what to do with all those veggies?

First off, I would like to say that I am so excited, because I've fallen in love with a new apartment.  It is consuming all of my waking (and sleeping) thoughts.  Michael and I are going to look at it today, as he hasn't seen it yet...and everyone should cross their fingers for us that we decide to get it and are able to move into it in 2 weeks time.  Because it would be so awesome.  Even though the kitchen is rather small.  I don't know where on earth I would put things like this rad farmers market haul:

beets, tomatoes, potatoes, summer squash, purple peppers, spring onions, and cabbage

more tomatoes, including adorably colored little ones, new potatoes, more purple peppers, green peppers, white cucumbers, and a ginormous zucchini

There is barely enough space in our kitchen for it all.  That's our haul from Saturday...we spent $30.  Which isn't too bad, considering how many tomatoes and peppers we got.  I already started freezing some peppers (this new place, should we choose to get it [hope!], is only 2 blocks from our current apartment, so transporting food and frozen stuff won't be a problem, thankfully) so that we'll have plenty when it's after their season and they get all crazy expensive in the grocery store again.  

Anyway, you might wonder what we do with all these veggies during the weeks, that we have to buy so many every Saturday.  Well, like I said, we freeze some (cabbage, besides the peppers).  And we eat a lot of them (um, tomatoes) on sandwiches.  But sometimes it's nice to do something a bit fancier.

scalloped pofabutatoes

Michael loves potatoes.  And I love noochy cheeze sauces.  Other scalloped potato recipes we've tried have really fallen short of both our expectations, but I found this one at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.  Anything that Susan stamps with her little girl's approval...yeah, we'll love it.  And this was certainly a hit.  We totally finished that whole pan in one night. 

soup?  in the summer?

Hey, guess what?  Soup is easy.  We ate this summer squash soup, also from fatfreevegan.com, along with the potatoes.  I made mine a little differently...leaving out the celery (didn't have any), adding some zucchini and more broth.  Then I stupidly added a bunch of cayenne to it (I honestly don't know what possessed me) and some garlic powder (which got a little pervasive).  Still, the soup was awesome.  It was so creamy...velvety, almost.  I never thought that summer squash would make a good soup, but there you go.  It does.

cheezy potatoes of awesomeness

You can seriously count on Susan to make a ridiculously fabulous, failproof recipe.  I don't think I've ever tried anything of hers that I didn't like.  The woman should write a cookbook.

But honestly, all I've really wanted to eat since July started is stuff like this:

raw, honest veggies

Michael and I both work a lot of evenings now, which means that one or both of us don't get home until after 9, which in turn means that we are tired.  One night I got off work at 11:30 to fine this lovely raw and fresh plate of awesomeness.  On top are zucchini shreds, something I've fallen in love with recently.  Super thinly sliced (you'll need a mandoline) raw zucchini and summer squash make a lovely little salad with a little olive oil, vinegar, and thinly sliced basil.  Don't get me wrong, those tomatoes were rad, too, but I am a tad bit obsessed with that salad for now.  

You can even see it here, blurred in the foreground:

another very late night dinner

You'll have to pardon the crappiness of this one...it was seriously like 2 in the morning when I took that photo.  But yeah, you see?  If I'd been taking photos of everything we eat recently, you'd be seeing it a lot more (but we've been doing reruns, like ruebens and such).  Anyway, this scramble was super tasty.  It had been awhile since we had one...but the real star of this meal was those potatoes.  Yeah, they're roasted, but we microwaved them first so they only took like 10 minutes to roast in the oven.  Smart, eh?  Anyway, they only have some seasoned salt, pepper, and paprika on them, but they are so, so good.  

Next up is yet another Michael dinner (he's been terribly helpful lately with me working evening shifts).

cabbage rolls!

Apparently, these were a pain in the ass to make because they have a lot of preparation, but all I had to do was enjoy them, so...  Anyway, they're stuffed with some sort of tempeh/tahini mixture and they were a totally rad use of a giant head of cabbage we had from another market haul.  So yummy!

fake meat - the ultimate in laziness

I ventured to the grocery store last week to pick up fruit and some veggies we can't get at the market, and got some sweet stuff on sale.  Like those fancypants carrots and fresh brussels sprouts, and uh...  some fake chicken breasts.  They have Gardein stuff in our Kroger now, which is highly exciting, but then also bittersweet, because it's madly expensive.  There was a dollar off coupon on this package I got (2 chicken patties in a Tuscan sauce) and I was mega tired, so I splurged the $4 on them.  And they're really good!  The texture is a little too meaty for us (checked and then rechecked the package after cutting into them...but they're vegan for sure), but the flavor was nice and the sauce they came in was seriously delicious.  It reminded me a little of a Lean Cuisine sauce...which for most of you probably sounds totally gross, but I lived off those things for about a year before I met Michael, so it was sort of a fond memory.  I mean...sort of.  Anyway, I also made the mustard sauce from Veganomicon (my favorite sauce, ever) to go with the steamed carrots and veggies.  All of it mixed together was pretty damned phenomenal.

openfaced sammies are sammiches too.

I'm going to finish up with a couple of lunches.  I've been trying to do hearty, but not weigh-me-down lunches recently, as Michael's been working doubles and then I go in to work in the evenings and need to be filled up without feeling like taking a nap afterwards.  I made this openfaced sammich twice this past week.  We had some leftover rye bread from ruebens.  Topped with some red pepper and green olive hummus that I'd made, fresh red tomatoes, and fresh basil, it hits the spot, fills me up, but leaves me ready to go for the rest of the day.  

more lunch options

I made this curried chickpea salad a couple weeks ago, and it was awesome.  I never ate it on bread, just like this, in big clumps, and I was happy as a clam about it.  I honestly don't remember what all is in there...chickpeas, onions, celery, carrots, vegenaise, leftover fake cheese that we'd made, lemon juice...and lots and lots and lots of curry powder.  And some cayenne, for a kick.  Paired with some fresh veggies, like this white cucumber (green on the inside!), it's terribly tasty.  Nom.

So don't forget to eat lunch.  And be creative with your veggies.  And...wish us luck on the apartment again!

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.

busy week!

This has been an awesomely busy week, and am I ever glad to see the weekend!  Between friendly hang-out times, work, and new haircuts (for Michael and me both), it's been a whirlwind.  I don't have a lot, foodwise, to show for myself right now, but I do want to show what I ate at my parents' house for Easter and a couple lovely meals in between then and now.

Once I got back to the old home on Saturday, I learned that my parents had a fun and easy meal planned out - burgers!

i know i'm not the only one eating veggie burgers on easter.

Mom and Dad got me the original vegan Boca burgers (yum!) and I whipped up fries for all of us.  Three kinds: regular potato for my dad, sweet potato with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese for my mom, and sweet potato with cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, salt and pepper for me.  I don't know about the other two, but mine were awesome and went perfectly with my burger.  I could definitely just eat veggie burgers and sweet potato fries for just about every meal...  But that wouldn't be very interesting, would it?

In the morning, my brother and his family came over and we all had a nice brunch together.  The only thing I couldn't (and obviously didn't want to) eat was the turkey.  Long live my awesome family for being so darned accomodating!  My mom made some asparagus with olive oil and lemon and Dad made mashed potatoes with soymilk and no butter, which I mushed up with an avocado for me (so, so good).

asparagus heap

I made a tofu scramble that everyone seemed to like, and these freaking amazing pancakes from Veganomicon:

could eat one million of these, please

They're the blueberry corn pancakes, and if you haven't made them yet, please.  Please.  Do it.  Everyone in my family thought they were fantastic, and really, they were.  The only thing is that I found I needed to add an extra 1/4 cup of flour to the batter because it was really watery.  I don't know if this was a typo in the book (like it should've called for 1 cup flour instead of 3/4 cup) or if I messed up, but I was being pretty careful, so I don't think it was me.  But you never know.  Anyway, if your batter seems too watery, don't be afraid to add in that extra bit of flour.  They were perfect.

As if that wasn't enough - my lovely Mom and Dad made an Easter basket for Michael and I to share that was full of vegan candy and other awesome stuff!

jealous much?

They printed the candy list off Peta and were able to find such radness as: twizzlers, jolly ranchers, ring pops, cracker jacks (omg omg omg!), and these little sour bunnies that are like sour patch kids, but way better.  They also got me these little prep bowls that RULE.  They have measurements on the insides of the bowls so I don't even need to use my measuring cups (if they're dirty and in the sink, which is often the case).  Those are all the food/cooking related gifties, but you can see if you look close that they extended their radness into gaming territory.  Plus some stuff for my skin that's great, too.

Soooo that was Easter.  All in all, it was filled with fun, food, and hilarious children hopped up on so much sugar that I definitely did not envy my brother's drive back home.  2 hours of pure insanity, I'm sure!

So this week, we've extended our pantry challenge, but I did break and go buy some vegetables after I realized one day that all I had eaten the day before was basically bread.  And now I'm trying to not eat so much bread in order to detox from it (though I broke on that last night as well, but not too bad).  Therefore when I got soydogs on sale to surprise Michael with, I needed to figure out what to eat mine with, since I didn't want a bun.  I came up with this:

sauteed veggies and brown rice

I cooked a giant mass of brown rice to eat with dinner and as leftovers throughout the week with various things.  The veggies are some yellow squash, zucchini (both on sale really cheap, yay!), onions, garlic, and cherry tomatoes, plus a bunch of dried dill.  They made a perfectly filling side next to a couple bunless soydogs.  

Then I used the leftovers the next day to made these bad boys:

collard wraps, what what!

I got this totally rad idea from our good buddy Melomeals over at her blog which showcases her and her family eating for $3.33 a day.  She's doing something really great over there, by the way, so you really need to check it out.  Her food is amazing, it's super inexpensive, and you have to admire her for making the best out of tough times.  As far as I can tell, there is not a specific post about her using collard green leaves for wraps instead of bread, but she does it quite often for her lunches.  It's such an awesome idea!  And delicious, I might add.  The bitterness of the collards is cut by all the fillings you put inside.  I did blanch my leaves for about 30 seconds to make them more bendy, but I guess you don't really need to do that.  Try it out!  

Also at the grocery store, I found some pasta shells on the super cheap since their box was dented (um...who cares?!  but thanks for the discount, Kroger).  I made a nice little mac n cheeze with them, plus frozen brussels (thank goodness for Kroger card savings, seriously).

yurm yurm yurm

I based my sauce off the nacho sauce recipe from Yellow Rose Recipes...  except for some changes.  I subbed in unsweetened soymilk for the water, took out the jalepenos, realized I didn't have any turmeric so added paprika and mustard powder instead, then decided that it wasn't sweet enough so I added about a teaspoon of agave nectar.  It was kind of haphazard, but turned out pretty great.  We were watching LOST anyway, so it's not like we were paying too much attention to our plates.  

This next one was from before the grocery shopping this week, and is pretty impressive as such, I think.  Sesame baked tofu from Accidental Vegan with peas 'n' corn (woo frozen veggies last forever), and some couscous that Michael had made over the weekend while I was gone.  

unfortunately, that tofu looked better than it tasted

Well, let me correct that...it tasted fine - it was just way, way too salty.  The recipe calls for 1/2 cup soy sauce, and next time I make it, I will absolutely sub in water for half of that.  Or use reduced sodium soy sauce or something.  The flavor was really great though...  lots of tahini and nutritional yeast.  But we ended up scraping off the outside crust and just eating the baked tofu goodness inside, because we simply could not handle all that salt (and I'm usually a salt-lover...it much have been unbearable then).  Still, the veggies and the couscous were yummy.  All in all, it was a decent, and very quick, meal.

Last night, Michael got a sweets craving.

and made these

'These' being the white chocolate macadamia cookies from Eat, Drink & be Vegan...  except with cashews and peanut butter instead of macadamias and macadamia butter.  They're really great!  And apparently, fast and easy, because he basically had them in the oven before I even realized he was making them.  Treats and surprises!  What more could you ask for?

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.