i live, kind of.

So, I got the flu.  It knocked me on my ass.  'Nuff said.  

As a form of apology, please accept these delicious meals, in electronic form:

all kinds of rad

These are the Chesapeake Tempeh Cakes from Isa's blog.  They are pretty much the bee's knees.  Wait, is that vegan?  Regardless, is it too 1925?  Oh well.  You should make them.  As you can see, I burned mine slightly, but all in all, I'm pretty damned proud of my frying skills.  Cause I made this all by my lonesome one night.  I substituted tahini everywhere that the recipe called for Veganaise because I was all out of my trusty Nayonaise.  Still was totally awesome.  That remoulade on top is key, as well.  Make it all together when (not if) you do.  That soup in the background is the asparagus and spinach soup from Nava Atlas' Vegan Soups and Hearty Stews for all Seasons (here on out called 'the soup book' because I gaurantee I will not want to type all that out every time I use the book).  It was a nice and simple soup, very fresh tasting and mighty easy to pull together.  I'm pretty smitten with this soup book.  You'll see.

giada pasta

Giada basically makes me want to vomit.  I hate most things about her.  She's too gorgeous and skinny to be this chef who makes all this fattening food.  She smiles too much and her teeth are too white.  Her shirts are too low cut.  And tight.  Which is probably why Michael was watching her show one day and got the idea for this pasta she was making (jk, but seriously).  It's cherry tomatoes roasted with garlic and capers and lemon juice (um, hello) and breadcrumbs on top of all that.  Then you mix it in with some pasta that you coated with parmesan (we've got a stockpile of vegan parmesan, it rules).  I got to pick out that fun pasta...I think it was called 'Wacky Mac'.  I could not resist.  Could you resist wagon wheels in your pasta?  Really though, this pasta was amazing.  So rich and creamy, somehow.  It had a lot of oil in it.  And it was wonderful.  Before the pasta, we ate this:

ceasar spectacular

As always, dressing recipe from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.  It's so fabulous.  I keep wanting to make the ceasar dressing from Veganomicon, but...I never have silken tofu.  Ever.  I kind of loathe it.  Plus, what is up with it needing to be fresh and not vacuum packed?  Really?  I love that cookbook, but so many ingredients just will not ever be found in West Virginia.  Ever.  Not to say I don't sub stuff in all the time.  It's just kind of a pain when I'm hungry and grouchy.  Anyway, that's all fine and well because the uncheese recipe is a favorite.  We added red bell peppers to our salad for some color and sweetness.  It ruled.

black bean quinoa mango etc

Ah...speaking of Veganomicon...  I made these two salads from it for a book club meeting I had a while back.  This one was a hit, but thank goodness the girls like cilantro.  A cup of cilantro?  Are you freaking kidding me?  I didn't add that much.  I mean, it tasted good.  I liked it.  But I think I just have a moral dillemna about adding that much cilantro to anything.  

This one was good too:

brooklyn deli pasta salad

I've never had pasta salad from a Brooklyn deli.  I get it though.  It's simple.  It doesn't need to have all kinds of complicated ingredients because the beauty is in the simple flavors shining through.  It was yummy.  I did think it was a little bland though, and added about a tablespoon of some mustard that Michael had made (I know!) to spice it up and add another dimension.  Because, no matter how important simplicity is, I am always up for fucking it up haha...  Oh well.

While we're on the subject of cold salads...

lunch perfection

I made a big pot of quinoa when I made that salad for the book club so I could have a base for some lunches the following week.  So on Monday when I came home for lunch hungry and in a hurry, this came together fairly quickly.  It's diced mango, sliced radishes, the quinoa, and green onions in my favorite poppyseed dressing.  It was light, but filling and darn tasty.  

On Cinco de Mayo, I went to a party and needed to bring food.  My taste buds had not yet bounced back from the flu (I feel like I missed a lot of good food during this time)...  So Michael made the food for it!  Coconut black beans with mango and avocado.

not really that mexican, but whatever

People went apeshit over this stuff.  It is good, though, I've had it many times before.  The beans get so creamy when you cook them with coconut milk, and the avocado only adds to that effect.  Then the mangos add the perfect amount of sweet...  Add some cayenne, cumin, and salt (and maybe some lime juice) and you're in business.  It's seriously the easiest and tastiest little meal to make.  I like to just eat it with a spoon, but it would be good wrapped in tortillas or eaten as a dip with chips, even.  And evidently, it is good party food.

So I don't know about where you live, but it's been raining pretty much nonstop here for the past 10 days.  Well, as I write that, the sun is shining, but it did rain earlier today, I swear.  Rain's cool and all, but sometimes you just get sick of it.  And what better way to chase away the rainy day blues than with a giant bowl of soup and some fresh bread?

bread-like, anyway

Those up there are the Onion-Rye Scones from the soup book.  It was serendipitous because Michael and I had just broken our pantry challenge (finally) and had bought some rye flour on a whim.  This was perfect also because you don't have to wait for it to rise.  That's another thing I like about that book, the breads are all quick breads that can be made in the time it takes to make the soup you're making to go with it.  Nifty!  These came together sort of quickly (it took the longest to saute the onions) and ended up being quite delicious.  My taste buds were in and out during this meal, but they were sort of sweet and salty and generally awesome.  I thought they'd rise more... and I would not really call these 'scones' per se, but... whatever.  Call 'em what you like, I just call them tasty.  And good for dipping into soup.

rainy meals are the best

mock clam chowder

We ate the 'scones' with the clam chowder recipe from the same book.  Now, I must tell you that I used to be quite the eater of clam chowder.  Creamy, salty, sweet, chewy...  I couldn't get enough.  We're talking New England here, not Manhattan.  Don't you dare put tomatoes in my clam chowder.  Or mock clam chowder, that is.  It's just wrong.  Anyway, if you didn't know it already, oyster mushrooms are the best substitute for clams out there.  The recipe calls for baked tofu, but we had oyster mushrooms in the fridge and used those instead.  And it was good.  Michael also added some dried veggie flakes to the soup for some color.  My only complaint is that there was way too much frigging corn in this soup.  It calls for 3 cups.  Next time I'd only put in 2 or 1 1/2 cups, because by the time you got to the bottom of your bowl, it was like you were forcing yourself to eat all this damned corn and it got kind of more filling than I would have liked.  Regardless, this is the best mock clam chowder I've had since becoming vegan.  Highly reccommended.

When you're on a pantry challenge, you find yourself making some interesting stuff.  Flavor combinations that never occured to you before suddenly sound like the most genius ideas ever.  Mostly because you're starving and detoxing from having your regular ingredients on hand.  What?  I'm out of turmeric?  I'm sure mustard powder will be fine in this, then.  At least it'll be yellow.  Huh?  No more nayonaise?  Well, tahini's creamy.  I'm sure that'll be great.  And in this case, no frozen blueberries for those muffins you are craving?  Who needs 'em when you've got strawberry jam?

aren't they purty?

This is a creation that apparently tasted amazing, but I didn't really taste much of it...  Stupid taste buds, and all.  But I was hungry on a weekend morning and we had no oatmeal or cereal or fruit.  Muffins are a generally good catch-all for random ingredients.  And I had strawberry jam and lemons.  The general idea (i.e., the measurements for flour/liquid/baking soda and powder) came from the Blueberry Lemon Muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking.  They would probably be great with blueberries.  But they were damned fine with strawberry jam, too.  I also added some fresh minced basil to the batter, but no one could taste it.  Next time I'd add more, because I bet it would add an awesome flavor dimension.  Anyway, basically I just made the recipe without the blueberries and put them in the muffin cups, then went back and put a teaspoon of straberry jam on the top and swirled it around with a toothpick.  I thought this would fully integrate the jam, but as you will notice, it did not.

lovely little things though

It all stayed on the tops of the muffins, so there was this division of rich, lemony bottom half and sweet, sticky strawberry tops.  What I'm saying here is that these were awesome.  Michael ate like 8 of them in one afternoon.  And my friend Becca ate one when we went to the movies and said they ruled.  So.  Even without properly working tastebuds or a pantry stocked to the brim with fabulous ingredients, I (and you) can make stuff work that will blow people away.  Skip your next grocery trip and get creative.  

I have more to show you from the pantry challenge and all that, but I'm kind of tired from all this thinking and typing and remembering.  Plus, I don't want to spoil you with too much awesomeness at once.

back to the books

It's been awhile, eh?  I'll give it to you straight: it's been beautiful here this past week.  This basically means that I never know what I'm going to be doing in the evenings because it's finally comfortable enough to go outside, out and about.  This could include trips to the park to fly kites (hi, Dad!), impromptu croquet games, a day at a friend's house doing laundry, random walks, and/or learning how to play shuffleboard (rules!).  I've been enjoying the weather and my life to the fullest, in other words.  That also means less planned meals and just grabbing easy stuff that's not really worth blogging about.  However!

At the beginning of last week, Michael and I decided to utilize more of our cookbooks and shopped for specific ingredients to do so.  We chose a few recipes out of each book we felt was gathering dust.  This went strong for exactly two meals, both from Yellow Rose Recipes, strangely enough.  You get to see those first, then a couple of randoms that were pretty darned good.

First up is the tamale pie:

oh so mexi

There were parts of this that I loved and parts that I was pretty 'meh' about.  Loved: the cheesy nacho sauce.  Holy mother nature.  I almost didn't make the recipe for this from the book (opting to make my own version) because it seemed too simple to be good.  Which is dumb.  Because it freaking rules!  Michael and I decided that it tasted identical to the nacho sauce from various snack bars of our youths such as the pool (for me) and the bowling alley (for him).  And I know the recipe only says to use 1/2 cup of it, but I just poured the entire batch on top.  It was that crazydelicious.  Oh, here's my plate, by the way:

showstopping avocado love

I will admit that I put this in a bowl and ate it with a spoon after this shot.  It's total bowl-food, guys.  Ok, so...meh: I made the chicken style seitan from the book for this.  The flavor was good, but, as is the case with every single batch of seitan I've ever simmered, it had the texture of wet bread.  In fact, I tried making a sammich out of a cutlet of it the next day and it just became one with the bread and was a complete soggy mess.  Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'm finished with ruining my seitan.  I'm gonna stick to steaming, no matter what the recipe says.  It just always, always works that way.  Also kind of meh: while this was a yumtastic casserole, overall it really just tasted like mushy nachos.  Not that that in and of itself is a bad thing, but it was an awful lot of work for something that tasted like nachos.  Next time I might just use certain elements and pile it up on some chips, because that would be way easier.  And crunchier.

Next up was the butternut squash lasagna.  This was so easy to make, with a little teamwork.  Once we divided up who was doing what, it came together in a flash.  On a Wednesday, nonetheless.

beigeness

So, it's not so pretty.  So what.  I put the end of our Teese on the bottom bit (which was awesome, btw).  I really have no complaints about this recipe, honestly.  It was even better the next day after the flavors had concentrated.

such a looker

It's prettier once it's sliced.  And garnished.  We ate this with slices of roasted garlic bread (it has whole cloves of garlic in it!  what!).  Michael and I have picked up a new habit: perusing the day old bread section at Kroger.  We get like 5 loaves/baguettes/whathaveyou for like 89 cents apiece and put them in the freezer.  Anytime we need or want some bread, just pop it in the oven for a few minutes.  It's never tasted stale or off.  Bargain shopping rules the school, kids.  Back to the lasagna...it's the perfect combination of salty and sweet.  Comfort foodiness.  

Oh, bonus shot of the squashes after they were roasty...

sexay

Ok, so that is it for planned meals.  The rest of this stuff was good, but definitely came together in a hurry.  First is a wonderful lunch that Michael and I made together on Sunday that includes everything I love (his idea, so sweet!).

fabulosity

That's some bowties with Morningstar Chickn Strips (they were on sale, come on), peas, capers, sherry, balsamic vinegar (I don't like this, but it was good by the end), lemon juice, grape tomatoes, parsley, artichokes, shallots, garlic, and oyster mushrooms.  We had it for lunch, then ate it again for dinner since it was so rad.  This was probably my favorite meal this past week.  Simple and heavenly.

Oh!  I had almost forgotten about this one.  My mom called me last Sunday (a week ago) and told me that it was St. David's day and he's the patron saint of Wales and leeks are the official veggie of Wales and that I needed to eat a leek today.  Mom.  As if I need an excuse to eat leeks.  But thanks for letting me know, regardless.

probably not the best use of leeks, but whatever

I had meant to make the lasagna Sunday and add the leeks into the sauce, but by the time dinner came grumbling at my tummy, I was exhausted.  And I just wanted something easy and tasty.  Solution?  Sauteed leeks with green beans and vinegar and salt and then some boxed couscous mix that Michael likes.  Don't let the grossness of that picture fool you - it was nummy.

Do any of you other food bloggers get tired of trying to think of alternate words for 'delicious'?  I'm out of synonyms.  Time to find my thesaurus.

Here's a bread success:

not dense

I splurged on some white whole wheat flour.  King Arthur makes damn good flour, but it is hella expensive.  Kroger brand flour is like a buck and this kind is around 4 bucks.  Alas, flour is apparently the one thing that Kroger doesn't make well.  For bread anyway.  (You should see our cabinets.  Everything that isn't a specialty item is Kroger brand.  I mean...it's cheaper and their stuff doesn't suck.)  Blah blah, so I've made some sammiches with this bread and they didn't suck, either.  And the flavor is pretty good, too.  Woo!

A not so successful bread attempt were these hot dog buns:

flat

They were doing great until I uncovered the formed buns before putting them in the oven and they deflated like it was their job or something.  There was an upside, though!  The outsides got crispy, so when we cut the slits for the dogs, the buns made these awesomely sturdy shells for holding loads of condiments.  Any excuse to put more mustard on something is fine by me.  

This meal was Michael's idea and was made on the first really nice day this past week.  Summer food.  We'd got that corn on the cob (just...corn?) for 50 cents apiece at the store expecting it to be terrible, but it ruled pretty hard.  Nice and sweet.  The potato salad is an invention of ours that is based on a recipe from The Accidental Vegan, but we put too much red onion in it and it hurt my mouth.  That's pretty easy to pick out though.  Once summer hits, I'll post the recipe, but I'm not feeling it right now.  We make this potato salad practically once a week once it gets warm.  It's that good.  You're just gonna have to wait and come back to find out how to make it.  That's some incentive if I've ever heard any.  

Hey, have a good rest of your weeks.  It's almost Friday, but as everyone that works a crappy job knows, each day lasts like a millenium until the weekend, and then every day is like 3 seconds long.  So...here's hoping that your days are more like 24 hours long this week.

PS - one of my brothers and his wife are going vegetarian for Lent.  For Lent, I gave up Veganomicon.  So they could use it, you know.  Wish us both luck.

old favorites...they live!

Sometimes a girl just wants spaghetti and meatballs (without the meat).  It's hard though, isn't it, to find a decent vegan meatball?  Store bought ones are...ok, but they lack oomph, plus they're full of stuff I can't pronounce.  A lot of the ones I've made at home either fall apart or are incredibly mushy (sorry, Vcon), or just don't have a good flavor.  However, I've finally come across an incredible vegan meatball, by way of our buddy Jessy over at Happy Veganface.  Actually, her hubby Dan created these balls of awesomeness.  I give you...  Dan's tempeh meatless balls!

little beauties

And seriously?  So easy to make.  And they didn't fall apart, once they were browned.  They have the best flavor of any meatball I've had, ever actually.  I can see why Jessy and Dan chose to eat theirs over some rice, as the flavor would really shine that way.  Still, our goal was spaghetti and meatballs, so I just paired them with a plain, but tasty, sauce and some angel hair.

could not stop eating this.

We decided not to simmer the meatlessballs in the sauce for fear that they would fall apart with all that liquid, but I don't think we needed to worry, as they held up really well, even once I mixed all that spaghetti together.  Oh, yes, and that is garlic bread you spy perched atop my plate.  Michael made the most crazydelicious garlic bread on the planet.  It's rosemary ciabatta bread that he spread with melted butter (vegan of course), loads of garlic powder, and parsley.  Possibly other things.  I wasn't in the kitchen when he made it.  But hot damn, this was the best garlic bread I've had in a very, very long time.  I highly reccommend that you go make some rockin' spaghetti with these amazing meatlessballs, though.  You will not regret it!

Yesterday I told Michael that I would make him whatever he wanted for dinner and dessert, as he was a sweetie to me when I felt like shit on Friday (tummy bug, blegh).  He opted for biscuits and gravy, with toaster hash browns and greens.

nothin' like some soysage gravy, now is there?

First off, I used my mom's whole wheat biscuit recipe (scroll down for the recipe).  Then I crumbled up some GimmeLean sausage in the cast iron skillet to brown.  Then in went some flour and butter.  Then soymilk, and seasonings.  The only problem with making gravy from storebought soymilk is all the freaking sugar they put in that stuff.  I never notice it (and hence, forget) until I try to make something savory like gravy with the stuff.  Still, with the help of poultry seasoning and loads of salt, we counteracted the sweet.  Next time, I'll remember, and start off with veggie broth, and add soymilk at the end for a little creaminess.  Anyway, it was still totally rad.

The greens are collards, which I have not had success with before last night.  These turned out really great though!  I sauteed some garlic and an onion, then added the chopped greens and some apple cider vinegar and let them steam, covered, for about 15 minutes.  I finally learned that the longer they cook, the less bitter they are (but I feel like they lose some nutritional value when I cook them that long...oh well, I guess).  Anyway, once they were nicely soft, I added a few dashes of liquid smoke, some more vinegar, salt, and a pinch or two of cayenne.  They were so yummy!  I'm not scared of collard greens anymore.  Now I just have to master turnip and mustard greens.  Le sigh.  

Michael opted for toaster hash browns from our friendly neighborhood freezer section, as they're his favorite anyway, and I'm not really to be trusted when it comes to making something like that from scratch.  All in all, it was a hit!

As for his cookies, Michael asked for "chocolate macadamia cashew cookies" to which I added white chocolate chips.  Voila!

omg.

I adapted this recipe from Dreena Burton's Double Carob Cashew Cookies in Eat, Drink and be Vegan.  I've never actually made this recipe as it's stated, as I have no need for carob anything when I can have chocolate, plus they call for spelt flour, which I've never seen anywhere here.  Still, the recipe lends very well to adaptation, which just goes to show you what a genius she is.  Here's my version of her cookies.

Chocolate Macadamia Cashew Cookies with White Chocolate Chips

1 cup AP flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup unrefined sugar (I used sucanat)

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 cup white chocolate chips (or regular would be good too, if you don't have white)

1/8 cup chopped macadamia nuts

1/8 cup chopped cashews (both nuts should be unsalted)

6 Tbsp maple syrup

2 Tbsp almond butter

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup + 1 tsp canola oil

Preheat over to 350F.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and powder, and cocoa powder; mix well.  Add in cinnamon, sugar, and salt; mix again, then stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  In a smaller bowl, combine the maple syrup, almond butter, and vanilla and stir until well combined.  Stir in the oil, then add the wet mixture to the dry mixture.  Mix until just combined.  If needed, add a splash of soymilk for added moisture, if it doesn't come together quickly (we had to do this).  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, then form 12 cookies out of your dough, flattening each one (they'll be about 1.5 inches across this way).  Pop in the oven for exactly 11 minutes.  Take them out and leave them on the cookie sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

These cookies are not for the faint of heart, by the way.  They are fudgey and moist and incredibly rich.  The nuts add just enough crunch to mix things up a bit.  However, they are ridiculously easy to make for such a dangerous cookie.  From mixing to baking, they're done in about 20 minutes.  Bake with care.  We finished the entire dozen in about 15 minutes (with the help of a friend).  By the way, omni approved.  As were the collard greens.  Go me.

So yeah, it's been a pretty decadent weekend so far.  Hope yours has been just as lovely.

omg, cake!

I made a layer cake!  My first ever!  Ok, Michael helped me with some of it too.  But still!  Cake!  When I saw Hannah's recipe for a Citrus Sunshine cake on her wonderful Bittersweet blog, I knew I had to make it.  Not only because it sounded awesome, but because I love lemon in baked goods and because I knew I had the ingredients at home.  Or at least, I thought I did.  

Of course, I knew I didn't have any Meyer lemons (and neither did any grocery store in a 50 mile radius), so I substituted 2 smallish regular lemons for the zest and juice in the recipe.  But then I realized that I didn't have anywhere near enough agave nectar for the cake!  Oops!  I had to do some off hand subbing, but luckily all turned out well.  In the cake batter, I used 1/2 cup of agave nectar and then 3/4 cup of sweetened applesauce to not only make up the rest of the sugar, but also to make up the liquid content I'd be losing.  Oh, and I didn't have a bundt pan, but Hannah oh-so-nicely replied to an email I sent asking about using two 9 inch round pans instead (a new purchase, yay!).  Here they are right out of the oven.

sleep lines

Yeah, so when I popped them out of the pans onto my cooling rack, they got a little indented.  No biggie.  That's what frosting's for.  Also, my oven is totally crooked and the cakes came out lopsided (which Michael nicely trimmed so that I could stack them).  He also whipped up a basic vanilla buttercream for the filling and outer layer of frosting, from VCTOTW.  Meanwhile, I whizzed up the icing from Hannah's recipe, substituting light corn syrup (guh, I know, I know) for the agave and adding another half a lemon's worth of zest, because I was afraid I was losing lemon flavor with all that buttercream.

yay!

It turned out beautifully!  I asked my dear food assistant (Michael) to slice up a strawberry for garnish since otherwise it would have just been kind of ugly.  Holy crap though!  Look!  My first layer cake!

and it tasted good, too

With all the icing, it is a very sweet cake...  But still so wonderful!  Just enough hint of lemon to tang it up, and the cake is so moist and delicate.  

would you like a slice?

We still have so much cake left.  How am I supposed to use all of it?  So.  Much.  Cake.  I think that's really a small problem, if you think about it.

For dinner we made some homemade veggie/grain burgers!  I made these buns for them using my bread machine to knead the dough for me.  I added in a cup of whole wheat flour to give them a little more tooth than the rolls I did last week.

do you like my buns?

Michael got this recipe from the Food Network website.  It was something Alton Brown was making.  Pea Burgers!

so they don't photograph well

Despite their non photogenic-ness, these burgers were really yummy!  Here's the recipe:

Pea Burgers

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus 1 to 2 additional tablespoons for sauteing

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped bell pepper*

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons minced garlic

4 ounces mushrooms, sliced

3 cups vegetable broth

1 cup dry split peas, picked and rinsed

1/2 cup dry brown rice

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

3/4 cup plain dry bread crumbs, plus 1/4 cup for coating

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large (4 to 6-quart) saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and bell pepper* along with a generous pinch of salt. Sweat for 5 minutes or until the onions are soft. Add the garlic and mushrooms and continue to cook for another 4 minutes.

Add the broth, peas, rice, coriander and cumin. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Decrease heat to low, cover and cook at a simmer for 1 hour or until the rice and peas are tender.

Remove from the heat and gently pour the mixture into the bowl of a food processor and process until just combined.** Do not puree. Pour this mixture into a bowl and stir in the 3/4 cup of bread crumbs. Season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground pepper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Shape the mixture into patties and dredge on each side in the remaining 1/4 cup of bread crumbs. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat.*** Add 2 burgers at a time and saute until brown on each side, approximately 3 to 4 minutes per side. To grill, cook on high for 3 to 4 minutes per side as well. Serve immediately.

* We had no bell peppers, so subbed in 1 diced jalepeno and frozen corn to make up 1/2 cup

** You might need to do the food processing in 2 batches.  That's ok.

*** Instead of sauteing the burgers, we used out Foreman grill, in order to cut down on the fat.

The burgers were very tender, but still stayed together well, and had a touch of an Indian taste from the coriander and cumin.  So, so good.  Thanks, Alton!  We also roasted up some beets, carrots, onions, and garlic with rosemary for the side.  Yum!

In other dinner adventures, we had jumbalaya!

jumbalawesome!

This is the recipe from ED&BV, and it was a huge success, of course.  I've never made a recipe from that book that failed.  Not a single one.  That woman is a genius.  Anyway, I made the tempeh crumbles from VWAV to go on top, for an added bonus.

i want some of this right now!

I kept the crumbles more like chunks so they're be more like...well, chunky.  Man.  This was so great together.

A slightly trashier dinner adventure can be seen here:

return of the croissant dogs

But...  you know...  to make it healthier, I made some sauteed kale to go with them.  That totally makes up for it, right?  Anyway, these were really great with some mustard (we've gotten a couple new varieties as of late...) and the relishes from Zukay Live Foods.  Yurm.

Michael has class during my lunch hour 2 days a week, so I'm on my own for them.  I've started making something on the first day, eating half, then eating the leftovers on the other day.  This week, I made some couscous with spinach, chickpeas, capers, lemon juice, and red wine vineger.  It was much better the first day than the other...but still a yummy lunch!

i will try any excuse to use capers when michael's not here

And to close...cake!

still so excited!

Oh, I got some new dishes that are totally rad, so start looking for prettier photographs.  My next goal is clamp lights.  And I almost bought a new camera last night, but it turned out to be a shitty camera, so I didn't.  I just know I can do so much better than the photos I've had here (I have a masters degree in photography for goodness sakes!) and am finally motivated enough to make it happen.  You see, I only ever used to take photos outdoor and always with film, so I'm still learning here (without lights, it's pretty hard...plus I still can't find my tripod).  Oh, and if you want to see some examples of my art, you can see some here (I'm still in the process of uploading them...there are so many!).

One last thing!  Ckwebgrrl, please contact me!  If I don't hear from you in the next couple of days, I'm going to have to pick a new winner.

Have a good weekend, everyone!