Lunch - February 25, 2010

I used the left overs from the sandwiches to make a salad. I thinned the adobo/veganaise with a little water and tossed it all together just before eating. Find the original post here.

I thought this was great. It is inspiring me to eat more salads for lunch.

Dinner - January 29, 2010

From my meal plan for the week we have Black Bean Tostadas with Cherry Tomato Salsa from Berley's Fresh Food Fast. We have liked this recipe for years and have served it to guests.

This night I tried reducing the lime juice in the salsa to half and doubling the black beans in the black bean and seitan mixture. I rounded the measures on the spices to compensate for the extra beans. I used a potato masher to smash some of the beans while they were cooking. I put about half of the seeds and core from the jalapeno in the salsa and that was plenty hot for me.

I think these adjustments are improvements. Next time I think I will try and make a little more salsa to balance the increase in the bean mixture.

I made up all ten of the tortillas in the package into tostadas. Two is probably a meal but I think someone ate four.

Lunch - September 11, 2009

I was home alone and whipped this up for myself for lunch. I will call it Not Really Re-fried Beans and Fresh Salsa. I don't remember exactly what I did but my current guess follows.

For the beans I sauteed an onion in some olive oil. I then added a drained can of pinto beans while reserving the liquid. I added some cumin and mashed the beans with a potato masher while they cooked. I then worked in the reserved liquid until it was the consistency I wanted.

For the salsa I mashed a clove of garlic and mixed it with some salt. I chopped up some cherry tomatoes, a very small red onion, and a dark red bell pepper and tossed them with the garlic. I believe I added a dash of Adobo sauce from some chipotle peppers I had in the fridge.

Very satisfying and easy.

Dinner - August 29, 2009

Some summer classics again.
Gazpacho. My previous post with the basil croutons can be found here. The recipe can be found at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Shrimp-Gazpacho-with-Basil-Croutons-12647. This one lacks the croutons and the shrimp. I have been out of red wine vinegar all summer so I have been using sherry vinegar.

"Green Beans and Potatoes with Pesto". The recipe is from Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook. I used half yellow wax beans. You can find a previous post here.

The tomatoes and green beans are from my dad's garden. The rest of the ingredients (except for the olive oil and vinegar) are from the Hyde Park Farmers' Market.

Dinner - August 26, 2009

When the camera battery is low the auto-focus does not appear to work.

The first picture is a Tomato Curry. The recipe is from a cookbook that I already returned to the library. It was tasty but not what I expected. I had cooked up some yellow split peas over which I was going to serve the curry. I ended up just mixing them into the curry and calling it soup. It was a nice taste with the fresh heirloom cherry tomatoes of strange colors but anything is good with that much coconut milk.


The second recipe was the topping from Jack Bishop's recipe "Crisp Tortillas with Pattypan Squash, Eggplant, and Tomato." The recipe can be found in A year in the Vegetarian Kitchen. I did not use the tortillas or the queso fresco. I believe I doubled the rest of the recipe. This was again not what I was expecting but pretty good. The lime and chipotle chile gave the dish some variety from a regular ratatouille.

I enjoyed both dishes but I would say they have a little work to become regulars. I am giving these a taste rating of "have potential" and I really mean they have a lot of potential. Cooking up lentils, soup, and veggies separately was a lot of work so as a whole I would say this was a weekend meal but the individual dishes all have weeknight potential.

Dinner - August 5, 2009

Here is one of my favorites again. This is from Berley's The Flexitarian Table. The recipe is called "Quinoa Salad with Green Beans, Corn, and Tomatoes." You can see it with a post of the full meal here.

I finally spotted some red quinoa at Bigg's this week. I will have to try this again.

I am giving it a week night rating for preparation but please see the caveats in previous post noted above.

Dinner - August 4, 2009

This is gazpacho with basil croutons. This was made from a recipe you can find on epicurious.com called Shrimp Gazpacho with Basil Croutons. I left out the shrimp and I used an excellent mild sour dough bread for the croutons.

You do not need to chop all the veggies up like the recipe says. The half that go in the food processor can just be chunked. This saves a lot of time but if you are going to make the croutons this might be hard to pull off after work and get everything to cool. I make it for weeknights but I have my system down.

Matt first made this gazpacho over 10 years ago and it is the standard for us.

Dinner - July 7, 2009

This was a meal we shared with my sister and our friend Chuck. It is from Peter Berley's The Flexitarian Table. It is Summer Menu 5: Tofu with Lemon, Soy, White Wine, and Butter Sauce; Striped Bass with Lemon, White Wine, and Butter Sauce; Quinoa Salad with Green Beans, Corn, and Tomatoes.

The tofu and quinoa were excellent. The fish was limited by the quality of the fish. We have made this fish with good fish in the past and it was excellent too.

We don't make this tofu a regular dish because of the butter but pull it out for company. The quinoa is a summer regular here. The quinoa is also a good dish for sharing at picnics.

The pumpkin seeds are listed as optional on the quinoa but I think they should not be skipped. I have never found red quinoa and have always used regular. I used half yellow wax beans. I also used to two 12 oz blocks of tofu instead of the pound that is called for and was glad to have the extra tofu. I believe I slightly upped the sauce.

The meal as a whole needs to be saved for weekends. The quinoa can be a meal or lunch itself and I would say you could pull that off for a weeknight. The thing that makes it hard for a weeknight meal is the cooling time on the quinoa and the coordination of the separate cooking for the ingredients. I have a bit of practice now and would not hesitate to make it for a weeknight.

For taste I will give it a 5 as we have gone back to this one for guests and even had our caterer for our wedding do a version of the tofu.

Hot Weather Ratatouille

It was too hot to turn the oven on and it was getting late. I opted for this easy one dish stove top recipe. It is called Tempeh Ratatouille and is in Berley's book Fresh Food Fast. He calls for oil and serving it on cracked wheat but we skipped both. I also only used half the tempeh.

I was not expecting much and found I loved it. Matt was remembering a recent Ratatouille we made from Berley's Flexitarian Table and could only say this one had potential. I really don't know what to expect from the dish so the ease and flavor won me over.

We do think more effort should be made to cook the tempeh longer but this was probably due to the lack of oil. Also this barely fit in my dutch oven so I don't know what kind of large skillet he has. I used the juice of lemon as the recipe called for but I probably should have reduced this since we didn't have the oil.

We enjoyed a very nice bottle of champagne. I was surprised to find the wine was great with the raw bits of vegetable I stole while chopping, in particular the tomatoes. It didn't do too well with the lemon juice and hot pepper in the final dish but there was not much wine left by that time anyway.

When Matt wasn't looking I used a piece of whole wheat bread to sop up the great liquid left on my plate. The picture is from half way through the meal.

We ate about half of this for dinner and took the other half for lunch the next day. I thought it made a great lunch.