Post-Thanksgiving Break Lunch

Lunch today was very minimalist. It had to be... we didn't really have any produce. Luckily, during the first hour of cooking we got in some produce including carrots, bell peppers and spinach which I so lovingly used.

So today we had:

• White Rice
• Chili-like Bean Concoction
• Kidney & garbanzo beans
• carrots
• green bell peppers
• Two 54-oz cans of diced tomatoes
• chili powder, salt, pepper, cumin, onion powder
• Salad
• Spinach
• Carrots
• Dressing: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper

This is generally not a huge variety for a co-op meal. It was going to be just beans and rice until the delivery came in. It kind of saved the day. Granted, it also made for a fairly stress-free meal. I just don't get to cook as extravagantly and I would like to sometimes.

This weekend: the special meal of awesome.

Vegan Thanksgiving Delicious

Now usually, I tend to kind of hate this holiday. What with the genocidal and colonizing implications and the needless killing of millions of turkeys. However, to avoid angering the family members who do enjoy today, it is nice to just have one day where everyone you care about gets together with a bunch of yummy food. Preferably vegan.

And it doesn't hurt that it's snowing right now.

So in honor of having lots of yummy vegan food, last night my friend and I made some vegan alternatives for foods that will be so deliciously vegan today. The first item?

Sweet Potato Pie of Delicious
We used the recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance and left out the topping portion and omitted the walnuts from the crust. We also discovered that there's probably a typo in regards to how much oil one should put in the crust because we ended up making two crusts with the first one coming out as disaster piece. Eventually I shall post the recipe we ended up using with the adjustments.

Up next, we then stayed up until 1:30 in the am instead of waking up early to make a (hopefully) delicious seitan-tofu roast thinger. It took forever to cook! There's still one last stage in the cooking process though and we're going to do that later this afternoon at the grandparents' house. I found the recipe on the vegancooking livejournal community. The recipe is too long to include here so I'm just going to add a link to it here.

We're working on a vegan version of mashed potatoes right now. That's pretty damn simplistic in my mind, and I'm not actually the one making them right now. So I'm just going to say that they include a few potatoes boiled to mush and then add some soymilk, earth balance, salt and pepper delicious. Possibly with some garlic as well.

So enjoy your delicious vegan foods. Adopt-a-Turkey with Farm Sanctuary. And remember - tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day as well as Fur-Free Friday.

Success?

So today's lunch was very basic, but still delicious. Although I wish we had ketchup. We never have ketchup in this place. Anyways, the meal:

• Rice
• I think it I usually end up making about 20 cups uncooked rice
• Roasted Root Veggies
• I feel like I make this all the time!
• 1 pan of sweet potatoes
• 3 pans of sweet potatoes, beets & onions
• Black Bean Burgers
• This seem so much more delicious when I don't have to cook for 100 people.
• Made 4 pans worth
  

The OSCA health inspector also came by while we were cooking the meal and noticed that we had an entire container of not-vegan cookie dough that expired tomorrow, so we made massive cookies. Unfortunately, they weren't vegan. =(

Upnext:
What happens when you take a vegan transman to visit his (vegan) partner's extended family (full of omnivores) for Thanksgiving? Stay tuned and find out the details.

'Twas The Tuesday before Thanksgiving...

And we didn't get a food order last Friday. So our food selection is looking pretty slim. I've secured us some tofu, rice, sweet potatoes and beets. With the possibility of what looks like black beans in the leftover fridge. Hmmm. And there might be some spinach still left as well.

We'll see how the meal turns out. I feel very Iron Chef right now.

Lunch 11/13

So lunch seemed to turn out all right. There was too much eggplant, I should have added lemon juice to the chickpea & broccoli thing, and the sauce didn't need quite as much thyme and I wish we had parsley for that. Also on the spur of the moment I added some wheat-free tamari soy sauce to the cabbage to give it some extra flavor and I think it turned out quite deliciously. And no pictures because unfortunately I had to go to Pittsburgh today right after lunch.

And when I opened up the box of spaghetti I realized (because I for some reason don't read the labels closely enough) that it was whole wheat pasta. Not quite the same texture that I like. Of course, also a portion of quinoa for our gluten-free diners instead of pasta.

We get a delivery on Friday so I need to MP stuff this weekend like crazy for Tuesday lunch next week. Especially considering it's Thanksgiving next week and we won't be having co-op meals for the second half.

Welcome!

So I have a new blog now dedicated mostly to my co-op cooking shenanigans. Although perhaps it may expand to include my other culinary adventures when I'm not at school.

Anywhosier. My amazing friend and I cook lunch for about 100 people every Tuesday in the lovely Harkness Co-op. I'm strangely starting this off more than half-way through the semester.

Here is our meal plan for Tuesday November 13, 2007:

• Pasta
• One 10 lb box of spaghetti
  
• Eggplant & Tomato Sauce w/ onions & garlic
• 1/2 box of eggplant
• One 54 oz cans of tomato sauce
• Two 54 oz cans of diced tomatoes
• 1/2 head of garlic
• 10 onions - julienne
  
• Cabbage Stir-Fry w/ the holy trinity: onions, garlic & ginger
• Most of a box of red cabbage
• 1/4 head of garlic
• 5 onions - largely diced
• 1 c minced ginger
  
• Steamed broccoli w/ chickpeas, onions & garlic
• Most of a box of broccoli
• 16 c cooked chickpeas
• 5 onions - largely diced
• rest of a head of garlic
• salt & pepper