Saturday, November 29, 2008

Mostly Mushrooms

I don't post much about mushrooms. Rob and I love mushrooms, but the kids are not big fans. Recently they have been trying them more so I'm thinking mushrooms will be on the menu more often. You probably know all about the reason why you might want to eat mushrooms (nutritional analysis here). I knew they were good for me, but I didn't realize they were a source of Vitamin D. Yet another reason to pick up some mushrooms.I made the Scrambled Tofu from Vegan with a Vengeance for lunch Friday (breakfast can be eaten anytime around here and Rob was home from work so it was kind of a laid back day). I don't usually use a recipe per se for scramble tofu, but I've been looking at recipes in VwaV lately so I thought, why not? I served it with Tempeh Sausage Crumbles also from Vegan with a Vengeance which we've had before. Stick to your ribs vegan food and enough protein to knock the socks of any omnivore.
Although our shopping once a week was shot all to "you know where" lately, I still am trying to use up things instead of running to the store for every little ingredient. So I had some mushrooms (and shallots...what are the odds!) to use up today so I made Thai-Style Coconut Soup from Vegan Planet which I've been wanting to make forever, but never have mushrooms when I think about it. I roasted some Brussels sprouts for a late breakfast/snack so the oven was warmed up and I didn't want to waste the heat so a I baked half of the tofu with some olive oil and tamari before I added it to the soup. I also used lite coconut milk which worked fine. I didn't have limes or lemons so I just used bottled organic lime and lemon juice and instead of the lime zest I used some lemon extract. I also went the easy route on the ginger and used this jarred fresh (is that an oxymoron?) grated ginger I bought at Common Ground which I needed to use up. This stuff is great! I always have ginger root in the freezer, but I forget to grate it until the last minute and then I get annoyed at that step in the recipe for some reason. COlazyUGH. So I went very heavy on the ginger. Rob came in a smelled the soup and said he wanted me to make Tom Yum soup sometime and looked sceptical at what I was making. I decided make Sesame Soba Noodles also from Vegan Planet to go with it. I used udon instead of soba and added extra carrot and peas to make up for the lack of a red pepper and threw in the rest of the tofu. The kids enjoyed it, but the soup was a little too spicy for them to eat so they added crackers (rarity to have some in the house, but fate was with us). Rob LOVED it. He ate after us because he was helping a neighbor with a bike, but I heard him almost moaning and saying how great the soup was while I was doing the dishes. If you want to get on my husband's good side, you will make this soup for him. It is nice to have recipes like this one in case I need to convince him to do something or make up with him after a fight (no, we never fight).

I don't have any pictures, but we had dinner at our friends Neil and Hilary's. They invited us to a Vegan Mexican Fest so how could we pass that up? There was only one other vegan at the dinner so it was even cooler to have everything vegan. It was a lot of great food, great music, and fun. I think Parker ate his weight in guacamole, Josie would have stayed forever watching and listening to the music if she wasn't so tired, and Dema demanded to know when we were going back again.

3 comments:

Lisa -- Cravin' Veggies said...

It's always good to have one or two of "those" dishes in your repertoire! Just in case.

The soup and noodles look great. I need to get that cookbook...

Meat-free Mike said...

Good to have you back, Linda! You have been missed! :)

VeganLinda said...

Awww! Thanks Mike!

Yes, Lisa, it is a great cookbook.