Slip N' Slide

I got the kids a really cool slip n' slide from Magic Cabin. They've been having a ball with it. It's much better that the slip n' slides of my youth. It has an inflatable runway, which leads into a nice pool at the end. I remember the slip n' slides of my day as being a long, narrow tarp-like thing that was on the ground. You'd feel every hole, gravel or branch you slid over. So, I'm happy to say that they are now much improved for a smoother ride.

I guess it's been a while since I've posted. Summer always gets away from me. So, I'll get started with last week's chickpea cutlet salad. I made the chickpea cutlets my usual way (that means that I reduce the wheat gluten and increase the breadcrumbs a little.) After frying them up, I cut them into strips, let them cool slightly, then put them on top of the salad greens. I topped that with some oven-fries. They're the garlic oven-fries which I found in Cooking Light. I made a creamy maple-dijon dressing for the salad. In a bowl, I whisked together:

approximately 2 TBS dijon mustard
approximately 2 TBS maple syrup
a good scoop of Vegenaise
a splash of cider vinegar
enough soy milk to thin it to a nice texture

It was such a good dressing. Perfect for this type of salad, which is basically your veggie take on a chicken-strip salad you'd get at a restaurant. Yum! It really turned out great. I can't wait to do it with black bean burgers and a chipotle ranch dressing.




I kind of took a couple of days off from cooking over the weekend. I'm much more into cooking when the weather is more moderate. I hate standing in front of a hot stove when it's steamy outside. Yuck! So, for the 4th of July, I made some BBQ baked beans with some leftover Backyard BBQ sauce (V-con) that I had left over. I threw it in a pot with some cooked pintos, a jar of pineapple salsa, a few squirts of ketchup and mustard, and a drizzle of maple syrup. I baked them at 375 for a couple hours. That BBQ sauce really makes some good baked beans! I also made some coleslaw with a nice, fresh head of cabbage from the farmer's market. I diced some onion, grated some carrots and made a standard coleslaw dressing using: Vegenaise, soymilk, sugar, cider vinegar, black pepper and a good pinch of cumin. We had typical holiday fare (except it was vegetarian) with Olives and her family. We watched the fireworks in the pouring rain later that evening. Olives made an awesome nectarine and peach cobbler. I think it was this recipe from Cooking Light.

Last night, I needed to use up some cooked pinto beans. I found this recipe for chipotle bean-burgers from Vegetarian Times. I had made them several times before, but it's been at least two years ago. They're really tasty, but as I made them I remembered that they always fall apart during the frying process. I managed to keep them together reasonably well, but it's really a PitA, and leaves a big mess in my beloved cast-iron skillet. They really did taste great stuffed in a pita with the cilantro, adobo sour cream sauce though. I just mixed up some Better Than Sour Cream with some adobo sauce from the can of chipotles and some chopped cilantro. Perfect! To go with them, I cooked up some beet greens from the CSA. I didn't really know what to do with them, so I found this recipe. Obviously, I left out the bacon and instead added a few drops of liquid smoke at the end. They were awesome! Really, really tasty. So, if anyone out there is looking to cook up some beet greens, I'd highly suggest this recipe.



Tonight, in an effort to use up the rest of my cilantro from last week's CSA delivery, I made linguine with basil-cilantro pesto and artichoke hearts. The recipe is from V-con, and actually calls for spinach linguine, which I couldn't find. I went with plain linguine. I have to say, it is a very easy, flavorful pasta dish that is dinner-party worthy. I also had a bag of sugar snap peas form last week's delivery. I steamed them and then tossed them in just a tad of Earth Balance and spinkled them with salt. They may be my new favorite vegetable. I could easily make a meal of them.




We've been getting lots of garlic scapes from our CSA. To ensure that I use them all up, I use them just as I would garlic in recipes. Maybe use more scapes than you would use garlic since they have a milder taste. I've never been able to use them all up in years past, but this year I've used every one of them.

I've really been digging the new Coldplay album, Viva la Vida. It could be on it's way to becoming my favorite Coldplay album. (Do you love it, Carrie?) You can check out some songs from Viva la Vida on their myspace page. It's really excellent stuff. I'll be playing the hell out of it for a while, I think.

Big Salad of the Week and Lentils &Rice

I think as long as we're getting so many salad greens from the CSA, I'll do a "Big Salad of the Week" post each week. I think it's fun! Hmmmm. I was thinking they would always involve tofu, but I just started thinking of making some chickpea cutlets, but cutting them into strips and making a "chick'n salad." One like you'd get in a restaurant with chicken tenders on it. I may do that at some point. Or, making some black bean burgers and doing something similar. With a homemade chipotle ranch dressing. I may have to do one of those this week. Okay, enough of the daydreaming and on to food that I've already made.

So, this week's big salad was a barbeque tofu salad with homemade croutons. I made the Backyard BBQ sauce from V-con, and just used the Baked BBQ Tofu from the same cookbook. It's a fantastic BBQ sauce. Much better than your run-of-the mill bottled, store-bought kind. So easy to make too. For the croutons, I bought a loaf of french bread from the supermarket deli. I sliced the bread, peeled off the crust, and cut the bread slices into cubes. I put them in a large bowl and drizzled just a little oil on them, sprinkled with sea salt and garlic powder, and baked them at 350 degrees until lightly brown. I'm guessing it was 20-25 minutes? They were very good croutons. Usually the croutons you get in a restaurant or store are a little greasy, but not these. Perfectly crisp without too much oil. For the dressing...I didn't have everything I needed to make my homemade ranch, so I cheated and used Newman's Own ranch. I mixed it with a little bbq sauce to make a tasty BBQ ranch.

The next night, I made the Lentils & Rice recipe from V-con. It's a really easy, one-pot meal. Pretty much toss the water, lentils rice and seasonings into the pot and cook them. At the end, you fold in some onions which have roasted in the oven and become very brown/black and caramelized. I was worried that it would be a bit bland, but it was perfectly spiced and one of my favorite things I've made recently. To go with it, I threw together a simple side salad with a honey-dijon dressing. I mixed about a TBS of honey, a TBS dijon mustard, a dollop of Vegenaise and a splash of cider vinegar. Whisk it together, and you have a very tasty dressing. You can make it according to your taste too. For a sweeter dressing, just add a little extra honey. If you like it spicier, just add some more dijon. You could even make it extra creamy by adding some extra mayo.

Lettuce, Anyone?

Lettuce and greens seem to be the focus right now since we're getting them in abundance from the CSA. It's fun to try to come up with new things to do with that. I've been trying to do one big salad for a meal each week. They seem to usually involve tofu. Thankfully, the co-op is once again stocked with Spring Creek tofu. Whew! We can all breathe a sigh of relief about that.

Let's start with last Tuesday's dinner, which was black-bean lettuce cups. Talk about an easy meal to throw together. I heated up a can of rinsed, drained black beans with a can of drained, fire-roasted diced tomatoes. I added some chili powder, cumin and tad of agave nectar. Oh, and salt and pepper too. I let them simmer for a while while I washed and dried the lettuce leaves. I'm not sure exactly what kind of lettuce it was, but it was perfect to use as cups for the beans. I scooped some of the beans/tomatoes into a leaf and topped with bit of Tofutti sour cream and guacamole. Very, very tasty. Lettuce wraps/cups pretty much rule, and you can really get creative with the fillings.

Wednesday night was big-salad night. This week, I did an Asian-style salad. I started by pressing my block of tofu for about an hour. After it was well drained, I sliced it in 1/4 inch slices and marinated it in a mixture of mirin, shoyu, rice vinegar, agave nectar, Thai chili sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper. I let it marinate for 30 minutes, then flipped the slices over for 30 more minutes. Then, I put it on a baking sheet and baked it at 375 for 20 minutes, then flipped and gave it another 10. I let it cool just a bit, and put it on a nice pile of fresh greens. I added some fried rice-noodles (from a can). Those things definitely aren't healthy, but they sure do add a nice crunch to a salad. I made an Asian vinaigrette to go on the salad:

1 inch piece of ginger
a clove of garlic
2 TBS tamari
2 TBS rice vinegar
a little squirt of agave
1 TBS sesame oil.

Give it a good whirl, and there you go.




Okay, my last greens were used making the Popeye Pasta from ED&bV. You can use any type of pasta with this. (I used whole-wheat rotini.) The sauce is very simple: Onion, lots of garlic, white wine, crushed tomatoes, and whatever Italian herbs you like. (I like to use dried oregano and basil. I'd use fresh if I had them.) I used my perpetual spinach (chard) from the CSA. It was a pretty hefty bag, and I used the whole thing. It's leaves are tougher than those of spinach, so it really held up well in this dish. It lent the dish an earthier flavor which was really nice.



On Saturday, Sleek, the kids and I headed up to Pittsburgh to take in some of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which included a free concert by The Avett Brothers. We had dinner at a really fantastic restaurant before the show. I'm going to do a post about it tomorrow, so stay tuned...

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!