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.

lots of food

I've been cooking and photographing our food but have not been posting it for some reason..so here's the lot of it....plus an extra non food photo.




Part one of two dishes to tonights meal. Potato and spinach pakoras with papaya and orange chutney. The chutney was store bought. The pakoras are my own recipe.



Part two of two dishes to tonights meal. Red Bean and Broccoli Curry. Served as is without rice or anything else. The sauce is coconut milk based.



One of the best salads i've made in awhile. Just your average mesclun greens topped with a mix of: chickpeas, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, grilled asparagus and fresh basil marinaded in extra virgin olive oil, fig-balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Peter and I each ate 2 huge bowlfuls of this stuff.



Simple Rice and Beans with Simple Guacamole. It's simple because I only added cumin to the beans instead of all the other crazy spices I usually add. The same with the Guac...not alot of ingredients in it this time. It was food shopping night so I had to keep it quick and easy.



Linguini w. Sundried Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives and Pine Nuts in oil.



Indian Biryani Stirfry. Basically it's the same as the last Veggie Fried Rice but with Indian spices instead of tamari.



We purchased a crib and finally set it up today. CB thinks it's for her.

good chinese

Why can't chinese restaurants make there veggie fried rice like this. More veggies less rice? After a not so delicious chinese restaurant dinner the other night i've been craving that good chinese taste. Then after a day (today) of having an alien that is growing in my uterus dance and ram her baby ass against my insides all day I needed a comforting and healthy meal. Veggie Fried Rice MY Way was that meal. I feel a whole lot better even though that alien baby ass is still assaulting my insides.

clean out

The last two nights have been clean out the fridge meals. Above is "the people's pizza" crust topped with a super delicious ripe tomato, garlic, sun dried tomatoes, kalamata olives and pine nuts. Served with some garlic and red chili flake sauteed broccoli. I picked up "the people's pizza" crust the other night at whole foods because on the ingredient list they wrote: really good extra virgin olive oil and I couldn't resist. It's a very very thin crust pizza which I didn't care for after the first bite. After the second bite I devoured my 1/2 of the pizza I loved it so much. I will probably alway's have a peoples pizza crust in my fridge now for an easy dinner night.



This isn't your average tomato sauce with fake meatballs. It's Moroccan Tomato Sauce w. Falafel!! I was trying to figure out a way to use up the rest of the falafel and I didnt really want to make a sandwich out them because that's my least favorite way to eat falafel. So I created this super good Moroccan spiced tomato sauce filled with fennel seeds, orange zest, onions, cilantro and a bunch of other ingredients. We loved this meal. I would make falafel just to make this dinner again.



Here is the sauce just bubbling away until the falafel is warmed through.

Falafel for Sale

I love falafel. I never make it though. Simply because I think it takes too long. When in fact it's one of the easiest foods to make ever (as long as you soak the chickpeas the night before). You don't even have to precook the chickpeas! Just load everything into the quisenart and blend away. Then you just fry away in some nice oil. This was from a recipe that I found in the New York Times food pages a month or two ago and has just been hanging on the door of our fridge waiting oh so patiently to be made. It's a pretty good recipe but I believe it needs some extra spice or something like that. It made so many that if Peter's mom was here she would say "We need to have a falafel sale!" I don't think she's ever eaten falafel let alone knows what it is. But when she makes a ton of some sorta food she's alway's having a "sale". Its hysterical.

I plopped the falafel onto mesclun greens with some tomatoes, cucumbers, olive oil, lemon, salt + pepper. If it wasn't so late when I was making these I would have made a tahini dressing to pour on top as well.

Cinnamon Blueberry Pancakes

After days of frustration, tears (hormone related) and new batteries I finally got my camera to work again. How did I get it too work again? I don't know. I just kept replacing batteries, memory cards and pressing buttons and all of a sudden it started working. I think he just needed a vacation from taking food photos.

Instead of going out for breakfast this morning I decided to make us breakfast for once. I made the most delicious and cinnamony blueberry pancakes ever. Peter declared them the best pancakes he's ever eaten. I also learned today that he doesn't like cinnamon (which is insane!) he ate the pancakes anyway without knowing that the spice he was tasting was cinnamon until I told him. I'm thinking of starting a pancake sunday in our home. I can't wait until plums come in season because I have an idea for ginger plum pancakes!

sad face.

My trusty camera has decided to crap out on me. Hopefully it is just a rechargeable battery gone bad situation and not an I need a new camera situation especially since the camera is only 1 1/2 years old. humpf!!! The most frustration thing about this is that i've made a couple of brand new recipes this week that I wanted to share with everyone and it's just not the same writing about them without pictures. On a good note I will be making these new dishes again very soon because I liked them so much and hopefully my camera will be in working mode. For now I am hot as hell..being 6 months pregnant in the hot summer heat is not fun at all..so it's off to an A/C filled movie theater. See ya later.

Pesto Mania!

I went to my parents house last weekend to celebrate mothers day and had a bunch of food in the house to use up. So I went pesto crazy. Above is an Arugula Pesto using 1/2 pinenuts and 1/2 walnuts (i ran out of pine nuts) Now I LOVE basil pesto! So I was never to keen on making pesto with anything else. But with a box of baby arugula left over that wasn't going to survive the weekend I just went for it. I will forever now be using my leftover arugla to make pesto. It was so good. I dare say I might have even liked it better then my beloved basil pesto.



It's not a toasted bagel with peanut butter but the next best thing. Toasted leftover ciabatta with peanut butter. My favorite breakfast.



The above mentioned Arugula Pesto



The not as delicious Basil Pesto. I had to make it in the blender because my quisenart was in the dishwasher with VwaV alfreda sauce on it that only the dishwasher could clean. I will never use the blender again. I had to use so much more olive oil then I like using and it just didn't taste the same. (for some reason the aruglua pesto in the blender came out perfect...who knows? I believe arugula just want's to be a scene stealer)

which is better...?

I couldn't decide which meal I liked the best to show off first. The sandwich won just because I like the picture better. So above is a sandwich I've been thinking about a lot this past week. Why? Who the hell knows. I don't eat mushrooms too much. But for some reason I wanted a Grilled Portobello Sandwich. I marinated the bello's in some olive oil, fig balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes, basil, chopped garlic, chopped onion, salt and pepper and a splash of tamari.

Tamari? You might ask. Well here's a story that might turn some vegan stomachs. When I worked at an organic restaurant the nutto german chef was against vegetarian food even though he had to have an entree or two on the menu. He would add a spash of tamari to everything vegetarian. I asked why one day. His answer (done in your best german accent) "too make it have the taste of blood." I was grossed out but also agreed with him..it does give it a "bloody" taste and not in a gross way at all...it just adds an extra layer to the flavors. Back to the sandwich...

...the bello's were eventually grilled on my grill pan..red peppers were roasting in the oven...a "stain" of whole grain mustard was spread on one layer of the ciabatta...on top of that fresh baby arugula was added with the above mention bello's and peppers...seasoned to perfection with freshly cracked salt and pepa! Served with a side of homemade sweet potato fries baked healthly in the oven.



Soba Noodles with Veg and Orange-Peanut Sauce...I really can't get enought of my new orange-peanut sauce..i would eat it as soup. This is one of those meals where all the ingredients can be either cold, warm or hot. It will taste good no matter what temp you serve it.

Peter and Riley decided they wanted to be on America's Next Top Model here is there best shot.

Italian Pantry Soup

After a huge lunch at Veggie Heaven on friday, then eating even more food after that and then having to sit thru Escape from New York starring Kurt Russell that Peter made me watch while I was in pain from all the food that I had consumed throughout the day I still can't believe I had the ability to make dinner. I can't believe that I actually wanted to make dinner. We hadn't gone food shopping since monday so I had to raid the pantry and fridge for whatever we had and I'm happy to say I made a kick ass new soup recipe. Introducing "Italian Pantry Soup"! Most of my soups end up having a indian or thai flavor so it was odd for me to grab the dried italian herbs that I had stashed in the back of my herb cabinet. I don't care for dried basil or oregano too much..the smell rubs me the wrong way. I used them anyway and was very happy that I did.

The soup consists of:

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 carrots scrubbed and sliced
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves garlic chopped
2 medium zucchini chopped

saute til onions are soft.
add spices: how much of the spices is up to you. I would say I used about a 1/2 tablespoon of each except the red pepper flakes I prolly used 1 teaspoon.

dried oregano
dried basil
dried thyme
dried red pepper flakes

saute a minute to cook the herbs a bit.

add

1 28 oz.can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes
plus 2 cans water

bring to a boil and add

2-3 cups thinly sliced kale
2 cups garbanzo beans

cook until all is soft then add some broken angel hair pasta and cook 3 minutes more. add salt and pepper to taste.
ladle into pretty bowls and drizzle a bit of extra virgin olive oil on top.
Eat.
Smile.
Then feel really good afterwards.

You can pretty much add whatever veg you want.

woooh is my liver and kindeys...

I am apparently having liver and kidney "issues" while being pregnant. So says the chef at my job. She has since recommended that I eat lots of kale, collards, adzuki beans, black beans, raw daikon, cooked daikon, carrot juice, pressure cooked brown rice and black sesame seeds...and so on. I'm taking her up on her advice because I feel horrible and I believe she may be right. Oh and I can't eat ginger because it's too "heat" producing. That makes me sad because what is a stirfry without ginger. This is a stirfry without ginger and it was damn good. It has lots of kale, daikon and carrots..I'm sure the broccoli will help as well.



My new dessert obsession. Frozen peaches, frozen blueberries and a fresh banana blended up to a smooth eat with a spoon goodness. My sister says this isn't a dessert. I say it is because it's cold, you eat it with a spoon and I ate it after dinner for DESSERT! She says chilled cucumber and mint soup is cold and eaten with a spoon so that must be dessert as well. I say if you eat it after dinner for dessert it's DESSERT!

saturday lunch at home

I don't make lunch..I go out to lunch. Today I made lunch. For lunch today we had my Ciabatta Pesto Pizza. Whenever I make this "pizza" I wonder why I don't make it more often. To make this delicous lunch first you need to go to the store and buy the freshest Ciabatta bread you can find. Today we lucked out, when we got the bread at Whole Foods it was still warm from the oven. Cut the loaf in 1/2 then slice down the middle. Saute some onion, yellow pepper, orange pepper, zucchini and garlic in olive oil with some herbs de provence. Load on the pesto and then dump the veg mix on top. Bake in the oven 350 degrees for about 10 minutes til the bread gets toasty. Eat 1/2 for lunch. Eat the other 1/2 for dinner...if you are only serving this for two people. It could feed 4 if you make a really nice salad to go with it for dinner. Delicious.

too long...

WOW! I can't believe it's been almost one month since my last post. I guess that's what happens when you come home from work around 4pm and sleep the rest of the night. Who ever say's your second trimester is wonderful is a big fat liar! I felt better in my first. On to the food/carbs!



Sunday, Earth Day, was also mine and Peter's 1st wedding anniversary! Also our 12th year together as a couple! Some people have been married and divorced 3 times in the amount of time we've been together. Sunday was also the day Peter got home from an 8 day business trip to Indiana. Like his last business trip all he ate was red meat. He requested something green for dinner. Well I made him something green, very green. I took my pakora recipe and changed it a bit to make it more like cakes and made "pakora cakes"????? I don't know what else to call them. I served them with a baby romaine salad with olive oil, lemon and salt and to top the cakes some delicous Mango Chutney I purchased at Whole Foods a few months ago and forgot about. The cakes were made with zucchini, potatoes, carrots, onions, spinach and jalapenos with some chickpea flour and a bunch of indian spices. I loved that the zucchini and spinach just turned the cakes pure green. Fitting for earth day and peter's "green meal".



One night last week I just needed to eat something. I opened up my fridge and pulled a bunch of ingredients and made a pretty kick ass dinner. I took whatever veg I had and stirfried it. Then made up a peanut sauce. Secret ingredient in the sauce: orange juice! YUM! I will forever put O.J. in my peanut sauces. I just wish I wrote down what I did. (like usual)



All i've been wanting to eat is Carbs. All i've been eating up until recently is Carbs. So above is my usual Potato Pancakes.

Below are Spud Puppies a.k.a. tater tots. I love spud puppies. I love over cooked crispy spud puppies. I would marry a bag of spud puppies.

Honda vs. Cadillac...Honda wins!

What a week! Friday, last, Peter and I left for a nice weekend in Washington D.C. to visit his aunt. We are driving and driving and driving. In Maryland about 30 minutes away from our destination we are stuck in very slow going traffic. I decide to relax a bit in the car and am just staring out the window thinking about how this is the perfect weather/traffic condition for a car accident. 30 seconds later I'm screaming "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME" as we are being slammed from behind by a cadillac and being pushed into a mini van!!!! Being pregnant you really don't want this to happen. An ambulance comes because I obviosly need to be checked out. The EMT basically tells me that they are too busy to take me to the hospital. I ask "What does that mean?" She says "the hospital is too busy. so if we take you or if you go alone you are just going to sit in the waiting room for a really long time." So I decide to go on our own because with the ambulance we would get there just as fast anyway. I waited over 5 hours in the waiting room just to go into the emergency room and have them tell me that they can't do anything that i'll have to go upstairs to maternal. We get up to maternal. They were so happy to see me because they had NOTHING TO DO! I could have been in and out of the hospital in 3 hours if they just took me up there to begin with! So after a few more hours in maternal we finally get to D.C. at 4:30 am. Needless to say i've been a hot mess since then. That all changed yesterday (wednesday) when I got my ultrasound and all was good with the baby. No damage from the accident! Horray!!! After the appointment I breathed a big sigh of relief and went to Zen Palette in Union Square and had myself a big ass lunch of fried dumplings and sesame medallions!

By the way. IT'S A GIRL!!! Peter thinks she looks like Charlie Brown.

p.s. our honda civic (the white wolf) destroyed the 2 ton cadillac! that thing had to be towed to a junk yard after hitting us also the guy had no car insurance, that should be fun getting him to pay. oh well.

Thanks, galette's, corn, CB.

First. Thanks to all the congrat's on the post before this! I've decided not to ground the baby for 2 weeks. I'll wait to he/she gets into real trouble to do that. I'll keep everyone updated on what's going on with "the bay" here and there. But now to glorious food:



This is White Bean and Roasted Tomato Galette adapted from the Millenium Cookbook. The original recipe from the book is wonderful (except the dough, i alway's have to add more liquid), but i've made a few changes to make it more wonderful for me. I add more garlic, lemon and some other odds and ends that I can't really remember right now. I served it with a nice red leaf lettuce salad and some garlicky cauliflower which i'm obsessed with. In my world this would make a great dinner when you are having friends or family over because it's super easy, super delicous and everyone can have there own galette! I'm all for a meal where everyone gets there own "mini entree".



The galette's right out of the oven.



When I get hungry and there is no food around I dump some corn kernels in a pot with olive oil and pop em. Then I toss them with the tastiest extra virgin olive oil I have in the apartment and salt. Then I eat the entire bowl and end up with the oilest hands and face around. 30 minutes later i'm dehydrated as all hell and drink a gallon of water.



Now for a cute CB picture. There was a morning dove hanging out on the window sill this Sunday driving CB crazy!!! She was doing all she could to get through the window. The dove just watched her prolly laughing at her in his own dove way. Eventually the dove got bored and flew away. We can't keep our windows wide open in our apartment in nice weather if we aren't home because CB jumps into them with such force that we are afraid she's going to break though the screens(we are on the third floor.) My friend Cheryl has CB's brother and he has fallen out of the window doing the same thing! Luckily he wasn't hurt and didn't run away. I love her ears in this picture.

VwaV week continued..plus one and a 4 month old secret.

A typical tuesday night whole foods shopping meal...grain veggie burger. To make it fit into this special VwaV week I made the sweet potato fries from the book. This is one recipe that I nor all of you prolly need to follow but it was part of my "rules" for the week so I followed it anyway and they were delicious.



Brooklyn Pad Thai..i've been wanting to make this for a long time now. I love Thai food. Peter hates Thai food. I made it anyway. My sister had invited us over to her place for dinner that night but I coerced her to come over by us with the promise of Pad Thai and all the Zelda she wanted to play on our Wii Nintendo. She took the bait and the plans were changed. However I was the only one who liked the Brooklyn Pad Thai. Peter ended up going out and picking up a pizza for him and Nicole to share. I ended up eating the Pad Thai for dinner that night, breakfast the next day and dinner again the next night. It just got better and better.

The only real changes I made were the veggies that I used and I used lemon zest instead of the lemongrass because I forgot to buy some. I would make this again but i'll have to wait until April when Peter goes on a business trip for a week.



This is the plus one meal...I was in a very bad mood one night this week and didn't want to cook..didn't want to go out to eat..didn't want to do anything...but I had to eat..so I cooked up some broccoli rabe, sundried tomatoes and garlic in olive oil. I suddenly became in a better mood after eating this...and now for the reason of my bad mood which i've been keeping a secret for 4 months now.........



Peter impregnated me in November and we will be having a BABY! in August!! I was in a bad mood because over night my belly just popped out like that, my hormones were out of control, i was off balance all day because my belly button has decided to move to a new spot on my belly making my center of gravity all off and I was crying for no reason at all. I declared that night that the baby will be grounded for 2 weeks after his/her birth. This is also the reason I wasn't posting much these past two months..I didn't want to eat anything at all in the begining...I still dont' eat too much but my joy and love for cooking has returned which has made me VERY VERY HAPPY!!!

Vegan with a Vengeance Week

This is officially a Vegan with a Vengeance week in my kitchen. For no real reason except there are alot of recipes that i havn't tried out yet.



On a pretty spring-like sunday I made VwaV Lemon Gem Cupcakes. These cupcakes just scream to be made on such a nice day. They were so delicious and easy to make. I'm thinking about making them for easter and putting an edible flower on top of each one. I brought them to Peter's meat eating anti soy family's for sunday brunch and they gobbled them up, except for his dad who is the most anti soy person around. He didn't ask if there was any soy in it but i'm sure he figured there was. In fact none of his family asked. Strange but I don't really care.



Baking Powder Biscuits with Tempeh Sausage Gravy from VwaV. I never had real sausage and gravy but alway's wanted it. Peter said you couldn't even tell that it was made with tempeh. I was in heaven eating this meal.




Stuffed Shells with Tofu Ricotta from VwaV. I'm not a baked pasta dish type of girl. Come to think of it I never really liked ricotta cheese all that much. So when I picked up a box of jumbo shells at the store a few months ago I had reason to believe I was insane. After seeing the box of shells in my food closet for all these long days I finally felt bad for them and decided tonight was the night that we would put them out of there lonely misery and eat them. I had alot of fun making this recipe. I love sticking my hands in a big bowl of tofu and mushing it all up between my fingers and stuffing the shells was quite relaxing. My only issue with this recipe was the amount of nutritional yeast. I LOVE nutritional yeast, but felt there was just a tad too much in there. Other then that we happily ate them up and have extra in the freezer for another day.

80's tuesday

Peter and I go to Whole Foods every tuesday night to buy our food for the week. It's empty and they play weird 80's music every tuesday. We love it. This tuesday however I was so uninspired. I had no idea's as to what to eat for dinner that night let alone the rest of the week so I just started buying random items. When I got home those random items turned into my new favorite salad! Green leaf lettuce (which i never buy) chopped up, fennel sliced, cucumber sliced and an orange peeled and diced. For the dressing I squeezed the middle of the orange over each of our plates as well as whatever pieces of orange that was still on the peel from when i cut the peel off, extra virgin olive and salt from my new salt grinder that leaves nice chunks of salt all around. It's such a pretty and delicious salad. I would eat it a few times a week if i could.



Chimichanga's!! Oh how i love them..Crispy on the outside soft and chewy of the inside, filled with cumin-licious beans and of course topped of with guacamole.



We are crazy for salads. Mesclun greens, sliced radishes, raw sliced beets, red bell pepper and avocado. Simply topped with lemon, extra virgin olive oil and salt.

a post with a bit of food.

Veg w. Rice Noodles and Peanut Sauce.....if there is one food thing I love it's peanut butter in every form except for peanut butter cookies (years ago I got the flu and ate a peanut butter cookie and can't really eat them too much anymore). Anyway..I used VwaV peanut sauce recipe from the cold noodle veg dish...I hate to say it because I've loved everything else i've made from the book but I didn't really care for this sauce and had to mess around with it and now like it much better. My other problem was the rice noodles!! The package said to soak in hot water for 20 minutes. I soaked and soaked and soaked and changed the water a few times until eventually I had to boil them on the stove. What was going to be a very quick meal turned into my new hatred for rice noodles...Peter loved the dish.



Potato Pancakes w. Applesauce...need I say more..delicious!



Moors and Christian w. an Athiest....that's basically my way of putting rice and beans on my blog yet again..you just change the name! I've named the cornbread Athiest for the hell of it.



Grain Burger with. Broccoli and Potatoes...the only thing I want to talk about here are the Potatoes! I sauteed them with onions and lots and lots and lots of paprika! So delicous that I didn't want to eat potatoes any other way after them.



Puddin'....VwaV Chocolate Coconut Pudding...i was sitting around wishing i had lots of chocolate to eat one night and I think being rather spontaneous jumped up and made this pudding. Peter and I ate the whole lot ourselves in one sitting.