Schlurp!

The cold weather is sticking around this week, so I needed to make something warming and nourishing. With some inspiration from 28 Cooks, I whiped up some of this Warming Ginger Noodle Soup

I added my own touch to it with some broccoli florets (I still had some left over, even after that big batch of soup), and used thicker rice noodles. The broth has a red tint because I made my own and added grated beet. It gave it a really earthy flavor. I had leftovers tonight and added some miso paste, which gave it an extra kick. Definately a workout to eat with chopsticks. I recommend a big soup spoon if you want to dig right in.

I have kept myself confined to my house the last few days, not wanting to retreat from my warm blanket. But, today I went on a journey, with food in mind. Inspired by a new recipe from Vegetarian Times, I decided to use my leftover beet greens to make Guadalajaran Swiss Chard Quesadillas.


I prepared the beet greens following the recipe for swiss chard, but was missing the Montery Jack called for to complete the quesadilla. I went on a search at my local health food stores, knowing that FYH makes a Montery style cheese. I thought I had seen one of them carry a type of FYH before. Sadly, I was wrong and all they had was the American style Rice Cheese (blech). So, back home I went. I was determined to make the quesadillas, so I subbed the cheese for my favorite tahini-mustard sauce that I love on greens, only made it thicker and stickier. It worked pretty well, and made for a beautiful quesadilla.

I think beautiful vegan cupcakes are in my future....

Sweetness

It's a cold and rainy day, so what better way to spend it than in blogger land? I have been spending the majority of my meal time recently cleaning out and using up most of my parishable food beacause I am moving and I don't want to have to worry about it en route to my new house. I also have had alot of sweets lying around from the holidays. Just when I thought I had taken care of most of them, I got an awesome belated birthday gift basket from my cousin in New York. The gift basket is from Pangea, and it is full of all kinds of "confections with a conscience".

Here is a closeup of the gift basket. Very pretty. Closeup shot of all the treats (clockwise from top): Vegan Marshmallows, dark chocolate w/almonds,
dark chocolate w/pecans and raisins,
chocolate peanut butter cups, chocolate beans,
White Chocolate Rice Crunch, jelly beans, vegan donuts

Before the rain and cold even came, I was in a soup and bread mood. At a recent trip to the farmers market, I picked up a large bag of broccoli and cauliflower florets. After eating steamed and sauteed florets for about a week, I was starting to get a little bored and decided to finish it off in a thick, hearty soup with a recipe from Vegweb- Cream of Broccoli Soup.
I would change a couple of things, such as one less carrot, and more nutritional yeast. Also, I stirred in 1Tb of tahini in the end. I also served it over quinoa the next day, which made it like a hearty stew. The Mission Fig and Kalamata Olive tapenade on the bread was probably my favorite part of the meal.

I woke up one morning craving baked goods. After one of my late night blog reading binges I came across this recipe from Webly on Fuled By Popcorn. So, I decided to drag my ass out of bed and bake this easy sounding recipe. Easy it was, and very versitle. Throw ingredients into a blender, and then mix it all together, and voila! I ended up using white grape juice, raisins, walnuts, and put strawberry-rhubarb jam on top of the muffins. Then, I took the other half, added some more flour, a titch of baking soda, and some hemp seeds and baked it into a bread. Both were pretty yummy. I enjoyed the muffins best. Very moist, especially with the jam on top. Oh yeah, and with the bread is a glass of fresh apple, mixed berry, grapefruit juice which I made with out new Juiceman Jr. I can't get enough of fresh juice.

I started teaching myself to knit from the book Stitch 'N' Bitch. It is one of the easiest books to follow, and really fun to read. After one week, I am confident in my ability to knit a few rows and make a swatch. The problem I am faced with now is purling, and- more importantly- binding off. So, after proudly coming to the end of my first swatch, I became frustrated when trying to learn to bind off and then seeing it unravel before my eyes. I'm not giving up yet.

New Years What?

Another year has come and gone, and with that also came another birthday and lots of good times. My birthday is New Years Eve, so that ensures that I will always have a party, whether I want to or not. I started early this year and got treated to a great lunch on Friday at my favorite restaurant in Houston- Tafia. I like to go to this restaurant whenever I can because everything about it is amazing. The owner, Monica Pope, has such a great vision and is helping to make fundamental change to Houston. Her motto is to "eat where your food lives", so everything in her restaurant (from the water, to the food, to the wine, and even the furniture) comes from Texas. Each time we go it is a totally new and wonderful experience. Sadly, I was so excited by my 3 course prix fixe that I forgot to take pictures.

New Years Eve I had my birthday lunch at Freebirds and saw Dreamgirls. In between all of that, I went to Barnes and Noble and spent my giftcard. I am now the proud owner of Nellie McKay's new CD- Pretty Little Head, as well as Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I'm ready for some cupcake bakin'! Later that night we headed to Galveston for a drag show. It was a drag.Making some mo' ney
Hanging out with our good friend Liza

Blurry pictures mean we had more fun

Then we went back to my place and dug in to the Red Velvet cake(from the new issue of VegNews) Candy made me. My favorite part was the hot pink frosting.

Since we didn't have candles, we marked it with a "K" instead.

Dig in!