Weeds and feeds

©Andrea's easy vegan cooking

I was really meaning to create a good recipe for a post today but I've been gardening to exhaustion, and we ended up eating leftovers of a not so great dinner. I would like to be planting and refining new garden spaces, but what I'm doing is WEEDING. I'm sure I've mentioned our invasive-vine woes before, but really, it's so depressing. Every time I think progress has been made, new shoots of these hideous stucco-wreckers start emerging from the ground. There are thick roots deep under the ground and no matter how I dig at them, they won't budge. Sometimes I manage to withdraw a large section of root and spray myself with a pound of dirt in the process. Last year we paid professionals to remove them and they rototilled the perimeter of the house, and removed a startling quantity of roots, but many large roots are still there. I've got a bunch of plants ready to go into beds but we still have a lot of pre-planting work to do. Actually, I think my husband is still out there digging.

Since this is a cooking blog and not a gardening blog, I won't bore you with pictures of evil, inedible weeds. I'm posting some of the stuff we've cooked and eaten lately. We had some fantastic marinated tempeh that was made from a recipe from "Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen." Also, a delicious coleslaw that came from "Vegan Deli" by Joanne Stepaniak. These two dishes were served with linguine with green pea pesto. (We won't be making the pesto again because it tasted too much like . . . green peas, but that's my personal taste preference.)


©Andrea's easy vegan cooking

My son made his excellent black bean burgers and potato salad. We had sweet potato fries with a simple tofu and broccoli stir fry and we made a great stir fry with mushrooms, kale and rice noodles. (The fries were roasted with lots of rosemary which added a fantastic flavor.


©Andrea's easy vegan cooking


©Andrea's easy vegan cooking


©Andrea's easy vegan cooking

I baked a 100% white whole wheat no-knead bread with toasted black sesame seeds.


©Andrea's easy vegan cooking

One night, too tired to cook, we got salads from a nearby Middle Eastern restaurant, called Lulu's. They have a deli service at the back of the restaurant and we purchased tabouli and fattoush.


©Andrea's easy vegan cooking

I would love to pass along the marinated tempeh recipe but I don't have permission to do that so I'll just say what was in it and a offer bit of prep info. For Marinated Pan-fried Tempeh, a package of tempeh is cubed and marinated for several hours in lemon juice, apple juice, tamari, dry mustard, fresh grated ginger and minced garlic. It's then fried in a small amount of oil until browned. Everything we make from the Lorna Sass cookbook turns out great, and I highly recommend it as a basic vegan cookbook.

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If you are a fan of Silk soymilk and Whitewave tofu and tempeh (owned by food giant Dean Foods), you might want to read this disturbing report from Organic Consumers Association and Cornucopia Institute. Most Silk products are no longer organic and the soybeans used for production are now mostly from China, not North America. Dean Foods is also heavily into inhumane factory farming. Thanks to LK Sisters for blogging about this.

©Andrea's easy vegan cooking