Red Curry Tofu, Summer Fruit Salad

Tonight I made red curry tofu. Since we can't get awesome Thai food around here I have mastered, at least to our liking, red curry. I use a red curry paste that has dried red chili, garlic, lemongrass, shallot, salt, galangal and kaffir lime peel. I cook the paste in canola oil, add coconut milk, natural sugar and a splash of soy sauce (to replace the fish sauce). I fried up some tofu and sauteed cabbage, onions and carrots. I served the tofu and veggies slathered with the red curry sauce with steamed jasmine rice and green onions. Yum!

Also we had this summer inspired fruit salad with strawberries, peaches and blueberries with a light dressing of lemon juice and agave nectar.

Homemade Tomato Sauce, Fried Eggplant Casserole

I make homemade tomato sauce about every 2 weeks. I can usually get about 3 meals out of one batch of sauce. My sauce actually freezes wonderfully. My favorite tomato to use for this sauce is canned Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes. I saute sweet onion in olive oil until translucent, then throw in several cloves of garlic. Once the onions and garlic are super soft I add about 1/3 of a bottle of wine (whatever we have in the fridge . . . I have used whites and reds, both great) this time I used a Cabernet Sauvignon. Once the wine cooks down I add the tomatoes, sea salt, black pepper, natural sugar, and the following dried herbs: oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary and marjoram. After everything cooks together for 1-2 hours I blend it all up with my handy immersion blender and throw in tomato paste for richness. This isn't the greatest picture but its tasty!

To use some of the sauce I made this fried eggplant casserole. The eggplant was soaked in salt water to leach out the bitterness. I made a flour coating out of unbleached white flour, corn meal, corn starch and garlic salt. I also made a "eggy" coating with ground golden flax seed and warm water. I dipped the eggplant in the flour coating, then in the "eggy" mixture, back into the flour mixture and then fried in both olive and canola oil. I also boiled up spaghetti and added some of my sauce to it. There was a layer of fried eggplant on the bottom, then a layer of sauced spaghetti and a final layer of fried eggplant which was topped with sauce and Vegan Gourmet Alternative Mozzarella Cheese. Since everything was cooked it was just baked enough to get it bubbly and the cheeze melted.

Chinese Buddha

After a failed attempt to see The Simpsons Movie today we decided to go
out to lunch. Jared and I aren't huge fans of Chinese food but we love
this place in midtown Atlanta called Chinese Buddha. They have a meat
eaters menu and a vegetarian menu which is cool but a lot of their
vegetarian food does have eggs in it so we still have to ask a lot of
questions. This is a place we would take our parents to when they come
to visit since it would please a lot of palates.
I got Sesame "Chicken" with steamed rice.

Jared got "Beef" Satay with steamed rice.

Cinnamon Apple Muffins, Banana Berry Smoothie

I'm on top of the world! We finally got a new stove. No more baking goodies in my convection oven. In celebration of our new stove, I made these cinnamon apple muffins, recipe from La Dolce Vegan!: Vegan Livin' Made Easy by Sarah Kramer. I had to add more soy milk than her recipe called for since it was almost impossible to combine everything. They turned out lovely! These are especially awesome with a bit of whipped Earth Balance.
My favorite part is the pecan/walnut crunchy topping.

To supplement my muffin treat I made a smoothie with frozen banana, fresh blueberries and hemp milk. Very creamy!

Aglio E Olio

Translation: garlic and oil. This pasta dish traditionally has anchovy fillets, which was obviously left out in my lunch version. In addition to the garlic and olive oil it also has fresh parsley, sea salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper with angel hair pasta.
Quick, simple and delicious!