Leftover Lunch Bowl

I have no idea why I am posting my lunch from today. There is no recipe to share and it is nothing ground-breaking. I took a photo of it though to show you my lame attempt at being creative. I present to you my "Leftover Lunch Bowl" :

I took all the little bits of leftovers I had in the fridge and threw them all in a bowl together. Voila! Instant lunch! It had a little bit of spiced quinoa, roasted portobellos, roasted squash, chickpeas, and the lefover Samosa Potatoes from my last post. You probably think I'm nuts, but it was pretty darn good!

On another note, I made my 2nd recipe from the Bittersweet blog for the Blog Challenge. I made Hannah's Pancake recipe for dinner on Friday. (Don't you just love breakfast for dinner?) I think this is going to be my new staple pancake recipe. They were light, fluffy, and reminded me of the pancakes my mom used to make for me. They made me happy :)

Blog Challenge: Week 4

Tonight I finally got around to making something for the Blog Challenge. I've slacked off on the Challenge lately because I've been so busy with school. We're in the last 2 weeks of the semester already! We were also eating Thanksgiving leftovers for a few days, so I haven't cooked much. (Thanksgiving leftovers are good, but I am so glad they're finally gone! I'm so sick of stuffing!) For the Challenge this week we are using Hannah Kaminsky's blog Bittersweet. Hannah's blog is really great. Her blog was actually one of the first blogs I started reading on a reguar basis and it was the first vegan blog I ever read. Hannah takes gorgeous photos and comes up with the most creative desserts/baked goods. Not that anyone should be surprised though, seeing as she is the author of My Sweet Vegan.

For the 1st recipe this week I made Hannah's Samosa Potato Salad. (She has some savory recipes on her blog too) You guys know that I love Indian food, so it's probably no surprise that I really liked this recipe. The salad had potatoes, onions, peas, and Indian spices. Very straightforward, but it didn't need anything else. In fact, if there was a lot of other veggies, I probably wouldn't have liked it as much. The spice combination was perfect- it had lots of flavor but wasn't too intense on the heat. I actually cheated a little and served the dish warm instead of chilled. It smelled so good and I was too hungry to wait! I prefer warm potato salads over chilled ones anyway. I kept things simple tonight and served the potatoes alongside some chickpeas cooked with garlic, sherry, and soy sauce. They look like some boring chickpeas, but they were actually very tasty. Not as tasty as the Samosa Potato Salad though. If you like Indian food and potatoes (Seriously, does anyone not like potatoes?) I recommend this recipe.

Samosa Potato Salad

Thankful for lots of yummy food

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving! I had a wonderful day with Andrew and our little furry babies. We hung out on the couch and watched the parade all morning, watched movies, played Scrabble, and had lots of food! I made a huge meal (definitely too much for 2 people), but it was worth it. I was quite pleased with the way everything turned out. I honestly don't think I can say any one part of the meal was my favorite, because it all tasted so good! I tried a new stuffing recipe this year (recommended by my mom) instead of the cornbread stuffing I usually make. I liked the stuffing a lot- it has apples, dried cranberries, and pecans. It added a nice sweet contrast to the rest of the savory meal. The recipe made so much though that we barely made a dent in it. I think we'll be eating stuffing for another week. The other components of the meal were nothing new, but still tasty nonetheless. The vegan sausages came out perfect. I steamed them the night before, so all I had to do on Thanksgiving was slice them and panfry them. I used the Vegan Brunch recipe for Italian Sausages, but made a few modifications. Here's a sample of our meal:

Herbed Sausages, Mashed Potatoes, Apple-Cranberry Stuffing,

and Roasted Green Beans

There was also gravy and pumpkin pie! Sorry, I didn't get a picture of either. If you want to see what the pie looks like though, check out my post from last Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Inspiration

Need some last minute inspiration for Thanksgiving dinner? Or maybe you have a vegan coming to Thanksgiving this year and you don't know what to make? There's been lots Thanksgiving-inspired posts popping up the past few weeks, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you.

Check out the Thanksgiving '09 Menu thread over on the PPK forum. It's got 9 pages of fabulous meal ideas! If you're looking for some traditional Thanksgiving favorites, Bryanna Clark Grogran has some great Vegan Holiday Dinner Recipes on her site. She has homemade seitan "turkey", gravy, stuffing, and several dessert recipes. (I used her pumpkin pie recipe last year and it turned out perfect!) Cupcake Punk has been giving local talks/demos called "Alternative Thanksgiving" to teach people how to make vegan Thanksgiving dishes. She has been nice enough to share the recipes from her cooking demos with her readers, so go check out the Thanksgiving Tutorials tab on her blog.

Want to enjoy the holidays without having to worry about gaining a few pounds? Happy Herbivore has compiled a list of Pudge-Free Thanksgiving recipes from her blog and cookbook. And there is always FatFree Vegan's famous Green Bean Casserole and Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

Blog Challenge: Week 2

I've been ready to write this post for a few days now, but I am having issues with my computer and camera card. (Why doesn't technology like me? I just want to be friends!) Anyway, it's week 2 of the Blog Recipe Challenge. This week's blog is the Vegan Dad blog. I was looking forward to trying some recipes from Vegan Dad's blog since I have heard a lot of good things about his recipes.

The first recipe I tried was Channa Saag. There's a lot of Indian recipes on Vegan Dad's blog, because apparently he loves Indian cuisine as much as I do. The recipe was good, but not great. I had to add a lot more spices to the recipe because I felt that it didn't have enough flavor. (Someone on the PPK pointed out that Vegan Dad is cooking for 2 children, so you have to keep in mind that his recipes might not be super spicy) Once I added more spices I was happier. Not that I wouldn't have eaten the dish anyway- it was chickpeas and kale, 2 of my favorites!

Channa Saag

The second recipe I tried was the Sweet Potato and Kale Quesadillas. These were great! I loved the combination of flavors in the filling. It had mashed sweet potato, black beans, kale, onions, and Mexican spices. Yum! There was supposed to be corn in the filling too, but I forgot it. The only small change I made to the recipe was that I used chipotle chile powder instead of regular. Honestly, I liked the filling so much that I would have been happy skipping the tortillas and just eating that. The recipe made a good amount. I got 5 big quesadillas out of it, although if you used smaller tortillas you'd probably get 6-8. Andrew really liked these too, although he kept arguing with me that they shouldn't be called "quesadillas" since there's no cheese in them. (Boys are a pain in the butt sometimes!)

Sweet Potato and Kale Quesadillas

Show your love for the turkeys!

So, who's excited that Thanksgiving is next week? I sure am! I love Thanksgiving, it's always been my favorite holiday. I've been planning our meal for for weeks now and I think I have it figured out. Here's the menu I came up with:

Herbed sausages
Apple-cranberry stuffing
Garlic mashed potatoes
Roasted green beans
Pumpkin pie for dessert

I may add one more veggie dish to the meal, but I haven't decided yet. I am only cooking for the 2 of us, so I don't want to go overboard (not that any leftovers would go to waste though). I'm trying to stick with the traditional Thanksgiving sides, but make it different than last year's meal. What are you guys planning on making?

On a related note...I adopted a turkey for Thanksgiving! I learned about Farm Sanctuary's Adopt a Turkey program from Bianca's post yesterday and decided to do it too. It's a really good way to show the turkeys some love this Thanksgiving!

(This is Hawthorn, the turkey I adopted)

Blog Challenge: Week 1 and Banana Cookies

My copy of Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar finally arrived yesterday! After drooling over the recipes for an hour I got busy in thekitchen! Upon first flipping through the book I was immediately drawn to the "Banana Everything Cookies." You guys know that I love bananas and banana baked goods, but can you believe I've actually never made banana cookies? Most of the time people claim that banana cookie recipes turn out cakey instead of chewy. Cakey cookies are not my thing! (If I wanted something cakey I would have just made a cake) I have confidence in Isa's recipes though, so I really wanted to try these. As I hoped, these cookies didn't come out cakey at all. They're called "Banana Everything Cookies" because they have a little bit of everything in them- oats, chocolate chips, and nuts (I used pecans). These were a good choice for my first recipe from VCIYCJ, cause they seriously kick ass. There's another banana cookie recipe in the book that is a little healthier (There's a Wholesome Cookie section in the book), so I may have to give those a try soon too and compare the 2 recipes.

Banana Everything Cookies

Remember the Blog Recipe Challenge I mentioned last week? Even though I've been busy lately I haven't forgotten about the Challenge. I tried 2 recipes from the PPK blog this week- "Edamame Pesto" and "Quinoa Puttanesca." The pesto was good and reminded me a lot of the "Pasta with Pea Pesto" recipe I posted here before. The pesto had very little fat but was really creamy from the edamame. Isa used a combination of fresh basil and cilantro in the recipe, but I just used all basil. It was a good recipe, but I think I like my "Pea Pesto" recipe a little better. Unfortunately I didn't get any good pics of the pasta. It was very neon green and just didn't look good on camera.

The "Quinoa Puttanesca" really surprised me. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did, although I don't know why because I love Puttanesca sauce. (For those of you who don't know what Puttanesca sauce is, it's an Italian tomato sauce with olives, capers, and crushed red pepper) The sauce was very yummy! I used a little less capers than the recipe called for though, cause it was a little too much for my liking. There were 2 suggestions for serving this dish- serving the sauce on top of the quinoa or mixing it all together. I opted for serving the sauce on top of the quinoa because I was afraid it might get too mushy if I mixed it together.

Quinoa Puttanesca

The Cookies are Coming!

So, I took a little break from blogging most of this week. I've been swamped with papers and exams lately. I guess now that it's getting closer to Thanksgiving and the end of the semester, it is to be expected. I also got to schedule my classes this week for the Spring semester. I am happy with my classes overall, except for the lab I have to take at 8:00 on a Friday morning! (I've been spoiled the past few years, I've never had to take any Friday classes) We've also been dealing with a lot of animal-related problems recently. We've been fighting a losing battle with Nico's horrible allergies for months and now on top of that, both Nico and Ditty have fleas!

Despite all of that, there is one good thing that has been keeping me sane this week. Isa's new cookie book is out! Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar came out this week and I have anxiously been waiting for my book to arrive. It it supposed to be arriving today! I hope you guys like seeing pictures of cookies because I'm going to be baking up a storm the next few weeks! Isa has posted a few recipes on her blog, along with a link to pictures from the book. Don't those pictures look amazing!?

Cookbook Challenge: Week 11, Part 2

It was a pretty busy week. Andrew's parents came to visit for a few days and I had a few exams to study for, so I didn't get to cook as much as I would have liked. I slacked off on the Cookbook Challenge a little and made 2 recipes instead of 3.

While the Spinach with Spicy Peanut Sauce in my last post was really awesome, the other recipe I tried was a little disappointing. Last night I gave the South African Green Beans a try since I conveniently had all the ingredients. It was a simple recipe- green beans sauteed with onions, garlic, ginger, and spices. It wasn't bad, but there was nothing spectacular about it. No big deal, better luck next time. The rest of our dinner was pretty simple too, but tasty nonetheless. We had roasted butternut squash (one of my favorites!) and corn with paprika and garlic alongside the green beans. Sometimes I would much rather have a simple dinner like this than something elaborate. I can very easily make a meal for myself out of veggie side dishes and skip the "main" dish.

South African Green Beans

Now that the Cookbook Challenge is over I have a new challenge to take part in! The PPKers decided to keep the cooking challenge going and start a Blog Recipe Challenge. The concept is the same as the Cookbook Challenge. Each week we pick a popular vegan food blog and try 3 new recipes. We have some great blogs picked out. I may have a hard time picking out which recipes to try! Check out this post for the details about the challenge and the list of blogs we are using.

Cookbook Challenge: Week 11

It's the final week of the Cookbook Challenge! I've been looking forward to this week ever since the beginning of the challenge. This week's book is Vegan Fire & Spice. It's a really great cookbook and I've been looking forward to making more recipes from it.

The first recipe of the week was the African Spinach with Spicy Peanut Sauce. One word for you- WOW. We gobbled this recipe down quickly and both went back for seconds. It's a simple and fast recipe, but don't let that fool you because the flavor is awesome. I was planning on using it as a side dish, but at the last minute I decided to throw in some beans and turn it into our main dish. I'm not too surprised that I liked this recipe, you guys know how much I love peanut butter :)

African Spinach with Spicy Peanut Sauce