Happy Halloween

Not a lot of food stuffs to write about today. Last night was leftover risotto for me, some pasta with jarred sauce for the girls, and I think a bowl of ice-cream for Rob. It was Tuesday, so you know by now, our busy dance class night.

Tonight was Halloween, and no cooking happened here again. We ordered take out pizza and had some friends over before we took Dorothy and The Wicked Witch of the West trick-or-treating. We of course have enough candy to last us until next year. Stella's been diagnosed with a peanut allergy, so that pretty much eliminates all of the candy she got, save for a few suckers. And Mairin scored big since she got all of Stella's goods as well!! We allowed Mairin to eat ALL OF THE CANDY SHE WANTED......she ate about 5 pieces and was done......what a good girl!


Tomorrow is my birthday, and I was going to make myself a meal from ED&BV, but my mom offered to take me out to eat, so we're going to Buca di Beppo instead. So, stay tuned for the orange sesame tofu and coconut lime rice early next week.


I got two early birthday presents from my friends. Both of them cookbooks, my friends know me so well. So, there will be some delicious new recipes in the coming weeks from Super Natural Cooking and Betty Crocker's Vegetarian Cooking. Actually, I got 3 early presents.....my dear husband and children gave me a Manduka Mat.


I will be taking the aforementioned Manduka with me on my yoga retreat this weekend. This too is a present from my family, and one that I am looking forward to more than you can imagine. So, what this means is you won't be seeing any posts, at least cooking related until my return on Sunday.

I hope everyone enjoyed a safe and fun Halloween, and that you all have a wonderful weekend. I'll be back with vegetable orzo soup (if things go as planned) on Sunday.

Mushroom Risotto

Last night I made mushroom risotto. It wasn't anyone's favorite, but it was good. Rob doesn't particularly like mushrooms, and the girls were both in a picky mood last night. I, on the other hand, love mushrooms and I love risotto (I had a fantastic risotto in Italy, tomato and basil, it was phenomenal), so it was a winner for me (and hey, I do the cooking right?? Sometimes they've gotta just eat what I like, plus, we needed a break from ED&BV!!). I started by heating 8 cups of vegetable stock in a saucepan. While the stock was heating I sauteed 1/2 a medium onion (chopped), and 3 cloves of garlic in about 2 Tbs of olive oil. Once the onion was soft and translucent I added in 4 oz of chopped mixed mushrooms (mine was a mixture of baby bella, oyster, and crimini) and sauteed those until they started to soften and get a nice brown color. Once the mushrooms begin to brown, I added in about 2 tsp of sea salt and a few turns of the pepper mill, 1 Tbs Spanish thyme, a pinch of oregano, and 1 bay leaf. I stirred all of the herbs in and added 3 cups of Arborio rice. I stir around the rice to coat it with the oil and then let it saute until it gets slightly brown and nutty smelling. Next, add in 3 cups of warm stock and stir. Let rice simmer, stirring frequently. As stock is absorbed add in more stock by the ladle full, stirring and simmering as rice becomes creamy. Keep adding more warm stock as the old stock is absorbed, until you've used all 8 cups. Once the rice was tender and creamy I added in 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese, and stir it in to combine. On the side I served rainbow chard, sauteed in sesame oil with a splash of tamari.

Once you've gotten the basics of risotto, namely, adding warm stock continually, creating a creamy texture, you can basically add anything you prefer. Just cheese is nice (and Rob's favorite risotto). Tomatoes are another nice thing to add to risotto. A while back I made a butternut squash risotto, that was perfect for fall, and I think next I'll be trying pumpkin risotto.

Risotto's are a very nice filling and warming dish. Just remember, if you decide to make this, or any other risotto, they do require a lot of stirring and attention, so it's not one you can put on while you are tending to clingy children. This one works best when someone is home to occupy the kids for awhile (try it as a Sunday dish sometime).

Lazy Sunday Morning Becomes Lazy Sunday Evening

Well, the slow and lazy morning became afternoon, and then it became evening. Yep, it was a full day of lazy. At 5pm we finally decided we should take our pajamas off and go outside for awhile. So, we threw on some clothes and caps and hauled our butts outside. We took a walk and played on the swings for awhile before coming in to make dinner.

Again, dinner came from ED&BV (and I promise to lay off of it for awhile after this, my next 3 days of meal plans do not involve opening this book!!). Tonight we had Bean and Corn Tortilla Lasagna with Avocado. I changed the recipe slightly because we didn't need a 9x13 sized dish of this for just the 4 of us. So, I halved the amount of tomato sauce used, halved all of the spices, but kept the original amount of garlic, beans and avocado, then assembled it in a small Corningware dish. I didn't measure the amount of corn I used, I just sprinkled some on until I thought it looked right. I also didn't measure the amount of cheese I used, again, just sprinkled it on until it looked right (by the way, I subbed shredded cheddar jack for the vegan cheese). Then I baked at 400 until the cheese was melted and bubbly.

It was incredibly easy to make and tasted fantastic! Rob claimed to not be hungry prior to dinner, but somehow managed to eat 2 pieces of this lasagna (go figure). Stella didn't approve upon first try, but eventually decided that she loved it and couldn't get enough. Mairin flat out refused to eat hers. But when faced with the possibility of getting a cupcake for dessert she quickly decided that she'd eat it, and lo and behold, she even liked it (oh, the wonders of bribery!!)

This is definately one for all of you meat eaters to try. It's going on my list of meals to make when my non-veg friends come over (wait, I guess I mean when anyone comes over, as I don't actually have any veg friends.......except you HM-D, but I don't expect you guys to be over for dinner anytime soon, although we'd love to have you!!)

A Lazy Sunday Morning

Sunday morning is pancake morning at our house. We have pancakes for breakfast nearly every Sunday morning. It's something Rob started doing for me when I was pregnant with Mairin. We've kind of kept at it, except that now I fix the pancakes.

Typically it's just 365 brand pancake mix from Whole Foods Market topped with maple syrup. Sometimes we mix it up a bit and use strawberry sauce to top them.

Today, we tried something totally new. We had Banana Cream Pancakes from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan (no, it's not the only cookbook I own, but it's the newest in my collection, so I'm trying as much of it as I can) topped with Warm Raspberry Sauce (you guessed it, also from ED&BV!!). The batter consists of spelt flour, bananas and coconut milk. They were delicious, and a very nice change from the norm. Mairin ate hers topped with whipped cream. Stella didn't eat hers at all. She loves pancakes, but she was less than thrilled with these. It was quite humerous to see her look at the pancakes (which look like your run of the mill pancake), pick it up to eat it, and get angry and spit it out when it didn't taste like the pancakes she knows and loves. But, don't let her reaction be your judge, get the book and try them for yourself, I think you'll like them.

After breakfast we proceeded to prep some green beans we got from the farmers market yesterday. Mairin and I snapped and washed them all. Then we blanched them, threw them in an ice bath, laid them out to dry and bagged them to be frozen.

Following green bean prep was pumpkin carving. I love pumpkin carving, there's something so nostalgic about carving pumpkins. One of my favorite parts is sticking my hand in the pumpkin and pulling out all of the goo. I love the way it feels and the way it smells....mmmm.

Apparently Mairin doesn't like it as much as I do. In her eagerness to help, she stuck her hand in the pumpkin and quickly let out a blood curdling scream, as she pulled out her hand covered in goo. We couldn't get her to the sink quick enough to satisfy her. Anyway, the carving continued, and the end results were quite nice. The princess of course belongs to Mairin, and the traditional jack-o-lantern is Stella's (it has 3 teeth, just like her!!).


While I did the carving (I know, it's typically Daddy's who do the carving.....I'm too much of a control freak to let that happen here), Rob washed the goo off of all the pumpkin seeds. We then laid them out on a baking sheet to dry for a bit. Before they were completely dry we sprinkled them with brown sugar, a touch of granulated sugar, and some cinnamon. Then we roasted them at 350 until the sugar carmalized and the seeds were crisp.


They taste like fall. And an added bonus was that our house smelled absolutely fabulous as the seeds roasted.

By then lunch time had rolled around. I know what you are thinking, and yes we did spend our entire morning in the kitchen.

We had left-over chili and hummus from last night. The girls had grilled cheese and tomato soup that was left over from Whole Foods Market yesterday. We eat lunch at WFM every Saturday and Mairin loves their Tomato Dill soup. This was Mairin's creation -----------> tortilla chips crumbled into her tomato soup. She insisted that we photograph it to post on the blog. And she's sure that you will all try this tasty concoctions yourselves.