A Little Lunch

Dinner will be coming along shortly but in the meantime, here are a couple pictures of my lunch of leftovers.

 

 

I forgot I was going to take a picture and started eating a little before I remembered.  I love bringing leftover fries to work because we have a toaster oven there and I hate reheating fries in a microwave.  I dream of having a toaster oven but I believe a vitamixer will probably come first.

A Baked Dinner

Tonight's dinner was inspired by my wanting to use up some potatoes.  And my wanting some fries.  Nom.  I ended up using the recipe Baked Cajun French Fries from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I accompanied those fries with some tofu that I baked in a spicy bbq sauce along with some roasted/steamed veggies.

Cauliflower, carrots, green beans and brussel sprouts tossed with a little olive oil, salt and pepper.

 

Tofu cut into 6 slice, then pressed and marinated with bbq sauce.

 

  

Potatoes, pre-cut and post cut.  They are tossed in olive oil, paprika, cayenne, thyme, oregano, cumin and salt.  Spicy but so yum.

 

 And the whole shebang.  

I am not the biggest fan of tofu, and really I could easily have eaten this meal without it, but my boyfriend would have rather had just the tofu and potatoes.  Haha, he's just a tofu and potatoes kinda guy.  More accurately though I would say he's a beans, rice and cheese kinda guy.

A quick post

I am a little tempted to not even post these pictures because none of my food turned out all that great yesterday but here is some of it anyway. 

I made zucchini pasta with a raw alfredo sauce based on this recipe.  I wasn't the hugest fan of the sauce but I figured it would get better once I put it on the "pasta".  I was mostly right except that I added way too much sauce.  To the point where I couldn't eat it.  It looked like this:

So then I decided to add some lettuce and make it a salad.  Pre toss:

Post toss:

 

 It was pretty decent especially after I decided to add a few kalamata olives.

Then I wanted something sweet but not too sweet so I decided to make Gena's Soft Serve.  

 

 I also used her idea to add a little agave mixed with chocolate powder.

 

It ended up being waaaay to much banana for me so I refroze some of it.  Hopefully it will defrost ok.

Hopefully more food tonight.

Hillcrest Farmer's Market

Every Sunday I start my day by going to the farmer's market and stocking up on fresh fruits and veggies.  I usually buy way too much but it tends to last a couple of weeks and works out in the end.

Here is today's bounty:

Clockwise from the pita bread we have

Radishes

Red Chard

Beets complete with beet greens

Carrots

Collard Greens

Parsley

Peach

Nectarine

Green and Yellow Zucchini

Cucumbers

Brussel Sprouts

Corn

Green Beans

Apples 

Onions

Tomatoes

Grapes

Lemons 

and 

Cauliflower

Usually I would buy more carrots as well as some cherry tomatoes but I have an over abundance from last week.  I also still have a green bell pepper and 2 heads of lettuce.  Sound like a whole lot of vegetables?  I think so too especially since Niall will eat the cauliflower, maybe the brussel sprouts and the green beans, the apples and that's about it.  I see lots of salads and stir-frys in my future along with some zucchini pasta which I am so excited to try!

I spent about $55 total which I used to think sounded like a lot until I started thinking about how much I would spend per week if I bought processed foods or ate out.  Plus, I get to support local agriculture and get fresh veggies and fruits that were just picked.  Yum.

A Baking Whirlwind

Last Monday and Tuesday I went on a crazy baking and food prep spree.  I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins based on the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, chocolate chip cookies from the same book and peanut butter granola bars from no recipe at all.  And those were just the snacks I made for my boyfriend.

I also made some brownies without a recipe which would have turned out great if I hadn't forgotten to put sugar in them.  I sprinkled a little on top and they had chocolate chips in them so they weren't horrible.  They tasted a little more like a biscuit than a brownie, but they were chocolaty yumminess none the less.

Then I made a couple of raw desserts.  They were all along the same pattern but with different ingredients.  The crusts were made out of medjool dates, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and walnuts.  The first one had a filling of soaked cashews with blueberries and cranberries with a little agave for sweetener.  For the second one I wanted something peanut buttery so I added a little chocolate to the crust and for the filling mixed soaked cashews with peanut butter.  Then I made two mini ones from the same chocolate, peanut butter combo but added a thin layer of blackberry jelly in between the two.  I made all four of these in heart shaped cookie cutters because that was the only thing I could find that wasn't as huge as a spring-form cake pan.  They turned out delicious!  I am really starting to enjoy getting in the kitchen with no recipe and just seeing what I come up with.

That was all Monday.  Tuesday I had some leftover defrosted blueberries and cranberries and wasn't sure what I should do with them.  I decided to attempt blueberry oat bars from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.  The only change I made was using lemon juice instead of apple juice.  I had wanted to make these for quite some time.  They turned out pretty good except that I used parchment paper to line my pan and left them in the pan too long once out of the oven.  I believe this contributed to them being a little chewy. 

So, I'm sure at this point you are thinking, what a glutton.  How is she going to eat all those sweets before they go bad (especially if you knew that my boyfriend doesn't really like berries, or really raw crusts and that I still had leftovers of birthday cake my mom made for me on 8/27).  Well, don't worry, I didn't eat myself into a sugar coma.  I froze them all.  That way whenever I want a blueberry oat bar for breakfast all I have to do is pop it in the microwave or let it sit on the counter for an hour or two.

And so I present to you, breakfast:

 

And last night's dessert, which actually tastes good when it is still a little frozen:

Yum.

Dinner

On Wednesday my brother came over for dinner.  I made a tofu scramble based on the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I did not use mushrooms and included a bunch of swiss chard.  I also made a potato, cauliflower, turnip cheesy bake from no recipe at all.  Both dishes were decently heavy on the garlic and onion as well.  This was my first time using nutritional yeast for something other than burritos and tofu scrambles.  It turned out quite yummy.  I also served a salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and some broccoli sprouts with the dressing I mentioned in this post.  All in all, it was a very good meal and I had lots of leftovers.  After having some for dinner last night I was going to finish them off for dinner tonight but I wanted to mix it up a little so I did this:

 

 Pretty much the same thing minus cucumbers, sprouts and dressing all rolled into a burrito.  Yum.  

A sweet coming in a bit if the light hangs around long enough to get a good picture.

Lunch

Tomato, red onion, lettuce and kalamata olives in a dressing made to resemble Gena's raw ranch.  It didn't turn out quite right because I didn't have any dill or parsley and mostly it is a bit vinegary, but does the job.

And a close up shot, in case you cared.

I also wanted to include a picture I have of a farmer's market bounty from way back in April.  I haven't taken a picture of one lately, but I will take one tomorrow.

So much yumminess.

Also, my mom gave me this great cookbook for vegetarians though it is actually all vegan recipes.  It was first published in 1981!  It is a whole 3 years older than I am and yet somehow it contains so many things that I am just discovering.  I can't wait to try some of the recipes. 
 

I also just got this spiralizer from my mom for my birthday even though she had no idea I had entered a drawing to win one myself only days earlier.  Hopefully I will have some great food pictures coming soon.