Vegetable Soup

While I'm on the subject of CSA vegetables, I would be saddened not to share with you the delicious soup I made this weekend. Whenever my CSA gives me celery, the first thing I think to make is soup. This week my soup included:

Celery
Chard
Carrots
Green Beans
Butter Beans
Red Onion
Dill
Fire Roasted Tomatoes (Muir Glen, these are the best!)

This soup was so easy it is kind of ridiculous. Chop veggies (or use food processor). Heat onion, celery and carrots in a little oil until flavorful and/or a little soft. Add the green beans, tomatoes and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer until carrots and green beans are almost done. Add in precooked beans, chopped chard and chopped dill and cook until the greens are just wilted. I added a little salt at this point. Some days I ate it and it didn't taste like enough salt, but today when I was starving it tasted just fine!

Soooo good! And so good for you! This pot ended up huge and my boyfriend doesn't like soup. I shared a bit with my mom and froze one portion, but I have been working my way through this for days now.

And I'm not even close to sick of it!

Fruits & Vegetables

I may have gone a little overboard this weekend.  This is the supplement to my CSA.  I probably should have read what I was getting before I went through the rest of the market picking things up.  Things I got in duplicate: Cucumbers, cherries, carrots and green beans.  In addition I got: Avocados, a red pepper, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, broccoli and chard.

And in my CSA I got: Blood oranges, squash, strawberries, beets, lettuce, grapefruits and basil in addition to the aforementioned: Cucumbers, green beans, carrots and cherries.

Good thing this gives me the opportunity to have meals like this:

Sushi with brown rice, cucumber, chard, and teryaki marinated yellow squash topped with avocado and teryaki sauce.  Nomnomnom.

And this one that I just enjoyed:

 
Proof that a girl can live on fruit alone....

Well, fruit and water.

Mmmm

I don't recall at this point which recipe I used to make the brownie (I believe I have it written somewhere in my kitchen) but these were some of the best brownies I have ever made and that includes the beet brownies which were darn good.  I topped this one with some vanilla coconut milk ice cream and some cocoa powder mixed with agave and water.  I may or may not have had this for dinner 2 nights in a row.

I don't feel so bad about that because I also had this delicious salad somewhere in there.

 Again, can't remember the specifics, but avocado, kalamata olives, spinach, tortilla strips and a dressing probably made of tahini and lemon juice.  Yum.  Now I wish I had eaten that for dinner.

I also made this delicious refrigerator soup using up the last of my veggies.  Red cabbage, chard, fresh corn, carrots, onion, a couple of potatoes and some fresh dill.  Man was it delicious.  I ate it with avocado and some rye toast with earth balance.  All in all I recreated this meal 3 times in 3 days.  Once with guacamole instead of plain avocado.  Yum.

 

Pizza and Pancakes

The other day I bought some canned pumpkin to make some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  When I opened the can and then looked at the label I noticed that it said it was pumpkin pie filling not pure pumpkin.  This would not have been a problem if I hadn't already added sugar and spices to my mixture!  Luckily I had another can of pure pumpkin in my pantry and I was able to finish the muffins.  But this left me with an open can of pumpkin pie mix.  What was I to do?  It sat in my fridge for a week while I debated between Pumpkin Scones and Pumpkin Brownies and various other pumpkin goodies.  Then this morning I went on a walk and I thought, Pumpkin Pancakes!  When I returned home I made this recipe and let me tell you, this is the pancake recipe I have been searching for since turning vegan.  Since I had a can that had 1.5 cups pumpkin and the recipe only called for .5 cups I tripled the recipe and I am so glad I did!

It seems that most pancake recipes I try turn out not so structured.  They are flimsy and more like crepes, but not in a good way.  These were so thick and full of structure!  I don't know if it was the pumpkin that did this, but if it was I will never make pancakes without pumpkin again!  To top the pancakes I thought something with cranberries would be delicious.  I took a couple of handfulls of frozen cranberries and put them in a small sauce pan with a little bit of agave nectar and let it cook until the cranberries popped.  I also added just a bit of arrowroot powder because in the beginning it looked way to watery but I don't think this step was necessary.

When the first batch was cooked I cut one in half to check how the inside looked.  It looked beautiful and when I dipped it in the cranberry jelly I almost died.  Okay that's a little over the top.  But damn these were good.

Then when I went to transfer the pictures to my computer I noticed that I had completely forgotten about the beautiful pictures I took of the pizza I made last weekend.

 I have had my fair share of failed crusts, but this one turned out mostly decent.  For toppings, there are red bell peppers, red onions, kalamata olives, chard, vegan pepperoni and some vegan cheese.  This pizza was soooo good and I am ashamed to say I ate the whole thing in one sitting.

I am currently working on another pizza but the crust is not showing much potential.  I don't know why I just can't get the hang of kneading....