More Soup for Me

Since I woke up with a scratchy throat that morphed into a nice little cough by the evening, I decided I need to make some soup for dinner. Yesterday I received a fantastic present of Brussels sprouts and thought I could make a soup with them. One time I steamed them, threw them in the blender with some veggie broth, and added some pan-fried sprouts for a nice, hearty soup. This time, however, I decided to do something slightly different.

I started off by cooking 3 small onions and 4 cloves of garlic in a little olive oil. Then I added some water and .5 cup of barley. After it cooked about 15 minutes, I added 1 cube of vegan vegetable buillion and some whole Brussels sprouts. I let it cook until the sprouts were done. And it really hit the spot.

I also needed to use up the rest of the firm tofu that was in my fridge. I cut it into 2 inch by 1 inch pieces and then dipped it in some concotion I came up with. I added about .75 cup of pinto beans, a giant squirt of mustard, some leftover canned tomatoes from my pizza, Mexican-style chili powder, and a little olive oil together and blended until smooth. I rolled (dreged?) the tofu in the dip (which would make an excellent dip on it's own) and then rolled it in finely crushed Cheerios. I started crushing the little o's by hand, but that was way too much work, so then I put them in a random paper lunch bag I had, but they broke it, so I resorted to using the bottom of the mustard container to finely crush them. I then baked for 30 minutes or so on 400 and when the tops weren't brown like I wanted, I turned on the broiler until they were nice and crispy.

As always, I forgot any salt or pepper. And I think it would have been better if I'd thought about it in advance and soaked the tofu in my bean mixture for awhile. But, they were neat and I plan to try to make them again, next time with extra firm tofu and a nice long soak. Finally, a new use for Cheerios.

More Mint

I'm a little obsessed with the mint now that I know I didn't exactly ruin it in the freezer. This morning for breakfast I decided to go with something crazy, mostly because I forgot to buy oatmeal last week. So I threw a frozen banana (when they start to get old I just throw them in the freezer, peel and all), frozen fresh but now dried mint, postum, unsweetened cocoa, and a splash of soy milk in the blender. But it came out too watery so I added a few cubes of ice. I poured it into a bowl and topped with a cup of cheerios. I've been dying to use cheerios in something other than cereal. I was too hungry to take the time to crush the cheerios like I wanted.

By now, you should have realized that I essentially made ice cream for breakfast. I love being a grown up.