Reusing Containers[Vegan Mofo]

Reusing is the second component of the Three R's of Recycling [reduce, reuse, recycle]. I love to reuse or re-purpose containers (or anything, really) and make them useful beyond their regularly expected lifespan.

I recently began reusing glass soy sauce bottles for canola and olive oil as well as for balsamic vinegar. Once I finish a bottle of soy sauce, I run it through the dishwasher to clean it out thoroughly and fill it with various liquids.

The top picture shows the bottle with canola oil. It's handy because the spout/pour top looks like this:


That top allows me to pour oil in a controlled way for cooking or oiling pans. I use the same bottle for balsamic vinegar:


And I used a glass Crystal Louisiana Hot Sauce bottle for olive oil.

I am rather obsessed with reusing any and all glass containers: pickle jars, salsa jars, any condiment jar. They are great for storing soups, dry beans, flour, sugar, leftovers. Plus, if I get sick of them, they can still be recycled.

VWAV: Curried Split Pea Soup 2, served with roasted vegetables and melba toast

I've made this before, and it is the only thing I've made from Vegan With a Vengeance the popular vegan cookbook that is ubiquitous in the vegan food blogosphere and beyond. I actually may have made a few other recipes, but this is the only one I always have the ingredients for by default and it is SO EASY to make, I keep going back to it.

This time around, I served it with roasted vegetables that I tossed and marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The vegetables I used: red, yellow, and green bell peppers; zucchini and yellow squash. I cut all the veggies into as Placed on cookie sheet and roasted in oven until tender then placed under broiler to get some of that charred roasted flavor.


I garnished the soup with shredded carrot, which is how it is recommended to serve in the cookbook. I highly recommend this because it gives a great added texture and flavor layer to the soup. I also served with pieces of melba toast, which I am always in love with because they are miniature in size and adorable.

A second photo, this time of the whole plate. (I LOVE the lighting I was able to get for this photo. I've found it is still hard for me to get decent lighting for most of my photos, but I'm working on a makeshift lightbox for the future.)

Curried Split Pea Soup from Vegan With a Vengeance

Homemade curried split pea soup, recipe from Vegan With A Vengeance. I dressed the soup up with dulse flakes, spicy tamari roasted pumpkin seeds, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The soup was paired with an apple and a small spinach salad with cherry tomatoes and balsamic/olive oil vinaigrette.

Christmas 2008 - Christmas Eve Dinner

A bit late with posting all of this, but better late than never, right?

First up, Christmas Eve. We went to a family dinner at the Nicollet Island Inn, a very fancy restaurant in Minneapolis. None of the menus shown give any indication of vegan food as an option, but I spoke to the executive chef and wound up with a wonderful five course all vegan meal.

First Course: Haricot Verts tossed with fresh ginger, balsamic vinegar, hazelnuts, and fresh herbs. *excellent*

Second Course: Parsnip Purée -- a variation on the parsnip bisque served to everyone else. Puréed parsnip with julienned Granny Smith apples in the center along with olive oil and walnuts and puffed wild rice. *beautiful* People at our table remarked at how much nicer the presentation was for our dish.

Third Course: Shaved Root Vegetables - presented like a slaw of sorts. Included: carrots, parsnip, sweet potatoes. *good* not the star of the night, but still tasty.

Fourth Course: Mushroom Risotto with black truffle and some other mushrooms. *excellent!* I am a huge mushroom fan, so this dish was positively delightful and delicious. My partner is not quite as big a fan of mushrooms, so I ate part of his dish as well.

Fifth Course: Passion Fruit Sorbet -- served in champagne glasses. *awesome* A delightful end to a fabulous meal.

Overall, it was easily one of the top three gourmet vegan meals I've ever had. Probably top two - Chamber Kitchen being the other. It was an excellent experience, and I would definitely consider going back for a special occasion. There are a few pictures up at the Flickr site, but I do not want to post them here because the quality is awful. The lighting was WAY too low to get a decent shot. Ah well, the food was so EXCELLENT. If you are willing to overlook the poor quality, the pictures are located HERE.