sandwich, kermit, recipe.

I went to Trader Joes yesterday and saw a bottle of cornichon pickles and for some reason thought of this sandwich idea. It's nothing earth shattering, it could be better, but I liked it. Here's what I did basically:

15oz can of chickpeas, mashed a bit
4-5 cornichon pickles, chopped
1 scallion, sliced
1/2 carrot, fine diced
1 tablespoon of dijon mustard
mayo (some like a lot some don't so use your own judgement)
salt and pepper

Toss it all in a bowl and adjust seasons to taste, you might want to add more pickles or scallions or whatever totally up to you.

I shoved most of it in a pita and added 1/2 of a sliced avocado. The other 1/2 of avocado I diced small and added to what was left of the sandwich filling to eat tomorrow.


As requested and with alittle bit of hunting around my blog I finally found my recipe for the Fire Roasted Tomato, Butternut, Curry Coconut Soup. So make it and enjoy it. Then use it as a sauce!

Fire Roasted Tomato, Butternut + Curry Coconut Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped onions
4 Tablespoons parley, chopped
3 cups water
4 cloves garlic, sliced

28oz can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth, use those 1 cup amount containers of veg broth.
1med size butternut squash, diced medium (4-5 cups)
1 can coconut milk
2 1/2 -3 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
salt and pepper

Saute carrots, onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat. When they start to get soft add the water and parsley. (This eventually turns into a broth so you dont' have to bother making a seperate broth.)

Add tomatoes, butternut and broth (i add this amout of broth just to give it an extra richness). Bring to a boil and simmer until butternut is soft. Mix in the curry powder and cumin. Then add the coconut milk. Cook for 10 minutes or more until all the flavors meld and season with salt and pepper.

Turn off the heat and let the soup cool a bit. Use and immersion blender and blend it up so that its has a nice and creamy consistancy. If you don't have an immersion blender you can alway's use a quisenart or regular blender.

For two people this makes alot of soup. So I freeze 1/2 of it which is alway's a nice surprise to find in the freezer since I forget about everything that's in there. Enjoy!


And now for some Reno. This is what happens to her when my sister comes over on Tuesday nights to hang out:


She's alittle nervous and uncomfortable sitting next to kermit.


She's a lot nervous and uncomfortable sitting next to kermit.

Poor girl.


P.S. I responded to all your comments in the last post below.

eat your veg topped off with more veg.

Curry Crusted Seitan w. Mixed Vegetables in a Butternut Sauce. I had a bit of my Fire Roasted Tomato, Butternut Soup w. Coconut and Curry that wasn't frozen and thought it would make a great sauce to a dish because it's a nice and thick soup. It worked really well and just think of the amount of vegetables you are eating! Not only are you eating the vegetables in the dish but the sauce/soup is made of vegetables. For the seitan I dredged it in a mix of chickpea flour, hot curry powder, nutritional yeast, paprika, salt and pepper. Fry up the seitan seperate from the veg so that it stays nice and crispy.



Thanks to the Urban Vegan I now have a super easy and delicious Basil Cream Sauce. I suggest everyone click on the link, copy this recipe down and make it, then save the leftover sauce and eat it for lunch the next day with a fresh batch of pasta.



Just a use up the veg in the fridge stirfry using Soy Vay Teriyaki topped off with black sesame seeds for a nice crunch.



Every wednesday I go to my sisters to watch America's Next Top Model. She burnt the box made falafel last week so I made the "real" falafel NOT out of a box w. fresh tahini sauce. Sadly I forgot to bring my camera to her apartment to take a pic of the whole meal put together.

I also made Chocolate Chip-Walnut (instead of pecan) Cookies from the Damn Tasty! cookbook for ANTM watching. Which I also forgot to photograph. But have been eating the extra dough out of my fridge for the last few days. YUM!

Crazy for coconut!

We were invited to our friends house for dinner on Saturday and I said I'd bring dessert. I made the Coconut Heaven Cupcakes from VwaV. While I was collecting all the ingredients I needed I took out my bottle of coconut extract thinking that it will be used in the recipe. Well it wasn't listed as an ingredient but how can you have a coconut cupcake that claims to be from heaven with out the extra coconut flavor to make it a true Coconut Heaven Cupcake? I ended up adding it to the cupcake batter and to the frosting. The cupcake tastes like coconut without the extract. It taste like coconut heaven with the extract. Needless to say the cupcakes were devoured at our friends house and at Peter's families house on sunday.



Sunday night I made a batch of pesto and used 1/2 of it on a Ciabatta Pizza. I like the pesto to be the star of this "pizza" so I keep the toppings minimal: yellow pepper, red onion, garlic and herbs de provence. Delicious.



Soup anyone. I woke up this morning. Fed Reno. She went back to sleep. I went into the kitchen, p.j.'s and all, and whipped up 2 soups! The soup on the left is a Lemongrass-Carrot Coconut Soup. The soup on the right is my Fire Roasted Tomato, Butternut, Coconut and Curry Soup. This was my first time making this carrot soup. It came out quite tasty but dare I say that it actually needs more carrots in the recipe. I've made my notes to my recipe and hopefully next time it will be better than tasty. The butternut soup recipe, which is posted somewhere on this blog I believe, is great. I don't think i'd change a thing.

If I locate the recipe I'll link it to this post.



For dinner tonight, instead of eating one of the soups, I made a quick Dirty Rice with a rogue Field Roast Sausage that I found in the fridge. Nothing too fancy and it had to be quick because Reno was quite a diry girl today and needed a bath.

On a sad note. I discovered today that my copy of The Damn Tasty! vegan baking guide is missing about 10 pages! Quite a number of recipes are missing! I will talk to Food Fight tomorrow and see what they will do about it, plus order a box of the Mesquite Lime Primal Strips!!!

Box at door.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH how exciting it is to come home from a long weekend away to find a package OF FOOD!!! at your door!!! I finally ordered Primal Strips and Shells and Chreese from Food Fight! I can't fine either product where I live, which is crazy considering that I don't live in some boonie area. I've tried the Primal Strips already and yum! Especially the Mesquite Lime! It's a perfect protein snack for those days where I just can't eat a proper meal during the day. I also finally ordered The Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide (it took me long enough). I'm very excited to try out alot of the recipes after I finally go food shopping sometime this week. I'm out of everything and I mean everything. It will be a big trip. I might even drop Reno off at her Grandma's tomorrow to get it all done.



This weekend I was at my parents house. Here is a pretty caterpillar who is living on the parsley eating it to bits.