Happy Chinese New Year!

it's the year of the rat, which is michael's year. although i think this year is an earth rat or some such thing and he is a water rat. i'm not sure how that works. and just because i know you're interested, i am a metal monkey. i like the idea of that.

anyway, i wasn't going to make anything special today because etsy orders were nuts. but i got out of work really early yesterday and i had a decent amount of time to get stuff done. so i decided to make a really simple, doubtfully traditional chinese dinner.

rice noodles (uncut for long life) with kale (green, leafy, money-like!) and shredded carrots (i have no idea what that would mean). i made a sauce out of a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter thinned with some hot water, tamari, and hoisin. for dessert, some mandarins.




i've also had the good fortune of being a tester for another of isa chandra moskowitz's and terry romero's books (are there too many 's's in that?). tonight i made isa's banana everything cookies. seriously, like warm, sweet banana oatmeal. these were so amazing with some tea. i want to eat these next time i'm snowed in. i would be all warm and cozy under my blankets in my zip-up once-piece ducky pjs sprawled on the couch, watching silly things on tv whist eating my cookies and drinking my tea. best.snow.day.ever!

mardi gras!

one year, i will go to new orleans for mardi gras. one year. as for this year, i just made some dinner...

bbq black eyed pea collard rolls with hot sauce-glazed tempeh over messy rice (all from veganomicon).




for dessert, kittee's king cake. i used the recipe from papa tofu, but kittee posted an updated recipe on her blog a couple of days ago.



up next? i would say chinese new year, but etsy orders are out of control right now and i dont know if i'm going to have time to do any fun dinners for the rest of the week. we shall see though.

super bowl food. well, in my case, anti-super bowl food. i watched the mythbusters marathon until i couldn't take it anymore. i went for maybe 7 hours or so before i had to turn on the puppy bowl on animal planet. so adorable!
anyway, i may not care about football, but i rather enjoy the food. so for my not-super bowl party i made some chili in the crockpot, potato skins, and some of katie's DEOTS tempeh wingz.
the potato skins were amazing. i looked up a few recipes online and the only one that sounded good was also the one that said i needed to microwave, bake, and deep fry the potatoes. um no. i managed to get away with just baking them. i started off baking the whole potatoes for an hour at around 400 degrees. i let them cool a bit, then halved and scooped, then re-baked the shells at 425 for another hour. i filled these with some shredded cheddar-flavored scheese. if you haven't had scheese before, i think it's worth the $8 or $9 you pay to order it. i wouldn't buy it all the time, but it's nice a couple of times a year for special occasions. i topped the scheese with some bac-os, then popped them back into the oven at 350 for a few minutes. when they came out, they were topped with some tofutti sour cream and dill. yum!


the chili is adapted from vegan planet by robin robertson. i added some extra veggies and stole the idea of adding a bunch of molasses from michael's chili. i let it sit on low in the crockpot for about 10 hours and it just got better and better and more flavorful. i can't wait to try it out again tomorrow!


finally, katie's tempeh wingz. i could eat these every day for the rest of my life. the only thing i do differently is double the sauce recipe and up the hot sauce.


so, yay! for super bowl foods and boo! for the people outside my house setting off fireworks and banging on cowbells and whatnot at 10 pm. is it really that exciting that the giants won? i didn't think so.

up next? mardi gras!