You know I love this Cookbook

This week brings - you guessed it - more Veganomicon food! But just to prove that I do try other things, there are a few dishes from elsewhere.

Smoky Grilled Tempeh and Sauteed Collards. So good, especially if you like smoky things. I still prefer the Hot-Sauce Glazed Tempeh.



Grilled Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tortillas. Using mashed sweet potatoes for the traditional cheese is brilliant. I should have done these on the grill pan, but had the skillet out so I used that. I can't wait to try these with yuca.



Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Seed Rice Paper Rolls. These were good, but I needed something denser in the middle of the wrap, like tofu. The dipping sauce was AMAZING, with the perfect combo of hot, sour, salty, sweet.



Fat-free Vegan's Ethiopian-Inspired Red Lentil Soup. I've been wanting to try this because the picture on her website is fantastic and kittee has me in an ethiopian food mood. It was really hearty and tasty. Not for kids.



Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango. This would be perfect in the summer out on the patio. I made this on a freezing cold winter's night which was probably a mistake, but dammit, mangoes are on sale now!



Spaghetti and Bean Balls. Perfect food for a family dinner night. I loved the taste of the beanballs. Next time, I won't bake them with the sauce on top because I would have liked them crisper. Vcon's marinara sauce is superb. It will be my standard go-to tomato sauce from now on.



Israeli Couscous with Pistachios and Apricots and Mediterranean-Style Baked Lima Beans. I screwed something up on this one. The couscous was tough. The beans were tougher. They could have had a gang fight right there on the plate. But, you have to learn from your mistakes. Next time I would cook the couscous in water first, then add to the skillet. The flavours in the recipe worked well together. As for the beans, I might use cannellini or navy next time. Too many of the lima beans split in half during soaking and the split ones never softened.



Pineapple-Cashew-Quinoa Stirfry. Really good and fairly easy. Princess liked it.



Skillet Corn Bread. I think anything cooked in a skillet is beautiful. This was super easy and made enough for an army. Or a gaggle of peace-keepers.



Ani Phyo's Raw Japanese Miso-Shiitake Soup. Puke. I should have known better given that this recipe calls for 1 cup of olive oil, but I couldn't eat more than a few spoonfuls. I've come to the realization that I don't like raw garlic.



Luckily my Homemade Kimchee was spicy hot enough to kill the taste from the soup. This was fun to make, letting cabbage rot on the counter intentionally. The recipe is from Maddhur Jaffery's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking.



Inari!



VWAV's Maple Walnut Cookies. My new favourite not-healthy cookies. Damn, these are good! I eat too many of them though, so they are not-healthy for me.



Dreena's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. My new favourite healthy cookie. The recipe doesn't make enough cookies for our family, so I'm playing with it to make a bigger batch with even more health thrown in. A big bonus for these is that Princess can take them to school in her lunch because they are nut-free.

Temperate Cooking

We had a good start to summer going on, so we sat in the sun and fired up the grill. One of my very favourite summer dishes is a medley of marinated grilled vegetables, served either plain or over noodles.



I always adlib the marinade so they never taste quite the same twice. Pete does a great job on the barbee, and they are always grilled to perfection.

Another night I had a hankering for spicy chinese. I searched the web for yet another way to do tofu. I found this.



It was really really good, even better than takeout because I could control the amount of oil in it.

Then the weather turned cold, so a steaming hot bowl of soup was in order. I had been eyeing Susan V's White Bean and Garlic Stew recipe.



I chickened out a little bit and only added half of the cloves of a garlic bulb. I also wanted to up the green content so I threw in some chopped swiss chard instead of parsley, and had only one can of cannellini beans so I added a can of chickpeas. It was absolutely delicious. I thought it would be super garlicky but it was really mellow.

Again, the weather was damp and cold tonight, so I improvised a little. I had an acorn squash in the cupboard and a few potatoes. Thus my Curried Squash Pumpkin Potato Soup.



I decided it needed a sexier name. Pete suggested:

Squish Squash Soup

1/2 tblsp olive oil
1 chopped white onion
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp curry powder
4 cups veggie broth
1 cup water
1 baked acorn squash, skin removed
1 can of pumpkin (but reserve 1 cup so you can make VwaV's pumpkin muffins another day)
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 tsp salt
a small handful of cilantro leaves, chopped

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and saute until soft. Add the mustard seeds and curry powder and stir for a minute. Add the broth, water, squash, pumpkin and potatoes. Heat to boiling and then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes, or until potatoes are soft. Stir in salt to taste and fresh cilantro.

Let's hope the weather turns around so we can be on the patio with fruity drinks by Friday afternoon!

The Pounds Go Marching one by one...

I haven't posted lately because our menu has been following a rather routine pattern. We have green smoothies for breakfast, combining fruit such as bananas, pineapple, mango, papaya, or berries with greens such as spinach, kale, romaine or parsley. Every day, I try a different combination. For mid-morning snack, a fruit salad and dried fruit and nuts. At lunch, we have a salad, guacamole and/or leftovers from the night before. Dinner consists of a steamed green vegetable, beans, chickpeas or lentils and occasionally, brown rice or pasta. I haven't felt that much of this was worth taking a photo. That doesn't mean that I'm not totally enjoying what we are eating. In total, I've lost 8 lbs, and Pete has lost 10. But more importantly, I have much, much more energy than I've ever had. I don't sleep less, but I feel very positive and energetic during the day.

I tried a new recipe from the same Vegetarian Times article that Sarah last posted about - this one is Napa Cabbage Salad with Peanut Dressing.



The napa cabbage was refreshing and really pretty after grating with a mandoline. The peanut sauce was out of this world with very little added oil. I could have eaten the whole bowl.

I did make Fat-free Oatmeal Cookies since Pete begged for cookies, but they didn't last long enough for a photo. Super good.

Not Ugly at All

I wanted to try Fatfree Vegan Kitchen's Miang Kum Rolls. Since Susan's daughter E ate them, I figured Princess might too (bland toppings only). I made them as raw as I could, using raw cashews instead of peanuts.



The sauce was really tasty, once you warm up to the idea that it's not peanut sauce, but tamarind flavoured. Princess was excited by the wrap-assembly process, so I was optimistic that she would eat the one she made. Alas, she picked out the spinach and only ate the cucumber and rice paper. But Pete and I really liked them.

We have been eating bushels of fruit lately, so to increase our dietary variety, we decided to try an "uglifruit". Here's what it looked like.



Inside, we were pleasantly surprised, despite the name.



They were very juicy with large wedges the size of grapefruit, but the taste was somewhere between an orange and a grapefruit, with a hint of lime. We ate it like an orange. I would definitely not hesitate to buy one again.