Newlywed, Newly Veg!

No, not this:

…or this:

…or even this:

No, despite these lovely celebrity shenanigans, I’m merely referring to my lunch, which truly was a hot mess:

Mmmm…a hot, Mexican mess!

I combined 3/4 cup of chickpeas with 1 tbsp. of cashew cream and a big spoonful of Pace’s salsa (gotta love it), plus chopped red onion, a crumbled up piece of cornbread, and Follow Your Heart “cheddar.”  Popped that in the microwave for about a minute and thirty seconds, and then topped it all off with chopped cilantro and cherry tomatoes.  Yurm.

Mmmm…mixing the cashew cream with salsa was a stroke of pure genius, if I do say so myself.

Who doesn’t love a hot mess?  Other than Tim Gunn, that is.

So, we went to Barnes and Noble this morning to do a little work (is it really time to start GRADING again?  Boo! Hiss!), and after we finished our work, I started browsing and got a little carried away…and bought three new cookbooks!  My purchases:

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry  Hope Romero (authors of Veganomicon, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, even before I went veg)

The Joy of Vegan Baking, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau (author of The Vegan Table, a cookbook that I cook from probably at least 4-5 times a week)

The Kind Diet, by Alicia Silverstone (I know, I know…a “diet” book?  And a celebrity diet book at that?  I couldn’t help it—it was 20 percent off, plus I’ve seen several recipes from the book featured in magazines, and they really do look good!  You know you’re curious…I’ll give a full review when I’m done reading it!)

I had a B&N gift card to use, and I obviously got carried away.  Oh well…I can’t wait to test some recipes from these books!  We’re going over to my sister’s house tonight for dinner and we’re supposed to bring dessert, so I think cupcakes are definitely in order!

Hope you’re having a great Tuesday!  At least it’s not Monday, right?

Check ya later!

Hey all! Hope you had a great Monday (oxymoron?)!  My Monday included three of my favorite things: mani/pedis, Ann Taylor Loft, and family.  And Mexican food.  And wine.  And reality tv.  Okay, six of my favorite things!

For dinner tonight, we cooked up a delicious black bean soup.  I kind of just made up the recipe as I went along, and it ended up being quite good!  Here’s the final recipe:

Black Bean Fiesta Soup

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 tsp. olive oil

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 4. oz. can green chilies, chopped

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. cumin

1/8 tsp. turmeric

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. lime zest

juice of one lime

3 15. oz. cans black beans, drained and rinsed

3 cups vegetable broth

1 15 oz. can corn

Directions:

In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, sauté onion and garlic in olive oil.  Cook for about 15 minutes, until soft and translucent.  Add bell pepper and green chilies, and cook for another five minutes.  Add spices (cayenne pepper through salt) and cook for 7-10 minutes, until spices have coated the vegetables and the peppers have begun to soften.  Add lime zest and lime juice.  Cook for another five minutes. 

Add two-thirds of the black beans, stirring to incorporate them with the vegetables.  Place the remaining beans in a mixing bowl and mash with a fork until they’ve formed a paste.  Add this to the pot, along with the vegetable broth and corn.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for at least another 30 minutes, uncovered.

Optional garnishes: sour cream, cheese, avocado, red onion, cilantro, salsa, tortilla chips.

This serves about eight hearty bowls.

Here it is, boiling away:

Instead of sour cream (which is obviously not within the vegan challenge), I attempted something new: The Vegan Table’s recipe for cashew sour cream!  Actually, Ryan made the cashew sour cream while I was working on the soup.  It’s really simple: raw cashews, lemon juice, and water, blended into a smooth cream.

Cashew cream:

The verdict?  While it didn’t exactly taste like sour cream, it was pretty good, and it definitely served as a nice, creamy, cooling balance to the spicy black bean soup.  It’s not something I’d eat by the spoonful…but then again, neither is sour cream!  It worked fine as a garnish, especially with all of the other fun toppings.

My bowl:

Along with the soup, we had salad and cornbread.

In How to Cook Everything, Vegetarian, Mark Bittman writes that any bread can be made vegan with a few simple substitutions.  Obviously, regular milk can be replaced with any non-dairy milk (soy, rice, almond, etc.).  As for eggs, he had a few suggestions.  The one we tried tonight: for each egg the recipe calls for, substitute 3 level tsp. of soft silken tofu, plus 1 tsp. baking powder. Interesting.

The cornbread was fine tonight.  We tried out a different mix, and I wasn’t crazy about it, but the vegan substitutions seemed to work fine.

I gobbled mine down with some Earth balance.  I also ate my weight in chips and salsa, unpictured.

As we cooked dinner, we watched the first episode of…The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love (I will be calling the show by its full name all season long, because the sub-title for this season is awesome).  It’s kind of embarrassing how much I love this show.  It’s so, so bad…and so, so good!  I can’t wait for this new season—they showed some clips from it, and it looks like it’s going to be awesome!!!  I’m just disappointed that no underwear was handed off to the bachelor during the first night—remember that classy lady from Jason Mesnik’s season?  Niiiiice.

Yes, I am a loser.  My apologies.

G’night, folks!  See you tomorrow!