Playing catch up a little bit longer! Our internet should be hooked up at some point tomorrow. f.i.n.a.l.l.y.

We had Ann + Kurtz over for dinner, Saturday night [Jan 2nd], to celebrate Ann’s birthday. They are adventurous and quite knowledgeable when it comes to their food, so I figured it was appropriate to try a recipe from my new cookbook. I decided on, Sweet Potato Black Bean Burritos. The book is split up with recipes by the season but this one was actually in the “anytime” section. I made sure to ask A + K if there was anything they definitely did not want to eat and their reply was “no meat.” :) Not a problem! They aren’t vegetarians, but were a little “meated out” over the holidays.

Oh yeah, the meal was completely vegan. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a full on vegan meal like this before.

First I made the cashew “cheese” topping.

3 ingredients:

canola oil
nutritional yeast
raw cashews

I used the mini food processor for this job.

Finished product:

While I was making this and preparing the guacamole, I had sweet potatoes baking away in the oven.

I made a simple guacamole from the Clean Food book as well. My dad got me a nifty little gadget for garlic. It works much better than the clamp/press type. You know the one with the 2 handles that you stick the clove in the little hole, flip the handle around, squeeze and garlic comes out. I always seem to lose more garlic in that thing than what I can get out of it.

This worked so well!

There are 2 sides to it, and you basically puncture the clove in between the 2 sides and then twist and scrape out with a knife. Love it!

I had to squeeze a lot of limes for the guac + potato/bean mixture.

Pre-smashing

Post-smashing – The author of the book said to put the pits back in the bowl of guac, cover + refrigerate if you’re not going to use it right away. It is supposed to help it from turning brown. We only had it back in the fridge for 10min, so I can’t say if this really helps or not.

Made a super quick salad + dressing.

Arugula
1 green pepper chopped

I made a creamy chipotle vinaigrette dressing, however I forget exactly how I made it. Again, I need a journal in the kitchen! I remember the ingredients but not the exact measurements. I used a hand blender to combine the ingredients.

chili peppers in adobo sauce
safflower mayonnaise [hmm, not sure if this was vegan or not]
unfiltered apple cider vinegar
olive oil
s+p

I’m pretty sure that was everything. It was extremely delicious. It had a nice tang but also had a good kick to it.

The burritos consisted of:

black beans
diced tomatoes
mashed sweet potatoes
red onion
lime juice

They were rolled up and topped with salsa, corn and the cashew cheese, then baked. I can post the whole recipe if people are interested. Just let me know!

I must say, these were MUCH better than I thought they would be. The smooth potato filling was awesome and the flavors totally worked together. Everyone enjoyed it and couldn’t get over how healthy and filling it was.

No one missed the meat or the real cheese!

I spread a little of the guac on mine too!

Happpppy Birthday Ann!

….

Sunday night – Jan 3rd – Another dinner recipe from Clean Food.

I made vegan Shepherd's Pie. The recipe called for using Seitan instead of meat. They were out of it at the store we were at so I picked up 2 different kinds of Tempeh. I know I am always talking trash about soy ;) but I mianly just mean in it’s highly processed, non-organic form. I have been doing a lot of further reading and finding out that when it is fermented [like with tempeh] that it is more easily digested, among a list of other things. More on that soon!

I made some coconut chai tea while I cooked. I dropped in the cinnamon stick for some extra flavor. Covering your mug while steeping always helps move things along!

A little nervous about the tempeh!

It looked like packed rice.

The tempeh mixture is underneath this mound of spinach.

Before being topped with whipped potatoes.

Then it was topped with mashed taters [with plain rice milk, olive oil, s+p] and baked for 20min.

Chris really enjoyed it. I thought it was really good, except I noticed a little bitter flavor from the tempeh. Has anyone experienced that before?

We had some Dope Whine and watched a movie after din. Yes, that is Dakota on the bottle. I posted about that wine awhile ago, but for my new readers, Chris + I got to make 30 bottles of wine as a wedding gift. We got to pick out the type of wine, mix it all up, then come back to the store to bottle + label it. I came up with the label :)