Guacamole

As much as I love avocados and guacamole, I had never attempted making it myself until last night.   I was just really in the mood for some homemade guac.   I loosely based my recipe on the one in Joy of Cooking.

I started with the avocado.  I had one large and one small Hass avocado, so that was what I used.

Pat had to help me with mashing it up – my hands were getting tired.

I then added:

• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1/2 yellow onion
• 1 Roma tomato
• 1.5 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1 tsp parsley

It was very fresh and very good!  Pat and I actually ended up eating the entire bowl for dinner, with some Tostitos scoops.

Mini Empanadas

After visiting Marini’s Empanada House last week, I told one of my friends who lives in Argentina about my first experience with empanadas.  She sent me an easy recipe for basic empanadas.  Although I don’t eat meat, and I don’t like green olives, and of course we don’t have the same dough here that they use, I thought I could still use it as my inspiration for tonight’s dinner.  Mini empanadas!

Ingredients:

• 1 yellow onion
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 package Smart Ground soy crumbles
• 1/2 cup (or so) vegetable broth
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• dash of salt and pepper
• Nasoya round wraps

I sauteed the bell pepper and onion in the olive oil.

I then added a little bit of vegetable broth, the soy crumbles, cumin, salt and pepper.  I should have used a bigger skillet, but I didn’t realize how much food I would be putting in there.

I had to add a little more veggie broth throughout because it kept cooking off quickly, and my friend had instructed that the “meat” needs to be moist before going in the oven.  While I worked on the stove, I heated the oven to 350 degrees.  Next, I sprayed the pan with PAM and laid out the round wraps to make the mini empanadas.

I then filled them with the “meat” mixture.  I overfilled them a little too much at first.  These wraps are pretty small and couldn’t hold very much.

Next I folded each wrap over.  At first I tried to be fancy and use a fork to put a pretty print around the seam.  But it wasn’t working right and I lost my patience pretty quickly – and just pinched them together.

You can see which ones I overstuffed.  These wraps were very delicate!  The mini empanadas only needed 5-6 minutes in the oven, just long enough to become a little crispy.  I could have cooked them longer, but I tend to like my food a little more doughy than crispy.

After 3 pans of meat empanadas, I decided to use my last few wraps for dessert empanadas.  I used sugar-free strawberry jelly and just a little bit of almond butter in each one.

These AB & J Mini Empanadas were a big hit!  It’s a good thing I didn’t make too many of them.  Aside from the few I packed up with my lunch tomorrow, and the one or two Pat ate, I finished them off.

We ate our empanadas with some mild salsa.

While I was cooking, Pat and I broke out a bottle of wine.  This “Temptation” wine was a nice birthday gift from our neighbors.  I loved the label!

The wine was really good.  It was very smooth for a red.  I’ll definitely be looking for this one again.

Rainbow of Veggies

I left my camera cord at work yesterday, so I had no way to share my wonderful pictures of last night’s dinner with you!  I decided to attempt tofu again.  I tried to cook it a little longer this time, but it still wasn’t crispy – there must be some trick I’m missing out on!  I did season it with pepper, onion powder and garlic powder, which made it taste a little better.

I was inspired by the rainbow tonight – I tried to include as many colors as possible in the veggies.  I’m sure we’ve all heard that we should eat our colors to get a proper mix of nutrients:

• 1 yellow onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper
• cooked in 1 tbsp Smart Balance butter

I also mixed in:

• 3/4 cup vegetable broth
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1.5 tbsp almond butter

I brought the mixture to a boil and let the veggies simmer.

All served on a bed of brown rice.

It was pretty good, but I’m still not in love with tofu :-/  I still have 3 packs of it in the fridge (it was on sale for $1.50 at Kroger), so we’ll see if I can find some way to prepare it to make it not so tofu-y.

Grown-Up Mac n’ Cheese

I made a similar meal not too long ago - a grown-up version of one of my favorite comfort foods.  Mac n’ cheese!  This time I used fake chicken.

I was actually pretty disappointed by this chicken.  It wasn’t terrible (I would use it again), but it tasted a little too salty and it was really chewy.  Maybe I cooked it too long - or not long enough?  The package said 3 minutes, and that’s about how long I had it on the heat.  I used cheddar mac n’ cheese this time.

It was pretty good!  I added in 1 yellow onion and some cherry tomatoes, and sautéed them in the pan with the chicken.

Tasty and nutritious at the same time!