Recent Culinary Antics

Thanks everyone for all your great ideas for quick meals. I really appreciate it! I'm taking notes. You'll see your ideas popping up left and right.

This is the "Toltec Tofu Stuffing" from "Vegan World Fusion". Based on the fact that Musty and I both thought that the Thai Pizza topping would be better on its own, I decided just to make this as is. I'm glad I did, it made a great tofu scramble. It's got a lot of neat flavors: ancho chilies, cilantro, corn, beanss... and it's especially good with a big dollop of spicy salsa.

here's a nice meal from last week - the ever-delicious Red Lentil Dal from PPK, some steamed chard from the garden, and a great new little recipe for asparagus with shallots. The asparagus recipe was from the big Deborah Madison book "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone." I didn't have shallots, one of the main ingredients, and it was still good. We both enjoyed having the asparagus cut up like that... This recipe uses garlic, olive oil, and lemon zest for a nice light flavor combination.

And, this picture is about a week old now... but this was on the 13th day of NoRooz (Persian New Year). General festivites last for 13 days, and then on the last day, you leave the house for a picnic. We had a sort of busy day that day, so we skimped a bit and had our picnic in our backyard. Well, it's technically leaving the house! :) We had a delicious Croatia-inspired picnic: duvec, cucumbers, tomatoes, red pepper hummus (from Eat Drink and Be Vegan), with a fresh loaf of bread. YUM. Also, you'll see my very successful sprouts in the background. One of the most important things that you do on this day is to take the sprouts that you've been growing all month for NoRooz and then throw them in the water (like a lake or river). The idea is that the sprouts have been soaking up all the old, stale energy of the house, and when you throw them out in the water, you clear space in the house for new beginnings. So, after lunch we took our sprouts and threw them in the ocean.

New Beginnings!