Jelly Beans

I debated whether to file this in the “Meals” category, because frankly I’ve eaten more junk food today than you can shake a stick at! I had two epic meetings with supervisors today all about how I’m going about turning a new leaf in my dissertation. All sorts of reflection and falling on my sword and expressed resolve and plans and brainstorming. It turned out really well, but I fell back on stress eating more than I have in a long time! For dinner I’m having leftovers, so vegan jelly beans from the online vegan store Pangea that I received last week are really the best choice for today’s post…

Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry

This is a more typical meal for me. I love to experiment with crazy quiches and casseroles and breaded-this and fake-that as much as anybody, but for an everyday weeknight meal it’s more common for me to focus on simple rice and vegetable based meals.* Just like when I was a kid: you could give me rice and soy sauce with some steamed broccoli for dinner any time you liked. I was a vegan just waiting to happen. Anyways, this is a red lentil cauliflower curry from Veganomicon that I grabbed from my freezer. Single girls gotta make good use of the freezer. I sounded like Paula Deen there. I forgot to consider that broccoli and cauliflower together at one meal is a heck of a lot of brassica veggies, but that’s no tragedy.
Had leftover souffle for lunch. Was just as delicious, and it keeps being an iconoclast: on the second day it can pass not only for a souffle and a strata, but ALSO now a terrine!

*Don’t de-bookmark! It’s all still tasty stuff!

Spinach and Cheez Souffle

I’m moving soon, so I’m trying to use up things in my freezer and pantry. An old pesky package of frozen chopped spinach turned into the Spinach and Cheez Souffle from that old chestnut of the vegan bookshelf, The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook by Joanne Stepaniak. If I were to be picky I’d say this is really more of a strata than a souffle because of the inclusion of bread. But we all know I’m a stickler with food terminology and I should just relax a little.
This smelled amazing while I was baking. I opened the oven door to check on it and did an involuntary giggle of delight at how good it smelled. I’m a huge food nerd.
If I make it again I think I’ll follow the recipe and use whole grain bread instead of the white bread I had leftover from making the tea sandwiches last week. Either that or I’ll toast the bread a bit to render it a tad stale (like you typically do for a STRATA like this…)

On the plate, with leftover roasted red pepper.

The mystery makings of a vegan souffle sauce, all ready to be blended.

White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Today is one of those days I’m not sure what I’m having for dinner. We’re on babywatch for Cathy’s baby and today might be the day!
I couldn’t sleep this morning, so I decided to make some cookies with the vegan white chocolate chips I just got in the mail. I used Kittee’s Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (http://pakupaku.info/sweets/chocchipcookies.shtml), subbing a mix of white chocolate chips and macadamias for the chocolate chips. I’m running out of a lot of things, so I used a mix of two kinds of margarine and two kinds of shortening (!)

Spring Tacos

Well, second entry and I’m already kind of cheating. Tonight I’m either going to eat the leftover pizza for dinner (which, let’s face it, happens a lot given that I live alone), or a burrito on Locke before seeing a movie. If it is a burrito, who knows when I might get back. Cathy might go into labour during the movie and then there’d be no post for today. And I can’t let that happen. Not on the second day.
So we go back to last week, when I made tacos on a sunny Spring day. I made the Smoky Refried Beans from Vegan Planet with some somewhat-anemic looking organic can of pintos, chipotle and onions. Then a guac with minced onion and tomato, and store-bought mango salsa. And lettuce makes taco.

Lemon Dill Potato Pizza

Welcome! I plan to post my dinners here, as well as any baking I might do. I’ve been posting food pictures for years in various places, but now I have a hankering for my own little forum that’s more regularly updated, and more definitively all about ME and MY food pictures. While I’m busy indulging my vanity and self-absorption, you can look at some pictures of the food I make. It’s a win-win situation. I’m a vegan, so everything here is vegan. If I make a reference to cream cheese or buttercream and forget the scare quotes or cutesy vegan euphemisms, trust that I’m using the vegan versions.

So, without further ado, here’s tonight’s dinner. I had leftover cream cheese from recent baby shower tea sandwiches. Specifically, Tofutti cream cheese to which I added chopped dill, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. I also had leftover dill and parsley that needed to be used up. So yes, this was a clear-out-the-fridge dealie. With the herbs and some garlic and toasted pine nuts and lemon juice I made a pesto. I made my old standby pizza dough from Vegan Planet and stuck the whole shebang on ye olde pizza stone with some paper-thin potato slices and olive oil and salt and pepper. This is a long explanation. I won’t be so wordy every day!