Today for lunch I decided to finally pull out our jar of Ajvar from the cupboard and have a "Croatian Lunch." We call it that because we discovered the joys of Ajvar on our trip to Croatia last fall - and enjoyed a few lunches just like this one while we were there. Ajvar is a very neat spread - made with tomatoes, eggplant, paprika and some other yummy stuff. It is also vegan and BRIGHT orangey-red. Fun to eat! I bought this ajvar at Trader Joes (I think they called it "red pepper spread" or something like that), but I've also seen good-looking recipes online for it. We had it with some fresh bread from the bakery near our house, a tomato & cucumber salad, and some fresh strawberries - all the produce from this morning's farmers market.
Tonight's fun (and excessively HUGE) dinner! First, I made one of Musty's all time favorite meals - baked spaghetti squash filled with tomato sauce. I cut the spag squash in half and baked it at 425 for about 30 min or so - it was perfect! Then I poured in some warmed up sauce. For some reason, I imagined that we would still be starving, so I also made baked potatoes. Ha! I had mine with tofu ricotta (of course), but was only able to eat half of it. That long skinny thing is half of a Tofurky kielbasa sausage that was sitting around in the fridge. Also, some brocolli, which I shared with Mr. Bossy Pants (aka our cat Yummers who is a FREAK for brocolli and was literally climbing up my leg at the dinner table, meowing his head off, begging for more and more brocolli!). He is cool.
I bought Musty and I each a fancy solid dark chocolate bunny. They're made by Sjaaks, who makes great vegan chocolate. Musty has a thing about SOLID easter bunnies. Isn't this guy super cute!? It's sort of hard to eat him. He's also pretty big, maybe 5" high? Phew. I know Easter is tomorrow... but I really wanted a treat, so I decided to ruin the surprise and Musty didn't mind at all. A few nibbles at a time, this will take me a long time to get through... I'm very slow with chocolate.
I've got some fun Easter cooking planned for tomorrow!
That looks delish. I love spaghetti squash, but I'm usually too lazy to cook it. My cat doesn't like broccoli, but with anything that involves tomato sauce, she's always right there trying to get into it.
ReplyDeleteOoh - tofu ricotta on a baked potato - great idea!
ReplyDeleteI just love Trader Joe's various spreads- I'm thinking of doing a product review of them soon to pass the love. Mmmm, strawberries and chocolate bunnies, perfect!
ReplyDeleteHi Vincent!
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you again. Ha ha, it's funny how these little kitties like the veggies so much, isn't it? The spaghetti squash was actually SUPER simple to cook. I just cut it in half, and baked it (cut side down) on a cookie sheet - about 30-40 min at 450. Fun!
Hi Tracy!
What's REALLY good is a baked potato with tofu ricotta and tomato sauce. mm mm mmm!
Hi Bazu!
A TJ spread review is a GREAT idea! I would definitely appreciate that. I have only tried a few of their products - in truth I don't shop there very often - mostly just since their produce is so inferior. I'm compelled by the do-it-all-in-one-stop places. So, I'd love to hear which spreads you love the most!
Everything looks super Yummers!
ReplyDeleteYou must post a pic of Yummers eating broccoli- that would be so cool. My kitty prefers cookies & bread over broccoli unfortunately...
wow, nice chocolate i bet that if we have something like that here my daughter will be more than happy to eat it.
ReplyDeleteThe chocolate bunny IS adorable--I would have trouble eating it, too! I've been perusing your recent posts, and I must say that I love the variety and all the colors that your food offers! And I will certainly try fennel seeds on my next hummus sandwich... you wait and see. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's funny that Musty specifies solid bunnies for Easter - I always preferred the hollow variety. Yummers is such a cutie with that broccoli obsession! We need a picture of that one of these days.
ReplyDelete