Beans and noodles

This will probably be the last of the cooking I do until Saturday, when I will prepare my Thanksgiving feast for Sunday! I'm going all out, so that I don't have to eat a roasted plain squash again this year. I'm also doing Thanksgiving again next weekend in Ottawa with Billy's family. I bought a Tofurky for that one!

Last night I whipped up the chipotle black bean soup from Vive le Vegan. I even sent Billy out to the store to get me a lime because I accidentally forgot it ;). Its not my favourite of the black bean soups that I've made, but it is very yummy. It reminds me more of chili, especially the next day, because it thickened up. Plenty of healthy goodness in this soup: onions, carrots, celery, sundried tomatoes, lots of spices (cumin, coriander, etc), chipotle hot sauce, black beans, and corn. Dreena Burton is right in saying that this soup must be served with a wedge of lime...it adds a little something extra to the great flavour. Black beans were made for soup, I think. I served it with a dollop of tofutti sour cream that I wanted to use up.














I also made the spicy nut noodle salad from La Dolce Vegan, which I brought to school for lunch today. This one was easy to make, the only thing I had to cook were the rice noodles. The noodles were cooled and tossed with a peanut butter sauce (with tamari, cayenne, rice vinegar, sesame oil and fresh ginger) and raw yellow pepper and napa cabbage. Then it was topped with roasted peanuts. I really like pastas that use a peanut butter sauce. This one was alright, but there was something missing, I'm not sure what though. But nevertheless it was really good, and filling and I love that it has plenty of raw veggies in it. Its better than many other chilled pasta salads I've made in the past.















I'm really enjoying packing a lunch for Billy and myself this year. We're such nerds when we walk into the cafeteria with our big lunch kit, haha, but we'll save a ton of money if we plan ahead most of the time. Most of you know the veganlunchbox blog, and I was browsing it and a few other blogs that have the same laptop lunchbox and I decided to check out their site. I ended up buying a laptox lunchbox and a few accessories...as a matter of fact I got a package. It was quite pricey, but I think it'll be worth it. Plus I haven't splurged on myself for a while. So I'll have a cute bag to carry my lunchkit and thermos in...and I'll waste a lot less on ziploc bags, saran wrap, etc. I can't wait til it gets here! :D
Blogger won't let me upload anymore pictures but you can click here to see the stuff I got.