Not one to waste things, I've been taking the seeds from all the sqashes I've cooked and roasting them in the toaster oven. Most people think you can only do this with pumpkin seeds, but almost any squash will do (pumpkins are squash too! Yay curcurbitaceae!). Once you've cleaned, washed, and dried off the seeds, toss with a scant amount of olive oil - just enough to coat - and some salt. Then you spread them on a baking sheet or piece of foil and stick them in to cook for ~30 minutes at 300 degrees, or until slightly crunchy. They're great just with the bit of salt, but I've also been adding some curry before roasting, which is so, so good, and also what is pictured below.
I've been doing a lot of baking as well. I made the chocolate chip cookies from VwaV (thumbs up all around, including those who received some as birthday gifts), which I forgot to photograph. They were eaten too quickly (mostly by me). I tried to make some peanutbutter cookies from VwaV for a coworker's party, but something went horribly awry and the result was not fit for human consumption. Believe me, I tried to eat them. I still have no idea what went wrong. But sometimes you just have to get back on the horse, so I made these tasty but not overly impressive chocolate thumbprint cookies with strawberry preserves.
I got some tat soi (or pak choi, depending on your mood) in my CSA share last week, and I had to figure out what to do with it. I looked at a bunch of different recipes for cold tat soi salads and came up with this cold sesame tatsoi, pictured here with quinoa pasta and more homemade tomato sauce. Yes, I know they totally don't go together, but I tend to eat my foods one at a time, so it worked out.
I marinated the tat soi in a bit of tamari, rice wine vinegar and an eensy bit of sugar. I let it sit too long though (overnight, oops), so the saltiness of the tamari was too much for me. Anyway, then right before serving, I mixed in a little sesame oil and sesame seeds. If it wasn't for the saltiness, I'd have given this a big smiley face or whatever you give yummy things.
I've also been excited by all the varieties of apples coming in to the farmer's market. A special treat my mom used to make is baked apples. I still make them her way: get as much of the core out without breaking through the bottom, fill the hole in the middle w/ a pat of [soy margarine] and a lot of brown sugar, then sprinkle with cinnamon and bake until soft. My brother and I used to douse these in whipped cream, which I kind of miss doing, but it's still tasty.
Before and after pictures. The apple shouldn't um, explode like that, but you get the idea. It was really strange though, some of the juice got on the pan and as it starting getting crispy it seriously smelled like marshmallows roasting!
I also made my first attempt at making applesauce from scratch, and it was AWESOME. I kind of winged it after reading a few recipes, but it came out perfect; hopefully I can replicate it in the future, since I plan on freezing a load of this stuff. Basically I peeled, cored and sliced the apples, put them in a pot with ~1 cup of water, ~1/2 cup of brown sugar, a bunch of cinnamon, the juice of half a giant lemon, and some long peels from the lemon (to be taken out later). Cook until the apples are soft, pick out the lemon peels, and put through the food mill (I did it on the chunkiest setting). Then taste and see what it needs; I put in a teeny bit more (white) sugar, a splash of vanilla, and some more water to thin it out because it was too chunky even for me. It is FABULOUS. Okay, I'll stop raving about it now.
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And because I am always looking for more ways to add sugar to my diet (HA), my favorite way to prepare butternut squash: load the cavity with brown sugar!
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Some wilted swiss chard and gnocchi with pesto. The chard and basil for the pesto came from my wonderful organic CSA. Yum!
These had everyone at work drooling, and inspired a coworker to make some stuffed squash like this for some friends coming over that night! So easy and tasty.
This one is brown rice, onions, tomato sauce, herbs and Morningstar Chik'n Strips thrown in because I had to use them up (wasn't a huge fan). It came out good, but my coworkers teased me about eating so many "stuffed" vegetables.
It's a little dark, but if you look closely, there are no more purple stripes on the beans! I was really confused when I made them for the first time. They would be fun for kids I think. They're pictured here with the 
It was my first attempt at making tomato sauce myself (a la Joy of Cooking), and it was so amazingly delicious, which is why I just sopped it all up with bread. I think it was because it was such a good tomato week from the CSA share. I have yet to recreate the awesomeness of this first attempt - subsequent tries where significantly more lackluster in the taste department. I will keep plugging away at it though, because hot damn, that first sauce was so good!
Holy crap, these were AMAZING. Danny doesn't even like raspberry and he said they were great (he requested future batches be made with strawberry preserves instead). My intern thought they were awesome, as did everyone else who tried them. Especially me. So decadent and delish. I never thought I'd like a blondie as much as this. Here's a pic so you can see a little more of the detail pre-cutting:
I have to say, everything I've baked from VwaV has gotten absolutely rave reviews from vegans and omnis alike. Not to mention how much I've enjoyed eating it all! The chocolate chip cookies are on deck for my next baking venture.
As a birthday gift, I begged my brother to get me popcorn, like he had for Christmas. He gave me a small sampler pack of gourmet popping corn for my air popper, and I loved it so much I wanted to try all the varieties. Here they are in all their colorful glory:
Then I had a plethora of blueberries because I can't stop buying them when they are in season. So, I decided to make the Blueberry Coffee Cake from VwaV. It made WAY more than I figured it would... I have a habit of not reading recipes all the way through (I just read the ingredients to make sure I have them) and didn't notice it required a 9x13 pan! So I brought half of it in to work, where it was positively DEVOURED within two hours, and some went to Danny's parents, who asked him to bring over more the next day. I think that solidifies the omni-approved rating for this recipe, yes? :) Here's how I had it after it cooled: 
Last week I decided to try the 
These had the recommended mushrooms & green peppers (I did leave out the tahini/cashew butter btw). I can definitely see trying this with other veggies like broccoli or spinach. They are very light, not too filling, so you'll need a lot of them for a meal, but they're very, very tasty.
These were almost entirely organic; the beans, brown rice, mushrooms, peppers, green onions, and the tortilla. The corn is actually from the farmer's market last August (I love my vacuum sealer!!), and still had that sweet summer taste. I used Amy's Organic refried black beans since they're already nice & seasoned, and a roasted tomato taco sauce (from a bottle) to top it all off. I made a bunch of these to freeze, since I realized I could make yummy burritos like the ones I buy at the store. I was kind of pissed at myself, because after all was said and done (and in my tummy), I remembered that I had also bought some organic baby spinach to throw in these too! Bummer.
My organic CSA starts next week! Hooray!
The Paradise casserole (I think that's what it was) - sweet potatoes, black beans and millet, very tasty
The spicy Cuban sandwich (wasn't mine and I didn't get to try it)
You can also see that it only occurred to me to take pictures well after we started eating, and I didn't even manage to take pictures of our dessert. I also gobbled up a chocolate peanutbutter rice milk & soy ice cream smoothie ::drool::
And finally (at least in terms of pictures I have), was tonight's random creation, the portobella cheezesteak sandwich:
It was just some portobellas sauteed and seasoned with salt, pepper & onion powder. Then I took some of Follow Your Heart - Vegan Gourmet's cheddar and melted that over the 'shrooms. Having never actually eaten a cheesesteak, I can't vouch for authenticity. My friend Lisa would probably turn her nose at these (she's a Philly girl and cheesesteak afficionado), but it was pretty tasty. The only other cheesesteak type sandwich I've ever had was a vegan one at Gianna's in Philly (well, I assume it was vegan, there was a scandal about their "cheese" back when...). If I were to make this again, I think I'd make more of a sauce out of the Follow Your Heart instead of just melting it on top. The cheddar flavor was just a little too intense this way. Nonetheless, it was quick, easy and tasty, plus gave me an excuse to eat yummy bread.
I think some of them came out a bit too molasses-ey, but still tasty. Next time I might cut the molasses a little. I always wonder how cookbooks come up with the numbers of cookies that will come out of a batch; the book says 2 dozen, and I sized them like the book says and I got about 3 dozen. Oh well.
I'll be having this for lunch tomorrow as well. The nice thing about the tofu is that it's pretty good cold as well, so I will throw it on salads and such as well. 
Now, mind you, I have no idea if it actually tastes like caesar dressing; I haven't had that since I was a wee lass. But it's very tasty in its own right; it has a nice blend of spices and a bit of a mustardy taste. It tastes like something that I can't put my finger on, but in a good way. Plus it's got omega-3s and is organic! It's good to break out of my italian dressing rut once in a while.
Baked kale is my absolute favorite way to prepare this healthy green leafy vegetable. It's so easy too, just tear it up, spray with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder, and bake. Voila, melt in your mouth crispy kale bits! You can't go wrong. My parents thought I was nuts when I made it at their house a few times, but kale was never a vegetable that had crossed the threshold of the house when I lived there. Mom & Dad are not particularly adventurous with their veggies...
Sadly, I can't say that I'm much of a fan of this sauce, which is unfortunate because it certainly made a lot. It just has an odd flavor. It's not inedible, but I think I'm kind of done with it. I'm not sure what I was expecting from it but this sauce just tastes funky. Sorry, VwaV, you know I love you, but this didn't do it for me.
This effort has been fraught with problems. I was under the impression from what I'd read on indoor cultivation that shaking the tomato plants would be enough to pollinate them... yeah, didn't happen. The ones that have set are ones I decided to try pollinating myself.
It was the only female bud on the delicata plant and I pollinated and set the fruit just like the old days. I spent a year working in the plant breeding department as a field trial assistant, breeding various squashes, peppers and melons mostly, so I am well versed in how to handle this. There's a new female bud, so hopefully there are more squashies on the way!
Despite tasting nothing like sausage, I was pleasantly surprised. These ended up pretty tasty. Yay! I think I need to adjust the seasonings a little b/c I kind of just threw stuff in since I was making a half batch AND using dried instead of fresh herbs. VwaV, I shall not doubt you again; you have not failed me thus far.
Tempeh reubens have to be my favorite sandwich. I never had a real reuben with meat, though supposedly that is my dad's favorite sandwich and my mom made it for him all the time back in the day. Anyway, you can barely see the marinated baked tempeh underneath the homemade vegan Russian dressing and delicious sauerkraut on the toasted organic whole wheat bread. I was looking forward to this sandwich all day. I use the recipe in the Candle Cafe Cookbook, which I don't actually own. A few years ago when I was super broke and working 2 jobs just to scrape by, I spent a lot of time photocopying recipes from all the cookbooks I couldn't afford, since the Nyack library had tons of them and I could get free photocopies at the library I was working in at nights. I've only made a couple of the recipes I copied from the book, but this one is definitely a repeat. 
Since I'm only one person (well, I also bring some in to Aleksei at work), I freeze a bunch of them to eat at my leisure. Is it weird that I share more food with my friend in the cubicle next to mine than I do with the boyfriend I live with? Oh well. I can't help it if Danny has bad taste in food (he likes easy cheese!).