Hello and Good Morning!
I had planned to write a post yesterday, but then the day got away from me. I had a dentist appointment at 8:30 (all fine - just a routine cleaning and xrays) and then work got a bit on the busy side. Oh well, such is life.
Meanwhile, last night we had a vegan dinner! I certainly am not planning to go vegan, but I am trying to incorporate more plant based meals into our diet. This past week while grocery shopping, we came across some vegan "balls." They ended up pretty tasty.
We bought them at Acme, but I think Whole Foods carries this brand as well. They take almost no time to cook in the oven (10 minutes if I remember) and I made some rice and heated up some black beans to go with the balls. I also cut up some scallions to sprinkle over the rice and beans and cut up a mango to add some "coolness" to the meal.
It was really good and a nice change. And - bonus - there are leftovers.
I also had a hankering for some cookies, so baked up some cranberry pistachio cookies. This was a new recipe to me - you whisk together your flour with pistachio pudding mix. The green of the cookies sort of disturbs me - lol - but they tasted pretty good. Not great, but they filled a need:
The plan is to do a bit more baking this weekend, so I will let you know how that goes. Also coming up will be a tofu dinner. You can imagine how excited Fletch is about that! But...again, while shopping this past week, we came across some Extra Firm Tofu that is already cubed. I will weight it down to expel as much moisture as I can and somewhere in my papers is a recipe for cubed tofu marinated in a mix of soy sauce and sesame oil, etc., etc. I'm anxious to try it. Meanwhile, I'll fix some meat or fish for a few days to calm down Fletch, Hahahahaha
Time for me to get cranking. More coffee is needed. Thankfully I only have one conference call at 11 today. I think the weekend may start right after that! Wishing you a good one.
mm, I need to look for this the next time I'm at whole foods. My weekend is just rest and relaxation!!
ReplyDeleteBoth the "meat"balls and cookies look delicious! I made a sweet and sour stir fry this week and almost left out the meat because the sauce was so good, but of course, John objected. I hope you have a good weekend that starts early!
ReplyDeleteWe try for at least two meatless meals a week, sometimes more. Rick never complains, but he hits the snacks pretty hard later. He just craves the meat. I could go vegetarian quite easily. At least he's okay with far, far less red meat.
ReplyDeleteI grew up eating red meat practically every day (sometimes twice a day), but now I rarely eat it. Chicken, turkey, fish, and occasionally pork are the meats I now enjoy.
ReplyDeleteWe are trying to do "more meatless meals" as well...or at least I have, lol! Steve feels deprived if there is no meat! Hahaha
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend! XO
I'm trying to get us both to eat more veggies, but tofu is definitely a step to far for me! Lol!
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy the leeks I put in my cock-a-leekie soup, though. I'd never had leeks before.
I don't think I could go completely vegan (I love my dairy products too much), but I could certainly manage without meat -- not so the rest of my family, unfortunately, though we're trying to do more meatless meals, and we at least usually stick to poultry. I think those balls sound delicious, especially with everything you put together to accompany them!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it--not my thing tho. The cookies look good!
ReplyDeleteI love tofu and that already cubed stuff was my favorite until they stopped carrying it here. I used to always have several blocks in my freezer. Now I have to settle for the stuff I have to cut up myself and more often than not it's crumbly which I hate.
ReplyDeleteWith pudding mix? Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteI sure wish I could find some tofu that is firm and cubed. I like to eat it when someone else is cooking but have a hard time doing anything reasonable with it at home. The black bean balls look good too.
ReplyDeleteI've been working hard to incorporate more vegetarian meals into our normal "dinner rotations" for the past few years, with surprising success (and by that I mean Tom is also a fan). I have found amazing ways to use tofu in meals -- so I hope you've found a tasty recipe! :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd, yeah. The green of those cookies would kinda put me off. Although they'd be great for Tom -- who loves pistachios AND is color blind . . . ;-)
ReplyDeleteI’m always so inspired to try more vegan and vegetarian dishes…and the cookies sound amazing!
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