Meemaw's Potato Soup

It's a rainy night tonight. My Meemaw is in hospice care and is likely to pass away very soon. I can't really think of anything more appropriate to make for dinner tonight than Meemaw's potato soup.

It's the simplest recipe ever, but also the most comforting. I remember eating this soup when I was sick, and when I had my wisdom teeth removed. You'd think those wouldn't be fond memories... But the soup made everything better!

Potato Soup
Peel and cube 4-6 medium potatoes. Place in heavy pan with lid and cover (just barely) with water. Add one stick of margarine (non-hydrogenated, my addition) and 1 tsp salt and cook until tender and mushy. Mash lightly until broth is thick. Add about 3/4 cup milk (I use almond milk) and heat just to boiling point. Black pepper may be added.

I know, I know. Peel the potatoes? What about the missing fiber? A stick of margarine? What about all that fat? Just do it, people. This is comfort food from my Meemaw.

Curry in a Hurry

A few weeks ago my friend Morgen came over for some dinner and I saved a little time by using leftover roasted potatoes to make a curry- Success!  This dinner was super fast!  

I used the pressure cooker to cook the red lentil rasam, so that took all of about 5 minutes to make.  

The curry also included okra from the garden and plenty of coriander, cumin, turmeric and ginger.  I topped it with a mixture of shredded coconut, peanuts and jalapenos that I whizzed around in the mini-food processor for a minute.  I have lots of this leftover and need to think of more uses for this concoction.  Any ideas?

Magic Spices

These potatoes are crazy awesome.  They're just basic roasted potatoes with way too many spices rubbed all over them, but spices are magic like that.  They can transform roasted potatoes into something really unique.

Today's roasted potatoes feature a generous amount of olive oil (with a little harissa-infused olive oil from The Olive Grove), chili powder, salt and what seemed like wayyyyy too much smoked paprika.  If your potatoes aren't stained red, you haven't used enough spices.  That's my new motto.

Then I roasted them at about 450F, for 30-40 minutes.  But you could have probably guessed that part.  

***

If you're in the market for a good canning class this season, check out my pickling class scheduled for October 8th at Kitchen in the Market.  I think this will be my last one of the season and in this class you get to  get your handy dirty, pick up the ol' jar lifters and go home with three types of pickles!  Hope to see you there!

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.  

Potato ~ Potato ~ Potato

Mike's birthday was last week- He requested no presents and no parties, so he got a casserole instead.  

This isn't just your average casserole, though.  (Maybe I should say "hotdish" now that I've lived in Minnesota for 10 years?) Mike loves potatoes in all forms, so I made a triple potato hotdish for his birthday breakfast.  

The bottom layer: mashed potatoes with peas

The second layer: Cascadian Farm Organic Spud Puppies.  Mike's love of spud puppies is surpassed only by his love for me, the kids and banjos, in no particular order.

The third layer: cheezy nutritional yeasty gravy.  Because if you're going all-out with potatoes, there's got to be gravy involved.

The fourth layer: crushed potato chips

This casserole barely made it onto the table.  I thought it would be nice to broil the top of the chips so that they browned nicely.  I wouldn't really recommend that you try this.  Potato chips are little grease bombs just waiting to catch fire.  I'm going to try to remember this next time we're camping and need to get a fire started. Luckily, my oven escaped going up in flames (all the other appliances have broken this month, so why not the oven, too?) and I was able to scrape off the little flaming charcoal chips and top the casserole with freshly crushed, unbrowned/blackened chips.  Despite the drama and distinct smokey flavor, this casserole was amazing!  Super rich, totally indulgent and very potatoey.  Then we had dessert!

Dessert had to be gluten free, soy free and vegan.  Not super easy.  Mike's been switching up his diet lately and soy is the latest thing to go.  He's not so strictly vegan anymore, but he's feeling really good- Hooray!

Chocolate Peanut Butter is a pretty rockin' flavor combination in any form and this was no exception. I made little peanut butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla balls to hide in the center of the GF chocolate cupcake batter (I use an adaptation of the GF cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World). Then I top with more batter and bake.  

The finished cupcakes were topped with ganache for a quick and easy frosting.  

Now I just have to think of another excuse to make that potato casserole.  I think the dog's birthday is coming up.  She'd want us to eat a nice breakfast in honor of her birthday, I'm sure of it.

PS- I was really lazy about posting this past week, but I've got tons of photos to share of springy meals and beginnings of this year's garden.  Look for them this week!

This Week's Make Ahead Meals

I didn't do as much prep work for this week's make ahead meals...And I really should have.  Tonight was the first night of basketball practice, AKA crazy night.  From now on I need to plan on a dinner that is ready in about 15 minutes or just give in and get Chipotle!

For tonight I had a special request for dinner: baked potatoes.  The kids are nuts about the baked potatoes at grandma's house, so I found out what she does special.  The secret is to rub onion salt all over the outside of the oiled potato before baking.  Then mix in Earth Balance with the center of the potato after baking.  Sounds like a winner!  What's that?  You don't have onion salt?  Me neither.  You can just mix onion powder and salt or you can chop an onion and then rub salt in the juices.  Or dehydrate your own onions, pulverize them with a mortar and pestle, and then mix them with salt.  I took the first option.

On the side we're having the Tangerine Baked Tofu and the Roasted Masala Brussels Sprouts from Veganomicon.

So here's how you can make this ahead:

• Prick the potatoes with a fork, rub them in olive oil or Earth Balance, and sprinkle them with onion salt.  Wrap in foil and put in the fridge until ready to bake the next day.
• Mix up the tofu marinade and add tofu.  Marinate in the glass baking dish that you'll use to bake them in the next day.
• Mix up the cornmeal/spice blend for the sprouts.  Wash and trim the brussels sprouts and store in a container you can use to mix them up with the spices and oil the next day.  
• On dinner night, put the potatoes in first- they can take up to an hour.  Then add the tofu after about 15 minutes.  Last, add the sprouts about 20 minutes later. 

Sorry for those who don't have Veganomicon.  Let this just be reason 8,265 you should buy it.  And this meal still takes an hour to cook, but the dinner night prep time is very little.  So you could put stuff in the oven while doing math homework with the kids or cleaning the house or during commercial breaks while eating ice cream in front of the TV.

FLog #4: Cooking for an army

It's amazing how much food we can go through in a day when the kids are here.  Mike brought home a 5 lb. bag of russets today and we used them all.  There are 2 lunch-sized portions of dinner left over, but that still seems like a heck of a lot of potatoes for 4 people, right?

Wait.  Let's back up.

I should do this in chronological order.

Here's my day in food:

1 slice (a big fat slice) of whole wheat homemade bread with peanut butter

16 oz. water

[1 hour yoga]

1 clementine

16 oz water

1 cup of raw cabbage, carrot, and celery with my yogurt/veganaise ranch dressing

1 cup pinto beans

1 leftover cornmeal pancake

1 oz. Taza Chocolate Mexicano, vanilla variety

16 oz. water

2 Yves sausage patties (I ate these while cooking dinner because I was SO HUNGRY!)

a big ol' mess of roasted potatoes topped with broccoli and nutritional yeast cheeze sauce

1/2 cup pinto beans

Anytime I make roasted potatoes I think of this commercial where this totally clueless looking woman is shocked to find out that she can open a bag, dump the contents on a pan, and have roasted potatoes in half an hour.  Amazing!  

Even more amazing?  This works with actual potatoes, too!  Sure, you have the terrible inconvenience of washing them, cutting them into chunks, and drizzling with olive oil, salt & garlic powder... But the rest of the steps are the same.  450 F for about a half an hour.  And then your roasted potatoes aren't filled with:

Potatoes, Vegetable Oils (Sunflower, Cottonseed, Soybean and/Or Canola), Modified Food Starch, Contains 2% Or Less of: Rice Flour, Salt, Tapioca Dextrin, Yellow Corn Flour, Spice, Black Pepper, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Dextrose, Garlic Powder, Cornstarch, Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate, Xanthan Gum, Annatto (Vegetable Color).

Yep, that's right.  You don't actually need to add any modified food starch or disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate to make roasted potatoes!  Someone should tell Ore-ida!

Where the heck do I put all these jars?

I have a serious problem.  My pantry is full, but I can't stop canning! 

 I've started just leaving my canned goods on the kitchen table, thinking I'll find a place to put them soon enough.  But they're still here.

Last night I canned 2 quarts of peach pie filling, 4 half-pints of peach chutney, and 10.5 pints of peach jam.  But I already had 10 half-pints of cherries and 4 pints of spiced apples sitting on the table.  Oh, and three 16 oz bottles of tabasco vinegar.  So it's time to find a place for this stuff.  

I could keep it in the basement and just pull some shelves out of a dumpster somewhere...but things in the basement tend to get forgotten.  Like wet laundry. And the exercise machine.  

I'm hoping to somehow transform the useless space in the stairway to the basement into shelving, but really want my partner to help since he knows how to operate the saws and such.

On another subject- 

I found some pictures from meals in the last week or so that I meant to post and forgot about.

This was a rockin' good stirfry made with all local veggies!  What a difference a few months makes in the local harvest- I had garden broccoli, farmer's market carrots, WI onions, MN garlic, and a glaze made with some (not local) orange juice, sesame oil, tamari, and cornstarch.  On top is some tofu marinated in the glaze ingredients and baked at about 450 for 20 minutes.  Super crispy and amazing!

This looks really boring, but it was bursting with flavor.  I coated some little local potatoes with olive oil and covered them in smoked paprika, garlic, cayenne pepper, cumin, and salt.  Then I roasted them until they were tender. They turned out nice and spicy, so it helped to have some cool coleslaw nearby!
This was from Friday.  Doesn't it just look like a perfect day off of work?

I finished reading "Pickled, Potted & Canned: How the art and science of food preserving changed the world" by Sue Shepard.  If you are at all interested in food preserving, you should read this book.  It is fascinating!

The soup has a spice/aromatic base of crushed coriander (from the garden), cumin seed, fennel seed, salt, jalapeno, onion, and garlic.  I lightly browned the onions and spices in a bit of olive oil and then added about 2 cups of chopped butternut squash, 1 huge peeled, seeded, and chopped heirloom tomato, and enough water to cover.  I let this simmer until the squash was tender (15 min?) and then pureed it.  Even Mike liked it and he hates squash.

Today I need to preserve the pile of tomatillos from the garden, the grocery bag full of apples "rescued" from an abandoned house, and bake some bread.  But I have a co-op local foods picnic to prepare for (including making coleslaw)...so we'll see how far I get (and where the heck I put it all!)

Garlicky Goodness

Here's what's been going on in our kitchen lately:

When we bottle up soda, the kitten likes to try to attack the brew as it bubbles through the tubing!


This latest soda is Maple Rhubarb. It uses 1/2 maple syrup and 1/2 sugar to sweeten it and rhubarb to give it some tartness. As you can see, it has some serious carbonation after 36 hours! (The leaves are some mint and lavender I had in my glass- not part of the original recipe).

I was delighted to see these blue/purple potatoes are the cheapest potatoes at the co-op right now. They're local, organic, and crazily colored- You really can't beat that. I used some yogurt/mayo mix and last year's sweet pickles to whip up a potato salad. It was super good today after it had marinated overnight.
Today was the Sustainable Farming Association's Garlic Fest out at the Wright County Fairgrounds. Sure, I added some food miles onto this garlic by driving out there all by myself, but it was great talking to the folks that grew the garlic! I picked up the following:

• 2 heads Chesnok Red and 2 heads German Extra Hardy from Sunfresh Foods in Preston, MN. These guys are certified organic.
  
• 2 heads Chesnok Red and 1 head Russian Red from Coffman Garlic in West Concord, MN
• 2 heads Merrifield Rocambole and 2 heads Northern White from Hawk's Brain Garlic in Red Wing, MN
• 2 heads Armenian and 4 heads Music from Living Song Gardens in Crow River, MN
• 2 heads Polish Jenn and 1 head Polish White from StoneHouse Farm in Miltona, MN
• Garlic powder from Girardin Gourmet Gardens in Cannon Falls
  

I also scored a great deal on some little potatoes from Earthstar Farm in Hickston, WI. They're not yet certified organic, but working toward it.

Then on my way home I saw Apple Jack Orchards and decided to see if they had any apples yet. Sure enough, they had some early crop apples for super cheap. And they're Midwest Food Alliance Certified!



I can't wait to try all the different varieties!

Snap

I just finished teaching my "Vegetarian Trinity: Tofu, Tempeh, and Seitan" class tonight. I think it went over really well. We had barbecue seitan, tempeh sausage, and lemon-herb tofu crisps. So I've tasted and cooked enough protein to last me for weeks! Hopefully these folks will be inspired to give tofu a try again or finally try to make their own seitan.

Tonight I couldn't imagine cooking anything else, so I just picked some lettuce and snap peas from the garden for a big salad.
{Does anyone want any lettuce? I can't seem to use up all the lettuce in the garden and it's going to be bitter soon. How many mixing bowls of lettuce do I have to eat in a day?}

Anyways, the snap peas are just out of this world right now! I picked some up at the farmer's market this past weekend and cooked them up last night with some zucchini and tons of herbs and served them alongside some boiled potatoes.

Then we got in our local snap peas at the co-op...Yippee! They are better than candy. First a crisp, loud snap and then the crunch. Last comes the rich sweetness that you just can't get from sugar. I'm really enjoying them raw or quickly cooked in some Earth Balance and herbs. How do you cook your snap peas?

My week

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. This past week included volunteering at a food bank, Mike's birthday, big news at work, and a 3 day yoga workshop. I haven't been this busy since I was in school!

Tuesday night I went with co-op folks to volunteer at Second Harvest Food Bank. We took the labels off of cans of organic tomatoes and relabeled them with stickers bearing the correct ingredient lists. I think the original labels incorrectly identified the oregano and basil as being organic, so the company donated the cans to the food bank (selling them with incorrect labels = hefty fines). It was great to see the food shelves getting organic tomatoes! Although the work was a bit tedious and (I hate to say it- I hope the organic inspectors aren't reading this) pointless, I felt simultaneously relaxed and productive when I was done.

On Wednesday we found out that when our co-op's lease (at the Randolph store) is up in Dec 2009, we'll be expanding to a new location on W. 7th. It's a relief to finally have a location secured. Even if I don't usually work at that location, Mike does and I do almost all my grocery shopping at that store. I'm thrilled that next year I'll be able to walk 6 blocks to the store!
At the same time, I know lots of folks are really sad that the store won't be in exactly the same neighborhood so I can't help but empathize. Co-op members take a lot of pride and ownership in our stores (we are owners after all) so when anything changes (from moving the canned beans to moving the store) it can be pretty traumatic. Now comes the fun part of planning a new store!

On Thursday it was Mike's birthday and he chose a (gluten-free) vanilla cake with caramel filling and chocolate frosting. This was my first time making an actual cake gluten-free instead of just cupcakes, but it turned out pretty good.

Saturday morning I made breakfast and we ate outside on the deck because it was so beautiful outside. I think it got up to 60! We had yogurt-herb potatoes that were somewhere between mashed potatoes and potato salad. They had a soyogurt, green onion, and parsley dressing but were kinda mashed, so I don't know what to call them. But they were really good and tasty cold the next day as well. The tofu scramble was a bit plain because we had no veggies in the house except 2 tomatoes and an onion. But it went really well with the potatoes and gave me plenty of protein to keep up with my yoga workshop that day.
I'm on the Board for the Iyengar Yoga Association of Minnesota and on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we sponsored a workshop with Neeta Datta. She has a great way of teaching- somehow she could say things that I've heard before and it just clicked with me more. The classes were strenuous, but very focused on going within your own body and keeping your mind and eyes soft. Right now my muscles aren't feeling so soft- they're feeling more sore. But it was a great weekend! On Saturday night we held a dinner for anyone attending the workshop and I made Isa's Vanilla Yogurt Pound Cake from Veganomicon with a soft ganache topping and California strawberries. Yum! I have an entire cake leftover, though, because we weren't sure how many people to expect. I know I should freeze it for a rainy day...


But today IS a rainy day!

Birthday Week

I haven't posted this week, but it's not because I haven't been cooking. Here are some of the highlights:

Coconut Curry Tofu. On Sunday I taught a class on cooking leafy green vegetables and had 3/4 of a can of coconut milk and 1/2 can of diced tomatoes left over. So I mixed them together with some ginger, garlic, lime juice and red pepper flakes and marinated tofu in it overnight. The next day I baked the tofu until crispy, added the marinade to steamed potatoes, carrots, kale, and onions, and served it all over brown rice. I was so impressed that the kids liked this one. It was really rich from the coconut milk and very filling.
This is out of order, but these are the rockin' good pancakes we had on Saturday after our maple syrup tapping adventure. After seeing all that sap, we really needed some pancakes!
I baked these cupcakes for the Cupcake Hero contest. The cupcake batter contains brown rice crisp cereal and the topping is basically the marshmallowy goo that would hold together a rice crispy treat. I call them Rice Crispy TreatCakes. They're gluten-free, too! I used RiceMellow cream for the marshmallows.

And last but not least: My birthday cake.
I didn't decide what flavor I was making until half-way through my birthday. I was thinking about an Italian Cream Cake, but wanted some chocolate somewhere in the cake. Then I saw an apricot almond cake recipe that looked good. So this is kind of a combination of all three ideas.
Vanilla cake with chocolate-cream cheese filling, apricot jam filling, and vanilla-coconut cream cheese frosting.

It was everything I wanted in a birthday cake. And don't feel sorry for me because I baked my own birthday cake- Getting to bake the cake was like a birthday present.

Meemaw's Saffron and a Chipotle Omelet

Tonight I made the Revolutionary Spanish Omelet from Vegan with a Vengeance, but with some great variations. Instead of potatoes, I used a mixture of garnet yam and sweet potato. In addition to saffron, I added a chipotle pepper with some adobo sauce. Then instead of the roasted red peppers in the almond sauce, I used chipotle peppers and a little soy yogurt. I used firm silken tofu, not soft regular tofu because that's what I had on the shelf.

Now technically these two varieties are really sweet potatoes. The "yam" variety of sweet potato isn't a yam at all, it's an orange-fleshed variety of sweet potato that is different from the true yam that is native to Africa. The USDA requires that all "yams" also bear the name sweet potato. Names aside, they're both delicious!

Now this recipe calls for saffron threads and in the past whenever a recipe calls for saffron, I omit it... but not because I don't have any.

Years ago, (perhaps 15...oh, jeez...) my meemaw gave me some spices she got in Grenada. She saw I had an interest in cooking and knew I would appreciate these fine and (then) fresh spices. I treasure these spices. I treasure them so much that I have not used them in 15 years. Instead of appreciating them by using them, I've hoarded them and carted them from Texas to Minnesota, taking them out only to look at their faded labels and imagine how my meemaw also treasured these little bags, including the valuable saffron. But today I used it! After all these years, the saffron still has a great scent, rich flavor, and beautiful color. Amazing.


I sauteed some red chard to go on the side of the omelet and dressed it with salt, pepper, and some lemon juice.The little chipotle pepper in the omelet is very mild so that the other flavors (including the saffron) can sing through. The Chipotle Almond Sauce, however, has a good spice and zing to it.

I'm baking a Mulberry Pie for dessert, but it's still in the oven. I'm trying out an oat crust, so I'll post pictures if it's any good. I've got to use up all the mulberries in the freezer before the tree starts to bloom again!

Monday and Tuesday meals

I blatantly stole this meal idea from Mary Frances at Gluten Free Cooking School and Susan at Fat Free Vegan. Susan originally posted the recipe and Mary Frances paired it with coleslaw.

These beautiful stuffed corn bread/tortilla rounds could be filled with anything- the possibilities are endless! These were super quick because I filled them with Amy's Organic Refried Beans and Vegan Gourmet Monterey Jack (Both on sale this month at the co-op! Yes!). The surprise hit of the meal was the coleslaw- which was just shredded cabbage and carrots with a dressing of veganaise, soy yogurt, vinegar, celery seed, and salt. I think this is basically the same as my mom's recipe, except using vegan mayo and some soy yogurt.

I planned ahead for this next meal. Tuesdays are always so busy, so I pre-marinated my tempeh in lemon juice, olive oil, dill, garlic, and kelp powder to make "Sea Sticks" which are my version of fish sticks. I even got my potatoes rubbed with kosher salt and olive oil and wrapped them in foil the night before.

But then Tuesday night wasn't nearly as hectic as normal. The kids had a cold so we didn't go to basketball. Their teacher only gave one worksheet for homework, so that was over quickly.

All I had to do was dip the tempeh in a mixture of crushed brown rice crispy cereal, nutritional yeast, and salt and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes with the potatoes. Then I steamed some broccoli and stirred together a Cheeze sauce with nutritional yeast, salt, lemon juice, cornstarch, garlic powder, and almond milk.
So dinner was a breeze and we had plenty of time to enjoy Battleship and couch-snuggling with the whole family. Awwww....

Highlights of last week's food

Last week was really busy! Every weeknight we had something going on and the weekend was full of more commitments, plus I got a stomach flu. I'm back to normal now and have some pictures to post:
This was, according to Mike and the kids, one of the best meals ever. It was roasted potatoes covered in Yogurt-Ranch sauce, baked tofu smothered in barbecue sauce, and garlicky kale. I thought it was pretty good, but not in the top 10. Mike ranked it in the top 5!

When I planned on making roasted beets I didn't plan on doing anything special with them...but Valentine's day is approaching and I thought, "What the hell- Why not make them heart shaped?". A cookie cutter sliced right through the slices of beets and I roasted them with onions, balsamic vinegar, agave nectar, kosher salt, and black pepper. After they were done I slipped a few leaves of fresh sage into the pan and covered it. This infused the beets with a lovely sage aroma. These were perfect on a salad for lunch!


Below is a Shitaake Dashi from a yoga themed mini-cookbook I did a year
or two ago. It is so simple and comforting. Plus it uses a ton of kelp, so I always feel like I'm getting good minerals from this soup. That's Trouble kitten in the background, chewing on my chopsticks.-00000000000 {the O's were her doing as well}Below is just one of the reasons why I love my sweetie. He always brings home a treat when he comes home from work (we both work at a co-op). This night it was ingredients for a strawberry malt!

move over liz. mike is the real cook.

This is mike. All this talk about Liz cooks this and Liz cooks that. Let it be known that I am no slouch in the kitchen either. Yes, everything I make might be from discarded items in the fridge or half spoiled vegetables I got free from work, but know that I cook a lot of the food in this house. When you are in the mood for an ultra fancy dish that takes two hours to make and is of exceptional quality you know that Liz will make it. When you need a fast, nutritious meal that feeds a family of four in 45 minutes and is pretty good- come to me.

Case in point: tonight's dish-



Potatos cut like French fries, baked in olive oil for 25 minutes with salt at 475 degrees. Add sliced roma tomatoes and quartered zucchinis. Sprinkle garlic powder, nutritional yeast, paprika, and dill liberally on top and bake for 15 more minutes. For a final touch you might add vegan Monterey jack cheese and bake for 5 more minutes (or till cheese melts). Better yet, use a broiler (I didn't think of that).

Ok, to come clean, Liz's black beans on the side were a really awesome addition, but this dish could still hold its own. Ask Liz for the 15 minute black bean recipe in the pressure cooker.

Thank you all for putting up with me hijacking Lizzy's blog to tell you about the more white trash fare that passes for dinner in our house.

Me like cookies.

Crunchiest Tofu Ever!

Tonight was the first night that I was a bit frustrated by not being able to use wheat. Mike's been feeling much better since quitting all things wheaty- and nearly all gluten. It hasn't really involved too many changes for us, but tonight I really wanted to make a pot pie or seitan and dumplings. I haven't mastered a non-wheat pie crust suitable for pot pie yet and seitan is definitely out, so I was sad. But then I thought- I'll make the creamed kale that I've been craving and mashed potatoes with it! That made me happy again.

I've never had creamed kale before...yet I was craving it. Curious.
One of my favorite things ever is my mom's spinach casserole, which is essentially cheese, cream cheese, cottage cheese, every kind of cheese you can imagine, a few eggs, and spinach cooked in a crockpot until it's melty and cheesy and amazing. This creamed kale doesn't hold a candle to mom's spinach, but it was still really good (and probably a good deal healthier for me).

I sauteed onions until golden brown and added tons of kale (ours is frozen from the garden, but fresh would be great).

For the creamy part I mixed up (approximately):

1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup original soy yogurt
2 Tbsp. Earth Balance
1 tsp. garlic powder
3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp. arrowroot powder

and added it to the kale. I let it simmer until it thickened up and adjusted salt and pepper to taste.
To go with the potatoes and kale I baked some breaded tofu for a super crispy treat. I remembered Kittee's Crispy Crunchy Stuffed Tofu, and thought I'd give rice crispy breading a try. So I marinated tofu strips in nutritional yeast, poultry seasoning, salt, and garlic powder while I went to work out. When I got home I dipped them in a mixture of almond milk and soy yogurt and then covered them in Brown Rice Crisp cereal (smashed to smithereens), nutritional yeast, poultry seasoning, and salt. I baked them at 400 F for about 30-40 minutes.
They were so unbelievably crunchy!!!

Mike said it might be the best tofu he has ever had.

I chose to eat mine dipped in barbecue sauce...an especially delicious one that was free from the co-op because someone else didn't like it. I've been enjoying it for weeks. Tonight, though, I read the ingredients. It has ANCHOVIES! Yuck!

Normally I don't eat anything without reading the ingredients, but I thought Mike had checked them and he thought I had checked them... So that was too bad, because that sauce ROCKED! It pained me to throw it out because barbecue sauce is one of true loves.
It's like:
1. Mike
2. Barbecue Sauce
3. Kitties, bunnies, baby piglets
....

When the kids are away...Mushrooms come out to play

Last night I made a really awesome dinner that included mushrooms because the kids were at their mom's (mushrooms are their one hated food). I also needed good food to eat for lunch this week...So here's what I made:

Cream of Mushroom & Rutabaga Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 large red onion, diced
1 1/2 cups rutabaga, peeled and diced
1 large portabello mushroom, sliced
1 1/2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced
1 can Great Northern beans, drained
4 cups broth (I used some expired un-chicken broth)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 Tbsp fresh sage, minced
2 Tbsp tamari or Bragg's
1/4 cup soy creamer

Heat the olive oil in a soup pot over medium low heat. Add the onions and cook slowly, allowing them to caramelize. Then add the rutabaga, beans, and broth and increase heat to medium high. Simmer until rutabagas are tender (I have no idea how long, I was busy doing other stuff). Mash or puree using an immersion blender. Then return to the stove and add everything except the soy creamer. When mushrooms have cooked down, add salt or whatever it needs until everything tastes awesome. Then remove from heat and stir in the soy creamer. This should make about 4 servings. We used it as gravy, too! (You know a soup is good when it can be used as gravy).

I also cooked the Herbed Scalloped Potatoes and Chickpea Cutlets (really great northern bean cutlets because I didn't have any chickpeas) from Veganomicon. Then I was inspired by the Lemony Green Beans from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan and made lemony kale and green beans. Everything tasted awesome for dinner and for lunch today. I hope that it will be just as delicious for lunch tomorrow.