Stewing

Wow! Three posts in one day. SOMEONE had a little catching up to do. This was actually tonight's dinner and dang, it was tasty (at least for my first attempt at "beef" stew!). I can't say I invented this one completely on my own. Since I've never made a stew before, I looked at a bunch of different recipes to see what the common factors were and went from there. It'll need some tweaking, but I'm happy with my start!

Ingredients:

1/2 leek, sliced finely

medium yellow onion, diced

4 medium size carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch slices

2 large celery stalks, sliced finely

2 large cloves garlic, minced

3 rosemary sprigs

3 bay leaves

2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/4 inch cubes

2 tbs flour, divided

1/2 bottle red wine

4 cups veg. stock

1 package seitan

salt and pepper, to taste

4 tbs canola oil, divided

Season seitan with salt and pepper and coat lightly with 1 tbs flour. Heat a dutch oven over medium heat and add 2 tbs oil. Add the seitan to the oil and saute until browned. Remove seitan and set aside. Add onions, celery, and leeks to the remaining 2 tbs oil and saute until golden brown. Add garlic and saute for another minute. Stir in the seitan. Cook for another two minutes, then cover with remaining flour and stir to coat. Add red wine and stir. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Add vegetable stock, potatoes, carrots, bay leaves, rosemary, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil again, then reduce heat and simmer for about an hour and a half.

Remove rosemary sprigs and bay leaves before serving, kids! Enjoy!

Mex-suey

I'm going to file this one under "stupid easy" because it was very last minute and not very well thought out. Like last week, our Monday night was a bit hectic and I was more concerned with getting grocery shopping done so that I could come home and watch "Chuck" than I was with cooking dinner. I had some Daiya cheddar left over from the strata and figured I should find a way to use it.

1 un-drained can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
3/4 cup uncooked pasta
1/2 a package (170 oz.) soy chorizo crumbles
1/2 cup of daiya cheddar, divided
1tbs olive oil

Cook the pasta per package instructions. While the pasta cooks, saute the pepper in the oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes and soy chorizo to the pepper and cook until pasta is done. Add the pasta to the soy-rizo mixture and toss well. Add a bit of daiya before serving.

Not terrible for a 15 minute dinner...

N-BLT's with scallion garlic nayo

Tonight presented much less time to make dinner than usual, so this wasn't too involved. I put a little extra love into it, though, so that's what matters, right?

What need for two non-BLT's:

4 Slices of bread. I used multigrain here.

3 tbs nayonaise

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1 scallion, chopped

Non-Bacon strips of sorts. I used 4 strips per sandwich, but use as many or few as you'd like.

6 Romaine lettuce leaves

1 Avocado

1 Med. Roma tomato

Combine nayo, scallions, and garlic salt in a small bowl until well mixed.

Cut the avocado in two. Pit, skin, and slice each side into about 5 slices.

Slice the tomato so that you have about 6 even slices.

Cut the lettuce leaves into bread-size pieces.

Cook your "facon" per package instructions- mine was over medium heat in a non-stick pan for about two minutes on each side.

Toast your bread, if it suits your fancy (I think you're crazy if it doesnt!). Smooth nayo onto one side of each slice of bread, then layer the yums and munch!

I apologize in advance for the picture quality. I take pictures with my iPhone... 'nuff said. I'll work on that later, I promise.

I'm very excited for tomorrow's post... snowstorm + working from home = need for an awesome breakfast. It's chilling in the fridge as we speak and waiting to be baked as soon as I wake up. Hope everyone has a safe morning!