i made cheesecake ice cream from the perfect scoop. it was basically just cream cheese, sour cream, half-and-half, and sugar. i add a few graham cracker bunnies (for the "crust") and a couple little homegrown strawberries and it tasted just like cheesecake, but cold.

"Chorizo" Burrito

There is a yummy little place out here called El Chupacabra. It's a bar and not very kid friendly so we've only been there twice. But we have very fond memories of their veggie (fake meat) tacos. We decided to try our own rendition this weekend.

We picked up some Mexican Chipotle Field Roast Sausages (the closest thing we could find to veggie chorizo. It was the first time we'd tried that particular field roast "flavor" and oh my. It will become a staple for us, I think!). Sliced it in rounds and tossed it in a skillet to "brown up" as Jeff put it.

We already had flour tortillas so we used those but I think corn tortillas would be great in the future.

For assembly:
Flour tortilla
"Chorizo"
Shredded monterey jack cheese
Cubed avocado
Mixed lettuce greens
Fresh salsa

I went heavy on the avocado and it went sooo well with the spiciness of the chorizo.

Pasta Frittata

We had a bunch of leftover pasta from dinner the other night so I looked around a bit to get some ideas of what to do with it and decided to try a pasta frittata.

The recipe I was using as a reference called for 4 oz of cooked capellini and 4 eggs. I had no idea how much capellini I had (maybe 2 cups?) but I used 6 eggs and it still seemed like it could've been eggier. But it was good.

Here's what I did:
Sauteed chopped green onions and garlic scapes in olive oil, added capellini till it created a thick layer that covered the bottom of the pan. Stirred it around in the skillet a bit. Added some chopped spinach and salt & pepper. Stirred a bit more till all combined. Then pressed it all down in the skillet with the back of the spatula. Let it cook over medium high heat (without stirring) for about 7 minutes till it got golden brown around the edges. Meanwhile, beat 6 eggs, added about 4 T shredded parmesan, ~2 T of dijon mustard, and salt & pepper. Stirred it up and poured over the pasta (when it was golden brown on the bottom). Lifted up the pasta at the edges to let the egg mixture get down underneath. Turned heat down to medium low and let the egg set for about 5 minutes. Could've popped it under the broiler at this point but instead...we flipped it. That worked better than expected. I had some leftover slices of veggie chorizo-style field roast so put those on the top and ate.

Notes for future: could use more egg and maybe some red pepper flakes.

SOBO in Tofino, BC ... Inspiring food!

I live in the tiny town of Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island where world-class food is a way of life. Our favorite restaurant is SOBO (short for Sophisticated Bohemian.) Award winning chef, Lisa Ahier, infuses all her recipes with a touch of Texas zing and the freshest ingredients she can get her hands on. While not strictly vegetarian or vegan, SOBO is a "no mammal" restaurant. The recipe for Lisa's "Killer Fish Tacos" can be found here:
www.tofinotime.com/articles/A-T608-16frm.htm

And you can meet the awesome Lisa via her "Vegan Summer Sorbet" how-to video here:
www.hippygourmet.com/blog/2008/06/re-summer-sorbet-organic-vegan.html

Enjoy and come visit!

Fried Rice

I make fried rice a lot. It's such a great way to get the kids to eat veggies and mix up all the random stuff we have laying around.

This week's fried rice had:
Carrots
Radishes (I'm not a fan of raw radishes but we get them in our box & sautee them)
Peas
Spinach
Green Onions
Green Garlic (have you noticed, I never put garlic in my recipes? I do tolerate green garlic sometimes)
Quorn tenders (aka veggie chicken)

Plus some soy sauce, tamari, sesame oil, chili oil, salt, rice vinegar, and lots of black pepper.

Arugula Pesto

I usually think of pesto as being basil based and thought I was going to use some of the basil growing in my windowsill. But I'm saving that for another rainy day.

No pictures but this is yummy and fast. Adapted from the Smith & Hawken: Gardener's Community Cookbook (one of my personal favorites).

Cook Spaghetti
For Pesto:
In food processor combine (all measurements approximate) and pulverize:
1/2 c walnuts
1 jalapeno (seeded!)
1 bunch arugula
1/2 c parmesan
1/2 c parsley
garlic salt & pepper
1/4 c olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

I made enough pasta for about 5 big portions and still had a little pesto left over which I'm freezing for later.

101 simple summer vegan 10-minute meals

this is from mark bittman (NYT's minimalist)--a whole bunch of super simple recipes. a little too much seitan for me, but some of the ideas sound good. hopefully i'll try some of these when i'm too tired to really cook.

organic vs biodynamic vs veganic

I hadn't heard about Veganic Farming till I read about it in the news today. Our farm is biodynamic and I love it there. We've visited and have talked to the owners a number of times. I really believe in what they're doing and am really happy to support them. But anyway, veganic sounded interesting so I poked around and read a little more about it. Looks like there is one farm nearby, Whistling Winds, that is Veganic. Might be fun to visit them sometime. It's interesting how many classifications our food can have, conventional, organic, kosher, biodynamic, veganic, local, ...

Okay, I never really thought about kosher farming before, but I guess there really is such a thing, "...making sure produce was free of insects!"

blue moon ice cream

my favorite ice cream ever is blue moon. i used to get it at the purple cow in meijer's. little did i know that when i moved to the west coast i would not be able to get blue moon anywhere! apparently it's a midwest thing. so i have been working to try to make my own. i ordered a bottle of blue moon flavoring from a company in michigan, and i have been experimenting with different recipes for a base ice cream flavor (usually vanilla ice cream recipes, without the vanilla beans). this weekend i made a custard based one, and it's pretty good, but i think last week's philadelphia style (no eggs) was even better. i'm still not satisfied that it's "authentic"--it's been so long since i've had real blue moon that i can hardly remember what it tastes like! but it does taste GOOD and i'm enjoying it for what it is--close enough!

Spring garden fare

My first attempt...

I planted these strawberries last year and began enjoying the first harvest this week. Mostly sliced over cereal or just plain while standing in the garden. They are not the sweetest or the largest I have ever eaten, but they are homegrown, organic and basically free!

Last night I made this fruit salad (which I pretended was fruit salsa--the kids would never eat anything with red onion and jalapeno) with some lime juice.

Grilled salmon with fruit "salsa" and lime basil.

Coming soon.....

Sugar Snap Peas

Curried Lentil Wraps

We had bought a package of refrigerated, precooked lentils at Trader Joe's so I decided to try some sort of lentil wrap. I used this curried lentil burrito recipe as inspiration but since I didn't have everything it called for, I ended up doing this:

Par-boiled some cubed potatos.
Sauteed onion, and added lots of curry, cumin, & red pepper flakes. When it started to brown and stick to the pan, I added a little water, the potatos and lentils. It was starting to stick again so I added a little vegetable broth, garlic salt and pepper and popped the lid on to finish cooking the potatos. Added chopped spinach and stirred that up. Adjusted curry/cumin/salt and added lemon juice.

Shredded monterey jack cheese and chopped fresh cilantro.



I think this all would've been great in a standard tortilla.

But the inspiration recipe dipped the tortilla in an egg, milk, & chopped parsley mixture then plopped that in a skillet. So I tried it. It was good...but I think I'd just do standard tortillas next time.

But I would like to try that spiced yogurt and just use it instead of the cheese.

first tomatoes of the year

this is so exciting:



also the first corn of the year, but it's really the tomatoes that are special. i immediately made:



pablito from terra firma has a few things to say about the salmonella tomato thing.

Jerk Tofu

I had a bottle of Jamaican Jerk Seasoning Blend that we've put straight onto fish before grilling and on that bottle there was a recipe for Jamaican Jerk Pork. You had to marinade the pork overnight and then bake it for 2 hours. Hah. I have about 30 minutes to get dinner made and on the table before the kids go into utter meltdown. I thought I'd see what the recipe could do for tofu in 30 minutes.

Drained/pressed tofu and cut into ~8 slices.
In pyrex baking dish put a little olive oil, 1/4 cup tamari, 1/4 cup honey, 2 T lemon juice, 2 T mirin, and 2 T of the jerk seasoning. (the real recipe called for lime juice and sherry but i didn't have those. my measurements are totally approximations. i just dumped till it felt right.) Stirred it up and plopped in the tofu. Baked it at 400 degrees (flipping once) while I finished up the rest of dinner.

Oh. my. yum. I've made other baked tofu things before that i've liked but this is my new favorite one.

I served it with some trader joe's veggie egg rolls, and some stir-fried collard greens & swiss chard with sesame oil, garlic salt, pepper, tamari & a splash of rice vinegar.

Good stuff. The kids are never going to be patient enough for us to take a picture before we eat.

Food, it's what's for dinner

So I'm talking about food here. Vegetables and very occasionally fish. Meals. Snacks. Yum. It would be fun to hear what you have to say about food too. So if you want to start writing stuff down too, let me know and I'll give you write-ability.

Drinks are always welcome.

peanut sesame noodles

i am going to try to make this tonight: cold peanut sesame noodles. of course i am going to have to leave out the scallions and substitute something else for the chicken. i have been wanting to try something with a peanut sauce so this looked good right now. plus, it's really hot so i don't want to spend too long at the stove!

the problem is i can't remember if i have sesame oil at home. (or peanut or canola, for that matter.) i usually do but during my "kitchen cure" i know i got rid of a lot of old stuff. i stop at the grocery store on my walk home, recipe in hand. i do not want to walk up that hill to check and then walk back, and i do not want to buy a bottle of the stuff if i already have it! what a drag. too bad matt is not home to check for me.

UPDATE: it was really good! i used precooked buckwheat soba so it was really quick. it took more time to mince the ginger and garlic. next time i would leave out the sugar, and instead of using morningstar chik strips, i would use tofu. i didn't use an english cucumber but carrots and a little yellow squash i already had instead. matt wasn't around so i just cooked for one!



last night i also made carrot muffins, from Joy. i had a lot of extra carrots from the CSA box, and i also used fresh squeezed orange juice! i brought most of them to share at work today since they won't last long in this heat.

Pasta with Sugar snap peas, Spinach, & Cauliflower

Tonight I made angel hair pasta and added lemon juice, fresh basil & parsley.
Sauteed a little onion and cauliflower with a bunch of sugar snap peas & spinach with garlic salt, pepper & nutritional yeast. Stirred it all together and ate.

I think it would've been great with the pesto Jeff just mastered the other day...but he's already forgetting what he did.

Clara's becoming a big fan of spinach. We flex our muscles after every bite.

Jeff says he's going to take pictures of our dinners. But they're not pretty. I am not about the presentation.

Kale & Shitake Mushrooms with Creamy Polenta

We're members of Jubilee Farm and subscribe to the Locovore box (which means our produce comes within 150 miles of the farm in Carnation). In the summer, all the produce is grown on the farm.

This week's box had:
Lettuce & Spring Greens Mix, Spinach, Pinata Apples, Basil, Raab, Red Oak Leaf Lettuce, Italian Parsley, Shitake Mushrooms, Rainbow Chard, Red Russian Kale, Bok Choi, Cauliflower and Collard Greens.

For dinner the other day, I found a recipe for creamy polenta. I'm not typically a polenta fan but it sounded good for some reason.

The polenta had 4 cups of milk, 3.5 cups of water, 2 cups of polenta, salt & pepper. I kept whisking that until it came to a boil. The recipe said to cook it for another 20 minutes until it got thick. But it was pretty thick by the time I got to a boil so I only cooked it for another 5-10 minutes. Let it sit while I made the kale & mushrooms. After sitting for awhile, I added a couple tablespoons of butter and some shredded parmigiano-reggiano. I'm thinking using veg broth instead of water might not be a bad idea in the future. But it was good nonetheless.

I chopped up kale, shitakes, and some baby leeks and sauteed them in olive oil, garlic salt & pepper. Added some white wine once they'd softened up a bit and cooked that down.

We've got tooons of leftover polenta. I spread it in a 9x13 pan and refrigerated it overnight. For breakfast the next day I cut it in triangles and fried it in a little olive oil with some marjoram. Then fried up some eggs to go with it. This is definitely how I like polenta.

Still have tons of polenta. I'm thinking about making some croutons or polenta fries if I get a chance.

Cauliflower & Brussel Sprouts w/ Lemon Caper Butter

Went to the farmer's market yesterday and picked up potatos, brussel sprouts, sugar snap peas (oh yum!), baby walla walla onions and a yellow onion along with a few varieties of heirloom tomato plants. Jeff said brussel sprouts?! This time of year? But he's since singing their praises. This week's Jubilee box had cauliflower and a bunch of greens I've been working my way through. So...I decided to roast cauliflower and brussel sprouts. Googled a few recipes and ended up with a yummy treat.

Steamed rice
Tossed cauliflower, brussel sprouts (huge ones cut in quarters), walla walla onions (halved), and one big yukon gold potato (cubed) with olive oil, salt & pepper and roasted at 425 for about 30 minutes. They tasted good already.
But lemon caper butter sounded too good to pass up.
I used 4 T butter (at room temp), ~ 2 tsp dijon mustard, 1 lemon peel grated, couple teaspoons of marjoram, and a bunch of capers and slightly mashed it with a fork.
Tossed about half of the LC butter on the veggies when they came out of the oven. And put the rest in with the rice.

The recipe i was basing it on had called for 6 T butter and 1/4 cup of capers but I decreased amounts of both. But I don't think you can go wrong adding all the capers...we just had a tiny jar that only had 1/4 cup in it so I felt bad using them all. But we added more into the leftovers cause they're so yummy.

Jeff just reported "this lunch kicked ass."

Yay.