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.