Since the first recipe I tried from Vegan Express was a hit, I decided to try 2 more.

Last week I made Tortilla Casserole. Most ingredients were canned or frozen making it super easy to prepare. I accidentally added more crushed tomatoes which made my casserole a little soupy. I will use the correct amount next time. Despite the extra tomatoes, I loved this dish. It is quick, healthy, warm, and hearty. The corn tortillas softened while baking, making the end result taste a little bit like a tamale (I love tamales). Here’s a picture of the casserole filling and then a slice of the casserole topped with avocado.

Tonight I made Orzo Soup with Roasted Vegetables. This was also super easy to prepare although I accidentally cut my finger chopping vegetables which slowed me down. Today was cold and rainy so we really enjoyed this warm hearty soup.

This one is not from Vegan Express. Just a picture of a lazy Sunday brunch. It was a rainy gloomy Sunday so the husband and I enjoyed brunch and a little relaxation before the next hectic work week.

I made and bought a bunch of food items for our annual Easter trip to visit family. After reading so many favorable review of Veganomicon’s Vanilla-Yogurt Pound Cake, I knew I had to try it. It did not disappoint. I attempted to not mention that this pound cake was vegan..but I cracked when someone said “this is good - can you eat it?” I also washed some fresh raspberries to top the pound cake. Yum. Happy Easter! 

Today I made vegan/dairy-free Irish Soda Bread from the most recent issue of VegNews. It was nice to have a sweet snack to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and our Irish heritage. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

After visiting Sunflower Vegetarian a few times lately and ordering the Kale and Burdock Deluxe I have not been able to satsify my craving for a meal of purely dark greens-cooked well. If you haven’t been to Sunflower you are missing out. There is a heavy alliance on mock meats which isn’t really my thing, but there are so many options everyone will be satisfied.
Back to my point, kale is so tasty. It has fallen into the category of foods I crave. I simply sauted garlic and onion in a bit of sesame oil until fragrant, steamed kale for just a few minutes and added in some chickpeas and cayenne. Very quick and easy took about 10 minutes.

Kale and my glass of wine. Tempranillo, per recommendation by Rob and Stace, my wine of choice.

Thanks to Susan at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen for yet another wonderful recipe. Here’s proof that I like spices other than curry. I made Ethiopian-Inspired Red Lentil Soup on Tuesday. Holy Moly it was good. Flim Flam it was good! I didn’t mix my own Berbere, I found it at World Market. I’d never used it before and I really enjoyed the mixture of flavors. I can’t eat a hearty soup like this without dipping, so I toasted up a couple of whole wheat tortillas and bam! I was ready to dip! This recipe made a large amount so I packed up a container for Steph to try it out. Curious to know if she liked it. My clever frugal husband suggested that I make this recipe again and freeze some for nights when we don’t feel like cooking. Great idea Roberto!

Okay, so you probably guessed that it isn’t a real meatloaf but pretty darn close! It has been cold around here lately and I haven’t cooked a good old fashioned Sunday Dinner in a while. Steph mentioned she might be around for dinner so I pulled out this recipe for Lentil Loaf that I had on stand-by for a Sunday like this. This recipe is one of Josh’s from his site, My Vegan Cookbook. Sounds like I know Josh, but I don’t. I guess you could call me a secret admirer of his blog (not so secret now!) I recently read his ‘About’ page and realized how much we have in common; he’s a twin, he cares about health and nutrition, he blogs, and his veg-love is something he shares with his brother. So cool. Back to the meatloaf, it was very good and very filling. Steph and I made it together. She made it look pretty.

Since every meal needs some green, I whipped up a quick batch of my ultra-favorite, Rainbow Chard with Cherries & Pinenuts from Tiny Morsels. This recipe is definitely in my personal Top 5 as you can probably tell from this previous post and this previous post. My husband is a wonderfully honest critic, and with this one he freely admits that it just tastes great.

Dinner was ready with plenty of time for Steph, R, and I to hang out before the last episode of The Wire. I would normally rave about how much I love The Wire but according to this hysterical blog, that would make me a typical white person. So now that I’ve accepted that I am a typical white person..The Wire seriously is one of the best shows on television. I recommend renting all seasons, watching them consecutively, and highly recommend taking the time to watch the ‘making of the wire’ pieces. The producers of the show went the extra mile to include real Baltimore people in many many episodes. Loves it!

Monday I made Polenta with Black Beans and Spinach from Vegan Express. True to its name, it was express - it took me about 20 minutes total to make. We’ve had that tube of polenta in the pantry for a while now, so I was happy to use it and I enjoyed grilling the polenta. I can’t wait until it warms up and we can really grill.

Tuesday R made another quickie, Curried Chickpeas on Brown Rice. I still can’t figure out where I got this recipe from, but I love it. I blogged about it before here.

I tried something a little bit different on Wednesday. I made a creamy white dish, Mushroom & Lentil Stroganoff. This is totally out of the ordinary for me, I like colorful veggies, curries, and tomato sauces. I’ve never really been a fan of cream sauces even ‘back in the day’ when I could eat dairy. I tried this dish because I wanted to test the use of Silken tofu to make a creamy texture. The dish came out really well, even though it looks like tile glue in this picture. My husband said, “how did you get it to be creamy without milk?”. I proved to myself that Silken tofu really does create a creamy texture but I still prefer curries and tomato-based sauces.

Thursday we usually have leftovers but I didn’t go to yoga so I whipped up Hasperats. I saw these one of my favorite blogs, VeganYumYum earlier in the week and I knew I had to try it out. There is a funny story lurking in the name of that recipe. Instead of using store-bought hummus, I decided to make my own. So I used another recipe, Sesame Pumpkin Hummus, from another favorite blog, have cake, will travel!. Since Thursday is leftover night, I wasn’t sure if R would want a grilled veggie/hummus wrap. But after he saw me break out the Foreman - he asked for one. These were so good. I discovered I can use my Foreman as a panini-maker. Imagine the possibilities!! Next time, I am going to try a veggie/pesto panini.

Wednesday night I ended up working late so my handy husband cooked up Navajo Stew (Adaption of Moosewood Recipe) from another favorite blog, Albion Cooks. I don’t know why sweet potatoes and black beans taste good together, but another good use of this combo is posted here. This recipe had the perfect level of spiciness from the adobo sauce - hot enough to get your blood moving and sinuses cleared, but not too hot that you have to drink water after every bite. We had tortillas on hand, so we warmed them up and made ourselves some Navajo Stew burritos. The cook topped his burritos with Mexican cheese and sour cream and I topped mine with black olives. As you can probably tell from the picture, we have a ton of leftovers.

Today was the first day of my renewed and concerted effort to get back into the weekday routine that I love: work early, yoga class (aiming for 3/week), and cooking a healthy yummy dinner. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m addicted to reading blogs about lots of topics, but cooking and food especially. I picked this recipe from one of my favorite blogs, Everybody Likes Sandwiches. Thank god for artistic creative people that share their ideas for free! I love to cook but I don’t “freestyle” very well. I am more comfortable cooking with recipes and then I adapt them if I can’t find one of the ingredients listed. Anyway, tonight I made Curried Red Lentil Stew with Chickpeas and Rainbow Chard and it was AWESOME. This recipe was invented for me: I love curry, I love the creaminess of chard, and I love saucy/soupy meals.

A few cooking notes: I reduced the oil from 2T to 1T and next time I’ll omit altogether and healthy saute the garlic and onions. Also, I’m going to double the rainbow chard next time because after it cooked down in the broth it changed into a super creamy texture and I found myself wishing there was more. If you plan on making this recipe, be sure to use a big soup/stew pot. The rainbow chard takes up a lot of space before it cooks down.

I mentioned previously that some wonderful people gave me GotFruit Monthly Fruit Club gift for Christmas from GotFruit.com. Today I received February’s edition - Cara Cara Oranges. The delivery even comes with a cool fact sheet about each fruit including ripening and storage information. Here’s a little excerpt,
“The Cara Cara originated in Valencia, Venezuela, and is a true navel (not a cross between other fruit.) Unofficially referred to as ‘the pink navel orange,’ this delicious citrus is another variety of the extraordinary navel orange, Cara Cara Navels generally have a rich pink pulp, accompanied with an orange exterior. Its taste is sweet with undertones of sweet-cherry and subtle grapefruit and tangerine, with a low acid profile. It is virtually seedless.”

Did you notice there was one missing from the first picture? I couldn’t resist, so I ate one immediately and they were as promised - delicious!

Thanks to Vegan Yum Yum for this delicious cold-curing Hot and Sour Cabbage Soup. I get a lot of my recipes from awesome food blogs and most of them I read religiously but never post comments or otherwise thank the bloggers. So thank you! I read this a few weeks ago and saved for a rainy/cold day. I made it for the first time last night. It was pretty quick and easy, delicious, hot and hearty, cleared my sinuses, and I have leftovers for the rest of the week.  This is definitely a repeater.

Holy close-up Batman. My second picture didn’t come out too well - sorry! Tonight I made Indian Vegan Omlettes from Global Vegan and Tiny Morsel’s Rainbow Chard with Cherries and Pinenuts (again). It was my first time making the omelet recipe and I think it came out really well. Next time I will add more water to thin the batter and I’ll try to learn how to properly flip an omelet. I have never used chickpea flour before and it made for a perfect hearty pancake. The omelets needed more flavor so I ate mine with hot mango chutney I had in the fridge. The chard recipe I love and I’ve talked about before on this blog. My grocery store didn’t have rainbow chard so I made it with red swiss and it tasted just as delicious.

So today was Super Tuesday. We also had an ice storm. I didn’t vote today and I regret that I didn’t make it a priority. I am not going to make excuses.

Also, R and I are heading out to California tomorrow for a friend’s wedding. I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures since I’ve never been to the West Coast before! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Am I the only one with carb cravings? Luckily the benefits of pasta are two-fold, 1) super fast prep time and well, 2) it’s pasta! Two times this week I needed to come up with a quick late night dinner with items from the cupboard and veggie drawer. This first recipe, Linguine with Wild Mushroom sauce, was quite tasty even the two meat-eating males said so! I didn’t have the mushrooms they suggest but used baby bellas and some white buttons.

The second night, pickin’s were slim. I had cabbage and carrots only but luckily I found a package of tofu to create an Asian inspired noodle bowl.

- Press tofu and marinate in bag with bottled Teriyaki Sauce–Prep veggies
- Boil water and get noodles ready
- Heat sesame oil in pan/cook tofu until brown on all sides-remove from pan
- Add a little bit more sesame oil to pan, saute onion and garlic. When translucent add in a bit of soy sauce and bottled ginger.
- Add in veggies, about a cup of veggie broth, and cook covered until veggies are to your liking. More ginger is always good!
- Mix noodles and tofu into pan with veggies and EAT!

So we’re getting to the point where birthdays aren’t supposed to be a big deal…but my friends and family insist on making it the best day ever! It was a normal work day sprinkled with friendly emails, phone calls, and flowers from Mom & Chris. I didn’t make any plans tonight because I thought we had a soccer game and we have plans Thursday and Friday. It turned out we had a bye so I went to yoga. When I came home I saw this sign on the garage door…

So I went in and found…

Awesome! A new bike!! I haven’t had one since my college bike died a few years ago. I’ve been borrowing my husband’s and then aching from the seat. I am so excited! After I sat on the bike a little while, my husband made a nice healthy dinner, Cooking Light’s Rice Noodles with Tofu and Bok Choy, only with bean thread noodles and no tofu.

As my niece once said, today is the best day ever!

My husband and I were talking about our favorite beans last week. (I forget how this came up). We both decided that our favorite bean is the garbanzo bean. This is the only bean that I could eat every day and enjoy it, on a salad, blended into hummus, and of course falafel. I guess I had garbanzo beans (chickpeas) on the mind when I picked this weeknight quickie.

Curried Garbanzo Beans - Recipe Source Unknown

I often print recipes really quickly at home or at work on my lunch-break. I must have printed this one and forgot to note where I got the recipe from. It is super easy - 1 onion, 2 cans chickpeas, 2 cans diced tomatoes, cumin, curry, coriander, mango chutney, vegetable broth. I served it over brown rice and it was off the hook aka delicious. I used Patak’s Hot Mango Chutney. I probably loved this recipe because I love the chutney, it is a perfect mix of sweet and spicy.