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?

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 pho time!

Really, when isn't it pho time? (I know Emily would agree with me!) :) Dan and I had a laugh when I asked him earlier this week what he was hungry for; his reply was, "ummmmm . . . something Asian . . . with tofu." OK! Only thousands of meals to choose from, and I settled on pho.

I always loosely follow this recipe from Cooking Light, with several modifications to make the soup vegetarian, as well as slightly simpler to prepare. I don't know whether I've posted my modifications before; I apologize if I have and am boring everyone. :) Here are the changes I make:

1. Substitute vegetable stock for turkey stock, low-sodium soy sauce for fish sauce, and 1 package tofu, pressed and cubed, for the turkey. (Sometimes I sub agave for the brown sugar, just because I don't feel like digging out the brown sugar.) :)
2. I prepare all of the fresh herbs, green onions, lime wedges, and jalapenos and pile them up on a big plate (or in a tupperware container,) to be added at the table.
3. I don't bother broiling the onion -- I just slice it thinly, brown it in a little peanut oil, add the tofu, bean sprouts, and broth, and bring everything to a boil. At this point, soup's on! Simpler, and probably just as good.

And one final tip -- unless you want dinner to take you hours and hours, have an "herb assistant." Dan has become very good at this job, and says he actually enjoys it!

So, what would you have made with the suggestion I was given? "Something Asian . . . with tofu!" The possibilities may be endless!

great day, great food

Oh, how I love the weekend! We started our day yesterday with a lovely batch of baked oatmeal:

I find that neither Dan nor I really cares much for regular oatmeal, but we love a baked version! Stuffed with walnuts and dried blueberries, this was a lovely way to wake up on a Saturday morning.

Later, nachos for lunch!

Organic yellow corn tortilla chips topped with taco leftovers from Thursday night -- black beans, peppers and onions, chipotle gouda, salsa, guacamole, and sour cream. MMMMMMMMMMMM!

I decided we needed to have a veggie-packed dinner, to make up for the small serving of veggies at lunch:

Vegetarian pho!!! Yum. I've adapted this recipe, using vegetable broth, tofu, and soy sauce to replace the turkey stock, turkey, and fish sauce, and it is always well-received! (I also choose to serve all of the herbs and green onions on the side, only adding the sliced white onion and bean sprouts to the soup broth.) Dan's brother, Ryan, joined us for dinner, and the three of us managed to take down almost an entire batch! There was lots of sniffling and sweating due to adding too many jalapenos and too much sriracha, but it was soooooo worth it! :)

Dessert was a special request of Dan's:

Caramel custard is one of those dead-easy desserts that never fails to impress the socks off of anyone! Truthfully, I find the hardest part is getting the custards into the oven in the water bath without creating a sloshy, watery mess. I wonder why I don't make this dessert more often? :)

Thankfully, I have a second weekend day ahead of me to enjoy! Woo! What have you been up to this weekend?

baking and cooking, cooking and baking.

This isn't a complaint, but does anyone else feel like sometimes that's all you do?

I did bake a couple of things yesterday:

At the top is a glorious apple pie that I didn't have to do much for, since the crusts and filling have been in my freezer since apple-orcharding this fall. All I did was thaw, assemble, and bake. Fruit pie is such a TREAT! At the bottom are some muffins that I made for Dan's breakfasts this week -- his work schedule has changed, so he's going to have to leave the house much earlier. I tried to come up with something that he could grab on his way out the door and still get his omega-3s! Each muffin contains an full tablespoon of ground flaxseeds, which makes them a little more dense than I'd prefer, but I guess that's the trade-off, right??

Banana-Flax Muffins
yield: 12
Whisk together:
3 overripe bananas, mashed well
1/3 cup milk (or more, depending on how moist your bananas are)
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
Combine, then stir into wet ingredients:
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup ground flaxseeds
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Bake for 15 minutes at 400.

I also made a batch of granola yesterday, (but didn't photograph it,) cooked a TON of brown rice to go with several of our meals this week, prepped the broth for the pho we had for lunch today, (picture coming up,) and started some pizza dough.

I'm definitely not sick of eating pizza, but I'm kinda sick of posting about it:

Excellent, as always.

Pie a la mode for dessert:

Yummmmmmmmmmm.

Sunday lunch may officially be "Asian Noodle Soup" time at our house:

Enjoying homemade pho again this weekend was great! I love the combination of spicy, sweet broth, slurpy noodles, and fresh herbs and veggies. Dan commented that a big bowl of pho seems to treat his Sunday blues!

I haven't decided yet whether we're going to have Thai curry or Indian curry for dinner, so stay tuned . . . .

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!