Curried pasta salad with tuna

My husband hates cold salads-- the kind with pasta or potatoes.

Today for lunch I needed a meal for me.

So I prepared 10 ounces of multigrain penne.

In my skillet, I poured 2 tablespoons cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, 2/3 cup frozen peas, 2/3 cup black beans, 2 teaspoons curry powder, 2 teaspoons parsley, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 2 tablespoons flax seed and 3 tablespoons sunflower seeds. Heat and mix thoroughly.

Now if you want to keep it vegan, mix two tablespoons vegan mayonnaise and the noodles. Then add the hot "sauce." I also added a can of tuna.

Packaged stir fry

Someone had gifted us a bag of Green Giant create-a-meal sweet and sour stir fry. I'm not one for such mixes as stir fry is easy enough to make without everything assembled in one bag.

But tonight, I was ill-prepared for dinner.

Now the directions say to make pork or chicken to put in this... But I didn't. I drizzled some canola oil into the Le Creuset skillet, added the vegetables into the skillet while the rice was in the steamer.

I added some leftover sesame broccoli from the other night and some sesame seeds and I sliced one boca chikn patty for some extra protein.

It was better than I expected.

Salads for survival

I've been slicing Boca Chik*n patties and putting them in "emergency" salads when I find myself starving for no reason. I hate using so many processed meat analog products, but even with lots of cashews or almonds, I find I'm needing something with some unidentifiable heft to satiate me. I'm going to experiment with avocado bagel sandwiches to see if that helps...

A favorite Mommy breakfast

This has become one of my favorite instant breakfasts: one morningstar breakfast patty on a slice of Archer Farm Apple Fritter bread with a BIG mug of Tazo herbal tea. My favorite tea is Tazo Rest, but I think it's been discontinued. On this particular day, I replaced it with Tazo Passion. Very fruity.

Cheese-free nacho lunch

Today’s Lunch

Child had a choice for lunch. Buy the school’s PB&J or pack. If she packed, the choices would be: leftover spaghetti, beans and tortilla chips or salad.

She picked beans and tortilla chips. Or basically cheese-less nachos. I heated a small portion of the taco meat I froze last month and some black beans. I put them in the thermal bowl. Side dish of Wegman’s mango salsa. Tortilla chips.

I gave her an apple/peach Adam and Eve fruitables juice box and a banana.

Lunch packed.

Easter!!

We invited friends who are transitioning to veganism to Easter dinner at my mother-in-law's, which of course focuses on a huge ham. Because my daughter has been dairy-free for medical reasons, my mother-in-law already made many traditional foods without the even more traditional butter.

I made a vegan sesame drizzle for the cooked broccoli, my honeyed corn dish that would be vegan if it didn't have local raw honey, and gluten-free falafel.

My mother-in-law made all her own Easter chocolate, a cheese pie and a blueberry pie (the crust was vegan but I bet the crumbs had butter in them. I didn't think to ask). Oh, and a molasses cake and a coffee cake. My sister-in-law made some weird cake with chocolate and tea biscuits.


My mother-in-law made dandelion greens with hot bacon dressing (dandelions from my brother-in-law's yard), mashed potatoes, gravy, harvard beets, carrots (plain), cranberry relish, fruit bread, eggs, ham, candied sweet potatoes and an olive/pickle tray.

 My falafel and tahini sauce are improving with every attempt. My going-vegan friends took the leftovers home, so that was a compliment. I based the recipe on a previous attempt and my friend Allison's falafel, details of both can be found here:
Vegan Gluten-Free Falafel

In my food processor, my daughter and I mixed:

• 30 ounces [canned] chick peas, drained
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon stoneground yellow corn meal
• juice of one small lemon
• 1 tablespoon parsley
• 1 tablespoon tahini
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds
• 2 tablespoons cold pressed extra virgin olive oil

* now normally I include 4 tablespoons chopped chives from my garden, but I'm out and this year's crop is not ready for harvest. So I skipped it.

* I also included about 1/3 cup leftover three seed hummus (see recipe here: Three Seed Hummus) just to use it up, not to add anything

The feast

Now to cook it, I made golfballs instead of patties this time. They were very wet, a little looser and stickier than play dough but not as wet and sticky as a wet batch of bread dough. They held together better than my previous version. I baked for 15 minutes at 350 and then rolled them over and baked 15 minutes more. You can heat some oil and fry them lightly after they've baked if you want that fried, crispy outside. I didn't. I fear they'd fall apart on me.

For dressing, I used a variation of Allison's tahini-miso sauce. I don't have miso. But here's her sauce:
Baked Falafel with Tahini Miso Sauce.

Here's mine, which I do in the blender because I'm too lazy to wash the food processor after the falafel.

• about 1.5 tablespoons cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
• about 2 teaspoons minced garlic (or was it one?)
• 1/2 cup tahini
• about 1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• juice of one small lemon
• 1 teaspoon low sodium soy sauce
• 1 cup water

Now for my broccoli drizzle, I did a variation of this experiment: Sesame Buttery Sauce
I whisked in a small bowl about a tablespoon each of

• sesame oil
• walnut oil
• olive oil (?) 
• water

And I very carefully drizzled a drop here and there over the cooked broccoli while stirring and then sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds.

And finally, the corn:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2011/04/almost-vegan-honeyed-corn.html

Shopping at Target

I finished cashiering at 9 p.m. last night and did a stroll through the store to buy some goodies for Easter dinner. Plus, I noticed some good mark-downs on produce since the store will be closed today. (it took me way too long to realize why people were buying so many eggs and so much vinegar.)

Shopping at Target is like getting groceries at a casino. I've come to expect some random error somewhere in my order.

Speaking of which, here's my damages:
Subtotal: $61.02, minus $6.11 for my team member discount; and $2.75 for my red card discount for a total of $52.70

- impulse: Ruffles Molten Hot Wings, $3.59
They had these in the break room and I loved them
- Market Pantry berry 100% juice boxes, $2.64
- Dole classic romaine bagged salad, $2 (normally $2.49 and this mark down wasn't on the shelf tag or I would have purchased 2)

- a head of cauliflower, $1.79, again shelf tag read $2.49
- 2 Newman's Own dressings, one sesame ginger and one raspberry walnut, for my dairy free diva, $3.19 each
- Archer's Farm apple fritter bread, $3.79 (for peanut butter and raw honey sandwiches)
- New England blueberry cobbler coffee, $5.99
- Tazo Rest tea, $3.29 (we have not had this tea for a month, and there was one box last night. I've checked other Targets and other stores and no one has it. I asked my friends in 'Market' and they said we don't have any more)
- bananas, 7 at 10 cents each and they're green so I don't know why they were marked down)
- two packs of frozen yellow and white corn, Market Pantry, 97 cents each
- bird's eye steam in bag broccoli, reduced to $1.02
- bird's eye steam in bag mixed vegetables, $1.02
- 12 packs of cherry coke zero, coke, and fresca, $2 each
- unsalted butter, one pound, 2 boxes at $1.70 each (has to go in the freezer for now)
- boca chik*n, spicy chik*n, and crumbles, they were supposed to be $1.99 each but one rang up as the full price of $3.99
- Clif bars, 7 bars, $5
- Oreo Berry burst, $2
- Adam & Eve fruitable apple peach juice boxes, $2.50