Curried Butternut Squash, Red Lentil and Noodle Soup

I woke early at about 7:30 in the mood to cook something but not really sure what. I dithered about in the kitchen for a few hours, leafing through cookbooks while having my tea and toast. I noticed the butternut squash that had been sitting on my kitchen table for the past week and a half that I decided I was going to use but not sure how. At first I was going to make a raw grated butternut salad but as I was peeling the thing (not fun), my comfort food monster came out and decided to chop it all up and make soup instead. I followed the butternut squash and red lentil soup recipe from 1,000 Vegan Recipes and added cut vermicelli at the end to up the comfort food factor. The ginger, curry powder and cumin flavors are warming and delicious and the noodles make it extra good.

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread Pudding.

This is a good one for the holidays. I got the recipe from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. I used a day old french loaf that I knew was not going to be eaten so I used it for this. I also had exactly 1 cup of pumpkin puree leftover from Thanksgiving that was hiding out in my freezer. 45 minutes later, we have bread pudding. It was so good, soft and tender with holiday flavors. Yummy.

Spanish Rice and Beans

Tonight's dinner was a very simple one pot dish, the 'spanish rice and beans' from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. It was very delicious.

Austrian Noodles and Cabbage

Woo, what a day! Lots of work, busy, busy, busy I was! Just wanted to come home to a comforting meal and some wine or beer. I made this recipe of Austrian noodles and cabbage from Robin Robertson's book "1,000 Vegan Recipes". Love this book. Can't say enough good things about it. It's full of recipes like this that are perfect for quick weeknight meals.

Risi e Bisi (with carrots!)

This is the Rice and Pea soup from 1,000 Vegan Recipes aka "Risi e Bisi" in Italian. I only had "peas and carrots" in my freezer so I used them. The arborio rice is really creamy and gives the soup a comfort factor. It reminds me of Thai rice porridge. This is dinner tonight after an active day at work.

Drunken Spaghetti with Tofu

I'm a big fan of Drunken Noodles or in Thai, "Pad Kee Mao" which is a delicious pan fried noodle dish flavored with Thai basil. Thai basil has a gorgeous flavor which has been described as slightly licoricey or minty. It's just wonderful! Unfortunately for me I didn't have any Thai basil today. I did have fresh mint leaves from the garden which I substituted with great results. This recipe is from the 1,000 vegan recipes cookbook. I chose it today because I had a ziploc bag of cooked spaghetti in my fridge that I had no idea what to do with. I used garlic, red onion, red pepper, kale, zucchini and mint with thin slices of fried tofu to whip up this fast and easy dish. In the Thai version of this dish we use flat rice noodles and they can be a pain to work with. The spaghetti makes this dish very easy. It came out very tasty and I plan to make this again.

The Muffin Gods Must Be Angry With Me...

You're looking at the bran muffin recipe from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Now, if I would have followed directions correctly I could have gotten a totally different muffin. But the way things panned out, I got these instead. They are good and well enough but not what I was looking for. You might remember I made oat bran muffins a few weeks ago and didn't get the result I wanted then either. I wanted fluffy, dark brown, sticky and sweet bran muffins that were like the ones I used to buy before I went vegan. I know there's a recipe out there!

So back to these muffins... I made a huge mistake. Robin says to use 3 cups of bran flakes cereal. She also said that if the flakes were especially large, to measure them out first and then crush them into smaller flakes. I totally did this backwards and crushed a bunch of flakes first, then measured them out. Ugh. And I wondered why the batter seemed kind of dry. They baked up small and firm on the outside and a little moist on the inside. I spread Earth Balance margarine on them to make them more special. Again, they are good and healthy but not what I was looking for.

Monday Eats.

Happy Monday all! Don't worry, it'll go by fast! That's what I tell myself every Monday anyway. After a nice walk this morning with the dog, I had a bowl of Farina hot cereal (cream of wheat) with blackstrap molasses, maple syrup and cinnamon. Not so pretty looking but it was very good.


I made a big batch of this red bean jambalaya from 1,000 Vegan Recipes last night. This will be lunch and possibly dinner today. It's a pretty good recipe though I did change a few things like using yellow pepper instead of green, jalapeno instead of mild green chiles and I omitted one can of the crushed tomatoes because I didn't have any. I guess it would have been more tomatoey with it but I liked it this way.

Monte Cristo Breakfast and Pizza/Salad Lunch

Hope everyone is enjoying the tail end of the weekend. This was breakfast today. Monte Cristo sandwich which is basically french toast slathered with Vegenaise and stuffed with veggie ham and melty dairy-free cheese then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Served with a cup of illy. Yummmm. In case you're wondering, I used Lightlife Smart Deli Veggie Ham and Tofutti American dairy free cheese. My recipe for this sandwich here.


Lunch: Take-away sundried tomato-garlic pizza with added Daiya cheese plus spinach salad with orange-dijon dressing from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Served with half a banana and pomegranate white tea.

Things To Eat With Tea.

My cousins came over today for tea and a Doctor Who and Robin Hood marathon. When I have tea parties, I always make food to go along with it. I kept it simple by serving onion bagels with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and Joni's tofu egg salad sandwiches. Delicious!


You also need cakes with tea! I opened up 1,000 Vegan Recipes again and made the Spicy Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze. It's a moist chocolate cake spiced with cinnamon and cayenne and covered in dark chocolate. Very decadent and chocolatey.

Cornbread

I'm certainly cooking my way through 1,000 Vegan Recipes aren't I? I highly recommend this book by the way. It's got everything covered in simple straightforward format. This is the cornbread recipe which turned out perfect. Moist with beautiful corn flavor. I like to serve it with Earth Balance margarine and agave syrup. This will go perfectly with the big container of four alarm chili I made last night. Can't wait.

Four Alarm Chili

Ok so I had a bunch of mac n cheeze leftovers in my fridge and I had every intention of eating only that tonight but then I had this genius idea of making chili...


...the Four alarm chili from 1,000 Vegan Recipes that is...


...and combining it with the mac. Now it's Four Alarm Chili Mac! Super good. The chili is going to be even better tomorrow. I have used up all the mac so I might turn it into taco salad or just having it with cornbread. We'll see!

Smoothies, Baked Mac and Cheeze

Started my day off with a delicious peanut butter banana smoothie. This was like eating dessert!


This is the baked mac and cheeze recipe from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. It was pretty good. There are no nuts in this recipe so it wasn't as creamy but still very satisfying with a side of steamed broccoli.




For dessert, the mango lassi also from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Very nice, thick and creamy. I couldn't finish the whole thing though. It was too much so I saved the rest for breakfast tomorrow.

Walnut "Chicken" Salad

Sandwich adapted from the tempeh-walnut "chicken" salad from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. I changed it up a bit depending on what ingredients I had today. Instead of tempeh, I used chicken-less strips (like Trader Joe's brand or Gardein) and chopped them up into bits before adding things like Vegenaise, celery, walnuts, dijon, lemon juice etc. I left out the red bell pepper because I didn't have any and used extra celery instead. It was very tasty on soft white bread. I think I may make this for my next tea party.

Broiled Kabob & Quinoa

I just got a great cookbook, 1,000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson. There are so many great things in it that I can't wait to try. I l have a few of Robin's other cookbooks and I really enjoy using them. I love her recipes because they are very straightforward and usually don't call for any hard to find ingredients. I made the vegetable kabob recipe and used tofu instead of seitan and I broiled instead of grilled. The marinade is a wonderful mixture of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and herbs. They were perfect with a side of fluffy quinoa. Because I like condiments, I served the kabobs with a side of homemade bbq sauce. I adapted the sauce recipe from an old Susan Powter recipe book that I have.



BBQ Sauce

2 tsp. olive oil
1/4 onion, chopped
1 cup tomato juice or V-8
1/2 cup ketchup
3 TB balsamic or apple cider vinegar
1 TB lemon juice
2-3 TB brown sugar
1 TB dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. liquid smoke (optional)

Heat olive oil in a small saucepan. Add onions and saute until soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer for about 10 minutes.