Something Simple

Dinner tonight was something simple but a big venture from my week of stomach flu and crackers.

Grilled Cherry Tomatoes
Grilled YRR Portabellos
Mashed Potatoes (with skins!)
Blanched/Sauted Asparagus

Portabellos
Simple summer staples to start with the Mushroom caps and Cherry tomatoes were marinaded in Joanna's Yellow Rose Recipe Portabello marinade a lovely balsamic/lemon/garlic combo with my home made veggie stock from the other day. I let them soak for a few hours tossing and turning.

Heated the Gorge Foreman Grill for 5 minutes and seared for 4 minutes, rotate 90 degrees and sear some more. If you aren't using a two sided grill, you'll wanna flip them at some point.

For bonus points you can pour some of the marinade which escapes into the drip tray back over your plated mushrooms and potatoes.

Grilled tomatoes
The cherry tomatoes were skewed and added in the last few minutes to grill.

 Mashed potatoes
Standard far, wash, cut, boil in salt water until falling apart. Drain potatoes, return to pot with a spot of margarine, cracked pepper, grey salt and adding some of my home made vegetable broth (dark onion style, hence the colour) and mashing them together until fluffy.

Asparagus
Snap the hard ends into the composts bucket and toss them into the potato water for a few minutes then remove. Heat some margarine in a skillet over medium high heat and toss the blanched asparagus in the pan until it sears. Crack black pepper over top and toss in some grey slat. Shake and sear until you get things the way you like them.

And that's about it.

Quick and Easy meals

My kitchen is currently non-existent so apologies for the lack of posting. Here is an easy Bechamel sauce from the ppk website served on WW macaroni and steamed broccoli.

When water is boiling place basket with broccoli over water, once boiling move broccoli add pasta and return broccoli to steam.

Meanwhile make this quick and easy sauce. I adjusted the seasoning with extra salt, garlic power, onion powder and paprika with nutmeg like the french do.

Very rewarding and filling.

Post-Modern Lasagna

As any good post-modern lasagna this challenges traditional lasagna views and standards, and is a little bit twisted.

What you will need:
2 1/2 cups WW spiral (or bow tie) pasta
1 firm block of tofu (frozen then defrosted)
1/2 cups plain or unsweetened soymilk
1 T lemon juice
1 T dried basil
2 t oregano
1 t sea salt
1/2 white onion chopped
5 garlic cloves chopped
3 cups chopped spinach
1 green onion stalk
3 medium sized green garlic shoots
1 jar or recipe for you favorite tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste

To begin: Preheat oven to 355
Boil your noodles in salted water until almost done or al dente.While the noodle cook, blend your remaining ingredients (except your tomato sauce and greens!) until nearly smooth (if you like a chunkier texture, I won't tell). Dice your greens up and put them aside. Take a small amount of Olive oil to grease your baking dish (The deeper the better!). Once the dish is greased, add in your tofu mixture form the blender and add your chopped greens, stir until combined. Once your noodles are done, drain and rinse in cold running water, shake dry and add to baking dish. Toss to combine/coat with tofu mixture, then poor jar of tomato sauce over top. Shake a few times so the sauce drips on down and add your salt and pepper to the top.

Now pop that sucker in for the next 35 minutes or until nice and bubbly. Let sit for a few minutes before serving, optional nooch or vegan cheese for the top and you are set babies!

And you people thought vegan meant healthy

Well as usual, I am here to prove you wrong and bring you down into the gutters of vegan cuisine and eating. No, I'm not going to re-create mike's Tater pig, but we are headed into Lazy, Processed, No Effort, Heart Attack promotive Eating.

First up on our way to triple bi-pass, my introduction to solid food one week after wisdom tooth surgery. It ain't pretty, but damn if it isn't tasty. Simple, spicy fries and gravy. Gross you say? I thought so too, packaged spicy fries are to be enjoyed on their own or preferably not at all, but thanks to my little brother and his disgusting habits, I've given it a shot and by Goddess if it isn't white trash good eatings.







Extremely simple, prepare frozen spicy fries as directed by package. Once fries are done and hot, open your can of mushroom gravy (vegan of course) and ladle on top of plated fries.


Normally I would suggest you heat the gravy first, but as I wasn't supposed to be eating hot foods this combination of hot fries and room temperature gravy turned out to be a great combination (not warm enough for it to be an issue with my stitches but not so cold I want to hurl and give up eating all together). This was especially helpful if allowed to sit for a few minutes in order to soften up the crispier edges of the fries. Those of you not recovering from Oral Surgery are encourage to eat immediately.