We got a huge amount of butternut squash in our farm share so I boiled them up and put them in the food processor. There were also shallots, garlic, onion, shoyu, Braggs (of course), carrots and flax seeds. I really wanted a giant salad so I spent the larger portion of the budget on greens, spinach, beets, corn, strawberries and pine nuts. I made a vinegarette out of mustard, balsamic vinegar, garlic, nutritional yeast, oil and salt and pepper.
Ashley brought home 20+ lbs of peaches So I made a cobbler! I added some rosewater and it was a nice touch.
Right now in the Co-op house, half of the people have moved out and dinners have been ill attended. I signed up to cook dinner by myself so I decided to make something simple that would be a salad, a main course and a side dish -- Spring Rolls! Spring Roll Fillings Spinach, Green onions, carrot matches, red peppers, mushrooms tossed with garlic and earth balance, purple cabbage, baked tofu (marinated in Shoyu and sage), and bean sprouts. Spring rolls are the easiest, coolest dinner ever! All you need a is a shallow pan full of hot water and rice paper wraper. You soak the rice paper wrapper in the water for 15 seconds or so, and then place it in front of you and fill and roll like a burrito. I like to put them in the fridge so that they stick together better.
The Finished Spring Rolls with Peanut Dipping Sauce The dipping sauce is super easy too, it's just peanut butter, a little water and hot chili sauce (Cock sauce!) warmed in a pan.
Close up of Spring Rolls
Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie This was an easy dessert to make! 2 ready to eat Graham Cracker Crusts 2 bags of dark chocolate chips 1 block of silken soft tofu 2 cups peanut butter Cocoa powder (to taste) I wizzed these together in the Cuisenart and added more Peanut Butter and Cocoa Powder to taste. I stuck these in a fridge until they hardened and grated a chocolate bar that had raspberries in it.
Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie with Graham Cracker Crust and grated Raspberry Chocolate on top. Mmmmmm.... weight gain!
Music Listened to: Shalom Auslander's "Foreskin's Lament" and Sex Pistols
In honor of our veganniversairy, Lee! and I decided to host a potluck in our honor. He is celebrating five years, and I'm celebrating one!
Lee! has a giant mouth. These cupcakes are Wasabi and Vanilla and made by my coworker, Andrea, at Dhaba Joy. Lee! has a love affair with wasabi peas so I thought that a wasabi cake would be a good treat from him.
To celebrate, I got a vegan tattoo by Miss Annie Mess!
Dinner Menu: Lemonade Frito Pie with red, kidney and black beans Squash Napoleon with tomato and baba ganoush Funnel Cake with strawberries
Total spent on dinner: $37.53 at HEB
Here's a big shot of our kitchen so you can see how huge it is. We feed so many people that we are licensed as a commercial kitchen.
Here are the eggplants, sliced and ready to roast. We get soooo many from our CSA that baba ganoush is a great solution for using them all up. These roasted for about 25 minutes before I scraped the meat out of the skin and put it in the cuisenart. I put about a cup of raw tahini, 5 cloves of garlic, juice of one lime (we are out of lemon), olive oil and salt.
Tomatoes, Yellow Squash, Green Zucchini going into a 400 F oven to roast for about an hour.
Frito Pie: Two pans full! 8 cups kidney beans, 8 cups black beans, 8 cups pinto beans 3 packages soy ground 6 cups vegan queso spread on top 1 bag of Fritos spread on top fresh jalepenos fresh onions
Lee! funnels the batter and Grace watches.
Grace makes the funnel cakes sweet with powdered sugar.
The entire spread. Our inspiration for this dinner was carnival food since it is just about the time for the state fair. We thought long and hard about making Fried Vegan Twinkies but time did not permit. We cut up about two cartons of strawberries and cooked them in Turbinado. We drizzled the strawberry sauce over the funnel cake.
What we listened to while cooking: Sex Pistols - Bodies Gnarles Barkley - Run (my favorite jam right now) France Gall - laisser tomber les filles Gumnaam (that song from Ghost World) Ghost Mice Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl - Uh huh, this my shit!
The Verdict from house members: Francois said that the Napoleons were the tastiest thing he's eaten in the house Clayton commented on how fancy it was
