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.

It's planting season

So far we've planted carrots and chard. We've still got several more planters, and I think we'll be putting in some spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower. Hopefully our crop will turn out a little better than last year's. Probably the soil we had was not quite right - everything sprouted, but then it just stopped growing after a while.

Quesadilla Butterfly

This is so easy to make and made SchmoopyBoy happy. I just cut a cheese quesadilla in half, and then cut the two halves into sections for the wings  - about two thirds for the top wing and about one third for the bottom wing. Cut the peel off a slice of cucumber in two pieces for the antennae. The peeled slice of cucumber can then be used, along with slices of carrot, to decorate the wings. One more baby carrot for the body and voila! You could get fancy and make a face on the butterfly. I'll try that next time.

You Are My Sunshine

I was inspired by this sunshine sandwich, so I offered SchmoopyBoy a sun for dinner. He took me up on the offer but said he wanted toast, banana, and peas. So, I had to abandon, to some extent, my original intention and create an edible sun from the requested materials.

I used a large glass as my circle template to cut the toast and a slice of muenster cheese. The face is made of freehand cutouts (obviously) from a slice of American cheese. (I think the face looks like a Halloween jack-o-lantern, which makes me hang my head.) For the sun rays I sliced the banana length-wise and in about 1-inch sections. Then I cut the corners off one side of each section to make them a little more pointy and surrounded the toast. I couldn't think of anything to do with the peas so I just split them in half and arranged them in a circle for a decorative border. So sad.

Simple. I can do simple. A professional I most certainly am not, but it turned out cute enough to make my kid happy and get him fed, so Yay for trying!

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!

Breakfast Robot

Robot toast with apricot head and strawberry eyes and buttons.

Update

I'm still here. I've been working a lot. I've been running around with the kiddos a lot. I've been considering the direction I want my blog to go. I go through periods of being a wannabe food blogger, then a wannabe feminist parenting blogger, then a wannabe positive inspirational blogger, and then I just get busy and uninspired and stop blogging altogether for a couple of weeks.

I was hoping to have a new recipe to share. I tried making individual-sized cherry crumbles using the cherries from my tree. The recipe needs a little more work. And I'm out of cherries. So, that will have to wait another year or I'll have to bite the bullet and actually buy fresh cherries. Poor me, huh?

Lil' Schmoo is pulling himself up to stand as frequently as possible, which makes bedtime…. interesting. It goes like this. After our bedtime routine I put him into his crib awake. He starts crawling around and pulls himself up to stand. He then starts chewing on the rail and 'practices talking' which means he starts blowing raspberries causing spit to get everywhere. He then realizes that he's stuck and requests help in getting down. So I stand up to help him and I realize that I'm standing in a puddle of baby drool. How delightful.

Hope everyone is having a great summer and staying cool! Hopefully I'll get my blogging mojo back soon.

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.

Oy Vey! You call that a Passover?

It was quite a weekend here at chez Schmoopy. Passover and Easter in one big hodge-podge of festivity. On Friday evening, the traditional night of the first Seder, I got home late from work and so made matzah pizza for dinner. Vegan "cheese" for the husband, and dairy for me and SchmoopyBoy. Ancestors, I apologize. Please don't strain something as you turn over in your graves.

Vegetarian matzah pizza

Vegan matzah pizza

I haven't really done Passover for a few years. Putting together a full Seder is a lot of work. I don't have grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins around, and quite frankly it's not worth all the work involved for basically, me. Before SchoopyBoy was born I always found a community Seder to attend with the husband. The thought of dragging a small child to a 3-hour community seder with a bunch of strangers sounds like about as much fun as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, so I've basically been doing not much more than a Passover themed dinner. This year, however, I wanted to do something more, since SchmoopyBoy is at an age where the things we do in the home will become "his".

Covered matzah, parsley, eggs and salt water appear
on traditional seder tables

So I put together a short child-friendly Seder for Saturday. With the help of Uncle Eli (think of a Jewish Dr. Seuss after drinking 4 cups of wine) and a few other online sources like this and this, I put together a mish-mash children's Haggadah. I made fresh vegetable stock and matzaball soup. Parsley and hard boiled eggs for dipping into salt water, charoset, matza in the cover I bought at a Jewish cultural fair a number of years ago, and grape juice in wine glasses and one plastic cup adorned my table. We got through everything in about an hour, including the main course, a Moroccan style eggplant and garbanzo bean dish (garbanzos are kosher for Passover aren't they?).

Then on Sunday we first went to visit our next door neighbors for an egg hunt in the morning. Another egg hunt at my in-law's followed in the afternoon. More toys and candy than any human should be exposed to. But fun, fun, fun for SchmoopyBoy!

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.)

Bentos - Fun with cookie cutters

It's been a while since I've posted any bentos, and I've been trying to up my cute-factor ever so slightly with the help of cookie cutters. These two look very similar since they both include cheese and watermelon, and use the same bento box. In reality they were done several weeks apart. Although I used the cookie cutters on the bread and cheese in both bentos shown here, I've also used them on other types of sandwiches at lunchtime and on toast or french toast for breakfast.

First up, we have the star bento:
This one has a tier of watermelon and grapes, and another tier with 3 layers of star-shaped toast and muenster cheese, baby carrots, and a small slice of homemade banana bread. I realized much later in the day I should have omitted the banana bread because it had walnuts in it and SchmoopyBoy's school is supposed to be nut-free. Whoops, totally forgot about the walnuts. I'm so glad no one was hurt.

I used the smallest start cookie cutter from a set I bought with 4 different sizes. This size is sufficient to cut 3 stars from a single slice of bread and a single slice of cheese. It also fits perfectly in my 2-tier bento box.

Second, we have the car bento:
This one has the first tier filled with just watermelon. (SchmoopyBoy takes after his mama - loves him some watermelon!). The second tier has sliced cucumber and some corn sliced off the cob, as well as a two layers of toast and muenster cheese in the shape of a car. My car cookie cutter is the right size to cut 2 cars from a single slice of bread and a single slice of cheese.

The car cookie cutter came in a set of transportation themed cutters that also included a train and an airplane. I took SchmoopyBoy with me to pick the set. I was sure he'd go for the animal shapes, but he's quite happy with the transportation set. The train and airplane don't fit in the bento box shown, and they are sufficiently big that I can only get one cutout per slice of bread/cheese. The train in particular is plenty popular.

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...

We joined a CSA and it is awesome

Last week was the first week of our participation with a local CSA. For anyone who doesn't know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, you sign up with a local farm, and for a specified amount of money or hours of work at the farm you get a huge basket of fresh, seasonal, locally grown produce. It's a great way to support local family farms and get a variety of fresh foods for your family. You can read more about what a CSA is here.

Last Saturday the JMan drove an hour to the farm and spent 4 hours pulling weeds from a garlic field (no chemical herbicides!) and he brought back a humongous bag full of veggies. In this bag we got:

spinach (large bag)
mixed salad greens (large bag)
kale (1 bunch)
beets (tons)
beet greens (OMG so much!)
broccoli (small bag of florets plus a head complete with the large leaves)
carrots (1 bunch)
radishes (1 bunch)

In other words - more leafy greens than 2 adults and a toddler can possibly eat in a week! We've been eating salad plus sautéed or otherwise cooked veggies every day this week, which is just what my pregnant self needs to stay healthy and grow a baby. So, Yay for green leafy veggies! Added bonus, I've never had beet greens and the large leaves that grow around a head of broccoli before, so my horizons are getting expanded in the process too.

Last night when I got home from work, JMan and SchmoopyBoy had just left to meet my mother-in-law and nephews at the local park. I made a quick stir fry from beet greens, broccoli leaves, broccoli florets, and added some non-csa white beans and tomatoes. I packed it into a container, added a container of non-csa watermelon and a box of crackers, and met them at the park for a lovely picnic.

I'm very excited about the CSA and can't wait to see what else we'll be getting in our bags! So far, I think it's pretty awesome.

Recent Bento Lunches

It's been a while since I've posted anything food related, so here are a couple of recent bento lunches I prepared for SchmoopyBoy.


In this bento, one container has alphabet wheat pasta with a little oil, and the other contains coconut milk yogurt. SchmoopyBoy will not allow dairy yogurt within 3 feet of him. He will eat soy yogurt and coconut milk yogurt though. Go figure. I don't like to give him too much soy, and his preferred milk is soy milk, so I tend to get him the coconut milk yogurt more often. He's also got carrots and cucumber, as well as red and black grapes (although in this picture they all pretty much look the same color.


In this bento the main entree is cheese quesadilla. I typically save things that require cooking like quesadillas for Thursdays because that is my work from home day so I typically have a little more time. He's also got some sliced apple and a mandarin orange, as well as sliced carrots and cucumber.

Yes, I totally fail the cute and creative bento test. I've got a few more that attempt cuteness and themes but they are on the husband's camera and I haven't got him to load those pictures yet. Hopefully I'll be able to redeem myself soon.

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!

Bento Lunches for a Picky Vegetarian Toddler

SchmoopyBoy's playschool recently transitioned from a peanut-free facility to a nut-free facility. I initially went into a semi-panic. Almond butter and jelly sandwiches and macaroni and cashew-cheese were some of the few lunch entrees he would actually eat on a regular basis. Oh no! What on earth would I replace them with?! What could I put in my picky little guy's lunches that he would actually eat?

We have tried sunflower butter and jelly sandwiches. He is highly unimpressed with sunflower butter. Quite frankly, so am I. It is very bitter. Plain sunflower seeds, on the other hand, are a success. Go figure. So sunflower seeds it is.



Noodles are always a hit, so he gets pasta probably close to twice a week. Bonus, the year long dairy-strike that SchmoopyBoy was on appears to have come to an end. So I've been able to add cheese to his lunches for about a month now. A small bowl of shredded cheese added to the pasta lunches below is almost always a successful addition (it must be a separate bowl because goodness knows the cheese must not touch the noodles).

Here are a couple pasta lunches that came home almost completely empty (cheese bowl not photographed). Plain noodles (they must be plain, SchmoopyBoy does not do "goopies") with seasonal fruit - pomagranate seeds and pears in the top picture, apple in the bottom picture, and some combination of the only vegetables he will eat on a semi-regular basis - carrots, peas, and cucumber.




My bento lunches for SchmoopyBoy are hardly the creative and cute creations you can find on more advanced bento sites. I had lofty intentions of putting together beautiful and creative lunches that would awe and impress, but given the amount of time I have to throw something together each day, I'm pretty proud that I manage to throw together something other than lunchables!