Les Bouchées Quotidiennes

When I made fajitas a week or so ago, Mike claimed that we don't eat Mexican food enough, and I must agree. So now I'm trying to incorporate it into our weekly meal plan a little more often. Last week we made these sriracha sweet potato black bean tacos with homemade guacamole. Mike had never had sweet potatoes with black beans, which is always amazing! The sriracha marinade is a little sweet, which gives the sweet potatoes a great flavor. These were definitely a favorite for both of us!

Mike was away this weekend, which almost always equals mac and cheeze. This weekend I was out of cashews however, so I had to do some quick searching for a vegan recipe without cashews. I stumbled upon this baked mac with peas that is made with coconut milk, GF flour, and other delicious things. I put them in individual baking dishes topped with GF panko, which made them even tastier! The crazy part is Mike actually ate this, even though it had nutritional yeast in it (note: this is unheard of for him). 

I've been falling behind on making us salads lately, so I made us gigantic bowls with Cajun roasted broccoli, carrots, cucumber, chickpeas, iceberg lettuce (underneath everything), fried polenta rounds and vegan ranch hummus. I was going to follow the original recipe, but it was a little too involved/salt-heavy for me. The hummus is a great topping for this or any other salad, and it really does taste like ranch! It also makes a great dip for carrots, cucumber, and chips. 

I felt guilty about not making us a St.Patricks day meal, so we celebrated (more than a week late). We had garlic roasted cabbage, garlicky pepper tofu and salt n vinegar kale mashed potatoes. This is a little more involved than most of my weeknight meals, but I guess the craving really hit! This tofu recipe is awesome because it requires no marinading and it has a lot of flavor (especially with hot sauce!). The roasted cabbage was amazing and had to be put up before we both ate all of it. Oh and the mashed potatoes were obviously my favorite. They weren't hard to make and the flavor is awesome. Next time I will definitely put them under the broiler, as the recipe says. 

For roasted cabbage: preheat oven to 400. Slice cabbage into 1/2" "steaks" or wedges (good luck because mine didn't stay intact). Spray a large baking tray or two with non-stick oil. Place cabbage pieces on top. Smash 3 garlic cloves and rub each cabbage piece with garlic (I kept the garlic in the pan to roast with the cabbage). Brush each piece of cabbage with olive oil. Roast 30 minutes, flip, brush with a little more oil, and roast 30 minutes more until starting to brown. Smaller pieces may brown more quickly, so be sure to remove them first. Roasted cabbage is also incredible with hot sauce (like everything else).

Sometimes cooking in the middle of being really busy is actually very rewarding. It lets me shut my brain off and not think about the 500 things I need to do. Last night's distraction consisted of this lovely French lentil soup with fresh fennel, kale and chipotle "yogurt" (I used vegan mayo instead). This soup was super easy to make and you definitely can't skip the mayo because it gives it a lot of flavor. I love French (de puy) lentils because of their shape and when they cook, it smells like tea!...okay, am I the only person who thinks this? Maybe I'm nuts. Anyways, this is a great easy soup for any weeknight!