Friday, June 26, 2009

Look what I have!




Isn't it beautiful? It has a little friend, too:



The whole garden is growing. Look at these pictures:





Right after planting




This evening
So far I have mostly only gotten a radish and some herbs directly from my garden, but more is coming, and not too far in the future. I might have green and purple beans as soon as next week. I think that once the squash get going, they will go crazy. I can't wait!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Good fast dinner

I didn't take a picture of this, but I had to post, because it was fantastic. Also, the girl complained a lot and tried to get me to give the extra plain rice that I made for a future meal, but when she finally tried it, she loved it!

I was looking around online, trying to find all my old blogs on my new computer, when I came across this tahini onion sauce recipe. I love tahini, and I like to use recipes that we can customize at the table without me feeling like I am making separate meals. A sauce that everyone can choose to add or not add is ideal for this. It came together quickly, too.

For the lentils and rice, I cooked up the rice, then added some pre-cooked lentils from Trader Joe's and seasoned the dish with a small palmful of ground cumin, maybe about half as much dried oregano, and a few shakes of Mrs. Dash Original Blend. I put about half an onion, sliced thinly, in a small skillet with some Earth Balance while I cooked the rice and made the tahini sauce. Since I wanted them good and carmelized, I mostly ignored them for 10 or 15 minutes (maybe longer), just stirring occasionally to make sure it all got browned and sweet.

On the side we had green and purple beans from the garden. Well, not actually my garden, but the gardeners brought some from other gardens they do, and we will be getting the same thing from our garden soon. They told me the purple beans would turn green when steamed, so I made sure the kids looked at them before I put them in the microwave to steam. They were originally a very dark, bright purple, making for an interesting experiment. They did come out green--a little mottled, but definitely green. The kids thought that was fun.

For dessert, sliced watermelon, which is always a big hit with the children.

The girl was convinced that she would hate the lentils and rice, but she loved it. The boy loved it, too, which I new he would. But he was also adventurous and tried the sauce. He didn't like it, but at least he tried it. I loved the sauce. I could probably carmelize an onion every day and happily eat it, but I think that might be going overboard. The people around me may not appreciate that! But at least I can enjoy some carmelized onion here, without worrying about kids complaining (or having to share!)

Monday, June 01, 2009

La Dolce Vegan

Man, I love this cookbook! I have had it for a while, but for some reason, I didn't use it until recently. A couple of weeks ago I got it out and realized that I should have been using it all along, because there are a lot of awesome recipes. I made the fruit dip for a picnic at the local Shakespeare festival, but I have no picture. It was really good, though, and I loved how it was all healthy and still felt like a treat.



Last week I got a delivery from my gardeners with radishes, lettuce, spinach and fresh parsley, so I decided to find another recipe to try. I didn't find much for the veggies, but I did find a great recipe for some fresh herbs--Peacefrog's Artichoke Heart Pasta. I used the parsley and some basil from out in my garden. It was so delicious and easy! I did get a picture of this one:







Doesn't that look delicious? I pretty much followed the recipe as is, although I did use a bunch of grape tomatoes instead of one large tomato, and I just used water instead of vegetable stock, but it was still great.

Tonight I got this cookbook out again, but I had to use a bit more creativity. I made Karen's Mexican Burrito Pie, but I only had three tortillas instead of the five the recipe called for, and I was out of shredded cheese and pinto beans. I had some sliced cheese and black beans, though, so I used those instead. I think the cheese may not be entirely vegan, and I honestly prefer Tofutti, which is vegan. Next time I will get that, but this was still an awesome casserole.

I can't seem to add another picture, so I will continue this in another post....