Menu Monday - quiche, summer succotash & radish tabbouleh

Last week's meals:

M: Cincinnati suburb chili from vegan on the cheap
T: Tortilla soup from appetite for reduction
W: Sushi three ways (sweet potato, mushroom), tofu & veggie, salmon & veg (for the Pookie)
T: Easy Chiliquas
F: leftovers
S: leftovers
S: Summer succotash and red radish tabbouleh from the kind diet



Each week I make one breakfast for me and boo to share throughout the week, leaving the other days to make our own. A couple weeks ago I made the sausage style gravy from the happy herbivore, served over biscuits. This past week I made the broccoli quiche recipe from vegan brunch. With the store bought crust, 1/6th was 11pp. It was yummy and I had it for two days and froze the rest.

I finally got around to making something from the kind diet book by Alicia Silverstone. I chose to make the summer succotash and red radish tabbouleh. I liked both a lot. Boo doesn't care for lima beans so he passed on the succotash. I liked it better than the tabbouleh, so I was ok with it. MMM balsamic... lol

menu plan monday

This was last weeks menu:

M: easy chilaquiles
T: Mae-un dubu
W: Soba bowl from appetite for reduction, topped with green onion miso dressing
T: quinoa kitchari
F: black bean, zucchini, olive tacos made without the garlic-lemon yogurt (wasn't missed!)
S: L/o
S: Samosa wraps




We followed it mostly. Boo decided that he wanted boca vgn burgers and fries on Thursday. On Saturday I made a veggie pizza, which we finished eating on Sunday.

On the 24th (last Sunday) I made Indian. I made dal makhani & vegetable kofta curry from Almost vegan's blog. I made palak paneer and roti from manjula's kitchen (substituted tofu for the paneer. Served a few kofta with hari chutney and red onion relish.

Soggy April post

It seems like it has rained all month long!

Puts me in a mood most foul, and saps me of my kitchen vim. I suppose it would be a great time to cook. My kitchen is chilly so I have spent a lot of time reading and snuggling with a blanket on the couch. Very bad for my fluffiness, I know! Last w/i I was down 3.4. I am down a total of 11.4 in two months time, I am AOK with that.

I just finished the complete tightwad gazette last week, now that lady made it her business to save money! Good on her, helping others with ways to cut back ;) I am now reading the kind diet, boy I was surprised to find that in the library! I read on quite a few blogs that she has some good recipes, so I can't wait to get to that part of the book.

I have been making alot of the old standbys, but did make a couple of new things this month- pics below:























Sushi salad with green onion dressing from appetite for reduction
Apple miso Tofu also from A4R
Golden austrian cauliflower soup with a quinoa, sprout, hummus lavash wrap & olives


Found a use for some of the soy curls:



Sesame soy curls with asparagus & quinoa from veganyumyum

I did make the ethio again, and it's pretty so it gets a spot on this post too :P

Still eating soft(er) things

The first week I ate:

B. Oatmeal, mushed banana,applesauce, or pumpkin, flax meal or chia seeds, 1c non dairy milk
Tofu scramble

L/D. Steamed cabbage, topped with 3/4c quinoa, 1/2c fat free refried beans, salsa & avocado

Sautéed kale, quinoa, tofu (heated in a dry nonstick pan) and braggs or tamari (or soy sauce)
Spaghetti squash topped with steamed kale and mushrooms and tofu

An Indian dal ,Ethiopian kik alicha, yesimir w'et

Frozen banana whipped in food processor (opt. Vanilla extract, soy/ almond milk, strawberries, etc)

I was ready for something different so I did some bloghopping, and ended up at Growinghealthysprouts. I am a big fan already, and made her 2 for 1. Last tuesday she posted Lentil tacos and lentil loaf. I thought that would be plenty soft enough for me, and it was. She is also hosting a book giveaway for one of the following books: disease proof your child, eat to live, vegan with a vengeance, vegan cupcakes take over the world. Giveaway ends this week, so go here and check that out!

I couldn't tackle the taco shell so I had it over corn tortillas cut into tiny tiny squares. I served it with tomatoes pulsed in the food process and avocado. Here is how I ate the 2 for 1s. It makes a fair bit, so I am going to make another lentil loaf up to freeze.











Not that pretty, but quite tasty.











I could barely eat the veggies, a little too firm for me. I really enjoyed the lentil loaf, but it was hearts and rainbows good on a sesame seed bun!

Past W/Is and food pics

Last two weight watcher's weigh ins: -2.4, +0.2. I had to have a dental work done this past week so am on a soft diet, and have to take it easy (something I know a lot about, haha). I assume I will be up next weigh in too.

Here are a few things I made before switching to mushy things:




Unfried rice and Hoison mustard tofu in lettuce cup (both from appetite for reduction).





Veggie pot pie stew and sweet potato drop biscuit also from appetite for reduction.






Quinoa sushi with asparagus, bell pepper, and avocado (the blog I got it from also made a ginger lemon dipping sauce for this, I was lazy and just used a lil soy sauce)




An old standby, easy chilaquiles from vegweb. We had this 3 times last week, yum.

A4R food, okara falafels, and indian vegan kitchen

Boy howdy!

I can't seem to stay outta the kitchen! It certainly feels that way sometimes. Usually it's the lure of a new recipe or ingredient that coaxes me to the icy kitchen.

My Pookie's 41st birthday was this past weekend, and I likes to feed the people I love. I made him pancakes and served them in bed. I even brought him butter without being snarky bout it, lol. That's right, I don't know how to stop giving ;)


For lunch I cracked open appetite for reduction (or clicked Ibooks, scrolled down), and found just the thing for Pookie's delight. I made him the Tofu masala accompanied by the spinach-potato curry. He actually said this is delicious! Usually food is just fine.. or good. High praise indeed. Turns out, I couldn't handle the spicy tofu, so he got to enjoy it all weekend long! lol



I made the Arabian lentil soup. It was wonderful, comforting, and perfect timing for me being sick last week. I don't have a good pic of it. I had it sorted into containers for easy portion control. It calls for brown basmati, which I can't find in my town, so I used regular basmati.



I had bought a bit of asparagus at Costco a week or two ago (I went asparagus nuts!), and wanted to find a simple recipe that didn't overshadow it's awesomeness. I found this recipe for Spicy Vegan Quinoa with asparagus and shiitake mushrooms at Foods For Long Life and it was absolutely perfect in every way (like Mary Poppins, yes).


I had planned to make this tomato basil okara bread, since my freezer had none, and my fridge had loads of okara. I decided instead to use this recipe for okara falafel from vegweb. It uses FOUR CUPS of okara, wooo! I actually still have a cup or two left in the fridge, so I may make that bread yet :P The falafel turned out fine, I am sure had I fried them, I'd be over the moon about them haha. I baked them instead to keep them point friendly. The recipe makes 30, 2 per serving was 4PP. I used whole wheat flour, no other substitutions.


I bought some dal awhile back, and got distracted by the new cookbooks that came out (looking at you happy herbivore & appetite for reduction). So, I was in the kitchen staring at my unopened bags of beans, and decided it could stand no longer. I decided to try two of the new dal. I made Black gram & bengal gram dal from the Indian vegan kitchen. I also made the Spinach and Bengal gram dal and some basmati. Serving size for both dal is 1/2c.


I missed my weigh in this past Monday. I had wanted to go but didn't want to get the other wwers sick. I ate a lot of salt and didn't exercise so I am probably up. We'll see what happens next Monday!

First WW weigh in, Seitan logs, Making Tofu

My first weigh in was this past monday, and I lost 5.4lb (which I realize is mostly water weight). I am quite thrilled about it, either way :P

It has put me off getting too creative in the kitchen though, as I don't know the points plus values for anything really, and entering everything into etools to find out is quite daunting. My meeting location is one of the many without calculators (wahhh!). I am hopeful we will get them in soon, as it would be handy at the grocer.













40 cloves garlic, broccoli, and chickpeas from Appetite for reduction (sooo nummy).

Seitan log made with hungryhungryhippie's recipe, and again but with the seasoning from Vegandad's corned seitan recipe.

A little bit about me and seitan: I have made a few different recipes. I kept seeing people going gaga over it, and just couldn't figure out why. I even sucked it up and overpaid for some of the gardein faux chicken kind (ick). I was pretty sure I'd never see eye to eye with the wheat beast, but kept looking... I am now quite happy with the EASY oven method HHH's recipe provides.

I have tried these ones:

how it all vegan (it squeaked on my teeth??/shudder)
Veganomicon (was a good one, no complaints just time consuming)
myveggiekitchen's (it was kinda, fall aparty, I think due to my error though, might revisit)
Vegandad's sausages, a success and when the freezer stash is empty I will make again.

Back to my week in food pics~













All to make this faux reuben possible! mmm, ok it wasn't going to fool an omni.. but it hit all the right notes for me! VERY POINTY

I was very happy to have made it to costco to replenish my supply of kalamata olives (2jars...oh yah!) and all the fresh veggie goodness that a trip there brings. It put me in the mood for pizza, not that I need anything to put me in the mood for it. I used the pizza dough recipe in the ww kitchen companion app. It was quite tasty, Pookie approved ;)













We had a couple of nice days here, so I decided to give making Tofu another go. It was messy and time consuming, and I think a smashing success. I used the Instructables site's guide. I chose to use gypsum (because yknow I bought it specifically for tofu) instead of Epsom salts 1:1 ratio - 2T. Using 3c dry soy beans, without removing any of the soy milk, I ended up with 2lb, 5oz of tofu.

I dry fried some in a pan and tossed it with some shirataki spaghetti noodles and soy sauce, served with steamed veggies and 3 lingling mini spring rolls. perfect.

Pookie turns 41 tomorrow! I don't know if I will do much cooking this weekend, but that okara is sitting in the fridge mocking me... so we'll see!

Vday grub & first WW meeting

I joined weight watchers on Vday.

I went to my first meeting, and signed up for the monthly pass. My leader is a pretty charismatic guy, which helps because I wasn't sure how I'd feel about a fella leading it. Usually (yep many times) I try it on my own. I goto ebay, I overpay for the materials, and I go it alone. Oh I read all the very kick booty blogs, but something just... fizzles. I fizzle, lose my oomph, and put on another 10 pounds.

The meeting was PACKED! I had no idea how popular it would be in my rinky dink town. hehe

A lady did come and sit with me (as I went alone), and it was nice to not be sitting alone LOL. I weighed in about 15 pounds more than my wii board thinks I weigh! The topic was relevant to me, and I even tried to participate. Not too shabby for being a fluffy hermit ;)

Now on to some of what I ate this past week.

I almost stuck to the 2nd week of the meal plan. I did make the soup (having made it before I didn't take a picture of it again). It was a great way to start off the week, mmm soup. Last tuesday I made the dal and basmati, the new to me dish was the Tamarind quinoa from appetite for reduction. I loved it, but I foolishly put in the peas thinking we could use up that last can from my sis. I could overlook em, Pookie could not.


Instead of the quinoa putanesca per my big menu plan of genius.. well, Pookie wanted spaghetti. I made some whole wheat pasta and served with some earth balance, garlic powder oven toasted aunt millie's bread.

Friday, I did make the appetite for reduction chickpea picatta, it was yummy (again), and I will dream fondly of it until next I make it, lol.

I was mucking about the web looking for something to make special for valentine's day, and came across this page about making Ethiopian food at home. It looked like it would be right up our alleys, and it was!




I had to make the injera from scratch, they don't sell that sorta stuff round these parts. When I had planned this meal I had thought to use all of Kittie's recipes and just go.. yuuummmm... soo fatty goodnessyyy. I mean it IS a holiday, right? sorta? lol

Turns out my starting weight watchers on valentines day coupled with a few of the recipes being in my new cookbooks (Happy herbivore had the kik alicha and the yesimsir w'et and the berbere spice mix, Appetite for reduction had the spicy gomen recipe) saved me.. well, from me. I roasted up the veggies in Kittie's gingered vegetables to have with it, and made the simple salad with Italian vinaigrette Kittie suggests.

Today, I don't feel like cooking, nope, not one bit! I feel like I used up half my pots and pans yesterday making all those delicious dishes. I opted to try a tofu salad on toasted bread, with leftover salad. This was my first tofu salad, I based it on this recipe, and used reduced fat veganaise instead of mayo. I also used capers in place of the pickles, I am fresh out.




I need to figure out a very simple plan for the next couple of weeks, will post if/when it's finished!

Shout-out to Sis who's chill in Vegas this week!

happy herbivore (mostly) recipe pics

I (so far) have stuck to the dinner plan for the most part. Here are a few pictures of the new to me meals. Most of these are from the happy herbivore cookbook.


Sunday:
























Nomelette with steamed veggies inside (I THINK I undercooked it, but I thought it still tasted fine), served with her cajun home fries - from the happy herbivore cookbook

Buddah's delight from the happy herbivore cookbook as well, served over brown rice

Quinoa kale white bean soup from appetite for reduction, served with french bread



Monday:





B: oats, mango, chia, 1/4c coconut milk
L: leftover soup & french bread
D: Nacho mom's queso, roasted potatoes
s: lesser evil potato chips (1.2oz bag)


Tuesday:













B: leftover soup
L: Tvp beef style taco, on two corn tortillas instead of in hard taco shell, topped with spinach n grape tomatoes
D: Breakfast sandwich (nomellete, breakfast patty from happy herbivore), sans faux cheese slice as I can't find any vgn ones here in town.

According to the menu plan, I was supposed to make the charlston red rice with the tvp tacos. I made those while making up the breakfast sandwiches, and completely forgot. It made for a pretty light lunch lol.


Wednesday:













B: breakfast sandwich
L: portabello steak fajitas, whole grain wrap, steamed cabbage (instead of lettuce), made the charlston red rice to go with this
D: Portabello steak, baby potatoes, 1/2c nsa applesauce

Since I had forgot to make it yesterday, I made the rice while I steamed the cabbage. Very tasty. I did have seconds of the fajitas, yum. You have to make the portabello steak recipe to make these, so I reserved one to have for dinner to try that too.

Menu planning (again, but this time all veggie lol)

One of the things I need to work on this year is being more consistent with planning meals and making a grocery list.

I am a sale shopper mostly, but that can (and does) get me over my food budget. Such and such is on sale, how can I NOT buy it? *crazy looks at boo* It is a sickness I am working on, really.

To that end, I have made a 2 week (dinner) meal plan for Pookie and I. I don't really have to mess with planning lunches as we eat leftovers for lunch most of the time. I do have to get fruit, and salad type stuff to accompany the leftovers or else his laptop lunch box looks very empty lol. Breakfasts here are also a pretty unplanned affair. I gravitate to scrambles (gm tofu, i<3u lol) and oatmeal with chia. Pookie likes toast and a banana and occasionally pancakes.

My dinner plans for the next 2 weeks:

Tonight : coconut curry rice from vegan on the cheap (VOTC)
Sun: Bhudda's delight from happy herbivore (HH)
M: quinoa white bean kale soup from appetite from reduction (A4R)
T: tvp tacos with charleston red rice (HH)
W: Portabello steak fajitas & salad (HH)
Th: leftovers
F: chorizo quinoa & spicy greens served over brown rice (HH)
S: Tamale casserole with leftover chorizo and spicy greens (HH)

Sun: leftovers
M: Caldo verde (VOTC)
T: Easy Dal ( from scrumdilly) & tamarind quinoa (A4R)
W: leftovers
Th: quinoa puttanesca (A4R)
F: chickpea piccata (A4R)
S: FFA - Free for all

I have also made up a shopping list and it looks like it will fall within my budget range easily. You can see I wasn't fibbing about wanting to try several recipes from the happy herbivore cook book!

I am a happy herbivore (fan)

This week I made a few different dishes.


I made this recipe for kashmiri-style kidney beans, and served it over brown rice. Pookie wasn't a big fan so it's unlikely I'll make it again. (no pic)

I made a pot of quinoa kitchari to eat on all week long (this is always a winner). It's from the 30 minute vegan cookbook, but I linked to where I found it. I make it with cabbage, spinach, broccoli, because I followed her version and liked it just that much. Served with hot chili sauce and braggs. Sometimes I use red cabbage and it gives it a pretty purpley color. I found several of those little bags of green lentils in the pantry so used those instead of the red lentils I usually use in this. Just as tasty.





I have only recently discovered happyherbivore.com as I have been veg a short time. Luckily, that means I have only been waiting a few months for her cookbook to come out. I have a tonnnn of things bookmarked in it to make! I was excited to try her biscuit & gravy recipe, and was quite happy with how it turned out. There was no delay in making it, lol. I bought her book on itunes, read it, bookmarked almost everything, and went to the kitchen to make biscuits & sausage style gravy.





I also made her Smoky black bean enchiladas.

Oh em gee. So good. I made 1/2 of them with flour tortillas, and 1/2 with corn tortillas. The corn tortillas were preferred by all (yknow, Pookie & I, lol). The recipe calls for homemade enchilada sauce which I made, yummy. It also calls to make some queso sauce, which I decided to forgo. While Boo will eat about anything I put on his plate, he is not a big fan of faux cheese sauces. I am hopeful that will change, but until then we use the daiya shreds (cheddar style). I had a couple of grape tomatoes about to go wonky on me so tossed those on top along with some green onions. Verrrry verry good.




Not near as pretty as her picture of the food, mine is um, more rustic I guess? lol

Indian & Greek

This past week I had ALOT of the vegan crockpot hearty stew left to eat, which kept my lunches pretty well planned out.



I would say that I was sick of eating it there at the end, and next time will half the recipe!


I have been looking for an indian recipe I had once at an indian buffet long before I went veg. It had kidney beans in it (that was all I could remember!), and so I kept trying different Rajma recipes. I discovered that I liked Rajma too, but it wasn't what I was looking for. I finally found it at Almostvegan's blog. Dal Makhani! mmmm





That was all the inspiration that I needed to get my booty into the kitchen. Pookie & I both adore indian foods, and it wouldn't be the first time I have whipped up an indian (at the very least, inspired) recipe. Pookie's fave is currently this Dal recipe from Scrumpdilly. I served it with this palak-aloo recipe from fatfree.com and brown rice.




I finally replaced my food processor (which died a natural death sometime a couple of months ago), and have been itching to make some falafel. I wanted to try appetite for reduction's baked version, so I made that for the second part of the week. I served it in a wrap with a greek style tahini sauce and with a bowl of fassolatha. I cut the olive oil in half and upped the servings to eight.

If wishes were fishes...

Welp, if wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.

I had a lot of optimism on the first, but ended up with a nice week long flu. I actually ate well below my points most days (easily, some days less than half), but I was a slothful bed monster from which no exercise could be coaxed.

Happily, I am again about 100% (such as it is), and will be restarting the exercise today. *yay!*

I did make a couple things that were new to me. A couple were before I got sick, and a couple since I have been "on the mend". Much as I love Pookie, he is good for either a sandwich or ramen when you are feeling under the weather. I like variety a bit too much to tax him very long for either ;)














Isa's chickpea picatta. The picatta was divine. I have quite a fondness for chickpeas, and will definitely be making this one over and over.

The southwestern black bean and corn soup was fine. This is the first time a vegan on the cheap recipe didn't blow my socks off. That said, the ingredients were cheap, on hand, and it wasn't bad. I thought it had a very simple taste to it. Pookie refused to have more than one serving. I had it for lunch for several days. To jazz it up a bit, I had a loaded potato (instead of the tortilla chips the recipe calls for).














Appetite for reduction's Unfried rice. I added 1c broccoli, 1c cauliflower, 1c mushrooms to it. Used brown rice as that is what I had made up already.

Tofu scramble from Instructables (I adore the continuity, that the Miller can is in all the pics). I was in the apple book store and saw they had a free vgn book download, this recipe is included in that. I like it a great deal, and it is to date Pookie's favorite Scramble *before this it was Vegan Mom's yellow plain scramble*. Served it with some mixed fingerlings.














As soon as I could stand cooking the first thing I made was this vegetable stew from vegweb. I really needed something easy and found The world's simplest hearty vegan crockpot stew. It was just the ticket. No sauteing. Makes a ton. I did use an acorn squash in place of the zucchini, and my huge crockpot was full to the brim. I can see how others had a problem getting all these ingreds into one pot! It is indeed stick to your ribs hearty, and just the thing for the cold Indiana winter.

Last night, I was feeling pretty good, and wanted comfort foods. I had plenty of points, so I made up some Mac and Trees from Appetite for reduction. Substituted whole wheat penne for the brown rice pasta, as that is what I had on hand. If that wasn't enough I wanted to piggy out. It was plenty for a meal on it's own but I had a brown rice, fat free refried bean burrito with salsa and 1/3 avocado. I did not have any snacks yesterday, and am fine on points.

When I see it in the picture though a part of me just goes on a rationalization rant from which there can be no escape. I need to become more friendly with my diet. I don't know what makes me think I should berate myself for a little piggy food consumption. The points are there to use. Calm down crazy!