Hi everyone! This week I made the cheesy grits from Rabbit and Wolves (I learned of the recipe through Food for Dissertating), and they were really good! I had them with some shiitake bacon and broccoli.
Last night, I enjoyed some of the leftovers with Gardein chipotle lime crispy fingers and peppers. Cringer decided to give it a sniff or two…
Hi everyone! Today's Vegan MoFo prompt is: Something Rare – What color do you rarely eat? Make something that color! I figured yellow was a relatively rare color for me, so I made yellow rice with yellow peppers for my dinner tonight. I cooked the arborio rice with some turmeric and vegan "chicken" broth, adding the diced yellow pepper at the end to steam and then mix together. It was pretty good & would have also fit with the monochrome meal prompt earlier this week, haha!
Here's Daisy; she thinks that this scratching board makes a comfy bed...
Hi everyone! Today is the halfway point of Vegan MoFo and the prompt is: Multicolor – Fit as many colors as you can into one meal! So for my dinner tonight, I roasted a bunch of colorful veggies -- yellow & purple potatoes, orange & purple carrots, and red & green peppers.
Here's Buttons and Leela enjoying the sunshine, the clothes drying rack conveniently keeping some space between them. (Leela doesn't want Buttons getting any ideas about trying to cuddle, haha!)
Hello everyone! Today's prompt – "Make a dish using all seasonal produce" – was another perfect Veganlist opportunity.
Red's Sausage and Peppers
[from The Blacklist, "The Front" (No. 74) (Season 2, Episode 5)]
Red: My weakness is sausage and peppers.
I used this recipe for the sausage, but left out the fennel because I really don't care for it. I referenced the Seasonal Food Guide, and the mushrooms, onions, garlic, black-eyed peas, and tomatoes (tomato paste) are all in season.
After steaming the sausages, I unwrapped one and baked it at 350°F with sliced yellow, orange, and red peppers (also in season, with a bit of salt and pepper) for 10 min.
The peppers were perfect and the sausage was delicious, if a bit soft (which I expected since I didn't have time to let it cool & refrigerate it), and had enough spice in it without being overwhelming. Overall, this turned out fantastic; while making the sausages by hand was time-intensive, it was definitely worth it.
Bonus quotes from the episode: Beck: Who the hell are you? Red: I'm the snake in the grass.
And of course, here are Buttons, Leela, Cringer, and Daisy.
Hello everyone! For my third post this
week, I thought I'd share photos of some of the food I've had since
the end of Vegan MoFo, as well as give a book recommendation.
Spinach, Daiya cheese, and Lightlife
pepperoni pizza
Peanut butter brown rice with peppers
Daiya frozen cheese pizza that I split
with Zach (the instructions on the box called for it to be baked a)
at way too high a temperature and b) for way too long a time; we took
it out early). It was good, though the crust was really thin.
Brown rice with squash (yellow &
green) and onions, also turmeric, cumin, salt, and I forget what
else; I had this with shiitake bacon, but took the picture before it
was done baking.
Plain "chicken" broth with rotini
noodles and crackers (to help me get over a cold)
Baked beans with wild rice and broccoli
Ingredients:
2 cans beans (I used 1 can dark and 1 can light
kidney beans)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp mustard
1/2 cup ketchup
Directions:
Mix brown sugar and mustard. Add half
of mix on one can of beans in a baking dish. Add second can of beans
and remaining mixture. Pour ketchup over and bake at 325°F
for two hours (I usually stir it every half-hour). I think I'm going
to start making these with less brown sugar because they seemed a bit
too sweet to me.
In other news, if you are looking for a
sweet story about an adorable cat, I'd recommend reading Homer's
Odyssey by Gwen Cooper, a book about a blind kitten she adopts.
It's a quick
read with lots of short chapters and several photos; kinda wish it had been longer! I
really enjoyed the funny and cute stories about Homer's various
adventures, quirks, and interactions with others. (Note: I personally
could have done without the "None So Blind" chapter where the
author discussed meeting her future husband. To me, it just seemed to
drag on; the only way it related to Homer was that he inspired her to "take the leap" and start dating this individual.) Now for the
sad part, the only reason I heard of this book in the first place was
that I saw an article about Homer having died at the age of 16 years old.
In the book, however, he is very much alive and his story is one that
I'll definitely remember. You can find the book here on Amazon.
Mystery, resting on the floor
(she doesn't do this much, usually prefers to rest on the couch or
bed)
Yesterday, I noticed Mystery just standing on the floor, in the sunlight coming through the window. She seemed hesitant to lie down but was enjoying the warmth of the sun, so I set a folded-up blanket on the floor beside her in case
she wanted a little "bed." She climbed on top of it, climbed off, and then laid down next to it!
I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately, but I'll definitely try to if she does it again.
Hello
on the 25th day of the Vegan Month of Food, and the fourth day of my
Parks and Recreation theme week! (This post also fits in with
the Work With it Wednesday theme,
since I was a bit skeptical of portobello mushrooms and haven't been
that much of an asparagus fan.)
Chris'
Portobello Mushrooms
In "Indianapolis," (season 3, episode 6),
Leslie and Ron are traveling to the city to receive a
commendation award, but all Ron cares about is eating at his favorite
steakhouse. When they arrive, however, they discover that it has been
shut down due to a health code violation. Chris, who now lives in
Indianapolis, offers to "fire up the grill" at his place. While preparing the meal, Chris offers some salad to Ron. (Hehehe, look at me, I finally figured out how to embed a video in a post!)
Chris:
Ron, would you like some salad?
Ron:
(chuckles) Since I am not a rabbit, no, I do not.
Chris:
Try it, salad's good for you. (serves him some salad)
Ron:
You got it. (Chris leaves to work on the rest of the meal, Ron dumps
his salad back into the main serving bowl) Mmmm, delicious!
Later,
when Ron goes out to the grill to check on the steaks, he discovers
that Chris isn't actually cooking steak...
Ron:
Ahhhh!!!!
Leslie:
Ron?
Ron:
What in the devil's name is this?!
Chris:
Portobello mushrooms.
Ron:
Where's the steak?
Chris:
Oh, there's no steak. That's a healthier option. It's organically
grown.
Ron:
Oh... (gets unsteady)
Leslie:
Ron, are you OK? Woah, woah, woah, OK. (helps Ron into a chair) (to
Chris) Can you get us a cold compress or something?
Ingredients
for Chris' meal:
--2
organic portobello mushrooms
--olive
oil
--salt
--pepper
--asparagus
--rosemary
--garlic salt
--red
and orange peppers
--mixed
greens
Pre-heat
oven to 400°F,
cover a baking tray with a sheet of aluminum foil. Clean, de-stem,
and de-gill the portobello mushrooms. Brush olive oil and sprinkle
salt and pepper on both sides, set bottom-up on the tray. Trim the
asparagus, lay them out in a baking dish. Drizzle olive oil atop, and
sprinkle on some rosemary, garlic salt, salt, and pepper. Bake both
the mushrooms and the asparagus for 10 minutes. Flip the mushrooms,
add sliced peppers and a bit more garlic salt to the asparagus and
stir. Return mushrooms and the asparagus dish to the oven to bake for
another 10 minutes. Prepare a salad using the mixed greens. After
removing the mushrooms, allow them to sit for a bit on a folded paper
towel to soak up excess oil. Serve with the asparagus dish and the
salad.
The
portobello mushrooms turned out better than I expected. They weren't
as oily as I'd feared they'd be and they were nice and soft on the
inside. The texture of mushrooms has always seemed weird to me, but
it really wasn't too bad. The asparagus dish was alright; I think I
used too much olive oil, so maybe next time I make it, it'll be
better. The salad, being just mixed greens, was plain; I don't really
like dressings, so I ended up just chopping up some of the
mushroom and asparagus and peppers to mix them in with the greens,
and combining everything together in one dish worked out nicely.
But
wait, there's more! Before making this dinner, I prepared a quick
appetizer...
The
Snakehole Lounge's Pigs in a Blanket
Also
in this episode, April and Andy go out together to the Snakehole
Lounge, a Pawnee bar. Andy is embarrassed that he doesn't have money
to buy drinks, so April suggests that they see how much free stuff
they can get throughout the night. At one point, she comes back with
a whole tray of pigs in a blanket.
April:
I got this from a waiter. I told him I had a pork deficiency.
Andy:
Sweet! Pigs in a blanket! I always wondered why they called them
that...
Ingredients:
--4
Lightlife Smart Dogs
--1
package vegan crescent rolls
Preheat
oven to 350°F. Unroll the rolls and slice the smart dogs in half.
Roll up one half smart dog in each roll. Place on greased baking
tray. Bake for 10 minutes. Serve & enjoy!
Apart
from getting a bit burnt on the bottom, these "pork-deficient"
(vegan) pigs in blankets turned out great, very delicious for being
so easy to make. I only had two of them, so I'm looking forward to finishing off the rest in the next couple days; yum!
Bonus
quotes from the episode:
April:
Hey, uh, six beers for, uh, table twelve.
Woman
behind bar: Do you work here?
April:
Yeah, my dad owns this place. I'm Janet, Janet Snakehole.
Here's
a picture of Mystery curled up, all snuggly on the couch.
