Vegetarian Cooking Class

Good morning yet again! I think I have determined that daylight savings, mixed with needing to get up and water my garden, with a pinch of going to bed at a reasonable hour are all coming together to bring you (almost) daily morning updates. Weird.


About a month ago my mom surprised me by taking me to a vegetarian cooking class at this cooking store called Great News. She had told me about this store filled with cooking gadgets and also that they often held cooking classes. I was slightly disappointed when I learned that the class was not going to be hands on, but it turned out pretty great regardless and I had a lot of fun. Everything had the option of being vegan and we got to eat samples of everything made. The class was a little high on the tempeh and seitan levels but all in all, pretty good vegan food (especially for non vegans). I would love to find another vegetarian cooking class that focuses more on fruits, veggies, beans, grains and nuts. Now that would be cool. Sorry for the fairly low quality photos as I was a bad food blogger and forgot my real camera (and had to use my phone). In addition, I also forgot to take a picture of the first dish until my mom reminded me and my bowl was already cleared.

 If you can read that, it lists the menu and the venue. The first dish was a coconut milk curry corn chowder. It was really good considering how few ingredients it contained. They served it with tempeh bacon which was not a winner in my book.

Next up was fried falafels in warmed pita bread with tahini sauce and smoked paprika tomato onion relish. This was so good. And convinced me to buy smoked paprika.

Tempeh reuben with vegan cheese and spinach, mushroom and..and...something else. Can't remember now. This was just all right.

This was the star of the show. Seitan risotto bolognese with portabello mushrooms. My friend Rachel and I recreated this that week with brown arborro rice and leaving out the seitan. A lot of work, but if you have a friend in the kitchen (especially one who likes to cook) it isn't really that hard. And it is mighty delicious.

And finally, coconut pudding with crushed pineapple. Really simple and really delicious. I recreated this at home but failed on the cornstarch front and had lumpy pudding. It was salvageable though since it was sort of like rice pudding.

I did also try the coconut curry corn chowder at home but I wasn't as impressed.

Alrighty, I am off to work now. Have a great day!

Have you ever been to a cooking class?

Any Plant Experts Out There?

Good morning! Just popping in quickly to say hi and show you some pictures from a recent and a not so recent hike around Mission Trails. Saturday my friend Rachel and I embarked on a hike up Cowles Mountain. We proceeded past the summit to Pyle's Peak in a hike that ended up lasting 3 hours in probably 80 degree weather. I ended up extremely starving and a bit sun burned despite having applied sun screen but it was a fun hike.

Which brings me to this plant you see here. It was growing everywhere! It looks like a 7 foot tall asparagus stalk with stems coming out of the top which are either covered in flowers (whitish with purplish ends) or as below

With fruits that look like mini bell peppers. This plant was fascinating! There were also dead dried up old ones along the way as well. I thought perhaps someone might know what they were? Long shot I'm sure, but you never know.

As for the past hike, these are from Mission Trails heading out of Santee near the Old Mission Dam about a month or two ago.

The picture of the mini water fall is shaded pretty poorly, but I love looking at it and remembering that even though I live in a suburban area, there is still water and life to be found only a short ways away.

I hope you all have a wonderful day! I'm off to work!

Dehydrator Fun

This morning I set out to make Oh She Glows' Carrot Loaf. I was thinking about how healthy this loaf seems utilizing only maple syrup for the sugar. I got to wondering if I could replace the sugar with something less processed or more whole. I thought dates might be nice but would probably completely mess with the texture. I ended up following the recipe exactly (except I had no walnuts and so I used pecans instead), but this got me thinking about dates and how they could be used to make a sugar substitute. I have seen date sugar but it is pretty expensive. My solution? Dehydrator and either a food processor or a coffee grinder. Here's the before:

I'll get back to you with the after in about 8-12 hours. Or tomorrow.

And since I had the dehydrator out and on anyway....

Mango and banana

And an apple.

Who Am I?

Just a quick post this morning as I have found myself, yet again, with a bit of time to spare before work (seriously, who am I? This is such a weird feeling). I thought I would show you two yummy eats from recently.

Grilled Oasis garlic sourdough bread with Earth Balance stuffed with Tofutti cheese singles, sliced tomato and red onion. A little bit of comfort. On the side, lettuce and tomato topped with a Costco veggie patty. These things are really good. They are sold in the deli section of Costco and are 100% vegan and delicious.

So, I'm sure you've all heard of peanut flour by now. I'm sure you've probably also heard the rumor that Trader Joe's is discontinuing this incredible product. Of course I discovered it right at the tail end. Se la vie.

My friend Rachel was making some cookies to give to some people at an event and I joined her to help bake (and steal goodies). Rachel does not eat 100% vegan but is very open to vegan food and often makes it on her own. In addition, she eats mostly gluten free which is something I haven't really experimented with much. One of the cookies she made that night were Averie's Vegan GF Peanut Butter Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies with Peanut Flour.  Name is a mouthful, taste is unbelievable. I went right home (after Trader Joe's) and made a batch of my very own. Seriously, you have to try these. I took them to a family event and everyone raved about them and one person even asked for the recipe. Now if only I can figure out how to grind peanuts into peanut flour without making peanut butter....

Those Silly Fates

So, in a stunning twist of fate, yesterday I was up early enough to blog before work and today? Up 50 minutes after my alarm went off, 20 minutes before I had to leave for work. I felt perpetually behind today. Fortunately, towards the end of the day I picked up steam and kicked this days behind. After a productive day at work, I spent some time in my garden (so many of my seedlings have sprouted indoors and will be ready to go outside soon!), I played through a few levels of Portal 2, I made the best dinner and attempted to make a single version without apple sauce of Mama Pea's Chocolate Lava Cake. I made a lot of substitutions including coconut oil and butter in place of apple sauce and using 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and half peanut flour. I also tried to divide the recipe by 5 to get a single serving. I don't think I used enough flour. It was just ok.

As for dinner, here, take a look.

It all started out with needing to use up some green onions. And some chard. And an avocado. Ooh and I have sun dried tomato tofurkey sausages. Oh, hell yeah and leftover mashed potatoes and cauliflower. Amazing. I cooked the green onions in my tiny cast iron and then added in some garlic and the greens as well as some salt, pepper and lemon juice. Once cooked, I added half to a mashed avocado and added the leftover mash to the cast iron. This dinner made me sooooo happy. It was unbelievably delicious!

Hope you enjoy!

Weird Kind of Morning

Usually when my alarm goes off I do not want to get out of bed. I consider myself mostly a morning person. I am definitely not a night person (I'm usually in bed by at least 10 every night), but I'd almost always rather stay in bed than get the day started. Today, not so much. I was out of bed with gusto when my alarm went off and as a result, I'm almost ready for work a full 30 minutes early. Your benefit I suppose. Here are some things I've been meaning to show you.

I bought a box of the Amy's Bistro Burgers and regardless of the fact that I had no buns and had to improvise with a pita, managed to make a fairly good recreation of a quarter pounder from my youth. Tofutti cheese singles are not the greatest thing ever, but in combination with other foods they make for some decent nostalgia.

 

Quarter pounders don't typically have tomato, but I did, so there. This was delicious by the way.

I went through a couple of weeks where I was making burritos like every other day. I developed this lovely technique of putting the burrito seam side down on a hot cast iron skillet to keep it from opening. Genius? You tell me.

Mostly I use refried or whole beans with rice, lettuce and salsa for the boyfriend and add in some avocado for myself, but these were tofu scramble, greens and potato burritos.

My boyfriend never really shops for food. He works in a grocery store 2 days a week and usually the only thing he'll buy is bananas but one day he bought a couple of things including some chocolate for me! And here's how I used it.

First I mixed some peanut butter with some oats and I think a few mini chocolate chips.

Then I added on the melted chocolate and it was almost like a lazy, more healthy resee's. Only more healthy in that it had oats. Delicious.

One day I was wandering the interwebs when I came across the idea for cinnamon roll pancakes. The recipe was not vegan so I just winged it the next morning, before work mind you. The cinnamon swirl kind of cooked into the pancake instead of staying clearly swirled, but topped with a drizzle of icing, these were unbelievable.

Not exactly every morning food.

And finally, I leave you with the tofu omelette that I made Sunday morning. My boyfriend was not a fan as they were a bit more mushy than he would have preferred, but I thought they were delicious!




Alright, that's enough from me as it is now almost time to leave. Thanks for keeping me company while I wasted time before work!

Roasted Pepitas

Ok, so just a quick post today. I have a tendency to notice bruises every now and then that I believe indicate a bit of an iron deficiency. Last week, I was feeling it. In my process of looking up iron rich foods, I discovered pepitas are high in iron. So I stocked up on raw pepitas.

 Separately, I had purchased a tiny new cast iron skillet at a garage sale a few months ago. It's almost the size of my hand.

Put the two together.

Yummy! Cooked over a medium heat and stirred occasionally until they started cracking.  These were a bit addicting just on their own. I also ate them on a salad and in a bit of a trail mix. And I thought I would never find a use for that tiny thing. Perfect!