VeganMoFo: Cashews

Cashews are by far my favorite nut. I love to eat them raw, salted, roasted, as a snack, in a stirfry, as a garnish, however. The love affair probably started when I first had Chicken w. Cashewnuts at a chinese restaurant. I now put cashews in almost every asian type stirfry that I make, they just seem wrong without them. Homemade creamy cashew milk is great for using by itself or with a mixture of coconut milk for ice creams of all flavors. Blend them up to make sauces and dips a bit creamier. How about using them to crust some seitan or tempeh...delicious! Cashewbutter and jelly sandwiches! Cookies! Its endless. I love cashews.

Pictured above is Tamari Cashews. When I was a young vegetarian and had no idea what I was doing I "created" this recipe by mistake. I thought I was a culinary genius at the time, but have realized that recipes for this already exist (hey, I didn't know!). Anyway..my mom was alway's telling me how she use to toast pumpkin seeds in the oven and then coat them with tamari. She never told me how she did it. So one day I decided to toast some cashews in non stick skillet when the skillet was all hot and bothered I dumped in some tamari. Thats when I "created" this recipe all by my young self. I love eating them warm right out of the pan or cold out of the fridge. They are also good to chop up and garnish you dinner with if it needs a bit of extra saltiness.

Tamari Cashews.

1 cup Raw Cashews
1/8 cup Tamari (use low sodium unless you like how intense regular is)

In a dry non stick skillet toast your cashews, constently moving them. This is a good time to practice your sauteing/pancake flipping skills..its fun. When the cashews are lightly browned about 3-5 minutes dump in your tamari. Remember you are pouring a liquid into a hot dry pan it's going to react on contact and steam will be released so be careful!! Stir with a wooden spoon until cashews are coated and tamari dries up about 1 minute. Immedietly remove from the pan. If you don't the nuts will stick to the pan (even non stick) because some of the tamari coats and sticks to the pan but is easily cleaned up when washed. Eat!


I don't know if i've ever posted 3 days in a row! Here's to VeganMoFo and all it's glory!

VeganMoFo: VEGANOMICON

Someone was on my side today. This book wasn't suppose to arrive until monday when I will be away. As we were leaving for a walk Peter noticed a box. I could have cried I was so excited. I ripped it open in the car and immediately started reading and scanning the pages. If I could have walked, read and drank coffee all at once I would have. With not much time to look at it today I'm still declaring it as probably the best vegan cookbook ever written. (the probably will be taken out of this statement when I'm finished reading it (like a novel) and cooking from it because I'm sure it's the best.) When I hopped out of the car to get us coffee Peter confessed to picking it up and looking at the pictures and was very excited about how good the food looked especially since he saw a photo with broccoli rabe in it. I would have loved to have made us dinner from the book tonight but we are both sick like hell..we probably shouldn't even have gone for the walk but our apartment building is trying to kill us by pumping heat into our apartment and we needed fresh air. Tomorrow is another day. A day to go food shopping and cook.

VeganMoFo

It's NaNoWriMo month. Personally I don't have time to write a novel. The idea is nice though. Instead I'm going to take part in VeganMoFo...a month of writing about vegan food. I havn't posted in over a week due to lazyness. I wish I could say it's because of Reno but quite frankly it isn't. I am a very lucky. I have a good baby.

Here's some porn and words for ya to look at and read.



Sundried Tomato and White Bean Sauce...I had this idea for a pureed sundried tomato sauce that I wanted to be creamy. I used white beans to do that plus added pine nuts, nutritional yeast, a bit of miso and a long list of other ingredients. This recipe wasn't a total success but it was still good. Even better the next day and the day after that..a.k.a. it made a ton of sauce.



Last tuesday my sister was over to bother Reno and eat dinner. She alway's order's Gnocchi w. Pesto from this italian place by us. I decided to save her some dough and make it myself. She declared this to be the best pesto she's had. I reminded her that it was vegan..she almost took her declaration back. But didn't.



A nice side of Garlic Bread with the gnocchi. I wizzed up some Earth Balance, garlic, olive oil and a touch of pesto in the blender and spread on the most delicious looking bread I could find at the store.




Celebration Roast. I've never had it before. I've alway's loved Field Roast's sausage things but the celebration roast alway's scared me a bit. It scares me no longer. This was good. I wouldn't eat it all the time but for Thanksgiving away at the parents or in-laws house i'd take one with me. It cooks in minutes with just the addition of some broth. For this dinner I served it with some StringBeans w. Crispy Garlic and Rice and Beans. This was delicious the next day for dinner with the roast sliced and sauteed in some oil.



Awwww..how sweet...heart cupcakes...

I have this recipe for Chocolate-Orange Cupcakes that I'm working on. They are suppose to be filled with a ganache center. Stupid me put them in the oven and then went to check on Reno...In less that 2 minutes they were out of the oven because I forgot to put the ganache inside the cupcakes...but the cakes already starting to set on top. I tried to force the ganache in but it of course melted right away, which I knew would happen but I had to try anyway. So needless to say they didn't come out as planned. People still liked them but I felt like I needed to apologize about them which I shouldn't do.


So again..welcome to VeganMoFo...some suggestions were posted on the ppk forums of what to write about...but if you have any suggestions of what I should write about or would want to see me make or whatever please let me know. I might run out of ideas.

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.

yum...beer....

...as in Beer Battered anything! Sunday night I made Beer Battered Seitan Strips based on a recipe posted by Jess at Get Sconed. Oh these were delicious. Not so healthy but that's ok you can't eat healthy all the time. The next time I make these I will not make a potato side dish. Although delicious it was a bit heavy and carby. As a dipping sauce I made a Pesto Aioli using some fresh pesto I made with some wilting basil mixed with vegan mayo. Did we enjoy this meal hot off the stove? No. Its hard to eat a hot meal once you have a baby. She seems to want attention as soon as dinner is ready.



The other evening I was feeling nostalgic and remembering my early vegetarian days as a teen when I first discovered chili. My chili back then wasn't as good as it is now simply because back then I was afraid to try cumin. I was stupid but slowly started using it and now all these years later am a cumin addict. I also thought I didn't like beans but I couldn't eat broccoli for every meal (which I did for a few days in the very beginning, oh the horrendus gas pains I had in my chest) so slowly thru the miracle of chili I learned to love both. Now I get gas pains in my chest from broccoli and beans. This chili contains 3 ingredients I usually don't use in chili: zucchini, corn and Field Roast Chipotle Mexican "Sausage". I also made some yellow rice because I was feeling festive.

Desperation Dinner.

The other night I was desperate for food. I hadn't had a chance to eat all day. Reno, who is a good baby, decided to be cranky for a bit and Peter was out picking up our new stereo. It was a bit impossible to cook with her needing attention, but if I didn't I would have passed out and I was getting a major headache. I managed to get her to sit in this rainforest bouncer chair on the kitchen table for about 15 minutes while I whipped up this delicous but desperate Italian Stirfry. It consists of Zucchini, Broccoli, Cherry Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, Carrots, Pinenuts and fresh Basil. It was great and made me feel a ton better. Even better is that it was something that i've never made before so yeah to me for creating a new dish.




Here are some new pics of Reno. I never got around to telling you all about the birth and everything BECAUSE!!! my second night home from the hospital I ended up back in the hospital with a pretty wicked kidney infection! It was horrible! I was on all these drugs and such which I ended up being allergic too and my face swelled up 5 time bigger then my face already is!! I had to spend the night in the hospital (would have been two nights if I didn't have the allergic reaction) I've never been sick or allergic to anything so this was all a bit too much for me. But i'm all better now (i think) and Reno is a wonderful baby. She only wakes us up once or twice at night to be fed and sleeps the rest of the night away. She's already grown 2 inches!

I've pretty much recovered from the birth. It was pretty horrible being induced because the induction processed worked alittle too well with me and it all happend to fast which in the long run I guess is better than laboring for 20 or more hours before pushing, the whole thing took only 12 or so with actual contractions and labor being only 5 hours.



So I should be posting more often now since i'm back cooking us dinners and such which i'm excited about. I've missed making my dinners and I can't eat anymore take out or other people meals anymore! See ya's soon.

7lbs 12 oz. 19 1/2 inches

Here she is!!! Reno Sofia!!!! Born Friday August 31 at 11:36 a.m. 7lb. 12 oz. 19 1/2 inches.

More info to come later in the week!

Sent home AGAIN!!

How long will this last?? That question has finally been answered. Tomorrow night (thursday) at 8pm I go to the hospital to be induced. This little bundle of joy that i've been carrying in my body for OVER 9 MONTHS will be born friday night at the latest.(at least i hope that's the latest) I went in today for another ultrasound and non stress test and they said everything seemed fine go home and come back tomorrow night. Why they just couldn't induce tonight is beyond me since i'm pretty sure nothing is going to happen tonight on it's own. But you never know.

This will be my last post til at least the beginning of next week when I get home from the hospital and hopefully will be introducing you all to the beast who's been sucking the life out of me all these months.

Have a great weekend and think good thoughts thursday night and friday. CIAO!

Sent home.

No baby yet. My test's at the hospital all turned out well so they decided the baby can stay in longer. Such a shame. I was hoping that the ultrasound would annoy the hell out of her so she would come out but no luck yet with that. It annoyed me though I almost fainted 2 times during it from laying on my back. I had to keep asking to sit up for a few minutes. It was horrible. They also approximate that she weighs 9 POUNDS!! I almost fainted for a third time after I heard that. Those approximations aren't alway's that accurate though.

Have a good weekend.

BROWNIES!!! (updated 8/23)

UPDATE: Still no baby for us. If I don't go into labor by noon tomorrow I go to the hospital for some test just to make sure she is doing alright. So if you don't hear from me tomorrow or saturday that means i'm prolly staying at the hospital to somehow give birth to this monster kid. :)



Today was rainy and cold. I wasn't feeling well. I was bored. So I made my Vegan Choc Chip-Walnut Brownies! My favorite part of a batch of brownies are the edge pieces. I love the crispy edge. I made these brownies in cupcake pans so that they all had that edge piece taste, which they did. They however didn't make me feel any better though. It's a first that chocolate didn't lift my spirits but I was still happy to make and eat them. So was Peter.

baby is LATE!! boohoo...(UPDATED)

UPDATE (8/21): no new news. nothing has changed from the week before at the dr's visit. if the baby doesn't come by friday i have to go get a non stress test and a ultrasound test at the hospital. if those come out well they send me home. if they don't i guess i stay and have a baby induced out of me or cut out of me. i blame the cold rainy weather. she just wants to stay where it's nice and warm.



Saturday was my due date...Baby Unknown decided not to show up. So I decided to make Potato-Carrot Pancakes. Served with some store bought applesauce. These made me so happy except for the fact that my apartment stunk like fried onions all day today (sunday). Open windows and a candle fixed that problem.



I heard a myth that basil helps bring on labor. I don't believe in labor myths but I used this as an excuse to eat lots of basil. So I thawed some VwaV seitan and my basil-miso pesto for dinner tonight. It's simply angel hair pasta with pesto topped with seitan chunks dredged in the chickpea flour breading that I created in the post below. It was so carb-y and heavy but delicious. I watch Top Chef all the time and on one episode this one team made pasta with pesto and meatballs with other stuff so that was the inspiration for this dish. Peter said the seitan reminded him of some sorta meatballs that one of his Italian Aunts use to make so I was pleased.

As per a Pesto recipe that alot of people request whenever I make it..I'm sorry to say that I don't have one. I'll tell you what I do though:

Throw in a Quisenart:

1. A huge handful of Basil
2. A bunch of raw pinenuts (you could toast them if you like)
3. 2 large cloves of garlic
3. 2 fork/spoonfuls of mellow miso

Blend until chopped up...add some salt then run the blender while slowly pouring in some extra virgin olive oil.
Taste and add more pinenuts, salt or miso as needed.

That's basically what I do. The times I've tried to measure everything out it just doesn't come out as good as when I just blindly dump everything in the blender.

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment so hopefully she will have some goods news about being somewhat dilated. I also hope that her tinkering around and checking things out will help move the process along.

still cooking...no baby.

Today I had one of those day's where I just layed on the couch ALLLLLLLL day long. Which I think in my situation is acceptable. How I got off my ass to make tonights dinner I have no idea..I was aching and slightly cramping through the whole thing.



Italian Seitan w. Pesto, Lemon Potatoes and Cauliflower...YUM!! Yesterday I made the seitan recipe from VwaV. I froze most of it for after baby dinners but kept a few slices around for dinner tonight. The seitan was dredged in a mixture of chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, dried basil, salt and pepper and fried in a few tablespoons of oil. For the potatoes I just cut em up, squeezed 1/2 a lemon on it (leftover from my guacamole lunch) added some olive oil salt and pepper and roasted them until crispy. Simple sauteed cauliflower...then topped it all off with some homemade Miso-Pesto that I made tonight. Everything was great, especially the seitan. This will be something I make more often. It was so "meaty" and satisfying and using chickpea flour instead of regular flour really made this dish great. (I also use chickpea flour in the seitan recipe instead of the white flour that is called for)



Angel Hair Pasta w. Cauliflower, Stringbeans, Carrots and Tomato Paste. For some reason I really really like cauliflower in pasta. I sauteed cauliflower, stringbeans, carrots and garlic in some olive oil. Since I opened a can of tomato paste to make the seitan recipe mentioned above I needed another use for it so I added a few tablespoons to the pan after everything was cooked and thined it out with some pasta water. Then added the pasta and mixed it all up. I really liked using tomato paste along with some fresh tomatoes in this dish..It gave it a nice slow cooked flavor. It also gave me another use for tomato paste because I alway's end up throwing at least 1/2 of it away because I either forget about it or don't know what to make with it.

Well my official due date is this Saturday. So please think of positive labor pains for me. I have a feeling she might wait until the weekend is over though..but you never know. Everyday it feels like more and more is happening so I hope she's almost ready to send out her signal and get things moving.

6 days she's due.

I havn't posted in almost a month due to baby exhaustion. She is due next saturday august 18th. I'm hoping she comes sooner then later. If you know what's good for you don't ever get pregnant in the month of November because being 9 months pregnant in August is horrible! I just sit around with the air on and my big belly exposed to cool off. Plus i've been living in a cold shower at least 2 times a day. I've been cooking though on and off and have some porn to show.



I'm calling this Indian Inspired Chickpea and Veg Ratatouille. I had alot of veg in the fridge, it was 8 o'clock at night and we were hungry. Luckily I found a can of tomatoes in the food closet to stew it all together. I served it as is without rice or anything because I didn't feel like it.



Two Bean Cashew Chili with Corn Biscuits. I didn't have enough ingredients to make cornbread. I didn't have enough flour to make regular biscuits so I took a biscuit recipe and substituted 1/2 of the flour for cornmeal, making an interesting Corn Biscuit. It needs a bit of work and something else added to it (i'm not sure what yet) to make it a new and delicious recipe.



Stir Fry Veg with Noodles and Peanut Sauce.



Chipotle "Sausage" and Potato Hash. All we had in the house were potatoes, a grain veggie burger, a chipotle Field Roast "sausage", some carrots, garlic and onions. I fried em all up and added a ton of paprika. It tasted like heaven.



Dirty Rice w. Black Beans...another way to use Field Roast Chipotle "Sausage". I'm obsessed with the stuff.



Someone finally dwarfed Riley and I'm afraid it's me.

Soy Vay

Out of pure lazyness I havn't been posting anything. I keep saying to myself "tomorrow". Which should not have been a problem especially since i'm not working anymore. I have all the time in the world right now. On to the food.

Black Bean and Vegetable Taquito's w. Guac and Salad. These were crispy and delicous. Unfortunalty as I was taking my last bite of taquito the power went out. For two hours. Peter didn't eat yet and didn't get to eat them until lunch the next day. This is the type of meal you need to eat when it's made in my mind. The corn tortilla's get alittle weird the next day.



Sweet Teryaki Stir Fry. Right as I needed to add my tamari slurry to the stir fry I realized I didn't have anymore tamari. I freaked out for a minute and then found a jar of Soy Vay Teryaki Sauce/Marinade. It worked so well in the stir fry that I made the exact same dish the next night for dinner as well. It was so nice and sweet and nutty because of the cashews and the two type of sesame seeds that were in it. (black and white).




This is a crap picture. But prolly one of the best curry's i've made ever. I had my first contraction earlier in the week (just a practice Braxton Hick one) nothing to bad at all. I started to freak out that I havn't made any food for us for after baby is born and home (exactly one month from now if all goes as planned) So I made a huge pot of curry with the hopes of freezing at least 2 extra meals for us. That didn't work out. The next day I was so tired we just ate what should have been frozen for dinner and the day after that Peter took it to work. Maybe thurs or fri i'll try batch cooking again.



Our new baby "travel system" is all set up. CB, as with everything new for baby, had to be the first to use it. Thank goodness Riley is too fat to jump into anything baby related. He would break it. Recently he's been demanding that I pick him up to put him into the kitchen window. Its insane that I give in to a cats wishes.

past week.

A lot has been going on in the past week.

*Last Thursday was my last day of work. YEAH!!!! Although I do miss it terribly. It just wasn't possible for me to work anymore because of the baby in my belly.
*Last Saturday was my baby shower which was a surprise up until I drove past the restaurant and saw my friend Cheryl's bright orange car with the autism sticker on it. Our apartment is now overflowing with baby stuff.
*I've was terribly sick in the beginning of the week due to the baby. Sleeping all the time, dizzy and blah.
*The 4th of July was a bore which was fine with me.
*Now that i'm feeling better and ready to cook again i'm going to my parents for the weekend..So hopefully next week i'll have a bunch of new stuff to show you all.

Because of the baby shower I made the above dish. It was a take on something served at the shower. Orecchiette w. Broccoli Rabe and Cannelini Beans. The original dish used spinach and had broth in it. I used Broccoli Rabe instead and left out the broth for more of an oil based pasta dish although I did add some of the pasta cooking water to the dish. This was better then the original at the shower. While I was making it Peter was turning up his nose at the idea of beans being in it. In the end he loved it though and thought everything was perfect about it. It's even better cold the next day. I ate it for breakfast.



Today was a hot day. (for me at least) So for lunch I made us a nice COLD and CRUNCHY salad. Raw beets, Jicama, Cucumber and Avocado over baby greens lightly dressed with lemon, olive oil, salt + pepper.

dinner party

We had our friends Alan and Ashley over for dinner the other night. They too are expecting a baby 2 weeks before ours is due so we hang out once in awhile to be pregnant together. I was nervous about what to make and my sister suggested my "meat pies". I took her advice and made em and they were delicous as usual but even more delicous this time with the addition of the magical spice know as Paprika. I don't know what it is about paprika but I now add it to almost everything and it just makes everything taste just a bit better.

The seitan pies are filled with mashed potatoes, very simply mashed with extra virgin olive oil, some potato cooking liquid and a few pats of earth balance, salt and pepper. The "meat" part is finely chopped seitan, shallots, carrots, garlic, red wine, sage, thyme, salt and pepper. I could eat these all the time they are so good. They are even great the next day cold out of the fridge. Along side the pies I made my Chickpea, Asparagus and Balsamic Salad that i'm obsessed with. As well as garlicky stringbeans (not pictured for some reason.)



Dessert was ind. Crisp's filled with fresh blueberries, raspberries and peaches. Topped with a walnut-oat crisp filling. ( I forgot to take a picture of the crisps with the topping on them.) I love making everyone there own individual desserts. These were great. All the filling had in it besides the fruit was some maple syrup so it is super easy to make. I love crisp. I have extra topping in the fridge that I just keep eating out of the bowl.



For us girls that can't have any liquor. I made us a pregnant friendly Sangria made with o.j., grape juice, seltzer, a bit of suger, sliced lemon, sliced orange and a cut up peach. I figured it wasn't fair that the boys would be drinking all there beer or whatever they were going to drink. I had such a sugar high from all the fruit that I consumed with this meal that I felt hung over the next day.

Mexico meets Italy and they like each other.

I've been ignoring all the food in my fridge this past week. After work and a nice nap today I emptied all the 1/2 dead veggies I had and decided to make a veggie pasta sauce. After I added all the ingredients plus basil I went to the pantry to find some chickpeas or another italian friendly bean. To my horror all I had were black beans. My brain was telling me NOOOOOOOO! DO NOT ADD BLACK BEANS TO ITALIAN PASTA SAUCE!!! My brain was also telling me YOU NEED PROTEIN!! So I sat on it for a few and contemplated leaving out the beans/protein and just stick a few spoonfuls of peanut butter in my mouth. I eventually added the beans. It was delicious. Not that the black beans would taste wrong or bad but I just didn't want black beans in my tomato sauce. So to keep with the new mexican-italian theme I added mexican oregano to the sauce as well just to tie it all together. I still might stick a few spoonfuls of PB in my mouth though.



Pomegranate Chip Ice Cream by purely decadent. Very Good! Very floral tasting..almost yogurt like.