Tempeh "marmalade" knockoff

I know!!! I've been a very bad blogger... not blogging in what seems like FOREVER. I only did one post in March, how sad. :( And I apologize, because I'm not entirely sure just how much blogging I'll do this year, with my wedding only 6 months away now. The wedding plans are coming along fine, it's the other daunting tasks (like going through all my crap to get rid of stuff so I can move from my LARGE house into my fiance's SMALL house) that are making my head spin. O_o Thankfully, it's warming up in my neck of the woods and the spring weather has cheered me up a bit.

Anyhoo, you don't come here to read me vent, so I'll get on with the food that I'm actually really excited to post, discuss and recommend! As you may have noticed, this week VeganYumYum posted this mouth-watering recipe for "Marmalade Tofu with Kale and Lemon Pearl Couscous." It sounded divine and looked gorgeous! I forwarded the link to my fiance, with a note saying "This looks awesome, we'll have to try it soon." Today, I found myself needing to cook some tempeh before it expired. I love tempeh, but I'm still learning how to cook with it in recipes. Too lazy to hop on the Net and spend time searching for a tempeh recipe to try, my brain called up the marmalade dish, wondering what it would taste like with tempeh instead of tofu. I went to VeganYumYum and ogled the ingredients again... I didn't have marmalade, pearl couscous or almonds, but I had peach preserves, plain whole wheat couscous and extra mushrooms I needed to use. So I whipped up the marinade as listed on VeganYumYum sans the chili flakes, using peach preserves instead of marmalade... and I just stir-fried some kale with a little oil and green onion until it softened, then added in some mushrooms and garlic to the stir-fry. I took some short cuts and made changes, but they worked in a pinch and my dinner tonight was delicious! Definitely a thumbs up! The marmalade glaze was awesome.

I still want to make the correct "Marmalade Tofu with Kale and Lemon Pearl Couscous" recipe soon, but it's nice to know that the basics of his recipe are versatile enough to accommodate substitutions according to what you may have in your cupboard. So, thanks VeganYumYum! :)

Pancakes, kale and soup.... oh my!

This entry is a bit of a round-up of what I've been eating this week... last Friday turned out to be a "snow day" me. Because I work in higher education, our campus sometimes closes when the weather gets too rough. Let me tell you, it's a great feeling to receive a phone call from your boss early in the morning, telling you to go back to bed because campus will be closed. :) In celebration, I treated myself to a pancake breakfast! I chose this recipe for low-fat whole wheat pancakes over at Vegweb.com. I took their suggestion of adding fresh blueberries into the mix, and I couldn't resist adding a few more after the maple syrup had been poured. Deeeeelish!

This week, I also tried this recipe for Bean and Kale Scramble over at fatfreevegan.com. It was my first time--ever--having kale.... and I liked it! Maybe it just tasted so yummy because I knew this dish was low-fat AND packed with nutrients. :) I should also mention that this recipe used white beans that I made in the crockpot, which makes cooking dry beans easy! After soaking them overnight, I put the beans in the slow cooker with an onion, quartered, and some minced garlic with water to cover. Mmmmmm. I'm cooking ALL my beans in the crockpot from now on. I made a two-pound bag of dry beans, and once cooked, froze most of them in one-cup servings in the freezer. Now they'll be ready to use in future recipes. :) Many thanks to my mom for giving me the book Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, which has the recipe for cooking dry beans in the crockpot.










Another new recipe I tried this week was Susan's Dirty Little Secret Soup from her blog, Fatfree Vegan Kitchen. LOVE IT! I've had a difficult time getting into frozen veggies. My personal fav is fresh. But, frozen veggies are perfect for this soup, which is super duper easy to make. Love it, love it. I've been bringing it to work for lunch all this week... yummy. Can't wait to make more.










I'm looking forward to this weekend as I'll be celebrating my birthday (albeit a tad early, but sometimes it's hard to get everyone together) with my immediate family. The deal is, the birthday person gets to pick their choice of dinner and then we usually play games or something. My preference is usually Mexican food, and last year, my mom prepared an awesome vegetarian Mexican feast. I just found out that this year, she'll be making a vegan Mexican feast for me. I cannot wait. My mom is the best! Oh, and I'm going to be making my own birthday dessert this year, from the lovely Joy of Vegan Baking book that my sis got me for Christmas. :)