October Eats

It's that time where the month is coming to an end and I am clearing off my camera. Here are some tasty autumnal eats we've enjoyed over the past few weeks.

Mole Skillet Pie with Greens from Veganomicon. Soooo satisfying, and that mole sauce might not be authentic (their words not mine), but it's the bomb and so easy to make!

Saucy BBQ Chickpeas and Green Beans from Plant-Powered Families, paired with some kinda quinoa-amaranth-millet pilaf from Costco. The pilaf had an earthy (polite way of saying dirt) flavor. The BBQ beans are awesome.

Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions from Veganomicon. Oh, my sweet baby mujadara. I am the only one in my family who likes this dish, and I don't care. Sometimes I make it just for me and eat it for days. The love is real.

Apple Pie Smoothies from Plant-Powered Families. A perfect homework-time snack, and it really does taste like apple pie!

Chipotle Sweet Potato Soup from Healthy Happy Vegan. I love the smooth texture of the blended sweet potatoes! I hated how spicy it was, even though I cut down on the amount of chipotle powder that the recipe called for. I love spicy food but I don't like it when heat overwhelms the other flavors. So I will cut it down a lot more next time.

Raw Chard Salad with Maple Mustard Dressing from Healthy Happy Vegan. Made up for the too-spicy soup. I could have eaten the entire recipe myself but I shared with Tony so he could partake in the goodness.

Cheesy Cauliflower and Potato Bake from The Abundance Diet, along with cornmeal-crusted roasted okra from our garden. Sooooo gooood. Ultimate comfort food, cheesy and creamy and wonderful.

Tap shoes and a blanket, why not?

Vegan MoFo Day 18: Improv

Today Olivia was able to attend a childrens' improv class at a local comedy clob, ColdTowne Theater. The instructor was fabulous with the kids and they all got into it, pretending to be spiders, robots, and flowers sprouting from seeds.

Reaching their petals up towards the sun!

Afterwards, my friend Carey invited us over for lunch, so we brought along some peanut butter cookies that we'd whipped up that morning. The recipe is from Vive le Vegan and it's the best one I've come across. They have a nice hint of saltiness, and bits of creamy peanut butter throughout.

For dinner I made Ginger Coconut Green Linguine. I loved the idea of using chard and spinach along with basil to make the pesto sauce, and it was really simple and delicious! Can be a lightning-fast weeknight dinner if you have washed your greens beforehand.

Catching Up

Here are some recent eats, as I clear off my camera in preparation for Olivia's upcoming 2nd birthday. I have been on a Dreena Burton kick. I am having a lot of success with her older cookbooks, so I'm sure I will be buying her new one soon.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto with Toasted Almonds and Pine Nuts from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. So good. I made a lot and happily snacked on it for the next couple of days.

Pureed Chickpea Pasta Sauce with Fresh Herbs from Vive le Vegan! We all loved this. It has almost a potato salad flavor to it. Some smoky tempeh bacon would be a great addition. On the side, roasted asparagus. I was so happy to learn that Jackson likes asparagus when I serve the long stalks like this. He thinks they are fun to chomp on.

One night I made potato and chard quesadillas, which I served with H-E-B tomatillo salsa that was surprisingly awesome. I've seen Krys mention making these quesadillas and I thought they sounded good. They sure were!

One evening we went to one of our favorite family-friendly restaurants, Phil's. I love Phil's for their tasty veggie burgers and sweet potato fries...

But the kids love Phil's for the blue cows!

There is also a full playscape, but Jackson and Olivia prefer to spend all their time riding the cows. I think Jackson is moo-ing in this pic.

Have a great day!

Chimichurri Baked Tofu

When I'm buying fruit, bananas and apples are the staples, since they are Jackson and Olivia's favorites. But I also buy whatever fruits are on sale each week, for variety.  This week it was cherries.  This morning I made oats with cherries, chia seeds, cacao nibs, and a dollop of coconut butter. So good.  The kids ate the rest of the cherries within a few hours of me returning from the supermarket. Guess I'll have to pick up some more!

We had an amazing dinner -- Chimichurri Baked Tofu from Viva Vegan, served with brown rice and sauteed chard. That chimichurri sauce is some good stuff.

Chimichurri is a sauce of Argentinian origin, traditionally used for basting grilled meats. It's made from parsley, red wine vinegar, garlic, crushed red pepper, smoked paprika, and other good stuff. It's just bursting with flavor and it really soaks into the tofu, greens, and rice. I've had the recipe bookmarked for as long as I've owned Viva Vegan, and I'm so glad I finally got around to trying it. Now I want to eat chimichurri on everything!

One of my goals for 2012 was to start doing "school" every day with the kids for at least 15 minutes. We sit at the table and look at flashcards or play educational games. Today I showed Jackson how to play Chutes and Ladders, while Olivia worked on a puzzle. I remembered playing this board game with my dad when I was little. What I didn't remember is that one game can go on forever! We kept landing on the "chutes" and having to start over at the bottom, haha. Oh well...at least we practiced a lot of counting!

Pumpkin Patch

Over the weekend, we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. We took a hayride, checked out some animals, and enjoyed the perfect fall weather. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

When we got home, I made a quick pot of soup for dinner. I chose the Winter Greens Soup from the appropriately named Fields of Greens cookbook, which I checked out from the library. It's the cookbook of Greens Restaurant in San Francisco.  I ate lunch there once, many years ago.

All the dust and hay at the pumpkin patch caused Tony's allergies to flare up, so he requested greens to help his immune system out. This soup is chock full of greens -- a full head each of kale, chard, and spinach. Look at that vivid green color! The soup had a great flavor, and homemade garlic croutons were a perfect addition.  I'll have to copy down some other recipes from the cookbook before I return it to the library.

One More Week

Well, I've booked the movers, the car transporter, and even the pet courier -- yes, that's right, Monster is a spoiled little baby and gets to travel in his own posh accomodations.

It's worth it to take our buddy back to Texas where he was born and raised. We got him as a puppy right after we moved to Austin the first time in 2006.  He'll love going to the Boston Terrier meetups and seeing his doggy friends again.

I've started packing little things here and there. Last night I did the books. Ten boxes! Our stuff that we don't use very often is still in boxes from our last move, so that gives me a head start. In one week, we hit the road!!

Here are some recent forays into the kitchen:

Pumpkin Chocolate Bread Pudding from Urban Vegan. I used up my last can of pumpkin, left over from the holidays, to make this.  I loved it. Of course I did; I'm the pumpkin fanatic in the family. Tony didn't care for it. The mushy texture of bread pudding is not for everyone. Do you like it?

Tofu Omelets from Vegan Brunch, filled with homemade seitan chorizo. After I took this pic, I doused it in salsa. Yum! Garlicky chard on the side.

Pizza with homemade vegan pepperoni, pickled jalapenos and faux parmesan for me and Tony. Plus a couple pieces with just sauce and cheese, for the babies.

Finally, Coco-Manda Muffins from Urban Vegan. I made these last night for a bake sale at Tony's job, to benefit a coworker whose daughter is battling cancer. I don't have a lot of stuff in my cabinets right now, but fortunately I had a can of mandarin oranges and some shredded coconut. So I was able to make these little treats and contribute something. The coconut oil and coconut extract in these muffins makes them smell absolutely heavenly.

Have a lovely weekend!

Chard-Stuffed Manicotti with Creamy Cashew Sauce

After Thanksgiving, I was taking it easy in the kitchen for awhile. But last night, I felt like making something a little fancier. I came across this recipe in 1000 Vegan Recipes and realized it had been too long since I made manicotti.  It can seem daunting -- boiling the manicotti shells, making the stuffing, making the sauce, and of course stuffing the shells and baking it.  But none of this is difficult, only time-consuming.  And it always looks nice when you serve it up.

I'd always used spinach in my manicotti, and I'd never made one with a white sauce before. I found that the chard was an excellent substitute for the spinach -- I always love chard.  But, the tofu filling could've been more flavorful. Next time I'll mix in some lemon juice, nooch and garlic, like I usually do when making a tofu ricotta. The white sauce was also on the bland side. I do like the idea of using cashews to make a creamy sauce, but cashews and milk alone do not make a good sauce. (The sauce, by the way, was really thin when I poured it over the pasta shells, which made me nervous. But it thickened up nicely in the oven. I let it cool for about 10 minutes afterwards, and it was perfectly set when I cut into it.)

Tony and I improved the flavor by spooning a little marinara on top, although we still couldn't get Jackson interested in it. We ate it for dinner and again for lunch today with some roasted brussels on the side. Yep, I still can't get enough of them.

Check it out -- Averie at Love Veggies and Yoga is giving away a $50 Chocomize gift certificate to create your own customized chocolate bars, yum!

Chard on Ciabatta and a Survey

Dinner was a favorite that's in regular rotation at our house: cheezy chard on ciabatta, adapted from Vegan Yum Yum. I've written about my love for it before. Usually I make it on ciabatta rolls, but my local supermarket has stopped selling those (thanks, jerks) so this time I used a ciabatta loaf.

Chomp, chomp!

Since I don't have much else to write about today...PeaceLoveAndFruits posted this fun survey and I thought I'd take it, too!

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?

Silk Light soymilk

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?

I'm doing an Ethiopian feast this weekend...and Tony has requested chili and lasagna.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?

Jalapeno salt

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?

When I baked a chocolate cake in a springform pan and forgot to make sure the pan was fastened securely. The batter dripped all over the bottom of my oven and I had to scrape off the burnt mess.

5. Favorite pickled item?

Jalapenos

6. How do you organize your recipes?

I have a Word file, and I bookmark blog posts that have recipes I wanna try in the future

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?

Trash, we don't have those other options in our current apartment.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?

Salted almonds, ciabatta rolls (of course), giant barrel of hummus

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?

Cooking with my Granny. She let me be her kitchen helper at a young age.

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?

The kind you make by putting frozen bananas and peanut butter in the food processor.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?

Food processor

12. Spice/herb you would die without?

Basil

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?

Cooking with the Dead (hippie alert!)

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?

Strawberry

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?

Lasagna or TVP tacos

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?

I love tofu, I've really come around to seitan, but I'm still on the fence about tempeh. I only like it BBQ'ed.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?

Dinner

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?

Bottles o' booze

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.

Frozen mango, seitan sausage, pumpkin pancakes

20. What’s on your grocery list?

Oats, lemon juice, nutritional yeast

21. Favorite grocery store?

All the ones around here suck, so I'll say Whole Foods

22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.

my Granny's 7-layer cookies

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?

Peas and Thank You, Vegan Crunk, Love Veggies and Yoga

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?

Lemonheads

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?

Tempeh bacon -- it was like $4.99 and I had an argument with myself in my head about whether to buy it. But my homemade tempeh bacon doesn't turn out the way I want it, and I'm trying to like tempeh better.

And so the first week of Vegan MoFo comes to an end, wooooo! It's so much fun. I can't even begin to keep up with all the posts, but I'm doing my best and I've discovered so many awesome new blogs already. Have a good weekend and I'll see y'all on Monday!

Watch Out Cough, Here Comes Chard

So, Tony was feeling sickly, and went to the store to stock up on cough medicine and Kleenex. He returned with bags of kale and chard. He said, "These just looked like something I should eat -- can you make something with them?"

Can I ever.

Lentil Chard Soup

1 cup brown lentils, picked over and rinsed
4 cups water
4 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 yellow onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch chard, cleaned and roughly chopped
1/3 cup lemon juice

In a soup pot, combine lentils, water, broth and salt. Bring to a boil on high heat. When it boils, reduce heat to medium, cover partially, and simmer for 25 minutes.

In a saute pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onion 7 minutes. Add garlic and chard. Cook for 3 minutes or until the chard wilts. You may have to add it in small bunches, stirring it with tongs to help it reduce in volume before adding the next bunch. When the chard is all wilted, add to lentils. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice.

I think it's pretty cool how, if we pay attention, our bodies often tell us what they need. Chard is an excellent source of vitamin C, which is said to reduce the duration of a cold. Do you have any foods you turn to when you feel under the weather?

Chard on ciabatta

I’ve made many delicious meals from Lauren Ulm’s gorgeously photographed cookbook, Vegan Yum Yum, but her recipe for chard florentine on toast points is my go-to favorite. I change it up by using ciabatta rolls, simply because I’m addicted to the tough chewiness of ciabatta. Yes, I like bread that tries to hurt my mouth. I find that four rolls, each cut in half, is enough to use all of the cheesy, chardy topping.



I have been known to eat this for dinner one night, and then lunch and dinner the next day, and then be sad that it is gone. By the way, last time I made this, I was out of miso and tahini, so I subbed an equal amount of hummus, and it turned out just as awesome.