Vacation and lots o' food!

So we went out of town for 5 days and before that? Sick. Oh yes.



So I'm going to go backwards and start with vacation! Because it's fresh in my mind and really, who doesn't want to relive vacation?! We went to Phoenix from Wednesday-Sunday because Chad had a second job interview, so we decided to turn it into family vacation time. We were actually in the western suburbs of Phoenix, which was basically all strip malls, all the time. But it was beautiful, the desert, and it was 86 degrees the whole time. And sunny. Did I mention sunny? And 86? In MARCH? I was loving it UP. It smelled like sage and everything just had a crisp spring edge to it. Lovely.

So I was a little worried about being in the land of Mexican food and being vegan, because for all the ethnic cuisines that are vegan friendly, Mexican food is really not one of them. So no little taquerias for us unfortunately. Luckily, we weren't all that tempted because we were mostly surrounded by chains, which can be very helpful to the traveling vegan who has access to the internet! Let me just say that this was the best vegan traveling I have ever done. We had a couple great lunches at Chipotle (fajita burrito bowls with the black beans), and a great dinner at Macaroni Grill (pasta with garlic olive oil, bruschetta with no cheese, garden salads sans cheese and crutons - and a dirty martini!), and some decent bagles with hummus for me and pb&j for Chad for breakfast. We also bought some cereal and almond milk for brekkie to have at the motel, but we didn't have a fridge, so there was a lot of putting the almond milk in the ice bucket in front of the a/c, so after day 2 we decided not to risk it. ;) We also had some of the BEST vegan food EVER at Green restaurant, in Scottsdale. We had the edamame (for Silas) and Spicy Buffalo Wings (OMG!!! Must try to recreate this recipe!), then Chad had the No-Harm Chicken Parm and I had the Texas "moo-shroom" po boy, with unbelievably thin crispy and delicious thyme fries. Then, as IF that wasn't good enough, they also have their own homemade vegan soft-serve "ice cream"!!!!! That they make blizzards with!!! Called tsoynamis!!! Seriously! I had the rocky road with chocolate chips, vegan marshmellows, almonds and chocolate syrup, and Chad just had strawberry, cuz that's the kind of guy he is. It was bliss, pure bliss. I can't get over how wonderful it is to be eating at a restaurant where I can order ANYTHING off the menu and still be true to my ethics! It's amazing.

Whoo. Anyway. We also had some fabulous Thai food, but I have to confess that I'm a bad vegan. I never ask about fish sauce. The first time we had the thai I didn't taste fishiness at all, but the second time I caught a vague whiff of it. I'm going to stop being a lazy vegan and just start asking. Geez! What's my problem anyway? I guess I'm just worried about language barriers and being denied my favorite ethnic cuisine. But I'm gonna do it!

There were also several soy lattes at Starbucks. Good stuff all around. And we even survived the flight home with only access to a regular old grocery store (Fry's) - we found fresh berries, soy yogurt, Odwalla protein shakes and bagels and hummus for breakfast, and made Yves salami and hummus sandwiches on kaiser rolls for lunch. I was pretty proud of our success with vegan traveling.

We also did 3 hikes, visited 2 communities, walked around a couple downtowns, browsed an awesome used bookstore (Bookman's) and generally had a great time.

On to the food!


We had some fronch toast revisted here (with the additions of some vanilla and cinnamon to the VwaV recipe - a vast improvement!), with a side of almond butter sweet mashed sweet potatoes (inspired by Vegan Lunch Box), and some sliced bananas. Good stuff! I love having the sweet potatoes in the morning, it's a great way to get some orange veggies in first thing! The basic recipe is :

Breakfast Sweet Potatoes
1-2 sweet potatoes
1-2 T almond butter
1 T maple syrup (or to taste)
.5-1 T earth balance
salt to taste
cinnamon if you want (I skip it)

I microwaved the sweet potatoes for about 4 minutes , turned them over, and microwaved them another 4 minutes. Let them sit for a minute and then pulled the peels right off. Mashed in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and serve!

Blueberry Coffee Cake from The Joy of Vegan BakingTo DIE for! I made this when we had some omni friends over after dinner out and it was a smash hit! This is a dangerous cake to have around because it is soooo tasty. We finished it for breakfast the next day!

Vegan Pizza Night!

Crust from TJ's, sauteed portabellos, a wee bit of leftover pesto and sliced tomatoes. Oh and just a bit of Follow Your Heart Mozzarella. The cheese was ok - it didn't melt much and didn't taste like much either, but it gave the appearance of cheese, which was fine. Now that I have the cheese in the house, I'll use it, but when we use it up I'm not sure if I'll replace it or not. I'm all about flavor, baby, and not so much for just appearances.

Loafcakes/Loaffins
Do you know the magic that is the Magical Loaf Studio? Created by the author of the blog and cookbook, Vegan Lunch Box, this handy little tool can pretty much make a vegan loaf out of anything you have in your kitchen. Ok, that might not be entirely true, but it's pretty close.

My loaf consisted of pumpkin and sesame seeds, lentils, breadcrumbs, onion, garlic, carrot, and celery, veggie broth, thyme basil, sage, nooch, veggie Worcestershire, ketchup, flax meal, Braggs, and olive oil. I cooked them in muffin tins, and before baking them I brushed on a combo of ~ equal amounts of ketchup and brown sugar with a dollop or two of more veggie Worcestershire sauce. Yum!

We had these with garlicky southern greens (from Vcon - can't get enough of these!) and baked potato with earth balance and s&p.

We had them a couple times, each time with the greens (they sell giant 1 lb bags of greens already washed and stemmed at TJ's! Awesome).

Navy Bean Cutlets with Mushroom Sauce and Roasted Carrots
Can't go wrong with the chickpea cutlets! I made a double batch this time with navy beans instead of chickpeas, and baked them for the first time (wow, easy and awesome!). This meal was a make-up-on-the-fly kind of thing, which is not my usual thing. I sliced up carrots and tossed them with some olive oil and maple syrup and salt and roasted them while I baked the cutlets. While that stuff was cooking I chopped up a portabello mushroom and sauteed it in olive oil with salt and white wine, then added in some flour and soy milk creamer to make it creamy and a little saucy. Oh and salt and pepper. It was really tasty over the cutlets, not really a gravy, but savory and delicious.

Other Stuff I Don't Have Pictures Of

I also baked up a big batch of cornbread from The Joy of Vegan Baking which was deLICIOUS! Like cornbread you'd get at The Cracker Barrel or something, it was really tender and sweet and awesome. Very different from the usual southern style skillet cornbread I make.
I also made a really great impromptu curry loosely following a recipe from Robin Robertson's Vegan Planet. It was coconut milk, red curry paste, chickpeas, green peas, and a can of diced tomatoes, sauteed sliced onion, carrots, and garlic all over whole wheat spaghetti. Next time I would add a tablespoon or two of Braggs, because it needed saltiness, but otherwise it was really tasty and made a LOT of food, AND the toddler was a huge fan.

Yesterday for a toddler playgroup I made a batch of Cornbread Blueberry Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking. These were ok - I was really expecting the tenderness of the cornbread, and these were much heavier/breadier. I was out of yellow cornmeal, so I used white, and I used all whole wheat white flour instead of half-white, half-wheat, so that might have been the culprit. I would make them again using less whole wheat flour because the flavor was good otherwise.

And finally, yesterday I made a batch of the Backyard BBQ Sauce from Vcon. OMG, yum! I slathered in on tempeh and fried it up for sandwiches for dinner last night (and lunch today) on whole wheat buns with a little veganaise and bread & butter pickles. Awesome combo! We had salad on the side.

Wheat and Potatoes, et al

Here's what's been on our menu of late!

Fronch Toast with Leftover Scramble and Potatoes


I can't remember if I've made the Fronch Toast from VwaV before, but I was happy with the results. The garbanzo bean flour gives it that weird metallic eggy taste that's missing from most vegan french toast recipes. But the biggest plus of this recipe? It totally didn't stick while cooking. Bitchin'.

Fried Tempeh with Almond Sauce, with Assorted Salads
So I had defrosted tempeh on Monday without a definite idea of what I planned to do with it. I finally decided on some fried tempeh and some kind of peanut-type sauce. So while I fried up the tempeh in peanut oil, I found a recipe for peanut sauce in Vegan Planet. It was AWESOME! Oh, but I subbed almond butter for the peanut, just to see what it would be like (plus, the toddler could eat it without me worrying). I served this over leftover diced baked potatoes (remind me never to buy a 5 lb bag of potatoes ever again - we just don't eat them fast enough!). On the side is Quinoa Black Bean Salad and a basic green salad with balsamic maple vinaigrette that I made up on the fly. A satisfying meal all around, and I definitely need to copy that sauce recipe before I return that cookbook to the library!

Leftovers Extraordinaire
Do you love to transform leftovers into something totally new? Me too. So this is some leftover quinoa with steamed broccoli and peas and some AWESOME smoked cubed tofu (Soy Boy, I think?) with leftover almond (peanut) sauce. Soooooo good! I'm going to have to buy stock in that tofu, it is outrageous, and so easy to deal with - it's ready to eat out of the package. The toddler is also a huge fan, so yay protein. I had this for dinner last night and lunch today, it was THAT good.

Slow Cooker Seitan Pot Roast


It's been a Robin Robertson kind of week here, what with this meal and the awesome peanut sauce recipe from Vegan Planet! Ok, that picture above of the whole deal IN the crockpot looks a little scary (brains!?!), so here's what the plated version was like:


Much less brain-y. It was soooo good! God, there is nothing like having that warm, secure feeling of knowing that dinner will be ready just by lifting the lid of the crockpot! This took about 7-10 minutes to prepare this morning before Chad left for work, and then voila! It was ready when he got home. This was sorely needed today, because none of us are sleeping well since Silas has a cough and was coughing ALL. NIGHT. LONG. At about 15 minute intervals, so you'd *just* fall asleep and then COUGH! HACK HACK! COUUUUUGH!

But I digress. (It's the sleep deprivation). This was an awesome, hearty meal. I will definitely be making this again. It was my first try at seitan in the crock, and I'm really glad it worked out, because seriously, what could be easier? I think next time I'll try to make the seitan dough more "roast-y," this time I made it kind of flat to cover the veggies so it was kind of thin and disc-shaped. Just an aesthetic thang.

Random Baking
Oh, and I did make some cookies that didn't last long enough for photos - 2 batches of Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies. I think I could eat a batch a day, seriously. I made one with regular chips and one with carob, so the dudes could partake. Chad was very impressed. The carob was actually really good, very malty, not chalky at all. Although now he is wondering if he has a carob allergy because he was getting the fluttery allergy feeling after eating them. ARGH! This chocolate lover can't win. :/

Pizza and some other things

Pizza night! I cheated a little and used a Trader Joe's regular refrigerated crust, and it was dang tasty. I topped it with leftover pesto (VwaV), sundried tomatoes, sauteed portabello mushrooms, leftover pine nut cream sauce (Vcon) and, obviously, sliced tomatoes. It was a really awesome combo. The pesto was nice and fatty and kept it from seeming dry, and the pine nut cream sauce dolloped on was just the touch of creaminess that was needed to imitate some cheese factor. I would most certainly make this combo again, it was deeeeelicious.

Power Lunch
I thought my lunch today was kind of impressive looking, so I decided to photograph it. The funny thing is, it took about 2 minutes to put together since it was leftovers. This is Quinoa Black Bean Salad that I got from Jenny at Vegetarian Adventure over romaine and baby spinach, with a whole wheat pita stuffed with tofu salad and sliced cucumbers. Oh, and some baby carrots. Cuz you can never have enough carrots. I looooooooove tofu salad, and I don't really follow a recipe any more, just add veganaise, relish, mustard, salt and turmeric to taste. I like it super creamy in these pitas, it's the perfect comb. The quinoa salad was a tasty surprise and used up a bunch of stuff that needed using up. And come on, it just looks beautiful and healthy, right? I felt healthier having just looked at it.

Of course, I had to sabotage that all by finishing the last 4 chocolate chip cookies from the other day. They had become really crispy and required dunking, and unsweetened almond milk is THE ticket for that. I can actually drink that stuff by the glass! I've never really been able to get into soymilk by the glass, it always set my stomach off just a little. Not so with my new love, almond milk - that stuff is smooth and fabulous and just the right consistency.

More Pancakes, Cookies and Eating Out

So we enjoyed Carrie's Powerhouse Pancake recipe so much that we decided to make it again - with blueberries! This was a major leap of faith for two reasons: 1)Every freaking time I try to make blueberry pancakes, they end up sticking to the pan and basically disintegrating, which results in much swearing, spatula flinging and general tantrum throwing and 2) we only had frozen blueberries, and I wasn't sure how they would work.

So I whipped up a double batch of batter (using only 1 T of applesauce and 3 of oil because I ran out of sauce). I poured my frozen blueberries into a measuring cup for easy access. And instead of mixing the berries into the batter, I used this magic trick: I poured the batter in to the pan to form pancakes, let sit for a few seconds AND THEN added the blueberries, by hand. I know this seems a little crazy or OCD, but it resulted in AWESOME pancakes that didn't stick AT ALL! This is the best trick ever. I remember reading it in that kid's cookbook by Mollie Katzen.

Pancakes a-cookin'

The finished product! I need to work on my garnish skills, they are obviously lacking, but luckily this did not impact the awesomeness of these pancakes. We did have sliced kiwi with these, but I didn't get them in the photo.And since we had a double batch, we got to have these two days in a row! Nothing like waking up and having pancake batter waiting for your loving attention in the fridge. Say it with me: Gooooooooo, Pancakes!

Eating Out
Yesterday we took an impromptu trip to Ann Arbor, because it was a nice day and we wanted to go for an outdoorsy walk AND I've been wanting to go to Seva, a vegetarian restaurant there. So we got to the walking place first (The Matthai Botanical Gardens) and of course, Silas fell asleep like 2.3 minutes before we got there. So Chad went for a walk and I read in the car while Silas slept. Which was fine, I didn't mind sitting in the sun reading and listening to the Canada Geese honking.

Then we went to Seva. I was so excited, it's a cool little place not far from UM campus, and even though I had been once before it was like 3 years ago and I barely remembered it. Everything vegan on the menu is marked, and so many things sounded so delicious. However, it is pretttty pricey. Like lunch entrees in the $9-15 range! I don't know, maybe I'm just cheap, but those seemed more like dinner prices to me. After much hemming and hawing over what to order, we both decided on getting the lunch special, which was half sandwich and a salad and we also each got a fresh juice from the juice bar. I decided on the BBQ Eggplant sandwich with sweet potato fries and salad with creamy dill dressing, and Chad got the Persea sandwich (open faced with sprouts, mushrooms, onion and guacamole - and he forgot to say no cheese, whoops) with regular fries and thai dressing on his salad.

Ok, so overall it was a fairly pleasant experience. My sandwich was tasty and spicy, and it wasn't something I normally would make for myself. Chad said his was ok, and he thought I could have easily made it at home and probably better. That was one of my big disappointments: a bunch of the stuff on the menu that was vegan I felt like could have so easily made myself. Like one was a tofurkey wrap - um, I make those all the time. They also did a tempeh wrap - same deal. And I don't think they're $9 when I do it. I'm exaggerating a little, because the sandwiches did come with fries AND someone else is obviously doing the work, but still. I don't know, I guess I was expecting some more creativity or innovation or something. Alas, we are still in Michigan, so I don't know why I got my hopes up that high. ;)

Second, I wasn't overly excited about our server (ok, if you work in hospitality, would it KILL YOU to crack a smile? Once? I was so excited to be there, and her energy was a total downer). Maybe she was having a bad day, I don't know. It was just kind of a bummer.

But maybe it was a good thing overall to have a mediocre experience - now I won't be jonesing for Seva constantly, and suggesting we take 90-mile round-trip excursions just for a veggie restaurant.

Oh, but I will say this: the dessert we got was AWESOME. We took it to go and had it last night and it was fabulous. It was a vegan cream tart with mixed berries. When I read tart I expected a mini-tart or pie, but it was basically a slice of vegan cheese cake with berry compote. It didn't look like much, but the cheesecake was rich and delicious and didn't have a weird tofu taste or grainy consistency and I don't know what they did to the berries but they were the perfect complement to the creamy tart/cake.

Neeeewwwww Cookbook!
We also stopped by Borders (we have a $50 Gift Card! I know all about independent bookstores, seriously, put the flame-throwers away!) and looked at kid's books, but we couldn't commit to any. So I decided to mosey up to the vegetarian cooking section (heeheehee) and just happened to find this:

Yayayayay! I've been waiting on hold for this book at my library FOREVER. Months. So I just decided, WTF, I'm using this freaking gift card, dammit! I love cookbooks, and as you know, I've been really inspired by Colleen's podcast, Vegetarian Food For Thought, so I was very psyched to try this book.

So when we got home, I made these:Oatmeal Raisin Cookies! Except I couldn't find my raisins, so I used dried blueberries, to the benefit of all, really. Chad doesn't really like raisins in his oatmeal cookies, and the blueberries were really subtle. This made a HUGE batch, like 4 dozen! I sent a dozen home with my neighbor (heh heh, subtly taking over the world with vegan baking!), and we have 2 dozen baked and ready to go (which should last about 2 days) and I also have over a dozen in the freezer, ready to be baked at a moment's notice! They were really tasty. I think next time I might cut back on the amount of oatmeal just a bit, they were pretty oat-y and dense. But really, really good overall.

There are so many delicious sounding treats in this book, I'm sure you'll be seeing a bunch in the future!

Some Food and Stuff

So we had the east coast flu plague here - in fact, Chad is suffering its effects right now which is why I'm ready to throw the toddler OUT THE WINDOW...but I promise I won't. Seriously.

Vietnamese Seitan Sandwiches with 5-Spice Dipping Sauce
These are my new favorite sandwich. They are so tasty! All the different flavors together - it's seriously like a party in your mouth. The basics are baguette with veganaise (and don't skimp!) then some fried seitan, some cilantro sprigs, some red onion and some peeled cucumber, sliced thin and long (not circles, strips). Then the dipping sauce is some broth, garlic, red chili flakes, ginger and 5-spice powder. It is just so awesome, kind of like having vegan au jus. I love just about anything you can dip, though. Thank you, Veganomicon!!! I never would have come up with this one on my own.

Isa Pizza Turned Vcon-inspired Lasagna

Ok, so the picture really doesn't do it justice, but this was awesome! I was too busy shoveling it into my mouth to take a picture of an individual slice. So I was going to make Isa Pizza - I had TJ's dough to use up. So I made the sauce, pesto and tofu ricotta from Vegan with a Vengeance. I get ready to roll out the dough and I realize it ain't happenin'. I left it on the stove to come to room temp, but it was too hot and the bottom half sort of half-cooked in the bag. Blech! What to do!?! So much work, for nothing! Then I realized I had pretty much what I needed for a lasagna, so I got out my no-cook noodles (god, I love those things) and set up my assembly line. I used a little pesto in the second "cheese" layer, but I have a lot leftover for rice salad or pasta or pizza another night. Then I baked it a while, then added the V-con pine nut cream sauce for the last 15 minutes - the white cracked stuff in the picture above. YUM! That stuff is the bomb. So creamy and delicious. A very satisfying lasagna, I would definitely make it again. I have to remind myself (often) that lasagna isn't really a big deal to make, especially when using those magic noodles. It always feels like it will take 5 hours, but it really takes like an hour and 15 minutes, including cooking time.

Carrie's Magic Powerhouse Pancakes

So I wanted pancakes this morning, but I've struck out the last couple times I've made them. My fellow blogger Carrie at Adventures in Vegetarianism posted a recipe the other day that sounded good, so I popped over there and found it. They were AWESOME! I will definitely make these again, probably doubling or tripling the batch so that I can have ready batter in the fridge for successive days (ever tried that? It's a great trick. The "dough" has time to really relax so the pancakes are awesome and fluffy and magic). We had these with maple syrup and apple slices. Yay for pancakes!

In other news, Chad was able to master the Whatchamyballs recipe and made a batch that we devoured in like 1.2 days.

Oh and just a note - we went to Trader Joe's Today and I got some of those Vegetable Gyoza that I keep reading about over at theppk.com - and they are SOOOOO GOOOOD! That's all.

Tagged?!?

Ack! I've been tagged.

First, sorry for the no-posts. I got a yucky icky virus, then Silas the toddler got a yucky icky virus so we've been cleaning ourselves up and resting around here.

Second, Carrie over at Adventures in Vegetarianism has tagged me, that wily lass! So basically, I get to share with you 5 things you probably don't know about me. Then I'm supposed to tag 5 people to do the same, but seriously folks, I don't think I "know" 5 bloggers well enough to do it. But I'll do what I can! ;)

Rules:
Link to your tagger and post these rules.
Share 5 facts about yourself.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

1. I sing and play guitar. Sometimes in front of people. Performing at open mics have been known to happen. I started playing when I was 15 and somehow never forgot, even though months can go by where "there's dust on my guitar."

2. I'm a REALLY GOOD burper. Seriously. I can't burp the alphabet or anything, but I've got scary deep, loud burps that would knock your socks off. In fact, I won a burping contest in high school, and I have video footage to prove it.

3. I loooooove science fiction. I'm a total SF geek. I've even been to a science fiction/fantasy conference!!! It's true. It wasn't a trekkie thing, just a celebration of all things geeky and science fiction-y. It was SO FUN. I'm planning on going to another one in April.

4. I was salutatorian of my high school class.

5. I'm naturally very flexible.

Ok, so I tag McMama, even though I think she's recently done a similar meme...and Veganf even though she has no idea who I am...

Seriously, I'm a NOTORIOUS lurker. The blogs I read are either high traffic or I'm lame and never comment, so the authors would be all "WTF? Who is this person?"

So my new year's resolution is to now start commenting on more people's blogs. ;)

Ok, I promise to update soon with food...I have a few new pics to post and I have been cooking despite illness. But right now my services are being requested in toddler form - "Mama! Book! Nigh-nights!" So, nigh-night for now.

Vegan Baking Weekend!

Homestyle Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Mmm, my house smells like chocolate chip cookies! With no animal products! These cookies are so freaking amazing, I think I might have to make them weekly. And let me say that that is a lot of cookies, because I'm the only one in the house who can eat chocolate! Chad's allergic, and because of that we're keep Silas away from chocolate until he's a little older. Luckily this recipe only makes 11-12 cookies, so it's not too bad. They're sooo good, I might only eat cookies today! Seriously, these are like tollhouse cookies, just perfect. I'm so in love.

So how can you enjoy these fabulous cookies? They are courtesy of Dreena Burton, author of Eat, Drink and Be Vegan and Vive Le Vegan and The Everyday Vegan. She also has a blog, eat, drink and be vegan and a recipe blog, Dreena's Vegan Recipes. It all looks delicious!

You can find the recipe for these cookies here. OR! Even better, you can watch a show of Dreena making these cookies here! They are simple and delicious. Make them!

Dreena's Apple Hemp Muffins

As I'm blogging this I've come to realize that I'm having a Dreena kind of weekend. ;) Friday morning I woke up and whipped up a batch of Apple Hemp Muffins, which are awesome. They are tender and subtle, not too sweet, perfect for the morning with a cup of coffee or green tea. Or a snack in the middle of the day with some chocolate almond milk! The recipe can be found in the Mar/Apr 2008 edition of VegNews. I would definitely make these again. Those little hemp seeds are nutritional powerhouses and this recipe is GREAT for using up applesauce that might be on the verge of going bad in your fridge (it uses a whole cup).

Chickpea Navy Bean Cutlets!

So earlier in the week I cooked up a big batch of navy beans (like a whole pound). The original use was for White Been Leek Cassoulet from Veganomicon - which was awesome! But it certainly didn't use up the whole batch of beans, so I've been throwing them in things all week. So last night as I was trying to decide what to make for dinner, I wondered if any other bean would work in the Chickpea Cutlet recipe from Veganomicon....and the answer is yes, navy beans are your friends! I followed the original recipe exactly, except instead of mashing the beans with a potato masher, I blended them in the food processor with the oil - those little buggers kept slipping through my potato masher unscathed. This went a lot faster than mashing, anyway, and I might do this in the future for whatever bean I use. I've also found that these cutlets - whatever bean you use - are improved by being very, very thin. And because they have vital wheat gluten in them you can really pat them thin without the risk of falling apart on their way in to the frying pan. So smoosh the crap out of those suckers, baby! Thinner! Thinner! Yes, really, they can be thinner than that, keep going!

We had these with smashed red potatoes and a side green salad. Oh, and the red wine roux from V-con. Which was kind of a pain to make and not really worth the effort, imho. Although our mediocre results could certainly be from the quality of the wine we used, or lack-thereof as the case may be. It was seriously bad. Undrinkable. I think it was a bargain bin purchase, and now I know why. No legs at all, just so flat flat flat! But other than that, it was a good meal. And some ruby port after dinner was a nice way to quickly forget how bad the wine was.

Oh yeah! One more thing I made that I unfortunately didn't get pictures of....The original title of the recipe was something like Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars, and it's by Collen Patrick-Goudreau out of the Mar/Apr 2008 issue of VegNews. The original recipe is basically peanut-buttery rice crispy treats covered in a layer of chocolate. Ok, sounds awesome, right? Well....Silas isn't eating peanut butter yet, so we subbed Cashew Butter. And Chad's allergic to chocolate, so nix the topping. So after getting everything else mixed together and pressing it into the pan, we realized that they probably weren't going to cut or hold shape without the chocolate topping. So we threw it back in the bowl and rolled them into little no-bake balls instead. OH MY GOD. These things were so freaking good! Chad and I agreed that they taste really similar to the peanutty goodness of the Whatchamacalit candybar. And because of this, we would like to rename our version Watchamyballs. Hahaha! No, but seriously, you have to try them!

Whatchamaballs
2 cups of crispy brown rice cereal, crushed
1 1/2 cups cashew butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup earth balance margarine, melted
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Roll small balls of the dough in your hands to form whatever sized balls you like. Try not to eat them in one sitting. Store leftovers in the fridge!

For some reason Chad convinced himself that they're healthy so we ate these in no time flat. "What, they're all cashew butter and brown rice! What could be better?" And I'm thinking, yeah, healthy....powdered sugar and margarine, part of the four food groups...But really, it's a pretty good compromise.

So now I've got the house to myself for a while. I'm so psyched! I'm planning on hanging out in my sunny kitchen, listening to cool podcasts, planning this week's meals and cooking. What could be more relaxing! :D

Yummy pasta goodness

Tonight I broke out the Veganomicon to try out the Penne Vodka. Great stuff!


I (obviously) didn't have penne, but Barilla Plus Elbows stood in just fine, and so did dry roasted almonds for the regular almonds. This was tasty, easy and quick, and I will definitely make it again. Just have to make sure that I have fresh basil around, because it is absolutely necessary in my opinion. We also had a green salad with a balsamic-maple dressing that I threw together and garlic rubbed toast with Earth Balance. And Chad and I split a Ruination IPA. Oh the awesomeness abounds!

The State of Affairs of Operation Go Vegan
So I've listened to even more Vegetarian Food for Thought Podcasts, which I'm convinced would change anyone's mind. They're so well-reasoned and straightforward.

I also checked out The Vegan Sourcebook by Jo Stepaniak, and I've been enjoying it a great deal.

Every time I think of cheese, I imagine baby calves crying out for their mothers, and the mothers bellowing for their babies.

Every time I think of eggs, I imagine an emaciated hen that had to endure forced moulting, where she was starved for up to 14 days without food or water.

And I've also been really interested/disgusted to really REALLY comprehend that the egg and dairy industry all rely on the enslavement of the female reproductive system. As a feminist and a mother, I just can't participate in that anymore. I imagine how I would feel in their stead, and I don't know how anyone can think it's ok.

I think of science fiction stories and books where these kinds of things are done to humans and how it takes that kind of mirror for us to see the sickness of the situation. I'm thinking of this one Twilight Zone episode where an astronaut lands on an alien world, and is taken in by the aliens (who appear to be just like humans). They build him a house and it looks just like the house he grew up in, and he is so excited about it and meeting the aliens. At the end of the episode it's revealed that the man is confined to that house forever - he's an exhibit in the aliens' zoo.

The last time we tried this vegan experiment we had all kinds of caveats. We would cook vegan at home but not hold ourselves to an "impossible" standard when eating out. The Midwest is not exactly a bastion of vegan living, after all. We were coming at it from a health perspective, not an ethical one. Now I'm really coming at it from an ethical, health AND environmental angle. It's all encompassing. But this is a hard life choice - this is a non-vegan world, after all. And I'm coming to realize that unless ethics is at the forefront of this choice then it is far too easy to slip, to make excuses. To convince yourself that this one ice cream cone, this one pizza, this one eggplant parmesan isn't going to kill you. And really, it won't kill you. But it will/did sign the death warrant of many, many animals. And the bottom line is that they just don't need to suffer terrible hardships and die just for my convenience. Because that's what it is. My convenience.

I know that this is heavy and annoying, and probably nobody is still reading. I just need to work through these issues for myself. Everything has been rolling around in my head for the past few days, and I just needed to "get it down on paper," if you will.

I just picked up Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry by Gail A. Eisnitz from the library. And I have to confess: I am scared of reading it. I've seen the PETA videos, I've heard accounts about how the animals "live" in factory farm conditions. I'm still nervous about this book for some reason. But I'm going to read it anyway.

That's all for now!

Maybe vegan, again?

Several things have happened lately.

First: I've been listening to Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's podcast, Food For Thought. Colleen is the founder of Compassionate Cooks, which she founded to help educate people about the many benefits of a vegan diet. Her podcasts are AWESOME. She is super articulate, well-informed, and like the title says, compassionate. None of that snarky holier-than-thou crap that is so often a part of other vegan podcasts (*coughcoughveganfreakscoughcough*). She doesn't ramble on about her friends or what she did this weekend. These podcasts are professional - she's put a lot of time and effort into organizing her thoughts on the topic at hand. She's no-nonsense, down-to-earth, and I LOVE that her message is to *do the best you can*. It's not about being perfect, it's about doing what you can to live your life and alleviate the suffering of others. I highly encourage you to listen to her podcast, it's just really awesome. I especially like her thoughts about "excuse-itarians" - where she refers to a lot of the popular food writers right now, like Micheal Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver and Alice Waters and members of the Slow-Food Movement making meat-eating, not so much more en vogue as trying to cast it as more morally palatable by making weird darwinian arguments or saying things like "we have to eat them in order to protect the breed." I'm not getting into it here, but if you want to read more, check out this article or this article or Colleen's podcast episode "The Rise of the Excuse-itarian" from 10/26/2006.

Anyway.

This eating thing is a journey. I went from being mostly vegan last year at this time back to vegetarianism as I became more interested in eating locally. Because soymilk, tempeh, soy yogurt, egg replacer? Not able to get it locally. And I really, really, REALLY love the idea of supporting small, local farmers and NOT giant corporations. I love shopping at the farmer's market. I love being a part of a CSA. But what I'm coming to realize is that just because I *can* get it locally doesn't mean I should. Because, yeah, those chickens that lay the eggs that I buy might really be free range. BUT, that same farm also sells dead chickens for eating. Duh. Why did I not put this together before?! It's not cool. I think I just fell victim to the ideal of the small, organic farm; I had it in my head that this naturally meant no cruelty, no killing. Or at least no pain. Or they did some magic dance to erase the actual *killing* of another sentient creature that goes on. But. The chickens that they sell? I bet they would have chosen living. And as much as I want to, I'm having a hard time thinking my way out of the fact that the veal industry is THE (not A) natural outcome of the dairy industry. And another image/feeling I can't let go of is the separation of the calf from it's mother, just so we can have the mother's milk. As a nursing mother, I am literally nauseated at the thought. That poor baby, that poor mother, who want nothing more than the comfort of the other...Ugh.

And again, anyway. Another thing that has been coming up is a thread on a message board I frequent (MotheringDotCommune). A woman asked the question "Is human/ethical lacto-ovo vegetarianism possible?" And my first thought was to say, "Yes, of course it is, what a silly question." But the more I tried to think my way - very explicitly - through the set of conditions in which it would be possible, the more I realized how very far from that set of conditions I was living. For instance, if I could have my own hens and provide a place for the roosters to live, I would eat those eggs. Or if I could find a supplier which met those, conditions, no problem. Chickens lay eggs, it doesn't hurt them, it's cool. But the mass production of eggs? It's not cool. I won't/don't need to get into it here, but for a little view of why, check out Colleen's podcast from 1/22/2008 "I Only Eat White Meat." (And I know I'm referring to Colleen a lot, like I've taken her on as my own personal guru - I haven't. I have known all these things in the past. They're just the kind of thing you want to forget so that you can live your life of convenience and cheap, easy pleasures. She's just reminded me of what I've known since I was 18 and chose veganism for the first time.)

My husband is nervous about the prospect of "going vegan" again. Nervous for Silas, nervous that we can't got out to eat here in Meat And Potatoes Land, which is a real concern since going out to eat is part of what we call the "sanity tax" of surviving in Metro Detroit (i.e. this place sucks so much that we have to distract ourselves from it by doing stuff like going out to eat). These are concerns, but they very easily worked around. Silas, thank dog, is a GREAT eater of many delicious, vegan foods. I don't think he'll really miss the cheese or yogurt. And he's always hated milk (except for mama's!) so no worries there. The going out to eat thing? Well, I've done it before. It's a lot of question-asking, going out for ethnic food, and hummus on bagels. It's doable. And it's a lot of cooking at home, which I LOVE to do anyway.

As an aside - Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon partially alone in my house, in my sunny warm kitchen listening to Colleen and cooking up a storm. I can imagine no greater pleasure than educating myself which simultaneously engaging in a creative act that's natural outcome is delicious and nurturing foods for my family to enjoy. It was wonderful. Bonus that a toddler wasn't screaming for my attention every 28 seconds!

I'm rambling. I guess what I'm trying to say is: There's been a shake-up in our kitchen. I'm not sure where all the chips are going to fall, but I think you can see where this is headed. I've dusted off my copy of Becoming Vegan, I've stalked, purchased and practically made love to my copy of Veganomicon, and I've put Slaughterhouse on my to-read list.

Can we have a Maybe Local Vegan? Stay tuned.

A Pretty Dang Local Thanksgiving

AKA DDELC #6
So Thanksgiving was a blast! Here was our menu:

Bryanna Clark Gorgan's Soy and Seitan "Turkey" (not local but homemade!)
Mashed Yukon Gold Potatoes (local potatoes, half and half)
Cornbread stuffing (local cornmeal, celery, onion, sage)
Good Gravy (local thyme, milk)
Steamed Brussels Sprouts (local sprouts)
Cranberry relish (local cranberries)
Buttermilk-Blueberry Pie (local buttermilk, blueberries, eggs)
Maple Pumpkin Pie (local pumpkin, half and half, eggs)
Potato Rosemary Rolls (non-local, but homemade)


Everything was delicious! We were especially in love with the "turkey" - it is amazing to find that you can make you're own tofurkey like product for so cheap and with so little effort - and the results are way better than tofurkey! Seriously, I think the whole roast cost us about $5 in ingredients and fed us for well over 4 days - some of those days more than one meal. And the toddler LOVED it. We will definitely be making this again - like maybe once a week until the end of time. And supposedly they freeze well, too. Yay!

I would also like to add that I made both of my piecrusts from scratch this year - I've NEVER made piecrust before and I was a little worried. Then I saw Martha Stewart on Wednesday and she made it look soooooo easy to roll it out and whatnot that on Thursday, I was like "This will be a piece of cake! Or pie!" Fast forward several hours, hissyfits and globs of dough flung across the kitchen in fits of rage....The goddamn dough kept sticking to EVERYTHING! Yes, even after I refrigerated it! And froze it! Goddamn dough! Then I remembered reading somewhere that I could roll it out between pieces of plastic wrap, so I gave that a whirl as a last goddamn chance...and it worked. Beautifully. As if I had never squished the everloving shit out of the dough in frustration nor thrown in at my window in despair. It all came out beautifully. So note to self: use the goddamn plastic wrap, you idiot. Save some years on your life.

I would also like to say how awesome and easy it was to make REAL homemade pumpkin pie! With a pumpkin! And no cans of any kind of milk, just real, local half and half! It was a miracle, and so delicious. Definitely making that one again!

DDELC Week #5

Meal #1: Ok, this doesn't totally fall into my guidelines for local-ness, because we had a lot of non-local spices and such, but the bulk ingredient of each piece of this meal was local, so I'm letting it in! The coconut creamed spinach was so good I thought I would die of deliciousness. I've never been a huge fan of creamed spinach, but this was a totally different animal!

Cumin-Lime Tofu: ok so the bulk of this was local tofu (Ann Arbor, MI - 40 mi) and the marinade was totally non-local (cumin, evoo, allspice, braggs, lime juice, cayenne pepper). Oh and local honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)

Dumpling Squash (Capac, MI - 51 mi)
Organic Butter (non-local)*
S&P

Coconut Creamed Spinach
Spinach and Garlic (Yale, MI - 65 mi)
Dried Chilies (non local but soooo old)
Coconut Milk (non local but leftover from another meal the day before)
EVOO, S&P - nonlocal

Meal #2: So delicious! I'm in love with my newest cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. The black bean cutlets (and the black beans themselves), and the broccoli recipes were both from there and totally freaking awesome! I can't believe how easy and delicious the cutlets were. I'm never buying veggie burgers ever again.

Black Bean Cutlets:
Black beans, oatmeal, eggs: Kingston, MI (83 mi)
onion: Yale, MI (65 mi)
chili powder, salt & pepper: non-local
Gravy:
mostly water, with backyard thyme and non-local braggs, cornstarch s&p
Roman-style broccoli
Broccoli: local farm, can't remember where in MI
Garlic: Yale, MI (65 mi)
Chilies: non-local but in the pantry forever
evoo, s&p: non-local

Delicata squash with Honey Butter: Yale, MI (65 mi)
Honey: Davisburg, MI (41 mi)
Butter: non-local organic valley*

Meal #3

Victory is mine! I've been looking for a good vegetarian bean sausage recipe forever - most use soy (which is fine, but highly processed and not usually local). So I took the black bean burger recipe from the other night and paired it with the seasonings of a tempeh sausage recipe I like. The results were fabulous!

Black Bean Sausage
2 cups beans (or 1 14-oz can) drained (Kingston, MI 83 mi)
1/2 medium onion (Yale, MI 41 mi)
2 cloves garlic (Battle Creek, MI 118 mi)
2 T Braggs (or soy or tamari) (non-local)
1 egg (Kingston, MI 83 mi)
1/2-3/4 cup rolled oats (not instant) (Kingston, MI 83 mi)
1 T fennel seeds (non-local)
1 t dried basil (Dirty Girl Farm, ??? MI)
1 t dried oregano (Dirty Girl Farm, ??? MI)
1/2 t dried sage (Dirty Girl Farm, ??? MI)
1/2 t red pepper flakes (non-local)

Put everything in a food processor and pulse until chunky, adding a little water or onion if it's too dry or more oats if it's too wet (to test, just grab a small handful and try to form it into a sausage patty - it should stay formed reasonably well and not be too gloppy).

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add 1-2 T olive oil. When hot, add as many sausage patties as will fit (leaving room to flip over). Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over each of the patties while they fry. After about 5 minutes, flip over and salt and pepper the other sides. Cook until the other side browns, about 4-5 minutes more.

These are so good and easy. IF you don't feel like frying up the whole batch at once, just pop the mix in the fridge and fry it up as you need. The mixture even holds together a little better after it's been refrigerated. Just use within 2-3 days probably.

I'm totally psyched to keep messing with this recipe - different beans, different spices...I really want to add some chipotle pepper next time (dried or canned in adobo?). I love recipes with endless possibilities!

We had these sausages with local scrambled eggs. YUM!


*The butter debate: I was really conflicted whether to buy local non-organic butter of unknown production methods rather than non-local organic butter. At this point, I'm going with the non-local organic valley butter. The whole point of this local thing is that I'm trying to tread more lightly on the earth, and if I have no idea how sustainable the animal husbandry practices are of a particular non-organic farm (and we can probably assume the worst unless I could find it directly from a farmer, which I can't), then I feel good about supporting the farmers that contribute to the Organic Valley coop. From what I've read about it (and maybe it's all just PR), they support small farmers and sustainable methods. Plus, I've also heard that the conventional fallout like pesticides and herbicides are more concentrated in fat cells, so butter is something to really buy organic. So that's my reasoning at the moment. Subject to change.

Dark Days ELC Meal #4

The star of this week's local menu was Curried Butternut Squash Soup! I got the idea from Laura of Urban Hennery, the lovely hostess of the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge.

I started with a winter squash soup recipe out of How to Cook Everything and then "currified" it, adding 1 tsp of curry powder, 1 tsp of freshly ground coriander and a splash of lime juice. Other than that and 1/4 tsp of marjoram, the soup was allllll local, with apples, squash, onion, milk and butter all from well within 100 miles. The soup turned out sweet and tart and mysterious. YUM!

Other local fare that we enjoyed this week included Maple Baked Beans, with the star of the show being local navy beans from Hampshire Farms in Kingston, MI. The recipe came out of Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson, and although I've been generally happy with the book as a whole, I was NOT a fan of this recipe. They were sooooo sweet that it made my stomach turn as soon as the beans hit my tongue - blech. I tried to tame the cloying beans by adding different vinegars and even some liquid smoke, but nothing really saved them. I'm not sure what I'll do differently next time - probably abandon this recipe altogether and try a different one. Any good veggie baked bean recipes out there than you could recommend darling readers?

Although it was probably only 50% local, we also enjoyed some Chickpea Noodle Soup this week, where I substituted leftover cooked navy beans for the chickpeas. This is a great vegetarian faux-chicken noodle soup recipe, I highly recommend it! In addition to the local navy beans, this soup also starred local carrots, onions, mushrooms and garlic.

We also made a fairly mediocre Gingerbread Apple Pie featuring all local apples and butter, from the cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance. It was just really bland! And the gingerbread crust kind of burned, even though we followed the directions. Oh well. The local cinnamon ice cream helped to ameliorate my disappointment.

And, of course, we've been having lots of local breakfasts featuring local eggs and bread. And speaking of bread, I'm feeling bitten by the bread bug, so some fresh homemade bread may make an appearance on the menu this weekend. Whether or not I use the bread machine will all depend on the terror known as Silas, the toddler.

I'm hoping that this next week's meals are a little less disappointing....wish me luck!

Dark Days ELC, Meal #3

Hello, hello!

This week here at Maybe Local, we enjoyed a really delicious meal of Portabello Stroganoff with Roasted Roots on the side.



Portabello Stroganoff Breakdown

• 3 tablespoons butter (40 mi)
  
• 1 large onion, chopped (CSA)
  
• 3/4 pound portobello mushrooms, sliced (farmer's market - local)
  
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth (non-local)
  
• 1/2 cups sour cream (173 miles)
  
• 2.5 tablespoons all-purpose flour (Hampshire Farms, 83 mi)
  
• 1 Squeeze Braggs (non-local)
• 1 tsp veggie worchestshire sauce (non-local)
• 1 splash white wine (non-local)
  
• 8 ounces dried egg noodles (produced in MI from ingredients with unknown pedigrees - my 1 freebie per meal)
  

I followed the directions pretty much as written, except I added the braggs, worchestshire sauce and wine with the veggie broth, and reduced the sour cream as others on allrecipes.com had suggested. It was GREAT! We will definitely have this again. Next time I'm thinking of adding beef-style seitan - wicked good!

Roasted Roots

• 4 carrots, peeled and chunked (local - farmer's market)
• 3 parsnips, peeled and chunked (local - farmer's market)
• 1 onion, cut in wedges (CSA)
• 1 handful of small beets, halved/quartered (CSA)
• 1 delicata squash, peeled and chunked (CSA)
• Olive Oil (non-local)
• 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary (backyard!)
• s&p (non-local)

Basically I just combined all of the above and threw it in the oven for about an hour at 375. I stirred things around a few times.

And although I reserved my squash seeds for roasting, I didn't use them in this meal, so no bonus squash points for me!

Other delicous local endeavors this week have included: Ratatouille (local peppers, onions, garlic, eggplant and tomatoes baked in olive oil and herbs - yum!). We're still enjoying those leftovers. I also made a pretty local apple crisp that has been rocking our socks - although it would be slightly enhanced if we weren't out of cinnamon ice cream (from our favorite local producer!). There's a road construction issue that's standing in our way of ice cream, and it's not pretty.

Tomorrow should be another local success: Maple Baked Beans and collard greens! I've got the navy beans cooking in the crock tonight (local from Hampshire Farms! I freaking love that place). Tomorrow I'll get the beans "baking" in their maple-y goodness and figure out how the hell to make collard greens. Any tips would be appreciated!

I'm really looking forward to the farmer's market tomorrow. I never knew how much it could anchor the whole week. Tomorrow we're in need of some onions, garlic and eggs and whatever else is inspiring. Oh and portabellos! And maybe squash, because, can you ever really have enough winter squash?!?

And I'd also like to report that there have been no breakdowns in mental health despite the fact that our CSA has ended. This was our first Tuesday in many many weeks that we did not pick up a share. I know I'll miss it, but I'm actually just enjoying the freedom right now of only eating veggies that I'm in the mood for. There are just only so many peppers, eggplants and arugula that a girl can eat, you know?

Aaagh! I'm Late!

Posting my Dark Days Eat Local Challenge Meal, #2. I don't know what happened, just one of those weeks that got the better of me.


The Menu:
Roasted Kuri Squash with honey butter
Honey Baked Lentils
Steamed Broccoli
Green Salad

We picked up the Kuri squash at the farmer's market yesterday, having never tried one and feeling the need to buy some of the amazingly cool looking squash on offer. The broccoli and red romaine lettuce for the salad were also purchased the day we ate them, which is cool and made them extra delicious!

Recipes:

Roasted Kuri Squash
Serves 4

1 Kuri squash, halved and seeded (seeds reserved) (can't remember the distance, but local!)
Butter (non-local)
Honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)
S&P (non-local)

Preheat oven to 375. Pour some water into a 9x13" pan. Place squash, cut side down, in the pan. Roast until easily pierced with fork, about 1 hour.

Using a spoon, scrape all the squash flesh out of the shells. Use a potato masher to combine, adding butter, honey, and s&p to taste. Serve!

Honeybaked Lentils
see my last entry for the recipe!

Steamed Broccoli
Ok, I'm not going to go into it here - you all probably know how to steam broccoli! We had ours served with local sunflower seeds sprinkled on top and salt and pepper. Yum!

Our salad consisted of local red romaine lettuce and CSA arugula, which made a great mix. We had it with store bought dressing after I realized that even if I made a homemade dressing it would still be out of all non-local ingredients. ;)

All in all it was a great meal. We had enough leftover roasted squash that we made pumpkin-style squash pancakes for breakfast this morning!!!

Squash Pancakes
(adapted from this recipe on allrecipes.com)

• 2 cups local whole wheat pastry flour (Kingston, MI - 83 mi)
  
• 3 tablespoons raw honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder (non-local)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (non-local)
  
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice (non-local)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (non-local)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (non-local)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (non-local)
• 1 1/2 cups milk (Calder Dairy, local!)
  
• 1 cup kuri squash puree (local!)
  
• 1 egg (local!)
  
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (non-local)
• 2 tablespoons vinegar (non-local)

1. In a separate bowl, mix together the honey, milk, squash, egg, oil and vinegar. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, ginger and salt, stir into the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

YUMMMM! I love when my local dinner spills over into my local breakfast!

Oh, and here is a bonus mostly local meal from earlier in the week:
Spinach-Rice Casserole from the Moosewood Cookbook utilized local spinach, onion, garlic, eggs, milk and sunflower seeds (non-local butter, cheese, Braggs, salt, nutmeg, cayenne, and parika. Oh and brown rice!)

And Roasted Acorn Squash with honey butter (notice a theme here?). Good stuff!

Dark Days Eat Local Challenge, Meal #1

Well, our first DDELC meal was a total success!

Menu:
Roasted Delicata Squash with honey butter and dried cranberries
Honeybaked Lentils
Braised Brussels Sprouts
Tamari Roasted Squash Seeds

Roasted Delicata Squash
Serves 2

2 Delicata squash, halved, seeds and pulped removed and reserved (CSA - 65 mi)
2 T butter (non-local, exempt)
2 tsp honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)
2 T dried cranberries (Not sure on the distance, but they're from MI)

Preheat the oven to 375F. Place squash, cut side down, in a rimmed baking pan. Roast for 30-40 minutes, or until tender when poked with a fork.

After the squash come out of the oven, place 1/2 T of butter, 1/2 tsp of honey and 1/2 T of cranberries in each half. Serve!

Honeybaked Lentils
This recipe comes from someone on MotheringDotCommune. It is the MOST delicious way to serve lentils, hands down. If you use brown lentils (like I did), they come out the consistency of baked beans or so. If you use red lentils, expect to eat this as soup, which is just as delicious, just different.
Serves 4, or 2 with leftovers

1 cup lentils (Kingston, MI - 83 mi)
2 cups water (0 mi!)
2 tbsp honey (Davisburg, MI - 41 mi)
2 tbsp soysauce (non-local, exempt)
2 tbsp olive oil (non-local, exempt)
1/2 tsp ginger (non-local, exempt)
1 clove garlic (CSA - 65 mi)
1 small onion (CSA - 65 mi)
salt & pepper (non-local, exempt)

Option 1: Bake in a covered dish at 350 until tender (about an hour and a half).
Option 2: Put everything in a saucepan on medium-high heat. Bring to a boil. When boiling, reduce heat to simmer and cook until lentils are tender, about 40-50 minutes.

Simmered Brussels Sprouts
from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
Serves 4 or two with leftovers

1-1 1/2 lbs brussels sprouts, trimmed (CSA - 65 mi)
2 T butter or olive oil ((non-local, exempt)
1 clove garlic, smashed (CSA - 65 mi)
1 T plain breadcrumbs (non-local, freebie)
1 T lemon juice (non-local, exempt)
pinch of dried parsley (non-local, exempt)
salt and pepper (non-local, exempt)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil; salt it. Add the sprouts and keeping the heat high, boil for about 10 minutes or until just tender. Drain and plunge into cold water. Drain again.

Heat the butter or oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add the garlic and cook for a few minutes. Add the sprouts and the breadcrumbs. Stir until heated through, about 3 minutes

Remove the garlic if you want (I left it in), toss the sprouts with lemon juice, parsley and salt & pepper.

Roasted Squash Seeds
from The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz

Preheat the oven to 325F. Place the pulpy seeds in a bowl of water, and use both hands to remove chunks of pulp and fiber from the seeds. When reasonably clean, drain the seeds. Toss the seeds with your choice of seasoning (I used a squirt or two of Braggs). Spread seeds out on a cookie sheet in a single layer, and bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until seeds are lightly toasted and crispy all the way through.

Leftover Pie

Lately I've had this bee in my bonnet about using up leftovers in creative ways. So yesterday for lunch, I did something that made me slightly uncomfortable yet hopeful: I made up a recipe. Ok, ok, I don't always use recipes to the letter, but that's usually when I've made something so many times that I feel comfortable winging it or improving on the original. Yesterday for lunch I went whole hog, and just made the whole thing up as I went.

Which brings us to:

Leftover Mexican Pie!

Ingredients

Filling:
1 T EVOO
1 1/2 C pinto beans (mine were from the freezer via crockpot)
1 C leftover rice (any kind)
1 1/2 C leftover roasted vegetables (I used my ratatouille, so peppers, onions, garlic, eggplant)
2 tsp cumin
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp oregano
1 chipotle pepper, canned in adobo, minced
1/2 - 1 C shredded cheese (I used TJ's Quattro Formaggio cheese blend)

Cornbread: (recipe from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman)
1 1/4 C buttermilk, yogurt or soured milk (just mix 1 T vinegar into your milk and let it sit for a few minutes)
2 T butter or oil
1 1/2 C medium grind cornmeal
1/2 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 T sugar or honey, or more if you like sweeter cornbread
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Heat EVOO in a 10" cast iron skillet over medium heat. When warm, add all the filling ingredients EXCEPT for the cheese. Keep this on medium-low while you make the cornbread.

For the cornbread, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the soured milk, egg, sugar/honey and butter/oil. Stir to combine.

Sprinkle the cheese over the filling ingredients in the skillet. Pour the cornbread batter over the cheese. Pop it into the oven for 30 minutes, or until cornbread is just starting to turn brown on top.

Serve with green salad and/or negro modelo!

This recipe can be easily veganized if you use oil and sugar and soured soymilk in the cornbread and some egg replacer. In lieu of cheese, I'd add some salt to the filling mixture.

Serves 6-8, so we have lots of leftover leftover pie. ;)

Pizza Night

Why oh why did I forget to take a picture of our lovely pizza?!?

I know why: we were starving and stuffing our faces.

Last night we had Magical Leftover Pizza - I made whole wheat pizza dough with the aid of the bread machine, and topped it with leftover arugula pesto and chopped veggies from this weekend's oven-roasted ratatouille, and then some more TJ's Quattro Formaggio cheese blend. Delicious! I love when I can transform leftovers into something totally new and delicious. And I was worried about using up the pesto, and this did the trick.

Now I can turn last week's arugula into pesto, and we can eat the arugula coming in our CSA box today in our salads. Until next week when we get more. Although I'm really going to miss our CSA shares, I've had my fill of arugula for the year.

Speaking of CSA shares, here's what is arriving in ours today:
Acorn Winter Squash
Pie Pumpkin
Green & Red Colored Peppers (sweet)
Arugula (!!!)
Bunch of mixed Asian greens-chinese cabbage, Osaka purple mustard green, red Russian kale, minuza, tatsoi- enjoy as a salad or great to cook with.
Onion
Garlic
Apples-from Brozowski Farms Jonagolds or Empire-both a good eating apple
Ancho Pablano Hot pepper (mild heat)
Brussel Sprouts
Cabbage
Eggplant

So if anyone has any ideas for recipes for any of the above, let me know. I am super excited/scared about the pie pumpkin! I know there is a recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance that uses a pumpkin, so I may have to check that out. I've never cooked with fresh pumpkin before. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out.

Weekend Roundup

Yesterday we made it bright and early - and I mean EARLY - to the Farmer's Market. We got a parking space in no time flat, and it wasn't too crowded! It pays to be there by 8 a.m. Especially when your toddler wakes up at 6:15 a.m.

We got some lettuce, eggs, potatoes, buckwheat flour, dried cranberries, and honeycrisp apples. Not a bad haul overall. We verified that our favorite bounteous supplier of local organic dry goods (flours, oats, seeds, beans and eggs) will be at the market year round. Hampshire Farms rocks!

Saturday I spent the better part of the late morning prepping fruit to be dried. I halved and pitted about 25 italian plums and peeled, cored and sliced about 6 older apples. About 30 hours later, the apples are delicious and pliable and awesome! Our first drying endeavor is a success. Silas cannot get them into his mouth fast enough, so yay for healthy local snacks for babies. The plums have a ways to go, but they're looking more shrivelly and prune-like every hour.

I also turned 6 other older apples into a delicious, mostly local apple crisp. So good with a scoop of local vanilla ice cream!

Yesterday for lunch I made Oven Roasted Ratatouille, something I've never made (or possibly eaten) before. It turned out delicious, and it was a fabulous way to use up some of the CSA veggies that I was running out of ideas for.


Oven Roasted Ratatouille (from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman)
4 red peppers, cut in large strips
2 eggplants, sliced 1/2 in thick
2 onions, thinly sliced (I used one yellow, one red)
10 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved
4 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chunked
1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350. Layer veggies in a 9x13 pan. Sprinkle with thyme, salt & pepper and drizzle with 1/2 cup of EVOO. Bake for 1 hour. Yum!!!

We ate it over spaghetti with leftover italian baked tofu. Good stuff!

This morning Chad woke up sickish (Silas has been sick for several days with a snotty cold, yick) so I decided to try out Isa's recipe for Chickpea Noodle Soup, from the forthcoming Veganomicon for breakfast. Soup for breakfast?! I know, but we're weird like that sometimes, especially when we're sick. It freaking rocks, make it immediately!!!! It totally captures the essence of chicken noodle soup, minus the chicken. I think I added too many noodles to mine, but my husband said "is there really such a thing as too many noodles?!?" And I kind of have to agree. I'm so glad there are leftovers!