Wonderful Websites

I took a look at my old links and decided my favorites had changed. Also, I figured that by now everyone knew about Lolcats. So these are a selection of my favorite links that I think you're less likely to know about. Enjoy!

Environmental Working Group -This nonprofit focuses on disclosing how safe consumer products are. You've probably heard about the "Dirty Dozen," the common fruits and veggies that have the highest number of pesticides. EWG publishes this, as well as sunscreen safety guides (UBA/UVB spectrum and chemicals), cosmetic safety guides, and cell phone radiation studies, among others. They have some Iphone apps too, so you can be informed on the go.

Seafood Watch -This guide is published by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, another nonprofit. It tells you what seafood and sushi choices are sustainable and which are bad, and also give some info. about mercury contamination. They also have an Iphone app and a printable seafood guide, as well as sustainable seafood recipes.

$5 Meal Challenge Slow Food USA - This challenge was based out of the idea that you don't have to spend a lot to eat well. The $5 is based on the average cost of a fast food meal, so people have now submitted thousands of recipes for homemade healthy meals that are under $5/person (many are well under that cost).

Good Guide - This website rates consumer products and brands based on their impact on health, environment and society. Note they are not rated based on consumer satisfaction or value, you will need to use a different website to find that out. They have guides for pet care, kids, toiletries, clothes, and electronics. And they have an Iphone app too:)

Center for a New American Dream - This website is probably encompasses all of my own utopian ideals! Their mission statement says it all:

"The Center seeks to cultivate a new American dream—one that emphasizes community, ecological sustainability, and a celebration of non-material values, while upholding the spirit of the traditional American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We envision a society that pursues not just “more,” but more of what matters—and less of what doesn’t."

Mediterranean Pasta

This is a recipe that we've been making regularly because it's one of those easy meals that's great for a weekday night, while tasting like you spent a lot of time on it. You can prep all the toppings while the pasta boils. You can play around with the toppings, but I recommend at least keeping in the olive oil, vinegar and garlic, and making sure that some of the toppings will add salt for flavor. 

Mediterranean Pasta

Makes 4 servings (2 cups each)

20-30 minutes

8 ounces uncooked pasta (we use whole wheat penne)

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp olive brine

3 garlic cloves, minced

4-6 cups loosely packed chopped spinach (if frozen, use 2-3 cups and thaw (frozen spinach is denser))

15 oz can navy beans, no salt added (or 2 cups cooked)

1/4 cup finely chopped olives

1/4 cup marinated artichoke hearts (to reduce sodium, you could use fresh or frozen and cook it)

2 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted

1-2 tomatoes, gutted and chopped

3/4 cup (3 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

1) Follow package directions for cooking pasta. Continue other steps while pasta is cooking.

2) Combine olive oil, balsamic vinegar, olive brine, and garlic in a small bowl.

3) Combine remaining ingredients together (spinach-pine nuts), except for feta cheese and tomatoes.

4) When pasta is done cooking, drain then quickly return to pot. Quickly add and stir the spinach mixture and oil mixture into the pasta. The heat from the pasta will warm the other ingredients and wilt the spinach.

5) Top with the tomato and feta.

Vegan Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Filling

Charlie's grandma Jeanne is turning 90 this weekend! In celebration I made this cake. I took a Wilton cake decorating class last year but haven't tested out my skills since. The way we learned to decorate cakes in the class wasn't exactly health-the main frosting recipe we learned was based on shortening. So I set out to make a very special cake. I was worried that if it wasn't healthy, Charlie's grandmother wouldn't eat it. I didn't want it to taste healthy though. I also wanted it to be all natural and vegan. After looking through various recipes for ideas, this is the end result. I think it turned out well. It's not as healthy as eating a piece of fruit (although I did sneak 2 cups of fruits and veggies into this cake!), but as cakes go I think it's pretty good!

Cake batter:

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 Tbsp cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups flour (I used 1/2 all purpose and 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour)

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 Tsp Ener-G egg replacer + 1/4 cup water (you could use 2 eggs instead and omit oil)

2 Tbsp Canola oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 cups grated zucchini

additional water, if needed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then add wet ingredients. Stir until mixed, then add zucchini and stir until just blended. If the batter seems to dry, add more water, 2 Tbsp at a time until a better consistency. Coat 2-8 inch baking pans with cooking spray and pour mixture into pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes in pan then remove and completely cool on wire racks. This will make 2 short layers, if you want a tall cake you could double the recipe. The zucchini makes this very moist.

Raspberry filling: 

1/4 raspberries, fresh or frozen (thawed)

1/4 raspberry preserves

Puree raspberries then mix in preserves. This will spread pretty thin, if you wanted a thicker layer then you could use just preserves (but I find this to be too sweet). 

Chocolate frosting:

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup pureed raspberries (fresh or frozen, if you don't want the fruit you can sub water or soymilk)

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 Tbsp water

2 Tbsp smooth peanut butter at room temperature (or you can use coconut oil)

I had to use an immersion blender to get this to come together, since the peanut butter is a little hard to mix in. If the consistency is too thick to spread, add more water, 1 Tbsp at a time. The peanut butter in the icing will make the icing harden int the refrigerator. Although this doesn't sound like a lot of icing, it spreads easily so I even had some leftover. It tastes completely sinful too. Eating it, I can tell that there's peanut butter in the frosting but it's not the dominant flavor and it's not bad.

Buttercream frosting (for keeping filling inside and for decorating the top)

1/4 cup softened butter or non-hydrogenated margarine ( I used organic earth balance, which is vegan)

2 Tbsp pureed raspberries (or other berries, for color, sub water for white frosting)

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, plus extra

Mix with a hand blender. Add powdered sugar if it's too thin, or water 1 tsp at a time if it's too thick. I had a lot of frosting left for the amount of decorating I did. I don't recommend making any less than this though because it will be hard to fill the pastry bag. I really like the flavor that the raspberries give the frosting. If I wasn't trying to cut down on the sugar I would consider doubling the recipe and frosting the whole cake with it!

Baked Tofu

I am trying to come up with some better lunch options. Charlie and I usually either eat leftovers for lunches or make "Tofurky" sandwiches, which are somewhat processed and high in sodium. So I decided to try marinating some tofu myself for sandwiches and salads. Turned out great! Still maybe higher in sodium than I'd like so I might play with reduced the soy sauce more.

For this, I like the texture of the frozen tofu and you don't have to cook it as long because it gets the water out better. It also absorbs the marinade immediately so you don't have to let it set before cooking. You don't have to freeze it but the texture will be different and you would need to marinade the tofu overnight and bake it longer.

Ingredients:
1 package tofu
1/2 Tbsp powdered ginger (or fresh grated)
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 tsp Sriracha hot chili sauce (could substitute 1/8 tsp Cayenne)
2 tsp honey
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
3 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 1 Tbsp regular soy sauce + 2 Tbsp water)

Directions:
1) Tofu preparation (in advance)
Freeze and thaw, then gently squeeze out excess water

Slice tofu 1/8 inch thick. (or as desired, thicker=longer cooking time)

2) Whisk together remaining ingredients. Using a spoon or basting brush, spread thinly over tofu (it will absorb immediately if you froze the tofu)

3)  Place on parchment paper on a baking sheet (or lightly oil the pan). Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until browned, then turn over and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until browned.

My Favorite Kitchen Appliances

I think my cardinal rule for kitchen appliances is that they be multipurpose (no waffle irons or rice cookers for me). So aside from the standard pots and pans, these are my favorite things.

1) Kitchenaid food processor. This food processor is built to last. It came with a smaller bowl so it's easy to make foods of smaller quantities such as chopped nuts or pesto. It also came with a dough blade, and a grating blade that makes it easy to grate hard cheese or even potatoes for hash browns (carrots for carrot cake, zucchini for zucchini bread, you get the picture). Also has a slicing blade for meats or cheese. Purees soups or spreads (like hummus) in a snap.

2) Escali Primo Food scale. While food scales might bring to mind Weight Watchers, I use it mainly for cooking and getting quantities accurate. It makes it easy to measure flour without sifting, brown sugar without worrying about packing it, butter and peanut butter can just be thrown into the bowl without trying to get it in and out of measuring spoons, and dough can easily be divided for equal size loaves.

3) Kitchenaid immersion blender. I love this during the winter for pureeing vegetables right in the pot for thickening soups, during the summer for milkshakes or frappuchinos. Great for blending without getting a blender dirty, the blender part is removeable and dishwasher safe.

4) Presto pressure cooker. Makes meals in much less time! I love it for beans and rice and risotto.

5) Toaster oven. Can't remember what kind we have, but it's large enough that during the heat of summer we can avoid turning on the oven to make a small tray of cookies, rolls, toast nuts, and even makes small loaves of bread.

6) Chemex coffee maker. Ok this goes against my cardinal rule but I think if you want coffee you usually want a coffee maker. I love this one because there's no plastic heating up in it, it takes us less space than most coffee makers and it's not another appliance that requires a plug. It does take more work than a drip maker because the water has to be heated up first, but hey if the power goes out I could still have my coffee.

Vegan Chai Spiced Pudding-Yum!

I wanted something sweet and fast this afternoon so made this pudding. Yum! Makes six 1/2 cup servings (120 calories, 2 g fat, 3 g protein, 1 g fiber).

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups unsweetened soymilk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla
4 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt

Mix everything but vanilla together, heat on stove and stir until thickens (don't boil), and continue to cook/stir for 5 more minutes. Take off heat and stir in vanilla. Refrigerate.

Note: if you want to use vanilla soymilk, omit the vanilla added and reduce the amount of maple syrup to 1/3 cup.

The salad I've been waiting for

This weekend finally feels like summer! Since I turned my dissertation in Thursday, I've relaxed, went tubing and to the Tap Room in San Marcos on Friday, went hiking this morning at the green belt followed by a cherry lime slushie, and tomorrow am going to a barbeque! Yummy, relaxing weekend to make me feel human again. And to top it off, we just had our first summer salad 100% grown in our backyard.

It's Armenian and bush slicer cucumbers, cherry tomato, early girl tomato, white bermuda onion, and a little basil, salted and left to sit for about 15 minutes to get the juices going. Yum! I love the bush slicer cucumber. I was amazed at how sweet the early girl tomato was and how mild the onion was raw. Hopefully this is first of a lot of salads to come, although I am concerned with as hot as it's been the tomatoes may stop setting fruit.

From left to right: sweet potatoes, leeks, strawberries. The sweet potatoes keep growing, I am hoping the leeks will be ready soon, and the strawberries keep putting out a few berries.

We are getting our first green beans! A little later than we hoped, since we had to replant after something ate all the seedlings.

Our first summer squash! Right now it's about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, a flying saucer squash. It can get up to 4" but I plan on eating it by the end of the week.

Nice view of the flying saucer and bush slicer plants.

Baby bush slicer cucumbers.

A violet jasper tomato ripening. This is the second one that's ripened. It was the size of a large cherry tomato but tasted more like a regular tomato to me.

View of our tomatoes. They seem pretty happy right now.

The okra seedlings are growing slowly.

Harvest as of last post (3 weeks ago):
7 heads of garlic
2 carrots
1 cup snow peas (it's been too hot, they are petering out and we are letting the last stay on for seed)
15 cherry tomatoes (small fry and sweet million)
1 each- roma, early girl, and violet jasper tomatoes
1/4 cup strawberries
3/4 lb white bermuda onions (they did not grow as large as expected, but are very tasty)
1 bush slicer cucumber
1 (small) Armenian cucumber

The cherry tomatoes have arrived!

It has been about a month since the last garden update. Sadly, we still haven't had any rain (at least not enough to count in the rain gauge). It's been what, 2 1/2 months now and it's supposed to be the rainy season! We have mulched the garden heavily now, but it has also been unseasonable hot, 90s most days, so we are still having to water 2-3 times/week. Our garden has had some exciting developments:

This week we started getting ripe cherry tomatoes, 3 so far but at least 10 more in the process of ripening.

Our tomato plants are various degrees of happy. Some of the thinner transplants were killed by something that cut them at the base, so we added a few more transplants late and they are obviously smaller than the older tomatoes. I also accidentally decapitated a roma plant so it is now in the process of growing a new main stem...I also think the east row of tomatoes is getting more sun and are taller than the west row.

The jalepeno has flowered, several times actually but so far none of the blooms have survived to fruit. They keep falling off, but I think they are getting pollinated.

Because of the super hot weather, the lettuce was finished, so we replaced it with sweet potato slips about 2 weeks ago. They have already put on several leaves, and apparently the greens can also be yummy to eat. They are supposed to take 110 days (Vardaman bush variety), so we will see how they turn out in mid-August! If you look closely, behind the slips there is a row of leeks and garlic, and then the strawberries and snow peas. The strawberry plants have grown more, but not fruited much. We also planted some Clemson spineless okra, which is growing well so far (not shown).

If you look really closely you can see the start of our first cucumber! It is an Armenian cucumber.

 

 Our potted cucumber and some of our squash have also really taken off! No fruit yet, but I see some female flowers getting ready to bloom!

We repotted our herbs into a single large pot (except for the oregano, it would take over). Even though they have less space, I think they are happier because the smaller pots dried out quickly. Back-basil, center-rosemary, front-parsley and dill.

An overview of the garden. The HUGE plants in the right bed are potatoes. 

Garden harvest for the last month:

10 cups romaine and mesclum (unfortunately some of it bolted and bitter)

5 cups swiss chard (and a little spinach, also bolted now)

8 small carrots (totalling maybe 6 ounces...)

5 cups sugar snap peas

3 cherry tomatoes

1/4 cup green onions

1/2 cup herbs

3 heads of garlic

5 strawberries? few and far between...

 This month has been more of a transition from spring to summer vegetables, so not very much harvested. Hopefully more to come soon!

Strawberries and Tomatoes and Squash, Oh My!

Our garden is growing great! We have had our first two ripe strawberries, with many more ripening. For some reason, the very first one had part of it go bad (we could not see any little bites out of it), but the rest have been ripening ok so far. We have since covered the strawberries with bird netting and haven't had any stolen.

 The tomatoes have also been looking great! There were a few that died on us, but we had extras and transplanted them in. We have 10 tomato plants and 6 of them already have tomatoes. Some of the plants are not growing as big as expected, but the tomatoes are all we really care about anyway.  I had a sad accident trying to adhere one of the roma tomatoes to the trellis-it was not as bendy as I hoped and the top snapped off and we lost some tomatoes with it! Oops...now I know. The tomato pictured below is a "small fry" variety and produces cherry tomatoes.You can also see our house in the background.

 The squash and zucchini are also growing at their own pace. There are buds forming, so hopefully we'll have many little squash soon! To the right of the large zucchini, there is a container of slicer cucumbers just starting out. We had hoped to have it started sooner, but there was a little typo about planting the cucumber seeds 3" deep, so the first time we tried they didn't survive.

 The snow peas are also looking great and have a lot of little pods on them that will be ready to eat within the week. I haven't been able to help myself and I've eaten 1 or 2 each day even though they weren't full size yet.

We never gave up on the carrots (front corner), but we probably won't plant them again. Now that sun is hitting the full garden they have a lot more leaves, hopefully translating into more roots. The potatoes (large plants in back) look awesome, hope something comes from it (since we aren't really looking to eat the stems). You can also see a few peppers we have planted. They are not growing very quickly, and something has eaten some of the leaves so we don't know how great they will do.

I have seen several of these little assassin bugs on the potatoes and snow peas. I think they're cute! Though  they are supposed to pack a bite if you touch them. I'm happy to see them, they kill some of the insects that try to eat the produce!

While most of what is planted is revving up with the weather, we had to cut lots of the spinach and lettuce because it was beginning to bolt. There is no way we will be able to keep them throughout the summer, we are just hoping to get a little more to tide us over until some of the other plants produce more. My summer replacement for spinach is going to be chard, and the replacement for lettuce is going to be lots of cucumber salads (hopefully!).

Random cat picture. Cookie, the grey ghost. I wish that the cats actually kept birds away from the garden, but they tend to stalk birds more than chase them away.

Garden total for last 3 weeks:
30 cups mesclum salad mix
4 heads romaine
30 cups spinach
5 cups swiss chard
1/2 cup herbs (oregano, basil, parsley)
1/2 cup green onions
2 strawberries
5 snow peas

I am hoping by the next update we might have a few tomatoes and carrots ready, and I expect we will have lots of snow peas!
Failures: turnips, too many little bugs eating them they can't get large enough to keep growing.Something is also eating the green beans, but we have put black plastic containers around them to try and keep bugs out.

The Spring Garden is the Best? For Texas

In the last week or two the garden has just exploded. It's like someone hit a spring switch.

In addition to the lettuce and spinach continuing like mad (we keep eating salad like crazy and finding new recipes for the spinach), the chard is starting to take off and the leeks actually look like leeks now (as opposed to sad chives).

The sugar snap peas and potatoes are growing like gangbusters. Some of each are about a foot tall, I hope some of the peas start flowering soon!

Charlie made new trellises for the tomato plants. We have lots of tomato plants, I am hoping this is an insurance policy on us getting something! We are still garden amateurs, since we started last fall this is the our first round of warm weather plants. We are also practicing square foot gardening and tried to get only space saving varieties (with the exception of the celebrity tomato, which we potted). We will have to keep on top of the pruning.

I was amazed that the tomatoes started flowering only 2 weeks after transplanting! This is a sweet million cherry tomato, and if you look closely at the tip of my finger you can see a blurry image of the first tomato starting to form. Five of our tomato plants already have flowers. Yay!

We have potted zucchini and squash so that we don't have to worry about them spreading over the garden. So far, so good. We are trying to keep an eye out as we heard the squash borers can be quite a problem here.

Finally, ahh sweet sweet strawberries. We have about 20 strawberry plants, and I'd hoped this mean we'd get something from them. This week the strawberries went from just leaves to having 10 flowers. You can see the start of a strawberry here! We will need to find some bird netting stat. I hope they keep coming. I think strawberries are one of the few fruits that you can plant and harvest the same year (melons and possibly transplanted figs are the others I can think of). I would looove fresh fruit.

The oregano is also looking great! I'm glad I gave up on the seeds and bought the transplant. The rosemary, however, doesn't look any difference since the transplant.

 

Mac says he protects the garden from birds and squirrels. Extra treats please!

Garden harvest for the last 2 1/2 weeks: 
 15 cups romaine (we've mostly stopped harvesting whole heads and just harvest the outer leaves, we're concerned it will be too warm to start new plants)
20 cups mesclum salad mix
20 cups spinach
2 cups swiss chard
1 carrot (sad looking though)
2 Tbsp parsley (sounds sad, but I'm excited it finally grew some!)

In addition to these totals there is much more lettuce and spinach ready to harvest but we can't eat it all that fast. As is, we've had salad pretty almost every day we've eaten at home.


Most of the plants are in transition and not quite to bearing food yet. The tomatoes and strawberries are setting fruit, the peas haven't flowered yet, the carrots and basil appear are on their way.

A Late Garden Update

I wrote this post two weeks ago and forgot to hit publish. Oops! Much has changed since then so I will need to update again soon.

Lots has changed since the last garden update over a month ago. I apologize for the pictures, the light was not making it easy to take pictures.

We had a huge freeze and ended up losing the sugar snap peas since we could not cover them on the trellis, so we have replanted these. We also had damage to lots of plants and had to cut off leaves, but didn't actually lose anything else. The broccoli and cauliflower survived and we harvested those heads, but they did not grow as large as the first heads that we'd obtained before the freeze.


Small bed: romaine, spinach, mesclum, chard, leeks, garlic, strawberries and snow peas.

The lettuce and spinach are still growing great! Since we are at the end of the planting time for lettuce here, we are starting to harvest the outside leaves of romaine rather than harvesting whole heads. One of our heads is starting to grow really tall, going to seed maybe? Hopefully the others don't follow. It's not that warm yet!


Large bed: onions (white bermuda), carrots, tomatoes (several varieties), romaine (parris island), shallots, snow peas (oregon) and potatoes (red pontiac and yukon gold).  Not up yet: purple top turnips, armenian cucumber, green beans.

This weekend we planted warm weather crops: tomatoes, squash, cucumber, chard, and green beans. I've been trying to grow turnips, but something keeps eating them so this time we planted tons of seeds, hoping some seedlings survive. I also planted potatoes and onions in early February and the potatoes are starting to pop up.

Our desires for plants have overshot the space in our garden, so we are container gardening some. We have squash in huge containers, herbs of course, and I even found a small container variety of cucumber that is supposed to mature in 53 days. Here's hoping!



Garden harvest in last 6 weeks (ballpark):
2 heads romaine plus 5 cups (parris island)
20 cups mesclum salad mix
30 cups spinach (japanese giant and tyee)
1 cup chard
1/2 cup sugar snap and snow peas
1/2 cup green onion
2 heads cauliflower
2 heads broccoli
20 cups broccoli and cauliflower leaves (we souped these)
2 somewhat small carrots (we are kind of giving up on these guys)

This is our all local salad beets, carrots and tomatoes from the farmers market, lettuce and green onion from our garden.The lettuce and spinach have been producing like crazy and will definitely plant again. The cauliflower and broccoli take up a lot of room and in my opinion, not worth the room. I would be interested to try carrots again when they are not in the shade, but we haven't gotten much from those either.

More Yummy Dinner Recipes, and Some Sides

Easy veggie stroganoff
8 oz linguini
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion sliced
8 oz mushrooms sliced
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp each dry thyme, marjoram, basil
1/2 c. broth
TVP already reconstituted with broth
1/4 c. sour cream

1. Start boiling noodles.
2. Saute onions in oil in a large skillet.
3. Add mushrooms and saute until soft, then add garlic and spices and saute 1 min.
4. Add TVP and vegetable broth. Cook until it starts to boil.
5. Turn off heat, add sour cream and noodles.

Mushroom Risotto-We use a pressure cooker for this, so I am not sure what the cooking time would be without it. This is a delicious recipe, it feels more sophisticated than a lot of the other things I make. We always double this and it goes fast.

1/2 lb mixed wild mushrooms (chantrelles, porcini, cremini etc.)
1 large shallot (or sub 1/4 c onion)
1 c. arborio rice
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 tsp fresh or dried rosemary (or if you love it like me, 1 tsp)
2 1/4 c. stock
1 Tbsp butter
salt, pepper to taste
grated parmesan

1. Separate and chop mushroom stems. Slice mushroom caps.
2. Saute mushroom caps in pressure cooker or skillet, pinch salt and pepper in the olive oil about 3 min, or until mushrooms are soft. Remove and set aside.
3. Melt butter in pressure cooker, then add shallot and mushroom stems. Cook 2 min.
4. Add rice and stir to coat with butter.
5. Mix in wine and rosemary, cook 30 sec.
6. Add broth and stir.
7. Lock lid and bring to high pressure, then stabilize pressure and cook 8 min.
8. Release pressure by running water over lid. Add mushrooms and cover, stand 5 min before eating. Add grated parmesan for serving.

Migas- this is our go-to recipe for a 10 minute meal. Migas is Tex-Mex, you are supposed to add your leftover broken tortilla chips, hence the name (there are also Spanish versions, but they are very different flavor-wise). I do not recommend using this for leftovers. This recipe serves enough for Charlie and me.

1/2 tsp veg. oil or nonstick spray
pepper
1 green pepper chopped
1/2 cup onion chopped
1 jalepeno chopped (optional, seed and derib to reduce heat)
1 roma tomato chopped
2 whole eggs
3-4 egg whites
1/4-1/2 c. broken tortilla chips (optional)
1/4-1/2 cup grated cheese (we use Mexican cheese blend or cheddar)
3 Tbsp salsa
tortillas or tacos for serving (optional, recommended if no leftover tortilla chips)

1. Heat large skillet and add oil and pepper. Saute all vegetables except tomatoes until soft.
2. Add tomato and saute 1 min.
3. Scramble eggs and add to the vegetables. Let set 1 min then mix to cook.
4. When eggs are mostly cooked, add the leftover tortilla chips.
5. When eggs are fully cooked, add the cheese until melted.
6. If desired, heat each tortilla individually over the egg mixture (if you are cooking a large batch, you can heat them in aluminum foil in the oven).
7. For serving, add salsa and if desired, extra cheese for garnish.

Falafel-This recipe is great and no deep frying necessary! The leftovers are also great for lunch. You do need a very good food processor, a potato masher may also work. We replace the cilantro with parsley, but it also does well without either. We've found we only need a half recipe of the sauce.

Pizza Dough and Sauce-Time consuming for sure but we love it. We use a pizza cheese blend  and each top our half with what we want. Dough: I add 1 Tbsp sugar and usually add a few Tbsp of wheat gluten to make the dough more stretchy. Sauce: We have found the sauce can use a little extra wine (we usually use sherry) and does need 1/4 tsp salt. Charlie likes spicier sauce and so he adds red pepper flakes to his side of the pizza.

Sweet Potato Casserole-Before I found this recipe, I only ate sweet potato casserole at Thanksgiving and Christmas (when someone else made it). But this side I'll eat all the time. The orange juice in this is amazingly refreshing and the recipe is not too sweet (maybe fresh over candied yams make the difference?). Also, I think grating your own nutmeg makes a big difference for the flavor.


Summer zucchini-squash saute-I know, I know, many of my recipes are all out of season but I'm typing them out now so. This is my favorite vegetable side. The vegetables will cook faster with a lid on, but then to evaporate the liquid you will need to remove the lid. The key  is to keep cooking until the liquid evaporates so the flavors don't run off the vegetables. I honestly am completely guessing on these quantities but I think it's pretty fail-proof. You can use a large skillet, but I often use a pot so I can put a lid on the veggies.

2 Tbsp butter or margarine
1 small onion, chopped
1 lb zucchini, chopped
1lb yellow squash, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
grated parmesan for serving
salt to taste

1. On medium heat, saute onions until soft in the margarine.
2. Add zucchini and squash, cook until soft.
3. Add tomatoes. Continue cooking until all of the water evaporates. Serve with parmesan.

Some Dinner Recipe Favorites

I have not been inspired to blog recently, but my friend Bridget often posts her meal plans so I am inspired to post some of my favorite recipes.

"Spicy peanut pasta" this recipe is from the magazine Cooking Light and also in my cookbook from them (their website also has lots of recipes). This recipe is delicious and fast. Note: you absolutely must use an all natural peanut butter for this to be tasty. Nothing with added sugar, etc. We also make a few amendments: we use sauteed firm tofu cubes instead of shrimp, and we do not add any salt, chopped peanuts, cilantro or lime. The green onions are also optional. We also often add more cucumber and bell pepper.

Butternut squash lasagna this is also from Cooking Light. It's more time consuming, but can be prepped in advance of cooking, and makes tons of yummy leftovers that also freeze well. The parsley is optional I am not a fan of eating much dairy, so I usually substitute mashed tofu for some or all of the ricotta.

 Veggie Gumbo, serve with rice. Technically not a gumbo since we don't make a roux, but it does taste like it. Also makes lots of yummy leftovers.
1 small green pepper chopped
1 small red pepper chopped
3 celery ribs chopped
1 medium onion chopped
2 c. okra chopped (I usually prefer frozen precut)
2 cloves garlic minced
1 Tbsp veg. oil
3 c. broth
1/2 Tbsp no salt cajun spice (double if salted)
1/2 tsp salt (omit if adding salted cajun spice)
2 soysausage patties, cut into small pieces (optional)

1. Sautee peppers and onions in oil in a medium pot.
2. Add okra and celery and saute until tender, then add garlic and saute another 1 min.
3. Add broth, spices and soysausage, cover and simmer.

To me this recipe is like chili, you can cook it as long as you want or eat it quick.

For homemade no salt Cajun Seasoning:
2 Tbsp white pepper
2 Tbsp black pepper
2 Tbsp onion powder
2 Tbsp garlic powder
2-4 Tbsp cayenne
2 Tbsp paprika
Optional-2 Tbsp thyme, oregano

Note: most cajun spices are about 1/2 salt, so if you use this for other recipes you want to cut the amount of seasoning in half! Otherwise burn your tongue.


Beans and Rice-I use a pressure cooker but if you don't have one, it will cook in about twice the time (it may also require a little more liquid to account for water loss). I usually double the recipe to make lots of leftovers.
1/3 cup black beans, soaked
1/3 cup black-eyed peas, soaked
2/3 cup brown rice
1 large green pepper, chopped
3 celery ribs, chopped
1 small onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp thyme
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes chopped
2 oz veggie sausage (optional)
1 Tbsp veg oil (double if no sausage)
cayenne, salt and pepper to taste
(we use low sodium broth and then add 1/4 -1/2 tsp salt)

1. sautee vegetables until soft in pressure cooker.
2. add garlic and thyme, cook 1 min.
3. add all other ingredients, stir and place on lid.
4. heat on medium heat to high pressure. Reduce heat to stabilize pressure.
Cook: 24 min brown rice. If using white rice, cook 16 min.
5. release pressure by running cold water over cover. Let stand, covered but unlocked, 5 min.

Notes: Can use jalepenos instead of cayenne. If you add extra vegetables, you need to reduce the amount of broth added.

 Broccoli Rice Casserole-This recipe is from the cookbook The Compassionate Cook. While it is a PETA cookbook, it is one of the least "stuck up" vegetarian cookbooks I've found. What I mean by that is it doesn't call for a lot of weird ingredients or call for a million different preparations to complete the recipe. And the recipes are usually tasty too! Being a casserole this particular recipe does take prep work. I usually steam the broccoli in the microwave and use instant brown rice. I also add tempeh for protein. In spite of not having cheese, the nutritional yeast makes it taste cheesy. I omit the salt, especially since I am usually using salted margarine or butter.

Garden Update

Our garden has been doing great since the last update. It has also been raining a lot more, so we haven't had to water much at all. Here are some new pictures (thanks Charlie:).

The lettuce and spinach have really taken off. We've also planted some strawberries that should produce around April.

The broccoli and cauliflower are now producing! Hopefully they are ready to eat soon.

Garden harvest so far:
3 heads romaine (with several more close to ready)
10 cups mesclum salad mix
20 cups spinach
2 cups? sugar snap and snow peas (really hard to tell, we usually eat them immediately)
10 cups arugula
2 cups? green onion. Also hard to tell the amount.
1/2 pound green beans (we had some problems with them)
2 jalepenos
1 green pepper (we planted the peppers too late and didn't get much)

Ready soon: broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. I have been scared to pull up the carrots but some may be ready now. The swiss chard is also taking off.

Total failures: squash, cucumber and potatoes. I think we just planted too late.

Food Part #2 Solar Oven

I have been planning on building a solar oven for quite awhile and last week finally got around to doing it! It was pretty cheap to do and not too hard either. Of course I had all the same sized boxes and the outer box is larger, so I had to adjust the plan and put two boxes together (hence the hexagonal shape). 

You probably cannot see the oven thermometer I put inside, but it's reading about 200 degrees. The temperature swung between 175 and 200 for most of the day. It was not a very hot day, low 80s, so I was happy with that. At least the oven got to the slow cooker temperature range. The biggest problem I had using the oven was that I had to move it because our lawn gets a lot of shade. I also did not do a good job stabilizing the lid so the flap fell a few times and decreased the temperature.

When I was done making the solar oven, I wanted to use it but hadn't thought of any recipes so I threw in some apples and sprinkled on cinnamon and sugar.

They cooked! I have no idea how long it actually took them to cook, but they were in the oven for about 5 hours. I think I will need to perfect my solar oven skills. I envision slow cooked baked potatoes. Solar ovens are not supposed to save much energy, since cooking only accounts for 4% of energy use. But I would loooove it if I could avoid heating up the house on warm days, which just happens to be the best days for solar cooking. If I really get into solar cooking I will probably upgrade to a better model and use wood instead of cardboard, nails instead of tape and staples. But for now this model seems to be sufficient for slow cooker speeds. 


This is the design that I modified for solar cooking: http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/surv/solarbox.htm
There are lots of  other designs out there. This design is probably the simplest but also the most limiting: http://solarcooking.org/plans/newpanel.htm . Parabolic designs are supposed to get as hot as conventional ovens but also can result in burns and eye injuries. And of course, there's lots of companies willing to sell them to you if you don't want to build the solar oven.

Food Food Food!

I am doing several posts over the next several days on my food obsession hobby: #1 garden, #2 solar oven, and #3 cooking. Maybe I'm a little obsessed, but food is one of those things that you can't live without, so you might as well enjoy it! Charlie and I have been working on the garden, so here are a few pictures.

This is a partial view of the raised beds. The large plants in front are green beans, there are also peas and cucumbers a little further back on the trellis. Charlie and I made the trellises with wood and bamboo from Lowes ("we" made them is being generous, we shopped for supplies together and I scored marks for where to put the bamboo, Charlie did the rest). Much cheaper them buying them premade. The pots are peppers.

Close up of the peppers. We have green and red bell, and jalepenos (which are flowering now). The right pot is a squash. We might transplant it to the garden, we did not think there would be room before.

Baby bell pepper!

Green onions and carrots (the carrots are too small to see well). We bought green onions for baking, and they came with roots so we replanted them. They grow pretty fast.

Shallots and carrots. On the right corner you can also see one of the garlic.

Lettuce, which is not looking very good right now. Apparently lettuce does not do well when it's above 80. Oops. We'll try again later probably.

For the kitties, cat grass, which was looking great but now has been decimated from noms.

That's it for now! Happy Tuesday!