I thought fried rice would be really, really good for dinner.  The best part about it is that you can clean out the fridge and throw in whatever veggies you find in there.  The bad part is that “fried” and “rice” are two things that I’m avoiding at the moment in order to shed some poundage.  So, I came up with an alternative that actually worked out pretty well.  In place of no fiber, high calorie white rice, I substituted wheat berries.  Wheat berries are yummy; I love their chewiness– like brown rice but so, so much better.  To cook wheat berries, all you have to do is boil them in a big pot of water for about an hour.  Drain off the excess water after they’re done cooking.  I used 1 1/2 cups dry wheat berries and ended up with about 3 1/2 cups cooked.

My fried “rice” consisted of a red onion, 2 carrots, 2 parsnips, some Napa cabbage, 2 zucchini, 3 cremini mushrooms, some red and green bell pepper remnants, frozen peas and corn, and, of course, garlic and ginger.  I used a gigantic nonstick skillet to cook it all in and only about a teaspoon of canola oil.  Put in the veggies that take the longest to cook first (onion, carrots, parsnips), then add the garlic and ginger and the veggies with the next longest cooking time.  When all of the veggies had been stir fried, I added in 2 cups of cooked wheat berries and drizzled some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil over top.  Yummy!  I served it with some pan fried tofu.

Be forewarned that fried rice is a long prep time.  If I were a working person, I probably wouldn’t make this on a weeknight, unless all of the veggies were already chopped.

With my leftover wheat berries, I made some hot cereal for breakfast tomorrow.  Stay tuned for that…

I love spring rolls and I make them a lot, especially during the summer when fruits and veggies are so abundant.  Last night, I decided to make them again, but with a neat, calorie-reducing twist.

Instead of using the rice wrappers, I went with a leaf of napa cabbage.  Napa cabbage is a little more delicate than red or green cabbage with a texture sort of like a hearty lettuce leaf.  It was the perfect “wrap” for our rolls.  Inside the rolls, I used some lightly blanched broccoli (I don’t care for raw broccoli so I had to cook it a little), some grated carrots, radishes, cilantro and mint, and tofu.  Emma even helped with the dinner preparation by pulling all the mint leaves off of the stem!

On the side, I boiled up some soba noodles and topped them with the extra tofu that I had cut up.  The dressing that I made for the rolls and noodles is a peanut flavored one, instead of being peanut based.  I didn’t measure anything at all.  I threw stuff into a bowl and adjusted it until it tasted right, so sorry for not having a real recipe.  I’ll tell you what I used and you can fiddle around with your own concoction:  soy sauce (probably about 1-2 TB), Thai sweet chili sauce (~2 tsp), garlic powder (~1/4 tsp), fresh ginger, grated (~1/4 tsp), toasted sesame oil (drizzle), peanut butter (~1 tsp).  It was really good, peanut-y without being overly heavy with peanut butter.  And even though I’ve sworn off noddles, bread and rice until I drop a few pounds, at least the soba noodles are wheat and my portion was itty bitty.

While I’m on the subject of peanut butter, I want to tell you all about a new one I just tried.  I’m perfectly happy with natural peanut butter– the stuff you have to stir and then refrigerate.  If you’re going to be eating peanut butter, it’s probably the best stuff (be sure to always buy organic peanut butter).  Anyway, I saw this stuff and thought I’d try it, even though it isn’t organic.  It’s a no stir, natural peanut butter from Earth Balance.  It’s soft like how I remember Skippy or Jif being and is good, but I don’t think it’s any better tasting than the natural kind.  Maybe just more convenient because it spreads more easily.  If my choices were between Skippy and Earth Balance, I would definitely opt for the Earth Balance brand simply because all those hydrogenated oils are like a death sentence.  Did you know that people who eat hydrogenated oils are more likely to have health issues than people who don’t?  Back to the butter:  I don’t know that I’d ever buy this again, only because it’s not organic.  With all the weird things sprayed on foods to prevent naturally occuring processes (like molding and pest infestations), I’m not willing to eat the weird stuff just to have peanut butter that doesn’t separate.

Remember that song?!  Haha!  So appropriate for the feast we had last night– veggie sushi and udon soup!

It’s been many, many years since I’ve made sushi, so these are far some pretty.  They tasted good, though.  I followed the sushi rice recipe from How To Cook Everything Vegetarian (there’s more to it than just making sticky rice) and I rolled ‘em up with some nori, blanched green beans, carrots, cucumber and avocado.  I wanted to make some mango rolls too (sounds weird, but they are AWESOME), but I couldn’t find any mangos during my shopping adventure the other day.  Oh well.

For the soup, I used brown miso this time which, after having tried white, red and brown, I’ve decided that brown is my favorite.  I used 6 cups of water and about 7 TB of miso (basically just mix it according to your taste).  A few splashes of soy sauce, some udon noodles, tofu and green onion is all it took to make this soup.

Dessert did not follow suit with the rest of the meal.  I really couldn’t come up with anything that I wanted to make, so I decided that brownies were it.  I made a few changes to the recipe that I follow, so I’m going to repost it here so that I always have it.

Gooey Vegan Brownies

(click here for a printer-friendly version)

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2 TB instant coffee granules (cut to 1 TB if you don’t appreciate the taste of coffee)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup vegan chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease your brownie pan and set aside.  Dissolve the coffee granules in the water.  In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.  Add the oil, applesauce, water/coffee and vanilla and mix to combine.  Fold in the chocolate chips.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the top is no longer shiny.

I forgot to mix my chocolate chips into the batter, so I put them on top instead.  I melted them into a ganache that I drizzled over the top after they had cooled a bit.  Ahh… so heavenly!

There is a cute Japanese market next to the fabric/craft store that I like to go to.  When Emma and I went there the other night in seach of Christmasy fabric, we stopped into the Japanese market for a few things for dinner.

We picked up a bag of veggie potstickers, which were good, but nothing to write home about.  They were vegan.  They were cheap.  They were easy to make.  Enough said.

To go alongside, I made this dipping sauce and a stir fry of carrots, spinach, green onions, garlic and ginger.  It was drizzled with some soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and sprinkled with some cilantro.  Nothing super complicated, but it was good and it all came together very fast.

Sorry for the brief hiatus.  Emma and I went to Sacramento for a couple of days to visit my parents and I’ve been fighting a cold the last few days.  I’m feeling better, but with the traveling and the sickness, there hasn’t been anything exciting happening in my kitchen, aside from the ants.  Those guys just won’t quit!  A tip that my Nana told me about works better on ants than anything else I’ve tried.  It sounds crazy, but it works.  Stick a slice of cucumber in any place you see the ants coming in from.  It really does work.  I have cucumbers all along where the ants have been coming in and my kitchen is now ant-free.  I usually leave the cucumbers there until they shrivel up, just to be safe.

Anyway, for dinner last night, I managed to whip up My Favorite Pasta Dish (isn’t that name so clever?!).  It was delish, as usual.

This time, I tossed in a some toasted pine nuts, which gave it some nice crunch and nutty flavor.

Since I mentioned our trip to Sacramento, I want to give my parents (who, sadly are NOT loyal readers) kudos for eating completely vegan meals the two nights we were there.  See, guys, it won’t kill you!  In fact, they even liked both of the meals that I made for them.  My dad claims that veganism is “too extreme,” but that becoming vegetarian is something he can handle.  Well, I don’t believe for a second that he’ll even attempt going vegetarian, but I hope he’ll at least consider it.  Think about all those medications that you could avoid taking just by changing your diet…

One of our meals was this miso/udon soup.  Yep, Emma and I just can’t get enough of this stuff.  I made it exactly the same way as before, except I used red miso instead of white.  I have to say that the red has more flavor, despite being really funky looking.

I randomly bought a tub of miso at the store the other day.  I’ve never, ever tried to make miso soup before and was totally surprised by how easy it is!  All you do is boil some water, add miso to taste and maybe a little soy sauce to give it a little zing.  That’s it!  Since I was making it as a main course for lunch, I added in some tofu, green onions, edamame and udon noodles.  Emma LOVED it.

Our summer has been pretty mild. We haven’t had too many hot days, which has been a blessing for those of us without A/C. Unless you’ve installed it yourself, most houses out here don’t have A/C. Anyway, yesterday was a pretty warm day. And my kitchen was really, really warm. Even when it cools off outside, the hot air collects inside our house. We’re cursed!

Last night’s dinner consisted of stuff that could be eaten raw or that could be cooked way ahead of time and be served at room temperature, since it was not a day that I wanted to add extra heat into our house.  I decided on spring rolls. This time, I used cabbage, carrots, mango, green beans, tofu, and bean sprouts. The dipping sauce is the same peanut dipping sauce from Vegan Lunch Box. They were great!

Spring rolls are so refreshing and perfect for a hot day and when I was thinking of a yummy side dish, I thought of a stuffed pepper recipe from Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. The peppers are stuffed with a mixture of jasmine rice, mangoes, peanuts and cilantro. Well, it was much too hot to make stuffed peppers with that, but I thought I could do a rice salad inspired by it. It turned out to be really good, and super refreshing.

(the sun is starting to set much earlier now, which is negatively impacting my photos)

There really isn’t a recipe for this, per se, but I will describe how I made it. I cooked up 1/2 cup of brown basmati rice in 1 cup of water. Allow to cool. Add in some chopped mango, some cilantro and some peanuts. Then dress. My dressing was the juice of one lime, about 1/4 tsp agave, S&P. Stir to combine. Yummy!

My sole purpose for going to the Asian market today was to pick up some spring roll wraps. They were not easy to find (probably because the whole store was overwhelming), but I finally did spot them and picked up a few packs. Now, I saw several products in there that were called “spring roll wraps,” but none of them were what I was after. I think many Asian cultures have “spring rolls” and the wraps that I wanted were a Vietnamese style, I learned. Anyway, they come in sheets and you just have to soak them in warm water for a few minutes to loosen them up. Everything that goes in should be pre-cooked (if need be) or raw (my preference). Ours were stuffed with cabbage, lightly blanched green beans, bean sprouts, tofu, carrots, cabbage, mint and cilantro. The dipping sauce is an Asian style peanut sauce from Vegan Lunchbox. It’s basically a combination of peanut butter, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, and hot sauce thinned out with a bit of water. Really tasty! These rolls were delicious and we will totally be having these again soon.

I’ve blogged about this before, but since it’s so good, I decided to blog about it again.  I followed my same basic recipe for the soup, but changed up the veggies a bit.  I bought a package of “stir fry mix” which included bok choy, cabbage, broccoli and carrots, which I threw into the soup.  I also added some more broccoli and cauliflower since I had some to use up.  Ours was garnished with bean sprouts and cilantro.  Peanuts are always good on this soup, but mine were buried deep within my freezer and it was too overwhelming to even think of digging them out.

This meal was pretty creative.  It was getting close to dinner time and I hadn’t even given any thought to what I was going to make.  I had a bunch of veggies in the fridge, as well as a block of tofu that was nearing the expiration date, so I decided to make fried rice, but substitute linguine noodles for the rice.  It was really, really tasty– even Emma liked it!  I made it exactly the same way as I did before (with the noodle substitution being the only deviation).  Use any veggies that you’d like here.  This is really pretty foolproof.