Something Different, Starring: Spaghetti Squash
- Dinner, Vegan MoFo
-
25 Oct 2011
And now, for something completely different.
Or not.
OK, so it’s pretty hard to do anything non-spaghetti-related with spaghetti squash. Believe me. I scoured the internet for recipes and didn’t really find anything inspiring.
At least I didn’t just make spaghetti with it.
* harps playing in the background as we go back in time *
It all started with this dang spaghetti squash that had been sitting on the counter staring at me for a couple weeks. I wanted to do something different with it. Easier said than done.
Whatever this beast would become, it first needed to be roasted. I like to add a little coconut oil to the cut side of the squash before I roast it. Most people seem to use olive oil, but the coconut oil has such a great depth of flavor. It worked really well here. Into the oven it went for 40 minutes. And out…
Roasted Spaghetti Squash
I started assembling stuff in search of inspiration.
Ingredients
Forking spaghetti squash is fun.
Forking the Squash
Let’s make a veggie lasagna with it!
I sauteed the onion, pepper, broccoli, and asparagus with the Herbs de Provence. Then I remembered I had 1 link of Field Roast anti-sausage left and threw that in there. In another pot, I made a tomato basil marinara.
Then, I layered the squash and veggies with some red pepper hummus and Daiya vegan mozzarella and baked it all for 35 minutes or so at 350F.
Spaghetti Squash Veggie Lasagna
Look at all those veggies! The only downside – it probably could have used a double-batch of marinara. That didn’t stop me from licking the plate clean.
Spaghetti Squash Veggie Lasagna
The peppers were from the garden of a colleague of mine, picked less than 24 hours prior. So good!
This was a much more enjoyable way to eat spaghetti squash – and I can say with a good deal of certainty that this is how I’ll make lasagna from here on out!
Posted: October 25, 2011 at 8:35 am
{Tags: spaghetti squash}
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Promises, Promises
- Adventures in Chopping, Dinner, Sandwiches & Panini, Vegan MoFo
-
18 Oct 2011
It’s Vegan MoFo Week 3!
Yes, I know. You missed me yesterday. I’m back this evening for your foodie enjoyment, and a little birdie told me there’s a morning edition on its way, too.
First up: pesto veggie sandwiches! Oh. You mean, you’ve seen those before here? Or here? Hey – I promised I’d try to make 20 posts about food in the month of October. I never promised it’d be different food every day!
What can I say? I eat a lot of pesto veggie sandwiches. To make this instance a tiny bit more palatable, I will show you one of my magic kitchen weapons. This little beast makes chopping veggies super easy:
Pampered Chef Food Chopper
It’s the Pampered Chef Food Chopper. I couldn’t really tell you if other choppers work as well. I’ve used this one for years and it still looks and works like the day I bought it. The thing can take a beating (I’m a clutz) – it just keeps chopping away.
Now, I didn’t use it to chop these leeks…
Chopped Leeks
… but I did use it on the baby bellas (got a sweet deal on organics!) and the red peppers:
Leeks, Baby Bellas, and Red Peppers
Sometimes I use onions instead of leeks. It just depends what’s in my fridge. These leeks were on their last legs, for sure. This mix is made of 1 carton of baby bella mushrooms (16 oz), 1 large sweet red pepper, 3 leeks, and 3 cloves of garlic. Saute and salt to taste… voila!
Pesto Veggie Sandwich and Green Bean Fries
With my buddies the Green Bean Fries on the side (baked, not fried… 18 mins at 400F… salt and pepper… nom).
Posted: October 18, 2011 at 9:15 pm
{Tags: baby bella, green beans, leeks, mushroom, pesto, red pepper, sandwiches}
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Local Tofu and a New Wheat Meat
- Dinner, Product Reviews, Vegan MoFo
-
10 Oct 2011
Yeah, I know – that title will turn away all but the most devout herbivores!
How about: Spaghetti with Italian Sausage and Garlic Toast. Better?
Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Tomato Basil Sauce, Field Roast Italian Sausage (vegan), and Twin Oaks Tofu
Let’s start Vegan MoFo Week 2, shall we?
Spaghetti is my comfort food. It reminds me of my dad, which is comforting. After last week’s sad news of the passing of Steve Jobs, I needed some comforting. Since my dad is now hanging out with Steve (asking how he ever managed to corrupt his daughter into drinking the Kool Aid), well, spaghetti it is.
I tried out two new products in this meal – both discovered via a couple of my favorite food bloggers. First up, Twin Oaks Tofu (which I discovered via Kath Eats). First of all, Twin Oaks is a cooperative, worker-owned farm. Second, they make local tofu – the farm is about 60 miles from where I live in Virginia. Third, it’s organic, non-GMO tofu, and it gets rave reviews from everybody I know that has tried it.
That makes plenty of reasons for me to take a stab at it! I grabbed a package of their Italian Herb tofu from the Friendly City Food Co-Op:
Twin Oaks Italian Herb Tofu
Now, word on the street was that this tofu didn’t have to be pressed. Now, it took me a LONG time to finally “figure out” tofu – and only now that I have a handy dandy Tofu XPress tofu press do I truly appreciate it as a meal option. So, a tofu that wouldn’t require a day sitting in a medieval torture device? Interesting.
I figured I would put it to the test of all tests, and try baking it, straight up – no pressing whatsoever. Sliced up, straight out of the package. (I did add a bit of garlic powder to get the garlic toast thing going on).
The other new product in this meal was Field Roast Italian Sausage – a “grain meat” that I discovered via Emily over at Daily Garnish. She had discovered Field Roast veggie dogs at her local market in Seattle, and they sounded better than most of the “fake” meats I’ve tried. I’m not much of a fan of fake meats – but I was never much of a meat fan even when I was eating meat, so it’s not surprising.
Grain or “wheat meats” are usually based on some form of a recipe for seitan, or wheat gluten. Seasoned properly, these “meats” – when prepared properly – can be nearly indistinguishable from “the real thing.” Texture is usually the hardest part to replicate, even if the flavors are spot-on.
I sliced up 2 links of the Italian sausage and sauteed it for just a few minutes until browned, then added a jar of organic tomato basil sauce and simmered for a bit.
I served the sauce and sausage over whole wheat noodles topped with a little ‘nooch Parmesan, and a few garlic tofu slabs on the side.
All I have to say is… look at this tofu!!
Look at this tofu!!
Seriously, people. Best tofu I’ve ever had. It baked up wonderfully chewy with a nice little crunch on the outside. So flavorful. So easy!
And with regard to the sausages, I have to agree with Emily. Field Roast is top notch in the vegan meats department. I even enjoyed a sausage plain on a giant roll the other day, and it had fantastic flavor and texture. I wish I could find more of their products locally here.
From my plate to yours, here’s to delicious food that makes you feel good!
Posted: October 10, 2011 at 8:34 pm
{Tags: seitan, spaghetti, tofu}
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Killer Pumpkins! Inspired by Killer Pumpkins!
- Dinner, The Seasons, Vegan MoFo
-
01 Oct 2011
Killer pumpkins? What?
OK… so the reference won’t make sense unless you’ve spent the day chasing killer pumpkins around in Ultima Online (which I’m about to go do more of). But you don’t have to play UO to enjoy some killer (pumpkin) soup!
October is my favorite month. Hoodie weather sets in. Hockey season begins. Halloween is awesome. And of course, there’s that little day called My Birthday. But maybe the most wonderful thing about October is the abundance of squash! That, and Vegan MoFo.
Vegan MoFo (the Vegan Month of Food) is a month-long celebration of vegan eats. I didn’t get my butt signed up in time to make the “offical” Vegan MoFo list, but I’m going to blog along anyway. The ultimate goal is to blog about vegan food 5 days a week throughout October.
Without further ado…
I scored some super-sweet local red delicious apples this week. With chilly weather ushering in the new month, I was in the mood for some SOUP! Isa’s got a great recipe for Butternut Apple Soup in her Appetite for Reduction cookbook, but all I had on hand was an acorn squash and some organic canned pumpkin. What the heck, right? Let’s rock this thing!
So after chasing around killer pumpkins all day, I took a stab at a Killer Squash Apple Soup.
Killer Squash Apple Soup
This, my friends, is not your typical bowl of soup. It won’t be content to sit alongside a sandwich. No, this soup wants to be The Next Big Thing. The Star of the Show. This soup is not messing around.
It’s seductively sweet, and just when you start to fall head over heels, it gives you a nice little kick to remind you who’s boss.
There’s a good bit of rosemary beating around the bush, playing tag with the apples. The red pepper flakes, though, keep this soup from being a kiddie game. This is Big League soup.
I toasted some crusty bread and slathered it with Earth Balance and went to town dipping into this Killer Soup. It was divine.
And now, back to killing the killer pumpkins.
Posted: October 1, 2011 at 7:54 pm
{Tags: acorn squash, apple, onion, pumpkin, rosemary}
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Skillet Sloppy Jims
- Dinner, Sandwiches & Panini, Veggie Burgers
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26 Sep 2011
It’s 7:21pm. Do you know where your dinner is?
Today, I did not know where my dinner was. I did not know what my dinner was. All I knew was that I was hungry to the max, and I didn’t feel like slaving for a meal.
Enter: the cast iron skillet.
This particular piece of cookware is amazing. It’s naturally nonstick. When things do stick, it’s actually good, because you can deglaze the pan and everything tastes even better! Somehow, everything I’ve ever made in my cast iron has turned out awesome – including tonight’s throw-together mess of deliciousness.
I call it: Tempeh Sloppy Jims.
(Sorry, Joe. There’s no red sauce going on here, so I can’t really call it Sloppy Joes, but this sandwich assembled exactly like a Sloppy Joe, and ate just like one… just tasted different! So I gotta give the nod to Jim).
Tempeh Sloppy Jims
Take 1 cast iron skillet.
Add a diced white onion. Sautee in oil (I used peanut oil) over medium heat while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
Dice up a red bell pepper. Crumble a stick of tempeh. Throw them into the skillet. Keep on sauteing.
Pour in a little water or veggie stock. (I used a vegan chicken-flavored stock). Deglaze the pan. Keep on sauteing.
Don’t burn the batch of kale chips you’re making on the side like I did.
Throw a couple big handfuls of baby spinach into the skillet. Toss in some fresh basil, for fun. Awww heck, let’s mince a couple garlic cloves in there, too.
Salt and pepper…. stir until the spinach is wilted…. voila.
Tempeh Sloppy Jim mix
Tempeh Sloppy Jims! Well, I suppose this could be eaten a lot of ways. I was tempted to just eat it with a fork, but it reminded me so much of Sloppy Joes that I had to put it on a bun (with some melted Daiya mozzarella, of course [vegan... best vegan cheese on the planet!]). Served it with a baked potato and a giant bowl of greens, and some un-photogenic burnt kale chips on the side (not pictured).
Speaking of baked potatoes… why do I let myself buy big 5# bags of potatoes? Usually I just buy 1 or 2 potatoes, because I end up letting them sit until they’re growing eyes, but somehow while standing in the grocery store, I sometimes convince myself that the extra $1.50 is so worth it to get so many more potatoes! And then they go bad. This might have been the only potato I’ll out of the entire bag. Grrr! Why!!! I don’t even like to eat regular potatoes that often… I prefer sweet potatoes… I think I meant to make my favorite asparagus potato soup… except that I ate all of my asparagus. Hmm. Dilemma.
Maybe next time it’s 7:21pm and I’m lost without my dinner, I should study my potato options.
Posted: September 26, 2011 at 10:34 pm
{Tags: onion, potatoes, red pepper, spinach, tempeh}
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Make New Friends, But Keep the Old
- Dinner
-
21 Sep 2011
Make new friends, but keep the old…
My dinners these days often revolve around two central questions: what produce do I have in my fridge, and more importantly – what’s about to go bad? Today’s answer to the latter: green beans. I love me some fresh green beans, but the word “fresh” wasn’t really true any more in describing these particular beans. Still, I bravely picked through the container and separated the questionable beans from the salvageable ones. (If I die of green bean poisoning tomorrow, you read it here first).
Luckily for my green beans, I just picked up the sequel to one of my all time favorite cookbooks. I’m a huge fan of Clean Food by Terry Walters, and the new Clean Start looks to be even more exciting. Since I’ve of course already read the book cover to cover (yes, I read cookbooks for fun), I knew my green beans had a solid future.
They would become Green Fries.
I don’t think I’ve ever really fried anything, aside from the brief stretch of time when I actually owned a little deep frier. I’ve never fried on the stove-top, though. I tend to avoid frying things (pesky calories and all). Tonight, though, I had some green beans, and I had a new cookbook, and doggone it, I felt like frying something.
For the record, a) frying stuff is dangerous. I could’ve used a reminder before I embarked upon this journey. b) Fried green beans are good, but I’m not sure they’re better than roasting them to eat as fries. The texture is a little better, but might not be better enough to be worth the trouble (and calories) of frying. That said, I still ate a ton of them.
So, green bean fries are my new friend (roasted or fried!)
To go with my green bean fries, I made an old favorite standby – chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon. So easy. So good. Such awesome leftovers. And I actually remembered to add the spices this time.
And I grilled a corn-on-the-cob.
Nom.
Chickpea Cutlet Burger with frizzled leeks, Green Bean Fries, and Corn on the Cob
Word to your mother. Now go be a good scout and eat some plants.
Posted: September 21, 2011 at 9:33 pm
{Tags: chickpeas, Clean Food, Clean Start, corn, frying, green beans, leeks, sandwiches, Veganomicon}
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I Eat in Virginia
- Dinner
-
11 Sep 2011
Hello from Virginia!
It has taken a few weeks to settle in, but I finally have a functional kitchen and food in my fridge. And, after 4 weeks of eating lacto-veg again (for sake of convenience during the move), I’m also back to my vegan ways.
To prove that you haven’t missed anything too exciting, here’s what I’ve been up to the past couple weeks:
A Meal Amidst Boxes
A meal amidst boxes – I was still unpacking. I could only find one pot, so I boiled some water, steamed some broccoli, chopped up a red pepper, and made organic shells and cheese from a box.
Cooking! Quinoa Pineapple Stir-Fry from Veganomicon
My first actual post-move-in meal, fully cooked! I had a social gathering to attend, and made this recipe from Veganomicon – Pineapple Cashew Quinoa Stir Fry. It was a big hit, so I made it again for myself at home. I didn’t use as much pineapple juice as recommended – just whatever juice I could get out of my can of pineapple – and made the quinoa in the rice cooker with the juice and water. I find that quinoa cooks best and burns the least with a 2:1 water:quinoa ratio in the rice cooker.
Roasted green beans = Green Bean Fries!
Lastly, a new bit of awesomeness: roasted green beans = GREEN BEAN FRIES! Oh, how I love anything I can eat with my hands and dip into sauce. Actually, I was just mogging these babies straight off the cookie sheet while prepping the rest of the meal. They never even made it to my dinner plate.
A photo-less bit of joy around here lately: I’ve been chopping up dried figs and putting them in my salads. Nom. SO good.
I do have some big news coming, and that is – I made concord grape freezer jam this weekend! I had to cobble together how-to’s from various web sites, as most emphasized traditional canning methods, and I was determined to pull it off freezer-jam-style. The good news is, I sampled the fruits of my labor today, and it’s a win. Write-up soon to come.
Until then, mog on, my friends.
Posted: September 11, 2011 at 10:21 pm
{Tags: figs, green beans, pineapple, quinoa}
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Grilled Polenta, aka OMG Are You Serious?
- Dinner, Leftovers
-
03 Aug 2011
As you know, it is eat-through-the-fridge-and-freezer week here in the Epic Organic house. Once upon a time, I was browsing the organic section of my local grocer (Jewel, if you must know), and I came upon a tube of polenta.
Polenta, in a tube.
Kind of like a sausage. But made of corn.
I bought it.
Had no clue what I would do with it, but hey. It was corn mush. In a tube.
And there it sat in my fridge, next to the pickles, and behind the peanut butter and jelly… until yesterday.
While digging through my freezer, I came upon some homemade chili I’d stashed way back when. Suddenly, polenta in a tube sounded appetizing!
Sometime recently I read somewhere about grilled polenta. I suspect it was in an issue of Vegetarian Times, but don’t quote me on that. What better time than the present to slap some mush from a tube onto the ol’ grill?
I cut 1/2″ slices of polenta and grilled them on my Griddler, just over medium heat, for about 7 minutes.
While I waited for the chili to heat up, I tried a piece of the grilled polenta. My immediate thought:
“Oh crap. How much damage am I gonna do if I eat the whole tube?”
I didn’t eat the whole tube, but yeah. It was that good. I liken grilled polenta to giant waffle fries, but tastier. Chewy on the outside, warm and mushy on the inside. Dipped in ranch? Yes, please! Dipped in ketchup? Sure!
How about dipped in chili?
Grilled Polenta and Veggie Chili
Tres good, my friends.
Posted: August 3, 2011 at 4:10 pm
{Tags: chili, polenta}
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Let the Freezer Eats Begin
- Dinner
-
29 Jul 2011
I told you it was about to get all crazy up in this hizzouse!
Pesto Pasta, Broccoli and Chickpeas with Mmm Sauce, & Asparagus
Ha!
You’re like, what the heck is that?!
Eatin’ good in the freezer-hood, my friends!
Gotta. Empty. Freezer. Can’t. Waste. Food.
(No worries – what I don’t eat or take with me will be bequeathed upon family members’ freezers).
It all started with a bag of frozen asparagus spears. I don’t even remember buying them, but when I saw the bag, I thought, “Genius! Frozen asparagus spears! Like, in spear form!” Too bad I didn’t realize they existed sooner. I could’ve eaten them when my fresh asparagus went limp way too soon last week.
So, I steamed that frozen asparagus (5 minutes in the micro – will probably go 5:30 next time), and coated it in my current obsession, Perfect Pinch veggie seasoning.
Then, I decided to make another batch of pesto. (I’m obsessed. What can I say?). Made the pesto, then realized I did not have the ingredients on hand to make my favorite Pesto Veggie sandwich.
Heavens, no! What would I do?!
OK. Change of plans. What’s in the fridge? I went for a big ol’ salad to use up the rest of my leftover spicy roasted chickpeas, and then realized I was out of salad greens. Well, heck. I need more greens!
I’ve got pesto. I’ve got asparagus. What can I do with pesto and asparagus?
I hobbled together an idea: in honor of the release of Mama Pea’s new cookbook (Peas and Thank You, which had just arrived at my door), I would try a recipe from her web site that I’d been meaning to make forever: Mmm Sauce. I’d mix that with the rest of my spicy roasted chickpeas, mix in some pasta and pesto, and throw some steamed broccoli in there. (I was too lazy to roast or grill anything – my preferred veggie cooking methods).
I got to work making Mmm sauce, only to realize I didn’t have the right spices on hand. Instead, I used oregano and basil and parsley. Italian Mmm sauce? I guess so!
So that, my friends, is what you’re looking at in the photo above. Frozen asparagus, steamed, with veggie seasoning. Whole wheat pasta topped with pesto. Steamed broccoli with chickpeas and Mmm sauce.
A weird plate – yes. But it was pretty darn tasty! So much so that I just had it again for lunch….
Stay tuned for more adventures in freezer eats!
Posted: July 29, 2011 at 3:23 pm
{Tags: asparagus, broccoli, chickpeas, Mmm sauce, pasta, peas and thank you, pesto}
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Brink of Disaster
- Dinner
-
11 Jun 2011
Tonight’s dinner really could be titled, “From the Brink of Disaster.”
It all started when I was hungry. And lazy.
I spent most of this week sick with an awful summer cold (that I have dubbed, “The Cat Flu.” I don’t care what the interwebs say; my cat got me sick!). While I’m feeling better now, the state of my fridge is quite grim, and I’m still feeling a bit lazy.
So dinner time came around, and I was oh-so-close to resorting to the ubiquitous Bowl of Cereal, when my conscience intervened. “You haven’t eaten anything green all week!” it said. (Not true – I think I ran out of salad greens day before yesterday. So 48 hours, tops). Sigh.
Fine. I’ll have a vegetable.
Enter: broccoli. I’ll roast some broccoli! Haven’t roasted anything in a while. I cut up some broccoli florets and tossed them in extra virgin olive oil and a veggie seasoning blend I’ve had sitting in my cupboard for just this occasion. Popped ‘em in the toaster oven for the internet-recommended 30 minutes at 450F.
What else? Hmm. Rice sounds easy. I started flipped through the indices of my stack of cookbooks, looking for something inspiring that involved rice, when all of a sudden, I spied:
Quinoa and chickpeas. (*squeee!*) An “everyday quinoa and chickpea salad,” in Isa’s Appetite for Reduction. Rice is outta dodge. In with chickpeas and quinoa!
But I only had 2/3 of a cup of quinoa left, and the recipe called for 2 cups. Bah. How about I make some bowtie pasta to fill the rest of the bulk? Sounds good.
I got to work on that, then started the homemade balsamic vinaigrette it called for… when… bah. I don’t have any shallots. What can substitute for shallots? (Enter: Google. Loving having a Kitchen Laptop). How about onion and garlic? Awesome. But…
The only onion left in my fridge sprouted trees. (For real. It looked like it had trees growing out of it). Scratch that.
Then, when I grabbed the bottle of mustard from the fridge, it looked a little weird. Closer inspection revealed its expiration date was a good 6 months ago. (I don’t like mustard and only keep it on hand for oddball recipes). Alrighty then… this dressing isn’t off to a very good start.
Then I remembered, I had a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette in the fridge that I didn’t care much for. So I decided to use that, and spruced it up with some agave, onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper (to maybe help me like it some more).
I also had some garlic herbed tofu in the fridge that I had broiled up a few days ago. The tofu tub was on the brink of expiration, and the marinade was some premade stuff that was taking up space, so I cooked it up the other day – with no idea what I’d eventually do with it.
Ding! Light bulb! Tofu croutons! I reheated the tofu in the broiler and chopped it up and threw it in the bowl with everything else.
And then, I noticed the smell of something burning. My broccoli!!
Oh, sad. Sad, sad, blackened broccoli.
Still, I thought it might be a good idea to taste it. (????)
And… it tasted like kale chips! Heck yeah! I squeezed on some ketchup and nom’d that blackened broccoli before I could even finish the rest of the meal prep. (I may actually have to make “broccoli chips” on purpose next time!)
When I was ready to pull everything together, I realized I was missing the “salad” part of the salad. Duh. Out of greens – the whole reason I resorted to broccoli in the first place. Oh well. I’ll eat it from a bowl!
So, while the broccoli didn’t smile for the camera, the crazy freestyle mash-up that was my dinner was begging for a photo op. And heck, it deserves one. This meal truly did rise from the brink of disaster.
Quinoa Chickpea Bowtie Salad (Sorta)
Amazingly enough, it tasted pretty darn good, too!
Now, if only I could get my Eye-Fi camera card working again. It had a firmware upgrade, and hasn’t worked ever since. Any ideas? It appears to connect to my wireless network, but no pictures transfer. Not having that card really puts a cramp in my food blogging style.
Posted: June 11, 2011 at 8:27 pm
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