I’ve been cooking but I haven’t been posting. I finally cleaned out my camera and here’s a quick rundown of recipes I’ve tried recently.

Confetti Rice Salad & Orange-Chipotle Glazed Tofu from June 2008 Vegetarian Times
This recipe took me way longer to prepare than I planned. That’s probably why it was on the “Easy Entertaining” page instead of the “Quick Dinners” page. It was really good though. I don’t love tofu, but this tofu was very spicy and tasty, even my husband had seconds! The confetti rice with the sunflower seeds and avocado was very filling and delicious. We ate it for leftovers for a few days.

Tandoori Eggplant Kebabs from July/August 2008 Vegetarian Times
This recipe was actually quick, mostly because I prepared the marinade and chopped the vegetables the night before. When we got home, all we had to do was grill. I really liked this recipe, we had a little difficulty with our grill but I would make this again. I added chicken kabobs for my carnivore husband. R had chicken/veggie tandoori pita with feta on top, and I had veggie filled pita with mango chutney on top.


Gazpacho with Grilled Plantains from Cooking Light
I’ve made both the gazpacho and plantains before..not sure if I ever posted about them. I made this on a super duper hot August day. Sometimes it is too hot and humid ’round here to eat a hot meal. The gazpacho was good but it almost tasted like a chunky salsa. My husband and I both love the brown sugar grilled plantains, probably because they could be dinner or dessert.

Pasta with Beans and Spinach from Cooking Light’s “Light and Easy Menus”
I can’t find this recipe online anywhere. I love the Cooking Light cookbook that this recipe came from. This book if one of my favorites because the recipes are genuinely quick, they only have a few ingredients so make great weeknight dinners. I got it at Costco for cheap.

I swear these are muffins and not cupcakes! I based these Chocolate Raspberry Muffins on this recipe from Hannah Kaminsky’s Bittersweet blog. I used coconut oil instead of vegetable oil and I doubled the raspberries since I couldn’t find fresh currants.

Happy Birthday Laura!

I had no idea what I was missing, but now I do. Vitamin B12. Check out these informative references for other essential nutrients you may be missing in your animal-product-free diet:

http://vitamins-minerals.suite101.com/article.cfm/vitamins_that_vegans_need

http://www.goveg.com/optimal_vegan_nutrition.asp

Here is a very interesting article on how successful professional athletes are seeing improved health, energy, and possibly even performance from vegan/vegetarian diets:

“Who says you have to eat meat to be a successful athlete?”
By Jonah Keri for ESPN Page 2

* J.A Thanks for sending

I have had the pleasure of eating out lately and I have been pleasantly surprised by the vegan/vegetarian options available on local menus. It is so nice to have more than one option and/or entrees that you don’t have to caveat with multiple exceptions.

Clyde’s at Willow Creek Farm:

This was called the “Bowl of Spring”. Potato gnocchi served with asaparagus, fava beans and carrots. Delicious.

Busboys and Poets:

Last night I had yummy vegan pizza with a great pinot. I am such a huge fan of this place for many reasons. I must enumerate below:
- LOTS of vegan/vegetarian options
- cool bar/ambience
- great wines/cocktails!
- carrot juice
- outdoor seating
- restaurant with a mission: community
Busboys and Poets is a restaurant, bookstore and gathering place where people can discuss issues of social justice and peace. Each Busboys and Poets location should enhance the community — allowing us to bring together a diverse clientele reflective of the surrounding neighborhoods. Busboys and Poets creates an environment where shared conversations over food and drink allow the progressive, artistic and literary communities to dialogue, educate and interact.

I love summer. Even the days that I have to work. I try to enjoy the extra hours of light in the evening. So when I’m picking summer weeknight meals - I’m looking for easy and quick. This recipe for Korean BBQ Marinade is a perfect one. I saw this in the June 1, 2008 issue of Vegetarian Times. They suggested using it to marinade and grill portobellos. If you read this blog, you know I’m not good at improv, so I followed their suggestions to a T, including tossing with chopped scallions and sesame seeds.

Mission Accomplished! Quick, easy, tasty. I served with steamed spinach with red wine vinegar and grilled hearts of palm (inspired by the catering at my cousin, Justin’s graduation party). I’m sure this marinade would work well on other veggies, chicken or steak, too.

It kinda looks like chicken…

Voting is still open for PETA’s annual ‘Sexiest Vegetarian’ campaign. Go ahead and vote or take a peek at the the list of 2008 candidates here. Dennis Kucinich, Steve Jobs, Bob Barker…Anthony Kiedis, André 3000, Jared Leto…getting warmer. Still not interested in seeing the list of veggie-loving celebrities? Pam Anderson, Alyssa Milano, Jenna Jameson - now you’re curious! Last year’s winners were Kevin Eubanks and Carrie Underwood.

- I like fresh veggies
- I am into organic stuff
- I like to support my community–local farmer’s/business
- I care about the environment –even a little bit

If you agree with any of the above then check out the Piedmont Environmental Council’s new site Buy Fresh, Buy Local. At this site you can search by county to find your community farmer’s market. These days a lot of us are thinking about where are food comes from, if it is organic, how far it travels, etc. By supporting your local farmer’s market you are also supporting area CSA’s. This summer I was about 2 weeks too late as I began researching available shares in our local CSA’s. What is a CSA you ask?

Wikipedia’s thorough definition,

“Community-supported agriculture (CSA) is a relatively new socio-economic model of food production, sales, and distribution aimed at both increasing the quality of food and the quality of care given the land, plants and animals – while substantially reducing potential food losses and financial risks for the producers. It is also a method for small-scale commercial farmers and gardeners to have a successful, small-scale closed market. CSA’s focus is usually on a system of weekly delivery or pick-up of vegetables, sometimes also flowers, fruits, herbs and even milk or meat products in some cases. ”

Now you know.

And so the muffin addiction continues…. but first a funny story. I was talking to my buddy Kelly about our upcoming beach trip and going through all of the things I planned on making and bringing.. first on the list was muffins! Kelly was super excited and enthusiastic until I had to interrupt her to tell her I wasn’t making those muffins, sorry Kel Kel. Cherries are coming back in season though and I will be sure to surprise you with some soon. Kelly’s favorite muffins are posted here, Cherry Almond Muffins.

I did make the Sunshine Pineapple Carrot Muffins from Veganomicon. This is the second time I have made them and loved them just as much as before. I didn’t take the advice to overfill the muffin cups they actually do rise quite a bit and cook in the suggested amount of time if left at that size (3/4 muffin cup).

Recipes are fun and all but I find it exciting to see what I can come up with on my own. This can be risky business but sometimes it works out splendidly, like it did with these cabbage wraps with broccoli and mushrooms. I had left over cabbage, broccoli and mushrooms from the week’s cooking and I always have garlic and onion handy. I sauteed garlic, onion, broccoli, mushrooms in that order until lightly cooked and broccoli was a brilliant green. I used the below pantry items: rice vinegar, tamari, Earth Balance peanut butter, chili garlic sauce and crushed ginger to make a spicy peanut sauce. The hot veggies, cold cabbage and spicy sauce provided a very nice contrast.

Ingredients:

Stovetop:

Plate:

I could eat curry every night. Seriously, this nerd does not lie. Ask my husband who has a way of subtly recommending that our dinners have more variety. But at least once a week, I get my fix. This week I made a super quick version of Chana Masala from Vegan Express. I served it on 5-minute couscous and broke out a little mango chutney from the fridge. My husband and I both liked this recipe and it was especially nice to have something warm and hearty when the weather is cold and rainy. I am a fan of Vegan Express. I’ve only made 6 or so recipes so far, but they’ve been quick, healthy, weeknight dinners that I’ve liked so much - I cook them over and over again. (Resulting in fewer blog posts but that’s another story).

Oh and this recipe gave me plenty of leftovers for lunches and nights I don’t feel like cooking.

Get on the floor and move your booty, mama. That song just popped into my head when I started thinking about Mother’s Day. On Sunday, we celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom and my BFF (my mother-in-law). I still need to catch up with GB and DR. Once again, I forgot to take pictures, well I took 2, here they are.

Rob and Mom eating brunch at Steph’s House

Steph and I cooked up Santa Fe Huevos on Polenta, a recipe I borrowed from the
Gluten-Free Goddess. I love this recipe. We also made lemon-blueberry pancakes - I think Steph adapted a recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.

In case you’re wondering, since my wonderful FIL asked me this question which made me realize that readers of this blog could be confused.. I have not gone vegan ..yet. I’m not sure about Steph. I end up eating a mostly vegan diet because I don’t meat and can’t eat dairy. I still eat fish and eggs. I don’t know the official classification for me in the vegetarian world. I’m sure there is one, but it is probably a long difficult-to-use-in-everyday-conversation kinda word.

To my mom, my MIL, GB, DR - Happy Mother’s Day! (names omitted to protect the innocent)

Summer is on it’s way and it makes me so happy inside I feel like someone is tickling me. I got this idea from ED&V and indulged my craving immediately.
I chose these small hydroponic tomatoes, cut in half, inserted garlic into the tomato juices and roasted with sea salt, pepper, oregano. DELICIOUS and SO EASY! Threw these together hot with pasta, spinach and artichoke hearts. Easy, delish weeknight meal.

Dang it. I forgot the result photo to show how nice these 4 leaf clover rolls from Bittersweet turned out. I think it was because I was too busy nibbling. Here are some process photos though. These were relatively easy but time consuming due to waiting on yeast and my lack of a mixer The spinach not only makes them beautiful but tasty. I can’t wait for take two on these, I promise a final photo.

I love muffins, scones or any other yummy pastry in the morning (or any time of day). Unfortunately, in most cafes I am tantalized by beautiful pastries that I cannot eat. Things are looking up though! I veganized this recipe for Maple Oatmeal Scones by substituting soy milk and using Earth Balance instead of butter. Thank you Veg Times for sending directly to my inbox.