Monday, June 20, 2011

leftover love

no matter how hard i try, i get to a blogging lull in the summer. i am in the middle of getting ready to sell my home and move to a new one, so i am kind of busy. my decline in blogging largely has to do with running out of food porn photos. here's a sampling of the last few shots i have. i plan on filming a how-to on stuffed pancakes this week to post for the weekend. cross your fingers that i have time to pull it off!

above was a second experiment with kitchen sink tapas --this time done dessert style. simply heat your oven to 350 and stuff a muffin tin with wheat spring roll wrappers. you can get them at most asian groceries or buy them for an arm and a leg in the ethnic aisle at your local grocery store. fill the wraps with your favorite pie filling. i like to make mine from scratch and simple: strawberries, powdered sugar, and some lemon juice. for the apple one i made a mixture of apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, agave, and a dab of natural peanut butter. they were really good fresh, but not good cold or even reheated. keep that in mind if you make these for an event: the next day they will just have to get composted.
when it's been too hot to cook, i've found solace in the garden. i made these rainbow chard wraps with washed leaves of chard and used them to roll kroger's tuscan bean salad-(ours is vegan!) very nice, and dinner was ready in less than five minutes. yeah, you heard me right. five. minutes.
this was a pic from the butt end of winter, when i made the kale quinoa and white bean stew from appetite for reduction. what a heaping bowl of comforting goodness! can you see the dots of hot sauce? it's not really a meal for the summer. like most of isa's recipes, this one makes a ton and it freezes really well. that's great for summer menu planning--divvy up your meals, freeze them, and bust 'em on out to nuke when you don't want to cook.

be well, eat joyously, and for the love of leftovers, stay vegan!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

lovely sausage failure

looks good enough, right? we have vegan sausage patties, with some mushroom gravy, and some swissy-cheez potatoes. was it good? the potatoes were fine, but lemme tell you-- friends don't let friends have failures like this. this was my gluten free sausage experiment from a while ago. the first night it was awesome, but this was heated leftovers. verdict? FAIL, FAIL, FAIL. i didn't write my measurements down-(boo!), i left the unused mix in the fridge causing the fennel seeds to permeate the mixture and it tasted like licorice flavored garbage.

have no fear, here's a post punk kitchen link that will ensure that you never have to go through what i did. there are all sorts of spice options for you to try. i don't know why i find out about these things the hard way.

hey readers: tell me about a kitchen disaster!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

memorial day munchies!

not much time to talk. too busy! here are our eats from last weekend. above are buttermilk pancakes stuffed with strawberry rhubarb pie filling. i need to do a youtube tutorial for my stuffed pancake approach. i'm on it.
i picked some greens from the yard
the haul made some big ol' salads.
here we have a salad quartet that will make the taste buds sing: homemade baked beans, cole slaw w/a creamy basil dressing, potato salad, and tu-no salad.
i took it easy on the bbq and had the gardenburger ribz. i just didn't want to spend a hot day making seitan ribz. served it with some potato salad made with the aji sauce from viva vegan, cole slaw, and home made baked beans. i highly suggest making cole slaw with fresh basil. it was a gamble that worked out in my favor. the flavor of basil goes really well with the cool vegan mayo and shredded cabbage and carrots.

so, what did you eat for memorial day?