While the Cat is Away

...the mice play! My husband took a nine day hiatus to Colorado to grade AP essays (paid, thankfully), which left me with free range in the kitchen this past week! I made several things that don't get a photo, mostly because they were re-dos, but here are some of the new things I tried!

First up, this delectable Ginger-Macadamia-Coconut-Carrot Cake, with coconut frosting, from Vegan with a Vengeance. I made this for my last Veg Group meeting of the year (until the fall, that is). I wasn't happy with the frosting (way too runny) but the cake? Well, here's a comment from someone: "This is one of the best carrot cakes I have ever tasted." And then, "You'd never know it was vegan!" Ha, ha, ha....At any rate, Isa never lets me down with her baked goods (well, rarely), and I was completely pleased with this extremely moist, flavorful cake. Carrot cake and coconut are two things that I just adore, thus why I chose to make it "while the cat was away!" Four stars.

For lunch that week, I ate leftover Thai Chik-Un Pizza (another combo my hubby wouldn't have cared for, because he hates cooked fruit!). Dinner was the following multi-step but fairly easy meal: Indian Wraps from the Candle Cafe Cookbook. I'd been wanting to make this for a while, but since it called for coconut milk (which hubby hates), I hadn't made it yet.

First step, saute four different colored peppers. As usual, they called for more oil than I like, so this part was a little too greasy for me, but still good.
Next, grill or bake (I baked) some extra firm tofu, which was first marinated in a spicy dressing. Pretty good! Actually, not as spicy as I had hoped, considering how spicy good Indian food is.









Meanwhile, add the leftover marinade to a can of black beans with some green onions. Good! (Can't do that with a meat marinade, now can you?)








Then, saute some kale in lemon juice and garlic (yum!!) and cook some basmati rice in your easy-smeesy rice cooker (oh, so heavenly it smelled!). Wrap it all up and enjoy! I used an enormous whole wheat pita bread, which kind of sucked for this kind of a dish, as it was all crumbly. I ended up ripping up the bread and scooping up the filling ingredients, much like you would at a restaurant anyway, except usually with naan or roti. Good stuff! I think maybe even hubby would have approved. Oh well - his loss! Four stars for this one. Loved, the different flavors melding into one awesome mouthful after another.
Here's a closeup of one of those mouthfuls....












The only catch to having an empty house?....No one to help with all those dishes....:P