Eat, Drink & Be Vegan

I've been very busy again with school, so I apologize for my absence. I purchased a copy of Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton yesterday, due to the rave reviews Sarah of LovIN My Tummy gives it. I planned some meals for the week and today I completed my very first VEGAN full-week grocery trip. Everything in my cart was vegan. All of it!

Reviews of some recipes!

When I got home, I made the Chipotle Lime Two-Bean Hummus (page 47). I served it (to myself - lol) with red bell pepper strips and Garden of Eatin' Blue Chips. I tried to take a pic but my camera battery died, and quite frankly I'm exhausted so I didn't feel like looking for the other one. It is so delicious though! I love the flavors together. I didn't use tahini (because a jar is like $9!) or allspice (because I didn't realize we didn't have any). And I used a little bit too much lime juice just because I squeezed it and didn't want to waste it. The recipe calls for 4-4.5 Tbsp, and I used 5 Tbsp - it tastes very limey with 5 Tbsp. And I only used 1 tsp (recipe calls for 1.5 tsp) of Chipotle Tabasco because I'm a weenie with spicy stuff. I couldn't even taste it in the final product. I will definitely make this again and use a little less lime juice and a little more hot sauce. The Garden of Eatin' chips are so delicious! So crunchy, great texture, and they're just cute. I hope to try some of their other products! And I'd like to note here that I love the red bell pepper strips, which I used to think I hated them. Interesting!

I also made the Living Caesar salad dressing from page 83. I think it has a good flavor, but I'm not really sure about it. It is made from cashews and pine nuts and I couldn't get it to get smooth enough. I tried the mini food processor, the blender, and the immersion blender. The husband didn't like it at all. I do think it tastes good, but I'm not sure if I'll make it again since he doesn't like it and I have no way of getting it smooth. I didn't use miso (a jar was $8!) or sea kelp flakes (???) but I added a little dried basil to mimic the "flakes" in Ranch dressing, but not enough to really flavor it. It looks just like Ranch when it's in the bowl.

The dinner entree was the "Hide the Lentils" tomato sauce on page 129, served on brown rice rotini pasta. The husband thought it didn't taste like anything, but it wasn't icky. He added some of the Chipotle Tabasco sauce and said it was okay after that but suggested more garlic and basil. I agree that it needs more flavor, but I ate mine with a cut up sauteed portobello mushroom and thought the dish had plenty of flavor that way. I think this sauce would taste really good as a soup if I thin it out with some vegetable stock. Actually, the next time I make it, I'll use veggie stock instead of water. That may help.

I feel very satisfied with dinner, I may have eaten a tad too much though. I feel kinda full now.

Tomorrow I will fashion some soup out of the leftover sauce for lunch and dinner is going to be the Quinoa Confetti Casserole from page 140. I'm looking forward to it! I'll make sure to charge the camera battery, and hopefully the food will be pretty.

Well, I need to get studying and writing. I've got lots of homework stuff going on this week and next week is already the END of the semester? How is that possible?! I just took midterms yesterday and today. Crazy summers.