Menu, 11/14 - 11/18

I am continuing my quest to make more of the delicious recipes from Veganomicon this week with two casseroles.The girl will probably not be happy (she doesn't like her food to be touching!), but I am really excited about these recipes.  The menu only goes through Thursday this week because the kids are going to their dad's on the weekend, and I get paid on Friday.  I will probably eat something out on Friday, then do a new plan on Saturday.

Sunday:  Carmelized Onion-Butternut Roast with Chestnuts, roasted Brussel's sprouts, cranberry sauce

Monday:  Mole Skillet Pie with Greens, steamed broccoli, orange/blackberry fruit salad

Tuesday:  Tempeh noodle casserole, steamed broccoli/carrots/snap peas, pineapple

Wednesday:  Lentils and rice with carmelized onion tahini sauce, beets, steamed sweet potatoes

Thursday:  Peanut noodles, steamed green beans, green smoothies

I am going to use up some of the turnip greens that are still going strong in my garden despite the frosty nights, and the butternut squash I still have from the garden, so I am still using some garden produce!  You can also see how much I love carmelized onions in this menu.  I tried to add plenty of plained steamed veggies and furits to the menu so that the girl doesn't starve, but I know she will also be happy on Tuesday and Wednesday--even though the main dishes on those nights aren't plain foods, she still likes them.  I am going to wear her down eventually on the casserole thing, I am sure of it!

Some thoughts about last night's dinner

• It turned out to be more universally orange than I was anticipating.  It still had plenty of nutrients, but the plate would have been more interesting if we could have seen more colors.
• The hot sauce glazed tempeh was amazing, and even better the next day.
• This is a huge casserole.  We had a friend over, and only ate half of the casserole.
• The nine corn tortillas that I had on hand were enough, although the 12 called for would have provided better coverage.  I was maybe just a little bit crazy trying to make the pieces I had cover the whole layer.
• I added a diced Anaheim chili to the veggies (you knew that was coming, didn't you?)
• Obviously, the lack of garlic in the original recipe was an oversight.  Who would purposely leave garlic out of such a recipe?  Crazy peole, that's who.  I added about 3 or 4 cloves of crushed garlic after the onions had cooked for a few minutes.  I also added just a bit more cumin.
• Overall, it was delicious.  I will just have a non-orange vegetable instead of the sweet potato next time.

Menu for the week of 11/8

I know, this week is more than half over when you consider that I only made a Monday through Friday plan, but I want to document it anyway. I like to look back at old menu plans when I am making new ones, and my usual method of writing the menu on random pieces of paper is not very helpful for this. Plus, I can add notes on what I actually did this way, which is also useful.




Monday: Chickpea Noodle Soup (from Veganomicon), apple cranberry crisp

I was going to make grilled cheese sandwiches with some shredded Daiya cheddar cheese, but I didn’t make it to Whole Foods to get the cheese, so we did without. Also, I added some spinach from the fridge and chopped turnip greens from the garden to the soup. The kids were unimpressed with the addition of the greens, and with the mushrooms called for in the recipe, but I am hoping to wear them down eventually.



Tuesday: Orange Roasted Tofu and Broccoli, brown rice and quinoa, pineapple, roasted butternut squash

I substituted broccoli for the asparagus called for in the recipe (because the kids actually eat broccoli), and added a lot more—two 14 ounce bags of florets. I also doubled the sauce to make sure there was enough. The butternut squash wasn’t on the menu to begin with, but I had gotten a bag of cubed squash from Trader Joe’s to make risotto last week and only used half, and I decided to use it up while it was still good. I just sprinkled it with some cinnamon and nutmeg, sprayed it with some cooking spray and mixed it up a bit, then tossed it in the oven where I was roasting the tofu and broccoli already. The kids liked this, which is fantastic!



Wednesday: Fried rice/quinoa, made with tofu and chopped veggies, plus Island teriyaki sauce

I know, that is two nights of vaguely Chinese tofu and rice dishes in a row. Originally this was supposed to be Thursday’s dinner, but my friend Andrea is coming over tonight, and she will appreciate the original Wednesday menu more than the kids will, so I did a switcheroo.



Thursday: Chilaquiles casserole, hot sauce glazed tempeh, steamed sweet potatoes

I am hoping that if I steam a bunch of sweet potatoes, the kids will take some in their lunches. They actually like sweet potatoes. I am really trying to get more veggies in their lunches, because they cannot eat enough at dinner to cover a full day’s supply, and that is where they eat most of their veggies now. Oh, and I personally am really excited about the hot-sauce glazed tempeh! I am thinking of making a double batch so that I have leftovers for a long time.



Friday: pizza, baby carrots, green smoothies

I don’t think the girl is going to be excited about the green smoothies, but the boy will! And everything goes better with pizza, at least around here.

I haven't really thought through the weekend, but I have plenty of stuff around the house.  I am going to so some more planning this weekend.  I would like to avoid going to the grocery store until payday on the 19th.  I could buy groceries (although not many!), but I want to try to use up what I have and see how creative I can be.  I suspect there will be at least a short trip to the store for fresh fruit and veggies, but I am going to see what I can do with what I have first.

Using up the garden: Various saved up pictures and meals

wwwI have been cooking and using the garden produce, but I haven’t had a lot of blogging time to post about it, so this post is just going to be a mishmash of what I have available. First, pizza!


Here are two mini-pizzas with some chopped Anaheim chilis and basil leaves from the garden, along with some chopped mushrooms from the fridge:

  

And here they are out of the oven with Trader Joe’s sausage-less Italian sausage and Daiya mozzarella added to the top:

The next day, I used the rest of the basil I had picked to make some awesome, garlicy pesto. I didn’t really follow a recipe for it, I just added a bunch of washed basil leaves to the food processor along with some minced garlic, nutritional yeast and pine nuts, then streamed in some extra virgin olive oil while pureeing. So good! I used a little of it to mix with tomato sauce for some more mini-pizzas, but I didn’t take a picture of those.

I decided to use a bunch of the pesto to try and recreate a veganized version of the pesto cavatippi dish I like to get from Noodles & Company. Every once in a while I get this dish without the cream or added Paremesan, and it is so good. I am sure that there is some more parmesan in their pesto, but I try not to think about it, because I do love me some pesto. But, I thought I could surely do better at home with my fresh pesto, and looking at the nutritional info on the Noodles site, I think mine has to be better on some of those categories as well (particularly because mine has no cholesterol or saturated fats!)

Anyway, here is the picture:

And here is what I did:

Olive oil, 1-2 TBSP
1 pound of tofu, cut into small-ish squares
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 onion, diced
1 or 2 Anaheim chilis, diced (frankly, I am not certain about this one, but I have been adding them to everything--Marsha gave me some extras, in addition to the ones I have still growing outside, so I probably added these)
1 pound of whole wheat pasta (rotini is what I had on hand)
About half a cup of pesto, maybe more (I didn’t really measure, sorry!)
3 - 4 cups baby spinach

Start boiling the water for the pasta. Fry the tofu in the olive oil until browned on at least one side. I did this slowly, over medium-high heat, while I chopped the other veggies and chatted with my mom. This is one of those things that just takes some time, and you don’t want to stir too much, which is one of the hardest tasks for me. Add the pasta to the water in the other pot as soon as it is boiling. Once the tofu is browned on at least one side, addethe onions, mushrooms, and chilis. Gently fry all the veggies with the tofu, stirring occasionally. When the pasta is cooked al dente, ladle out a cup or so of the pasta water to add to the sauce, then drain the pasta.

What I did next, versus what I think will work better next time:

Actually did: Add the pasta to the skillet with the tofu and veggies, then add in the pesto and the reserved pasta water. Stir to mix, then add baby spinach in handfuls, covering to let the spinach wilt, then stirring and adding more until the spinach is all incorporated.

Next time I will: Add the pasta water and pesto to the skillet with the tofu and veggies, stirring to make a slightly thinned out pesto sauce, adding enough liquid to make it saucy, but not so much as to make it too thin. Add the pasta to the skillet, stir to combine, and then start adding the spinach a few handfuls at a time.

I also added a bit of Trader Joe’s everyday seasoning to this, because I add that to a lot of things these days. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby, or you don’t want to use a seasoned salt, Mrs. Dash salt-free seasonings are a good substitute.

I meant to add some cherry tomatoes to the skillet right before the pasta was added, so that they would cook down some but not completely lose their shape, but I totally forgot. That would make it more like the restaurant dish, as would a bit of wine, but I forgot that, too. Next time, I will probably add a little bit of wine with the pesto, maybe half a cup of Pinot Grigio.

I still have just a little of the pesto left, but I am not sure what I am going to do with that yet.

The rest of the season in basil:

• Mostly, I just went out before cooking many, many things and got a small handful of fresh basil leaves to add to the dish. 
• I did make the Sweet-Basil Tapenade from Veganomicon for my birthday open house, but I forgot to put it out, :-(. I ate some of it after the party, though, and it was a mixed success. I have been using the Grade B maple syrup lately for it’s richer maple taste, and that may have been a bit too much for the tapenade--I suspect it was supposed to be mostly pesto-y with some sweetness, but it was very sweet and maple-y, just a little too much. I may try again next year with some Grade A maple syrup, or less syrup or something. 
• Like the mint, I should have been using more of this earlier. Although I did use basil a lot when it was growing strong (I don’t think there was a week that went by once it was coming in that I didn’t use it two or more times per week in recipes), I could have used a lot more when it was growing back in almost as fast as I picked it. I could probably have made a big batch of pesto every week and popped it in the freezer without noticing a decrease in the amount of basil I had available for other uses. 
• Next year, I want to try basil lemonade, like the mint and lavender lemonades that I made this yea

In other news, I still have a lot of greens to use. For brunch last weekend, I made the Collard Greens and Sausage recipe from Vegan Brunch, although I used turnip and mustard greens, mostly. It was really good, although I think I could have cooked it a bit longer. Doesn’t it look pretty, though?

I made pumpkin pancakes and cranberry ginger sauce from Vegan Bruch as well to go with, along with hash browns. Such a yummy, nutritious and filling brunch!

I have a LOT of parsley out in the garden. I cannot believe how well that herb is still growing. I gather that it is supposed to be biennial, but it never died off this summer, and it is still going strong out there. I think I am going to ask a friend to let me use her dehydrator to preserve the rest of it soon, because I don’t want to just let it die, but I am not sure what else to do with large quantities of the stuff. Another thing to research for next year.

Here is a mostly non-garden dish, with some pretty parsley sprinkled on top:

The garden is mostly done for the year. I have a few Anaheim chilis, and some turnips and beets to dig up, along with all the parsley, but my days of going out to pick dinner ingredients are numbered. I still have a big adventure figuring out what to do with all the turnips that are coming in, but for the most part, the work and preserving food is finished. I think I did pretty well this year, barring the time when I was broken and couldn’t do much. I am feeling pretty good about expanding the garden next year, and now I just need to start planning what I want to do with all the extra space. Also, I want to review these posts about what I did this year and what I want to do differently next year, along with some research for new things I can do next year to make sure I grow what I want and preserve it well. I have a few things that I will carry into the winter months this year, but not many. Next year, I would like to do a bit more preserving for long term. So, I don’t have to stop obsessing about the garden after all, even though this season is ending! That is a post for another day, though.

Using up the garden: turnip greens, garlic, Anaheim chilis

One of my favorite ways to use up veggies is to add extra veggies to a likely looking recipe. I think most recipes are improved by adding more veggies, with improved taste and definitely superior nutrition! I found a couple of good candidates for this treatment when I was deciding what to make for dinner last night.

First, I have been trying to make more soups, to get more veggies into our diet, and now that I am working at home, I can actually use my crockpot (which really irks me--all the recipes have 8 hour or less cooking times, which is too short for the days that I got to the office), so I went to my copy of Robin Robertson’s Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, and found this awesome recipe for French White Bean and Cabbage Soup.

I mostly followed the recipe, but the biggest change I made was to add a bunch of veggies. Marsha brought me some extra veggies last week, including some red bell peppers and one last zucchini. My zucchini plant died long ago, but they had one more plant that reseeded itself and produced a few late squash. So, I chopped those up and added them to the skillet for the intial sauté. Here is a picture of the veggies waiting to be softened (except the garlic):

As you can probably tell, I sliced up some baby carrots, rather than using a big carrot. I like to buy those for the kids lunches and fast cream of carrot soup. I also substituted 8 fingerling potatoes, some golden and some red, sliced thinly, for the Yukon Gold potato, and I added just a bit more thyme than the recipe called for, because I love thyme. I did not add the liquid smoke, because I can never seem to find that in the store. Here’s my bowl of the finished product:

For the main dish, I found this awesome recipe on the Vegetarian Times website. These days, I am always looking for recipes for greens, both because they are so healthy, and because I have a bunch of turnip greens in the garden that I want to use. Again, I mostly followed the recipe, but I did add an Anaheim chili to the onions and garlic. I also added a whole can of tomato sauce and water to make the full liquid amount, since I was out of veg stock, and a lot of extra garlic. I meant to add some baby spinach at the end, but after running to the Halloween store, then Target, then back to the Halloween store, then to Trader Joe’s, where I bought soy sausage, but forgot to buy more veg stock, I was feeling a bit frantic at the end of the cooking time, and I totally forgot. Next time. Here is my plate of this dish:

Predictably, the boy liked both dishes--he helped with the greens and sausage--but the girl was not a huge fan. I am going to wear her down eventually, I know.

Other things I have done lately with turnip greens and Anaheim chilis:

Tofu scramble: I used the recipe from Vegan Brunch, adding the chili with the onions in the beginning, and the greens near the end of the cooking time

This Yummy Yam curry: This did call for greens, but really, there aren’t many recipes that I don’t find suitable for a nice mild chili or pepper.

In which I care about my health

Did you know that, regardless of how much time you spend exercising, sitting too much makes you less healthy? If you exercise for an hour every day, but spend the majority of the remaining time sitting down, your health outcomes are not that much different than those of a couch potato.


So, standing in the kicthen making sugar syrup, transferring my lemon peel infused vodka to a bigger jar, and mixing in the sugar syrup and more vodka today was clearly done because I care about my health! Now I just need to get some more sugar so that I can move my mint liqueur to the next step, too. You know, because I care about my health so much.

Using up the garden: butternut squash, thyme and garlic

I got two butternut squashes out of my garden this year. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but last year I had a big long vine with lots of flowers and no squash at all, so I was pretty thrilled with these two. Of course, they were ready to pick while my hand was broken, so I couldn’t really do anything with them—they are hard to cut! But, they also last a while, so it was not a problem.

I am feeling a lot better these days, and I have been having some success with chopping when I use my left hand to stabilize the knife and apply some of the cutting pressure. When I was trying to decide what to do with those beautiful butternuts, I was thinking about how much we have been enjoying risotto lately. The kids will eat a lot of things if they are in risotto, and I find it very relaxing to stand there with a glass of wine and stir for 25 minutes or so.

I based my recipe loosely on this one from Food Network, but only as a starting point. I didn’t get a picture, but it was very pretty. I made sure to show the kids the red saffron that would turn our risotto yellow. I love that kind of thing. It’s the chemistry of cooking! (That is why I used to be so obsessed with fudge, back when I wasn’t vegan. I need to find some good vegan fudge recipes. Not that this has anything to do with risotto.)

Saffron Butternut Squash Risotto

1 medium squash (maybe 1 ½ - 2 pounds)

Halve the squash and remove the seeds. Peel the squash and chop into small, bite-size chunks. I put them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, sprayed with a little cooking spray, and tossed with a little bit of Everyday Seasoning, which is a seasoned salt from Trader Joe’s. I put those in a 400 degree oven and got started on the rest.

6 cups veggie broth
4 sprigs fresh thyme, fresh from the garden

I put this in a pot on the back of the stove, and warmed it up, then turned the heat down to low.

1 medium onion, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 TBSP olive oil
1TBSP Earth Balance

Melt the butter and olive oil together in a skillet, then sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add:

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

Stir to make sure that the rice is coated with the butter/olive oil mixture. Add:

½ cup dry white wine

Pour a glass of wine for the cook to sip while stirring. You have to open the bottle anyway! Stir the wine into the rice, and continue cooking until the wine is fully absorbed. Add two ladles full of the warmed broth, along with:

1 tsp saffron
Several twists of the Everyday seasoning

Then, it’s all about the stirring. Add more broth as the rice absorbs the broth already in the pan. During this time, make sure to keep an eye on the squash in the oven. When it is roasted to perfection (25 – 30 minutes), remove it from the oven and set aside while you finish the risotto. When about two thirds of the broth was incorporated into the rice, I started adding some baby spinach as well, a handful at a time. I don’t have a measurement on this one, I just kept adding spinach until there was lots of green in the dish. When all of the broth was incorporated, I turned off the heat and added:

¾ cup nutritional yeast

Wow, this made the risotto so creamy and rich tasting! The final step is to add the roasted squash.

Everyone loved this. My mom thought it was fantastic and even the kids ate the spinach without much complaining. I will probably do something different with the other squash from the garden, but we will definitely have this risotto again with store-bought squash.