friday food round-up

Hi everyone, and welcome to yet another Friday food round-up. Today, I'll try to keep the wordiness down so you can just look at the food photos. Enjoy!

What did we do with the sprouts?

Salad with: steamed broccoli, chickpeas, yellow bellpepper (homegrown) and sprouts with a flax oil and tahini dressing. (flax oil, lime juice, tahini, raw garlic, pepper)

Apple and sprout salad with creamy dressing. (Nasoya ranch dressing diluted with apple cider vinegar and spices)

Tacos! With sprouts, cucumber, radish, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, cilantro, and black beans.

Anatomy of a Focaccia:

I'd been craving home-made bread and this black olive, onion, and rosemary focaccia recipe from the Vegan Chef sounded delicious.

Black olives, garlic, onion, fresh rosemary

Go into the delicious olive oil-y dough.

Cooling on rack

Sliced up and ready to be chomped up with soup. I tell you, make some focaccia, you will thank yourself! Especially good this time of the year since we're all eating so many hearty soups.

And there will be leftovers the next day so you can eat grilled cheese (Tofutti American Slices) and focaccia for breakfast and feel awesome.

Speaking of soups?

Lindyloo posted this recipe for sensational sun-dried tomato and chickpea soup on her blog and I just had to try it. Loved it.

Yet another squashyssoise! (Click here to see our previous squashyssoise experiments) Steamed butternut squash, leeks, pears, blended with veggie broth and pumpkin puree. Served with sunflower seeds.

What else did you do, squash-wise?

Made this fantastic roasted squash recipe from Whole Foods. Butternut, onions, cranberries, sage-it was great! (And so easy) Make some, but I warn you, if you are more than 1-2 people, double the recipe, because this stuff goes fast.

Any other salads?

But of course! Here is one of my all-time favorite vegetables, choy sum. It looks like a mix between bok choy and broccoli rabe, and tastes wonderful. Mild enough to be eaten raw, or you can grill or stir-fry it. Notice how just one veggie creates a whole salad, providing the crunchy white bits, green leafy bits, and even little yellow flowers. Dressed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. YUM.

Any cupcakes this week?

Uh, yes.

Rum-raisin cupcakes with rum glaze from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (p. 123)

Here they are in all their beglazed rummy goodness. (Warning: not one for the kids!!) These had a wonderfully spicy, holiday flavor to them. I decreased the sugar in the recipe a bit and they were just fine. HINT: the recipe gives you the option of using mace, definitely use it if you have it! It gives it a woodsy flavor that is really unique, and again, perfect for this time of year.

Any breakfasts?

Vanilla-walnut pancakes.

Fresh persimmons, sweet and fragrant, ready to transport you back to childhood. (If your childhood was filled with persimmons like mine was, of course!) These were much more widely available back in California, so the few times I see them in New York, I snap them up.

Anything else?

Chinese food- the good, the bad, and the ugly:

Our local Chinese restaurant was nice enough to veganize everything for us: veggie dumplings, vegetable fried rice with no egg, veggie chow mein with no egg, General Tso's tofu, etc. We were having a great time last night eating Chinese and watching a scary movie until something truly frightening happened: one of our 8 veggie dumplings was a pork dumpling! I actually bit into this and was shocked! We were saddened, but since this was clearly an accident that had never happened before, decided not to complain. Has this ever happened to you? What did you do? It definitely put a damper on a fun dinner.

One question: We are looking into a kitchen sink-mounted water filter and one for our shower. Do you have any particularly good water filters you would recommend? (Or any that you know are awful?) Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

friday food round-up