Holy Food Post, Batman!

Happy New Year, folks! I'm ready for some serious blogging! I have a backlog of pictures, I'm listening to Sam Cooke (what better music to blog to!) and I'm just going to jump right in!

Some raspberry muffins:

These were a part of a holiday gift basket I made. I used whole wheat pastry flour to keep them light, but not as unhealthy as all-purp.

Last night we rung in the new year with Chris and Kate. We watched "The Big Lebowski". Jim and I have been living a life of shame, having not seen it, when everyone we know has. We made pizza, one with an herbed pizza dough and another with the Oatmeal Pizza Dough recipe from Diann's blog.

They were topped with red sauce, pesto, VwaV tempeh crumbles, eggplant, mushrooms, olives and artichokes. YUM!

New Year's Eve dessert:

I know I have Leslie's approval on this one: banana splits! Bananas, strawberries, chocolate and vanilla soy ice cream, chocolate sauce, Dreena's caramel sauce, almond slivers, sprinkles and Soyatoo whip. OMG, I fell in love with banana splits again. This could be dangerous.

Dinner tonight: We used up some leftovers and had soup and a sandwich .

Tomato soup that I whipped up using pantry staples. A large 28 oz can of diced tomatoes was pureed in tiny batches in my handy chop, because in continuing the demise of my appliances, my food processor died last week. This was added to one medium sauteed onion and 2 cloves of garlic. I then added 1 1/2 cups water, a healthy shake of dried oregano and basil and half of a pureed avocado. Creamy and delicious. The sandwiches were my take on a sandwich we had at Chaco Canyon Cafe in Seattle. They had a layer of avocado, some leftover pesto from the pizza and a slice of Tofutti cheese, toasted. They were great dipping sandwiches and the pesto and soup naturally complimented eachother. And I was able to use up some random odds and ends from the fridge.

Earlier this week, burgers, sweet potato fries and steamed veggies.

Dave's Killer Bread with a quick veggie patty and all the fixin's. Jim's actually on a nutrition kick and is forcing down veggies, albeit drenched in Veg-It. He wants me to buy some Spike, but I refuse to lose my husband to Spike, like so many of you have! What is it with them!?

Pumpkin Pecan Bread loaves from Susan's blog.

Two of these were in a gift basket with the raspberry muffins, also made with whole wheat pastry flour. I love these little paper loaf pans, they are cheap, very pretty and make gift-giving loaves decorative and easy.

Some "cheezy" veggie soup I made last week, with some tahini, chickpea miso, and nutritional yeast.

It was based off of a soup I used to love eating in school years ago called "California Medley". It's funny to me how anything that has veggies, avocados, sundried tomatoes or is just sans-meat is labeled "Californian" on menus. Anyhow, this was to help out Jim's lunches while he's into eating his veggies. I pureed some white beans to make this creamy and more nutritionally balanced.

Burrito bowl! Or at least, that's what we call it.

Black beans dressed up with some cumin and garlic, some salsa, Tofutti sour cream, and quick guac (mashed avocado with some sea salt and a splash of lime juice). I like this dinner because it's super satisfying and can be whipped up in 10 minutes tops.

Last Friday, breakfast for dinner.

We featured Leslie's Blueberry Grunt as a breakfast food instead of pancakes drenched in maple syrup. It was so fast and easy, Jim could have made it! We used WWPF and they were so moist and delicious. We ate them with the tempeh white bean sausage patties from VwaV. OMG. If you like the tempeh sausage crumbles, MAKE THESE! They will rock your socks. I made the grunt again the next day with raspberries. It was good, but the flavor was a little overpowering, so I think blueberries are optimal, or maybe a fruit blend.

What a long, blabbering post without a cute kitty picture? Linus was hanging out on Jim's lap during breakfast yesterday and was such a little chubber I had to take a picture!

He was sinking into Jim's legs and was happily purring his butt off while kneading the air. Linus is definitely a lover, not a fighter!