Fruity oaty bars

April 26, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Last week I started working again. I figured with Ethan starting school soon it was time I found a part time job to keep myself busy and maybe earn a few extra bucks. The only real downside about me working is that I tend to take lots of short cuts when I get home. That means lots of bad eating. Since I’m really trying to eat better and eat less processed foods I figured it would be best if I made some things ahead of time so that I’d always have something fairly healthy on hand. Like these delicious fruity oaty bars from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

I froze half of the bars and will thaw them out as I need them. The rest are sitting in my cookie jar. Yes, I now own a cookie jar thanks to Mil. It might be Christmas themed, but it’s a cookie jar and that’s what matters. Anyway, mine were made with a ‘tropical’ dry fruit mix. Papaya, banana, coconut and carob chips. They smelled SO good while in the oven. It was torture waiting an hour for it to completely cool down. But man oh man were they delicious.

Now when I come home from work I reach for one of these bad boys and enjoy it with my iced tea. No more guilt afterward because I reached for the bag of chips sitting on the counter or the cookies I baked the night before. I have a bad habit of coming home from work and grabbing whatever is closest to me. Uh, vegan of course, but leave it to me to eat the unhealthiest vegan items this place has to offer. Not no mores.

I’m also going to make a batch of black bean and quinoa burgers and freeze them. So that when I’m too tired to cook dinner I’ll have something on hand. And if worse comes to worse there is a Subway down the street. I’ll just grab one of those mini veggie delight sandwiches. The Subway here at least has spinach. And I love me some spinach.

*sigh* I really need to teach Juan to cook me some bad ass vegan food. I wish I could start with going to see Tal Ronnen at the Whole Foods Market in St. Louis tomorrow, but unfortunately I have to work. I really don’t want to start off requesting days off. It doesn’t look so good. Maybe some other time?

Black bean-sweet potato tamales

April 18, 2010 | 5 Comments »

Ever since I heard about Viva Vegan I’ve been counting down the days until its release. On Friday, after a LONG day of shopping and running errands, we came home and settled down. I logged into Twitter and the first thing I saw was that Barnes & Noble had Viva Vegan and was releasing it early. After I pouted and told Juan he asked me to get ready and out the door we went. I was a happy gal once the book was in my hands.

Every recipe sounds great. I couldn’t decide which one to make first. So yesterday I opened the book and landed on tamales. Yes, that’s how I picked my first recipe. There are so many mouth watering recipes to choose from. I had to narrow it down somehow. I decided on the Black Bean-Sweet Potato Tamales because I love me some sweet potato. Then I got to it. Keep in mind I have never made a tamale in my life. I’ve watched Mil do it a few times, but I was never allowed to help her. Something about cold hands touching her pot and cursing her tamales to hell. She’s an odd woman.

The entire process was rather easy. Time consuming, but easy. However, wrapping those suckers caused me to have a melt-down. Juan had to come inside (he was outside grilling) and show me how to do it properly. He’s Mexican. It’s in his blood. :) After a few tries I found my stride and finished them up. I popped them in the steamer and waited. It felt like forever. All I could think about was sinking my teeth into one of those delicious tamales.

Once they were finished I brought some over for Mil and Bil. They were both unimpressed. I know. How dare they ‘meh’ at my vegan tamales? I think they were the best friggin tamales I’ve ever eaten. Juan tried them and LOVED them. At first I thought it was the beer talking. But this afternoon he ate two of them and finished it all. Even Ethan ate some. I told Juan that I was surprised Ethan ate some because he doesn’t even eat Mil’s when she makes them. Ethan overheard me and said “That’s cause I like yours, mommy. You have the best recipe.” That my friends, is how I know Mil and Bil were hatin. My vegan tamales were all kinds of bad ass. Thanks to the super awesome Terry Hope Romero.

I remember the first time I tried a tamale. Mil made some shortly after I moved in with Juan. At first I thought they were horrible. I remember thinking Juan must really hate me to be placing such a thing on my dish. The next day I asked what was for breakfast and I was served yet another tamale. Oh joy! But this time it tasted different. It was better. I liked tamales! After I went vegan I thought I’d never get to enjoy one again. Mil claimed she could veganize them, but said she couldn’t fill it with anything. I found that hard to believe. I threw a few suggestions at her. Beans, finely diced veggies, faux meats, etc. She claimed it was impossible to stuff a tamale with beans. I’m not sure, but I think I may have proved her wrong?

Anyway, whenever she made tamales she took it upon herself to make me and Bil our own vegan version. What we ended up with was steamed masa. I only wish I was kidding. Steamed masa. She would place these on our dish and stand by and watch us eat. It wasn’t easy smiling and giving the thumbs up while chewing on a wad of masa. Somehow I managed. Now I’m not saying she should have bowed before me and MY vegan version of tamales, but would it have killed her to at least admit they weren’t that bad? I seriously felt like I was setting my specialty dish before Gordon Ramsay. She took her fork, moved it around, muttered something about it being too doughy and not done and then was all ‘Meh.’ Pfft! Take a closer look at that tamale. It’s clearly NOT doughy. And you’ll just have to take my word for it, it was damn good.

Cream of asparagus soup

April 13, 2010 | 5 Comments »

Today I had a craving for asparagus. The only problem with that is that I can’t exactly chew right now. I had a dentist appointment earlier to have one of my molars extracted. Fun, no? So how could I satisfy my craving without causing myself any more pain than I was already feeling? I was stumped. Until my wonderful friend Sarah came to the rescue and suggested a pureed asparagus soup. What a wonderful idea!

So I dusted off my Vita-Mix (seriously this thing needs to be getting more action, such a wonderful piece of equipment shouldn’t be collecting dust!) and got to it. I used this recipe as a base since I’ve never made cream of asparagus soup before. Here is what I came up with…

Ingredients

• 1 lb asparagus
• 3 cups lite soy milk
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp flour
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• a dash of both salt and pepper

Then I basically followed the same instructions. I heated the asparagus and soy milk until the asparagus was nice and tender. I removed the pot from the heat and poured it into the Vita-Mix and blended until nice and smooth. Then I heated the butter and flour in the same pot and then added the asparagus mixture. Then I mixed in the garlic, salt and pepper and whisked until everything was thoroughly blended and creamy.

This soup was so good that I only offered Bil a small cup full. I brought it outside to him and once he took it from me a fly flew into it. I finally get the whole “There’s a fly in my soup.” thing. Apparently flies really do like soup. Bil asked for more, but I sort of lied and said there wasn’t anymore. I wasn’t trying to part with it. That’s breakfast, lunch and dinner for tomorrow. So he picked out the fly and drank up. I know. Gross. When he brought the cup back inside he saw my container full of soup. Oops! He agreed though. It really was THAT good. Poor fly. :(