Huge Dough and Dinners

Well last week I went to two Christmas parties. Before the second one, we made pizza at Christine's apartment. She had some dough rising in the oven and.. it rose too much. BLAM!
I didn't get any of the finished pizza pictures because it was devoured, but we made some tomato pies with garlic, and some pizzas with mushrooms, broccoli and tomatoes. And cheese for everybody but me.

Last night I made tofu on the George Foreman again. Fantastico! With green beens and corn/tomatoes. I liked this dinner.Tonight I'm at Christine's apartment. We had crispy cubed tofu (which I brought with me, heh) green beans and sweet potatoes. We did the sweet potatoes in the microwave on high for 6 minutes, I've never done it before. At first I didn't poke enough holes and they jumped around a little.. but then I poked some more and they came out tasting delicious!

Two Dinners

Last night's dinner! Rotini and peas with alfredo sauce. I love peas. Here's where the recipe came from, but I didn't use as much milk because I wanted a thicker sauce. I liked it, and I'm pretty sure Chris, Michelle, and Pat did too.

Tonight's dinner.. I gave shepherd's pie a shot. The bottom was TVP, tomatoes, carrots, bell pepper, spinach, mushrooms, and onions. There was too much potato and not enough veggies, but it tasted good at least. Chris didn't say anything either way. That probably means it was just OK.

Short & Sweet.. Well, Savory

I don't post very often because I figure I should at least have a couple of pictures per entry. But I figure.. it's probably easier people are more likely to actually read a shorter entry!

Well I'm taking a break right now from writing several papers that are due tomorrow. *Gag* They're going well though. I had my voice jury this morning, A- ohhh yeahh. Chris has his jury in an hour and I guess since he's a vocal performance major it's more like a recital so I'm going to watch, mwaha. Well, he watched my jury sort of.. he was my accompanist. That probably made me sing worse.. I coulda got an A! Curses.

In any case, this is tofu that I marinated in soy sauce, OJ, water, and ketchup with parsley, rosemary, and thyme.. too bad, no sage. I cooked it on Michelle's George Foreman! Woo. So cool. With rice and veggies. It was Tuesday so brother Ben came over like always. He went back for seconds.

Oh hey, Happy Hanukkah!

Dinner, Dessert, Houses

Sometime last week I made this potato chowder from Laura's blog. I used spinach instead of kale and this was great! Me, Chris, Michelle and Pat had it and everybody loved it. The boys needed crackers on top.. I think that's weird.. shrug.
Then I made the chocolate peanut butter silk pie from Squirrel's Vegan Kitchen. Last time I made it with graham cracker crust, this time I used Oreo.. SO much better! This was delicious. I wanted to take it to work but Chris, Pat, and Michelle told me I wasn't allowed.
Last night we made graham cracker houses! Here's Michelle working hard.
Mine had a chimney. And logs, and a pile of presents. And a car in the driveway!
Here's the town from above. Clockwise from left is mine, Chris', Michelle's, Pat's. Yes, Chris has an ice skating rink.
And then he ate the town.

Fun Times at Home

Ohh I liked being home for Thanksgiving break. The last day when all of us were home was Friday, it was great. Me and Mom are early birds, so we got up around 8 and hung out for a little bit. At 9:30 Ben came home with a 40" Polaroid LCD TV.. apparently he'd been at Circuit City for 5 hours. He got it on sale for $700.. I didn't know he had $700. Then he went to sleep.

At 10 Christine came out with me and Mom to do a little shopping, we drove on a strategically planned route (seriously) that involved only right hand turns. We zoomed past hundreds of people waiting and waiting in traffic because they didn't plan ahead!

We came home and then took the boys out with us to pick a Christmas tree! It's a little early but it was the last time we'll all be home together until Christmas. Then I FINALLY made cinnamon rolls that I'd been promising to Nick. They came out great! I'm not good with yeast but Mom helped me proof it this time.


Even though it was the day after Thanksgiving, Mom made a big dinner because we were all home. She made a big roast, broccoli, carrots, twice-baked potatoes (with soy milk and margarine!) and I made vegan mac and cheese! I actually just followed the recipe on the back of a box of macaroni noodles, but I used a block of FYH cheddar. It worked out magnificently, other than that I didn't change a thing!


It was thiiiis good! Eventually that little bit got eaten too.


After dinner we put up all the Christmas decorations. Here's the fireplace. Stockings for Mom and David (step dad,) then there's Nick, Christine, Tania and Ben. We hang them in age order! Up top is a picture of one of our dogs, Bailey, Christine drew it.. she's an art major.Then we decorated the Christmas tree.. there's Ben, Christine, and Nick throwing ting ting at it. What a great way to decorate.

Yesterday I went in to work, and then met up with Chris and Christine to see ROCKAPELLA! It was excellent!


And tomorrow it is back to school...

Fantastic Foods!

Once again.. I haven't posted in a while. But I've been making good things, honest! The other night for dinner we had crispy tofu cubes. I don't know what to call it, but I just heated them up in a pan on the stove, with no oil or anything. And mashed potatoes and broccoli.
For Thanksgiving I made Isa's Chocolate Smlove pie. The consensus? Wayyyy wayy too rich! Nobody could finish their piece.. even though I had my aunt cut them EXTRA tiny. But that doesn't mean it wasn't delicious! It was! I think everybody liked it. I'll have to figure out how to make it next time so you can actually have a piece.
Mmm here it is. And I had some apple pie too, and vanilla Soy Delicious.
Here's me and my siblings. Left to right! Nick(twin #1, 21) Ben(18) Me(20) Christine(twin #2, 21) Yayyy!
Oh yeah, and I thought some of you guys might like this. My step dad is making chain mail! By hand. It's taking a long time. He's going to make a full shirt.

Busy busy!

Ohh I haven't posted in a while.. been so busy. I'm missing out on the whole Vegan MoFo! I'm such a loser. All I have to show you is this delicious cinnamon roll from the this recipe. Like I said... delicious. I tinted my icing orange for an autumnal feeling. :-D

And tonight for dinner I made.. curried split pea soup from the PPK recipe. It was really good, full of spices. Lots and lots of spices. I made rice to go with it and topped it with grated carrot.

I thought it was pretty darn filling! Apparently Chris didn't feel the same way because afterwards he had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some Pringles. Ah well, he said the soup was good. :-)
And that's all I have time for now! Must get ready for school tomorrow.

Food and Food!

Hey guys. I feel like I've been doing a lot of cooking and baking (and eating) these past few days. On Tuesday I made the Scrumptious Banana-Nut Muffins from The Garden of Vegan. I don't have any nuts. These were really good! Michelle liked it with Tofutti cream cheese.
For lunch on Tuesday I made this wrap with sauteed vegetables. I had made a sauce for it with Nayonaisse, ketchup and cayenne pepper, and that was good. This is me eating it on a bench in Swope (the music building.) I took it with my cell phone..
Last night for dinner we made tacos! I used Lightlife Smart Ground for me and Chris' tacos, Michelle and Pat had chicken tacos. In mine is the Smart Ground there on the left, lettuce, tomatoes, and towards the right is Rice-a-Roni Spanish rice!
Tonight for dinner me and Michelle had barbecue chicken-style seitan that I had frozen since last month. We used her George Foreman! I've never used it before.. it was pretty neat. We also had steamed asparagus and roasted potatoes.
And we JUST finished making these cookies.. they're not entirely vegan (those are real M&M's) but the base is vegan. We actually veganized a chocolate chip cookie from her book Getting Started. They were really good! I'll give you the recipe.

Chocolate-chip cookies!

Preheat oven to 350.
Cream together 1/4 cup margarine and 1 cup packed brown sugar.
Add one "egg" (I used flax meal/water,) 2 tbsp agave, 1 tsp vanilla
Stir in 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt

Stir in 1 cup chocolate chips and bake for 12-15 minutes. This recipe is really good!

Recipe, Pumpkin, Dinner

Well I just realized I never posted the recipe for that tempeh stirfry, well here it is:

1 8-oz package of tempeh cut into strips
1 medium onion cut into thin wedges
3 medium carrots cut into sticks
8 oz green beans cut in half
1 medium red bell pepper cut into strips

Sauce:
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup vanilla soygurt
3 tbsp teriyaki marinade
1 tbsp agave

Mix the sauce ingredients together, and once you are done sauteing the tempeh and veggies, pour it on top and let it all heat up together. It's easy and good!

Onward.. this week I opened a large can of pumpkin and made these muffins! From VWaV, the best pumpkin muffins. I really just wanted to use my Halloween liners.

Then I made a pumpkin pie with a recipe from here. I used a pre-made graham cracker crust. The pie is great! But I think next time I will make the crust myself. Pat (Michelle's boyfriend) said it's good but needs more spices, Chris said so too. I don't really like pumpkin things, so I couldn't judge it. But they seemed to like it just fine.

Tonight Michelle and I made dinner. We made sweet and sour tofu/chicken with fried rice and steamed broccoli. I got the recipe for the sauce from here, it was sooo good. Here are my tofu cubes, cooking up. I BARELY sprayed the pan, I didn't want to use oil because I was afraid it would get soaked up and that would be gross. It turned out really light and crispy, I liked cooking it this way.

Brother Ben came over again for dinner, I think he's going to come every Tuesday! I was SO happy.. Michelle made chicken for her and Pat, but Ben picked the tofu over the chicken, woo! Chris has class until 8:45 so I packed him a little tupperware of rice, some broccoli and chicken for later.

Yum.

I just made banana muffins in a last ditch effort to use those liners before I pack up my Halloween kitchen things.. they're cooling now but I'll save those for the next post.

Renaissance Faire, Foods

Sunday was our one-year anniversary.. Chris took me to the Renaissance Faire - woohoo! It was a surprise so I didn't have time to get a fun outfit.. but I think I looked OK. Heck yes I got my face painted

We got a wax mold of our hands.. mine's red and his is blue. We're Superman!

The stocks!

We took a tour through that dungeon in the background to look at medieval torture devices.. terrible stuff!

Yesterday afternoon I made a peach pie. I made the filling from fresh peaches that my Mom picked over the summer and I had just frozen it since then. So I thawed it out and - voila! Pie!
Tonight for dinner my little bro come over so Michelle and I made this meal from a recipe her aunt had. (Her aunt is a vegetarian.) It's a tempeh stir-fry in a teryaki-peanut sauce, I'll put up the recipe in a little bit. It was great!
Now I must go - LA Ink is on tonight!

Family and a Present!

Well I had a busy "fall break!" On Saturday I went to work like usual, then my sister and I came back here to West Chester to watch Ben perform with the marching band at the football game. After the game the three of us drove down to DC to visit my Grandma. We got there pretty late so we just went to bed, and Sunday we got up and went to Asylum for the vegan brunch! It was pretty cool, the atmosphere was.. interesting. It was pretty much a twenty-something crowd with lots of tattoos and dark clothing.. so the three of us there with our Grandma seemed a little out of place. But the food was so cool!

The other side of the menu had a regular brunch, but my family played along and all ordered vegan things! Here's what I got, the vegan breakfast wrap. It has tofu scramble, cheese black beans and home fries wrapped up inside. Yum.
Grandma got the huevos rancheros, she said it was really spicy, but good! We all cleaned our plates haha.

Christine got the chili cheese tofu scramble.. she thought the texture of the tofu was a little off, but it tasted good. I think she was just expecting eggs.

Ben got the breakfast sandwich. It has soysage and tofu scramble on it. He said it was good but he thinks that the faux meats are always over compensated. Like before he said smart dogs were TOO hot doggy.. if that makes any sense. Like the attempt at getting the true flavor was overpowering.

After that we went to the Renwick gallery to check out the quilt exhibit.. we're big quilters. :-D I got inspired.. I want to start something!
And we had to leave that night because Christine didn't have fall break and had to get back to school on Monday. Here's the whole gang! Grandma, Ben, Christine and me. We're just missing our other brother, Nick.. he's Christine's twin. But he couldn't make it. Yar.

When I got back I had a surprise! Bazu sent me this vegan chocolate bar.. she must know about my coffee addiction... I feel so badly though! This was a thankyou for donating when she did the Walk for Farm Animals.. but I'm a college kid.. I only gave a measley ten dollars! Bazu it probably cost you that much to send this.. you shouldn't have!All in all it's been a grand week!

Blog Action Day

Well.. busy as I am, I had to get on here for blog action day! I'm not sure what to write about the environment, so I'll just post a few links. I found a page that I liked today about water conservation. 16 ways to conserve water and save money. And try taking the "How Green Are You?" quiz! Also, while I was in DC yesterday (I'll post about that later) I saw a green store called Hoopla, that hadn't opened yet (October 19th it will.)

Wednesday Dinner

Firstly, Monday, October 15th is blog action day! Blogger's everywhere will unite to bring one important topic to everybody's mind. This year it is:: the environment! So head over to the website and check it out.

Secondly.. tonight for dinner we had pan-fried tofu that I had marinated overnight, roasted veggies, and couscous. This meal was omni boyfriend and roommate approved! Pat (Michelle's boyfriend) couldn't make it for dinner tonight but I bet even he would have liked it.. and he's a real meat man.

This weekend I'm going with my sister and my little bro to visit our Grandma. She lives right outside of DC, so on Sunday morning we're going to have brunch at Asylum! I'm pretty excited, Chris and I didn't get a chance to go there on our vacation over the summer. You guys should check out their brunch menu and give me suggestions! Huevos rancheros?