Friday, September 28, 2007

Nothing Disappointing

A week of new recipes from some of our favorite cookbooks - no disappointment whatsoever!
From the Mother Nature's Garden Cookbook, we made Potato Leek Soup and Sweet and Sour Tofu with Pineapple. We have been really enjoying this cookbook - there are so many tasty creative recipes (but too bad we had to return it since it was due at the library).

The Potato Leek Soup was hearty and filling, a great recipe to make on those cold winter days (too bad it wasn't cooler here - it's still 90's here). It was a first to try leeks, and we both really liked them. Spicy like radishes and chives but slightly mellow like Brussels sprouts. The soup was pretty easy to make - just chopped up 3 medium-sized baking potatoes, 1 bunch of leeks (4 stalks), some celery, garlic, and onion, and spices- and put in the crockpot. Crockpot is great for busy students like us! We had leftovers enough for 2 more times and then put the rest in the freezer. A cheap meal too!


The Sweet and Sour Tofu with Pineapple dish was delicious. It was a different way to make sweet and sour sauce - instead of a tomato based sauce, the recipe had maple syrup and white vinegar. Great combination of flavors and textures - pineapple, onion, green bell pepper, tofu, and asparagus. We served it with whole grain couscous.



From the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Cookbook (our favorite bread book), we made Wheat Thins! Our first time to make crackers, and we are thoroughly impressed! Very easy to make, just combined the ingredients, rolled out the dough, cut into pieces, and baked at 375F for ~6 minutes. We stored them in a tight container in the fridge, and they were still crispy and fresh tasting when we finished them (4 days). Great addicting snack! No need to buy expensive crackers now.The rest of the foods that we made were modified from our own recipes.

We made scones with currants, a different variation from the Graham scones posted here. We felt that the currants worked great for an authentic "English" scone.


We also modified our before-vegetarian-tuna-macaroni salad and made a macaroni salad with tomatoes, mushrooms, red bell pepper, zucchini, onions, celery, and lots of peas. We really like the Nayonaise spread!


For a great treat, we baked gooey divine vegan brownies! We used Goodbaker Chocolate Fudge Brownie Mix and it was the best brownies we've made in a long time. We like our brownies gooey and fudgy, and these definitely hit the spot (FYI we baked them slightly under). Great heated in the microwave - it turns out like thick brownie fudge sauce :)


Oh, we also made a delicious pear banana smoothie (love the gritty texture of pears!), and we tried heriloom tomatoes - the yellow and the red-purple ones! So juicy and fresh as if they came right from the garden!

Lastly, for a boost of gratitude and fulfillment, Maria Palma has great advice on "Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude". This week we are gratefully to be blessed with love and joy. We are blessed to have healthy nourishing lives and a loving family. What are you grateful for?

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” John F. Kennedy

Kind regards, LK

3 comments:

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Cute cats... but what are they doing on top of the fridge?!

aTxVegn said...

How cool you made homemade wheat thins! I have 2 other King Arthur cookbooks, but not the whole grain one. I need to check it out!

LK Sisters said...

Atxvegan - You should definitely check out the King Arthur Whole Grain cookbook! The wheat bread recipes are our favorite and turn out great! In addition to crackers, we've tried wheat tortillas and granola which turned out great. We are looking forward to trying out the graham cracker recipe sometime.

And Little Vegan - our cats sometimes jump up on top of the fridge, especially our orange tabby Noah, who likes to lay there sometimes. Cats are so funny:)