May 31, 2009

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

6 comments:

  1. Ugh, sorry to hear about the weeds!! They're awful things!

    I love all the food you've been eating, it all looks fantastic! I definitely have to try those black bean burgers!

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  2. Mihl,
    I'd love to have you come for dinner! Thanks for the sympathy.

    Vegetation,
    Thanks for your comments. The black bean burgers are favorites at our house.

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  3. Your food looks great! Sorry to hear about your gardening troubles, but at least you had yummy eats to make you feel better :o)

    Courtney

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  4. I'll have to add corn to my next batch of black bean burgers. That sounds really great!

    Sorry about your weed issues. I have them too, but no garden to keep them out of!

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  5. R,
    I'll look into your Web site. Thanks.

    Courtney,
    Thanks for the compliments and the sympathy. I need both!

    Diann,
    Normal weeds are part of normal gardening - wish you had a garden to weed! - but our "weeds' are invasive vines that someone probably planted to "beautify" the house. They pull the paint off the house and eat the window screens and S P R E A D all over the place. Grrrrrrrrr.

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  6. Oh, wow -- where do I begin?

    First -- noxious weeds. Boy can I relate there! We have been fighting bindweed in our yard for a number of years, and I reFUSE to give in to the round-up. I just refuse :)

    Then, tempeh -- we just had barbequed tempeh last night for dinner, and I've got leftovers for lunch. It's great stuff, but I really need to branch out -- so I'm going to be looking for that Lorna Sass book.

    And White Wave & Silk... ARGH. I've got to admit that I stopped buying them years ago when they were purchased by Big Corporate Yuck... but I'm sad to see that my suspicions were really true. Totally validates my commitment to The Simple Soyman and other local/non-gmo/organic products.

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