Happy V-Day!

To avoid commercialism and ruining the environment as much as possible (hubby did get me a dozen pesticide-laden but very gorgeous red roses!), we opted to make our 9th Valentine's Day together as laid back as possible. I slept in and he got up early so that we could to go the gym together in the morning. Afterwards, we had brunch together. I whipped up these Pumpkin Waffles (Belgian style) with our never before used wedding gift (that's five and a half years old) waffle iron. It was so easy to use, I was kicking myself for not opening it until now! Now that my carb-fearing days are over, I enjoyed every last bite of these delicious things from Vegan with a Vengeance. They weren't sweet, really, until you put the pure maple syrup on top (never ever use the fake stuff!). Although we had difficulties getting them crispy enough (they were a little mushy on the inside), they were still sooo good, after years of no waffles. :) Hubby enjoyed some vegetarian maple-flavored sausage patties on the side. We did a few other random things and then sat down to these Asparagus Sushi (which hubby helped make for the first time!).
I hate buying asparagus this early, but they were sooo skinny and delectable-looking, and hubby had mentioned them, so I bought them as a V-day surprise. I didn't have a recipe - just steamed them lightly, then made sushi rice and added bits of carrot, black sesame seeds and scallions.






It felt a little like St. Patty's Day instead, with this beautiful green plate! We sauteed up some kale with garlic and olive oil, then ended up drizzling some sesame oil over the extra steamed asparagus - wow! That sesame oil was perfect! I'd like to say we fed each other the sushi in front of the fireplace, but we just played our new Trivial Pursuit game instead - and he won by one wedge :P



Earlier in the week, I baked this Vanilla Yogurt Pound Cake from Veganomicon, for a Sierra Club meeting. It rose up beautifully! Picture perfect. And it smelled amazing.








I swear the cake tester came out clean (and I use an oven thermometer) but inside they were just a little too moist for me. I guess it's hard to live up to my dad's perfect pound cake (homemade, of course). Otherwise, good reviews all over and a great flavor! Three and a half stars. ***1/2.






Sierra Club meetings have also given me an excuse to make lots of different dips over the years! This Curried Carrot Dip, also from Veganomicon, was so pretty and very easy to make. However, I wasn't too sure I liked the dip with the curry flavor. Just something weird about cold curry. At any rate, the leftovers made their way into lavash bread wraps with baby spinach and then it kicked some ass! Yum, yum, yum. Three stars as a sammich spread ***. Two and a half as a dip **1/2.

Meanwhile, I'd been saving some bananas to make muffins or something to refill my freezer and snacking stock, and Veggie Girl's Banana-Pistachio-Fig Muffins came to the rescue! They were moist and flavorful and sweet but not too sweet, and the nuts gave it a neat little crunch! Best of all, they were gluten-free (I'm trying to bake more gluten-free for those in my Veg Group who are Celiacs). They were a tad underdone, which was hard to tell since the fig jam was in the middle. Three and a half stars ***1/2!

Last but not least, I made these Butternut Squash and Pumpkin Seed Rice Paper Rolls from Veganomicon, just a couple of hours ago. They were really pretty easy. Just 1/4" cube the squash, toss with olive oil and roast. Add these to rice noodles, cilantro and roasted, salted pumpkin seeds and wrap! They were so pretty, with the green and orange showing through the wrappers.

The rice papers did give me a bit of trouble tonight. Maybe the water bowl was too small, so they cracked and split as I put them in and thus the trouble rolling. At any rate, the recipe claims it makes 12 rolls (using 8" papers), but I only made about 9 rolls using maybe 5" wraps. I also had a TON of leftover rice noodles. Oh well! The dipping sauce was awesome and it was an easy meal, though I can't see me making these with a baby on the arm! (Not that there's any news, I'm just picturing the difficulty sometime in the future). I guess that's it for this post! Happy Vegan Valentine's Day to you all!