try a new recipe at least once a week

Hurray for vegancookalong.blogspot.com!

Okay, the Spanish is probably way off. But I loved the Mexican-ish casserole I tried out on Friday:

• Mixed TVP with refried beans, leftover tomato sauce, salsa, spices, garlic and a little nutritional yeast

• Misted oil onto the bottom of a glass baking dish

• cut about 1/2 a package of small corn tortillas into strips and arranged 1/3 of them on the bottom of the dish

• dumped 1/2 the TVP mix onto the tortilla layer

• sprinkled non-dairy cheese over the mixture

• added the second third of tortilla strips

• more “cheese” and the last of the tortilla strips. Lightly sprayed the top with oil and added more “cheese”

• Baked for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Very tasty! The boy loved it and it made enough for a light lunch the next day :)

I’m not sure if this qualifies as a recipe. I always think that a recipe should involve a lot of ingredients, steps and procedures. I threw this together very quickly this morning for lunch and it has turned out to be very tasty!

Cabbage Chickpea Salad

1/3 sliced up green cabbage
1 can of chickpeas
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
couple of dashes of cayenne
1/3 cup of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon of dijon mustard

1. Sliced up the cabbage into short shreds
2. Put the cabbage in a glass bowl
3. Squirted the lemon juice onto cabbage
4. Threw in the dijon and spices
5. Added chickpeas
6. Mixed up.

This’ll probably last for a couple of days of lunches and the occasional snacking at work. Next time I may try using sprouted chickpeas so the whole thing will be raw!

I tried 2 new recipes this weekend, from a soon-to-be published vegan cookbook that I signed up to test. The first one was a soup. Very tasty. A more complex and tastier version of my good ole stand-by: chickpeas and canned tomatoes. The second was an interesting hummus. As a rule, I despise olives, but since I like tapenade, I thought I’d give’er a go. Good. Garlicky. Not too olivey. The directions were definitely different from any other hummus recipe I’ve tried. Probably shouldn’t write too much else since the recipes are hush-hush. Both may make their way into rotation.

I made Jerk Chili for dinner last night. Very good and VERY spicy. It’s going into regular rotation :D