Recent Noms

Hi everyone! I hope you’re doing well! Here are some of the yummy meals I’ve enjoyed recently… 

Annie’s vegan mac & cheese (topped with nutritional yeast and salt) with broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, and a hash brown with ketchup

spaghetti cooked in vegan chicken broth with soy curls and kale

pierogi with Morningstar pulled pork and sauerkraut and golden wax beans

For some cuteness, here’s a rabbit hanging out in our yard… 

And Daisy says hello! 

Peace. :)

Spicy Eggplant

Hi everyone! This week I made another attempt at the spicy eggplant recipe. It’s better, but still not quite there; I think now it needs a bit more spice. I might experiment more with this recipe in the future, but I’ll share the most recent recipe today because this version is still pretty good… 

Spicy Eggplant

Ingredients:
1 eggplant, sliced and cut into quarters
2 medium bell peppers, diced
1 small onion, diced
½ T canola oil
1 tsp minced garlic
½ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp ginger
1 T soy sauce
2 T hoisin sauce
2 tsp sriracha

Directions:
Boil the eggplant pieces until softened, drain and set aside. Saute the peppers and onion with the canola oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, and ginger for five minutes. Add the eggplant. Cover and simmer for ten minutes, stirring every now and then. Add the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and sriracha and simmer for five minutes. Serve with rice.

Here are some of my sketches this week…

eggplant (original photo)

kale (original photo)

lettuce (original photo)

onion (original photo)

parsnip (original photo)

And here is Cringer, snug in a box…

P.S. Today is the last day to sign up for Vegan MoFo!

Peace. :)

Recipe Experiments & Blackbird Pizzeria

Hi everyone! This week I attempted to make my own version of the spicy eggplant dish from Sutao Cafe. It worked for the most part, but the eggplant did not get as tender as I’d hoped. Next time I will boil the eggplant pieces first (with the onions and peppers) and then add them to the sauce in the pan to cook a bit more. If that works, I’ll share the recipe next week! 

I also made a batch of BBQ cauliflower bites (1 cup BBQ sauce, 1 tsp hot sauce) with a single serving of mac & cheese that I put way too much turmeric in (I don’t know what possessed me to do 1 tsp, next time I’ll just do ¼ tsp haha). Other than the too much turmeric, though, it was a good meal overall. 

For dinner on Friday, Zach and I went to Blackbird Pizzeria; it’s been so long since I’ve been there (though this was at their new location), so it was a real treat! We got two slices of the haymaker pizza, cheese fries, and a seitan cheesesteak. Everything was really good; the pizza was delicious (and Zach’s favorite; he said that he liked that it was a bit spicy), the cheese fries were fun, and of course the cheesesteak is simply a classic must-have, though very messy to share and eat, haha! 

Here are some of the sketches I did this week…

carrot (original photo)

cauliflower (original photo)

celery (original photo)

corn (original photo)

And here’s a close-up of Daisy… 

P.S. I finally signed up for Vegan MoFo; I’m going to be doing my own monthly theme: Bookmarked Recipes of Vegan MoFo Past! If you haven’t signed up yet, you only have until August 24, so don’t procrastinate too much longer!

Peace. :)

Tofu in Spicy Peanut Sauce (Modern Martha)

Hi everyone! This week I visited my sister and we tried a new recipe – the tofu in spicy peanut sauce from Modern Martha. It turned out really well; the only change we made was to decrease the amount of sriracha to 1 teaspoon. We had it with white rice and mixed veggies, and it was delicious! So delicious, in fact, that I’ve already made it again!

I’ve also tried some new popsicles recently; they were both really good, but between the two, I preferred the salted caramel one… 

I did more vegetable sketches this week…

beets (original photo)

bok choy (original photo)

broccoli (original photo)

Brussels sprout (original photo)

cabbage (original photo)

Here’s Leela in one of her favorite summer nap spots – behind the door in the bathroom. I accidentally woke her up by taking her picture; whoops! 

Peace. :)

Simple Stir Fry (Long Island Vegan)

Hi everyone! This week I made a stir fry with the recipe Sarah shared on Long Island Vegan. I used tempeh, mushrooms, an orange bell pepper, and some frozen peas & carrots. The stir fry came together really well and was delicious served over white rice! The leftovers were really good, too! 

I caught Leela mid-meow; she looks like such a little goof… 

Peace. :)

Fall Vegetable Plate with Sausage

Hello everyone! Today's prompt is "Autumn equinox eats," and while it would have been awesome to put together a harvest meal, my garden didn't work out this year. (I planted too late, and it looks like all I'm getting from it is a tiny, oddly shaped cucumber.) Not to be discouraged, I simply put together a meal featuring the veggies I'd hoped to grow in my garden... 

Here we have broccoli and carrots (oven-roasted with garlic salt, along with one of the leftover sausages from yesterday), kale and snow peas (steamed), and tomato and cucumber slices.

All in all, it was pretty delicious, and I hope next year I'll be able to recreate this dish, but with veggies I grew myself!

Oh, and look what I'm going to have for tea time tonight!

In today's kitty news, Leela got to the sunshine first, and Buttons was jealous.

Meanwhile, Cringer and Daisy played together.

Peace. :)

Yellow Rice and Vegetables on Pita

Hello on the 18th day of the Vegan Month of Food!  Today I have a post about a quick and easy lunch, the same general idea as a previous post with brown rice, but I felt that this was a colorful enough meal to include anyway.

Yellow Rice and Vegetables on Pita

Ingredients:
--Carolina Yellow Rice mix
--1 T olive oil or vegan margarine
--1 2/3 cup water
--carrots 
--snow peas
--pita

Prepare the yellow rice according to package directions.  Add in chopped carrots and snow peas.  Toast pita lightly and top with rice.  Serve with a side salad of mixed greens.

Goodnight, and looking forward to tomorrow when I'll share my exciting dinner from tonight...vegan sloppy joes!

Peace.  :)

Vegetable Quinoa

Hello on the 9th day of the Vegan Month of Food!  I finally got around to cooking up some quinoa, which was a fun experiment, since I'd never even eaten quinoa before, let alone prepared it myself.  

Vegetable Quinoa

Ingredients:

--1 cup vegetable broth

--1/2 cup quinoa

--broccoli

--cauliflower

--red pepper

First, rinse off the quinoa.  Bring the vegetable broth to a boil and add the rinsed quinoa.  Lower heat.  Chop up and add the vegetables.  Cook until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa has plumped up.  Serves 2.

Having never had quinoa before, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I'm glad that I gave it a chance because I really enjoyed it.  My mom had a serving of the quinoa as well and thought it was good (even though she's not a fan of broccoli), so that's another thing to keep on my list of meals that have passed Mom's taste-test.

Mr. Boogie has been very cute and photogenic lately, but, on the other hand, he has also woken me up the past two nights with his antics--climbing on top of my head Sunday night (!) and chewing on my Halloween decorations last night.  (I woke up to his "n'yahm n'yahm" chewing sounds and scrabbled out of bed to pull him away.  He didn't actually swallow anything since I managed to catch him so quickly, so that was good.  I now have the strand hung higher so he can't reach it.)  I guess the adorableness and the mischievousness balance each other out.

Peace.  :)