Tag Archives: green beans

Oh boy this week is going to be CRAZY! So I am hoping I can keep up with everything. Needless to say I am probably not going to eat much of CSA shares outside of leftovers for lunches (if I am lucky) So you will largely see dinners. So here we go:

Sunday

I honestly can’t remember what I ate for lunch. I can say that Wolfie ate the last bit of beet pasta, I have been giving Jon little bits of green bean and cucumber salad for lunch, and he had a wrap with tofu and leftovers. Nothing super exciting.

I got to make this AMAZING dish! This is always one of my favorite dishes from Vegan Eats World. Part of the reason is that I love the sweet and tart taste of cherry tomatoes when they get warm/cooked. It also uses up some green beans. I love how she uses small potatoes which makes my life easier, and oh yeah, that BAKED TOFU! I took the time to bake the tofu and made my house super hot, but no regrets. There’s leftovers and I am SOO excited about eating the leftovers this week.

Monday

Tonights dinner was super yummy, even if it doesn’t really look so hot. It is a Chorizo Chili with Tomatillos and Sweet Potatoes, a recipe I heavily modified from Sunbasket. I used Trader Joe’s soyrizo, so that’s the obvious swap. But I doubled the sweet potato, cooked in some red lentils to prevent it from being too soupy and to sub the black beans. They also just say “spice blend” so I just added whatever I thought sounded good. I am thinking about maybe using the leftovers for a crazy chili mac. *crosses fingers* I will totally have to do it, mostly because I just noticed the list for the week is all chilis and stews. Oops.


Anyone want to adopt my kid? Because I really would like some sleep. lol Last night Wolfie was terrified of the fireman demonstration at the library where they dressed up in their full gear, including the respirator. Apparently giving him nightmares so bad I refused to go back to sleep. So we got him a night light so cross your fingers tonight.

Today for lunch I had a bagel with tofutti but Jon had some leftovers. He had that salsa verde, pickles, and a wrap made with rice, beans, halved cherry tomatoes, and the leftover stew from last night. I love adding cherry tomatoes to burritos because they cook up a little when microwaving the wrap. It really will help with the flavor of the wrap. 

I was sitting around thinking about the kohlrabi I had in the fridge, and I decided I would try and make a pickle to use on a bahni mi sandwich. Sadly it went bad which I am honestly not surprised about that. But I did manage to make the basil cucumber sorbet I wanted to make. I need it to chill overnight and I will pop it in the ice cream maker tomorrow afternoon so it can set for the evening. Yummy.

For dinner I made a beet alfredo. It was good, though I am not sure how much the beet actually brought to the table. It feels a little bit more like a fun way to get kids to eat pasta. It felt a little lacking, so I tossed in a teaspoon of miso, and I used leeks instead of onions. It only uses one beet, so it doesn’t bring that much nutrition to the table. That is kind-of the problem with beets, a little goes a long way. Our CSA is having a strong beet crop this year, so that is a little tough since the other crops are hurting. I am starting to think about maybe doing a beetroot jam, or maybe a strawberry beet sorbet. 

Last week I made a cucumber green bean salad tossed in a miso dressing. It was pretty tasty, though I cooked the green beans instead of just “smashing” them. It makes a lot, so we have been eating it from time to time as a side dish. 

Well for anyone who is keeping track at home here is the total list. I know for a fact we won’t be using the green beans, as I am saving them for next week. There were hardly enough to really use. 

2 garlic scapes
1/2 cucumber
2 green bell peppers
1 kohlrabi R.I.P
1 small head of cabbage
2 lb 4 oz okra
4 lb 3 oz beets (half golden, half red)
1 lb 4 oz carrots
1 bunch of scallions
1 pint blackberries
1/2 pint ground cherries
1 quart sun gold tomatoes
1 lb 5oz tomatillos
3 1/2 oz green beans (1 pint)
12 oz mixed stir-fry greens (1/3 a bag)
3 small leeks
3 slicing tomatoes
4 small salt & pepper cucumbers
1 small striped eggplant (10oz)
4 hot peppers
3 cipollini onions

How do you like using beets? Any recipe recommendations?


cat

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I know this post is a little late, but I’ve been busy in the kitchen and busy being sick. My allergies reared a new, ugly head that was both horrible and obnoxious. My eyes swelled up and became horribly itchy.  I started to wonder if I was getting pink eye. Wonderful timing as I had to prepare many sides for our Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws. Terrified of being contagious, I asked Jon cook most of the sides. 

I wanted to share my Thanksgiving, because it was probably the best Thanksgiving I had (well food wise). Every year I almost always break my veganism, because my choices ranged from veggies swimming in butter to veggies playing hide-n-seek between bacon bits and cheese. This year, my Mother-in-law cooked everything vegan with the exception of turkey, gravy, and one side. This gave me the freedom of choice.

before1

My Mother-in-law loves decorating a dinner table. I wish I could put forth such effort in my own home. When I read blog posts for “easy Thanksgiving centerpieces” I always wonder: who has space on their table for centerpieces? Then I think that maybe I could just sucker any future kids I may have into making the centerpiece so I don’t have to think about it. Crafts are fun right? Kids should love making a paper turkey. And no one is going to say how crappy it is, because no one wants to shatter kids’ dreams. Point is that I may have figured out a way to decorate my table without actually doing anything. Sadly though, my husband can’t cut paper in a straight line and is far too old for a poorly made hand turkey to be “endearing.” So instead, his Mom took care of the decorations and made her table stylish.

before2

Jon’s Brother and Sister-in-law drove up from Virginia with their massive black lab, Duke. Duke is the friendliest, most well behaved, and most docile of any labrador that I’ve met. He is also spoiled rotten as he gets home cooked meals ever since being diagnosed with a long list of allergies. I know lots of humans who don’t get daily home cooked meals. I hope this pup knows how lucky he is. He spent most of Thanksgiving day bouncing from person to person in search of attention or just a hug.

duke

As mentioned our spread this year was the best I experienced. There wasn’t a single dish I didn’t enjoy. So I will go food by food providing links (if they exist) to recipes. I hope this spread inspires your future holiday dinners.

stuffedonions

Has anyone heard of stuffed onions before? I hadn’t until this Thanksgiving. This was a recipe from my Mother-in-law’s friend, so there isn’t a link to share. She had to take off the outer shell of the onions, cook it, and stuff in a similar manner as stuffed cabbage. The onions were stuffed with tomatoes, breading, and feta cheese, but she left a few without the cheese for me.

carrotsandgravy

Every year simple boiled carrots make it to the dinner table. It is my Father-in-law’s favorite and is pictured above in the covered dish. Next to it is a turkey-based gravy. I made a mushroom miso gravy for myself, but it didn’t look as nice as it tasted.

cranberrysauce

I am actually not a fan of Cranberry sauce. Is that a little odd? I usually find it too sweet, and may be better as a garnish instead of a side. However, this year’s cranberry sauce seemed to be an exception. The secret?  It was cooked with port wine. This gave the sauce a robust and complex flavor. Although I am not sure if it is the same recipe, Cookin’ Canuck has a port wine cranberry sauce that looks pretty good.

stuffing

I have no idea what was in this stuffing. I am not fully even sure what the point of stuffing is. Sure it was bread put into a turkey, but now there are so many recipes that don’t involve the stuffing to be stuffed into something. This is one of them. I can say it tasted amazing with my mushroom miso gravy. It was so good, I am actually thinking about eating some of those leftovers right now.

brusselsprouts

Unfortunately the photos of the actual brussel sprouts didn’t turn out well enough for the blog. They were all blurry. But this was a really tasty dish. They were shredded brussel sprouts that were sautéed with a small amount of apples and apple cider vinegar to give it a little tang.

lentilballs

I made these lentil balls with only one person in mind- me. But it seemed that other people enjoyed the dish, and I was asked to leave some behind for others to take home as leftovers. It is definitely a dish I would make again, but the beauty is that they freeze well. So make it ahead of time, freeze it, and bring it out any day of the week for a meal. The recipe is over at Oh She Glows.

greenbeans

These green beans already made an appearance on the blog, and it didn’t have burn onions on top. I made some last minute changes (like I thought burn onions would be more crispy, right?) by adding some cashews to the mushroom like gravy. I had soaked some cashews with the intention of making “rad whip” but ran out of time. I figured it could only enhance the green beans so I blended them in. It created a very rich and creamy sauce.

sweetpotato

On my green beans post I mentioned how I hated green bean casserole so much, I felt like there had to be a better version out there. The same thing can be said about sweet potato casserole. So many times I had tried making a sweet potato casserole and just found it to be too sweet. So when a recipe was posted on Oh She Glows for a Sweet Potato Casserole, I knew I would give it a try. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll try a different recipe in the future. It made a crispy granola like topping that was perfect to go on top of a lightly sweetened sweet potato.

pecan pumpkin

Then comes dessert. I can safely say that my husband pretty much made the entire pecan pie. I blended a few ingredients together, but nothing else outside of that. We used The Post Punk Kitchen’s Maple Pecan Pie, which is tasty. But I joked it was pretty much a shoo-fly-pie with some pecans in it. There was also a very not vegan pumpkin pie. It is just what my Father-in-law makes every year. He also praises his crust every year, or any time he makes it. 

What was the highlight of your Thanksgiving?


greenbean1

I remember the first time I had green bean casserole. I didn’t have it until I was in my 20s, it was never a Thanksgiving staple in my family. My brother in law grew up eating it and requested it for the dinner spread. My sister read the can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, frustrated by the simplicity. Really just a can? What are “french onions”? We all gathered around the table and tasted the dish. My sisters and I all agreed it was a mistake and voted off the dish from future dinners.

I didn’t listen. I couldn’t shake off has a very classic dish could be so bad. This prompted me to make a 100% from scratch version of the dish, and made it vegan. Each year I kept tweaking the recipe, and trying out new methods. This year, as I made a pre-Thanksgiving testers batch, I found the perfect match.

greenbean3

I debated posting this dish since the photos didn’t turn out so great. I thought I could wait till after Thanksgiving and post it with better photos. I mean, this is a dish you could make for Christmas, right? But then after discussing Thanksgiving dinner with my Mother-in-Law, it seemed that she had plans for her own green bean dish. Posting the dish was a now or never deal.

This is a great dish if you are the guest invited to Thanksgiving. It isn’t hard to make, but it does take some time and planning. First you have to roast the onions, then you have to cook the green beans, then you need to make the sauce, then combine into the casserole dish. So it is great to make, getting all the messy work out of the way of the host. Even better is that it is a vegan dish that doesn’t seem “healthy.”

greenbean0

The plan is simple. Bread and bake onion rings in the oven. Cook the green beans by boiling them for 5 minutes, or use frozen beans (fresh will give the best results). On a stove top make a mushroom-miso like gravy. Cover the green beans with the “gravy” and top with onions. Heat again in the oven. Simple enough.

Continue reading


tomachickcurry1

It has been a rough few weeks. My work schedule has been totally flipped upside down, and I found myself working mostly night shifts instead of morning. Which means that I’ve just been unable to make dinner for half of the week. Now, just the idea of cooking dinner feels like a chore. At the end of each day, I think about how someone has to cook otherwise our ingredients will go bad.

Luckily, I have the best husband who will cook dinner even though he gets home around 7pm at night. I become an early morning sous chef and pre-chop veggies to make it easier.  I’ll try to gather or bunch ingredients together in the fridge or cabinets, so he doesn’t have to hunt them down.  Sometimes all he has to do is toss a casserole dish in the oven and bake. But one night I wrote down a totally new recipe and let him work it out. 

Continue reading