Catch Up

Last week was mildly busy and my computer is being stupidly slow, so I didn't get to put up any of the meals I made. But I'm doing the 5-day detox this week, which is the same 3 meals every day, so time to catch up a bit.

Angry Red Lentil Soup


This was from last Monday, I believe. We finally managed to get red lentils for under $1/pound thanks to my mother (Thanks Mom!) and I found a recipe by this same name awhile ago, but it wasn't nearly as good of a recipe as it is a recipe name, so I decided to just go with the theme and make my own. It consists of red lentils, carrots, tomato paste, onions, garlic, and lots o' spices; cayenne, red pepper flakes, chipotle, smoked paprika, a dash of cumin, some ginger. It came out more tex-mex-y than I intended due to the chipotle, but I'd like to try it again with hot chili oil, more ginger, ground black mustard seeds, maybe some thai basil and/or chopped tomatoes. The soup was served over steamed mustard greens.

Mock Crab Cakes and Sundried Tomato-Stuffed Artichokes




The "crab" cakes are made from a recipe from Susan's Fat-Free Vegan Kitchen blog (see it here: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/07/okara-crab-cakes.html), but modified a bunch. First, not having okara and not wanting tofu, I used tempeh. Also, celery is banned in this house since Katie has a phobia (don't ask) so that was out. I also added far less Old Bay seasoning than the original called for, as the seasoning I bought has a ridiculous amount of sodium in it, and doubled up on the dulse flakes to compensate a bit. They came out okay...nothing crazy exciting, and not really worth the effort, though I think they probably would have been awesome with the full amount of Old Bay. I found a salt-free Old Bay recipe after I had already mixed everything up, of course, but oh well, next time. The tempeh made them a bit more crumbly, so next time I shall use tofu or, if I can get it, okara.

The artichokes are just cleaned, trimmed, cored and steamed, then stuffed with a mixture of breadcrumbs, chopped sundried tomatoes, sauteed onions, and garlic. Then the whole thing was baked for another 15 minutes @ 350 degrees. I made up a quick dipping sauce for both the chokes and the cakes out of nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, pepper and red wine vinegar.



Last but not least, Cinqo de Mayo


Chipotle-Roasted Veggies (above) and the whole salad (below)


Cinqo de Mayo here in Syracuse consisted of a bunch of cleaning, a major farmer's market shopping spree and then a big Mexican-inspired salad; spring greens, chipotle-roasted zucchini, red onion, mushrooms, bell peppers and jalapenos, fat-free re"fried" beans, spicy chopped up seitan (I used the infamous seitan o' greatness recipe, quite good!), mock-a-mole and an awesome (yet not so hot) garlic chipotle hot sauce from Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. The veggies are basically just chopped and tossed with a blend of ground chipotle, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano and wine vinegar, then baked covered in foil until soft, then put under the broiler to get a nice finish. Mock-a-mole is quac made with half (or less) avocado and half (or more) thawed frozen green peas. To that basic mixture I added finely chopped raw onion, garlic, tomatoes and jalapenos, plus a dash of cumin and about 1/4 lime's worth of lime juice. It was quite tasty. The whole meal was a lot of work to prep all the individual things, but really good overall, especially the mock-a-mole.