Revisiting Eat Drink and Be Vegan

Yes, it really has been 5 days since I've cooked a meal. Well, almost. I did make some lentil soup in the crock pot last Thursday, but it's been 5 days since I've really cooked. Rob and I have been in Chicago celebrating our 8th anniversary and spending some much needed time alone together!! I've been letting someone else do the cooking for me. We had room service for breakfast every day. Oh, how heavenly......laying in bed while your breakfast is delivered right to you. I can't even remember the last time I got to lay in bed, eat my breakfast, and then continue to lay in bed for 2, yes TWO, more hours. Dozing off and on, no kids climbing on me, heavenly I tell you, simply heavenly!!

We did get out of bed and venture into the city as well. We had a lovely dinner at the Silver Spoon. Fried tofu with peanut dipping sauce for starters, and Spicy Crazy Noodles with Tofu for a main course. Followed by drinks at the Palm Court of the Drake Hotel. For our anniversary dinner the following night we ate at Sushi Wabi. I, unfortunately, didn't stay totally veg.....it's hard to do at a Sushi Bar. Here we had Yawa Ragani (tempura soft shelled crab with honey wasabi dipping sauce) for starters. Followed by a Godzilla Roll for me (tempura shrimp, orange tobikko, avocado, cream cheese, green onion, chili sauce, spicy mayo and sesame seed). We finished with Green Tea Cheesecake and again drinks at The Drake. I had intended to take pictures of our weekend meals, but we failed to bring the camera, so you'll just have to use your imaginations.

So, on to tonight. I decided to revisit ED&BV for Dreena's Olive Oyl Pasta. This is basically a pasta of your choice topped with a tomato based sauce with sauteed garlic and shallots (I substituted some minced red onion), and a combo of Kalamata and green olives. All drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. As expected, this dish was out of this world.......Dreena really does have some amazing recipes in this book. I served the pasta with some garlic bread that I made by slicing a mini baguette from WFM then brushing it with a bit of melted butter and sprinkling with garlic powder, salt and pepper. Then I baked it at 350 until it was starting to brown and was crisp. Rob says it was possibly the best garlic bread he's ever had!

For dessert Mairin and I made Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, also from ED&BV. Again, they are amazing. And again, they were another "best I ever had" from Rob. They really are great, and relatively healthy too. And an added bonus, they don't have one single ingredient that Stella can't eat, which seems to be unusual these days. So, we've finally found a treat that Stella can eat...yay!!

With the holiday's coming, the posts may become few and far between, as I've got a a lot of planning and prepping to do, but keep checking, there will at least be a few this week. I do have quite a feast planned for Christmas day, so hopefully in the hustle and bustle of it all I can remember to snap a few pics for you guys!!