Breakfast foods

I really need to get some sewing reviews up or this will become a food review blog.

I've been experimenting with tofu this week. I'm actually getting decent at the breakfast foods now.

First up - Tofu Scramble. This was pretty good, but a little too much for me. After doing a little on-line search, I came up with a plan.
Got out my tofu and drained the liquid. Cut off a little bit and pressed it (put the rest in a glass lock container for another day). Cooked up some onions, garlic, carrots. Added the tofu and scrambled it up with the spatula. Added mushrooms and spinach and spices (turmeric, italian seasoning, and pepper) and then a little of my vegan pepper jack cheese. Cooked and chopped up some vegan sausage. Mixed it all together.

This was today's breakfast. A vegan "egg and sausage muffin".  Wheat English muffin with 'butter'. In the pan I cooked up 2 slices of tofu, seasoned with turmeric and pepper and one slice of the vegan sausage. Browned a little spinach and added a pinch of the vegan cheese. The cheese didn't melt well this time, but it added flavor. I think I need to cut the sausage thinner because it has a very strong flavor. Overall, I really liked this breakfast.

A quick and easy breakfast or lunch (I think I ate this for lunch the other day, not breakfast). Good bread, Earth Balance crunchy peanut butter with coconut oil, and sliced bananas. Yum!

Vegetarian Rice Noodles

Tonight I cooked a recipe from The Vegetarian Bible, which I bought on clearance at least three years ago. This is the second time I cooked from it. The other time was 2 weeks ago. Yes, it's sad.

That said, it's a good cookbook.

This dish was veggies, rice noodles and tofu. Since I have a very hard time following a recipe as it is written, I added asparagus and carrots. I had bought water chestnuts but totally forgot to put them in. I also used aminos for half the soy sauce.

Opinions: My oldest and youngest didn't want it. This wasn't surprising. I made them whole wheat couscous and peas.  My  more adventurous middle child thought the sweet potato was really good, but didn't like the noodles or tofu. The husband and I thought the soy sauce taste was too strong but overall, it was good. He liked the tofu (the guy who doesn't like tofu), but I thought it would have been better without it.

Vegan Quesadillas for lunch

On a posting role today. Actually, I am home all day because all the kids have a friend over. Which means, I have to stay alert for any crafty plans, arguments, or injuries. (so, no shower until tonight).

I wasn't feeling a veggie burger today and had just given my youngest daughter a quesadilla, her favorite. I've never been a fan of cheese, but I was thinking about that vegan pepper jack 'cheese' I bought yesterday for my breakfast sandwich. That might be good.

So, a plan was born. Vegan Quesadillas!

Remember, I'm not a chef - just a mom sharing my ideas and trials.

Ingredients:
Slightly less than half an onion, chopped
1 can of corn (forgot I had some fresh stuff in the fridge -oops)
1/2 can of green chilies
1 can black beans (drained)
tomatoes (I had cherry so I cut them in fourths)
a good shake of cumin (around 1 tbsp, maybe a little less. I love cumin)
a quick shake of turmeric, crushed chili peppers, garlic powder, and chili powder (maybe 1 tsp each)

In the pan, add a little olive oil and start cooking the onions until slightly cooked and starting to get clear. Add the corn and cook for another minute or so. Then add everything else. Cook for a good 5 minutes to mix the flavors and taste. Put all this good stuff into a bowl for later.

Take a tortilla and fill half way with the good stuff and add a little of the pepper jack 'cheese'. Spray the pan or tortilla with some olive oil and brown for a minute or so on both sides. And it's done!

I remembered I had some avocado and just added it as I ate my quesadillas.

This is a two day lunch (or more). Tomorrow I work and I'll take some tortillas and topping with me to heat up. I always have such a hard time figuring out what to eat when I'm out, especially at work. By the time I get a break, the choice for buying stuff are quite limited (as in Mcdonalds or pre-made stuff in the cafeteria  and I only have 30 minutes too. So, this will be perfect.

Vegan Breakfast Sandwich

Looks pretty good, huh?

It was.

In general I don't like fake meats. I have really liked tofu when eating out, but have yet to make it well at home. So, I was a little nervous about trying this recipe.

Guess what? It was really good. Of course I modified it a little bit.
Whole wheat English muffin
onions
spinach
mushrooms
Earth Balance "butter"
Lightlife Lean Gimme Sausage
Daiya Pepperjack shredded 'cheese'
a little salsa.

I didn't feel like getting out my press because mine is big and I already had the dehydrator out. So, I did it in a pan. Cut the 'sausage', put it in the pan that I had just sprayed with olive oil, and pressed it with the spatula. OOPS! stuck to the spatula! Scraped it off and sprayed the spatula and pressed again. This worked better. I cooked up the veggies right next to it. I don't really care for syrup  so I skipped this part. The cheese didn't melt but had good flavor. Really it was fine and tasty without the salsa, but I decided to add it for more flavor.

Overall, wonderful. I think even meat eaters would like this one.
The Lightlife Sausage is a keeper too. I will have to try some other meals with it.

Healthy eating changes

I've been trying lots of new recipes lately. I realized that I had gotten off track with my eating habits and needed to clean things up a little bit. I feel better when I stay away from meat, so that what I've been doing. The focus is on trying to be more healthy.

Labels - I would call myself a flexitarian or a meat minimalist. I've been doing LOTS of reading and making my own conclusions. The main points I agree with are that meat is not meant to be eaten at every meal, not even every day. It should be a rare item. Food should be non altered (not chemically or mechanically processed) to the point that it really isn't food any more. We need to eat what was meant to be food and avoid what wasn't meant to be food (chemicals, additives, etc).

Of course, this isn't easy and it is a huge change. We didn't eat a lot of boxed or prepared foods but it's amazing what is in things that I thought were "healthy" when I looked at the labels. Goodness!

So what to eat. At home this is easier than on the road. I have found that some places have very limited choices (we just finished a long road trip). I have realized that I have issues with buying something that would have meat, without the meat, and paying the same price. That is something I need to get over.

Friends have asked me what I think of foods I try. I'll try to post them here, but I know I can be inconsistent.

back to sewing

I've had a creative lull the past two months. I have looked and patterns, styles and so many lovely photos of items I love... but just not sewing. Near the end of this week, I finally got my sewing groove back. Unfortunately, due to family visiting, my sewing room was being used as a bedroom and not very accessible for sewing.

Today things were back to normal. Yeah!

I was in the mood for baby sewing today. Luckily, I have a good friend who just had a sweet baby girl. I've not done any baby sewing a long time, so I had to some serious stash digging, but I found those baby fabrics. Flannels, chenilles, and sherpas.

Baby bibs:

Next up, since I had the flannel boxes open and realized I really need to get down to just one box of flannel, napkins. We've been using cloth napkins for about 8 years. About 75% of the napkins we are currently using are from the first year we made the switch... and they look like it. Time to retire some of them and make some new ones. One thing I have realized over the years is that I strongly prefer flannel. I have made napkins out almost every type of fabric and flannel is the best, in my opinion.




Two weeks ago I made her this little doggy dress. The skirt is from Sew Baby's Twirly Dress pattern. We've had the shirt for about 4 years. It was a hand-me-down to my first daughter from a friend. My girls weren't crazy about it for some reason, but they both think it looks great as a dress. (she really likes it, just not in the mood for a picture at this point because she was busy).




And to top off this creative summery - A wrap that I just finished knitting. A wonderful pattern that I was testing and really enjoyed making.

Hooded Scarf

I'm going up to the mountains with my older Girl Scout troop this weekend and it's going to be cold!
Living in Southern California, I don't have weather for freezing weather and for that trip to see the snow maybe twice a year, I just manage to put together something. This weekend we'll be outside doing stuff all weekend and it'll be possibly snowing all day Saturday. I had to develop something.

A hooded scarf was what I wanted. So, I started to knit one up. I hit a point last night when I realized that I would not be completing this project in the next 24 hours and had to come up with plan B.

So, this morning I made one from fleece that I had bought many years ago. I love it.

How to make one (sorry no pictures of the process):
1. fold fleece in half. Find a hooded shirt/sweatshirt that fits well and trace the hood onto the fabric, leaving about 3/4 inch  of fabric between the edge of the hood and your cutting line (seam allowance). I actually didn't trace mine, just cut it.
This will give you 2 halves of a hood. If you want it lined, make 2 more halves.

2. Sew the two halves together, along the curved side only. If you have a second set, do this to this one too. Then trim the curves and put the 2 hoods together, right sides together. Sew along the front edge (the part that will be by your face). Flip right side out and topstitch.

3. Cut another long piece of fleece as long as you want the scarf by double the width (you'll be folding it in half longwise). Open it up so you have a flat rectangle. Place the hood's raw edge along the edge of the scarf, centered. Roll the hood a little and fold the scarf in half longwise, encasing the hood. Sew along the long edge of the scarf, catching the hood edge.

4. reach into the tube and reverse the scarf, so it's right side out. Tuck in the ends and sew. top stitch if you wish.

Some lovely pre-shower pictures.

Over the top Tunic

Back to reviewing patterns and getting my crafting self busy again.

While I love wearing skirts and a t-shirt much of the time, I've found I want to wear jeans some days. That said, I'm not crazy about the look of t-shirts with jeans on me. Add to this, my shape isn't easy to find clothing for, so I've been on the search for a variety of tunics and longer tops that cover the waist area well, without making me look six month pregnant. This seems to be a big challenge.

Indygo Junction's "Over the Top" tunic is one I do really like. I have made it three times and haven't been disappointed.

The first one I made was out of crinkle gauze and sleeveless. LOVE it! I didn't like how the ties looked on this and ended up sewing this with a little bit of a curve at the waist, cutting out the ties, and it gave it a better fit. This version, my first, I made by cutting the back piece as two and sewing together. In more recent ones, I just cut on the fold and adjusted the facing.

The next one was also sleeveless but out of a nice cotton batik. I put the ties on this version and like it too.

The sleeveless versions have been great basics for me. Worn with a tank in the summer or a long sleeve shirt in the winter.

I decided to give the sleeves a try recently. I didn't like the longer bell looking sleeves, so I cut them short. This one also has the ties, but I'm thinking of cutting them out and resewing with a slight curve at the waist. As with the others, I had to take in the front shoulders a little to fit me better. I have broad shoulders and a smaller chest, so often tops don't fit me correctly.

Planning dinner

I used to be so good at planning out our meals, but, I admit, I've kind of slipped.

Time to get organized and start again.

With the weather being a little warmer, I don't want to use the oven if possible. Here in San Diego our hot "summer" weather is just starting. It'll be really warm in August and September.  Time to get out the crock pot.

I'd love for people to share with me any meals they love to make - especially the quick and easy and healthy ones.

This week's plan (so far):

Wed (today): Slow cooker Chicken and veggies - but I'm using 2 chicken breasts (mainly b/c I didn't defrost the whole chicken I have in the freezer and really these 2 breasts will be more than enough meat for us b/c we don't really eat that much meat).

Thursday: Fish with cous-cous and veggie (working out the finer details)

Friday: Slow-cooker Lasagna (let's hope it works)

Sat:  Grilled steak w/ potatoes and corn

Almost Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

Ok, they really aren't healthy, but they are a lot more healthy that most recipes and tons better than store-bought cookies. This is a mandatory apron recipe for me because I always seem to end up with either flour or batter on me.

This recipe is a work in progress. I keep decreasing the sugar and adding the healthy stuff. Here's my most recent version.

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I put in more than this)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup ground wheat germ (or oat)
1/4 cup ground flax
1 cup all purpose flour
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups rolled oats

In large bowl, beat softened butter. Add sugars, baking powder & soda, and spices. Beat until mixed well.
Beat in Eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Beat in flours and wheat germ and flax. This is easier if you add them gradually.
Add the oats. I like to add half and mix with a wooden spoon and then add the rest and mix again.
*if you want chocolate, carob, or PB chips - add 1.5 cups now and mix well with wooden spoon.

Drop dough using a spoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10-12 mins, depending on your oven. Cool before sampling. These don't spread much, so spacing isn't as important as in some recipes.