Cucumber 'Fish Scales'

I've been having a bit of fun using slices of cucumber as fish scales. Here are a couple of fun meals I've made for SchmoopBoy over the past few weeks.

Mermaid (or is it Medusa with that hair? ;)

The mermaid's head and body is a freehand cutout from a slice of toast. Carrots make her top, as well as her hair. For the face there are raisin eyes, a red bell pepper mouth, and a small toast triangle nose. The tail, of course, is sliced cucumber.

Tropical Fish

The fish body is a large slice off an apple, almost a half. The fins and tail are each thirds of a cheese quesadilla. A carrot slice is the eye, and a grape tomato cut in half forms the mouth. I only made cucumber scales for the tail this time.

Operation Increase Recipe Repertoire

I've started a new initiative at home. I've been getting a bit bored and stale with my current repertoire of go-to dinner meals. I've got a ridiculous number of cook books that hadn't been getting much use. So, I decided that I was going to try at east one new recipe a week from one of my many cook books. I was planning on turning each trial into a blog post, complete with pictures and reviews. You can see where that went. Nowhere, fast.

Nonetheless I am pleased to say that after almost a month, I do have a couple new recipes that I will be happy to turn to again and again.

The Chickpea Cutlets in Veganomicon are yummy and fun to make with SchmoopyBoy's assistance. As fantastic as the food in this cookbook is, I haven't been using it much recently only because many of the recipes are very labor and time intensive. The chickpea cutlets recipe is really quite easy and fast. I've made them twice. On a related note, there are two recipes for vegan ricotta in Veganomicon. They are both fabulous. I used the almond based ricotta recipe in a lasagna a couple weeks ago, which turned out delicious! The next time I make it I'll try to remember to take pictures and post the recipe.

Also, the Seitan and Mushroom Stroganoff in Vegan Vittles is fantastic. I understand this cookbook is out of print, but you can get a copy used from Amazon. I got my copy as a gift from a co-worker just before Lil' Schmoo was born.  nom nom nom, so good.

Last weekend the husband broke down and bought a Vitamix. We got it for 20% off (which equates to a discount of $100, these things aren't cheap). It is actual great purchase, we use that thing every day. Seriously. Every day. But then again we used our old blender virtually every day too. What can I say, we like smoothies in our household. Anyway, the Vitamix came with its own recipe book and I've tried a few recipes, including Blueberry Soy Sherbet. What fun to make our own sorbet and sherbet! The recipe in the book was actually for peach soy sherbet, but we didn't have any frozen peaches, just frozen blueberries and frozen strawberries. The recipe said you can substitute any kind of frozen fruit, and SchmoopyBoy chose blueberry, so there you go.

I'll try to update our recipe expanding adventures again soon. Until then, happy eating!

Tempeh Vegetable Taco Filling

This recipe is based on the Tempeh-Vegetable Enchilada recipe from the book, The 30-Minute Vegan. I haven't tried the recipe as it appears in the book, as I didn't have all the ingredients on hand. This experiment turned out pretty well. It is fairly adaptable too, depending on what veggies you happen to have available. I think zucchini or cauliflower or spinach would be pretty good additions/trade-ins.

Ingredients
8 ounces tempeh
1/2 red onion
1/2 green pepper
1/2 red pepper
1/2-1 cup broccoli
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp thyme
2 tbsp braggs liquid aminos or soy sauce
1/2 tsp agave nectar
salt and pepper to taste
tortillas (6-8)
optional toppings - avocado, cucumber, tomato, cheese (dairy or vegan)


Directions
Dice the onions and peppers. Chop the broccoli florets and stems into small pieces. Chop or crush the garlic. Crumble the tempeh.

Heat the coconut oil in a large pan. Add the onion and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the veggies, the tempeh, and the garlic. Saute for a couple more minutes. Add the liquid aminos, spices, and agave nectar and saute until the veggies are done to your liking.

Heat the tortillas and spoon the filling in. I added some grated cheese, chopped cucumber, and avocado to my tacos.

Vegan Banana Matzo Brei Recipe

 I've been trying to figure out a way to include the vegan husband in the yumminess and festivity of "traditional" Passover foods.This experiment turned out pretty well. The recipe is based on the banana french toast recipe in The McDougall Quick and Easy Cookbook.

I only had about one and a half pieces of matzo left in my stash, so this recipe is only for one (although the husband, SchoopyBoy and I all shared the small portion). It does lend itself quite easily to doubling or quadrupling. I made this recipe pancake-style, but I think it could work scrambled style too. Also, as usual, I didn't really measure the cinnamon or vanilla, so the amounts are approximations. My apologies, I am a Jewish mother after all, so gawd-forbid I should actually make precise measurements in my cooking. ;)


Ingredients

1/2 banana
1/4 cup nondairy milk (I used soy milk)
~1/8 tsp vanilla
generous sprinkle cinnamon
1 1/2 pieces matzo

Instructions

1. Break the matzo into small pieces in a bowl and fill with water until the matzo is covered.
2. While the matzo is soaking, combine the remaining ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and thick.
3. Drain the water from the matzo. Pour the banana mixture over the wet matzo and stir to combine.
4. Heat a pan on the stove and pour a little oil in. When the pan and oil are hot, scoop the matzo mixture with a spoon into pancakes.
5. Let cook for a few minutes and turn to cook on the other side for a few minutes more.
6. Done!

cooking in the pan

the finished product, golden brown

The banana and vanilla make these sweet enough that you really don't need any additional syrup or other sweetener. That being said, a little agave nectar drizzled over them enhanced the sweetness of the banana flavor quite nicely.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Clusters

I heard about this recipe through the Alisa Cooks website, although you can find her recipe here listed as Addictive Double Chocolate Granola Bars at the Attune Foods site.

I used Go Raw brand chocolate granola, peanut butter, and dairy-free semisweet chocolate chips as my variations, and put the mixture into lightly greased mini-muffin tins - thus I have renamed them Chocolate Peanut Butter Granola Clusters. The size is perfect for a preschooler-friendly treat, and between the raw granola and peanut butter, this a guilt-free nutrient-dense delight for everyone in the family (baby excepted, of course).

Forgive the blurry picture. With the gaping hole you can tell we devoured most of them in short time. :)















Super fast and easy to make. This one's a keeper.

Yummy Octopus

I was talking to SchmoopyBoy about dinner, and he told me he wanted to eat an octopus. (Don't ask, I have no idea.) So, I made him an octopus for dinner.

Cucumber body/head, raisin eyes stuck on the head with short pieces of skewers, and 8 fried tofu tentacles all on a bed of couscous. (Please excuse the mess around the plate, I had a hungry kiddo so I didn't take the time to clean my workspace.)

How I got my kid to eat kale

Kale Chips!

I don't know what took me so long to try these. I've heard about kale chips for quite some time. They sounded intriguing and easy to make. Just do an internet search for kale chips and you'll find oodles of recipes. Here's what I did:

Baked Kale Chips

1 small bunch of kale
2 tbsp olive oil
sea salt

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. Optional - Line a cookie sheet with foil for easier clean-up. Wash the kale. Cut or tear the kale off the thick stems in "chip-size" pieces and arrange on the cookie sheet. Dribble the olive oil over the kale and toss to coat. Generously sprinkle sea salt over the kale. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

All the recipes I found said to bake until the edges of the kale were brown. I first tried 10 minutes and it looked like they weren't done yet. So I put them in for another 5 minutes and a lot of the kale along the sides of the sheet were burnt. I'm thinking about 12 minutes would have been about right. I recommend checking every couple of minutes after 10 to make sure they are cooked to your satisfaction but not completely brown.

Here's a picture of my chips cooling. You can see the ones on the edges are completely brown and overcooked. The brown ones aren't bad, but the greener ones are definitely better.


How they were received by my 3-year old
SchmoopyBoy is going through a period where he's pretty much been avoiding all cooked vegetables except corn on the cob. Most of the time pretty much the only veggies he will eat are plain raw carrots, cucumber and occasionally peas. As much as I'm all in favor of him eating fresh raw vegetables, there's not a lot of variety in the mix. I keep putting whatever veggies I've cooked on his plate, just to eat them myself when he is done with his meal. I do know that he likes to snack on chips on occasion when we have them. So when out of the blue I offered him chips, he was all excited. That is, until he looked at his plate and saw green crinkly things. His face was very skeptical. I think I did a pretty good job of selling them, if I do say so myself. "Look! They're green! We get to eat green chips today! Isn't that fun?" All it took was one bite and they were declared "Mmm, yummy!" with a bright smile.

This one is a keeper.

The awesomeness of fresh blackberries

I'm not talking about handheld electronic devices here. Nor am I talking about the containers of berries that you can buy at the grocery store. I'm talking "picked that morning at the farm" fresh blackberries. Holy sweet yumminess, batman! I had no idea blackberries could be this good!

I tell you, I love my local CSA farm more and more as time goes on. This week we got 2 glorious packages of blackberries. One of them was polished off with little fanfare - no recipes, no jams, no tarts - just pick them up, pop them in your mouth, and wash your purple fingers after the nom nom frenzy.

I did use part of the second package in an impromptu smoothie, which was so good I thought I'd share. Double bonus - I was able to use up an over ripe banana that no one wanted to eat on its own as well as some of SchmoopyBoy's left over yogurt. Unfortunately there are no pictures because I pretty much inhaled the glass as soon as it hit my lips. So good.

Banana Blackberry Smoothie

1 very ripe banana
1/2 cup fresh blackberries
3/4 cup milk (or milk substitute, I used soymilk)
1/3-1/2 carton banana strawberry coconut milk yogurt

Throw all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Note: Unless you have an unusually long tongue, you can't lick the blender clean, however much you may want to. Not that I tried or anything, just saying...

A tale of mac n' cheese

When I was growing up, I had no idea that macaroni and cheese could be made any other way than out of a box. No idea. And I was quite fond of my boxed mac n’ cheese. When I moved away from home I ate it for dinner at least twice a week. I’m not kidding. Sometimes I varied things up a bit and added some spaghetti sauce or a can of tuna fish (this in my non-vegetarian days). Sure it was economical, especially in my low-budget college days, but I actually was quite happy to continue to get my multiple times a week processed powdered macaroni fix even after I got my corporate finance job and enough money to easily afford more expensive fare.

Then I took up house with this vegan guy. Making two dinners at night was not anything I was interested in pursuing long term, so I sacrificed my boxed mac n’ cheese and started looking for an alternative we both could eat. I tried boxed vegan mac n’ “cheese”. Dreadful stuff. Not worth buying IMHO.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to discover the best vegan made-from-scratch macaroni and cashew "cheese” recipe ever. Serously. Best Ever. Obviously it doesn’t have any cheese in it. It is fabulously delicious, however, better than most macaroni and dairy cheeses I have eaten. Creamy, hearty, and I altered the recipe just enough so it meets my “30-minutes or less for dinner, start to finish” rule. I have been meaning to share the recipe, and I promise I’ll eventually get around to it.

Anyway, so about a week or so ago I was grocery shopping and decided, what the heck, I’ll buy a box of powdered processed macaroni and cheese. There are plenty of times I’m at home with SchmoopyBoy alone and could use a fast and convenient meal option.

This last Monday, I had my opportunity to try it out. The new semester began on Monday and the husband started his new photography class. I was admittedly feeling a bit lazy so a made the box of mac and cheese and a salad.

Wow, have my tastes changed. I am so spoiled by good, high quality whole foods. It was virtually inedible. Truly, absolutely awful. But being hungry, lazy, and hating to waste “food”, I forced myself to eat it. The only way I could stand it was to chop up a bunch of cherry tomatoes and include a piece of tomato in every bite.

SchmoopyBoy took one bite, made a face, declared it “yucky” and would not touch it again. He ate apples and sunflower seeds for dinner, and nibbled a bit on some bell peppers in the salad.

Maybe I shouldn’t share my fabulously delicious macaroni and cashew “cheese” recipe. It might spoil you too, rendering you unable to consume the convenient, cheap, and easy boxed mac n cheese of my youth. Wouldn’t that be a travesty?

Alphabet Vegetable Soup

Now that winter is here I've been all about hot soup. This one turned out pretty good and I haven't posted a recipe in a while, so I thought I'd share. This recipe is so versatile, you could use any vegetables you happen to have on hand. You can also use a different type of pasta, or substitute the lentils for garbanzo beans. The possibilities are endless! Here is the version pictured.

Alphabet Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
32 ounces broth (I used a box of Imagine brand low sodium vegetable broth)
2 stalks celery
2 carrots
1/4-1/2 red onion
1 cup cauliflower
1/2 large zucchini
1 can lentils
about 1/3 cup uncooked alphabet pasta
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp basil
1 bay leaf
juice from 1/2 lime
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Chop all the vegetables into bite sized pieces. In a large pot, saute the onion, celery, and carrots in a little oil or broth. I added the cauliflower after a couple of minutes so it would cook faster. When the onions are translucent and the celery and carrot slightly softened, add the remaining vegetables and the broth. Add the thyme, basil, bay leaf and lime juice.

In order to save time, I put a separate pot of water to boil and cooked my pasta according to the directions. If you have more time, you can just add the pasta to your soup pot after the vegetables are cooked.

Let the soup pot simmer until the vegetables are cooked - about 15-20 minutes. If you are cooking the noodles in the soup pot, add them now and let them cook.

Drain and rinse the lentils. Add the lentils to the soup. If you cooked the noodles separately, add the cooked noodles now too. Add pepper and salt to taste. Simmer for a couple of minutes to heat the lentils through and allow all the flavors to mix.

Pour in bowls and serve with some yummy hearty bread!


Bonus dinnertime activity - SchmoopyBoy had a great time picking out the letters and we figured out words that started with each letter.

This post is linked up with Vegetarian Foodie Fridays!

Recipe Review - Yummy stuff other people created

I haven't been experimenting much with new recipes of my own design lately, but I have been trying out a number of recipes I found online. Here are a few that I particularly enjoyed over the last couple of weeks.

First off we have Pesto Hummus from Debbi Does Dinner... Healthy and Low Calorie

I know what you're probably thinking. Pesto AND Hummus?! If it sounds like a winning formula for

Yum + Yum = Super Yum

you are absolutely right. I left the consistency kind of thick, more like a sandwich spread than a creamy dip. I never made it to the sandwich though. Once I tried it with a couple of crackers I couldn't stop eating it long enough to bother with the rest of the sandwich fixings.

Next, there was Golden Gazpacho by Real Simple Recipes.

I know it's not really the season for cold soups any more, but there have still been lots of heirloom tomatoes in my local store begging to be used up so I couldn't resist. This was one simple, quick and easy recipe. SchmoopyBoy was happy to help out with this recipe. (Well, he enjoys helping with any recipe that involves the blender, but I digress.) My only modifications were leaving out the feta and prosciutto or salami to make it vegan-friendly for the hubs. I actually would have been happy to add feta to my bowl, but I didn't have any, and I honestly thought it was good enough without it. Look how beautiful it turned out.


Last but not least, dessert! Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Muffins by Happy Herbivore.

You wouldn't think that chocolate ad zucchini would go so well together, but they totally do! I've been itching to try my hand at some chocolate zucchini muffins since a friend of mine in California sent some to me after my dad died. I don't think this is the recipe she used, but this recipe sounded so good I had to try it. It did not disappoint. It was also a fun (albeit messy) project to do with SchmoopyBoy. I was very glad I remembered to put newspaper on the floor before starting. Made clean-up fast and easy. For modifications, I used 3/4 cups sugar instead of the whole cup. In the chef's notes, it says you can reduce it even more to just 1/2 cup. Here's a shot of the muffins cooling, just out of the oven. You can see a certain someone's aim was not always quite on target when spooning the batter into the tins.
These muffins were very moist. I had to bake them for the full 25 minutes and probably could have baked them a couple minutes longer without causing any damage. This was likely due to having a huge banana and a little extra zucchini that I added. I will admit that I hand-shredded the zucchini with a peeler out of laziness and not wanting to bother with washing my food processor, but I think it would have been better to go ahead and get the zucchini more finely shredded. Next time I will break out the food processor for that part of the preparation.

Good eats.

This post is linked up with Vegetarian Foodie Fridays!

Cookbook Giveaway!

Alisa at One Frugal Foodie is holding a very cool giveaway of 4 vegan cookbooks! Go check it out here.

What? You aren't vegan and have no idea what you would do with 4 vegan cookbooks? Well, I suppose I could take them off your hands. Especially considering my birthday is approaching soon.... ehem. ;-)

Quick and Easy Beans and Greens

I accidentally bought mustard greens instead of kale when I went shopping earlier this week. Um, yeah, I was in a hurry and had SchmoopyBoy with me and um, yeah. whoops. So I cooked mustard greens for the first time, having no idea how they would turn out. I also used coconut oil for the first time, so this entire recipe was somewhat of an experiment. I thought it turned out quite nice, so I thought I would share. I've been hearing so many great things about coconut oil, so I finally took the plunge and bought a jar. The coconut oil really added a nice aroma to this dish, and I liked the subtle flavor it added. I think for this recipe I would still prefer kale, but the mustard greens were just fine.

Quick and Easy Beans and Greens

Ingredients:
1 can black beans
1/3 cup red onion
1/2 red bell pepper (about 1/3 cup chopped)
1/2 bunch mustard greens
1.5 tbsp coconut oil
black pepper
sea salt
chili powder
garlic powder

Chop the onion, red pepper, and greens. Drain and rinse the beans. Heat a pan and add the coconut oil. Add the onions and saute a couple of minutes. Add the peppers and saute until the onions are translucent and the pepper is softened. Add the black beans and greens and stir to combine. Add spices to taste. (Sorry for the imprecise measurements on the spices, I never measure - just sprinkle and taste. I know, so old fashioned grandma-ish of me ;) Cook until the greens are cooked to your liking. I like them slightly wilted but not too shriveled.

I served this over brown rice for dinner. Both J-man and I ate two servings each. It was that good. And seriously, cooking the rice was the longest part of this meal. If you have some leftover rice in the fridge, or choose a grain with a shorter cook time, like couscous for instance, you'll have dinner for 2 adults and 1 toddler in less than 20 minutes from start to finish.

Here is the awful picture taken with my phone camera. Please forgive the blurriness, and don't even ask me why the rice looks like it glows in the dark.



There wasn't much left over, but I used what was left to combine with some eggs the next morning for a breakfast burrito with tomato and avocado. Yum!

This post is linked to Vegetarian Foodie Fridays!

Raw Corn Chowder

My dinner cooking style is based on a few premises. First, it helps to know that I am cooking for one adult vegan (the husband), one adult vegetarian (myself), and one vegetarian toddler who tries to go vegan most of the time and has the eating habits of, well, a stereotypical 2 year old. It also helps to know that I work full time traditional business hours, and that when I am off work, my toddler wants my undivided attention until he gets hungry and then he wants to eat NOW!

So, I have a few basic requirements when it comes to cooking dinner. First, if it takes longer than 30 minutes to fully prepare and cook, it’s out of the question. Period. Second, I have time to make one meal and one meal only, which means everything needs to be either vegan or easily veganizable.

As I write this, in the midst of the desert summer, it is about 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 Celsius) outside. This makes turning on a stove, or particularly an oven, particularly unattractive at this time of year.

For all the reasons listed above, I am all about raw soups as the main portion of dinner these days. Here is a recipe that has gotten approval from at least two of the three occupants in my home every time I have made it. In the spirit of full disclosure, the third occupant wouldn’t taste it, so it’s unknown if he would have liked it or not. We’re working on that, but to be fair, I suppose all he sees is green-tinted goop. I might experiment with adding other vegetables or fruits to take away the green tint, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Raw Corn Chowder (from Wild Oats Marketplace magazine May/June 2007)

2 cups corn cut off the cob (plus ½ cup for garnish) – I typically use 2 ears total
1 avocado chopped (reserve 1 tsp for garnish)
2 cups almond milk
½ tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in blender. Poor into bowls. Garnish with additional chopped avocado and corn.

Wow, how easy and quick is that?! Cool and refreshing on a hot day, ahhhh.


Check out this article for a tip on easily getting corn off the cob!

This post is linked to Vegetarian Foodie Fridays.

Pumpkin Potato Crockpot Recipe

This didn't turn out exactly the way I had hoped, but it was a reasonably decent experiment so I thought I would share. At the pumpkin patch last week I bought a couple small pumpkins. I had never cooked fresh pumpkin before so I thought I'd give it a shot. I've also been meaning to use my crockpot more often so I went on an online search for the perfect pumpkin crockpot recipe, which I sadly didn't find. So I kind of merged a couple different recipes and added a twist or two. The result was hearty, filling, and very comforting for a cold day. I don't think I got the spice combination quite right, as the flavor was a little boring to me. Then again, I also tend to prefer lots of garlic or curry or other fairly intense spices. Many people I know don't care for that kind of intense flavor so maybe you'll like it as I made it this time.

Ingredients:
1 small pumpkin
1 sweet potato
1 red potato (probably any kind of potato will do, I just happen to have red potatoes at the moment)
1 yellow onion
1 can kidney beans
2 cups water
1 salt-free vegetable bouillon cube + 1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp mixed italian seasonings (I used basil, oregano, thyme, and marjoram)

Directions:
1. Chop -
Chop the pumpkin and potato into cubes. Peel and chop the sweet potato.
Chop the onion and garlic.
2. Toss -
Put all the ingredients into the crockpot and stir.
3. Cook -
Set the crockpot to cook on low for 8 hours. Stir once more.
4. NOM

I think next time I might try to make it more like a pumpkin chili. I think a little kick would work well with this.