I'm Back

My grandfather died last week, and I traveled to Texas for the funeral. Now I am back home and back in the kitchen after a sad trip.

A week and a half ago we had our friends in town for the weekend. I made fajitas, black beans, and rice with fresh pico de gallo, vegan chile con queso, and guacamole. When the meal was over, we gorged ourselves on a vegan dessert spread: maple-pecan cookies, coconut-chocolate pie, four kinds of the coconut milk ice cream (chocolate, chocolate mint, coconut, and mango), and a fruit salad.

I love the seitan fajitas--and it is easy to prepare. You just need to chop ahead of time in order to marinate.

I use a box of West Soy seitan (one of these days I'll make my own) and chop it into thin strips. I also slice onion and red and green peppers thinly.

Toss in a shallow dish with lots of fresh lime juice, peanut or toasted sesame oil, cumin, a bit of cayenne pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Marinate in the fridge for at least an hour. I then saute in a hot skillet until crisp tender and singed on the edges.

Fresh, homemade pico de gallo is worth all the chopping. Chop the following into small, uniform pieces: tomato, green pepper, onion. Finely chop cilantro. Toss veggies together in a bowl and generously add lime juice--the more the better. Add salt and pepper to taste--cayenne if you like it a little spicy, or you could use jalapeno pepper instead of the green pepper. Add a little cumin, too. I never measure and just go by my personal preference on the tomato to onion to pepper ratio.


For breakfast, I made our guests French toast, skillet potatoes with vegan chorizo and pico de gallo, fruit, and hot cocoa. The best part was there was French toast leftover for Monday morning!

Before I left for Texas, I cooked a bowl of potato-broccoli soup. It was delicious!

Clayton had the idea to use the vegan Italian sausage sliced thinly on top of our pizza. It was good but would have been better if I had made a traditional pizza sauce instead of Margharita style.

Today for lunch we had burgers with Mindy's veggie burger patties--so good! I can't believe I forgot to take a photo of these babies. I made them last week before I left for Texas. I think Clayton ate 4 of them right off the pan fresh from the oven. I froze the leftovers--and they make delicious sandwiches. We rounded out lunch with broccoli slaw, Fritos, and fruit salad.

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Sweet potato, black bean, and spinach burritos with salsa verde
Rice with corn and peas
Guacamole
Pears and blueberries

And remember that pie? Well, it set up perfectly into a cream and thick texture. The flavor will need some tweaking. I didn't like the almond extract so much, but I did like the crust. I will try to perfect it. So it is a keeper.

You?