Raw spring rolls and cream of cucumber soup

We’ve been trying to eat a few raw meals a week lately. Both of us feel way better when we do that. I really like Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People for simple dishes of mostly easy to find ingredients. And you don’t need a dehydrator.

This is the cucumber soup and spring rolls with mock peanut sauce. The soup has avocado in it so this turned out to be more filling than it looks.

The pie potluck

Yes, yes we did. Pies savory and sweet. Pies, pies, pies.

I made the Scalloped Potato Pie from Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites.

And, the Gingerbread Apple Pie from Vegan With A Vengeance.

More pie goodies…. quiche, I think.

Frito Pie

Spanikopita

My plate o’ pie

Of course there’s a dessert plate. Duh. Steph made two different ice cream pies. Both needed to be tried. Plus the gingerbread apple pie. With ice cream. *BLORT*

Again with the Papa Chorizo Frittata

True, I have blogged about Alicia’s Papa Chorizo Frittata before, but it was 3+ years ago so let’s do it again! There were a few changes this time. It’s now my habit to bump up the nutritional yeast in any eggy recipe. And I also add a bit of black salt. Instead of roasted red peppers, I just used fresh bell pepper fried up with the potatoes and chorizo.

This makes an awesome potluck dish since it is good warm or at room temperature.

I also busted out a quick batch of biscuits to go with it.

And we had a pile of raw kale salad on the side. Kale is a bandwagon I don’t mind hopping on. It’s delicious!

Winging a chili mac

Not every meal is planned. Sometimes you look around your kitchen and see what you can do with what you’ve got. This was one of those meals. Pasta, black beans, Daiya, tomatoes, tomato paste, bell pepper, onion, a jalapeño … sounds like a chili mac! And indeed it was.

Chili powder, garlic, cumin, cayenne, maybe some oregano … sorry, this is definitely no recipe.

If you find yourself afraid to stray from recipes, just keep cooking things. Once you’ve cooked enough things you will eventually be able to collect ingredients and make a meal out of them without outside help.

Christmas Day/Birthday dinner

Christmas Day we celebrated not working and Nick’s birthday with a chill traditional dinner. Vegan of course. Nick was surprised that Danielle made him a cookie cake that he’d mentioned wanting months ago.

And here it is! Cute and delicious.

We found Christmas Vacation moose mugs, so those had to be busted out.

We brought the green bean casserole, a vat of gravy and sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping.

Crescent rolls.

My starter plate. I guess I was easing into it. There’s some tofurky under that gravy.