Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Cookies, Pizza, A Big Salad and Chili Dogs

Last Friday was Annelies's last day of kindergarten. I can't believe the school-year flew by so fast. My little girl is a first-grader now. It truly makes my heart ache. Although, since last Friday, I've spent my days playing mediator for the kids. When they aren't fighting, they're zipping around the house. Trashing the place and screeching. I may very well lose my mind before the end of summer. Maybe once we get into a routine, things will run smoother. For now, though, I feel like I can't get a single bit of work done and I want to go to bed at 8 o'clock at night. I'm worn out already!


To celebrate her last day of school, I made her favorite sugar cookies and her favorite dinner, "Mama's homemade pizza!" I didn't do too much cooking the rest of the weekend since Sleek was out of town. I had lots of salad mix and fresh spinach from the CSA, so I did eat a good bit of salad. Wondering what to do with my bunch of fresh chives, I decided to try a vegan ranch dressing. It turned out to be excellent. Here's what I did:

3/4 cup soy milk with a good splash of cider vinergar. Let it sit for a few minutes until it curdles.
3 TBS Vegenaise
a good pinch of sugar (You can make it on the sweeter side, or not. Just whatever you like.)
pinch of salt
good pinch of dried parsley
black pepper

Whisk it all together, and there you go! It's best after it's been in the fridge overnight. The flavor of the chives really comes alive after a day or two.

When Sleek arrived home, I decided to make some buffalo tofu salads. After pressing the tofu, I sliced it and brushed both sides with a mixture of peanut oil and shoyu. I baked it at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Then I flipped it over and baked it for 15 minutes more. After that, I covered it in buffalo sauce and baked it for 15 more minutes. I let it cool a bit, then put some slices on the salads. I put some french fries on top, then followed with the ranch dressing. So good! A great way to use up the CSA salad greens. I figure on one big salad a week for dinner as long as we're getting this many greens. Oh, and I made the buffalo sauce by melting about 1/3 cup Earth Balance and adding 3/4 cups of hot sauce to that.


Last night, I went with an idea that Sleek had the first time he sank his teeth into a Snobby Joe. Veggie chili dogs. I bought some veggie dogs and made the very simple Snobby recipe as a chili. Add some mustard and chopped onions, and OMG! It's a vegan chili dog! Even better than the "real" thing. I made some of my vegan macaroni salad to go along with them. A true summer meal.


I'm at my parents' house for the next several days. My next post will be Julian's birthday post. My little guy will be 4 on Monday. 4!

2 comments:

carrie said...

We've been getting tons of lettuces from our CSA as well. It's been 2 salads a day for several weeks around here. Unfortunately I can't think of much else to do with lettuce. We get one huge bag of spring mix every week, and at least one or two heads of various other lettuces. This week we've gotten tons of zucchini and summer squash, which I am expecting we'll be getting lots more of over the weeks to come!!

Your buffalo salad is a cool idea, I'm gonna have to give that one a try and use up some of our lettuce. I've got everything I need in the fridge already, so maybe we'll have it for lunch this weekend.

Susan Chipley said...

Carrie: Yep. Lettuce pretty much only yields salads. It's fun to get creative with dressings.