New Apartment Foods

I said I'd be back soon! Backing up, this was Chris and my first dinner in the new place. It was the first day we got the keys. We didn't even have any furniture in here but we brought a pot over and made a Knorr Lipton pasta side that we added broccoli to.

Last night I made Pieless Apples A'la Mode (I think that was the title) from Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker (I think that's the title, haha.) We had it with vanilla ice cream.
And tonight for dinner we had burgers with summer squash and zucchini and some potato wedges.

A Good Dinner

Hey all, things are going pretty well lately. School is getting even more CRAZY as the end comes near! But the way my classes are structured I've been having finals all semester, hah. Anyway, on to the food.

I bought Morningstar Farms Parmesan Ranch chik patties a while ago because I had a coupon. Me and Chris had them with ranch sauce for dipping, Knorr Lipton pasta sides alfredo, and peas and corn with onions. It was a really good dinner!

Burger Night!

Tonight was burger night! Boca burgers with the works, roasted potatoes, and broccoli!

Brother Ben came over for dinner, as is the weekly ritual, he liked it! And then he let me take a picture of him with my new camera... thinking.

Tofu Stir Fry

So my little bro Ben is still coming over for dinner. On Wednesday this week it was just me and him, because Chris was too nervous to eat before his vocal jazz concert haha. We had tofu stir fry with rice.

Oh yeah, and here's a link to the recipe for the spinach zucchini soup from the other day.

Spinach Zucchini Soup

Last night Chris and I made this for dinner. Spinach and zucchini soup!

I'm not on my own computer right now, so I'll put a link to the recipe later.. I have it saved. It's got zucchini, fresh spinach, potatoes, onions, and cilantro. And I got to use my immersion blender! We had it with rolls-in-a-can, heh.

Split Pea Soup

I give you.. tonight's dinner!

It went like this.. saute 1/2 cup of each (chopped) onion, celery, and carrots in 1 tbsp of oil with a few spices of your choice. I used cumin, garlic powder, ginger and thyme. Then pour in 4 cups of water, 4 cups of veggie stock, and 1 pound of dried split peas. Bring to a boil, then turn it down and let it simmer for at least an hour.

I served it with rice, it was good!

Stuff Recently

A few weeks ago I made these s'mores brownies for a brownie contest at school.. I didn't win. They were good though! They had a graham cracker bottom crust, which Chris said was a little too crunchy but that can be fixed. I baked that first for like 5 minutes, then poured the brownie mix on top and baked that until it was ALMOST done, then I pulled it out and covered it with marshmallows and put it back in. After it cooled I drizzled chocolate over it.

Over Christmas break Chris' Granny helped me knit this stocking. I know how to knit, but I never followed a pattern before, or used circular needles. So this was interesting. I don't know when/if I'll make another one.

A few weeks ago we had this for dinner, it's Asian marinated tofu from VCON. Chris got me a grill pan for Christmas, so I used that to get these sweet marks. We had it with roasted potatoes and veggies. This was Ben's plate, he's still coming over for dinner once a week :)

Not much else is new. Just the homework.

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!