done with leftovers, on to soup

Sometime after I finished last night's post, Mister and I both decided we were hungry again.  I do think my hunger was partially due to the power of suggestion as a friend had mentioned (via Twitter) that she wanted to be hungry again so she could eat leftovers.  That got me thinking about the leftovers we had in the fridge from "greek thanksgiving," so I pulled out the broccolini, olive oil, and Mediterranean Sea Salt blend and sauteed me some greens.  I started with half the broccolini, but it was just so good, I went back and had the second half, too.  Ignoring the olive oil (I'm good at that), how many calories can a green veggie really have?

About 10 minutes after I scarfed down finished savoring the last of my broccolini, the scents wafting in from the kitchen got to Mister and I found him foraging through the fridge and cabinets.  He asked what there was to eat, I made a few suggestions, and he decided he was too lazy to eat (i.e. too lazy to make something to eat).  I asked him if he'd like me to make him something, he smiled, so I got to work reheating the last bits of Savory Sausage and Peppers in the same pan I used for my broccolini, allowing the garlic-herb-salt-tinged oil to add more flavor to the leftovers.  As that was sizzling away, I warmed up the last of the mashed potatoes in the microwave (I'll admit, I use it begrudgingly, but there have really been times that microwave has come in handy), then laid a little pillow of mashed potatoes at the bottom of a bowl and scooped the sausage melange over top and delivered it to my hungry Mister.

The only leftovers we have, well, leftover, are of the apple pie persuasion, and I believe the plan is to heat our last slices up in the oven once our bellies have emptied a bit from dinner.

Segue, anyone?

Before I started cooking tonight, there were three choices left on our 5-option menu, but I already knew I wanted to make the Caldo Verde from Vegan on the Cheap.  Today was the first day we didn't have to do anything at all and we both took full advantage of that, drinking cup after cup of the Snickerdoodle coffee I bought at a Coffee Bean out in California.

It was so good.  It was about 3:30 before either of us made any effort to do something a person could define as productive.  For me, it was taking a shower so I could go get kitty litter (yes, I live the glamorous life, try to tone down the envy).  Mister, at 3:45 PM, decided he wanted to try his luck at Black Friday so he could buy a multi-terabyte hard drive for very little money that my dad told him about last night when he was flipping through store circulars while Mister amused himself on his iPod and Mom and I cooked.  I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that they were all sold out.

Anyway, the total ten minutes I was outside to get the kitty litter (and spy a new "bakery" in the neighborhood - Cookie Confidential grand opening today) was quite enough to make me want soup for dinner.  The best part is that it's going to be even colder tomorrow!

The soup smelled phenomenal simmering away on the stove while I tried my hand at freeform "cheese" slicing.  I mentioned in a previous post that I picked up cheddar Vegan Gourmet "cheese," but it only comes in block form.  Fortunately, the block is about the same size as a piece of bread, so I just sliced off two big slices and plunked them onto the bread I already had toasting on the skillet.  As you can see, the package declares with great enthusiasm that this cheese substitute melts.  I'll grant that it took me three tries to get the Rice Vegan to finally melt all gooey like it's supposed to, but even on the first try it came far closer to melting than this stuff did... I'm sure it tried, but I was skeptical from the get-go; after slicing the pieces for the sandwiches, I cut off a little more to taste and the texture was so much like a cross between hard-boiled egg whites and extra-firm silken tofu that I couldn't see how it would melt.  Mister was a trooper - he coated his sandwich in ketchup and plowed through it in about 6 bites.  I took my time, trying to gauge how I feel about this one, despite that there was nothing that resembled melting going on.  It has a pleasant flavor, but it smells a little like mildew and scent is kind of important.  Nevertheless, the cheapskate in me my frugal side won't allow me to give up and chuck what's left, so I'll probably try broiling it on an open-face sandwich tomorrow or Sunday, just to see if I can actually convince it to melt.  I don't think it will ever find its way past Mister's lips again, though.

The soup was good - hearty and full of potatoey-kaley goodness, but nothing spectacular, so if I make it again, it will probably be by accident or a year from now.

I had this horrific moment today when I thought tomorrow was Monday.  Mister and I did a little dance in the kitchen (the only place with enough room to dance) when he informed me that tomorrow was actually Saturday - I am absolutely not ready for Monday yet.  I have laundry to do, a new menu to plot and shop for, a Christmas tree to set-up and decorate, and I really want to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes from VCTOTW.  Also, heaven forbid a weekend should pass without a new oatmeal recipe!  See you tomorrow, MoFos!

it's time for soup and sweetzels!

Happy October!  Yes, it's still exciting, especially since last night (after clearing some room in our bellies after our Blackbird feast) I welcomed Autumn the best way this Philly gal knows how:

Nothing says "Welcome to October" like that first glorious display of these familiar orange and brown-black boxes of locally made ginger snaps.  Sweetzels are as much a Philly tradition as pretzels and cheesesteaks, but fortunately, they are vegan without any tweaking.  Served on a pretty plate along with a nice hot cup of decaf hazelnut coffee, they walked me down a path of memories scattered here and there like the leaves which will soon crunch beneath people's feet.  I remember when I was a child, how excited my father got this time of year - it was time to break out the Sweetzels and the apple cider (and apple cider donuts if we were really lucky), maybe pay a visit to Highland Orchards and take a hayride before filling our arms with apple butter and donuts (maybe a few caramel or candied apples for good measure).  It also signified that there were only a couple of months until my father's other favorite seasonal treat - egg nog.  It took me years to realize how gross that stuff is, but it still invokes nostalgia if I smell it and I just might take a chance on Silk's "egg" nog this December.

Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day, growing crisp as the sun began to fade beyond the far silhouette of the treeline as we left Lancaster county and re-entered our familiar city limits.  Today was just miserable, cold, and rainy: the perfect day to stay curled up in bed, emerging closer to noon than sunrise (if, indeed, you could find the sun) to drink cup after cup of coffee while eating toast or waffles or fruited oatmeal.

I went to work.

After a brisk walk through the mist upon returning home, repeating a mantra-prayer that went something like this "please don't rain 'til I'm home, please don't rain 'til I'm home" repeat ad infinitum.  It appeared to work, because I was only a little misty when I got home, rather than wet and sad.  Either way, I was chilled and wanted one thing only.

Tonight's dinner was White Bean-Tarragon Soup from The 30 Minute Vegan which I served with surprisingly tasty grilled cheeses made with cheddar Rice Vegan on Whole Foods brand multi-grain bread.  Hopefully, my mother will read this at some point, look at that picture and laugh at me because I burnt the sandwich.  I was such a pain when I was younger - I think I gave her anxiety problems just from my grilled cheese requirements, chief of which was don't burn the sandwich.

In any case, I was impressed with how flavorful the cheese was.  It didn't melt as in "get all gooey," but it did bind the two pieces of bread together, so it must have done something.  I don't think you can tell a difference between this "cheese" and regular cheese in a burnt-ish grilled sandwich, which is fine by me and Mister didn't appear to mind.  I could justify adding this to my fridge-pantry list, though I would like to try some of the other brands out there now that we have so many choices....here in the city...not in Lancaster.

Enough Lancaster-bashing (for now), let me tell you about my soup!  The broth was extremely flavorful and there was a definite Asian influence, probably owed to the minced ginger and tamari.  The soup was actually far chunkier than I thought it would be, which I believe was its saving grace with Mister.  Half the ingredients are herbs or spices and the other half are celery.  Okay, maybe not, but it sure seemed like the celery was almost as prevalent as the beans!  The grilled cheese didn't necessarily go, cuisine-wise, with the ethnic-inspired soup, but grilled cheese and soup go together like Angst and his blanket.

3 meals, 3 things

It was a dark and stormy night...the rain beat against the windowpanes and below the window, cars could be heard splashing through the puddles. Angst had tucked his feet beneath his body and greatly resembled a large, fuzzy, gray egg.

So I made one of the most colorful meals imaginable, just for spite.
Tonight I made Fiestadillas again, although I did actually add a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella to each one to help it adhere to the tortilla better. It kind of worked, though I probably could have used more cheese. Surprisingly, I just wasn't all that interested in piling on something that used to be a favorite food and now seems to be loaded with unhealthiness. Don't mind me - I'm just over-analyzing. I did actually take a picture this time!Also, in my continuing attempt to make "well-rounded" and balanced meals, I made a side dish - Spiced Potatoes & Green Beans from the September Cooking Light magazine. It was pretty easy, smelled great, tasted even better, and to my delight and astonishment, it looked very much like it did in the magazine!No cupcake stories today...and it turns out my assistance is needed at work tomorrow, so I will have to hold off on my good-neighbor-cupcake-baking until Sunday (as well as the accompanying story). I won't leave you sweet-less, though!

When I was at Whole Foods the other day, I picked up this sweet treat - Clif nectar cacao bar, flavor: dark chocolate walnut.

At 160 calories and delivering two servings of fruit cloaked in the most realistic dark chocolate taste and texture I've found yet, this chocolate-oriented fruit & nut bar is my winner (as far as vegan chocolate fun goes). It actually reminded me a little of the first bar of vegan chocolate I ever ate, on my honeymoon in Lake Tahoe. My (brand new) husband and I went to a paradise within my heaven: a wine and chocolate store. Honestly - the only thing better than a wine & gourmet chocolate store was that it was located in the most beautiful and peaceful place I have ever been. So anyway, we gawked at $500 bottles of special vintage wines, poked at some way-too-exotic-for-our-tastes chocolates and ended up leaving with about $50 worth of organic, fair-trade, and vegan chocolates.

Not a bad flavor association for a $1.19 bar made of dates, walnuts, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa, and vanilla (all organic) that can be easily purchased a mere 5 blocks from my home (rather than about 3,000 miles). So I think it goes without saying I was very happy with this bar and it will definitely find its way into my basket again!

I feel like it's Reverse Day. I started the blog with dinner, babbled about my midday snack, and now I'm going to tell you about breakfast (because I just remembered). Anyway, I think I got all my fruit servings in for the day with this morning's breakfast: Oatmeal, cooked in unsweetened soy milk, but here's the twist: I hulled 5 large strawberries and peeled my two remaining bananas, stuck them in my handy food processor, then stirred the resulting slop into my oatmeal. Oh my heavens was it good! It was just the right amount of sweet and perfectly thick. I was only going to do one banana until I realized that if I left the other one hanging there, fruit flies would take control of my home.

One last thing before I go - if you're feeling philosophical, check out my old buddy's new blog:
3 Things in DC.

pictures, pictures, and pizza!

As promised, I am back and I bring pictures! First, though - Dinner. Tonight, with the a/c blasting, I cranked the oven up to 450 for some pizza baking. Notes on the recipe - I have never put cubes of silken tofu on a pizza before...it was interesting and probably not something I'll do again. Also, in place of thinly slicing some tomatoes to provide the base, I briefly sauteed slightly more than a pint of grape tomatoes. Ultimately, dinner was a fail. It tasted fantastic, but pizza's only pizza if it sticks together and you can eat with your hands...the minute we picked up our slices, everything fell off. So, much like my cabbage adventures for yesterday's lunch, we just pretended we were eating bruschetta and piled everything back on and ate more carefully.

I think I used up all my words earlier, so now I'll leave you with a pretty picture show chronicling the last couple of days of food:

Monday's lunch: chutney bulghur, chickpeas, and kalamatas in a red cabbage leaf

Monday's dinner just after being washed...the colors were just so vibrant I had to share.

Monday's dinner - Seitan & Polenta with Fresh Greens

Tonight's pizza, pre-cooking. That's grape tomatoes, quartered artichoke hearts, diced silken tofu and chopped oil-cured black olives. It really didn't look any different post-cooking.

Tonight's little Mediterranean platter: green grapes, Pecorino di Pienza cheese, rosemary olive oil flatbread and mixed mezze olives.

It's only 9:30...there's still time for dessert...

Fiesta-dillas!

Subtitle: I love smoked tofu. Seriously, it is one of the best things ever.

Tonight, I knew exactly what my tastebuds were craving when I got home from work. Well, besides all the amazing cookies I was looking at on flickr for Isa's upcoming book, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, but that's another story. There was no second-guessing or mulling over the menu I have posted to my refrigerator door - tonight we were having Fiesta Quesadillas! I grabbed my little gold book and went to work dicing my peppers and tofu and prepping the garlic to be pressed. Everything was coming together very nicely...then it came time to assemble and heat the quesadillas...and I saw something kind of darkish through the bag of shredded cheddar I was intending to sprinkle on my quesadillas. I opened the bag and jiggled it around a little, peered inside, and surely enough - it was mold. Blech. So I tossed the cheese (and therefore the "quesa-") and decided to make the recipe completely vegan-friendly and renamed it Fiesta-dillas.

I didn't take any pictures because they weren't much to look at. I mean really, 'dillas more or less all look the same. If you've seen one, you've seen mine, okay? Anyway, this is another of my originals, premiered to my faithful readers (mom? lissa? rachel? maybe derek?) so I hope you enjoy:

Fiesta-dillas
Ingredients:
cooking spray
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin
3 large cloves of garlic, pressed or minced
1 large orange/yellow bell pepper, diced
1 cup corn
15 oz can of black beans, rinsed
16 oz jar of chunky salsa, whatever heat you prefer
8 oz smoked tofu, diced
1/2 cup shredded cheddar (optional)

Heat oil in a saute pan on medium heat. Saute garlic and diced peppers until tender, about 5 minutes. Add black beans, corn, salsa, and cumin; stir well. Cook 2-3 more minutes, until corn is heated through. Remove from heat and stir in diced tofu.

Spray a square skillet/griddle with cooking spray and heat on medium-high. Lay out a tortilla on your work surface and spoon the tofu mixture onto one half of the tortilla. Fold the other half over and place on the skillet. If it's hot enough, there should be a quiet sizzling sound. Repeat with remaining tortillas, flipping each one after it's cooked on one side for about 1 minute. When the 'dillas are finished cooking, they will be browned on both sides and the tortilla will have become crisp. You may have to respray as you cook, and if you have a sensitive smoke alarm, let me recommend opening a window near your cooking area or employing the exhaust hood. Stack on a serving platter and serve with tortilla chips and hot sauce.

I haven't been a big salad person...

...until very recently. I guess I just perceived salad as a mish-mash of iceberg lettuce thrown together with tomatoes, cucumbers, and julienned carrots. You know, a diner salad. Fortunately, with the help of a couple of my dear cookbooks, I've discovered some amazing salad recipes. I have come to the conclusion that salad dressing is for the weak, or at least for those who don't know how to make a salad.

So dinner tonight was absolutely divine. I kept pausing throughout the meal to just sit for a moment and truly appreciate how wonderful everything was. It probably goes without saying that I made the Spinach, Artichoke, and Chickpea Salad for the main course tonight. The salad was every bit as substantial as the author claims - in fact, I was only able to eat one bowl (normally I can have two). Granted, I was dividing my attention between the salad and the delightful little Tuscan-esque plate I had set out between Mister and I, arranged with juicy green grapes, the sharp Pecorino di Pienza (sheep's milk cheese from Tuscany), and the boldly-flavored Rosemary Olive Oil Focaccia from DiBruno Brothers (courtesy of my dear father-in-law).

The salad was also very good - despite being a vegetarian who eats vegetables for the past 7 years it seems like every time I get a new cookbook I find that there are still vegetables I haven't eaten that most people consider standard fare. Tonight's ground-breaking vegetable was, believe it or not, red cabbage. I do not think I have ever had it before, but I now know that I love it! This is a good thing, because while I was "thinly slicing" a few leaves of the cabbage I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of it. I do some of my best thinking while washing the dishes or chopping vegetables, so here is the trail my mind followed:

I've read articles in magazines, side dishes in cookbooks, and even in blogs, about people using cabbage leaves in place of traditional sandwich wraps.
I have a small tupperware container of leftover chutney bulghur.
I'm going to have leftover chickpeas and roasted yellow peppers.
End result: Lunch on Monday will probably be chutney bulghur with some chickpeas and a couple of slices of roasted yellow peppers, maybe some sliced carrots, wrapped up in a red cabbage leaf or two. I figure, what's the worst thing that could happen? I could waste a roasted pepper.

I'm also considering marinating the cabbage with some rice wine vinegar, honey, and crushed red pepper and taking it to work as a side salad for another night's leftovers.

I am planning another antipasto platter for the pizza dinner...it will probably be the remaining roasted yellow peppers, more green grapes, kalamata olives, what's left of the focaccia, and a third of the remaining cheese. I realize I'm burying the point of vegan cooking by using cheese in the antipasto, but it's really nice (and expensive) cheese and it was a gift of love from my father-in-law, who I love and respect very much, so I don't want to waste it and we've already had it for a week. Plus, I'm kind of obsessed with Tuscany right now. I think I need a passport.