Sesame oil

A few weeks ago, on the PlantStrong facebook page, someone had asked what is the one thing that makes being plant strong difficult.  For me, it is sesame oil.  I cannot help but drizzle a little bit in the pan as I start pretty much any meal.   Today it was sauteed red pepper, onion, mushrooms and leftover broccoli and brown rice.  Once it was somewhat browned (I am usually pretty hungry at this point and it is hard to wait) I added soy sauce, my favorite sesame chili paste that dear friends brought me from San Luis Potosí, and a dash of powdered garlic and ginger.  I finished with a dollop of hummus (store bought, so probably not plant strong) that added a great lemony richness that took the place of a "protein."

I also use sesame oil for the wonderful Jennifer McCann's recipe for Perfect Pinto beans from her book, Vegan Lunchbox Around the World.  Along with garlic, salt, and if I have it, a serrano pepper, she adds sesame oil and liquid smoke which creates the greatest faux bacon flavor.  I make  these beans a lot, including this week.  Thank you to my neighbor who came over to turn the flame off when I accidentally forgot to when I left the house to give blood.  I guess I shouldn't have given blood given the shortage of blood flow to the brain that I demonstrated.  Did I mention that I have the universal O- and the Blood People call me all the time?  

Happy eating!

Nada

Today I came home starving for lunch, as usual.  But I had nothing to fix.  That is what I thought.  Nada. And so hungry.
But after some scrounging, I found some old zuchini in the back of the crisper that I sauteed with an onion and minced garlic. I also threw in a minced serrano pepper an some frozen corn.  I let it simmer with some water, a no-beef bullion, and a can of fancy fire-roasted diced tomatoes, cumin and chili powder and at the end a big handful of spinach- and there I had Calabacitas!  I warmed up some corn tortillas on the comal and lunch was heaven.
The only bad part was cutting my finger with the can opener and then remembering I had diced a serrano using said finger.  Very painful.

Ciao!

Lentils

So for some reason I have four partially-used bags of lentils in my cupboard.  I looked to my old friend, Mollie Katzen for support, and made a double batch of a new recipe (new to me anyway) of walnut-lentil veggie patties.

The house smelled divine- my mother said when she dropped in this morning.  I was sauteeing finely chopped onions and mushrooms and walnuts.  The recipe also called for dry mustard.  The result was a bit moist so I baked, then broiled the heck out of them and now they are tolerable, but I added extra salt, as I do when I suspect the cookbook author is "health conscious."  And now they are too salty. And there are a heck of a lot of them.

So suffice it to say I am still on the lookout for a way to use up my lentils (still four bags but a cup less).  I have always wanted to try a lentil curry- maybe that will be next.