Sheep's Wool in Your O.J.

One tidbit I forgot to mention about Christmas Day that was a bit shocking and quite odd... my mom offered me some orange juice when I woke up. I am not typically one to drink juice, but it sounded like a good way to sweeten the morning a bit while opening presents. I picked up the jug of juice, H.E.B. brand, fortified with calcium. Sounded fine, right. Well, I read further and saw that it was fortified with Vitamin D3. I remembered vaguely from reading Becoming Vegan back when I first went vegan that there were two sources of Vitamin D, one plant-derived and one animal-derived. I couldn't quite remember which was which so I did a quick google search and sure enough, Vitamin D3 is sourced from sheep's wool (bleh!). My mom was shocked, how can juice not be vegan? Crazier things have happened I suppose. So no O.J. for me....

Sorry for the random story. I go back to work tomorrow, which I am pretty sad about. So this morning after a run (trying to start my New Year's resolutions a bit early :-), I made myself my favorite Sunday breakfast; french toast. I have stuck to one recipe since going vegan, but figured in the spirit of the new year I should branch out a bit. Take a guess where I got this one from....

That's right! My copy of My Sweet Vegan, which I really can't put down, I'm having so much fun just drooling over the photos. This one uses nutritional yeast, and I thought it turned out delicious. I wish I'd had some thicker bread, but thankfully since I was instructed to toast the bread before dipping it in the batter, it didn't come out soggy. To make up for the lack of O.J. from Christmas, I had clementine wedges on the side.

Dinners the past few nights have focused on new recipes as well. On Friday night, my parents and sister came over and I decided to test out two new V-con recipes on them: the pumpkin baked ziti with caramelized onions and sage crumb topping that so many people have raved about and the roasted fennel and hazelnut salad with shallot dressing. Along with the leftovers, last night we also tried the mustard crusted seitan from Yellow Rose Recipes.

All three of these dishes got a thumbs up from everyone. One thing I would change about the ziti... next time I would use about half the breadcrumbs called for. Not sure if it was because I was lazy and used store-bought breadcrumbs, but there were just so many of them and they seemed to overwhelm the flavor of the pumpkin/cashew ricotta filling. The salad was a huge hit, my parents loved the fennel and hopefully now they will introduce a new veggie to their repertoire! The toasted hazelnuts and the dried cranberries along with the shallot dressing were a perfect compliment. And the seitan was a yummy new discovery as well (I also used her recipe for seitan, which was a bit moister than other recipes I've made). If you love mustard, you need to try this easy way to fix seitan cutlets.

So now I guess I need to go think about some resolutions for the New Year. Plus I need to make a grocery list so I can make a few goodies to bring along to the two New Year's parties we'll be attending....

His Choice

When I first started cooking (maybe two years ago, before that, I relied on restaurant food and cereal), I made lots of simple salads. After all, they are easy and versatile and good for you! Since developing my fondness for cooking, I must say that I tend to want to try more complicated things in the kitchen. John always begs for salads, so to appease him, last night we had the Roasted Portabello Salad with spicy mustard dressing from Veganomicon.

The salad did not disappoint. The roasted mushroom was tender and juicy, and the aroma of garlic and red wine filled the house to our delight. While I usually add a bit of mustard to vinaigrette's that I make, this recipe called for a large amount of spicy mustard. What a difference! The mushroom, dressing, salad greens (with fresh herbs, I love cilantro in my salads), avocado, and chickpeas all came together beautifully in this salad. It was one of those salads where I plan my final bite to include a bit of everything, so the flavors can all join forces in my mouth. Am I the only person who does this?

Maple and Mustard Magic

This week the focus has been mainly on warp-speed wedding planning (we're aiming for early Oct. 2007), not really food. But even in my cooking haste, we've had a few tasty dishes. Monday night I tried a new recipe from VWAV, the Maple Mustard Potatoes and Beans. I needed to use the green beans in the fridge I had from last week's farmer's marker, as well as some new potatoes that I bought there. I figured there would likely be enough leftovers for lunch the next day .... wow was I wrong! I loved this dish, the maple and mustard were a great combination. I wonder how it would taste on different veggies?

Tuesday night, John cooked up some zucchini flowers that we spotted at the farmer's market. I had never had these before, but John remember them growing up, so he was in charge of the cooking. He dipped them in plain soy milk then coated them with flour, salt and pepper and fried them up southern style! (The browned thing beneath the fried flowers is a mini zucchini that was attached to one of the flowers, how cute!) Simple, but good. Served them along with some yellow squash and mushrooms sauteed with pesto and almond-crusted homemade seitan patties.