Salad of the Day: Peaches and Chik'n

I love eating salads during the summer. I usually eat one every day for lunch. I will look in the fridge and use whatever I can find to make the most interesting salad I can. Here's what I found today :)

Peach and Chik'n Salad

9 Morningstar Farms Chik'n Strips

1/3 cup frozen peas

1 peach, cubed

handful broccoli slaw

2 tablespoons sesame ginger dressing

Heat peas and Chik'n strips. Place all ingredients in a bowl and toss. Enjoy.

Are you going for a pint?

On a hot summer day, there is nothing quite like a cold beer (unless you are in the mood for cocktails, but that's a different post ), so I thought I would post about some of my favorite places to enjoy a beer here in Albany, Oregon.

First, of course, is Calapooia Brewing, our local microbrew. They always have a great selection of food and sometimes they will also have music. Their french fries are awesome, by the way, nice and crunchy :)
On our latest visit, we had some Pacicfic Pilsners. I highly recommend that you try ther Chili Beer. It is so unique, a beer brewed with hot peppers. They will generally give you a small taste of any beer before you buy, so you know what you're getting into.
Cappies is another great place. They have a huge amount of beers on tap, including many of the Calapooia beers. I have heard that their green bean fries are delicious, but I have yet to try them.

On our most recent visit, my hubby had Twilight, a summer ale by Deschutes Brewery, and I tried a local cider from Corvallis, Oregon. Very tasty :)

Another one of my favorites is Bailey's. Bailey's is a local neighborhood bar. You will often see the same regulars in there, and the atmosphere is very friendly. They always have a couple of local brews on tap; recently they have had Ninkasi. Bailey's has a nice heated, covered outdoor seating area and great food. Again the french fries are amazing :)

Can you tell I have a weakness for french fries with my beer?

New Recipe: Roasted Smashed Potatoes

Recipe: Roasted Smashed Potatoes Verdict: Yummy This recipe was super easy. Just boil some potatoes. Then flatten them. I used a folded up paper towel. After flattening, season with olive oil, salt, pepper, etc. and roast in the oven. They were super yummy. I served them with a veggie protein, some peas and my homemade brown gracy. YUM! They would also be great as a finger food at a party, as suggested in the original recipe.

New Recipe: Pretzels!

Recipe: Alton Brown's pretzel recipe Verdict: Yummy! Modifications: I used whole wheat flour and I could not find pretzel salt, so I used coarse sea salt. Rob loves big, soft pretzels dipped in pizza sauce We often eat them as a snack on the weekends. We decided to try making them ourselves. Here is the dough after rising. I swear this is the first time I have had dough successfully rise. I was so excited. I was sure that it would not rise fully, because I had a little accident while mixing the dough. The recipe calls for a stand mixer. I thought that my food processor with a dough blade would make a great substitute. Unfortunately, my food processor does not have the necessary liquid capacity, so as I was adding flour, yeast and water were leaking out of m food processor. I scrambled to switch to a bowl and do the mixing by hand, but I was terrified that I had lost some of the yeast that I would need for the dough to rise. Apparently I was wrong. Voila! Next we formed the pretzels. The dough was really airy. It was weird to roll out and shape.

Next step is boiling.

Then each pretzel gets salted, and finally they are ready to bake in the oven. Some of our salt dissolved on the wet pretzels, but it did not affect the final product.

Out of the oven, golden brown. These pretzels were tasty The process is time-consuming, but it was fun. I will definitely make them again some day.

New Recipe: Cream of White Vegetables

Recipe: Cream of White Winter Vegetables modified from Vegetarian Soups for all Seasons
Verdict: Lisa says "Yummy," Hubby was not such a big fan.

I modified this from the original recipe. Here is my version.
3 large potatoes, peeled and diced
Lots of garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds of whte turnips, peeled and diced (for me this was 4 small turnips)
Crushed red chili pepper flakes, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup of soymik

1. Place the potatoes, turnips and spices in a soup pot. Add enough water to almost cover the vegetables.

2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 35-40 minutes.

3. Allow the vegetables to cool a little, then transfer to a blender and blend.

4. Transfer back to pot and add soymilk.

5. Reheat and serve.

Homemade Vegan Sausages

New Recipe: Homemade Vegan Sausages

Verdict: Yummy! Will definitely make these again and can't wait to try them in many dishes.

Here is the dough before being formed.

One sausage waiting to be rolled up in foil.

All rolled up like Tootsie Rolls.

After steaming, they didn't taste the greatest, so we fried them.

Best decision ever. They crisped up on the outside and tasted awesome.

I served them as part of this nutritious breakfast.

Sausage, stuffed french toast and bloody marys with beer chaser.

Seitan "Hotwings"

Recipe: Vegan Boneless Chickenless Hot Wings found on the amazing VeganDad blog. For the vegan chicken broth powder, I used this recipe.

Verdict: These are awesome. They are so much better than any premade veggie protein that you buy in the store. Even though I was full, I could not stop eating them:) Rob loved them too. He couldn't stop saying things like "fantastic" and "amazing." I will definitely make them again, and I will experiment with different seasonings.

Here is the dough before being shaped and breaded.

Breaded, in the oven and ready to bake.

And the finished product, served with, you guessed it, vegan caesar salad.

Rob un-vegan-ized his by adding parmesan cheese and ranch dressing.

Vegan Caesar Salad (and Blog Name Change)

Well, the original idea of this blog was to challenge myself to make one new recipe a week, totalling 52 new recipes in the year. The year is now over, and I made it to 18 new recipes. I guess I already have enough challenges in my life :) Anyway, I still like cooking and eating, so I have changed the blog a little. I will continue to share any new recipes that I try and the verdict from my household, but I will also start sharing some of ou favorite, tried and true vegetarian recipes. On top of that, I will share our adventures in dining out as picky vegetarians. It should be fun.

New Recipe: Vegan Caesar Salad found on a blog called 101 Cookbooks and originally from the cookbook Veganomicon
Verdict: Yummy! Glad that the recipe makes extra dressing :)

Rob and I had never tried caesar salad as meateaters, and once we became vegetarian we stayed away because of the anchovies. Recently, he had an urge to try a vegetarian version. I found this recipe online and voila.

The dressing was surprisingly garlicky. The croutons were fantastic. And the lettuce, well it was lettucey. Rob had parmesan on his, and said that it really made the dressing sing.

A definite winner.