Busy, Busy

Damn. And here I thought that when school started I'd have so much extra time on my hands. I feel like I've been running myself to death. It seems I've barely had a minute to sit down. Our computer was also invaded by some nasty spyware, so it was out of commission for several days. Sleek copied our photos and iTunes, and we wiped the whole thing out and started fresh. The upside is that our computer is now smokin' fast!

I also thought when school started, I'd have more time for cooking. However, this year Annelies's piano lessons are later in the evening, and Julian has soccer late once a week as well. So, I have two nights each week that make it difficult to put a full-on meal together. Tonight is one of those nights, so it's going to be SmartDogs. I can handle one totally junk meal/week.

Anyway, since I've last posted, I've made some interesting and tasty things. One was a Southeast Asian Coconut Zucchini. That one is from Moosewood Restaurants Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. (I don't think I told y'all that we ate at the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca when we were on vacation, did I? We did, and it was tasty. The kids were having a tough time that day. It was the last day of vacation and Annelies was tired, and Julian had a cold coming on and had a fever. Doesn't make for the most pleasant of meals, eh? It was still a cool experience, though. Doesn't every vegetarian want to eat there?) Okay, back to the zucchini. It was very easy and quite tasty. I served it over jasmine rice. There are lots of good-looking recipes in that cookbook. I need to put it to good use.



I also made another green pizza somewhere along the way. Some falafel too. Also, the best damn banana bread ever. I kind of improvised the recipe from one I found online somewhere. Here goes:

3 ripe bananas
juice of 1 lemon
1/3 cup canola oil and unsweetened applesauce mixed (you could do either all oil or all applesauce, but I decided to go half and half.)
1/2 cup sucanat

1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sucanat (This needs adjusted to suit the ripeness of the bananas. If they're really, really ripe, I would omit it completely.)
1/4 cup flax meal
1/2 cup coconut (I used unsweetened, flaked)

Mash bananas and add lemon juice, oil and applesauce mixture and sucanat.

Mix together flour and other dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix until just moistened and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

One evening, I made some tofu scramble. I just use the recipe from VWaV for the seasonings, then add whichever veggies I have on hand. So easy and tasty. A side of roasted potatoes makes it a "breakfast for dinner" meal. I love that.


Last night, I made a batch of channa masala. It's easy to throw together quickly. Yum. Julian discovered that he loves it too. I've also been keeping some chickpea salad on hand for an easy lunch or dinner. I'm addicted to that stuff. This time I did add some chopped celery. It definitely made it even better. Mmmm. On toasted whole-wheat bread with some perfectly fresh, ripe sliced tomato? Insane. I've decided that instead of a mock tuna salad, it's much more like a mock chicken salad.

Oh, and I also made up a batch of the best granola ever. Same recipe as always, and for nuts I used cashews. I chopped up about a cup of dried papaya to throw in after baking. I also added a few drops of coconut extract for some extra tropical flavor. Mmmm. It's really good with So Delicious coconut milk yogurt.