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!

quick and easy

No, I'm not talking about that girl or guy you met at the bar last night.  I'm talking food here.  Summertime food.  Food that says, 'Hey, it's hot outside and you're hungry, but tired and sweaty...  come eat me.'  Because, if you're like me (but not, necessarily, like Michael, who remains relatively ambitious in the food department year-round), you get a little lazy when the temperature goes up and there are things to be done outside and the kitchen just loses its draw on you...a bit.

Hence, you shall now be submitted to some of our solutions to this problem.  Creative and tasty solutions, methinks.

First up is the ever popular summer salad.

not just your gramma's iceburg

This, my friends, is the Greek salad from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Cooking (henceforth so named the idiot cookbook, because this is another one I hate typing out).  It's chock full of radtastic veggies to fill you up, but not weigh you down when you're ready to go out for a nice bike ride after dinner.  As a former Greek salad addict, I fully approve of this rendition, right down to the dressing.  Add some tofu feta from the same book, and you've got a winner:

my first tofu feta attempt

Here I will admit: feta cheese was the last thing I gave up when I made the transition from vegetarian to vegan.  I snubbed my nose at all tofu feta recipes this past year (because, in fact, this past week was my veganversary!).  However, when Michael brought up the idea this time around, I thought, 'What the hell, lets give it a go'.  Ok, so it didn't taste like feta.  But it was tasty!  I have a feeling that if we'd cut it into smaller cubes and let it marinate for a day rather than half an hour, it would be even better.  In fact, I used some of the leftovers to make a weird breakfast one morning, and it was pretty awesome.

This next meal was made forever ago, but it's also a nice quick staple, and a bit heartier (but not too much) than a salad.

easy peasy baked tofu

Originally, I got this idea from The Accidental Vegan cookbook, but their recipe was so salty it made me gag.  Still, I liked the simplicity of the recipe, and decided to adapt it to better suit my needs.  Basically, just cut some extra firm tofu really thin, mix together tahini with whatever else is around (my usuals: nutritional yeast, a little soy sauce, hot sauce, garlic powder, etc), dip tofu in, put on a baking sheet, and bake it at 350F for about 30 minutes.  It gets this nice brown crust on it, and it's nice and chewy.  Plus, you don't have to press and marinate your tofu.  Plus, it's really versatile to whatever spices you have on hand or want to incorporate to a side dish you have a craving for that night.  

Oooooh, I'm excited about this one: 

fabulously easy tempeh and roasted veggies

Ok, so roasting veggies may not be something you feel like doing when it's hot out and your kitchen gets to be about 5 million degrees...  But you have to admit it's easy.  And you don't have to be in the kitchen the whole time they're roasting.  Go out and drink some lemonade on your porch or water your plants or play with your cat.  Then, just hop on into the kitchen when the buzzer goes off, fill your plate, and get the hell outta there.  See?  Not so bad.  So the roasted veggies here were super good, especially with that gravy Michael mixed up.  But what I'm really excited about is the tempeh.  Michael's mom brought us some wild rice tempeh the last time she came in from Evansville, and we've been trying to figure out how to use it so that the flavors shine through, but still doesn't taste like plain old tempeh.  The solution came, oddly enough (ha) with the recipe on the package.  That I didn't use, but did base my own recipe from it.  It's so excitingly yummy and easy, I'm even going to share it in its entirety with you.

Dill Macadamia Crusted Tempeh

1 package of tempeh (prefferably wild rice, but any will do)

1.5 ounces macadamia nuts (about an 1/8 cup, chopped)

1 heaping tsp dried dill

1 scallion, white and green parts, minced

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbs water

spray oil for the baking sheet

First up, cut and simmer your tempeh.  We cut ours so that we get 14 pieces out of it...  So 7 pieces (that's six cuts you'll make) widthwise, and then cut each of those in half, lengthwise, so they're pretty darned thin.  Toss it in some boiling water, reduce heat, and cover for 12 minutes, then drain.  While all that's going on, preheat your oven to 350F and make the macadamia crust.  For that, place the nuts in your food processor or good blender and process until they are super fine crumbs.  They'll look oily and kinda clumpy, that's good.  Place them in a small bowl and add the rest of the ingredients (except for the spray oil, obviously).  Mix it all up...it should be like a paste.  Spray a baking sheet with the oil and arrange your tempeh in one layer.  Spoon an equal amount of the paste onto each slice and spread it out so that it's completely covering the top.  Put in the oven for 15 minutes, and it's done!  

It's so good.  The dill adds a nice summery flavor and it's just salty enough.  I suppose if you wanted to coat the whole pieces of tempeh, just double the recipe.  But there's enough flavor in just the top coating, that it's really not necessary.

Lastly today, is this lovely chickpea stew from some Turkish cookbook that I got at Borders about a million years ago: 

simple, nutritious, and delicious

Ok, well, it turned into a chickpea and white bean stew because we only had one can of chickpeas on hand, but it was still super fabulous.  It's mainly 2 red onions sauteed in oil and margarine with cumin and coriander and fennel seeds and paprika (except we didn't have enough red onion, so we added a bunch of scallions in a later step), add a can of drained diced tomatoes and a teeny bit of sugar, add the chickpeas (and scallions, if you're us) and some cashews (not in the recipe, but a nice addition), and a whole bunch (the literal sense here) of chopped parsley.  Garnish with lemon wedges and salt to taste.  The lemon makes this meal.  You really need that burst of acid to bring out the flavors in the spices.  You could serve this over rice, but we were lazy and just ate bowls of it, as is.  It all came together in about 20 minutes.  I know that's not really a recipe, but I don't remember exact measurements.  Just add spices to taste and whatnot, if you'd like to try it out.  Oh, it also called for whole spices, but we didn't have cumin or coriander seeds, so we just used the ground versions of both, and it turned out fine!

I have more to catch up on (like commenting on all your lovely blogs, I know, I know!), but it's noon and I'm getting hungry now...  Time for a quick and easy meal!