Week 1: What I Made and Ate This Week

I'm thinking of starting a little series on the blog called "What I Made and Ate This Week". In reality this series probably can be filed under "more things that nobody really cares to read about" but I'm gonna go ahead and yammer on. Plus I'll probably only keep the series up for a few weeks and then I'll lose steam and interest but maybe, just maybe I can build a little book of recipes and reviews to look back on when I'm at a loss for what to make. Oh, and I'll try and note whether a recipe is vegetarian (V) or vegan (VG). So here we go, Week 1:

Week 1: What I Made and Ate This Week:

Monday: Tempeh snobby joes topped with coleslaw (V, VG if you use Veganaise in the coleslaw)
Since going vegetarian I've really missed sloppy joes. But who wants to open up a can of that stuff which rhymes with nanwich and pour it over a meat substitute. Crumbled tempeh works great in this recipe and the sauce is easy to make. I cheated and bought a small container of shredded cabbage at Whole Foods because I didn't really want a big ol' thing of coleslaw lingering in the fridge after the tempeh snobby joes were gone. As other reviewers mentioned, the sauce made according to the directions is a little bland so I ended up adding some barbeque sauce and liquid smoke to give it some flavor.  Overall these were as good as I remembered from growing up.

Wednesday: Corn and roasted green chile soup (V)
In the past I've had a discussion with a friend about whether New Jersey or Nebraska sweet corn would win in a head-to-head duel. And while we never got around to matching up the fruits of these states, I will always stand by Nebraska sweet corn. And lucky for me, I've got a freezer FULL of Nebraska sweet corn. Seriously, I've got like 30 bags of the stuff. So there will probably be a lot of recipes with corn in them for the next few months. This recipe had a lot of steps that I had shortcuts in place for, such as I bought some fresh roasted green chiles at the farmer's market so I didn't have to roast my own at home. And I used ground spices rather than roasting and grinding the seeds. And, I added sweet potatoes because they are delicious and add a little more veggie nutrition to the soup. Of course I omitted any and all cilantro too, even though the recipe was trying to be tricky and fool me by calling it coriander sprigs. This soup turned out great but really, can you ever mess a soup up? Especially when heavy cream is involved.

Thursday: Chocolate cherry cashew energy bars (VG)
My trainer, who is Russian and I will call Boris, keeps telling me that I don't eat enough protein. I told him that I really like protein bars and his response was that protein bars are expensive, why not just eat raw eggs. I bit my tongue from telling him that meat is probably more expensive than any of those protein bars that I like. And while my protein intake is just fine, I think Boris is trying to get me to eat enough protein to turn me into a Russian fighting machine. As long as I'm a Russian fighting machine who can wear a bikini in Hawaii in November then I'll get on board any training (i.e., torture) program that Boris has for me.

The link for these bars is for a post on a formula for making energy bars at home. So instead of listing exact ingredients it will just tell you the general ratio you need of each type of ingredients (and don't worry it gives you examples of what ingredients to use). I used the suggestions for a chocolate black bean happy bar and made a few substitutions such as protein powder instead of brown rice flour (just for you Boris) and cherries and cashews instead of coconut and raisins. These bars turned out good and I think these are even deceptive enough for kids to enjoy without knowing that there are beans in them.

So that's it for Week 1 of What I Made and Ate This Week. Yep, I realize that it's only Thursday but we have corn soup for days and once the weekend hits I'm lazy and we usually just go out to eat. But if I make anything else then I'll probably cheat and just add it to next week's list.

Have a great weekend. The weather is AMAZING here and is supposed to be this way all weekend. I think we will be spending lots and lots of time outside! Come on over if you're in the neighborhood :).