Another version of chickpea curry, but with cashews added for a little extra sweetness and a surprising crunch.

After more than two years of doing the whole Weight Watchers thing, I came to rely heavily on stir fry.  I stir fried just about everything.  It was quick, easy, and took relatively little planning.  Just cut up some defrosted chicken breast, throw in some broccoli, serve over rice and you’re done.  Since making the switch to veganism, though, I’ve discovered a new passion for curries.

Granted, the preparation is pretty much the same, but I’ve noticed that I’m more willing to experiment with curries than I ever was with stir fry.  Tonight’s curry has a base of chickpeas with some green pepper, onions, minced garlic, carrots, frozen peas and a handful of roasted cashews for a little different texture.  I added ground cumin, curry powder, five spice, garlic powder, and turmeric.  Then I added two teaspoons of the chunky Sriracha sauce (my favorite for cooking; the one in the squirt bottle is much better for a garnish).

Fluffy pillows of whole wheaty goodness!

This is the coup de grace for tonight’s dinner, though—I must say I’m really proud of these.  Since I knew I was making a curry tonight, I thought that fresh baked na’an bread would be a perfect accompaniment—plus, Sean has been begging me to try this recipe for ages.  I used a mixture of whole wheat and all-purpose flour, so it’s a little denser than typical na’an.  The soy yogurt worked just fine.  I still need to work on my rolling technique a little.  These were a lot more like pita than na’an.  Just takes a little more practice, I’m sure.  They turned out really pretty, though.

Chickpea and Cashew Curry with brown rice and whole wheat na'an. Tasty!

Here’s a picture of the whole dinner, complete with brown rice on the side.  Yum!

"Sloppy Janes" and a homemade bagel.

Sean took leftovers with him for lunch today and sent me a picture of what it looked like after he got it all ready.  It’s vegan sloppy joes (which he decided to rename “Sloppy Janes”—not sure why, exactly), vegan cheese, and one of the bagels he made last night.  I have to admit, I got hungry just looking at it, and I was the one who made it!  The bagels came out nice and savory—lots of flaxseed, caraway seed, garlic powder, and some other spices—and the texture was pleasantly chewy.  It’s nice to know I’m not the only one in the house who can make bagels now!

After dinner we both wanted something sweet, so I made Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownies, but I made them healthier (and vegan!) by substituting all of the recommended ingredients with a can of black beans.  To do this, just empty the can with the liquid into the blender and let ‘er rip.  I did add a little bit of water to them—maybe a tablespoon or so—because the puree seemed a little thicker than I wanted it to be. After that, just mix the pureed beans with the brownie mix and bake as directed.  You can also do the same thing with pureed pumpkin, though I like the black beans better with brownies.  It works with cake mixes, too.  Just one more tip I picked up from Weight Watchers.  ☺

It may not look that appetizing, but at least it knows how to keep a smile on its face!

I had a sweet potato that really needed to be used before it started sprouting in my cabinet.  Since the Indian dish I made on Saturday went over so well with the kids, I thought I would try a recipe for Sweet Potato Dahl that I’ve wanted to try for a few weeks now.

I kept the spices dialed back for the kids since they still don’t really do spicy stuff, and I added Sriracha to the adults’ portions.  Since it looked kind of, well, unappetizing (to say the least…), I tried to keep things whimsical and made a smiley face on Sean’s.  It actually tasted okay, but I’m still trying to figure out why it is that every time I make a recipe with red lentils, they turn to mush.  I only have this problem with red lentils; never with green or any other color.  It’s weird.  And frustrating.  And the end result made my dinner look like someone else had already eaten it and barfed it back up.  Not the best choice for a transition food for the oh-so-particular kidlets.  They ate it—albeit begrudgingly and on pain of dessert withholding.

I’m planning to submit a slightly different picture to Post Punk Kitchen’s “food porn” thread.  I’m pretty sure it will qualify…  ☺

I did get the kids out of the house and we spent an hour or so at the pool.  I got my daily dose of Vitamin D and an opportunity to start reading a new book, and they got some much-needed exercise.  Despite the barf-dinner tonight, they’ve been pretty good all evening—probably because they’re tuckered out.  Yay tired kidlets!

Ahhh... Healthy chips that don't *taste* healthy!

I found a new favorite junk food today:  RiceWorks Rice Chips.  The Sea Salt and Sweet Chili are both available at my local Giant Eagle, are super tasty, and vegan!  The kids even liked them.

Spicy, super creamy black bean dip--excellent with RiceWorks chips!

Sean whipped up a batch of black bean dip and the four of us finished off a bag of the Sweet Chili ones with dinner tonight.  I think that’s the only thing that kept Daniel going through his Sweet Potato Dahl.  They remind me a lot of Doritos, but they’re way healthier and—best of all—no dairy, no hydrogenated oils, and no icky bad stuff I can’t pronounce in the ingredients!  They totally satisfy my craving for a salty, savory snack.  We’re definitely going to have to keep these around!

Tonight for dessert, we’re having tofu chocolate pudding with the Nasoya chocolate-flavored tofu I found over the weekend.  I’m really excited about it.  We made it in the Vita Mix with a slightly tweaked version of their recipe.  Since we had chocolate tofu and chocolate soymilk already, we left out the 2 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate and the 5 tablespoons of margarine the recipe called for.  We also added some crushed Newman’s Own chocolate crème cookies to the blender during the last couple of seconds for an extra dose of yumminess.  We also added a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch, since I really wasn’t seeing anything in the recipe that was going to make pudding set up after being blended with just milk and sugar.  We’ll see what happens with that; it’s in the fridge as we speak.

I thought that we were going to have a grown-up movie tonight, but it’s starting to look like that isn’t going to happen since it’s after 9:30 and I haven’t seen Sean in over half an hour.  We’ll see, though.  Maybe it’ll just be a late-night showing.  ☺

UPDATE:  Even after sitting in the fridge for a full 24 hours, the chocolate tofu pudding never did set.  *sigh*  Oh, well.  It made a really tasty chocolate soup!

Today was a most disappointing day in the kitchen.

First, I made cornbread muffins and totally left out the sugar.  I also ran out of cornmeal and substituted corn grits for half of it.  They weren’t bad, but not exactly what I was hoping for.  Sean insisted that they were okay, but I’m going to try it again sometime.  Sylvie liked hers, and Daniel said he liked them, too, even though he only took one bite and left the rest on his plate.

Then there was dinner itself.  I made pinto beans with vegetables and vegan red wine over brown rice, and it was received with a little less enthusiasm than I had hoped.  After the disappointing cornbread muffins, I just didn’t have the heart to dice up a carrot, so I used frozen mixed vegetables instead.  They cooked so long that they really didn’t have any flavor by the time it was all done.  And the red wine flavor was a bit strong, even after I cut it in half and used water for the rest of the liquid.  There was a puckered face to accompany pretty much every bite taken by the kidlets over the dinner table tonight.

As a reward for their perseverance and relative lack of complaining, I made the cupcakes that are pictured above.  Adorable, aren’t they?  They’re chocolate cake using this recipe with peanut butter frosting piped into the centers and around the top edge, and then chocolate buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.  I’ve made all of these already, except for the chocolate buttercream.  It’s pretty similar to the vanilla, though, so I wasn’t too worried.  The frostings came out perfect.  The peanut butter was so much better than the last couple of times I made it—probably because I used super creamy peanut butter this time instead of the natural stuff that’s never quite as smooth.  But this is the only time I’ve ever gone ahead and iced the cupcakes without actually tasting the results of the baking first.  Usually, I have enough batter left that I can make some mini cupcakes, and they’re perfect for taste-testing.  The batter was so thick and dense this time, though, that it barely filled my cupcake tins.  I let them cool, piped the peanut butter inside them, and then got creative with the edging.  Then I did the chocolate buttercream, and they looked positively wonderful.  I gave one to Sean and took one for myself, not really noticing how very heavy they were this time.  I just thought I overdid it on the icing.

They’re terrible.  Dense, half-baked, and just generally nasty.  No flavor, gritty, and just… Yuck!  I checked them to make sure that they were done, and the ones in the front seemed fine.  It looks like some of the fuller muffin cups weren’t quite baked all the way through, though.  And they barely rose at all.  Maybe I used whole wheat pastry flour with this batch?  I had all of the dry ingredients pre-mixed in a Ziploc bag in the pantry, and I can’t remember what I did.  Oh, well.  Maybe the kids will enjoy them.  I’ll just make sure to use plain old all-purpose flour from now on.  That was just entirely too sad to ever repeat ever again.