Posts filed under 'Reno'
Irish Soda Bread
Tis’ not the season for Irish Soda Bread. St. Patricks Day is a quite a way’s away but Reno was having a Fall Fiesta in her Pre-K class and the teachers asked that the parents bring in a food that celebrates your background. Reno has quite a mix of countries that make up who she is so we had a lot to choose from. I think the teachers assumed she would be bringing something Italian in because of our last name but the problem with that is I’m not Italian. Not even close to being Italian. I struggled a bit with what to make. I wanted to make something that I knew the kids would at least try and Seitan Parmesan was not something I was ready to introduce to those kids and their parents so I brought it down to two choices: Crepes (France) and Irish Soda Bread (Ireland). What kid doesn’t like pancakes and bread?
With the fiasco of the Halloween Cut Out Cookies that I had made for her school I wanted to keep this project as simple as could be so I chose the Irish Soda Bread. Having said that I of course have never made Irish Soda Bread. Crepes….I’ve made before….MANY TIMES. Luckily for me the bread came out beautifully! From what was left over after the Fiesta I would say most of the kids/parents/teachers at the party liked it as well.
Two parents exclaimed at how brave I was to tackle making bread. The thing is this bread was the least labor intensive item at the party. It was in the oven in less then 10 minutes. All you do is throw some dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another, combine, shape, bake for 40 minutes. So simple! I will definitely be making this again for St. Patricks Day in 2012 along with some boiled cabbage and potatoes.
November 19th, 2011
Ghost Cut out Cookies
Halloween was all kinds of messed up this year. The Saturday before we had this freak snowstorm. It was crazy! Trees and heavy branches were falling all over the place. I went outside to check on my husbands car and it was covered with large branches. Luckily there wasn’t any damage. While standing outside all I heard were these loud creaks and cracks and then WHOOOSH. If I turned around quick enough to where the noise was coming from I would see the tops of trees falling to the ground. Because of this storm Halloween was cancelled and the schools were closed on Monday and Tuesday…remember that this storm was on Saturday and there was barely 1 inch of snow on the ground. People were without power for over a week because all the trees fell on the wires…it was a mess.
Re as Dorothy from Wizard of OZ
Reno was suppose to have a Halloween party at her school on the Monday and I for some reason volunteered to make Halloween shaped Cut Out Cookies. Big mistake on my part. Before I knew that school was cancelled I spent hours on Sunday trying to make these cute ghost and skeleton head cookies. Making the dough, cutting them out and baking them was the easy part. Decorating them was a PAIN. IN. THE. ASS. After I applied the white part of the frosting I didn’t realize I had to wait for that stuff to dry before drawing on the face with the other color frosting. It took forever. I eventually gave up and went to the store and bought already made and decorated cookies that weren’t vegan. The second I got home from doing that I received a call to say that school was cancelled. I could have killed someone since that would have given me enough time to finish the cookies. It turns out us parents all agreed to have the party on that Friday because of all the families who wouldn’t get their power back until then. I still gave out the unvegan cookies because by then my delicious cookies weren’t fresh enough. At least I know for next year that I need to start decorating them first thing in the morning so they are dry enough by the mid afternoon to paint their sweet little faces on them.
Miles as Mickey Mouse
I also wanted to mention that Trick or Treating this year was horrible also. The town cancelled trick or treating on Halloween because of all the down trees and wires, which made total sense, and made it for that Friday. I took Reno around our neighborhood that Friday and hardly anyone answered their doors and we only saw 2 groups of kids plus one other single kid trick or treating. It was miserable and I felt so bad for Re. She loves Halloween so much and it sucked this year. She took it all in stride though and I am happy that she got very little candy. She did however get a lot of bags of potato chips which I found bizarre. I’m hoping next year will be better for her.
November 12th, 2011
Chickpea-Almond Brown Rice Stir Fry with Tamari-Peanut Sauce
This was the very first meal I cooked for us since we brought Miles home from the hospital. Up until then we have been well taken care of food wise from friends and family. My non-cooking husband even cooked a meal for us one night. Of course when the time came for me to have to start making dinners again we pretty much had nothing in the fridge/pantry. After standing in the middle of the kitchen wondering what the hell I was going to make for dinner I all of a sudden remembered that I had a whole container of brown rice from some Veggie Heaven take out a few nights before, then I saw a can of chickpeas in the pantry and found some broccoli in the fridge. The rest of the dish just kept evolving while I was cooking.
I first sauteed some onions and garlic in oil then added the broccoli and chickpeas. While rooting around the fridge I found a bag of almonds so I chopped them up and tossed them into the pan along with the leftover take out brown rice. While this was all “stir frying” together I was trying to think of way to get Reno to eat this meal. I knew by the looks of it she wouldn’t eat it at all. I have in the past gotten her to eat similar dishes, usually with noodles instead of rice, if I put peanut sauce on it. We were running low on peanut butter, thanks to all the smoothies I’ve been making, so it was heavier on the tamari then on the peanut butter. Which is better for a stir fry anyway. The sauce was made with: tamari, peanut butter, water, orange juice and ginger powder. I added it to the stir fry right towards the end of cooking it and cooked it for a minute more just till it was heated through.
By then…Reno had emerged from her bath and declared that she would NOT be eating this dinner. I informed her that she WOULD be eating it and if she didn’t want to eat it then she was welcome to go straight to bed. If I know that she’s not going to like something I’ve made I’ll always give her another option but I knew she would like this. She complained through the whole thing. First that it was made with rice and not noodles and I always make peanut sauce with noodles. Then she was fine just eating the rice but that there was all “this stuff” in the way of her doing that…that “stuff” was the chickpeas. Oh and she also wasn’t going to be eating the broccoli which is actually a vegetable that she likes. After she had basically eaten 1/2 of her bowl she claims that her belly is full. Which was too bad because that’s when I decided to announce to Peter that there was some ice cream in the freezer for me and him when we were done with our bowls. Well wouldn’t you know it…Reno wanted some ice cream…she quickly ate the rest of her meal. 
The meal was delicious and I can’t wait to make it again. I hope to have the time and mental capability to write the measurements down so I can post the recipe for you all.
June 17th, 2011
21 week belly
I’ve been cooking up a new baby for the past few months and not much else, hence the poor participation during VeganMoFo this year and other sporadic posts. By the time dinner time comes around I’m DONE for the day. We have been eating a lot of pasta dishes and rice and beans. I’ve been feeling better lately so hopefully i’ll be up to some more creative cooking soon.
One of my favorite types of meals lately is the bean, vegetable, rice or pasta and peanut sauce combo. It comes together in mere minutes and helps with my protein needs for the pregnancy.
one of said current favorite dinners
Peanut sauce is so easy to put together. My favorite ingredient to add to the sauce, if I have some on hand, is orange juice. It gives it such a bright and wonderful taste. I also make sure to add a lot of ginger powder as well. Just writing about peanut sauce is making me want to cook up a pot of rice and eat it plain with some peanut sauce on top.
Anyway…back to the cooking baby in my belly. He is due May 14th. We found out just before Christmas that we are having a BOY! Reno really wanted a sister but I was able to trick her into thinking a brother was the best thing ever. She seems to be on board now. We went shopping for some boy clothes the other day which she was excited about. She did pretty good helping pick out some onesies and such until she started picking out pink outfits and then she wanted to name him Olivia. She also wants to name him Fun Guy Fun Guy, which is the name of her horse toy that she can ride on. Just like with Reno we won’t be sharing the name with ANYBODY until the kid is on the outside. So don’t ask! 
January 5th, 2011
Food trucks seem to be all the rage around the U.S.A. Portland has a whole bunch of them and Austin has quite a few too. Some of them are even vegan and I’ve always been jealous of other bloggers going to these trucks and getting some of the most delicious looking food I’ve never eaten…until now! New Jersey has it’s first ever vegan food truck called The Cinnamon Snail!!! They first started serving food in Hoboken, NJ on Valentines Day of this year. Peter and I attended that glorious opening day for breakfast and have been devoted followers of The Cinnamon Snail ever since. We have even driven down to Red Bank, NJ on Sundays to visit the Snail parked at the farmers market. Everything we have tried has tasted amazing from the most kick ass Breakfast Burritos to Pancakes to Seitan Sandwiches. Reno is a big fan of Adam’s, the owner, donuts. There are multiple flavors each week along with other cookies and desserts. They will be closing up shop soon for the winter so we are planning one last Hoboken trip next week to get our fix in before we have to wait until warmer weather next year.
Here are some of the great eats we’ve had from them this year:
Korean BBQ Seitan with Kimchi and Greens served on a grilled tortilla
Donuts and such donated to our 1st Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale!
“The Standard American Riot”
Blue corn pancakes with scrambled tofu and greens and maple mustard breakfast tempeh
The Sweet’s case!
Miso Teriyaki Seitan with grilled onions, arugula, wasabi mayonnaise And 5 spice fried sunflower gomasio on a toasted baguette
Breakfast Burrito with scrambled tofu, refried beans, pico de gallo, and avocado
Reno shoving a apple cider donut into her mouth
December 10th, 2010
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