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!

eat good food all year long

Time for more summertime awesomeness easy peasy lazy hot and sweaty meals!  First up is a radioactive picture of some lovely zucchini provencal that I made with my friend Becca.  We also baked some tofu with bbq sauce and she sauteed red cabbage in raspberry vinegar with apples (amazing).

lovely layers

This was kind of like a lasagna without noodles.  And it ruled.  You can find the initial recipe here, but we used 3 zucchini, 3 tomatoes, and added tons of minced garlic to each layer.  Even better that way.  Anyway, it's something to do with the mountains of zucchini that I'm sure you'll have this summer.  It's always good to have a nice zucchini recipe.

who needs color when you can have tots and corn and breaded things?

Ha.  Seriously though, these were the tofu fish sticks from Vegan Dad's blog, and they were fabulous.  A bit messy to prepare, but worth it.  Nice and crunchy with a soft interior.  I had no idea you could get things this crunchy by just baking them.  We made the tartar sauce as well, but I hated it because I am, as you might remember, currently hating vegan mayo.  Blegh.  Anywho, we channelled our inner children and had them with tots and corn on the cob.  That's how we roll.

we eat healthy crap too, ok?

This kick-ass salad was assembled by me.  I made this salad specifically to go with this wonderful lime thyme dressing from VegWeb.  You know, I always used to think my mom was nuts for putting strawberries in salads.  Not so, friends.  Paired with a nicely salty salad dressings, strawberries in salads are the bomb.  Anyway, after I made the dressing, I marinated some tempeh in about 1/4 of it, and then pan fried it to get it nice and browned.  Genius, let me tell you.

how could anything this green be bad?

Everyone:  make this dressing.  I didn't think it tasted overly thyme-y, but maybe I didn't add enough.  At any rate, I only added 2 Tbsp of the sugar, which was way too much for me, so I reccommend only adding 1 Tbsp and working up from there.  I also added way more salt and lime and a little red wine vinegar to make it more tart.  We ate the leftovers of this dressing for days on salads.  Fabulous.

smoked tofu is awesome.

Ok, I'd never had smoked tofu.  We were in Indiana this past weekend to see Michael's family, and I saw this in a health food store and just had to get it.  Amazing.  It's...creamy.  Like cheese.  It tastes more like cheese than any vegan cheese I've ever had.  Weird, but very cool.  It's rich though...I probably didn't need to eat all that, but what the hell.  Served up cold (straight out of the package) with some roasted asparagus and curried couscous (recipe from the idiot cookbook).  I cut my tofu up into little bits and mixed it with the couscous and it ruled.  I so wish we could get this stuff around here...but it's like 5 bucks a package, so it's definitely a luxury item for us.

i made muffins!

Another VegWeb recipe.  I kind of forgot that I had a bajillion recipes saved on there and revisited them this past week a bunch, obviously.  These gems are orange poppyseed muffins.  And they were glorious.  Though not really orange-y.  I even added the zest of a big orange along with the orange juice (fresh squeezed).  Next time, I will add twice that much zest.  Also, here's a perk: the only fat they have in them is from the flax seeds.  They're not even gross or dense because of it.  Fluffy.  Moist.  Almost cupcake-like.  Oh, another bonus: they are super cute on top!  I don't know how that happened, but I definitely am a fan. 

israeli couscous is not for everyone

By 'everyone', I definitely do not include myself.  Because I loved it.  Michael, not so much.  But that's ok.  I ate the crap out of this.  For it, I roasted 2 tomatoes that I diced beforehand with some sliced green olives, then added that to the prepared couscous.  We found this for $1.50 a bag at Big Lots, which makes me happy.  It was a nice lunch, anyway.  For me.

everything in the kitchen pasta, plus portobellos

This weekend at Michael's parents' house, we cooked dinner the first night.  Basically, anything I found in the kitchen, I put in the pasta.  That includes asparagus, green olives, spinach, onions, scallions, roasted red peppers, and artichokes.  It was very vegetable-y and yummy.  Michael grilled the mushrooms, and even though I claim to hate portobellos, these were delicious.  I was also kind of drunk though, so I might blame that.

summertime classic

Because of my embargo on vegan mayo, I have to be creative when it comes to pasta salad now.  As some of you might remember, I am enthusiastically obsessed with the flavor combination of mint and dill.  This pasta salad was the perfect vehicle for it.  Those two herbs, plus peas, scallions, and red cabbage, then a generous dousing of olive oil and red wine vinegar.  It was heavenly.

the best dips are the accidental ones

Right?  Well, maybe.  Anyway, I was starving and wanted hummus, but didn't have any chickpeas.  Or lemons.  Thus, curried white bean dip was born.  I made it in about 2 minutes and it was absolutely addictive.  I even have a recipe.

Curried Bean Dip

1 15 oz can butter beans, drained (or other white bean.  or any bean, really.)

2 large cloves of garlic

1/4-1/2 15 oz can coconut milk

1 Tbsp chili garlic sauce

1 Tbsp red curry powder

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp dried dill

1 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp salt

Throw the beans and garlic in a food processor and process until smooth(ish).  Add spices (except salt) and 1/4 can of coconut milk, and continue to process, adding more coconut milk until it gets to the consistency you like.  Add the salt, to taste.  It's spicy, so if you're a wimp, leave out the chili garlic sauce or use yellow curry powder.  Wuss.

recently, we've been stealing herbs

Yeah, we found this apartment building down the block that has rosemary, mint, oregano, and lemon verbena growing in the yard.  No one's ever around.  What?  Anyway, it's fun to add fresh, free herbs to food.  For example, here we added mint and dried dill to those beans.  And roasted the potatoes with rosemary.

the basil is ours

Yeah, too bad there's nowhere with free basil, huh?  Oh well, we have some growing in our kitchen (and two other plants maturing on the porch).  Basil and tomatoes are a classic summertime combination, but add some avocado to that mix and...  Oh my.  It's pretty, too.

Hope you're all still enjoying your summer!  Except for those of you who are now having winter.  Disregard.  Remember, even though it's a million degrees out and you're hot and sweaty and tired, that's no excuse to not eat decent food.  Though, admittedly, I do use that excuse from time to time.  Nobody's perfect.

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!

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.