Sunday, September 24, 2006

My Weekend Alone

Jim went visit his grandparents in Illinois this weekend. They were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary and his family put together a big celebration for them. With the house and other things, I couldn't go with him, so I stayed behind with the kitties. I watched the British version of "The Office", OMG it's so freaking funny! I love it! The kitties kept me in good company, with all three of them sleeping with me both nights he was gone. This is a rarity because usually no one sleeps with us, much less all three!

Odd as it may seem, when I'm by myself I don't really cook very well. I cook to please others more than myself, because I get enjoyment out of providing for them. So this weekend, I kind of ate like crap. :)


This is a new noodle dish they started carrying at Trader Joe's. They come in these little Chinese food cartons, with vaccuum sealed noodles and a sauce packet, all you have to do is heat it up. I added some steamed pea pods to it. The kind I tried was the Kung Po. I bit spicy for my tastes, but it worked great in a pinch. Jim tried the Pad Thai, which he said was "good, for the convenience and price". They are very cheap, $1.99 each, and like a normal Chinese food carton, contain a lot of food, so we'll be buying more of these for work.

BTW, I packed a half a suit case of stuff for Jim to eat. It was going to be too chaotic for him to go to a store and they live really rural, so I gave him one of these and some boxes of ready to eat Indian food from Food Fight, crackers, cookies, Odwalla bars, fruit bars and a few other assorted snacks to fill in his diet. I should have taken a picture.


This is a quick pizza I whipped up several times this weekend. A piece of pita with some pizza sauce, sliced cremini mushrooms and some Follow Your Heart mozzerella. I haven't tried this cheese before, but I'd heard that it melts. Well, if you consider getting really soft melting than it does. I wasn't that big on it, but I guess I'm just not into trying to replace cheese because I don't miss it. We usually just eat loads of veggies and pesto on our pizzas. But, again, it worked in a pinch.



Now, while I don't really like cooking for myself, I never mind baking. I made these muffins last night for Jim to come home to, his favorite, raspberry lime. I always make jumbo sized ones, they work great for breakfast or a snack with coffee. I presented one to a very hungry Jim when he got off the plane this evening, having only eaten some Frech fries since breakfast at 5 a.m. this morning. Poor boy. FYI, the St. Louis airport, not vegan friendly.


To help make up for a crappy weekend of bad side salads, I made a big breakfast-for-dinner for us tonight. Baking powder biscuits from VwaV, along with my own random tofu scramble (tofu, red potatoes, zucchini, onions, spices) and the Chickpea Gravy that Leslie keeps making. This way my first time making it and oh my! I left out the nutritional yeast, as Jim is allergic to it, but it was still amazing! Plus there are left overs for lunch tomorrow. Yum!

7 comments:

KleoPatra said...

Your pizza - WOW! And those muffins - WOWZA!

Hope you've had a good weekend, goin' it kind of alone there. Sounds like it's gone well.

You didn't eat like "crap," Kris, whatchotalkinboutWillis? Love the noodle dish and will look for it next time i'm at Trader Joe's, for sure.

Nice of you to send Jim off so well, by the way. What a sweetie you are. I should eat so well when someone bags things for me to take on the go!!!

Leftovers RULE, by the way... yer gonna be eatin' well this week, i see. Wondering how you found out about Jim's nutritional yeast allergy...??? Sorry to hear that!

Anonymous said...

I can assure you your "crap" is 1000% better than most of what I eat on a regular basis.

I was interested to see the Trader Ming's Kung Po. Alas, it is just a Trader Joe's brand, so unavailable here. I have discontinued buying something similar in another brand because of the huge overuse of non-recyclable packaging (giant plastic bowl, etc.), so I have been hoping to find a substitute.

Jennifer C. said...

Can you share the recipe for those delicious looking muffins? YUM!

Anonymous said...

Meg, I think it was mentioned that they had found a home for the foster kitty.

NightOwl said...

I love FYH cheese, and my husband makes the best pizza in the world with it. Even our omni friends love it. You just have to have a very hot oven, (400-500 degrees) and put the cheese on top of the toppings instead of underneath. It'll brown beautifully and taste delicious!
And everything you made looks delicious! I'll eat that "crap" any day. :)

Anonymous said...

kris, i found your page via leslie's. i'm at extracto right now using the wi-fi before going to herbivore to fold. and where might you be? not working, i hear. so sad i'll be missing your baking this weekend. i think i'll still be at Crater Lake.

Kris said...

Okay, this is rather strange, I responded to comments last night, but my post is missing. Hmmm...

Kleopatra- Thanks! We figured out the hard way that he can't tolerate nutritional yeast, from him getting horribly ill from eating things with lots of it in it! He got sick from Tings and from some scalloped potatoes that I make and we just sort of figured it out. If it's in little quantities, like in pesto, where there's only a little bit and it's spread out then he's okay. It's sad, though, because it's such a vegan staple.

Anon, the crap I posted may look okay, but that's only because I didn't post all the cookies and microwave pretzels... :)

Meg, we did indeed find a home for the kitty. It seemed like a really good fit for him.

Jennifer C, if you click on MY RECIPES under my links, I just posted the recipe up there.

Nightowl, someone else mentioned to me that it has to be at a really high temp. I normally make real pizza on a pizza stone at 500 degrees, so it would probably work better like that.

Hey Karla! What's Josh doing at work, this is supposed to be his day off? It's too bad that you won't be at the grand opening, if for nothing else for the food! There's going to be so much stuff!