Cooking with My Sister

Hello everyone! My sister came to visit yesterday, and we made a delicious mac & cheese for dinner. 

Ingredients:
--1 ½ cups elbow noodles
--3/4 cup soymilk
--1 T Earth Balance butter
--1/2 cup shredded Daiya cheddar cheese
--salt, pepper, and garlic

Cook the noodles, drain out the water, return the noodles to the stovetop and add the remaining ingredients, stirring well and letting simmer on low, covered, until the liquid had been absorbed. It turned out nice and creamy, and we both went back for more even though we were stuffed. 

For our snack later that night, we had tea and some banana bread that I’d made the night before. This is the recipe I use. 

For lunch today, we made oven-roasted golden potatoes. We sliced them up, added some olive oil, seasoned with garlic, pepper, salt, and rosemary, and put them in at 350° F for 15 minutes and then flipped them for another 15 minutes.

Along with the potatoes, we also had brown rice with broccoli, and carrots (not pictured).

Mystery really enjoyed having a new cuddle buddy. She even hunkered down for an #OccupyHallway as she waited for my sister to get out of the shower and snuggle some more.

Peace. :)

Grilled Cheese

Hello on the 17th day of the Vegan Month of Food! Today for Nostalgia Week, I decided to post about a wonderfully nostalgic lunch.

Grilled Cheese

Ingredients:

--two slices of bread

--two slices of Daiya cheddar

--vegan butter (Earth Balance)

Butter a side of one of the bread slices; place it butter-down in a heated pan (medium heat). Add the slices of Daiya on top (optional: I sometimes add a sprinkle of garlic salt atop the cheese), as well as the second slice of bread, also buttered, butter-up. Press and flip with spatula, repeating until both sides are nicely browned and the cheese is melty. Slice and serve with potato chips and an apple.

My mom always made the best grilled cheese sandwiches, nice and melty-cheesy, the edges crispy but not burnt, the bread with a perfect amount of saltiness from the butter (she also likes to add tomato slices to hers, but always left them off ours since we preferred them plain). I know it's simple, but grilled cheese always makes me feel nostalgic, and I'm glad it's something I can so easily make vegan. 

I've also finished off the last of my leftovers from my Shiitake Bacon and Tofu Scramble; I made hash browns to go along with it today (quartered a potato, boiled it, grated it, and pan-fried it with a bit of olive oil, adding some salt and pepper).

In other news, today is Occupy Wall Street's second anniversary.

Mystery, for her part, loves to occupy strategic areas throughout the apartment, namely doorways and the hallway in front of the kitchen, in order to keep an eye on us, particularly around mealtimes. She plans her occupations so that she can easily intercept us when we walk past, reminding us that it's time for her to be fed (sometimes she starts occupying when there's still an hour or two before a meal).

Here's a picture I took of Mystery during an #OccupyHallway action.

#WeWantNomsNow

Peace. :)