Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: I Like Parenthesis (!)

Friday, January 11, 2008

I Like Parenthesis (!)

Happy Friday!













So when I was approaching dinner last night, the goal was to use up the leftover veggies in my fridge that needed to be eaten up. So I ended up making a nice veggie pasta with marinara and roasted asparagus and sautéed kale. It was very good for something I just threw together to use up veggies. Not to mention, Brett provided a little mood music, playing the (acoustic) guitar for me while I cooked. I’m not sure if much beats live music while cooking!

I’m not going to provide a recipe for the pasta (I didn't have one), as one could use whatever they had on hand (which was the idea anyway), and I didn’t measure anything. However, I can at least tell you what I put in it. I sautéed some onion, bell pepper, Portobello mushrooms, garlic, artichoke hearts, and diced seitan in olive oil until the veggies started to caramelize, then I transferred the veggies and seitan to a sauce pan that had (store bought) vegan mushroom onion marinara (it was organic too, and pretty dang good for something that comes from a jar). I let that simmer while I made the sides.

For the asparagus, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees. I washed the asparagus and broke off the woody ends, then put them on a cookie sheet that had been sprayed with canola oil, along with some sliced up garlic and salt. I roasted them for about 20 minutes, checking them every once in a while and tossing to avoid any “burnage”. I left the garlic out when I served the asparagus though.

The sautéed kale was merely shredded kale, sautéed with garlic in olive oil, simmered in a little veggie broth to get it nice and tender. Next time I think I’ll try using less veggie broth and adding a splash of lemon juice or vinegar or something. It turned out a bit salty and it needed some tang.

Tonight, I plan on using up my leftover Tex-Mexy ingredients. I think I’m going to make up some nachos using the rest of the black bean puree, some brown rice I have, and the rest of the marinated seitan I have left over from the fajitas the other day. Stay tuned to see how that turns out. Maybe I’ll get lucky and have some more jam music when I cook tonight, ‘cause you know, Led Zeppelin sounds pretty cool on an acoustic guitar.

3 comments:

Veggie said...

That sounds tasty.

I usually saute kale in a large saucepan with some pureed garlic (the kind that comes in a jar) and a small amount of water (keep an eye the water level though, I once burned a whole batch this way).
It steams the kale and the garlic gives it a light bit of flavour. I like your lemon juice idea, I might try that next time.

J said...

Thats a good idea on how to steam up a bunch of kale. Thanks for the tip. This was my first time preparing kale for myself at home, so it was a bit of an experiment. I think using water instead of veggie broth will cut down on the saltiness significantly.

Thanks!

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