Squirrel’s Vegan Kitchen

For dinner tonight I threw together a simple curry using my tried and true mish-mash of a coconut curry recipe. I had some leftover coconut milk from another recipe so I made this with some potatoes, carrots, lentils, and peas. It turned out quite nice and now I’ve used up some more lentils and all my jasmine rice is gone, so one less thing to pack!

Every once in awhile I get a serious craving for some warm chocolate pudding and tonight was one of those nights. I made some chocolate “truffle” pudding (I stuck a square of Endangered Species mint dark chocolate in the middle while it was still warm as a treat). The recipe is from the ‘zine Don’t Have a Cow . Well, I added the “truffle” part, but that’s because I’m a GLUTTON! The ‘zine is pretty good. There are some good recipes in there and some excellent quotes, but there’s this little bit of vegan resentment that seems to come up from time to time that seems a bit out of place to me. I mean, you care enough to make a vegan ‘zine in the first place, what’s with the bitterness?

Last night we went out to dinner with one of our friends who has recently gone veg (yay Lauren!) so we took her to Green, where I, of course, forgot to bring my camera. I had an acceptable vegan pizza (I’ve gotten spoiled from making them at home), Jim had the “green” burger, which is actually red (from lentils and oats) and Lauren had the Thai peanut. Mmmm…

Well, that’s all for tonight, I suppose. I’m going to finish off my pudding ramekin and get myself to bed. I have a big day tomorrow: I’m giving my 2 weeks notice! Eeek! I’m quite freaked out about it, as I hate confrontation and really like my boss. Every time I think about it my stomach literally flops. Wish me luck!

Since we’re trying to use up stuff in our fridge and freezer I pulled out a seitan roast and decided to make a Thanksgiving style dinner tonight. It was a simple, throw-together meal. I tossed the roast in a roasting bag with half a sliced onion, 2 chopped potatoes with the skin on, a large handful of carrots, a pack of Lipton’s “accidentally vegan” onion soup mix and a drizzle of olive oil. Jim, in his eternal quest for junk food, rode his bike up to the grocery store to get some “accidentally” (or, as I think, freakily) vegan Pillsbury crescent rolls. If they’re vegan, what the hell is in those things? Dessert was a mint chocolate chip Tofutti Cutie. Mmm…

On a side note, to the person who mentioned sweet potatoes in my last entry, I made one up to take to work for lunch tomorrow. I sliced it up and then put a thin slice of pineapple between each slice and baked it, then I just tossed it in the fridge with a marichino cherry on top. I’m going to pack a little container of Ricemellow Fluff with it tomorrow. Ooh, I can’t wait!

Late last night we finally got to having dinner. Our friend, who is trying to go veg, was over so I showed her how to make lo mein. Fast, simple and filling. I make my sauce from a simple low sodium soy sauce and sesame oil blend, with some steamed veggies and baked tofu. Mmm. Lots of leftovers so I got to indulge again for lunch today.

Yesterday morning Ravi was being too cute. I was exercising and I noticed this little couch we bought the cats awhile ago. Just as I was silently musing over how they never use it, Ravi gets up, walks over to it and gets comfy! I had just enough time to snap a few pictured of him before he got irritated and left the room.

Tonight our theme was kabobs. I marinated some seitan in a garlic lime marinade and broiled them on kabobs along with some cherry tomatoes and onions. I would have like to grill them, but we don’t have a grill and the ones in the park (which is basically our backyard) are questionable at best and it was a crazy windy day. We also had baked potatoes, but in an unconventional way. I sliced them and stuffed slices of garlic between the potato discs. Then, I gave each potato a healthy splash of salad dressing, just a simple olive and vinegar blend. They were then sealed in their foil containers and baked. With a fresh crack of sea salt, they were melty and flavorful. For dessert, inspired by Jennifershmoo, I made fruit kabobs with pineapple and strawberries and a dipping sauce with some vanilla yogurt and a splash of orange juice.

Mmm, we were full and I am so happy to have an abundance of fresh pineapple at home!

Drumroll, please…

Allison! Please email me your address and the button will soon be on your doorstep.

Thanks for participating, everyone!

Tonight I didn’t have much time (also why I didn’t post yesterday, we had leftovers) so I made a box of wild rice pilaf we had from Trader Joe’s. We also had some tomatoes from the co-op that I worried were going to go bad before we used them up, so I sliced those as well as a handful of canned artichoke hearts, tossed them with some olive oil and Italian seasoning and then broiled them for about 2 minutes. It only took me about 25-30 minutes from start to finish. Yummy and light plus I managed to use up some produce and get another box out of my pantry. Yay!

I will get the Shepherd’s Pie recipe up soon. I have bits and pieces of it scattered in chicken scratch on several pieces of paper and I haven’t written out any kind of directions, so it will take a little bit to pull together and I’ve just been nutso busy when I get home from work. If only I could use Blogger at work…. Sigh.

Okay, I see lots of other blogs doing giveaways and it seems like a really fun thing to do. Sadly, I have no corporate sponsors, so you’ll all just have to settle with little, fun things that I find.

First up, a button that I also have a copy of on my purse. It’s one of my favorites, from Northern Sun . They are a great progressive clothing/bumpersticker/button/misc. company based out of my hometown, Minneapolis!

My end of the deal: I’m going to have a random drawing. I will accept entries (1 per person, please) until Thursday night and then I’ll annouce on Friday who has won. The winner must then contact me within 3 days to claim their prize and provide a mailing address.

What do you do?: Email me at squirrelsvegankitchen@gmail.com with your name and, for the fun of it, the one kind of fruit you would pick if you were on a desert island and could only bring one.

Sound good? Let me know if you have any questions!

It’s getting a bit warm down here for hearty comfort food, but I just couldn’t resist tweaking a recipe for vegan shepherd’s pie, especially after seeing these beautiful carrots at the co-op this week. So pretty! Oddly enough, when I peeled the purple ones they were just orange inside. They were quite nice to look at, though.

So, we had some seitan and mushroom shepherd’s pie. It was hearty and yummy with a thick mushroom gravy spread over the bottom layer, some carrots, sweet corn and peas on top of that and some creamy garlic mashed potatoes on the very top. Now I’m way too full!

Man, this has been a really busy weekend! I worked yesterday then went to lunch with some friends that were up from Tucson (we went to Green), went grocery shopping (which is an event unto itself as I shop at up to 4 stores every week) and then came home for bed. Today was baking experiment perfection day, cleaning day and packing day. We now have a wall of boxes and bins and we made it to the thrift store with a load of stuff (I was surprised they were open on Easter, almost nothing was). Now we’re starting to look like we’re making progress, rather than just having chaos in the apartment.

My BIG exciting find at the health food store was Follow Your Heart’s vegan Caesar dressing. OMG. When I was an omni I considered myself a bit of a Caesar connoisseur. I would eat it at every opportunity and could tell you the best and worst restaurants to get salads at. Then I went vegetarian, but finding vegetarian Caesar dressing wasn’t too hard. Then we went vegan and I hated every one I tried. I tried fruitlessly to make them at home and had gotten pretty used to using Goddess dressing when this beautiful bottle presented itself from the heavens. It’s so good. SO good! And it’s even decorated with a pretty little vegan V on the back. It doesn’t get better than that. So, for a quick lunch we had some Caesar wraps with lettuce and romaine. Mmm, I’m in heaven!

My baking adventure today was perfecting a chocolate raspberry swirl muffin recipe for the cookbook. I think this one is keeper! Jim and I have been noshing on the minis all day. I’m making him take some to work tomorrow to share with a vegan co-worker so I don’t eat too many! Yikes!

Lastly, here’s a picture of Bindhi, my youngest cat. She has made this box her clubhouse and she hangs out in it with her toys for hours on end. She’s a little territorial about it, but in a playful and adorable way.

That’s it for now! Hope you all had a lovely holiday!

Every 4 weeks I have to work the “late” shift at my work, which means you have to work a 4 hour shift on Saturday. Of course paying overtime is unheard of, so instead we only work 4 hours on Friday- 2 to 6. It’s nice because it goes by really fast and you have the whole morning to do whatever.

The past two late shifts I’ve worked I’ve tried something new with my Friday mornings off. I heard of this concept called “being constructive with your time” and I thought I’d check it out. Normally, a Friday off would have resulted in me sleeping in too late, eating breakfast and surfing the internet in my pajamas until about 11 or 12 then laying in bed reading a book for another hour or so then jumping in the shower and racing to work to get there on time. Not that those days aren’t needed and well earned for many people and we all deserve them, but I am tired of feeling like a sloth and letting my mornings slip away with nothing to show for it.

This morning I got up when Jim left for work, ate breakfast, washed some dishes, made pizza dough, washed two loads of laundry, worked out, showered, punched down my pizza dough for it’s second rise, drove out to the pet food store for cat food, came home, made banana walnut muffins as a house warming present for my sister-in-law, made pesto, prepped the pizza, Jim came home for lunch and we noshed, got some materials together for a project for a craft swap on the Vegan Freaks forum and went to work. Whew! When I got to work I wanted to take a nap!

This pizza is stuffed with my sundried-tomato pesto. After stuffing the crust I added some tomato sauce (I haven’t made my own yet. I buy this premade stuff from Trader Joe’s that’d dee-lish), little blobs of pesto, sauteed mushrooms and some black olives, on Jim’s half. Mmm, it was good and there were leftovers for dinner! I always make my pizzas on a pizza stone, the end results are amazingly better than a pan and it cooks up from raw dough to crisp-to-perfection in about 6 minutes. Nothing beats that!

I’ll be posting the pesto recipe in the recipes section.

Now I’m off to bed where visions of pizza pies will dance through my head.