long time. I've never heard of such a thing and I hear these are confused with cobblers, as well as being popular in the New England area (am I right or wrong?). The obvious reason I have wanted to try this for so long is because it looks like it came out of the oven, but didn't. I searched and searched (for months) to find the ultimate grunt recipe. I think I found one, but of course, my own modifications, so this is My Organic Blueberry Grunt. Check out our desserts below. I served these (3 of us) with soy vanilla ice cream and soy whip on top. It was wonderful and I have made it a few times already.

My Organic Blueberry Grunt Recipe
serves 3 to 4 people
2c frozen or fresh blueberries, organic
1/2c. raw sugar
1/2c. spelt flour
1/4c. stone ground whole wheat flour
1t. baking powder
1/8t. sea salt
1/4t. ground cinnamon
1/8t. nutmeg
1/3c. + 2T. soymilk
Method: In a 2 or 3 quart saucepot, combine berries and half of the sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring often until the berries come to a boil. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, sea salt, remaining sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. Add milk, just to moisten. Drop tablespoon-fulls of batter into the boiling blueberries. You can let them touch each other, they will seperate. Cover with a tight fitting lid and lower heat to med-low. Cook without lifting the lid for 15 minutes. To serve, use a large, flat spoon and lift out "cakes" and serve with ice cream. It is also good alone, but always better with ice cream.
And below is one of my favorite things in the world... I can put simmering blueberries with almost anything.

Here is an up-close, yet kinda crappy shot of the inside of the grunt. See how baked it looks?!

Moving on... I really messed up bigtime here. I attempted to make potato leek soup. Come on people, is there one good recipe on the web? *If you have a good recipe for potato leek soup I would be very happy to have it in my home* There aren't many recipes in my cookbooks and the one I found (I think online) called for fennel, leeks and russet potatoes. I thought it was going to be alright, that is, until I had my first experience with raw fennel. And whole fennel. This veggie freaked me out at first. I should have read the back of Vive le Vegan where it tells all about fennel, how it tastes and what to do with it, but then again, I may not have bought it then. I got 2 bulbs as the recipe called for, opened one, almost puked, and decided to hold off with the fennel, thinking the soup would be alright without it. Boy, was I wrong. This soup pretty much tasted like bland crap and it was way too creamy for me. I attached a copy of the recipe (that I made up based on many) just in case maybe someone can tell me where I went wrong. Or what I should have added or taken out. Or if this is just crap anyway, and I should move on... I actually ended up throwing the cut fennel away because it went bad during the whole week it stared me in the face every time I opened the fridge. I also threw about 2 quarts of crappy soup down the drain (terrible guilt). Stay tuned within the next few days to see what I did with the other fennel bulb. I had a major delicious success! But what you see below is crap, so don't use the recipe unless you are making it for someone who likes bland, uninteresting foods (or other reasons). Or if you can tweak it for me.

Tofu scramble! I made it but didn't eat it. This falls under the category of "yes it is vegan, but Leslie won't eat it foods" such as faux meats and pre-made faux cheeses. I used to gag at the smell of my mom making scrambled eggs for my brother starting 20 years ago, and I knew this would be ok and not stinky to make. In fact, it smelled good, I just have "issues". Tofu scramble is something Ray has been requesting for a long while. I either had silken tofu or really firm tofu for a long time and never got around to making it. Finally, last Saturday I made Dreena's wonderful crepe test-recipe for the tenth time or so and also decided to make tofu scramble on the other burner. In the middle of cooking both at once (I like to pre-make the maple butter cream), a friend of mine / ex-co-worker called and she was going to stop by. There were 3 people eating the tofu scramble and the verdict was positive, yet not with much energy. It was all eaten but probably just because they were hungry and it was there. I made the tofu scramble from VwaV and next time I will experiment with other recipes. I still won't eat it (or try it).

Next up we have some veggie bean and veggie-dyed-alphabet noodle soup. This soup is a random recipe that I made up with scragglers from the co-op sale, and I used way too much fire roasted tomatoes. It was good, Ray rated it an 8, I gave it a 6, but there is lots of room for replacement. I will give the basic recipe, but please feel very free to elaborate and change it up. It was good for a meal, but very tomato-y for me. I made so much (which I am sort-of unhappy about) and we still have that huge-ass bag left in the freezer. I plan on thawing it out, doctoring it up, adding some onions, and seeing how that goes. For now, here is the recipe and it makes almost 6 quarts. Ok, here's a basic recipe, cut it down, change it up...
8.5c water (or veg broth + water)
1/4c dry alphabet noodles
1- 28oz can fire roasted tomatoes, crushed
1 can kidney beans
1 can chickpeas
3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 handfuls chopped green peppers
4 cloves garlic
3 yukon gold potatoes, cut
1/2t basil
1/2t oregano
1/2t thyme
1t sea salt
black pepper to taste
1/2t jalepeno hot sauce
I really wanted to use spinach... I'm now just seeing it around.
Directions: Add everything together. Boil. Cover. Simmer until potatoes are soft. Consume.

Served with a whole wheat bun on Ikea snack sets.

And finally, same deal as last time, faux-baked, but with added blueberries. After taking this photo, the blueberries were extra soft, and turned everything a nice purple hue. Highly recommended.

Note: I usually don't post too often (sorry, I'm working on that). I am going to provide you all with a post within the next few days for your personal viewing and eating pleasure. Part of it will be about what I did with the fennel today (plus other stuff). I'm giving the warning so you all don't fall out of your chair from me posting frequent posts and real recipes! Stay tuned...

What's New: Kitchen Stuff, Washing Method, Co-Op Location, Soup Recipes & Faux Baking

2006-10-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

It finally feels like fall here. That means nice temps in the 80* degree + range, sunny days and a bit of rare rainfall. I also finally broke out my hoodie for night time because once the sun is behind the mountains it gets chilly quickly. I have been wondering when I was going to start craving autumn foods and the time has finally come! I have about 10 pounds of apples in the fridge that are quickly releasing gases and ripening all other foods, and need to be turned into something, or plain eaten. Even though it has been cooler outside, I still eat ice cream as much as possible (soy, not cow, for those new readers). Here we have a newer version of my infamous fruitshake with a lot less ingredients. This is Double Rainbow Soy Vanilla Bean ice cream with 365 organic soy milk, organic hemp seeds, tons of blueberries and a few Newman's O's. Oh yum.

Above is my new veggie and fruit washing method. Dreena has a wonderful method for washing produce and I decided to do the same. What a time-saver. I love having everything cleaned at once, ready to go in the fridge, and I don't have to worry about those extra steps while prepping food. This is my real dish drainer, but I have converted a smaller one, but deeper for my new washing method. I highly recommend trying this. It really cuts out a lot of time in the long run. Thanks Dreena!

Ah, yes... fridge photos. This is craziness I tell you! The co-op is in the process of moving. The new store will be open this Saturday and I don't know how I am surviving all week without the co-op. Oh wait, I do... look at all this produce and other good stuff I stocked up on. I'll be fine for a long while! One day stuff was 25% off and then Julie let me know that the next day it was 40% off! I stocked up both days. The first day was mostly bulk items that you can't see because they are in the pantry, not fridge (minus hemp seeds for 60% off!), and the organic oj with pulp. The next day is where I really went crazy. You will see 4 pomegranites on the bottom left. I love pomegranite and have since I tried them in first grade. I asked the lady if they were "by the pound" or "each" and that would make a difference in the size I would buy. She didn't know, and I was holding 2/4 of them and she said to just "take them". Sweet. Then she looked over and saw the other 2 lonely guys and told me I could just have those also! I got 4 free organic fresh poms (not that crappy POM company that refuses to stop testing on animals) and that really added to the bonus of the overall sales. I am happy.

The fridge looks ridiculously full, but there is a lot that was not new from the co-op, I could only buy perishables and frozen stuff for the sale anyway. For example, that chocolate stout beer that's been sitting there for months. And some leftover pastas (you will see below), always many kinds of "milks", and lots of tofu I keep on the middle shelf. Plus some kiwi and other produce I already had... I did splurge on certain items such as Tofurky, miso and Men's Bread, items that are usually more costly, but not this time. There's also stuff that I keep on hand all the time tucked in the back (wheat germ, extra Earth Balance, pita breads). Oh, and those are Virgil's cream soda's but I found out after reviewing my reciept, they were not on sale. Ray really likes Virgil's brand (I'm not a soda/carbination fan).

As per Julie's request, here's what I got (the second day for 40% off)... all organic.
Soy Delicious creamy orange bars, 2 Virgils cream sodas, oj with pulp, boylan's black cherry soday, soy whip cream, non-hydrogenated Tofutti cream cheese, frozen peppers (a few bags), 2 blueberry spelt donuts, frozen edamame, naan bread, many limes and lemons, a green bell pepper as big as my face!, yellow bell pepper, 2 red bells, 6 jalepenos, Asian pears, a red pear, a bunch of red chard, oranges, poms (free), white miso, Rocky Road Soy Delicous, White Chocolate Raspberry Double Rainbow ice cream (yes, 3 ice creams 40% off), hemp seeds, 2# carrots, 10# apples, Tofurky, Men's Sprouted bread that I forget the name of the brand. Total = $44 including multiple bag discounts. That's a lot of stuff, I'd say.

I am really proud of myself for creating this soup above. I am also really surprised and proud of Ray for liking the soup, as I thought he'd turn his nose up at it. Overall, this is a thick soup, and I froze the leftovers and plan on serving it over rice or quinoa. Probably quinoa.

Leslie's Chickpea and Red Lentil Soup (yes, a real recipe)
1/2c green peppers, diced
1/2 medium onion, diced
3 carrots, sliced and peeled
1c veggie broth
2c water
1 15oz can chickpeas
14oz can diced fire roasted tomatos
1c red lentils, rinsed and drained
1t salt
few dashes black pepper
1/2t tumeric
2 cloves garlic, minced
1T olive oil

Method: In a 3 quart stockpot, saute onions and carrots in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add garlic and saute for a few minutes longer. Add the rest of the ingredients and cover. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer. Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until lentils are soft and soup has thickened. *Edit to add: to make the soup like the photo, simply blend 1/2 the soup with an immersion blender or take 1/2 the soup in batches and carefully blend in a blender or food processor. Enjoy as a soup/stew or serve over a grain. Makes almost 3 quarts.

Now on to the seasonal goods. I haven't used the oven since December and I am really starting to miss using it now. Especially smelling all the wonderful baked goods, besides eating. Since I still wasn't going to use the oven, I decided to make something oven-like and pretend it was baked. I made an apple crumble to top vanilla soy cream. Oh yum! I am finally starting to make my own recipes again which is nice because I tend to make pretty good random stuff. Here's the recipe for my faux-baked apple crumble.

Leslie's Faux-Baked Organic Apple Crumble
serves 4
3 large apples, keep the peel on, diced
3 handfuls of organic rolled oats
1 handful walnuts (toasted yourself or untoasted is ok)
1 handful pecans (same as above)
1/3c maple syrup
pinch of sea salt
1T brown rice syrup
1t blackstrap molasses (for added nutrition)
1t cinnamon, ground
1/4t nutmeg, ground
Method: In a small pot or skillet, toast the nuts and oats until you smell the wonderful aroma, and not anything burnt, about medium-high heat. Mix in the syrups, salt and molasses. Reduce the flame and stir for about 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the chopped apples, and mix around. Heat for a few more minutes and take off the stove. Cover the pot and let the heat steam the apples to get a bit softer for 5 minutes. Serve over ice cream (or plain) and enjoy.

View from the pot.

Ok, I promise this is going to be the last of the pesto. Well, the last photo really is. I decided to have a go at an easy, quick, dense meal. I had one leftover pesto that I made a while back and took that out of the freezer. I really wanted more than just pesto so I skimmed through VwaV and decided on the Creamy Alfredo Suace. I've looked at the recipe before but finally needed a photo for convincing. I am sure glad I made this but I never was a fan of alfredo sauce, so this was a bit too creamy fo me. I do like the flavor though. I will modify next time. And, this plate below is 2 servings, not one, we sort-of slid our halves onto each plates.

This is the last of the pesto for real. This is strictly pine nuts. Follow my recipe in the post below and sub pine nuts for any other nut in the recipe. Yum.

Fin.

A Bunch of Food and a REAL Recipe

2006-10-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

I have been loving all these avocados! I think I may be down to only two now but I do have a ton of leftover guac in the fridge and have gone through countless avocados in the past week. I obtained four huge ones from the co-op the other day and they were super green inside and had the smallest pits. It was almost scary, I've never seen avocado pits so small, but then I was thankful how much avocado gut I got out of that. For this meal above, I got way out of hand. First of all, I am one who's eyes are always a lot larger than the stomach. My eyes are probably larger than my whole body! I decided to make over a gallon of chili the other night so Ray and I could have some and then I'd freeze the rest in double and individual servings. We had "burritos" but it was only filled with guac and chili. Don't get me wrong, the chili was loaded with veggies and beans and other good stuff, it was just strange having a burrito without rice or a grain. I still ate it all and the soft tortilla was a nice texture to it. There's also guac of course, and I find that the more garlic I add to it, the more I like it. We had some Garden of Eatin organic blue corn chips to accompany the meal. To the left is a small side of Muir Glen organic medium salsa which I just dumped all over everything after I snapped the photo. You also see what I'm talking about now with my eyes being way bigger than my stomach... That bowl of chili (three ladle scoops, may I add) was not touched and I quickly set it aside to put away for the next day. What was I thinking?!

Below is one pound of organic basil, which is equivalent to 12 cups, packed. I have been going crazy with pestos and basil lately and I found this huge basil plant at Trader Joes for $2.99. The plant was half-way as tall as me and there was so much beautiful smelly basil. I didn't buy it since it wasn't organic. I got my kicks just by looking at it for a few minutes. I found the organic basil and for 79 cents less each than that huge-ass plant, I bought three 4.5 ounce containers of organic. I was happy because stupid Whole Foods has 2.5oz of basil for $4. I just couldn't get myself to get that little for so much. My goal with all this basil was to whip up batches of pesto and freeze them for later. I mentioned that in my last post, but I was only able to keep the pestos frozen for one day before eating them all up. I had to make many for them to last, same with the black bean chili.

How could I make pesto and not make Dreena's pesto?! After all, I was just really meant to test this recipe, and I have ended up making it a billion times. I think it's wonderful and so flavorful. I had this pesto immediately for dinner and finished it off the next day for lunch. It's awesome cold.

I decided to make VwaV Classic Pesto again. I liked it as a dip with bread and veggies, so I am going to have it tonight for dinner over pasta for the first time (probably very late, after Ray is done at his orchestra concert which I am not at and instead sitting in my pj's at home, blogging... I had a "rough" day today). Then I made VwaV Classic Pesto but instead of walnuts, I added only pinenuts. It's hard to tell any difference in these pestos just by looking at them but you can sort of tell the pine nut one since it has so much white in it. I am most excited to try that one. Finally, I was sick of following recipes, especially for something that can be done pretty simply, so I made up my own pesto recipe. It has walnuts and pinenuts and some other good stuff too. The one in back is my pesto recipe. The VwaV ones I find are very "oily" so I limit the oil when following the recipe for Classic Pesto. On the other hand, Dreena's pesto recipe only has 1 tablespoon of oil for the whole batch (suitable to top a pound of pasta) and I really prefer that. Plus there's an array of interesting ingredients in her pesto but I'm not allowed to tell. Stay tuned one more year (sorry!). Leslie's Special Pesto Recipe
(it's special because you can use it with pasta, pizza, sandwiches, dip, filling and probably more)
1/4c. walnuts or almonds
1/2c. pinenuts
3 cups packed basil leaves, no stems

2-3 large cloves crushed garlic
1t. sea salt
dash of black pepper
1/3c. olive oil
1/4-1/3c. nutritional yeast flakes
2t. lemon juice

Blend everything except the oil and the nutritional yeast in a blender or food processor. When that all starts to get pureed (or too stiff your blender can't handle it), start to pour the olive oil while blending. Add the nutritional yeast and blend a bit more. Makes about 2 cups.
(note: I love pesto with walnuts, pinenuts and almonds. Use all of them, just one, or in their own combos, these raw nuts really tie the pesto together. Feel free to experiment with variety.)

This is what I had the other night when I was super lazy. Yes, there is spinach in here and I don't care! How crazy all this b.s. about the spinach, I've been eating it up as much as I can get ahold of it). Anway, how easy is this... take out the frozen container that you never even pre-made, take out the jar of marinara sauce that is already pre-made. Take out the bag of pine nuts from the freezer that were just pulled down with the handle from bulk. So easy!!! Boil for a few and combine. I made both of these kinds at once so we would have leftovers, although we barely did. I don't really buy this type of stuff too often and if I do, like in this case, it sits in the freezer for a really long time. I bought these because I had a coupon (well, 2) for the Rising Moon brand and I also noticed they were on a pretty good sale at WFM. They ended up being way less than $2 each (to easily serve two each), and they are normally up to $4 for one. The ravioli's came out just fine and I am happy to report that Ray's taste buds are changing more and more each day. He tried these ravioli's the last time I had them (about a year, year and a half ago) and he didn't care for them. The other day he ate the whole thing up. Same with guac, but not together with the pasta.

I made Dori's No-Bake Cookies the other night and they came out super-chocolately and wonderful. I am thankful for this no-oven recipe, even though it really isn't the same these days. I must have my firefighter friend come over and stand guard while we check out this oven business. These look like cookies I made before but these are much denser and richer. Below is what they looked like when cooled (but not blurry).

Finally I made something from RAW. I don't think I ever bragged about how I got this at Changing Hands for about $8. This is normally a $30-something book, and it looks like no one even read it before me. I have read through almost the whole book now and I had been eyeing the raw whipped cream, hence me not having a dehydrator for other recipes (yet). This recipe shouldn't be called whipped cream. It should be called some sort of sweet nut dip. I tried it with some Newman's O's and a few slices of apple. I prefer the apple since the cookies make the dip not sweet tasting at all. Of course, who would really go through the time to soak nuts, follow a raw cookbook, and then eat something with pre-packaged Newman's O's?! At least they weren't hydrogenated and they were organic. Anyway, if you make this stuff, eat it with raw food and don't be as weird as me! The book shows a photo of the whipped cream and there's no way in hell mine would have looked like that no matter how hard I tried. And I blended for a loooong time!

The only ingredients are: walnuts, cashews, 3 dates and oj. Doesn't this "raw whipped cream" look freakishly like something else that I've made before?! Weird.

Pesto Part III and IV, Ray's Birthday and More...

2006-09-30T17:26:00.000-07:00

Pesto Part III and IV: This is how it started... I was too lazy to actually make dinner the other night and was happy that I had 3 servings for the two of us of VwaV's corn chowder leftover in the freezer. I also had just less than 1/2 a loaf of bread leftover. I decided to just heat the soup up and dunk the bread into it = dinner. All of a sudden, I lost my mind and decided that it was completely out-of-my-element for me to not be running around the kitchen like a mad-lady doing 40-million things at once. I decided I must take on some sort of task. So much for laziness... that's when I remembered the basil was dying. I absolutely love Dreena's sundried tomato pesto with pine nuts and almonds that I have been testing over and over, probably about 20 times by now. I can't wait for the cookbook to come out for my personal selfish reasons, but also for you all to try this amazing sauce. I decided to take Crystal's pesto idea and pre-make pestos to freeze for a later date. What a freaking good idea.

I didn't have any almonds in the freezer so I loaded up on pine nuts to sub for it. I made a whole batch and froze it up. I still had plenty of basil leftover, but not quite enough to make a whole entire batch of Classic Pesto from VwaV. It is basically basil and walnuts and a few other ingredients, so I halved the recipe and added even more walnuts than called for in the full recipe! It came out so wonderful that I decided freezing it was a terrible idea and I had to eat it right away. So, dinner that night was corn chowder, leftover whole wheat something bread with Classic Pesto. It was fabulous. I also highly recommend this pesto mixed with balsamic vinegar. I really couldn't wait to eat the sundried tomato pesto that I premade and froze, so we ended up having that over whole wheat pasta the next night. I really enjoyed just taking it out of the freezer and heating it up. Funny, because the pesto isn't cooked in the original recipe, it is actually quicker to make it all at once in the blender than the time it takes to heat it up from frozen. Oh well, I didn't have a mess...

Someone around here had a birthday on Tuesday...

It was a nice day for Ray. He had class all day through the evening but we took out his favorite pizza (mine, cheeseless) and had vegan chocolate cake, ice cream and other fine treats and presents. It was a nice evening. I always like to decorate the house the night before soon after he falls asleep... I decked out his bass and music stand (which you can't see) too. Jess, do you recognize the poster?!

Next up, date bars. We get semi-locally grown dates from Yuma, AZ. I just say semi-local because even though it is in the same state, Yuma is quite a drive from here and practically bordering Mexico. I love these dates and supporting a family farm (of dates) and instead of about $6 a pound, they are $3. I bought 2 pounds and made 4 types of bars. They all are made with the same base, mejdool dates, agave nectar and rolled oats, all organic of course. First up we have cranberry pecan. Then to the right of that is chocolate chip cinnamon. Then cashew cocoa slash coconut and finally peanut butter chocolate chip. They are all wonderful and were super-quick and easy to make. Great for heavy-duty snacks.

Yay avocados! Miriam, look! This is the last batch of special seasonal hass avocados that we are getting at the co-op. They are $1.39 each and I quickly bought four. You all can see the two in the middle, those are now ripe and I bought them a few days ago. They are seriously 1/2 the size and the same price as the avocados I just bought today. I am sad to see them go... That's why I'm loading up and I am so happy they are huge!

Tomorrow, Sunday October 1, is World Vegetarian Day! Please spread the word to everyone you know and celebrate... wait, we do that daily, right?! Anyway, if you really want to celebrate there are super-cool festivals going on in most awesome cities (aka, not here).

The Non-Edible Vegan Lottery. Have I Won?!

2006-09-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

Check out all this wonderful vegan stuff (click all photos to enlarge)! I cannot express in words how happy I am today because my special friend Kris sent me a care pacakge that certainly made my day... a few days combined, really! First I thought it wasn't even a package for me. Then I saw it was for me and from Portland so I assumed it was my regular subscription order to Herbivore Mag that was oh-so-kindly tossed over our fence onto the patio. I knew I was getting a "special something" along with my subscription, but this felt like fabric (a shirt?). I really wasn't ready for what was about to come...

I sat outside under our umbrella, still-somewhat-cool-morning and not a cloud in the sky and opened the package. My eyeballs seriously popped out of my head and I did a little mini-jump out of my chair. There was so much goodness inside I didn't know where to start. Well, I did...
-It was indeed a shirt, and since Kris knows that brown's my favorite color, she chose very well. The shirt says "please don't eat birds". I love it! It is of course American Apparel made in Downtown LA (not by children and or underpaid workers and it actually fits like a shirt is supposed to not for beer bellies) and she knows I'm a size small (although I still have to shrink it up not in).
-Next up we have a special back issue of Herbivore Magazine, issue 10 from winter 05/06. I love that she knew I'd enjoy this issue, it has a lot of cookbook authors' insight, vegan people I am familiar with and their ramblings and other fun stuff that you will just have to read to find out about. It certainly is a great issue. For those of you who enjoy reading about vegan "culture" with a fun and sarcastic edge, subscribe now. And if you didn't know already, there's Herbivore Clothing and a new store (that I can't wait to go to) in Portland Oregon.
-Then I didn't know what I was pulling out. I unfolded it and it is a tote bag that also has the same phrase as the t-shirt. It's nice because Ray and I always just use one bag to bring to the store (why?) but end up filling 2 bags so that means I have to use one from the store which I reuse again and again, But now this going to be my special "produce" bag. I'm picky with everything, even where my groceries go in the bag/basket. Once again, great!
-On top of the bag on the left side is a cute little Herbivore button. To add to my wanna-be-but-not-collection.
-And perfect for this dry desert air (where Kris also used to live by the way), she kindly sent me organic lip balm and organic shea butter creme by Perfect Organics. Wonderful stuff they have at the Herbivore store.
-Then there's an assortment of stickers. One says "veganism is for lovers" and I was impressed that Ray randomly commented on it and liked it and I didn't have to say "what do you think?". It reminded me of a recent incident that Crystal had when she received stickers in the mail. She was surprised her husband wanted it up in the front of the house, so was I (but boyfriend). That's my deal with Ray and our car... he one day made me mad and said he didn't want to "veganize the car" (whatever the %$#& that means!) so we compromise on stickers, although I had many up in the first place... Just another one to add that we both like, thanks! The other stickers are nice (but not car stickers per se), one says "cow hugger" and it's light blue with grazing cows and children hugging them, and the other says "factory farms are mean and nasty". Ha.
-I'm not done yet. Next we have some little bar soaps made by Estrella Soap and they smell vibrantly but naturally. One is peppermint oatmeal and the other is Lemon Poppy Seed Scrub. There are ingredients but not on the package. I have no worries about it's veganness because I know where this came from.
-Finally (whew!) my dear friend Kris sent along a postcard with a note. The postcard has Herbivore's what-do-you-call-it slogan (?) that says "Putting the 'FU' in Tofu Since 2003". I always got a kick out of that.

Kris, I can't say thank you enough... or did you think I did in the email? I am super-grateful for this wonderful surprise filled with vegan goodness (can any of you believe I'm saying that about non-edible stuff?!). I hope one day soon I can go visit Kris and the Herbivore store (and Food Fight and tons of other incredible places, people, events, nature, etc that Portland has to offer). For now, I am enjoying my treats here in AZ. I have the shirt lined up in the laundry pile ready to get shrunk, I have practically read the entire issue of the magazine today, my button is pinned on my bag next to some others, lip balm and shea butter was applied upon opening of the package, and Ray is going to be the first sampler of the soap tomorrow morning. As soon as I wash the car I'll put the sticker on (that may be a while, he he).

What a gift! I am happy.

I am Awesome... Tacos.

2006-09-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

The other night I decided it would finally be "taco night". I grew up with a taco night and it was always fun because my mom would set out the prepared ingredients to go into the tacos in small bowls or plates and we would fill our own. Mine usually consisted of just veggies and cheese. Well, in those days mostly cheese, then veggies. I always refused the meat. These days (umpteen years later), I don't eat cheese and I eat a shitload of veggies, so I decided to make some unusual tacos. I remember Dreena making quinoa tacos one time and the idea stuck in my head. She called them ta-quin-os! I still will not eat fake meat although I do plan on having some ground round one day for Ray to enjoy filling his own tacos. We didn't have taco night as I am used to (fill your own) but these filled-by-Leslie tacos were amazing. Ray even gave me the biggest compliment by saying he was glad we didn't go to Green (a vegan restuarant that's amazing) that night. The chili was way thicker than it looks here.

I have had those Garden of Eaten blue corn taco shells in the pantry for a while. I have never had a vegan taco so I decided to just make it filled with what I wanted and didn't care that it was not a traditional taco. What would that mean anyway? I needed a basic guideline for the chili as it's been a while for me. I used Dreena's Last Minute Chili and Taco Filling recipe from Vive le Vegan just as a guide so I wouldn't forget crucial taco flavors. I ended up coming up with my own chili recipe. Wow, can you all believe I'm actually posting a real recipe?!

Leslie's Awesome Organic Chili Recipe
1T olive oil
1 small yellow onion
5 cloves garlic
1t sea salt
black pepper to taste
1t cumin
2t cayenne (could use more!)
1t paprika
1t oregano
1 green bell pepper
1/2 red bell pepper (that's what I had)
32 oz canned fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 habanero pepper
1 jalepeno pepper
2 cans black beans
1 can kidney beans
1c frozen corn
handful of chopped fresh cilantro

First heat the oil and add the onions, garlic and spices. Cook it until the onions are clear and the spices fill up your house with awesomeness. Toss in the rest of the ingredients (except for some of the cilantro), bring them to a boil and then reduce to simmer until it is thick (about 30 minutes). While that is simmering it's a good idea to make the quinoa or other grain. Add the remaining cilantro towards the end of cooking or toss it on top of each individual serving. Taste the chili to make sure it's how you like, then do what you want with it.

Here is my wonderful plate of blue corn taco shells, homemade chili, homemade guac (oh my goodness it was the best guac ever... Miriam, I may have crossed over to the dark side!), quinoa, Muir Glen organic salsa and a lime. Yum. The hardest part about this whole meal was stuffing the taco shells and the best part about this meal was everything (ok, maybe the guac really topped it off). There were three on each of our plates but I could only take down two.

I froze the leftover chili for a few days and tonight we are going to have that with new fresh quinoa and guac again, but in a taco salad form... blue corn chips with the same toppings. I highly suggest making these.

New Pancakes, Lebanon and Rambutan Fruit

2006-09-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

I made two different types of pancakes for dinner the other night. I had been promising Ray's cousin Jordan the "Coconut Pancakes with Pineapple Sauce" from VwaV for about two weeks now. He has been dining with us often lately and was super-enthused about this particular recipe. The co-op recently had cans of organic pineapple chunks, pieces and some other fruits on sale, so I picked up crushed and rings and used the crushed for this recipe. The second batch of pancakes is my standard chocolate chip banana pancakes. You see, I used to make pancakes a certain way a while back. They were good, in fact, I used to really love them. That's until I got my hands on Vive le Vegan and I now exclusively follow Dreena's Banana Bliss Pancakes, modified to my standard personal recipe, and now we have the most amazing pancakes ever. Basically, I follow the whole recipe but I use 2 bananas instead of 1 and I add a handfull of chocolate chips (Sunspire). Topped with these bad boys is the going-on-one-year-old-standard Blueberry Maple Syrup from Vive.

Of course I liked the chocolate chip banana ones with blueberry. That's the best kind. My first few bites of the Coconut Pineapple pancakes were interesting, crunchy from the coconut but very pina colada-y with the sauce. I liked them, but not enough to finish them. Maybe it was a bit overwhelming for me, so much coconut and so much crunchiness in the cakes. I could modify this, but I do prefer saucy-syrup not just sauce on my pancakes. I did finish the other kind. Thank goodness we have a human garbage can over here sometimes (Jordan) and I just plopped my coconut leftovers onto his plate and they were gone in no time.

The night before the pancakes we had "dinner" at a weird time. It was more like an 11:30pm snack. We had meals at weird times all day and were randomly super-hungry around 10 or 10:30pm. We all decided that since the Punk Rock Chickpea gravy with mashed potatoes is so awesome, it would be the best thing to have. I said, "I can make them in no time. Someone just help me peel [the potatoes]." Of course this was not the case and it took about an hour for the water to heat up, boil and cook the yukon gold's until soft. Why is it taking me so long to boil potatoes? Anway, we finally ate before midnight and I couldn't believe that after my serving (probably about a pound's worth... that was all we ate), the guys ate the rest of the 4.5 pounds of potatoes. I seriously thought I'd have enough leftovers for the next day. I was wrong. They were pleasantly stuffed, but ended up like this (see below) 5 minutes after eating. Jordan never got up off of the guest-air-mattress until the morning (hee hee) and Ray slowly crawled into bed with me a few hours later... (Ray's the one on his back)

I like to go to Haji Baba, a middle eastern restaurant with an awesome market because it is authentic. I don't dine at the restaurant much but I go to the market for various items that I can't get at the co-op or Whole Foods. The only thing that bothers me is since I buy in the high 90's percent organic foods, they don't have any there. I stick with random stuff such as tamarind paste, cheap pomegranite juice, baklava for Ray it has butter, but they have super-cheap and good pita and they even have household items and great rugs (and more!). Turns out they also have great vases. Ray spotted this out, I exclaimed how much I liked it and the fact that it's made in Lebanon and he bought it for me. It was $6 I think. I love how it is handpainted and how I can feel that it is. I thought it was an interesting looking vase for how it was built. Sort of like a cross between a vase, a lemonade pitcher and a bong. I plan on using it for none of the above, just decoration.

It made me feel extra special that this was made in Lebanon. I wish for and strive for peace everywhere and would someday like to be able to visit this beautiful place and mingle around and talk and see and learn of the culture and beauty first hand, safely. Even though I've never been there, it sort of reminds me of aspects of Arizona, landscape-wise.

Next up, rambutan fruit. I have never heard of this and saw it randomly at Whole Foods. The man helping me out said that it is native to Vietnam and many other tropic places and he let me try one then and there. The ones in the store were conventionally grown in California. I thought that was weird, but he gave me the whole story on it. I tried it and thought it was wonderful. It reminded me of a peeled grape and you don't want to eat the seed/nut. I bought some more to take home. They ended up being about 20 cents each and the guy told me that in Vietnam you can buy a huge-ass bushel of them for fifty cents. Oh well, I'll just have to go one day for myself. Here's a link for better photos and more info on the rambutan fruit.

Killian had a blast playing hockey with it across the kitchen floor. I even knew at the store that he would love the "hairs" on it. Here he is being freaky and tossing the rambutan around.

Caution: Danger Ahead!

2006-09-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

What I've been stirring up: Yep, I finally used agar. In the kitchen, not in microbiology lab, that is. I have had plenty of experience with that during my college curriculum, and it was very unappetizing. On a lighter and non-bacterial note, few days ago I saw a wonderful use for my first agar experience in the kitchen on Susan's blog... fruit gels! She calls them Fruit Gel Babies, and she's right, you can gobble these babies right up. I enjoyed my time making these, substituting agar flakes for agar powder (I had to google a conversion), and I used mango nectar instead of apple juice. It took hardly any "working/prep" time at all, just lots of stirring and firmed up in less than an hour. I used all the same measurements and used fresh ripe mango and red plums for the fruit chunks. I had no other fruit cups to compare these to, but I haven't had a gel-like product in over 7 years, so this reminded me of what I think a non-crappy jello would be. Awesome!
This is just four of them. I forgot how many I made, I actually had to limit myself based on my availability of small containers. These are nice jiggly breakfasts or snacks, with no horse-hooves or bone char, may I add.

I really wanted to show you all a better photo of sopapillas from when I made them before. I made these one night to complete a Mexican-flare-type-meal. We had black bean chipotle stew with fresh cilantro and corn fritters with salsa and something I can't remember, and I thought sopapillas were a good end of the night, hefty treat. I love cinnamon and sugar. I made these the same as I did last time. They look better now, although I ended up being sick of eating the tortilla after a few bites and just stirred it up and ate everything else out of it instead. If you haven't made these yet, do it soon and thank me later!

A closer look at the amazing-ness. I had to hold it down this time with a pick. I loaded it up too much to make it burrito-like.

On to a completely different subject now: I was mozying around at the co-op when I stumbled upon these purple bell peppers (our co-op only has organic produce). I was super excited and happy to see something so unique to me and pretty deep purple. Especially organic, so I knew it wasn't some weird genetically altered or cross-bred in a weird type way, pepper. I was informed it was more like a green pepper and I couldn't wait to use it up, although I do prefer red bells. I finally decided to go for a stir-fry so I could still have it's crunchiness yet I really wanted the purple effect in the mixture, just to make it contrast a bit. I opened it up and was slightly dissapointed, maybe by my own expectations. I seriously thought this was going to be purple inside and out and it was more like a green bell than anything. I still really enjoy the deep purple hue but the inside was almost white. And very juicy. Weird. (even though my head-shadow is in the way of the photo, the flash makes the white part of the pepper brighter. Having my head in the way really shows what it truly looks like inside)

Then I threw the pepper in the stir-fry and to make my slight dissapointment a bit larger, the purple color quickly faded (after all, a good stir-fry is done in a matter of minutes), and these looked more like red onions. Good thing I didn't use red onion in the dish because I would have been picking at my meal trying to make sure I was getting a pepper, not an onion the whole time. Overall, these were still nice. Most of my excitement wasn't by the end result of eating it, yet the whole, pure and un-cut form when I first got it and watched it hang out in the fridge for a day or two before I ate it.

Excuse the steam in the below photo. In the stir-fry was tofu marinated in a bunch of stuff like tamari, rice vinegar, agave nectar, chili sauce, spoonful of peanut butter, etc... Cooked in a mix of toasted sesame oil and olive oil. Along with that was the purple bell pepper, a green bell, broccoli, onion, cashews, ginger, garlic, carrots, gamashio (which I am never using again because after years I just realized it says "may contain peices of crustacean in the dulse". Yuck!!!) I don't know what else is in here, it was almost a week ago by now.

Then I made these bad-boys spur of the moment. I had some of these pre-baked phylo pastries (15 kcal each) in the freezer and pulled out about 5 for a snack for three of us (not Killian, Ray's cousin was here). I had some chocolate pudding (I can post the recipe later. I have it posted somewhere back in Feb. I think) and I decided instead of straight-up, I'd make cups again. Get this... it's the best part! I had some of Dreena's Maple Butter Cream leftover from crepes for her upcoming cookbook and I love that stuff. I decided to stir it up, see if it was still good, and it was so I put a bit of the maple cream inside the cup, fill it with pudding, and top it with hemp seeds. Yum indeed (and no baking).

Ultimate Vegan Nog. It's from The Artful Vegan, a fancy-shmancy cookbook that takes about 10 hours to make everything, but some of it is well worth while, or at least worth the while to read and dream about. This drink is pretty much the ultimate, like it says. Nothing like the pre-bought Silk Nog (which I love and not eggy eggnog), but this is homemade goodness and somewhat nog-like, somewhat banana-smoothie like. Very good, but a bit on the tofu-y side. I plan to make it again and modify a bit. I like to try original recipes first then modify to my liking. If you have this cookbook, it's a good quick recipe to try where you just throw the ingredients in a blender and stir. I prefer these kind of recipes, as well as lazy-one-pot-meals.

Last up, I made Easy Caramel Sauce from Vive. Talk about easy! This took less than 10 minutes to heat up and stir on the stove, including clean up time. I let it cool like the recipe said, warmed it back up again and served it with wonderful cookies n cream ice cream and Ahlaska chocolate syrup. Yum. (that's one of my special ice cream bowls, I am very particular about "special" utensils, eating-ware, my-side-of-the-bed/couch, and many other detailed things)I was in such ice cream la-la-land, that I ate it all up and hung out for a while and then went to bed with it still cooling on the counter. I slept in that morning, even made coffee with it right in front of me, and still never realized until almost 12 hours later that it was left out. Most importantly, I can't believe Killian didn't get to it. He loves creeping up on the counter and "being bad". Not this time.

Due to my extensive food safety and microbial knowledge, I decided to toss it. It's a shame because this easy caramel sauce was awesome, so like how I remember caramel from 7+ years ago, so easy to make, and so light and creamy from the raw sugar. I plan on making this again, but remembering to put it away properly, or just eat it all up right away. I'll go for the first and even try out different recipes with it. I have a few ideas...

Fin.

For Isil... 5 Foods

2006-09-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

This is a list of 5 foods that I have eaten and absolutely love, and that I wish for as many people to try at least once. Except for #1, this is in no particular order.

1. organic soy ice cream (cookies n creme, preferably)
2. organic kiwi (cut horizontally down the middle and scooped until hollow with a spoon, that's the best way to eat it)
3. falafel sandwich with lettuce and tahini (hopefully organic, but authenicity rules here)
4. organic ground cumin
5. organic hemp seeds (sprinked on anything, with high nutritional contents)
If I could pick a 6th (I am so bad!) it would for sure be organic wild blueberries. I was torn, but kiwi won.

Now I'm supposed to "tag" people, right? The following people are now due for their list of "5 foods". If you have been tagged already, I apologize in advance.

Miriam
Julie
Jess
Savanna
Crystal

Stay tuned... I have interesting "things" stirring up around here!

Some AZ Flare ...Minus Mountains, Cacti, Scorpions and Sunsets

2006-08-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

I know I told you all one time to not fall out of your chair upon viewing a Tofurky sandwich on my blog, as it was not intended for me to eat. What you see above here *is* and *was* for me to eat and I am sure happy that I was open-minded one day (to a particular food, that is). So, if you instinctively fell out, get up now because yes I did eat this. If you didn't fall out of your chair and think I'm a huge nerd... that's ok, too. For those of you who do not already know, I am not a faux meat/cheese person and I cringe even at vegan steak sandwiches. I have tried a Boca burger or two, I do not mind black bean patties as long as they are piled with greens and ketchup, but mostly I stay far away from anything between a bun or that is faux meat. I won't even try anything "fake" from an all-organic, all-vegan restaurant here in town. Ray thinks that's crazy.

Recently, I discovered Sunshine Burgers. These are fabulous, all organic, do not resemble nor taste like anything that is supposed to be from a dead animal, full of nutrition and good stuff grown from the Earth, and about a dollar a piece for a pack of three. Overall, these patties (I don't like to call them burgers) are wonderful and we grill them on the vegan-George F-grill and it only takes about 1 or 2 minutes. How easy is that!? I've seen another type of Sunshine Burger and they already come with a bun. That reminds me too much of gas-station-sandwiches and I am never in too big of a hurry, nor have a craving for a bun where I must buy a "burger" pre-built. I'll pass on those, even if they are all vegan and all organic. The Sunshine Burgers (patties to me) have been eating up around here on sprouted Ezekiel buns but I only use the bottom bun. No, I don't support the A-word diet, I just really can't stomach a whole entire bun, patty and what ever else I may have on the plate. Plus, too much bun takes away from the rest. The photo above is shown with the full bun for your viewing pleasure.
Above photo: Taken in the *real* Southwest on my patio. No, I can't see over the brick wall (something that the majority of AZ homes have- weird), no we don't have catci in the neighborhood, and no the palm trees are not native to AZ. Now check out the lovely list of all organic ingredients. These patties are wonderful, I love how it is free of soy, wheat and bullshit. Not that I mind anything soy or wheat, but for vegans who eat a lot of soy or wheat, this is a nice change of pace.
Now here's my plate with the top of the bun ready to be tossed outside to the birds. I even throw bread "like a girl" I was told the other day... What you see here is a huge bowl of organic yukon gold mashed potatoes made with soymilk and Earth Balance. Sea salt and fresh ground pepper were added as well as some minced garlic. Yum. I served this with a side of sweet summer organic corn and you can see the ketchup glob under the lettuce. I don't care that I'm 25, I still need ketchup on some things. It's 100% organic ketchup, by the way. Ray eats this with Veganaise on one side of the bun and a ton of Bone Suckin' Sauce on the other bun. The website shows one jar priced at almost $2 more than we buy it for at Whole Foods. You can also get it at places like Cost Plus World Market. I don't care for either of the above condiments.
This photo below is freaky. Doesn't it look like cow-burgers? I didn't realize how freakish looking these were until I posted the photo on the computer. In "real life" these don't look as burgery. I made grill marks on the Foreman by turning the patties 90 degrees by lifting with a knife.
EDIT TO ADD AND A HUGE ***WARNING***: I just realized a huge factor... I have raved above about the South West Sunshine Burgers. Keep in mind (as I didn't) that the bright yellow and red packaging is the same on the Original Sunshine burgers as well as the SouthWest. I accidentally bought a box of the "regular" kind, attempted to eat it for lunch, had 1/2 of it, and decided to dig into a pint of ice cream. Here's the thing: the SouthWest Sunshine burgers are everything I was talking about above and these are awesome. Unless you like the taste of a broccoli burger, I highly suggest not trying the regular kind. I don't even think there was broccoli in it. The ingredients are almost the same, minus black beans and a few other things, but the Original ones are freakishly green and I did my best to take down 1/2 of it, I even slathered ketchup on both sides of the patty. No luck. So, beware... if you do go for the Original ones (which I hear are easier to come by than SouthWest), don't say I didn't warn you, but if you do like them, more power to you. I simply returned them at WFM in exchange for some Gardenburger Chipotle Black Bean patties. Sorry this warning is so late, this all happened today after my big rant! (End of Warning)

On to the next business: Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from VwaV. Let me tell you "yum". I have never been a gravy person. I didn't grow up with it, I never wanted to try it, and I always knew it was made with blood. This is a totally different scenario here. I think it was my de-virginizing to gravy. First off, this is packed with nutrition, from the nutritional yeast, chickpeas, onions and garlic, to the herbs, spices and no blood! This stuff is amazing and I apologize for this photo doing no justice at all. I have made this gravy twice now and it was even better the second time around. I am now a gravy fan, but only if it's Punk Rock.
Here's a blurry photo of the gravy. This was from the first batch and my first bite, so I was hesitant to pour it (like Ray did) all over the top of the mashed potatoes. The second time, I loaded it up!
Moving on: Just like the Sunshine patties, mashed potatoes and gravy, I have made Chipotle, Corn, and Black Bean Stew from VwaV twice now. I have made corn fritters several times now and plan on using fresh cilantro next time. I still have a ton left from the stew. You can now see that I am breaking in my VwaV book based on the recipes. If you saw my book, you'd think I have had it for a whole year. Or maybe you'd think it got sucked in by a natural disaster. I can be a messy cook... Anyway, this stew was great, a bit on the tomato-y side, but really hardy and "southwestern". This photo was taken from the first batch. I cut the potatoes way too large and they were a bit of a hinderance while eating. I also used dried cilantro instead of fresh like the recipe wanted me to. For the second time around, I used one less potato than the recipe called for and cut them up way smaller. I also got some local organic fresh cilantro and tossed that in. To my dissapointment this stew wasn't black-beany enough so I added a second can to the second batch that I made a few days later. The stew was served with blue corn tortilla chips the second time around and probably Seduction Bread the first. I also used the juice of 1.5 limes instead of just 1 the second time around.
Again, the first batch of black bean stew. I must say, fresh cilantro makes a big difference and I enjoyed the extra juice of the lime more this time around. I still have 4 servings worth of leftovers.
Not only have I made the above repeats at least twice each, I've also been making fruit-filled crepes with Maple Butter Cream (from a tested recipe for Dreena's newest cookbook), chocolate chip banana pancakes with blueberry syrup and kiwi (part of Banana Bliss pancakes from Vive le Vegan, part of my own magical creations, and Blueberry Maple Syrup from Vive le Vegan), Sloppy Lenties of course, cereal with vanilla hemp granola, many salads, and what would life be like for me without... ice cream. I just had to throw "ice cream" in there, even though that is a daily given, I didn't have a sweet photo to post. So that's that. I plan on branching out a bit, I guess I'm hooked on a few VwaV recipes... and flavors of my residence, the Southwest.

Most importantly, I Netflix-ed The Future of Food and I will go into it more some other time. For now, it is a good film to see. Sorry Vicki (and everyone else) I still haven't seen An Inconvienent Truth, but I plan on getting it on video. Back to The Future of Food... I don't know where I've been for 2 years, but it came out in 2004 and is about GMOs, farmers, corporations, politics of course, and all sorts of aspects of biotechnology. There is a microbial ecologist in the documentary and I am thinking of maybe pursing a Master's in this area (not due to this movie only, of course). Anyway, I watched this 3 times this weekend (to add to my redundancy of everything lately) and I attempted to take notes but then realized I was practically writing down the whole script of the movie. I have so much to say about it, but mostly it makes my stomach cringe, I get pissed off at my government and huge corporations that suck, and I will keep eating as many organics as possible. I even wear organic cotton when I can. This film told me a lot of what I knew already but I like the perspective it comes from. Go rent this film please.

Yay to Cooking!

2006-08-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

I have done some light cooking lately after going to the store and finally stocking the fridge, freezer and pantry back up. It feels good to have foods in the house again (other than simple fruits as snacks and boring stuff like soy yogurt, couscous and such) yet I am still dizzy and have no idea what the #%^@ is wrong with me. I don't think it is life threatening since I've had certain tests to show, but this still isn't anywhere near normal. I plan on doing more about this. I was getting stir-crazy from being cooped up, not cooking (much), going out to eat, running out of money to go out to eat, as well as not being productive nor having fun in the kitchen. It was time to change that so Ray and I went to the store and thought of some stuff to buy that would turn into semi-quick, semi-easy meals. See, I don't say quick and easy because for me, nothing ends up that way. Some recipe that is supposed to take 30 minutes somehow takes me 2 hours. But I thought of some good feel-good comfort foods to cook up for the week other than yukon gold smashed potatoes and a side of corn. I have had Sloppy Lenties about 5 times this month, but I thought I'd spare you all another photo of them. I did have a Sloppy Variation though... fill up 1/2 a pita with the Sloppy Lenties. Fabulous.

Above you see our "dining area", in which soon you will be seeing a lack of yellow countertops. I am happy to report that we finally bought kitchen chairs and finally took all the crap off the table we had for so long, moved all the crap to appropriate places (well, more appropriate), and are now eating breakfast, lunch, dinner and some snacks there. So now you will be seeing more "table" rather than yellow countertops, although I am missing the flare a bit from the counters.
Back to business... for some unknown reason I have been craving corn chowder lately. For some weirder reason, I've never had corn chowder (vegan or non) in my whole life. I had no idea why I was craving this (no I am not pregnant) and I decided to make and eat corn chowder for the very first time. What is an even newer first is my use of Vegan with a Vengeance cookbook. I am quite embarrased about this fact. I've had this book for months now, read it cover to cover probably about 20 times, memorized practically 5 recipes, but never made anything. There are a lot of "oven" recipes, but besides that and before I started to feel crappy, I can't believe I have never used this cookbook before. Maybe I just always thought I did since I've taken it outside under the umbrella and on the couch in the living room to read over and over, have seen other people's photos of the creations, and practically know the book inside and out. But this was a first and another first... Corn Chowder from VwaV.
Corn Chowder Verdict: I started smelling the soup towards the finish and exclaimed to Ray that I didn't think I was going to like it. It smelled a bit bland and I don't care for thick soups. I still went with it, after all, I spent all the time and energy to make the meal. I am also weird about not tasting foods while they are cooking. I know I need to change that since I could have made variations while cooking and tasted it to see if it was ok before it was served on the table. I served the corn chowder with Seduction Bread from WFM and overall, the soup was sweet and tasty. I used 2 jalepenos, and I didn't taste any heat at all, just sweetness from the corn and maple syrup. Just like the recipe says, it's even better the next day. I only had a few modifications in this recipe. First, I didn't have a fresh red bell pepper, as I am not willing to pay the crazy prices I've seen them for. Instead, I picked out all the red peppers from the frozen bag of red, yellow and green pepper strips and used those, just chopped more. I also used organic frozen sweet corn instead of shucking my own. Plus, I am really into having frozen corn on-hand lately. The recipe also called for 3c veggie broth and I used 2c broth and 1c water instead. Other than that, everything else was followed exactly, and yes, I measured.
This was tasty and filled me up big-time. While eating with Ray we discussed and I wrote down what we could do next time to make the soup better. This is what will be changed for the next time I make this: less thyme and rosemary because it was a bit overpowering, more salt and pepper, a tad less liquid to make it thicker (I don't like thick soups, yeah right I guess), cut veggies smaller, use one more potato and one more clove of garlic. It sounds like a lot but it's really just adding and subtracting here and there. I'd even add a third jalepeno if Ray can handle it. Oh, and this is my new snack set. I have a green one and Ray's is an earthy blue. These are great because they make huge coffee mugs with a small treat, a great bowl for soup or whatever, and in this case it was nice to have a set with the bread placed right on the side. I do a lot of snacking but it usually requires only a bowl and a spoon (you know where I'm going with this).
Above is Dreena's Sun-dried tomato pesto for her upcoming cookbook. I've tested this recipe about 20 times now. It's awesome and simple to make (even if you don't feel well) and it is warm and filling with great flavors. I love the almonds and pine nuts. I know many people will be quite pleased by the simplicity yet overwhelming yumness of flavors in this recipe. It is also quick to make, as it takes longer to boil water and cook the noodles than to make the sauce. And I make the sauce while the pot is boiling. Served with the pesto above is organic mixed greens, dressings and homemade green tea with cranberry. I have been making this tea by the gallon tri-weekly and sweeten it with about a teaspoon of agave nectar for the whole gallon. On the side are organic croutons (super-cheap at WFM bakery section) and Ray's parmesean grater. It is so nice eating at the table... Below is something I wasn't sure if I was going to post about. You see, this is just plain ol pasta with marinara. I decided to post this because I think simple, easy, hearty meals like this one are quickly forgotten about. Or they are picked over a lot because it seems to blah. One night we were wanting something simple and quick and I decided to boil up some curly spinach noodles. Then I just heated up a jar of 365 organic fat-free marinara, added a few spices from the rack, and dumped it in the pasta. Since I am no longer an oven/toaster user, I "toasted" garlic bread with nutritional yeast and salt and pepper on the next burner on the stove. It worked out pretty well. And fast.
Below is an organic mixed green salad. I am not going to say organic anymore because 99% (that's my percentage guestimate) of all foods we have in the house are organic. At least fruits, veggies and grains are. On that note, we have all organic: greens, carrots, red onions, whole wheat croutons and honey mustard dressing (yes a tad of honey is ok to me). I love the tanginess from the cider vinegar in this one. We have been eating salads at all dinners and sometimes twice a day, with or as lunch. Instead of buying bulk greens since I have an adversion to the tongs and certain bulk items (took too much microbiology in college and too many nasty hands using the tongs), we bought a 1 pound box of pre-washed greens. Just like those bags, but bigger for $3.99/lb. It lasts us both the whole week, plus greens for other recipes.
This next one here is my second recipe attempt from VwaV. I decided to make corn fritters since I was still on a corn kick. I will also mention that Ray made popcorn last night for our friends Jordan and Bob. This sweet summer corn is just sooo good. Before Bob came over to smoke cigars with Ray (eew, not me) I made corn fritters for the first time in my life. Everything was going well, there were minimal ingredients, I had everything, it seemed easy enough for me, and everything was going well until...
What happened here? I added more than a sufficient amount of oil, had it hot before dropping spoonfuls of batter down. I know it's not non-stick, but I thought if it's not non-stick you just add oil to it and it is non-stick. Anyhow, these were taking a while to cook and I attempted to lift one up and realized that they were badly sticking to the bottom. I was really upset at this point and didn't know if I was going to ruin and waste the whole thing and just eat leftover lenties and corn chowder and salad for lunch, or try to do something about it. I chose to do something about it by switching to a smaller, non-stick pan. I managed to save most of the mixture as it was falling apart and sticking to the pan. This worked out well, but you can see the mess I salvaged. This mess sure did taste and smell wonderful.
This recipe is to be cooked in two batches so luckily I still had half a batch to try to actually make patties with instead of corn fritter mush. Ray said it looked like scrambled eggs and I almost puked. Gross. Not even close to eggs. Anyhow, the second round went much better (don't you agree) and we ate the mess and the patties within a tenth of the time it took to make. And these were made quickly. I am going to make them again next time and add more jalepeno (you can tell Isa isn't from the Southwest. I'm not either, I'm just used to certain heat-flare after 7 years or so). I love how these were sweet from the maple syrup and the sweet corn, as it was a nice treat to have with veggies. These corn fritters are going to be made again soon. In a non-stick pan.
And what would this blog be without treats and sweets?! Of course there is ice cream here (SO Delicious Cookies n Cream, my favorite) in between an Original Newman's O's. There are two here, as how could I just chomp on one?
PS. I really appreciate all the comments, emails and pop-ins from everyone who has expressed their concern for my health and well-being. It makes me feel good to know (well, I already knew) that there are so many good and caring people out there. I am thankful for all the kind and warming words.

Drunken Sopapillas

2006-07-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

Ice cream with pretty much anything [vegan] is fine by me. When I stumbled upon Lindy Loo's blog (no pun intended), she posted about her "Berried Sopapillas" and they looked amazing and lazy enough for me to make. The recipe, if you will, was simple and I had my own way with it.

First, on a side note, I just finally realized that much of my blog lately (even previous posts) are filled with sweets. I do love sweets, but also eat other good stuff, and of course, all vegan. Maybe this blog is heading in a sweet-filled direction. I wouldn't mind only posting about this stuff or ice cream. Back to the sopapillas...

One warning I was given was to not drink (aka, be drunk) while making sopapillas because it becomes a tasty, yet dangerous task with an end result of aah-ing and moaning. I didn't have to worry because I haven't been drunk -slash- drank in over a year. I just don't care for it nor think about it for that matter. But after seeing my end result (carefully inspect photo) and then comparing it to the original version on Lindy Loo's page (carefully inspect that one), I look like the one who was drunk! I feel dazed and confused and dizzy over here, but hey, this was a quick 5-minute deal in the kitchen, and my sopapillas are a mess! They are super-tasty though.

Getting down to "recipe" business. First, I couldn't get myself to even think about deep frying the tortillas. Yuck. I'm not scared of fat, I just don't care to deep fry if not necessary. I have a sensitive tum. Anyway, this serves 2. Take a tortilla, I used organic authentic New Mexico tortillas, and heat up a skillet with veggie oil. I only used enough to not even cover the tortillas. I just plopped one in the pan and turned it over real quick to oil both sides but they weren't laying in oil. Heat the oil on med- to medium low and the tortilla should bubble up. In my case (non-deep frying) they didn't stay too bubbled, but were semi-crisp. Heat on both sides for about 1-2 minutes each and place on a plate with paper towels to soak.
Then I filled a plate with sprinkles of raw sugar and ground cinnamon and rolled the tortilla in the mixture on both sides. Then the tortilla was placed on the serving plate. Then I took 2 scoops of Soy Delicious cookies n cream and plopped those onto the tortilla that smells amazing from the cinnamon/sugar mix. Next, I ground up blueberries and agave nectar. I splashed agave in, equivalent to about 1t. or less. The fruity puree was then spread on top of the ice cream. I used 2 handfuls of blueberries, and next time I would like to use more. Maybe an ideal measurement would be 1c. (Lindy Loo uses 2c). Then I topped that with a few sprinkles of chocolate chips (non-dairy) and a long drizzle of Ahlaska chocolate syrup, finalized by 3 squirts of Soy whipped cream. *Yes, I'm still having fun with the whip, it's almost gone though. Repeat with second tortilla. This only takes a matter of 5-10 minutes. *I realize that I picked a bad color plate to take a photo of the tortillas on it. Oh, that's right, I was drunk. Hee hee (yeah right).

I grabbed a spoon and went into the other room to eat with Ray. We both didn't really know how we were going to eat these, and it was my first thought about that right then. I mentioned how I was going to "pick" at mine, but that would have taken forever and been annoying to watch (and do). Ray decided to pick his up and eat it like a burrito. I did the same. They were even more messy (but more tasty) and because I didn't fold in the bottom in the first place, there was goodness oozing out the bottom on both of our plates. We still managed to scarf 'em down and they were fabulous. So orgasmically good. I highly recommend trying these. Don't forget for those of you who drink: if you want messy sopapillas, make them sober. If you want beautiful sopapillas, make them while drunk. If you just want awesome tasting ice cream goodness with a Mexican flare, go make some sopapillas anyway. I finally looked up sopapillas and realized many are eaten folded up with an array of ingredients. I prefer this ice cream method.
Yum.
Edit to add: A few things would have made this better. First, I would like to try adding the sugar and cinnamon while the tortillas are heating up. This way the coarse raw sugar can melt in. It was still ok, but I think I'd prefer it mixed in. Next, like I mentioned, add more fruit. I would also fold the bottoms under like real burritos so they stay put. Also, I think for next time I'd like everything to be piping hot except the ice cream and have all the steam and heat melt the ice cream into gooey mess. Yep, all of the above would make this better (and while eating I didn't think it could be better, this is all after-thought).

Arrived: Homemade COOKIES (and soap)!!!

2006-07-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

Yay! I am the happiest cookie monster around. Or perhaps the only one around. In my last post, I half-jokingly shared that I was willing to pay [big bucks] for someone to send me homemade cookies, especially Dreena's cookies. Even though I was not seriously requesting cookies, I was willing to accept! I didn't think anyone was really going to offer. Lucky for me (for personal selfish reasons), Jody offered to bake and send me some. After all, she was planning on making some of Dreena's cookies anyway and we shared the batch.

I was so pleased and grateful to have this offer, especially since I haven't had homemade cookies since before last December. We were in touch late last week and she sent them off on Monday. They arrived early today (so quick for across the country) and I have to force myself to savor them and not eat them all today. Because I can eat 'em all!!! They arrived in a re-used cocoa cannister, not the one shown here (way to go Jody!). Along with the cookies were her homemade vegan soaps. Three flavors and they all smell wonderful. If you want soap, good smelling, good vegan-ingredients soap, contact Jody.

And here's a close up of the yum-ness. No messing around here. Thanks Jody!!!

PS... one day I hope to show you all cookies that came out of my own oven.

Ramble on Rose

2006-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

I could say that some little sparkly fairies came and swept me away to another land, but they didn't. Wow, it's been so long since I've posted and while I've been up to a lot, I've also been up to not much at all, if that makes any sense. It all started off when I decided to take a small break from blogging a few weeks back. After all, it's been hot and living on fruit and fruit smoothies isn't much to blog about. But then I didn't buy any groceries because I was planning on going away on a short trip. The trip was cancelled because for the last week-week and a half, I've been feeling dizzy. Now, I usually don't do the whole doctor thing. If I don't feel well (which is a rare occasion to begin with), I just let it pass or treat myself naturally. But I was dizzy for about 4-5 days straight, almost falling over, and really not feeling well. I let laundry and dishes pile up and Ray bought me meals from restaurants for a few days in a row. I was getting worried that I didn't know what was going on in my body. Finally, I was forced (by someone who loves me) to go to the doctor so I went to the hospital and it was the biggest crock of shit ever. They didn't do much. After the weekend, I went to the conventional doctor (I'm not getting into that one either) and had a check as well as a blood test. Everything's fine and turns out I have vertigo from either something I breathed in or from something with my ear. It's subsiding, but it makes me a bit dizzy at the computer, hence me not blogging a lot.
But it's been making me crazy not being able to post even though I haven't made any elaborate meals. I've been making re-runs, if anything at all. Of course, special treats as I always like. I have a pathetic MwM list that I am not going to post. It's a bunch of random stuff I've bought over the past few weeks.

Other than from trying to enjoy summertime, not feeling too well lately, postponing a trip and avoiding the 115 degree heat and serial killers and rapists, I am doing ok. I appreciate everyone who has chimed in wondering about me. I have been cruisin around other people's blogs, that doesn't make me dizzy!

This first photo here is my freezer. Typical of me. And this photo is not staged either. I usually have at least 2 ice creams (not including Ray's Organic Stonyfield Farm dairy), and sometimes up to 4 or 5. If you didn't know already and don't get it from the photo, I love ice cream. I try to eat it everyday. The coconut sorbet is the best I've ever had. I also have the new Whole Foods 365 brand of soy vanilla. It's good, very creamy, but I prefer the SO Delicious over that one. It is twice as much ice cream as the Soy Delicious, and the same price. Oh well. Cookies n Cream is my standard, and I love the white chocolate and raspberry one when I'm feelin' fancy.

Let me tell you a story about how I got the top two ice creams. First, the 365 soy vanilla: Ray and I were at Whole Foods Market and I almost fell over and died when I saw they had a sampling station set up with rootbeer floats, including SOY ice cream. This was seriously the best sampling station ever. I had a Virgils rootbeer (also the best kind) with soy vanilla and sprinkles and almonds. She gave me 2 scoops for free! I went right ahead and purchased the 365 soy (and gave into the marketing scheme). That same day, most likely due to my overwhelming excitement of the sampling station, the lady told me there would be 4-5 non-dairy ice cream samples set up the next day. I planned the whole next day around the ice cream sampling time, went to the store, and she wasn't set up yet. I thought we would just come back later, and to our suprise, she took us into the ice cream isle with 8 spoons in hand, and told us to pick out 4 kinds of non-dairy's that we would like to try. I almost fell over again! We tried the CaoBella coconut sorbet and immediately decided to buy it. We also tried Soy Delicious purely decadent Swiss Almond Vanilla which was amazing, Soy Dream blueberry, which was good but I could do that at home, and a rice one that wasn't even that good I can't remember the brand. It was mint chocolate chip. I don't care for the textures of rice ice creams, but the sorbet is a good alternative to soy. Those 2 days at the store were seriously the best ever. Our 4 samples were the ones that were going to be used for the station. I loved that we got to pick them out. I also didn't know that it is WFM policy to let anyone try *anything* they ask for while at the store. They already let me dig through the basil containers. Hmmm...

Below is my very first vegan cheesecake. I purchased it at the co-op from a local baker. I had no idea what to compare it to since I can't remember ever having cheesecake in my life. Most people I know have "issues" with cheesecake, vegan or non. But this was good. It was a marionberry with blackberry cake made with tofu, non-hydrogenated Tofutti cream cheese, raw sugar, soymilk, maple syrup and vanilla. It was 100% organic and mighty fine. It may be a while before I miss it though.
Next up cookies. To all of you people who are baking up homemade cookies (hint hint Dreena!), I have been missing cookies (homemade especially) since December. So many posts lately have been of cookies and I seriously need to offer some big money or something to have someone send me some. This is the closest I've got to pretending they are homebaked. First up, my favorite, Uncle Eddies. These are great, all vegan and the Trial Mix is my favorite. I really wanted simple chocolate chip, but it seems that's what everyone else at the store wanted before me. A few days later, even though I had cookies at the house still, I took a long drive up to Wild Oats for lunch and ended up buying this bag of Wild Oats veg oatmeal raisin cookies. They are good and taste like cinnamon snickerdoodles but with raisins. I am happy.
And something healthier, but not necessarily more nutritional: yellow watermelon. Am I the last person on this Earth to discover yellow watermellon? I saw it at the store and it looked interesting so I got one. Ray cut these (I cut watermellon differently) and they taste just like regular pink watermelon. Maybe not as juicy, and they didn't have seeds. This was organic, of course. Yum.
I finally splurged. I was informed by Kris that the co-op has vegan whipped cream. I was also informed that there is a better brand out there, but this is all I can find so far. I saw it at Wild Oats for fifty cents cheaper. This whip cream was interesting. The first taste was a bit "chemically", maybe the processed soy. But it was a nice texture and creaminess and I really liked it after a few bites. Scroll down and you can see how much I really liked it. Did I mention that it's been 7+ years since I've had whipped cream? And my newest find, Hip Whip, doesn't count.
This smoothie is a mango kiwi smoothie. I forgot that I was gonna keep it yellow, and without even thinking, I tossed in blueberries. Maybe because I always do that. At that point, I knew it wouldn't "look" like a mango smoothie, so I also threw in a red plum. Ingredients: all organic, mango, kiwi, blueberry, plum, vanilla soymilk, hemp seeds. I have been going whipped cream crazy... Oh, and I am not trying to advertise for Pom here. These are the new pom teas and mine was a pomegranite green tea with lychee. Yum. I like these because you can keep the glass. We have a few at the house now, and they are just as good, if not better, than our other glasses.
Next up on the food porn list (or rather whipped cream list) is a Virgil's rootbeer float with 365 vanilla soy ice cream and whipped cream. This was Ray's. I can't handle this much of any type of soda. I only had a few splashes of rootbeer and it was great. I can handle any amount of ice cream though!
And this was my dinner the other night. Don't be mislead by this post, I do eat foods other than ice cream and sweets. After all, I am a nutritionist (and human), but my simple meals of grains, pasta, beans, salads, etc, have all been meals that show I haven't been feeling well lately. I also haven't felt like taking photos of these foods, treats are way better. I'll be back in the routine again soon. For now, this awesomeness was my dinner. It was cookies n cream ice cream, Uncle Eddies cookie, whipped cream and Alaska chocolate syrup. Yum. So, I'll leave you all with this great looking food porn to glaze over for a while.

"Did you say your name was Ramblin' Rose? Ramble on baby, settle down easy. Ramble on, Rose." ~Robert Hunter

Oh Little Lenties How I've Missed You So...

2006-07-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

Remember how much I used to make Sloppy Lenties? Pretty much ever since Jennifer McCann posted about them for Shmoo's lunchbox and I went overboard for a while. Way more than I even posted about. I love my concoction of an adult-slash-kid version of the lenties and it's been a while since I've made them. Boy, did I miss those little bad-boys. I made them exactly the same as I always do (have the recipe memorized) and they were once again, wonderful. I thought it would be too hot and filling to eat these, but the Monsoon has rolled in (3 consecutive days of a dewpoint 55 degrees or higher) and it was a pleasant meal to have during a dust storm. No Seduction bread this time, this was some whole wheat something that was hard on the outside and soft inside and great for this dish. Oh, little lenties, it won't be for too long that we part again... (I'm a nerd).
And here's some blueberry ice cream pie. Sort-of. You see, this is supposed to look blue-er than it looks. I made a similiar pie to the amazing one I made last week but this time decided to make the guilt a bit less and add a shitload of blueberries to make it "healthier". It's not that it's unhealthy, come on, it's vegan, but there's something said about having ice cream pie for lunch three days in a row with no fruit filling. Hmm. List of ingredients in my pie: Arrowhead Mills already baked graham cracker crust, Soy Delicious cookies n cream ice cream, a few Newman's O's, maple syrup, hemp seeds, blueberries, almond butter, chocolate chips. Everything is organic except for the handful of chocolate chips. This pie is amazing.

I know these are two re-runs of many previous posts, but I felt because it's been a week since I've posted, I must post something, even if it's old material. Blogger withdrawl can only last so long.

Killian's Birthday, MwM, Pesto:Part II & Layered Cereal Squares

2006-06-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

Today is Killian's Birthday! My baby boy turned 4 today and he is still my fat kitten. Today isn't technically Killian's birthday, you see, I rescued him from the pound and he was about 4 weeks old and fit in my size 6 shoe. I was unsure of his exact birthday and did know it was about the end of June, so I deemed it June 28. It's the 28th because I like the number 28 and it's my birthdate too. So, happy birthday Killian, who is now huge and poofy and about 16 pounds!
I have been wanting to get Killian a kitty condo (aka kitty playground) and have looked online. There are so many choices and sizes and prices and I really wanted to find one that would suit his fatness best. Ray and I were at the pet store (Pet's Inc., a family owned business, one location only) getting a few fish accessories for our 4 swimming friends. We decided to double our number of fish in the tank by purchasing a little algae eater (bottom feeder) as well as three other fishies that I don't know what type they are. They eat all the crap at the bottom and are already helping the tank out. Back to the condo... at the store there were many kitty condos to choose from. I decided on this one and to finally get it (it was a good price and we didn't pay for online shipping) and also purchased a blue fuzzy toy and a rolling-bell-thingy for him to get freaky with. The photo above is Killian checking it out. It didn't take him long to like it (and surprisingly not hard for him to jump onto) and he was lounging for a good part of the day.
Above: Killian perching and hunting the birds outside the window. What a different perspective for him up there. You can see the fuzzy blue toy that he likes to carry around in his mouth.
All passed out.
I am glad Killian likes this and uses this already because I've bought him toys and things in the past and he prefers household (aka MY) items and steals pens, caps, paper, almost anything. Ray even bought him a comfy basket and it took him a whole year before he stepped into it. He went through a faze where he snuggled in it for about a month, but hasn't returned to it since.

Below you can see the guy eating his special treat. He freaks out as soon as there's a little tear in the lid. He comes running and meows and mooches until (yes, I usually give in) he gets it. I give him a few licks of yogurt about once a week or so but today I let him have a bit more. He grew up in a vegetarian household and has always prefered soy. He mooches to Ray's cow ice cream, but really prefers mine, as well as many other foods.

I let him dunk his face in this time. He had yogurt in his eyelashes and even on his ears! I love my kitten.
And onto Midweek Munchies. Click on the photo to view the shopping list. The * means organic, and as always, this is a combined list for 2 weeks worth of munchies.
I made Dreena's Sun-dried Tomato Pesto with Almonds and Pine nuts again. I can't give the recipe because it's a tester. Stay tuned for the new cookbook. Anyhow, no photo, but there were 2 changes and I followed the recipe exactly the same. First, I used spaghetti this time instead of linguini. I prefer thicker noodles or super-thin ones. Next, this time I ran to the crappy store (walking distance, well, WFM is too, but I was lazy) and purchased conventional sundried tomatoes. I swear this is the only reason why the pesto wasn't as flavorful and pungent and awesome this time. I followed the recipe exactly again, but the tomatoes were missing a lot of good things. The pesto was still fabulous, but I will only make it with organic main-ingredients next time. I still had the leftovers for breakfast.

Next, I made Dreena's Chocolate Hemp Squares yet again. See the post about them below for details. This time I omitted the hemp seeds on top, doubled the recipe, and used 2 kinds of cereal plus rolled oats because I ran out of one type of cereal and was already in the works.
The bottom layer is Koala Krisp (Nature's Path like Rice Crispies) mixed with cashew and almond butter and all the other good stuff. Next, a layer of chocolate, then a layer of Gorilla Munch plus rolled oats plus the goodness nut butter stuff, then topped with a huge layer of more chocolate. These are awesome.

Tofurky Sandwich

2006-06-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Now don't fall out of your chair... this is Ray's tofurky sandwich. I still refuse to even try a bite, but I still think it's way better than eating a real dead turkey. This Tofurky is new to us, not by acknowledgement but by actually buying it and Ray tasting it. It all started when we went to Green, a 100% vegan organic restaurant (one of the few around here) and discovered they are now hosting daily specials and a Pesto Tofurky Sandwich was the first one. Ray was super-excited and I just stick to my usual artichoke dip and jerk tofu salad, cliche, even for a vegan place. He thought the sandwich was great, especially because it was more than just a veggie sandwich but not a real-meat sandwich (his "last" bite of meat was in February... yes, I'm shocked!).

A few days later the Tofurky was still on his mind and he decided to buy some at the store (the peppered one, that's what Green had) as well as a big-ass roll and some veggies for topping. We have organic Veganaise, which I don't like either, never liked real mayo, and Ray likes it better than real mayo, so it works. He built this sandwich all by himself (thank goodness, as I just simply cut a piece of ice cream pie and had that for lunch yesterday, again) and it was ready in no time. He did a wonderful job, may I mention at stacking the layers so nicely.

And yes, the cheese you see is from a cow. He buys super-small blocks of "good cheese" every so often. On the tofurky sandwhich at Green there was faux cheese, it was a pepper-jack-something, but Ray has 5-year Wisconsin Cheddar and he was raving about it for the sandwich. It's all complete with peppers and lettuce and red onion. And isn't it nice to see a "meat-filled" sandwich that is still mostly veggies? So many sandwiches I see are just filled with meat and cheese or cheese sauce or some crap, and maybe a sprig of iceberg lettuce and a crappy tomato. In this case, there's a great variety and it is not overstuffed by one main ingredient. He ate the whole thing (it was huge!) and still has many slices left over for another time. He is trying to get me to taste even just one bite of one slice, but I feel like I am 5 years old again, throwing a fit, although this time it's not fitting about dead animals being eaten. It's about eating something that is claimed to taste just like a turkey tastes and I don't care to know that, chew it, digest it, nor even try to comprehend why I would want to eat something (vegan) that is supposed to be what the flesh of turkey tastes like. We've been through this before, I'll stop here. No thanks for me, but this is a pretty sandwich, right? And nothing dead.

Vegan Ice Cream Pie & Walnut Basil Pesto & Polenta Verdict

2006-06-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

How can I not start with this. I made this pie in about 4 minutes last night. I glanced at La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer and came across a recipe for easy ice cream pie that I liked and completely modified though. Instead of crushing my own creme-filled cookies, I took a pre-made graham cracker crust by Arrowhead Mills (that's been in the pantry for months) and lined the bottom with a small spread of organic almond butter. That would have been fantastic on its own! Next, I got out my food processor and combined about 2T maple syrup (organic, grade A) with about a handful (I have small hands) of chocolate chips and an even bigger handful of raw organic pecans. Blend until it's all combined. Then since I always have ice cream on hand, I grabbed a bigass container of So Delicious (used to be Soy Delicious) Cookies n Cream, my favorite kind, and added about 4c ice cream (1/2 the carton) to the food processor. From there I blended until everything was homogeneous and looked sooo good. Next, dip your spoon in it a few times just to make sure it really is as good as it looks, if not, better! The original recipe didn't have nuts and called for mint or any extract, and I omitted that completely. Next, I dumped the mixture onto the pie crust and spread it evenly. Then I topped it with hemp seeds because, well, that's just what I do with most things. Then the top of the pie still looked a bit boring, even though I knew there was awesome stuff going on within it. I decided to get out the Organic Santa Cruz (like hersheys) syrup and I topped it with that. You can see that the spout is bigger than my liking, and I had a few globs of too much here and there. I took this photo after the pie was frozen for about 2 hours. The active time in the kitchen was only 4-5 minutes (yay) but you have to patiently wait for it to firm up. I didn't. It was somewhat firm, and it is now 16+ hours later and all this "talk" has made me want to check and see how it is now... and eat it. I know it will only get better.
Now this is what I decided to do with the leftover basil (2c) I had. Yeah, yeah, it's another pesto, and I appreciate all the non-pesto advice, I just wasn't up to anything major. I used a recipe for Walnut Basil Pesto from Dreena's Vive le Vegan and served it cold (we usually eat cold and late on Tuesday nights with minimal ingredients). I topped it with pine nuts because I like pine nuts a lot and had them on hand. This pesto wasn't as good to me as the sun-dried that I tested for the new book, but I think it's because I didn't know it was going to be "creamy" and I don't really like creamy things. Even when I was a vegetarian that ate a lot of cheese (when I was a kid and young teen) I still didn't ever like creamy dishes or creamy soups. Therefore, I think it still holds true, and even though the creaminess is due to the crushed 1c walnuts, I didn't care for the milk in it. I did though, like the overall taste of the recipe, it was just too creamy for me. If you like pesto and you like creamy, go for this recipe!
Polenta verdict: I am going to make this as short as possible. I mapped out on paper what I was going to do with the polenta. This is how it goes: First on the bottom, a layer of polenta with blue corn chips all around the plate. The polenta was to be fried in olive oil on the pan with some garlic and nutritional yeast. Then there would be a layer of canned organic black beans with chopped red and yellow (frozen) bell peppers mixed with cumin, lime, cilantro, cayenne, s/p, and more garlic. Then there would be a top layer of jarred organic salsa with more cilantro on top.
I finally got out the tube of polenta (biggest mistake right there, after everyone's advice on homemade) and cut it open. It scared the shit out of me because I didn't know it was going to be rubbery. Yuck. So I just went with it. I took out a can of black beans and did the prepping according to plan. The black beans got overcooked while sitting in the pot for a while when the polenta was frying in oil. The polenta didn't get brown (after a really long time) so I stopped it to try it. It felt "done" in my mouth but I didn't like the texture. I stopped the heat on everything and attempted to try it all mixted together (just on my fork, not set up on a plate) and it tasted like complete crap. I've had this idea in my head for a week, mapped out on paper for 3 days, and it was such a disaster. By the time I thought about a photo, most of the polenta was in the drain and the black bean mixture was getting debated on getting tossed or not. It was a bad disaster and it may be another while before I have polenta unless I make it myself. I am never buying anything in a tube again (besides toothpaste and chapstick).

I'm going to have some ice cream pie for breakfast now...

Cereal + Chocolate + Cashews + Almonds + Hemp = Squares

2006-06-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

I made Chocolate Hemp Squares from Vive le Vegan last night. I must say, these are so sweet and rich that no matter what your stomach (and/or brain) tells you, one is satisfying enough. Well, maybe two. Anyway, I've been wanting to make this recipe from the very first day Vive arrived in the mail. I always spot out the hemp nut butter at the store but still haven't splurged. Why? I really don't know. After all, I always keep hemp seeds stocked in the house and eat them almost every day, but hemp butter is more expensive (for what it is) therefore I decided to modify the recipe. These bars came out so wonderful and of course, they were no-bakes and super-fast to make.

Instead of hemp seed butter I used cashew butter, and used almond butter as my other. Here's the list of ingredients I used: Nature's Path Gorilla Munch (kids) cereal, cashew butter, almond butter, maple syrup, sea salt, vanilla (all for the base), soymilk and chocolate (topping). I then sprinkled hemp seeds on top (to make it more authentic). I can't get over how good these are. They are super-rich, but not super-dense due to the ground cereal, but super-filling and awesome.

SunDried Tomato Pesto with Pine Nuts & Almonds

2006-06-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

I tested this fantastic Sun-dried tomato pesto with toasted almonds and pine nuts (pasta sauce) for Dreena's upcoming cookbook, Eat, Drink and Be Vegan! and it was a total success. I cannot say too much about the ingredients, but I really enjoyed having a pasta type dish that wasn't based on regular tomatoes or a vinaigrette. I also haven't had pesto in years because I find many prepared pestos are either made with cheese or they are just not appealing to me. But this sun-dried tomato pesto is awesome (especially because Dreena created it) and I am happy to report that there are a ton of leftovers, therefore I will be eating pesto pasta for the next day or two.

Of course it wouldn't be pesto without basil, and I have a lot of fresh basil leftover, so any suggestions (un-pesto suggestions, please) are much appreciated. I appologize to the major "foodies" out there for the lack of details in this post, but be patient and you will soon get all the details from the new cookbook from all the recipes I have tested. I plan on making some interesting meals soon, I just have been a bit unmotivated by the heat to turn on the stove (and we all know the oven is out of the question anyway). This pesto was nice and quick though,(faster than heating up jarred marinara) because I made it all in the VitaMix and just had to boil the noodles. The overall verdict of the pesto was a ten out of ten.

And to Vicki and anyone else waiting in deep suspense: I still haven't touched the polenta. I even re-checked the expiration date, and I still have some more procrastinating time.

Vegan Chocolate Covered Pretzels & MwM

2006-06-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Yep, more special fun-to-make treats! This time instead of dipping fruits I dipped pretzels into chocolate goodness. I decided to include the word "vegan" in the title for people who are searching for these. I did a few searches (just for fun, I knew what I was doing), and can you believe there were eggs in some recipes, so much heavy cream, etc!? These are vegan, "healthy" and certainly rich and tasty. I think that even though these look like they could be so junky, they really aren't. I got a bag of pretzels on a late-night-indulgment-spree at the crappy supermarket next door. There were basically two kinds to choose from: Rold Gold which was out of the question because I don't feel like eating bleach. Next it was these Snyder's of Hanover 12 MultiGrain sticks. Let me tell you what's in them: unbleached wheat flour, water, molasses, malt, soy flour, malter barley flour, oat flour, potato flour, sesame seeds, buckwheat flour, rice flour, millet, salt, flax seed, poppy seed, yeast, sugar, soda. Yes I know there's a lot of ingredients, but there's really no junk, a lot of flours, but good ones. All the rest of the choices had maltodextrin and dextrose and honey and other unidentifiable chemicals and crap that I didn't feel like consuming either.

So, I took these healthy pretzel sticks and set them aside with 3 small bowls, one consisting of broken mint cookies (kinda like oreos), one with crushed almonds and the other with "Let's Do Organic" veggie-colored sprinkles. I made three of each toppings, the rest plain. Next, I took a bowl (the lazy method here) and put some chocolate chips, cocoa, a splash of agave nectar and a splash of soymilk and heated it in the... yes, the microwave! It heated a bit without burning and I stirred the rest to melt. It was ready for dipping time. This part was fun. I know I'm 25 and not 5 years old, but I really do enjoy "playing" in the kitchen, especially when it's something simple like this. I dipped many pretzels (by the way, pretzels are awesome with leftover Maple Butter Cream... yes, I'm sooo bad!) into chocolate and some I sprinkled with toppings. I set them on parchment paper on top of a baking sheet and chilled them overnight. They are now stored in a plastic container in the fridge. And to my suprise, the fridge isn't making the pretzels soggy. When I had them hanging out on the counter the chocolate started to melt. Yes, we have A/C, but I like to keep it around 80-83 degrees F, and that seems to still be too warm for the chocolates. It is at least 20-30 degrees cooler than outside! Anyway, these pretzel sticks were a great and fun-to-make treat.

Now let's get to Midweek Munchies (MwM). As always, this is a 2-week list compiled into one MwM post. The list is from the co-op and WFM. Click on the photo to get a larger view of the list. Not much bulk this time around, I had a good amount on hand.
Now take one last look at the pretzels.
Fin.

Fruit Crepes and Maple Butter Cream

2006-06-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

I made crepes! I have never had crepes in my whole life (don't ask why because I don't know, eggs... maybe?), therefore, have never made crepes. I was drooling over Dreena's crepe recipe for her upcoming 3rd cookbook, and I was fortunate enough to be one of the testers. As you all know, I tested the maple butter cream first. It was amazing. Then I made it again, and it was amazing as well. Now, I have made it a third time (I know, I know), but this time it was to go with the crepes... for real. And it was amazing again!

I cannot give the recipe, but you'll just have to wait for the cookbook to come out. These were fantastic. I should have started working on these earlier, because I was pressed for time. You can tell by the crappy photos this time around, plus my hand was shakey from standing in the kitchen, hungry and warm, for an hour. The crepes tasted waaaay better than I ever imagined and it kind of reminded me of a super-thin pancake. I will say that these were spelt crepes and I decided to make my own filling by simply pureeing frozen blueberries, frozen raspberries, a fresh kiwi and a splash of agave nectar. I don't think I really needed the agave, but I wasn't sure because of the tartness of the raspberry and kiwi. But then I remembered that I whipped up some maple butter cream and it was cooling and firming up in the fridge for a while, and that would sweeten it plenty. I served these crepes with fresh slices of banana, blueberry/raspberry/kiwi filling, and maple butter cream on top. All I have left to say is wow.
I also want to thank everyone who gave me helpful hints and advice regarding the polenta and fajitas from the previous post. I have taken all of them into consideration, and I really appreciate all the help and kindness.

Bulgur Salad & Advice Needed

2006-06-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

This salad was light and refreshing and took less than an hour to make, which is pretty much record timing for me in the kitchen. I still had one of those pre-washed bags of organic Newman's greens and I layered those on the bottom with my own non-measured version of a cider vinegar and oil dressing. Then I took a few cups of pre-cooked bulgur (I cooked it in a mix of veggie broth and water) and the layered it on top of the greens. Then I chopped up fresh red bell peppers, cucumber, parsley and fresh corn kernels and tossed it with a can (lazy me) of chickpeas. I took all of this goodness and tossed it with a mix of more apple cider vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. So simple. I also want to mention that this corn (well, all veggies) were raw. Fresh summer corn is so good raw, especially right off the cob. I'm slowly seeing organic corn coming to the stores.
Verdict: Ray gave it an 8. He prefers a seperate side salad. As for me, I prefer everything piled up and mixed up. I gave this a 6.5 or a 7 because it could have used some pizzaz or some kick or something to excite my tastebuds. I guess a ton of apple cider vinegar and black pepercorns didn't kick it up enough. Still a good, quick, healthy, fresh meal.
Now I have some questions... I feel like a polenta virgin. I've had it before, but don't really know what to do with it. I do have cornmeal, but for my devirginizing, I decided to go the easy (but costly) route and buy a tube of it already made. I want to fry it up on the stovetop, but I did a bunch of cookbook and online searches and I'm stumpted. Can someone give me ideas what I can do with the polenta, plus I'm thinking of dredging it in garlic and breadcrumbs. Any simple non-oven ideas?

Second question: Ray wants fajitas (I may too, but not with faux steak). And no, we haven't gotten to the faux meats yet... We have those steak strips and I know to just fry them up with veggies and such, but where can I get or how do I make fajita seasoning?

Just a quick post to go with a quick meal.

And just for Kai (and anyone else who wants this recipe)...
Roasted Pepper and Bean Dip
Makes 2.5 cups
1 - 7oz. jar roasted red bell peppers, drained, chopped
1c firm silken tofu (about 6oz)
1.3c cilantro leaves (I used dried and less)
2T. lime or lemon juice
1T. olive oil
1/2t. salt
1/2t. cumin, ground
1 clove garlic, chopped
1- 16oz can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed

Reserve 1/4c peppers for garnish and set aside. Place remaining peppers in a food processor and add all other ingredients and process until smooth. Spoon mixture in a small bowl and stir in the rest of the peppers. Chill for a while and serve.
Nutrition Facts: per tablespoon, 15kcal, 1g protein, 0.5g fat, 2g carb, 59mg sodium, 1g fiber, less than 1g sugar.

Roasted Red Pepper Bean Dip + Pasta Salad + Maple Butter Cream Extravaganza

2006-06-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

What an eclectic dinner it was tonight. I made whole wheat linguine noodles, cooled 'em off and tossed in broccoli-slaw (broccoli, carrots and cabbage) and some other spices and herbs. No pasta salad is complete to me without vinegar, so I added tamari, olive oil, white vinegar and red wine vinegar. This is where something went wrong. It is still a mystery and I am letting the leftovers chill in the fridge overnight and see if anything better comes of it. There are a few possibilities of what went wrong, for example, I think the garlic was going bad. Another could have been a vinegar overload, but it wasn't really tasting like that. I even added a bit of agave nectar to try to chill it out. I also over-stirred it by a million times. Nothing really worked, but it was edible and between ok and good.
But what we have below here is a different story. Of course, since I followed a recipe it came out fantastic (and yes people... I measured... with real measuring spoons and cups). I made "Roasted Red Pepper and Bean Dip" from Vegetarian Times November/December 2005 issue page 32. I followed the recipe exactly (gasp!) except I subbed dried cilantro since I didn't have fresh and I only had a lemon, no lime for juice. The ingredients are as follows: roasted red bell peppers (jar), firm silken tofu, cilantro, lime, olive oil, salt, cumin, garlic, cannellini beans.

Verdict: Ray said this was amazing and gave it a 10 (which he usually rates everything to a 9, since "nothing's perfect") and while that's true, I've had better dips, but yes, this one is up there. Ray was even eating it before it was on the table and finished off the whole serving at the table. Since I used a can of cannellini beans, a jar of roasted red bells and 1/2 a square of tofu, threw it all in the blender (which is something I am a pro at), and whizzed away, this awesome dip was made in less than 5 minutes, no cooking, no prep-work, and hardly any clean-up. I am glad I have a new dip, especially since most of my dips are really hummus. I can deem this one a true dip. We dipped organic carrots and organic blue corn tortilla chips into it.
And now... may I present to you all something wonderful. This goodness I am speaking of is Dreena's "Maple Butter Cream" aka "Celestial Cream" and it is showcased on the top right of the mini-dish. I cannot give away details of this recipe, since I am just testing out for her upcoming 3rd cookbook, but I will say this: Maple Butter Cream is a light, yet rich blend of maple syrup and only a few other simple - yet delicious ingredients that all blend together in a matter of minutes. I had some at room temperature right away and it was heavenly right off the spoon! I put it in the fridge for a few hours and ate it with the following all organic items: Nature's Path Kid's Animal Crackers, some crappy cookies that are only good dunked into the buttercream for a few minutes, Soy Delicious scoop of Mint awesomeness (going to make me huge) ice cream! This was a wonderful dessert and I'm glad I didn't eat too much of the borderline-crappy-pasta salad because saving room for this eclectic dessert was the best idea yet. I plan on having more Maple Butter Cream with fruit, as my favorite (surprisingly) out of all of this was the kiwi to eat with it.
Whew. And well worth it.

Simple Summer Salads

2006-06-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

Simple Summer Salads... try saying that one five times fast! Let me pretense this whole post by commenting on the temperature outside. It was 113 (degrees F) the other day, 112 today and is supposed to be about the same or maybe 111 or 110 (does that even matter?) for the next few days. Did I mention never a cloud in the sky (until monsoon season)? Then they call it "cooling down" to the 107's range through the week, and anything above 105 is considered hot. And yes it's a dry heat, and yes I'd rather have this than humidity or coldness, and no I am not the local forcaster.

Based on the conditions and it's not even July/August yet, I have primarily feasting on the following: fresh fruit smoothies, cereal, ice cream and fruit salad. I decided to get away from some of that, for dinner at least, and whipped up some summer salads that were nice and cool. First you will see a return of the pasta salad. It's a vinaigrette with simple spices, olive oil, red wine vinegar and cucumbers and carrots. Everything's organic except for the olive oil (too costly to buy for now) and the cuc's aren't organic. I had a personal battle at the store today, and decided to just go for it. You can see that I washed and scrubbed it like it fell in the toilet or something (would that have been better than eating conventional produce?!) and I even peeled part of the skin. I did leave some skin on in the case that there may be lingering vitamins and minerals under the waxiness and crap. Anyway, this is what it looks like. Yum.
I made another simple summer salad to go with the pasta salad. This one's a simple one because I went for it and bought a bag (well, 2) of Newman's Organics spring mix. I think there is about 20 kinds of greens in here and "three times washed". Sweet. I took the bag of spring mix, tossed it with the leftover carrots and cuc's from the other salad, added some walnuts and called it good. The hardest part about this meal was deciding on a dressing. Then got Ray involved and he wanted some sort of mustard-y kind. I thumbed through 10 old magazines of Veggie Life and VT... and then found my brain and picked up The Everyday Vegan & Vive le Vegan. I decided to make Dreena's "Simple Cider Vinaigrette" which has apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, maple syrup and a few other secret ingredients. It was simple to make and tasted bold and vinegary, just the way I like my salads, but with a sweet hint. Overall, this meal was tasty, refreshing, simple, and great for summer.

Ray's 2006 Cooking Experience, MwM & Jazz

2006-05-31T18:55:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a joke. Yes, this is real food being cooked! Welcome to Ray's 2006 cooking experience, most likely the one time this year he will be cooking in the kitchen. I decided to create evidence of this one! Let me say that he is super-enthusiastic about grilling foods, unlike me, and there will soon be some grilling photos posted. But, for now we have Ray in the kitchen actually cooking - and we ended up eating at 1:00am. This is also a rare occasion because he is wearing black. I'll start from the beginning: Ray had three gigs on Sunday, one of which didn't get finished until 11pm and he wasn't home until midnight. He called on a break and I exclaimed happily that I was making dinner and it would be all ready for him when he got back. Jordan and I were going to eat before him. Well, that didn't happen. I decided to make up my own recipe by throwing (not limited to) chickpeas, black beans, breadcrumbs, carrots, onion, garlic, tahini, parsely and a bunch of other stuff into the food processor to create patties to fry on the stove. The mixture looked and smelled good but dry. I let it chill in the fridge for an hour or so and it was still dry. I added more tahini, but I didn't really know what else to do. I decided to take the formed patties and just fry them up, but while on the stove they quickly crumbled and it almost looked like ground beef- but not. It smelled ok so I just went with it, trying to form them and press them together. No such luck. Finally, I just browned the whole mixture, crumbs and all, and poured a bunch of not-photo-worthy-crap onto a plate. It smelled good and Jordan walked into the room, looked at it and said, "I'm not eating that...". I convinced him to just try it and we both agreed to not eat it.

I was upset and frustrated that 3+ hours had gone by, food all wasted, and my energy drained and no dinner. I paced around and didn't even feel like boiling water for pasta or quinoa, even though my mind kept telling me to. Ray got home and the look on his face when I told him there was no dinner wasn't great. He had a long day and night and I confidently told him there'd be food, when there wasn't. In this rare occasion, he stayed dressed, black shirt, pants and all (which is unusual at home), and cooked up some penne with marinara sauce and sauteed veggies. The meal ended up being great, as Ray makes better red sauce than me, but it was a long night... for both of us.

Moving on... Now we have Midweek Munchies for this week as well as last week's combined. The * means organic, as always.

And now let me leave you with some jazz photos. This is more Ray in his element, polar opposite from the photos above in the kitchen. From left to right we have Bob on trumpet/guitar, Shea on sax and many other misc. instruments, Ben on drums, Ray on bass and Tom on guitar. Notice the empty chairs? It was the end of the night and many people go there to dine, not like a jazz club.
And Ray on the upright, with Ben again and Jesse on vibes.
Fin.

Mango Pops & More Awesomeness on a Stick

2006-05-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

I am so happy that mangos (also spelled correctly mangoes) are in season right now. I was excited to see that the Sunflower Market had them organic for 88 cents each. For days, I was imagining biting into a juicy mango and having no cares in the world! Then the day came and the Sunflower Market had some sort of mango-shipment-problem and I was told to come back at a later time. I went the following day and they were still out. I was planning on checking out Henry's market anyway, which is owned by Wild Oats, and it turned out they had organic mangos for 79 cents each! Way better. So, I bought 4 and two of them quickly went into my belly straight-up, into smoothies, frozen, and into this wondeful Mango Ice Cream from The Everyday Vegan. This recipe is super-simple and easy and only calls for a few ingredients. The fruits are mostly mango with a bit of frozen banana, agave nectar and a few other secrets.

After I froze the ice cream (and of course, sampled some) I decided to utilize the containers that make popcicles and put some of the mango ice cream into the molds with my own sticks. What a great idea! Now I had 4 pops and still some ice cream for scooping leftover. Thanks Dreena!

Since I was on a "fruit-on-a-stick" kick, I decided to take some fresh bananas and cut them in half and dip them into goodness. I made the same chocolate mixture as I have in previous posts, and topped it with the following: First, we have one banana dipped in chocolate and rolled in "Let's Do Organics" colored sprinkles, colored with spinach, beet and turmeric instead of crap. Then I dipped 2 bananas in chopped raw pecans and one of them in shredded coconut. How wonderful.
I decided to cut up a few chunks of banana as well as take out the organic frozen strawberries (in a fresh container) and dip those in the leftover chocolate. I still had some leftover chocolate and my friend Bob was sitting across the counter from me while I was dipping and he decided the bag of pecans and bowl of leftover chocolate sounded good (and it did) and he pretty much finished the rest of it by then.

This is a close up of 4/6 strawberries I dipped. Guess where the other 2 are?!
And what you see above is my own take on Catherine's Hippie Bars. Yes, the first test-batch is gone. Come on, the recipe was for a "Party of One" and there are 2 of us (plus occasional guests) here. This time I didn't follow her recipe, or any recipe by that matter. I took about 20 dates, some agave nectar, walnuts, oats, cinnamon, cashews, sunflower seeds and mixed it all together. You can see I started to cut into bars, but wanted to show the whole slab at once.
And here's some sun tea I spontaniously made today. It's a bit cooler (yeah, 97 degrees still) and at around 3pm I decided to brew up some cranberry apple tea with mulling spices (alspice, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, etc.). It only needed to be out there for about an hour (laugh) because the sun was at it's peak, I think. I almost regretted making this so late in the day but then I remembered where I live. I took it down from the infamous "AZ brick wall", and it was hot to the touch. I took out the bags and now it's chillin' in the fridge. I know it tastes good, as it smells good and I should really do this more often...
Fin.

Hippie Bars and Weirdness

2006-05-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

I tested another recipe from Catherine the other day. These are raw Hippie Bars, which consist of dates, agave nectar, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, flax and hemp seeds. That's it! They were super-fast and easy to make, all you need is a bowl and a fork and a fridge (oh, and some Dead playin' in the background). In this case, I had to measure exactly, but from now on I plan on going with what I know best- throwing a bunch of ingredients together and coming up with something great. Thanks for a wonderful recipe Catherine, the rest of the world will soon get to taste how fabulous and lightly sweet these are...

I cut the bars in half to make more, smaller bars. I plan on making some in different varieties soon, apple-cinnamon, cocoa, etc. Even though I think LaraBar has great products, these Hippie Bars put them to shame, especially since they are homemade and taste incredibly fresh - since they are.

Now can someone please tell me what's up with these onions I've got? They seem to have sprouted and I took this photo yesterday, now the sprouts are super-long. Is it still ok to eat these? I only purchased them a few days ago. They are local and organic so I know they won't last rediculously long like conventional foods and processed foods, but this is weird. I need some help in this department please!

Tabouli, Hummus & Recipe Testing

2006-05-23T17:15:00.000-07:00

I have the privilege of testing some recipes for Catherine and her new cookbook. I had planned on making tabouli for about three days, and it just so happened that she sent me a tabouli recipe to try. The only thing I had to go out and buy for it was the green onion, since it's not something I normally buy at home. I got some local organic green onions. I decided to make hummus to go along with the tabouli as well as some Ezekiel 4:9 pita bread and blue corn chips. Ezekiel pita bread consists of: organic 100% whole wheat flour, water, organic fresh carrots, organic barley flour, organic millet flour, organic lentil flour, organic spelt flour, organic soya flour, fresh yeast and sea salt. The website is www.foodforlife.com.

I normally make hummus by setting up the food processor and dumping chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, garlic, cumin, paprikia, sea salt and lemon juice and mushing it all together. Once in a while I'll add those already roasted peppers from a jar and I decided to do that on Sunday. I guess I had forgotten how long the peppers were already opened in there, and I made the hummus and it looked and smelled bad. I knew it was the peppers so I dumped it (ugh) and decided to actually follow a recipe! I made Dreena's "Creamy Hummus" from Vive le Vegan and it came out wonderful. I love how there's toasted sesame oil and that lingering flavor. Yum.

I cannot give out any recipes, but first off all, if you don't have Vive le Vegan, buy it. All great recipes are in there including this fast simple hummus. Catherine's tabouli was rated an A by me and a B by Ray, but he doesn't really like tabouli in the first place. We did end up making mini sandwiches out of the pita, hummus and tabouli and we were both diggin into that! I know I added more lemon juice than she called for but that's because for an unknown reason I was squeezing (and measuring) the lemons right over the actual bowl. Big mistake. Besides it being on the lemon-y side, the tabouli was great especially with yellow vine tomatoes and I did like/eat the green onions. The dinner was an overall success and I know Catherine's first cookbook and Dreena's 3rd cookbook (both coming out in the "near" future) will be a success. I am looking forward to cooking out of both of them! I am also excited for that cupcake cookbook to come out. Maybe that will inspire me to do something about the oven.
Out of the series of recipes Catherine gave me, a fruit smoothie was included. How convienent that I just so happened to have 2 leftover brownish bananas and popped them in the freezer. I cannot give too much info here (as this is the testing stage), but it was a mostly blueberry-banana-flax smoothie and the most wonderful creamy consistency and nothing needs to be changed. Blueberry was my fruit of choice and usually is. Amazingly, there was no ice cream in here. I wasn't allowed to tamper/substitute in the testing, ha.
And this was my wonderful treat last night. I started out just having ice cream. Then Ray took out the last of his nasty Hershey's syrup from the fridge that was probably old and gone anyway and finally (for the first time) read the ingredients and decided not to eat it. I couldn't believe my ears! It was so wonderful that he was conscious of the ingredients/crap in there and I offered to whip up a quick chocolate sauce for him (20 seconds or less!). I did the same but less amount of chocolate as the chocolate covered bananas recipe. I poured this mixture over our ice creams and it was wonderful! Harmonia, this is some Hip Whip for you to see. You can go to Hip Whip's Website and take a look at the vegan products. This was a super treat and especially with the whip cream on top. I haven't had whip cream in about 7 years and I recently tried making my own and it was a disaster! This tasted wonderful (Ray agreed) but it was really really sweet. I still ate the whole thing!

Fin.

Chocolate Covered Bananas & More

2006-05-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

What a simple snack! I am not big on bananas, but I love banana bread and certain other banana-like snacks. Maybe I just like bananas with sweet stuff and chocolate, but I certainly will not just take more than a bite out of one. It was nearing midnight and I decided that the bananas we had (for smoothies, cereal, plain-eating for Ray) were going to get brown soon and since I'm not using the oven, my awesome (and dearly missed) banana bread was not going to happen. I decided that I could easily make chocolate covered bananas, and boy, was I right!

To make this simple snack in a matter of minutes, take 2 bananas and cut them into chunks. Then I grabbed a handful of chocolate chips (which my small hand is equivalent to about 1/3c) and tossed them in a bowl with a splash of agave nectar (eqiv. to about a teaspoon) and a splash of water (equiv. to about 1/4c water) and put it in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds. I took it out right away, stirred and started dipping the chunks of bananas (with a fork) into the chocolate mixture. I placed the covered bananas on a cookie tray with parchment paper and froze it overnight. I did eat one after about an hour of freezing, but it wasn't right. Freeze completely and store in an airtight container. They'll probably be gone before it's time to worry on how long they'll last in the freezer. So simple and quick! Ray suggested I need to start dipping all fruits in chocolate, which seems to be a great idea! Next is my Midweek Munchies post, which should really be re-titled Weekend Munchies. This list consists of shopping from the last 10 days (2 week munchie-post). As you will see, three stores had me for a visit and we certainly stocked up. I decided to type it all on Word and take a photo of it (is there another better way?) so I didn't have to have you all scrolling for a long time. Just click the photo (or any photo) to enlarge the list. The * means organic, as always.
I have a few questions:
As many of you know already, I don't like faux meats. I don't care for an item that is made (even from veggies and grains) to taste like the taste of a dead animal prepared as food. I have no desire to eat animals, nor to taste what one should taste like cooked up with a lot of seasonings. In that case, I have only had a few veggie burgers (don't care for them) and the only thing close to that I will eat is some sort of "patty". It can't be like a burger. As for Ray (who's not vegetarian, born and raised in Kansas, but has more open views and opinions of a healthy diet now), he wants to start eating fake meats. Fine by me. I just won't eat them, but I now will certainly grab some fries or veggies off of his plate because it will be "fake blood" not real blood dripping from the flesh. I am also happily willing to cook/prepare these faux meats, but what's out there?

Anyhow, I would like some ideas as for pre-made faux meat items that taste "good", and brand names and specifics are greatly appreciated. I won't make these too often, as even though these aren't loaded with flesh, cholesterol, saturated fat, carcinogens, etc, there are a lot of chemicals and forms of soy (soy protein isolate for example), high sodium content and other products that aren't too healthy either. In moderation is ok, as is anything. Ray is interested in some bratworst (is that the same as sausage?) and he is also interested in faux bacon, veggie "hot dogs" and seitan. I need help and ideas and suggestions and recommendations on the best items (to you) out there. I see a ton of all of this at the store, but I want to buy good stuff that is backed by personal opinions from many of you. Thanks in advance!

Quinoa Spring Salad & Marinated Tofu

2006-05-18T23:30:00.000-07:00

It was time to make some more quinoa so I can finish off my container and refresh the jar with more organic goodness. Maybe because it's been 104 degrees (and will be +), I've been wanting cold salads, but not necessarily leafy green salads. The pasta salad the other day was a success, as well as a great leftovers.

Sadly, it's been a bit too long since I have cooked anything from Dreena's "Vive le Vegan" cookbook, one of my fav's, and I decided that the quinoa spring salad was way worth a try! Vicki (Vegetarian Family), has a wonderful post dedicated to this salad and it has been calling my name since April. Of course, I didn't have all ingredients on hand. At the store I asked Ray, "would you rather have no bell peppers or conventional bells?". He responded while I nodded in agreement that we should just skip the bells. Plus, I have some frozen, which isn't good with this meal, but I was not about to spend $6.99/lb on organic red bell peppers. Instead, I chopped up the huge-ass bag of carrots I have, half of a large cucumber, pistashios, and peas. I added some basil and cilantro as well as Dreena's (same book) "Simple Cider Vinegarette" which was great. The ingredients were simple and I can use some simplicity in my life (at least in the food department). I did add the lemon juice on top of everything, which was a must!

The tofu was marinated for about 2 hours in a mixture of too much tamari sauce, agave nectar, brown rice vinegar and hoisin sauce. The tofu was really easy to make as I just heated it super quick at the end of everything else. I must say that even though the tofu had one flavor (from one end of the spectrum) and the cold quinoa salad had a light other flavor, it was interesting and pleasantly tasteful to eat!

But what would I do without something sweet? I would say "unhealthy", but that's NOT the case! This pudding/mousse is made from a random mixture (if you are new here, I don't measure much, I am a better cook when it comes to tossing and throwing ingredients together). The ingredients are as follows (and not limited to)... soft silken tofu, cocoa, hot water, vanilla, maple syrup and agave nectar. Just a splash of the sweeteners, not much is needed. I love pudding/mousse with fruit (see some other posts, I have mini phyllo mixed-fruit pudding pies, and the photos are wonderful!).

To the Midweek Munchies group: I'll either have a late-week munchies post again or combine this week with next week.

I did eat a bit more soy than I would normally desire today. I had (an unusual circumstance) bowl of cereal... yes... for breakfast... this morning. I love the Koala Crispies (cocoa crispies) and something that was like corn puffs but super-healthy. Oh, and Optimum Powerbreakfast and hemp seeds mixed in, as always. So, a splash of milk in my coffee does that count?; cereal with milk; ice cream with blueberries- somewhere thrown in the middle of the day is that lunch?; tofu (firm bricks and silken pudding) and finally, tamari sauce... I'd say that's enough soy for today. And tomorrow.
Fin.

Spring Rolls & Vinaigrette Pasta

2006-05-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Let me first give myself an award for posting something different. And this time it's totally different, not just a variation of something I have previously made. This dinner took most of the late afternoon and evening to make, including internet searching. I decided that we haven't had any type of pasta besides couscous or rice noodles in a while, so I decided to make a pasta salad with vinegar. This pasta salad consists of spinach noodles (semolina and dried spinach), carrots, cucumber, olive oil, red wine vinegar, tamari, garlic, basil and dill. I just tossed everything together and let it hang out in the fridge for hours. Every so often I'd go in there and steal a bite to see how well the flavors have married and absorbed. I did have to keep adding soy and vinegar throughout the next few hours. It ended up tasting wonderful and very refreshing. Ray said it was "bold". That's a compliment to me!
I had the vinaigrette salad made and cooling in the fridge for a long time while I thought of what else to make with this meal (based on random ingredients in the house). I've been thinking of making spring rolls for a while (well, I've had the wrappers for 9 months now). This doesn't really go with the pasta salad theme, but I am quite random. I also kept going back and forth, and didn't really want anything super-heavy with the pasta.

As I was making these I was sort of unhappy with my choices of ingredients, but kept thinking that I needed some tofu in it. I used the last of the tofu for the quinoa stir-fry, which bummed me. My ideal spring rolls would consist of cabbage or lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, sprouts, tofu, and mung beans. I didn't have a few of those (most) ingredients, so I went with what I had.
Ingredients: rice paper, carrots, cucumber, avocado, red kale, basil and cashews.
As you can see, these aren't pretty. It was my first time rolling (spring rolls, at least) and it was very hard to keep the cashew pieces inside, plus they made the rice paper tear quite a bit. I think what made me not care for these was not the lack of ingredients, but the kale. It really wasn't good in this. I did make one roll all raw at first, and then I decided to saute the carrots and cucumber, but I regret not adding the kale to heat up and blend flavors. The kale was too pungent for me in the rolls.

I took Dori's (The Bakehouse) advice and sort-of followed her spring roll recipe (based on the ingredients I had on hand). It was quite a challenge at first to soak the rice papers and then carefully place it on the damp towel for rolling. I messed up a few times, but then sort-of got the hang of it. I came out with 5 rolls total. I am just glad that Ray ate most of these (I had almost one, but started pulling out the kale, I'm picky!), and that next time I know how to do the whole method, I will just change the ingredients around.

One great part about the spring rolls was this sauce. It is also Dori's recipe and it consisted of peanut butter, brown rice vinegar, tamari, chili flakes, sesame oil, and probably more stuff I'm forgetting. It was super-good but I will use a tad less peanut butter next time, as it was thicker than my desires even after whisking. This sauce was soooo good, I probably ate more plain with my fingers than with the spring rolls.
Verdict: The cold pasta vinaigrette was awesome. I have a few leftovers and I am liking the idea that they are already cold and it is supposed to be cold. How easy! I rate the pasta salad a 9.5 (nothing's perfect!). As for the spring rolls, I will rate my efforts and learning experience also a 9.5 (again, nothing's perfect!). I will rate the outcome and the taste just a 5. It was so-so and most likely based on my choices of fillings. As for the chili peanut sauce, that was an amazing 9, but to give it a few more decimal points, I will have to use less p.b. next time. This was a fun and different meal for me, and more of a learning experience, that's why I didn't get frustrated that I didn't care for the rolls. I am now more excited to see what I can really do with wanted-ingredients next time!

Return of the Quinoa

2006-05-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Quinoa is making a big return in this house. I have been tired of eating brown rice, white rice, wild rice (which is niether wild nor rice, thanks Ms. Dixon!). I wasn't feeling like much of an experiment and I am saving another quinoa recipe that's cold for a lunch meal, not dinner. I decided that since my stir-fry's consist of throwing a bunch of on-hand ingredients into a wok, heating it up, and calling it "dinner", I would do the same as I normally do, but with quinoa.
This meal was jam-packed with complete protiens, as quinoa is the only grain with whole complete protiens. This quinoa stir-fry tasted like many others I make, but I had to toss the remaining onion that I had since it went bad. One thing you know about organic produce as that it doesn't last as long as the contaminated "conventional" ones. I'd rather have organic than conventional any day. My quinoa is even organic, as is the tofu, woo hoo!

Leslie's Quinoa Stir-Fry:
quinoa (rinsed, drained and cooked like rice but for only 15 minutes), tofu, carrots, broccoli, red yellow and green bell peppers, fresh ginger, garlic, tamari, hoisin sauce, peanut butter, chili flakes, splash of oilve oil, cashews and gamashio (sea veggies) for appealing toppings.

For those out there who don't know what quinoa is or looks like, well, here's what it look like once it's cooked. It is deceiving like rice as it plumps up quite a bit from when it's dry. With quinoa, you want to use 1 cup of water for every 1/2 cup dry quinoa and you must remember to rinse the bitter saponens off before cooking. Quinoa is a bit nutty plain, and is pretty comprable to rice (usage-wise). And like Dreena, I love those little "tails" on them. That's it, nothing exciting, really just a variation on what I always do. I promise you all good stuff coming up. I was going to make a guac dish or something with avocado (hint hint, Miriam!), but I decided that I'm going to mash the avocado and put it on my face/skin instead for a super-mask-treatment. Plus, I want to freak Ray out!

Rhubarb Results & Late-Week Munchies

2006-05-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

First let's start with the rhubarb that I got for $1.99/lb a few days ago. I was completely stumped at what to do with it, and since I don't use the oven pie was out of the question (and many other ideas, thanks everyone). Someone suggested the rhubarb flummery recipe in the new Vegetarian Times magazine, but I had let my boss borrow it all week before I even looked at it. I do have the recipe back in my hands and I am deeply regretting not making this awesome coconut/oat/rhubarb/strawberry-goodness from the VT mag. Next time I must make it.
For now, I made a simple sauce. I boiled some water, washed and cut up the rhubarb, added some strawberries, a bit of raw sugar and even more agave nectar to sweeten the tartness.
I was super-creeped-out by the stringiness of the rhubarb while cutting as it resembles celery and I don't care for plain-celery, only mixed with other foods. Then everything started melting together and the stringiness freaked me out even more. I decided to just go with it, and I am sure glad I did, because after I took the mixture off the flame, it cooled and firmed a bit into a nice sauce that I hope to soon eat with pancakes. I am also glad I added the agave nectar because rhubarb is super-tart. I would rate this rhubarb experiment a 4/10. I need some creativity and practice (oh, and the flummery).

How 'bout Late-Week Munchies:Let me pretense this by explaining that I am planning on renting a kitchen and selling my treats (hopefully! and Local people lookout!). I bought about a pound or 1/2 pound of many treat ingredients to do recipe testing, measuring, costing, etc. I also bought items for dinner.

*organic
carrots*
red kale*
onion*garlic*
ginger*
pack of 2 Silk Soymilks ($1 off coupon)
rice puff cereal*
pasta sauce*
unsweetened cocoa
brown rice syrup
tomato paste*
vanilla creme soda (Ray)
walnuts*
raisins*
sunflower seeds*
pecan halves
cashew piece
sraw almonds*
red lentils
rolled oats*
almond butter
shredded coconut
sorbet
seduction bread
tea(s)

I plan on cooking a whole lot more in the upcoming days and weeks. It's officially getting warm (many would say "hot") and I have been craving lots of fruits and of course, ice cream. I can eat ice cream no matter how cold I am though!

Quinoa Goes Sloppy

2006-05-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

This is my special version of "Sloppy Lenties" aka "Sloppy Lentils". It is special because quinoa is the secret super-awesome ingredient. This is the standard recipe of Sloppy Lenties but I added about a quarter cup more tomato sauce and increased the amount of garlic and spices used.
I was contemplating all day long whether I was going to cook the quinoa into the regular dish (as it's all a one-pot meal), but I decided that knowing me, something would happen and I would mess up and ruin a lot of food. Instead, I gathered a small pot, boiled some water and added quinoa. It's nice because it only has to cook for 15-20 minutes. But you *must* rinse it well before cooking. I rinse and pick through the lentils well, but I seem to rinse quinoa for longer (or even a small soaking). I made the lenties like I normally would, but when I added the quinoa at the end (see photo above), I realized that it was going to add a lot of bulk to the meal, hence each part having less flavor. That's where I made some flavorful adjustments.
And this was the end result, Sloppy Quinoa/Lentils with even more protein, plus complete proteins which are essential. This meal made me stuffed, especially since I ate it with the infamous Seduction Bread. I think I may just have to add quinoa to Sloppy Lentils each time for added flavor, texture and nutrition, but I will add less to the lentil dish than a whole cooked cup of it. I think this is making me want to branch out and try Sloppy Lentils with some other grains, even as simple as rice (which I've been thinkin' about since the bread-bowl post). Better yet, I should probably remember what lentils taste like with other spices and sauces!

Any ideas for rhubarb, people? I have a few stalks ($1.99 per pound) and I don't want to make a pie. That's the only idea I know of and I don't really feel like picking out a random recipe and risking it. I'd like one that's been tried and tested before and then confidently passed on to me.

First a Fruitshake, then Midweek Munchies.

2006-05-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't cooked anything super-exciting in a while now. Throwing a bunch of things in a wok and calling it stir-fry has been the most exquisite, if you will, meal. Now that's pretty sad. I will cook some awesome stuff once again within a few weeks, but last night I was in my pajamas pretty early and didn't want to do much about dinner. So instead of throwing a bunch of things in a wok or pot and heating them, I decided to grab a bunch of stuff from the freezer and throw it in a blender.

In the middle of the 3rd quarter of the Suns vs. Lakers game (5) I hopped off the couch and took out some awesome frozen fruits. Then I reminded myself that hemp seeds are a must in all milkshakes (see a few previous posts) and so is soymilk. I threw the following ingredients in the blender and came out with a wonderful, tasty, healthy, what-I-like-to-call "a Fruitshake".

*Leslie's Fruitshake"
Soy Delicious Cookies n Cream ice cream (my favorite one, but any ice cream will still be awesome)
Silk soymilk
hemp-seeds, shelled
mangos
blueberries
strawberries
raspberries
cherries
blackberries
boysenberry
(*all items organic except for the hemp seeds and they may even be too, but I get them in bulk so I don't have a label)
Let me explain something about the abundance of fruits. I like to keep frozen fruits in the house because of instances like this (Fruitshakes), pancakes, emergency snacks, etc. I get them on sale or buy them even fresh on sale and freeze them. I had the mango all in one bag, as well as the blueberries which I keep ALL the time in a plastic container in the freezer, and I had a bag of strawberries and a small container of boysenberries from maybe too long ago. The rest on the list (cherries, raspberries, more blueberries, blackberries) were all in a bag that Ray threw in the cart one day. For some reason "Cherries" is written huge on the outside of the bag and for about a month now I have thought it was just a bag of cherries and never cared for it. Upon request, cherries were going into the Fruitshake, and when I opened the bag I was super-happy to have a wonderful surprise of an array of fruits! I've really been missing out all month...

I'm running out of straws... Oh, and the Suns kicked ass!

And now it's time for Midweek Munchies (5-3-06). No code once again, it will ruin the above formatting.
The following is from WFM and this * means "organic". And yes, Catherine, it's so hard to tell what food items are on the receipts.
mixture of canteloupe and grapes
Silk soymilk*
baked tofu*
Koala crisp cereal*
Optimum Power Breakfast cereal (the best cereal)*
apple juice (super-small one)*
small acaji (sp? it's gone now) juice, and the receipt is crap
gorilla munch cereal* (healthy cocoa crispies)
Heritage bites cereal* (yeah, we stocked up on 4 cereals since I haven't cooked much and spared you all of my non-uploaded cereal photos!)
vanilla cream soda
raspberry ginger brew (the last two items are Ray's)
bulk vanilla granola* (more cereal items)
2 small gelatos (FROM THE NEW AWESOME GELATO BAR). It's costly so this was a treat!
2 bag refunds (not organic).
($32.66 + $0.59 tax) 15 items

More Kale & Tofu Stir-Fry

2006-04-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

First of all, thank you to all of the wonderful people who left such kind comments regarding the jewelry, I really appreciate it. I will keep everyone posted on whether a website is happening or not. For now, here's food.

I made all this a few days ago and just haven't posted it yet. The kale is long gone (and all the other veggies by that matter) but this was a good dinner and worth posting. You see, I had leftover red (which is really purple) kale and I wanted to incorporate it into a stir-fry. I did just so. I actually decided to steam the kale because I like steamed kale. Simple as that. But I did get way in over my head and added a bunch of stuff (what I do best) into the wok and concocted a wonderful meal. I also steamed the broccoli with the kale but that's because the broccoli was frozen and I was being lazy and I just threw it into the steamer and then it looked soooo bright and "perfect" and green-how-it's-supposed-to-be--green, and I stopped the cooking with cold water. I let the broccoli sit while I made the rest of the stir-fry. I threw it in the wok at the very end for a quick stir. As you can see the one on the right has chunks of onions and has a larger portion. That means it's Ray's bowl.

Steamed kale on the side. I added it to the stir-fry while eating, not cooking.
Steamed Kale Ingredients:
red kale, lemon juice, hint of olive oil, raw cashews, sea salt, black pepper, splash of tamari.

Rest of the Stir-Fry: firm tofu (marinated for a short time in tamari, brown rice vinegar, hoisin suace), brown rice, more tamari, garlic, onion (I just like the flavor, I don't eat the onion chunks, yuck), crushed red pepper, cayenne, broccoli, red-yellow-green bell peppers, raw cashews, about a teaspoon of fresh squeezed peanut butter, fresh lemon juice, gamashio topping. I'm probably forgetting something.
This is just a closer look at the final product. I like stir-fry's because they're super-quick, usually easy and very tasty. You can really add whatever you like to it, just heat it up for a few minutes and toss a few times.
Fin.

Midweek Munchies & Jewelry

2006-04-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

This is a preview for what is yet to come. First you all have to sit through Midweek Munchies. I have 33 minutes until I am "late" for munchie day and who knows what time it'll be by the time I'm done. (edit to add: finished post, I have 12 minutes until the "deadline") For now, I have a grocery list to contribute. No code, but "here's what Leslie's contributing for the week"...

Trader Joes: Yep, I live super-close and I'm happy about that. For some reason I don't go there as often as I end up wanting to. It was a good random change and here's what we (Ray and I) got.
Nature's Path Optimum Cereal- the best powerhouse next to my treats
apple granola*
frozen broccoli*
frozen cherries (Ray's, as I don't care for these)
brown rice*
trail mix cookies, Trader's brand (supposed to be like Uncle Eddies but not even close to as good, sorry people at TJ's)
light coconut milk
peach white tea
cheese for Ray
hot jalepeno sauce
roasted cashew butter (not organic, but $3.99 and I am super-happy about that price)
baked teriyaki tofu*

From Whole Foods (random days)
horchata
2 huge rosemary bread loafs (last post)
garlic*
onion*
purple kale*
carrots*

And now for the stuff that you all have been buggin' me about. It makes me a bit shy to show all of this (especially without a price tag, usually I am strictly business, not *showing off*, although I am open to orders as always). I am not shy about eating, talking about food, expressing passion about something, being silly, or many other things, but showing my jewelry is taking some guts. I am very shy in this department! It all started as a hobby that turned into an LLC. I have already been sharing food, recipes, ideas, kitchens, etc with so many great people that I am ready to show *some* jewelry. Enjoy.
This bracelet above is three types of wood, painted with a toggle clasp. Oh, and all of these were taken at least a year ago and before I discovered the macro-mode on my camera (thanks Miriam!).
Above: Chinese turquoise bracelet and earring set. Sterling silver clasps and hooks.
Above: Peridot and quartz necklace with tri-amber/sterling silver pendant. Sterling silver clasp.
Above: I can't remember what the first keychain with the peace sign is beaded with. Most likely rose quartz dyed. The second from the left is my favorite of these. It's flourite and the blues and purples blend together. Third we have just a simple glass with plated silver beads and a pewter frog pendant. The final keychain is made with handblown glass and a few other beads that I can't place. The pendant is a Chinese symbol (correct me if I'm wrong). All of these keychains are on my lower-end of products.
Above: Carnelian necklace with sterling silver clasp and carnelian turtle pendant.
Above: Large serpentine stones with labradorite square fillers. Toggle clasp.
Above: Jasper earrings that took me forever to make because they have three dangly layers. Sterling silver hooks and they're about four inches long.
Above: Agate stones with glass and sterling silver fillers. Sterling silver and labradorite pendant.
Sorry this is so cut-and-dry. It is a slim selection, as I have made hundreds over the last 6 years and always come up with something different (and each one is unique, no two the same- ever). I can give more information about these such as size, sales price, types of stones, etc, but please comment and ask. I would much rather "type" about food, but I am happy to share all this. I hope you have enjoyed looking at all this and I have no idea why the computer is not letting me un-italicize these words!

Bread-Bowl Sloppy Lentils

2006-04-25T06:41:00.000-07:00

I had soup in a bread-bowl last week for the very first time in my life. Even as a vegetarian who ate dairy most of her life, I never liked creamy soups, such as cream-of-broccoli or along those lines. In that case, most of the bread-bowls I've ever seen had nasty soups like that in it.

I had the Curried Rice and Lentil soup in a Sourdough bread-bowl at the WildFlower Bread Company last week. I was sitting with Ray staring down at this amazing idea. Soup in a bowl that you get to eat, what a concept! Plus, I was enjoying eating "the bowl" while I ripped off pieces of bread to dip in the soup. As we're eating Ray said, "this would be perfect for Sloppy Lenties". Boy, he was right!

For the last few day's I've been dreaming about my own personal bread-bowl at home. I planned on having small rolls, which meant small bowls, maybe even 2 each! By the time we got to the store for the rolls, it was late and the bread selection was slim. We opted for the cheapest, yet HUGE rosemary-garlic whole wheat breads that ended up being way too much food. See how big these bowls are?
We could have easily shared one roll, but that would have defeated the purpose of the bread bowl. We also could have waited to eat this idea until smaller rolls were at the store again, but I don't know what was wrong with us! I ended up feeding our whole neighborhood of birds with the leftover bread (while feeling guilty about hungry humans). I'm sure some other animals/living beings ate it too. Overall, Sloppy Lentils in a bread-bowl, no matter how HUGE, is awesome!

I made Sloppy Lentils the same way I always do (see other posts). This time I bought "red kale" which is actually purple and I have no idea why I have never bought this before. It's so much prettier and most likely healthier since it has the deep purples and greens. I think I'll keep buying this kind, at least for a while.
I even ate the stems... how couldn't I, they're so vibrant with purpleness.
Guess who loves to mooch? Yep, an appearance by Killian once again. He was super-happy when this piece of just-washed kale went flying out of my hands, onto the floor. He's super-cute eating his greens.
What a pig. I mean, cat.

Computer Nerd

2006-04-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

I came home last night only to find that there is more than one computer nerd living in this house. Ray's not one of them...
What a super-cuteness! I just had to take some photos as my camera was right here for uploading FOOD photos. Sorry, no food for this post, just to show you all how cute my guy is. I love food, but I love Killian so much more!
He changed his stance (position) three times in about 1 minute. He just knew how cute he was (and always is). He likes to shove his fatness into small and low places...
He likes to put his paws on the mouse too!
And showing off his tum (and he likes when I rub his chin). He looks skinny here because I was patting down his poufiness. He is very furry and fat but these photos take off a few pounds!
I can't get over this cuteness. You can call me the nerd too!

Spring Treats and Awesome-ness

2006-04-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

I check out The Vegan Lunchbox http://www.veganlunchbox.blogspot.com site almost daily because I love seeing what Shmoo's up to eating-wise. Easter is celebrated a la casa de Shmoo and wonderful children's treat recipes were shared. Many ingredients used in his Easter treats are ingredients I just so happen to have in my pantry (almost at all times). I was more into the creative aspects of the meal, and as it is springtime... flowers have now bloomed, bugs are crawling about and it is no longer colder than 65 degrees F here and still not warmer than the 90s. I wanted to get creative and if kids like it, I'll like it (hee hee, usually!).

A comment on the site mentioned "bird's nests" with shredded wheat, coconut and chocolate but I couldn't find any more information (a few days later). Instead, I came up with my own ideas and (sorry, no recipe) just threw a bunch of stuff together.
Ingredients used in the Nests: shredded wheat, shredded coconut, peanut butter, chocolat chips and a splash of vanilla. Starburst Jelly Beans (yes, they are vegan) were used as "eggs" in the nests. They were super-sweet and in my opinion, more enjoyable just to look at. It was a good concept (for spring) though.

And we have bees. Well, they are supposed to look like bees. These were fabulous. Go to the link posted above and there is a recipe page with these "No-Bake Bees". They are easy to make (but not when you double the recipe like me and stay up standing for 2 hours until 2-something in the morning).
Ingredients used: oat bran, shredded coconut, almond butter, cocoa, sunflower seeds (for eyes, not in original recipe, I thought the bees needed to see), sliced almonds as "wings", agave nectar, brown rice syrup (and maybe something else too)... I highly recommend trying these, and you can really shape them into anything you'd like. It was more fun than my Almond Oat Balls, only because there was creativity involved here, not just squishing a bunch of stuff together. These keep well in the fridge.

Are you thinking "holy @#%*"? That's what I was thinking at first... I got this awesome idea from Shmoo's page (once again, the vegan lunchbox). I happened to have some of these fruits and I specifically bought more apples as well as the grapes to make this. There is a lot of fruit left over now (I wasn't going to just leave Mr. Fruit-Bunny out for days...). I know this is EXTREME but it was fun to do and I certainly had a good amount of fruit for a while. I tossed most of the fruit in a mix of lemon juice and OJ. The whiskers and mouth are black licorice (which I don't care for). Everything else was pretty good although I'm not a fan of canned mandarin oranges (or canned anything, really) so I didn't touch those. These were good and fun spring treats. It was a laid-back weekend and I stayed home because Killian had cavities extracted Friday and I stayed in to take care of him. Lots of food was produced in this time...

Anatomy of Mr. Fruit-Bunny:
ears- bananas, eyes- kiwi, nose- strawberries, whiskers and mouth- black licorice, inside ears- red apples, face- green apples, bow tie- mandarin oranges, dots in tie- black grapes

Moving on... (this is the Awesome-ness part).
This was our dinner the other night. Ray's plate is the blue one and the only difference is that he had chips (Kettle sea salt + pepper) and I didn't want all that. What's on the plates are carrots, black bean hummus (more to come on that below), parsley, and CELEBRATION FIELD ROAST HAZELNUT CAKES! Yes! My favorite pre-made food!!! These are awesome and WFM only gets them once in a while for different "holidays". They should just forget the holidays and provide these all the time.

Take a closer look and see what the awesome is about...
Ingredients: Hazelnut Herb Cutlet Celebration Field Roast
filtered water, wheat protein, organic wheat flakes, yellow onions, barley malt powder, yeast extract, garlic, lemon juice, organic unbleached flour, lentils, garlic powder, yellow pea flour, onion powder, carrageenan, breadcrumbs, toasted hazelnut meal and nuts, chives and herbs (that they will not disclose). There are a lot of ingredients but this is super-tasty. Serve warm/hot.

I like to buy these and specially ask the people at WFM to get me some un-fried ones from the back. I like to cook 'em up at home, myself, with my own olive oil, at my own pouring discression. Plus they only take about 10 minutes each side when they are frozen. These are costly (about $3 each) but a few times a year they are great and easy and convienent... oh, America.

And this is the black bean hummus that we had with it. I tried this kind and liked it better the first time. When I ate it with this meal it tasted "smokey" and I don't like that flavor. Have you all ever heard of this brand? It's local to here but I'm curious to know if it is nation-wide known(or even overseas, but probably "yeah, right"). This company makes great products and this is the smaller size tub they offer. There are a variety of dips and spreads and I have for the most part, liked them all. Ray brought this home as a suprise (with breakfast) one day and I thought the combo of black beans, peanut butter and spicy stuff would be interesting. And it was. There you have it, Spring Treats and Awesome Hazelnut Cakes.

Midweek Munchies (4-19-06)

2006-04-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

Midweek Munchies: What Leslie is contributing for the week

This past week (Saturday) I shopped for groceries at Whole Foods Market. Nothing exciting, just stuff on a long-ongoing list. This shopping trip was a bit special, yet still not unique within ingredients, because I purchased items to be used for ideas I've been having lately and I haven't branched out with ingredients. I will be posting photos and recipes (or knowing me, just ingredients) soon, my "treats" and foods came out well. For now, I am actually posting a Midweek Munchies on the day it is supposed to happen!

* (*)means organic *
gold round crackers 365 brand (for Ray's cheese)
shredded wheat cereal
a different type of 365 cracker (whole wheat)
*breakfast blend coffee (just a bit for an emergency)
dubliner cheddar cheese (for Ray's platter)
supreme brie, cotswold, romano cheese (again, Ray's)
*puffed rice cereal
*rolled oats
*Silk Vanilla Soymilk (2)
365 chocolate chips
licorice bar (2)
*gala apples
raw sugar
agave nectar
frozen blueberries
frozen strawberries
*bananas
raw sliced almonds
*red apples
*apple juice (365 unfiltered awesome kind)
*brown rice syrup (2)
*maple syrup
*pasta sauce
seedless black grapes (organic not local now)
can of mandarin oranges (ended up being nasty)
*oat bran
unsweetened cocoa
*organic lemons
*kiwi
*peanut butter (I squeezed there)
*almond butter (same as above)

*organic

-0.30 bag refund!!!!

And about 30 minutes ago I arrived home from going to the Sunflower Market to get our coffee. It's where we usually go for coffee as it is tasty, inexpensive, various types to choose from and nearby. We only go to WFM when we get one or two day's worth just for an emergency. It's just because we're there already. There wasn't any coffee here this morning and it was unusual. We were not happy (bad, I know...). We almost had no coffee again for tomorrow morning. At the last minute Ray remembered... We ran (well, drove) to the store with 10 minutes to spare before closing and grabbed three bags of coffee. Yum to tomorrow morning.
That's it.

Links to other Midweek Munchies

Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia's blog

A special thanks to Running2Ks and Rift for all of their help with coding, graphics, and encouragement for this project.

PURPOSE of Midweek Munchies: Put together by a small group of Veg Women, we hope to spread the word about healthy vegetarianism while obtaining idea starters for meals, recipes, learn about new products, and meet other female veg*n bloggers. Visiting and commenting on other participants lists are encouraged but not required. Have fun and Go Veg!

A Collection of Books (Food, Nutrition, & More)

2006-04-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

A fellow Blogger gave me the wonderful idea of sharing my books to the world. You see, I love going to other people's homes and checking out their bookshelves. I often head straight towards people's books... It says a lot of a person and even more if they don't have any books (by choice, not economics). I encourage guests to my home to browse my books but I think it's me who's more interested in books at the time. My favorite types of books are reference books, cookbooks and nutrition books.

I have decided to share my book collection (probably minus a few in the car, closets, lost, stolen, etc.). I hope I can start another "trend" just like my Where the Magic Happens kitchen post.

I am showing you all the above books because they are my most recent purchases and I bought them a few days ago after I photographed my shelves. I am so excited about the sea veggie book. At first I was more interested in the sprouting book, but I seem to not be able to put down the Sea Vegetable Celebration. (Personal side note to Dreena: I bought these on the same day you made your Kelp-amole, as I call it, and funny how you wanted to get into sea veggies more too!). Sea veggies are super-healthy and I'll probably do a seperate post later. In the meantime I bought lavar, kelp and dulse, yum.
The above cookbooks are not on my bookshelf. They're on the shelf above the sink in the kitchen. An old friend from high school gave me the holder. It says, cow: "eat chicken". pig: "eat chicken". sheep: "eat chicken". chicken: "eat dirt". He he. I love all these cookbooks. I keep them here because it's better than a pile (in which I am good at creating). The black binder is my recipe book. It's printouts, cut-outs, my own made up recipes, etc, and I keep them all organized. Not as organized as Jess' folder, so-I-hear.

Not pictured is "The Art of War", some dictionaries, Spanish-English dictionaries, and some little books. Moving on to the real bookshelf. It's also in the kitchen, but in the "dining area" which is our basketball-playing-area. Let me know (in the comments) if you can't read any titles/authors and you want information. Also, feel free to click on the photo for a larger view...

Note: below there are 2 books not mine: the cigar book is Ray's. He collects cigars (well, and smokes them but he doesn't buy crappy ones). The other book was for Ray's history class or something like that, the Slave Narratives book. I haven't read those two, but I have thumbed through the cigar book.

The books below are in the computer room. They are some of my college textbooks (I'm graduated). I saved some others but these are my most relevant to "real life" and I love microbiology too.
And all these magazines are a combo of a few: Vegetarian Times, Veggie Life, Eating Well, Animal Times and about a 4-year Nutrition Action that I got for free for my mom subscribing to it. I also have some AJCN (clinical nutrition) journals.
How come when I go to the library after so much time I think to myself, "why do I let so much time go by before coming back here?". Maybe because I forget of the wonderful and joyful feeling of being in the library, getting to rent up to 50 items at a time, and all for free! I just took what I could carry. Plus, I plan on going back more often, and next time branching out from the food/cooking isle. These are the books I rented:
*Made with Love stories, recipes and crafts from Grateful Dead fans (all foods cooked on the road at festivals, awesome stuff)
*Freelance Foodcrafting I got this book because I may want to check into renting a kitchen around here (or commercial space in someone's kitchen) and starting another business.
*Main-Dish Grains this book was super-cute and little and has simple whole-grain dishes with minimal ingredients. The book is only about 50 pages
*The Uncheese Cookbook I just wanted to see what all the hype was about (from fellow bloggers, vegans). I decided I am glad I don't own this book but I may try one recipe. I don't miss cheese.

*Raw This is a great book for recipes and the coffee table. The photos are wonderful and I don't have a dehydrator, but now I want one. I recommend checking out these recipes or at least see how artistically prepared these meals are.
*3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery - sounds awesome, is awesome.
*The Enchanted Broccoli Forest -I've seen this book before and I like the recipes a lot. I also like the particular font used in printing, and it looks as if someone with great handwriting wrote the whole thing out.

*Hungry Planet I am so happy that I found this book. I asked 3 people for it for my birthday. Didn't get it. I also couldn't justify buying a book for $40 that wasn't a textbook for school, and I'm done with school. I love this book and read the whole thing yesterday. The photos are vivid and there's details, broken down information about foods, money, culture, customs, etc. Please go to the library or bookstore and check this book out. It's the best book I've looked at (minus cookbooks) in a while. It made me do a lot of thinking (more like reminders I already knew) and I'll save my thoughts for their own post some day. I feel strongly about the contents of "Hungry Planet". It's by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio- so you all can read this book.

Edit to add: In the first photo of the whole bookshelf I forgot to mention the newspaper(s). I have some NY Times saved from 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, certain scientific discoveries, and a few other things that I am forgetting to mention. I also have thin little books on vintage clothing, Scientific Vegetarian (which is a super-thin but very awesome book), and more...
Back on to the rented books.

Edit to add #2: I made the bookshelf that my books are on. Well, I didn't make it. Rather, I bought a really crappy bookshelf, bought some latchy-things to hold the shelves better, sanded almost every square inch, and painted the shelves. If you look close I also hot-glued some shiny guys to create some flare. Not that a combo of purple and hot green isn't enough flare for me.
Back on to the rented books... for real this time!

One of my favorite books in which I will someday own...Fin.

Psychic Stir-Fry & Tofu Pie

2006-04-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

It seems as if us vegan food bloggers have some sort of stir-fry telepathy going on. I have been dreaming of this stir-fry since Thursday, but I didn't want to cook for just me so I waited until Sunday (last night 10:30 pm). What you see above is the stir-fry cookin' up in the wok. I have two wok's and this is my smaller one. I have no idea how I have 2, hmmm...
Les' Special Stir-Fry Ingredients:
*note: I was just sitting around outside in the 90 degree weather + sunshine and decided to make a running list of what would be super-awesome in the stir-fry. There are a lot of things, but it's interesting how I could still specifically taste each and every individual flavor, veggies, spices, etc. I wish I had broccoli, but I used only ingredients that I already had, I was not doing a special trip to the store for 1 or 2 items. Ok, on to the ingredients, and no "recipe" because if you know me, I just like to toss a bunch of stuff in.
*Note #2: I marinated my tofu for the very first time in 7 years of eating tofu. How have I never done this before? Was I too lazy? Do I just think that Jess (Let's Get Sconed) has amazing ideas and Dreena (Vive le Vegan) too and they marinate their tofu so shouldn't I? Well, from now on my minimum marinating time is 2 hours. This was wonderful, so flavorful and bursting with goodness.

Ingredients (for real this time)
Brown rice
pre-baked tofu: marinated in rice vinegar, tamari, hoisin sauce (2.5 hours marination)
baby bok choy (see family below)
carrots
onion
garlic
red, green, yellow bell pepper (pre-cut, frozen, $1.99/big bag, easy year-round)
ginger, freshly grated
Italian squash (I ended up buying this thinking it was the cutest little baby zuchini, woops. It turned out to be good anyway and it was my first time ever even hearing of this veggie.)
handful raw cashews (I love love love these in stir-fry)
gamashio (sea veggies, kelp, etc.)
agave nectar
tamari (more)
olive oil and toasted sesame oil (olive at first, finished with sesame)
spoonful of peanut butter
chili flakes
hoisin sauce (again)
fresh squeezed lemon (to finish)
Yep. I'm awesome.
I prepped the above around 7:30pm knowing it would take a while to cut everything. I also knew that Ray wasn't going to be home until after 9pm, so I didn't want to do all of this prepping later and then eat super-later than I already do. I did all of this, placed appropriate veggies in water for a while, others exposed to air, and was happy in the end that I did this earlier.
Above is what I took out from the pantry and fridge prior to the wok getting hot. After all, heating on a hot wok only takes a few minutes or so. Also, I of course didn't use all these cashews (I spooned some out).

And below you will see my Baby Bok Choy Family. I really liked that cute little one. It's the size of my thumb. You can see I was not in a hurry to cook this meal!!!
Moving on... I really wanted a mocha pie. I was too lazy to make more coffee for the day. I decided to go with a tofu chocolate, peanut butter, pecan pie with graham cracker crust by Arrowhead Mills (organic and awesome).
This pie is more like a pudding that didn't firm up into a pie. It's still really tasty though.
Ingredients: silken tofu, chocolate chips, cocoa, peanut butter (just a small bit), agave nectar, maple syrup, vanilla, water, pecans, graham cracker crust. Yum.
And some more weekly treats... I always have these (and I always say this). This time around I placed some in snowman muffin cups so I can give them away to some people and it's handier.
This is my tarragon spice house. It's from a complete spice villiage and the lids come off and you store the appropriate spice in them. My boss received them as a gift, asked me if I wanted the whole set. Guess what?! I was super-good, held back and said NO to introducing more crap into my house. I'm not saying this is crap, I just have little "things" and I don't need a whole spice villiage, especially a cute, impractical one. Instead, I took the only one I really liked, because it's green, and it was the only green one. I do like tarragon, but I wansn't picking based on my favorite spice. That would have to be cumin.

Fin. Whew.

Where the Magic Happens

2006-04-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome! Here you'll see our kitchen cerca 1964. Yes, these are original yellow countertops with matching cabinet handles. You will also notice a wide open space (photo taken from "computer room" which is really supposed to be the master bedroom). This space is longing almost as much as I am to have a table smack dab in the middle of it. But nope. Instead there's a crappy folding table which I use to bring to festivals to sell jewelry on and on that table is currently a lot of crap pushed back against the wall. No use. No chairs anyway except the two you see here. Ray (and Killian too) sits in these while I cook a lot (I like that) and they are also original-1960s-with-the-house-stools. I like them because they're softies and brown, oh, and they spin. If you look up you'll see the basketball net. Yeah, that wide open space is a great place to watch Killian slide around, play with him, and play basketball. Ray and I will shoot hoops once in a while... Ray shoots hoops a lot. And what almost made me not share but since it's not my fault I don't give a #%$, the (probably original) vinyl flooring, aka, fake tile sheets that are impossible to clean. The landlords (super-awesome people) are going to change the flooring but after we move out. That makes the rent go up anyway, so we don't care, for now at least... And like always, you'll see the sunshine shining in the window. This photo was taken in February, so the sun's angle is a bit different now. I love springtime.

Getting to business... The important part of the kitchen, the actual kitchen. My old kitchen was just "this". It's not even small. My house before that was even older than this (believe it or not). Bottom left is Killian's scratchy (scratch post) which is necessary for all cats especially ones who aren't streetsmart and fat and like to lay in bed under the covers all day who doesn't scratch a tree. Moving on... I use a bathroom towel holder in the kitchen and nail it into the shelf above the sink so I can hang-dry my towels, cloths and that handle-scrubber-thing. Great idea made up by me. And morning coffee stuff, cruelty-free-safe spray cleaner, and some tid-bits on the cabinets charting ratios of grains/legumes to water, nutritional info of random stuff, as well as a "vegan food pyramid", well, rather a long-horizontal chart, but it's hard to see from these photos. It's very colorful and detailed and I like when guests refer to it. I like it just for fun hanging next to my Turquoise Mines and types of turquoise map of the Western US.

And what I always have hanging in the kitchen, wherever I may live, is my Allman Brother's, "Eat a Peach" album, the best album art to me, and the tunes are great too. I love looking at it, as it makes me remember "make believe". And, below you will see probably the third cat calendar in the house. No comment.

And a bunch of stuff hanging on the fridge ranging from embarassing photos of me, random notes, receipts, to me being ServSafe certified, to torn-out media pages rippin' on George W. (dubya). And the stuff on top of the fridge, well, I sort of just put it there when I moved in and can't really reach it. What you can't see from these angles is directly across from that one spice rack is another wonderful vintage wooden spice rack that I love and fill all the spices myself in baby food jars. That's how I like to keep them and always have, but the fancy stuff was a gift. I tend to use my own "bulk" spices 99% of the time, rather than pre-packaged, store-bought.

I must mention that step-stool. First off, yes, I'm short. We established this see above. I've had that step stool since I was a young child, maybe 4 years old. It has painted on balloons and my name on two sides!

Another view... you can sort of see the water cooler (mini table top) since we have hard water here and cannot drink from the faucet. Even Killian, as he got sick a year ago from the minerals in the water. We have 7 3-gallon water jugs that we fill weekly. And just one of my bookshelves, as I have so many books. Many of them are reference books and vegetarian / vegan/ cooking/ spiritual books. I plan on posting about books soon, because even though this is a food page, I have mostly books on food and nutrition.

Fire extinguisher: in case of any fire. It's multi-type-of-fire and I have one in every room. Scared of fire, yes. You've all heard me about The Oven Thing.
Baking soda: in times when I used to use the oven to put out fires/smoke/flame, etc. Never use a fire extinguisher to put out an oven fire. It's dangerous.

By the sink... aloe. There's plants all over this area of Arizona. No need to buy any aloe at the store. Just plant some. You'll see my non-earth-friendly-soap. Sorry, no excuse on this one. It had to be used up (better than wasting, some people don't have soap). I do use Seventh Generation the lavender kind for dishes and my hands. Moving on... and there's potholders, timers, a photo of Ray and I in Sedona, my microwave that is a re-born-virgin (I don't use it)with some animal-friendly stickers and the history of the Lazyboy chair since the 1940s I think.

That's the kitchen... And now for some food.

Midweek Munchies has become End-Of-The-Week Munchies for me. I finally made it to the store (on my heavy bike, long-ride, short-distance, long story). I got some good stuff, but couldn't get milk or a few other heavy items. My bike weighs 1/2 of me without anything in it.

The List: Whole Foods only this time.
Arrowhead Mills already baked pie crust (finally...)
soy nuts
2 LaraBars (I have a side link to this one), apple pie flavor
fruit leather, organic, flavor assortment
Seduction Bread
Hazelnut Herb Cutlets (like Celebration roast, the best patties ever, go get them!!!)
rice puffs, organic
blueberry Silk yogurt and Raspberry Silk yogurt
organic kale
organic zuchini, one small guy
chocolate chips (to always have in the house!)
cashews, raw
walnuts, raw
phyllo dough- I have to check out this one. It was frozen, has no instructions, and I think I don't need to bake it. Can someone let me know, as I have so many ideas as for uses with this.
organic peanut butter stock, raw
same to almond butter
organic parsley
organic garlic
organic ginger
red lentils
baked tofu (thanks Julie!)
organic brown rice syrup
organic cameo apples, small ones
organic carrots
or. baby bok choy
or. kiwi
or. onion (can't you see I'm sick of saying organic, yet most things are and I do love it)
2 bag refunds... sweet.

Based on all this I plan on making some super-awesome stuff this week. Stay tuned.

Feline Food Variety

2006-04-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

I once knew of a vegetarian dog named Robinhood, and the last time I saw him (3 years ago), he was 14 years old, healthy and happy. You see, Robinhood's mama fed him all whole-foods, all vegetarian foods, and she always cooked him what she cooked for herself. He never ate processed foods. I don't know where he is now, but I will never forget him, his cuteness, or his wonderful lifestyle.

I have always wanted a vegetarian/vegan animal. I have had Killian, my cat for 3.5 years (that's how old he is plus a few weeks) and I know that it is possible, yet difficult and risky for a vegan cat. But, it's safe and healthy for a vegetarian dog, and even a vegetarian cat, if given the right supplements. I don't plan on taking Killian off his meat-filled diet. I have studied up enough to stick with my decision, although I have been slowly incorporating more plant foods in his diet, giving him greens (although my online vet, Dr. Google told me that they don't digest greens, yet I'm skeptic of this).

Killian has had a UTI and was very sick over a year ago. He was in the "hospital" all weekend. From then on he is on "prescription" diet C/D formula and he only drinks the water we drink, from the cooler. I must be speaking for him too, but I sure am sick of feeding him brown, crunchy pellets filled with dead animals. I will keep him on his food, but he does need some color and flavor variety. I'm just too wary to just give him anything (although all-vegan).

I would like some advice or more questions to ponder. I do not plan on "converting" my Killian to a vegetarian diet (although ideally I'd love to, as with the whole world) but I do want to add more healthy foods.

When he was just a tiny-guy he climbed up my body and took a huge dive from my shoulder into my bowl of spaghetti and marinara sauce. He loved the sauce all over him! It was super-cute. I knew he liked that.
Everytime I open the freezer, he comes running. He likes to play with ice cubes (soccer) but I think he really wants ice cream. And let me tell you'all about that... Ray has dairy. I have soy. Killian looovvveeesss soy ice cream and doesn't even care one bit for cow's milk. That makes me happy, but his vet said soy is ok, just in moderation. I don't give him more than once a month or so, and it's just a few licks. He loves Silk Yogurt too. I think it's the cultured bacterias he likes.

Killian likes:
spinach
chickpeas (and turned into hummus and falafel)
marinara sauce
soy foods, ice cream, yogurt, milk, cereal, etc...
alfalfa grass
kiwi (if it's not too ripe)

I would like some ideas on good, whole, natural foods to feed Killian. And I would like to make stuff to put into his bowl, even if it is just for him (that's just part of how MUCH I love him).

More importantly, I would like a list of foods/spices that are harmful, poisonous, or not recommended for kitties. What about nuts and seeds? Certain fruits? Anything would be helpful, as I even worry about houseplants and flowers (poinsettas, yeah, I know...).

This is my non-human food post. Well, human-food-goes-feline, rather. I must go tend to the meow now...

Mughlee & E's Treats

2006-04-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Baby Emaline. Yesterday, Friday March 31 at 7:30am Emaline (E) was born at home, naturally, without a conventional doctor or drugs/invasion. She is absolutely full of life and beautiful! Miriam is no longer KnockedUpVegan. Congratulations to the Miriam and Todd and this is a mughlee tribute to you.

Let me tell you (well, this is a quote from Miriam's page) All About Mughlee. "When a baby is born in Lebanon, the tradition is that all one million relatives go to visit the family - and when they are there, they are served a sweet spiced rice pudding called “mughlee”. This used to be my absolute favorite dessert. If you have a baby and don’t offer your guests mughlee, well then, you’re obviously an INCOMPETENT HOUSEWIFE.
Mughlee is cooked on the stovetop, and then poured into small glass bowls, and put in the fridge to set. Just before serving it to the guests, you take it out and top it with shredded coconut, pine nuts, pistachios, and blanched almonds. Yum."

I decided to sort-of follow Miriam's veganized version of traditional mughlee. The ingredients, but no exact recipe follows:
Brown rice flour, rice milk (I used soy), agave nectar, cornstarch, caraway, cinnamon, alspice, nutmeg, coconut, raw pine nuts, raw pistashios, raw walnuts and raw almonds.

These are my birthday cup-cakes for baby Emaline. Although I'm the only one feasting on them.

Ingredients:
tofu, silken
cocoa
vanilla
water
phyllo pastry cups (10 calories each)
blueberries
blackberries
strawberries
kiwi
mango
Yum.
It took a long time to cut all the fruit (All frozen except the kiwi) but well worth it. Yum again.
Take a closer look and drool.

PowerHouse Treats, Vibrance & Fatness

2006-03-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

First off, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to my birthday being a wonderful day! I really appreciate all of the comments from *you know who you are* this site, as well as thank everyone around here for making March 28 a great day.

Let's get back to the birthday stuff and on to the weekly treats...

I made these last night trying to put as much nutrition into these as possible. These are more like breakfast (which I don't normally eat, ugh), a good morning snack, a light lunch maybe with some (soy) milk. I was going to use a hint of blackstrap molasses (rich in iron) but I forgot. I certainly didn't forget the rest of the 19 ingredients! It's funny, because I'll look at a package in the store and see a ton of ingredients, and quickly pass it up (or comment on how full of crap it is and make a smart-ass remark). But what you see here is 19 awesome ingredients, all whole, mostly organic and mostly raw (I melted down a few items). Everything in these treats is not only super-tasty, but has is own unique nutritional contributions.

"Leslie's PowerHouse Treats"
Ingredients:
organic brown rice cereal puffs (like rice crispies)
rolled oats (not instant kind)
cocoa
raw organic almond butter (I squeezed it but melted it down, not raw anymore)
raw organic peanut butter (same as above)
organic brown rice syrup
organic agave nectar
raw almonds (ok, I'm not going to say *organic* anymore, most items are)
raw walnuts
raw pecans
raw sunflower seeds
organic raisins
coconut, shredded
hemp seeds
flax seeds, whole
sea salt
barley sweetened chocolate chips
cinnamon
vanilla, have to say it... organic.

Everything is mixed together. I melted down (on super-low heat) the almond butter, peanut butter, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, cinnamon, vanilla and cocoa. Then I mixed up the rest of the dry ingredients and poured the hot mix over the dry. Then I stood on a step-stool (for better views, reach and method) and I mixed with all my might. And yes, with my clean bare hands.

What you see down here is one of 4 mini-treats that I've been making lately. I made these in mini glass bowls and I simply placed a pinch-full of hemp seeds at the bottom of the bowl. Then I added the "treats" mix, and pressed down. I cooled them overnight in the fridge, and when I took 'em out, unwrapped them, and turned them over, they looked like this...

Ok, ok, back to my birthday stuff. I had such a great day that it went by so fast and I was sad it was over. I haven't had a super-great day like that in a while (unfortunately). Maybe I'll celebrate my half-birthday this year. I could go on and on thanking each and every person who made my day great, but instead THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR WISHES, THOUGHTS AND GIFTS. Even customers (some of my favorites) at work were super-tippers, although they tip well anyway and are the nicest anyway, and my boss made me a vegan (yes, she's in tune) mixed-berry pie, from strach, that I just tried to eat as much as I could of. It was wonderful.

I received so many flowers and they are beautiful and colorful (and Killian keeps messing with them). I thought I'd share some of the vibrance with you all...

And this is the whole display... From my parents, step-parents and more...
A few more close-ups, this one is weird and interesting. I like both weird and interesting things.
This type is my favorite. I need to look up what types of flowers these are, as I am curious.
Lydia also gave me this plant pot, besides the wonderful homemade pie. Check out the kitty.
Daisies.
Birthday Dinner Verdict:
Thanks to some of my favorite people from work, the suggestion of going to "Green" for my birthday was great. I took the risk of trying a new restaurant on my birthday, but it wasn't really a risk. Here's the thing: Green is an all organic, all vegan restaurant that just so happens to be owned by the same person who owns "That's a Wrap" (see Faux Spring Break post) and I had no doubts about this place. Upon entering the restaurant, I happily thought to myself "thank goodness they took the dollar-store-sporting-goods-crap off the walls, painted from pink to green/orange/brown, and added seating". This was already going to be better. Then we skimmed the menu and I introduced myself and happily explained that it was my birthday and I was super-happy to go out to a restaurant and be able to choose from anything on the menu and not worry about cross-contamination of nasty animal foods (or other nasty crap).

I wanted to eat everything on the menu (minus mushroom stuff and fake cheeseburgers). I decided that we should order a bunch of apps and snacks instead of each a main meal. This was wonderful and we ate the most fried food, although fried-veggies, that I've eaten in a long time. It didn't bother me at all. I got a free cookie for my b-day and (better sit down for this one...) didn't have any ice cream on my birthday!!! I'm in shock too... I was way too full, although I managed to eat the cookie in the car on the way home from dinner. This meal was a 9/10 for both of us, my complaint is that they should drain the eggless egg-rolls before placing them on the plate. Or at least have a basket to shake the oil or a cheesecloth. Something. Everything was fabulous (even the occasional grease) and I plan on attending this restaurant as much as I can.

Yum to that. Here's the link and I figured out how to make the menu bigger. You have to right-click it and save it (to wherever you want to save it to) and then just open it as a photo and you can always make it larger. http://www.greenvegetarian.com If you live around Tempe/Phoenix area, please check this place out. I certainly would like to have them open for a long time. Also, nothing on the menu is over $6 (I don't think) and we had about 5-6 different items to our feast and it was under $20. We were happily-shocked and super-full.

******Killian Time*******

And it's been a while since my fatness, Killian has hunted out the "front" window. We use our back door as the front door so there's no need for him to hunt through this small window when we have big ones... But, he's fat and cute and lazy and this is the stance I call "Mr. Super-Paws". I think it's super-cute when he sticks his paws out like that. I don't even know what he's hunting, there's nothing out there but the occasional pigeon or walked-dog. He freaks out to anything, even the rare occasion that wind blows a leaf down the street...
So much for "perching".
Fin.

March 28, 1981

2006-03-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

Today makes me officially 25 years old. I don't know how I feel about that. It's also 6:30am.

Filling out forms will be different from the past 7 years, as I am no longer checking the box for the 18-24 age bracket. Hmph, does that put me in the 25-29 or 25-34 box? I don't know why I even care, but I am officially in my mid 20s and I think I will have to post later and tell you all how I really feel about this...

In the meantime, I started the birthday celebration a bit early last night. My wonderful, super-awesome grandparents (I call them G & G) took me out to dinner last night. I wanted to try this new organic vegan restaurant called the Mandala Tea Room, (very pricey and of course, in Scottsdale) but they are closed on Mondays. I wanted to go out last night because I think for my "birthday night" I want to sit in my jammies (with Ray, woo hoo, he took some time off for me today) and hang out and eat ice cream and maybe my own personal vegan cake for dinner, who knows. I do know that on my birthday (or pre-birthday dinner), there is no dressing up involved, nor is there meat on the table. We ended up going to the Pita Jungle http://www.pitajungle.com (click on Tempe, although they are all nearby). My Gramps loves this place and Ray and I take out from there every once in a while. We have friends who work there too. I had a falafel sandwich (what else would I have for my special dinner?!). The dinner was great and we were super-chatty for two hours! Thanks G and G, I love you!!!

Oh, let me give you all this wonderful link to check out... http://www.mandalatearoom.com
I will check it out one day and post about it. If anyone has been to this place, let me know what you think, although they are just getting started...

And for the main reason I posted, my fabulous Grams (G) found me this non vegan flower cupcake. She bought it at the conventional grocery store (I was shocked they had something that looked this nice), but we both know it was for looks only. She knows I appreciate these creative things, yet I had to remind myself not to lick the rubbed frosting off my finger! It is worth saving for a while, taking these photos, and having Ray indulge instead.

Pretty, huh?

I'm off to start the day, being 25...

Midweek Munchies (3-22-06)

2006-03-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

MIDWEEK MUNCHIES: What LESLIE is contributing for the week.

I just wrote this whole thing out and it disappeared! This is my third MM and the third time I have typed everything out and it went away! I am frustrated and I wish there was an undo on the internet. Now I am just going to make this quick. As you all know, I didn't post a Midweed Munchies last week because I ate out a lot and was out of town, but I also had advanced planning and the week before bought enough food for 2 weeks.

I'm back in the Midweek Munchies ring and I am pleased to present to you all my very fine shopping list. Actually, 2 lists, as I shopped for the cheapest stuff first (but less quality, so I didn't get everything) at the Sunflower Market, and then I went to Whole Foods Market (WFM) for the rest of the stuff.

I have been tired of going to the Sunflower Market just for coffee, although this week wasn't the case. I decided that instead of buying our regular 2 bags of coffee (over a pound in each, ground), I would buy three and that could save me some "we're almost out of coffee" every so often. So, three big-ass bags it was. And is, from now on.

I used to just buy all of my produce at the Sunflower Market, but the quality isn't as good as WFM, and you certainly get what you pay for. In that case, I bought a few things first, and then saved for the WFM adventure. I would rather have good organic carrots than ugly conventional cheap ones anyway, for example.

On to the lists...

First up, the Sunflower Market:
red wine vinegar
Silk Chocolate Milk, individual size for me to drink right out of the store
5 kiwis for a dollar!
2 garlic bulbs, 25 cents each
2 bigass red bell peppers for ONE DOLLAR (for both, not each. At WFM they're $1.99 each)
a shitload of coffee
4 lemons for $1
3 stupid tiny limes for $1 (kinda crappy)
raw walnut halves, $4.99/lb, I got 1/2

Then I went to WFM and actually spent less! That's because I didn't buy almost $18 worth of coffee there, though!

Whole Foods Market:
2 kinds of organic apples, red and green
yukon gold potatoes
organic pasta sauce, 2 jars
barley sweetened chocolate chips
tahini, blah, should have bought it at Haji
raw sugar
coconut, shredded
organic peanut butter, ground myself
sourdough and rustic breads
carrots
kale
parsley
onion
bag refund, a whopping 10 cents off!

Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia’s blog

View More Midweek Munchies Participants

Midnight Milkshake

2006-03-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

This could possibly be the best midnight snack ever. Yes, I ate this at midnight!

We had a pretty boring dinner last night around 9:30 or 10pm. I wanted ice cream, but I was too full for a while. I thought about going to bed... then I thought about ice cream. Then I thought about putting a bunch of good stuff (including broken organic cones) into the ice cream.

A milkshake at midnight it was...

Above: What you see here is magic about to happen in the VitaMix. Well, it already started when I took this photo, but you get the idea, right?

Ingredients for my special milkshake. I just started throwing (what I do best) stuff in that I thought would be good. Funny thing is, what I thought about most was cones, and I ended up forgetting to put a broken cone in. At least I saved 45-50 calories! Whatever to that.

Ingredients (for real this time):
*Soy Delicious Organic Cookies n Cream ice cream (my favorite, from a quart, the 4.5g fat/serving kind, not 12g/serving)
*Silk Soymilk, vanilla flavor, organic
*Organic, barley sweetened chocolate chips
*frozen blueberries, organic
*hemp seeds, shelled(?)

I whizzed it all together in the V-mix and it turned out fabulous. It started melting by the time I got to the photo because it was either take a photo right away and risk the blender being stuck with all the blueberry bits for days, or have a somewhat melty photo and have a nice and clean blender. Blender it was.

Note: Ray and I shared this (I suprised him while he was working on the computer) and not shown, but we had two gigantic red straws to suck up all this goodness.

Verdict: Awesome midnight milkshake, and for the most part, healthy too (kinda).

My Own Personal Spring Break

2006-03-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

I decided to take my own personal spring break... from pretty much everything, including my non-challenging job (which is my choice for now, but there are good/resourceful things about it), the internet, which includes blogging and checking everyone else in the world's blogs. I have also taken a break from cooking (except see below, and I plan on Sloppy Lenties tonight, yes people, again).

Even though I technically am not entitled to a spring break by any means, I have decided that it is good for myself (and everyone) to take a break from whatever-it-may-be and do what you feel like, do nothing, or get a lot of stuff done. I did a bit of each, as well as spending some quality time with Ray, who is usually super-busy. I took a few days off from work. We spring-cleaned the house and it has never looked so good. I am so relieved to have it done, especially putting things in places where they should go instead of crap just everywhere. Anyway, that really made the week nice too. We planned to go to Tucson for the day since it's only just over an hour away driving. It was a few days after the rain/snow so the drive was clear and the snow on the mountaintops was beautiful. Tucson is a good get-away and more real-life, less blonde hair, tube-top, fake boobs - type of town compared to here in Tempe. I enjoyed the day, as did Ray and we walked around U of A's campus. It's so much more of a real campus compared to ASU (which is like modernized office buildings turned sorority style, whatever that means). Anyway, Tucson was nice and thanks to some special readers, I was helped out and shown the way towards some awesome treats and food I didn't yet know about. I do know that there's a good amount of veg restaurants in Tucson, but I've really only been to the Casbah Tea house, which I'm sort of upset I didn't go this week. The chai is special there. I think it's the hippiness and tapestries and congas all around that make it special. Oh, and all the veganness. The above is a photo I took of Tucson while walking down the street. You can see how much I wanted to go to the Casbah, but we already spent a good amount of time down there.

The above is Ray's snacks. We were going to have lunch so we parked on 4th (was it St. or Ave, shit!?). I was led to Epic Cafe which I saw as soon as we parked so I insisted on going there first so we had snacks for sure. I was pleasantly suprised by the menu and the array of vegan treats in their own special part of the deli case. We could have had lunch there but we were both happy with some of these fruity treats. Ray had a strawberry almond treat with a sasparilla rootbeer float. He loves that stuff. I asked if they had Soy Ice cream but then I remembered that I don't even like rootbeer anyway, the ice cream was just good looking to me. The strawberry treat was fabulous, and everything was so moist (I thought I must throw that important factor in). Moving on to my good stuff...

What you see here is my bigass bite taken out of a wonderful vegan seed cookie made by Epic. I have posted info about it below. This cookie is so good but they do need to work on the website. They don't even have ingredient/nutrition information, they just say vegan, in which I personally trust since they have a whole company and such centered around veganism. This cookie was wonderful and not too sweet. Yum.

Yum again. I have been missing baked products.

This is all the info I have to guide you all to these wonderful treats. The prices for the brownies and bars were the same online as the store, but for some reason the cookie was $1.65 at the store (I ate it in increments of 3, it was huge) and on the website they are over two dollars, hmph.
I just wish the shipping was cheaper on the website. It's almost more worth it (to me) to drive to Tucson for 1/2 a day.

I also indulged in a brownie. Super-awesome stuff, I say. It was gone before I could take a photo.

This is what the bars looked like (on the pamphlet).

And for you all to try these. If you don't you are seriously missing out. Plus, I want to contribute to this good company and keep them going.

I mentioned that I took a spring-break from cooking. Ray took me out almost or if not everyday this past week and it has been nice but in a weird way. I am not used to so much going out (all in a row, at least) but I am also happy about it because sometimes I just want someone else to make my food, serve it to me, and clean up after me. It doesn't happen around here, so I must pay someone (besides Ray) for that. I cannot post for everywhere we went, but we do have the usual, which includes Pita Jungle http://www.pitajungle.com (Tempe location, although all three of them are nearby each other). I always get a falafel with tahini and veggies and jalepeno/cilantro hummus. We have friends that work there and hook it up.

Then there's the best falafel in the world from an Israeli place called Sabuddy. I think I can deem this my favorite restaurant around here. I love the baba (ganouche) and falafel there and all the staff is great and knows us and we never need menus. We just share a combo plate.

Then there's of course, Taco del Mar, the good ol' standby in the same courtyard as where I work (I get a discount) and I get "The Vegan" burrito there. I can see everything that goes into my food, make sure the food service workers are doing what they are supposed to (I have a degree in this + nutrtion) and I like seeing my food being made, and fast. Here's a link: http://www.tacodelmar.com . There are locations all over the west.

The following bunch of menu-photos is a restaurant in Phoenix (just a 7 minute drive or so) that I like a lot. One of the owners is vegan and the menu has all the meats on it but anything can be substituted with tofu for no charge. This is wonderful, fresh food, you get a lot and you get a side. I always get fruit salad, even when they do offer vegan soups. I didn't post a beverage/smoothie photo, but they have both (I haven't had a smoothie there) but they have China Mist tea (unsweetened) and wonderful strawberry lemonade and we make Arnold Palmer's with both. It's fabulous considering all the other AP's we drink are just regular tea and regular lemonade, although the other day I did have one made with Yerba Mate, mmm.

So, check out That's a Wrap. I think they have a website, just Google-it or try this: http://www.thatsawrap.com

I get the Prince of Thai's (with tofu, duh) but I get it with red bell peppers instead of onions (ick, onions) and I like to get it without the ginger slaw, even though they no longer make it with mayo. I like the cucumber and spinach mix in it and it has peanut sauce and jasmine rice and veggies and a spinach tortilla. Yum. Plus, we sit outside, and it's a little-house-type-place.

Ray likes the Senorita-No-Meata with "full-fat" cheese.

And I did have an exception when I said I didn't cook. This was the last meal I cooked. Sorry for the nasty photo, but I sat down after Ray said, "Aren't you gonna take a photo?" I told him I already had postings for pancakes and I don't post what I always make, especially things I make a lot, even with exceptions. Well, these pancakes were too good to pass up and I put bananas, strawberries, blueberries and chocolate chips in them. I ran to the camera in the middle of starting to eat, and took this photo. Ray said it [the photo] looks like hamburgers... hmmm... weird... and gross.

And by the way... what you see in that glob in the corner is the rest of my almond butter before it was going to be bad. This is my new thing, newer than the fabulous (vive le vegan) blueberry maple syrup that I will always use. Almond butter plus pancakes (plus Dreena's syrup) equals the best thing ever and I don't know how I will live without it again. Yum to that.

I have been meaning to post about these for a long time now. I buy them every few months or so and they sell them around town (WFM has them cheapest, for just under $4). These are the best cookies (that aren't made at home) ever and I highly recommend them. I like the trail mix kind best, see below, but there's an array of flavors, from the good ol chocolate chip, to oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, and molasses kinds.

It's a family that makes these...

Yum to this.

And this is my next new try. I have heard from some people about this. I also looked it up on the internet and even though the menu is small-print and hard to read, it looks wonderful from what I can make out. I am going to try it and the prices seem reasonable. It's also nearby.
http://greenvegetarian.com

I am now officially back in internet/cooking-action and I have missed all you people commenting, I have missed other people's business, aka- their blogs, and my own cooked food (not cleaning up). Sorry Harmonia (and everyone else who cares) that I missed MW Munchies this week, I did buy enough food for 2 weeks the week before. I had a shopping trip tonight, as my house was pretty much empty, and made up for it all. See you Wednesday with that. In the meantime, I am off to make some Sloppy Lenties that I've been waiting to eat, since hey, it's only been a week since I had them last.

Smashed Potatoes and Crap

2006-03-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

I woke up to some sunshine and some Bob Dylan on NPR this morning. And the ground is still wet which is amazing that it's not warm enough to evaporate. In the middle of our 18-hour + rain, I decided that if I was not going to run to the store and grab an unsweetened milk, that I would let about 1.5 pounds of Yukon Gold's go to waste. The weird sprouts were starting and they frighten me. I have been dreaming about smashed potatoes for a long time, and I bought some Yukon's last week (see midweek munchies post for complete list). Earth Balance is stock around here, so I didn't have to worry about that, but I do keep vanilla Silk as my staple milk, so I was running into problems here. Plus, after seeing Jess' post about her smashed potatoes, I decided it really was a sign (and time to make them).

I decided to go to the store and I ended up buying a small milk, a bag of red lentils and 4 carrots, although I think I left one on the line (no bag). It was so nice walking in the rain, actually being wet, not seeing blue skies, and people were all happy and chill. I was cold though (I'm a wuss when it's under 75 degrees). What a day... and to make it even better, I was about to have some smashed potatoes!

Ingredients:
Yukon Gold potatoes, about 1.5 lbs
garlic, minced, about 2-3 cloves
Earth Balance, about 1/3 cup (I didn't measure, but I eye'd it)
Unsweetened Silk Soymilk, about 2/3-1/2 cup, I'm not sure, as I just poured it in and added too
Five kinds of fresh ground pepper (black, white, red, etc..., it's a pre-mixed churner)
sea salt (to taste, I add after finished mixing)
That's it!

And I decided since this was a rare occasion that it rained, I would also indulge myself in something else that's rare... partially hydrogenated oils, UGH, I KNOW!!! Yep, sometimes I like to treat myself to crap, and this here is pretty much going for it. I love these Mary Janes, and I thought I'd have to drive back up to Camp Verde (about 1.5 hour drive) just to get some. I looked everywhere, even online. These are great, but do have some crap in them, and don't give me any more crap, because I am 100% sure these are vegan. They're peanut butter kinda chewy like taffy like sweetness, with added crap.

You know, as a vegan, as a nutritionist, and as someone that doesn't like crappy ingredients, I sure do like these. Except I think I had about 10 yesterday (while playing badminton with Ray and Killian in the house, Killian freaks out over the birdie). And then the sugar (and other crap) started to get to me and I was dizzy and light headed and I think I just ate too many. I also didn't have much in my belly to start with. I was going overboard because they taste so damn good and I think it's fun eating something so weird and chewy once in a while. And I think that having them once in a while, when it makes me happy is completely ok to do, and I am just living life how I feel is best for me (and that includes happy crappy things every once in a while) and that's why I'm sharing this all with you. Plus, I think it's funny how the wrapper is practically the same exact color as our kitchen counters!

So there you have it. I ate smashed potatoes, some almond oat balls, Mary Jane's and some ice cream yesterday! The rain sure did get to me! Oh, and let me just say that I've had Sloppy Lentie's (I changed the name) twice in the last week, that's how freakin good they are. I will post my recipe on my version of these and I may just have some again tonight. It's fast, so easy, a one-pot meal, and virtually no clean up, especially since you will probably eat it all that it's so good.

Leslie's Version of Sloppy Lenties...
Ingredients:
1 c. rinsed and drained red lentils
2c. water
1c. tomato sauce
1 T. tamari (soy sauce)
2 carrots, chopped
a big handful of kale, chopped
about 1/4 onion (unless you actually like onion, use more), chopped
pinch of chili flakes
pinch of dried basil
2 cloves garlic, minced

Method: Combine dried lentils, water, tomato sauce, tamari and bring to a boil. While waiting, chop (food processor is best to get real small) carrots, garlic, kale and onion together. Add to pot of lentils. Add chili flakes and basil. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir every once in a while. Enjoy with a spoon or some bread (or anything else good you can think of).

Rain in the Desert

2006-03-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the windows and the sandy ground/concrete outside. I live in the desert (don't mis-read and think I'm talking food, aka, dessert). It's raining. This is amazing. It hasn't rained here since October 16, 2005. This made it over 4 months of no rain, about 144 days! It has been in the mid 70s to the 80s all winter, and exceptionally warm.

On a selfish everyday basis, the warm, even hot winter has been nice and the sunshine, tank tops and flip flops year round really do make me happy... On a more realistic and long-term basis, this is frightening, causes even more wildfires (we already had one here in February), and this Earth is just getting so warm, polluted, and I can go on and on, but I wont... here at least. Bad news.

But, today it's beautiful and about the 5th day I haven't seen sunshine all winter. I love the sun, but this is spectacular, smells great, and I love the sound of the rain falling. It's this weird feeling in the air, in the house, and it's unusually dark inside. I have the curtains open (as always) and I still need to turn on the lights. The dry ground is now wet (for now) and we have poor drainage systems here and I am sure many roads are flooded. Flash floods are basically the only weather-related worry we have. Anyway, it looks wonderful outside and it's certainly a different kind of day here in the Valley. We have been waiting for this for months now and it's a strange, yet wonderful day. I am in shock here people!

This has nothing to do with food, I know, but I wanted to share my excitement and relief with everyone. Oh, and Ray's off to play a wedding today that was supposed to be in an outside Garden. Poor couple, it's been sunny and 80s for almost a year now and on their outdoor wedding day, it rains! I hope they take it lightly and make it mean something.

Treats with Sweets

2006-03-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

For everyone who asked... and for everyone who didn't.

Chocolate Mousse
12 oz silken tofu
3 oz bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 c boiling water
1 t vanilla
2/3 c sugar (or substitute)
coconut to top

Method: Puree tofu in a food processor until smooth. In a seperate bowl, combine cocoa and chocolate and add boiling water, stir. Add vanilla. Add sugar. Add this bowl to the tofu and blend in the processor until mixed. Chill at least 1 hour.

Sweet Dinner Pancakes
2c flour (whole wheat pastry)
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder (non aluminum)
2 c. soymilk
2 T. oil
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg (or less)
pinch of sea salt
1 T. flax seed, ground
choice of fruit. Handful of each.

Method: Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, flax seed, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together. Add milk and oil. Stir. Add fruit. Stir, but don't over do it. Heat oil on a skillet. Pour batter by the spoonful and flip over when bubbly and golden underneath.

Sorbet (valentine's post)
Choose your personal preffered amount of fruit. Per type of fruit, add about 1 T. agave nectar.
I used: peach, plum, blackberry, strawberry, kiwi-lemon-lime, blueberry, strawberry-banana.

Method: Freeze fruits at least 2 hours before preparing. In a food processor, blend fruit with a spoonful of agave nectar (or sugar). Place in a glass, bowl, or container and stick it in the freezer just for a few minutes. You can even eat it right away.

Boiled Cookies
1/2 c. Earth Balance (or other margarine)
1.5 c. agave nectar
1/2c. milk
4 T. cocoa
1 T. flax, ground
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/2 t. vanilla
3 c. oats

Method: Heat all ingredients except for oats until boiling. Lower and simmer for a few minutes, stir a lot. Add mixture to a bowl of rolled oats. Stir together. Place droplets onto a waxed cookie sheet and chill in fridge. Store in the fridge too.

Best Banana Bread (when I baked)
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1 T. fresh lemon juice
1/2 c. oil or apple sauce
1/2 c. sweetener
1/2 c. blueberries
1.5 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. wheat germ
1/2 t. sea salt
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda

Method: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, mash bananas, add lemon juice, oil, sweetener, and blueberries and mix together. In a seperate large bowl, stir the flour, wheat germ, salt, baking powder and soda. Add banana mix to the flour mix. Don't over stir. Spoon onto a loaf pan and bake for about 45 minutes, check with a knife. Can also be made with any desired fruit or made into muffins. I miss these.

Leslie's Special Raw Almond-Oat Balls
3 c. rolled oats
1/2 c. pepitas (pumpkin seeds), raw
1/2 c. raisins
1/4 c. raw sunflower seeds
1.5 t. cinnamon
3/4 c. almond butter (you can get away with only 1/2 c.)
1/3 c. + 1T. brown rice syrup
2 T. barley malt syrup
1.5 t. vanilla
1/4 c. coconut, shredded

Method: Take about 1/3c. rolled oats and 1/4c. pepitas and grind them in a food processor, blender, or use a hammer to turn into a powder. Set aside on a small plate. Forget about this for a while... Combine dry ingredients. Stir. Add from almond butter down to the end of the list. Stir it all together. Grab a shallow bowl and fill with water. Wet fingers and palms and spoon batterfuls into hands and form 1-inch balls. Coat with oat/pepita powdery mixture. Place on cookie sheet and freeze 20 minutes. Take out and store in the fridge. Enjoy.

Random Treats
Take whatever you have in the house that you think would go well together and mix it up. Examples are almonds, cashews, pecans, walnuts, pinenuts, coconut, sunflower seeds, raisins, dried fruit, puffed cereal, etc. Throw a bunch of this dry stuff in a bowl (by the handful helps). In a saucepan, heat some brown rice syrup, peanut butter and vanilla and chocolate if desired. You can add agave nectar or sugar to sweeten, if needed. Add heated mixture to large dry bowl and stir with all your might. Transfer to a "mold" and place in fridge to set. Cut and enjoy.

A Disaster Twice Over + Treats

2006-03-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

I am starting this post with this horrible disaster. It was Tuesday night and it was quiet all through the house. Ray had gone back to the Music Building around 8pm to practice for his piano, bassoon and trumpet "midterms", let alone writing papers, and playing/practicing his own upright bass. I don't miss school in that way. I should have made some dinner before that, as we were both hungry, but I am stubborn and decided to prepare a meal that I thought would only take about 10 minutes while he was gone so we could eat after. Well, he didn't get home until after 10:30 and I was expecting him around 10pm. Because of that, I timed everything wrong and... well, let me back up...

I have been thinking about this recipe from the Spring 2005 issue of Veggie Life Magazine. It is a recipe called Soba Noodles with Green Soybeans and Spicy Tahini Sauce. Sounds good, right? But, does the above look good to you? Not me, it looks too mushy and creamy. I'll tell you why...

While you are cooking the noodles (5 minutes), you are supposed to prepare and heat the sauce. This also only takes five minutes, so I figured all in all, this meal would take about 10 minutes total, barely any chopping, mess, etc. Boy was I wrong! It was just about 10pm and I thought Ray would be home pretty soon so I started on the sauce. It heated up and I lowered it to barely any heat so it could sit and wait. Well, time and time went on and I had to finally turn off the pot of boiling water because Ray was no where in sight and these noodles take only five minutes. I didn't want them cold. The water was turned off the heat and the sauce in the saucepan sat for a long time... It got clumpy. Then it got whiter. Then it reminded me of puke. Then it reminded me of dairy. Ugh. This was gonna suck.

Ray got home and I decided to toss the sauce. I figured that it would be a waste if I served it as-is because it really didn't look good. It was a waste no matter what. Plus, there wasn't too much, as I cut down the recipe (it served 4). So, like a typical American, I tossed the food down the drain and started over (guiltily). Started the noodles (again), re-did the sauce, and finally served it. It didn't smell that good. I should have known. So I added a bit more tamari to it. The noodles were too mushy, the sauce was basically inedible (aka, tasted like complete shit) and I was soo mad/upset/frustrated/hungry/guilty of wasting (again). I wasn't even going to save this for a hungry dog (well, maybe...if there was one around). I threw a mini-fit, hastily stomped to the kitchen and tossed it away. I decided to have the remaining 1/2 of the sourdough bread and make up a meal as fast as possible.

Ray's meal: peanut butter and blueberry spread on Sourdough. With Kettle Chips. Ray said, "I've never had pb & j on sourdough before." That's when I realized that I fucked up, again! Eew, that had to have been bad, plus with salt/pepper chips? Ugh. He still ate it.

Leslie's meal (while moping): 2 corners of Sourdough bread with Earth Balance. What the $^#@ kind of meal is this? I had ice cream right after and that made it a meal. My junk-vegan-meal.

Here's the ingredients if you feel like being brave (I cannot give exact recipe, see website if available)...
veggie stock, tahini, soy sauce, brown rice vinegar, ginger root, sugar (I used agave), cayenne, soba noodles, edamame, carrots, green onions (I omitted), sesame seeds (I used Gamashio which consists of sesame seeds, sea salt, sea veggies, dulse, nori and kombu).
Attempt this recipe with caution and a back-up meal.

Onwards we go...
Yep, more treats. I decided that it was time to stop just throwing everything I had in the pantry into a bowl and calling it treats. I have nothing with this, I am just tired of it, as I have been making pretty much the same treats here and there for a few months now. I sort-of changed it up. I decided that I would love to cookie-cutter treats, but that probably would have been weird and too difficult. Instead, I put treats in mini muffin and muffin pans. I figured I'd use the pans in some way since I'm not baking (for now). They are nice and convienent and I don't have to worry about cutting and making a mess each time. Plus, the mini ones are about 2-3 bites, and the larger ones are about 10 bites.

These treats consist of: peanut butter, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, brown rice puffs, barley sweetened chocolate chips, vanilla extract, cinnamon, cashews and a dash of sea salt. Most or all items are organic.

I mixed as usual, Pam'ed a muffin tin and pressed firmly into the pan. These were nice and sweet and simple. More simple than my standard treats, anyway. Take a closer look...

And now... saving the best for last... ta da!

These are my ULTIMATE special treats. They are a take-off (aka, my own revised recipe) of one I found in Vegetarian Times magazine a while back. I first made these around Xmas time, and I made them so much (treats for home, gifts, desserts, etc) that I decided to stop making them around the time I started this blog. So, this is for sure worth the wait because they are awesome, filling, nutritious and raw. They are also fast and easy to make.

Ingredients: rolled oats, coconut, pepitas (raw pumpkin seeds), raisins, raw sunflower seeds, cinnamon, fresh ground almond butter, brown rice syrup, barley malt syrup, vanilla.
Method: mix dry ingredients, stir. Then mix in wet ingredients, stir. Grind up a bit of oats with your desired "seed" and use as a coating. The mixture should be dough-like. Fill a small bowl with water. Wet your hands and roll 1-inch balls. Roll them in the coating mixture. Place on a tray. Place all of them in the freezer for 20 minutes and then store, air-tight, in the fridge. Simple and delicious!

The above is my special container for only these bites. I have a typed-out ingredient list attached to the lid for guests as well as times for when I bring these to work.

I highly suggest trying these.

Midweek Munchies (3-8-06)

2006-03-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

Midweek Munchies: What LESLIE is contributing for the week

soymilk (2 pack)
pb (fresh sqeezed by me)
almond butter (same as above)
cones (for ice cream, organic)
cheese for Ray (a soft weird waxy kind)
Cliff Bar (for Ray)
brown rice syrup (I always have at least 2 back-ups)
canola oil (this lasts sooo long. I just needed more for those un-olive-y dishes, usually just for coating)
2 raspberry spritzer cans (we were thirsty)
1 jalepeno and 1 habenero pepper
raisins (used for treats, mostly)
bananas (I don't know why I buy 4-5 bananas every week. I should only get 2-3)
lemons (always have on hand at least 5. I vow to never buy "lemon juice" again)
tofu, silken (2 packs)
coffee (2 kinds)
pecans
cashews
almonds
sunflower seeds
Rustic Sourdough bread (just a small loaf)
wheat flour (I'm running out from the pancakes not baking!)
yukon gold potatoes (forgot to get a little guy of plain milk to make mashed potatoes, mmm)
kale (especially for that lentil dish)
rice puffs (organic)
edamame (shelled)
mineral water (again, for Ray)
frozen blueberries and strawberries (always on stock)
phillo pies (see Chocolate Phylo Pie post, these are pre-baked for my sake)

This is a hefty shopping list. A lot of this stuff is to keep in the freezer, pantry and the perishables get eaten up as soon as possible. We like to keep "options" around the house and many of these are staples around here anyway.

I will also mention that 25% of these groceries are from one store and 75% is from another.

Links to other Midweek Munchies

Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia’s blog

View More Midweek Munchies Participants

Sloppy Lentils & Sourdough Bread

2006-03-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

It is exactly midnight on Sunday (well, technically it's Monday) and I am stuffed from dinner. Yeah yeah, I know it's late but I decided this morning that I was going to go to the store at 9pm to give myself an hour before they close. We live super-close so it's no problem and I knew I was having one of two things that was fast. This dinner ended up being done around 11:15-11:30pm and I am trying to stay up for a while before sleeping for what is now going to be five hours.

The wonderful spread you see here is my version of "Sloppy Lennies" by Jennifer Shmoo (Lunchbox blog) and she adapted her version to make it for a kid based on another recipe. In that case, I am following a recipe from Jennifer's-mother's-uncle's-brother's-girfriend's-third cousin, or something like that.

My recipe includes (but is not limited to) the following. I served this with sourdough bread. WFM was out of my usual Seduction Bread (sorry Jess [of Get Sconed], I'm trying to get the ingredients for you). I will post the ingredients for the sloppy lentils as well as the bread.

This meal was amazing.
Let me describe the photo below first. Jennifer-Shmoo has a 7-year-old boy. He refuses to eat anything green. I love my greens, but there are veggies that I would rather not eat. That is, unless, they are secretly pureed. In my case, I do all the cooking so I know what I am hiding from myself, but it doesn't matter. I like onion flavor but not the texture, so I have no problem "hiding" onion that is chopped super-small in some foods. I wasn't hiding anything but the onion today, but I decided to mince up a few other things while I was at the onion in my super-cute 1.5 cup mini food processor (best thing, Kohls, $15). I minced up onion, carrots, garlic and fresh kale. Yum.

Ingredients:
Sloppy Lentils
-red lentils (rinsed, sorted through, no need to pre-soak)
-part of a white onion
-big handful of kale
-1 large carrot
-2 cloves garlic
-H20
-tomato sauce
-tamari
-basil, dried
-salt and pepper, to taste

I threw all this in a large pot, let it boil, covered it, lowered the heat, and simmered for about 30 minutes. Served immediately with bread. I don't know why this photo below is darker. It's not doing justice here! Refer to other photos if you are going to make an aesthetic decision to make this or not.

Ingredients for the bread.
Organic Rustic Sourdough Boule Bread from WFM
water, organic wheat flour, malted barley flour, organic sprouted wheat berries, organic wheat bran, organic six grain (wheat, barley, corn, millet, rye, triticale), organic cornmeal and sea salt.
Cheaper than Seduction bread, not as many goodies inside, and a bit "tough", but still managed to be wonderful!

Overall, this meal was awesome. This was really flavorful, warming, full of nutrients, smelled really good while cooking, and half-way through eating it I realized there's no fat. I am going to make this again soon, and it was quick, easy and hardly a clean-up at all.

Fin.

Cereal Treats & Pancakes for Dinner

2006-03-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I was going to make a soba noodle/veggie recipe from "Veggie Life" magazine but at the last minute I realized I was out of edamame (frozen). I was in my pj's most of the night and didn't feel like running to the store just for edamame. And I wasn't about to make this meal without it.

My tastebuds quickly changed and I wanted pancakes. Then I realized I was out of bananas (going to the store later today for the weekly trip). I have never dreamed of making pancakes without bananas but I searched and searched for recipes and had no idea which was going to be best. I also didn't have certain ingredients that were called for. In that case, I pretty much made up my recipe based on about 20 google-searches and searches through my own books/mags at home. Of course, my standard syrup is Dreena's (Vive le Vegan) Blueberry Maple syrup and I have made it so it's 75% blueberries, 25% syrup. Yum.

*Note: tahini server turned syrup server.

This is my recipe for these chocolate-strawberry pancakes with blueberry maple syrup.

2 cups whole wheat flour (sifted)
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
2 cups soymilk
2 T. oil (or apple sauce but good oils are ok)
1 t. cinnamon, ground
1/2 t. nutmeg, ground
pinch of sea salt
1 T. flax seed, ground
1 handfull chopped strawberries (I use frozen, it doesn't matter fresh/frozen)
1 handfull barley sweetened chocolate chips (I have fairly small hands, although I probably ate the equivalent of a handfull while preparing all of this!)

Method: Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, flax seed, cinnamon and nutmeg all together in a large bowl. Add the milk and oil, stir in, but don't overstir. Add fruit and other good stuff. Stir. Pour spoonfuls onto a lightly oiled or nonstick pan and heat both sides until desired brownness. Enjoy. I highly recommend serving all pancakes and breakfast foods with Blueberry Maple Syrup from Vive le Vegan.

What you see above here is my weird-ass plate on the left. You see, I attempted to make whip cream but it didn't turn out (obviously. If it's not obvious, click the photo to zoom in and you'll see). I see tofu whip cream recipes everywhere but have never tried. I can't remember the last time I ate whipped cream. Anyway, I got this recipe from "How it All Vegan" by Sarah Kramer. I also recommend all of her books (even though this recipe didn't turn out for me). I cannot post the exact recipe, but I do have ingredients.

I beg of everyone... if you have a fabulous recipe for vegan whip cream, please comment and let me know. I would like to hear ideas, variations, etc. By the way, it's now the next day and I had to wait over an hour for the mixture to chill in the fridge before serving and it was still runny, let alone serving it onto hot pancakes. I will have to do a test for it today but I don't feel like eating whip cream right now (too early), especially if it still sucks. These were the ingredients used.
tofu, silken
vanilla
cornstarch
agave nectar (sugar was listed in the book, I modified)

MOVING ON... well, really, moving a few days backwards...
The other night it was late and I was not about to cook, let alone spend more than 30 seconds in the kitchen. I had an idea when I made treats that were too dry, to save them in a bag (in the fridge) and add milk to it to make cereal. Wonderful idea. Ray reminded me of that idea the night I didn't feel like anything... just add milk. YES!!!

You can look up the recipe for the treats somewhere below. I make these all the time, never exactly the same, but pretty much all the same concept. This was wonderful and super-nutritious.

Does this make you want some?!?!?

Fin.

Boiled Cookies

2006-03-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

Weird concept, huh? A few weeks ago I stumbled along into the co-op to get a bi/tri-weekly treat. I noticed one lonely chocolate cookie left and decided it would need a home... in my belly!

I looked at the title and it was called Mel's Vegan Boiled Cookies. Hmph. What the hell is a boiled cookie? I asked Franko and he was just as clueless. Well, it's vegan, looks good, was the last one left, and only a buck, so I went for it. It was an interesting concept.

Ingredients (in Mel's cookies):
oats, raw sugar, soymilk, earth balance, peanut butter, cocoa and vanilla with mostly organic ingredients.

This cookie I had was amazing and I knew I had to try it at home especially since I am in a no-baking mode. Plus, oats are about 25 to 30 cents per pound, super-cheap! This past week I have been trying to figure out how to make boiled cookies. I Google-d a lot of recipes and came across one I think from Quaker Oats and it was very similiar, just not a veganized version. I found recipes all over the place, many of them being alike. I thought to myself that I should just go for it (like I always do) and see what happens (not following a recipe). So, in that case, I made up my own recipe.

Here's Leslie's Boiled Cookies...
They came out a bit mushier than the one from the co-op, but I will just add more oats. I actually have a recipe this time because I took notes while experimenting.

Ingredients and Measurements:
3.5 cups oats (I would use about 4 to 4.5 cups next time, which will make it thicker/denser)
1.5 cups agave nectar
1/2 cup soymilk (I like Silk)
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup earth balance (or use apple sauce but that's at your own risk)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon ground flax seed (for added nutrition)

Yield: 24 large or at least double that in small cookies

Method:
In a large pot, bring earth balance, agave nectar, soymilk and cocoa to a boil. Stir very often. Let it lightly boil (just past a simmer) for 1-2 minutes to make sure everything's mixed. Take the pot off the heat and add peanut butter, flax seed and vanilla. Mix it up well, and the peanut butter will be chunky-looking (a.k.a. awesome-looking). Then stir in the oats. Ta da, that's it people! Five minutes time. Then take desired-sized spoonfuls and plop them onto a cookie tray that is lined with wax paper. Let cookies cool in fridge. Wait patiently. Then eat. Store remaining in an airtight container in the fridge.

Faux Falafels + Bonus

2006-03-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

Last night I made faux falafel. They are what would be a regular falafel but I added carrots, jalepeno, and a lot of other stuff. It turned out to be my least favorite of all patties I have made, but was worth the try. I just threw a bunch of stuff in a food processor with some chickpeas, blended and added spices. Chilled for an hour in the fridge and then lightly sauteed for a while.

I served these with pita, oranges and romaine. Not shown was tamari-tahini from TEV. This is my tahini server.

Have another look...

Remember from one of the last posts that I was planning on making maple pecans because I refuse to buy them from WFM for $14.99/lb? Well, my attempt failed and I needed to quickly turn these into something else because I certainly wasn't wasting expensive items such as maple syrup, pecans and cashews. I decided to throw in puffed rice, brown and organic for two reasons. One, it is cheap (about a dollar per bigass bag). Also because I needed a binder to fill these and they are sticky but good. A good breakfast treat with the maple syrup.

Ratings:
Faux Falafel- out of ten I gave it a five point five.
Maple Pecan Crispy Treats- out of ten I gave it a nine, especially for being a mistake.

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