The "I beat Rachel Ray Jambalaya".

I feel like a dead beat dad. Every time I come visit this blog to write, Blogger (and I actually just had to check and see if that is, in fact, the right name) has changed completely. It's like I haven't seen my baby since he was a, well, baby, and now I've come back to spend some time with the little chap and he's 12 years old and spitting on the sidewalk, and I'm standing here all awkward holding a GI Joe doll. Well let's move on from my guilt and talk about food. That's pretty much the only thing I know anything about anyway. I was debating whether I should write about T.L.C.s (Tempeh Bacon& Tomato, Lettuce, Cheez Sammies) or Jambalaya today, and decided on jambalaya since I veganized a rachel ray recipe and made it (little) better. And who doesn't like one-upping Rachel ray? even if its only by a 1/2 point. So here we go, "Not Rachel's Jambalaya."

The Million Minute Pot Pie

Okay so it doesn't really take a million minutes. It totally felt like it, but maybe that's because I'd never made this before and it was my first time ever making a pie crust. Here is what my pot pie was based upon: (clicky) BUT, and it's a big Butt, I have some major changes and things to remember.

1. Regardless of how mad you get, keep going. Using this much earth balance butter means it is capable of mending a lot of mistakes. And it will be worth it. Don't Give Up! And yes, you can throw utensils around. And curse.

Lettuce Give Thanks, for lettuce wraps!

Matt took me out on a date a few weeks ago to PF Changs, where I'd never been but always heard good things about. We ordered vegetarian lettuce wraps, which I was not too pleased about, thinking they were those things where it's like an egg roll only wrapped in soggy lettuce. However, to my great surprise, it came out as the asian version of tacos where you use crisp lettuce leaves as a shell and stuff it with delicious tofu and veggies or whatever. So since then, I've been craving them and decided I NEED to make those at home. I sifted through a few recipes and decided on this one (click) and not because it was a fully disclosed PF Chang copy cat recipe. It looked the best.

Soup, shoop ba-doop Shoop ba-soup, Shoop ba-doop ba-doop ba-soup

not my picture, copied from the recipe.

Good morning, reader(s)! I'm running on not enough sleep. Yet again, I made the wonderful decision to stay up reading til 3 am. What could possibly go wrong? I have this feeling that something usually does go wrong on 5 hours sleep, but I can't remember any of these times specifically, probably because I was too tired for my memory to work properly on those days, so I just go on thinking 'nothing goes wrong, stay up in the sweet silence Beth! No one is around! No one is asking for a tissue or a drink!' Anyway, FOOD. Here is a recipe that I tried last week and I am happy to report it is a new favorite! (click) It's called Tomato Cocounut Soup with Spiced Chick Peas, and is influenced by Indian cuisine. I would have bet all my money that the 7 yr old who does NOT like tomato soup (or who thinks she does not like tomato soup) would have turned her nose up at this dish, but it's a good thing we're not gamblin' folk, cause I'da been broke. She ate it without so much as the beginnings of a frown playing on the corners of her mouth. So, one must infer that either her "dislike" of other tomato soups I've made is imaginary (yes, she is absolutely delusional when it comes to food sometimes. She'll angrily insist she does NOT like a food, after eating it most happily the week prior, stating that she never said she liked it, I'm remembering wrong.) OR that she likes THIS recipe for tomato soup, and it was pretty pretty tasty.

Frittata? Sure, let's call it that.

So I've tried to make this recipe numerous ways, and have recently found a way that works to my satisfaction. As a vegan, one of my biggest missed foods is breakfast sandwiches. There's just something so homey and wonderful about a bacon egg and cheese sandwich, yet I don't want to buy any of those things. So I came across this recipe (click) for mini quiches, and while it tasted good, it was impossible to get them out of the muffin tin and we ended up with little piles of "quiche." Actually, that's a REALLY good thing to call someone who has just pissed you off without getting vulgar, 'why you little pile of quiche!'  But I digress.