Zoey's Kitchen

Vegan Mofo is coming!

2010-10-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hey all you Zoey fans!

Baby Zoey has been keeping me on my toes but I wanted to post and say that Vegan Mofo is going to be in November this year in case you are interested in participating. I will post more information as the event gets closer and I will be posting quite a bit in the month of November.

Baby Zoey is getting big. Her favorite foods so far are green smoothies with kale or spinach, collard greens with butternut squash, black beans, bananas and avocados. We have gotten into a bit of a cooking rut so I am hoping that Vegan Mofo will help inspire me to be more creative. I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still here!

Going Green!

2010-03-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

In an effort to further improve my health and explore new foods I have decided to go green for the month of March!

Ok, the truth is that I was watching Dr. Oz and there was a woman on the show who had cured her cancer in part by eating blended leafy greens every day (and eliminating all animal protein from her diet). The part that impressed me was not that she had cured her cancer but that she looked AMAZING. She was glowing and looked about 10 years younger than her picture before she had cancer. I don't think this was makeup folks, this was the real deal.

So I decided in that moment that I would create a little challenge for myself. I do love kale green smoothies but I don't eat them as often as I would like. And, since Mr. Zoey loves them too, I rarely get to eat the entire bunch of kale.

So.. for the month of March I am committing to eating at least 1 bunch of leafy greens every day. If baby Zoey takes some naps I will share pictures here!

I picked up the little bunch of chard in the top picture at the local farmers market last weekend. I ended up steaming it for a couple minutes because that is all I know to do with shard but I kind of wish I had eaten the whole bunch raw. I snacked on a few pieces while I was waiting for the water to boil and it was really good. Unfortunately I can't find bunches of little leaves like that anywhere in stores. Hopefully I will be able to find them again next weekend!

A New Family Walks into a bar...

2010-01-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

It’s the Oregon State Bar Exam, and I am required to pass it before I can practice law in Oregon. I am facing a decision, and it’s a tough one. I need to make a choice between making an attempt at passing the Bar Exam and spending a week on vacation with my family.

I am not sure I have ever mentioned this on the blog, but since it plays a central role in my decision I will share that I am living with a chronic pain condition. I was diagnosed about 3 years ago. Even now it is hard for me to talk about my condition without crying and feeling overwhelmed so I don’t talk about it. I try not to think about it. I try to pretend that it doesn’t exist and that as time goes on it will go away. To consider any other possibility is unbearable.

The blessing that has come from pain is that I have made some changes in my priorities. Before pain there were things I was focusing on in my life that weren’t that important to me. I was focusing on them because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I was trying to please everyone. I figured that I would follow my own heart later. I thought that I had all the time in the world.

The condition that I have can cause increasing pain over time. That was my experience for the first several months. I can’t remember much from that time. I can only remember some of my thoughts. I was lucky that things started to turn around. I was taking strong medication that seemed to be helping. Somehow I was still wandering through law school part time. Somehow, to the outside observer I was still able to hold things mostly together. Looking back I have no idea how that was possible. The condition may go away or it may get worse. There is really no good indicator for which way things will go, and even if the pain is gone for awhile, it can always come back.

I started making changes in my life. I started with my diet and committed to eating a low fat vegan diet. It helped some. I committed to resting and no longer reaching for the high standards that I used to set for myself. That helped some more. I committed to focusing on the positive things in my life and being thankful for every joyful moment. Things continued to improve.

Mr. Zoey and I decided to start a family. Having a child has been one of the greatest joys in my life. Every day my daughter opens my eyes to a world of hope and possibilities. The hardest part of being a parent so far hasn’t been the sleepless nights, or getting the hang of breastfeeding, it has been being away from my family.

I grew up within 5 minutes of both sets of grandparents and within 15 minutes of one of my aunts. I saw all my aunts, uncles and cousins at least once a year. My family played an enormous role in my childhood. I realize that as long as we live in Oregon, that baby Zoey won’t have that exact experience because our families live in other states. On top of that, I can’t travel. The pain flares back up to unbearable levels when I am in a car for more than 30 minutes or so. I haven’t gone anywhere near an airplane yet. That means I am somewhat stuck here. For us to see our family, they have to come to us.

When I was pregnant with baby Zoey my family started planning a trip out here. The trip would be a repeat of a trip that they took almost 3 years ago before I was diagnosed. We aren’t a vacationing family, so it’s a big deal and it takes some planning and coordinating. When we first talked about the trip I was under some delusion that I would be able to take the bar exam when baby Zoey was 3 weeks old. After I realized that was impossible, I hoped I would be able to take it when she was 6 months old. Now I am trying to decide if it is even worth entertaining the thought of taking it when she is 1.

There are lots of logistical reasons for not taking the bar when baby Zoey is 1. One of the big ones is that if I take the bar, my family won’t come out for our vacation at the coast. I have been trying to minimize this reason in my head because to my family this doesn’t seem like a big deal. To me it is a big deal. I want to see my family. I want to have a week with them at the coast without constant pain and worry. I want the kind of time with them that comes only in the moments when you aren’t having scheduled time with someone. I want the early morning walks and breakfasts at the table and dinners outside on the beach by the fire. I want time like that probably more than anything else right now. I want that so much more than I want a shot at an exam that I would probably fail right now anyway. It is hard for me to say this because I think that I am not making the decision that they want me to make.

The way that I see things is that the exam will always be there. It is offered twice a year like clockwork. There is no limit for when I take the exam. There is no limit for when I decide to begin my career. What I have learned is that time with people that you love is not always a guarantee. Being pain free is not a guarantee. The only moment that I have is right now. And right now, my pain is low enough that I can consider leaving town for a one week trip an hour away. That is huge for me. I haven’t been outside of this city in almost 3 years. I am ready to get out of town and get some fresh air with people that I love. I want my family to have relaxed time with my baby and I want my baby to be familiar and comfortable with my family. While some people may think that I will regret not taking the bar this summer, I am pretty sure that I won’t if it means time with family.

I have been in the worst pain I could imagine before and I never regretted not studying more for a test or not getting better grades. I have looked back and wished that I had spent more time with people. So maybe the decision was easier than I realized but sharing it is still hard.

Zoey Zoey Do, Where are you?

2010-01-04T16:47:00.001-08:00

That's how Zoey's Kitchen feels to me these days. (That was my sad attempt at the Scooby Doo theme song- in case that only plays in my head). I'm still eating, and Zoey still exists but somehow the whole cooking thing has fallen through the cracks recently. My diet has become essentially the elimination diet and while that seems to be helping baby Zoey's skin, it isn't much to photograph.

I have even taken some pictures of my gluten-free creations, but for some reason the work to upload them and blog about them seems overwhelming and sad because most of them use tomatoes, or corn or chickpeas and all of those are off limits to me right now. So I haven't. And I am trying to decide what to do with this blog.

One of the blogs I really enjoy reading just closed up shop a few weeks ago. I am not ready to throw in the towel on Zoey's Kitchen yet but I am thinking about either allowing myself to post less or allowing myself to post about things other than food. I am sort of on the fence.

I started this blog because I was exploring a new way of eating (The McDougall Plan) and I thought that blogging about food would keep me on my toes and trying new things. It worked and now the plan seems easy to follow. My health has improved and even Mr. Zoey has jumped on board. I would embrace the same theory with my elimination diet, but you really can only take so many pictures of beans and rice.

So anyway, that's the scoop. I'm still here and baby Zoey is getting big. Regular Zoey is getting big too (we refer to it as her sympathy pregnancy weight). Her best trick these days is to bite my toes any time that baby Zoey cries. She's a good helper :)

Gluten- Free Oats

2009-12-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

Things are looking up!

I have the oats set to cook for 3 hours on high in my trusty slow cooker so that they will be ready in the morning. Here's hoping they turn out well!

Zoey's Kitchen - Special Gluten Free Edition!

2009-12-07T12:33:00.001-08:00

Greetings everyone!

Things have been pretty boring in Zoey's Kitchen lately and even when we have tried new recipes I haven't had the energy to photograph them.

We had some family visit and that was wonderful. Everyone loves seeing baby Zoey (and Zoey herself) and I think that baby Zoey loves all the activity.

Unfortunately baby Zoey has started getting a rash. We took her to the doctor today and the doctor thinks that she may have some skin eczema (ugh). He said that often eczema is the result of a dietary allergy and asked about baby's Zoey diet. Well, since baby Zoey is breastfed we ended up talking about me.

Turns out our pediatrician recommends the China Study diet to all his patients (pretty cool, huh?) so once he knew that I try to follow that diet already milk and eggs were out as possible causes.

** This is an aside, but I have found it pretty interesting that whenever there is an issue with a baby, doctors and lactation consultants tell you to cut out dairy. Even my neighbor who LOVES dairy and eats all sorts of animals came over to talk to me and suggested that I cut dairy out of my diet even though that is super hard to do <-- her words, not mine. **

Anyway, it went something like this:

milk? No
eggs? No
nuts? Very rarely
wheat gluten? *cringe* Yes, lots of wheat. Sprouted bread toasted is my go-to snack these days. I am a big fan of all things grain so there is definitely plenty of it in my diet. Or should I say- there WAS plenty of it in my diet.

Just for fun (and for baby Zoey's health) I am going to stop the gluten for now. My doctor asked if I was willing to give it a try and I was all over it. He said that it would be very restrictive but that I was probably used to that already. (Am I the only vegan who doesn't think that my diet is restrictive? If anything I think I eat much healthier and have more variety now than at any other time in my life).

I can still eat all the beans, rice, vegetables and fruits I want. And maybe quinoa- I need to look that one up. I can live without bread so don't expect any crazy gluten-free baking going on around here. If you have any tips for gluten-free eating I would love to hear them.

And while I do hope that baby Zoey's rash heals up quickly, I hope that wheat isn't the culprit because the truth is... I really will miss oatmeal.

Sweet Potato Rounds

2009-11-03T21:46:00.001-08:00

Good News Everyone!

The last of my pregnancy aversions has gone away and I can now enjoy the delicious and nutritious sweet potato! I was a little nervous when Mr. Zoey brought home a 10 pound box of sweet potatoes from Costco last weekend because it was about a year ago that we bought an identical box, only to find out that I was pregnant and totally unable to tolerate all things sweet potato.

Anyway, our 10 pound box sat on the table for about 2 days with Mr. Zoey asking me to "research" sweet potato recipes and me stalling because I was afraid of what cruel fate the sweet potatoes might still have in store for me. So, as with most of the cooking these days, he finally took matters into his own hands and created these delicious sweet potato rounds.

These are super easy and super yummy and worth trying since sweet potatoes are in season right now. I am only slightly embarrassed to admit that our box is already almost half empty.

Sweet Potato Rounds

Ingredients:

1 sweet potato/ yam

Directions:

1. Slice sweet potato into rounds and place on a baking sheet (no oil needed)
2. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 minutes
3. Flip the rounds over and bake an additional 7 minutes
4. Enjoy with ketchup or your favorite dipping sauce.

More Kale Green Smoothies Please!

2009-10-25T22:56:00.000-07:00

My mom asked me for my kale green smoothie recipe the other day and I told her that I thought it was on Zoey's Kitchen. We figured out pretty quickly that I am not using that recipe any more, so I thought it was time for an update- especially since I am in love with kale again.

Yes, kale and I had a brief period of separation during my pregnancy but things are looking up (which is perfect timing since kale is getting GREAT this time of year)

So here is what I do:

Kale Green Smoothie

Ingredients

Kale (as much as you can fit in your blender- see picture above)
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 banana
1 1/2 cups of water
1 Tablespoon ground flax seed (optional)
Splash of oatmilk or soymilk (optional)

Directions

1. Add everything to the blender and blend!

You will get 2 glasses this size:

Tonight Mr. Zoey and I each got a glass but when I make these during the day I drink both glasses (yum!) I usually drink one glass in the morning and another in the afternoon.

Of course, this habit has me going through 1-2 bunches of kale from Whole Foods a day but if we get our kale at the farmers market the bunches are big enough to last for 3 days. I am considering growing our own kale out on the deck- but tonight Mr. Zoey told me "there is no way we will be able to grow enough kale for our smoothies". I know he is right, but I still might give it a try!

** If you are new to green smoothies here is a trick that we used to get started: Don't start out filling your blender with kale- just add 1-2 kale leaves to a fruit smoothie blend that you already enjoy. Each time you make a smoothie add and extra piece of kale. I read once that a great way to start is to have 20% greens and 80% fruit. You slowly adjust your ratio until you are blending 80% greens and 20% fruit. Your tastes do adjust over time and you will probably find yourself thinking that these smoothies are delicious! **

Delicata Squash

2009-10-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

What's this Zoey? Did your dad bring home a new kind of squash?

Mr. Zoey has stepped it up and in addition to cooking, he is also doing the bulk of random grocery shopping for now. Tonight he brought home this squash to try out. Neither of us knew what to do with it, so we decided to microwave it as if it was an acorn squash.

As an aside I should mention that we are in an acorn squash frenzy at our house. We are splitting one every night. Mr. Zoey requires that we keep 10 acorn squashes on our kitchen counter at all times and has been constantly replacing our stash at farmers markets.

Why 10 squashes? Apparently that way when the squash season ends and we can't get good squashes at the farmers market, we can still enjoy squash for 10 more days. Well, there is no argument against that, I do love a good acorn squash.

But back to the task at hand. We cut the squash in half and microwaved it for 10 minutes to create this:

Well, 2 of these to be precise. It was pretty tasty because it tasted exactly like acorn squash! It is fun to try new things but for now I think we will stick with acorn squash since we can get them for 50 cents near our house.

I might get adventurous and pick up some new types of squash since this experiment went well. Are there any types of squashes we should specifically try while they are in season?

Twice Baked Potatoes

2009-10-22T20:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't had many twice baked potatoes in my life but I have always been fond of them. Unfortunately for me now, I think they are traditionally full of cheese and not so healthy. I have been wanting to make a healthy version for awhile now and so I finally decided to just give it a try.

My recipe was based loosely on the recipe in Vegan Vittles. I picked up a copy of that cookbook from the library but I don't think I will make anything else from it. Many of the recipes were fake-meat heavy and that isn't how we roll here in Zoey's Kitchen.

Twice Baked Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 baking potato
1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 sprinkle of garlic powder
1 sprinkle of black pepper
1/4 cup plain non-dairy milk
1 sprinkle of paprika (optional)

Directions:

1. Prick the potato with a fork and bake in the oven for about 1 hour at 350 degrees. (I made big slices with a knife and this backfired- learn from my mistakes and use a fork)

2. Remove the potato from the oven and slice in half.

3. Carefully scoop out the inside of the potato into a bowl.

4. Add all ingredients except the paprika to the potato insides and start mashing/ mixing.

5. Scoop the mixture back into the potato shells and sprinkle with paprika (if using)

6. Bake the potatoes at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

7. At the end, you can turn the broiler on for a few minutes for a crispier potato top.

8. Enjoy! It tasted a lot like garlic mashed potatoes inside a potato shell which was pretty great in my book.

I made these in part to share with Mr. Zoey when he got home from work yesterday. I asked him which half he wanted and he told me that he doesn't like twice baked potatoes. Has he ever had them? No.

Whatever, that means more for me. As I was eating, he asked for a taste and told me that he thought it was okay. But then, tonight at Whole Foods he added two baked potatoes to our basket and asked if it was possible to double the recipe I made so that he could have a whole potato next time. I think that means he liked it!

Pumpkin!

2009-10-21T20:05:00.001-07:00

As promised, Zoey and I roasted a pumpkin! I didn't get many pictures because I decided to roast the pumpkin at 10pm and I was already a little tired.

Here's what we did:

1. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds for later roasting (yum).
2. Place the pumpkin face down on a baking sheet with some water.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes.
4. Open the oven and see this:

5. Scoop the pumpkin out and blend in a food processor.
6. Bake pumpkin oatmeal cookies!

I am pretty sure that I can freeze the leftover pumpkin but I am not quite sure how to do that yet so it is in my fridge. I am guessing that one pumpkin made about as much pumpkin mush as 2 cans of pumpkin. So at $4.00 a pumpkin I am about breaking even. Except, the money went to a local farm near my house and I don't have to dispose of 2 cans.

Overall, a success! I am not sure if the fresh pumpkin made the cookies any better because they are already the best treat ever in my mind. This new batch was equally as amazing.

So there you have it- we roasted our own pumpkin this year and I will probably pick up some more at the farm this weekend. I have heard that I can also use butternut squash to make "pumpkin puree" and I may try that since the butternut squashes are only $1.00 right now.

If you have any tips on how to freeze this puree, leave me a comment!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

2009-10-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

Back to Whole Foods for more organic pumpkin in a can! We forgot our fancy reusable bags so we ended up with a brown bag. Turns out a brown bag makes an awesome cat fort. Zoey had more fun with this paper bag than with any of her other toys. Funny how that works.

As I mentioned in my last post, we were preparing for our childbirth education class reunion on Saturday and I wanted to make a great treat. I normally try to make my treats as healthy as possible- but this time I wanted something really rich and good. I found a recipe for pumpkin oatmeal cookies here and decided to give them a try. Zoey and I added chocolate chips for extra goodness (instead of walnuts and raisins) and the results were delicious. They were great right out of the oven but they were even better the next day! (I never believe claims like that but it is really true this time)

The picture isn't the greatest but I seriously cannot say enough good things about these cookies. I even told Mr. Zoey that instead of baking a cake this year for my birthday I may just want to make these cookies again.

As for reviews? The consensus seemed to be that people were hoping I would make chocolate pumpkin muffins again but these cookies were a close second.

Zoey and I disagree, we think these cookies are the best! I think this ends my quest for the perfect pumpkin muffin because I have found the perfect pumpkin baked good. I want to make these again for everyone I know to share the vegan cookie love!

The Best Pumpkin Muffins?

2009-10-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

As promised, Zoey and I made "the best pumpkin muffins" that I keep reading about during Vegan Mofo. All links lead back to here and that is the recipe that we used.

Zoey had to check out a new can of pumpkin for the blog. We used to be able to get pretty cheap cans of pumpkin at Whole Foods but now we are stuck with this fancier stuff for $2.00 a can. I did buy a small pumpkin last weekend to try roasting for my own pumpkin puree but that's a different blog post.

We didn't have any almond milk so I used oat milk instead for these fabulous results:

Check out the insides:

Yum. I am not sure if these are the best pumpkin muffins I have EVER had or dreamed about, but they were pretty tasty. They were light and fluffy and they were even better the next day for breakfast. For a muffin with whole wheat flour and low in fat, I would say that these were a success!

Now tonight I am trying to plan out another treat to take with me to a potluck tomorrow. Our childbirth preparation class is having a reunion and I want to bring something pumpkiny! This means I will be testing recipes tonight and luckily my family is visiting so we have lots of tasters!

I'm losing my mofo

2009-10-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

It's 7:45 pm and do you know what you are having for dinner? I don't, but here's a funny picture of our cats!

Mr. Zoey and I were secretly hoping that one of our favorite restaurants, Laughing Planet would have the East Indian Burrito on special and we could have that for dinner. But they don't have that burrito tonight so we are out of luck there. We have some taco soup in the fridge but we used a new seasoning packet in it and I don't like it quite as much. Plus, I am grieving the fact that Morning Star crumbles are no longer going to be vegan. I am mourning my Morning Star crumbles! Luckily Mr. Zoey is happy taking it to work for lunches so it won't go to waste.

I did make a batch of blueberry bran muffins earlier, can those count as dinner?

This is one of those moments when I realize that I need to get back in meal planning mode. I'll probably have rice and beans for dinner with a kale green smoothie.

So nothing new to report here tonight and it isn't looking good for the weekend either- my inlaws will be in town visiting which means a fair amount of eating out. Tomorrow I am planning to test out some pumpkin muffins that are rumored to be "the best" pumpkin muffins. So we'll see!

** Mr. Zoey took that picture! **

McDougall Right Foods Breakfast

2009-10-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I usually do a pretty good job of making a wholesome breakfast for myself, but some mornings with a 3 month old don't allow me that luxury. Some of you may know that Dr. McDougall is one of the reasons that I eat a vegan diet so I was actually pretty excited to see that there were easy meals like this out there that are "McDougall approved". Even so, I wouldn't have bought these under normal circumstances- they are leftover from food I brought to the hospital when I gave birth to baby Zoey. I was worried that the hospital wouldn't have good food so I came prepared. Mr. Zoey and I seriously showed up with 2 full bags of groceries and a cooler full of fruit. You can never be too prepared!

It turned out that the hospital actually had really good food and we had a lot of leftovers from our stockpile to bring home. This breakfast was one of those leftovers.

I heated up some water and added it to the cereal while I played with baby Zoey for about 5 minutes. I added 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed too for the Omega 3s.

Here it is all mixed up and it was actually really good! This isn't a flavor that I would have picked out on my own (Mr. Zoey picked some of the flavors) but it might be my favorite one. Or, it might be that any food that is easy to prepare tastes amazing while you are entertaining a baby.

There are also some lunch/ dinner meals like this that we have and never ate so I may give some of those a try.

Curry Roasted Chickpeas

2009-10-12T19:00:00.000-07:00

I know that this may come as a surprise, but I actually have been eating more than muffins during Vegan Mofo. Aside from my daily sugar indulgence I eat a lot of beans, grains, vegetables and fresh fruit. This dish came to be because I had some leftover garbanzo beans that were getting a little old in my refrigerator. I thought that if I roasted them up Mr. Zoey and I could eat them as a pre dinner snack.

I wanted to do a variation of my first attempt with roasting chick peas and since curry spice was the first thing I saw in my spice cabinet, that is what I went with. I bring you curry roasted chickpeas!

Curry Roasted Chickpeas

Ingredients:

Chickpeas (soaked and cooked or from a can)
Curry powder
Salt (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Add a few shakes of curry spice to the chickpeas and mix well.
3. Bake for 40 minutes or so, being sure to stir every 15 minutes.
4. Open your windows so the neighbors think: "Wow, things coming from that kitchen always smell so good!"
5. Remove chickpeas from the oven and add salt to taste if desired.

These were a major success. Mr. Zoey and I ate them quickly and he asked me if we had more. When I said that we didn't, he walked into the kitchen poured some dry chickpeas into water so they could start soaking and asked me if we could have them again tomorrow.

Blueberry Bran Muffins

2009-10-09T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well, apparently two days off from Vegan MoMuuuuu! is all I needed because this morning I made muffins. I have been noticing bran muffins showing up on other blogs recently and it occurred to me that I have never actually made bran muffins. I wasn't even sure where I might find bran in the grocery store.

So last night I checked out the bulk foods section of my grocery store and found a bag of wheat bran. Using this recipe (sort of) I made a half batch of muffins this morning for breakfast. These are definitely neighbor-worthy muffins. The only trouble is that there aren't enough left to take over to the neighbors. Yes, they are that good. If you are looking for a bran muffin recipe to try, try these. They are amazingly good. Here is my veganized version for a full batch:

Blueberry Bran Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups wheat bran
1 cup non-dairy milk (I used unsweetened oat milk)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 Tablespoon ground flaxseeds
4 Tablespoons water
1/2 cup brown sugar (not packed)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 cup blueberries (I used frozen)

Directions

1. Combine wheat bran and non-dairy milk in a small bowl.
2. While that is soaking, mix together the applesauce, flaxseeds, water, brown sugar, and vanilla.
3. Add in the bran mixture and mix together.
4. Add the dry ingredients until everything is combined.
5. Fold in the blueberries.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 19 minutes.

Yum yum yum, I think I will go have another muffin!

Ask Zoey- celebrating 100 posts

2009-10-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

This is Zoey's 100th blog post! I've asked Zoey to sit with me at the computer and reflect on what we have learned and shared over the past year. One of the more interesting ways to do that is to see what people searched for on google that lead them here to Zoey's kitchen. Here are some of our favorites from the past month:

Frequent search terms:

1. The number one thing people come to Zoey's kitchen for seems to be kale green smoothies and that is fantastic! I am happy to report that my pregnancy induced kale aversion is fading away and I am back on the green smoothie bandwagon myself. Actually, the other night at Whole Foods I wanted to get a big bunch of kale AND rainbow chard and Mr. Zoey suggested that I pace myself. So this week kale and next week rainbow chard smoothies.

2. People are starting to find my blog by searching for "Zoey's Kitchen" which made me feel pretty cool until I realized there is a restaurant named "Zoes Kitchen" in the south. Perhaps that is what my Texas and Alabama readers were actually looking for.

3. Foofa Birthday cake: This one is still a puzzler. Even after google searching I am not sure what this is and I am even more confused by how people end up at Zoey's Kitchen when searching for it. So I just did a google search and sure enough my blog is the 3rd one down. Let's see if I can perform a pubic service and direct people in the right direction: Umm... is this really what you are looking for?

Questions:

"How do I unfreeze bread?"
Zoey's answer: Remove bread from freezer.

"Can you freeze garbanzo beans?"
Zoey's answer: I think so but I haven't tried it. That would make a good challenge for us because we are eating some beans out of cans again.

Confessions:

"I forgot to soak my chickpeas" and "I forgot to soak my garbanzo beans".
Zoey's thoughts: Same person unhappy with the first answer he/ she discovered? Or two different people who might just be perfect for each other.

Finally, "Zoey has had a baby".

Well, sort of. She is certainly helping out!

Apple Oatmeal

2009-10-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm muffined out. I didn't think it could happen, but it did. I now walk around the house referring to Vegan Mofo as "Vegan Momuuuuuu" for Vegan Month of Muffins!

So this morning I decided to try a recipe for apple oatmeal. My favorite oatmeal flavor packet as a kid was the apple cinnamon packet- probably only because that was my older sister's favorite flavor and I always wanted what she was having. As a bonus I found out that she is coming out to Oregon to visit me in November, I am so excited!

Apple Oatmeal

Ingredients:

1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 gala apple (I was going to use a whole apple, but I ate half of it while I was waiting for the water to boil)
1 Tablespoon ground flaxseeds (optional)
cinnamon and brown sugar to taste

Directions:

1. Bring 1 cup of water to a boil on the stove.
2. Add oats and diced apple pieces
3. Cook on mediuim heat for 5 minutes
4. Remove from heat and stir in flaxseeds, cinnamon and brown sugar.

This didn't taste quite the same as the packages I remember but I bet it could have if I had added a lot more sugar. I was too hungry to call Zoey into the kitchen for a sniff so I snapped a picture of her in her natural habitat on a sunny day.

Pumpkin-Apple Spice Muffins

2009-10-06T19:00:00.001-07:00

Making muffins in the evening for vegan mofo is actually becoming relaxing for me. Last night Zoey's dad played with the baby while I had a chance to make these muffins in the kitchen. I love pumpkin flavored baked goods, so it wasn't a surprise that I was instantly drawn to this recipe for pumpkin-apple spice bread.

As always, I decided to "muffinize" the recipe and I left out the oil. I only made a half batch which made 6 muffins. I sampled one fresh out the oven and sent the rest with Zoey's dad to work this morning. I figure if I spread the muffin love between Zoey's dad's place of work and various neighbors, no one will know that I am making muffins every night. Well, no one EXCEPT THE ENTIRE INTERNET. That's you! Oh- I need more sleep.

Anyway, the recipe was easy to follow and I baked the muffins for 25 minutes on 350 degrees which seemed just right. They weren't quite as rich and pumpkiny as I was hoping for, but all that means is that the quest for my dream pumpkin muffin continues!

Apple Oat Muffins

2009-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, apparently vegan muffins are what Zoey craves so the quest for "healthyish" muffins forges onward! This recipe comes directly from Food For Life, by Neil Bernard. You can find the complete recipe here. Note: I add 1/3 cup of water because otherwise the muffins come out a little dry.

Also, it's a good idea to let your apple juice concentrate defrost before adding it to the mix. I learned that lesson the hard way the first time Zoey and I made these.

Fresh gala apples. I love apple season!

Muffins fresh from the oven. These taste like healthy muffins but they are pretty good. The apple pieces in the muffins are actually awesome and I may substitute apples again in future muffins when the recipe calls for raisins. These are definitely worth making- the neighbors loved them and I noticed Zoey's dad tossing more apple juice concentrate into the grocery cart today so that we can make more!

Easy Cornbread Muffins

2009-10-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

So apparently my desire for a more diverse diet for Vegan Mofo, actually means a more diverse selection of muffins. I even considered trying 20 new vegan muffin recipes for October. When I shared that idea with Zoey's dad he said: "that's a lot of muffins"... and then quickly followed that comment with "not that I'd complain!" Luckily we have neighbors who loved to share in our baked treats and with the weather still warm here, there are always plenty of people outside to feed muffins.

But enough about that an on to easy cornbread muffins. Now that I am getting a little more time to myself I find myself reading through cookbooks again and I stumbled across Saving Dinner: The Vegetarian Way. Not everything in the cookbook is vegan, but lots of things are and several of the dishes suggest cornbread muffins on the side. This morning I woke up wanting black beans and salsa for breakfast (leftover strange pregnancy breakfast craving I guess) and I thought that cornbread muffins would make a nice addition. The cornbread recipe in the book isn't vegan- but it is now with a few easy substitutions.

I made a half batch because 1) Zoey's dad informs me that he doesn't like cornbread muffins, and 2) We don't really need a dozen cornbread muffins between the two if us.

Easy Cornbread Muffins (Adapted from Saving Dinner the Vegetarian Way)
Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons ground flaxseed

3/4 cup non-dairy milk (I used oat milk because it is what we had)
1/2 cup of maple syrup
4 Tablespoons applesauce (I used this instead of oil)
6 Tablespoons water

Directions:

1. Allow Zoey to sniff the cornmeal:

2. Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Add wet ingredients.
4. Mix everything together until everything is combined (but don't over-mix)
5. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes (This is how long I cooked a 1/2 batch, you may a few more minutes if you are making a full batch)
6. Allow muffins to cook for 1-2 minutes before pulling them out of the tin.

These muffins were pretty good, especially considering how easy they were to throw together. Even Zoey's dad came out to the kitchen when he smelled them cooking and asked if he could have some. Every time I make something like this from scratch, I am surprised that I ever bought mixes. Making things from basic ingredients really isn't as hard as I always thought it would be.

So here was my breakfast this morning- the cornbread made it feel like a special treat!

Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

2009-10-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

Here in Zoey's kitchen we are always on the lookout for new muffin recipes. Since this recipe uses pumpkin as a binding agent, each muffin offers almost a full day's worth of vitamin A. We also use ground flaxseed as an egg substitute so you get a good dose of Omega 3's. As a bonus these muffins are extra chocolatey and delicious. It is pretty much a win all around.

We brought these muffins to our child birth preparation class and they were a big success. This recipe originally came from the carrotsncake blog and Zoey and I veganized it by replacing the eggs with 2 Tablespoons of ground flaxseed and 9 Tablespoons of water. We also made some other changes so I will show you what we do to make these:

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves (I like cloves better than nutmeg)
2 Tablespoons ground flaxseed
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 can of pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9 Tablespoons of water

Directions:

1. Add all dry ingredients and mix together.
2. Add the wet ingredients and mix well. I even use a hand mixer sometimes so with this muffin recipe you don't have to worry about "over mixing".
3. Divide batter into 9 muffin containers and cook at 335 degrees (or somewhere between 325-350) for 29 minutes. We use the silicone non-stick muffin pan so the muffins just pop right out.
4. Let the muffins cool for 5 minutes and then enjoy!

Vegan Mofo is coming!

2009-09-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again! October is the time when bloggers everywhere commit to writing about vegan food all month. Last year I used the month to get more creative in the kitchen and try out lots of new recipes. Sensing that I need that sort of jump start again I signed up to be a vegan mofo participant again this year. My diet is seriously in a rut and while I think it is pretty balanced with lots of nutrients it is also pretty boring.

If you want to participate in all the fun, or find a list of blogs that will be featuring vegan food all month long, you can check out the details here.

Plus at the end of the month I am getting myself a surprise birthday present. Well, it isn't a surprise for me, but it will be for you!

Simple burritos

2009-09-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile blog-world, but I am still here! Apparently taking care of a newborn has the amazing ability to consume your entire day while leaving you feeling like you haven't accomplished anything. In the past month or so I have spent my free moments mostly deciding if I would rather eat a meal or sleep. They are both quite compelling desires and sometimes I decide to eat only to fall asleep half way through the meal without realizing it (Zoey's dad has collected some of these classic moments on film).

So, in an effort to make sure that I am still eating well, Zoey's dad has been doing the lions share of the food preparation. His latest creation? Combining beans, a grain and some vegetables in a glass dish at night so that I can just scoop out a serving for lunch or a snack. I am sharing 2 of my favorites.

The top one is mixed beans, yellow and red bell pepper, corn, garlic, and cilantro on a high fiber wrap. We forgot to add a grain to this batch but since we ate it on wraps, I figure that counts.

The next one is couscous, garbanzo beans and fresh spinach. It is not quite as pretty as the other burrito but I actually prefer it. If you add couscous and garbanzo beans to anything, that quickly becomes a meal that I love.

Since I haven't been in the kitchen much with the camera, I haven't gotten any good pictures of Zoey checking out our food, so here she is just being cute.

Baby Zoey is here!

2009-08-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

The non feline baby has arrived! She was born at the end of July and we have been busy getting to know this newest addition to our family. She was a big healthy baby and I joke that it looks like I gave birth to a 1 month old. The first picture is a picture of her at only 4 days old.

Zoey keeps a watchful eye under the cradle:

Zoey's brother/ best friend gets a sniff of the baby's toes:

Zoey's dad is still doing all the cooking while I am recovering and getting the hang of nursing. Luckily he has become a great cook so we are still eating well in Zoey's kitchen.

Curried Indian Potato Stew

2009-06-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Zoey's dad has been busy in the kitchen lately now that Zoey and I are more focused on baby-preparing tasks. He has been checking out books at the library and searching the internet for new recipes to try. This is one of his first recipes that he found on his own and created without any help from me. He even took the picture and asked me to post it on the blog!

This recipe is from the McDougall Program website and the actual recipe can be found here. It is the first recipe in the list. We used fresh cauliflower instead of frozen and we left out the peas. Actaully I didn't even know that there were peas in the recipe until I just looked at it now. I think it would have been great with peas added, but it was great without them so you can make your own choice about that.

He used about 2 1/2 Tablesppons of curry powder spice that we got in the bulk foods section of the grocery store. He also added a little black pepper which gave it a little more zip. We served it over brown rice and hulled barley which makes everything taste even better.

Overall this dish was delicious and we ate it for leftover lunches for 2 days.

He also made the next dish down: Mexican Beans and Rice and that was really good too but we didn't take any pictures.

As for me and Zoey:

We have been busy putting together the baby's room:

Zoey tested out the changing table when I wasn't looking and she was so cute up there that I had to take her picture. It isn't the most flattering image of Zoey that I have, but it captures the moment pretty well. We are getting ready to have the baby any day now!

Taco Soup

2009-06-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

One of our favorite go-to meals in the slow cooker is a vegan taco chili/ soup recipe that is super easy to make. We often make this when we have non-vegan friends over for dinner and it is always a success!

Taco Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 onion
1 package frozen morning star frozen "hamburger" crumbles
3 fresh bell peppers in a variety of colors
1 can kidney beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 can black beans
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 small can tomato sauce
1/2 cup frozen or canned corn
1 can black olives
1 package taco spice
cumin to taste (optional- it gives the soup a smokey flavor)

*** Note: If you prefer to soak and cook your own beans, you can add 1-2 cups of each type of cooked bean instead of the canned beans. ***

Directions:

1. Saute the onion in cooking spray or a little bit of water for about 5 minutes
2. Add the morning star crumbles and continue to saute for another 5 minutes
3. Add all ingredients to the slow cooker except the olives and mix well
4. Cook on low for 6 hours or cook on high for 3 hours
5. Slice and add the olives
6. Enjoy with baked chips (optional)

We love using the chips to scoop up bites of chili but it is just as good when the chips run out! I meant to get a picture of this in a dish with chips, but we were so excited to eat this that there was no time for final pictures! This dish is also really good the next day, so it is great for leftovers.

Boring Snoring

2009-06-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been awhile since Zoey and I have posted and it is mostly because my diet has become extremely boring. I was talking to my sister on the phone the other night and she asked about my blog and when I told her what I have been eating she agreed that what I was eating really has been boring. I eat a lot of plain grains- hulled barley, bulgur, brown rice, oats, quinoa and couscous. I am soaking and eating large amounts of plain beans. And then I am having daily salads with lots of fresh fruit. It has been delicious but not much to blog about.

For some reason the past few weeks it hasn't occured to me to actually mix foods together into a "recipe". Zoey's dad has been more creative on the food front and actually checked out a cookbook all on his own this weekend and was pointing out things that he wants to make. So I am hoping to get a few more things up here on the blog before the baby arrives.

I am also in the process of collecting wholesome vegan non-refrigeratable food to take with me to the hospital when I go into labor. I met with someone at the hospital where I am having the baby and she said that they should be able to get me some wholesome vegan food while I am there but I am not going to leave much up to chance. Does anyone have any recoomendations for packaged foods that I could take with me that would be great for a 2 day hospital stay with no microwave or refrigerator? So far we have individual soymilks, canned beans, grapenuts and a few granola bars. I am at least banking on there being fresh fruit and greens/ salad bar at the hospital.

Triple Berry Pops

2009-05-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

At some point in the past few years I signed up for the Vegetarian Times email Newsletter which gets emailed to me about once a week. I normally delete the emails because I have enough new recipes that I am trying, but something about this recipe caught my eye. I have always liked the idea of making my own popsicles and now that the weather is getting warmer, the containers are much easier to find.

The full recipe can be found here.

I bought a bag of mixed organic frozen berries and let them thaw for about 30 minutes on the counter.

I added the white grape juice (although if I make these again I will just use water because there was plenty of sweetness from the berries).

Zoey took a sniff before I blended it all together in my food processor:

Into the popsicle molds they go:

I got impatient and didn't let them chill the full amount of time before trying to break one free to test. That didn't work out very well because I pulled the stick out but could not get the good stuff to come with it. I learned my lesson though and let the other 3 freeze for 3 hours and they came out much more easily.

Now that I have the popsicle molds I am thinking that I will try other combinations!

Barley and Black Beans

2009-04-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of pregnancy so far is my new found obsession with eating enough protein in a day. After awhile I realized I just couldn't eat another soy hot dog or boca burger so I decided to be a little more creative.

I discovered hulled barley at Whole Foods and I was shocked by the nutritional power this grain has. One half cup of hulled barley has 11 grams of protein, 16 grams of fiber and only 2 grams of fat. On top of that it has a full days worth of manganese and 60% of my daily dose of selenium.

So I started just eating it plain or mixing it with black beans and as the days have progressed I have gotten more creative. Now I make it like this:

1/2 cup cooked hulled barley
1/2 cup cooked black beans
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup frozen vegetables
1-2 Tablespoons of salsa

This dish packs in 24 grams of protein and 28 grams of fiber.

Of course, barley is one of those foods that fills me up super fast, so I usually eat half of the bowl early in the day and the other half in the afternoon.

I couldn't get Zoey to actually sniff this dish but she did make an appearance on the kitchen table while I was taking pictures so that will have to do.

Here it is all mixed together and ready to eat:

It's delicious!

Zoey's dad adds 1/2 a yellow zucchini and a handful of spinach to his bowl. I haven't tried that yet but he loves having it for lunch at work.

Vegan Banana Berry Muffins

2009-04-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

As Zoey and I prepare for the arrival of our new non-feline baby this summer, we have begun a massive clean-out project. Next up on the list of things I am cleaning out? Cookbooks! I have too many cookbooks. I have some that I have never used and many that I keep around just because I tried one recipe and liked it but never got around to using it again. Check out the cookbook labels on the right side of my blog, I am mostly a walking 1 hit wonder.

So, as I go through these cookbooks now I am applying a "use it or lose it principle" which means that I am going to be cooking more from these cookbooks and making a final decision about whether each book deserves the precious real estate that it currently takes up in my kitchen.

First up on the list is the Teen Vegetarian Cookbook. I love cookbooks for kids/ teens because I like recipes that are easy to follow. If they had a healthy vegan cookbook for 5 year olds that would be about my speed. But alas, I am stuck with a book for teens and the first thing that caught my attention was muffins (imagine that).

These muffins use maple syrup and blueberries as the sweetener and I replaced the oil with applesauce.

Here it is right after adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients:

Into the oven for 20 minutes:

Out of the oven and on to the plate. This is also a picture of the cookbook that I am testing out to see if I will use it or lose it.

Overall these are probably the healthiest tasting muffins that I have made and they were pretty good.

So that is 1 point for using the Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook.

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes

2009-04-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile since Zoey and I have made pancakes for breakfast so when we saw this recipe on the Meatout Mondays website, I knew that we would be giving it a try. I like oatmeal, I like bananas and I like pancakes so I was ready for success.

The first step was to soak the oats in soymilk in the refrigerator overnight. First of all, I have no idea why this step is important (but I did it because the directions told me to). Secondly, I don't know what oats they are using where they get 26 grams of protein from a cup of oats, but I should look into that. I just used standard regular Quaker oats.

So in the morning, my oat/ soymilk combination seemed pretty identical to how I had left it the night before:

Zoey kept a close eye on the prize while I added in the other ingredients:
(Notice the brown bag of pears behind her- we are still trying to ripen those pears!)

After everything was mixed together we poured some batter in the pan:

Ta da! I added some bananas on top so that my breakfast would look more like the picture (I am funny like that). Zoey's dad had these without bananas on top and they were still delicious.

Some of the other recipes on that recipe site look great so I am going to give some other things a try.

Pear Problems

2009-03-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

This winter we have been enjoying some of the best pears here in Oregon but the past two weeks we have been unable to get our pears to ripen. We had a method that was working well, but suddenly it seems to have stopped working so I thought I would post here and see if anyone has any ideas.

We buy our pears in a big bag from Costco and pull about six out and store the rest in the fridge.

We place the 6 that we pulled out in a brown bag like this one and leave it on the table for 4-5 days. Once those pears are ripe we eat them and add the pears from the fridge to the bag to repeat the process.

All winter we have been using this method and enjoying juicy delicious pears. However, starting last week the pears just would not ripen in the bag no matter how long we left them in there. The tops would get all soft and shriveled but the pear would still be rock hard. Seriously slicing into one of these pears is like slicing into an apple (and they taste terrible like that too). We love eating pears and I am hoping that someone might have some ideas that we can try to get things rolling again. Anyone have any suggestions or a special way that you like to ripen pears?

Zucchini Banana Muffins

2009-03-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about pregnancy so far is... muffins. That's right. I have been lucky to mostly escape ice cream cravings and other unhealthy foods and have instead channeled my cravings into apple juice (which I never even liked before) and muffins. Here in Zoey's Kitchen we are making muffins once or twice a week now so I am always on the lookout for something new and at least somewhat "healthy".

When I saw a recipe for Banana Zucchini Bread over at Kimmy Kokonut's blog, I knew this was a recipe that I wanted to try. Normally Zoey's dad helps with the muffin prep but I decided to surprise him with these on my own. As I was scooping the batter into the muffin pans he decalred "I don't eat vegetables in muffins!" Which was actually fine with me because I suspected that 1) he would and 2) if he didn't that was all the more for me and I could freeze them:

I decided to make muffins instead of a loaf because I am in a muffin frenzy and every baked good these days must come out as muffins. So I filled up my muffin tin (which is actually one of those sillicone muffin trays) and baked them for 30 minutes.

Here they are fresh out of the oven:

Well, turns out that Zoey's dad does eat vegetables in muffins. Not only did I not have a chance to freeze any for myself for later, they didn't even last long enough to get a good picture once they came out of the muffin pan!

These muffins were super moist and delicious. I used the oil in the recipe even though I normally would have gone with the applesauce substitution. The next time I make these I will try applesauce instead to see how that works out.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

2009-03-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

We have had some sunny days in Oregon which is a rare winter treat. All the sun is making me more interested in sandwiches so my interest in homemade hummus has resurfaced. I found this recipe in the August 2008 issue of Oxygen Magazine. I have been trying to find a hummus that has the same taste as my favorite store-bought hummus and I thought this one might do the trick.

Ingredients:

4 oz roasted rep peppers in a jar (drained)
1 can garbanzo beans (or 1 1/2 cup garbanzo beans if you soak your own)
2 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 clove of garlic
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to your food processor:

2. Blend:

3. I tried this on bread with tomatoes and in pita bread with romaine lettuce.

Review: This was okay hummus, but not as good as my store-bought variety. I am not sure how to describe this but it tasted sort of too "neon red". Perhaps I should have used less red pepper.

I am still in search of my perfect homemade hummus. Do any of you have a hummus recipe that you love?

Pizza 2 ways

2009-02-28T22:07:00.000-08:00

Over the summer Zoey and I tried our hands/ paws at making vegan pizza from scratch. Now that the rainy days of winter are here we decided to give it another try since we liked it so much.

We started with some veggie pepperoni slices for extra protein. Then we added some olives for salt (hooray for pregnancy cravings) and some yellow bell pepper.

We made the dough in the breadmaker with whole wheat flour and baked the whole thing for about 15 minutes. Before I could snap a picture somebody took a little nibble from the corner.

Later in the week I was thinking of pizza again and decided to use the leftover materials to make a personal size pizza for lunch. We used the same toppings and the rest of the pizza sauce.

The secret change is that we used a slice of Flatout bread for the crust. Flatout bread is kind of like a tortilla with fiber and protein. We baked the bread in the over at 350 degrees for about 5 minutes on its own and then added the toppings. We cooked the whole thing for another 10 minutes and then dug in, it was delicious! There is something exciting to me about having my own personal size pizza and this definitely is something that I will be making again.

Barley Berry Breakfast

2009-02-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

As morning sickness fades away, Zoey and I are getting back in the habit of eating our old favorite grains. Well, at least I am eating them and Zoey is giving them all a good sniff. Although I will admit that right after I took this picture she grabbed a mouthful of barley and promptly dropped it on the floor when she realized it wasn't a cat-friendly food.

I really love barley because it is a grain that fills me up like no other. So, I wanted to modify the bulgur berry breakfast that I have made before and use barley instead. Now, barley does take about an hour to cook on the stove, so it is better suited for a weekend breakfast.

Barley Berry Breakfast

Ingredients:

1/4 c dry barley
1/4 vanilla light soymilk
3/4 c fresh strawberries
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed (optional)
1 tablespoon sliced almonds (optional)
sprinkle of cinnamon

Directions:

1. Cook the barley in 1/2 c of water for about 1 hour. You can bring the water to a boil and then simmer the barley for the remainder of the time. Check on the barley as it cooks and add more water if needed.
2. Once cooked, add the vanilla soymilk, strawberries, flaxseeds, almonds and cinnamon.
3. Stir it all together and enjoy!

We even had a glimmer of sun for this picture which is a real Oregon treat!

Valentine Surprise

2009-02-10T23:01:00.000-08:00

Susan over at Fat Free Vegan is having a special contest for Valentine's Day on her blog and as soon as I saw the theme I was excited for it. Her contest is called Vegetable Love and the idea is to post a vegan low fat recipe that uses vegetables. Well, I knew right away that Zoey's dad and I would be making a dish that we lovingly refer to as "Valentine Surprise".

Zoey's dad has always impressed me with his culinary skills and our first Valentine's Day together he surprised me by making dinner all by himself. It was his first vegan meal that he made by himself and we still love it today. It's an easy dish with simple flavors, but something magical happens when they all come together.

Valentine Surprise Burritos

Ingredients:

1 can vegetarian refried beans (or you can make your own)
2 fresh bell peppers (we used red and orange for the Valentine theme)
1/2 can black olives
6 tortillas
1/2 jar of salsa

Directions:

1. In our house we let Zoey sniff things out first:

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Arrange 3 tortillas on the bottom of a square glass baking dish.
4. Use 1/2 the refried beans and spread it evenly among the 3 tortillas. Add 1/2 the peppers and olives as seen here:

5. Add some salsa to each burrito and then roll the tops of the tortillas over the filling so that you can create another layer.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for a second layer (reserving some peppers and olives for the top).
7. Flip the tortillas over as seen here so that you have an almost flat surface on top:

8. Add salsa on top to cover the tortillas (this prevents the tortillas from burning).
9. Sprinkle the remaining peppers and olives on top.
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes:

Mmmmm... here it is on it's way out of the oven. Since we made this early for the contest, I am hoping that we will get to have it again on Valentine's Day.

Oh and in pregnancy news: tomorrow we are having an ultrasound to hopefully find out the sex of our first baby. We are so excited!

Moosewood Vegetarian Chili

2009-02-05T21:31:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to try a recipe out of my New Moosewood Cookbook for probably close to 8 years now. I may be the only person I know who hordes unused cookbooks in the cupboard while still checking out 2-5 new cookbooks every week at the library.

My desire to cook out of a Moosewood cookbook started when one of my cousins made me the best vegan lasagna I have ever had in my life. My memory is that the recipe came from a Moosewood Cookbook, but after all these years I am starting to think that I may have dreamed up that part of the memory.

Anyway, when I finally decided to explore the recipes that are actually in the cookbook, I found that I had 2 copies in my cupboard! Apparently I had the idea to give this book a try a few times. So tonight we opened it up and made the vegetarian chili.

As always, the first order of business was to let Zoey have a sniff at things. She approved of my tomatoe juice selection.

I boiled 1 cup of the juice and then added 1 cup of bulgur. I took it off the heat and let it sit for 15 minutes. When I opened the lid again I had this and for a moment I considered just eating this for dinner because it looked and smelled so good:

Next, I sauted up some vegetables, there are even onions in there! It seems like my aversion to onions may be fading which is great news.

Okay, so here it is right before simmering. I added some extra vegetable juice at this stage because it looked to dry to "simmer". In the end, it was still more of a grain/bean dish and less of a chili so we ate it in wraps as you can see in the first picture.

On the plus side, this chili was so good! Zoey's dad and I both thought it deserved an "A" so we will be eating this for lunch tomorrow and trying another recipe out of this cookbook soon.

Vegan Nachos

2009-02-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

I have been wanting to try this vegan cheesy sauce that I saw over at Vegan Mecca's blog for some time and today I finally took the plunge. Sometimes on the weekends Zoey's dad and I go to one of our favorite restaurants for brunch and Zoey's dad always gets the vegan nachos. Having never made a vegan cheesy sauce myself, I somehow always felt inferior to the chefs at the restaurant and wondered if I could brave the non-dairy cheese sauce on my own.

Figuring that making the nachos at home would be cheaper and possibly healthier than ordering out, I gave it a whirl and the results were actually pretty good.

As you can see I used some baked tortilla chips, smart ground vegetarian crumbles, a red pepper, black olives and the cheesy sauce. We agreed that I went a little overboard with the mustard in the cheesy sauce which was my own fault because I was worried that without the mustard it wouldn't taste like anything.

I will say that it didn't taste like nacho cheese, but it did sort of look like nacho cheese and that is sometimes half the battle. It tasted great blended together with the other ingredients, but I wouldn't eat it plain on chips.

The other cheesey recipe that I am going to try has tofu in it and I am a little afraid of working with tofu so stay tuned to see how that works out.

Kale green smoothie

2009-01-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

The boys in our house have a special nightly tradition that I have been meaning to post on the blog for some time. This is a picture of our other cat Will and he likes to make an appearance every now and then when there is action in the kitchen.

I started making green smoothies a few months ago as I was reading about eating more raw foods. I was sold on the idea of green smoothies almost instantly and hoped that one day I might be able to get Zoey's dad to try a sip. Well, not only did I get Zoey's dad to try a green smoothie, but I somehow turned him into a green smoothie monster! His favorite leafy green to use in the smoothie is kale which is great because we never really had kale in the house before we started making these smoothies.

First up: the sniffing. We tried to get the cats to give the kale a sniff for the blog but they were not up for the challenge. This is the closest that Will would come to the kale.

Zoey is a little braver and came up for a sniff- good kitty!

Here is what the smoothie looks like right before it all gets blended:

Kale Green Smoothies

Ingredients:

4-6 leaves of fresh kale
1 cup frozen blueberries (although in Zoey's dad's instructions he told me to say that he adds 1 cup plus 4-5 berries)
1 1/2 cups of vanilla light soymilk
1/4 cup water
1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed
1 banana

Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to the blender and blend. The longer that you blend the happier you will be, these aren't quite as good if you underblend and end up with little bits of kale in your teeth.

This recipe makes 2 glasses of green smoothie drink. We used to each get a glass but the smell of kale is still freaking me out so Zoey's dad is happy to drink both glasses- I told you that I created a monster!

Easy vegetarian chili

2009-01-24T17:57:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday Zoey and I "watched" football while also creating one of my favorite easy vegetarian chili recipes. I couldn't tempt Zoey to do much sniffing because the sun was out and catching some sun rays is pretty much top priority during the winter in Oregon.

Luckily she chose to catch her rays from the kitchen table chair, so technically she was still in the kitchen with me while I was cooking.

For some reason this chili recipe became a Superbowl tradition for me. Even though last weekend wasn't the Superbowl, I got the craving for this chili and decided to give it a try without onions. For your benefit I will add onions to the recipe, but I made this without them and it was still good.

Easy Vegetarian Chili (A Superbowl tradition in Zoey's house)

Ingredients:
1/2 onion, diced
3 cans of beans (I used 1 can of kidney beans, 1 can of black beans and 1 can of garbanzo beans)
2 bell peppers (I used red and yellow)
1 can diced tomatoes
chili powder to taste
cumin to taste (if you like cumin)

Directions:

1. If you are using an onion you can saute that first for a few minutes in your soup pot.
2. Add all other ingredients and bring to a slow boil.
3. Simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Your chili is ready to eat.

I told you this was easy!

We served this chili over barley because Zoey's dad has been begging me to make barley lately. Normally I just serve this chili plain or with some baked potato chips.

We ate this batch of chili in about 2 days so I will be ready to make it again next Sunday for the main event!

It's a bear!

2009-01-18T00:08:00.001-08:00

In case you haven't noticed, the food posts around here have been scarce the past couple of months and I am not one to make excuses, but Zoey and I actually have a pretty good one this time.

Turns out that Zoey is going to be a big sister! Zoey's dad and I found out that we are expecting our first non-feline baby this summer. We are very excited!

Zoey's dad picked this outfit out the day that we found out I was pregnant and I think it is so cute that I just had to share it here.

Unfortunately, morning sickness had me in its grips for the better part of the holidays so I didn't indulge in all the cooking that I would have liked to do. And I figured that no one wanted to see pictures of Zoey sniffing saltines and orange juice for 2 months (don't worry I ate a few other things too).

Now the worst of that phase has passed and I am ready to get back in the kitchen. My food tastes have changed a bit but currently the only foods that send me running for the hills are onions, sweet potatoes and kale. Tomorrow I agreed to "watch" 3 hours of football, so I am thinking of cooking up some onion-free chili or maybe my first vegan gumbo.

Snowed In

2008-12-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Zoey is the most dedicated snow watcher in our house, but this storm is wearing her out. This is Zoey's favorite sleeping position when she is super tired and we refer to it as "the face plant". She starts out laying down with her head up and looking around. Then ever so slowly, it seems as if her nose gets heavier and heavier until it has landed directly in front of her with her forehead mashed on the ground. The whole process is very cute to watch but I think the still picture still captures how tiring it can be to be a kitten sometimes.

So what snow has she been watching so diligently?

Here it is: day 11 of snow in the rainy city and we are officially out of produce in Zoey's kitchen which has made cooking a little less exciting. Zoey's dad is planning a trip to the grocery store later today to pick up some essentials (KALE) and I am hoping that works out because I am getting a little tired of pasta and cous cous. Granted, we have enough grains and beans to last about a month but I am craving fresh produce like crazy.

The funny thing is that when we heard a storm was coming 12 days ago, the only "essential items" I thought to pick up at the store were items for holiday baking. In my defense the storm was only supposed to last 2 days and yet, it continues on. So the only "green" I have eaten in the past 24 hours are these cookies:

By Montana standards, I might consider this a normal winter day, but here in Oregon there is no hope of getting out until it melts.

First Blog Award! (and Zoey learns some Federal Income Tax)

2008-12-21T07:28:00.001-08:00

Zoey and I have been up since 6am and as evidence of my morning mental state I managed to already publish the title of this blog post which makes me wonder if that means that people can see me writing the actual post. Well, if so- that's exciting!

Let's see... it has been a busy week! First, Zoey and I had a tax exam. This picture actually doesn't do the size of the book justice so I'll need to grab another picture sometime this week.

Then, we got our very first blog award from Tara over at The Snowy Vegan! Thank you Tara, that put a huge smile on my face.

Here is some information about the award:

"This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

Here are 8 blogs that I check on regularly and I don't think they have gotten this award yet:

Jess, at Get Sconed
Stephanie, at Vegan Duckling
Liz, at Food Snobbery is my Hobbery
Meagan, at No More Sad Geraniums
Awesome. Vegan. Rad.
Speed Vegan
Ruby Red Vegan
Knits with Carrots

These are all great blogs and worthy of reading even before the sun comes up!

Oh- and why am I up so early?

Well, I am snowed in (at least that is my version of the story). In western Oregon we don't get much snow, so when 6 inches of magical white stuff fell from the sky yesterday, I decided that today would be a good day for all my holiday baking. I am making cookies for my neighbors and Zoey's dad's co-workers. The only thing I haven't figured out yet is how many cookies to make. I got one batch of dough started early and it is chilling now so I suppose I will see how I feel after that.

I have missed blogging and checking up on blogs as often as I would like. Luckily I have a little break from school now and about 4-5 months before I have exams again so I am ready to have my life back!

Income Tax makes Zoey anxious

2008-12-11T00:30:00.000-08:00

No pictures tonight because it is the eve of my income tax test and Zoey and I are a wee bit anxious. Earlier in the week I did take a picture of Zoey next to the abbreviated Internal Revenue Code so maybe I will get that up here tomorrow after the exam. And just so you know that the IRS has a sense of humor, you will get to see the size of an "abbreviated code".

Here's what I learned tonight: If it is 12:30am on the night before your tax exam and you are finally starting to feel a little bit confident DO NOT decide to start looking at sample exam questions and answers that A+ students submitted in previous semesters. I mean who are these people? Some of these answers blow my mind and they were written in under an hour. Some of them even have clever uses of comedy! Seriously, how can I compete with that? At least now I know why I haven't gotten any A+ report cards.

Zoey is curled up by the fire next to me and sleeping, she is a good study partner. We will get to cooking this weekend, I just wanted to post something tonight so that I didn't leave the blog world hanging!

Zoey wants a nap

2008-12-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

It's the beginning of exam season and this picture pretty much sums up how Zoey and I are feeling these days. Once I have proved my competence with the Federal Income Tax (in exam format) I can get back to the important things in life- like cooking with Zoey!

Chili Chapultapec

2008-11-24T19:30:00.000-08:00

In my quest for the perfect chili, I wanted to try the chili recipe out of the Healthy Heart Handbook. Although it doesn't call for as many vegetables as my usual chili recipes, it uses TVP (textured vegetable protein) as a base and I wanted to give that a try.

This chili was easy to prepare and tasted okay, although I don't plan to make it again. There are so many outstanding chili recipes out there, that I have more I want to try!

Red Smoothie

2008-11-20T19:30:00.000-08:00

Can this still be a green smoothie if it came out red? I feel like if I call this a green smoothie people might think I am color blind.

I have been eating green smoothies almost every day now since I discovered them last month. When I first thought of making green smoothies, I really wanted to use either Kale or Swiss Chard as my leafy green. However I was a little hesitant to try something new since the spinach smoothie was amazingly delicious.

To be fair I have been checking out this rainbow color swiss chard for over 2 months at Whole Foods. Well, not this particular bunch, but the plant-type in general. Last time when I was there I decided to give it a go!

Look how pretty it is! It sort of reminds me of Care Bear color vegetables, which in my case is a very good thing. Now if for some reason those colors are toxic or not natural, I will stop buying them and try something else. Until then, I am loving this:

I also picked up some frozen organic strawberries so those were going in the smoothie for sure. So here's what's inside:

Ingredients:

1 banana
1 cup frozen strawberries
3 leaves of rainbow swiss chard
1/2 Tablespoon of ground flaxseed
1 cup of water

Directions:
1. Put it all in the blender and blend!

For some reason it didn't occur to me that adding strawberries would change the color of the smoothie. This smoothie tasted more like the chard and less like the fruit compared to my previous spinach smoothies. I still liked it though and I am going to be making these until the chard is gone.

Grapenut Bars

2008-11-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

With finals fast approaching, I am in search of healthy snacks that transport well. I saw a recipe for grape-nut snack bars and thought that might fill the need. The recipe is from the Healthy Heart Handbook (why is that not a surprise) but I first found the recipe online here. I didn't have raisins so I added dried cranberries instead.

Here I am mixing it all up:

Zoey keeps an eye on me from above:

Into the oven for 35 minutes:

Out of the oven:

Oh, did I mention that I added vegan chocolate chips to one corner? I was just curious to see if that would make it better - it did.

This is the only corner that I ate because the consistency just was not what I was expecting. It was a little too chewy so not my perfect snack bar. I will note that the rest of the bars were gone within 2 days though, so it may have just been me that was not crazy about these.

Whole Grain Banana Pancakes

2008-11-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, Zoey and I found ourselves with a banana on the edge of being over-ripe. This is a reason to celebrate at our house because it means that we are going to bake something yummy! I happened to be reading Greenlite Bites, and I came across Roni's recipe for Whole Grain Banana Pancakes and decided to give them a try.

Zoey and I made some basic substitutions, the first being creating an egg out of flaxseed. I mixed 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed with 3 tablespoons of water in my mini food processor. As long as I had the food processor out, I added the banana and 1/2 cup of light soymilk instead of regular milk:

I added in the dry ingredients. I knew things were looking good when I saw how great the batter looked.

I cooked the pancakes over medium heat for a couple minutes on each side:

This recipe made 9 pancakes this size. They were delicious plain or with a little maple syrup. To be fair, these were not quite as exciting as my recent pumpkin pancakes or pear-walnut pancakes but they were still delicious!

Sweet Potato Fries

2008-11-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

One of the best treats at my house is fresh baked french fries. I usually blend 2 Yukon gold potatoes with 1 sweet potato for the perfect blend of gold and orange. I often make these if we are having company for dinner and I am making some sort of veggie patty. Recently we had them with Quinoa and Black Bean Burgers and they were quite popular. The hardest part is chopping all the potatoes, and that doesn't take too long. I usually fill a bowl about this size:

Then I add:

1. A dash of salt and pepper
2. About 1 Tablespoon of taco spice.
3. A drizzle of olive oil.

I stir the fries so that everything is coated and bake them at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes. Be sure to flip them about half way through!

They are always a little limp and they are not crisp like fried french fries, but they are very tasty and there are rarely leftovers.

I've been tagged

2008-11-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged twice for the current survey that is flying around the blog world so I guess that means I should answer some questions before I feel compelled to answer everything twice. It is going to be hard enough for me to come up with 7 random things. I was tagged by both Tara and Yasmin. So here are the rules:

Rules:

Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.

Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links.

Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I am in the middle of writing a big paper right now on divorce mediation so my brain is just fuzzy enough to be thinking about weird facts about myself. I chose the topic of divorce mediation because it interests me academically but terrifies me as a possible career choice. I like to pick paper topics that both interest me and scare me, it keeps me on my toes.

2. I have a running joke with my friends about becoming the "crazy cat lady". You know, that single woman in her 30s+ with no partner and like 15 cats in her home? I thought I was doing pretty well because my cat-load is currently two and I am planning to get married soon. However, then I named a blog after my cat. Strangely no one has teased me about the crazy cat thing since I started the blog- I must have crossed some sort of threshold line by doing that and now "crazy cat lady" is my reality.

3. I love having a blog where I cook new foods and try to take pictures of my cat near those foods. It is an added bonus if I can get Zoey to actually sniff something. Sometimes Zoey isn't in the mood and I call in her BFF, Will. Some of my favorite pictures are the times when the picture doesn't quite capture the look I was going for. For example, this is my favorite picture from my sushi experiement:

4. I met my first vegetarian in high school and I thought that the whole idea was very strange. At that time I was sure that I could never be a vegetarian. I have since learned to never say never.

5. I became a vegetarian primarily because of my older sister. When I was in my early teens she decided to start boycotting Proctor & Gamble because they did tests on animals. Since I looked up to my sister and wanted to be like her, I did the same. Because of her inspiration I later took the next step and became a vegetarian.

6. I live in Oregon, so once it starts raining in the winter I may not see the sun in months. I have been known to call people outside of Oregon just to confirm that the sun still exists. It also gets dark at 4:00pm right now, that gets old pretty fast.

7. I got my camera as a birthday present from my mom for my 30th birthday. I asked for it because I wanted to take more pictures of my cat, Zoey. In fact, I even refer to my camera as "The Zoey Cam". See #2.

Just in case you are missing pictures of Zoey, I have a great picture of her watching TV:

This was a great study break distraction and now I am tagging the following 7 fabulous bloggers:

Katy, at Legally Vegan
Liz, at Food Snobbery is my Hobbery
Stephanie, at Vegan Duckling
Alicia, at Vegan Guinea Pig
Jess, from Get Sconed!
Marni, from La Vegan Loca
Sanja, from Coconut and Raspberry

Peanut Butter Banana Bliss

2008-11-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

This recipe was inspired by something that I saw in Eat, Drink and Be Vegan. Basically, it is a peanut butter banana sandwich in a tortilla, and boy is it good! I added some powdered sugar on top for some artistic creativity, but it is optional.

I spread peanut butter over a whole wheat tortilla and added slices of banana to half:

I added some cinnamon for fun:

I cooked it up on the skillet on medium:

The end result was rich and delicious. If you love peanut butter than this treat is for you (you know who you are!). It was easy and quick and surprisingly better than a regular peanut butter banana sandwich.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

2008-11-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

This week I had the fortunate event of having 2 bananas get overly ripe. Bananas don't get ripe very often in our house because we are avid banana eaters. Even if I was to double our banana supply, we would probably eat them all before any of them went bad. So when a banana starts to get brown at my house, I start getting excited. I wanted to try something different from the banana chai muffins that I have made in the past, and for some reason I was craving a banana-oatmeal combination. Luckily I found this recipe in the Healthy Heart Handbook. That book is officially one of my favorite cookbooks these days.

The highlight of these cookies for me is that I created an egg on my own! The recipe calls for an egg-substitute but I have heard that you can make an egg substitute by combining 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed and 3-4 tablespoons of water. So I gave it a try and it seemed to work out well. This way we get all the good stuff from the flaxseed too, like all the Omega 3's.

Next I mixed up the batter. Once again I used chocolate chips instead of raisins (although I added raisins to the shopping list to stop this new habit!) The dough was delicious and so I knew that things were going to turn out okay.

This recipe made a lot of cookies. I used a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon to shape the dough into balls, and that made about 4 dozen cookies. Since I didn't want to eat 4 dozen cookies at once, I made 1 batch in the oven, and then froze 3 dozen balls of dough so that I could make a fresh batch anytime.

These were good cookies, especially right out of the oven. I will admit that they didn't taste as good as a cookie that has butter or oil in it, but it is much healthier and still felt like a real treat!

Roasted Squash Seeds

2008-11-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder how I miss things that are so obvious. I have been eating an abundance of winter squash lately and I have been scooping the seeds into the trash each time. Now, the added interesting fact is that each time I walk by a pumpkin in the store I complain that pumpkins don't seem to have seeds anymore and I love roasting pumpkin seeds. At the farm stand near my house I even asked if their pumpkins have a lot of seeds. Around this time of year I become almost pumpkin seed obsessed.

I picked up a golden acorn squash at the store over the weekend and after a good sniff, Zoey starting licking her chops. I thought this was a funny picture of her.

After I cut the squash in half and scooped half of the seeds into the trash I realized that this squash had a lot of seeds in it and that was sort of annoying from a seed-scooping perspective. And then it dawned on me- those seeds look like pumpkin seeds!

A little research on the internet showed me that it is common to roast winter squash seeds so I decided to give it a try.

Roasted Squash Seeds:

Ingredients:
1 winter squash (I used this golden acorn squash but from now on I will be using all my winter squash- so pick your favorite)

Directions:

1. Cut the squash in half and scoop the seeds into a bowl.
2. Rinse the seeds well to remove the goop.
3. Dry the seeds a bit with a paper towel (or clean kitchen towel)
4. I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper but you could also use some non-stick spray.
5. Place the seeds on the cookie sheet and sprinkle with salt or seasonings if desired.
6. Roast at 275 degrees for about 15 minutes.

These were not quite as good as roasted pumpkin seeds, but they were a close second. We almost ate them all before I remembered to take a picture. Since it seems I may be living in a world without pumpkin seeds, these will satisfy my cravings. I may try a spice blend with them next time just to keep things interesting.

The Best Vegetarian Chili

2008-11-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

This is my all time favorite chili recipe. This is the chili that I measure all other chilies against. And with my current chili quest, I needed an old favorite. This may actually be the first vegetarian chili that I ever made and I was blown away by all the vegetables that are included. This is a job for someone who likes chopping, because there is a lot of it. But the flavor and texture make all that chopping worth it!

Here are some onions, peppers and herbs steaming up. The only downside to this cookbook is that it assumes that you know something about cooking. For example, the instruction here is to cook the vegetables until they are half done. Yes, but how long is that in minutes??

I usually cook them for about 8 minutes. Perhaps I should embrace the creativity of being able to define "half done" myself.

Time to add the tomatoes and TVP:

My mouth is watering.

Oh, and check out my soaked and cooked kidney beans. I used to mourn the loss of the bright red colors that only can kidney beans provide, but I am starting to appreciate the look of these beans without the bright red hue. In fact, I may even prefer this look now.

And since I learned from an earlier mistake, I cooked the garbanzo beans separately from the kidney beans so that they both remained their intended color. If you look at the top picture you can see how much better those beans look than my 3 bean chili attempt. Individual colors are important to me.

Here's my bowl and the book that started it all. And now I am drooling.

Oh, I should also mention that this recipe claims to serve 20 people. I have never reduced the quantity because I love it so much that I eat it for every meal for 3 days. This time I did put some in the freezer though, so hopefully it freezes well!

Garbanzo Beans

2008-11-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

When I started this blog I decided to try soaking and cooking beans instead of relying on canned beans. We eat a lot of beans at my house so it wasn't exactly a perfect transition. Well, it was perfect in the sense that I haven't had canned beans since I started blogging, but it was imperfect in that sometimes I forgot to soak the beans the night before and I had to make do with what I had on hand.

The soaking part is easy, I set beans out to soak almost every night now as part of my before bed routine. I am also in a routine of setting up the slow cooker in the morning and slow cooking my beans all day. This works great if you only need 1 type of bean per day. However, if you need multiple types, I do not recommend soaking them and cooking them all together in a slow cooker. I learned that lesson the hard way.

So that means it is time for me to learn to cook beans the traditional way - on the stove top. I like to start my new bean adventures with garbanzo beans because they are my favorite. If something doesn't work out quite right, I will probably still eat them anyway because I like them so much.

I soaked them over night and rinsed them well. Next I put them in my big chili pot on the stove with water on high. I brought it to a boil and then reduced the heat to medium low for 2 hours.

While they were cooking, this is what was going on in my kitchen. Since I had my camera with me I decided to document for you why this blog is called Zoey's Kitchen. She is the star of the show:

Two hours later I had these. Given the option I would still rather slow cook my beans because I like the idea of not worrying about them while they are in the slow cooker. There was something about having the stove burner on for 2 hours that kept me feeling like I was on guard. They did turn out great though, and I am looking forward to using them in chili.

Winter Corn Chowder

2008-10-31T19:30:00.000-07:00

I did it! I made it through a month of frequent food blogging. I am pretty sure that I won't be able to keep up the pace, but it has been a fun adventure for me. I am going to leave you with a real gem. This soup is the Winter Corn Chowder from The Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook.

When my mom gave me this cookbook, she flagged some of the recipes that she thought I might enjoy. This is one of her selections and she was right! This may be my favorite recipe out of this book so far.

The only substitution I made was using fresh sweet potatoes instead of yukon gold potatoes. I had the sweet potatoes on hand and I thought it would bring out more colors for a brighter, fresher looking soup.

Someone was glad this was a slower cooker meal because she just wasn't in the mood to cook today. Sometimes being a cat is hard work, especially if there is sun in Oregon, you have to soak that up when you get a chance.

After the soup had cooked, I blended 2 cups of it in the food processor to give the whole soup a thicker consistency. In general, I think that people use some sort of cream to make corn chowder thicker, so I enjoyed the option of just blending up the vegetables.

The real gold star for this recipe is the garnish. Now I am one to normally ignore information about "garnishes" in recipes. But this recipe called for fresh chives and tomatoes and I thought that sounded good. Aside from making the soup brighter and more colorful, the garnish made this soup taste amazing. Everything tasted so fresh and wonderful!

Butternut Squash French Fries

2008-10-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

It is the season for winter squash around here and Zoey has been eager to cook with a butternut squash.

Some of you may wonder how I get Zoey to appear so interested in produce. Am I sprinkling cap nip on my food? Storing my squashes next to the cat chow so they smell good to her?

No, the truth is that I am incredibly patient with Zoey, and I sit through lots of moments like this:

I have even thought of making some sort of "blooper reel" of pictures of Zoey very much -not- interested in whatever we are cooking with that day. Until then, it is time to get on with the recipe for Butternut Squash French Fries!

I found this recipe over at Roni's Greenlite Bites website. We used her method for chopping a butternut squash and it worked well.

Roni recommends cooking these for about 45 minutes, but I decided to take them out after about 15 minutes so that they would be "more firm".

I have actually made this recipe twice so far- the first time cooking the squash for 45 minutes, and the second time pulling it out after the 15 minutes. The advantage to cooking the fries for 45 minutes is that they start to taste almost like they have brown sugar on them. The fries get a little sweet and carmelized. Unfortunatley, mine also became a little limp.

As a personal choice, I prefer to have the fries have a little more "firm" and they were cooked all the way through after 15 minutes. Also they are so good that it can be difficult to wait for 45 minutes once they are in the oven!

Tamale Pie

2008-10-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am still working my way through the Healthy Heart Handbook. This particular recipe caught my eye because it was called "Instant" Tamale Pie. Here is the caption from the book:

"After a hard day's work, come home, spend five minutes preparing this, take a shower and enjoy a complete meal"

Well, that is something I can get excited about. The hardest part of this recipe was deciding what types of vegetables to use as my "1 cup of steamed vegetables" in the recipe. I asked a friend for advice and he said "I don't know, what is tamale pie?". And at that point I had to come clean... I had no idea. I just liked that the cookbook had told me it would take 5 minutes and then I could take a shower. That is really the extent of the thought that went into the selection of this dinner!

So we got the rest of the ingredients out and put them on the counter so we could imagine what types of vegetables would be good mixed in.

The result?

Peppers!

So I steamed up some frozen peppers just long enough to de-frost them and mixed everything together:

The mix is basically some vegetarian chili, corn, salsa, and peppers. And then a cornmeal crust.

Into the oven for 30 minutes and then you have this:

This was a great dinner, especially since I didn't know what to expect. This cookbook has always impressed me and I have been happy with all the results.

As a matter of personal taste, I didn't love the cornmeal on top. I am not sure if I have ever had a cornmeal topping before, and if I have it was a long time ago. I think I expected it to taste like cornbread on top, and that is not what it was. But knowing that, I would make this again. It was super easy to pull together and didn't require any chopping which was a big time saver. I generally like to make meals out of fresh produce, but this was sort of a fun treat.

Pumpkin Bread

2008-10-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Zoey and I get distracted on our cooking adventures. For example, this weekend I was looking up recipes to make stuffing from scratch for the Iron Chef Challenge. After realizing that stuffing is mostly bread, celery, carrots and spices I decided that if I was going to make stuffing I was also going to have to make the bread from scratch.

Somehow I came across a recipe for pumpkin bread and the next thing I knew Zoey was sniffing a can of pumpkin and I was in the kitchen mixing ingredients. You can see the complete recipe by clicking on the link above.

I didn't even end up making the stuffing because the bread was so good we just ate that plain. I figured I couldn't enter the challenge this week if I ate all the stuffing bread before I had time to actually turn it into something.

Here is everything all mixed up and in the loaf pan:

I only cooked this for 45 minutes and it was done. This bread was sweet like a dessert bread and it didn't last long enough to make stuffing from it. It was a little sweet for my tastes, so next time I will add less sugar.

This did earn an A+ on the taste scale which is pretty good for not having any added fat or oil. If you are looking for a pumpkin bread recipe, Zoey and I suggest giving this one a try!

Oh, and I added some cinnamon on the top, in case you were wondering what the brown spots are. Next time I will skip the cinnamon and add dry oats to the top instead!

The Unfreezing

2008-10-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been about a week and so as promised, here is what I am pulling out of my freezer. I did this experiment as a way to venture into the idea of freezing meals. To ease my freezer anxiety, I have spent the week reading everything I can about freezing meals for later enjoyment. Apparently there is a whole movement out there of people who just cook once a month and freeze all their meals. I don't see myself moving in that direction since I love cooking so much, but I see freezing as a really good option for leftovers.

I used to be a fan of frozen entrees (having maybe 2-3 a week) but lately I just haven't found any that met my nutritional needs. Plus I love to cook and I like the idea of creating my own frozen entrees. I have liked the idea of making my own frozen entrees so much that I even bought a Foodsaver a few years ago, although I have never even tried it. After this freezing experiment, that might change.

So enough about my freezer issues...

I let the frozen sloppy joe mix de-frost overnight in my refrigerator. When I took it out of the container for lunch today, there were still some small ice crystals on it so I was worried that it would taste like frezzer burn. I dumped the whole thing into a glass dish and microwaved it for 2 minutes:

I don't have any buns leftover from my last sloppy joe experience, so I spread this mix on some whole wheat bread to make a sandwich:

The result? It was delicious! I realize that the lighting in this picture isn't that great, but I already ate the sandwich, so I can't go take another picture.

My verdict?

Freezing is fun!

I have a book coming in from the library on freezing meals and I am going to dust off my Food Saver. I can't wait to try freezing more things!

Chocolate Birthday Cake

2008-10-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday week and I'll have cake if I want to. And I do!

I am not an expert cake baker, in fact I am not even an advanced beginner. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I almost go out of my way to -not- learn the arts of fine baking. In the past the only birthday cakes I remember came from the grocery store. Most of my personal cake baking experience came from a Betty Crocker box and a couple of eggs.

I do have one moment of cake baking glory in my Montana past, I made a beautiful 3 layer "checkerboard" cake that tasted as good as it looked. Of course, the frosting alone was made with a pound of butter and a jar of marshmallow fluff... so clearly that wasn't going to cut it here.

Some friends and I tried a vegan cupcake from Whole Foods and we all agreed that it was a little dry. So I announced with confidence: "I can do better than this". After my success with the chocolate chocolate-chip cookies, no one doubted me. Of course, have I mentioned that I am not a professional? You'll see....

I found the recipe for a basic chocolate cake in Vegan Express, which I happened to have out from the library. So far so good, everything is getting mixed together - hard to mess that part up:

Fresh out of the oven and it looks great. I had sprayed the bottom and sides of the dish with non-stick spray and I had even coated it with sugar since I remember doing that with baked breads as a child. I was prepared to impress with preparation and even asked one of my friends to flip it out onto the plate. "Oh, it will come right out so be prepared for that" I assured him.

Well... not so much:

As you can see, half of it did come right out but half of it did not. I debated trying to get the other half out and tried to wiggle a spatula under it to free it from the pan with no luck. Luckily I was among friends, so I just frosted it as it was. The cake tasted great! The frosting has a little peanut butter in it, which I wasn't expecting to like, but it was delicious. Everyone loved the cake and it was gone that night.

If any of you have an ideas for how to get a cake to come out all in one piece next time, I am open to suggestions!

Acorn Squash

2008-10-23T19:30:00.000-07:00

Before you worry that all my focus has turned to snack foods, rest assured that Zoey is still sniffing out good produce for me to enjoy.

I love a good acorn squash. The best squashes come from the farmers market, but around this time of year they are still generally pretty good at the grocery store too. I am kind of an odd duck because I really prefer these beauties plain. No butter, no brown sugar, no anything else that people put on them. But, in order to enjoy them plain, it's important not to overcook them.

Luckily, acorn squashes are easy to cook up in the microwave and that is my preferred method, although now that the weather is cooling off, I may be an oven convert.

Zoey's Basic Acorn Squash Instructions:

1. First allow Zoey to sniff the squash for freshness.
2. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds.

Place the squash face down on a small plate with a little water in the bottom and microwave on high for about 7 minutes. Use more or less time depending on how big the squash is. For this squash, 7 minutes was perfect.

Allow your squash to cool for a minute or too and then grab a spoon and enjoy! I just eat it right out of the shell like this and I love it.

Pumpkin Heart Muffins

2008-10-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am still on my quest for the perfect portable snack food. Enter the healthy pumpkin muffin! I found this recipe here although it originally comes from a cookbook for kids (perfect for me)! It is the season of eating pumpkin baked goods so I decided to give it a try.

As usual I didn't have raisins on hand so I needed a substitution. I am not sure when I decided that vegan chocolate chips were the best substitution for raisins but that is my decision and I am sticking to it. Here is the dough all mixed up and looking good:

I bought these cute heart-shaped muffin holders this morning. I have actually had my eye on them for awhile now and this morning I decided to splurge a little and get them. I was hoping for some heart shaped muffin magic:

Well, they didn't really come out heart shaped. I think that has a lot to do with the recipe and not a lot to do with the containers. The muffins were quite good though and each muffin has 200% of your vitamin A requirement for the day. Perfect portable snack food.

I figured out the nutritional information of the recipe including the chocolate chips I used. This recipe made 12 muffins.

Nutritional Information (for 1 muffin): Calories: 129, Fat: 0.8g, Protein: 3g, Fiber: 3g, Vitamin A: 217%, Manganese 31%, Selenium: 21%

Vegetable Pizza

2008-10-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

This weekend we took a trip to a local farm near our house for some fresh seasonal produce. We picked up 6 beautiful bells peppers for only 50 cents each and I was eager to test them out. We have been having a bit of a pizza craving at our house recently, and going out to get pizza wasn't my first choice, so it was time to me to learn to make pizza from scratch.

First the dough:

I pulled out the old bread maker for this project. I am still troubled by my insufficient bread kneeding skills. I decided to go simple:

- 3 cups whole wheat flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
- 1 packet active yeast
- 1 1/3 cups lukewarm water
- A sprinkle of Italian Herb Seasoning (optional)

I'll be honest, I only added the Italian Herb Seasoning because sometimes I like to pretend that Zoey and I are cooking on our own tv show and I think things like "I am going to add some Italian Herbs to the crust to add some color and extra flavor."

I don't think Zoey minds.

I topped the pizza with some tomato sauce, a fresh bell pepper from the farm, some olives and some artichoke hearts. In my mind, pizza doesn't get any better than this.

Into the oven for 25 minutes and success! The crust was wonderful and doughy and the toppings were delicious! The pizza was big enough that we will have leftovers for lunch tomorrow and I can't wait!

Green Smoothie

2008-10-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

It is day 20 of Vegan Mofo and I am choosing to make something healthy. I read health books and cookbooks for fun, and recently I have come across the concept of "green smoothies". I have always dismissed the idea thinking something like "there is no way drinking blended kale for breakfast would taste good". However, I have seen countless blogs this month where people make different variations of green smoothies and claim that they taste great.

I am also reading a book on raw foods right now and I can accept that I am not eating as many leafy greens as I probably should. So I decided last night before I went to bed that I would wake up and give a green smoothie a try.

The leafy green vegetable that I do eat a lot of anyway is spinach so I decided to start with that. Ideally I would rather make a smoothie with other greens like kale or swiss chard, but I didn't want to take a trip to the store for something new when I had spinach at home.

We even have a guest sniffer this morning! This is our other cat, Will. I am not sure if he counts as Zoey's older brother or her boyfriend/ life partner. They are definitely best friends though and lately he has started sniffing my food creations.

Here's what I did:

Zoey's First Green Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 cup of fresh spinach
1 banana
1/3 cup frozen blueberries
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup light soymilk

Directions:

1. Put it all in your blender and blend!

The recipe makes enough for 2 glasses this size.

Zoey sniffs the final product:

Okay, so I know that I "cheated" by adding some light soymilk so now it isn't a raw food breakfast, but I was worried that things were not going to taste good. But, the funny thing is that this drink was almost too sweet/ creamy so I wish I had left the soymilk out. I guess the joke is on me.

This tasted a lot like a banana blueberry milkshake/ smoothie and I couldn't even taste the spinach. It was light and fluffy and I felt like I was eating a treat.

Next time I will add ground flaxseed for sure and I will leave out the soymilk. I may even try some kale or swiss chard. I do have some collard greens in my fridge right now, would that work or is that too bitter?

Iron Chef Challenge #3 (Sushi)

2008-10-19T18:46:00.001-07:00

Oh boy. The Iron Chef Challenge this weekend was sushi. More specifically: seaweed and rice. Let's see, I've had sushi once in my life at a restaurant and I didn't like it. I have stayed away from the stuff ever since. But, I made a commitment to do the Iron Chef Challenges when I could and I had no valid reason for backing out this weekend so it was on.

Plus I figured that with enough soy sauce, anything would be edible. I have never made sushi before and instead of doing the smart thing and looking at some recipes, I did the Zoey thing and decided I would figure it out as I went along. I am pretty sure that making sushi is a somewhat advanced kitchen skill and I am far from advanced in the sushi department.

I went to Whole Foods to pick up some seaweed and special sushi rice. Since I won't have many nice things to say about this adventure, I will say that I think sushi rice is pretty.

Of course, once I cooked it, it looked like mush. For some reason it reminded me of stuffed animal fluffing which I sort of liked and found bothersome at the same time.

I spread it out on the seaweed (which I had heated over a burner to make it turn green).

Since I didn't follow a recipe and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like it anyway, I only added soy sauce and shredded carrots as the filling. I rolled it all up and somehow managed to get something that slightly resembles sushi! I'll admit this doesn't look like the pictures online when I searched for "how to roll sushi" but this is real life. And in Zoey's kitchen this is what we got:

I did eat one of these rolls and I have to say that I haven't developed a taste for sushi yet. Zoey was curious about the finished product, she seemed to like the smell of the seaweed.

Well, I did it. I was challenged. And to be honest, I am glad that it is over.

The Freezer

2008-10-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

This is sort of embarrassing to admit: I am afraid of my freezer.

Not the kind of fear where I suspect my freezer will come to life and attack me in my sleep, but rather a fear of freezing home cooked meals. My current freezer skills lay somewhere around the ability to freeze ice.

As I am gaining more and more confidence in the kitchen I am reading cookbooks and cooking blogs for fun. Often I notice people saying things like: this freezes well.

Gulp.

Just the idea of freezing things makes me anxious.

Often my cooking anxieties lead back to events in my life and here they are:

1. Lasagna: My first attempt with freezing was on a lasagna that I had made and I wanted to save the leftovers. I cut the leftovers into single servings and froze them. About a week later I went to re-heat some lasagna for dinner and it just wasn't that good. It didn't have the same fresh taste that I was expecting.

2. Minestrone Soup: Thinking that my previous poor freezing experience was based on the type of dish I had chosen, I decided to give freezing soup a try. I made a minestrone soup with lots of vegetables and some pasta shells. Into the freezer it went. When it came time to re-heat the minestrone all the pasta shapes had dissolved and I was left with a vegetable soup with paste-like broth. It wasn't good.

But here I am all talk and excuses and no recent attempts. So today that changes. I am freezing the leftovers from the Sloppy Joes that I made and I am going to reheat them in one week. I chose a variety of freezing options. The first two are different amounts in my ziplock tuperware containers. The third option is a one cup serving in a bag flattened out. I can't remember where I heard the idea, but someone out there in the world suggested freezing 1 cup amounts in bags and then flattening them out so that they could be stacked in your freezer. If it works it will be brilliant.

So here they are, and since I made a blog post about it, I will have to test them all in one week. Until then if anyone has any ideas on freezing storage, how best to defrost these when the time comes, or other freezing knowledge- I am all ears.

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

2008-10-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from my mom, who first tasted it at her book club. You can find the complete recipe here. The funny part of this story is that when I first got the recipe, there weren't any directions attached. In case it isn't obvious, I don't have a natural skill for knowing what to do with each ingredient in a recipe. For example, if a recipe says to saute an onion, I want to know how long that is in minutes. So when I saw just a list of ingredients, my plan was to add them all to a soup pot at once and simmer. Simmering for 30 minutes seems pretty standard, so that was my plan.

I had already planned to leave out the yogurt in the recipe, but I wasn't sure if that would effect my massive soup combination so I asked my mom about it. Luckily she caught that I didn't have the directions and got me straightened out. The yogurt and rice are just sides, so I decided to skip the yogurt and keep the rice.

That's a long story for what turns out to be an easy delicious soup. First you saute the vegetables for a few minutes:

Next I decided to add everything to my trustee slow cooker instead of continuing on the stove top. I will say that I am getting a more intuitive feel for when to use the slow cooker and it works great in this recipe. I cooked it on high for about 3 hours and made a rice barley blend to serve on the side.

Vegetable Stock Blend

2008-10-15T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am always on the lookout for a new vegetable stock option. Buying the cans gets expensive, I don't like the taste of the broth in the cartons and when I make my own out of boiled vegetables, it never lasts very long. So recently I decided to try some veggie boilun cubes only to get them home and see that one of the ingredients is high fructose corn syrup. Same thing in the cans. Well, in an effort to reduce my intake of high fructose corn syrup I decided to take matters into my own hands. (And let's face it, I'll take any excuse to try something new in the kitchen)

So here it is, my own vegetable stock blend fresh out of the Healthy Heart Handbook. That little book is gaining some mileage in my kitchen, so far everything in it has been a hit!

The basic ingredients in the mix are nutritional yeast flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, a little salt and some Italian seasonings.

I mixed it all up in my handy dandy food processor so that it would make a fine powder:

I mixed in a little parsley at the end to give it a pretty touch of green. Zoey was going nuts in the kitchen while I was making this. She kept putting her paws on this purple table and squeeking but I couldn't get the timing and focus on my camera right to capture the moment.

So far I have used this in recipes that call for a little broth and it has been quite good. I just scoop some out and add it to water. The real test will come when it is time to make a soup with it, but so far I think this is going to work out well.

Special bonuses are that I can store it in a tubberware container, which saves space AND since the base ingredient is nutritional yeast flakes, the broth mix provides a mix of B vitamins. That beats high fructose corn syrup any day in my book.

Pretzels (2)

2008-10-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Better than a kitten in a thunderstorm, I have a secret appliance. A bread-maker! As I mentioned in my first pretzel post, I have never had an opportunity to kneed bread before, and so as my model I did what Zoey does with her paws right before taking a nap. I figured it had to be called "kneading the dough" for some reason.

Well, my last pretzels were a little hard to roll into ropes for shaping and after some internet searches I learned that part of my problem may have been insufficient kneading. So, I'm not sufficient. That hurts. And then I remembered that I had a bread maker- that thing can knead dough like nobody's business!

So I pulled it out and put together my pretzel mix. I still went with the basic pretzel recipe from the Healthy Heart Handbook except this time I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of just whole wheat flour. An hour and a half later, I have a blob of dough like this:

This stuff was a dream to roll out and I think the pretzels looked a little prettier too. I also bought some coarse salt this weekend so I sprinkled some of that on top. I am going for the total pretzel effect here!

I also made some heart shaped pretzels and sprinkled them with some cinnamon. The cinnamon rationing is over- I bought bulk cinnamon on sale for 50 cents, hooray! The cinnamon pretzels were very tasty.

If you are going to make these, I recommend the whole wheat pastry flour and either a bread-maker or a dedication to bread kneading.

Zoey did all the kneading she could handle and was glad to have the bread-maker take over the job. All that work makes her a sleepy kitty.

Bagels

2008-10-13T19:30:00.001-07:00

It's day 13 of Vegan Mofo and I have another recipe success from a fellow blogger. I have never made bagels before because for some reason I thought it would be an overly complicated process. Turns out bagels are easy to make and I thought the process was fun. You can find the complete recipe that I used here.

Step 1: Add ingredients to your bread maker and activate "dough cycle". I added some raisins for fun but no cinnamon because I am rationing cinnamon. Yes, you read that right... I am rationing spices. For the most part our food budget has not been too affected by increasing food costs because we are eating less packaged food and more whole foods. However, a walk down the spice isle showed me that we were not immune from every price increase. Plus our grocery store sells all their spices for 1/2 price for the month of November, so I am trying to wait it out!

Step 2: After the dough cycle finishes, separate the dough into 6 balls and roll each ball into a bagel shape:

Step 3: Boil each bagel in water for 2 minutes. I thought this picture was pretty cool- the bagels get all fluffed up while they are boiling.

Step 4:Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

These bagels were delicious! They were easily as good as any store-bought bagel I have ever eaten and they were so easy to make. This is now officially my go-to bagel recipe.

Vegan Mofo: Iron Chef Challenge #2 (Pears and Nuts)

2008-10-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

It's day 12 of Vegan Mofo and Zoey and I are joining in the Vegan Iron Chef Challenge. The two ingredients for this weekend's challenge are pears and nuts. I have eaten a lot of pears in my life but I don't think that I have ever cooked with one, so this was a real challenge for me. For some reason walnuts seemed like a good nut to pair with pears so I picked some up this morning at the market.

I was so amazed by the pumpkin pancakes that I made for breakfast yesterday morning that I decided to make pancakes again this morning using the 2 new ingredients. The recipe was a success! I modified the recipe from Wing It Vegan because it was an incredible pancake base mix. Here's what Zoey and I did:

Pear-Walnut Pancakes
(makes 4 large pancakes)

Ingredients:

(dry)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup ground walnuts (or finely chopped)
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

(wet)
1 cup light vanilla soy milk
1 small pear - diced
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Mix dry ingredients together.
2. Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
3. Ladle 2 large spoonfuls of batter onto a pan over medium heat (spray some non-stick spray first).
4. Flip pancakes when the top starts to bubble and the bottom is golden brown.

Check out the lumps of diced pears in this pancake:

Here are 2 pancakes fresh off the gridle. You can see the spots of fresh pear in there:

I added some chopped walnuts and maple syrup on mine for the ultimate indulgence:

Just for fun I added some leftover pear pieces to the top and Zoey made an appearance to check out the final product:

These were delicious pancakes and I will be sure to make them again. Without the Iron Chef Challenge I never would have paired pears with walnuts (actually I might have never cooked with pears at all) so this was great. Each bite of pancake had a small piece of pear in it which made the pancakes taste sweet and fresh. As I was eating them I considered taking a picture of the inside to show you, but I couldn't tear myself away. They were that good!

Pumpkin Pancakes

2008-10-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

It is day 11 of Vegan Mofo and time for my weekend wrap up. The only thing better than having homemade pancakes for breakfast is homemade Pumpkin Pancakes! I found the recipe over at Wing it Vegan, and you can find the complete recipe here. I did make some minor changes because I didn't want to use oil and I didn't have any applesauce on hand. So I left those two ingredients out and added a little extra pumpkin. Oh, I also decided to make them giant pumpkin pancakes!

Here is my first pancake frying up in the pan:

Flipped:

This recipe was so good that I am planning to make it for family when they come to visit next week. I added a little maple syrup on top of mine, but it would have been good plain or with fruit on top.

I have to say that I love having Vegan Mofo during October because there are pumpkin recipes everywhere! I even bought a fresh pumpkin from the farm near my house so I could learn to bake it and have fresh pureed pumpkin!

Zoey and I have never baked a pumpkin and therefore I have no idea how that will work out. If anyone has pumpkin baking advice we are all ears.

Sloppy Joes

2008-10-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am still working out of the Healthy Heart Handbook, only instead of spending all my time in the "snacks" section, I have moved on to dinners. So tonight for dinner, we are having Sloppy Joes. I haven't had one of these in a long time, so I was excited to give this recipe a try. The recipe calls for TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) which I had never used before but since everything else in the recipe was familiar, I was ready to try something new.

I have never cooked with TVP before because it always sounded to me like something that you would use to insulate your attic. However, it is high in protein and low in fat which makes it a good meat replacer in recipes.

The whole thing only took about 30 minutes to throw together (including cooking time) and here is what it looked like as it was simmering:

I served these on buns with some ketchup and they were quite good. However, remember that these are called Sloppy Joes so don't eat them wearing your best clothes. As soon as I picked this sandwich up, half of it fell out the other side. I bet these would work well in wraps if you wanted to avoid that fate.

Millet Stew

2008-10-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of having a cooking blog is that I am constantly on the lookout for trying new things. I had been reading a lot about the grain millet and when I saw that it was less than $.50 per pound at the grocery store I decided to give it a try.

First I called my mom to see if she had cooked with millet before and to see if she had any ideas. Her response was something like: "I think that is what is in bird seed".

Now that she mentioned it, I think she is right.

I did a quick search online for millet and found this recipe for a millet stew in a crock pot.

I toasted up the millet in a skillet and yep, it looks like I am having bird seed for dinner:

I did feel pretty cool toasting a grain though. There is something fun for me about doing some "extra" step in cooking that is foreign to me. Who knows if toasting the millet made anything better but it did remind me of filling bird feeders.

I added everything to my mini crock pot. My rule for making new things is that if I can make the recipe smaller to test it out, I will do that. Everything else in the recipe sounded good though so I wasn't too worried.

The instructions said to cook the stew for 4 hours on high so I did that. 4 hours might be a little too long. The millet fluffed up which I wasn't expecting and it became a soft grain. It had looked like quinoa when I started, but after it was cooked it looked more like couscous.

This dish was alright, but it would have been better if I had cooked it less. I still ate it and it was surprisingly filling. Next time I will reduce the cooking time to 3 hours and see if I like it more.

This experience did make me more interested in trying other things with millet. I am going to come up with a recipe that uses both millet and vegetables so that I can title it "Bird meets Rabbit".

Sweet Potato Pearls

2008-10-08T19:30:00.000-07:00

After my early success with the Potato Pearls from the Healthy Heart Handbook last week, I was ready to improvise a little to make these little gems even better and more nutritious! And it was a success! These were more flavorful than my first attempt because I used a sweet potato instead of yukon gold potatoes.

Ingredients:

1 medium size sweet potato
1 green onion/ chive

For the breading:

1/4 c. wheat germ
1/2 tablespoon ground flaxseeds
1/8 teaspoon paprika
dash of salt and pepper

I chopped up one sweet potato and boiled it on the stove for about 15 minutes. Then I added the green onion and some salt and pepper. Notice that I left the skin on the sweet potato. It all gets rolled together at the end so no one except you will know that you left the skins on. However, if sweet potato skins are an aversion for you, you could peel them first.

I mixed it up with a hand mixer (just don't over mix!) and then I rolled the filling into balls using my 1 Tablespoon measuring spoon as a guide. Here they are waiting to go in the breading. At this stage I realized that these would be an especially good snack around Halloween because they are bright orange.

I rolled each one in the breading mixture and arranged them on a cookie sheet.

I baked them in the oven at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. These are really only good fresh out of the oven, so be prepared to eat when the timer goes off!

I eat them in one bite, but I split one open here so you could see the inside. That just screams Vitamin A to me.

When I first figured out the nutrition information for these, I guessed that one serving would be 4 sweet potato pearls. Then I ate 1/2 the recipe by myself and decided that 1/2 the recipe is a totally reasonable serving size, so that is what I am sticking with.

With nutrition like this you could just eat the whole batch. Did I mention that they also tasted really good?

Nutritional Facts (1/2 the recipe): Calories: 117, Fat: 2g, Protein: 4g, Fiber 4g, Vitamin A: 396%, Vitamin B1: 32%, Vitamin B6: 26%, Manganese: 118%, Copper 26%, Zinc 26%, Phosphorus 23%, Selenium 22%.

Garden Vegetable Chili

2008-10-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

Alright, I mentioned that I was secretly on a chili mission, and the mission continues on through vegan mofo! This Garden Vegetable Chili is the first recipe in the Vegetarian Chili Cookbook. When everything in the cookbook looked so good to me, I decided to start with recipe #1, and here it is.

This recipe is simple in the sense that the only real task involved is chopping. There was no fancy timing, no fancy spices to blend and only one minor driving incident where my chopping partner had to pull over the car because he had gotten jalapeno from his hands to his eye. So as long as you wash your hands well after chopping, you should be home free.

The first batch of vegetables to steam was pretty basic as you can see.

About 1/2 way through the chopping I noticed that the kitchen was strangely quiet. I found Zoey here, helping in her own kitten way:

Here are the rest of the vegetables all chopped up and simmering. I added some garbanzo beans even though the recipe didn't call for them, because when I think of chili, I think of beans!

Finally, here's my dish. I served it over a rice barley blend. It reminded me of my vegetable spaghetti that I make, but much spicier. Next time I will use just half of the jalapeno.

Roasted Garbanzo Beans

2008-10-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

It's day 6 of vegan mofo and the weather is getting cool and rainy in Oregon. On days like today I like to savor the smell of things roasting in my oven. This chickpea dish is perfect for that. A few years ago I remember making something like this with chickpeas and after roasting them for about 45 minutes they became more like nuts. Plus, it made the whole house smell great.

I haven't quite perfected the spice to bean ratio or the cooking time, but the smell in the house was perfect, and they tasted great fresh out of the oven. The only way in which they weren't perfect is that the next day they were kind of chewy- not the nut texture I had been going for. If you are willing to eat these right out of the oven then the recipe is perfect.

Directions:

1. Take a cup and a half of chickpeas (or 1 can).

2. Add:
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder.
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes.

3. Mix well.

4. Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

5. Be sure to stir them every 15 minutes so they can cook evenly and not stick. Next time I am going to cook them a little longer and see if that helps the next-day texture issue.

As you can see from the first picture, they came out looking great.

Peanut Butter Cookies

2008-10-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the month of Vegan Mofo doesn't necessarily mean that all the food you see on the blogs will be healthy. I have seen more pictures of cakes, cinnamon rolls, brownies and cookies than I care to admit. But there was something about these cookies that stopped me in my tracks. They do have oatmeal in them, that counts for something... right?

Even Zoey came out of the woodwork for this one. You can find the complete recipe here. The recipe said that it made six giant cookies and I considered halving it before I made it, but then I thought I didn't want to go through the trouble to only end up with 3 cookies. Well, I didn't make giant cookies, I used my 1 tablespoon measuring spoon and ended up with 50 cookies. Woops.

On the plus side, my neighbor recently brought me some cupcakes that she baked, so now I can return the favor. These cookies are just too good to have 50 of them sitting around the house.

Once I got everything mixed together like this I started wishing that I had made a smaller batch...

Although one taste of the dough and I was in peanut butter cookie bliss. I may have forgotten all my other cares in the world for a moment.

Oh, and the highlight of the recipe for me is that I got to use parchment paper for the first time! Sometimes I feel like the last person in the world to learn about things like parchment paper but this stuff is pretty amazing! I didn't need to spray any non-stick spray on the cookie sheet and the cookies just slid right off when they were finished. To be fair, these cookies may have done that anyway because of the peanut butter and oil in the recipe, but I was still impressed.

Zoey got the first sniff in (of course). She actually got up from her nap to come into the kitchen for this part. Usually if she isn't around for the food prep she doesn't show up for the end result, but tonight she made an exception. I am not sure what drew her to these, but she was curious!

If you ever find yourself craving peanut butter cookies, let me assure you that these cookies are the answer! You could even make 6 giant cookies from the dough, although that might make you sick from cookie overload.

Acorn Squash with Quinoa

2008-10-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been surprisingly overwhelmed by all the Vegan Mofo blogging. I wasn't planning to have any posts this weekend, but 2 recipes that I saw this week caught my eye so I figured I would give a little preview of different things I found.

First up: Acorn Squash stuffed with Quinoa. I found the recipe for this dish here and it was easy and scrumptious.

I baked the acorn squash in the oven (a first for me):

The filling only calls for 1/4 cup of quinoa. When I make this again, I think I will add a little more. Or maybe I will use a smaller squash :) Either way I like the filling to make a little mound on the top.

Here's the filling all mixed together with the dried cranberries:

Out of the oven and ready for lunch. These were so good and the filling was sweeter than anything I would have come up with on my own.

There are so many people participating in Vegan Mofo this year and I have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of posts out there. When I find gems like this it is all worth it though. Tomorrow I am going to have something even sweeter. If you haven't checked out the list and you are interested, you can find all the participants here:

Potato Pearls

2008-10-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

It's Day 3 of Vegan MoFo and I am still making snacks. After mastering the art of whole wheat pretzel making, I have moved on to the next recipe in the Healthy Heart Handbook: Potato Pearls. I have never had anything like these before, but after reading the ingredients to my mom on the phone, she told me that these are like hush puppies. Well, I love potatoes and I was undecided on green onions, so I decided to give it a go.

I boiled the potatoes first and then added 1 green onion and some salt and pepper. I will say that I bought a whole bunch of green onions and I was intending to put the whole bunch in the recipe but I am glad that I didn't! Green onions are strong! So one was plenty.

I mixed them up with a hand mixer on low - but not too much (thanks to the advice of my mom). I rolled them into balls the size of 1 tablespoon and then rolled them in the breading. Is that what this is called? It's really just wheat germ and paprika. While I was rolling the potato balls I was thinking that next time I will add a little flaxseed to the breading mixture. I think that will be good.

Into the oven for 20 minutes:

This recipe actually made about 3o balls this size, but I got impatient and wanted to get some cooking while I rolled out the others.

Zoey got a sample sniff of the first batch.

These were great right out of the oven. I liked them plain but they were also good with a little ketchup. This is a recipe that I will try again, although I will make some changes. My guess is that they would be good with sweet potatoes, so I will try that next.

The recipe also said that you can prepare them in advance, freeze them, and then cook them in the oven when you are ready, I am tempted to try that too. I like the idea of freezing things, but it never seems to work out quite right for me. Things out of the freezer never taste as good as they do fresh. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

Healthy Heart Homemade Pretzels

2008-10-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

I checked out the Healthy Heart Handbook from the library after trying a recipe that I found online that was from the book. The recipe section starts out with snack foods - perfect!

I haven't had a soft pretzel in years, so I knew right away that I wanted to start with that. You'll notice that in the picture above I even made one batch of the pretzels in the shape of hearts- I am a cooking dork :)

The recipe was very simple, just whole wheat flour, yeast, a little sugar and a little salt. I mixed it up with a spoon and then I figured it was time to kneed the dough. I am not sure I have ever had a chance to kneed dough before so when I got to this step I froze for a moment.

And as Zoey was walking around the kitchen squeeking I remembered that when cats are purring and stretching out their paws it is sometimes called "kneeding bread" so I pretended I was Zoey in the act of purring and I came out with this:

Next I rolled out some strings and shaped them into pretzels. Into the oven for about 10 minutes:

Fresh out of the oven and ready for Zoey's sniff test:

She liked them. I am especially convinced that she appreciated the heart shaped one that I made for her.

They were a little bland for my tastes. I tried making some with garlic salt for flavor, but I actually preferred them plain. They tasted like healthy wheat bread sticks in fun pretzel shapes. So, they weren't exactly what you get at a baseball game, but they were fun to make and they made a great side for the soup we had for dinner.

Ants in my pants

2008-10-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

Things are about to get fast and furious here in Zoey's Kitchen. The fine folks over at the Post Punk Kitchen Blog are celebrating a month of vegan food, lovingly referred to as "Vegan Mofo" (Vegan Month Of Food). I thought it would be fun to participate, and in doing so I will be posting more often for the month of October.

And in the spirit of things that make you move, I thought of ants in the pants. From there my mind wandered to "ants on a log" which is a treat that I haven't had in ages. In case you missed out on the childhood treat the recipe is easy:

celery+peanut butter+raisins = good!

So snack on that and get ready to see what Zoey can cook up in the month of October!

Banana Spice Muffins

2008-09-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

These muffins were Zoey's idea (as you can see). And since Zoey gets what Zoey wants, I had to make them for her.

Well, at least that's my version of what happened.

The true story is that I saw the recipe here and couldn't tear my eyes away. I happened to have a ripe banana in my kitchen and most of the other ingredients on hand so I picked up some coconut milk at the grocery store and I was ready to roll.

To make things more exciting I added some chopped walnuts to some and vegan chocolate chips to others.

Here they are fresh out of the oven. The whole house smelled so good.

I made a second batch because we had friends over and I added some fresh blueberries to some of those. I thought that the blueberry muffins were the prettiest, but they were the least popular. Since I didn't add extra sugar or anything, the blueberries didn't add a sweetness like you would find in a blueberry muffin mix.

Here's a close up shot of the different options. The muffin with chocolate chips was my favorite. This was a great recipe for guests because the recipe was easy and the muffins tasted great!

Hummus Sandwiches

2008-09-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

This isn't some fancy recipe, but Zoey and I have been working on sandwich ideas and this one is currently topping the charts at our house. My goal for the week is to increase my consumption of leafy greens, and this is a good way to get some in. Tonight I am making soup with collard greens, so I should be able to meet my goal.

I made this with some red pepper hummus, romaine lettuce and a fresh tomato. I made this with a tomato fresh out of my garden! Now that my neighbor's child isn't picking my tomatoes while green anymore, I am able to let them ripen on the vine and they taste so much better!

The other thing I noticed from this picture is that I am still using my snowman winter plates. It's September and I never switched back to my regular plates. Oh well, it is close enough to December now that I will just leave them out, I like the snowmen and now I look ultra prepared for the holidays!

3 Bean Chili

2008-09-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

I am going to allow you to learn from my mistake. If you make a 3 bean chili and you have committed to soaking and cooking all your beans, you really should make the extra effort to soak and cook your different types of beans separately. Otherwise you will end up with something that doesn't look that appealing (see last photo). And, I am pretty sure that the point of a 3 bean chili is to enjoy the look of the different types of beans, which was completely lost on me. In the big chili pot it looked like everything might work out okay, but that was just an illusion.

So anyway, here's the scoop:

I was thrilled to find that my library carried a copy of an instructional video for vegetarian cooking. I love instructional videos. When I was a child my mom got a pasta maker that came with an instructional video. All I remember is that we watched Mary (the instructor) make some beautiful pastas on our tv screen. Next I remember my mom and I in the kitchen with the pasta machine saying something like "this isn't as easy as Mary made it look". I am not sure how often we used that pasta maker after the first day, but someday when I am feeling brave, I am planning to give it another whirl.

But this post is not about pasta, it's about chili. And luckily for me the recipe can be found online here. This is good for me because one of my worst skills is writing down recipes while I am watching someone cook.

The recipe looked easy enough and sounded like something I would like so I gave it a go. I soaked and cooked my three types of beans together (bad idea) and put everything in the cooking pot together. I also made some barley and brown rice as a side (good idea).

Here it is at the end: I have black beans, kidney beans and garbanzo beans in here. However, they all look like strangely colored kidney beans to me. It was all around a bland look, and not the colorful chili that I had hoped for.

It was also a little bland for my tastes so I pulled out some low-sodium soy sauce to spice things up. With soy sauce on top and my eyes closed, this became a pretty good chili. I don't think that I will make it again since I was traumatized by the bean discoloration and I am secretly on a chili testing rampage. Although, I guess it's not a secret anymore.

Bulgur Berry Breakfast

2008-09-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

I found the inspiration for this recipe in the October 2008 issue of Oxygen Magazine. I work on eating a variety of grains, so I was interested to try a new use for bulgur. I find bulgur in the bulk foods section of my regular grocery store. If you can't find it there, or your store has no such section, you might need to make a trip to Whole Foods.

Since I can't find the actual recipe online anywhere, I will give you a quick run down of what I did so that you can enjoy this too. It reminded me of oatmeal for breakfast and I found it very filling and satisfying.

Bulgur Berry Breakfast
(serves one person who will be thrilled when she sees how much it makes)

1/4 c. dry bulgur
1/4 c. light vanilla soymilk
1/2 cup of fresh blueberries and strawberries
1 T sliced almonds
sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

Directions:

1. Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil. Add the bulgur.
2. Cover and turn off heat. Allow the bulgur to soak for 15 minutes.
3. Return to your bulgur.
4. Feel impressed because you are cooking something that required "soaking".
5. Add another 1/2 cup of water to the bulgur and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for 10 minutes (stirring occasionally)

7. Add the soymilk and berries.

8. I sprinkled some cinnamon on top because I thought it would make the picture prettier. Turns out that the cinnamon made it taste even better too!

This breakfast takes a little time because of the soaking but it was worth it. I also might make it if I was in the mood for a dessert. It was that good.

Here's the nutritional breakdown: Calories 190, Fat 2g, Protein 6g, Fiber 9g, Vitamin C: 44%, B12 31%.

Enchilada Casserole

2008-09-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

I picked this recipe up over at Fat Free Vegan's blog. You can find the complete recipe here. I was drawn to it because it had black beans, peppers, wraps, and most importantly: it was labeled as kid friendly. I have mentioned before that I like reading cookbooks for kids, and I am also more likely to try something new if I hear that someone's child liked it. I may have the palate of an eight year old.

Anyway, this was easy to assemble once I had everything chopped up and divided into bowls.

I topped it with tortillas and fresh tomato slices and placed it in the oven.

Here it is. It was a little "oniony" for me, but otherwise it was very good. I normally like onions, so I am not sure if I didn't saute them for long enough or I was just having a sensitive onion day. For the next 2 days all I smelled was onions - this may be more than anyone wants to know so I will wrap it up. Next time, I'll use 1/2 an onion, or leave it out all together, it would have been just as good.

Blueberry Yogurt

2008-09-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

Coconut milk? That is good stuff. Coconut milk yogurt? Even better!

It took about 20 minutes from the moment that I knew this yogurt existed to find myself in the yogurt isle of Whole Foods. This yogurt is a little more expensive than other yogurts, but it is worth it!

To be fair, I haven't had flavored dairy yogurt in years. And even then I ate the fat free chemically flavored aftertaste yogurt. So anything was bound to be an improvement. After that I went to organic fat free plain yogurt... which was an acquired taste. After accepting that dairy yogurt was a major trigger for migraines for me, I switched to soy yogurt. And I am going to be honest here... soy yogurt leaves a lot to be desired (at least for me). Plus I am working on reducing the amount of soy foods in my diet.

So enter this:

This was creamy and rich and amazing in every possible way. It's a little high in fat to be something that I eat all the time, but this is my new favorite "sometimes treat". This is the answer if I am craving a creamy dessert. Even my non-vegan friends agree, this is good stuff.

Chocolate - Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

2008-09-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Confession: I love baking.

I also love eating baked goods which is why I don't bake very often. I also only follow recipes when baking because the last thing I need is to be "experimenting" with 100 cookie recipes (or even 10 for that matter).

There are 3 occasions when I will bake:

1. Thanksgiving if I have visitors. It's a tradition... and well... it makes football more bearable.

2. When a new neighbor moves in and I go over to introduce myself. I like to have something in my hands when I meet new people. Plus I think if a new neighbor sees cookies they will be more likely to open the door. (Yes, this is how my brain works)

3. Potlucks. Although with potlucks I have been backing off the baked goods and working on portable pasta salads so that I have something with substance to eat at the party.

Well, it's not Thanksgiving and there is no one new in the neighborhood so you can imagine the luck I felt when a friend invited me to a potluck. As a bonus, it was a dessert potluck!

I will admit that the first thing I thought of was a fruit salad. The produce is beautiful this time of year. And then the sugar cravings hit and I thought to myself "Who am I kidding, this is a chance to bake!"

Alright, so that's a long story that lead me to chocolate - chocolate chip walnut cookies. I found the recipe in the book Veganomicon which I happened to have checked out from the library, although after this experience it is going on my wish list to own. The first thing that I needed was sugar (I don't even keep the stuff in my house).

What happened next made me think that Zoey has been learning how to read.
How did she know to sniff at the "open here" end?

I didn't teach her this, I didn't even notice it until I was loading the pictures onto my computer:

Once I got that package opened up I was ready to roll. These cookies were easy to mix up and they may be the best cookies that I have ever eaten. I normally don't even like nuts in cookies but these were seriously the best.

And as a bonus they were a total hit at the potluck. I wasn't planning to add these to the blog but after tasting them one of my friends told me that he would be "disappointed in me" if I didn't post these on the blog. I don't have a large fan base, so I can't disappoint the viewers that I do have!

Here's hoping that I get a new neighbor soon because Zoey and I cannot wait to make these again!

Edit: Since I wrote this post we did get some new neighbors, they just moved in this weekend! Looks like Zoey and I got our wish and we will be making these again soon!

Fruit of my labor

2008-09-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

Well here it is folks: My first homegrown tomato- Oregon style.

Now, it would be too easy if that was the end of the story. And especially since this is my first ripe produce of the season, there was some excitement.

Or rather, lack of excitement. Let me explain:

On Sunday mornings I do my grocery shopping and this past Sunday as soon as I got home, I went to check on my prize tomato. This tomato is the tomato that started it all. It has been featured on 2 previous blog posts and it has been the first to turn even the slightest color of red.

Well, when I got to the backyard on Sunday morning it was missing! My little blob of red tomato was nowhere to be found. I looked closer hoping that maybe a ground squirrel had chewed it off or a robin had flown off with it in her beak. But no, the tomato was cut off the vine with scissors or a knife.

I tried to play it cool, but I was pretty sad. I had assumed the risk of planting vegetables in a semi-public garden and thought it was possible that an animal would eat my produce (fine with me) or that some person might come along and pick it.

Well, later in the day, one of my neighbors came up to me and told me that she had my tomato. She had seen one of the neighbor kids walking around holding it. She had saved the day by playing tomato police and keeping it safe for me. In the child's defense, he is probably only 5 years old and his mom also has some tomato plants in the back garden so he may have been confused.

Then last night he delivered one of my smaller tomatoes to my door. It was still very green, but it started to turn red today. It probably wasn't ready to be picked yet, but at least it ended up at my door.

I ate the first tomato on a sandwich with hummus and romaine lettuce and I will probably eat this little tomato tomorrow for a snack. Strangely the first tomato didn't taste any better than a tomato I would buy at the store, but it was still pretty fun to eat something that I helped grow.

I can't wait to get an earlier start on my garden next year!

Roasted Vegetables - Day 2

2008-09-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

It's Day 2 and last night I had Roasted Vegetables for dinner. If you are making this soup, it means that you probably had vegetables for dinner last night too and I hope that you enjoyed them as much as I did.

The staple in this soup is barley. And unfortunately barley takes a little while too cook. On the plus side you can use that time to exercise, read a book, or watch reality tv because the barely won't be needing you. I can usually accomplish 2/3 of these activities during my hour of waiting. Of course, now you know what I watch on tv while I am exercising.

Roasted Vegetable Soup with Barley

Ingredients:

Leftover Roasted Vegetables from last night
1/2 cup of dry pearl barley (you can find this in the bulk foods section of the store)
6 cups of vegetable broth (or 3 cans)
1 T Italian spice herbs

Directions:

1. Heat the barley in 4 cups of the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil.
2. Cover and reduce heat to low for 1 hour.
3. Entertain yourself for 1 hour (see above).
4. Get out your little food processor and add 1/2 cup of the vegetables and 1/2 cup of water. Blend until smooth.
5. Add this mixture to the barley.
6. Add the remaining vegetables, broth and herbs to the soup and bring to a boil again.
7. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Serve and enjoy.

This soup is incredibly filling and you may not realize it until you are halfway through your second bowl. So... pace yourself.

Roasted Vegetables - Day 1

2008-08-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

This is a 2 part post. Day 1 is the basic recipe for roasted vegetables and Day 2 will be a hearty soup that uses up any leftovers. (Hint: you want to make enough so that there are leftovers. The amounts that I list serve 2 people - so plan accordingly.)

I especially like this dish now that I am growing my own rosemary out on the deck. Rosemary is very easy to grow and there is something nice about using herbs right out of your garden. The best part about rosemary for me is that I just leave it outside all winter in a flower pot and it greets me every spring with new growth.

Roasted Vegetables:

Note: All vegetables should be chopped into bite sized pieces.

6 small red potatoes
4 bell peppers in your choice of colors
- I use red, yellow and orange because that is what they have at Costco
2-3 zucchinis
1 red onion
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
fresh rosemary

Instructions:

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place the potatoes in a bowl and drizzle them with olive oil. Toss to coat.
3. Arrange potatoes on large cookie sheet and cook for 7 minutes in the oven.
4. While those are cooking, combine the rest of the vegetables in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle the vegetables with salt and pepper to taste (if desired)
5. After 7 minutes, pull the potatoes out of the oven and stir them so that none of them are sticking to the bottom of the pan.
6. Add the rest of the vegetables to the pan.
7. Arrange rosemary on top.
8. Return pan to the oven and cook for 7 minutes.
9. Remove pan from the oven and toss vegetables.
10. Return pan to the oven and cook 7 minutes.
11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 until the vegetables are tender.

I usually end up cooking them for 2 cycles. I used to cook them longer but then I decided that I liked the vegetables to be a little crunchy. Repeat the cycle until the vegetables are to your liking.

These vegetables are surprisingly filling as a main course. As you can see, this recipe makes a lot of vegetables. We usually eat about 1/2 of the vegetables for the first dinner and that leaves 1/2 for the soup the next day. Adjust the recipe to meet your needs. Save any leftovers in a container for the Day 2 recipe to come!

Sweet Potato Black Bean Quinoa Burger

2008-08-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

I saw this recipe listed on another blog this week and I was eager to give it a try. The complete recipe can be found here. It took me about 20 minutes to cook the quinoa and get everything assembled.

I soaked and slow cooked my own beans instead of using beans from a can. Here they are with some onion and garlic:

The recipe said to mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl so I pulled out the biggest bowl I own. As you can see, that was a little overboard. This would have worked fine in one of my glass mixing bowls but it was kind of fun to pull out the big bowl. I was hopeful when I saw everything mixed together, I think this is the prettiest veggie burger blend I have ever made.

Here they are cooking up in my skillet. I cooked them on medium high for about 3 minutes on each side and that worked pretty well.

The top picture showed the final product on a whole wheat bun, but it was also really good on its own with a little ketchup. There is enough to have this for lunch tomorrow and I am pretty excited about that. I know I have found a recipe keeper when I can't wait to have it again the next day.

Edit: The first time I made these I didn't add the caraway seeds. The second time I made them, I added 1 T of caraway seeds and let me be the first to tell you that a little carraway seed goes a long way. If you add them, you might want to add less than a tablespoon.. or leave them out completely.

Tomatoes from scratch (2)

2008-08-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

This is not a cooking post, but rather musings about my vegetable garden. And perhaps someday if actual edible vegetables grow from my garden it can become a post about cooking, but until then, these are just plants.

So here are my 3 lovely tomato plants. The first one is the plant that was featured in an earlier blog post. It has 3 tomatoes growing on it now!

Here is a picture of the only tomato plant that had to actually be tethered to the supportive stake. The other two plants just seemed to naturally grow toward the stake. I guess that makes this plant the rebel among them:

And finally the runt of the litter:

Is that an appropriate term for plants? I have no idea.

Now, you can't tell because of my amazing zoom-in abilities but these are not quite award winning tomatoes yet. The biggest one is maybe the size of a quarter. Maybe. Maybe if the sun hits it just right.

Now on to my pumpkin plant. These flowers are huge. My neighbor this morning told me that I could actually cut the flowers off and stir fry them. Yes... okay, but then where would the pumpkins grow? Strangely I have never seen these 2 flowers open. Something tells me that is a bad sign, but only time will tell. And if the flowers do open I have a whole new set of problems on my hands:

Recently some family was visiting from Montana and they have quite a bit of gardening knowledge. I took them on a tour of my flowering garden and asked them if each flower would turn into a pumpkin the same way that each tomato flower had turned into a tomato. No such luck. Apparently flowers in the squash family are either male or female (unlike tomato flowers which have both parts). The flowers that I have so far are only male flowers. If female flowers show up I have to go out there one evening with a bottle of wine and a paint brush and make some magic (if you know what I mean).

And I thought I had it all figured out with just the birds and the bees. There is nothing like learning from family (while in your 30s) that the saying really should have been "The birds and the bees... and the squash family of plants... oh and cantalopes!" (see below)

This flower just appeared this week. Is this a girl flower? Does it look female to you?

I have a neighbor who watches me go out back and check on the plants every night. I can't wait to see what he says to me when he sees me go back there with a violin, a bottle of wine and a paint brush. And whatever he says, I can promise you that I will have no response.

Curry in a Hurry

2008-08-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

This recipe comes straight out of the book Apocalypse Chow which I recently received as a gift after having it out for 9 weeks from the library. At a certain point, the library cuts the cord on my library book renewals and I have to face the facts. Now someone else at the library can enjoy it because I have my own copy!

The theory behind the book is that you can eat well even when the power goes out. My thoughts: if the recipes are easy enough that someone without power can pull them off, I should be able to make something edible in a fully powered kitchen. These are the types of books I get my best ideas from... well, these and cookbooks for kids.

I switched in some fresh vegetables in this recipe since the power is on and I have the ability to do that.

First I boiled up some yukon gold potatoes.

And since Zoey wasn't in the kitchen with me tonight I brought the kitchen to her so she could do the Zoey sniff test. Luckily this can was still sealed.

I mixed all the vegetables together with some curry powder and simmered it for about 10 minutes. The whole house smelled so good that I even opened the windows so that the neighbors could enjoy the smell of a good curry.

I served it over some brown rice and barley (which I am finally getting better at cooking even without the rice cooker of my dreams).

This recipe made a quick delicious curry and I am eager to try something else out from this book later on this week.