Friday, January 09, 2009

December and January meals...

In the midst of travelling, holidays, and mango season, I have been cooking and eating at home. I just haven’t posted about it. But I’m heading off this weekend to Canberra for a three week visit to do research in the archives, do some field work (tent embassy on Invasion Day!) and get some writing done. Thus, I feel like I should get caught up a little while I still (vaguely) remember what these photos are showing!

Creamy pumpkin spaghetti. The sauce is so simple, and easy to mix up. This one has mushrooms, onion and spinach. Then mashed spinach and soymilk were mixed in to make it a sauce, and some herbs and seasonings.

One slice of a yummy pizza. My half had mashed and herbed silken tofu, seitan, olives, fresh tomato and “tropical spinach”. Andy’s half had all that plus BBQ sauce. This piece was near the centre, so you can see the dividing line between the two halves.

This is not a great photo, but it was a pretty great dinner. We found cauliflower for pretty cheap a few weeks ago and wanted to recreate our cheesy cauliflower casserole—without using the oven. So I followed the recipe from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook for ‘Cheez Please Soup’, leaving out some of the extra liquid. I also added some nut butter and miso to make it a bit tangier, since I found it was a bit bland. Then, after the sauce was blended smooth, I added some cauliflower and let it all simmer until the cauli was tender.

On the side, I sautéed some garlic with “tropical spinach”, grated carrot and soy sauce. We picked up a giant bunch of this greenery from the market for $2, thinking it was a great deal. Well, let me tell you—it’s not. “Tropical spinach” must be the term for tough leaves on inedible stalks. We had to pull all the leaves off the stems, and they stayed chewy and stringy after cooking. $2 not well spent.

I used the rest of the cauliflower (we got a pretty big bunch!) to test a recipe for Urban Vegan's upcoming cookbook--Gobhi Aloo. More cauliflower than potato, deliciously spiced and healthy!

This is a pad thai-style stir fry with rice noodles, carrot, zucchini, tofu and tomato. Always yummy.

And finally, the only actual January meal of the bunch, and a joint effort. Andy made potato pancakes, below the olives. I made a tabouleh-style millet salad. We collectively made some falafels (not from scratch, but a just-add-water mix), on top of the millet. And we collectively sautéed some onions, mushrooms, and broccoli. A very filling, very yummy dinner.

I’ve got a few more catch-up posts coming your way!

14 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

I wish I could come over for dinner!!

x said...

All of your meals look healthy and tasty!

Anonymous said...

great ideas for meals and good luck on canberra

steph said...

Oh, I love a good gobi aloo!

Anonymous said...

Have fun here in our nation's capital! If you get the chance, I highly recommend going to Au lac (in Dickson) for dinner.
Mel

Amy said...

Haha, this is the first time I feel sad that I'm not in Canberra since I left (Veggie shopping aside! Oh how I miss that!).

Have fun in Canberra and thanks for sharing such yumminess! Sorry to hear that tropical spinach=tough and horrible :( There's nothing worse.

Alicia said...

you have three work-intensive weeks before you! I'm sure you'll get a lot of writing done :-)

You made me laugh a lot with your post about mango. You really love them don't you? If I lived there I would eat them this time of the year all the time too.

And all these meals look great too. Specially the uncheesy cauliflower and the pizza!

Amira said...

holy gamolie those dishes look good!
I'm lovin the creativity of that pizza and those cauliflower creations look extremely tasty

Bianca said...

That creamy cauliflower dish looks amazing! And I'll have to try the silk tofu base on a pizza in place of vegan cheese. Sounds delish.

DJ said...

I love creamy and I love cauliflower, so that dish has my vote! Shame about the 'tropical' spinach, though - I could almost sense your disdain as you typed those apostrophes!

Mike K said...

All of those dishes look so delicious. I admit to some jealousy since you mention mango season :) - that has to be the best time of year!

Anonymous said...

oooooh i love the pizza! yummay!!

Lovlie said...

What great meals! Pizza looks great! I'm specially eyeing the tabouleh salad and the potato cakes! Yum!

Anonymous said...

definitely go to au lac in canberra, it's one of my favourite restaurants in the country! eat plenty and think of me!