Crunky testers and CHOCOLATE!

I tested two side dishes for Vegan Crunk's upcoming cookbook this week - Mess O' Greens with Turnips and Mashed Sweet Taters. Both of these recipes were freakin' delicious, but seriously - the greens recipe would be worth the purchase price alone! I doubt I will ever make greens another way again. I enjoyed them with baked tofu. Oh yeeeeaaaahhhhh.

More greens n' turnips with a tempeh sandwich

I told you I really like 'em! I made them again last night to go with Jesse's new favorite sandwich - marinated tempeh and onion. I found some Annie's marinade's at Grocery Outlet a few weeks ago for $1.49! I should have bought more...

Pretty place setting!

I spent a few hours yesterday reclaiming the dining room table for eating. Well, most of it at least. There's still a drill press on the corner of it. You see, living in a one bedroom apartment, our dining room also serves as our office and Jesse's workspace/hobby space. Moving and organizing everything was a pain in the butt, but the room feels twice as big and it just makes me happy! Yay :)

Chocolate pancakes topped with Special Cocoa Spread and maple syrup and hashbrowns

I did a swap on the PPK last month, and got a box full of awesome stuff from New Jersey! One of these awesome things is a chocolate spread from Israel, very similar to Nutella but without the nuts. It is quite delicious on pancakes as well as on cookies, in a peanut butter sandwich, and of course - right out of the jar! I am in chocolate heaven!!!

Happy Easter if you celebrate, and if you're a heathen like me - you should eat some chocolate anyway! xoxo Chelsea

Romanesco - the coolest vegetable ever?

Romanesco is a hybrid of broccoli and cauliflower, with a fractal pattern that almost makes it too pretty to eat! I bought it at the farmers market last week, and a few nights ago cooked it up in a panang curry. I'm crazy about the Thai and True curry pastes - they are easy to prepare and there's no need to try to replace stupid fish sauce! In Portland, they're available at the farmers market, Food Fight, and many of the local food co-ops, or you can order them online! I use half the jar with a can of coconut milk for a good sized pot of curry.

Panang curry with tofu, romanesco, green beans, carrots, and red pepper

The romanesco was actually the best part of the curry, and I'm usually all about the tofu! Jesse snuck back in the kitchen to pick out all the leftover romansesco from the pot and add it to his dish!

But that's not all!

I've been tagged by the fabulous VeganView!

1. Link person who tagged you and post rules on your blog

2. Share 7 random/weird facts about yourself

3. Tag 7 people at the end and include links

4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving comments on their blogs

All righty, let's give it a go:

1. I can't smell most things. I remember losing the sense when I was in 3rd grade and shared a room with a persian cat that my grandma was always powdering, but now I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it. I can sometimes smell really potent things.

2. I grew up living with my grandma, who I loved, but she was crazy. By the time she stopped drinking she was pretty senile, so there wasn't much difference. We always had around 10 cats, and she insisted that her favorite cats had their own bedrooms (hence me rooming with Esmeralda).

3. I hate bathing. I must have been French in a past life, right?!? I don't like swimming pools or hot tubs much, either.

4. I don't know how to swim!

5. I have a phobia that bothers me so much I can't even type it.

6. I don't have a dad.

7. I play World of Warcraft, but I'm not a nerd, I swear! It's my husband's fault!

Now I get to tag 7 of you:

Agnes of Agnes' World of Vegan Pleasures
Bianca of Vegan Crunk
Jen of That Pain in the Ass Vegan
Jess of The Domestic Vegan
Jessy of HappyVeganFace
Melynda of Veganic Adventures
Shelby of La Belle Vegan

Cookie says "hello vegan friends!"

Beets a roastin'

I roasted some beets this evening while I was watching Obama's infomercial. Wasn't it great? It had the cheeze factor with the background music, the issues and solutions discussed plainly and with text, showed Obama in an Oval office-looking format, had the emotional highlights from his campaign speeches (when he talked about his mom dying of cancer and having to figure all the insurance stuff out, it totally broke my heart!), and on top of all that, really highlighted the people of America that will be helped by an Obama administration. How could anybody be undecided after that? Right?!?

Oh yeah, back to beets. They're good. I always thought I hated them because of the crappy salad bar canned kind I'd had, until I tried them for real at the Farmers Market a few years ago. The beets I roasted were from the market, and the cute old vendor (he had to be like 70!) told me to take as many as I wanted when I asked him about how many a pound is because I only had $3 left. How sweet is that? When they cooled down and I got to skinning them, I was delighted to find that I had an orange, a yellow, a red, and a deep purple beet. Woo hoo! My salad was quite beautiful.
Here's Cookie napping. She's extra fluffy because she just had a bath today - the poor kitty needs them fairly often because with that long hair, she gets some major dingleberries! She's currently licking the Goddess dressing remnants out of my empty salad bowl...

Fall is here - time for crisp!

Mmmmmmm criiiiiiiiiiiisssssp! I think my favorite is the classic apple crisp, but I had organic pears in the fridge that I got on sale and needed to use up. I used this recipe from vegweb, and added a handful of blueberries. It smells so good in the apartment!

Pears and blueberries, ready for some crispies!

Ready for the oven!

Ready to eat! P.S. I have a better picture, but blogger is loading it sideways! Annoying!

Cookie girl says hello!

Baked tofu, mashed potatoes, and kale

Holy jeepers Batman, I think this was one of the best meals I've ever made! I am never buying pre-baked tofu again! I had no idea it's so easy to make! Wowza! Alright, I think I can calm down...

At the Farmers Market on Saturday, one of the larger veggie vendors was cooking up some yummy veggies, and one of the delicious things I sampled was kale and shallots, sauteed in olive oil with a little balsamic thrown in at the end. I'm a chard girl, but I couldn't resist!

The mashed potatoes are my basic recipe of boiled potatoes mashed with Earth Balance, Tofutti Sour Supreme, and garlic. I also had a little pesto left over from the market, so I threw that in, too.

On to the best part of the meal - that beautiful tofu! I looked at a bunch of recipes on vegweb, and settled on the tried and true Simple Baked Tofu. I had all the ingredients on hand, except I ran out of balsamic so I substituted some sesame oil for the 1 T. that I was short and I omitted the salt. This was such an easy recipe, and just turned out so delicious! I used foil on a cookie sheet, and flipped the tofu halfway into baking. If you don't already have a favorite marinade for baking tofu, try this one out! You won't regret it! :)

My plating was inspired by The Farm Cafe and their tofu marsala. Aren't I a fancy pants with my square plates? haha Jesse got them for me last Christmas and I was all pissed because I wanted him to get me a cool antique ring (we didn't do wedding rings, so he kinda owes me), but I got fucking dishes! I really love them, though. Don't tell! haha

Another delicious angle...

Yum yum yummy!

I'm not a stuffed pepper virgin anymore!

So I was at the Farmers Market today, picking up vegan pesto, french bread, chocolate panini, kale, tomatoes, shallots and such, when I saw bell peppers 3 for $2 - just begging me to find the biggest ones possible! While foraging for a 3rd monstrous pepper, I wondered about what I would do with them. Just the usual tossing them in stirfry and salad and everything, or could I use them for something a little more special? Then it occurred to me - I have never made, let alone eaten, a stuffed bell pepper! Guess what I made for dinner tonight?

Here's my attempt at a recipe, complete with pictures (oh my!). You should include whatever sounds good to you, but the essentials are a sauce, a grain, a protein, and a few veggies.

For my stuffing, I started out by sauteeing tofu and a granny smith and a golden delicious apple in olive oil. Then I added some enchilada sauce and black beans. Next, chopped rainbow chard, yellow corn, and a handful of chanterelles. More enchilada sauce. Then, when it was just about done, I added yellow and red roma tomatoes, onion, cilantro, green onion, and cooked quinoa.

Cooking up some fresh and local deliciousness!

Cut the tops off your peppers, deseed, and put 'em in a baking dish

Stuff those babies!

Drizzle some sauce on the bottom of your baking dish and on top of your peppers, replace the tops, them pop 'em in the oven on 350 for about an hour!

Take 'em out of the oven and be proud of your beautiful creation! Losing your virginity can be a good experience! haha

Plate it and eat it!

Since I'm not really a recipe person, I threw in what sounded good to me. I did look at a few recipes online to see how long to cook them and at what temp (350 and 40 -60 minutes). I cooked them for about 45, and I think they could have used another 15 because they were definitely nice and roasty on the top and middle, but not quite cooked enough on the bottom. Still delicious, though!

I think I've finally accepted, and even began to embrace, the fall season :)

Odds and ends enchiladas

I think one of my favorite things about enchiladas, besides how delicious they are, is how versatile they are. You can roll your tortillas, stack them up, or layer them casserole-style. You can whip up an individual serving in the microwave, or cook up a whole bunch in the oven. And what can you fill them with? Why, anything really! Tonight I made a casserole-style batch with what I had in the crisper - potatoes (ok those weren't in the crisper!), chard, heirloom tomatoes, zucchini, corn, chilies, and onion. Oh yeah!


I just realized that I've been neglecting the kitties in my posts lately, so now I have to make up! :)

Zoey and Cookie sharing the chair! Awwww

I &hearts kitty cat feetsies

Check out that toe hair!

Not a kitty, but these are the super cute Vegan Earth shoes I was talking
about that I got so cheap on Ebay... :)

I'm hungry

But I don't feel like cooking! There's also a sink-full of dishes that need to be washed, so I've been avoiding the kitchen this evening (except to pour a quick glass of wine). So far I've had the last 2 sugar cookies from debate day and some grapes. I'll probably just end up eating a Tasty Bite (well, the Trader Joe's cheap version) with some leftover quinoa. Maybe salad. Or more wine? Haha! I'm totally thrown off by it getting dark so early now... I can't believe it's only 7:30! It feels like 9:00 to me.

Anyway, here's some good food I've eaten lately that I haven't blogged about. Maybe I'll inspire myself to make something!

Black beans, quinoa, veggies (all local of course!),
guac, salsa, and leftover cheezy sauce (it didn't reheat
very saucy, but still tasted good) which I ate with corn tortillas

Tomato Basil Cream Pasta a la VeganYumYum, baguette, and spicy pepper olive oil

Tostones, spicy black beans, quinoa and tofutti

Milkshake of Soy Delicious Chocolate, frozen banana, chocolate hempmilk, and a handful of blueberries

Taco salad from King Burrito in NoPo

Lazy Sunday breakfast

I hope you all had a great weekend! Mine has been enjoyable with some relaxing time as well as some busy time. I babysat, went to the farmer's market, went to an anti-foie gras demo, went on a bike ride, played with the kitties, picked up some Neil Gaiman books from Powell's, and found some time to play video games.

I went a little crazy at the farmer's market... I bought 4 lbs. of heirloom tomatoes. But how could I resist? They were only $2.49/lb.! I also picked up a baguette, peppers, onion, basil, garlic, a yellow melon that I don't recall the name of (it tasted cantaloupe-y), and 4lbs. of red fingerling potatoes. We made some yummy bruschetta for dinner last night, and this morning I used the leftovers for a tofu scramble.



Roasted potatoes, tofu scramble with heirloom tomatoes, garlic, onion, basil, and yellow bell pepper, plus coffee with hazelnut soy creamer

A totally local meal if you don't count the coffee!





Everyone has a bit different way to roast potatoes. My method is to preheat the oven to 425, quarter potatoes (or halve if fingerlings), toss 'em in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil, toss with your favorite herbs, then roast for about 45 minutes.




I know you've all been waiting expectantly for a kitten update, so here it is: Zoey is adjusting better than expected! Check her out sleeping in the background and not being terrified of the Tiny Kitteh! She doesn't hiss at her at all, and has even allowed Tiny Kitteh to bat at her playfully! She isn't quite ready to bat back yet, though :). The naming saga continues... Jesse is really liking Oscar now, and wishing Tiny Kitteh was a boy. Husbands are so annoying!

Have a lovely week everybody!