Cram it all in...

The title of this post is how I feel about life a lot of the time... I'm trying to cram as much as possible into this little life of mine. Today was about cramming family, cooking and schoolwork into the day (well, laundry too).

After babysitting my cousins and staying over my aunt & uncle's last night, we stopped at the in-laws' on the way home. We've been together since my pre-vegan days, so his parents have had to adjust to my eating choices as well, since they love to feed us. One thing I don't have a picture of for your viewing pleasure are the empanadas they made me. Previously all his parents made were meat or cheese empanadas; when I stopped eating cheese, it was a travesty that I could not take part in the empanadas (they're a big deal in the family). However, this sparked an empanada revolution! Soon eggplant empanadas came along... a cousin who is a chef made some chipotle mushroom ones for New Year's. Other family members have asked, why does she get all the cool empanadas?? Well, why not? There is a world beyond carne y queso!! Anyway, there were eggplant empanadas waiting for me today at the in-laws' apartment for lunch. Yum!

In between paper writing and laundry, I decided I wanted to make some vegan cookies for my class tomorrow, in honor of our field trip on the topic of ecological restoration. I chose the Ginger Cookies from VwaV:
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.

To further avoid folding laundry and writing about NYC's 2030 green goals, I made the orange ginger tofu triangles from The Voluptous Vegan. It's simple because you let the tofu marinate, pour off some of the marinade, and then bake. Easy peasy! While that was going on I even made a smoothie, some rice and garlic-ey spinach to go with the tofu. I only realized I was out of brown rice when I couldn't find it in the pantry, so white rice it was, cooked in my handy dandy 3 cup rice cooker from CVS.
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.

Speaking of salads, I found a new salad dressing that I am really enjoying:

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.