Real vegans eat quiche

After the success of the onion pie, I tried my hand at a broccoli quiche from Vegan Brunch. I had the ingredients on hand, nothing exotic, and in less time that I expected, voila:

Broccoli Quiche

I'm taking in to work tomorrow for breakfast. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than to feed non-vegans (and have them enjoy it!)

Menu Planning

I keep hearing it is cheaper to eat vegan. Not the way I cook. It has been nothing short of a fiesta every day. So this week, I sat down with two of my simpler cookbooks: Supermarket Vegan by Donna Klein and Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I also came to the conclusion that cruise ship quantities with Bon Appetite intricacies does not mean I'm going to lose the last few pounds any time soon.

So down I sit and pick out a week's worth of recipes and make my shopping list. Granted, doing 90% of our shopping at our locally-owned health market, Cid's is not a recipe for frugality either. However, as most of what we eat is organic produce, it is what it is.

In the spirit of "Eat dessert first, life is uncertain" I'll start with the cake. Ah yes, chocolate raspberry cake. Now in full disclosure, I have up until recently been a pretty crappy baker. But I am slowly mastering the quirkiness of baking at altitude without a net.

I've been burned before with non-hydrogenated based frosting. Last time it destabilized and became watery. Looking back, I think the directions had me overmix it. This time I would go with what I saw in my mixing bowl. What I saw was very, very yummy: Earth balance, powdered sugar and melted dark chocolate.

Batter, batter, batter

Raspberry preserves on one layer. Hint: use the good stuff.

Frosting on the other layer 

The finished cake - best damn cake I've ever had

For lunch yesterday, we had the Mexican Salad from Supermarket Vegan. It contains black beans, corn, tomatoes, scallions, avocado, red pepper, cilantro and a fabulous Lime Dressing. Best to let it sit for a couple of hours or overnight in the fridge for optimum taste.

Mexican Salad

Sunday used to be for decompressing...

...now I make sure I cook enough to have leftovers for work the next three days. As Monday - Wednesday is basically wake up, work, come home, sleep, repeat, I don't have the time or energy to cook much.

So I freed 2 birds with one stone, so to speak.

Below is our way of having a picnic/bar-b-que at our house. Pictured starting from top going clockwise faux bbq 'pork' (homemade seitan, made from scratch by moi), creamy potato salad, and cole slaw. It was a gastronomical delight. The faux bbq came out better than I expected. The bbq seitan recipe and cole slaw are from Veganomicon and the potato salad is from a PETA handout "Go Vegetarian" which has a few great starter recipes. 

By the way - for anyone who loves mayonnaise, I have to give a pitch for Vegenaise:

 Not only can it replace traditional Mayo without anyone being the wiser, it has absolutely no cholesterol - no eggs. Now this is wonderful on many levels. At picnics - no worry about getting food poisoning from the macaroni or potato salad! I tasted it right out of the jar and it has a much better flavor than traditional Mayo. Just try one jar - it will make your taste buds smile.

Okay - below, because having one dinner would be too easy, is Red quinoa with black beans, broccoli, and raspberry chipotle sauce. This one is from the Post Punk Kitchen again and can be found on the website.

And just because it wouldn't be a day on Hondo Mesa without some animal adventure - these two horses decided to bolt and take a walk on the wild side when they were being led out of their trailer. The went back to their home moments later.