Vegetarian Cooking
I’ve been getting into a little vegetarian cooking lately. Nothing major, and not because I’m becoming a vegetarian or anything, but more as a way to fix a wider variety of somewhat healthy foods for la familia.
This was the first original meal I’ve fixed in a long time.. original meaning completely out of the ordinary:
Doesn’t it look fabulous? Look at those colors! It’s the Chipotle Bean Burgers from Vegetarian Meal Plans. They were awesome. And that was without chipotle as I couldn’t find any. I’ve fixed the black bean burgers from there too, but these were better. There’s a yogurt dressing on the burgers, on some spinach, and butternut squash for the side.
You might wonder if the Boo ate any of it. And that would be a big fat no. But sometimes he refuses goldfish and chocolate chip cookies too so I’m not defaulting my cooking quite yet! Keep offering the good stuff, I think.
I also recently obtained La Dolce Vegan as recommended by EEK! and it is equally divine. In fact I just ate some chocolate pudding from in there and Oh. My. God. I am never buying boxed again (er… if I have the two hours it takes to set :)
I am obviously not a vegan by any stretch of the imagine, but I find the book refreshing, full of good ideas, and so far I’ve not had any problems replacing the vegan ingredients with our usual faire — milk, eggs, cheese, butter, etc. That’s probably sacreligious, but what can I say? It’s working for me.
The one place I take issue with this book is in the introductory section, the author states that saying one doesn’t like tofu is ridiculous, that if you don’t like tofu it’s because your mind isn’t open enough. And I do think saying something that broadly is what’s ridiculous. I’ve tried lots of tofu dishes, I was vegetarian for several years, I’ve eaten at very good vegetarian restaurants, I’ve got a very open mind regarding food. And I’ve learned that I generally just don’t like tofu. That doesn’t mean I won’t find a recipe that I do like in the future — but so far I just don’t like it. I don’t like the texture of the smooth tofu or the texturized protein or whatever it’s called. Call me crazy if you want to, but it’s not because I don’t have an open mind about it.
So I’m on a good track I think. I have run across a few very good websites, and I’ve got a couple good cookbooks. I think I’d like one more veggie cookbook, that particularly helps with veggie sidedishes. I don’t eat a lot of vegetables because I rarely like how they’re cooked, so I really need help there.
However, until then, I’m gonna just finish up this chocolate pudding. YUM.