More A Foods

Today, I made squash and peaches for A. She had some squash this afternoon, and in a few days will get to try the peaches. I froze the food after cooking it in little hearts <3.
The squash smelled really yummy while cooking...wish I had gotten a larger one (I got a mini mini squash just for A).

Muffins

D's birthday was Monday, and he loves muffins. He normally buys (ugh) muffins at the Key Food down the block, but they haven't been stocking them lately. So, I made three kinds of muffins for his birthday on Sunday and Monday.

Sunday, J and I made banana nut muffins, based off a recipe in The Joy of Vegan Baking, and 8-grain muffins, based on a recipe in The Vegetarian Mother. Monday, I made carrot bran muffins as birthday cakes. (J is on a birthday kick and insisted on wearing birthday hats all day.)

The banana muffins are the most appetizing and appealing on looks. They taste pretty yummy too.

The other muffins are very yummy, but look like health foods (which, I guess they are). I topped the carrot muffins with a vegan cream cheese icing and a birthday candle for the "Happy Birthday" singing, which provided a nice balance to the "healthy" taste and texture of the muffin -- filled with shredded carrot, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and bran.

I froze 2/3 of the muffins, and forgot to take photos before the freezing. I will try to take some photos when I take the next batch out of the freezer. And include the recipes.

Added one photo...looks like we've eaten all the banana muffins already! The muffin on the left is the 8 grain muffin and the really healthful looking one (with carrots sticking out) is the carrot bran muffin.

First Food -- KALE (w/breastmilk)

A tried her mouth at her first (non-breastmilk) food today: KALE!!!! Dinosaur kale. I bought it from the organic farm at the farmer's market (all women farm, btw!). I steamed it and then used my handy KidCo food mill to make it into baby food. Then, I added a bit of warm breastmilk and mixed. J helped me feed it to A -- she ate it up (and got it all over herself, me, the floor, etc.

Cheezy Chili Casserole

Tonight I decided to try combining a few things into a casserole. I wanted a shells and cheeze dish, but I also wanted tomatoes and beans...so I combined them all into one.

I based the cheezy sauce on a recipe from Vegan Yum Yum.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Sauce
Warm 1/3 cup Earth Balance in saucepan. As soon as it melts, add 1/4 King Arthur's organic all-purpose flour, and stir to make roux.
Then, with J's help, add 1/3 cup nutritional yeast (sprinkles) 1 T lemon juice, 1 T tahini, 1 T brown rice miso, 2 1/2 T Braggs, 1 1/4 cup soy milk. Whisk together, making sure to keep lumps out and not to boil.
Warm together, mixing, for a few minutes, then set aside.

Pasta Cook one box De Boles organic shells, drain, and set aside.

Rest of casserole
Place 3/4 cup tvp in bowl with enough water to cover. Set aside.
Drain 15-oz cans of organic kidney beans and organic corn. Open 28-oz can of organic diced tomatoes with basil.
In saucepan or casserole dish, add 1/2 cup water, 1 chopped red onion, 3 minced garlic cloves, 3 medium chopped carrots. Cook for seven minutes.
In casserole dish, add the beans, corn, pasta, tomatoes, water/onion/garlic/carrot mixture and mix well. Then add sauce. Add 1/2 tsp Mexican chili powder (probably too little, but I'm totally paranoid after my last chili dish with too much spice for J) and 1/2 tsp cumin; stir well.
Break up two slices of Vermont Bread soft multigrain and top the casserole with the bread.
Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes.
Serve and enjoy!

I think this makes more than eight servings...and it is *really* filling -- D only had one bowl and didn't need to go back for seconds or thirds. (At 8 servings, in each there's approximately 550 calories, 29 g protein, and and 87 g carbs.) J ate this up really quickly and didn't complain at all, try to avoid eating, or spit anything out. She said it's "tasty" -- her new thing for when she likes something -- score! (The peaches we had earlier were tasty. The tofu omelets I made this morning (not pretty) were tasty (yes, they were).)

So the only weird thing about this dinner was the odd smell of the sauce. I think it must have been the miso. I can't place the smell. D said it has a weird aftertaste; he can't place it either. It's not a bad smell or a bad aftertaste, but we can't place it. Vegan Yum Yum's recipe called for sweet miso, which I didn't have, so I used what I did have. I think that is the odd smell/taste, but even knowing that I still can't place it.

Early Morning Stew

This morning, I put a stew together for my family to eat. We'll see (and taste) the results tonight when I get home.

Here's what I did:

Put the garbanzos to soak when I left for work on Wednesday, so they would be soaked by the time I got home that night. Stayed late at work, so by the time I got home, the beans had soaked up all the water and no one had added more. Added more water and let the beans soak another hour. Added one large piece of kombu to the beans, added water, and began cooking beans while I took a shower. Scooped off the foam. Again. And again. Let the beans cook until 12:45 last night/this morning, when I decided they had cooked enough and I wanted to go to bed, as I had to be at work really early this morning. Removed kombu, drained beans, and placed cooked beans into fridge.

Woke up, brushed teeth, chopped onion and sauteed in olive oil for five minutes. Chopped three heirloom tomatoes after cutting out the bad parts (should have made this soup yesterday). Sliced and quartered medium zuchinni. Added vegetables to sauteed onion. Added three cups cooked beans and four cups water. Or was it six? Added one drained can cut green beans and two Rapunzel vegan vegetable with sea salt bouillon cubes (well, really, rectangles). Added organic oregano. Put pot on my simmer burner. Remembered that the spinach on the table was supposed to go into the soup. Chopped the spinach, added it to the coup, and left the apartment at 7:30 for work, hoping the soup cooked and someone remembered it.

Ate soup for dinner tonight. Very beany and good. J had it for lunch and I think she liked it. Off to have another bowl now. Need to eat some grain with it; think I have cooked millet in the fridge.

Sweet Potato Biscuits and Broccoli Soup

I was inspired to make dinner for me and D tonight, thinking he would be home not late. Ha. It's 10:30 and he's still not here...

Anyway, here's what I made tonight:

Sweet Potato Biscuits based on a recipe from The Vegetarian Mother

Vegan Dad's Hearty Broccoli Soup

I didn't follow the directions well on the soup, but it still turned out great. I used four heads of broccoli instead of two, and I think I used too much water. Next time I will use a little less to make the soup a little thicker. Soup: approx 4 servings, 225 cal/serving, 12.7 g protein, and 237% dv of Vitamin C!



The sweet potato biscuits are scrumptious with the soup. I used a large sweet potato instead of the medium one called for in the recipe because I *love* sweet potato! About 160 calories each, with a little more than 3 g protein each, and 92% of your daily value of vitamin A!

Eggless Omelets...attempt 1

I tried making eggless omelets this morning for breakfast. I used the recipe I posted a few days ago, with 1/4 tsp tumeric, and an organic green heirloom tomato and four baby bellas from the farmers' market chopped and added to the batter after it sat for ten minutes. While the omelets were cooking, I added a piece of Tofutti cheese (torn up) to each. I made three instead of the four the recipe said it made.

Everything stuck to my pan...didn't look very pretty...but tasted good and very filling. In color, they looked like the pancakes I make (I'll post the recipe for those another day), but with chunks of tomato and mushroom. J called them pancakes, and ate her half omelet as long as I was feeding it to her (she just spat it out when D gave it to her). She was excited about them though, and happily told D I made pancakes when he took over breakfast feeding duty. D passed on the one I had for him, so I will have it for breakfast tomorrow I guess. I think that the apartment smelled like omelets while I was cooking, so if you like the smell of omelets, this worked for that. The texture wasn't exactly omelet-like, but it wasn't pancake-texture either.

I have another eggless omelet recipe to try out, from Vegan Brunch. I was going to make it this morning, but I didn't realize it called for garbanzo bean flour. I have all the other ingredients (except the black salt, but I'm not a big fan of sulphur smell, so I'm passing on that and going with regular sea salt); once I buy some garbanzo bean flour, I will whip some of those up.