Sunday, December 9, 2007

very busy weekend in the kitchen

I'm not sure what got over me, but starting Friday and ending a few minutes ago, I spent more time in my kitchen than I have in a very long time. It was an awesome weekend of good eats!
First things first . . . As soon as I saw these Spicy' N Sweet Maple-y Nuts from Bazu's blog, I knew I HAD to make them. These are some of the best spiced nuts I have ever had.
Make these now. Right now.
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Here is a beautiful loaf of French bread I made, which has been the BEST batch of bread I have made in my new bread machine. It had the least amount of ingredients and took the most amount of time (5 HOURS!) but it was so worth it.
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I cut all the crust sides off and made garlic toast with them and used the non-crust white inside of the bread to make these croutons.
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I used the crouton recipe in Veganomicon (pg. 81-82) and also made the Caesar dressing recipe. I was trilled with the croutons and thought the dressing was pretty good but not like Caesar salad dressing. I'd make it again though.
Friday night I made an Asian Noodle Soup. A few weeks back I had made an Asian inspired veggie broth out of onions, carrots, celery, garlic, ginger, black pepper and soy sauce and froze it. I thawed/reheated the broth and in my steamer, steamed cabbage, zucchini and baby bok choy. For the noodles, I used an eggless wonton wrapper, cut into strips, which I found in the frozen section of our local Asian market. I boiled the strips of wontons separately (which only took like a minute), added the cooked noodles to a bowl with the steamed veggies and broth ladled over everything. Topped with green onions, this was very filling and an awesome way to use up extra wonton wrappers.
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Saturday, I made the Blueberry Streusel Muffins from the Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide. My new favorite thing is using soy yogurt in my baked goods because they lend such a nice sour note that really brings everything together. This time I used a blueberry flavored soy yogurt, which turned the batter purple. These are probably my favorite muffins and they taste great with any fresh or frozen berry.
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Today I made one of our old stand by meals . . . the beloved tostadas (although, they look more like nachos). These had blue corn chips, some chipotle pinto beans I blended up, tomatoes, red and green onions, some of my Dad's famous Rex Sauce (sweet & vinegary), sweet Thai chili sauce and some of my homemade guacamole. Jared added some left over cut up romaine lettuce on his. I never get tired of these.
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And last but not least . . . my new favorite dinner. Veganomicon's Chickpea Cutlets (pg. 133), garlic mashed potatoes, green beans and soy sausage saw mill gravy (same stuff I pure over my biscuits when we have biscuits and gravy).
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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Everything looks so tasty!

Leigh said...

What an amazing array of good lookin' food! I'm in awe of your 5 hour bread loaf.

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

Thanks Erin . . . it was!

Leigh- I gotta say, most of it was rise time (there were 3 different rises), 25 minutes of kneading and about an hour of baking. I just had to wait soooo long for it!

Melisser said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

Damn, I would have loved to be in your kitchen this weekend! yum yum.

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

Melisser- it for sure was a great weekend to be in our kitchen!

Calimaryn said...

Yummy! Looks like your kitchen was warm and smelled fabulous all weekend.

That gravy looks phenomenal. Makes me want to lick the monitor. mmmm

bazu said...

Oh my word- SO much good food! Don't you love it when the urge to cook and bake hits and you're left with a kitchen full of wonderful stuff? Your bread looks magnificent. You know I'm all about those croutons... wow. And I'm glad you liked the nuts! A bit addictive, rigth?...

bazu said...

Ooops, sorry for the misspelling! I meant "right". Oh, and I just realized you are not linked on my blog- my bad! I'm going to fix that right now...

Pink Theory said...

oh my goodness...can you come cook for me please? *drool*

i need to bust out our bread machine more often.

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

wow, you really HAVE been cooking/baking lately!! nice!! the spicy-sweet maple nuts, French bread & croutons, muffins, soup, cutlets, and tostadas look fabulous!!

Rose said...

Looks like you made some really yummy food!

Judy said...

All of your food looks so good, especially the Asian soup. Can I come to dinner?

Anonymous said...

everything looks so pretty!

Anonymous said...

I have got to try those chickpea cutlets. They are every where I go! Everything you make looks so amazing and you make it so easy to follow!

I have you on my site as a favorite link, ever since I made your cinnamon rolls. YUM!

Keep up the weekends in the kitchen for all our sakes!

http://foodblog.jkvetter.com

Vegan_Noodle said...

Oh, I totally agree about the new favorite meal, mine is chickpea cutlets too. Maybe I'll make some tonight...
Lots of good cookin going on! I love using yogurt in baking as well. Those muffins look yum...