Working on my backlog

So this week didn't go as well as I had planned in reducing the amount of food in my pantry. In fact, I ate out for breakfast every morning and 4 out of 5 lunches. One dinner consisted of ice cream bars and a demi baguette with earth balance. Which brings to mind the old adage - when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Hunger strikes before I have a good head on my shoulders, especially in the morning. This week I am going to try and go through my seven different kinds of flour by making some muffins.

The first dinner was made in less than five minutes because I thought I was going to go work out. Haha, I thought wrong. It consisted of whole wheat cous cous, white beans, red onions, green olives, taragon and a lot of parsley. Thrown together at high speed. The pics didn't turn out at all.
I decided to ues my sushi rice to make risotto since I didn't have any arborio around. The veggie mix is orange bell pepper, shallots, and asparagus. The broth I used was the water from rehydrating the dried chantrelles. There isn't much seasoning beside a little salt because of the delicate flavor of the chantrelles.
This dish was wide rice noodles smothered in a ginger miso lemon sauce along with fried tofu, red bell pepper, and broccoli. Sort of my fall back meal. I don't have any soy sauce or tamari, so I have been using miso to add that salty taste to my dressings and some sauces.
A cold cous cous salad with tomatoes, avacado, white beans, parsley, spike seasoning, and red onions. The vinegarette is made from white wine vinegar and flax oil.
I have a lot of saffron to use, so I made a faux paella with red bell pepper, shallots, asparagus, saffron, and basmati. A far cry from the paella I made on the Wii Cooking Mama, but still using some of the same elements.Run of the mill tvp tacos. Even processed taco shells and taco seasoning packets need to get eaten! At least it was all natural and helped me use up some tvp! So much more food left, I need to get creative and come up with a plan.

One Month Challenge

This month, I have the challenge of eating through my pantry. My pantry is bursting with grains, beans and spices. For this month, I will not buy anything except fresh vegetables and fruits. Nothing is from a cookbook, everything I will be making is just from the pantry, and on the fly. Here are a few things I have made :


Extra large tvp chunks sauteed with garlic and bell peppers and some awesome green curry paste I got in Portland. Served over white jasmine. Stay tuned for this curry paste and some coconut milk in the future.

More peppers to use. I cooked some french lentils with about three tablespoons of herbes de provence, added some peppers sauteed in olive oil with copious amounts of garlic. Served over white basmati.


This was my take on dahl. I boiled some red lentils until they were mushy and added a whole bunch of spinach, torn. In another pan, I fried up some onions and carrots in olive oil with a spice mixture of chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, ginger, allspice, coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Served with a sliced tomato to cool it down a little, it was a spicy little soup. I would add lemon juice or some sort of acid next time around.

Potato soup cassarole, minus the potatoes! Spuds have ended up on my list of foods I prefer to avoid, but I love the flavors of potato soup. This dish recreates some of those flavors, minus the creamyness I suppose. It consists of steamed broccoli, a sauce of alfredo "chreese" and immitation bacon bits, mixed and cooked with whole wheat cous cous.

Tonight's dinner was a long shot. I wanted to recreate some of the flavors of cheesesteak in a hotdish of sorts. Brown rice, large tvp chunks, red onion and green bell pepper slices marinated in a creamy sauce of oregano, white pepper, salt and nutritional yeast.

I've also been making tons of pancakes, but I post enough pictures of pancakes on this blog. I'm cooking some white beans right now and hopefully will make an inspired lunch.

Goodbye wisdoms...or how I learned to stop worrying and love pureed food

All four of my wisdom teeth came out last week and I was happy to get them removed! The fears of my impacted teeth, anxiety over having them removed and general crowding problems have been assuaged. My dentist warned me that I should have gotten these babies out a decade ago, but I was too cool for surgery when I was sixteen, so here I am with a delayed recovery and minor complications. Things could be much worse, so I am counting my lucky stars and using this as an opportunity to appreciate pureed food. My blender, hand blender, and food processor and I have had plenty of quality bonding time this week.

My recommendations for those who are getting teeth out include mashed potatoes, dahl, pureed soups, pudding, tofu scramble (medium firm tofu, nutritional yeast, tamari, and dill), soygurt, applesauce, and smoothies. Lukewarm tea, soda, and juice are good beverage options.

I spent over $40 in juice this week, and as you can see from my "junk food care kit" above lots of processed foods. My cooking was not extensive, and my first meal at a restaurant was spongy injera bread and lentil mash at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant.

Power Gruel

I haven't been cooking. This is no secret to anybody who has checked my blog in the last six months. I could go through the litany of excuses: too busy, travel, laziness... I have been eating lots of veggie dumplings, tofu scrambles, and tofu dogs.

I realized at the grocery store tonight that this has become a full blown problem. I was totally tired (and looking it) after meeting with my trainer at the gym. As I stood grumpily throwing Amy's nondairy frozen burritos into my shopping basket, a guy walking down the frozen food isle started laughing at me. I took a step back and realized I must look like such a helpless single woman - too lazy to brush her hair let alone eat something good. Single serving frozen burritos!!! They were on sale, and they do work well for lunches, so it really shouldn't have bothered me whether someone thought it was funny that I was stocking up on a dozen microwaveable meals. But just because I am a lazy single girl doesn't mean I have to eat like one. These frozen burritos will be put to good use for my lunches, but I am going to make a concerted effort to eat better dinners.

However, tonight I was tired, lazy, and craving total crap. So I made power gruel, my signature dish from college. It is nothing more than rotini, vegenaise, frozen peas, and a little chopped scallion. I know, classy. I am even going to offer a picture, because something that I eat at least 30 nights per year has got to be immortalized on the Internet.

Power Gruel

As evidence that I have already been wanting to add some spice to my go-to meals, I added shredded cheddar scheese to my last tofu scramble. Okay, I'm gonna have to make more of an effort than that. I've got some ideas, so while I realize this was the most boring post in vegan food porn history, I do have some ideas percolating. Take another look at that picture. Things can only get better than this.

Taming the Sniffles

Happy 2009! Like many people this time of year, I have several new year's resolutions - keep in touch with friends, stop skipping my cardio dates, and take my lunch to work everyday! Even with the best intentions, these seemingly simple resolutions can easily fly out the window. So I wasn't even going to try to set a resolution about keeping up my blog, but it does fit into two of my resolution categories. I will be making all these lunches and I will want to keep in touch with friends! So cheers to a new year and lots of yummy food.

Unfortunately, after the best vacation back home ever, I have come down with a case of the sniffles. It is not inhibiting my daily activities, but it is quite a nuisance. After a phone call with my mom, who suggested chicken noodle soup, I improvised this recipe. It is simple yet extremely tasty and certainly is helping ward off these nasty germs. This soup really hits the spot, and will be my go to soup in the sad occasion that I start coming down with something again.

My apologies to anyone who can't get Butler Soy Curls, I stock up when I am in Seattle at Sidecar for Pigs Peace. Any chicken style seitan or even tvp chunks would work, but the texture of the soy curls is really the best for this type of soup.


Sniffle Proof "Chicken" and Rice Soup

1 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 cup dried Butler soy curls
1 veggie bullion cube
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp dried parsley
4 cups of water
1/3 cup long grain white rice
lemon juice (for garnish)

Warm the oil over medium low heat in a large soup pot. Add the garlic for a few seconds and then add the onion, and saute until the onion is becoming translucent. Add the carrots and salt, and saute for 4-5 minutes longer. Soak the soy curls in a bowl or pot of hot water until they have become soft (usually around 5 minutes). Rinse the curls in cold water, and chop into bite-sized pieces.

In the soup pot, add the bullion cube, thyme, and parsley and stir. Let cook for a minute or so, then add the water and soy curls. Raise heat and bring the soup to a boil. Add the rinsed rice to the soup, and turn the heat to low for 25 minutes. Add lemon juice to taste (I like to add it to each individual bowl).

Pumpkin Bran Muffins

I love fall. This is the second fall I am spending in a city on the West Coast, and I miss the colors, smells, and weather of the Midwest. One thing I can recreate is eating my favorite foods. West Coast has tons of orchards, but I have yet to find good apple cider, so I settled on the sweet yet savory taste of pumpkin. When I bake muffins for breakfast, I like to add a lot of bran to keep me full until lunch. These muffins have a lot of bran, yet are still moist without a ton of oil. And leave it to a unabashed vanilla fan to sneak some vanilla extract in the batter along with pumpkin pie spices. If you don't have all the spices, feel free to use pumpkin pie mix instead of plain pumpkin - the pie taste will just be a little subdued.

Pumpkin Bran Muffins

2 cups wheat bran
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar (feel free to guestimate a little more if you like)
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons molasses
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup soy milk
1 cup pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp allspice

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the bran, flours, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice, and salt. In another bowl, mix the sugar, molasses, pumpkin, soymilk, oil, and vanilla. Add the wet to the dry and mix until there are no more dry spots. Add more soymilk if the batter is too thick to stir (the batter will be thick anyways). Spoon the mixture into a lined muffin tin and bake for 20-22 minutes. This recipe makes 12 muffins.

Is it spring yet?

I thought spring had arrived here in Vancouver once the cherry trees began blossoming. Then things took a turn for the chilly and everything stopped. Minnesota is warmer than it is here this weekend! So it is no surprise that I have gravitated towards hearty grain dishes and baked pastas.

I made manacotti stuffed with tofu ricotta (just some lemon juice, crumbled tofu, a little sugar, lots of basil, some oregano, and salt) and tempeh sausage crumbles. The top is covered in cheap jarred pasta sauce and the last of a $7 block of Vegan Gourmet mozzarella. This dish is great to pull together in an unfamiliar kitchen because it is pretty much just boil, stuff and bake. The asparagus is the only clue that it is becoming spring, although I am sure it was imported from California.

I also made spaghetti and beanballs from Veganomicon. This complimented my laziness and spring cold snap carb cravings perfectly. I love these bean balls because they are so filling and chewy. These are served up with some carrots and broccoli covered in Spike seasoning.

These are the cheesy zucchini calzones that are based on the recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook. The filling is a tofu ricotta (different from the one I usually throw together for several reasons, the main one being it includes nutmeg), and sauteed zucchini. Although every other calzone I have made has the sauce baked inside, I decided to try the method of leaving it out. I never like how soggy the sauce makes the calzones after they sit for a while. This method was nice as the filling stood its own and the dough remained dry yet soft. Next time I may add a little sauce to the filling and serve some on the side.

From the Complete Vegan Cookbook, this is the bulgar and red lentils with kale and olives. Don't look too hard for the olives, though because I left them out. This would have been an easy weeknight recipe, as everything just sort of simmers together for about half an hour. I liked how filling this dish is and am a little worried how much I am craving wheat these days. Whether it is kamut, bulgar, or just straight up white flour, it seems like all my comfort foods are full of wheat. I will have to experiment with some other chewy grains and hope that spring vegetables are ready soon!