A Hodgepodge of Food

I've been heating things up in the kitchen ... again!

First, a picture of what I ate for lunch the other day. Just a salad with green leaf lettuce, half a tomato, olives, beets, wasabi peas, and spicy tortilla won ton strips, but isn't it pretty? I thought it was.

Last night was another Viva Vegan! extravaganza. Every once in a while I'm nice and let J choose what we'll have to eat. Here's what he decided on.

Arroz con seitan ...

And tomatillo salsa with freshly made corn tortillas and storebought tortilla chips (we like Frontera's blue corn version).

The tomatillo salsa was absolutely the best salsa I've ever had. I wanted to eat it with a spoon. And it made a great amount too, which means at least a few more days of chip and salsa. :) The arroz con seitan was also wonderful and flavorful. The long grain white rice, seitan, carrots, green peppers and green olives make a tasty combination. There is a recipe (actually, two recipes) in Viva Vegan! to make your own homemade seitan, but as this was my first venture with seitan in the kitchen, I decided to play it safe and bought a packet of it from Whole Foods. I did use my homemade veggie broth, however!

I'm really impressed with Viva Vegan! I've been eyeing the recipe for black bean pupusas, so maybe you'll see a photo of it soon!

Tonight we stopped at the Farmer's Market on the way home from work. There were so many lovely vendors, with a great assortment of baked goods, fruits and veggies, flowers and plants. I wanted to buy pretty much everything, but settled on this:

Strawberries, kale, and pear jam (but not the black pepper grinder that somehow snuck its way into this picture).  

No way was I going to let the kale languish in the fridge. I made a side dish of Ginger Sesame Greens from Clean Food, served with Mushroom Bulgur Pilaf from Quick-Fix Vegetarian.

 

It was a nice, simple meal. We aren't used to Tuesday nights without Lost, so soothed ourselves with an episode from Season One.

There was an abundance of beautiful-looking rhubarb at the Farmer's Market. I think Clean Food has a recipe for a strawberry rhubarb crumble ... hmm. Yum ... I've never cooked with rhubarb before, but each week brings new culinary adventures (seitan and bulgur, for example). Why not rhubarb?