Les Bouchées Quotidiennes

Hi everyone! So did I mention that I got another recipe testing position? Well I did and it's for one of my favorite bloggers: An Unrefined Vegan. This was my first recipe I made for her, and I can't say much, but it was a delicious, lemony creamy pasta with steamed broccoli! I also wanted to mention that I finally bought a vegetable steamer basket last week. Since taking my nutrition class, I realized how important it is to keep the vitamins and minerals intact in my vegetables so they don't diffuse into the water (which is how you can lose most of them). So I invested in a steamer to try to keep as many vitamins and minerals as I can! I highly recommend getting one if you can.

I spent a few hours at the farmer's market last weekend and had a great time. Mike was out of town so I prepared myself a fancy lady dinner: a big salad with organic romaine, farmer's market cherry tomatoes and a silken-tofu fresh basil dressing. I also roasted some potatoes with fresh rosemary, whole garlic cloves and olive oil (highly recommend trying this!). And of course, one of my favorite cocktails: elderflower lemonade and gin!

I am so happy that I've been keeping up with most of my summer goals this year! I'm lame and make a list every single April/May of things I want to try over the summer. One of them was to make sushi, which I FINALLY did last weekend! An employee at Sur La Table recommended this silicone sushi mat because it doesn't stick to the nori/rice, and she was right! Luckily my friend Sofia has made sushi before, so I let her roll some first. We used this spicy tempeh nori roll recipe from Veganomicon. This recipe is great for first time sushi makers because it's easy, has minimal ingredients, and oh my gosh it's tasty. It almost tastes better than some sushi I've had in Greensboro! We were very pleased with how these turned out!

Sofia and I had a fancy food party last weekend, which consisted of making sushi and my hands down no questions asked favorite zucchini fritters. I have made these once before and there is just no comparison to any I've ever had before. The ingredients are so simple, but the outcome is absolutely incredible. I don't know if it's because of the cast iron skillet or grating the zucchini through a food processor, but these are the tastiest little zucchini fritters in the world! To make them GF, just sub bob's red mill GF all-purpose flour. It's that easy!

I've obviously been on a fresh herb kick lately, so I decided to make these herbacious eggs with cilantro-lime brown rice. These eggs have cumin seeds, turmeric, fresh oregano, coriander, and fresh thyme. As you can imagine, the resulting flavor is craaazy good. I could have eaten four whole eggs this way by myself. The cilantro lime rice is the perfect background for these eggs, and I'm sure adding vegan sour cream/cashew cream on top would make it even tastier. If you're vegan, I'm positive that you could make a tofu scramble or omelette using the same herbs and get the same results!

Somehow I've never put chia seeds in smoothies, but now I think I always will. It makes the smoothie thick, almost fluffy, and delicious! This is a strawberry ginger smoothie, which is the perfect accessory to a good book!

This is another recipe testing dish: a white bean salad with a creamy Italian dressing! I seriously can't wait for this book to come out! Everything has been so delicious so far.

I had some leftover tempeh from our sushi rolls, so I made some tempeh "bacon" with it. I just cubed the tempeh into small pieces, chopped leftover onion and two cloves of garlic. I sauteed the onion and tempeh in oil, on medium until the tempeh was lightly browned. I then added some soy sauce, liquid smoke and apple cider vinegar until it was absorbed into the tempeh (just enough of each to make it taste like bacon and light on the liquid smoke). Then I added the garlic in the last few minutes of cooking. Served on some GF toast slathered with vegan mayo, it was the perfect breakfast and lunch with a side of Thai pickles!

I bought a beautiful bunch of rainbow chard at the market last weekend for only $2, so instead of using it for my favorite minestrone recipe, I decided to try something new. I made this bowl of quinoa, swiss chard, and roasted sweet potatoes with a tangy miso sauce. This recipe is super easy to make and is great for all seasons! I left out the chickpeas due to laziness and tested another recipe instead, which was lemon-garlic baked tofu. And obviously, everything was drizzled with sriracha!