Sorry...

This is such a lame post but I wanted to put up my pepper entry while still in December! I had some pasta and celery to use up along with my green pepper so we had a pasta salad night. We've definitely done this before because it's easy to please everyone since they get to choose what goes in. Unfortunately I'm the only one who chose the green pepper!

December pick - Peppers

That's right - pick a pepper (or some), and use them :)
I would say that fresh ground black pepper doesn't count, but hey, it's a busy month so do what you must!

My salmon contribution

I used entirely frozen salmon (Gordons.) lol. When all else fails, bake it and put it on a big salad. 

November Salmon!

I did not take a picture of my November contribution and I didn't even actually make it in November but I did make something with the specific intention of using it for that month so I am going to acknowledge it here. I put some balsamic dressing on some partially frozen salmon and baked it. When it was supposed to be ready it was not cooked because it had been PARTIALLY FROZEN when I put it in. I cut it into a bunch of pieces, stuck it back in until it was cooked and then threw it on a bowl of greens and ate it. The kids tasted it and agreed that it tasted like "nothing." I thought it was good!

Anything but soup.

Sorry the month is half over and I haven't posted anything! Last month was so busy I never felt like cooking and I have been sick for most of November so far, so cooking is mostly limited to heating up soup. I'm so sick of soup at this point that I say you can do whatever you like as long as it's not soup.

Black bean, Rice and Pepper Salad

Soo...I made this weeks ago and didn't get around to posting.  Sauteed red and yellow peppers, onion, scallion, cilantro, broth, Chili Dressing...really good, but it made a ton! This was a recipe that I had written down from forever ago, so I have no idea where I got it.

Black Bean Pumpkin Chili

I'm late! But so are the rest of you so...I don't feel so bad:) I kept trying to find a good time to make this chili and it just wasn't happening so we had it November 1! Part of what was holding me back was that I wanted to use dried beans instead of canned and there is a lot of conflicting information about how this should be handled! I finally settled for soaking overnight, boiling for 10 minutes, rinsing and then putting in the slow cooker with the rest of the chili ingredients. This recipe was really good (pretty standard except for the addition of pumpkin!) but I think next time it could use some extra chili powder. 

October Pick!

I'm choosing black beans!

Garlic Cauliflower Breadsticks

So I tried to avoid these for awhile. I was a skeptic when it started appearing on Pinterest and then I saw this picture and decided if it looked that good how bad could it be? It's not bad at all actually, it's fantastic. The recipe didn't actually make very much so next time I will double it, Pat took one bite and said, "How hard was this to make? Can you make some more?" So basically, you steam cauliflower, throw it in the food processor for a bit, mix it with some cheese, egg and spices and turn it into the "crust." Bake it then throw the toppings on and bake again and you have something amazing. We dipped ours in marinara sauce. (Changes- I made the crust with slightly less cheese but was afraid to change it too much because I wasn't sure how it would hold together. I changed the topping considerably-very light spreading of garlic butter, and a little over half the amount of cheese it suggested.

Cauliflower 2 1/2 ways.

This is Steak with Mushroom Sauce and Cauliflower Puree from real simple magazine.  I've been meaning to try mashed cauliflower for awhile so this seemed like a good idea.  Gardein home style beefless tips, not the greatest, but a tasty dish overall!

Cauliflower soup with toasted garlic
Another Real Simple recipe.
(Am I getting my money's worth of this free subscription or what?)  The highlight of this meal was the addition of little tomato & cheese sliders I made with the leftover bagel bites I had from lunch. They have walnut pesto spread on them which is my new favorite thing.  Seriously, I just made another batch last night. *I used nutritional yeast flakes instead of Romano cheese. Mom said she wanted the recipe, so here you go!

The other 1/2 is another attempt at a mash/puree (in the recipe above I thought it was a bit bland and watery.) I made this just like mashed potatoes and added lemon pepper seasoning and it was great!  The rest of my dinner was my 'go-to' big salad (topped with whatever) if you were wondering. 

Italian Parmesan Corn Cakes!

Corn Cakes aren't supposed to have cauliflower in them but I've added 1/2 cup of cauliflower puree (or broccoli puree) since I started making them. The first time was in 2011 (see here on the other blog, although in that post I didn't add herbs and I'm not sure why! I do now!) and everyone still gets excited when I make these for dinner. I used to make these just for the kids but one day I actually took a bite and realized I was seriously missing out. Now, I make them when I don't have much in the fridge or need a quick dinner!

Paige is working on her zombie stare for Halloween.

Cauliflower

Mom and Dad have chosen cauliflower as the ingredient for September!

Posole II

I searched for awhile for a Posole recipe that met my ingredient needs and Lisa was nice enough to give me hers but I finally settled on this one from Esquire (of all the crazy places...). We looooved it. I am now a hominy fan. I left out the chile and adobo sauce so I'm sure some Posole lovers would scoff and say this doesn't count but I'm cool with that. We added a little shredded Havarti after this picture was taken but it was just as good the next day without it.

Southwestern Hominy

This side dish was pretty good and pretty simple. Sauteed hominy, red pepper and onion, with a bit of chili powder, paprika, salt, and pepper.  If memory serves - we had this with chipotle lime chicken strip salads :)

Posole!

We make Posole every once in a while (good cool weather stew) and that inspired this months ingredient pick.  It's super easy to find a recipe - this one starts with an onion, carrot and celery saute then you add herbs/spices, veggie broth or stock and hominy!  Guess who likes cheese on theirs. :)

August ingredient - Hominy!

Fried-Zucchini Spaghetti

Zucchini Stir Fry!

It's green so I threw it in there! Very good! I am really finding out how versatile this veggie is! (just an aside, the egg roll was not so yum) I did not enjoy eating zucchini bread for a week and a half straight though...I'm over it for the moment and the rest of the muffins are chillin' in the freezer.

More Zucchini Bread (With Banana)

I keep forgetting to take a picture of my zucchini breads! And this one was better than the first! Here's the recipe. I cut out the brown sugar and used 1/2 cup of honey instead of 1/4 cup, and used whole wheat flour instead of the pastry flour. I thought this recipe might end up mushy because of the banana and zucchini but it didn't, very good! I think I needed to cook it longer than it suggested though.

Catch-up (not Ketchup)

We're taking advantage of this repeat month by posting things we made using secret ingredients from past months but didn't post the pictures of because we're lazy. Sue us. Actually, we don't have pictures of eggs/breakfast from March (though we totally made stuff), beer from April (we used dark beer to deglaze the pan after cooking down onions for chili), or bananas from May (we made the oatmeal-banana-peanut butter-chocolate bread everybody sampled at Dad's birthday). So it isn't that much of a catch-up. We'll try to do better. Also, there's a zucchini entry in here, so there.

#1 - Soup (January)

This was a split-pea soup we made. The croutons were made from beer bread we'd made apparently in anticipation of beer month, pictures of which were on Lisa's phone, but since we got new ones, are now gone. (I swear I took a picture of the beer bread—it was all bubbly and yummy looking with all the butter!)

#2 - Zucchini (June) 

Sun dried tomato and zucchini risotto.  It was pretty fancy and Alex actually found that he liked the zucchini it! In the picture just below, we did some summer tofu grillin' and had leftover risotto on the side.

Zucchini Bread!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There really is zucchini in there, I promise!

Zucchini

I'll do more zucchini this month but I wanted to link back to what I'd already made! I posted zucchini pancakes on my other blog. Click here to see them. I've also been using my regular banana bread recipe and just substituting the zucchini for the banana.

July: more Zucchini?

I propose we extend Zucchini into July since I bought some but haven't gotten a chance to make anything, yet.

Operation: Meatless Monday's

I thought this was worthy of a post. I am trying to cook more on the stove and less in the microwave... Nigel has agreed to eat one day a week of no meat. This doesn't work out every week and sometimes out of order (it's Thursday). But here is the latest effort. Thanks to Kim for the recipe! 

Zucchini

Making it official-zucchini for June!

Banana Coooookies.

I made these last month and never posted about them! I wasn't going to bother but since we liked them so much that I've already made them again I thought I would take a moment to post them anyway. These are Healthy Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies. They're a good way to use up bananas when you don't want to go to the trouble of making banana bread or when your freezer is already stocked full of smoothie bananas:)

Smoothies!

I totally missed the announcement that this month was bananas! (It really was, this month has been crazy busy! haha). I made a couple smoothies so it totally counts even though I don't have a photo. One was peach, mango and vanilla yogurt. Not bad. The other was just mango, banana and vanilla yogurt and it was much better. :)

Um...No Thanks

This was one of those very rare occurrences where I did not like the recipe but the kids couldn't get enough so it's sort of a toss-up on whether or not I will make these again. It's basically mashed bananas, oats, raisins (you're supposed to use dates but I thought a substitution would be ok, apparently not?), and nuts with some cinnamon and nutmeg on top. Then it's baked for awhile. It was pretty bland and it got worse as it aged because the banana made the oats gummy.

Banana Oat Bars

Almost Forgot!

This sort of counts for beer month I think. This is what we did with the rest of our Pizza Bread. Sliced it, put sauce, cheese and spinach on top and stuck it under the broiler.

Pizza Bread Pizza



It's Bananas!

I think I told Mom and Dad I would post for them and forgot! They chose bananas For May!

Italian Beer Bread

I started out with a recipe for Basic Beer-Cheese Bread and then realized I only had mozzarella cheese so I cut the sugar to 2 tablespoons, cut the cheese to 2/3 cup and added 3 teaspoons of Italian seasoning. It came out great and smelled really good in the oven. We cut thick slices and dipped it in pasta sauce as part of our dinner! 

Classic

This is my post-run brunch (if it's not Eggos). Toast, one egg and provolone cheese. Not very fancy. I even make it in the microwave! HA! Yes, a soy latte is usually involved :)

Eggs

I decided to go with a couple classics for Egg month because a blog I check regularly happened to do a post titled "The Best Omelet You'll Ever Have" and then below that there was a link for "The Best Egg Sandwich You'll Ever Have." Was it true? Sort of... Normally when I make eggs (which isn't that often) I spray some Pam and I'm on my way but since I was trying to stick with the recipe (minus all that stuff about leeks...I used green onions. But I'll try leeks another time!) I used butter. Butter makes a big difference! And I liked that the egg for the sandwich was folded, mine is usually scrambled and then precariously balanced on the bread. I used some cheddar cheese and green onion for the omelet and cheddar and spinach for the egg sandwich.

"Eggs"

I haven't thought about food for a few weeks since I was getting over the flu. But I happen to make this quiche when Kim sent me a text that it was my turn on the blog so I said eggs. then i realized this is made with egg beaters and not really eggs... So maybe this month should be breakfast :)

"Pre-race Salad w/brie & walnuts"

Fake chicken, granny smith apple, brie, cranberries and apricots.  the dressing is juice from half an orange, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey. I forgot the walnuts and no, I did not go running after I ate this!

Pizza (Again)

When we made pizza this year on Valentine's Day, we made the usual amount of dough but used only half so as to have a thinner crust and froze the rest. The following week we thawed the dough and made pizza again. The top one is Lisa's, and it has roasted red pepper, onion, and mushrooms. The bottom one is Alex's, and it has no cheese. The toppings are: roasted red peppers, marinated artichokes from the olive bar at Giant Eagle, black olives, dried chili flakes, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Holy awesome, on both counts.

Valentine Pizza

This is the pizza we made for our annual Valentine's Day pizza feast. The bottom has real, non-vegan cheese with canned mushrooms, fresh red pepper, and fresh onion. The top has a vegan cheese available at grocery stores called Daiya (it's okay—good, not great) along with onion, red pepper, and black olives. The sauce was home made, so was the crust. Happy Valentine's Day to us!

Taco Salad!

This is a staple in our house, made all the better (and cheaper) now that we have some of those pans that let you turn a regular tortilla into an edible salad shell. The salad is just iceberg lettuce, tomato, black olives, and green onion, topped with TVP flavored with taco seasoning, cheese (or not, if you're Alex), green or red taco sauce (or both!), and smoked Tabasco sauce. Tasty!

Country Sausage Sandwiches

These sandwiches are the product of a recipe in Alex's Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day! cookbook, a Christmas present. The "sausage" is marinated tempeh, and the sauce is red onion, vegan mayo, red pepper, and lemon juice with a pinch of salt. There are also hash browns and kale on it, and the whole thing is on an English muffin that we made from scratch. With the whole meal being kind of on the sandwich itself, we thought home made apple sauce might be the perfect side. Altogether a tasty meal!

Chili Dogs!

We skipped soup in January, but we totally made soup. We just don't have pictures to prove it. What we do have pictures of, though, are chili dogs. Made with vegan hot dogs and "chili de Alex" (Alex's own chili recipe using textured vegetable protein, aka TVP, in place of meat), these are dang tasty. This time we used store-bought buns, but our preference would have been to make our own like usual. On the left are Alex's vegan dogs, on the right the cheesy goodness of Lisa's dinner. Yum!

Pasta Salad!

Salads!

The theme of the month is salad! I know that's a pretty broad theme but interpret it any way you wish! I might try to see how many different kinds I can do!

Soup!

Totally forgot I had this!!

Toasted Orzo Leftover Soup

I changed the name of this soup slightly to accommodate the changes I made to the recipe. It should be Toasted Orzo Chicken Soup but I used leftover turkey from Thanksgiving (I had frozen it, Pat was absolutely appalled because he thought it had been in the refrigerator since November...) and I didn't have zucchini so I used celery. I think it's a really good soup but the best addition is the lemon zest you add at the end, it really gives it the extra flavor it needs!

Soup!

Mom and Dad told me to post this for them  if they hadn't done it within a day or two! Theme of the month is soup!