I love having my own kitchen!
I’m trying a new cookbook, Vegan Cooking for One. It’s got a bunch of weekly meal plans, for spring/summer and fall/winter, for quickly-prepared single-serving meals. It even provides a shopping list at the start of every week. This solves a bunch of my cooking issues: I hate making shopping lists, I get sick of eating leftovers, I don’t want to go to the grocery store more than once per week, I don’t want to spend hours preparing a single meal.
So I’m trying the first week’s meal plan. Everything’s been good so far. But I feel sad not having anyone to share with, so here, friendslist, have some photos.

This was yummy. It’s got scallions, olives, red peppers, smoked tofu, croutons made from toasted home-made bread, and a homemade dressing. The only change I made was to triple the amount of olives, because olives are awesome. And I’m annoyed that the shopping list had me buy a bunch of scallions but this one scallion is the only one that gets used all week. I guess I’ll use the others for garnish for the later recipes.

This was better than I expected. It’s got potatoes on the bottom and a red lentil/onion/mushroom/tomato topping, and with steamed collards on the side. This was my first time ever steaming collards, and they turned out great. I didn’t have any lemon or lime juice, so I mixed in a bit of tahini and that worked well.
That photo is only half of the recipe, which is all I was able to eat in a single sitting; maybe it should be called Vegan Cooking for Two. :P But at least it was quick to prepare and I wasn’t left with giant amounts of leftovers.

This was delicious. Fresh local apricots, breadcrumbs from homemade bread, freshly ground cinnamon… awesome. :) And I love the idea of single-serving desserts, since I enjoy making desserts but don’t like eating a lot of sweets.

These are from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I made them a while ago but never posted about it.

The insides are full of gooey delicious rum-soaked raisins.
Bonus: my cat Angel in one of her typical sleeping positions:

Aww, she looks so innocent.

But look at those eeeevil fangs!
Current Mood:
accomplished &
full
10 Responses to “I love having my own kitchen!”
trepkos on July 27, 2008 7:49 pm | Link
Mmmmm! Angel!
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rusty-halo on July 27, 2008 9:20 pm | Link
She’s mostly adorable and only occasionally EEEEVIL. >:)
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soundingsea on July 27, 2008 9:10 pm | Link
Ooh, I just bought Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World this week! I’m definitely going to try that cupcake recipe.
Everything looks delish, actually.
And Angel is adorable, fangs and all. :)
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rusty-halo on July 27, 2008 9:20 pm | Link
Good luck with the cupcakes! So far the Banana Split are my favorite. :)
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sallyanne on July 28, 2008 7:39 am | Link
Those dishes look kickass! How idiot-proof is that recipe book? I’m occasionally hapless at cooking, but sometimes I manage okay. I’m just getting sick of pasta and looking for more veg-friendly recipes that even I can handle.
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rusty-halo on July 28, 2008 2:09 pm | Link
I’d try Veganomicon for a newbie cookbook. This one is cool for the meal plans and weekly shopping lists, but it doesn’t have as much explanation as I’d like. Admittedly the recipes are simple, but it says stuff like “steam the collards” without any explanation of how to do so (in what? for how long? do you add anything to them? should you stir them or not? etc).
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pluckyyounggirl on July 28, 2008 4:24 pm | Link
Now I’m hungry.
Looks yummy, and looks like a great cookbook. I’ll have to check it out!
Also, entirely random, but: OMG ONE WEEK TO DT.
*bounces*
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rusty-halo on July 28, 2008 4:38 pm | Link
Thanks! :)
OMG DAVID TENNANT!!! I’m jealous; it’ll be almost three months until I see him! I hope you have an awesome time. :)
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pluckyyounggirl on July 28, 2008 4:42 pm | Link
Don’t be! You get to see him as well, after all! (I certainly wouldn’t have made that comment to someone who doesn’t. :-) ) Plus, I’m actually kind of jealous of you, because it won’t be over so soon for you. (Yeah, I know, my logic does not resemble our Earth logic.)
And thank you, I’m sure I will! :D
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