Escapades!

Oh yeah, I love me some "American Saute" from one of our local veg spots, Dharmas. Musty picked this up for us last night, and I had the leftovers for breakfast this morning. It's good stuff - a HUGE serving of baked tofu, greens, cabbage, carrots, califlower, broccoli, & brown rice with with tahini sauce. It's a great meal at all hours of the day: healthy, yummy, filling, and nourishing.

Today a few of us gave a little talk about our time in India, and of course I was spreading the Good News of veganism through cookies: I made a batch of the "you got peanut butter in my chocolate" cookies from "Eat Drink and Be Vegan." Yet another big success! Musty took one bite and declared "These are the best cookies you have ever made. EVER!" Wow! I saved a few for dessert with my grandpa, and the others were all gobbled up! Never to be seen again.

For the non-chocolate, non-nutty types I also made a batch of the "Lemon Poppyseed Sparkle Cookies" from ED&BV. Yum! I really loved these. Lemon poppyseed is always a great combo, and these are great.
Tonight I made dinner for my grandpa... and it turned out that my aunt Sara was there too. We watched the Oscars together, which was fun even though hardly any of us had seen any of the movies. Hee hee. Still fun to see all the fancy people and the moving speeches. I'm a real sap for all things poignant and heartfelt. I made the Ceaser Salad from 'Nomicon. Yum! We all loved it. It was fun making the croutons and the yummy fancy dressing. It sure does make a lot of dressing, so I left the extra dressing for my aunt to make more salads for my Grandpa while I'm in China.

I also made us some calzones and brocolli. The calzones were *delicious*!! They had tomato sauce, VWAV "Green Garden Puree", sauteed mushrooms, and sauteed Sundried Tomato Tofurky Sausages. Dang! Some real yumminess. The dough was totally fantastic, it was the herbed, sourdough pizza dough I got at the farmers market last week. YUM. I'll definitely buy it again. By the way, I love that Green Garden Puree stuff. The only little changes I've made to the recipe are: saute the garlic, add 1 tsp salt, add 1 small can sliced black olives. It's great stuff for pizza, calzones, lasagna, manicotti, etc. If you haven't made it yet, I really recommend this recipe.
Speaking of VWAV, the other day I made the "Fronch Toast" for breakfast & it was so fantastic! I love this recipe so much. For this recipe (and the crepes) I am forever indebted to Isa. When I became vegan, I never thought I'd enjoy french toast again... but instead we had a wonderful & delicious little breakfast party together! See that little half-banana? That's my nod to healthy eating.

I recently made the Potato Leek Cassoulet with biscuits from 'Nomicon. I have to say, it was really just okay. I didn't love it. I diligently plowed my way through all the leftovers, but I'm not sure that I'll make it again. Looks cool, though, huh?

We've been having some seriously blustering, wintery weathing lately, so I made a nice big batch of split pea soup. Oh yeah! YUM. I use my mom's nice recipe, so it tastes just like it's always tasted. Ahhh, comfort food - just like Mom used to make it! :)

To go with the soup, I made the Torta de Ceci. I've blogged about this before, it's a lovely dish, and you should make it. Here' s the recipe on one of my old posts.

I'll be gone for 10 days while I'm off in China. Thanks to you all SO MUCH for all the good freezable food ideas. I feel so grateful for this great community. I'm gonna make up a big lasagna tomorrow! That seemed to be the #1 suggestion. Thanks friends!