Oats in a Jar

People have been placing food in mason jars and ball jars lately and I'm not referring to home canning.

Salad in a jar.
Oats in a jar.

I had to try oats in a jar.

My mix, for each jar:
- homemade raw mixed nut butter, about two tablespoons
- 1/2 cup oats
- 2/3 cup vanilla almond milk
- 1/3 container Noosa yogurt in strawberry rhubarb
- handful of frozen mixed berries
- sliced banana

They say you refrigerate overnight and serve cold. Eileen Breslin had a similar concoction she called vegan breakfast pudding-- but she didn't put it in a jar.

Curried tofu

I grabbed a chunk of tofu out of the freezer last night. I haven't prepared tofu in years, but it was cheap at Target...

I pressed it between two plates stacked with cookbooks to weigh it down. For about two hours, draining periodically.

I decided on Eileen Breslin's curried tofu recipe from the vegan cooking class I took with her. About a decade ago. She got it from "Tofu Cookery."

- 1.5 pounds extra firm tofu, drained and cubed
MARINADE
- 1.5 tablespoons peanut butter (I used 2 teaspoons peanut butter and 2 teaspoons tahini)
- 1/4 cup oil (I used canola)
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce (I used two, and used the low sodium)
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon curry powder (shoot-- I think I used more)
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Marinate at least one hour. Spread on oiled cookie sheet and bake at 375 for ten minutes, turn and repeat.

Now she suggests serving with a sauce of:
- 1 cup water
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon corn starch

Heat, stirring, until thickened. Then top with slivered almonds.

Cornbread and refried beans

The old vegan cornbread recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. These muffins, or cornbread, need to go in a hot oven as soon as they're mixed.

* 1.5 cups yellow cornmeal
* 1/2 cup flour
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1.5 cups soy milk
* 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil
* 1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients. In separate bowl, mix wet ingredients. Pour liquid into dry, mix until just combined. Bake 30-40 minutes. Note: You may not need quite that much oil.

Now, using this recipe from the Food Network as a base, I am going to attempt refried black beans.

Ingredients

* 1 cup dried pinto beans, soaked overnight in a large bowl with water to cover by 2-inches, and drained
* 1 bay leaf
* 1/2 cup bacon drippings or lard
* 1 cup chopped yellow onions
* 1 tablespoon minced garlic
* 1 tablespoon minced, seeded jalapeno
* 1 tablespoon chili powder
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* Pinch cayenne
* 1/2 teaspoon chopped oregano
* 1/2 cup grated queso blanco
* 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro, garnish

Directions

In a medium, heavy pot, combine the beans, bay leaf, and enough water to cover by 1 to 2 inches. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the beans are very tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours, adding more water as necessary to keep covered. When the beans are soft, mash in the pot with a potato masher or the back of heavy wooden spoon. Remove from the heat.

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the bacon fat over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, jalapeno, chili powder, cumin, salt, and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 45 seconds to 1 minute. Add the beans and any cooking liquid from the pot, and the oregano, and stir to combine. Cook, stirring with a heavy wooden spoon, until the mixture forms a thick paste, 5 to 10 minutes, adding water 1 tablespoon at a time to keep from getting dry.

Remove from the heat and transfer to a decorative bowl. Sprinkle with the cheese and cilantro, and serve.

My version:
I started with the old Le Creuset skillet. Out of habit, I slapped a couple tablespoons of butter into it, forgetting I wanted them to be vegan. The beans. So I quickly switched to extra virgin olive oil. I didn't measure anything, perhaps 'cause I'm brave, also because I'm reckless.

I got a bag of beans from the freezer. A ziploc sandwich baggie full of black beans. I thawed them in the microwave on defrost, smashing them periodically with my fingers. I added some homegrown oregano, a sprinkle of four-color organic peppercorn, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin and a dash of paprika.

Hot Dill Slop

Today's house special is far from gourmet. But it's snowing and we didn't have the stuff for the soup I originally planned.

This is a variation of Eileen Bresslin's vegan herbed potatoes recipe, beefed up as a skillet meal for a snowy winter day. (We had tea and Fred the Amish Friendship bread for breakfast. I've got him in the freezer.)

Ingredients:

• About three tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Equal amounts low sodium soy sauce
• About two tablespoons fresh dill
• About 2/3 cup frozen French cut green beans
• 1 vegan original Boca burger, broken into crumbles
• 1 can sliced potatoes
• 1 can whole kernel corn, no salt added

In a skillet (I used my Le Creuset), put the oil, the soy sauce, and the dill. Heat over medium. When the skillet is hot, add other ingredients and cook until hot.

This turned out fabulous!

By the way, if you notice strange specks on my stove in this photo, it's dill that didn't make it into the skillet.

Leftover plan

I'm looking forward to breakfast tomorrow already...

If we have real maple syrup, I'm going to have a vegan breakfast of Morningstar breakfast (sausage-style) patties and leftover cornbread.

If we don't have maple syrup, I'm going to use my mother-in-law's homemade strawberry jam for my cornbread...

Or maybe, if I don't want to go vegan, I'll use a little of my imported French butter on my cornbread.

Cornbread and sausages

Tonight I'm planning cornbread and spinach-asiago chicken sausages. I had planned to make Eileen Bresslin's vegan cornbread recipe but I ran out of soy milk.

Eileen's recipe:

Preheat oven to 350. These muffins, or cornbread, need to go in a hot oven as soon as they're mixed.

• 1.5 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1.5 cups soy milk
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients. In separate bowl, mix wet ingredients. Pour liquid into dry, mix until just combined. Bake 30-40 minutes. Note: You may not need quite that much oil.

I added parsley and flax seed to mine tonight.

Now for the sausage... I decided to try and make a sauce. In the bottom of the pan I started with:

• About 1/4 cup apple juice
• About 1/4 cup chicken broth
• About one teaspoon cornstarch

Whisk as bring to a boil to reduce and thicken. It smelled sweet, so I added:

• About 1/2 teaspoon four color peppercorns
• About 3/4 teaspoon garlic pepper
• About 3/4 teaspoon garlic
• About 1/8 teaspoon curry

After it seriously thickened, I added:

• three spinach asiago chicken sausages, sliced
• about 1 cup French cut green beans, frozen and thawed in the microwave

Then I served with the cornbread, using some of the excess sauce as gravy.

(Note: These are the same sausages I got at the warehouse club a few weeks ago and had in the freezer. We've eaten them in pasta sauce, and as sausage sandwiches, and now this funky recipe.)

Fruity Baked French Toast

I can't find my recipe for baked French toast, but this won't stop me. I'm combining the vegan recipe for French toast, my imagination and my leftover homemade bread from Thanksgiving...

• 8 slices homemade white bread
• 8 slices homemade multigrain bread
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup homemade applesauce
• 1 banana
• juice of 1 clementine
• 1 cup soymilk
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Okay, so the jury is out on whether this one will "work." In a bowl, I mixed: the eggs, applesauce, banana, juice, milk, honey and vanilla. I dipped the bread into the mix and layered it into my greased (with butter) 11x 7 casserole dish. Then I added the cinnamon and the nutmeg to the egg mix and poured over the bread. (I had two layers of bread.)

I'm baking and 350 and then I figure I'll broil it depending on how much of the liquid gets absorbed.

After 20 minutes at 350, most of the liquid absorbed, but it was still mushy, so I rearranged it a bit and increased heat to 420, for another 10 minutes...

As the pieces got crispy, I served with cream cheese and my mother-in-law's blueberry topping.

Now, if you'd rather try a recipe for vegan French toast, here you go (from Eileen Bresslin):

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 cup orange juice
• 10 slices stale bread
• vegetable oil
• cinnamon

Mix soy milk and orange juice, dip bread in mix lightly (do NOT let bread get soggy) sprinkle with cinnamon and fry in oiled skillet.

Dinner Party

I am completely exhausted and I have one hour until it's time to set the table and two hours until time to start cooking dinner.

We started our day at Wegmans. I was thrilled to find a one-gallon glass sun tea pitcher for $5.99 but distraught to find pineapples were $3.99 and that cored pineapples were $5.99. That's nuts.

I spent $48.76, which I'm counting toward the August budget even though it's July 31. I was bummed about that until I remembered I bought the sun tea pitcher.

I bought:

• 2 pounds Wegman's butter, one salted, one unsalted, $1.50 each
• one pineapple, $3.99 (grrr)
• the large bottle of coffemate vanilla chai spice creamer, $2.99
• 2 pints heavy whipping cream, $1.49 each
• 3 packages of celestial seasoning tea (blueberry, almond, and berry), $2.29 each
• 1 liter of Orangina, $2.49
• 3/4 pound sliced ham from the deli, $4.31
• shredded gruyère (domestic?), $3.60
• smoked gouda, $3.47
• the sun tea jar, $5.99
• 3 lbs bananas, $1.09
• 6 ounces raspberries, $2.50
• strawberries, $2
• ground nutmeg, $2.99

Before we left, I made the pear soup and I had set the brioche out and shaped it. When we got home, I baked it and brewed iced tea (green with berry). Then we went to the liquor store for wine. My husband came home early for lunch, so we had leftover crêpes and then I prepped the pineapple crumble and the zucchini cakes.

At 3 p.m., I'll set the table.

At 4 p.m., I'll start the crôque monsieur.

When the crôque is in the oven, I'll fry the zucchini cakes. While we eat the first courses, the pineapple crumble will bake.

Recipes:
Follow these links:

• Brioche-- from The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells, also should be accessible via 'French,' 'bread,' and/or 'brioche.'
• Chilled Pear Soup-- Vegan, eileen bresslin
  
• Zucchini crabbiless cakes-- The Imus Ranch Cookbook, 'vegan' (Deirdre Imus calls it vegan even though she used eggs because she has her own chickens) and zucchini
• Perfumed Pineapple Crumble-- Venez Diner, C'est Prêt by Dominique Malet, follow pineapple or French or the name of the book
• Crôque Monsieur-- obviously French, it's from The Barefoot in Paris Cookbook by Ina garten
• Rye bread-- clicking on rye will show you all my experiments with rye flour

My daughter made me a lovely four-course meal:
Tomato salad (pictured)
Piled-High Sandwiches
A cheese and egg platter
Chocolate-Carrot Crumble

Chilled Pear Soup

I wanted to make the chilled pear soup Eileen Bresslin prepared for us in our vegan cooking class at Northampton Community College. But I can't find it. Online or in my cookbooks.

So, I experimented.

I took a big can of pear halves and put them in the blender with the freshly squeezed juice of half a lemon. I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of ginger. I blended. I poured half of it into three bowls and transferred to the fridge to chill.

That's the vegan sample.

I added a quarter cup vanilla-maple- drinkable yogurt from Klein Farm to the remaining stuff in the blender and added the lemon juice from the other half of lemon. This also got sent to the fridge to be taste-tested at lunch.

The verdict from the family:
The vegan option is the most soup like, whereas the yogurt one is more like a dessert or a palette cleanser. Both are equally edible.

Memorial Day Coffee Drinks

Daughter started her day with some Aldi Kids Crunch, their version of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch. Around 10 (it is a holiday after all), husband made scrambled egg wraps and flea shampoo potatoes. The recipe for flea shampoo potatoes (named after the smell) can be located under Eileen Breslin in the links below. It's one of her recipes from her vegan cooking course at Northampton Community College.

For dinner, I used the last batch of frozen spinach-cottage cheese-ricotta mix (at least I think that's what it was) that I preserved in February when I made calzones with my own dough. I created a lasagne that tasted great and got nice and crispy on top the way I like.

But the treat was this afternoon's coffee drink.

My husband saves all the partial pots of coffee we never finish. He keeps them in the fridge in a pictcher and instead of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts he mixes up our own special iced coffee drinks.

Like iced decaf with milk and Chambord.
Or iced coffee light and sweet like a frappucino.
Or a shot or two of coffee with soymilk for extra protein between meals.
Or, like today, a big cup of coffee with vanilla ice cream in it.

Waste not, want not.

Brought to you by the letter P: Pork with raspberry sauce

I didn't intend it, but dinner became "brought to you by the letter P."

I got home from work and prepped some peas by thawing them in the microwave. Then I sliced about two tablespoons of fresh spearmint from my garden and added it to the peas. I stirred it up, covered it, and set it in the fridge. (Great picnic item, originally from Eileen Breslin's vegan cooking class at Northampton Community College.) Serve the peas chilled.

Then I made some green tea, also with loads of spearmint and poured it over ice in my Princess House glasses. I also got out a bottle of Italian sparkling raspberry wine. I even allowed by daughter to have a small taste for a special post-birthday toast. That was our apéritif.

First course was canned pears (packed in juice, juice reserved for recipe) with some of the sauce from the meat, served over yogurt. (See below for recipe.)

The pork recipe is a variation of Pork Chops with Raspberry Sauce from Allrecipes.com.

Pork with Raspberry Sauce, Angel-style

4 thin pork chops
Mysterious herb seasoning packet from Aldi spinach rigatoni

pinch of fresh ground course sea salt

pinch four-color peppercorns

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 tablespoons juice, reserved from a can of pears

4 tablespoons champagne vinegar, a gift from my mom at Christmas

3.5 tablespoons Chambord

almost 1/4 cup organic raspberry jam from Wegmans

1. Preheat oven to 200. In a skillet, melt butter and olive oil.

2. Combine seasonings, salt and pepper. Rub on pork.

3. Cook pork in skillet on medium, about four minutes per side.

4. Place on plate and keep warm in oven.

5. In warm skillet, with meat juices still present, combine the juice, jam, vinegar and Chambord. Cook until the sauce reduces significantly. It will thicken when it cools. I put about have the sauce on the meat right away and left in in the oven as I served the first course. Then when I served, the sauce had thickened and I placed more on each.

My daughter ate TWO.

For dessert, we had some pumpkin roll. I didn't make that, Gayle brought it for my birthday. Her friend makes it.

When Life Gets Crazy... bake a cake

Yesterday, none of us ate very much. My daughter is recovering from her illness and the insurance company sent people to dehumidify our house. My husband and daughter made a run to Aldi last night, more or less to keep someone out of the way, and they came home with less than $20 worth of stuff, primarily carrots, broccoli, potatoes, coffee, generic peanut butter cereal and potato chips.

So my daughter had a big bowl of cereal and I did what I do when life gets overwhelming: I baked a cake.

I adapted the microwave blueberry cobbler from Eileen Bresslin's vegan cooking class to be a right-side up poire tarte tartin. The recipe has been posted for both, click the Eileen Bresslin link for her recipe and French for the tartin.

Let's see...

Angel's Microwave pear-butter cake

Mix in one microwave safe deep dish pie pan:

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

Add and stir:

3/4 cup milk

Melt:

About about 1/3 to 1/2 cup butter and pour evenly over mixture.

Add pears to top. And drizzle with honey. Microwave for about 15 minutes.

Baked Oatmeal?

Our daughter begged for boxed macaroni and cheese for breakfast. I told it we could IF she picked out a vegetable to go with it. So, we served mac and cheese with peas. Since we're alone today, (the preschooler having gone with Mimi) we opted for the broccoli soup in the freezer. That's the one I made a couple weeks ago that came out super peppery. And since I don't know if/when my daughter will come home today, I think I'll reverse the normal order of meals and have oatmeal for dinner.

Baked Oatmeal

(from a restaurant someone ate at many, many moons ago)

1 cup butter   

2 cups brown sugar   

4 eggs, beaten   

4 cups oatmeal   

4 teaspoons baking powder   

2 teaspoons salt   

2 cups milk   

Preheat oven to 350. Butter pan. Mix ingredients. Pour in pan. Bake 30 minutes.

I reduce the sugar and the butter. I also add fruit. I may add grated apple and golden raisins today. But these things are open to interpretation.

Another good oatmeal recipe is Crockpot Oatmeal. I got this recipe from the Soft Key Home Gourmet software my husband bought me years ago... I made this one for the French exchange student. Crockpot Oatmeal is easy to "veganize."

Crock Pot Oatmeal

Grease crockpot and combine the following, then mix or whisk:

2 cups milk  

1/4 cup brown sugar   

1 tablespoon melted butter  

1/4 teaspoon salt  

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon  

1 cup rolled oats  

1 cup chopped apple   

1/2 cup raisins  

1/2 cup walnuts

Prepare before going to bed. Leave crockpot on low. Serve in morning. I reduced the sugar.

Well, while I'm an oatmeal kick... Here's another, even simpler than crockpot oatmeal. This came from Eileen Bresslin's vegan cooking class at Northampton Community College.

Vegan Oatmeal 'Pudding' 

Combine and refrigerate overnight:

2 cups oats  

2 cups soy milk  

2 tablespoons raisins  

1 teaspoon cinnamon  

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

 

Microwave cobbler

I got out of my Intro to Political Theory class at 3 today. I left campus at 3:05 and was home before 3:15. I have to leave my house by 4:23 to return to campus to get my husband when he gets off work so that left about an hour. I ate a handful of trail mix, poured a cup of coffee and sat to check my email. Then, I told my daughter if she wanted we could make a cobbler. She was thrilled.

This cobbler can be a real life saver! And it's so adaptable. I snagged the recipe in one of my vegan cooking courses at Northampton Community College. The instructor, Eileen Breslin, had adapted it from a newspaper clipping. She made it vegan, but it certainly doesn't have to be.

One quick side discussion before I reveal the secret to the 30 minute start-to-finish fruit cobbler. If you're looking for a vegan, non-hydrogenated margarine that mimics real butter in flavor and cooking, try Earth Balance. I love it, but lately I have not been able to afford it.

Commercial done. Now, the recipe:

Microwave Blueberry Cobbler

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup milk or soy milk

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2.5 cups blueberries

Mix dry ingredients in 8 x 8 microwavable pan. Stir in milk. Melt belter and pour over batter. Drop in fruit. Microwave 12-14 minutes until batter sets and butter dries.

Now my version today was a peach cobbler and I didn't have quite as much fruit. My ingredients were more like:

Angel's peach cobbler

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tsp honey

1/3 cup margarine

1 small can peaches

cinnamon

I drizzled the honey on the batter before the margarine and sprinkled cinnamon on the peaches before cooking.