It seems like
we had just pushed the ‘publish’ button on the blog site when lo and behold, it’s
time to do it again. The Elfin kitchen has been busy doin’ lots of fun stuffs
this week while KEEPIN’ to her pledge of ONE grocery trip a month (notwithstanding
those items we cannot find at our local Kroger). Some things have been yummy
and some things have been mediocre and ONE thing was a damn near disaster
(salvaged on a wing and a prayer and some brown sugar). First things first,
though…our EXPERT (and that would be Susan Voisin’s awesome site of FatFree Vegan Kitchen) recipes for this
past week were fun and good.
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As we have
been doing lately, we prepared two FFVK recipes this week—trying to keep things
on the lighter side. Our fist recipe was Roasted Asparagus Salad with Chickpeas
and Potatoes
with the added
bonus of the Fat Free Balsamic Raisin Dressing which is embedded in the following recipe
This was a
warm salad made ever so yummy by the dressing. Too bad we’d already used up our
crop of asparagus from the garden/yard but asparagus are plentiful right now
and we found some nice smaller and tenderer ones. We roasted the asparagus, small wedges of onion and a large
clove of elephant garlic (the original recipe calls for 2 to 3 cloves of regular
garlic, but we had this on hand, so gave it a go)
added the
chickpeas and potatoes
made up the
dressing (and I’m here to tell you that stuff is AWESOME!) Actually, that clove
of roasted elephant garlic is mashed up and whisked into the dressing for a little
extra sumthin’ sumthin’
and mixed it
all up (more at room temperature than actually warm)
Next up was
the TLT sandwich (Tempeh, Lettuce and Tomato)
We marinated
thinly sliced tempeh (your own choice and there are some really good ones out
there now)
picked some
lettuce from The Garden of the Elf and made up a
really nice sandwich on whole wheat bread.
We enjoyed
both of these recipes and would more likely go with the salad again than the
TLT…and that’s primarily because we LOVE the Bacun (see the post of 5/10).
However, since the Bacun is not gluten free and tempeh is, this recipe makes a
very worthy sandwich.
Our EXPERT
selection for the coming week is Thai Black Pepper and Garlic Tofu
We love Thai
food and will look forward to this recipe!
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Other kinky
cookery this week consisted of a FABULOUS looking recipe from The Minimalist
Baker
So we thought
we’d give it a go for the great staff and tireless workers at the Animal Rescue
Fund of Mississippi. While the recipe says it’s a one bowl bread, there are a
LOT of ingredients that go into that one bowl. In the Elf’s elf-fort do get über-organized,
we got all of our ingredients out, measured in little plastic shot glasses (for
the smaller amounts) before diving into the actual preparation. WELL, as the
stirring and whisking and adding of the ingredients all commenced, we felt damn
near Martha Stewart-ish UNTIL we reached for the little cup thingie that had
the baking powder and salt. We picked up the container of sea salt (it’s a
small white ¼ cup container) and dumped it in the batter INSTEAD of the actual
ingredients. OMG!! Was The Elf ever upset…said a number of words that were not Elf-worthy
and then proceeded to figure out what to do. Fortunately, we had not stirred
any of this catastrophe, so we decided to try to remove the EXCESS salt. Also
fortunately, the salt container was not FULL. Slowly and meticulously, we
scooped as much of the excess salt out as we could and plunged forward. When
the batter was mixed, we tasted it and OF COURSE, you could taste the salt…so
we whipped out some additional brown sugar and added enough to have a decent
tasting batter. Then we held our breath until the bread came out of the oven,
cooled and was sliced. Now we aren’t sure what the ‘real’ bread is supposed to
taste like but this was pretty darn good. We sure were glad and we hope the folks
at ARF enjoyed it as well. Holy cow—what a feeling when The Elf realized what
had happened!!
Since that
FFVK Balsamic-Raisin Dressing was such a hit, we decided to steam a couple of
really nice artichokes one night and paired the artichokes and Balsamic-Raisin
Dressing with the Za’atar Roasted Chickpea salad for a light evening meal. We
found a substantial supply of the Za’atar at the Mediterranean Grocery locally.
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This week, we also received a long-anticipated cook-book!! Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen! We had pre-ordered it months ago and are delighted to finally get it. There will be some awesome aromas headed toward our olfactory places.
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Saturday night, we went to the Strawberry Cafe here in downtown Madison MS. They have a lovely spinach and walnut stuffed portabello entree that is vegan (other options such as goat cheese and/or chicken are available). It was delicious. So NICE to have restaurants now including vegan entrees!! Thanks Strawberry people!!
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Lastly, we
always enjoy our little backyard garden and this year is no exception. We don’t
have a large variety of stuff growing but do have two kinds of zucchini, some
tomatoes (heirlooms), lettuce, white radishes, cilantro, basil and okra. There
is just something really fun about picking food you grew yourowns-elf!
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And finally on
this Memorial Day weekend, we include a picture of Mail Order Annie as she
celebrates graduations of the Class of 2015 AND the sacrifices of the thousands
who made it possible for graduations to occur.
Y’all have a
safe and meaningful weekend and remember to breathe deep, laugh a lot, eat
plants and love life.
~~The Elf~~
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