TV and Dinners

Big Brother's Saboteur Revealed!

Recap of tonight's unintentionally hilarious episode of Big Brother:

'Big Brother 12': And the Saboteur is...

Oh, Big Brother. Hahahahahahaahahaha, Big Brother.

Links Aren't Just for Sausage

Link to tonight's recap of Big Brother 12:

'Big Brother 12': The Brigade runs the show

I am glad they are revealing the Saboteur tomorrow. I want some diary room moments.

Vegan Day 11, 12 & 13: Happiness is a Burger and Fries

No matter what my intentions, I only manage to cook something interesting enough to blog about every third day or so. This has been especially exaggerated lately because I have been filling in for someone at work (and will be for the next few weeks) and they do a LOT more work than I normally do, so when I get home I am dead tired and it's all I can do to make myself a salad or sandwich and stuff my face while I relax in front of the tube. Because of this, I'm also a bit backed up on my CSA veggies. My crisper is stuffed. It's sort of angry with me, actually, mocking me and calling me lazy for not creating more recipes. Shut it, crisper. Quit judging me.

But, today. Today I have a recipe. Today I bring you: vegan burger and fries!

When it was time for me to clock out at work today I was STARVING and highly craving a veggie burger and fries. Feeling lazy, I called a restaurant in my neighborhood with a good veggie burger to inquire if it was fully vegan. The verdict? They could make the burger vegan, but the bun was not. Drat. Of course, the vegetarian/vegan restaurant in my neighborhood is closed on Tuesdays. As I sat at my desk and contemplated driving to Whole Foods to buy veggie burger patties and buns, I heard a voice in my head. It was my crisper, letting me know that I should get off my lazy behind and make my own darn veggie burger. And oh, I made it. I made the heck out of it. Take that, crisper.

Italian Veggie Burgers

1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 medium to large summer squash (yellow or zucchini), grated
1 medium carrot, grated
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 garlic clove, grated
2 tablespoons basil, chopped
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon vegan parmesan cheeze
1 tablespoon breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon seasoning blend (I used Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, but Italian seasoning would work well)
salt & pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mash beans with a fork. Combine mashed beans and remainder of ingredients (except olive oil). Note: you pretty much have to use your hands to get the best results. Form mixture into four patties. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat and cook patties for about 4 minutes on each side, until patties are browned and cooked through. Be very cautious when flipping as the patties tend to break. Serve however you best enjoy your veggie burgers!

I served my burger with a smear of tomato paste, lettuce, cucumbers and red onion from my CSA and some hot pepper rings for a little pickled flavor and heat. My "fries" were some roasted CSA potatoes. Despite having to use some really lame bread as my bun (all I had, unfortunately) this was possibly my favorite recipe I've ever created. I was mmm-ing through the entire meal. What do they say about the necessity being the mother of invention? Well, obviously said mother was a vegan in a land of non-vegan eats. These would also be really, really good with some tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese melted on top. Yum!

And now I shall go watch the premiere of my boyfriend Christopher Gorham's new show Covert Affairs. So much summer TV to keep up with this year! It's exhausting.

A Few Quick Links

Hi all! Nothing new to report on the food front (today was leftover city) but I wanted to post a few quick links to tonight's Zap2it recaps.

'Big Brother 12': The Saboteur mystery continues

'True Blood': The plot thickens

Note to self: do not sign up for two shows on the same night. I'm tired. I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with a yummy new recipe from my CSA haul.

Vegan Day 8, 9 & 10: Three Days, One Recipe

Before I blather about anything else, I need to discuss something. That Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter I bought at Super Target last week? Is EVIL. I am not a big "snacker." I don't eat much between meals. I don't take random bites of things every time I pass through the kitchen. I've worked hard to become a mindful eater and to take the time to enjoy all of my food either in meal or composed, planned snack form. But that peanut butter? Calls to me. It whispers my name as I walk by the cupboard, begging me to take a spoonful to sustain me in my long, arduous 11-step walk between the fridge and my couch. It invades my dreams at night, spinning elaborate tales of its deliciousness.

As a result? It's more than half gone. See what I mean? The peanut butter is evil. There is no other explanation. It must be stopped.

Besides attempting to remain calm in the face of extreme peanut butter temptation, my eats have been pretty lame in the past few days. I haven't had the motivation to cook anything elaborate lately, which is a shame because the vegetables from my CSA just keep getting better and better. They deserve more than lame (but tasty) salads and simple roasting. Tonight I finally got some inspiration and embarked on some actual cooking! It was all inspired, funnily enough, by something I picked up at the aforementioned Super Target of fabulosity:

No-cook whole wheat lasagna noodles! I didn't even know they made such a thing. Gorgeous. After eying the four (very) large squash in my CSA share that were still sitting in my crisper drawer today, I got the idea to make a lasagna-esque pasta bake using these noodles. I say lasagna-esque because, let's face it, lasagna isn't lasagna without cheese. This is a whole different animal. A lovely, delicious animal, but a different animal nonetheless.

Squash Pasta Bake

~8 sheets whole wheat lasagna
2 medium to large summer squash, sliced in 1/2 inch thick rounds
1/4 cup garlic scape pesto (or other pesto of choice)
1 cup tomato sauce*
1 tablespoon basil, chopped
2-3 tablespoons vegan parmesan cheeze

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Spread 1/3 cup tomato sauce in the bottom of a 9x6 casserole dish. Place enough pasta on sauce to completely cover surface area. Place 2 tablespoons of pesto on top of pasta, and then top with one layer of sliced squash. Place another layer of pasta on top of squash, evenly top with 1/3 cup tomato sauce and about half of the cheeze, and another layer of squash, the remaining 2 tablespoons of pesto and basil. Top with a final layer of pasta, the remaining tomato sauce and cheeze. Cover with foil and bake for about 45 minutes until pasta is tender. Makes 2 large servings.

*I made my own simple tomato sauce using garlic and onion from my CSA, a can of diced tomatoes, salt and pepper cooked and then blended in blender until smooth. Use whatever sauce you love.

I was really nervous putting this in the oven, but it turned out pretty well! I will say that, although I love the whole wheat no-boil noodles, I think this dish would work better with precooked noodles. It has less moisture because of the lack of ricotta so the noodles came out a bit chewy. Otherwise, it was great and I'll definitely be making it again. Next time I am going to add many more varieties of veggie because I think that will take it to a whole new level.

Oh, and about that vegan parmesan cheeze. It doesn't totally taste like parmesan, but it does add a good little nuttiness and salty tang like a real cheese. I enjoyed it! There's still nothing like a good, cheesy, old-fashioned lasagna, but this is a fun and tasty change.

Happy Saturday night, folks! I have a date with the Lifetime Movie Network. (I just found out my cable carrier is getting LMN in HD! It was like Christmas in July!)

Big Brother is Baaaaaaaaaaaack!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled vegan food feed for a breaking announcement: Big Brother 12 has officially begun! A link to my first recap (of MANY) for the season:

'Big Brother 12': Who is the Saboteur?

Rachel's voice already makes me stabby.

Vegan Day 6 & 7: Just Call Me Violet Beauregarde

Ever wonder what a gallon of blueberries looks like? Wonder no more!

 

That's a lot of little purple globes.

In addition to providing me with enough fresh organic vegetables each week to fuel my elitist douchebaggery, my CSA also sometimes offers the opportunity to buy other local products for an additional fee. Right now they are featuring blueberries, which I love. The catch? They only sell them in gallon increments. Thatsalottaberries, folks.

As soon as I got home I promptly washed and froze half of the lot, ate handfuls upon handfuls of the ones I didn't freeze (someone had to see if they were edible -- breaking news! they were perfect) and then immediately started scouring the web for vegan blueberry muffin recipes. Most of them involved random ingredients I didn't have around the house. I finally stumbled across this one and decided to go for it.

 

I think I used too many berries. There was one muffin that was literally a muffin top over a pool of molten purple lava.

I ate two of these for breakfast this morning. The first bite was lackluster. The second? Good. By the third I decided they were delicious. I used less sugar than the recipe calls for so I think I just had to adjust to a "less sweet" muffin. Vegan baking success!

Even though I have been eating blueberries for the last few days like they are going out of style, I still had a ton in my fridge tonight so I decided to attempt a vegan blueberry crisp using olive oil. I've made a lot of crisps in my life (although none without butter) so I just threw a bunch of stuff in a bowl and hoped for the best.

I forgot to take a picture before digging in. Bad blogger.

This was sort of a fail. It tasted OK, but didn't have that wonderful crispy top I prefer. As I was eating I realized it is because I forgot like two ingredients. Um, oops. Still, those mistakes didn't stop me from eating this amount times two. Hey, fruit is healthy! (Ooo...I just got an idea. What if I subbed applesauce for part of the butter. Would it get crispy like granola gets crispy with applesauce? Advice?)

My other eats for the last two days have been vegan and tasty but unremarkable. The highlight was, unfortunately, the large Diet Coke I got from McDonald's yesterday. Hey, this time I made it a whole week before breaking down. Progress!

Tomorrow is a very important day in TV and Dinners land: Big Brother is back! I am Zap2it's sole recapper this season, so if you're a fan of the show be sure to check out my recaps three times a week. (I'm tired just thinking about that, by the way. That's a lot of words about idiots.) They'll go live about an hour after the East Coat airing of the show. Bring on the hot tub-soaked stupidity!

Vegan Day 4 & 5: Heaven is a Super Target

I have a major announcement: I'm pretty sure I located heaven on earth today, and it was in the grocery section of a Super Target. Have you guys ever BEEN to a Super Target?!? I hate to sound so blatantly consumerist, but damn. That is some good stuff. Unfortunately, there isn't one anywhere near my house. I just happened to be about 20 miles outside of Nashville meeting up with an old high school friend who was passing through the area (hi, Teri!) and we met at a Starbucks near a Super Target, so I decided to go inside and pick up a few things I needed. Best decision ever! They have so much stuff! And it's cheap! For real, I can't get over how awesome it was! Somebody stop me from using exclamation points, because I am out of control!

For all of my insane joy over the grocery section, I actually didn't purchase all that much. I did, however, buy two different kind of nut butter. Have I confessed my little nut butter "problem" here before? Behold the ridiculousness:

Yep. I live alone. Problem! (The one hiding in the back is Kroger brand creamy peanut butter. It is the most shameful one. Also, I don't really eat the MaraNatha one because I think it is gross.)

The new additions to my collection were the Dark Chocolate Dreams PB (only $3.69!!!) and the packet of Justin's Maple Almond Butter. I had to limit myself to two kinds at Target, but they had soooo many other delicious sounding options. Did you know Archer Farms has flavored peanut butter, like cinnamon? They do. I wanted it. But I abstained. A girl can only eat so much nut butter at a time.

Now that I've got that embarrassing little confession out of the way, let's move on to my eats of the last two days, shall we? First up is Sunday. One weird thing about trying to follow a vegan diet is craving (and purchasing) things I would never normally gravitate towards. Like these waffles.

I wanted something different for breakfast and I'd seen these on many a blog before, so I decided to give them a shot.

I topped them with some berries and maple syrup. They were good, for freezer waffles, but I won't be buying them again. Stupid vegan diet making me buy unnecessary processed foods.

Later, I was out and about and realized I hadn't eaten anything but waffles all day. I pulled into a Panera, hoping I could find something both healthy and vegan. I think I succeeded? (There were a few ingredients in the salad dressing and bread I didn't recognize, but they didn't set off any warning bells.)

This is a Greek salad without feta and a baguette on the side. (Sorry for the cell phone pic again. I seem to have difficulty remembering to bring my camera.) This is the first time I've had their Greek salad without the feta, and honestly I really liked it! I think the one major thing I am taking away from this challenge so far is how unnecessary cheese has become in my diet. Since rolling it way back due to my lactose intolerance, I don't seem to need or crave it as much as I used to.

Later, I saw Eclipse and ate a vegan cookie from Whole Foods. The cookie was far better than the movie. (I did kind of enjoy the flashback sequences, even though they seemed to come from a completely different movie. Hmm. Maybe that's why I liked them.)

Today, I ate my standard banana/Barney Butter/granola bowl for breakfast, had a venti iced coffee with soy and vanilla from Starbucks while chatting with my friend, and then had the EXACT same meal from Panera (with the addition of a fruit cup) while out doing some shopping. I seem to find myself out and about during mealtimes frequently. I need to work on that, my wallet will thank me.

Now, I am tired and need to eat dinner. I am feeling lazy, so I'm thinking some nut butter on toast will do the trick. I do have a few jars to finish up, after all.

Vegan Day 2 & 3: Parties, Popsicles, Pedicures & Pei Wei

Happy 4th of July weekend, everyone!

We had a party at work yesterday to celebrate the occasion. I celebrated by making this cake I can't eat, and ostracizing myself by not eating any of the food ANYONE brought. Being a vegan is fun!

Seriously, though. It was a little bit awkward bringing my own food to a party, especially because I really didn't feel like explaining to everyone why I wasn't eating hot dogs, cheese dip and cole slaw. They are sort of used to my healthy ways so it didn't phase them too much. I just used the excuse "I'm not eating hot dogs right now" and they took it as the quirky healthy girl doing her quirky healthy thing. Instead of their spread I made a burrito out of my leftover rice and beans. Honestly, it was really good and way tastier than a hot dog so I didn't feel like I was missing anything by not partaking in the party food.

That night I was feeling really lazy so I made a totally lame vegan dinner: a giant plate of roasted vegetables.

This is potatoes and beets from my CSA and carrots from the regular old grocery store tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and baked for about 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Of course, ketchup was added post-picture for the potatoes. This tasted great but didn't really fill me up. I should have roasted the tofu I have in the fridge for some protein.

This morning, I slept so late (9:30am!!!) my breakfast was more of a brunch: homemade granola with a sliced banana, a scoop of Barney Butter and some unsweetened soy milk.

I totally dominated this bowl. Why is Barney Butter so much better than other nut butters? If it wasn't so expensive (and if I didn't have to make a special trip to a grocery store in a neighboring suburb to get it) I would eat like a jar a week.

After breakfast, I only wanted to do two things: get a pedicure and eat a paleta. Paletas are Mexican popsicles, and they are amazing. Nashville's local shop, Las Paletas, is pretty famous (they beat Bobby Flay on Throwdown!) and rightly so. Their popsicles are seriously on a whole other level of deliciousness. My favorite is the spicy chocolate one, but since I'm not doing dairy right now I was really just planning on ordering whatever fruit popsicle they had today with chili involved. Of course, I got there and NO fruit flavors were chili-infused! However...there was a mysterious vegetable chili flavor. A vegetable popsicle? Oh, yes, my friends. Yes indeed.

Behold the cucumber chili paleta. This. Was. INCREDIBLE. It was sweet, salty, spicy and sour all at the same time. It tasted sort of like one of those Asian cucumber salads, and I wish I had ordered two because I want another one right this very second. Wow. (Sorry for the terrible pic, I forgot my camera and had to use my cell phone. Considering my cell is like one step up from Zack Morris' giant phone, it turned out sort of okay.)

After this paleta revelation, I got a pedicure. The lady cut the crap out of one of my cuticles. Boo. Still, it looks nice. No pictures because I don't want to attract foot fetishists. (If you're already a foot fetishist and read this blog, I'm not saying go away. I'm just saying go elsewhere for your foot jollies. I'll stick to food and television.)

I really hate cooking my own dinner on Saturday, so I ended up getting Pei Wei takeout. They have a really great nutritional guide online so I was pretty positive I could come away from there with a vegan meal. That link is pretty entertaining and informative, by the way, for a couple of reasons. First, did you realize that all of the meals served there are technically two servings? Yeah, I didn't. Also, I love the section where they claim they won't commit to calling any of their food 100% vegan because, and I quote, "there are many vegans who do not eat sugar because it is processed with animal bones." I'm not attempting to mock people's choices or beliefs, but MAN it would be hard to be that strict of a vegan. (Um, and I had no idea sugar was processed with animal bones? That is weird, right?)

Anywhoodle, here's what I got:

This is Honey-Seared Tofu and Vegetables and a Vegetable Spring Roll. Note: there is no actual honey in this. It's just in the name. Which is...odd. What do they put in there instead? And why don't they just call it something else? Marketing is weird. Luckily, this was delicious and by far the best thing I've ever eaten at Pei Wei. I've been pretty disappointed in the past because their meat-based dishes are very light on the veggies and heavy on the sauce. This was the opposite, full of crunchy vegetables and very lightly sauced. No matter what happens at the end of these 30 days, I will only be ordering vegetarian meals at Pei Wei in the future. (Also? This is only half of the food they gave me. Now that I know there are supposed to be two servings I will feel awkward eating the whole portion!)

Whew. That was long. Have a great night, everyone! I'm off to babysit the cutest baby in the world. I heard a rumor there will be vegan brownies involved. Mmm, chocolate.

Vegan Day 1: Bread? Really?

Today I learned an important lesson about being a vegan: dairy and eggs are in EVERYTHING.

I woke up starving and a bit uneasy about what I was going to eat for breakfast and dinner, as I haven't been the the grocery store in ages and my cupboards are bare. Literally, they're bare because all of my food was here.

I had a bit of an ant "situation" in my cupboards and had to take everything out, fumigate and start over. Apparently, ants like graham crackers. The one (unopened) sleeve I had looked like an ant farm. Ew. And gross.

My plan was to pack an almond butter and jelly sandwich in my lunch. Quick and delicious! When I looked at the bread ingredients, however, I noticed the last one: nonfat milk. Why? Why, why, why? I quickly regrouped and packed a giant salad instead. Thank heavens for my CSA, which provided 90% of the ingredients for this impromptu lunch:

I topped this with some hummus and was good to go. For breakfast, I realized I had no fresh fruit in my house (I swear, I'm normally more prepared) so I rummaged in the freezer and found juuuust enough frozen fruit to make a smoothie.

This is made of banana, blueberries, unsweetened soy milk and oatmeal (for staying power). Oh, and look at my new smoothie cup! It's it pretty?!? I walked around work all morning yesterday introducing it to my coworkers. They weren't as impressed as they should have been. I mean, it has a screw-on lid. That's fancy.

My breakfast and lunch were tasty but not the most filling meals in the world, so as soon as I got home (from the GROCERY STORE, finally) I speed-cooked exactly what I was craving: rice and beans.

Happy happy. So happy. This is your standard weird ingredient-filled yellow rice (mmm...MSG) topped with black beans I sauteed with garlic, onion, a can of Rotel and spices. Layered on top of that is simple sauteed yellow squash, avocado and salsa. With chips on the side for crunch. So good I didn't miss cheese or sour cream at all. Vegan success! Unless one of the weird ingredients in the rice wasn't vegan. Then, fail.

I'm off to make a very, very non-vegan cake for a work party tomorrow. The positive: I actually hate this kind of cake so I won't be tempted to eat any. Score!