#29-32

I've been falling behind considerably on my summer challenge. Part of the problem is that it's been close to 100 degrees for the last week here in the midwest, and I rarely feel like turning on the oven too much. I want to bake fairly badly, but turning on the oven seems counterproductive.

Another bar to cooking too many new recipes has been that I have fallen in love with several of the recipes I have already learned this summer. I have remade Tuscan Bread Soup 2 more times- whenever the CSA box has come in with fresh basil and tomatoes. I have loved a number of the soups I have made this summer. I have gorged myself on fresh fruit, including balsamic strawberries. Also, Annie is winding down. Tech week starts Sunday, so the show has been taking up a little more of my time. I also have developed one of my own recipes for a broccoli and cauliflower salad that I have been eating a great deal of. And occasionally, I have to let the Baker cook, too!

Despite that, over the past few weeks I have made 4 new recipes. After getting some fresh cilantro from the CSA box, I decided it was begging for some tomatillo salsa from Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero. it was so simple to make, and I learned how to operate my broiler as well. The salsa itself was very tasty, A+. I will use this recipe again, though probably not as much as the green sauce made with tomatillos in the same chapter that I made last summer. In order to keep our waistlines down, the Baker and I pledged not to buy ice cream or chips for home some time last summer, though we can have them when we are out to eat. The consistency of the salsa would be best for chips, whereas the sauce would have worked better on the burrito concoction I was attempting to make.

I also made the "white" seitan from the same book. Are there any experienced seitan makers out there? I think I overcooked it. So far my seitan experiences have not been incredible. I've made overly dry and overly wet seitan, neither of which was bad in taste, but not good in texture. I can only imagine there is a certain amount of user error and experience I need to develop to figure out how to best make good seitan. Considering the whole package, it was a B, and it reminded me of overcooked turkey.

Next up comes some more PPK food, but this time I have to rave. The Creamy Tomato Soup from Veganomicon knocked my socks off. It utilizes potatoes in order to give it that creamy texture, and I was concerned the texture of the soup would not resemble creaminess, but rather starchiness. I was wrong. It was pitch-perfect, though I think I will add spinach or kale from time to time to dress it up a little more. A++

Also from Veganomicon was the roasted potatoes I made for lunch today. Yes, I know I could have made roasted potatoes without a recipe, but I used this for reference, and I hadn't used the recipe before, so it counts, right? I tossed them in olive oil, rosemary, and sea salt, and had them with a side of roasted Brussels sprouts tossed with garlic olive oil and sea salt. It was a lovely lunch, and I say that the roasted potatoes will probably replace my occasional trip out for fast food French fries. These were close enough in taste, cheaper, and probably better for me. Besides, no place that I've been yet serves rosemary baked fries.

I may not finish my 100 recipes before Labor Day, as planned, but I will keep cooking any way. Summer ends September 21st, right? Maybe I'll make it by then. Maybe it will become a fall challenge. As long as I keep trying new recipes I don't care.

Does the fun ever stop? Recipes 24-28

Before leaving town, I made a few more recipes to try and up my numbers. I made a lovely Latin baked tofu from Viva Vegan for dinner Monday night (I think!) that both hubby and I loved. He liked it better than the orange mojo tofu, though I still preferred the orange mojo. It doesn't matter either way, both are scrumptious. Definitely will make again!
I also made a lovely dinner on Wednesday with fresh basil and tomatoes from the CSA share. Tuscan bread and tomato soup from Italian Vegan Kitchenwas easy to make, and very tasty, though it is more of a porridge than a soup. I actually have a picture of this, but it's kinda strange looking. It wasn't strange looking when I cooked it, honest. I must not be that good at food photography yet. Still, I'd call it a keeper. A+
Another quick recipe from the same book was a baked potato with bay leaf. I know, I know, hardly a complicated recipe, right? I cut a potato in half, put a little olive oil and bay leaf and salt in, and cooked it in the oven. I admit that I may have chosen this recipe in order to bump my numbers up a little bit without adding a lot of extra work or extra leftovers, but I really did like the idea of a baked potato cooked this way as well. I have been a little at a loss as whether I'd like baked potatoes any more without my sour cream, and thought that this would be an option worth trying.
The baked potato was good, and I might make one like this in the future at some point, especially since it is so easy and I almost always have bay leaves and potatoes on hand. However, it wasn't so amazing that I couldn't wait to eat another one. I'd call it an A-.
Although I almost forgot about them, I also made two new recipes from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar before leaving town last week. Wednesday I made the basic chocolate chip cookies, which were good, and soft. The only thing I have to hold against them is that they were not the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. I'm not saying this to knock them, I enjoyed them. However, they don't beat Otis Spunkmeyer (other than in Vegan Cred) and they don't beat the Baker's new veganized chocolate chip cookie which I am sure has way more fat and sugar, but is crispy and soft and sweet and salty all in the right proportions. It could have been my fault, but the cookies were so soft that they were falling apart a little. I probably should have baked them another minute, damn the instructions. (B +)
Now that I've made brownies with tofu, I feel like I've earned my vegetarian badge! I made the brownies that were termed more like the "box" brownies, since box brownies are my favorite kind. If you want cake, make cake. Cakey brownies are not my cup of tea. Now, to get the right consistency with box brownies, I have to take them out of the oven a couple of minutes early. This is not something I took into account with these brownies, and I got fair-tasting, a little dry brownies. This again, is probably my fault, and I should probably tinker with this a bit. My oven, when baking, almost always needs to cook things an extra couple of minutes past the max recommended time. I assumed this when I made these, and this assumption had me check them when they were already comfortably done. I will say that the batter was quite tasty, however!
I made seitan and green salsa today, but have not uploaded the pics yet.... will update you later. Happy cooking!