Archive for June, 2009
Baked Apricot BBQ Tofu, Sweet Potato Fries and Broccoli
Jun 25th
This delicious meal was real hit. The kids loved the Apricot BBQ Tofu, which was from Veganomicon. Sweet Potato Fries are always a hit too with the kids and the two of us, since the kids can feed their weird ketchup addiction (I found our oldest dunking apples in ketchup the other day) and we both love sweet potatoes. My wife makes them with a little garlic, cinnamon, cayenne, salt… oil… she blanched them first this time and baked them on parchment paper- so they were nice and firm.
I heart Whole Foods
Jun 20th
We always thought that shopping at Whole Foods was a sure fired way to spend a ton of money on food, but when my wife compared the prices- it turns out that depending on what we are talking about- we had that completely wrong. They also have a wider selection of many things and much cheaper prices than our neighborhood Kowalski’s Market for sure. We try to completely avoid Target if possible, since walking in the door means that we are going to spend a ton more money- usually on incidentals that we didn’t really need (damn you end cap marketing!) not that things are more expensive.
Whole Foods is definitely the place for a vast variety of tofu, especially firm tofu. We prefer the extra firm West Soy- which is the only place that we have found it locally. Tons of organic and locally grown produce at half the price as our neighborhood Kowalski’s. The price is right on most of the veggies. There is a huge selection of every veggie that we have ever heard of and can’t find- is there and everything is cheaper, organic, locally grown. For example, we found local braeburn apples at 1.99/lb. at Whole Foods versus much more a pound elsewhere and usually the apples are from Washington. Just awesome- oh, and Almond Milk is also half the price there as well.
Huge selection, awesome prices. Done.
Hemp Dream (Original)
Jun 15th
We got the idea to try this from our friends in PA. I used this in a “Spicy and Cheezy Potato and Carrot Stirfry”
(shown) and it thickened up like… a dream… a hemp dream. Very creamy. The dish did have a weird taste which my wife and I attributed to the fact that I put kale into the mix. Not sure if that was it or the combination of the cheese and hemp milk- more experiments to come on this recipe, which isn’t ready for prime time… I KNOW the kids wouldn’t have eaten it, so I tried it on a night where it was my turn to cook and after the kids had been at a birthday party- so had already eaten. I think it would have been better without the kale and maybe some red peppers instead. The kale was an awesome addition, but it’s distinct flavor… with the rest… not so good. The cheese sauce was made with a rue and a little bit of queso fresco and colby jack cheese… even though we did start cutting cheese our of our diet… but I hate to see things to waste. Instead of just throwing it away- I thought of it as “making room for some non-dairy cheeses” in our cheese drawer. The weird flavor could have also been from the queso fresco and colby jack and kale and hemp milk combo… not sure… we ate it and think it is worth experimentation in the future… so that is something.
I tried it for breakfast as a beverage with the kids. I have just replaced their typical small glass of milk with rice, soy, almond and now hemp milk- and this one didn’t work at all. To me, original Hemp Dream isn’t drinkable by itself. To our oldest daughter, 5, who said, “something is wrong with the milk… it is going to make me throw up” referring to the taste AND then pointed out the hemp? chunks in the glass after she drank half of it. I tend to agree. The texture is… well… a little chunky to just drink alone. Maybe I didn’t shake it enough? Our son, 2, took a tiny sip… and while he didn’t spit it out… was done.
My wife picked this up at the local Kowalski’s Market. It was a little expensive. I know they have vanilla in addition the original flavor that we tried, but I don’t think they had that at Kowalski’s.
Jimmy Johns
Jun 15th
Oh, blessed Jimmy Johns. How do I love your white bread! It is like candy. This new … challenge… makes it kind of an issue that my favorite sandwich is the Totally Tuna… which used to be called the Sorry Charlie (I liked that name better). I have been wanting to try their whole grain wheat bread for a while… so I got the:
Gourmet Veggie Club
The avocado spread is heavenly, the bread is soft and awesome. It comes with double cheese, which I didn’t notice, so next time I am going to try with half cheese and peppers… since I like things spicy.
As will all things Jimmy Johns, it is done being made before you can even pay for it. It is freakishly fast, so this remains an awesome quick stop sandwich shop- even now.
Prepping for a Summer Full of Greens
Jun 14th
The garden had a couple extra spaces where squirrels (and those darn bunnies) have eaten new plants, so I planted a sweet mesclun mix and baby leaf spinach from seed. You can never have too much in the lettuces realm- they are so easy to grow and grow anywhere. The romaine plants that we planted earlier in the summer has already yielded it’s first round and it really only seems to last a second time after the first harvest, we will be done with those plants in a couple more weeks. I have seedlings of romaine that I planted about 2 and 1/2 weeks ago, so those are going to ready to eat in a couple weeks- hopefully this will line up around the time the first plants are spent. I should be covered for the next month or so with what I have at this point, but I wanted to be prepared for the month after. It was my biggest mistake to not spread out the lettuces all summer- last summer I planted everything at the beginning of the summer and then we choked on lettuce once or twice midsummer, then were without lettuce the rest of the summer. I am hoping that the new plan yeilds salad greens for the rest of the summer. I have enough seeds for a few more rounds- I bought some spicy mesclun seeds (mix) and swiss chard and then some more romaine and a “gourmet” lettuce mix, so we should be set. I am going to try planting new seeds every two weeks and see how that works.
The kids like spinach, “spring mix” and romaine the most. Our oldest really is more adventurous, so will usually dive right in without much coaxing. Our son likes to dip most things in ketchup or occasionally the dressing that we have on the table (if it isn’t a ketchup meal)… so… um… gross… but if he eats his spinach, then… we say go for it!
Gardening by the Foot
Jun 12th
Our second year of four larger raised beds has been planted. I am still so proud of our raised beds. I saw plans for them online, but build them myself last year out of cedar and topped the corner posts with copper fence toppers. I sealed the beds again this Spring before I planted.
We have done a lot of research last summer regarding gardening by the foot- which shoves things a little closer and more symmetrically than I would normally tend to do. We also like the garden to look nice, since it is front and center in our back yard, so that increased the importance of nice beds and incorporating plants for visual appeal- even if we aren’t going to really eat them.
Our plan for the garden is as follows:
The chives and oregano came back this year. The mint didn’t, which we have a big pot on the patio. It came back when we had it in the garden, but the pot must have gotten too cold? Our daughter planted seeds at her school, so we got lots of small seedlings for the garden this year. We are trying onions for the first time- tons of them and sticking with our tendency to go really heavy on the tomatoes- since we love them so much. This year we also went heavy on the basil, since we never seem to have enough. We are also doing a lot of lettuce, since that is always a favorite. We didn’t really have much luck last year with cauliflower, broccoli and chinese cabbages. We tried red cabbage in it’s place- a new plant for us. We are also doing more peas than beans this year because peas as so good for you and delicious too. Last year too the tomatoes got huge, so they choked out things in their shadow. We may have helped with this by planting things that are early summer to the north of them. We can always plant more lettuces too if something doesn’t get enough sun- that is if lettuces will sprout for us in those areas.
One other thing that we are sort of sad to be lacking this year is cucumbers, zucchini and yellow squash. We had some awesome crops last year, but the vines took over the yard and killed a ton of grass… and with a small yard- we decided to avoid things that spread our horizontally.
Goals for our summer garden:
Eat everything that we grow.
Grow things that we know we will eat- rather than purely experiment.
Spread out the harvest throughout the summer- so that we have both early and late harvested food.
Star Dragon
Jun 10th
This used to be our “favorite” little neighborhood Chinese delivery… being one of the only delivery places in our neighborhood in S. Minneapolis and certainly the only acceptable option in our hood… has always been our go-to Chinese delivery. We are a block away from Huie’s Chow Mein (not good) and Star MOON (not impressive) who also deliver, but in the realm of “good” Chinese (made better because we don’t have to drive)- Star Dragon is about it. We usually get General Tso’s Chicken (love it) and Pork Fried Rice (really very good). This time we got:
Cheese Rangoon
Vegetable Fried Rice
Vegetable Mai Fun
Mixed Chinese Vegatables
Whoa, what a difference. The Cheese Rangoons were fine… pretty typical. The Vegetable Fried Rice was good. It has nice vegetables and good flavor. The Vegetable Mai Fun had shrimp, chicken and possibly some pork? so… even after picking those out- was absolutely flavorless. Ick. The Mixed Chinese Vegetables were WAY overcooked. No! This was the first time we ate one plate and didn’t save anything for the next day. We might try them again- picking something else for the most part, but I am thinking maybe no… it depends on how desperate and lazy we get.
No More Milk Challenge
Jun 9th
Easy enough for a first challenge. We have given up milk before to the benefit of my allergies and all of our digestion, but recently we have gotten lazy and just gotten into the habit again of drinking cow’s milk. Enough is enough. No more. I found a couple nice online resource about can into this with some thoughts on the subject, but we decided to make up our own minds and try them all. The kids have tried and liked chocolate soy milk, chocolate almond milk (hello, when cocoa is liked as the top second of third ingredient- I love it too) but have vetoed original flavor hemp milk for drinking- though it was really nice for cooking- it was too grainy to drink. We don’t really like rice milk, but may try it again. From what I remember, it was completely nasty by itself and it didn’t even work as a coffee additive- I have also read that some rice fields have been shown to have higher arsenic levels in the water they use that flood the rice patties, so we really checked that off the list. If we can find a good rice milk that is highly rated though, we may try it. Not sure that exists.
It has been a couple weeks now and since this is a nice and easy challenge- we are up for it.
Does anyone have any other milk replacement suggestions?
Snobby Joes and Corn on the Cob
Jun 8th
We tried the sloppy joes from Veganomicon. It is a terrific cookbook filled with tons a delicious looking recipes- this is our first attempt. So far, we are very impressed. The “Snobby Joe” recipe has a really nice texture from the lentils and slightly sweet taste; I thought this tasted ultra kid-friendly. We cut back slightly on the spice so that it was sure to be kid-friendly (3 Tbsps of chili powder back to 2 Tbsps). Our oldest (5) helped while shopping today for the week’s groceries and helped her mom cook by adding the “secret ingredient” (which was maple syrup)… so that she would be really invested in the meal. It worked for the most part as she ate about half a sandwich- even though she said it was really spicy, but it was only so she could have dessert and an extra cob of corn. Our oldest son, 2, didn’t really get past the corn on the cob and pineapple. To make this more kid-friendly, I would start by cutting back on the Chili Powder at the very minimum. This recipe is really worth a second round- or at the very least a grown up meal with full spice!
We served the sandwiches openfaced with chips and Veganomicon’s Tropical Avocado Salsa Fresca (we used pineapple), sliced pineapple, corn on the cob, and a simple tossed salad. It was quite the summer fiesta.
Hello world!
Jun 5th
What is this?
Well, my family (my wife and I with kids, 5, 2, and 2 months) have decided to be “more veggies and less meat and dairy-atarians”? Bunnies love carrots… and so do we.
We want to come up with a whole list of family favorites to eat and prep quickly, so the default meal isn’t just some hunk of meat. The topics covered will be about how are we doing it… since it won’t be easy… that kind of thing.