It's Bananas

Banana Froyo

Did lots of cooking with bananas today.  I started the morning with a homemade banana frozen yogurt.  I blended a frozen banana with some soy strawberry frozen yogurt. The picture does not do it justice.  It had a very creamy texture and that frozen yogurt taste.

Chocolate Pudding

The chocolate pudding I made yesterday was ready to eat today. It turned out great. Very chocolaty, good texture and nice pudding taste.  Using cornstarch thickened it up very nicely. 

Banana Bread

I made two different loaves of Banana Bread.  The first one used a mix of white flour and oat flour. I went a little nonvegan with it.  The recipe called for dry milk and I still had some on hand.  I think I have had that package for a few years.   But that's the purpose of dry milk right?  It doesn't go bad.  This loaf rose up really well and tasted great.

Whole wheat Banana Bread

The second loaf was made with whole wheat flour, two fake eggs instead of one, and a half cup more of walnuts.  No dry milk in this.  If did not rise up as much and looks like a much more dense and heavy loaf.  I did not taste this one.  It is going in the freezer for another day.

PB&J

I used the first loaf for lunch to take a peanut butter sandwich with orange marmalade. Very filling.

Dinner was comfort food time. I had leftover refried beans topped with mashed potatoes and brown gravy on a bed on spinach.  I can eat stuff like this all day.

Soup's On

Oatmeal

It was a cold snowy day in Baltimore and time for some comfort food.  I started the day with some loaded oatmeal.  I cooked steel cut oats with raisins, ground flaxseed, cinnamon, almonds, and diced apple.  It was topped off with some blueberries.  That was a good filling breakfast that lasted all morning.

Chili

Chili is the ultimate comfort food.  This one was loaded also.  I sauteed a couple of yellow onions, garlic and green pepper.  Then I mixed in pinto beans, black beans, kidney beans, a ground beef substitute, corn, diced tomatoes and pureed tomatoes. It was spiced with salt, black and white pepper, and chili powder. For good measure, I poured in 1.5 cups of red wine.  Very hearty lunch.  I do not like to use too many processed foods, but chili seemed the right time to add some mock meat.  This one from Yves, has the texture of ground meat and is made from texture soy protein and wheat gluten.

At dinner we had some more soup.  This one was a super charged minestrone.  A little of everything was in it - acorn squash, onion, garlic, carrot, celery, whole wheat pasta, broccoli, corn, kidney beans, cannelloni beans, diced tomatoes, and spinach.  It was seasoned with salt, pepper, thyme, marjoram, and tarragon.  I used a fresh batch of homemade stock for the liquid. It was a perfect meal to end the day.

Grilling and Roasting

One nice thing about this time of year is that cooking helps warm the house.We haven't used the heat yet because the grill, oven and dishwasher are warming the house.  Trying to save on the utilities seems a lost cause.  We used a little less electricity and a lot less gas than this time last year, but our bill was $11 higher. The amount is not that much, but it is just the principle of the matter. Anyway, I grilled some eggplant and zucchini to go in the Miso Soup at lunch.  Tommy has been taken antibiotics for an infected tooth and I have been trying to make sure he gets some probiotics every day.  The soup used onion, spinach, carrot and sundried tomatoes with a barley miso.  I add the grilled veggies to mine and grilled a chicken thigh for Tommy to add to his soup.

Miso soup

More eggplant and zucchini at dinner.  I roasted a big batch in olive oil with garlic powder and turmeric.

I used this as a topping for the rice dish at dinner.  I sauteed, broccoli, tofu, tomato, cannelini beans and rice for a nice comfort food dinner. The rice has a purplish color because I added a quarter cup of black rice to the brown rice when I cooked up a big batch the other day.

November starts

one dish meals

As  the temps drop, comfort food moves in. Lately I have been doing a lot of one dish meals. The one above is  a mix of black beans, roasted corns, Japanese yam (white flesh and is sweet), onion, cilantro and avocado. I baked the potato first, then just sauteed everything together in the skillet.

Blueberry smoothie

This was my breakfast this morning. The smoothie is made with rice milk, pomegranate juice,cocoa, spinach, dates, an lots of frozen blueberries.  I am amazed  at what I put in smoothies, but you do not notice the taste of the spinach.

Another new product for me is this herbal coffee.  I do not drink real coffee, it tastes like an aspirin dissolving in my mouth.  My mother could not stand the taste of coffee either, so it might be genetic. The only way I have ever been able to drink was with lots of hot chocolate and berry syrups which left almost no taste of coffee.  This product is made with chicory and cocoa.  It is prepared like coffee, I used a french press. The taste as nice and very chocolaty. I had to add a cube of sugar for each cup, so it is not the zero calorie beverage like tea. It is caffeine free.

Pesto

One of my clean out the refrigerator before grocery day creations was this pesto.  It is made with basil, cilantro, mint, and parsley for the herbs.  Some pine nuts, garlic, and nutritional yeast finish out the recipe.  I hate waste and it always feels good to use the produce up.  I spread this on sandwiches or used is pasta or rice dishes, such as the pasta primavera with tomatoes and asparagus.

Pasta Primavera

Dessert Success

Resting dogs

I started the day with a Fruit Salad and some of the Orange Oatmeal Coffee Cake. The salad was made with peaches, blueberries, pear and cashew nuts. These fruits have so much more flavor than the melon mixes that most restaurants use.  I spread some peanut butter and apple jelly on the slices of coffee cake.  Once fresh fruit season comes around, I hope to make some fruit preserves.

Lunch was a salad and an Olive Bread Roll spread with Hummus.  The salad was made with spinach as the greens with some black olives, cherries, and sugar snap peas. I used the Cranberry Vinaigrette to dress it. The bread and hummus were the ones I made earlier in the week.

Dinner was my version of a Blue  Plate Special of meat, potatoes and a vegetable.  For the 'meat' I tried a new variety of faux sausage. This one was made from soy protein and had a much better consistency than the last one I bought.  I was able to grill it along side Tommy's chicken sausage.  It was spicy.  The heat was a bit more intense than I like. It was probably just right for most people.

I finally used the rest of the butter on the Onion Gravy and Mashed Potatoes.  From this point on I will be using Earth Balance.  For the gravy, onions were cooked in butter then I added whole wheat flour as a thickening agent.  That cooked for a minute then I slowly  added vegetable stock until it reached a gravy thickness.  The potatoes were boiled and hand mashed with butter and oat milk.  For the vegetable, I sauteed collard greens, broccoli, green beans, and sugar snap peas in vegetable stock.

For dessert we had some Lemon Tarts.  This was a big time success.  I adapted a recipe from an old Bon Appetite magazine.  I started sugar, corn starch and water. After that started to simmer, I added a mix of silken tofu and lemon juice.  The original recipe called for 8 egg yolks that were beaten.  I used almost a cup of tofu and beat it with the lemon juice. Some lemon zest was added and the mixture cooked until it boiled. That was removed from the heat and half a stick of Earth Balance was added in.  The curd was transferred to the refrigerator to cool down.  The crust for the tarts was a basic vegetable shortening crust with no adaptions necessary.  Once everything was cool,  the lemon curd was spooned into the crust.  The curd was nice and thick and would accommodate fresh fruit as decoration. We just ate them plain.  This came out prefect. I had extra curd leftover that I can use as a dressing for a fruit salad.

Valentine's Day

and the day after.  I made another attempt at pancakes.These were Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes with  the banana acting as the binder for the dough. The texture was much better than my last attempt.  Not exactly the same as egg pancakes, but an improvement over the silken tofu ones.  The big down side would be if did not like bananas. I ate them with maple syrup.

For lunch I had a mixed greens based salad with a Red Wine Vinaigrette.  The dressing was made with olive oil, dijon mustard and red wine 'vinegar'. When we buy a wine that is not very good, I save them the cooking.  Often a red is kept for a while and allowed to vinegar. When used in a dressing it has a very strong distinctive taste that is a little wine and a little vinegar.  Tommy and I enjoy this, but it might not be everybody's style.  The salad was composed of mixed greens, peanuts, butternut squash, dried cranberries and roasted bell pepper.

We usually do not go out for dinner on Valentine's Day because it of large crowds, limited menus and less tasty dishes than the regular menus offers.This year was no different.  I decided to go with comfort food and make a French Toast Sandwich.  Last time I made French Toast, I just ended up with soggy bread. This time I blended the silken tofu and almond milk in a mixed for a smoother soaking liquid.  That part worked. However, when the bread was toasted the mix stayed in the skillet and did not adhere to the bread. The bread was crispier because I cooked it longer, but it did not resemble French Toast. I spread the bread with a mix of dijon and honey to make a honey mustard.  It was not as sweet as regular honey mustards and had that dijon zing. I used flax seed tempeh for my meat (Tommy had deli turkey.) that was fried in the olive oil while the bread was cooking.  This did not have the best texture.  Next time I will try a different cooking method. Finally, I melted some rice 'cheese' over the sandwich.  This stuff was awful.  I knew it would not taste like real cheese, but I hoped it would taste good. That didn't happen.  The photo makes the sandwich look more palatable than it was.

For today's breakfast, I made a Pumpkin Oatmeal. Old fashioned oats were simmered with water, dried cranberries, raisins, pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg with a little agave nectar to sweeten it.

Lunch was a vegetable and bean salad featuring a Lemon Vinaigrette.  This was a simple dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and zest, garlic, salt and pepper. The salad was made with red cabbage, kidneys beans, butternut squash, snap peas, walnuts,cucumber, grape tomatoes, kalamata olives,  roasted yellow bell pepper, carrot and watermelon salsa.

Dinner was based on the basic idea of meat and potatoes.  The tempeh was grilled this time, since I was also grilling steak for Tommy. The browning of the tempeh improved its taste and texture.  For the sides I microwave baked some small russet potatoes and boiled green beans.  All of these were topped with a Miso Sauce that included ginger, rice vinegar, sesame oil, green onions, sesame seeds and olive oil.

Comfort food

Today was a very cold day.  I took the dogs for a walk when the wind chill was 5 degrees.  It was so cold Jack crawled under a blanket on the couch. Cold days are great for comfort food, which is what I did for breakfast and dinner.

Breakfast was a Huevous Ranchero using tofu for the eggs.  It was served on a tostado with my salsa.  On the side were Garlic Kale Hash browns made from what the name implies, garlic, kale and potatoes.

For lunch I made a Chickpea Salad from chickpeas, red bell pepper, celery, apple, capers and parsley with a tahini based dressing.  I had a piece of my peasant bread on the side.

One of the best ways to keep the house warm without turning up the heat is to have something simmering on the stove for several hours.  I made 3 quarts of vegetable stock from veggie pieces that I keep in the freezer.  Whenever I am prepping vegetables, the ends or stalks or other pieces that we don't eat are stored in a plastic bag.  When I need stock, I empty the bag into a 5 qt. pan, add water, and simmer for several hours.  I strain the liquid into a large pitcher and have enough stock for a couple of weeks of soup and rice.  I also made a large batch of Sweet Potato Lentil Chili with onions, sunchokes, garlic, crushed tomatoes, sweet potatoes, lentils and black beans.  I roasted some tortillas sprinkled with garlic and onion powder as an accent.

What was nice about the meals was that I didn't miss meat or eggs at all.  Everything was warm, tasty and filling.