i like food, food tastes good

Get outta my way or I'll eat you!  Oh wait, no, that's a Descendents song.  I'm not gonna eat you, I promise, come back!  I'm vegan for goodness sakes.

Speaking of food though, here's some I've eaten in the past couple of days:

tofu and veggie stirfry w/soba noodles

I made this Monday night because we had some sugar snap peas and baby bok choy hanging about that really needed using up.  I made the sauce up all on my own, and hello was that stuff spicy.  Probably half of the sauce ingredients were sriracha and garlic sriracha.  It was good though.  However, I didn't remember until the moment I finished making the whole thing that we were going to have Japanese food with my brother and his fam the next night.  Oh well, they were entirely different, and both were awesome (in my humble opinion).  As for the rest of my sauce, there was ginger and garlic and sesame oil and rice vinegar and rice wine and tamari.  A bit of a hodgepodge, but that's how I roll.  No pics of the food from Hibachi.  Go find Michael's birthday post and look at that food, because we can only get one thing when we go there, which is really tasty, but not worth photographing every single time.

Did I say Michael?  Yeah, he made some good stuffs this week too.  First up:

chili on the fly

I swear he made this in 15 minutes from start to finish.  I texted at 11:40 to ask what was up for lunch and he says he's just getting out of bed (oh great, I'm thinking).  But by the time I got home at like 12:09, this shit was finished!  How?  Who knows.   He may be magical.  Anyway, I put a bunch of scallions and nutritional yeast on mine.  And it was so wonderful.  

The reason I say he may be magic is right here, really:

what!?

Yeah.  I was having a bad day at work yesterday and then I come home to this.  Ooey gooey peanut buttery, caramely, chocolatey, sweet and salty goodness.  I don't know exactly what recipe he based this off of, but it came from VegWeb and when I find out, you shall know.  But I mean, just look at it.  The heart?  The chocolate?  The wonderfulness of a sugaryawesome treat after a terrible (yet again) day at work?  This boy is priceless.  

Since he was so nice, I made him BBQ tofu for din.

bbq shmarbeeque, i just wanted brussels sprouts and polenta

The tofu was tasty, indeed (it's just a bottled sauce that got doctored up by Michael, M.D.), but the brussels sprouts and polenta were stellar.  Just steamed sprouts with EB and seasoned salt.  The polenta got worked on a bit, though.  I wanted to do soft polenta because there is no other comfort in this world so great as soft polenta.  Of course, today it was just regular polenta because it was set up, which was also fine.  I usually do the soft poppy seed polenta from Vcon, but didn't.  I made it with veggie broth, a little thyme, onion powder, smoked paprika, and some (really awesome) chili powder.  The flavor was subtle, but definitely had a southwestern feel to it, which complemented the bbq tofu nicely.  What was really great was putting some tofu on the fork, spearing a sprout, then sopping up some polenta with the whole mess.  Does anyone else do this?  When I was a kid, I was insane about keeping my food separate and only eating one item on my plate at a time before moving on to the next (saving the best for last, of course).  I still do this sometimes, but I've learned that mushing things together can be great too.  

In other news, apparently there was a squirrel hanging out on the kitchen windowsill today.

found this picture on my camera

Michael gets to have so much fun while I'm at work all day.  Darnit.  I wanna hang out with squirrels.  Of course, I'm home now and having a blast (ha) while he's at work, so I guess it works out.  Speaking of which...

I worked out today.  Can you believe it?  I can't.  I don't know where I found the willpower.  It sucked, but I'm glad I did it.  30 minutes on the elliptical (at level one, go me) during which I thought that surely I would die, and really almost for real thought I was going to during the last 5 minutes, but I hung in there.  Then I did like 20 crunches and 10 leg lifts and looked at some weights and decided I wasn't ready for that just yet.  Anyway, it's a start.  I'm counteracting this accomplishment by noshing on carrot sticks and hummus.  Which ordinarily I wouldn't care about, but I got the hummus from the deli and I can just TELL that there's a shitload of tahini in it, which makes it creamy and tasty but also way fattier than I usually make mine at home.  Oh well, there was only less that 1/4 cup left in the container anyway.  It won't kill me.

One last thing:  When buying gifts for people on etsy, the hardest thing about it is repackaging everything in the lovely wrappings that they came in after you had to sneak a look.  I'm getting pretty good at it actually.  I recommend, if you go this route, to invest in a razor (for cutting without messy scissoring) and some scotch tape (for flawlessly covering up your cutting).  Oh, and work on your ribbon tieing skills.

at last! plus, lots of food.

I shouldn't have said that thing about Comcast fucking me over. Because they did. But it's all fixed now, so I won't go into it. Suffice to say, it was incredibly infuriating.

So. Let's start with lunch today! Michael had the brilliant idea to make pepperoni rolls. It's very simple, just take some croissants (some are vegan, just search em out) and some fake pepperoni (we used Yves) and go to town! We put 3 pieces of pepperoni on each croissant, sprinkled them with Italian seasoning, and rolled them up. Serve with pizza sauce for dipping:

Pepperoni Rolls!

Last night we had spaghetti for dinner (perfect for after the bar...) with garlic toast. For those of you who for some reason don't do this, please start salt and peppering your noodles before you put on the sauce. It is ....very very good. Just very good. Try it.

start doing this. now.

Ok, so then just top it with your sauce, duh. We sauteed some onions, garlic, and diced yellow bell peppers, added a can of diced tomatoes, then just some canned suce. For the garlic bread, I spread some bread with Earth Balance, then sprinkled on garlic powder. Pop em under the broiler for a bit until they're toasty, and you're set.

yummy drunk food. or just quick and easy, if you're not drunk.

It feels so nice to actually be posting something with pictures. I know they're kinda crappy... We do most of our cooking at night time because Michael works until 10 or 11 pm most days, the lighting in our apartment is most terrible, and my HP camera blows. Next week I'm borrowing my dad's nicer digital camera. I mean, I could take them with my real camera, but then I'd have to get film developed all the time and put onto disks... I mean, I'm not a fan of digital photography for the sake of my artwork, but it's nice for just uploading my food pictures, yes? Anywho... what else should I show for this post. Something nicer than spaghetti and pepperoni rolls, I think. It's just been kind of hectic around here lately, so our meals haven't been too... overproduced like usual. Oh, I know. Cookies!

I've been on a chocolate chip cookie making frenzy lately. Here's a couple of examples. First, the ones I made from this recipe. They're pretty simple, but you really really have to make sure you don't bake them too long, even though they won't look done. They harden up quite a bit after you take them out of the oven, but they'll be smooshy right after you take them out. Just trust the cookie, and don't overbake. Like I possibly did. No worries though, if you overbake them, just microwave them before you eat them and they'll soften right up.

Happy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Next is a set that Michael made, upon my insistence. I wanted em, but I was being lazy, so lovely boyfriend that he is, he whipped these right up, based off of this recipe. However, we didn't have applesauce. So we just used lots of EB. Which made them a bit greasy. I suggest we add a bit of baking soda to help them rise, in case the applesauce was supposed to be the egg in the cookie. It didn't really do much. I think Michael also added some cocoa powder and chocolate syrup so that they would have a 'marbled' effect. It was rather nice, but I'm not sure it was ...healthy. But they're cookies. Who cares. Here he is happily stirring cookie dough.

And here are the results:

Chocolate Chipe Cookies Like They Should Be

I'm not sure I completley agree with that title, but... They tasted good. Another tip for cookies, is that for some reason, vegan cookies don't seem to spread out like omni cookies. You know how with those cookies, you can just put a ball of dough on the baking sheet and you end up with big, flat cookies? Not so with vegan cookies. Or maybe it's just chocolate chip cookies. I dunno. What I do know is that if you put a ball of dough on the sheet, you take a ball of cookie out of the oven. So smoosh em down a bit if you want them to be flatter. We forgot this time, obviously.

That same night, for dinner, we made BBQ chickn sandwiches with coleslaw, based off of this recipe from Yeah, That "Vegan Shit". However, I altered the recipe because I cannot leave well enough alone. Sort of. That recipe has the chickn and coleslaw in the same marinade, and I wanted a different flavor for my chicken, something more traditionally "barbeque-y". We also changed up the coleslaw a bit, not only to reflect the fact that we just made enough marinade for the slaw, but also because in order to make it creamier, we added..some stuff. So my recipe below reflects that. If you want to make enough to cook the chickn in as well instead of using bbq sauce, just double it. Anyway, here's what it looked like. (don't judge, ok?)

BBQ Chickn Sandwich with Carolina Style Coleslaw

I think it looks hilarious, kind of like it's a monster with a mouth full of...something interesting. Anywho, here's the recipe:

For the Chicken:

1 bag of fake chicken strips (we used Morningstar Meal Starter ones)

1 bottle of your favorite bbq sauce

salt & pepper

chili powder

cumin

dried thyme

some mustard

some brown sugar

some ketchup

For the Coleslaw:

Half a head of cabbage, sliced ultra thin

1 carrot, sliced ultra thin

some onions, also sliced very thin

(or you could use a bag of coleslaw mix. we just happened to have some cabbage on hand, so made our own.)

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 Tbsp brown sugar

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground black pepper

salt, to taste

about 1/2 cup dijon style vegan mayonaise (or, the same amount of regular, plus some dijon mustard... add this to taste, as you may not like it that creamy)

about 1/8 - 1/4 cup ketchup

good squeeze of half a lemon, about 2 Tbsp of juice

Do your coleslaw first, so it can marinate while your chicken's cooking. Prepare the marinade and stir in the coleslaw veggies. Cover and refrigerate until the chicken is done.

Heat up some olive oil in a pan, and add your chicken, plus the spices, to taste (chili powder, salt, pepper, cumin, thyme) and saute until browned. Then pour in your bbq sauce, plus the mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar, to taste. Cover and simmer on low for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The longer you cook it, the better it will be, making it nice and tender and flavorful.

When you can't stand it anymore, toast up some buns, add some chicken, and top with coleslaw. Done!

Ok, I think that's it for now. I do have other pictures, but this post has gotten mega long. Sega!