Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Potatoes, Pistachios, and Peanut Passion

We have been pretty busy as of late (nothing new) and this is the season for cookouts so we have been attending our share. While I love a good cookout (especially veg ones!) as much as the next girl, I was craving to cook something and eat it at home yesterday. Rob had the day off and we had fun cleaning the house and playing outside with the kids (it was actually hot and/or humid enough for the kids to play in the neighbor's wading pool and take part in a lemonade stand). The kids did take time to come in and eat. Some of the family even had time to during the long weekend to sneak a nap in.
I had a bunch of potatoes to use up for some dish I was going to make for our Spring Party, but didn't get around to it. Thus, this lunch is a little potato heavy, but no one complained. We had asparagus and strawberries from Saturday's farmers market. I decided to try the No-Cook Hollandaise from The Saucy Vegetarian over the asparagus and it was very good even though I accidentally added a little too much mustard (that is what I get for not measuring, but all was well). As soon as I saw the Pistachio Crusted Tofu on FatFree Vegan, I knew this recipe was for me. I forgot to make the dipping sauce, but it tasted good with the No-Cook Hollandaise. To use the potatoes I cooked Herb-Scalloped Potatoes from Veganomicon and Potato Squashers from Eat Drink and Be Vegan. I fell in love with the Pistachio-Dusted Saffron Potatoes from Vegan Planet and was going to make them, but didn't have all the ingredients. The Herb-Scalloped Potatoes were very good as well and super easy. Speaking of easy, there is no reason for potatoes to ever go bad again since the Potato Squashers are as easy as anything gets and who can say no to baked potatoes, olive oil and salt smooshed into a cute little mess?
For dinner, I steamed some of the broccoli from Saturday's farmers market and made my new favorite peanut sauce. I don't know if I've blogged about this one before, but you have to try the Peanut Passion Sauce (except I'm lazy when it comes to zesting and had no fresh limes so I used organic bottle lime juice and a couple drops of lemon extract) from Eat Drink and Be Vegan. I served it over whole wheat pasta with broccoli and sprinkled some leftover pistachios from lunch over the top. After avoiding illness (except for an easy case of the chicken pox for the kids) all winter while pretty much everyone we knew was getting the flu and all sorts of nasty stuff over and over, we all felt like we had a cold coming on yesterday. So I decided to go heavy on the fresh ginger and garlic in the peanut sauce and I think it did the trick. Josie is a little stuffy today, but the rest of us feel fine. I had some Garden Vegan burgers in the freezer and I was nursing Josie while cooking at this point so it made sense to throw these in. The veggie patties were an impulse buy for the cookouts, but we ended up taking pasta salad and stuff instead. We don't usually buy the Gardenburger brand and lately I've been making my own. I've found the kids really prefer the bean burgers I make from scratch over all the ones we can buy in the store. We also had some mango too which was the perfect addition.
I don't have a picture, but Dema was asking for corn this weekend and I had no time to make the things I wanted to make so I took inspiration from Lindy Loo's post. I had to avoid sesame at one of the get togethers due to an allergy and I wasn't sure how well quinoa would go over so I made a corn and edamame pasta salad instead. I used whole wheat gobbetti pasta, corn, edamame, and covered it with a double batch of Herbs de Provence Dressing from The Saucy Vegetarian. It was good the first day, but much better the second once all the spices had time to blend. I would perhaps use more spices next time or just let it sit for a night. We've gotten out of our once a week shopping habit with the Spring Party and all sorts of other things going on, but this week, I would like to get back on track and work through the food we have in the house before running to the store.

5 comments:

Misc said...

My god, that baby is beautiful! She's just so lovely.

The food looks good, too.

I have Veganomicon and love the recipes in it, tho I'm not vegan or even veg (but I eat very little meat). I love baking up goodies and telling my carnivorous friends and family, "Those cupcakes? Vegan. Yup, no dairy."

VeganLinda said...

Misc, Thanks! We are pretty smitten with her.

V-con is a great cookbook and I love it when people who aren't vegan enjoy it. It is funny that people still assume that vegan baking is all carob and granola or something. If you ever have some leftover goodies, bring 'em by. :-)

half pint pixie said...

Love those rainbow leggings :)

Anonymous said...

I love love love her tights! Goodness I just want to squeeze her little legs.

This was quite a full post. I enjoyed seeing how a recipe here and a recipe there all came together to make one terrific meal. Sounds delicious.

VeganLinda said...

HP and VV,

I love Babylegs (the brand of leggins) and the rainbow ones are Parker's favorite...he picked them out for her.