simple dimples and famers market and other things

I really do mean to post more often...  but things have been a bit crazy around here.  Michael found a new job (yay!) and I put in my two weeks notice at mine (also yay!).  Still, it's been stressful, and though I think about blogging every day, I only seem to have the time on weekend mornings.  So...  you're getting the best I can do for right now, friends.  Explanations aside, lets discuss some more interesting things.

We went to the farmers market this morning for the first time this year!

the basics

And there was only one seller and we bought mostly everything they had!  Well, one basket of everything, anyway.  And it wasn't as cheap as usual...  but the real deal farmers market starts officially June 27, so you bet your bottom dollar we'll be there for that.  I was a little disappointed that there were no greens...  But I can make do.  I'm always a fan of little red new potatoes.  And those tomatoes don't look completely ripe, but I'll make it work.  I'm most excited about the beans and zucchini though...  Mmm.  Spent $9.25.  We've been discount shopping like crazy lately because of our tentative job situations, and cheap produce is perfect right now.  

Have you been wondering about our garden?  Well, it's been a tad stunted because the light on the porch has been dwindling since the trees outside got more leafy, but...  progress!  Look!

teeny tiny pea pod

Our babies are growing!  So far, this is the only sign of actual items producing veggies, but it means there is hope.  And hope is damned fine for me, thanks.

What with it getting warmer (though it's been raining here all week, go figure), I've been craving raw veggies like nobody's business.  Thankfully, I remembered this, and have been making my own rendition.

i may never cook kale again.

I didn't even watch the video again before making the salad, I just remembered seeing it once and decided to wing it.  Basically, you just wash and tear your kale into bite sized pieces and massage olive oil and salt and lemon juice into it until it looks nice and wilty.  Then add in an avocado and mush it around so it coats the leaves (I do whole bunches of kale at once, so that's one whole lemon's worth of juice and an entire avocado...I do skimp on the olive oil though).  Then just add cracked pepper and whatever other veggies you like.  I put radishes and strips of summer squash in this version...and I've learned that I also love raw squash.  And zucchini.  

I liked it so much that I ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day.  Then went home and used the other bunch of kale I had to make another raw kale salad.  I am a woman obsessed. 

ok, not fully raw, but we do what we can here.

To this one I added thinly sliced zucchini (you really must try raw zucchini if you haven't...it's amazing.  So much better than cucumbers.) and scallions and radishes and also a few splashes of red wine vinegar.  Michael made some seitan and we topped our salads with it, and it was freaking amazing.  I ate the leftovers for lunch, then went out that evening and got more kale and lemons and avocados, and plan to make more salad today.  It's been like 3 days.  I miss it.  Yeah, it's got a lot of fat in it, but it's healthy fat, so suck it up and go make this.  Because it's awesome.

More on budget meals that are also quick and/or relatively easy:  Thai tempeh with veggies and rice noodles.

this was amazing.  i impress myself sometimes.

We've had a lot of tempeh floating about since Michael's mom brought us 3 packages of it, and we had 2 already in the fridge.  And we're out of tofu, and seitan sometimes takes longer than my poor hungry (aka grouchy) belly can handle.  Anyway, I got all this coconut milk at Aldi for like 90 cents a can, and a bunch of zucchini and frozen broccoli...  We had all the other stuff on hand: scallions, frozen peas, carrots, tempeh, rice noodles, ginger, limes, soy sauce, etc.  I steamed the tempeh and while that was going on, made a marinade of coconut milk, ginger, lime zest and juice, a little cumin and coriander, soy sauce, and red pepper flakes.  Drain tempeh, marinate for about a half hour, scoop out with slotted spoon and pan fry...  While that was going on, I sauteed the veggies and cooked the rice noodles.  Add tempeh to veggies, add marinade on top of that to act as the sauce, heat through, and bam!  Dinner's ready.  That might seem like a lot of steps, but if you're good at multi-tasking, it's not so bad.  

Ok, so I just noticed that the next 4 pictures are really strange looking...because there was a lot of yellow in the meals and I took them in sort of bad lighting, so pardon.  I always forget about the white balance button on my camera because I'm hungry when I'm photographing the food.  And I color corrected the best I could without making them look like food from Mars.  I will try harder, haha...

Anyway, here's some more tempeh and discount meal stuff:

maple dijon tempeh is the best thing on this planet...and it wasn't my idea.

So, at the market down the block they have discount veggies sometimes, which I love, obviously.  This time I got a pack of leeks, some sweet potatoes, and some roma tomatoes.  They all went into this carb-filled meal.  The tempeh was simmered in some broth, and then Michael pan fried it and made this amazing sauce out of maple syrup, dijon mustard, hot sauce, and water.  It was so creamy and fabulous and decadent...I can't even think about it.  It makes my mouth water.  We also roasted the sweet potatoes with some red potatoes we already had and a bunch of whole garlic cloves (amazing!), and I made a risotto with the leeks and tomatoes.  This was all relatively easy, except for my stirring for half an hour.  It was kind of a chilly evening, so the oven being on wasn't a big deal.  Anyway, it was all delicious!

Next is a weird bean and millet salad we concocted one night when it was really hot and we were being lazy.

creamy beany

It's just two cans of beans, some millet, avocado, celery, and Nayonaise.  I actually kind of had an aversion to this because I've somehow become like, incredibly over sensitive to the taste of soy mayonaise and I officially hate it.  I mean, I never really liked it, but I could tolerate it in salads and sauces.  Now, it's on my black list, which sucks because I used it a lot in those things.  Maybe I need a new brand.  But I digress...  This salad was good though, in theory.  I added a bunch of nutritional yeast and lemon juice to my portion, which made it way better.

Oh, this one's old, but was really yummy:

vwav alfreda

I got some orriechette, which is my absolute favorite pasta shape and wanted to use it in some kind of creamy sauce with broccoli.  Never having tried the alfreda from Vegan with a Vengeance, I decided to give it a go.  And...wow.  This sauce is seriously the best creamy sauce ever.  It calls for a lot of nutritional yeast, but somehow doesn't taste noochy.  We added some sausage style tempeh (basically the tempeh sausage crumbles from the same book, but I didn't look at the recipe and just winged it).  Fabulous.  I don't often call things fabulous, unless they really truly are.  And this is.  Ok, so I called the maple dijon tempeh fabulous as well, but it was.

With quick and easy meals, sometimes it's not worth taking a picture.  Like the beans and rice we had last night.  Or the pesto we put on pasta a week or so ago.  But sometimes the leftovers from those meals become something totally photo-worthy.

if i could only get a decent photo when the time comes!

The leftover pesto went onto a pizza crust...  toppings were onions, garlic, cherry tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, black olives and vegan parmesan (all of which we just had one hand!).  I don't often like a pizza without a tomato sauce, but this one was perfect.  And easy.  And quick.

Lastly for today, I leave with with deliciousness and a good photo.

spinach artichoke dip!

Yes, that does deserve an exclamation point.  I used to luuuurve spinach artichoke dip.  I made a vegan version once before and it was horrible.  It called for all this soy sour cream and cream cheese...and it tasted just like those.  Of which I am not a fan, by themselves.  This recipe came from the idiot cookbook.  And it was...I'm running out of synonyms for delicious again.  But it was all of those synonyms put together into one giant flavor explosion of happiness.  We liked it, in other words.  Plus, it was easy peasy and didn't call for any specialty ingredients except for nutritional yeast, which is only specialty for some people (like me, who have to drive a bit to get it).  Michael and I devoured this with crostinis (discount bread, hell yes) and the Greek salad that I blogged about last time.  I'm loving this idiot cookbook, by the way.  At first, the recipes seemed too simple to bother making, but it turns out that simple is good when you're in a hurry (duh) or it's hot out (duh) or the flavor combinations just plain old work (double duh).  

So simplify your life.  And enjoy your weekend!

please excuse this post full of pictures of awesome food

I'm so far behind!  Really, this is just going to be mostly pictures from meals that I barely remember eating.  It's been way too long since I've posted, so here's my catchup work:

There's no rhyme or reason to the ordering here...  I'm just going down my list in alphabetical order, then Blogger is going to switch them around backwards for me (hey, thanks, Blogger).  Therefore first up is our dinner from last night!  Michael and I have been doing a bit of a pantry challenge due to some lack in funds for ...well, everything.  Earlier this week I cooked up a pot of kidney beans (my first dried bean experience!  I overcooked them!...oh well).  From the leftovers, I made these kidney bean burgers.

it looks like it's going to eat me instead

These were a concoction of beans, a little wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, bread crumbs, onions, garlic, spinach, basil, oregano, dill, and tahini.  Baked for about 30 minutes on each side at 350F.  They were downright tasty!  Though I could have added more salt to them, for sure.

Next up we have some Indian food that I made based on a cookbook recipe.  I have this cookbook that's all curries that I hadn't looked at in forever...then a friend wanted to borrow it, but left it at the house and, flipping through, I realized that not only could I veganize a crapload of the recipes, but there were also many that were already vegan.  Doh!  This is one of them...  It's chickpeas with lots of cilantro (I do like it in Indian food, after all), cumin, dried coriander, tomatoes, carrots, soy yogurt (my addition), peas, coconut milk (also my addition)...  

also good for breakfast 2 days later

Those are supposed to be spiced potato  pancakes in the background, but they fell apart in the skillet and became fried mashed potatoes instead.  This was really delicious...and I can't wait to revisit this cookbook!

Oh...haha....  And here is something I veganized from Paula Deen.  Yeah, you read that right.  

waffles with chili

See, except she put butter in every single waffle hole, then put chili on top, then added cheese and sour cream.  We got a waffle maker from Michael's parents a few weeks ago and this was our first (and so far, only) endeavor.  I used the lemon corn waffle recipe from VWAV, except without the lemons.  They tasted nicely like cornbread in waffle form.  Except the recipe made so much batter that we basically just ate waffles all day long in various forms.  

Here we have a pasta salad that we added Boca chicken patties to:

creamy and fabulous

We used my basic awesome pasta salad recipe, and it was rad.  I'll get you that recipe at some point, but not today, my loves.

Oh, here's some of that cashew cheese (the blue algae kind) with crackers.

happy snacky

Seriously, Dr. Cow cheese is the best fake cheese ever ever ever.

Now for some seitan.

steamed to perfection

I generally use the basic seitan recipe from VWAV, then tweak it here and there.  And I steam it instead of simmering it, because I just like steamed seitan better.  And so does Michael.  So there.  Anyway, these we tried to make like steaks and used some steak seasoning on both sides before steaming, so that it kind of got embedded on the outsides.  

Then we did this with them:

proper awesomeness

After grilling them on the Foreman, these were perfect sliced super thin and served with lemony couscous and green beans.  I did make the seitan a tad too salty, but I cured that with the leftovers...  I sliced up another and put it in a pita with some sweet poppyseed salad dressing.  The sweetness balanced out the salt perfectly.  

And now for a sausage overload.

oh tofurkey

As you can see, some of this is from before our pantry challenge.  We went on a sort of Tofurkey sausage binge a couple weeks ago.  For this one, I made a tofu scramble with kale (awesome!) and Michael roasted some potatoes and baby sweet peppers.

And here's more:

sausage sausage sausage

These were a different flavor, but I don't know which.  Roasted all together with fingerling potatoes and more baby sweet peppers.  All of this was stuff Michael brought back with him from when he was out of town.  We can't afford the fingerling potatoes here!  It's weird, one of those sausage flavors reminded me of a food from my childhood...  My family used to go to Christmas dinners at the house of my Polish godparents.  They always had stuffed clam shells.  The sausages tasted identical to whatever was inside those clam shells.  Weird!

Oh, here's some canned minestrone that I took a pretty picture of:

slurp

Ate that with the cheese and crackers you saw earlier.  Nice little lunch, really!

Wow, this one's really old.

but really good

That's the Thai Chick-un Pizza from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan.  It was uhhhhmaaaaazing.

like, so amazing.

I highly reccommend that you make this pizza.  Right away.  We had loads of the sauce leftover, so a couple nights later I used it to make some Thai peanut veggies over rice.

also really good.

Even if you don't feel like making the whole pizza (which you must be crazy, if that's the case), at least make the sauce.  It's freaking delicious.

Ah, here's the first dinner I made out of the pot 'o' beans from earlier this week.

taco casserole

This is beans and corn with a packet of fajita seasoning layered with mini corn tortillas that I got on sale forever ago, the nacho sauce from Yellow Rose Recipes, tomatoes, and black olives, all baked for about 30 minutes together.

Then, we did this to it:

!

Topped off with lettuce, guacomole, and scallions.  This was seriously so delicious.  You can imagine how pissed I was when I dropped a plateful of it on the floor.

Next up's another little snack that Michael brought back from Indiana.

spring rolls

Well, frozen spring rolls that we baked in the oven.  They were really good.  Gingery.  We ate them with different sauce packets that were in the fridge...duck sauce, soy sauce, hot mustard.  By the way, Evansville, Indiana, has a crapload of vegan food available.  Awesome!

And here's something that was just ok:

falafel from like 3 weeks ago

I used the recipe from VWAV, and...  it tasted good.  But when I went to fry it, the balls literally melted in the oil.  Maybe my oil was too hot.  Anyway, we had to fish out the bits and reform it all into balls and then broil it to get them to stay together.  They were still mushy.  Tasty though.

Last but not least was another on the fly dinner made from the last of the treats Michael brought with him.

wild rice tempeh

We roasted the wild rice tempeh (the only kind we can get here is plain old soy) with carrots, leeks, and potatoes (and some more wild rice) in a fake beefy broth.  I made a stuffing with almonds, dried cranberries, and cayenne pepper (the stuffing bread I used was leftover from Thanksgiving!).  It was a tad too moist, but tasted good.  Brussels sprouts rounded it all out.

And I'm done!  If you've made it this far, congratulations.  I promise from now on to be as prompt as possible with my posts so that they don't drag on quite so much!

insert clever title here

We eat good at our house.  Although the meals you are about to witness were mostly simple fare, damn, were they delicious.

Behind door number one, I give you...    Chinese night!

teryaki udon noodles w/veggies, spicy broccoli, sesame kale, baked tofu

This was all crazy awesome, but a tad salty for my taste (which is another way of saying that it was waaaaay too salty, because...  me like-a the salt).  Still, loads of veggies, noodles, and tofu that you get to eat with chopsticks?  I'm in!

Michael made this vegetable soup a few days ago that tasted exactly like Campbell's alphabet veggie soup.  Except way better.  It was eerie.

mmm mmm better

I'm not totally sure what he did, but I do know that the base is water, tomato paste, and 'beef' bouillon.  That way, it's not too tomato-y, but just tomato-y enough.  Veggies included carrots, red bell peppers, corn, peas, potatoes, spinach, onions, and napa cabbage.  Even better the next day, by the way.  Tres bien, mon amor!  Hey, is that French?  Did I just speak French?  Since I don't speak French, I have no idea.  (Shelly?)

Next up is a wrap that was Michael's idea, but my own doing.  Jamaican jerk tofu wrap!

many 'jerk' jokes thus ensued

I found a Jamaican spice rub recipe somewhere (thought I saved it, but alas...) that I used to marinate tofu strips in (along with some water to make it more...liquid), then baked those.  All nestled snugly against carrots, cabbage, and tomatoes...heavenly.  And spicy!  Wowza.  

By the way, I have declared this week that cabbage is the new lettuce.  Namely, napa cabbage.  It's always crunchy, it's light and lovely, and you can cook it, so it's versatile.  Lettuce, move over!  Cabbage is movin' to town.

Oh, we ate those wraps with some of my signature MexiRice (tm).

love in a bowl

Except I made way too much, so I'm still up to my ears in MexiRice (tm).  By the way, MexiRice (tm) just consists of brown rice, canned tomatoes, garlic powder, cumin, and cayenne.  Oh, and water and a bouillon.  The key, my friends, is the ratio.  But since I never measure, I couldn't really tell you what that ratio is.  Experiment!  Try it out!  It's so fricking good.

We made this lovely piece of radness for lunch on Saturday:

chickpea salad of the ...gods?

We were starving.  We found half a baguette in the fridge.  And a can of chickpeas.  The result is almost too predictable.  Goodness was it good though!  Nom.  No recipe used, just tossing things in.  Things tossed in may include the following:

chickpeas

garlic dill relish

garlic powder

mustard

nayonaise

parsley

green onions

celery

salt

pepper

And finally!  Another test recipe from the Cookin' with my Craw-Daddy zine!  This one was to die for.  I almost died.  It was that good.

roasted jalepeno cornbread pancakes w/fresh salsa

My friends, I would not lie to you.  These were light, fluffy, flavorful, and omni approved.  They even had cilantro in them (in both the pancakes and the salsa), and Michael and I both were left wanting more.  Seriously.  Once this zine comes out, you should get it if only for this recipe.  Amazing.  A perfect way to celebrate national pancake day and Mardi Gras combined.

I do not kid.

Anywho, I have dishes to do and it's LOST night (and Top Chef!) and dinner needs made before we dissolve our brains in front of the television.  Have a lovely rest of your week, everone!

super bowl noms and a week in food

Michael and I worked for hours on Sunday to make some really yummy Super Bowl foods, and it was well worth it!  First up, I wanted to make something reminiscent of the pizza bites from the New Years spread, but with actual pizza dough this time.  The original idea was to make pizza rolls a la Totino's (an old addiction of mine), but with the rising of the dough, they turned out more like pizza buns:

the best happy accident ever

Basically, these are like a nice soft bun...filled with pizza fabulousness.  I used a mixture of pizza sauce, FYH mozzarella, and a spicy pizza topping that I get from our corner market (full of peppers and olives and other good things).  The dough is the basic pizza dough from VWAV.  After it rose and rested, I just started pulling off little bits and flattening them, deposited a good amount of the filling, and then closed it all up.  By the time they went into the oven, they'd rose some more, so that's why they're so fluffy.  They remind me of the pizza rolls from elementary school.  Did you guys ever have those?  They were always served with great northern beans, and not a single person ever has eaten those beans, but no one brought their lunch on that day because everyone wanted the pizza roll.  These are better though, because even though they're a little greasy, they're way less greasy than those monstrosities.  The best part of that memory?  My mom taught (still teaches, actually) at my elementary school, so if the cooks had leftover pizza rolls, she could get one and bring it home to me (this was especially rad when I was in high school and no longer had pizza rolls to enjoy).  Anyway, you should all try this out.  They were a huge hit.

wontons!

Everyone really enjoyed the wontons I made on New Years, so those were back up on the menu.  Michael took the lead in this one this time, as he has superior wonton making skills.  We used a newly acquired pasta roller-outer-thing that we sort of swiped from his mom to roll out the dough super thin, which was a huge advantage, as the homemade wonton wrapper dough is incredibly stiff.  (Look for homemade pasta in the future!)  This is the same filling, just Tofutti cream cheese mixed with scallions, fresh ginger, and salt.  While one omni at our party spit it out, the others all loved them.  Anyway, he's a jerk.  Because these rule.

I also made a huge pot of chili and the cornbread from Vcon for everyone to share, but didn't take pictures as most of you, I'm sure, know what chili looks like.  It was yummy though, and we ate it for lunch a few days this week.

Next up is dinners!

pineapple cashew quinoa stirfry

I read some old posts over at the PPK about how people just love this stirfry.  We've never made it because we rarely have pineapple and cashews in our house at the same time.  By a stroke of pure coincidence though, we picked up a fresh pineapple at the store this week, alone with cashews, so it must have been fate.  We added some water chestnuts, baby corn, and broccoli to round it all out.

so photogenic

Yeah, this takes a much better picture than a regular stirfry, for sure.  Anyway, I thought this was pretty good, but I didn't love it.  Michael did love it, however, so all's well that ends well.  I'm not exactly sure what I didn't love about it...  But sometimes that happens.

so flashy

I had to use flash in the next 2 pictures because the kitchen was being like, unreasonably dark this night.  Stupid kitchen and stupid tripod for still being missing.  Hmph.  Anyway, we had a reuben night!  This is the recipe from VWAV, and it is so freaking good.  We use the Foreman grill to cook the tempeh and the sammiches, so that no extra oil or margarine has to be used, plus it makes the sammiches all squishy-like, which is the best way for a hot sammich to be.  Am I wrong?  Didn't think so.  I found that I really like my reubens with some tomato slices positioned between the tempeh and the sauerkraut.  It adds a little sweetness that just makes everything better.  We ate these lovelies with some wonderful chickn veggie alphabet soup!

just like mom used to make...well, sort of

Unfortunately, you can't see the alphabet noodles in the soup, but that's ok.  The really exciting thing about this soup is that we made it with homemade veggie stock!  That's right, we've jumped on the homemade stock bandwagon, and I couldn't be happier.  For the past few weeks, we've been freezing the scraps from onions, carrots, celery, leeks, scallions, and parsley in a big tupperware container.  It finally got too full to close, so it was stock time!  Michael actually made this without me while I was at work one day.  When I got home, I added some bay leaves and peppercorns to the mix and we let it simmer for quite awhile.  The taste of homemade stock is really freaking good.  I think it might be the first time I've even had it, to be honest.  Well, Mom used to make chicken stock for her chicken soup, I think.  But, uh...I'm not doing that, obviously.  The point is that the homemadeness of it just makes the soup so much better.  I added in some soycurls for a treat, and they were perfect in the soup!  Those things really are awesome.

We had leftover reuben sauce, kraut, and rye bread, so Michael made me a California style reuben with Lightlife turkey slices the next day.  Yum!  Just as good as the tempeh, but way lighter.  No picture though.  I was too hungry to hold the camera.

Last night I made us a felafel feast:

my long lost friend

I really, really love felafel, but I rarely make it.  In fact, I've never made it from scratch before.  We always use the Fantastic brand mix, and it's actually really good.  I broil mine instead of frying, which makes them a tad dry, but that is easily remedied with a totally awesome hummus.  The hummus I made last night was probably the best hummus in the universe, ever.  I mean...it was killer.  It's full of garlic, roasted red peppers, basil, cayenne, and all the other things that you always put in hummus.  It's so spicy!  I only added a touch of cayenne, but the kind I get in bulk at the health food store really packs a punch.  A little dab will do ya, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, paired with lettuce, tomato, and avocado, this was a completely wonderful meal to enjoy while watching LOST.  

And if you're wondering why I'm blogging at 1:30 pm on a Thursday, it's because all of my water is frozen and I didn't go to work because I couldn't brush my teeth.  I'm not sure that's a valid excuse, but...  oh well.  Snow day!  Sort of!  It didn't snow any last night though!  But it IS damn cold.  Meh.

I have something fun for you all, but I'm going to post about it tomorrow, because I don't want to overload you with too much awesomeness today.  You might die.