epic proportions

Last night I made an epic bagelburger at 3 am and my roomie demanded that I blog about it. He is not vegan, nor does he even read my blog...so it seems as if this is more of a 'people must know about your awesomeness' type thing, to which I am rarely opposed. I only allowed him one bite, but he immediately said that I must take a picture of it and write about it...to let the world know. However, I was not in a state to be taking pictures of my food. I was in a state to be devouring my food. That just meant that I got to recreate it today.

huh.

My first thought upon recreation was that it was not nearly as lovely as I remembered it from the night before. In fact, it's downright ugly and not that easy to eat (the insides kept squishing out the sides of the bagel). Whatever though, because it's definitely as delicious as I remembered. Ok.

Explanation #1: I've been on a mega bagel kick lately.

Explanation #2: I've been on a mega hummus kick lately.

Explanation #3: I much prefer putting hummus on my bagels than fake cream cheese or jam.

Explanation #4: I've been a bit lazy in my cooking and when I run out of leftovers...I eat bagels with hummus quite a bit.

Explanation #5: As my most devoted readers must know, I am a mustard fanatic. This is a case where the mustard absolutely makes the sammich.

I recently acquired a new type of mustard: dill mustard. It is, in a word, fabulous. It's all the awesomeness of having pickles on your sammich without that gross, rubbery, sometimes just nasty pickle actually being on your sammich. It reminds me of...ok, to be quite honest, what I remember McDonald's cheeseburgers tasting like. Granted, I haven't had a McDonald's cheeseburger in around 12 years (seriously, gross), but those darned things were a pivotal part of my youth. It was, once upon a time in young Jessica's life, quite a treat to go to McD's to get a cheeseburger and, if the season was right, a shamrock shake. Admittedly, I would not touch one of those things with a ten foot pole now, nor would I ever encourage anyone to actually eat one. But forgive me for having a taste memory that reminds me of my childhood and getting a little treat and hanging out with my fam. It happens.

So. That being said, you're gonna have to get some dill mustard, especially if you would like to create my epic bagelburger. It's pretty simple. The ingredients list is almost laughable:

1 Boca burger (original vegan...for that smoky, fast-food type taste)

3-4 giant spoonfuls of hummus (just regular old hummus, nothing fancy)

some lettuce (i've been buying this artisan lettuce stuff, another post on that situation at a possible later date)

1 bagel, toasted (i used whole wheat [it makes me feel less guilty]...and another rant on the complete and utter uselessness of an untoasted bagel at yet another possible later date)

1 squirt of DILL MUSTARD (no alternatives, i'm sorry, it's just not a possibility)

uh, yeah. Assemble. I put hummus on both the top and bottom of my bagel, because I'm decadent like that.

Lets have an admission of guilt here: it's drunk food. It's 'I've been drinking since I got off work and I want fast food in the middle of the night but should definitely not drive and I don't want Taco Bell and none of the fast food places have a vegan burger' food. It's fast. It's messy. It's ugly.

It's perfection.

Vegan Mofo day 1: i'm back.

I figure the best way to get back into blogging is to start up with Vegan Mofo again. I know I've been a terrible bloglady as of late, but I do have a reason or two. September was a bit insane. My birthday was at the beginning of the month and I got...engaged! Yep, Michael popped the question and I said yes and ever since, the wedding (ok, mostly the food) is all I can think about. We're getting married next October, I have a year to plan, and it is consuming most of my waking thoughts. So...excuse my little absence from the blogworld last month. I've still be cooking and eating and farmers marketing, so let's jump right in with a quick overview of some tasty things that have been brewing in our kitchen.

Might as well start with my birthday foods.

what better way to begin a post than with cake?

Excuse the crap photo of my lovely birthday cake. This is our family's (accidentally vegan) wacky cake that I have been eating since my very first birthday (presumably). My mom dutifully makes this for me every year, even though I'm 27 years old and living 3 hours away. I think it's because the last time I tried to make it, I royally screwed it up, thus disgracing my family name. Anyway. She now tops it with the chocolate buttercream icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World...and it is even more divine than ever. We also found some sorbet (raspberry and lemon) to go along nicely. And she made two cakes, so Michael and I ate on this for over a week. (My mom rules.)

That evening we went out and I forgot to take pictures of my Mexican veggie pizza, but Michael and I made a trip to Athens, OH a few days prior and I remembered to bring my camera.

best balls on the planet

We traditionally go to Casa Nueva for my birthday dinner, as they have nice vegan food and a great beer selection and prepare local and seasonal fare. This year we started with tofu albondigas meatballs in their housemade bbq sauce (which was fantastic) atop a bed of jasmine rice. I could have eaten a couple plates of these and been done with dinner and it would have been just fine. They were amazing. Stayed together perfectly. The sauce was sweet and tangy, with some flavor that reminded me of my mom's Christmas molasses crinkle cookies, which sounds weird, but was in fact awesome.

adorable little salad

Next up was a salad comprised of baby greens and sprouts and a terrific lemon-basil vinaigrette. Perfect.

yum yum

Our entree was a stacked enchilada with seasoned tofu and the veggies of the day (tomatillos and green beans). It also contained a vegan queso cremosa (uh...fake cheese sauce) and was topped with some smoky salsa. The tofu was, as always, delectable, and the addition of those two strangely compatible vegetables was a huge hit. The beans lent a nice crunch while the tomatillos were smooth and nicely sour. I could barely finish this, but finish it I did. We took a nice, long walk afterwards.

Sometime before or after that, I made these things:

sweet and sour chipotle tempeh with sweet potatoes

This recipe is from Eat, Drink, and be Vegan...and I didn't really like it. Michael loved it, don't get me wrong, but it was just a teeny bit too sweet for me. I've never really liked the main part of my dinner meals to be sweet, so this isn't too surprising. Still, it was delicious in its own right. Just not the right that goes up my alley.

this looks like an octopus

But it's not. I made some seitan cutlets (my own concoction) and layered it all up with some couscous and steamed spinach. Michael made a lovely little mango salsa to top it all off. This was a delicious and relatively easy little meal.

goddess garbanzos

Another recipe from ED&BV. The true hero of this mixture is the apples in the salad. They add this lovely little crunch and just a hint of sweet. I'm assuming this is supposed to feed a family of four for 2 days of lunches, but we polished it off in one sitting.

lemony garlic pasta

Gosh, another ED&BV recipe. I had forgotten I made so many this past month! This one was stellar. Absolutely amazing. It wasn't overly saucy, but there was plenty of sauce to stick to the noodles...incredibly garlicky...and some walnuts added a good crunch and some protein. That woman is amazing.

And that's it for me today. I have to be at work in a little bit and Michael is nursing some horrible sickness that has been going around (and somehow I haven't caught it yet). I need to force some soup into him (some impromptu thing I made with fake chicken bouillon, scallions, garlic, ginger, chili garlic sauce, and noodles...and it's pretty tasty for the non-sick, too). I still have backup food to show you, so expect to see me back here tomorrow!

i love sandwiches

Or sammiches, as I prefer to call them.  Before we enter into that discussion, however, you must first see our farmers market haul from the first offical market of the season.

green peppers, pattypan squash, spring onions, white cucumbers, red potatoes, green beans (blue lake?), beets, summer squash, and a ginormous cabbage

All for around $20.  Not bad.  There were fewer stalls than usual and no greens (so frustrating!), but...  what can you do?  Michael and I still had a fun time going around and talking to the growers.  We also brought my buddy Becca with us, and it was her first time ever, officially popping her Huntington Farmers Market cherry.  Hooray!  Michael also managed to get interviewed for the evening news (his closing line was 'Eat your veggies!'), but we don't have cable or local channels, so we didn't get to see it.  That boy just attracts cameras wherever he goes.  Sheesh.  No, I'm not jealous it wasn't me they interviewed.  Really.  I swear.  Ok, maybe a little bit.  

Anyway, on to the the real meat (so to speak) of this post.  (soy protein?  wheat meat?...we need a new saying here.)  I was scanning through pictures that haven't yet made it onto the blogeroonie, and I noticed that I have an inordinate amount of pictures of sammiches.  I guess, in a regular post, they sort of get overlooked in a 'oh, they're not really a meal that's creative or fun and no one cares about my sammich obsession' kind of way.  I mean, I think that, until I look and see a bunch of neglected sammich pictures building up and begging to be shown.  Poor sammiches.  It's your turn.

monster dinner sammie

I guess I could have color-corrected that one a bit more.  Oh well.  Anyway, this is something Michael and I do from time to time, and I'm sure I've talked about it before.  At least once.  But there are evenings when we look at eachother and ask, 'What do you want for dinner?' and one of us (ok, usually him) suggests, innocently, 'Giant sammich?'.  I say innocently because, this is one mothereffer to make.  Really.  It always, always involves a trip to the grocery store, which is why I generally veto the giant sammich, even though I love it.  You see, I never buy chickn strips anymore, so there's that.  And, yeah, it has to have them.  And it's rare that we also have: roasted red peppers, artichokes, black olives, avocado, basil, tomatoes, lettuce, squash, zucchini (those last two are optional, but phenomenal), some type of Italian dressing, and a huge loaf of ciabatta bread all at once.  But seriously...once all those things go on there together...  you're in heaven.  You see, you assemble the sammich and then wrap the whole thing tightly in plastic wrap and set a heavy book on top and leave it for like a half hour so that all the flavors combine and get extra awesome.  And then you eat it.  Like, all of it.  We never have leftover giant sammich.  So anyway, that's one sammich obsession.

rad lunch sammich

Next up is the lunch sammich.  Lunch sammiches are, generally, lighter.  The bread isn't quite as serious.  There's probably some fake lunch meat on there.  What makes this one particularly awesome is the lunch meat that Michael's mom got from Indiana that's like cranberry and tofurkey or something...I can't remember, but it's Thanksgiving themed.  Oh, and this was right after I learned that I love raw squash and zucchini (they are sauteed on the giant sammich, by the way), so this one has thin slices of both of those.  Ok, honestly?  The real reason I eat sammiches most of the time is to have a vehicle for mustard.  I had some fancypants mustard that I put on this one.  And you probably know about my mustard obsession.  Sometimes, I put 2 different types of mustard on one sammich.  Just to see what will happen.  Also, for those of you who love avocado, but don't know how to eat it on a sammich without it slipping out all over the place, do this:  mush it up on the top piece of bread.  Use a fork.  That way, it's more like a spread.  

the emergency sammich

Chances are, you have the makings of a sammich in your fridge in case of emergency.  If not, the components of a sammich are not that expensive.  This particular sammich came about the other night when our city had a water main break and there was no water for like 5 hours.  I know you don't REALLY need water to make a decent meal, but...  well...  you sort of do.  But you know what you don't need water to make?  That's right.  A sammich.  We happened to have some leftover lunch meatses and fake cheese (from the seitan parmesan night) and bread and lettuce and avocado, so when I learned the water was out, I just walked to the corner market, purchased 2 tomatoes, 2 gallons of drinking water, and a case of beer, and I was set for the night!  These we fried old school style in the cast iron skillet (just the cheeze and meats inside, then added the toppings after the bread was nice and black).  Once we ran out of lunch meat, I made a cheeze and tomato sammich and Michael had a PB&J (another classic, of course).  We did have this with a huge salad, in order to get some nutrition out of the meal.  I also, for the record, like how this sammich looks like a face with blueberry eye-stalks.  

the smooshed sammich

I really like paninis.  I like paninis so much that I will put just about any type of sammich in the Foreman grill and squash the hell out of it.  There is just something about a seriously compact sammich that was once huge and hard to put in your mouth.  Especially if the bread is big, like this bread was.  Plus, they're crispy and pretty and warm and lovely.  I remember this sammich in particular because we made them for a late afternoon lunch in between episodes of Jekyll (awesome show for the first few episodes, then it gets stupid and sucks).  Sammiches are good to eat while you watch tv or movies because you don't have to look at them to make sure you're getting all the good bits in your mouth at once.  That's the beauty of the sammich.  All the good bits are there, all the time.  I mean, if you make it right.  

In conclusion, you do not need to work at Subway to be a sandwich artist.  It's better to be a sammich artist in your own home with better ingredients and you don't have to wear gloves and your kitchen probably doesn't smell like pizza subs as soon as you walk in.  

The end.

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.

randomonster

So I haven't even been on the internet since that last post. Being away from work, one of the last things I want to do is get online...mostly because it reminds me of work. And oh, I hate my job. Today was especially mind-numbingly terrible. Probably because it's Monday. And I've been away from it for 4 days. And the fact that my bosses are jerks and my work is boring. You know. The usual. So anyway, that means that I have a lot of catching up to do. Starting with that exciting thing that I told you I've been doing that Blogger is miraculously letting me upload photos of today. Look!

i'm learning to knit!

Michael got me a basic teach yourself to knit thing for xmas! He also got me loads of yarn and a more advanced book on slinkyrad sweaters for when I get better. And despite not understanding the instructions at all at first (I'm a learn by seeing/doing person), I really have a knack for it, somehow.

growing growing

finished...potholder?

My first knitting creation! I've gotten loads better since then and have been practicing different pattern stitches. I want to make little animals, like...really bad. For some reason. The cats would just commandeer them and hide them if I did make them, but that might just be part of the fun, yes? Anywho, now I get to participate in W.I.P. Wednesdays (brainchild of shellyfish)! That stands for Work In Progress, in case you are not in the know. I really enjoy making things with my hands that I get to see growing and improving as I do them (hence my love of ceramics). I did not at first think that I had the patience for knitting, but it turns out that I was wrong. It's a methodical, calming process, surprisingly enough. So, while other 20-somethings go out every night and drink themselves stupid at the bars and are generally not acting like 80-year-old women, I am content to act just that way. Let's not call it 'old'. Let's call it 'settled'. K?

Alright, on to the food. Here is what we ate on new years day. I've heard it's lucky to eat cabbage on that particular day, though I'm not really sure why. I couldn't find any decent collard greens at the store, so that one was out. And I was going to make something out of black-eyed peas, but...didn't. So, sauerkraut it was! I've had it in my mind that sauerkraut and sausage are awesome together (which they are) and wanted to make a pizza from this thought, but Michael deemed that idea icky, so we tried this instead:

not as pretty as a pizza, but still, it was good

This is sauerkraut cooked in some veggie broth with seitan sausages and dumplings. The dumplings were the star of the meal, by far. Little doughy bits of savory awesomeness. The kraut got a little watered down from the broth and the sausage got a little...soggy. But the dumplings were great! Michael found the recipe for me here. These are not the dumplings of my youth, which were more like doughy clouds sitting atop stew. They are compact, more like noodles. A nice, chewy noodle. That recipe calls for cornstarch, but it never says where to put it in, so I left it out. I also lacked the patience to roll them out to 1/8 inch thick and cut them all into 1x1" squares, so I just rolled them out to an acceptable (to me) thickness and used a spoon to cut out little oddly shaped noodle-biscuits. It turned out pretty good.

Next up is last night's dinner:

angel hair with garlicky oyster (mushroom) sauce

So here's the deal. I used to make linguine with clam sauce a lot as an omni. It's pretty much the only dish I made that had meat in it. I was good at it, and it tasted awesome. I decided to recreate it last night, with pretty decent results. The key? Oyster mushrooms. Also known as the only mushrooms that I like to eat. And I like them a lot. Too bad they're so expensive, jeez. Like, more expensive than tempeh. What! Anyway, I totally have a recipe for you because I wrote it down right after making it. I'm so on the ball. This is not a pasta that has loads of sauce on it. It's one of the ones where the sauce just coats the noodles and there's bits of yumminess here and there to chew on. Mmmmm... Served up with some olive bread (we found like a million artisan loafs of bread on crazy cheap sale at Kroger and put them in the freezer - score!), it's juuuuust right.

Angel Hair with Garlicky Oyster (Mushroom) Sauce

1 Tbsp EVOO

1/4 cup white wine (i just used white cooking wine)

1 cup veggie broth

juice of 1 lemon

2 Tbsp nutritional yeast

3-4 scallions, finely sliced

5-6 (or more!) cloves of garlic, minced

1 package oyster mushrooms, chopped into smallish pieces

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 - 1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1 Tbsp capers, chopped (optional...i sprinkled mine on afterwards)

1 package angel hair pasta, cooked, drained and rinsed*

Make your pasta, set aside. Heat up olive oil in a medium skillet, then add scallions and cook until slightly translucent. Add mushrooms and garlic (and capers, if using), reduce heat and cook until fragrant. At some point, the mushrooms will start sticking to the pan, so deglaze with small pours of the veggie broth as needed. This will take about 3 minutes. Then, pour in wine, the rest of the broth, and lemon juice; stir in nutritional yeast and garlic powder. Cook, uncovered until reduced by about half. You want it to still be fairly liquid, but not like soup. (I reduced mine too much and there wasn't enough to cover the pasta well, so make sure you don't reduce for too long.) Once this has happened (shouldn't take long, really), stir in the parsley and cook, stirring constantly, until parsley is just wilted. You want to retain that yummy parsley flavor, so don't overcook it. Take off the heat and pour over the rinsed pasta. You may have to dig for the yummy mushroom bits when you serve, because they'll tend to fall to the bottom of the pot. Eat, enjoy!

*the reason you want to rinse your pasta for this recipe is that you don't need the extra starch on the noodles to grab onto your sauce, as you would for a tomato sauce. I usually never, ever rinse pasta, but you really need to for this one, otherwise the noodles will just soak up all the sauce and it will be dry.

Yay, a recipe! I feel like I never post enough recipes. Mostly this is just because I throw stuff in and don't measure and then forget exactly what I did. Maybe I'll start keeping track a little better. Anyway, on to some random food that we ate before new years.

thai coconut green curry

Seriously, the best way to eat kale ever. Ever! Normally, I find kale still just a tad bitter, but after simmering for awhile in this scrumptious green thai sauce, it was tender and sweet and just fabulous. The tempeh in there wasn't so great, though. Still sorta bitter, even though I cooked it from the beginning to the end of the process (about 45 minutes). Bummer!

gnocchi with okara pesto

Now this was amazing. I completely forgot what I did, except this: I had some basil, but not enough for a proper pesto. I had some pine nuts, but not enough for a proper pesto. In order to fill it out, I added about half a cup of okara to the mix, in addition to some nutritional yeast and lemon juice. And possibly other things, but alas! This dinner happened so long ago that I truly am at a loss. It was very delicious though.

crabbycake casserole w/sesame quinoa

I keep forgetting not to use frozen tofu in this recipe. It won't allow for the cakes themselves to stick together properly. In the midst of utter frustration and cakes falling apart left and right, Michael suggested we just make it into a crabbycake casserole. It worked and tasted delicious. By the way, I don't really follow that recipe above, I just use it as a guideline (mostly to remember how much Old Bay and nayonaise to add). That quinoa was cooked with tahini, nutritional yeast, spinach, tomatoes, lemon juice, and oregano. It was creamy and wonderful and tangy. I've come to really love the taste of tahini with lemon juice. Which isn't a great thing, since it's so fatty. Oh well.

ceasar salad

This is the ceasar salad from the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, which my brother and sister-in-law got me for xmas. Loads of awesome recipes in that one, by the way! This ceasar dressing was...nothing like what I remember ceasar dressing tasting like, but it was still totally delicious. I used to love love love ceasar salads back in the day (which went on to become a greek salad obsession when I went vegetarian) and this is a nice reminder of them. Greek salad, you are next! I must master tofu feta (feta was the last thing I gave up before becoming vegan and I've been to scared to recreate it...I'm waiting until I fully forget what it tastes like first so I won't be disappointed haha). Anyway, we added some tomatoes to our salad because it looked a little bare with just lettuce, which tasted awesome, but added way too much acid. The dressing has a bunch of lemon juice in it, and apparently, I've developed a sensitivity to overly acidic foods. My mouth feels all scratchy and sore when I eat them. Sad. But most likely, worth it. Moving on...

the best tempeh i have ever eaten

And which of course, I forget what I put in the marinade, except that I know it had some of that sweet and hot mustard I'd just bought. I did boil it, then marinate it for like an hour, then fried it up (with the marinade) in the cast iron skillet. Delicious! That's mexi-millet and some green beans with it. Oh man, I have been craving tempeh ever since we had this. But I'm afraid I can't remember how to do it again!

sweet potato n brussels sprout chili

I kept hearing people rave about Isa's recipe for chili with brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. At first, I was like 'meh'. But then all of a sudden, I was all 'hmmm!' instead. Naturally, instead of actually trying her recipe, I just added sweet potato chunks and brussels sprouts to my normal chili recipe (minus 2 cans of beans) because I couldn't be bothered to look at yet another chili recipe. So, I have no idea if Isa's actual recipe for this is any good, but I can tell you that chili with brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes is awesome. Hint: the sprouts hold onto all these juices that when you bite into them totally explode in your mouth! Try resisting that!

where i got the idea that sausage is good with kraut

Ohhhh yeaahhhh...I had forgotten I even ate this. That's a Tofurkey beer brat with some Ezekial bun action. Add a little kraut and some sweet hot mustard (I love that stuff!) and you are in heaven. Oh, and because you can't get enough cabbage (apparently), brussels sprouts are a key side dish.

french onion soup

Last, but not least, we have this stuff. Another recipe from the Uncheese book. I must say, I have never before in my life had french onion soup. It always seemed gross to me. Beef broth...onions as the main component...bread...cheese...blegh. But without any of those grossy things (well, bread still, not that bread is gross, but soggy bread in soup?) I decided to give it a whirl. And it, too, was really good! I got a little freaked out by the 'cheese' eventually because it kind of just made me think of wet dough that I was eating, but had I followed instructions and schmeared the 'cheese' onto french bread instead of using croutons and plopping the stuff in the soup itself, I wouldn't have been bothered by it. I know because the next day, I spread the leftover cheesy stuff onto toast and it was delicious.

Wow. That was a long post. Now it's time to start cooking again. Happy (hellish) Monday, kids. Hope you survived. I barely am, with the help of some PBR and LOST on tv. Thank goodness.