vegan Archives - Page 35 of 82

Anshu’s Red Lentil Sambar

After some disappointing Indian food out, it was time to start making it at home again. Looking for something fairly easy, I found Anshu’s Red Lentil Sambar. And bonus, it would use up some of my stockpiled red lentils! Cauliflower was stupid expensive at the store and I’m not an eggplant fan so I skipped both of those and replaced with beets, potato and baby lima beans. This is one that definitely gets better over night. The first night it was okay, but the leftovers have been really good. It made a ton so I’m probably going to end up freezing some so I don’t have to throw it away. I can only eat the same thing for so many days before I get tired of it. I’ve just been eating it over brown rice.

Zucchini Frittata

I’m not sure why I don’t make vegan frittata or quiche more often. It’s delicious. It’s easy. It makes great leftovers. You can easily switch up the add-ins.

This week I made a Vegan Zucchini Frittata. It’s a good time of year to find ways to use up zucchini anyway. I only made minimal changes to that recipe. I added a small amount of oil to the pan to fry up the shallots and added an extra tablespoon of nutritional yeast because it is delicious. This one probably could have cooked a little longer. It was a bit soft in the middle but still held its shape. I was just impatient for dinner.

I ate it with some pretty lazy sides: tater tots and steamed broccoli.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Okay, time to try baking with the Earth Balance coconut spread. Chocolate chip cookies are always a good idea. This is just the standard recipe you’ll find on the back of a bag of chips. I substituted the Earth Balance for the butter and flax eggs for the eggs.

The day they were made these were perfect. But the next day they already seemed to start getting stale. Just a little. And that level of staleness stayed that way for a few days then they started getting drier. It may be that with the coconut oil, the fat is just too solid at room temperature and is giving this stale effect. Hitting them for 10 or 15 seconds in the microwave might revive them. I’ll try that today.

First Silver Comet Trail ride

Usually I don’t like to drive my bike somewhere to ride it. It just seems a little wrong. But there’s only so far I can ride to ride. So Monday I packed up the bike and drove up to the beginning of the Silver Comet Trail in Smyrna. After looking at the maps and mileage online, I decided to go for the Rambo trail access, 22.22 miles away. Yeah, that’s right, RAMBO. Okay, I didn’t pick it because of the name but because the next one was another 11 miles which would’ve put me over 60 miles. That’s a bit too ambitious. Nick came with me despite repeated warnings about how slow I am.

When I do rides like this, I like to go mostly without stopping to the halfway mark, then if I want to take pictures, do it on the way back. And that’s how it worked this time except in this one place. We headed onto a bridge over a railroad track just as a train was approaching. We stopped to watch it pass under and they give us a couple of honks and they pass under. Yay!

See, Rambo Trailhead. Not even making that up.

The trail is downright luxurious compared to the crappy city streets I’m used to. Okay, driving to ride has its merits. We were lucky in that it was overcast which kept the temperatures down, but the trail is largely shaded too.