Your Vegan Mom

The Rice Plate, or Sharing Lunch with a Four-Year-Old

While Paul was working out of town (for 6 weeks!  Did we talk about this?), this was the go-to lunch for Felix and me.  I would make a big pot of rice at the beginning of the week, and then I could stick all this on a plate for us to share when he came home from school.  It's totally conducive to the addition of leftovers - in particular slivers of fried tofu.  You grab a piece of seaweed, spread it with some gochujang (unless you're four), pinch up some rice, top with avocado, dip the sticky rice ends in toasted sesame seeds and eat.  Or eat it any way you like.  It's finger food or fork food - the perfect sort of meal to keep a kid interested while you chat about his day at preschool.  And it's totally simple and delicious to boot.  

On the topic of rice, the insert for my beloved wedding present rice cooker is looking a bit scratched up after 10 years of constant use, so I've been employing this method of rice cooking with good results, though I prefer it cooked for 5 minutes longer here where soft and sticky is preferable to light and fluffy.

And related to nothing at all, but I want to talk about it anyway, Wheeler del Torro's new cookbook just showed up in the mail, (along with a copy to share with one of you guys) and I had to force myself to put it down so that I can savor it like a novel this weekend.  It looks really good.  We'll discuss further.  

What's for lunch at your house?  

How to Totally Abuse the Concept of a Lettuce Wrap

With our haul from the takeout fridge at Viva La Vegan, Paul and I piled barbecue seitan and potato salad onto leaves of crunchy lettuce.  I had three with a beer and was shocked at how filling lettuce wraps could be.  

For a homemade and gluten-free version, this pulled tofu recipe and this bacon and chive potato salad would make excellent Barbecue Potato Salad Lettuce Wraps. 

Sweet Potato Hash

I've been thinking about camping a lot lately.  One of the reasons I've been thinking about camping a lot lately is that it's more fun than thinking about cleaning pee off the floor.  We have just completed our three day family festival of all things execratory, Happy Underpants Days!  Some people call it potty training.  With the big brother it was called Pee Pee Summer Camp and it took place almost entirely in the backyard in August.  That was better.  This time around there has been a lot of pee on the wood floors.  (All rugs were removed in preparation last Thursday night.)  

On Sunday morning, day 3 of Happy Underpants Days!, I decided that a powerful breakfast was in order to get us through our last day.  I made hash - the sort that my dad used to make in the giant cast iron skillet over an open fire outside of the VW camper van somewhere in rural Oregon or coastal California on bundled up mornings when all that fresh air and running around made everything delicious, even canned corned beef.  

Mine didn't have that.  It had little cubes of soft sweet potato, and tempeh, and onions, and kale.

Sweet Potato Dinner Pie

 

We had such a nice break.  The boys had two weeks off school.  Paul managed to take the whole time off too.  I lined up activities and pals to play with for every minute of it, and then on approximately the first second of vacation Desmond came down with a cold.  And then the next day, of course, so did Felix.  So I called the pals.  Cancelled plans.  And it was just the four of us.

Totally Sick of Thanksgiving? Make Taquitos.

Take a couple cups of leftover roasted vegetables.  Ours were an amalgam of onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, delicata squash, and kale from several roasts I made in the days and weeks approaching Thanksgiving.  I had 8 roasts and their surrounding vegetables in my fridge and freezer at one point.  Toss your vegetables in the food processor with a few slices of your leftover untofurkey, a teaspoon of cumin, a teaspoon of chipotle powder (or smoked paprika if you're hoping children will eat this), and a teaspoon of oregano.  Process until chunky smooth.  Cover a small skillet with a slick of canola oil.  Wrap a dozen corn tortillas in a wet dish cloth, and heat in the microwave for a 1 1/2 - 2 minutes, until the tortillas are soft and pliant.  Spoon a generous tablespoon of leftovers into each tortilla, tightly roll, and pan fry seam side down, flip, fry some more, and serve with gaucamole or if it's really all leftovers all the time, then in tapatillo-spiked cranberry sauce. (Yeah, that's the level we've sunk to in this house.  Man, am I done with Thanksgiving.)