Friday 7 September 2007

Been a while

Embarrassingly, it's been a whole two weeks since I last updated this blog! I was hoping I'd have a major backlog to wow you all with to make up for it, but alas, I've been fairly slack on that front as well. I'm back at school now (my last year!) so posts might be less frequent for a while when they start piling on the coursework. Never mind, quality not quantity I say...



We start today with a brilliant chance find! On the way to the supermarket (we missed the last farmer's market-boo! And we only have one or two a month- some of you bloggers in the USA seem to get one practically every day which makes me green with envy!) we passed a little stall someone had set up outside their house with squash, beans and courgettes from their garden, with a little honesty box so you could help yourself. They were still there coming back the other way and we picked up the beastie you see above.



My favourite way (in fact, in my humble opinion, the only way) to eat squash is roasted. So we did just that and tossed it with some pasta and a sage-y dressing my mum made (the sage was from our garden - the herbs at least are still going strong, unlike the courgettes and beans which succumbed to the bad weather. We still have hopes of harvesting some sweetcorn and butternut squash, though). Yummy! With roastey toastey pine nuts, natch, and some nutritional yeast which I ended up scraping off (I think my problem is it tastes too different to parmesan - I like it in cheese sauces and on soups but stay away from my pasta, please). Guess I'll have to experiment with making my own cheesy pasta sprinkles. The taste was between butternut squash and potatoes, which is a happy place to be.



I'm a big fan of Dreena Burton's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies, so I decided to try another sweet recipe of hers: Banana Oat Bundles. They were so yummy and quick to make and tasted like rock cakes (which is a compliment if you don't know what rock cakes are - think sweet, crumbly scones with raisins that look like you splatted the batter on the baking sheet - which you do, funnily enough). Plus a great use of overripe bananas, which we always seem to have lying around.



I was looking through Vegan With a Vengeance and decided I need to cook from it more often! So many yummy recipes (although my version has a coupla errors - 250ml nutritional yeast?), so little time. I plumped for the Sweetcorn Chowder, thinking it would make a nice supper with leftovers for my dad who was getting home late. Tasty and smoky (although I would have loved more spice - left out the jalapenos as Pie is very anti-chillies), if a little sweet, though prehaps that was because I used sweetened soy milk.



Last night was easy (but tasty) meal night for me and Pie - baked potatoes done in the microwave (but also oven cooked - we have a magical oven that lets you do both at once) with Velvet Red Lentil Soup (which Pie spurned and had, gosh, cheese and ham instead) and guacamole for my baked potato (comes a close second to hummus). Served with some microwaved sweetcorn (which has been awesome this year) and red and yellow cherry tomatoes. I also had an itty-bitty Sojasun cherry soy yoghurt - makes me feel five again.

Tonight was pizza night! This time I went for some red pepper, canned artichoke hearts, courgettes, pine nuts and pesto. It was spiffing! There would be a picture but Blogger won't upload it. Never mind.

Lastly, I have a new love in my life: Booja Booja Stuff In A Tub. It was the first vegan ice "cream" I've ever eaten and I cannot see myself ever buying another brand. I tried the vanilla flavour and it was so deliciously pure-tasting and melting smooth it needed no adornment. It's also pretty healthy as it's made with cashew nuts and sweetened with agave nectar, so you needn't feel guilty about tucking in! It's also suitable for diabetics. Next the ginger flavour, or maple and pecan, or chocolate...

See you soon, by which time I will have eaten the entire tub in my sleep.

5 comments:

Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan! said...

thanks for stopping by the blog! your food all looks delish!

welcome to veganism (i've only been vegan for a year m'self), ain't it grande? ;)

The Little Mama said...

All your food looks super-yummy! What lovely blog you had, and thanks for stopping by mine!
And, yes, those are red corn chips! They taste the same as regular corn chips, but everything's better in colour. :)

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

that pasta with the roasted squash looks absolutely scrumptious, as do the cookies and soups!! as for nutritional yeast - give it another chance; you'll get used the to taste :0)

Peggy said...

Eee, that squash looks so beautiful and orange and yummy! Roasted is definitely the way to go- there's just NO comparison.

Neat blog, by the way. I like reading about what vegans my age are doing.

Alice W said...

Thanks for all the comments! I get such a kick out of knowing people read my blog!