Earthy Lentil Soup

We had a storm last night, which was reason enough for me to make some soup this morning. Since getting Vive le Vegan!, I've been wanting to make the Earthy Lentil Soup because of rave reviews from other bloggers. This picture shows red onion, celery, colorful carrots, shallots, and garlic heating with olive oil. I really must stock up on spices, as I had to go without 4 listed in the recipe. Instead, I added shallots and doubled the tamari -- it was too late to turn back and I was hoping I wouldn't have a disaster on my hands.

Here is the soup simmering on the stove -- I kept it there for a couple hours (really testing the family's restraint!) At this point I was thinking that even if the soup wasn't edible, it was already a success because of the aroma that filled our home. Another reason why I wanted to try this soup is because it doesn't have tomato in it. Don't get me wrong, I love tomatoes, but it seems they are in so many soups, and I wanted something a little different.



Here is my first bowl of Dreena's Earthy Lentil Soup, and I must say that even better than the smell is the taste -- that's saying a lot. Mmm, good...this is a delectable soup! The idea was to freeze some of it for another day like the recipe suggests, but I don't think there will be enough to do that. I love having a hearty item like this in the fridge that only needs a quick heating to enjoy. This one will be put in our regular rotation.

Spring in the Backyard

BEMF

Boise Experimental Music Festival featured musicians from near and far, accompanied by avant-garde films being shown on either side of the stage, and artists' work displayed on the walls. Here are some images from Friday and Saturday.

Bags of Gold & Berry Oat Squares

I've been wanting to make these for a while, and Dori gave me the extra inspiration that I needed. In California, we used to buy something like this frozen from Ralph's called bags of gold. They were a big treat for us back then because it was a very rare thing to find pre-packaged vegetarian items at the grocery store. Garden burger was about all there was 10 years ago. Anyhow, I wanted a quick & yummy snack -- and this was both!



Lightly spray the muffin pan with veg. oil, place a wrap in each compartment, and begin filling them with pre-cooked items. Pinch them closed at the top with a little water. Cook @ 350 for about 20 minutes, and toward the end keep a watch on them so they don't burn. I covered mine with tin foil toward the last 5 minutes. These are filled with Smart BBQ and left over quinoa - two things that I just happened to have in the fridge at the time. I think this would be a nice Friday item to use up left-overs from the week. For kids, set up a buffet so they can fill their own.


The Berry Oat Squares recipe is from La Dolce Vegan! by Sarah Kramer. With this one, I'm thinking that I messed around with the recipe too much. Abi didn't even like it -- possibly because of my modifications, or maybe because our family is too spoiled on more sugary treats to appreciate it? For whatever reason, this one didn't fly.






Recipe (My modifications):

3/4 C. Vegan Margarine (Earth Balance Shortening)
1 1/2 C. Rolled Oats
1 1/4 C. Flour (1 C. WW Flour, 1/4 C. Flax Meal)
1/2 C. Sugar
1 C. Blueberries (Frozen, not thawed)
1/2 C. Jam (Blackberry)
1 Tsp. Flour (WW Flour)

jazzmyne

a stray showed up on our doorstep tonight. the doorbell rang, and there she was. "um, i was wondering if i could use your phone?" uhh, ok. so i went to get my cell. she made a phone call on our front lawn as the sun went down and spoke mostly in spanish, and i could only pick up a few insignificant words. she tells me that her father kicked her out again and she has no place to go. hmmm, do you need to make another call so that someone can come get you or meet you? "the only other number i have is in my cell phone which is dead, i can't get the number out, can you charge this?" i look, and no, i can't. i suggest that maybe she should call home. she says her dad hits her and she doesn't want to go home. well, then, i'll take you to a shelter. so art finds numbers to call and i take them with me to call ahead as i drive her. turns out the women's shelter is full and the backup number they gave us was also full. hmmm, i'm thinking what in the world am i going to do with this girl?! so we call the ywca, which tells us to call health and welfare. i spoke to a nice woman from health and welfare as i drove jazzmyne through carl's jr. and got her a big sized #1 with a gigantic sprite -- she was so hungry. the nice lady dispatcher tries to grasp my situation. nice lady: what relationship is this girl to you? me: i've never met her before tonight. n.l.: how did you happen on her? me: she rang my doorbell. n.l.: that's very strange, now you are where? what is your plan? me: carl's jr. and i don't know, i was really hoping you could help... actually, the whole situation was even more bizarre than the dispatcher understood. we live at the top of a steep hill in a cul-de-sac. not a through street -- no where to go at all but our house & our hand full of neighbors' homes, no traffic at all, only open areas all around, not a place you could just stumble upon, and not an easy walk either. our street is the steepest incline in the county -- exercisers challenge themselves everyday on our hill. it is a total work-out for athletes. and check this out, the girl was wearing flimsy flip-flops! anyhow, the nice lady tells me that since jazzmyne is 16, i really have no choice but to take her to the police. my heart sank. ugggh, really, that's my only option? that didn't seem cool at all. even though i didn't want to drop her off at the police station, i drove there anyway because i knew the dispatcher was right. honestly, who knows what kind of shenanagins was going on? and she was a minor. though i did basically believe her story, and empathized with her. so we get to the police station and i park the car and we listen to my cd while she finishes her hamburger. then, after a while she says "you know, i have an aunt who lives close by" you do?! so we drove 2 short blocks away, and as she gets out, i hand her $25 and my 40 watt hype cd, and watch as a youngish looking woman answers the door and welcomes jazzmyne inside. that is how i spent the last 3 hours. what a wild ride.
PS - i included this cat picture because her name was jazzmyne, and i couldn't help but think of her tonight.

Midweek Munchies "Hungry Planet"

A Veg*n Meme What wonderful foods did you bring home from the grocery store?

Midweek Munchies: What Vicki is contributing for the week: Not long ago, Leslie did a wonderful post about her book collection and recommended Hungry Planet - What The World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. I was intrigued, so I checked it out from my library, and I'm so glad I did. I couldn't help but draw a parallel between the people in these pictures to us Midweek Munchers -- all of us presenting the food we'll be eating for the week. So, I begin with some beautiful photos of people around the world and food they may be eating this week. One week's food in September for the Ayme family in Ecuador. Cooking method: wood fire. Food preservation: natural drying. One week's food in November for the Mustapha family in Chad. Cooking method: wood fire. Food preservation: natural drying. One week's food in February for an extended family of thirteen in Bhutan. Cooking method: clay stove fueled by wood fire. Food preservation: natural drying. One week's food in May for the Ukita family in Japan. Favorite foods - Kazuo: sashimi. Sayo: fruit. Mio: cake. Maya: potato chips. One week's food in January for the Natomo family in Mali. Cooking method: wood fire. Approximately one week's food in April for our family in Idaho. Cooking method: electric stove, oven, & microwave. (family not pictured) Dry/Bulk: Lipton Cold Brew Tea Bob's Whole Ground Flaxseed Meal Blueberries Lentils Granola Bars Produce: Pink Lady Apples Green Grapes Bag of Kiwis Hand of Bananas Butternut Squash Carrots Broccoli Wet: Vanilla Silk Orange Juice Lemon Perrier Apple Juice Sesame Oil Frozen: Chix Nuggets Garden Burger (Black Bean) Veggie Dogs (Yves - not actually frozen) Links to other Midweek Munchies (If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it below; or, you can post in the comments)

Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia's blog

Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged!
Technorati Tag: Midweek Munchies

A special thanks to Running2Ks and Rift for all of their help with coding, graphics, and encouragement for this project.

PURPOSE of Midweek Munchies: Put together by a small group of Veg Women, we hope to spread the word about healthy vegetarianism while obtaining idea starters for meals, recipes, learn about new products, and meet other female veg*n bloggers. Visiting and commenting on other participants lists are encouraged but not required. Have fun and Go Veg!

Turquoise CRO Thyme: THANK YOU! SWEET FRIEND VICKI!

Turquoise CRO Thyme: THANK YOU! SWEET FRIEND VICKI!

Music Trumps Garden

Looks like our garden spot will be on hold for at least another week. I was hoping, and Art was planning on finishing the raised garden bed this past weekend, but he is simply too busy to get to it. In the mean time, I'm planning some activities for the girls and I to prepare for the garden from Meg Herd's book, Learn And Play In The Garden. Beginning with an outline of our garden plan, and plant labels. Here is a picture of the plants that are waiting for a little garden home: 2 anaheim peppers, 2 red bell peppers, 3 sugar snap peas, 1 tomato & 1 strawberry plant.

What is Art up to that he can't pick up the shovel and make a bed for those beautiful little plants you may ask yourself... This is what Art has been doing for the past couple weekends -- preparing for his 2 upcoming performances. He is programming beats, spinning albums, scratching CD's, turning a bunch of knobs & pushing buttons. Just now, he walked in the room to check on me and says "I'm downstairs just practicing my stuff."




He will be performing Friday the 28th @ 7:10 pm for a 45 minute gig, and again Saturday the 29th @ 3:15. Even though I've seen his show numberous times, I'm hoping to get a babysitter so that I can go watch his contribution to The Boise Experimental Music Festival live.

Quinoa Spring Salad & Molasses Baked Beans

This is the second recipe I made from Dreena Burton's cookbook, Vive Le Vegan! Here I am all set up just like on the cooking channel ready to toss the Quinoa Spring Salad together. Starting at 1 o'clock, you see: cucumber, Simple Cider Vinaigrette, pistachios, green onion, peas, quinoa, and in the center red bell peppers. I didn't have hemp seed nuts or the spices on hand this time around. Hubby would have liked for the spices to be added. For me, I thought the vinaigrette was a perfect amount of flavor to enhance the ingredients.


Ta DAH! Here is the finished salad. I had to eat a spoonful right away to sample it and make sure that it wasn't poison (a little family joke) and then another & another - I couldn't stop sampling it. Such a scrumptious salad! This is the first time I've cooked with or eaten quinoa, and I'm already hooked. I love the nutty flavor, and can't wait to try other recipes using this grain.



Here is the first recipe I made from Vive. I was planning on making this all week and had all the ingredients on hand...or so I thought. I was surprised that we were out of ketchup - so I substituted a 6 oz. can of tomato paste. Here it is just before putting in the oven. This is my largest casserole dish with a lid and just look how close to the top it is! So I placed an old cookie sheet beneath it to catch any spills, and I'm glad I did! Blackstrap molasses can make for a stubborn clean-up.


Here are the baked beans all cooked and transferred to a clean dish. These baked beans are more than delicious, they are aromatheraputic. My house smells absolutely delicious. I can tell that I'm going to really love this cookbook and just today, Everyday Vegan arrived in the mail.

Listening to: Drum Breaks by Sandy Nelson

Pups in a Blanket & Canoes

These are the ingredients needed to make "Sliced Tofu Wieners in Dough" from Mother Nature's Garden: Healthy Vegan Cooking by Florence & Micky Bienenfeld. I changed the title in my post because mine aren't sliced, and I hate the word "wiener". The recipe says to cut each dough-wrapped wiener into 6 to 8 diagonal slices and bake them that way. It didn't make sense to me to cut them because I was afraid they'd crumble.




I served these hearty pups with pink lady apple slices (Cutely, Liv calls them canoes & is very much into comparing food to objects these days). Obviously, a quick and easy kid-lunch. Next time, I think I'll add some egg replacer/applesauce? Help me out here...how to give a little moisture & hold it together?





Later, we stopped by Rainbow Books and I found a used copy of John Robbins' May All Be Fed. Rainbow Books is a neat bookstore (darn, I should have taken a photo!) It's an old house with books in every room, closet, nook & cranny. I checked the kid's section downstairs (in what I think was the dining room) and the cooking section (up the creaky stairs to a back bedroom) After getting home, I noticed that May All Be Fed is autographed by John Robbins! I'm pretty stoked because Diet For A New America changed my life.


I also found several lovely books for the girls. Most noteworthy is An Edible Alphabet by Bonnie Christensen (picture to right). This food picture book features only edible plants. No meat pictures, no animals posing as food, and no "H" for ham or "M" for meat. Some of plants are (at least to me) lesser known, like: Ipomea, Quince, Ulu, and Xanthorhiza. Others plants are more well known, like: dill, fig, juneberry, kale, & nasturtium. The pictures are very pretty, and in back there is a glossery of all 26 plants .

Listening to: Unabombers Electric Soul

Midweek Munchies "Cookbooks"

A Veg*n Meme What wonderful foods did you bring home from the grocery store?

Midweek Munchies: What Vicki is contributing for the week Several weeks ago I called our library to try and put some vegan cookbooks on hold. I had a couple titles in mind, and one of them was Vive Le Vegan!. Turns out they didn't have that cookbook by Dreena Burton, but offered to let me borrow it through an inter-library loan system. To my excitement, they called Friday and said that Vive Le Vegan! had arrived from Kitsap Regional Library (in Washington I think) and I could come pick it up. I have been reading it since then, making lists of ingredients I'll need for certain recipes, and really just enjoying the forwards to recipes and her notes. Well, now I don't want to part with the book and I have to give it back on 5/5. So, of course I have ordered my own copy of Vive Le Vegan, as well as Everyday Vegan and can't wait until they arrive. And, at my library, I completed a "purchase suggestion" request for both of Dreena's cookbooks and was basically told that it was a done deal because they don't have (m)any vegan cookbooks and are open to suggestions. Will you leave a comment about your favorite cookbook? It occurs to me that my family's shopping list has greatly changed since I joined Midweek Munchies and began reading your blogs and learning more and more. I'm buying so many different things that I had never heard of, cooked with, or eaten before. Our diet is more varied, healthful, and adventuresome. Thanks so much! Many of the items on this week's list are ingredients needed for recipes I can't wait to try from Vive: Quinoa Spring Salad, Chickpea Ratatouille, and Molasses Baked Beans. Dry/Bulk: *Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour* (Arrowhead Mills) *Quinoa Pasta* (Garden Pagodas) Navy Beans Quinoa (I found it, Kai!) Dried Cherries Pistachio Kernels Golden Raisins Spices & Such: Chipotle Chile Paprika Red Curry Powder * Blackstrap Molasses* Nayonaise (Art agreed to try it, he's the mayo man - any input?) Earth Balance Shortening Sticks (is this the stuff, Catherine?) Tofu Pups (the girls really dig these & I have an idea to give them a twist...) Produce: (stocked up from the Farmer's Market) Red Pepper *2 Red Onion* Hand of little Bananas Miscelaneous: Kirk's Castile Soap (we usually buy it by the case) Silicone Pastry Brush $4.75 (see photo) Links to other Midweek Munchies (If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it below; or, you can post in the comments)

Click here for the Midweek Munchies code
Click here for Harmonia's blog

Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged!
Technorati Tag: Midweek Munchies

A special thanks to Running2Ks and Rift for all of their help with coding, graphics, and encouragement for this project.

PURPOSE of Midweek Munchies: Put together by a small group of Veg Women, we hope to spread the word about healthy vegetarianism while obtaining idea starters for meals, recipes, learn about new products, and meet other female veg*n bloggers. Visiting and commenting on other participants lists are encouraged but not required. Have fun and Go Veg!

Big "E" Weekend

On Friday night, I was picking Art up at the airport at midnight and knew he'd be hungry for something light when we got home. So at about 11:15, I prepared some of Dori's spring rolls (see previous link) along with the peanut dipping sauce and put them in the refrigerator to be put in the oven when we got home. Inside the rolls I put asparagus, carrots, cabbage, and broccoli all chopped up in small pieces. For the sauce, I didn't have sesame oil, so I substituted grapeseed oil and used half almond butter & half peanut butter. The picture doesn't look as good as they tasted. Thanks for the idea, Dori, it was perfect!

Saturday was the opening day for our farmers' market. I'm so happy that it's open again, as it's our favorite Saturday activity. In LA, we'd go to the Hollywood market every Sunday, and now we miss the year round fresh produce. I got this fun & unique assortment of carrots -- each having it own special taste. "Bunnies like the carrots!" is what Olivia kept saying to anyone who'd listen. Art's favorite was the small, round ones and mine was the red. At the market, my daughter and I enjoyed listening to a local artist play his digeridu (sp?).



I made the roasted root veggie dish that has become a staple in our house. I used all our farmer's market carrots, red potatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, sea salt, hoisin sauce. This is the first time I've used hoisin sauce in this dish and I must say that it made it so much better. We just keep these in the fridge and warm them up or even eat them cold.



Art agreed to make his famous tamales this weekend, but only if I'd make baklava. What you see here is a double batch of Art's tamales, which is the only proof that I made the baklava. (No picture of my end of the bargain because it didn't turn out as pretty as last time). Art claims his tamales are easy to make, but, the rolling of them is the hardest part. He says he has lots of practice rolling things like this (from his college days ... hmmm...) and that he's a natural.

Anyway, you mix up the masa, which is corn meal, and then spread spoonfulls of the masa onto one husk, then add whatever (this time it was two cheeses and corn), roll it, and then add one or two rolls on top to help keep it secure in the cooker. After rolling them, carefully place them with air spaces into the tamale cooker. We bought our tamale cooker for $25 at Wal-Mart (uggh, but they were the only ones that had it) and it works great. Cook them on low heat for 2 hours, then let the pot cool, then cook again on low heat for another hour.
They are then ready to eat. The best sauce is a tomatillo sauce, which you make by mixing one small can of tomatillos with one large can of green enchilada sauce, and, voila, delicious tomatillo sauce to warm and spread over the tamales. Other sauces can be made from any sort of salsa or hot sauce. The tamales are, for some reason, better the next day after they have cooled in the refrigerator and they are re-warmed (nuke for 2 minutes and cuidado - es muy caliente!). You can get creative with the items to add into the tamales, including sundried tomatoes, tofu, or our favorite, "Veats" bites, cooked with teriyaki sauce.

One of Schmoo's recent lunches over at Vegan Lunchbox inspired me to make some popsicles for my popsicle-loving-girl. I mashed a banana, added 2 tablespoons orange juice, and 2 tablespoons pineapple juice, and divided it into 4 little cups. I then covered the cups with tin foil to hold the popsicle stick in place & put them in the freezer over night. Olivia was a good sport to try them out because it was cold here over the big Easter weekend. It snowed Easter morning & hailed today. We have had some wacky Springtime weather.



Tonight, Art is in the studio recording vocals for his album, which gives me time to chronicle some of our weekend here. I leave you with part of an art project the girls and I created in hopes that you had a wonderful Easter as well!