Grillin'

I have been grilling up a storm since May. Below are some photographic evidence of my skills, or lack there of.

Cous cous, broccoli, tofu, and garlic:
Tofu and Cauliflower:
Tofu and Greens:

Green Beans and Avocados:

I was inspired by a show on the food channel. They had a bunch of not-ripe-enough avocados and decided to grill them with lemon, olive oil, and garlic. I gave it a try and stuffed them with a carrot, bell pepper salad. It was okay, but not as good as I was expecting. It was a good way to use up unripe avocados.
Tofu and Brocolli:
Onions, Zucchini, eggplant, tofu:
Tofu and Greens:

I have some pineapple, corn, and zucchini waiting to be grilled this week.

Dill Cauliflower

I normally consider dill to be a summer spice. Last night I mixed it up to make it into a hearty winer meal with a thick sauce.

Dill Cauliflower:
1 head of cauliflower
flour, soy milk, dill, garlic powder, onion powder and pinch of nutritional yeast

Steam the cauliflower.
Create a roux with flour and soy milk. Add the spices and keep mixing until it's thickened.
Pour the sauce over the cauliflower and sprinkle with dill and salt. Serve warm.

Baked Cauliflower

My sister gave me this vague recipe and it turned out great and is perfect for an end to an exhausting day.

Baked Cauliflower:
1 head of cauliflower
1 cup +/- marinara
1/3 to 1/2 block of vegan cheese - shredded
Chopped garlic, optional
parsley, for garnish

Steam1 head of cauliflower until tender.
Place cauliflower on tin foil (easy clean up for your lazy day), sprinkle with minced garlic (optional for non-lazy days) and smother in marinara. Sprinkle with vegan cheese (I used follow your heart)
Bake for about 10-15 minutes until hot and a little melty.
Let cool from the oven and sprinkle with chopped parsley (on non-lazy day.)
Slice into 1/4s, or however you like and serve warm.

Straight out of the oven:
Easy dish:

Cheesiness and Sweets

Cheesiness and sweets, but not together, that would just be gross.

Cheesy Sauce and Neatballs:
As you know I've been working on the perfect cheesy sauce for Mr. Bolsh. This one had more lemon juice in it and that seems to be the way he wants to go with the recipe.
We poured it over cauliflower and Trader Joe's Meatballs.
New Farm Mac and Cheese:
Wow, this sure is a fat filled dish. 1 full cup of earth balance. Good thing it's going to an IPRC fund raiser tonight! All the fat sure does make it taste great though! I added some chili powder to give it a bit more of a kick.
Coconut Pie Pudding:
We've been enjoying dinner outside on our new covered deck.
I've been working on my coconut cream pie recipes for awhile now. Sunday morning I had a disaster where the crust ended up inside the filling. I don't know what happened, but I decided to just go with it. I lightly mixed the crust into the filling and called it a pudding. It has gone over well. Unfortunately, it's not the right consistency yet for a pie filling. But I am getting closer!
Behind the pudding is cherry limeaid - perfect for hot summer days!New Farm Brownies:
Brownies from the New Farm cookbook. It's a great chewy brownie. Emilie, from Conscious Kitchen, recently posted a brownie recently that contained yam. This seems like a great recipe to do that with. In this recipe you make a paste with hot water and flour. It's not very flavorful so I would want to replace it next time with a blended fruit.

More Simple Meals

Meals without recipes. That's how I normally cook - just throw stuff together that tastes good on it's own and hope it tastes good together with spices.

Buckwheat Noodle Soup:
With veggie broth base, leeks, onions, garlic, miso, chickpeas, buckwheat noodles and diced tomatoes.
Diced tomatoes are one of my new favorite things to add to soups. Drain the juice from a can and throw it in. I use to put the juice in there before but it always made it too tomato-y so just putting the fruit in there helps the other flavors sand out on their own.


Saturday Market Dinner:
Roasted fiddleheads, steamed asparagus, garden salad with purple cabbage.
Fiddleheads - I knew bringing these home was going to raise some eyebrows. I was cruious as well. They look a little too much like bugs to me. I saw them once on one of my blogs I read, so I picked them up. They are very expensive. One small handful for $1.50. I really wasn't excited about the taste. They weren't bad, what roasted with garlic can be bad?! but they just weren't $1.50/handful good. Interesting look though.



Cheesy Cauliflower and Greens with Almond Pate:
We eat a lot of vegetables, can you tell? Steamed cauliflower with that special cheesy sauce I have been trying to perfect. When I perfect it I'll share the recipe.
Steamed greens with a fun almond pate. I soaked almonds for awhile, added sun dried tomatoes, paprika, chili powder, lemon juice, miso, salt and garlic powder. Mixing this into the greens reminded me of a savory cottage cheese. It was very good.

Snacks!

I've been thinking of some of the snacks I've made in the past and I've been thinking of making Bluepeas and Chickberies again. Since many people probably didn't read my previous food blog I thought I'd post some old snack recipes here.

Curry-Flowers:
These will disappear!

cauliflower
curry powder
olive oil
sugar
your favorite spices.

Heat oven to 400F
Chop the cauliflower into bite sized pieces. Place in a bowl, drizzle with some olive oil and spices. Add a few pinches of sugar and toss.
Spread out on cookie sheet and cook until slightly browned, about 10-15 minutes.


Orange Gel:
Idea from Yogurt Land.
This is a great way to use up oranges. Blood oranges make a beautiful presentation.

Juice the oranges. Carefully pull the extra stuff out. Bring the juice to a boil, along with 1/3 cup suagr and 1 1/2 tsp. agar-agar powder.
Then pour the juice into the orange rinds and let cool in muffin tins to keep them up right.


Bluepeas and Chickberries:
1 cup frozen blueberries
1 1/2 cup chickpeas
2 Tbl. sugar
2 Tbl. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dried dill

Boil blueberries, cooked chickpeas and sugar until all water is absorbed and the chick peas turn blue, about 15 min.
Coat with oil, salt and dill and bake at 425F for about 30 min, tossing often.
Mix with non-blueberry treated roasted chickpeas and coat with a sprinkling of salt and sugar before serving as a snack.

These were wonderfully salty and sweet, just the way I like my snacks. They were crunchy, but not tooth breaking.


Chocolate Coconut Blueberries:
Inspired by Jess's sister.
Blueberries coated in melted chocolate ad rolled in coconut before freezing.