More eating, drinking, and being vegan (Early Days cont'd)

Ah! February is drawing to a close already. Time flies. I think that in March, I'm going to make daily posting my "theme"... I miss finding a little time to write here every day.

As the title of this post implies, I have continued to cook out of Eat Drink & Be Vegan this week. (Have I mentioned this before? I try to do all the food shopping on Wednesdays-- our farmer's market day-- so my food weeks go Wednesday-Wednesday.) Tonight's the last dinner I have planned out of the book. Here's what I've made since last post:



Palak Soyabina Panira served with quinoa - Dreena's take on palak paneer. I made it with mixed greens (a couple of types of kale and a bit of spinach) rather than all spinach. I made this once before when the Emperor was a baby and (according to my notes) really liked it. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed it again, though the sheer quantity of powdered spices gives the end product a little grittiness.

The Emperor ate a bunch of the tofu and some of the quinoa. No surprise there.



One Wild Chick! Soup - or as we've been calling it, Chickpea Soup with Rice. You see, the Emperor really loves the book Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak... but I always edit the key phrase in the book to Chickpea Soup with Rice. (Sorry, literary purists. I am wigged out by reading my kid a book about how awesome it is to eat chickens year round.) So I wondered what would happen if I told him that's what this dish was... success! He ate a ton of it and even told me how much he liked it.

(The next morning, he brought up the conversation of dinner, though, and told me the soup was "not good." Whatever. I saw you eat it!)

The rest of us liked this soup too. J and I ate the leftovers for lunch on Sunday and as with most soups, it only improved with time.



Corn and Black Bean Lasagna with Avocado - this is actually composed in layers but my picture of the slice that fell apart turned out nicer, so that's what I'm posting. This is interesting in that the avocado is the central layer-- so it gets baked along with everything else. Pretty tasty, but the short cooking time (~30 mins) means that the onions never really get soft, and the texture of the semi-crunchy onions freaked me out.

The Emperor was distressed by this because it featured beans, which are apparently his deadliest foes. He picked out some avocado and ate some tortilla though, and he ate about six little lime wedges so um, at least he's getting his vitamin C.

Overall, three more nice dishes! ED&BV continues to satisfy.

And speaking of things that are nice: The Magician turned one month old yesterday! Woo! Here he is looking quite exhausted after all his hard baby work:



And the Emperor looking worn out after all of *his* hard big kid work:



And here's me looking exhausted... haha, nevermind, you don't want to see that!