dinner time
I bet you thought I was going to talk about movies all week. I guess I tricked you, didn’t I?
I’ve been trying to make some more wholesome dinners. It’s easy to eat pasta or rice and broccoli every night when you’re busy, and as much as I love both of those, variety is good too.
I picked out some easy recipes this weekend and with the help of our slow cooker have made them in no time after work. The first experiment was lemony pan-fried chickpeas with rainbow chard. This lovely dish came together in about 20 minutes and was shockingly flavorful especially for how simple it was. I added in some seasoned jackfruit that I had cooked up over the weekend just to make it a little more substantial and used rainbow chard for a little bit of color. The whole thing was very satisfying and I loved the varied texture of chard, chickpeas and jackfruit together.
It was a nice reminder that meals can be simple and still be special.
fancy pizza
I saw a cherry arugula pizza in a magazine recently and couldn’t stop thinking about making one. So here it is. It was all I had hoped it would be. Slightly sweet and with a touch of bitterness to balance it. The crust was freshly made and perfectly fluffy. Pizza can be gourmet too.
We’ve been sorely lacking in the pizza dinners recently. Time to bring them back on a more frequent basis. Eating vegan pizza at restaurants is fun, but I’ve always preferred our homemade versions.
Dinner guests
chickpea cutlets with nutritional yeast/mushroom gravy
lemony garlic potatoes and brussel sprouts
Had my mom and her husband over for dinner a little while ago. This the first time I’ve had them over for a meal that I made and also the first time they’d been to Shawn and my apartment. I had wanted to make the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon for awhile and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
First off, I have to say I love using vital wheat gluten. It’s so much easier than spending the time taking however many cups of flour to break it down yourself. When I made these, I was only able to buy a small package at the market but as of this week they now sell it in the bulk section. Sounds like more seitan for dinner (and of course chickpea cutlets).
These were really delicious and unlike a lot of protein substitutes I’ve had. I would like to experiment using different ingredients using the same basic formula. The potatoes and brussel sprouts were also inspired from Veganomicon. While they were quite tasty, they were a bit undercooked, which I’m not sure if that was because my oven wasn’t hot enough or if I was rushing. No one complained though.
lemon poppyseed cupcakes with lemon curd filling
