Vegan Mac and Cheese

We have been eating a lot of more vegan food over the last couple of days and I wanted to share an absolutely fantastic dish we had for dinner last night (and lunch today)

The low down...
Vegan Dad's Creamy Mac & Cheeze (As directed. We didn't have any sunflower seeds, so I subbed more raw cashews)
1 Tbs Green Chile Powder
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 bag Morning Star Crumbles (I have a weakness for these)

-Mix everything together.
-Pour into a greased 13x9 pan.
-Top with homemade bread crumbs (ours are, of course, spiked with some green chile powder)
-Bake in a 400* preheated oven for about half an hour.

So. Tasty! Even tasty as left overs!

Fermentation Madness

The Boy is reading Wild Fermentation and seems to want to make every single thing in it. Since we are short of flat surfaces to store our jars of bubbling goodness we will be putting in shelves this weekend.

Currently bubbling away-
Kombucha
Ginger Beer
Hard Apple Cider

On the short list of things to get started this week-
Kimchi
Mead
Sourdough (this is a maybe for me, but The Boy loves sourdough)

We are in desperate need of more glass jugs though. Sunburst Bottles has a great selection of large capacity glass bottles, if we can't source them locally that is where we will get them for future projects.
Oh the excitement of wild fermentation! I love to sit and watch the jars start to spontaneously bubble with no aid from us other than a piece of muslin to keep the flies out. (photos coming soon)

Omnivore's Hundred

It's been ages since I was an omni...
Bolding=something I've eaten

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos Rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Woo-hoo! 44% I love food!

"Meat"balls.

These are the best "meat"balls ever. All measurements are approximate, I usually don't measure things.

-4 eggs
-1/4 cup dried minced onion
-3Tbs vegetable broth powder
-1/4tsp onion powder
-1/4tsp dried parsley
-1/8tsp black pepper
-1 tsp minced garlic
-2 cups grated cheddar cheese
-1 cup homemade bread crumbs (recipe to come)
-1 cup finely chopped walnuts (we use the food processor)

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Lightly oil a baking sheet and preheat oven to 400*f.
3. Roll mixture into meatball sized balls (or what ever other shape strikes your fancy at the moment).
4. Bake for about 20 minutes until they are nice and crispy (don't get them too crispy, they are rather nasty when they get too dried out).
5. Nom. Or you can freeze them (on a baking sheet in a single layer then put in a container) and nom them at a later date. They freeze very well!

Thinking Not Doing: Week 4

Goals:
1. Plan a garden.
-The Boy planted the bamboo (pictures to come)
-While he was amending the soil for the bamboo I found a cache of more morning glories. I have no idea where they have come from but they have the most beautiful purple flowers.

2. Take a "formal" herbwifery class.
-I brought several Sage Woman and The Essential Herbal magazines that Cory gave me. Both have amazing information and inspiration.

3. Choose a major, and act on that choice.
-The Boy and I have been talking about opening an all vegetarian restaurant. I think that would be a wonderful project, but not one we are ready for at this time.

4. Learn to tie dye.
-I'm really slacking on this goal. All the materials are in a box next to the back door, I just keep putting it off for some reason.

5. Organize the soap lab, and make space for an herbal lab.
-I went on a "cleaning out the cupboards" over the weekend on a couple products I am making for swaps. That helped a bit.

6. Replace our current refrigerator.
-Nope

7. Learn to can and preserve food.
-I made and canned mustard yesterday. I think I must have done something wrong though because it is as thin as water. I took a lot of photos so hopefully I will have them up some time this week.

8. Get 24/7 off the ground.
-Voted on logo colors.

9. Exercise four days a week.
-I'm so embarrassed about this goal. We did yoga for about five minutes on day. I spent some time weeding. That's about it though.

10. Be a vendor for two more shows.
-I still haven't heard from the woman I emailed last week. I think it's safe to assume I didn't get in. I wish she would email me so I would know for sure.

Kombucha

Here are some fun photos from our most recent batch of kombucha.



Here you can see the scoby fell to the bottom and folded over on itself. It looked a bit like a tortilla. Notice the yummy bubbles at the top? This was our best batch of kombucha to date.




And a shot from above. Doesn't that look delicious? Ok, maybe not. But it sure makes a delicious beverage!

Recipes

My name is Brittney. I am a recipe addict. I have piles all over the house of recipes. I can't stop looking for more to print and try.

For this weekend I want to make (and can!!) some salsa and hot mustard. I'm a picky salsa eater, so it will be nice to make it just how I like it! We also go through a lot of mustard at my casa, it will be good if we can make and store our own.

Favorite recipe sites at the moment-
RecipeZaar
VeganDad
Post Punk Kitchen

Menus

I'm a big fan of menus. I love lists in general, but one's that involve food are my favorite.
We live 3.5 miles round trip from a wonderful little Farmer's Market. So the menu I'm making for the next two weeks (we try and cook once every two weeks) is based on additives we can walk to the Farmer's Market for.
Menu:
Pizza- I will make the pizza dough and sauce ahead of time. Freeze. When we want pizza we will simply pull out two balls of dough and enough sauce, walk to the Market to buy our toppings.
Couscous Salad- We have plenty of uncooked couscous (very cheap!). We will walk to the Market to buy veggies and beans to put into our couscous.
Veggie Burgers- Again, make burgers and buns ahead of time. Freeze. Walk to the Market to gets toppings.
Assorted Salads- Walk to the Market and get pretty much whatever strikes our fancy.
A Casserole- Make ahead. Freeze. Walk to the Market if we feel like it, but it's not imperative that we go on these days.

We started to do the Once A Month Cooking (once every two weeks in our case) to cut down on food bills, and with the intent of using the extra time to exercise. I can say that OAMC has cut our food bill in half. But on the exercising front...not so much. I hope that walking to the Market will fill in that exercise bit (and keep supporting our local farmers!) and add some raw veggies to our diet.