Crispy Potato Wedges with Mustard

Just a quick post to share this tasty potato recipe with y'all. :)

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you know that Fridays often mean comfort food for this veggie chick. And, because I'm currently single, cooking only for one, I can eat whatever I want for dinner... and tonight, it was potato wedges!

I spied this recipe in the New York Times recently, and since *I* love potatoes, and my omni fiance does too, I clipped it to give it a try. It was quick and relatively painless to make. I was short on time (cuz I'm baking my first vegan cake tonight!), so I used the microwave option on the first part and it turned out well. I should also mention that I halved the recipe, using only two potatoes. I like that the mustard doesn't overpower the potato, but adds a great flavor. A nice variation on oven "fries." :)

Crispy Potato Wedges With Mustard

4 large Idaho potatoes

1/2 cup Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pierce potatoes with a fork and bake
them until almost cooked, about 30 to 40 minutes. (Alternatively,
microwave them on high for 6 minutes, turning them halfway through.)
Leave oven on.

2. In a large bowl, stir together mustard, olive oil, thyme, salt and
pepper. When cool enough to handle, cut potatoes lengthwise into 4
wedges each. Toss wedges in mustard mixture until thoroughly coated.

3. Raise oven temperature to 500 degrees. Lay potato wedges, with one
cut side down, on a rimmed baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes,
turning them onto other cut side after 10 minutes. Transfer to a warmed platter, and serve.

Yield: 8 servings.

Tempeh Tuesday #3 - Smoky Breakfast Tempeh

Ok, so I didn't have this for breakfast.

The fact is, when I saw it over at Pamela Cooks, I had to have it right at that moment. All the ingredients were in my cupboard already, so it was a no-brainer what I was having for dinner.

This was delicious. I added in a touch of peanut butter and pomegranate molasses, just because. The only thing I would do different next time is make more sauce. Mine seemed to cook off fast and it would've been nice to have some extra.

As I was chowing down, I realized that I'm really becoming a tempeh fan! I find myself craving the taste of it. I may have to add in a Tempeh Thursday, so I have an excuse for devouring tempeh twice a week. LOL

Moroccan Lentil Stew

The last of the crockpot dishes for this week!

(And I definitely need the break... I've made WAY more food than one girl can handle in a week... I'm hoping all this stuff freezes well!)

This veggie stew was really good. Lots of good stuff in it to fill ya up! This is certainly one of those prep recipes tho, since it took more than 30 minutes for me to cut up the squash, potatoes, onion, etc. and get everything in the pot. Still, it was nice to come home to a cooked meal after a long day at work. :)

Moroccan Lentil Stew

1 c. dried lentils, rinsed and sorted
1 lb. butternut squash, peeled and cubed
10 small red potatoes, cubed
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 (14 oz.) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1 tbsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. white pepper
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
2 c. water
8 oz. package frozen cut green beans, thawed

Put everything except the green beans in the crockpot and simmer on low for 8-10 hours (or until all the veggies are tender). Then, switch the setting to high and toss in the green beans, stirring to combine with the rest of the stew. Cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the beans and the entire stew is thoroughly heated. Enjoy!

Tasty Bite meals save the day when camping

I survived! This past weekend, I attended the annual family campout hosted by my BF's omnivore family. Thought not a camping virgin, I felt like an oddball around meal times because of my choice to eat vegetarian. There were about 2 dozen people at the campout and each family took turns making a meal... but none were even close to being vegetarian. :(

Two words for surviving a weekend with omnivores: plan ahead. I worked with my BF's mom prior to the trip, in hopes of finding out what people were planning to cook, so I could try to "blend in" as best as I could. For instance, Saturday's meal was scheduled as "burgers and brats" so I took along a veggie patty for myself. But, to be on the safe side, I also made sure to bring along a few extra, easy-to-cook back-up meals... just in case. I took two Tasty Bite meals as well as some Luna bars, apples, bananas, peanuts and gingersnaps.

I've blogged about the Tasty Bite meals before, and they surely saved the day this weekend. The omnis cooked sloppy joes for Friday's dinner. The kidney bean mixture I had prepared as a veggie version turned out too watery to be slopped onto hamburger buns. I thought the Bombay Potatoes might prove a worthy substitute, at least from the picture on the box, but its sauce turned out to be too runny as well. But, I ate it out of the pouch and was happy to have a hot veggie meal in my belly. :)

Saturday's scheduled burgers and brats actually turned out to be beef stew. :( So much for my veggie patty. :( I was even more glad that I brought along the Tasty Bite meals now, and happily heated up the Bengal Lentils, which worked out extremely well for that particular meal because the bread provided for the meat-eaters stew proved to be most excellent for dipping in the lentil mixture as well. :) And, I can happily report that this dish looked WAY more appetizing than the stew the omni campers were stuck with. Before digging in, my BF looked at my bowl of yummy lentils then back at his bowl of gross-looking stew and said, "Wanna switch?" LOL Two thumbs up for Bengal Lentils!!!

I'm definitely a big fan of these meals now. They taste good. They are super easy to cook. And they can make camping easier for veg*ns.... or any meal. I now keep a few pf these in my desk drawer at work in case I forget to prepare a lunch at home or don't feel like going out to lunch (see pic in this post... today's lunch! LOL). Since they don't need refrigeration, they're perfect for this purpose!

I have another camping trip coming up in two and a half weeks; my BF and I will be roughing it in Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park in Michigan's beautiful upper peninsula. Last year, we went to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which feels like a second home to me because I've done so much hiking there in the past five or six years. For our weeklong trip last fall, we relied solely on Lipsmackin' Vegetarian Backpackin' as our bible for easy veggie meal prep in camp. (My BF, who is omni, goes veg for the week we camp... isn't that cool?) This year, I'm also using a cool new book I ordered from FreezerBagCooking.com. I plan to blog a bit more about veggie hiking/camping as the trip nears... so watch for those posts soon!

Po-TAY-toes

Last night I made oven-baked potatoes for dinner. Didn't use a specific recipe per se, but one of the things about Friday nights is that I usually use that as my 'comfort food' night. It's the end of the work week... and usually I am *ready* to go home and relax and delight in the fact that I don't have to work for two days! So, I've gotten into the habit of enjoying comfort foods for Friday dinners. Friday nights are great for pizza... or sometimes I'll pick up my favorite Thai dish from the local Thai restaurant. Last night, though, I wanted to make something I could post on this blog. ;) I bought a sack of potatoes last weekend, and fearing they'd be going bad soon, I thought oven-baked fries would be easy and use up some of the potatoes... ok, one potato. I don't bake a lot of potatos for that reason... I hate buying a sack and feeling like I have to eat nothing but potatos until they're gone. As a single person, I find it difficult to get through a sack of potatos before they go bad. Yeah, I know, I could buy them one at a time at the store, but for some reason I don't... at least not very often. I had this particular sack of potatoes in the house because I've been using some of them as a base ingredient for a mixture that I stuff my dog's hollow bones/kongs with before freezing them.

Anyway, to make these oven-baked potatoes, I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, sliced my potatoes, tossed them with Carapelli extra virgin olive oil and Mrs. Dash Onion and Herb blend. I arranged them on a cookie sheet and baked them for 15 minutes, turned them over and then baked for an additional 15 minutes. Not too bad. They weren't super crunchy, so they probably could've stayed in the oven a little bit longer.