after the leftovers

For whatever reason, John and I ended up with a super-awesome stash of leftovers this weekend -- no one knows why!  Leftovers are handy because meals are ready FAST, but that also means I miss out on opportunities to make meals!  :(  After we finished the leftovers, I did squeak in a little cooking this weekend:

I promise, somewhere under that mountain of herbs, lie some savory broth, rice noodles, tofu, and bean sprouts!

I always follow this recipe for pho, subbing in vegetable broth and tofu for the turkey stock and shredded turkey, and reduced-sodium tamari for the fish sauce.  A great light, healthy, invigorating lunch or supper!

Oh.  Yeah.  More soup.  Do you sense a theme?

















We still had some garden squash to use up, so John requested another batch of butternut soup.  I used more squash and less butter this time; no surprise John preferred the previous batch!  ;)  Heh.

Alongside our soup, we enjoyed a cutting board full of extras:



Rosemary bread, olive oil for dipping, sliced honeycrisp apple, and havarti.  Apples, cheese, bread, and soup just scream fall to me!

Time for more treats, too!

Another batch of Fluffy Sprinkle Sugar Cookies won't last long . . . I think John ate nearly half the batch yesterday straight out of the oven!

I am definitely on a soup kick lately . . . what are some of your favorite fall meals or go-to recipes?

on sandwiches

I have a confession to make:

I kind of hate sandwiches.

Why?  Well, I can't really say.  Part of it probably stems from my early childhood, when I craved foods served separately.  You remember those huge sectioned trays you'd sometimes get at church potlucks, that had something like 7 or 8 holes in them?  Those made my day.  Even my roll had it's own compartment.  You know, so it wouldn't get "juice" from something on it and get a soggy corner.

Part of it is probably because there aren't many creative vegetarian sandwiches out there.  How many times have you had to choke down a mediocre-to-poor hummus and veggie sandwich/wrap because that was the only healthy/non-meat option?  Right.  I've had my fair share, too.

Part of it is definitely because, even though sandwiches are portable and that's probably their biggest selling point, sandwiches DON'T keep well.  Can you think of a single sandwich that is better 4 hours later?  I can't.  Soggy bread, soggy veggies, misshapen and squashed overall.  No thank you.

But, I don't hate all sandwiches.

I love egg salad.

I love avocado, mayo, and sprouts on toast.

I love sloppy joes.  (Well, sloppy lentils.  Or sloppy tofu.)

I love vegetarian "barbecue" sandwiches, made with homemade seitan and topped with tons of creamy coleslaw.

Every once in a while, I love a good PBJ.

And hot damn, do I love tofu banh mi:

More often than not, I really prefer to make my own -- and this recipe is one of the best I've found to date.  (However, I double the tofu marinade ingredients, and add a teaspoon each of grated fresh ginger and grated garlic to the marinade.  What Asian food isn't better with extra garlic and ginger?)  This sandwich has all of the things I love most about banh mi, in reasonable quantities -- plenty of flavorful tofu, plenty of sriracha mayo, and plenty of carrot/daikon pickle.  MMMMMMMM.

What are your thoughts on sandwiches?

food, and a hiatus

First, in no particular order, here are some things I cooked or baked this weekend:

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

John had a potential tenant coming over on Saturday evening to look at a room he's renting out, and thought it would be good if the house smelled good. I suggested we bake something; after a quick trip to Target for flour, sugar, chocolate chips, and measuring cups, we made cookies! They were delicious, and the potential tenant took the room! Win win for all!

After John ate four cookies, we decided it was about time we made dinner, before cookies became dinner:

Swiss Chard with Chickpeas and Couscous is speedy, healthy, and almost always a hit. We used dried cranberries instead of raisins, (per John's request, as he's opposed to raisins almost always,) and I always reduce the amount of salt called for in the original recipe. Another hit!

Thursday night was a simple pasta and salad:

Homemade puttanesca sauce, sans anchovies, over bowties, with a "clean out the crisper" salad on the side. I even managed to use up some stale bread and made croutons! Delicious.

Sunday night pho:

Persuaded by a coupon, I decided to try Pacific Food's Vegetarian Pho Soup Base to make life a little easier this week. :) The boxed broth definitely made the whole homemade pho process speedier, and the broth is actually pretty delicious! My only complaint is that the broth is pretty high in sodium, and doesn't actually taste all that salty. John and I each added a few dashes of soy sauce to our bowls after our first couple of bites; processed food is always higher in sodium than homemade, and I guess that's a "hit" I'm willing to take in the future for speed and ease of meal preparation, at least in this case! What do you think? Have you tried any of the pho broths yet?

And now, it's time for a hiatus. Work is EXPLODING right now, and to top it all off, I'm taking an online class, which starts today! Really, really bad timing given how late I've been working these past couple of weeks, but I'm certain the class will be really good and I'll learn a lot. It's going to be weird . . . I haven't had reading assignments, lectures, and homework for YEARS! (Flashback!) Wish me luck staying on top of everything, and I'll be back when things slow down.

I heart soy foods

I have been the tofu and tempeh queen lately -- check out some of this weekend's eats:

Friday night's dinner was co-created by myself and my friend, Ann:

Hot Sauce-Glazed Tempeh, from Veganomicon, with sides of roasted brussels sprouts, roasted eggplant, and Messy Rice (also from VCON, not pictured, since the rice took longer than I expected it to, and we ate it after we ate everything else. Classy, I realize, but we were hungry!)

An egg and cheese bagel briefly interrupted the soy food marathon:


And then I made pho for lunch!

I decided, at the last second, to make a half-recipe of pho this time around, and it was just right -- I got two meals worth out of the deal, and ended up marinading the other two pieces of tofu and sticking them in the freezer for the time being. More soy leftover for another day!

What weekend is complete without a baking project?

I made Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes for a dinner party at Tiffany's house Saturday night; I, of course, edited the original recipe a little bit. I followed suggestions made by several reviewers to use oil instead of butter, and also used a full can of pumpkin (as recommended,) and I also skipped the cinnamon in the frosting. I LOVE cream cheese frosting, but wasn't convinced I would love cinnamon cream cheese frosting, and didn't want to potentially destroy perfectly good cream cheese goodness. ;) Additionally, I only baked off 12 of the 24 cupcakes; I filled the remaining liners and popped the unbaked batter in my freezer. I'm assuming the batter will thaw and bake off just fine in a few weeks, once I decide I need more cupcakes?

Anyone else out there ever tried freezing cake or muffin batter?

it's kitchen time!

Really, when is it not kitchen time?

Dinner Friday Night:

Shredded cabbage and onions sauteed in butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and loads of paprika, served over egg noodles, and alongside homemade applesauce and rye bread. Cabbage has to be the cheapest vegetable ever, and it's pretty versatile, I'm learning!

WHY DOES BLOGGER HATE ME?????

Sorry you have to turn your head to see my beautiful homemade pho. I used this recipe as a guide, subbing vegetarian-friendly ingredients where appropriate. I also didn't have any star anise in the house, so I subbed 1 tsp anise seed. This was kind of a lot of work for a Sunday lunch, but it was SO worth it! Pho is Dan's all-time favorite soup, and now that I can enjoy a non-fishy version, it might be mine, too!

Ms. Jackie's perfect black beans:

My coteacher, Jackie, brought me a small container of home-cooked black beans the other week, and they were SO DAMN GOOD that I hid them from Dan and ate them all myself. :) Have no fear, though, I learned Jackie's secret -- dried onion, dried garlic, and epazote cooked with the beans. HEAVEN. Here's a loose recipe, requiring a 5-quart crock pot (or large pot -- I'm sure you could simmer these on the stovetop just fine, too):
2 1/2 pounds dried black beans
1 tbsp each dried garlic (not garlic powder,) dried onion (again, not onion powder,) and dried epazote
plenty of water (I filled my crock pot almost up to the top)
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt added once the beans have cooked fully

More granola:

We never tire of it! Dan has a huge bowl for breakfast every day, and I can't complain -- all of those flax seeds help keep his cholesterol down!

Those awesome black beans mostly went into the freezer, but a small pan became part of a large burrito buffet for dinner:

Black beans, brown rice tossed with lime juice, cilantro, and salt, whole-wheat tortillas, peppers and onions, queso fresco, homemade guac, salsa, and lettuce. YUM. Here's the finished product:

I exclaimed more than once during this meal, "I'm a really good cook!" :) At least I don't have any confidence issues. :)

Hope you enjoyed your weekend!

baking disaster, plus redeemable dinner

I worked on making Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls earlier this week, and have just now gotten around to posting about them.

Don't they look absolutely to-die-for??? They could have been, if I hadn't completely effed them up. (What happened, you ask?)

Well, I realized after the rolls were in the oven that I didn't actually have any powdered sugar in the house. Disaster!! But, I used my noodle and remembered long ago reading that you could grind regular sugar with a little cornstarch to make your own powdered sugar. So, I added some natural granulated sugar and a wee bit of cornstarch to my coffee grinder, and blitzed the heck out of it. Success! I had powdered sugar.

Or so I thought . . . I made the glaze, and it looked innocent enough. I glazed the rolls. I pulled two out of the pan and took the above picture. I took a bite . . . they tasted amazing for about two seconds, until this awful, metallic aftertaste took over. I was really confused -- what happened? I smelled the powdered sugar to discover it had the most awful, burned-metal smell. The coffee grinder must have overheated while grinding. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I had to throw out the whole batch.

But, not to worry -- I promise I will make them again. :) Because now the craving for pumpkin cinnamon rolls is worse than ever!!

I redeemed my culinary prowess last night with dinner, however:

I made pho! This was so fragrant, clean, healthy, and delicious. Just what I needed after a long day of Mr. Dennis's taco salad (delicious, but NOT healthy,) and too much Halloween candy. I followed the recipe pretty much as written, except I used regular tofu, not Asian-flavored baked tofu (those pre-packed tofus always taste WEIRD to me,) and the co-op didn't have bean sprouts on Thursday when I went shopping, so the always-helpful produce guy recommended substituting julienned bok choy, which is what I used. (We also added more tamari at the table, since it didn't seem salty enough.) Dan and I had two huge bowlfuls each for dinner last night -- it was such a fun, slurpy dinner!

I have a few more cooking projects planned for this weekend . . . stay tuned!

500th post!

Wow! I just noticed that this is my 500th post! Very cool.

Anyhow, I apologize for my absence from blogdom -- as many of you can relate, the holidays were BUSY! Between travelling for two family Christmases, visiting with lots of friends who were in town, and still having to work, I felt like I did nothing but run in circles for two weeks straight! It was wonderful to see everyone, but boy am I glad I have almost nothing to do this week! We all need a little rest -- Dan's been under the weather, and we had to take Ollie to the vet on Friday (urinary tract infection.) Kitty's been very good about letting me give him his antibiotics, and he's definitely on the mend.

We've still been eating and cooking some! Photos:

I had a cold the week between Christmas and New Year's, and Dan surprised me one night by buying me some pho soup from the Vietnamese restaurant up the block:

I love the freshness and clean taste of pho soup. I should try making my own, eh?

Homemade pizza:

We stayed in on New Year's Eve and constructed this loaded veggie pizza deluxe. Yum.

Pull-N-Peel Twizzler silliness:

Dan had a little too much fun with dessert on New Year's Eve!

Muffins:

Wholegrain Banana-Coconut-Almond! Yum!

Oliver thought these looked good, too:

Does anybody else's cat sneak bites of freshly baked goods? He never eats them, though -- always spits them back out. Grumble, grumble.

New cookbooks!

Mollie Katzen was a gift from my parents, Anna Thomas was a gift from Dan's parents, and I bought the middle one (from The Cheese Factory Restaurant) on our way back from Wisconsin -- there is this incredible vegetarian and vegan restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Central Wisconsin! Our meals were excellent, and I can't wait to try out their recipes in my kitchen!

New books!

Dan gave me "Millions of Cats" (a children's picture book) as part of my Christmas present -- I wasn't terribly familiar with this story, but it is funny and a little dark and very witty and charming. It was also written by a Minnesotan! My parents gave me "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which I can't wait to start reading. My friend Marie gave me "The Alchemist," which I'm not familiar with, but will add to the stack of stuff to read!

That's all, for now. Hopefully we'll get to the grocery store tomorrow, and I'll have a chance to cook something wonderful later this week! Until then . . . .