What's for dinner? (III)

These are the most amazing vegan stuffed shells ever.  Seriously.  If you need proof Andy ate them.  EVEN AFTER I TOLD HIM THEY HAD TOFU IN THEM.  And he said they were good.  And he ate seconds. And he took leftovers for lunch the next day.

You would never know they had tofu in them.  I don't have an intense hatred of all things tofu as Andy does, so that's not necessarily a deterrent for me, but I do like real cheese.  Generally I find vegan things that try to imitate cheese fail.  This one succeeded in a major way.

This recipe comes from the Chloe's Kitchen cookbook, but you can check out her website here, and there are some similar recipes available for free.  If you ask me, this cookbook is worth it.  I have only made one recipe from it that was not well liked.  One.  Not bad.  The majority of the cookbooks I purchase I make one recipe from, and it turns out ok.  Then the book just ends up collecting dust on the bookshelf.  This one is in my kitchen and covered in food stains, because it's awesome.

What are you having for dinner tonight?

What's for Dinner? (II)

Like every other blogger/human out there it seems I am eagerly anticipating fall weather.  I feel sorry for people that don't live somewhere with seasons.  There are many things I look forward to about fall, one of those things is food.

Now don't get me wrong, I love pumpkins and pumpkin based foods.  However, when you are sick of all the fall pumpkin foods and want some real good comfort food for a lazy night hanging around home watching netflix this is what you should make.  If you're not sick of pumpkin stuff I bet this would go awesome with a pumpkin beer . . .

The Chickpea and Dumpling Soup recipe from Peas and Thank You has to be the epitome of comfort food. It totally tastes like something my grandmother would make.  The broth is flavorful and the texture of the dumplings is perfect.  Your kitchen will smell divine when you're cooking it.

I did think this fell a bit short in the soup department though.  The recipe only recommends 4 cups of vegetable stock.  I put in an extra cup of water just because I wanted to thin out the veggie stock flavor a bit.  Even with the extra cup the soup to dumpling ratio seemed a bit off.  We ended up with some extra dumplings we tossed because we didn't have enough soup to go with them.  I think next time I'd do an additional 4 cups of water and just double the seasoning suggestions (again I'm not a big fan of the taste of vegetable stock/broth, you could easily do more stock if you wanted).

Despite a liquid shortage I'll definitely be making this again.  I predict this becoming a weekly meal once the winter hits.

What are you having for dinner tonight?

What's for Dinner? (I)

This school year I plan to really make an effort to cook dinner most nights of the week.  Since there are only two of us and most recipes are for 4 -6 people there are typically leftovers.  This means I have a lunch for the next day, and usually a way better lunch than whatever I'd be able to get from the school cafeteria.  I've been trying out some new recipes lately.  I'm a vegetarian, so everything I cook is meat free, and a lot of it is vegan.  It can be hit or miss with Andy, but this one was a major hit.

The Garden Enchilada Bake from Peas and  Thank You is super quick and easy to make.  My version isn't vegan, I used real cheese, and I also swapped out the zucchini for corn.  After making enough zucchini baked goods to survive the zombie apocalypse I need a break from zucchini.  I also felt that corn was more fitting for the recipe.

I used red quinoa, which I love the taste of.  If you're not a quinoa person you might want to use the regular kind.  Both Andy and I thought this was super awesome.  I might add some onions to it next time, but otherwise it was perfect.  The leftovers didn't last longer than 24 hours.

What are you having for dinner tonight?

Weekend Highlights I

On Saturday we had some friends over to enjoy my last real "free" weekend before my professional development and back to school routine begins.  It was a pretty low key get together.  I made these amazing vegan chocolate cupcakes with mocha frosting from this cookbook.  I highly recommend going to get this book if only for this cupcake frosting recipe.  It took all my will power to dump the leftover frosting and not shovel spoonfuls of it in my mouth.

On Sunday Andy and I decided to go geocaching at a park near us.  We brought Thor with us, so we didn't really get to do much geocaching, but it was still a nice day out.

We're working with Thor on not freaking out when he sees other dogs.  I think we're slowly making progress.  We saw lots of dogs in the park, and he did kind of freak out, but he didn't bark.  Success!

Technically school doesn't start until next Tuesday, but we have two days of professional development and a lot of family plans for this upcoming weekend, so this really felt like my last summer weekend.  It was a good one, so no complaints here.

The Story of the Giant Zucchini

Once upon a time there was an absolutely monstrous zucchini that Andy brought home to Lisa from his uncle's garden.  She was amazed at it's size, and was determined to utilize all of the zucchini to make delicious treats before Thor decided to take a bite out of it.

Recently she had found this awesome sounding zucchini muffin recipe from Oh She Glows, and decided to make them.  The muffins were delicious.

However, a ton of zucchini remained.

Lisa hates being wasteful, so she decided to make some zucchini bread from her mom's amazing recipe.  Two loaves of zucchini bread later at least half of the zucchini remained.

Still not willing to concede Lisa made more zucchini bread.  Now out of loaf pans she made it in a cake pan, because lets face it, this tastes more like cake anyways.

Yet the zucchini abides.

Noticing that she did still have some chocolate chips remaining and noting how delicious the zucchini muffins were Lisa decides at this point, why not make one more batch of zucchini muffins (they'll freeze well, right??).  At this point she decides the zucchini has been diminished enough that she feels it is acceptable to toss the remains.

After the zucchini has been used up and a bunch of delicious treats made, Lisa decides she can now waste her afternoon watching shows on netflix knowing that she and Andy will live happily ever after with enough zucchini treats to last them until next summer.

So my friends, if you come over to visit anytime in the near future, I hope you like zucchini.

Anniversary Outfit

To celebrate our second anniversary Andy and I went to Sonsie on Newbury Street.  It was a beautiful night, we loved the atmosphere of the restaurant and the food was amazing.  I decided to get dressed up for the occasion.

I'm Wearing:

Top - Express

Skirt - Loft (gift from MIL)

Earrings - gift from a very thoughtful student

Shoes - really old

Purse - also really old (gift from mom)

These pictures are not the greatest, since they were taken hastily before booking it to catch our train home.  For my birthday my mother in-law took me shopping to get me back to school clothes, and this skirt was one of the purchases.  I couldn't wait for school to start to wear it.  As much as I love those shoes they totally destroyed my feet walking from our T stop the the restaurant, then to Sweet for dessert.  It was worth a few blisters for these cupcakes though.

Pina colada and peach cobbler - seriously amazing.  I didn't let Andy smash cake in my face on our wedding day, and I certainly wouldn't let him smash this in my face, way too delicious to waste.

I'll be wearing flats for a while and avoiding sweets until my blood sugar levels return to normal (do you see all that frosting?  I ate all of that), but all totally worth it.