These are soooo tasty: Vegan, Gluten-free Soy Taquitos

I'm eating the chorizo flavor. And I am happy.

I used Pamela's gluten-free bread mix (Whole Food's, little over $5 but enough for two crusts) with some basil, garlic and italian seasonings thrown in to make the crust, smeared my spinach/arugula/basil pesto, garlic and some artichoke tapenade on the cooked crust, added mushrooms, tuna fish and the Vegan Gourmet mozzarella, some salt & a few sprays of olive oil.
Turned out pretty darn good! The crust was a little chewy, even though it looked like it was overcooked. And it had a nice sweet flavor to it. I probably should have cooked it first on a baking sheet as the directions had said because our pizza crisper sheet cooked it too much.

We had to nuke the pizza slices for a minute in order to melt the cheese. Need to figure out how to do that. The crust needs to bake at 375, but the cheese supposedly melts at 450. I don't mind nuking, but it'd prob taste better if it could melt in the oven.

Otherwise, a success! And I have another crust in the freezer for next time.

Just got back from Whole Foods with some goodies. :)

Lucy's chocolate chip cookies (my first chocolate in a month, oh so good!)

Praline Pecan dairy-free ice cream (so happy I can eat soy again, this is one of my favorites)

Quinoa pasta shells (this is going to be a staple)

Vegan Gourmet cheddar cheese (not bad on nachos, kinda tastes like velveeta)

and some other things that I will blog about as I try them.

Expensive but worth it to be able to eat semi-normally.

Ok, this really bothers me.

I'm trying to avoid casein, a milk protein. For food intolerance reasons. I'm not vegetarian or vegan by any means. But, in trying to avoid dairy, I thought I'd be fine because I love soy cheese.

Picked up some soy cheese in Trader Joe's yesterday and looked at the label. Guess what I found? "Casein (Milk Protein)". What?!?

First off, WHO is buying soy cheese other than vegans? If you're lactose intolerant, you can buy cheddar, or swiss, or lots of other cheeses that don't have lactose. They even have yogurt cheese now that has no lactose in it. So the soy cheese market should be vegans and people with dairy allergies, who wouldn't want to eat milk protein. This seems like deceptive advertising to me.

There are vegan cheeses out there, like this one for instance, but most places probably won't carry them, thinking that soy cheese is good enough. I hope Whole Foods carries some. Grrr.

I just feel like, man, if you *can* eat dairy, what's the point of soy cheese? Really!

lunch: apple greens

( why apple greens? )
heat olive oil & 2 tablespoons garlic & chopped pine nuts in a dutch oven/big pot
add in:
2 cups broth (I used chicken, but I bet veggie broth would work fine)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon mustard
3 tablespoons sugar/sweetener (maybe more, depends)
handful currants
(I would add 1 chopped apple in here, I added it after I added the greens and I think it could be cooked more)
2-4 tablespoons curry powder

simmer
toss in bag of greens, one handful at a time, pushing greens down into broth as you go

cover and reduce heat to low
cook 45 min (don't overcook!)

Yum. :) Nice and sweet and not too greasy.

dinner tonight:

chicken with garlic, dried parsley and cinammon cooked in olive oil

rice cooked in chicken broth and currants

sunchokes sliced thin and sprinkled with parsley, rosemary, thyme and cinnamon, roasted with olive oil

arugula & spinach salad with balsamic & olive oil

chopped roasted pine nuts sprinkled over everything

dollop of leftover pesto

YUM

pesto:

2 cups spinach
2 cups arugula
2 cups basil
4 tbls garlic (or more, depends on your tastes)
1/2 cup pine nuts (I soaked mine, not sure if I'd need to next time)
1/3 cup sunflower seeds (I used roasted, unsalted, but whatevs)
1/3-1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup water
salt (to taste, next time I should measure)

blend in food processor


chicken boobs:
dredge through corn starch
dredge through 1 egg
dredge through corn meal

heat olive oil in pan, put in the chicken, ~4-5min each side till done

quinoa (or whatever you like) shell pasta, cooked

put huge dollops of pesto on top of chicken, and all over the pasta

Andrew loved it. Great way to get your greens, too!

Found two new favorites @ Whole Foods:

Food Should Taste Good: Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips
with
Back to Life Raw Vegan Cuisine: Raw Basil Arugula Pesto

Heavenly!

Wondering how to make the second. The ingredients are basil, spinach, arugula, soaked pine nuts, sprouted sunflower seeds, garlic, olive oil, sea salt, water, and the mysterious "herbs and spices". It looks kind of like guacamole, tastes like spinachy pesto. Really tasty!

Just had Kettle Cuisine gluten & dairy free chicken soup with rice noodles that I bought at Whole Foods. SO GOOD. It's a single serving you just keep in your freezer. Perfect!

Team FOGAR's entry in the Pimp My Television Frenzy:



Frenzy description: "For this Filmmaking Frenzy competition, we're asking teams of filmmakers to put together short trailers for a TV-based movie that has never existed, but really probably should (or shouldn't, depending on how you look at it)."

Login to filmmakingfrenzy.com and vote! They haven't won a competition yet despite making some awesome mini films.

Please forward at will. :) It would be awesome if this ever ended up on Conan's show. Heehee.

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School


Quotes:

Curricula that emphasize breadth of knowledge may prevent effective organization of knowledge because there is not enough time to learn anything in depth. Instruction that enables students to see models of how experts organize and solve problems may be helpful. However, as discussed in more detail in later chapters, the level of complexity of the models must be tailored to the learners’ current levels of knowledge and skills...

Knowledge must be “conditionalized” in order to be retrieved when it is needed; otherwise, it remains inert (Whitehead, 1929). Many designs for curriculum instruction and assessment practices fail to emphasize the importance of conditionalized knowledge. For example, texts often present facts and formulas with little attention to helping students learn the conditions under which they are most useful. Many assessments measure only propositional (factual) knowledge and never ask whether students know when, where, and why to use that knowledge. (p. 49)

Just fried up some slices of sweet potatoes and round zucchini in olive oil and lemon with some sprinkles of Italian Seasoning and a wee bit of salt. ZOMG so good. Definitely going to do this again. The round zucchini tastes half-way in between a summer squash and a normal zucchini. We got it from our new favorite farmer's market (due to the ample parking space and the fact that it stays open later).

Sigh. Now back to work. My index finger on my left hand is actually starting to hurt due to all the typing. Kind of silly.

Next week starts all my IT training for the new job. I feel kind of silly getting all excited about this, but there's nothing I love more than learning something new. Probably why I'm still in school.

I'll leave you with this:

Bad new for vegetarians who love cheese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet

Weird. I never knew that.

EDIT: OH, and then I was thinking, gee, then most cheese couldn't be kosher, 'cause that would involve meat & dairy in the same thing. Sure enough, it's not!

So kosher cheese would also be vegetarian.

The things you learn with the internet.

I googled because I had a hunch that someone might have done this before. And I was right!

Great page with pictures: Ricki’s Magic Mozzarella http://www.cheesemaking.com/includes/modules/jWallace/ChsPgs/1Mozz/Index.html

Anyone tried making their own before?

We've been trying to eat healthier lately, so I bought Moosewood's Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. Tonight I tried out my first two recipes: Bean and Bean Gumbo and the Almost Fat-Free Cornbread.

( recipes and pics here )

Andrew devoured a huge bowl of the gumbo and had three pieces of cornbread. There was a little too much parsley for my taste, but he didn't seem to mind. The cornbread was surprisingly good.

So thumbs up for Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites (which, btw, if you didn't already know, is completely vegetarian). Yummy!

Damn critters are learning to ORGANIZE themselves.

You think they made that web for BUGS? Sure. That's what they want you to think.

It is 98 degrees in our apartment right now.

I wanna move somewhere cold, please.

I finally figured out his name. He both looks like a Chuy and he sounds like Chewbacca (instead of meowing, he makes these weird gurgling noises). Yay. Ok, now on to more important things.

In Berlin. No internet at home. It's a tad chilly.
Not much to say yet. It's so... quiet. Today's a crazy Christian holiday and everything except this internet cafe and two restaurants is closed. Oy.
More when I can.