Made for dinner yesterday, eating leftovers for lunch:

curried greens & sweet potatoes with tofu


put small cubes of tofu with olive oil & salt in toaster oven, bake for 15 min ~375

olive oil + curry paste + garlic in deep pan for a couple minutes

add sweet potatoes, peeled & cubed, stir around in oil and cook for a couple minutes, then add water. add curry paste + currants + 1 tsp sugar. add water as needed until you can easily slide a fork through sweet potato chunks.

add baked tofu, maybe add a little more curry & water.

add a splash of soy milk if ya want.

add greens (I used TJ's clean & cut mixed bag of greens which included mustard, collard, & spinach) a handful at a time, stirring in between so they wilt a little and make more room.

let cook till greens are bright green and soft but not mushy. maybe 10 min.

serve with rice or quinoa (we did red quinoa and it was AWESOME)

the end.

1 big slab of dark chocolate
assorted roasted & salted nuts (today I used peanuts & almonds)
assorted dried fruits (orange-flavored cranberries + a pomegranate, cherry, blueberry, cranberry blend from Trader Joe's)

melt chocolate in microwave in some sort of bowl or dish (something that keeps heat, like glass)
pour in nuts & fruits
stir around till they're all covered
make big drops on wax paper sheets (on top of things to hold the sheets up, like baking sheets or cutting boards)
put em in the fridge for 20min

YUM

Soooo.

A couple of days ago I made gf banana bread, using the recipe on the back of the Arrowhead Mills box. It was dry. And bland. And dry. Ugh.

And I remembered tres leches and I thought, hey, I could soak the banana bread in some kind of milk. So I poured some coconut milk and soy milk over it and let it soak overnight. Next day: eh. It was ok. Not great. At least it wasn't dry anymore.

I was determined not to waste that expensive flour, so I put it back in the fridge.

Tonight, while making dinner, I remember that bread pudding is some kind of soaked bread that you bake, right? So I google and come up with a few recipes. Seems to be cake or bread soaked in milk with some sort of egg + sugar + vanilla concoction poured on top and baked. Perfect.

Mashed a bunch of the pre-soaked banana bread into a little baking dish, whipped up an egg, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp vanilla, poured that on top of the mashed bread, baked @ 350F for 45 min. Ate with soy cherry & chocolate ice cream. Amazing.

Yay! I love it when inventions work. :)

Quiche recipe adapted from Gluten Free Mom and crust recipe from Ali Kat.





First: the crust.

The crust is really buttery. Maybe even a little too buttery for me. I did leave out lemon juice, and instead of crisco I did 1 cup Earth Balance buttery spread + 1 cup vegetable shortening, so maybe that's the problem. I'll have to play around with it to see whether I can find something not so heavy. It flakes really nicely, though, it just leaves a slight greasy aftertaste. So yeah, maybe lemon juice would help? Will have to try it next time.

Next: The quiche.

Oh wowza. It feels good to eat quiche. I totally didn't miss the cheese at all in this.

What I did:

1. Cooked 4 slices of bacon down, let them sit on paper to soak up extra grease
2. Poured off excess grease from pan
3. Chopped up 1/2 cup pecans, let them cook in greased pan on low/med for ~5 min
4. Asparagus - snapped off bottoms, then snapped them into thirds and put in the pie crust
5. Made egg mixture: 1 cup coconut milk, 4 eggs, 1 tsp of Bragg liquid aminos (couldn't find plum vinegar), 1 tsp ground yellow mustard, 1 tsp brewer's yeast (didn't realize it wasn't the same as nutritional yeast, d'oh!), tbsp of minced garlic, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper
6. Threw cooked pecan bits into egg mixture
7. Put bacon on top of asparagus, poured egg mixture on top
8. Baked at 350 (on our oven: 375) for 45 min, let cool for 5 min

This was awesome. The bacon and asparagus together was just delish. I want to try something healthier next time, but for now I'm just happy I was able to make some comfort food that we both enjoyed.

Soooo nummy.

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.