I’ve Got One, You’ve Got One

January was all about eating tried-and-true favorites, like tofu stir fry with peanut sauce:

One of my favorite soups – Moroccan-Style chickpea and lentil from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker:

By mid-January, a month after returning from Italy, I was ready for pasta again, my way. I made my own chunky tomato sauce over a small portion of whole-wheat pasta, with spinach and mushrooms and a salad:

I split the tomato sauce in half and turned half into tomato soup. Goes well with a Rice Vegan grilled cheese:

Now that it’s the end of the month, I’m coming out of hiatus and getting ready to try new things. Like going to a pond hockey game downtown. Standing in the cold for 45 minutes wasn’t much fun, but these minor league hockey players were having a great time. And when one team got to an early lead, the mascot blocked their goal.

After watching some of the game Saturday night, we headed to Honey, a restaurant we’ve been to a few times. It’s a special-occasion kind of place. We thought that arriving around 8 would help our odds of getting a table quickly, but instead we sat at the bar for a long while, munching on fries. There are rumors that the restaurant is closed or will be closing, but it was packed when we were there.

No, the bucket is not filled to the bottom. These fries are good – tiny shoestrings of three kinds of potato. By the time the fries arrived, we were ready to eat. I had one of those moments where I was happy to be with Alex: there was a couple sitting next to us and neither of them touched the fries they ordered. I think they were on an early date. I’m not certain if I was ever a shy eater, but I think there have been plenty of times when I was shy. Saturday night was not one of those nights.

My photo of my entrée makes it look unappetizing, and it wasn’t – it’s actually what I’ve gotten each time we’ve dined there. It’s soft tofu in a crispy basil crust on top of green beans and a root vegetable puree, with coconut milk sauce. The portion of tofu seems to be shrinking, but it’s still generous.

Sunday night we did something else new – we went to The Comet for bluegrass night. I’m not a bluegrass aficionado, but the band was good and enthusiastic. The food was pretty good, too. They serve a small menu with burritos, tacos, and quesadillas. I got a jerked tofu burrito, which included rice, black beans, salsa, and tofu. The prices are low and the portions are hearty. I think I ate 3/4 right away, and nibbled on the rest as I sipped various IPAs the rest of the night.

The bar got really crowded even 45 minutes before the band started, and I noticed an acquaintance standing around with no place to sit. Okay, someone I’ve met precisely twice. I went up to him and he had no idea who I was, but he was happy to take me up on the offer to come sit with us. I have a decent memory for faces and names, but it’s new to me to be friendly like that.

One other new thing I did was make a dessert. I’ve been wanting to make Hummingbird Cake (evidently also called Dr. Bird Cake, as I learned from a co-worker). This is a dense, moist cake, made with banana and crushed pineapple, with pecans and cinnamon. This turned out wonderfully, although it was maybe denser than it would normally be. I used flax eggs and my banana was frozen and then thawed, so either of those could be the culprit. The frosting was delicious, though – Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese makes a great cream cheese frosting!

One more new thing – I’m in a new decade! Yes, that is my birthday cake. I turned 30 on Sunday, can you believe it?

Reinventing Leftovers

I typically eat a lot of leftovers. I rarely eat sandwiches or go out for lunch. But sometimes, I want something different from more of the same.

I had extra rice and portabellas from last night’s veggie roast, and also s small batch of frozen cannellini beans after I used most of them in soup last week.

Lunch: wrap with bean dip made with cannellini beans and sundried tomatoes, raw red bell pepper, carrot, lettuce, and leftover rice and corn.

Dinner: roasted asparagus and portabella cap, topped with Daiya.

This concludes your daily MoFo.

Unrelated, I took saw some deer from my window. I hope these guys are okay tonight.

Black Bean and Portabella Enchiladas

I love enchiladas. I used to be turned off by the texture of the sauce-logged tortillas, but somehow it’s grown on me. That might be a product of what I’m putting in them these days, though. I used a recipe I found online a while ago and that I’ve reworked and adapted so many times that this time I cooked from memory.

Not the most photogenic meal, but a good one!

Although they fell apart when I served them, these enchiladas are corn tortillas stuffed with onion, green bell pepper, portabella, and black beans, and topped with enchilada sauce. I used a whole (small) can of diced green chiles. Yikes, this was hot – I just about halved the recipe but I used the whole amount of chiles. What was I going to do, save them? Next time, yes! I had to cool my plate with shredded iceberg and more Tofutti Better than Sour Cream than I’d like to admit.

I cut the recipe in half because it makes enough for a 13x9 full of enchiladas just using one onion, 1-2 portabellas, and 1 can of black beans, with enough filling left over to scatter across the top. That means I still have leftovers. And these guys get hotter in the refrigerator! I find this heat so much harder to handle than sriracha or red pepper flakes.

Sandwiches and Basil Spread

Last summer, I grew basil. Though I’ve never been a gardener and it’s not something my immediate family does, I find myself around more and more gardeners. This year, I’m trying to expand. Peer pressure! So far, besides my cilantro (which died when I went out of town for three hot, rainless days), basil has been my biggest success.

After I snipped off a bunch of basil

What to do with so much basil? Of course I have a few standby recipes that use it – otherwise I wouldn’t bother growing my own – but I looked through my cookbooks to find an interesting recipe for my basil. Maybe a pesto or something. Ah-ha, I made the Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade from Venganomicon.

This is basil, garlic, walnuts, maple syrup, olive oil, and a little lemon zest all whipped together in the food processor.

I’ve been eating it on toast, or in sandwiches. It’s sweet and packs a flavor punch with all that basil. My favorite way to enjoy it, though, has been in a sandwich stuffed with other things too. Here’s a pocket with a leftover piece of broiled tofu and a slice of roasted eggplant along with the basil spread.

Mystery Ingredient: Scallions

Sometimes it’s easy to use all the produce in my bi-weekly bin. Sometimes it’s difficult, mostly if it seems like everything is only going to last a few days or if I have plans to go out while I’m overloaded with goodies at home. Other times, though, I’m simply not sure what to do with the veggies I get.

This past week, I got scallions and snow peas. Is the answer obvious? Maybe, but it was tastier than I expected it to be.

We use scallions often enough: in pad thai, on taco night, with frittata or tofu scramble. I typically only use snow peas in stir fries, but for this meal I intentionally kept things simple and made the snow peas central item.

I cooked a few diced carrots and the snow peas and added some fresh ginger and lemongrass from a tube I have on hand in the fridge, plus some soy sauce. Then I added some frozen corn and the leftover brown basmati rice from my dinner earlier in the week. After the corn and rice were warmed, I added the scallions and tossed to cook them slightly. These were such a nice touch of mild onion flavor. Voila! A nice meal from leftovers and orphaned veggies.

Colcannon

Sunday morning, I heard some talk on the radio about Irish food, the nutritional worth of potatoes, and colcannon. Colcannon is mashed potatoes with greens, anything from kale to broccoli, along with plenty of milk and butter. I’d been craving some greens anyway, so I was eager to make this dish with potatoes and kale. I've mentioned before how much I love potatoes. After eating out for the past few days and spending the others eating leftovers or simple casseroles, I was ready to have my own fresh, nice winter dinner.

I looked at a few different colcannon recipes, and I ended up using the one right off The Splendid Table website from the story that piqued my interest. As usual, I made substitutions for the dairy and cut the portions. This was pretty good, but I think I’d rather have kale and mashed potatoes separately. Or maybe I’d try it again with broccoli.

This also took me three pots: one for steaming the potatoes, one for sautéing the kale, and one for simmering the cashew milk and mashing everything together. If I hadn’t used a small pot for the potatoes, I guess I could have gotten by with two.

Colcannon: potatoes, kale, scallions, Earth Balance, and cashew milk.

Served with roasted cauliflower and tofu. I followed Honey’s example and left the tofu in a large block, and I had half a head of cauliflower left over from this soup.

Pantry Vegetable Soup

After a week of meals high in calories and eating out multiple times, I was ready for something healthy, homemade, and cheap earlier this week. I made some pretty good vegetable soup with Thanksgiving leftovers and frozen vegetables I had on hand. To make this even easier, I used the Crock Pot and it cooked while I was working.

Not the prettiest dish, but comforting and delicious.

I used a large can of crushed tomatoes, filtered water, and nutritional yeast for broth. I seasoned this only with sea salt and bay leaf. I diced up a yellow onion, some celery, and a few small potatoes (all left over from Thanksgiving recipes) and cooked them in the Crock Pot for a couple of hours on high. Once those were pretty soft, I added frozen lima beans and frozen green beans. That's it! Normally some corn or okra is a tasty addition, but I didn't have any. I think Alex is happy that I omitted the okra.

Semi-Homemade, or a Product Review: Pacific Onion Soup

I have some definite favorite ready-made, pre-packaged foods. Most of my favorites come from Trader Joe's. Other things I've bought have been real flops -- including some things from TJ's! I had no idea how this was going to turn out, but Alex loved it. He has a greater love for French Onion Soup than I do. I thought it was pretty good, and certainly easy.

I picked up this Pacific Natural Foods Organic French Onion Soup when I saw that it was beef-free. The carton had been waiting in the cabinet for the perfect moment for soup, and the time had finally come. With the leftover Gruyere from the mushroom tart and the leftover bread from the briami, I could make a crouton and have cheesy French Onion Soup.

This is the never-ending bag of cheese, which I find fitting since it was so expensive!

I dolled this up by caramelizing some thinly sliced onions in the soup pot, then warming the pre-made soup in the same pot.

I had already left two slices of bread in the oven after it was turned off from something else I'd been cooking, so the bread was toasted. Alex piled cheese on the toast slices and broiled them. We popped the toast on top of the soup and enjoyed an easy tweaked soup supper.

Clean out your fridge frittata

Dealing with leftovers is one of the biggest differences between cooking at home and eating out. Sure, eating in may be less expensive because you have so much food left over, both as the prepared dish as well as the individual ingredients. Maybe part of this is that I'm always cooking for two.

I've only started making frittata this summer, but it's super easy and a good way to eat some eggs. Personally, I don't care much for eggs, but Alex likes them, so we eat them. I can stomach them best when they're cooked thoroughly -- not soft at all -- and mixed in with other stuff. I'm still experimenting with what can go in it. So, we have some eggs in the fridge and an assortment of veggies and cheese, and I threw it together into a frittata. The result? An impressed husband and a good meal.


I used a shallot left over from the no-cream creamed spinach; a whole tomato I'd bought because it looked so good; the leftover Parmesan from the second run of Portobello Parmesan; and half a green bell pepper I just had in the fridge. I love, love, love cooked tomatoes. I mixed it all up with 6 eggs and a little salt & pepper, poured everything into a buttered (okay, margarined) casserole dish, and baked at 400F for 25 minutes. Voila -- leftover magic!

Sidenote: now, whenever I eat eggs, I think of the chickens wearing homemade sweaters I heard about on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. The story about the sweaters took a turn away from the chickens when Mo Rocca insisted that homemade sweaters were itchy; however, what struck me was the poor less-than-cooped up chickens stressing and losing feathers. And the solution -- make them sweaters? Huh?