Meats Be Gone

Last night I made the super quick tomato basil cream pasta from Vegan Yum Yum, minus the basil because I was too lazy to go into the backyard and get some basil. It was very yum yum, it’s one of those recipes I make all the time because it’s good, fast, and I usually have everything I need to make it.

Super quick tomato cream pasta

I also made pumpkin muffins again to take camping, this time with Heather’s amazing improvement of adding a dollop of cream cheese frosting into a divot in the batter and sprinkling on some roasted, salted pepitas. NOW they’re the Best Pumpkin Muffins. Our camping buddies are going to be very happy to share with us.

omg delicious

Monkey bread is one of my favorite treats to make. I feel a little guilty posting about it, since I signed us up for the “healthy eating” category, but that one fit us best, and treats are ok in moderation, right? My warning for this monkey bread (recipe from the Vegan Table) is to NOT, I repeat NOT make it unless people are coming over to help you eat it or you are bringing it somewhere to share. If you make it just at home, it will magically jump very quickly into your gullet and you will feel sick from Monkey Bread Overload. Fair warning. It is fun to make with somebody, as long as that person is old enough to know not to lick their fingers every 2 seconds. After you assemble all the coated balls of dough in the pan, you have to let it rise for another 30 minutes before you bake it. Restrain yourself from tasting the fluffy dough balls. It is difficult. Almost impossible, maybe.

Frustrated monkey bread sampler

Then lock it up tight until people come over/you bring it to a party, to keep big Sweeties and little Sweeties from sampling it. You just can’t try it before, ok? That’s like bringing a cake with a slice cut out to share. TACKY. Everyone’s patience will be rewarded soon enough. Mmmmm.

Delightful!

And because I couldn’t go a day without pumpkin, I made the Best Pumpkin Muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. They are the best. Sweetie ate 3 before asking me if they were “bad”, so I calculated that they have 2 teaspoons of canola oil each, and 5 teaspoons of sugar (20 grams). I guess that is quite a bit of sugar.

Pumpkin muffins.

Also, I roasted some of the million tomatoes last night and made stock to make the roasted tomato soup recipe from 1000 Vegan Recipes. I haven’t made many things out of that cookbook, so I’m not sure how good it will be. But the tomatoes smelled wonderful while roasting, and the soup looked like it will be delicious when I was making it this morning!

garlicky roasted goodness

Hooray for technology! My Vegan MoFo Google bundle worked this year! Last year I only ended up with 15 blogs or something and was too lazy to figure it out. But now I can enjoy the amazing time suck of all 700+ vegan blogs all posting like mad. And today I even noticed that Google reader has a little place to star posts, so I could actually keep track of posts that inspire me. Which I didn’t do yesterday, and someone had posted about the pumpkin and caramelized onion ziti casserole with toasted sage breadcrumbs from Veganomicon and said that it was very good, so I made it last night. I agree, it is very good. So thank you, blogger I’ll never be able to figure out! Not too hard to make, and even easier because Sweetie was my sous chef. My only complaint is that it makes so much that I can’t cook tonight because we’re having the same thing again. I guess I’ll have to bake instead.

Pumpkin baked ziti with caramelized onions and sage crumb topping

Funny that I’m on such a pumpkin kick, must be all this reading about pumpkin dishes, because I don’t even like pumpkin. Well, pumpkin pie, at least. Now what I really need to be cooking a lot of is tomatoes. Sweetie harvested most of our garden bounty yesterday, and look at all the beautiful tomatoes. Now I need to go find some recipes to use them all up.

Sweetie has a green thumb!

Today was the first non-work day to relax after our whirlwind September, and it was lovely. All I did was cook and clean and bake and take a long nap and go to a housewarming party. I love Saturdays. I have decided that I have to try lots of new recipes this month, so I’m only going to make things I’ve made before once this month. I tend to make the same recipes over and over again. Sticking to that, this morning I made something new, the pumpkin pancakes from Vegan Brunch. They were quite delicious, although hard to cook enough so they weren’t gooey in the middle but weren’t too dry either. With a fruit salad and some roasted diced red potatoes, it was a yummy breakfast and a great start to VeganMoFo 2011.

Pumpkin pancakes

I deemed lunch to be unblogworthy, it was leftover minestroney-ish soup that I attempted on Thursday that had way too much pasta in it so it just looks like pasta with a watery sauce. It still tasted good, though. Dinner was the pineapple cashew quinoa stirfry from Veganomicon that I’ve made many, many times, with a salad including tomatoes and a pepper from Sweetie’s hard work in the garden. The little yellow ones are my new favorite. I had to use canned pineapple because the pineapple I bought isn’t quite ripe, so I guess I’ll have to make this again next week and break my VeganMoFo rule.

garden bounty

pineapple cashew quinoa stirfry and salad

Pumpkin alfredo! The original recipe that made me want to make this was based on a whole box of pureed silken tofu and 1/4 cup ground flax seeds, which when it came time to make it, seemed kind of unappetizing. So instead I made the veganyumyum hurry-up alfredo and added a big glob of canned pumpkin and some extra nutmeg and allspice. Delightful!