Rant

OK, after an hour-long trip to Von's with both girls, pushing the giant grocery store "car cart" and simulataneously feeding the baby as-yet-unpaid-for crackers, and after picking up our CSA share, and after sending my lovely husband to Joe's on his way home from work last night, and having Grandma here to distract the youngins', you would think I would be ready for a couple hours of serious make-ahead meal makin'.

You would be oh so wrong. We had vietnamese sandwiches for dinner last night, yep had all the ingredients for that one, even had nice leftover rolls and seitan for sammies for lunch. Well, I gets to cookin' this afternoon.
My plan: Spicy tempeh and broccoli rabe with bowtie pasta (dinner for tonight)
Steam broccoli and serve to kids with some of the pasta
Lentil soup
Vegan lasagna
Tempeh bacon

I get 2 bunches of broccoli rabe washed and chopped, about 1/2 head of garlic minced (all the recipes need garlic!), 2 bunches of kale washed and chopped. Cooked down both batches of greens. Washed, chopped and steamed a small head of broccoli. Made cashew/tofu ricotta (freakishly good), & pulled my favorite marinara from the pantry. This is round about when things went in the pooper. Realize that I've cooked teeny baby-friendly pasta and not the bowties I meant to. Oh, and I'm missing fennel seed for the sausage-flavored tempeh for the broccoli rabe pasta dish, I don't think I have enough lasagna noodles for the lasagna (the kale and ricotta were for this), no tomatoes fresh or otherwise for the lentil soup (didn't even get REMOTELY close to even starting this one), likewise for the bacon. At this point I TOTALLY threw in the towel. And picked up the phone so someone so nice would bring home thai food for dinner on his way home tonight.

He did and it was yummy. And the little bean and the mini bean ate a ton of steamed broccoli with their pasta. And I did find more lasagna noodles and put that together afterall (ONE make ahead meal complete!) And tomorrow I will go back to the store. And I'll start this process where I left off. Maybe after a beer.

What the heck do you do with a half dozen parsnips?

You make parsnip cake! I followed the recipe from epicurious, using four of my CSA parsnips. Only major problem was the requested 13 inch pan was way too big for the batter. I was too lazy to scrape the batter out of the prepped pan, so I just planned for a mighty flat cake. Made just plain cream cheese frosting and it turned out great! Ugly as heck, but yummy. The little bean loved it and doesn't even know she ate some parsnips.
What else have I made from our CSA box in the last couple days? Baby bok choy and tofu stir fry over red quinoa. Really tasty, the little bean only wanted the tofu. Man, she's missing out :). Tonight was a crazy cabbage casserole, which was surprisingly good. Just a clean-out-the-fridge thing: mighty old tempeh goulash sauce from the freezer, leftover quinoa and the end of a jar salsa layered with shredded cabbage and baked an hour. Really quite grody sounding even now, but my lovely husband even had seconds.

Csa hooray!

This is a shot of last weeks CSA haul. And other than a few limes that have been stacking up we ate all those veggies & fruit :)
Tonight I made the mixed greens and potato gratin from Vegan Soul Kitchen. I used a mix of collard greens and some mystery greens (some sort of broccolli?) and roasted sweet potato, with a macadamia nut and breadcrumbs topping. We even got the little bean to eat it, the more "growing foods" the better. That makes up for cake for breakfast and soft serve after lunch...

Tamale Pie

Now this is another recipe with unlimited options and possibilities. I have never had tamale pie, vegan, vegetarian or otherwise, but for some reason I just had to have some! My base recipe was from here. I also wanted to incorporate some tempeh, so here is my final result:

For the filling:
1 package tempeh, grated
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 cup of vegetable stock
1/2 onion, chopped finely
1 red bell pepper, minced up so the bean won't see it or she won't eat it
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn, rinsed in a colander to get that yucky freezery taste off
handful of chopped cilantro
5 fresh from the CSA tomatoes, seeded and chopped. Sub a big ole can of tomatoes if you gotta.
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp chili powder (mine isn't too spicy)
some salt
1 cup of shredded jack cheese

For the topping:
1 1/2 cups corn meal
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Marinate the tempeh in the broth and soy sauce while you chop up everything else.

In a 12 inch cast iron skillet, saute the onion for about 10 minutes over medium low heat, or until just getting brown. Add in the bell pepper and garlic and cook until soft. Add the tempeh (drained if it looks too soggy) and cook 10 minutes until brown. Dump in the rest of the ingredients through the salt. Sprinkle the cheese over the top in a nice even layer.

Mix up the cornmeal, soda and salt in a bowl. In another bowl mix together the egg, oil and buttermilk. Stir into the cornmeal mixture until smooth, then pour over the filling in the cast iron pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the cornbread top is browned and a knife comes out clean.

Makes for killer leftovers, and the little bean thought this was a great "pie", even if it wasn't sweet :) Oh, and it isn't too attractive so no picture for this one.

Going back in time...

I started this post about a month ago. Guess I'll finish it...
We started our CSA share pickup 2 weeks ago and that makes for the ingredients for lots of easy quick veggie/salad dishes. Not really "cooking". However, we got two pints of grape tomatoes last Tuesday and I was afraid we'd get more tomorrow (we did)...so here's what I found: Pasta with Kalamata Olives and Roasted Cherry Tomato from Epicurious. So super quick and Delicious. My only changes were to omit the capers, use 1/4 cup feta, and toast the pine nuts. Not bad for me, usually I tweak things a lot more. This was really really tasty. Unfortunately I discovered a horrifying result from eating certain pine nuts...for a week afterwards everytime I ate ANYTHING I had a terrible bitter taste in my mouth. Somewhat common, as I found from a quick google search. No one else in the family had the same reaction, but now I am pretty gunshy from pine nuts. These were Trader Joe's brand, guess I'll try another type if I ever get brave again.

The roasted tomatoes with plenty 'o garlic

Last night (this is back in early January) my dear husband made a Spicy Peanut Dressing from the lowfat Moosewood cookbook that was really tasty. It is a basic recipe and made in the blender so it is super easy. I made it again a week or so ago, & I made a few changes because I had a specific flavor I wanted. So here we go:
1/2 tomato, seeded and chopped
3 T creamy, salted peanut butter
1 tsp agave nectar
3 T lime juice
1 T soy sauce
1 minced garlic clove
handful chopped cilantro
splash of rice wine vinegar
The salad was composed of red leaf lettuce and scallions.
This was one of my first veggie cookbooks and I am having fun going back to this. However, I still get put off by the number of fish recipes. Ah, the vegetarian fish tree, where I pick all of my fish to eat ;)

Indonesian Style Fried Rice

This is adapted from a recipe out of Vegan Planet. I had the cookbook checked out and renewed from the library for about 6 weeks total, it is HUGE. I read through it totally but didn't have time to actually make much from it. I made some notes on this dish & cooked it after I returned the book. It was really tasty, but unfortunately didn't stick with me long. I was ready for a serious snack before bed.

Saute 1/4 red onion, minced in 1 Tbsp peanut oil over medium heat. When soft (2 minutes or less) add 2 grated carrots, 2 cups small diced napa cabbage, and 1 minced clove garlic. Fry up for about a minute or two, it should all soften quickly.
Add 1 packaged crumbled, steamed tempeh with 1 T soy sauce and 2 1/2 tsp sugar. Let the tempeh get a little brown while stirring, a couple minutes. Dump in 2 cups of cooked basmati rice and 1 T soy sauce. Stir over heat until heated through. Serve with diced cucumber and chopped peanuts, and for me...a serious dosing of Sri Ra Cha. And a digestive enzyme so my tummy cooperates with all the chili sauce ;) So tasty! But probably best as a side, even with the protein from the tempeh.

Couple a dinners

This first meal is called, cook WAY too much food for 2 people. Upper left, good ole standby Beijing style veggies from Trader joes, to the right, Moosewood vegetable tofu dumplings, cooked pot-sticker style, middle is brown rice, then bottom is tempura zucchini. 2 small zucchini's made an obscene amount of tempura.
















Because neither the dumplings or tempura would keep, I really stuffed myself. I also made a quick ponzo-style sauce, with soy sauce, veggie broth, mirin, and a squirt of lime juice. Much better than straight soy sauce, which is what I usually would have done.



















Then, this one is fake summer style pasta. Fake, in that only the cherry tomatoes & basil were the fresh summer veg. Frozen corn and green beans rounded out the veggie count. It was a quick saute of 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, then cook the tomatoes for 5 minutes, then stir in the corn and green beans until warm through. Toss in the minced handful of basil and handful of crumbled feta and there you go. I oversalted the penne cooking water, so the little bean only ate the tomatoes and green beans. But it was also darned tasty to the adult eaters...