More Time On Our Hands

It's been nice this week to veg and enjoy the joys of life! Love having time reading books, scrapbooking, and hanging out with our cats (by the way, Anne of Green Gables is such a pleasurable read while the new Harry Potter book is quite tense).

With more time on our hands, we've been making new and tasty meals.


First of all, we've been wanting to make egg rolls (which require more time to prepare), so we thought this week was perfect time to do so. However, the egg roll wrappers in the back of our fridge... well, moldy. So we improvised, used the rice paper wrappers in our fridge, and used the egg roll filling. Making fresh spring rolls seem like a simple task using minimal ingredients, but every time we make them they are so time consuming and exhausting to make. Oh, and also so difficult to roll nice and neat.

That said, we sauteed some diced celery and diced carrots and added that to our already-cooked cabbage. Our spring roll filling was more like egg rolls (cooked rather than raw) and we put a slice of tofu in each roll as well. We tried to make homemade sweet and sour sauce, but we didn't have rice vinegar so tried red wine vinegar, and well, it turned out more like barbaque sauce. So, we just served the rolls with honey mustard dressing. (We usually serve spring rolls with peanut sauce.) Even though this was a new twist on spring rolls, we'll stick to raw cabbage and vegetables for spring rolls and cooked filling for egg rolls. Still, it feels so rewarding always after making spring rolls:)


We must of bought too much cabbage... we had some with our meal the next few days. We served cabbage with wild rice (with onions, garlic, and celery) and sauteed tofu with leftover mushroom gravy (from last week's post). The gravy is a keeper!


For an easy day, we roasted sweet potatoes, onion, red bell pepper, and mushrooms - simple yet delicious.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Vegetable Combo: (Serves 3-4)
2 medium-sized sweet potatoes, cubed
1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped
1/3 of large red bell pepper, chopped
4 large mushrooms, halved and sliced
1-2 garlic cloves olive oil, to lightly coat
optional: apple chunks

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Chop vegetables. Place vegetables in an oven safe ceramic dish, and roast for about 30 minutes or until potatoes soften, stirring periodically.



For a sweet breakfast treat, we made our favorite whole grain scones, but changed it up and added dried cranberries and orange zest. We topped it off with a great orange glaze!

Graham Scones (makes 4-6)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
8 whole wheat grahams, crushed
1 Tb flaxseed meal
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup cold margarine
1/4 - 1/3 cup soy milk
1 1/2 Tb Splenda sugar blend (or 3 Tb sugar)
Variations:
orange cranberry (add 1/3 cup dried cranberries and 1-1/2 Tb orange zest)
cinnamon (1/2-1Tb) or other spices
walnuts or pecans (add 1/4-1/3 cup)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. If desired, soak dried cranberries in water to plump.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, crushed grahams, sugar, baking powder, and spices if desired. Cut in margarine until resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk and if desired, add cranberries and orange zest or nuts. Stir just until blended.

Place dough on a greased baking sheet; pat into a circle. If desired, sprinkle on top sugar or cinnamon. Cut into 4-6 wedges and separate slightly. Bake 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. May need to cover with foil half way. Remove from baking sheet and cool 5 minutes.

For the orange glaze, mix 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 Tb orange zest, and 1 1-1/2 Tb orange juice, and spread over the scones. Enjoy!


Tofu "Cottage Cheese" , a new recipe from Notes from the Vegan Feast Kitchen that we tried earlier this week, was unique and healthy. It tasted slightly like cottage cheese and slightly like tofu. We added lots of garlic powder, some dill, and some dried celery flakes. The garlic powder made it really good. We served it with cucumber and lots of pineapple and the fresh pineapple is really tasty with it.

A really great recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen that we LOVED was Mexican Enchilada Casserole. Full of flavor, spice, and creaminess! We loved the creamy beans and the tomatoes in it. We added our own touch to it by adding sliced mushrooms. We ended up adding more heat, because, well we're Texans and like our heat:) Leftovers were fabulous. Oh so filling.

Today we made pizza, but with pesto, broccoli, tomato slices, and mushrooms. We really liked this variation on pizza. We made our own pesto with fresh basil from our garden and our own whole wheat pizza crust.

Here's a quote to end for today:

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who hear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. Hours fly, flowers die, new days, new ways pass by, Love stays." - Henry Van Dyke

Best regards, LK