Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I made the Potato Spinach Curry this past week and it was good! I'm not a huge potato lover, so by the time I was at the end of my leftovers I was kind of over it, but it came together quickly and easily and popping the mustard seeds in the beginning was fun. I think this would be a great candidate for the Curry Burgers on the PPK blog when you get down to the last two cups of leftovers.

It's 4 degrees here in Boston-soup weather! I've been having Caldo Verde (is that the name?) soup all week for dinner. Instead of tempeh, I made it with chorizo seitan sausage (from Viva Vegan) that I had in the freezer. That is one righteous bowl of soup. Now I want to go through all my cookbooks and make all the soup recipes I haven't tried yet.

I loved the Caldo Verde!

We tried the lentil eggplant chili. It was only ok over rice, but with tortillas it was really good. Then I put it in a hamburger bun with some cheeze and it was awesome! Oh, and I added some sriracha, it's not exactly spicy. That's not really a problem, since my kid doesn't like spicy foods that much.

Made the yam & black bean soup tonight -- soooo good! I wanted more bean action so I added an extra can to the soup. We ate it with avocado on top and it was really lovely!

LOVE this book! Here's some highlights of my cooking over the past week or so:

-Basic Baked Tofu is now in regular rotation at my house. My kids love it.
-Arabian Lentil & Rice Soup is REALLY all that. Brilliant! (and picky kids like it, too!)
-Quinoa Puttanesca was excellent. Loved serving the Puttanesca sauce over quinoa, what a great idea!
-Carrot-Ginger Dressing was really great, and a nice change.
-Mango BBQ Beans...another brilliant recipe. I used chickpeas instead of kidney beans (my kids think kidney beans look like roaches) and it was a major hit!
-Mushroom and Cannellini Paprikas with Scarlet Barley - I loved this combo, but my kids and husband hated the mushrooms paprikas. I think they are just too picky. The Scarlet Barley is fabulous, and will definitely use that again for my family. A great way to get beets in the family's diet!
-Quinoa, White Bean, & Kale Stew is really great. I was concerned because I'm not a big fennel seed fan, but it totally works in this comforting soup recipe.

I made the veggie potpie stew with the sweet potato biscuits last night for the first time *for company*. I love having so much confidence in recipes, and these did not disappoint. I love those biscuits so so much. Basically everything I've made from AFR has gone into regular rotation. The balsamic vinaigrette is my go-to dressing, and the caldo verde is probably my favorite soup of all time (and it's an easy way to use up all the chard from the garden, plus it freezes really well).

I cannot stop eating the Basic Baked Tofu. Yum!

I made the Arabian lentil and rice soup last night for lunches for the week, and put some chopped kale in towards the end. Yum!

I have to give the Arabian Lentil Soup some love too, made it this weekend cause my omni-man was sick and requested soup. He forewarned me he didn't have that much of an appetite. Well, he wound up eating two huge bowlfuls of it and even said, "Wow I didn't expect to eat this much, but the soup is too good!"

AFR TO THE RESCUE!!

Literally finished my second bowl of this 20 minutes ago. As always with soup, it tasted the best toward the end.

I finally made some recipes from this for dinner - the Lentil Chipotle Burgers and the OMG Onion Rings! Wow.....they were soooo delicious! That burger! So spicy and tasty.

Just made another pot of the Arabian Rice and Lentil Soup. My partner said again that it was "good". That is highest praise around here. It was delicious! (I put a little cinnamon in it - it makes it sooo good!)

Why have I never made the OMG baked onion rings before now?! I hacked up the recipe pretty fiercely, using seasoned white breadcrumbs and whole wheat pastry flour instead of White ap flour and w.w. breadcrumbs, and still they are amazing! My favorite onion rings used to be hand-breaded ones from A&W with a zillion calories when I was omni, and these are so easy, and the BEST this side of A&W! Making them reminded me of my job as one of the afore-mentioned onion-ring hand breaders working at A&W, back when I was young!

I took the last portion of the Arabian Lentil Soup to my mum's and she put it in the freezer. She just texted me "this soup is sooooooo good!"

loolie, those burgers look great. I keep meaning to make that recipe. Maybe I'll make them tonight!

I made the chipotle lentil burgers last week - they are very good. I had made them about a year ago and grilled them which was way good. This time I had some trouble with them sticking to the pan and ended up transferring them to the oven to bake for a bit so the texture wasn't quite the same. I dressed mine up with lettuce, salsa, and some sort of pepperjack type cheeze I had laying around.

I needed something simple for a recovering tummy, so I made a batch of the basic hummus. I like the recipe and variations in AFR, but, honestly, if I want a yummy hummus wrap or something, I'm breaking out the tahini. The AFR recipe is nice for quick lunch or with falafel or anything where the hummus isn't the sole star of the show, except the pizza variation is pretty spectacular.

Anyway, I made quesadillas with it, and they were super yum. I'll do this again! I don't think it matters at all that it's lower fat. If anything else is needed, I might add a bit of Goddess dressing for dipping. I forget how many WW points it worked out, but it was low. Combined with a little salad, this would be a great, very satisfying lunch.

The best part, diet plan wise, is that I used the entire batch on two large burrito sized tortillas, so I dont have a bowl of hummus sitting around yelling at me to dip crackers and tortilla chips and other Bad Things. (my hummus yells at me. Does yours? It could be all the extra lemon juice I add.)

I made the chipotle lentil burgers last night, inspired by loolie's pic! The mixture was really really wet, I knew when I was making it they were too loose really to form a patty but I cooked it anyway and didn't add anything. I think it might be because I put a lid over the courgettes while they were cooking, as otherwise I always manage to burn them, so too much liquid. Or maybe it was my breadcrumbs??

Anyway, I have leftovers for tonight and I'm hoping that being in the fridge overnight will help make them a bit easier to cook.

Oh yeah, despite this they were delicious. I left the seeds in the chipotles because I'm lazy and I was worried they'd be too hot but they were perfectly spicy.

I love the chipotle burgers too, but I always sub some or all (can't remember, been a while since I last made them) the breadcrumbs with vital wheat gluten.

I am constantly telling people about this great cookbook and I finally convinced my sister (not vegan but wanting to eat my veggies and cut out the dairy) to purchase it. Now I am on tenterhooks waiting to hear how she likes it! I asked her what she was going to make first and she told me the hummus. The hummus and the black bean mole are the only recipes in the whole book that I don't care for!!! I hope she picks something else to try first!

I made the Arabian Lentil Soup again. It was divine!!! I don't know what I done wrong last time but it wasn't too salty this time at all. Must have been whatever broth I used.

Ugh, yeah. The hummus is not the recipe to make unless you want a low fat hummus! If you want a low fat hummus, it's great, but someone unused to hummus needs it in all it's oil and tahini laden creamy goodness. Ditto the falafel. It's a great lunch, but it's not falafel.

The lentil shepherd pie is my new favorite thing. I have no idea why I never tried it. I guess because during testing I fell in love with so many recipes that I just remake them over and over and over.

I don't see it getting much love, in fact I don't think it's even been mentioned in this thread, but I really like the curried tofu scramble with rocket (arugula). I think I must have skipped past it a lot thinking it looked so simple but it's really good. I like it in a wholewheat wrap with some roast potatoes on the side, but it'd probably be good with a grain too.

Yes, I finally made the Curried Scrambled Tofu last week. It was good. I used a mix of arugula, baby spinach, and baby chard in mine.

I think I'm the only one who was kind of meh about the Arabian Rice and Lentil Soup. It wasn't bad, but it didn't rock my world or anything. I haven't made it again and I'm not sure if I will.