Perfect Summer Grilled Dinner & Cleo dog

I hope you are all having a great summer.  We've pretty  much just been hanging out.  We got some bad news regarding our lab Cleo a few weeks ago.  She has osteosarcoma(bone disease) and it's progressing pretty fast.  Her xray showed her shoulder bone is mothlike all the way through..she only has a very thin solid strip of bone on her front right leg.  Sooooooooo....only option is to keep her comfortable and keep her pain under control as much as possible.  We are taking it day by day.  Lot's of emotions flowing...Keaton has taken to sleeping on the floor so Cleo can sleep with him.  It's hard to watch your kid go through something like this while Dave and I are so sad as well.  Sorry, this is really hard for me to write right about right now so I'll let you know more soon.

Keaton playing video game with Cleo

                                          Cleo, Ace and Merlin on a sleeping bag one evening.

I'd like to share with you a really good Tofu Lasagna that is from the Martha Stewart mag. that I made last night on the grill.  I was wanting to make this for months now and I finally got to.  I was so excited at how the finished product turned out and tasted....like so excited!!! 

It has grilled zucchini, crookneck squash, tofu, basil, pesto and tomatoes..  Yum, yum, yum!

We ate this with some Rustic Wheat Bread and Grilled Artichokes.

It isn't heavy which is really nice.  Just perfect!

I made Dave a sandwich with the leftovers for lunch today.

I highly recommend  making this...It's just so pretty too.  Get thie recipe by clicking here.  The marinade it says to make...well I actually used that on the vegetables before grilling.  They have a slight lemony taste which is so refreshing.

More good food to come.  I've been so slacking with my blog lately but I have been cooking and have pics to share.

Peace....

Vegan MoFo day 15/ Warmer weather calls for some grilling!

First let me start off by saying I'm the winner of a Trader Joe's gift card!!!   Woohoo!  They just called me and thanked me for bringing in my bag and told me the giftcard will be waiting for me.  It's funny the last trip to TJ's my husband Dave asked me when I was going to win cuz I've been filling out those slips for many many years now.  YAY!

A heart sliced beet.  That just shows how good beets are for you.  I usually juice beets but once in a while I roast them in the oven.  I also love the taste of beet greens, do you?  If you never have used them give them a try and let me know what you think.  They don't last long in the refrigerator only a couple of days or so.

Recently I've been finding that I'm not alone in craving salads again. I think it's the warmer weather we are having.  Fall salads are actually really yummy using seasonal veggies.  I grilled a large white sweet potato, russet potatoes, red  and yellow bell peppers, asparagus, carrots and beets.  I used the balsamic dressing from the other night to drizzle on top.  Served on the side of the salad are stuffed portobello mushrooms.  These mushrooms are so flippen good and is a great recipe to make for company.  The recipe is from the Candle Cafe but of course I make my adjustments.  To cut down on oil for the sauteeing of the onions and garlic I use water.  I add more garlic, cuz garlic is good, and more onion.  The rest of the ingredients are bread crumbs, sage, thyme, spinach and walnuts.  I don't use a measuring cup I just eye it. 

Goodnight!

Ladybugs!!! Grilled Bok Choy and Veggies with Lemon Marinade

 It must be the effects of Summer getting to me because I haven't been updating my blogs as much as I would like.  I hope you all are enjoying your summer.

Last week during our hike we stumbled upon something pretty amazing.  I've never seen anything like it.

There were thousands of ladybugs right by a stream coming down from the mountain.  It was crazy at how many there were!

While we were standing there looking in awe of them, they started to fly onto us.   That was a bit weird.

I don't know what kind of plant this is that they were on.  Do any of you? 

Moving on to something with the same color scheme. hee hee 

Here is a juice with celery, kale, parsley, apple and beets. 

We pretty much grill everything during the summer but this was my first time grilling bok choy. I just cut them in halves and poured a lemon marinade over them and all of the other veggies.  I then let them marinade for a couple of hours before I grilled them.

 

Veggies served over brown rice. 

A great book I bought myself a couple of years ago called The New Vegetarian Grill is a must have for summer months.  It's because of this book that I tried grilling the brocolli and bok choy!  The key is to marinate the veggies really well, especially the brocolli.  Anyways, it's easy to adapt the recipes to vegan too! The marinade I made consisted of soy sauce, lemon, garlic, olive oil, sesame oil, water and maple syrup.

Cheers!

Chickpea Crepes with Grilled Vegetables, cookies, etc.

Today is the start of another beautiful & warm day out here in California.  We need to enjoy this because cooler temps and rain our coming our way again.   I know we need more rain so I can deal with it, but these warm and sunny days like the ones we've been having are very enticing.  Bring on spring and summer, I'm ready!   Okay enough about the weather. 

Years ago I checked out from the library The Voluptuous Vegan cookbook by Myra Kornfeld  and tried quite a few recipes.  You should really check out that book!  Some have alot of steps but the end results are delicious!!!  This is the inside, obviously, of Chickpea crepes with grilled veggies(asparagus, zucchini, bell pepper and scallions) a layer  tofu cheese and topped with a spinach/basil pesto sauce. 

This is how it looks when it's all rolled up.  I was actually planning on making this for Valentines but hey the next day worked.  It's been so long since I've made this and the boys(husband and son) loved it as much as I did.  The chickpea crepes rock!   

I'm trying to take out as much wheat from Keaton's diet again. He's been complaining of his stomach and I asked him how long it's been hurting.  He said "It's been hurting, I just try to ignore it. "  I told him he shouldn't have to live with pain( he's only 12! but no one should live with constant stomache pain) and we'll just have to get a handle on his food situtation.  Anyways, I saw these gluten free coconut chocolate chip cookies from Jessy at Happyveganface and tried them out.  These are fantastic, both of us loved them.  Thanks Jessy!  Check 'em out on her blog.  The only change I made was replacing the chickpea flour with sorghum.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

The Monday after....

It's Monday and the family has gone. My in-laws left Saturday afternoon. My sister and her family(from Arizona) arrived yesterday afternoon and left this morning to go visit my parents up north. My dad has a lung condition, kind of like that mesothelioma, and it's getting worse. He coughs all of the time and there is no cure. So my sister wanted to go visit because she doesn't know when she'll be able to go back up there.

Anyhooo....here are some Christmas pic's of the family.

My mother in law in her Christmas pj's. My father-in-law has passed over the job of being Santa to my mother-in-law. He says he's retired. I guess retiring from work also means retiring from a lot of other things as well. lol!!!

One of the sweaters we got for my father-in-law. He's a Football coach at Pierce College and he's always wearing the Pierce College sweat shirt, all of the time, even going out. So now maybe he will wear a sweater when they go out with their friends.

A very cool cast iron tea pot for my mother-in-law. She loves red, can you tell? lol! She drinks alot of hot tea and this will keep her water hot. I really wanted to keep it because this is the type of teapot i've been wanting for many years . Oh well.

My son opening up the "big gift" he got from us. He got a microphone and stand that he can hook up to his amp. Cleo dog being nosey as always.

After riddles from the in-laws that took us all over the house. We found an item covered up in the back of their explorer that we had to carry in. What is it?

Our first flat screen tv! Whoo hoo! They got one to fit into our cabinet. My father-in-law kept telling my mother-in-law that he knew they should've gone bigger. I just told them that there is always next year! hee hee hee. They got our first t.v. for us when we got our condo. way back when. Christmas dinner was nice. Plenty of food left over. Let's see there are fresh green beans, grilled asparagus, easy seitan cutlets with chimichurri sauce, bread, stuffed portobellos, butternut squash risotto and roasted root veggies. Yum it was all good!

We had a very nice Christmas as we usually do. It's also nice when you can stay home and don't have to drive anywhere.

Chinese grilled tofu, veggies with brown rice

The other night when my husband asked what we were having for dinner and I told him a stir fry, his response wasn't very enthusiastic. Stir frys are so easy to make, especially when I don't really feel like cooking, but I do try to change up the veggies & sauce, spicy or sweet, depending on my mood. You see I shouldn't have said stir fry because it's really not what I was going to do, it's grilling the vegetables and tofu that have been marinating in a chinese sauce. I got the idea from, again, The New Vegetarian Grill by Andrea Chesman. When everyone sat down and looked at their plate and said "this looks good" and then they started eating making pleasant grunting sounds, I knew this was a winner! They scarfed it down and wanted more. I would definately make this one for company, it's a nice twist to chinese food.

Here are the vegetables I used and the ingredients for the marinade:

1 head of broccoli, trimmed and sliced

2 Lg. carrots, washed and sliced into long wedges

1 bunch asparagus, washed and trimmed

1 red bell pepper, sliced

1/2 bag of sugar snap peas, washed

1 block of extra-firm tofu,(the vacuum sealed kind), sliced into strips about 1/3 inch thick.

Marinade for tofu:

2 T. sesame oil

1 T. soy sauce

2 garlic cloves

1 T. fresh ginger

In a small casserole dish whisk together marinade then add tofu. Flip tofu every so often to completely coat.

Marinade for vegetables:

3 T. mirin

3 T. soy sauce, tamari or braggs

3 T. sesame oil

1 T. rice vinegar

2 garlic cloves

1 T. ginger

Whisk together marinade then add vegetables. Marinade for at least an hour.

Prepare barbeque on medium heat. Barbeque the tofu until you see nice grill marks. BBQ/grill the vegetables just until done, you still want them crisp not burnt. Mix together both left over marinades and set aside.

To assemble serve vegetables and tofu over brown rice, drizzle with remaining marinade and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Grilled Falafal & Veggie Wrap

These pictures aren't very good, I really need a better camera, but you can get the idea of what the falafel wrap looked like cut in half. I broke out a book I bought during the holidays called The New Vegetarian Grill, Revised Edition: 250 Flame-Kissed Recipes by Andrea Chesman . The book has everything from individual grilled veggies to sandwich's and noodle dishes. It's pretty neat since our bbq will be in use for the rest of the summer. It's been about 100 degrees or hotter out and with weather like that we eat later and don't want anything to heavy.

My first recipe was the Grilled Falafels. These were so very easy to make and pretty tasty too! I sprayed them with olive oil before I put them on the grill, they held together great. I then grilled up, sweet potato, sweet onion, red bell pepper and zucchini. Sliced some tomato and avocado. For the tahini dressing I made the one from VCON but halved the recipe, I didn't have fresh dill so I just added a little bit of dried. Then I wrapped some rice tortillas in foil and heated them up on the bbq for a few minutes. Rice tortillas worked perfect for this because they don't get soggy like a flour tortilla. You can obviously use pita to if you wish. Assembling: I smothered a rice tortilla with tahini dressing, then on one side I layered the falafel and veggies then folded over, cut in half and served with a salad. One half of the falafal wrap was the perfect amount of food but the whole wrap would be fine if you are a bit hungrier and it still wouldn't weight you down.

Below are my changes to the recipe taken from:

Falafel

recipe from The New Vegetarian Grill by Andrea Chesman

3 C. cooked chickpeas (or two 15oz. cans), drained

4 slices sandwich bread, sprouted whole grain

8 scallions, trimmed and chopped

1/4 C. chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 C chopped fresh parsley

3 garlic cloves

2 tsp. ground cumin

]1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp ground red chile pepper (I used flaked chile pepper) or to taste

s& p

2 T. Olive oil

Puree the chickpeas and bread in a food processor. Scrape into to a large bowl. Then puree the scallions, cilantro, parsley and garlic. Add to the chickpea mixture along with the spices. Mix thoroughly adding olive oil. Use your hands to completely mix if needed.

Form the mixture into patties about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Brush with olive on both sides or use a spray olive oil/canola oil like I did.

Heat the grill or bbq up to a medium heat, about 375. Grill the falafel about 4 minutes on each side, just until grill marks and cooked through.

Note: I think the recipe calls for the bread because it helps bind the ingredients together so they don't fall apart on the bbq.

Grilled Vegetable Salad

We love grilling vegetables on the bbq when the warm weather hits. We kind of bbq all year long but since the move it gets a tad bit colder here so we didn't bbq as much this past year during the winter. Freezing while you grill isn't too much fun. You can grill any vegetables you want and then toss them in a salad. Here are the vegetables and dressing I used for our salad.

First, in a medium bowl I added a nice mixed green lettuce, with tomato and green onion, then put back in the refridger to stay cold.

Vegetables: 2 lg portobello mushroom(kept whole),
1 lg zucchini, sliced long ways
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 lg sweet potato, sliced
2 lg red potatoes, slice 1/4 inch thick
1 lg carrot(grilled carrots rock
1/2 bunch of asparagus
In a small bowl mix olive oil, 3 garlic cloves ( or more)minced, balsamic, salt and pepper. Brush portobello with marinade then toss together the rest of the vegetables with the marinade and set aside.
While the veggies are marinadeing and the grill is heating up, prepare dressing.

Balsamic dressing: Whisk together extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, 1 garlic clove, fresh thyme, salt and pepper. You can add a bit of sugar or agave to sweeten up more if you wish.

I also thinly sliced some organic rustic french bread and brushed with some olive oil on both sides.

When the grill is at a medium heat, grill vegetables until done then grill the french bread on both sides.

Chop up vegetables, slice up an avocado. To prepare plates add lettuce, vegetables, avocado, then drizzle balsamic dressing and serve with grilled french bread. I broke up my bread and tossed it in my salad, it was like croutons but so much better!