Weeknight Meal: Pizza and Imperfection

I know that isn't pizza up above (smart readers, you!). But you've seen me make pizza before.

If you're going to cook at home more often (which we're trying to do), it takes planning and preparation. I am great at planning. I have four to-do lists going at all times, and our meal plan is on the fridge right next to the shopping list. I am terrible at preparation though.

• We were supposed to eat pizza for dinner one night this week. We already had pizza dough in our freezer (preparation success!).

• But I forgot to take it out to thaw in the morning (preparation failure!).

• I remembered in time to email Dewey to ask him to take it out (preparation success!).

• I did not remember to tell him exactly how to take it out of the freezer (preparation failure!).

So Dewey didn't remove one of the pizza dough balls from the plastic package, place it in a bowl, drizzle it with oil, and return the other dough ball to the freezer for another night. Instead he plunked the entire package down on the table to defrost, which is a perfectly ordinary thing to do.

When I got home from work at night, there was a bit of a crust on the dough balls because they weren't oiled. And they were still pretty cold from being in the plastic packaging. And there were two of them.

But I figured it would work out OK, and it did. This wasn't the best pizza we've ever made, but it certainly wasn't the worst. It was pretty good. That might be the third skill it takes to eat more meals at home, accepting imperfection.

I let the balls rise a bit more in a slightly heated oven, and then set out to making pizza. For us, one dough ball makes two personal sized pizzas. This has the advantage of letting us choose our own toppings so we can both be selfish and eat things the other one doesn't like. It's also much easier to work with 6-inch pizzas than 9- or 10-inch pizzas.

After dinner, we were still left with a dough ball, which I didn't think I should return to the freezer. So I tried my hand at making calzones, using some leftover steamed broccoli for the filling. I still need a bit of work on my shaping, but now we have leftovers for lunches or quick dinners this week. Preparation success!

Weeknight Meal: Italian Baked Beans over Polenta

Last night we ate Italian Baked Butter Beans over polenta for dinner. Believe it or not, this was a pantry dinner. Frozen butter beans, canned tomatoes, a carrot, an onion, some spices, and stone ground cornmeal.

While polenta isn't usually considered an easy weeknight meal, it doesn't haven to be complicated. You really only need to stir every ten minutes or so. This meal bubbled on the stove and in the oven while I emptied the dishwasher, paid bills, and futzed around on the internet.

The bean recipe is a slight variation on the Italian Baked Lima Beans from Veganomicon. Dewey thought this meal tasted like lasagne. I haven't made many of the bean dishes from Veganomicon yet, and I think it's time to change that.

Weeknight meal: Baked Potato

We've added another meal to our easy meal list. This meal relies a lot more on convenience foods than most of the other meals on our list, but we need more variety on our list if we're going to stick with eating more meals at home.

We've made this a few times now. It's a baked potato, with Upton's Naturals seitan, broccoli, and locally-made Nacho Mom's vegan queso. The Upton's Naturals seitan has been sneaking into a lot of our meals, lately. It freezes well and defrosts fast, and it's great in spaghetti sauce, casseroles, and anywhere else you might use ground meat. In the past, we've made our own cheese sauce, and I think we'll continue to do that in the future since it's cheaper and we can make it exactly how we want it.

To make a quick cheesy sauce for baked potatoes or broccoli: saute a few tablespoons of flour in nonhyrdogenated margarine or neutral oil for about two minutes over medium low heat. Slowly pour in a cup of unsweetened plant milk, stirring with a fork as your pour. Turn the heat to medium-high. As the sauce warms, sprinkle in a few handfuls of your favorite vegan cheese. (I've used both Daiya and Tofutti slices for this.) Stir until the cheese melts into the sauce. Add a pinch or two of paprika, and season with salt to taste.

Brunch: Raised Waffles

Dewey and I eat brunch out every Sunday. Since we're trying to eat in more often, we're going to eat brunch at home once a month.

This Sunday we made raised waffles from Vegan Brunch. These are the best waffles I've ever had. I've been getting more and more confident with yeasty recipes the past two years, and I wish I'd tried this one before. It doesn't have any of the fussiness of a lot of yeasted recipes: it only needs to rise for an hour, and you don't need to knead it at all.

Home Cooking

Kris over at Two Vegan Boys has challenged everyone to eat more at home and less at restaurants. Really she challenged everyone to eat entirely at home for a year, but Dewey and I aren't up for that challenge yet. She'll be blogging what she eats for dinner every night here.

We have noticed over the past few months a rapidly rising food budget. Or maybe just a lack of a food budget. Either way, I'm committing to cooking more of our meals at home, and doing so with my eye on the food budget.

As part of this, I'm going to be posting more of our ordinary home dinners. They aren't always exciting, they won't always come with recipes, and (this one kills me) the photos won't always be pretty. But they'll show what one vegan and one along-for-the-ride omnivore eat for dinner. I'm also committing to trying more recipes from the cookbooks I've been buying faster than I can use them.

Above is last night's dinner. A thrown-together enchilada soup made from all the leftovers in the house: enchilada sauce, corn, carrot sticks, black beans, potatoes (leftover from making latkes), a minced chipotle chili, tofutti sour cream, and some seasonings. The only thing we bought to make this was a can of beans.

The biscuits are cornmeal biscuits from Vegan Brunch, and they're amazing. Really easy to make and the perfect pair for some Tex-Mex-inspired soup. I mixed the dough and put half of them in the oven, and while they baked I made the soup. I think the entire meal took about 35 minutes to make, including clean up. Half the rolls went in to the freezer for future lunches and dinners.

If you've hesitated about buying Vegan Brunch because you rarely eat brunch, don't let that stop you! I've made lots of great recipes from this cookbook, and rarely before 6PM. I think with the exception of cinnamon rolls, most of the recipes in the book make great dinners. And I promise not to judge you if you eat cinnamon rolls for dinner occasionally.

Help! There's Nothing to Pack for Lunch

Sometimes, planning ahead doesn't happen. [See the entire last week.] But if you have a moderately well-stocked pantry, you can probably pull something out for lunch. Especially if you consider some often-overlooked foods for lunch. Most of these foods won't make anyone's top-ten list, but they're better than skipping lunch or hitting the vending machine.

Many frozen fruits and vegetables are great for packed lunches. They often don't even need to be heated up. Just toss them in a container and they'll have defrosted by lunch. For fruits, mango and berries do especially well. For vegetables, peas, corn, edamame, and green beans are my favorites. If you have time and motivation, make a compound butter or vinaigrette to go with the vegetables or whip up a smoothie.

Have a can of beans? Blend it together with some oil and whatever herbs you have handy. Even better with some garlic or green onions. Or skip the blender and marinate the beans in your favorite salad dressing. Canned beans mashed with salad dressing makes a great sandwich spread.

Have a can of refried beans? Mix it with canned tomatoes, rotel, or salsa for a great bean dip or puree. For bonus points, add cumin and a bit of chili powder.

Have dry oatmeal? Throw it in a tupperware with plant milk or water and whatever you can scrounge up (consider frozen fruit, jam, dried fruit, nut butter, flax, or nuts). Not into sweet? Make savory oats instead (I like soy sauce, ginger, green onions, and hot sauce in my oatmeal). If you have access to a microwave at work, wait until lunch to cook. Best to use a large container for this and watch closely, as oatmeal can expand and overflow the container as it cooks.

Consider often-overlooked ingredients to round out your meal. Sun-dried tomatoes, pickles, olives, crystalized ginger, nori, and miso are usually in the back of my cabinets or fridge.

This last suggestion is a favorite of mine: soup in a bag. [Note: if Sandra Lee makes you pull out your hair, now is probably a good time to go visit someone else's blog.]

Soup in a Bag

ziplock bag*

frozen vegetables (peas, corn, or vegetable mix)

couscous, broken up angel hair pasta, or fideo noodles (uncooked)**

garlic powder

ginger powder

vegetarian bouillon powder/cube

Add a handful of vegetables to the bag. Add 1 tablespoon couscous or a handful of noodles. Shake a bit of garlic and ginger powder into the bag as well and finish it off with bouillon powder or a bouillon cube.

At lunch time, heat water. Dump the contents of the bag into a mug or bowl. Pour the hot (boiling is best, but not necessary) water over the soup ingredients. Wait 5 minutes for the pasta to absorb water. Stir and enjoy.

*There's no reason not to put the ingredients straight into a microwave-safe tupperware, but I find that mornings where there's no lunch food in the house are also mornings where there aren't any clean tupperware containers.

**You want noodles that will cook in 3-5 minutes. Anything longer (like regular spaghetti), and they won't soften with just boiling water.

Happy Thanksgiving!

VeganWhatFo?

Sorry for the absence, folks. I had a wee cold, and I was too busy sneezing, hacking, and whining to post pictures of the questionably-nutritious, questionably-food stuff that I was eating.

But I did manage to make the lovely gem above for Thanksgiving. And a pumpkin pie. And gravy (no recipe).

I'm pretty sure this is a keeper for Thanksgivings to come. It's pretty, easy to make, tastes great, reheats well, and makes a wonderful leftover sandwich. A hit on many levels.

The recipe is from 500 Vegan Recipes. I've been of two minds about this cookbook. I've tried some lovely recipes from it, but I've also had a few stinkers. But the recipe for Seitan en Croute has firmly pushed me towards "recommend".

My other favorites from 500 Vegan Recipes have been the butterbean dip (start with half the required scallions and taste before adding the rest), peanut butter muffins, and cheater mac and cheese. The baking recipes make use of a lot of alternative flours, which I like. For instance, the peanut butter muffins are made partially with pulverized dry oatmeal. And there are lots of recipes for grains that I've been trying to get to know, like bulgur.

Unfortunately, a few of the ingredient measurements are off, like the amount of chia seed in the Brazil nut bleu cheese. And a few of the recipes just didn't work for me. But overall, I recommend this book, especially if you are interested in baking or exploring new-to-you ingredients.