Nom Night

I have officially broken in my copy of Veganomicon. It even has a small stain on it from the marinade for the Smoky Tempeh. I was so excited to use my next grill pan for the first time! I still need to work on perfecting the grill marks, but I was happy just the same. I have really started to like tempeh just recently, and this recipe was no exception. The tempeh accompanied another newbie, pineapple-cashew quinoa. After re-learning my lesson about touching hot chiles (ouch in the nose, trust me), this dish came together quite easily after some serious chopping, but it was well worth it. I think the highlight of the dish was the mint and basil, so if you make this don't skip the fresh herbs!

Even though we still have gingerbread cookies, and we're leaving town for Austin tomorrow morning (to attend a Vegan Chile Festival!), I still wanted to try a cookie recipe. Since I have been craving chocolate, I went for the chocolate-chocolate chip walnut cookies. The only thing I did differently was use chocolate hemp milk to sub for the soy milk. I think the result was an even chocolatier flavor. These were yummy right out of the oven, I actually needed a glass of water to wash them down (sometimes soy milk just won't do that for me). John even ate a whole cookie on his own (which he rarely does, he usually has a bite of mine), attesting to the true power of these cookies.

My love affair with this book has only just begun....

My Camera is Spooked

Yes, something is wrong with my camera. Ever since the Halloween party, my pics have turned out very fuzzy. What's wrong? I don't think it's user error, since I took like 20 pictures of the same thing to test. It must be bewitched.....
But, regardless of my camera problems, I will go ahead and show you my Halloween meal, beginning with dessert! I made the gingerbread cookies from JOVB, plus this sounded like a good way to get rid of the rest of my cupcake frosting from the weekend. The process was a little finicky, the dough seemed really dry until I added some water. I am also not very skilled at rolling out dough evenly yet. But in the end, the cookies turned out well, crisp but not too crunchy, just the way I like my gingerbread (I cooked them on the short side of the suggested time). I even got to use my seasonal cookie cutters for the first time! First a happy pumpkin with my cute skulls mini-bag from here on etsy....

And a fall leaf...
For dinner, I was excited to try my first recipe from ED&BV! Yep, I got it (and Veganomicon, still trying to decide where to start with that one!) a few days ago and now I'm officially overwhelmed with recipes. So I started with something simple that Dreena had also blogged about, the Cashew-Ginger Tofu. Served over quinoa with roasted Halloween colored vegetables (butternut squash, carrot, parsnip). Ooops, forgot to turn the oven down when I put in the tofu, so the sauce got pretty thick and pasty. My bad. But I enjoyed the flavor nonetheless. Oh, except for the parsnips. This was my first time eating them, and something about the roasting really dried them out and I thought they were pretty nasty. John told me not to give up on them though.

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!! Just curious, what did those of you who had trick-or-treaters hand out? We don't have any since we live in a gated townhome, but if we ever move, I need ideas for vegan candy!