Your Sweet Bippy: November 2007

Annabelle

She's kind of a spaz...

but really sweet. :)

Weekenomicon

My copy of Veganomicon arrived last week, so I tried out a couple recipes over the weekend. Hope your weekend was a delicious as mine :)

Chickpea cutlets

Of course I love chickpeas and seitan so this seems like a match made in heaven, but I only liked them OK. I think next time I'll add some more seasoning and bake them instead of pan-frying. I do like that you can whip these up in about half an hour.

With a little chipotle citrus BBQ sauce they made a yummy sammich.

White bean and leek cassoulet with biscuits (sorry 'bout the crappy pic quality)

Soooo good! Maybe my new favorite cold weather comfort food. I had some locally grown organic haricot tarbais from the farmers market that were just waiting for a vegan cassoulet recipe to come along, once I paged to this I knew those beans had found their purpose. I usually go all cheap and use dried herbs, but I highly recommend splurging and going with fresh thyme on this one, at least the first time around. The biscuits are easy to throw together and I love that you get to bake them right on top of the stew. Next time I might try them out with whole wheat pastry flour or spelt.

The dish was well received by all.

VwaV Gigantoid Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (with the addition of chocolate chips, because PB and chocolate should always live in harmony)

Mona went to her forever home on Saturday with a nice lady and her German Shepherd. Our new foster is coming home with us tonight. She recently gave birth to a littler of 9 and was spayed just yesterday so I imagine she'll be wearing one of those ridiculous lamp-shade collars for a while. Pictures coming soon!

Glorious Food!

I'm patiently awaiting the arrival of my Veganomicon. In the mean time I've sampled a couple of the recipes available on the PPK. Here's the Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh.

I've also used the marinade with tofu, it's excellent and easy to whip up with stuff I usually have on hand. I also made the Chickpea Noodle Soup (no pix sorry) and it's really perfect for this chilly weather.

Here's a couple test recipes from Melody that I made recently.

Seitan Turkey Breast

Served with mashed potatoes, gravy and steamed asparagus. I don't think I got the texture of the "turkey" quite right here, not a chewy as seitan I've made before. Flavor was still really good, and made for a satisfying meal.

This Black Bean and Quinoa Chili was a wonderful spicy dinner.

Both Woodman's and Trader Joe's were out of Quinoa so I settled for TJ's harvest blend, which is cous cous, orzo, baby garbanzos, and red quinoa. Very delicious.

I love the fall, it makes me want to cook again. :)

Country Life Garden

Last Sunday I went on a little road trip with my friend Teena up to Portage, WI to meet up with some other area veggies at Country Life Garden restaurant. They have an excellent salad bar. I had the Harvest Day Nut Roast

and the Simply Silky Cheese Cake

And this cute little dog greets you and walks you to your car after your meal.

Lovely rural atmosphere and nice folks. Hope we can make this trip again. :)

Mona

Jason and I have volunteered to foster dogs for Shelter From the Storm rescue. This is our first foster dog Mona, she came home with us yesterday.

She likes to sit with her paws crossed like that, very lady like. Mona is about 6 or 7 years old, possibly a shepherd mix. The markings on her face look rottweiler-ish to me. She was picked up as a stray and taken to a shelter in northern Illinois where the rescue org picked her up. Now she'll be with us while she waits to be adopted. She is a little shy and withdrawn, but she's still pretty new here so hopefully we'll see more of her personality as she gets more comfortable. She seems pretty easy going, but does seem to be a bit of a resource guarder around other dogs, thankfully not with people. Today we learned that she likes to rush the door when you come home, I had to chase her down but thankfully we got her safely back without too much trouble.

Hopefully we'll have the chance to help out lots of dogs like this.

Picnic Point

We have precious few days left where being outdoors will be this enjoyable. Picnic Point is a lovely little peninsula near the UW campus that is just perfect for jogging and enjoying the view. Here's a few pix I took last weekend.