Some wilted swiss chard and gnocchi with pesto. The chard and basil for the pesto came from my wonderful organic CSA. Yum!Sorry for all the crappy pictures I have to show you here, but I do a lot of my cooking rather late and the light stinks when I actually get around to taking pics. Since I haven't posted in a million years, I have a lot to share!
I got these cute pattypans one week. I knew someone had posted a recipe using pattypan squashes once, so after some digging, I realized it was this Patty Pan Squash Stuffed with Cajun White Beans recipe over at the FatFree Vegan blog (I <3>
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.My CSA share has provided me with a ridiculous number of green bell peppers. I really do like them, but it has become a real challenge to find new and exciting things to do with them. Here is one iteration of many stuffed peppers I've had recently:
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.I thought I'd share a picture of these gorgeous beans we've been getting. They were first labeled "Magic Beans" at the CSA pickup and I didn't know why (subsequently, they were labeled Rattlesnake beans, and I don't know why they're called that either).
Then I steamed them and learned why they are magic!!
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 Creamy Tomato Sauce from Vegan YumYum, which I've made several times with my handy dandy Magic Bullet, proving that it is good for something besides smoothies and pesto. I hate Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese, but at least you can't taste it in this recipe, and it's another quick and easy sauce to whip up. I also ate it with just some bread once (LAZY).There was also a night where I ate this delicious stuff with just some really good italian bread:
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!I also had a ridiculous amount of zucchini at one point, so I went wild and pureed it into soup. Tasty, but not very filling. I have a relatively high metabolism, so I need calories!
Aaah, calories... seek and ye shall find. I wanted to make something sweet as a goodbye for my intern, so I decided to give the raspberry chocolate chip blondies from VwaV a shot:
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.Over the past few months, I've seen a ton of people make Jess of Get Sconed's version of the New Farm mac 'n cheese. I finally couldn't resist and gave it a shot. This is the only picture I managed to take before I scarfed it down.
Wow, this was so good! It was nice and creamy, unlike other vegan mac and cheeses I've tried to make. I added some english peas I had frozen a couple months ago, which worked out perfectly. I will definitely be making this again!
There are other meals and other pics but I think this has been long enough already. I knew I'd get back to this once school started - anything to avoid homework!!! My mom is worried about me going to school on Monday; the president of Iran will be there for a Q&A with faculty and students. She's convinced I'm going to get blown up or something, even though I will likely be off campus before he even arrives. Gotta love mom :)
