Thursday, January 19, 2006

I've been in the kitchen all afternoon!


But before I get to that, I was going to post my picture of food from the other day. I had school from 8:30 a.m until almost 9 p.m (with breaks in between classes and lab) so I had to bring lunch and dinner and snacks with me to school. So I cooked a bunch of stuff the night before to prepare. I made a black bean spread for toast (upper left), which I had for breakfast, to start my day off with a good, healthy meal. Then for lunch I had Wolffie's Cajun beans and rice (bottom left) which I mentioned earlier. Man, it was good! Billy liked it too, he had some yesterday with his sloppy joe's. Then for dinner, it was leftover lasagna again(bottom right). The salad in the upper right corner is romaine with pomegranate seeds ( I got the idea from Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan! blog), tomatoes and carrots with an oil and vinegar dressing which has cumin in it (its from La Dolce Vegan).I have since frozen the leftover lasagna. I was overdosing and needed some variety. Anyways, it was a big pain in the butt lugging all this food around campus with me, but way better than anything I could've bought there! Campus is so not vegan-friendly.

For dinner tonite, I'm having chickpea ratatouille (Vive le Vegan recipe) with a bed of organic brown and wild rice. As a side, I made the Dijon Mustard Brussels Sprouts from La Dolce Vegan . I think I've made them three times now, they're just so good. The ratatouille is awesome! Its full of flavour and was really easy to make. I just had to mix all the ingredients in a casserole dish and let it do its thing in the oven! Its a great dinner!




I also made soup today. Its navy bean soup from Table for Two by Joanne Stepaniak. I work tomorrow night, so I wanted to have something I could just reheat quickly before leaving. I had a small bowl as an appetizer, and it is good! My dad tried some and said it was delicious. That is an extreme rarity for him to a) willingly try my food and b) say he likes it! He even recommended it to my sister and she ended up having some for dinner! I love when that happens. They're just a little slow on what we already know, that vegan food rocks!


Now....does someone want to come clean my kitchen?

Oh and in the entertainment world...stay tuned for a vegan chocolate pudding wrestling match between me and Berna...or is it a tournament now? All this to determine who gets Joaquin Phoenix ;) more details at the Forum

9 comments:

Dreena said...

Wow, Melissa... you are one crazy cooking vegan girl!! When I was in university, I ate so poorly. I can't even tell you! Your meals look wonderful, I'm so impressed that you do all this as a student. Certainly not the stereotypical student diet!

Thanks for posting my chickpea ratatouille. You saved me some work... I wanted to post a picture on my blog, so now I'll wait a while. My kitchen is currently clean, why mess it up? :)

Harmonia said...

WOW! Great stuff! I'm linking you!

http://harmonia.blogsome.com

Melissa said...

Thanks!

Dreena, I didn't always eat like this! I kind of go in cycles of healthy eating and then not so good eating. My first year of school it was ramen noodles, white pasta and potatoes! That was before I discovered vegan cookbooks though!

Dreena said...

Melissa, still much better than what I ate through university, mostly tortilla chips with sour cream, grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurts, frozen yogurts, an assortment of Lean Cuisines (I was really into those back then), and cheese 'n broccoli stuffed potatoes from Wendy's - ugghh!

Danielle D. said...

Melissa,

I am going to have to look up that navy bean soup now.

Do you have any favourites from Table for Two? I've had the book for a couple of years, but I still haven't made a lot from it.

Melissa said...

Danielle, I can't really say I have any favourites, because like yourself, I haven't made that much from the book. The soup is really good though. I've only made the soup and the baked macaroni casserole, which was okay. I'm trying to use all of my cookbooks for ideas instead of just focusing on one, so I'll definitely post if I make more from Table for Two!

Dreena, mmm tortillas with tofutti sour cream, salsa and refried beans is my all time favourite snack!

Michelle said...

i also love the dijon mustard brussel sprouts from LDV!! that chickpea ratatouille is also on my list of must try things :)

Danielle D. said...

Melissa,

I was just looking through Table for Two and I remembered a recipe that I used to really like: Cornucopia Oat Burgers (p. 104). Have you tried that recipe yet?

Melissa said...

Nope, I haven't made the oat burgers. I'll have to take a look at the recipe. Calciyum also looks like it has great recipe for burgers. I'll have to make one of them soon!