Butternut Squash Soup:

Being a fan of squash and soup, I figured I could not lose with this recipe.  And I was right.  I really liked it.  And the combination of sweet and spicy was a great touch.   I do not have a photograph of this soup, as I totally forgot to take one, but imagine a butternut squash all mashed up. Yep, that is what it will look like.

Veggie Quinoa and Bean Croquettes:

I make a lot of stews, soups, and one pot mixes.  So I thought I would step out of my comfort zone for the rest of the month.  First up were these croquettes.

They are easy and fun to make.  First you get all your fixings, then you get to play with your food.  Er… mash it all up with your hands and then form them into balls.  Cook and then you’ll have a bunch that look something like this, without the blur:

The book suggests putting marinara over them, but I did not.  Also, depending on size, according to the author, you should get 24 for the whole batch.   I made 15 croquettes, enough to fill up my cookie sheet and baked them.  I then used the rest of the mix and made them into balls and froze them for meatball subs in the future.

Black Bean Burgers and Easy Mac & Cheese:

This was my very first attempt to try a homemade black bean burger.  It was not hard at all, and they were really tasty.  Just like every other homemade burger, it was mushy and fell apart.  That makes me wonder what keeps the packaged ones from falling apart.  Maybe I just don’t want to know.  I would make these again.

I must admit that I have never, ever liked ANY vegan macaroni and cheese that I’ve tried to make.  I don’t like vegan cheese either, except for Daiya.  This recipe does not use Daiya, so I was going into it knowing that I was probably not going to like it.  And yep, that was true.  I did not really like it that much.  I ate a little of it, but it just didn’t get any better tasting.  But I will say – it WAS the BEST recipe I’ve tried and I’ve tried several. The consistency was RIGHT ON.  I think the key to liking vegan mac & cheese is to not eat cheese for a long time, then you can appreciate these homemade recipes.  But I am not vegan, and I do eat cheese sometimes.  And while I don’t want my veggie meat to taste like animal meat, I somehow expect the cheese to.    Please do not hold my  vegan cheese prejudice against the recipe.  :)

And lastly, I stepped WAY WAY OVER my comfort zone and actually tried baking.

Cornbread:

Here is a funny story.  I don’t bake.  Never, ever. By baking I generally mean sweets and bread.  Not savory items.  Last time I tried to bake, I attempted zucchini bread.  I tried two different recipes and neither had any good taste to them.  So what made me want to try this recipe?  I don’t know.  But it wasn’t smart.

My 10-year old niece could make this recipe.  And she would have succeeded much better than I did.  And do you know why?  She would have known that without having corn meal, it was game over.  She wouldn’t have said “Oh I have corn starch, that will work”.   She would have said “Mom, we need to go to the store for corn meal”.  Or, because she is smarter than me, she might have actually read the recipe a few days earlier when she was going to the store for the things she needed and wrote it down on a list that she took with her.   But her Aunt Jenn?  Yeah, not so bright.  Here is what the cornbread turned out to look like.  Normal, right?

The taste was really foul.  It was –  I can’t even explain it.  It was sweet – but well, it tasted like corn starch.  So I broke it up and fed it to the water fowl in our backyard.  They don’t have tastebuds.

Conclusion/Next Up:

The Happy Herbivore cookbook is a great cookbook.  I have made more recipes from it than any other cookbook I’ve ever owned.   I know I will continue to make the tofu scramble and several other recipes again.  I love that the recipes are so easy and so tasty despite being low-fat.  I am not used to cooking low-fat, so I learned how to adjust cooking accordingly.  I highly recommend the cookbook and also be sure to check out the recipes on her website.

Next month, I am moving on to Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I’ve had this one for awhile now, ever since it came out, and I’ve made two things from it, both were really good and I have been wanting to get back to cooking from it.  One of the reasons for Project Food was to go through my cookbooks and decide if I want to hold on to them, as well as establish a regular healthy cooking habit.  Generally, I buy a cookbook, droll all over it while I look through it, make one or two recipes and put it on the shelf.  So getting so many from Happy Herbivore was a real treat.  And I hope to make as much or more from AFR in May.

However, I am not quite done with Happy Herbivore.  I want to re-make the cornbread as soon as I get some corn meal.  I also really want to make the nomlette and the PB Cup smoothie (from her website), so I will get back to you on those recipes as well.

Until next time, when I will be back with cuteness or cooking, I can say which yet, cause I don’t know, Happy Eating!

I chose cooking to focus on!  And to make it fun, I decided that I would go through a different cookbook each month and make as many things from it as I could.  This month, the honor goes to Happy Herbivore, by Lindsay S. Nixon.   When I received this cookbook, I dove right in and read it cover to cover, skipping over only the ones that had mushroom in the title.  Between what I read, and the things I did already try and meeting the author later in the month, this book clinched the top spot in my favorite cookbooks list.   The recipes are all low or non-fat, which is a plus, as I am looking to reduce my weight this year as well.

There are 175 recipes in this book.  I will not get through them all.  I don’t bake, so that is a chapter there I probably won’t even consider (although you never know).  I generally do not cook 3x per day and it is already April 8th, so if I get through 30 recipes, it will be a miracle.

Here is a preview of the recipes I’ve already tried.

First up:  Home Fries and Spicy Collard Greens with Field Roast Italian Sausage

Totally yummy.  The only issue we had with it was that we didn’t get the potatoes cooked enough.  I don’t know if it was our oven, or some other factor, but of the ones that were cooked all the way through, they were yummy and we enjoyed them.  I actually plan to make these for dinner tonight, with a little pre-boiling.   The recipe for collards didn’t call for the Field Roast, but  I really wanted some protein with my dinner, and the Field Roast sausages are so yum, so I grilled them on my indoor griller and enjoyed.

In fact, I enjoyed the collards so much that I made them again, without the sausage.  As you can see, they just look like greens:

Next up:  Tofu Scramble

Previous experience with tofu scramble was in restaurants, which was totally yum, and once on my own with a box mix, which wasn’t so great.  But since that attempt, I have learned a lot about tofu, so I tried again.   The book gives a basic recipe, and mentions options, such as vegan sausage and veggies on hand for add-ins.  The above photo is with red peppers, zucchini, and Upton’s seitan chorizo.  I really enjoyed this and it became one of my favorite recipes ever.  I’ve made it three more times – two with just the tofu and the third with just the chorizo.  It doesn’t take long to make, so if you are the type to get up early enough to cook before work, it’s a great option.

And lastly:  Aztec Corn Soup

This is what mine looked like.  It looks nothing like it is supposed to.  This was a disaster – mine, totally, not the author’s.  In the book, it was yellow for one thing – it is corn, after all.  Also, I mis-read the directions, several times, and put a whole can of black beans into the soup, instead the smaller portion called for in the recipe.   It actually tasted pretty good, although a bit more beany than corn-y. I bet that if I had made it right, it would have been even better.   That splashy of liquid in the photo is either tobasco or hot sauce, I forget which I used.   I made this within a few days of meeting Lindsay and she said that hers was yellow because she used amaranth instead of quinoa.  The recipe does say either.  I had quinoa on hand, so I used it.  Apparently amaranth is a little more yellow in color.

You can find the recipe for Tofu Scramble here:

<a href=”http://happyherbivore.com/recipe/tofu-scramble/”target=blank”>Tofu Scramble </a>

I’ll be back soon with more recipe fun, and some notes about life and feline hyperthyroidism.  

]]> http://www.jennriffle.com/2011/04/08/project-food-part-i-happy-herbivore-preview/feed/ 0 http://www.jennriffle.com/2010/11/18/vegan-mofo/ http://www.jennriffle.com/2010/11/18/vegan-mofo/#comments Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:31:16 +0000 jenn http://www.jennriffle.com/?p=279 Continue reading →]]> November is the Vegan Month of Food.  I really considered unofficially participating.  I’m glad I didn’t, cause as you can see, November is half over, and I am only now going to sit down and write a post.

The details about Vegan MoFo (which I think is a hilarious title, by the way) can be found here:

http://veganmofo.wordpress.com/

But I still wish to celebrate, so I will share some of the tasty food I’ve made in the last few months.

First up is Curried Baby Artichoke Ragout.

Curried Baby Artichoke Ragout

This recipe is taken from Vegetarian Times’ Farmers’ Market Cookbook. I did not alter the recipe in any way, but mine looked nothing like the picture in the book.  I think this recipe was delicious.

Next up, from the same cookbook, we have Zucchini-Tomato Gratin.

Zucchini Tomato Gratin

Considering that gratin means cheese, I did alter this.  I used nutritional yeast between the stacked layers and put Daiya shredded Mozzarella on top.  It tastes so much better than it looks.

I wanted to jazz up my typical beans and greens recipe.  Following an idea off the bag of precut kale, I got the idea for adding tomatoes.

Beans and Greens with Tomatoes

That is great northern beans (2 cans), a bunch of kale and a can of diced tomatoes, maybe two.  Oh, and veggie broth.  So yummy!  (Ignore the dirty stove)

Below is probably one of the most delicious things I’ve made in a long time.  Vegetarian Chili!  The first time I ever tried a chili!

Dr. Fuhrman's Vegetarian Chili

This is adapted from Dr. Fuhrman’s recipe in the book Eat to Live.   Although I made plenty of alterations that might make the recipe mine, I do not feel comfortable posting the complete recipe.  But I’ll tell you what I changed.   I changed the beans because of what I had in the pantry — I had black beans and kidney beans, so I used those instead of pinto.  I did not use the celery, I added eggplant.  I substituted Match ground “beef” for the TVP (where do I even get that anyway?), and didn’t use the raisins or dates.  The recipe says to put over greens, which made no sense to me, until I was almost done cooking it and realized that it was very thick, and I wanted my chili like normal chili, so I threw in some canned tomatoes (low sodium of course).  Cans of tomatoes are lifesavers.  Always keep them on hand.  :)   This was incredibly yummy!

How about Green Bean Fries?

Green bean fries

Green Bean Fries

These were incredibly delicious.  Recipe here:

http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2010/09/panko-crispy-green-bean-fries-veggie.html

Then, of course, I’ve had a bunch of really good salads from the Giant Eagle salad bar that I took to the zoo for my training.

Salad

This masterpiece was one of the most consumed items at my Labor Day party.  It is a variation of Rachael Ray’s salad.

Chickpea Salad

I added cucumbers and used endive instead of celery.  I also didn’t include the garlic.

Recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/chickpea-salad-recipe/index.html

And one last thing I’ve been enjoying is (vegan) overnight oats.  It’s an easy way to eat oatmeal in the morning, and it’s fun to play around with flavors.   At night, mix oatmeal with your favorite milk (hopefully plant based) and flax seed.  This is to replace yogurt – which I can’t even comprehend.  Mix well.  Refrigerate overnight.  In morning, add toppings and voila!  Oatmeal in minutes.  It is meant to be eaten cold, but I prefer to heat mine up for up to three minutes in the microwave.

Some favorite variations for toppings — mashed banana, maple syrup or agave, nuts; pumpkin plus previous ingredients; frozen berries and nuts (when put in microwave, the berries add the syrup) or use maple syrup or agave.   You can really use whatever you want.  The mashed banana and the frozen berries can also go in the previous night.  It’s fun to experiment and see what you come up with.

Hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the food.  If I do any more vegan cooking that is noteworthy, I’ll be sure to let you know!

In this episode, Colleen talked about her appearance on The Food Network. Now, you know I have talked about The Food Network and Vegetarianism before, as that was a very early post to this very blog.  I must give a note that this particular podcast was recorded in January 2007, when veganism was hardly ever mentioned.  I know that in recent days, a vegan cupcake was the winner of the cupcake wars and that a vegan (Natalie Portman) challenged the contestants on Top Chef or some show similar where chefs compete against each other.   But back in 2007, before veganism became trendy (it is, haven’t you heard?), they weren’t really doing much with it.

According to Colleen, the crew was fantastic with her.  They were professional and polite and everything else you’d want in a group of people filming you.   The segment they were filming was about “vegan barbecues”.    The crew spent the day with Colleen and her friends and everyone had a good time and loved the food.   Naturally, Colleen was a little nervous about the editing of the segment.   Which, apparently, was actually very well done (there is a rumor that the editor is a vegetarian).   However, the show the segment aired for was for a Bobby Flay barbecue show and he does episodes called “Crazy-ques“.

Yup, this segment was one of four stories about crazy barbecues.  The other segments included a barbecue taking place at a gas station and another taking place in Area 51.

Now, how does a veg*n barbecue compare to those weird things?  It doesn’t!  The only difference between a veg*n meal and a “regular” one is the lack of animal flesh/products (depending on whether its vegetarian or vegan).   And let me tell you …. VEGANS EAT THE SAME FOODS AS EVERYONE ELSE. The difference is what they DON’T eat.   Everyone, veg*n or omnivorous, eats fruits, vegetables, grains, beans … all normal food.  Yes, I’ll give you that most non-veg*ns probably don’t eat tofu and tempeh and seitan regularly, or probably never, but everything else that a vegan eats, so do non-vegans.  We just don’t make up something and say “it’s food”.   We eat the original food given to us by nature, before we learned to hunt and kill.   We eat food!  It’s not crazy!  People who don’t eat fruits and vegetables are not seen as crazy!  Even though I personally think not liking fruit is a little odd, it doesn’t mean I think you are crazy.

It’s just not!  It’s just a little different.    Thinking outside the box!

I just had to get that off my chest!  :)  Thank you for reading.

Also, I would love to see a vegetarian cooking show on the network.  I know of a lot of people who are interested in vegetarian cooking, even if they are not a vegetarian themselves.

For more information about Colleen Patrick-Goudreau check out her website:

#mce_temp_url#

Here is the podcast that this information came from:

Minding the Gatekeeper

Here is what I came up with:

It was a rice blend of white, brown, red and wild with grilled onions, yellow zucchini and red peppers, and black beans on top.  It was so YUM!

Matt and I have been travelling together for awhile.  When we go to Vegas, we know exactly what we want to do and we do it.  This time, there were six other people we had to consider.

I won’t give a play by play, but some of the highlights this trip was actually the food.  I know, you are surprised.  A foodie liking the food.  But seriously?  There was some spectacular food this trip! We stepped out of our comfort zone, and were surprised.

First, the Planet Hollywood buffet was really surprisingly good.  We got there for breakfast, which is mostly what I ate, but since we were at the lunch crossover time, we also got to sample a small amount of lunch food.  I really liked this.

Second place of note:  Bon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas.  Matt and I never considered eating in a French restaurant, but the others wanted to, and Bon Ami is a steakhouse, so other than small portions, what do we have to lose?  I thought it was pretty funny when the menu was delivered in French.  I think that was the wine menu only.  Pretty much everyone chose a steak of some sort, except for me, the lone vegetarian, who is unable to get her brain around eating eggs these days.  I ended up with a tomato/feta/basil salad, which was supposed to be an entree, but was more of a side, and a side of very extremely yummy macaroni and cheese that turned out to be entree sized.  The mac & cheese had breadcrumbs on the top.  So good.  I was satisfied even though I really ALSO wanted the greens salad that J ordered.

The other place of note, was 9, a steakhouseas well.  This was a high-end restaurant and probably the highest end I’ve ever eaten in.  I chose to eat a green salad (when I asked the waiter how big it was, he said “not that big”, but he was wrong), which was $12!  My sides were $11 each.  I got pierogies (how fun!) and green beans.  And yes, I got a large portion of greens beans.  I couldn’t eat them all!  But they were tasty.   We didn’t get there until 8:00 p.m.  and by the time we left, it was hopping in there and reminded me of a place that you think of when you think of New York City.  Interesting.

Matt and I, but not the others, ate at a place in downtown, that had a 40′s vibe and it was really good there.  All three of these restaurants had awesome bread as well, and each one had a different type.  Seriously.  Give me a GOOD salad that is comprised of more than just iceburg lettuce and brown tomato and cucumber, and some really really good crusty bread and butter, and I am content! 

I did get to eat at Stripburger, my favorite place.  Their veggie burgers are homemade and oh so good.  I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten that opportunity.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood, the old Aladdin hotel.  PH really jazzed it up, but I was still surprised that the room was tiny.  Especially for the price.  The rooms at the Excalibur, which can often be gotten for under $100 per night, were bigger.  However, the theming was cool.  We had the “Mommy Dearest” room with actual props from the movie in there.

We also had an awesome view!

We could see the fountain show.  I did see a few daytime ones, but unfortunately, didn’t get a good night picture of the fountain.  Below is Paris at night.

I also learned that the Bellagio changes its atrium each season.  Every time I have visited, it has been the same.  I guess that is summer?  It is the one with the ferris wheel.  This time, they had a garden theme and here is my favorite picture of that:

And on our last day, while waiting for our flight, we went in search of The Cupcakery, cause we heard it was good. It is located right at the new City Center tram station in the Monte Carlo.  Here are the cupcakes we selected:

Matt got chocolate with peanut butter fudge icing (and it really was fudge) and I had strawberry.  I couldn’t eat it all, it was too sweet and the cake really wasn’t all that great.  It tasted like it had been sitting for awhile.  I hope they didn’t sell me a day-old cupcake.  I would think there are plenty of homeless who would eat them at night.

It was definitely a fun trip, made better by the six new friends we made.  I can’t wait to do it again!

Since we didn’t go anywhere on Saturday or Sunday, I decided to do some cooking yesterday.   I made the Southern Greens and beans again, cause they are so yummy and easy to make.   But this time, I decided to try one of the recipes in Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet.  The recipe I attempted, Polenta Casserole with Seitan, was chosen simply because I bought polenta (not knowing what to do with it at the time), and thought this was a good way to use it up.

This recipe was sort of hard for me to make.  Because my ingredients weren’t quite right.  I’ll start at the beginning.

First step of the recipe calls for cooking the polenta and the cauliflower in a big pot for 30 minutes.  Okay, that sounds easy, right?  Well, I had pre-cooked polenta.  So I didn’t know what to do!  I figured that if it was already cooked and eventually being baked, that I didn’t need to do this step.  So I put the cauliflower into the microwave to cook, and thought that ultimately I would save time.

I went to the next step, which was placing the seitan slices on the bottom on the pan with the corn and asparagus.  Okay … another easy one right?  Not in this house!  The recipe called for 8 ounces of seitan.  One of my packages was exactly 8 ounces.  I took it out, placed it in the bottom … um, that didn’t even cover a third of the pan.  Hmm…. so I had a different package that was actually 1 pound and some ounces … I used that as well as the stuff that I had already put in there.  I had a little more than I needed but thought a little extra protein never hurt anyone.

So the cauliflower was done enough … and the next step was to mash the polenta and cauliflower until they were the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Well, I ended up needing to use the electric mixer and it was lumpy … I never got it right.  I put the extra ingredients in the mixture.   At the end I spooned in the peas and I added red pepper because I love red pepper.

Poured the polenta/cauliflower mash on top of the seitan mixture as directed and baked.  I had leftover polenta mixture, but I just tossed that.

And I thought to myself that this had better goshdarn taste well, cause it was a real pain to make!  It smelled really good!

Here it is right out of the oven:

And with the first slice taken out:

I made a small greens salad on the side, and sat down and took my first bite and ….. BLAH!  BLAND!  And I like bland food.  Or food as its supposed to taste.

What I think happened was two things … the seitan … too much and in this recipe it didn’t get a chance to absorb the flavors of things around it.  And the other being, obviously, the polenta topping itself.   I think I could make this again and have it taste better, but I won’t bother.  In the meanwhile, I’m going to separate the seitan from the polenta, and spice up the polenta and eat that and the seitan … well, I’ll see what I can dig up as far as sauces go and eat that.   I am a big fan of seitan so this was a disappointing experiment.

On the plus side, I made a really, really yummy soup a few days ago.  Recipe taken from the February 2010 Yoga Journal.  The name, Green Soup with Sweet Potatoes.  So yummy, and I ate it all over the next few days.

Here is what it looks like:

And its very important to note:

I tried a Sharon Fruit and it tastes just like a persimmons, except without a pit and the skin is edible. Yum!

I’ll be back with more stuff soon!

See, I honestly believed that I had cats for pets.  They are small, they are furry, they have whiskers and they purr.  They also eat cat food, watch birds and squirrels, and love to kill some furry fake mice.  But … they really act like pigs!  Seriously.  We meal feed around here, so everyone except Joey and Indy, who get more due to their age, eats two times per day.  But ten minutes after a meal, if one of us goes into the kitchen, we are followed by cats who meow and think they need more.  After Joey finishes one of his mid-afternoon or midnight feedings, a bunch of them will rush the bathroom door where he eats so that they can fight over who gets to finish the food.  I love when Joey finishes it all, they are all like “What?  Where’s all the food?”

The constant begging … I mean, they get enough food, but they always want more.  Maybe vulture is a better word than pigs.  But it just cracks me up the way they go nuts for any food.  If Matt and I are eating, they watch us.  Fuzzy loves to run into the kitchen and leap on the counter under the cabinet where the treats are.  Then he meows and looks cute.  Sorry, Fuzzy, you are a bit overweight, I’m not giving you any.  And its really hard to resist him!  He’s so cute.

But then, I guess I have no room to talk, as I pigged out on a vegan cheese pizza for lunch.  I should have cooked half of it, then I wouldn’t have eaten it all.  I should have only eaten half of it, and wrapped the rest up.  But I was so thrilled that there was vegan cheese that actually tastes good.

Yes, that is what I said.  I found vegan cheese that tastes good! And…. its not soy based.

I bought it at Vegan Essentials.com and its called Daiya cheese.   I bought both a small bag of shredded cheese and a pizza using it by the company Rossini.  When I received the shipment, I opened the bag of shredded and tasted it.  I did a happy dance.  I finally ate the pizza today and OMG … you can’t even tell its vegan.

So for all you dairy-avoiders, I highly recommend Daiya.  It’s expensive.  Check their website for where to buy it.  You won’t be sorry.

The 21-day Vegan Kickstart Challenge officially ended on the 21st of January, and they took the content down.  I thought they’d leave it up.  I didn’t start on the first day because of travel and illness.  But I was wrong.  The first time this year.  I have a few more credits, so its okay.

Where does that leave me?  Well… the same place.  Trying to maintain as high of a level of vegan as possible, and trying to eat more whole foods and cook more.  I have a ton of cookbooks and assorted recipes, so I can still try making tasty new things.   I can ignore the complicated ones.  The challenge starts again March 1, so maybe I’ll do it again, and this time eat the food as “assigned” every day, except for the days there are foods I don’t like.

Yesterday, I have to admit.  I had cheese.  At first, it wasn’t intentional.  We had had plans to go to a friends house to watch a movie, and we knew that we would be getting pizza.  I had 100% intention of having either half a pizza or a small one ordered without cheese for me.  Last time I had pizza, I removed the cheese, and had three toppings and extra sauce and it was yummy!  However, during the day, my delightful husband offered to make macaroni and cheese for lunch and I said that that sounded good … totally forgetting that I was eating vegan!   So, I figured … what the hey and ordered regulation pizza.  It was white pizza too, which I haven’t had in a long time.

My stomach didn’t feel too bad, even with the extra infusion of heart shaped Smiley cookies.  Or two.  Or three.  Actually, I was fine, stomach wise, but my nose clogged up big time.  I didn’t actually feel bloated until this afternoon.   So now I know … if I must, only one serving of dairy per day.

In other GOOD news, I had a very nice physical therapy session today.  My therapist says I am doing really, really well and gettting stronger every day.  She said that there was no reason I couldn’t participate in a racing event in October (location to be determined).   I can do a smaller race running, if I want.  Or walk a half.  Or run half of a half and walk the other half of the half.  That makes me happy.  Long distances are out for good, or at least a long while, she reminded me.  I can handle this.  It’s not like I could run a half marathon anyway. 

And I FORGOT to mention that I did try one other recipe from the challenge.  It was a Sunday morning, and I received the day’s menu, which called for Sweet Potato Pudding for breakfast.  That sounded really good.  It has oatmeal in it which I figured would make it nice and filling.  I had to cook and then cool the sweet potatoes (yay for the microwave at times), then I mixed it in the blender.  I put it in a bowl, sat down, ready to savor it.  And it was delicious!  However, it wasn’t cutting it as a breakfast for me.  It was truly a pudding, so therefore it became designated as a dessert.  Yay for dessert!  Using pumpkin would be equally delicious.  Adding the oatmeal is great … added fiber and even protein.  Not everyone is aware of how much protein is actually in oatmeal.  I ended up with a bagel with Better Than Cream Cheese.

I think for breakfast, it would have worked for me had I made oatmeal the traditional way and then mixed in the cooked sweet potato into the cereal.

I have been reading Wesley the Owl.  I highly recommend it.  It’s a very cute story and written well.  A fast, fun read.  Look for it on my sister blog later this week at jennreviewsthings.com.

Tomorrow, my Fuzzy goes for a teeth cleaning.  Wish us all luck.

On Sunday, I did make one new recipe, which  is the Vegetarian Swiss steak.  This is a seitan based food with tomato sauce, onions, peppers.  I did not have any green peppers, so I didn’t use, but I think it would have benefitted from them.  I also left out the mushrooms.  I am the one vegetarian in the world who does not like mushrooms.    I get asked that all the time “How can you be vegetarian and not like mushrooms?”  Um, us vegetarians like LOTS of things.  I don’t like broccoli, cauliflower or uncooked carrots either.  Or pears or grapefruit.  If this makes me weirder, so be it. 

Sorry, off on a tangent there ….

Here is how the Swiss steak looked right out of the oven.

And here it is on my plate looking a little less dog foody:

But I promise … it was tasty and the recipe makes a lot and I ate this for four days and now I am tired of it!  But it is a great source of clean protein and very low carb.

And here is a photo of the Roasted Red Pepper Soup which is less digusting looking.  I didn’t want to leave you with that other image in your memory.

On another note, exercise has been a little more exciting to report on.  I finally feel better and on Sunday, I worked out for the first time in a long time.  I ellipticalled for 30 minutes … which caused me to have a mini-migraine.  On Monday, it was full blown migraine, so I only did my PT … and Monday is the day that I go to the facility, so it was a long session.   Yesterday, I cleaned up around the house and I did a cardio/ab workout followed by my at-home PT.

I’m excited about exercising again, and interested to see what my hip will and won’t permit me to do.

That’s all really for now!