Fancy Pants Spaghetti

Sometimes I forget about the easiest dishes when it comes to deciding what's for dinner. Like spaghetti with marinara sauce.  I seriously almost ordered spaghetti with "veggie balls" from Pizza Luce last week when I already had all the ingredients to make my own at home.  Whoa.  Time to slow down and plan some meals, Liz.  

So tonight we sat down to some gluten free (Tinkyada brand) spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce.  The sauce included my usual recipe for canning, plus a giant handful of roasted & pickled red peppers, oil cured olives and spinach.

I wasn't planning on having tofu with the pasta, but I happened to find some tomato-y vinaigrette in the back of the fridge that told me it wanted to become tofu marinade.  [Want to know a secret?  That tomato vinaigrette happened because I accidentally poured twice as much vinegar into my salsa recipe when I was canning a couple weeks ago.  So I bailed out 1/2 the amount of tomato-y, onion-y vinegar and mixed it with olive oil to use as salad dressing.  A happy accident.]

I only had time to marinate the tofu for about 15 minutes, but I sprinkled it with nutritional yeast and salt while it was browning on my grill pan and that crusted up really nicely and helped seal in the bright, vinegary, tomato flavor.

We ate this by candlelight outside on the deck.  Faawwnnncy!

Quick and Simple

Meals have been pretty simple the past couple weeks.  And we have plans for more of that.  Mike has a great NY resolution to learn to make super yummy sauces to pair with staples like beans and rice.  I'm in favor of that!!!  

Tonight's dinner was bright green with this past summer's basil pesto.  I think I used an entire cup of this emerald sauce, plus 3 heads of broccoli.  I think I'll embrace a new philosophy that the quantity of vegetables should equal the quantity of pasta in a dish like this.  So simple, yet so delicious.  Pasta.  Pesto.  Broccoli.  

This next meal we enjoyed right after New Years Day (leftover black eyed peas) and then again the next night!  The black eyed peas, rice and spinach were super good, of course. I doused mine in plenty of tabasco vinegar that's still going from the bumper crop of tabasco chiles in 2009.  The waffle fries were the big star, though.  I got some of the frozen Alexia brand waffle fries that are seasoned up somethin' crazy.  I usually don't get these since they're not organic, but what the heck?  Live a little.  The kids used them to scoop up black eyed peas and greens and, I must say, that was a fabulous idea.  They then suggested that we have these for dinner every night.  Or every hour.  Or every minute.  

Make Ahead Meals- Baked Penne

Baked pasta dishes are so easy to make in advance. I'm sure it'd be just as easy to just have pasta and sauce for a quick weeknight meal, but there's something extra rich and comforting about baked pasta.

Tonight we're having gluten-free baked penne with tofu ricotta. Here it is before baking:

It's super easy! First, cook up your gluten free pasta. I used Tinkyada brand GF pasta in a penne shape, but any type would work.

Then prepare a batch of tofu ricotta. You can use the recipe from Veganomicon or just wing it. I just threw a few cloves of garlic, a block of firm tofu, lemon juice, salt and parsley in the food processor.

Before you strain the pasta, pack a bunch of baby spinach in the strainer. Then it'll partially cook while you strain your hot pasta through it.

Then mix everything together (ricotta, spinach, pasta) in a big glass baking dish.

Top with 2-3 cups of tomato sauce (I used some home-canned sauce) and some fresh tomatoes if you have them around still. My green ones from the garden are slowly ripening and I had enough to top this dish. I think I'll add some grated cashew cheese just before baking it tonight. Anyways, put this in the fridge until you're ready to bake it.

Bake at 350F, covered in foil, for about 20-30 minutes or until warmed through. If topping with cheeze, just finish in the broiler for a minute or two to melt it.

The Best Dinner I Could Imagine Eating Right Now

I'm not sure I could love my dinner any more than I'm loving it now.

Thankfully, I seem to have recovered from the flu. Tonight I got my appetite back!

This dinner took all of about 10 minutes to make and includes some of my favorite things! I mean, olives with cherries with sausages with squash with balsamic vinegar with pasta with spinach? How could that not be good?

I should note that the olives I prefer are the cured black olives with Herbs de Provence from the Mississippi Market deli. But I suppose you could use any olives you like. And I used my homemade chunky cherry jam, but I'm sure other cherry jam would work just fine. And if you feel like making the ravioli or sausage from scratch, more power to you. Tonight I needed a ridiculously easy dinner or I was going to stray from my usual chipper self. And you wouldn't want that, would you?

Cherry Glazed Butternut Ravioli with Sausage

serves 2

1 package Rising Moon Organic Butternut Squash Ravioli

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 Tofurky Italian Sausage, sliced

1/3 cup dry cured black olives

2-3 oz. fresh spinach, chopped (2 big handfuls)

2 Tbsp. cherry jam

1 Tbsp. Earth Balance margarine

Drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Boil water and cook frozen ravioli according to package directions. In a heavy skillet, heat the olive oil and add the sliced sausage. When the sausage has browned on both sides, add the olives and chopped spinach. Cook just until spinach is wilted, then remove from heat and add in the cherry jam, Earth Balance and balsamic vinegar. Stir until the jam and margarine have fully melted and formed a sauce. Then add the cooked and strained ravioli and stir to coat the pasta. Enjoy!

Baked After Work

When I was leaving work today it was raining and cold and I was hungry and tired. If there was ever a "mac 'n cheese night", this was it.

Baked Cheezy Pasta with Mushrooms

I like this baked mac 'n cheeze because you don't have to pre-cook the pasta. You can just throw everything in the oven!

(Gluten free)

Olive oil for greasing pan

16 oz. dry gluten free pasta (small shapes like shells are preferable)

3/4 lb. cremini mushrooms (about 16), sliced

2 Tbsp. Earth Balance margarine

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1 1/2 c nondairy milk

1/2 c plain nondairy yogurt

2 cups water

1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes

1 tsp. dry mustard

2 tsp. salt

Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Pinch turmeric

Faux parmesan (I like Parma! brand), optional

Preheat the oven to 400F. Lightly grease a 9x11 inch glass baking dish with olive oil. Pour uncooked pasta in the baking dish and top with the sliced mushrooms.

Heat a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add the Earth Balance and garlic and saute until margarine is melted and garlic is fragrant. In a separate bowl, combine remaining ingredients (except faux parmesan) by whisking until no lumps remain. Then add to the saucepan with the garlic and margarine and whisk to combine.

Remove the sauce from heat and pour over the pasta and mushrooms. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Then stir pasta and mushrooms together, making sure

everything is coated in sauce. Replace foil and bake another 10 minutes. Sprinkle with faux parmesan before serving.

I served this super easy dish with baked sweet potatoes and tofu coated in the "buttermilk" and cornmeal breading leftover from last night's fried pickles. I baked this tofu, though, instead of frying it and it was seriously just as crispy. I tossed the tofu and sweet potatoes on a greased cookie sheet and baked for about 40 minutes while the pasta baked.

Eat this.

I try not to buy too many packaged convenience foods, but it's really hard to resist frozen vegan ravioli when it goes on sale. Tonight I picked up the Rising Moon creamy artichoke and olive flavor. It made a super awesome dinner for me with leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

The sauce on the ravioli is just onions sauteed in Earth Balance with cremini mushrooms, olives marinated in hot chiles, and garlic.

The salad is local red leaf with toasted walnuts and the pickled beets from the Fourth of July and a lemon-flax oil vinaigrette.

For real, this dinner took about 20 minutes to make and tasted all fancy schmancy. Perfect for a lazy night of watching The Office and It's Always Sunny in Philedelphia. Everyone should make this.

Seven days and counting...

Alright, this pantry challenge business is starting to get a bit harder.  Today was the 7th day without grocery shopping.  We're out of onions, rice, all nuts and seeds, quinoa, tapioca starch (vital for gluten free cooking), and most importantly, ice cream. 

We've been using various grains, beans, free vegetables from the co-op, and we still have some tofu and 1 block of tempeh left.  

We've had some great meals!  Tonight we had something I'll call "Italian Quinoa".  That's gotta be fusion cuisine, right?  I marinated tofu slices in a salt, rosemary, and basil rub and pan fried them.  Yum!  

I sauteed garlic with some olive oil before adding the quinoa.  For cooking liquid I used 1/2 tomato juice that had been in the fridge forever and 1/2 water.  I threw in a few chopped sundried tomatoes from the garden and more rosemary.  This stuff was good all on its own, but really rocked when topped with a quick garden tomato sauce.  

Some of that free broccoli rounded out the plate with some green.  I just steamed it a little and then tossed it around in the hot skillet after the tofu was done frying.  I topped it with a little lemon zest from a lemon that URGENTLY needed to be used and kosher salt.

Yesterday Mike and I enjoyed a mushroom laden meal while the boys were at their mom's.  We used the last of our gluten free spaghetti with mushrooms, leftover roasted garlic, and a "cream" sauce made with cornstarch slurry, a little soy yogurt, a little veganaise, and water.  Sounds nasty, I know.  But somehow those ingredients mimic a really rich cream sauce.  Then there was pan fried tempeh on the side.  Wow- I guess I'm just in the mood to fry things, huh?

I have no pictures of it, but we thoroughly enjoyed Karina's gluten free vegan banana bread- with chocolate chips.  Now I'm using the last of the rice flour to make some sparkled ginger cookies.  Totally worth it.

Interesting meals, Interesting night

Last night I couldn't resist buying some MN lobster mushrooms. Just look at them.

They're bright, richly flavored, and hearty mushrooms. I just had to get some...but I had no clue what I would cook with them.

But I did have 3 turnips I needed to use. So I started making some turnip soup and sauteeing the mushrooms in Earth Balance. Both the mushrooms and the soup were good on their own- But when I combined them, they were great.

Turnip and Lobster Mushroom Soup

1 Tbsp. Earth Balance
3 medium turnips, peeled and sliced thinly
4 cloves of garlic, minced (yeah, this is garlicky)
1 no-salt vegan bouillon cube
4-6 drops liquid smoke
4 cups water
1 tsp. fresh thyme
2 sage leaves, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp. Earth Balance
3 lobster mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced

Heat 1 Tbsp. Earth Balance in a soup pot over medium-high heat until melted. Add garlic and turnips and stir to coat them with the Earth Balance. Then add the bouillon, liquid smoke, water, thyme, and sage. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until turnips are very tender and falling apart. Meanwhile, prepare the mushrooms. Heat 2 Tbsp. Earth Balance in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the slices of mushrooms and a sprinkle of salt. Allow the mushrooms to sit and sweat out their liquid before stirring. It may take about 5 minutes. Stir the mushrooms and allow the liquid to evaporate. Then taste the mushrooms to make sure they are tender. Add mushrooms to the soup and then taste. Add salt and pepper until seasoned.

Tonight I was working late because we had our "Surviving the Eat Local America Challenge" class. The class was a lot of fun, but I was so busy talking about local foods that I didn't plan my dinner.

So I relied on some homemade ravioli I had frozen last month and made it interesting by blanching some multicolored greens beans in the pasta water. The sauce was just melted Earth Balance, 1/2 clove of raw grated garlic, and toasted sunflower seeds. YUM! I know sunflower seeds might seem more suited to granola rather than ravioli, but they were super good. The ravioli filling contains sunflower seeds and they really complimented the green beans.



After eating some dinner and watching a little Law and Order, Mike and I noticed a gas smell. It seemed to be coming from our gas meter outside- uh oh!

So we called our gas company and they sent someone right out. Now they'll be sending a crew to dig up our meter and re-weld together some pipes at midnight. At least the leak isn't as bad as she thought it could be. At first she said we might have to take down our fence so they could get a back-hoe into the yard. Yikes!

Now how am I going to stay awake...

Why I'm not very cool

Where do I like to spend a hot Saturday night? In the kitchen, of course.
How ironic that canning or preserving needs to take place during the hottest summer months, when the garden is overflowing with food. This task, while enjoyable, heats my kitchen far beyond lasagna-baking or soup simmering temperatures. It is nearly unbearable.

So today, while making mulberry jam and jalapeño jam (that's two kinds, not mulberry-jalapeño...although that might be good), I took breaks in the kiddie pool in the backyard and sipped ice water.

And then, after heating up the kitchen to unbearable levels, I figured, "Hey, why not make some pasta?" My fellow Eat Local Challenge participants and I have lamented over the lack of very local pasta here in MN. I rely on the Dakota Grower's pasta from North Dakota when I need a quick pasta fix, but there's nothing like homemade pasta.

Tonight I decided to make a tortelloni pasta with 1/2 my dough and some fettuccine with the other half.

The pasta itself is pretty darn local, with flour and water being 99% of the ingredients in this recipe. The filling is as follows:

Herbed Sunflower Seed Pasta Filling

1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds, toasted in a dry skillet (MN)
1/4 cup water (MN)
2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
10 stems from cremini mushrooms (WI)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. fresh thyme (backyard)

After toasting the sunflower seeds until beginning to brown, add 1/4 cup of water and let them soak for about an hour. Go do some yoga in the meantime. Then whizz around the sunflower seeds, soaking water, and remaining ingredients in a food processor until finely minced, but not quite smooth. Use about 1/2 tsp. per 2" round of pasta dough. This would also be super good as a spread on crackers, inside a tortilla, or just off a spoon.


The sauce for this pasta is a white sauce made with Earth Balance, flour, Org. Valley soymilk (WI), salt, green onions (MN), cremini mushroom caps (WI), parsley (backyard) and blanched snap peas (backyard). I didn't measure anything for this recipe, sorry.

Even though it was 9pm before I got to eat dinner, it was damn good. And the best part is, I have fettuccine in the freezer for another day!

Quick Dinner

Here's a quick posting of our dinner-It received rave reviews from the kids and Mike (and me). But best of all, it was really quick and easy to make and contained tons of veggies.First I started some 100% buckwheat soba noodles cooking (I like the Eden Organic brand). I tossed some cubed tofu with tamarind puree, sesame oil, lime juice, ginger syrup (made by The Ginger People- It's just cane sugar and ginger), and salt. I set the oven to about 450, but didn't preheat it- I just baked the tofu for 20 minutes or so- eventually it made it up to 450.

When the pasta had about 2 minutes left to cook, I threw in about 2 bunches of asparagus (we got some free from the co-op that was wilty on the ends). After 2 minutes, I rinsed the pasta and asparagus in cold water to stop the cooking. Then I heated up our biggest pan and threw in 1/2 a nappa cabbage sliced thinly, 2 grated carrots, the asparagus, the pasta, the tofu, tamari, peanut butter, lime juice, tamarind puree, and ginger syrup. I really just needed to melt the peanut butter and heat the pasta back up after rinsing...so you could just skip this step and make it a cold dish with raw cabbage and carrot.

Yum! I just wish there had been leftovers.

updated: Mike just informed me that there WERE leftovers (I had to rush off to work after dinner). My wish has been granted!!!

I love Spring!

Today I worked on 3 recipes for a Spring cooking class that's coming up.


Lemon-Butter Pasta with Fiddlehead Ferns

1/4 lb. Fiddlehead ferns, cleaned and trimmed
6 ramps, chopped (green leaves and all)
12 oz. package pasta
2 Tbsp. Earth Balance
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp agave nectar
1/4 cup pinenuts

Start a pot of water boiling- this will be your water for blanching the fiddleheads and also cooking the pasta. When boiling, drop in your prepped fiddleheads and cook for 2 minutes. Then fish out your ferns and run cold water over them to stop the cooking. Return water to a boil and cook your pasta according to package directions. When pasta is done and drained, heat Earth Balance in a large skillet. Add the ramps and cook for about 2 minutes. Then add lemon juice, salt, agave nectar, and ferns. Taste sauce and adjust to your liking- it should taste stronger than you'd want. Add the pasta and toss to coat, removing pan from heat. In a separate dry skillet, toast the pinenuts until lightly brown. Sprinkle over the pasta and serve! This one is also good cold.

Creamy Sun-dried Tomato and Ramp Spread

4 sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil)
1/2 cup very hot or boiling water
5 ramps
1/2 cup vegan cream cheese
1/4 cup veganaise

Put the tomatoes in a bowl and cover with the hot water. Soak for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the white portion of the ramps and reserve the leaves. Combine white parts of ramps, tomatoes (reserve the soaking liquid), cream cheese, and veganaise in a small food processor and whiz around until mostly smooth. If texture is too thick, just add a bit of the tomato soaking water and process again. Transfer spread to a serving bowl. Slice about 6 of the ramp leaves very thinly and stir these into the spread. This is great on a baguette, but would also be good thinned out and used as a veggie dip. Want a stronger ramp flavor? Let this spread sit in the fridge for a few hours and you'll be impressed.




Last I made a Spring Sushi. I'm not going to type up a recipe for this one because I'm feeling tired and any old sushi rice recipe will work. These are filled with asparagus, ramps, and red pepper. Some are smeared with wasabi mayo inside, too. Next time I'll add thinly sliced radishes, too. We're all getting these packed in our lunches tomorrow!

After this cooking extravaganza, I worked in the garden for about 3 hours. I did a lot of seed planting, transplanting, and clearing out of old plants. Then I ran soaker hoses throughout the whole garden so that I'll never have to stand there with a hose to water the garden. It works beautifully! I used 3-50 ft. hoses connected together and was able to reach each garden bed and the berry patch out back. I'll post pictures later.

And what does a girl do after cooking all afternoon and gardening all evening? She spends $45 ordering Pizza Luce for the family. How is it that 2 eight-year-olds can eat an entire 16" pizza themselves? And what am I going to do when they are teenagers?

To Do

Usually I spend my weekends cooking up a storm, but last week was so busy that by the time this weekend rolled around, I had a to do list a mile long. It was warm enough to take the plastic off the windows and take down the awful curtains that broke and wouldn't let any light into the house. It was also warm enough to take the kitten outside on a leash. The cutest thing ever was when the dog, Hannah, took the leash out of my hand and started pulling the kitten along! (but she pulled so hard that the safety release broke her collar open and she tried to escape.) The kitten also tried to climb in the drier every time I went into the basement to do laundry.

***I should take the time here to note that although I complain about to-do lists, they are probably my favorite thing in the world to make and update. And I go insane without one. I think Mike hides my lists sometimes, just because he knows I enjoy rewriting them.***

Among sewing curtains, patching holes in the wall, cleaning out the fridge, and vacuuming (until the vacuum cleaner stopped working...great.), I didn't end up cooking much of anything. By Sunday night I was famished and ready to order in Thai food- Except the restaurant I really wanted to try was closed!

I really shouldn't be eating out anyways because I'm trying to reign in my food spending again. My food budgeting goes in waves, really. I have elaborate plans for budgeting and stick with it diligently...until it works and I have extra money. Then I allow myself to spend more. Then I'm back where I started. Right now I'm spending about 15% of my disposable income on food (yes, I track it). While this is more than most Americans spend, it's about average for folks from other (over)developed nations. So considering I eat nearly all organic food, I'm not doing that bad. There. I rationalized my grocery spending.

So anyways, here is what I ended up making on Sunday:
It's Tinkyada gluten-free pasta with my favorite "Parmesan tofu", zucchini, broccoli, and a lemon-red pepper sauce. The tofu I just tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, nutritional yeast, and red pepper and then baked at 450 for about 20 minutes. It puffs up and gets really crispy and reminds me of when I used to eat Parmesan cheese and it would get brown and crispy on garlic toast. I didn't write down measurements for how I made the sauce, but I know that I deglazed the pan with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, crushed red pepper, salt and hot water mixed with arrowroot. The sauce thickened up nicely and coated the pasta. Mike thought it needed some tamari, but I liked it with just a bit more red pepper.

I also made the chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies from Veganomicon- but with oat and barley flour instead of wheat. WOW! These are really good cookies! I just love the flavor of oat and barley flour. Sadly, I cannot share them with my gluten-free buddy... but I can share them with Mike and my newly wheat-free pal. And I'm sure they won't last long.

True Love

Let this post serve as evidence of my undying love for macaroons. And Third Street Bakery in Duluth. Their wheat-free vegan *Edited because these are "BEEgan", not Vegan* macaroons are the best I've ever had. They aren't a classic macaroon- they are way more rich and dense. They are like a meal.I'd like to also declare my love for those Spicy Italian Sausages I last posted about. I mixed them up with my leftover pasta and ratatouille and added some home-cured olives, balsamic vinegar, umeboshi plum vineger. AMAZING!

Celebrate!

Just in case you haven't celebrated the most wonderful day of the year yet- you still have a few hours left. Today is 2-17, otherwise known as Liz day.
{If you turn the numbers 217 upside down, it spells LIZ}

Here's how I celebrated:
White Chocolate Cashew Cookies (gluten free)
These are based off of Dreena Burton's gluten free chocolate chip cookies from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten free)
Blackened Tofu, Spirals and Cheese, and Garlicky Collards
The Blackened Tofu is from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan. The Cheese sauce is freestyle.

So it looks like I celebrated Liz Day with Dreena's recipes. I also celebrated by not getting out of my pajamas for two days (including grocery shopping), watching over 5 hours of The Office on Netflix (thanks, Mom!), and eating a pint of Rocky Road So Decedent Ice Cream.

And really, aren't these things all what Liz Day is all about? It's important to remember the real values that are behind holidays, like being lazy and indulging in everything you want.

Homegrown Lasagna

It's days like these that I'm thankful we put up so much of our garden's harvest. Just when the stores have the fewest local veggies, I can pull out our homegrown ones. This lasagna features garden grown squash, collard greens, and pesto- along with olives cured by my co-worker/friend Nick. The Three Olive tomato sauce really is something special. The olive oil, olives, and then sun-dried tomato infused olive oil work together to make rich layers of flavor. Plus, it's a great use for the olive oil left over after I used up my sun-dried tomatoes from last year! I know this recipe has a lot of steps. The good news is that any of these mini recipes are good enough to stand on their own.

Homegrown Lasagna

1 box lasagna noodles

1 batch of Cashew Ricotta from Veganomicon

Roasted Squash

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed (about 6 cups)

4 Tbsp olive oil

6 cloves garlic

1/2 onion, sliced

1 tsp. salt (I like a blend of Hawaiian red clay and French sel gris salts)

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 F. Toss squash, onions, garlic, salt and pepper in the olive oil. Roast for 30 minutes, until squash is tender and onions are beginning to brown. (I removed the garlic for another recipe). Lightly mash with a fork, leaving plenty of chunks.

Triple Olive Tomato Sauce

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 onion, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced

6-8 big green olives (I used home-cured garlic olives)

32 oz can tomatoes (I used diced)

1 tsp. salt

dash of cinnamon (just a little!)

2 Tbsp. dried Italian herb blend

2 Tbsp. olive oil from oil packed sun-dried tomatoes

Directions: Heat olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the onions until beginning to get translucent. Add garlic, olives, tomatoes, salt, and herbs. Simmer for about 20-30 minutes with a lid on. If needed, you can add a bit of water to thin out the sauce. Partly puree to form a thick sauce. Stir in the sundried tomato infused olive oil to finish.

Pesto Collards

4 -6 Tbsp. pesto (I used 4 ice cubes worth of frozen pesto)

2 bunches of collard greens (either frozen or still wet from washing)

Salt to taste

Directions: Cram the greens into a large skillet with the pesto. Put a lid on them and steam/cook until bright green and tender, about 5-8 minutes. Salt to taste- depending on the saltiness of your pesto.

Assembly:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Cook lasagna noodles as directed

In a 9X11 inch baking dish, layer noodles, ricotta, squash, greens, and tomato sauce. End with tomato sauce on top. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

I dropped my lasagna noodles and ended up with little pieces. So I made the lasagna in a 9X9 pan and used the little pieces in a mini lasagna in a lunch sized glass bowl. When I'm at work I can just pop it into the toaster oven or microwave. Yum!

Chocolate Turtle Cake and Pad Thai

Today we had a pretty decent snowstorm. It was supposed to be about 12 inches, but I think it was only 1/2 that. Still, it was a good day to stay indoors and bake a cake.

Tomorrow is Yoga Day, a biannual event sponsored by the Iyengar Yoga Association of MN. The December Yoga Day is to celebrate Mr. Iyengar's birthday and show member appreciation. Since I started serving on the IYAMN Board, I've been baking cakes for this event. I think I'm the only one who cares if the cake is vegan, but everyone seems to like them so I've kept doing it. And I think it's really an honor to be asked to make Guruji's birthday cake...So I tend to go all out decadent.

This time: Chocolate Turtle Cake

This recipe uses Colleen Patrick-Goudrou's version (The Joy of Vegan Baking) of Jennifer Raymond's (The Peaceful Palate) Chocolate Cake, Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's Thick Chocolate Fudgey Frostin' (VCTOTW) and a Vegan Caramel recipe that was posted on veganrepresent.com.



Here's the finished cake. I'll get an inside shot tomorrow.

I do think that next time I'll use ganache or a more dark chocolate frosting. I forgot what this one was like and while it is a favorite for cupcakes, I think this cake needs something more dense and dark.

The caramel turned out really nice, and was a learning experience. I know logically that hot caramel will burn me. But when I accidentally get some on my finger and it is burning hot, I LICK my finger to stop the burning and remove the caramel. HOT! So needless to say, I have sensitive fingers and tongue right now and my teeth are rotting out of my skull.

I had a lot of leftover caramel and decided to make little turtle candies...but caramel sticks to waxed paper. Maybe other people know this, but I didn't. I had to scrape the caramel off in order to dip them in chocolate. Very time consuming. And I used salted pecans, which are AWESOME in the caramel, but when I licked my burning fingers it only reinforced the stupid behavior because my fingers were salty and caramely. So delicious. So painful.

I also ate real food today. We had Brooklyn Pad Thai from Vegan with a Vengeance. (Minus the sprouts and plus carrots)

Seitan & Dumplings

The kids are home sick from school today, and that fits in perfectly with my plan to make seitan and dumplings for dinner. I swear I didn't get them sick on purpose, though! It just so happens that I was craving this awesome meal that reminds me so much of my Meemaw.

I remember the first time I watched Meemaw make these (of course, she was using real chicken and real butter/eggs...) I was so surprised that you could MAKE chicken & dumplings. I had only had the kind from a can, which I thought was so delicious. But that didn't even compare to her homemade dumplings and rich broth!

Last year I called her to get the recipe and it's been a favorite in our house since then.

For seitan, I use my super simple lazy seitan chicken recipe:

Dry Mixture:
1 1/2 cups wheat gluten
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp poultry seasoning
2 tsp "chicken" broth powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Wet Mixture:
1 cup water
2 tsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice

Directions: Preheat oven to 350. Mix the dry and the wet. Then grab a chunk and squash it until it's kinda flat. Put it on an oiled or parchment papered baking sheet and bake 20 minutes. Flip over and bake another 15-20 minutes.

And the dumplings:

Mix 1/2 cup of Earth Balance, softened, with 2-3 cups of flour until pea-sized bits form. (Like making pie dough or biscuits). Then stir in 1 tsp salt, 2 egg replacer eggs, and enough water to form a dough. I've never measured this, but just add a little at a time until the dough will hold together. You can also add roasted garlic, herbs, or black pepper to the dumplings and it's awesome!

Just roll out the dough until about 1/4 inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to slice it up into big fat noodles/dumplings. Let the dough rest for about an hour. (I've cheated and only waited 1/2 hour and it didn't ruin anything. But Meemaw says you should wait an hour, so you probably should.)
Bring about 8 cups of water (I didn't measure, but it was a really big pot of water) with veg. bouillon cubes or broth to boil. Throw in some garlic, diced carrots or celery if you'd like. Then add about 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast, 1 tsp poultry seasoning, 3 Tbsp. lemon juice, and tons of salt and pepper to taste. This should make a really rich, "chickeny" broth.

Then drop in the seitan (chopped into big cubes) and the dumplings a couple at a time so they don't stick together. Boil for about 10 minutes.
If it needs more seasoning, adjust salt, pepper, lemon juice, etc. to taste. It comes out different every time!

This is basically the only soup that the boys will eat!

What I ate today

It's late and I'm tired. But I'm never too tired for a list.

So here's a list of what I ate today:

8am: 2 pieces of WW Flax toast with Earth Balance (really I should say it was Earth Balance with a little bit of toast)

9am: So hungry! Stopped at a bagel shop for a sundried tomato bagel with hummus and veggies

12 pm: Rushing to a meeting- didn't have time for lunch before this 3 hour borefest. Grabbed a mesquite lime Primal Strip and a vegan pumpkin cookie from the co-op.

3:30pm: A real lunch finally! Cream of mushroom and rutabaga soup, a chickpea cutlet, and sauteed kale with onion and mushrooms.

7:30pm: Apple and lots of water after yoga.

9:00 pm: Dinner: Fusilli with pesto, kale, and artichoke hearts.

Here's a picture of the pasta:

It was pretty tasty. The sauce was sauteed onion, kale, and artichoke hearts with nutritional yeast, lemon juice, soy creamer, and pesto. Very fast and satisfying.