Sunday, December 10, 2006

Sunday Stuff and Things

So we're leaving for Oregon for 3 weeks this coming Saturday. This forced us to be very very mindful of using things up before we go! Because of this (and because I'm on this crazy declutter/budget/simplify-your-life jag) we made up a weekly meal plan! And I'm going to try to stick to it, by gum!

What we've had so far:

Saturday
Breakfast:
Tofu scramble
Herb Roasted Red Potatoes
Toast with Earth Balance
Juice
Coffee/tea

Lunch:
Leftover pizza from Friday night (doh! not vegan. They were out of soy cheese and we were des.per.ate.)

Dinner:
Peanut Red Curry with onions, peas, and carrots over brown rice
Spinach Salad
Edamame

Snack/Dessert:
Newman's Ginger-O's (those things are the DEVIL! but vegan!)

Sunday

Breakfast:
Toast with Cashew Butter (YUM!)
Juice

Lunch:
Bow Tie Pasta with Broccoli, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives and Garlic Olive Oil
Ginger O's

Snack:
Berry Berry Juice from local juice joint (vegan) - Chad and I split one

Dinner:
Almost Irish Stew (from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker) - uses up the navy beans I made last week, the chicken style seitan we needed to use, baby carrots, red potatoes, a can of green beans, onion, garlic, broth and spices. My house smells soooo good right now!

Coming up this week:

Monday: Magical Loaf Studio Loaf, Leftover Roasted Potatoes

Tuesday: Chilli Con Bulgar from La Dolce Vegan!, Garlic Toast, spinach salad

Wednesday: Tofurkey-Avocado Reubens, bread and butter pickles, spinach salad

Thursday: Either Biscuits and Gravy or Tempeh BLT's

Friday: EAT OUT

Lunch for each day will be leftovers from the day before or Cashew Butter and Apricot Jam sandwiches. We also have the fixins for some smoothies, cuz we need to use up our jug-o-juice!

Can she actually stick to the meal plan? Will this change her life forever? Stay tuned!!!

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Some catch-up

Well, the baby's been keeping me busy lately and I haven't had time to post. But I've still been cooking up a storm! Some highlights from the past few weeks:

From Vegan with a Vengeance:

-Breakfast Potatoes - sooo good! The onion in the recipe turns caramalized and in some cases black which looks scary but is so tasty. Chad was avoiding them until I clued him in on the delicious factor. Takes some forethought because they take about an hour in the oven, but worth the effort.

-Maple Walnut Cookies - OMG OMG OMG I think I peed a little these are so good! Will definitely make these again. And again. And again! The only oddball ingredient you need is maple extract, which we luckily had on had for the pumpkin "cheesecake".

-Tofu Scramble - So I make tofu scramble all the time, but I decided, what the hay, I'll give this "recipe" a try. Really glad I did, because yumm-o! It seems to take a teensy bit longer than I would normally take with a scramble, but the flavor was fab.

-Baking Powder Biscuits with White Bean Tempeh Sausage Gravy - YUM. YUM. YUM. I make these biscuits all the time, they are so easy and so tender and delicious. The gravy has such amazing flavor, with fennel and sage and basil and marjoram - and a little red pepper flake for a kick in the pants! This recipe takes a little longer than my normal get-food-ready-before-baby-freaks-out time limit (about 45 mins-1 hr) but so worth it.

-Coconut Heaven Cupcakes - Holy crap, so tender and light and fluffy! I want to eat these everyday. Easy to make, too.

Other stuff we've been eating:

-Tempeh Avocado Ruebens - we can't get enough of these things! I even made homemade (well, bread machine) Rye Bread for them. I love fresh bread! Serve these babies with bread and butter pickles and some Tings.

-Slow Cooker Navy Beans - Yes! I finally made beans in the crock pot and it was not such a long tedious process as I previously thought. I soaked the beans all day the day before, cooked them overnight and they were ready for a recipe the next morning! Yee-friggin'-haw! These beans so far have been transformed into the white bean gravy and:

-Maple Baked Beans - From Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. Pretty good overall! We had these with veggie hotdogs cut-up (Polka-Dot Beans) and it was good, but the hot dogs had a stale taste to me. Maybe we'll try different dogs next time.



-A new incarnation of the Magical Loaf Studio loaves we've made in the past. Tasty, as always!

In other news, we tried some of the Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourment "cheese" - cheddar style. EWWWWW. So wrong. I took a tiny taste, gagged and spit that gunk out. I had previously read really good things about it, but alas it was not to be.

This week I acquired a new toy: The Braun Multiquick Hand Blender/Chopper. I've had my eye on one of these things for a while. I've always wanted to be able to "cream" soups without getting the blender (and usually my kitchen floor) dirty. Also, it's going to come in verrrry handy when I make my own baby food - just blend right in the cooking pan instead of getting the food processor dirty! Way easier to clean than the respective blender or processor. Yay! I haven't tried it out yet, but I'll report back after testing.

Some goals for the future week:
  • Make more fresh bread
  • Make more slow cooker beans
  • Make pizza dough in the bread machine
  • Make split pea soup (mostly so I can try my hand blender!)