Sunday, March 14, 2010

Things I've been eating lately...

I haven't posted in a while...time got away from me somehow. Even today, I didn't figure out the clocks had jumped ahead until about 3 in the afternoon. When I discovered it was really 4:00, I felt cheated out of a precious hour of my weekend. Oh well...

First up is butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and collards cooked in a Thai-inspired coconut broth. Basically, lemon grass, kefir lime, ginger, and chili sauteed in coconut oil with shallots and garlic, then added coconut milk, veggie broth and a bit of tamarind paste and tamari...the veggies were tasty because they absorbed the flavors of the coconut broth as they cooked.



This was another Thai-inspired sort of thing:

It's a salad with green mangos, green beans, watermelon radish, tomatoes and peanuts, dressed with a mixture of tamari and tamarind paste and finished off with a squeeze of fresh lime.

This Yucatan seitan topped with  black bean and corn salsa and served with yellow rice and asparagus was pretty tasty too:

Next up was a fun meal made from layering eggplant slices and lemon-pine nut filling on top of a portobella cap. It's sitting on a bed of sauteed kale and chard with some Italian vegan sausage and sun-dried tomatoes.


I had some lemon-pine nut filling leftover from the eggplant stacks, which I thought might make a good vegan mayo substitute. The lemon-pine nut filling is just pine nuts, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and salt...I thinned it out with a bit of water and used it to put together some tofu salad for sandwiches:


The tofu salad is my homemade copy cat version of Toby's Jalapeño Lite tofu spread. My version has tofu, lemon-pinenut "mayo", celery, roasted jalapeños, red onion, mustard, cider vinegar, and salt and pepper. I liked this version better because it doesn't taste as "eggy" as the Toby's spread.

And finally, we went to see Billy Connolly live the other night (he was brilliant...how could he not be brilliant?) and before the show we had dinner at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant. At first, it was a little disconcerting because all the seitan stuff is listed on the menu as chicken and pork, etc., but it's all 100% veggie protein. The only items that contain eggs are the fortune cookies. The food was pretty tasty. We had veggie fried rice, some lemon "chicken", and fried bean curd sheets over veggies:

lemon "chicken"

bean curd sheets over veggie stir fry

Some of the faux meat stuff looked and tasted pretty real; it gave me a bit of a fright. But we were reassured by both the waiter and the sign by the door that is was all vegan:


Here were our fortunes; I hope they come true:


Ciao for now :)

23 comments:

  1. Rose,

    What a great looking spread! Thanks for sharing all the great food. I hope your fortune cookies are a sign of things to come. Fingers crossed!

    hugs,
    Alicia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Me too; I officially give those fortunes over to you! Fingers crossed and all the best!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rose,

    Thanks so much, that is very sweet of you! It means a lot. :-)

    Alicia

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for finally posting! The sandwich pic is my favorite of the bunch. I am inspired to start sprouting yet again. Great job! (Oh, yeah, saw Billy Connolly live at the Warner Theatre in D.C. about 23 years ago, he was hilarious).

    ReplyDelete
  5. The eggplant thing looks especially tasty!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi, Rose! It's so good to see a new post from you, I was wondering if you'd been abducted by aliens and transported to Ali's Area 51 Test Kitchen to work as a sous chef! (Which wouldn't be a bad gig, especially for an alien abduction!) :-)

    I think your eggplant creation looks and sounds especially delicious! Are those Tofurky Italian Sausages? (We love them!)

    Your sandwich looks yummy too. I just had a canellini bean "tuna" salad sandwich with lentil sprouts myself! Good stuff! (How did you like your lemon-pine nut spread work out as a mayo substitute?)

    How fun you got to go see Billy! I hope you hollered out a request for him to recite "The Owl & the Pussycat" and "To a Mouse!" :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. SV,

    Thanks, the sandwich was pretty good...sprouts really make a difference don't they?

    Billy is still in good form...hilarious as ever.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Anardana, how can you go wrong with eggplant and tomato sauce?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Laloofah,

    Thankfully, I wasn't abducted by aliens, but I wouldn't have minded being abducted by Billy!

    I didn't ask him to recite the poems...darn! it totally escaped me...I'm shy in crowds anyway, so might not have had the guts to do it anyway.

    The sausages are Field Roast brand...I keep a few in the freezer for quick fixes...I haven't tried the Tofurky ones.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Laloofah again:

    The pine nut mixture makes a fine mayo substitute as far as I'm concerned, I'm not terribly inclined towards mayo...so anything that helps stick things together and tastes ok is fine in my book.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Rose, its so good to hear from you.

    I like the Thai inspired dishes, but my juices are flowing for the aubergine dish. Which is strange from somene who used to dislike eating aubergines, shows times change.

    In my opnion, Chinese restaurants in the U.K (esp in Scotland) still have a far way to go. My experiences of vegetarian Chinese food has been poor as somehow its never ever been 'meat free'. Hence my reservations on my blog. I wait for the day to sit at a exclusive Vegetarian Chinese restaurant here. I am not aware of there being one like this in the U.K, but who knows - maybe in London.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rose, maybe next time you know you're going to see Billy in concert you can send your poetry requests to him via email in advance. :-) (Or make due with listening to them on the Poet's Corner CD - a poor substitute, but the next best thing to a Billy abduction and personal recital! LOL)

    I gave up my beloved Vegenaise when I gave up added oils, so I'm always looking for what you said... tasty vegan food adhesives. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hi Mangocheeks,

    Good to hear from you too.

    I meant to say it in the post, but the Thai vegetables were really a a version of your wonderful Thai butternut soup left whole instead of pureed...except I didn't add any red curry paste.

    Isn't it funny how our tastes can change towards things? I've always liked aubergine, but never used to like okra until recently.

    Vegetarian Chinese restaurants are no doubt a rare thing...I'm sure the days of vegetarian Chinese will come your way soon!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Laloofah,

    I think that pine nuts make a good base for a vegan mayo...they always taste sort of eggy to me somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Rose and Lalo,

    Don't forget I made a pine nut mayo a while back. You may want to go back and look at it if you need ideas.

    I need to try that sandwich you made. It was really calling my name.

    Alicia

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh yes, Alicia, your vegan mayo always looks rockin'...I remember you made it with pine nuts...I must give it a whirl!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Rose,

    I made another version of mayo today with tofu and pine nuts. It is in the frig now. I wanted something lighter than the others I have made. Hopefully it is post worthy. I tried to make an all tofu version (no oil) last week. Not so good which is why you didn't see it.

    ttyl,
    Ali

    ReplyDelete
  18. Sounds good, can't wait to see it.

    ReplyDelete
  19. That is some delicious looking food girl! I am eating more raw and everything looks so good to me! I would seriously drive to eat at your house! lol

    ReplyDelete
  20. Vicvacious Vegan
    Thanks for your seriously kind words maybe we could meet each other halfway and trade some goodies...lol.

    ReplyDelete
  21. hey thats funny that the fortune cookies werent vegan, a lot of times those are practiclly the ONLY things vegan here at our places,lol. although, do you eat sugar? some vegans dont, im thinking about cutting it out of my diet

    ReplyDelete
  22. and my eggplant never turns out looking like that....

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hi Dirty Duck,

    Eggs show up in weird places...don't they?

    Anyway, I don't eat a lot sweet things; I prefer savory to sweet any day.

    ReplyDelete

 
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...