What We've Been Doing Lately

Nothing terribly exciting, just life. Which I am thrilled and grateful for every day, even though sometimes I don't show it.

I was so excited when I read about this in a magazine - algae-based DHA at a reasonable price ($14 for 30 300 mg. capsules)! I opened the package, and then noticed the fine print on the bottle itself - porcine gelatin and carmine (beetle juice). Ugh. Should have known better, but I assumed if someone went through the trouble to make it fish free, it would be animal free. Silly me.

Our little robins hatched - 4 babies. They grew and flew away so fast!

Double decker doggies.

Dog party - our two nuts and two sharpeis. They slept good that night!

I chaperoned the first grade zoo trip. Here's a little monkey love.

And some cats that behave just like the ones at home.

Coriander Mushrooms and Cherry Tomatoes from AFR.

Baked BBQ Tofu from Veganomican. I always wanted to make the Apricot BBQ Sauce but never got around to it. I added 1/4 cup vinegar because to me it's not BBQ sauce without vinegar. Also added 2 more tablespoons molasses and 1 t more liquid smoke. And salt. Then it was perfect! BTW, those are Trader Joe's garlic fries. So easy and so delicious.

Today was the last day of school. They only went for an hour. Seems silly but they need a certain number of days for state funding. How does one hour count for a day?

"What are we going to do all summer?"

This is the dinner menu that my kids made up. You can see both the Carnivore's and my influence here. Where are the veggies?

This hangs in my kitchen. Now if only I enforced it!

A Fun Visitor

It has been an exciting week. We had a visitor from New York - Flat Stanley! He has done all sorts of activities with us.

Miniature golf.

Going to the park.

Going on a picnic (with crabby patty sandwiches - don't ask.)

He got his own Bears jersey and Cubs cap.

Then he went back to New York.

But the fun doesn't end - we have dogs that do tricks! At least someone uses that swing set.

And good food - Mediterranean Rice Salad. Brown rice, spinach, artichokes, basil, sun dried tomatoes, and lemon mint vinaigrette.

Some recipes from Appetite for Reduction: Caribbean Black Eyed Peas with Steamed Plantains (I used black beans). Was this ever delicious. Isa is right - steaming the plantains makes them far more delicious than frying them. I recommend not adding the salt.

Buffalo Tempeh - so wanted to like this, but it was so salty it was inedible. Maybe the fat that's normally in the recipe offsets the saltiness of the hot sauce? I didn't use a low sodium broth, but still.

Cool Slaw: yum. It has a blended cashew dressing. I find that really convenient, rather than having 3/4 of a box of tofu hanging around from a tofu based dressing, or having to buy expensive vegan sour cream or mayo.

I used this veggie mix to make the slaw. Much better than packaged shredded cabbage. It has green and red cabbage, carrots, jicama, celery, and a few other things. Also really good with goddess dressing.

It is cold and rainy in Chicago today, but the holiday weekend promises to bring sun and warmth!

Mango Mush

I have read that you can peel and cube a mango the same way as an avocado: cut around the center, lengthwise, run the knife around between the skin and the fruit, cut cubes within the shell, and turn them out of the shell. This doesn't work at all. My mangoes always stick the the giant pit, requiring me to saw at them and get mush. Does anyone know the trick?

 

This is the Greek scramble from Vegan Diner. Good but not fabulous. Maybe because I am not a fan of oregano.

This is the Tofu with Hoisin Mustard sauce from Appetite for Reduction. Delicious. As good as takeout but without all the grease and MSG. Next time I will add toasted cashews, although I guess then it would not be low calorie. Also the Potato Scallion Pancakes from the same book. These were okay. As you can see, there are no scallions in them. I had none and so used onion. Definitely would have been better with scallions.

Favorite Saturday morning pancakes. It was Thursday, but the kids had off for "Institute Day." These are light and fluffy and delicious despite containing no fat or eggs.

Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes

1 large ripe banana
1 1/4 cups vanilla soy milk
1 T vinegar
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 T sugar
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 c chocolate chips

Mash banana well and stir in milk and vinegar. Add flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and stir briefly, just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Lightly oil a non-stick pan and preheat for 5 minute. Use a 1/4 cup measure (not quite full) to scoop the batter. Makes about 12 pancakes.

Soup and Sammy

I was excited to see fresh peas in Trader Joe's, and was trying to think of what to do with them. I remembered I had this awesome soup in a restaurant once. It was so simple - basically just vegetables in broth, but the veggies were so fresh and the broth so delicate that it was outstanding. I think I was pretty successful in recreating it!


Essence of Spring Soup

olive oil
2 leeks, white and light green parts, cleaned well and thinly sliced
5 cups water
1 T "Better than Bouillon" No Chicken broth concentrate*
15 asparagus stalks, in 1 inch pieces
2 oz. tiny pasta (I used stelline - little stars)
2 cups fresh shelled peas
15 fresh basil leaves, torn

Sautee leeks in olive oil until soft but not brown. Add water an broth concentrate and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add asparagus. Cook 5 minutes. Add pasta and peas and cook for the amount of time on the pasta box (for this pasta it was 7 minutes, just the right amount of time for the peas. You want the peas to be just slightly crunchy). Add basil leaves and simmer a few more minutes.

*this small amount of broth concentrate makes for a very delicate broth. This is on purpose, so as not to overwhelm the veggies. You may want more, or you may want to add some salt.

I wanted to have a sandwich similar to a lobster roll, only made with tofu, of course. I turned to the Horizons cookbook for ideas. The author has recreated many seafood dishes that he enjoyed in his youth at the Jersey Shore. Not that they taste like fish, which is a good  thing! They just taste good.





Tofu Roll


1/2 lb. tofu, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 t. Old Bay
1/4 t. curry powder
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 T olive oil
1 t mustard
1 T sherry

Mix all ingredients. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Let tofu cool.
Chop 2 stalks of celery finely. Add tofu to celery and add some mayo to your desired consistency. Serve on whole wheat hot dog buns. Makes enough for 3 buns. (To be really authentic, you would get those weird hot dog rolls with the flat sides, butter the outsides, and toast them on a griddle).

A Stolen Sandwich

I was reading the blog "Good Good Things" yesterday and copied this sandwich for my dinner last night. Miso Teriyaki Seitan and Grilled Onions. Here are the components:

"Beef" strips (seitan) marinated in teriyaki and white miso, seared in a pan.

"Blue Cheese Dressing" from the Blooming Platter cookbook. This was one of the sample recipes in the Amazon "Search Inside This Book," and I couldn't wait to try this dressing. It is made with beer - what a great idea! It has tofu chunks in it- would have been fine without the tofu, just as a sauce. This was not in the original sandwich, but was a good addition.

Grilled onions.

Chipotle dill mayo.

Here is the awesome result.

Back shot so you can see the pretzel roll. I never heard of these before moving to the midwest, but the Carnivore says they had them in NY. They are delicious, but really high in sodium (1600 mg. for the roll. Of course, that roll was supposed to serve two, but in what universe?)

A lovely, salty, caloric meal.

I must confess, although they tasted good, I did not save the leftover beef strips. Not to be gross, but when I took them out of the package I had just come in from cleaning up my backyard from the dogs.  I just could not get past the appearance of those beef strips! Glad they were hidden in a big roll.

Another Way to Choose Recipes

You would think with all the cookbooks I have that it would be easy to figure out what to make for dinner. But I think mostly I love to read them as if they were novels, and dream about which recipes I would make if my family would eat something besides macaroni. Sometimes, just for for fun, I go to Amazon and read reviews of the books I have to see which recipes other people have loved.

One such book is called "Olive Trees and Honey." It was published a while back. It's a book of Jewish vegetarian recipes from around the world, mostly eastern European and Middle Eastern. It's interesting because it gives you a lot of different versions of a recipe, depending on country of origin. Lots of emphasis on eggplant, peppers, chickpeas, tahini, etc.

The recipe I chose for last night was for Hungarian cream of mushroom soup that someone raved about in a review of the book. I had some soy creamer to use up, and had bought some fresh mushrooms that day. The soup is seasoned with lots of paprika and cayenne, and not much else. It was simple and good.

I made some croutons for my salad. I cut up bread ends and sprinkled them with olive oil and garlic salt, and baked them at 400 for about half an hour.

The croutons were really good, but they took away the freshness of the salad. Turns out they were much better in the soup!

The salad dressing was really good. It was just rice vinegar, mustard, a sprinkle of sugar, and basil olive oil. We have a store here that sells all different flavors of olive oil and balsamic vinegars. They are all in big urns and you can pour them into tiny paper cups for tasting. I love the basil oil best - it adds so much to a salad.

Of course there was macaroni, too!

A Repeat and Cute Kid Pics

Well, the reason for the clean out the fridge menu of last was that we were driving to Florida the next day. My parents live there, and we have not visited for 5 years (usually my parents come to visit us). Also, I wanted to bring my kids to Disney while they are still young. It was a very long drive but I'm glad we did it. The flights would have cost $4,000, plus another $1,000 to rent a van. What gives, airlines? I know it is spring break but are that many people willing to pay those prices? We only went to Disney one day because that, too, has increased dramatically. I read in a guide book that the ticket prices have increased 44% since 2003 (or was it 2005?) Anyway, the kids and I really enjoyed it. The Carnivore refers to it as "that evil Mickey place."

One little princess is not happy at this point.

Waiting for Mickey's Philarmagic show.

Waiting to see princesses. Over an hour on line at 10:00 pm.

But worth it for these smiles.

This was taken about midnight. The girls were still going and Bill and I were ready to drop.

They had almost as much fun the next day for free at the shopping area. Well, maybe not so free. I could not resist the Mickey martini glasses.

Waiting for the water to pop up - I have this same pose of her at 1 1/2.

We visited the Kentucky Horse Farm on the way home. Where thoroughbreds retire to.

Visited Nashville on the way down. This is at the Grand Ole Opry.

And here's the repeat - Chinese BBQ Tofu. Original link and recipe here. This stuff is good - try it!