Noodles with Beefy Gravy, Mushrooms, Onions, and Peas

I craved a gravy dish the other day so made this up as I went along.

What You Need:

1.48oz dry pasta (I used Whole Wheat spirals)
50g onion
120g mushrooms (I used sliced baby bellas)
1/2c ricemilk (or other milk)
3t Whole Wheat Flour (or all purpose white)
65g peas
1 veggie burger, crumbled

To Taste:
Bragg's Liquid Aminos
Salt
Pepper

Okay. I started by cooking the pasta normally, drained and rinsed and waiting for the gravy.

I sautéed the mushrooms and onions and added a microwaved veggie burger (I microwave to thaw) which I cut into pieces in a pan. Then I added some of the flour, as well as some rice milk, stirring constantly. I added the rest of the flour and milk, as well as some Bragg's, salt, and pepper. I dumped the peas in to mix with everything. It took some time to get just the right consistency fo the gravy.

I poured the gravy over the pasta on a plate. This was one large serving.

Overall, I need to improve the gravy. It was still a little heavy on the flour taste, but the Bragg's worked really well. Next time I may try adding butter or fat of some sort. Interesting experiment.

Lentil Soup and French Bread

Or maybe it's Italian bread. Or a generic white bread. I'm not sure.

This dish is from a local café on campus called Espresso 22. It's a "spicy" lentil soup with a LOT of bread on the side (a whole mini loaf as you cna see). The soup is very filling and made from scratch and cheap. A medium coffee and a bowl of soup with bread is less than five bucks. I think it's great.

Another picture:

Gnocchi with Red Sauce and Parma!

No, I'm not just excited about this dish (although it was tasty). Parma! actually has an exclamation mark in its name. Parma! is worth getting excited over, though. It is by far my favorite vegan "parmesan". Everyone should try it.

On to the food. Gnocchi are little dumpling like things made from potatoes and flour. They are found in the pasta section of the store. I attempted to make these from scratch last year, with disastrous results. I may try them again as the holidays near. I always try to make a few items to share for all the family holiday meals I attend.

The dish that's shown has a serving of gnocchi, 1/2c of Newman's Own Cabernet MArinara, and a good shake of Parma! Raw Parmesan. VERY simple, very tasty.

Fajitas Revisted: Breakfast

Okay, first of all I LOVE this picture. It looks so kick ass! The reason why it looks this way? First, the food is still very steamy and hot. Second, this was taken at 5am or some very early hour like that so the light from outside is very gray and gives the steam a foggy look. I punched up the color a little bit in photo editing, so the red peppers are POPPING out like mad.

Now, on to the good stuff. I took the fajitas from the day before and added even more mushrooms as well as some spinach. AWEOSME. Very tasty and filling breakfast.

Fajitas with Mushrooms

Sauteéd Morningstar steak strips, red and green peppers, onions and LOTS of mushrooms.

specifics:
137g of onion
7g garlic
188g green pepper
186g red pepper
231g morningstar steak strips (1 whole bag)

Cooked separately for the mushroom hater:
110g mushrooms

The picture above showcases the mushrooms more than anything else. The other photos were a bit blurry and weird looking, but here's a look at one of them:

Sprouted Grain English Muffins with Almond Date Cream Cheese Spread

I don't know exactly why I made this, but I'm glad I did. I just toasted an English muffin (I get these really yummy sprouted grain ones from Whole Foods) and spread 1T of Tofutti Cream Cheese on each half. Then, I took one almond date roll that I had purchased from the co-op and smashed it into the cream cheese so it became a spread. I'm sure that a better way to do this would be to thoroughly mix the cream cheese and date nut roll in a separate container, but this was more fun.

This was an awesome sweet and savory mix of flavors. Overall, a little indulgent but worth it.

Carrot Cake, aka Marvelous Return of the Food Blog!

Whoa. It's been a while! Well, I hope to update more than once a month. I'm going to aim for once or twice a week. I started school again and my schedule is overwhelming to say the least. I am still eating, though!

To start us off, above is a picture of carrot cake a co-worker brought for me. It was from a wedding of some sort. Very thoughtful. The cake was scrumptious. I really enjoy carrot cake and this slice did not disappoint.