Odds and ends

We've had some random food around the house these days, and I have been trying to come up with creative and new ways to use it all up.


For this one, I used an idea that I stole from DGMGV and her pizza toasts. We had leftover lentil pasta sauce, so I spread it on slices of bread and topped with some FYH mozzarella, and broiled it until the cheese got brown and bubbly. What a fun way to use up leftover marinara sauce!


Here we have a wrap that uses up some of the leftover southwest-style hummus... I added half an avocado, some sprouts and some spinach, and tomato slices, and then a dash of hot sauce and lime juice. Yum. The other hummuses are almost gone--I have had several meals that consisted of hummus and veggies and baked tortilla chips. Incidentally, everyone who tasted them thought that the garden hummus was the best after a day of hanging out in the fridge...


Speaking of avocados, we have several that we have been frantically trying to use up. Breakfast one morning consisted of a TLT sandwich with avocado slices... except that I always use spinach, not lettuce, so this is really a TST I guess. The tempeh bacon recipe comes from VWaV. This also helped use up one of our three blocks of tempeh! I could eat TSTs all day long--I absolutely love them. What really makes them good is when the tomatoes are "real" local tomatoes, not the spongy off-season ones that I all but refuse to buy.


Here, I tried making Jess's lightened-up New Farm mac & cheez, using some of my Eden Organics whole kamut elbows. What did I think? It was good... maybe a little bland for my tastes. I cut back a little bit on the salt in the recipe, but I guess I should not have done that. Next time I won't. I also added some mustard to give it a little tang, and I thought that was a good addition. I might add just a bit more next time.


Yum.


I took this cue from DGMGV as well, and made the Revolutionary Spanish Omelet from VWaV. I halved the recipe because my cast-iron pan is small, and I only had half an onion anyway. It looked really pretty when it was in the pan...


But the bottom tore out when I tried to turn it onto a plate. I kind of touched it up for the picture, but you still can tell that it didn't exactly come out in one piece.


I served it with some garlicky kale, and an herbed ketchup sauce in lieu of the roasted red pepper-almond sauce that Isa provides. It was pretty good, but it wasn't as spectacular as I thought it might be. I think it had too many potatoes in it--next time I will cut back on them so that I can actually taste some of its other elements. I will make it again, though--it was not nearly as intensive as I thought it was going to be.

Have you seen Stranger Than Fiction? Bob and I watched it last night, and it was a cute movie. Will Ferrell plays an IRS agent, and he audits Maggie Gyllenhaal, who owns her own bakery. There was one scene in the movie where she baked cookies for Will Ferrell, and he was eating them hot out of the oven. That drove me crazy--as soon as the movie was over, I was in the kitchen baking cookies!


I tried Dreena's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from TEV... wow. Even as someone who doesn't usually go for oatmeal raisin cookies, I am telling you that these are amazing and that you should go make them. If you need any more impetus, watch the movie first--then you'll want cookies, I promise.

The movie also reaffirmed that I have got to have my own bakery/cafe some day. It makes me so happy to bake for people or to cook them breakfast or to make them lattes... It was funny, watching the movie I felt like I was faced with two sides of me--the boring tax accountant side, and the spunky baker/fighter for social justice side. And it wasn't hard for me to decide which one I want the "real" me to be...

I've got something fun planned, probably for this weekend or so. But I can't tell you about it until then! Stay tuned! Happy Monday!