Enchiladas Tempeh

This didn't turn out very awesome. 

Ingredients

1. 8-12 ounces tempeh, cut into thin strips
2. 1cup enchilada sauce or salsa
3. 8 corn (or flour) tortillas
4. 1/2 cup shredded fat-free Cheddar Cheese
5. 1/2 cup sliced green onions
6. 4-8 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
7. 1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro

Procedure:

1. Combine Tempeh and enchilada sauce in glass baking dish.  Refrigerate 1-2 hours; drain, reserving enchilada sauce.  Saute Tempeh in skillet until browned, 3-5 minutes.
2. Dip tortillas in Enchilada sauce to coat lightly.  Spoon tempeh along center of tortilla; top with cheese, green onions, sour cream, and cilantro.  Roll up and place into baking pan, seam-side down.  Pour Enchilada Sauce over enchiladas.  Top with cheese.  Bake Loosely Covered (like with tin foil or something).

These came out a little crunchy, because I forgot to do that emphasized bold part up there...  Oops.  We also realized far too late that we needed more Enchilada sauce--  probably double the enchilada sauce.  We were scrounging for it by the end!  We also need to make sure that the pan is sufficiently deep to make sure the enchiladas can be covered!

No picture this time.  Too hungry to find the camera!

Pad Thai

Mmmmmm...  Pad Thai.

So, we've tried two pad Thai recipes so far.  The first was based on this video (which we do not recommend you follow!!!):

That left us with a creamy kind of peanut butter poured over some vegetables.  It also didn't help that we bought the wrong noodles.  But it would have greatly helped if there were (even approximate) measurements posted somewhere for that video.  As it turns out "A whole fucking lot" isn't as much as you might think.

Anyway...  The recipe we tried this time turned out a lot better.  The full recipe can be found here. 

It turned out MUCH better, and even kept well enough for leftovers the next day!  (It makes a lot...)  We had some trouble tracking down "Corriander" so we just used Cilantro and sprinkled with a little bit of ground corriander seed. 

As it turns out, Corriander smells/tastes a little bit like fruit loops.  Try it!

Pad thai, I think, will be a recipe that I insist on doing again and again until I get it to taste delicious.  Even if we go through some monstrous versions of it...  But for now, the next time I make it I want to do an overhaul consisting of the following:

• No Corriander.  Just Cilantro
• Put some extra peanuts in during the stir-frying section.
• More (perhaps 1.5 times as much?) sauce.
• Fry the noodles a little longer.
• Add some tofu.

We have a picture, which we will upload soon!

Breakfast Skillet

2 medium potatoes (type is your choice, though we use brown potatoes)
2 Morningstar Sausage Patties (you can substitute real meat, of course, but remember to brown it first)
2-3 eggs
1 Tbs Milk
2 Tsp Rosemary
3 Tbs Olive Oil
Lowry's Season Salt
Cojack cheese (or other cheese you like)

1. Put olive oil in skillet, and put heat on lowest setting.  Crush rosemary and sprinkle into olive oil.  Allow oil to heat for 5-10 minutes while you perform step 2.
2. Cut potatoes into thin slices (.5-1cm thick).  Heat morningstar sausage patties in microwave for 1 minute, and cut or tear the patties into small chunks (1.5-2cm).  Put potatoes and sausage chunks into skillet.  Sprinkle with Lowry's to taste.
3. Increase heat in skillet to medium.  Brown potatoes roughly.
4. Mix eggs and milk in a bowl.  Beat eggs thoroughly (like they said something mean about your parents).
5. Once potatoes are browned, mix in eggs, stirring constantly.  Allow eggs to cook completely.
6. Mix in cheese, to taste.
7. Serve hot.  Does not reheat well!

Carmen and I make this a lot, and I've been tweaking it now and then since she showed it to me.  We'll probably keep on changing it, but this is what it's like as it currently stands.  Now and again we add some green onions (delicious!), and have toyed with adding green peppers or other spices.  It's always a winner and is great comfort food.  From start to finish, it usually takes me about a half hour to 45 minutes to make.

Brinner is awesome!

Grilled Veggies and 'Chikn'

Hello All!

Today we grilled vegetables again. We had a bunch of under-utilized vegetables from other recipes dying to be eaten!

So we threw asparagus, onion, potato, tomato, and carrots into two different marinades for 30 minutes and grilled them. We also had cilantro fungus chikn again.

Spicy Orange & Cilantro
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-marinades-for-grilled-vegetables.html#ixzz1RH9D0PpX

Lemon & Garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/5-marinades-for-grilled-vegetables.html#ixzz1RH9PLqq5

The Spicy Orange and cilantro was what we grilled first. The vegetables all had great textures after grilling and still retained some of their own flavor, but was help together by the marinade. This has a light orange taste, not much cilantro flavor, and a lot of HOT! We're not big hot-spice people, so we may cut down the spice a bit next time.
The lemon and garlic had a similar problem - LOTS of lemon, not much garlic. Now, I LOVE lemon flavors, so that was totally cool with me. However, Bryan didn't find it as appetizing and was really disappointed.
The chicken was good as always! Vegetable brother and light spicing really make that a great texture and flavor.
We also threw some texas toast in there. I really enjoy cooking everything from scratch, but I haven't been able to make garlic bread as good as that frozen stuff yet.

So, the lesson of today is - if you don't eat enough veggies, marinade and grill them, just make sure to play around the with marinades to perfect them to your taste!

Chilled Summer Soup with Black Bean Relish

My mother-in-law gave me several cookbooks for Christmas, this is from Pampered Chef, Quick Vegetarian Main Dishes.

Soup
2 medium cucumbers
4 green onions with tops
1.5 c vegetable broth
1 c frozen peas
2 garlic cloves, peeled
3 limes
1 avocado, peeled and pitted
1/4 t salt
1/8 t black pepper

Relish and Garnish
1 small red bell pepper
2 green onions with tops
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 garlic clove, pressed
lime juice from soup
1/4 t salt
1/8 t black pepper
1/4 c soup cream

1. Peel cucumbers. slice cucumbers, remove seeds. Slice green onions into thirds. Add cucumbers, onions, broth, peas, and garlic to blender. Blend until smooth.
2. Cut bell pepper into 1/2in pieces and thinly sliced onions. Toss together bell pepper, onions, beans, garlic, reserved juice, salt and black pepper in a small bowl.

This was mediocre. The soup was not cohesive. The flavor of the cucumber and avocado came through individually and weakly. The texture was very thin, which is great for some soups, but I expected something heartier. The topping was good, but couldn't make up for the bland soup. We used the topping as an additive to a quesadilla.
I think this soup could be saved with some good spices. Chili powder, cumin, cayenne, cilantro, or something of the like would have been great. It looks great, but we just felt it was too bland. We may try it again - but make sure you plan on eating it fast! It's only green for about a day.

Try it with some chips, the book recommends 1/4tsp of chipotle powder on tortillas.

Better luck next time! We might just stick to good old guacamole...