Holy Beanballs! What did you do now?

I can’t help but watch the Housewives of New York City.  We live in the same city, but live completely different lives.  But, the one thing we have in common:  Amazing food.  It’s just that they have personal chefs that make their spaghetti, I make my own.  I made Spaghetti and Beanballs from V’Con.  The bean balls were amazing, but my sauce was fantastic.  Of course, I didn’t write down the recipe, but I do know I used up 1 leftover leek, 3 celery stalks, anise seed, red wine, crushed tomatoes and olive oil.  The rest, meh!  Just like River and wingin’ it.  It was so delicious, deep and bright.  Ryan was a happy bean ball camper.

More V’Con

I’ve been exploring the depths of the Veganomicon lately and hit a real winner.  Ryan looooooved it.  It was the leek and bean cassoulet with biscuits.  It was super easy and the biscuits came out great.  Four thumbs and two paws up from the Simon family.

Potato Paparazzi

I’m takin’ more pictures of spuds than the photogs on Octo-mom.  Tonight I made the Baked Potato and Greens Soup from V’con along with some baked potato fries (opting out of the fried verson in the cookbook).  I did add tons of extra kale, just to get in a real green punch.  Too, it said not to use a blender, but I love my little emersion baby and couldn’t resist.  I actually liked the texture.   The flavors were so bangin’.

Other pics from this weekend.  I made the Kugel from V’con.  It was okay, but could have used a bit more of the tofu mix or something to give it a bit more moisture.  Maybe I overbaked it.  Not bad, but not that memorable.

I also had some more over ripe bananas and made some chocolate banana cake based on the Banana Cake recipe I found from google.  I added cocoa powder to make it even chocolatey-er.  So moist and fabulous!

Reubens and Beets

Not a creative title, I know, but the food was so good it blew my mind and I can’t think straight anymore.  Last night’s dinner was so good and I’m craving it right now.  Tempeh Reubens and Beet Salad.

Let’s start with the Beet Salad.  Kind of sounds like a bummer, but it’s so not.  Really, it’s my potato salad, but instead of potatoes, I used beets and carrots.  So, beets, carrots, red onion, celery, pickle relish, vegenaise, tarragon mustard, dill and paprika.  I can’t tell you how good this was, and all this coming from the kid who used to detest beets!

Then there was the main course.  I did steal a bit of inspiration from Vegan Dad.  I sauteed my tempeh in a spice mix of cloves, paprika, salt, allspice and garlic with some apple cider vinegar.  Then I layered it on good bread with my own 1000 island concotion, red onions, kraut and Follow Your Heart.  Did it up in the griddle and then open face broiled them to get the cheese melty.  This was even better than expected.  Like a warm pocket of my favorite flavors.

No offense to the lovely Angelica’s Kitchen, but darlin’, you ain’t got nothin’ on my Reuben.

Gimme that Good Good Love!

Hope all you bloggy amigos had a love filled weekend.  I find a lot of people get down and out about Valentine’s Day because of the expectations that its only related to romantic love.  But, I think we should all go back to that place in 1st grade when we put little cards in home made mailboxes to tell our friends we care about them. So, regardless your relationship status on Facebook, I hope you felt loved yesterday, and every day for that matter!

On Friday night I hadn’t really planned on cooking as we did happy hour out with friends, but when we got home around 8pm we were hungry.  I reheated leftover cauliflower.  Along with that I made meatballs from the rest of some Gimme Lean chillin’ in the back of the fridge.  I know River agrees with me, that Gimme Lean is not very good, for the most part.  But, not wanting to waste perfectly good food, I tried the recipe I saw on For The Love of Food.  I adapted them a bit by using panko, basil and standard yellow onion, as they were what I had on hand.  Honest, true story, these are great.  They cover up the weird smokiness of the Gimme Lean.  A +!  The other side was green peas with tarragon inspired by my favorite Top Chef this season:  Carla.  She’s amazing and I hope she wins!

For Valentine’s, Ryan and I decided to cook together.  I’m usually the only one in the kitchen, as you can only fit one of us in there at a time.  But, we plotted out our cooking so that we could collaborate and make dinner “together”.  Ryan made breadsticks and balsamic zucchini.  This was Ryan’s first attempt at yeast breadstick making, and he did a pretty good job.  Bread’s a tricky thing, but these served their purpose in sopping up the delicious sauce on the zucchini. 

Ryan, knead the dough, don’t kill it!

I made lasagna, roughly inspired from Tyler’s Ultimate, adapted with veg ingredients, of course.  I loved the idea and result of the pureed aromatics added to the sauce.  My only change would be to add more tomatoes.  But, I’m a tomato junkie.  There’s those delicious zucchinis, too.  Roasted perfectly with sweet tangy balsamic glaze. 

I also took a queue from Chocolate Covered Vegan and made her Chocolicious Pudding.  Ryan hogged it all!

Meanwhile, with all the W.I.P. posts, I thought I’d share what I’ve been working on.  I’m not much for the knitting, but I do paint.  Right now I’m on a mandala kick.  Here’s the Work In Progress.

Cauliflower Mash

I had a lot of cauliflower and was contemplating what to do with it. I brought it up in the office and my colleague, Barrett, had the great idea of mashing it up. He said he’d done it once with wasabi. Genius!
I ended up doing it with a bit of vegenaise and mustard, garlic, salt and pepper. With it, I served cilantro bulgur topped with Rogan Josh seitan.

Then, after browsing amazing baked goods on everyone’s blogs, I got to baking and made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. These are amaaaazing! Super peanut buttery with a touch of almond extract and maple syrup. I used dark and white chocolate chips.

Italian Stuffed Peppers

We have been so blessed the past few days.  Temperatures in the high fortys and low fifties.  I’m not sure if this will keep up, but I’ll savor it while it lasts. I’m still in a bit of a funk at work, but for reasons of professionalism I won’t go into them.  Never know who’s reading this .

In other news, keeping it simple is going well.  I’ve particularly enjoyed my breakfasts of chopped up fruit topped with soy yogurt, goji berries, sunflower seeds and a dash of cinnamon.  Love the textures, and the yogurt, which I typically do not like on its own, is absolutly delightful mixed up with all the other power packed tasties.

For dinner last night I got back into the complicated mood, but not really.  I hadn’t really planned out the meal, and did come up with it on the fly, but it did take about 90 min from start to finish.  I don’t think it would normally take that long, but I was experimenting, putting in a bit of this and that, really molding the flavors.  I enjoyed the process of my creation, and the payoff was fantastic!

We had a basic salad with a red wine vinegar and dijon dressing.  Goji berries included, of course.  Also some sun dried tomatoes.  I can’t get enough of juxtaposing sweet and savory.

We followed that with stuffed orange peppers.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t spring for the orange ones, based on price, but this week I found them for $1 each!  Such a deal in these parts!  I stuffed them with rice, couscous, sundried tomatoes, diced tomatoes, lots of fresh basil, tons of garlic, onions, olive oil, salt pepper and some crushed almonds for crunch.  I baked them, while basting them every 15 minutes with a mixture of olive oil and ketchup.  After about an hour the were perfect and I stuck them under the broiler with some Follow Your Heart Jack “cheese”. 

and a view after half eaten

This dish made me so happy.  An Italian paradise in a happy bright pepper package.

KISS

As my Mom says, Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS), so that’s what I’m trying to do.  I have been known be be “tightly wound”, though I’d rather be referred to as “energetic” and “attentive”.  Whatever you call it, though, sometimes I get a bit too obsessive and get a bit crazy.  So, at those points I’ve leared to appropriately release, which usually involves me changing things up.  So, here’s the change up.  I’m swappin’ out the planned out week’s menu with rather involved ingredient lists and going for a more “organic” menu planning method.  I just bought a bunch of fresh fruit and veg, trying to keep ‘em in season and supplemented with the regular mix and match grains, proteins and other assorted flavor givers (tamari, siracha, and the tons of spices already in my pantry).  Tonight’s concoction:

Sweet and Savory Asian Salad:  Baby Lettuces, cucumber, basil, clementines, goji berries, sunflower seeds, black sesame seeds and a rice wine, siracha, peanut, agave dressing.

Along with that, we had Sloppy Joe and Teese Quesadillas.  Random combo.  Not the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but a good way to get rid of the leftovers.

More in the simple category, from last night, simple grilled tofu marinated in ginger, garlic and tamari, served with rice and stir fried edamame, broccoli, carrot and peppers.  Served it with some wasabi sauce.  My nasal passages loved me for it.

How else did I change things up?  I went jogging today.  I’m such a ding-dong for not taking more advantage of Central Park being right across the street.  So, as the weather was better today (45 was what the CNN building read at 5:20pm) and I strapped on my sneaks and jammed out on my iPod.  In the spirit of Chocolate Covered Vegan, my song of the day is “Aint Nothin’ Wrong With That” by Robert Randolph.  He and I hit a good stride on Broadway.  He helped me realize I’m not as in bad of shape as I thought.  Gotta get in gear for the upcoming ski trip with my friends!

Meat-less Crust Pie

It’s been a weird week.  Things at work have been weird and frustrating.  Not the students, though.  They’re amazing, like always.  But, I just want to scream, “Can’t we all get along?”  I digress.  Because of my funkiness, I’ve lacked my usual enthusiasm in the kitchen.  Too, I didn’t plot out the week’s worth of menus last weekend, so I’m not prepared when 5pm rolls around and I get home to make dinner.  I’ve been doing a good bit of WITF, which I guess is a good thing.

Tuesday, what I had on hand to use up:  shredded carrots, frozen corn on the cob, BBQ sauce, and whole wheat pitas.  Results?  Sloppy TVP Joe Pitas with corn on the cob.  I liked the carrot in the Joes.  Added a good crunch.

Wednesday night, what was near to past it’s prime:  Brussel sprouts, red onion and polenta.  What happened?  Roasted the sprouts and onion with a sweet potato and parsnip tossed with some olive oil and spritzed with lemon juice.  I served it up over sliced and pan fried polenta.  The polenta lacked flavor, but the veggies were mind blowing.  Bang-a-rang!

Tonight, I had some MorningStar Farms Crumbles (thanks for the recommendation River!) and incorperated them into recreating another pre-veg fave:  Meat Crust Pie.  I made a few adjustments to the regular recipe and made it 100% veg.  I need to keep tweaking this one to get it right, but it came out pretty darn good for a first attempt.  I did use Teese for the first time, too, in this recipe.  I didn’t melt like I had hoped.  Any suggestions from experienced Teesers?

I just happen to have a picture of the regular recipe from back in the day, so you can see the difference…pretty close!

Street Food Fusion

On a trip to visit family in Mexico, we spent some time in Guadalajara.  There are so many great memories from that trip, and others to Puerto Vallarta, Tepic, Puerto Penasco, Florida (Mexico, not the US State) even Ensenada.  But, a fantastic memory was the street food.  I remember little stands, comparable to the carts here in NYC, selling tasty tacos and empanadas.  Street food is so simple, but the perfect spot-hitting, portable meal.  Memories like that inspired my dinner tonight.

I used flatbread as the base.  I wanted to use tostada shells, but they don’t seem to carry them at my local grocery store.  But, I toasted the flatbread and loaded it up with garlicy black beans, adobo and red pepper quinoa, Follow Your Heart Jack cheese, mixed greens, avocado, and salsa.

Mexi-Quinoa

Flatbread Tostadas

After dinner I hit the kitchen and used up the last of some old packets of Tazo Chai Tea to make the Chai Latte Cupcakes from The PPK.  They’re all dressed up with vanilla buttercream and chocolate buttercream piped through my new Mechanical Pastry Bag from Williams-Sonoma.  It’s a great set, though I’m still trying to get the grip down.  I’m used to working with actual bags and tips.  The lever is something I need to get used to.  Ryan decided that these are super decadent and comparable to Magnolia’s famous cupcakes.  I don’t know about all that, but they are pretty dang good.

Cupcakes fit for a queen!