All Chili-d Out

Hello, my name is Jennilicious, and I'm a badbloggeroholic. I haven't posted in ages because, let's face it, I'm a lazy-good-for-nothing. I decided to go ahead and post this short and to-the-point blog to get myself back in the habit.

I got paid yesterday, so I made a beeline to the store after work. Despite the fact that I was starving, I managed to stay fairly focused and made good food choices. I walked through the produce section and saw all that veggie stuff and thought I'd try something new. I saw the Lightlife stuff and decided on the Smart Chili.
Once home, I debated how best to use my chili. I had some sour cream left after making spinach dip for a barbecue at work (at least it was light sour cream, right?), so I thought chili nachos would hit the spot.

I heated up the chili, which just meant opening the pouch it comes in and throwing it in the microwave, dumped it on some tortilla chips, and slapped some sour cream and jalapenos on top.

I was starving, so I managed to down the whole plate in no time. But, the chili was pretty disappointing. It tasted rather like ketchup, and I hate ketchup. It was way too sweet.

Looking at the Web site, it seems Lightlife is headquartered in Massachusetts, which could explain this flavor scheme (sorry Veganne!). Any chili I've had here in Texas has had at least a modicum of spicy heat. This had zilch. What gives?

Garlic Sesame Asparagus and Herbed Barley

Somehow the asparagus I'd bought 2 weeks ago wasn't quite dead yet, so I felt it was time to finally eat it. I'd been putting it off because I didn't want my pee to smell, but I'm not sure why I was so worried about that. I was inspired by this recipe on vegweb, but I had no sesame seeds so I improvised- shocking I know.

I added 1 TB of sesame oil and 3 cloves of chopped garlic to 24 spears of asparagus. Then I stuck it in the oven on about 375 for maybe 10 minutes until it was done.

Meanwhile, I cooked some pearled barley and when it was almost done, I added a variety of Italian herbs and some vegan margarine (Earth Balance).

Delicious. I just wish I'd remembered to add the garlic to the oil ahead of time to let it infuse like I do with olive oil. But, still wonderful.

Steamed Cauliflower atop a Bed of Tomato-Cumin Cilantro with Spicy Cool Tofu Sauce

A long title, a tasty dish. I'm a huge fan of all in one dishes (not necessarily casseroles...or is that the definition of the word?), and today I needed a little of each food group (except fruit).



So, I cooked some quinoa with tomatoes and cumin, steamed some cauliflower, and made a sauce with 1 package of silken tofu , a bunch of cilantro (that's PARSLEY to you, jennilicious!), chipotle pepper, and salt. When I first made the sauce, it was missing something, so I added more of everything. I retasted and it still wasn't perfect, and then I realized the key: garlic. So I added 3 cloves and it was amazing.




















Not only is it tasty, but it looks pretty. The picture doesn't do it justice- cauliflower seems to be camera-shy lately. But if I actually cared when I "plated" it, it could have looked so much better. What's that atop you ask? Green onion. It was dirt cheap so I've been cooking with it all week.




As far as changes/improvements, it could really, really use some lime. I'd probably put it in the quinoa and possibly the sauce as well. And perhaps the quinoa could have used some chili powder.

"Creamed" Spinach

I had been dreaming about this dish all afternoon because I thought it was simply brilliant. Of course I would, I thought it up.

I steamed a head of cauliflower (left over from last week and about to be unusable), then used my badass immersion blender to cream it along with a touch of unsweetened soy milk, 2 cloves of raw garlic, salt, pepper, mustard, and nutritional yeast. I also added some water to make it soupier. Then I added an entire bag of fresh spinach (that I'd torn) and cooked until the spinach was wilted.

While brilliant in my head and no too untasty, it wasn't what I hoped because the cauliflower was so thick- the idea was that the cauliflower would be a "cream" sauce. I like creaming cauliflower, though. Well, I just like cauliflower. I'd like to make it again with some onions and mushrooms. And maybe some Better Than Cream Cheese. But still good.

I'm repurposing it tomorrow- on top a bed of yummy quinoa.

Chipotle Polenta

I've made polenta now the last 2 nights.

Thursday- I made polenta and added chipotle to the corneal. I then topped it with homemade salsa (chopped up one small on the vine tomato, half a red onion, 2 cloves of garlic, and some cilantro). And the best part- I added some chili powder/cumin to a few TB's of Better Than Cream Cheese. Now, in the past I feel I may have maligned this stuff. But, it's my crack cocaine (that and silken tofu). I love it. This dish was awesome, except I didn't cut the onion into small enough pieces so it was a little overpowering.

Friday- Same first sentence and last dollop. Instead of salsa, though, I cooked .25C of lentils with the other half of the red onion and another tomato. And a dash of salt. The lentils alone were amazing. On top of the polenta, though, was fantastic. Yum.

Lentil Soupish

I threw together lentils, corn, red onion, garlic, cilantro, chili powder, cumin, and a little salt. It was good and easy (just like jennilicious).

Vegan Cupcake Weekend

Last weekend I celebrated my 10 years as a cancer survivor and received an awesome book as a gift- Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. It might be the greatest book of all time. So I declared this weekend National Vegan Cupcake Weekend.

From the moment I got the book, the marble cupcakes called out to me. Probably because I had all of the ingredients already in my apartment. But, I had a request to make the maple cupcakes. So I did what anyone else would do- I made both.

The marble cupcakes actually looked cool and weren't that hard to make. I topped them with a coffee buttercream icing. The maple cupcakes were sort of a nightmare for some reason (more my fault than the recipe). I accidentally left out the brown sugar and screwed up the maple coated walnuts. They still came out delicious.

Both icing recipes made enough for 24 cupcakes, so I was forced to make 24 more cupcakes the next day. This time I tried vanilla and chocolate. One of my accidents from the maple cupcakes resulted in my vanilla extract all over my counter, wallet, and bananas. So I replaced it with pomegranate liqeur, but it was barely noticeable and still vanilla-y. The chocolate was delightful. So I alternated the icings and had 6 chocolate with coffee, 6 chocolate with maple, 6 vanilla-y with coffee, and 6 vanilla-y with maple. They were all amazing though not the most beautiful in presentation.