Sick week.

I've been sick all week. Sunday, we went to see Bridge To Terabithia, and Monday I woke up with a really annoying head cold. Today I thought I was feeling better, then ended up taking a four hour nap! As a result, I didn't cook hardly at all. My husband left on Tuesday so I didn't even have someone to bring me a sandwich. I subsisted on mostly water, orange juice, bananas, and cereal. I also had a few of Joanna's muffins stashed in the freezer. When things started to run low, I actually tried to find a grocery store in my area that delivered, but no. Not in good ol' Tennessee. We don't recycle, and we don't delivery grocceries. Jerks.



This is what we at Sunday night before the movie, matzoh and latkes. I've never made latkes before, I used Bryanna's recipe. I followed the zucchini variation (but I only had one), and my husband had no idea there were onions in them. Or he's finally sucked it up and stopped caring. The matzoh definitely looks better, but I still think they could be fluffier.

I didn't bother trying to make the latkes low fat so they were fried in oil. One of the things i've learned in dieting is that if you don't give yourself a break every now and then, you'll just go nuts and binge eat. These were my delicious greasy break.



This is the only thing I made while I was sick. I was going to test Joanna's lentil soup recipe, but it requires red wine so I just threw together my own. Lentils, onion, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, quinoa, some spices. I blended half of it because I think soup just tastes and looks better that way. I took this picture, then took a bite and realized the lentils were still not quite done. So I put it back on the stove...and burned it. Sheesh. I still ate it, I just had to make sure to not scrape up the burnt bottom.

As of this morning, I am down to 145. That's about 17 pounds overall, since I was pmsing and bloated when I first got up the nerve to weigh myself. So far the weight is coming off quickly, if I wasn't keeping track of my food on the Weight Watchers website i'd wonder if I was eating enough. I swear I lost three pounds this week just by peeing from all of the water i've been drinking. I would also like to thank my friend, the banana, for always being there for me when I need a quick snack. You are an amazing food, my friend.



I went on a mini book buying spree on amazon. These should keep me busy while i'm waiting for my body to hurry up and stop being tired, already.

The big V and Vegan Lunch Box.

First, I finally ordered and received my copy of Vegan Lunch Box. I was excited, it arrived on a bleak day when I was feeling rather tired, so I spent the day in bed reading it. I didn't want to go to the grocery store, so I glanced at the pictures for something I wanted to make that I probably had the ingredients for. I decided on the tofu fish sticks.



I'm going to come out and say that I did not make these well. I don't do a lot of breading, so I added too much coating, which made the outside dry (the lemon juice helped). Then I baked them for a little too long, so the ends were kind of hard. The only thing I didn't like that I can attribute to the recipe is the amount of salt. I have a low salt tolerance, and I think the breading mixture only had half a teaspoon, but they still tasted very salty to me.

On to the most made-up holiday ever. Now, we usually don't have a big to-do about V-day. However, my husband was gone for 2 1/2 weeks for a leadership course and just so happened to get back today. Also, last year he was in Iraq and sent me tax forms as a joke so I thought this year should go a little better. We didn't exchange actual gifts, just bought things that we wanted and had been holding out for in lieu of paying our first few months of mortgage and utilities.

I'm going to skip our boring dinner and go right for the goods.



Cakes and I don't get along. Maybe someday i'll go back and blog about the last cake I made, which made me declare war on cakes. I always seem to overbake them, or I pick a bad recipe, and/or they look terrible when I try to frost them. I decided to give it one last shot. And this was it. Bullseye!



I started with a basic vanilla cake, and added some almond extract and black cherry fruit spread. Then I spread some more of the black cherry spread on the top of one, chocolate buttercream on the top of the other, and smooshed them together. And frosted it with more chocolate buttcream. I devised a new method for frosting, I put a piece of parchment paper on the overturned cakepan and used it as a pedestal. When I transferred it to the plate it needed a little touching up, but still eliminated a lot of the mess.

Now you're probably thinking, "Hey, aren't you on a diet?!" Yes, I am. And i've been very good. I've lost over ten pounds since i've started, so I can afford a little cake. I actually stuck extra close to a low-fat and sugar free diet for the past week so I could have this cake without feeeling guilty. Of course, there was the side effect of the frosting almost making me sick because I was not used to sugar anymore. But it was worth it.

I would praise seitan, but i'm a little tired of it.

This past week i've been burned out on food and cooking. More than anything, I don't want to do any more dishes. So mostly i've been eating cereal and pbj (go healthy me!), and eating leftovers. Oh, and seitan.



I think when I walked into the kitchen that day, I wanted fajitas. I came out with this. I have quinoa, but have only used it once or twice. One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was wolfing down a plate of cajun seitan, tomatoes, onions, and red peppers with hot sauce infused quinoa mixed in. I went back for seconds and the whole thing was gone in minutes.



Seitan baked in BBQ sauce. I put it on pan toasted bread with caramelized onions. Why are there no pictures of the sandwich? Because I was in such a rush to eat it, the pictures came out too ugly for the internet.



A couple of days after I made the miracle cajun seitan, I decided to make it again so I could write down the recipe (I was way too hungry the first time). I started the quinoa, and then realized that I was out of diced tomatoes. Boo. So I made stew instead and added the quinoa to it.

I have one piece of seitan left. I can't think of anything I want to do with it, except freeze it.



This is actually the first time i've ever made hummus. I have the tahini, I always say i'll make it, but I never do and just buy a tub from the store. Today, doing the dishes won out over leaving the house to go to the grocery store, so I finally made some. I glanced at a recipe to make sure I wasn't forgetting the major ingredients (tahini, chickpeas, lemon juice), but I winged the rest of it. Roasted red pepper hummus is my favorite so that's the flavor I chose. With garlic and cilantro. I'm actually not very found of tahini, I find it bitter. So I went light on the tahini, perhaps a little too light. It's good, but I think next time i'll add maybe just another tablespoon of tahini. I used one of those mega-cans of chickpeas so now I have enough hummus to feed more for a whole week.

And now, some by me.

Spinach Artichoke Dip. I've only had the genuine, cheesy dip once on my life so I have no idea if this is authentic, but it's tasty and much better for you. The chips turned out to be really stale so I ate it on some bread. Plus, how cute are the butterfly dipping bowls? I got them from Target.



Sweet n' Spicy Seitan Steak Sandwich. I haven't made Seitan in months and I don't know why, since it's pretty easy with gluten flour and is easily my favorite meat substitute.

Y'ever get bored with your food photos? Me too, so I decided to stick a random object in the background, ala 70s cookbooks. I chose Sprout.

Super testing extravaganza!

Since my husband left for two weeks of training at another base, I decided to take advantage of not having to cater to his picky pallet and knock out a good chunk of test recipes for Joanna. Keep an eye out for the first issue of her cookzine, which is going to have all of these recipes and more.



Black Bean and Sweet Potato Flautas, with Tangy Sour Cream mixed with salsa for dipping.



Refried Black Beans, with a little FYH mozz on top for a burrito. I was supposed to save them for the Flautas but they only made it to lunch.



Carrot Salad with Herb Lime Dressing.



Aloha Bread, in the form of muffins.

Chili, cornbread, tacos, and chickpea salad wraps.

No talk today, just pictures. You can click through for descriptions.

Potato soup.

Potato soup.
Originally uploaded by cheapandplastic.

This wasn't a recipe I had in my list that I intended to put in the book. The other night, I was just hit for the desire for potato soup. Now, most restaurants serve potato soup that is filled with enough cheese to give you stomach cramps for a week. But when I was a wee slip of a teen, my mom taught me how to make what amounts to fancy mashed potatoes, so it was easy to veganize.

That morning, I had gone to the commissary on my 17th hour of being awake, and accidentally bought watercress instead of cilantro (and I was so tired when the cashier rang it up, that I didn't care). I hadn't had anything in mind for the cilantro, and I didn't recall ever using watercress, but I decided to throw it in there anyway and hope for the best.

I was plesantly surprised, the taste of the watercress was definitely something familiar. I think I may have pureed too much of the soup, when it cooled a bit it was really thick. But still, I nailed it almost perfectly on the first try.

Some testing and part of my day, in food.

I go through periods where i'm obsessed with food: I want to make lots of things, I spend way too much time looking at food porn on Flickr, and I always think i'm hungry. Then I go through spots where I don't want to do anything food related, and try to get by on snacking and sammiches. This is not one of those times.

First off, we have another recipe i'm testing for a fellow PPKer. After three recipes I feel that I can trust her cooking abilities, so i'm probably going to step up my testing of her recipes, so that way when i'm ready to test the bulk of mine I won't have to feel bad for not doing hers anymore. That was kind of babbly, I think. It's six am, i'll come back later and edit it if it really is. Anyway, Kasha Varnishkes:



Then we have my very first test recipe. I've made up stuff before, but i've never written my own recipe so I was a little nervous that I was going to mess something up. A few things were off taste wise, but I could see where I went wrong and what the best possible solution is, so i'm confident that it won't take long to pull these bad boys together. Did I just say bad boys? Pizza biscuits:



I feel like i'm lying when I tell people I have a job, because it doesn't feel like work to sit here and surf the internet all day while waiting for a ding so I can...surf the internet for someone else. Either way, i've started eating like I have a job. That's right, frozen Amy's burrito for lunch today:



I was going to take pictures of my dinner, but I was having problems with someone bitching me out on the phone while I was making it, so then I wasn't hungry, and when my hunger came back I scarfed it down too fast to care about pictures. I made bbq tempeh (made with my own super-secret bbq sauce), sweet potatoes that I boiled and then sauteed in butter with brown sugar, and sauteed green beans. It was wonderful, even after I had to nuke it.

Then in my sadness, I went and bought ice cream. And Hersheys magic shell, because I had heard at least one of them was vegan (and it is), and I was feeling bitter about not getting hot fudge sundaes. Take this, hot fudge.



I'm not too crazy about the chocolate peanut butter Soy Delicious. I thought it was kind of bland and watery. Oh well, I guess that means i'll just have to put more magic shell on it next time.

The breakfast of insomniacs.

The breakfast of insomniacs.
Originally uploaded by cheapandplastic.

I made this when I was seriously sleep deprived, because when that happens i'm like a drunk with my goofy behavior and massive food cravings. I bought some lightlife gimmie lean on a whim, I haven't had it in a long time. It makes the best faux sausage patties ever. And toast with jam. And oj. I'm sure I thought this was a good photo in my mania.

I passed out shortly afterward.

Let's kick this party off right.

First, i'm going to humble myself by posting a semi-failure. Not in taste, but in preparation and appearance. I made the matzoh ball soup from VWaV, and I don't think I processed the crackers fine enough because they look well...chunky. I'll do better next time.



Biscuits! I took a recipe that was really vague and put it together with what I know about making fluffy biscuits, and added some nutritional yeast and oregano. They tasted like pizza, which gave me an idea which i'm not going to tell you because i'm putting it in the book!



Spanakopita, also from VWaV. Last night, Brian went to some work Christmas outing and I declined since I didn't want to eat a salad for dinner, so I decided to take the opportuniy to make something he would never eat: spinach pie! I used a bag and a half of baby spinach, I don't think that was quite enough. This was my second experience with phyllo dough. I really really hate it, i'm too impatient for that stuff. It wasn't as hard to work with since this time I was just layering it in a dish and I used non-stick cooking spray instead of brushing it with olive oil (please forgive me). But I think next time i'll stick to those pre-made phyllo cups.



This is what we had for dinner tonight. "Meatloaf", from Vegetarian Meat & Potatoes, and something like scalloped potatoes that I made up at the last second. Some people's recipes I know that I can trust completely, but i've learned that with Robin Robertson, sometimes her food can be a little bland for my liking. So I added garlic, mushrooms, and several herbs to the meatloaf mix. This is a recipe made with veggie burgers, I thawed them in the microwave and then had to mush them up with my hands and it was really gross. It came out kind of dry and I forgot to make the gravy, which was okay by me since I like ketchup but Brian had to eat it as is.

A couple of months ago, I was browsing the free store on base. I found a mandolin slicers with the vegetable holder thingie and all of the plates. So I took it home, and even though i'd never pay $30 for one, I want to marry it and have its babies. I can murder an onion in ten seconds flat without the tears. Tonight when I decided, "I want potatoes, but I don't want to chop them or boil them or anything.", it came to my rescue. I sliced a few of them with the mandolin, took a package of cheez sauce I bought for such lazy days, mixed it with rice milk and butter, added some salt, put it all in a dish, topped it with bread crumbs, and the rest is history. It was pretty good for something I threw together in five seconds flat, it could've used a little more salt though.