Whipped Tofu & Greens Toast

I keep meaning to post recipes. In the time between this post and the last (TWO YEARS!), I've made some delicious things, often followed by "I should post this on my blog!" And yet, here we are. I would love to say that I'll keep posting things here, but my best intentions aren't quite paying off. 

Also since my last post, I've lived a lot of life! Nicole and I have done some amazing travel, I've taken students on a research trip, I've met new friends and said goodbye as other friends have moved elsewhere, lost two kitty cats, I sold my house and Nicole and I bought a new house, and so much more! 

In the process of making our new house a home, we've spent some good time cooking together. However, we've also done a lot of home projects, in addition to our full time jobs, so sometimes we just need a quick and healthy dinner with foods we have on hand. Enter this whipped tofu and greens on toast recipe. We had some greens from CSA that needed to be used soon, but both wanted more than just greens. With a bit of back and forth, we landed on this experiment, which wowed us both and has returned multiple times. It's a surprisingly satisfying dinner, doesn't really heat up the kitchen the summer, and uses things we keep on hand. I hope you'll like it just as much as we do! 

Maggie's Instant Pot Lentil Sloppy Joes

The temperatures each day of the past week have been dropping, little by little. Tonight it's supposed to dip below 50 degrees and tomorrow I'll wear my first sweater of the season. I've had apple cider, gotten the first of the fall squashes in my CSA (delicata!), and purchased my first pie pumpkins at our local farmer's market. I don't care if fall doesn't officially start for a few more days; it's fall to me. 

This particular dish perfectly straddles this late summer/early fall time, including some summer produce and minimal heating up of the kitchen paired with savory, warm flavors and a hearty texture. 

All things fall make me happy. The colors of the trees = happy. The smell of the air = happy. The sweater-ready weather = happy. The food = happy. This particular recipe is certainly included! 

Maggie's Chickpea "Tuna" Salad

I talked about vegan potluck before and how much I love it. We haven't had our regular potluck since February and I miss the company, camaraderie, and cooking of our vegan potluck crew so much! As I kept thinking about our monthly gatherings, I'd remember a delicious dish from one month, a different dish from another month, and so on. But one dish kept popping up in my head. At the very first potluck she came to - years ago!, our friend Alissa brought a chickpea "tuna" salad. Everyone was amazed. As in, there was outright clamor for the recipe. Alissa gladly shared. 

About a month ago, as the temperatures kept rising, I wanted to make this chickpea tuna salad again but could not find the recipe. Alissa couldn't either! But she remembered better than I did. With her list of ingredients + rough amounts and my tinkering around, what emerged was this amazing, healthy, and summer-temp worthy "tuna" salad. 

Maggie's Vegan Strawberry Pie

While I love all fruits and vegetables, I certainly have my favorites. For fruit, there's no comparison to strawberries, as far as I'm concerned. This year, I planted my own strawberry plants, which hopefully means I'll have my own source of strawberry deliciousness for years to come! In the mean time, I'll be making this strawberry pie with berries from other local & organic sources. That's actually how this pie originated! 

Shana knows I love strawberries. Last summer, she surprised me with a delivery of 5 pounds of local & organic strawberries. That's love, folks. I kept eating them a bowl at a time, but worried that I wasn't going to get through them all quickly enough! Then a dinner party with some friends took shape and I asked if they'd all mind trying out a new strawberry dessert. After enthusiastic positive responses, I decided on a strawberry pie and began scouring the internet for ideas. As usually happens, none of the recipes I found were quite right. Instead, I decided to take some ideas from all of them, plus from some of my other recipes, and created a magical dessert. It was a hit at the dinner party and is a perfect cool treat for summer temperatures.

Maggie's All-Cuisines Salad Dressing

Well, we are mid-way through spring with hints of summer in the air. This means that it is time for our CSA again! I was *so* excited to sing our "CSA-day" song on the first week of pick-up. The joy at our CSA starting up again is also set against the backdrop of the global pandemic that rages on. Indiana has slowly begun to open up, but we're still very wary about heading to restaurants and we've only been going to the store every three weeks or so. Our weekly CSA box has dramatically expanded our access to fresh veggies, especially leafy greens! Seriously, we've gotten lettuce mix, heads of lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, arugula, braising greens, and micro-greens, plus turnips, radishes, and the first bit of asparagus; it's magical.

With so many leafy greens to eat, we've been finding new ways to eat them. Shana has been craving tikka masala with regularity, which is fine by me since it is delicious. A leafy green salad is a wonderful companion. When we first confronted the combination of tikka masala and salad, I looked at the dressings in the fridge and didn't love any of the possible taste combinations. So obviously, I made up my own! 

While originally intended as a lovely accompaniment to flavors in Middle-Eastern dishes, this salad dressing works beautifully with every flavor profile we've tried. It's a fast, easy, and tasty dressing for salads with any meal. 

Poured here on a simple salad of spinach and toasted almonds.

Maggie's Asian Salad with Sesame Dressing

Last summer I kept looking for new ways to eat food that also involved the least amount of heating in my kitchen I could handle. For me, the obvious solution was meal-sized salads, but I had to do a bit of Shana convincing... When I got a begrudging approval for a salad as dinner, I knew it had to be a good one. Luckily, I found a winner with this salad, filled with beautiful colors, lots of texture, and Asian-inspired flavors.

The recent hot streak we experienced this summer was the perfect impetus to see if this salad was still a dinner time success. It still was! Mix and match ingredients to your own tastes, buy a pre-made salad dressing if you find one you like, or do whatever - this salad will still be delicious.

NYT Chinese Sesame Cucumbers

It's been quite the whirlwind of a summer, folks. Already we're more than halfway through and I'm wishing I'd been more productive. To be fair, I've been working, but I've also been doing things for me, like reading, visiting family/friends, gardening, and cooking.

Speaking of those last two, this year I decided to grow cucumbers for the first time. Shana loves cucumbers. Our CSA was selling garden plants, so I picked one variety of cucumber to try. The variety I picked, Diva, is amazing! I don't love cucumber, but even I like these ones. I wasn't prepared to like the cucumbers, but I was even less prepared for how well they seem to be doing. I think the vines grew multiple inches per day and I'm pretty sure the cucumbers just magically appear.

Before I started growing them, we'd often receive a cucumber a week in our CSA box, which was just enough to put on a salad or Shana to eat as a snack. However, with the rate that they grow, I needed a recipe that used a lot of cucumber. Shana reminded me of one we'd had at a potluck years ago and it fit the bill perfectly.

This cool summer cucumber salad is a great side dish, snack, or appetizer that doesn't heat up the kitchen when summer temperatures soar. Plus, it's delicious and will keep you coming back for more.

That's part of my garden in the background! 

Rainbow Quinoa Salad

At the beginning of this year, a high school aged friend of ours decided to go vegan. We invited her and her mom, whom we know from an organization in town, over for vegan dinner. Her mom was very supportive of her daughter's plan to be vegan, but didn't quite know what to cook for her when she was also cooking for her 11 year old son, 4 year old daughter, herself, and her husband. We figured that we could invite them over and answer vegan food questions while also providing an example of a delicious vegan meal.

In asking what they'd like to eat, they said they were pretty open to flavors, so we chose to serve one of Shana's favorites - broccoli, tofu, and garlic sauce. They asked what to bring and we suggested "something that goes with dinner?" In other words, we were super unhelpful. However, our friends rose the challenge and brought a delicious Asian quinoa salad! Overall, dinner was a giant success. We answered all sorts of vegan-related questions, laughed a ton, and ate amazing food.

Since our dinner, we've eaten this salad a few times. I tweaked the original recipe, found at Two Peas & Their Pod, to make it more our style - doubling some veggies, removing some ingredients, and adjusting the dressing. It's SO delicious! It's also great for the unseasonably hot temps we've been experiencing - when I just don't want to eat anything. This salad has tons of protein and fiber and is a feast for your eyes as well.

Maggie's Vegan Zucchini Boats

This year, we doubled the size of the garden. With extra space, I was able to grow a greater variety of veggies and decided to grow zucchini. My zucchini is...prolific. Talk to many folks who grow zucchini and they'll tell you the same thing.

As it turns out, growing a ton of zucchini is a blessing and curse. I've made batches upon double-batches of zucchini bread. We've grilled more zucchini than any summer before. And as much as I love both of those options, we needed something else to do with zucchini. 

Given that zucchini grows well in most gardens, a google search for "things to do with zucchini" brings up list after list of options. A number of these lists included some kind of zucchini boat: a hollowed out zucchini stuffed with ingredients, baked to deliciousness. While I loved the idea, I didn't love any of the recipes I found. Most recipes were filled with cheese and/or meat, while some were nothing more than flavored rice - not what I wanted. 

Instead, I took the idea of zucchini boats and ran. Where I ended up is a delicious and healthy recipe, full of protein and garden-fresh summer flavors. Infinitely customizable, add or remove ingredients to make this into something you'll eat, if only to switch up how you're consuming zucchini. 

Southwestern Salad with Cumin-Lime Vinaigrette

It's a long story, but a few weeks ago we were gifted with a number of salad kits - you know, the kind that have all the ingredients inside the bag and all you have to do is mix them together.

While the free salads were nice, none of the included salad dressings were vegan-friendly. I decided I'd make up my own dressings to coordinate with the ingredients in the bags. My first attempt at a dressing for one of the salads was a smash hit with me, Shana, and some friends of ours who just had a baby (we took them lunch). I made it again with the second kit and it was just as good.

We've been all out of the salad kits for a while, but I had a craving for this salad. After a quick search of my local grocery store, I realized I could get all the ingredients and could just make my own! This simple,healthy, and delicious salad is great for warm summer days.

Vegan Teriyaki Boats

On summer nights, I can't bring myself to heat up my kitchen. But as hot days and warm nights stretch on, I also get sick of grilling dinners and Shana wouldn't be satisfied with continuous salads. This means a recipe that can satisfy the requirements of not heating the kitchen, not using the grill, and not being a salad is a huge win for our summer eating.

This particular recipe was in a special recipe collection called "Best Vegan Recipes" published by Vegetarian Times magazine (which now exists in an altered state under the title Vegetarian Today; I no longer subscribe). Shana and I had been standing in line at a grocery store and saw this special collection. While waiting to check out, I perused it and found so many recipes I wanted to make that we ended up purchasing it.

These teriyaki boats are ridiculously fast and easy - so much so that Shana has made them - and they are delicious and healthy. Everyone we've served them to has enjoyed them and I can see them being quite flexible, if you wanted to add/remove ingredients.  Serve them as a lunch, a light dinner, or even as an appetizer (see Helpful Hints).

Maggie's Vegan Peachy Cream Bars

Last week, my neighbor brought over 10 beautiful, juicy, perfectly-ripe peaches. She got them from The Peach Truck, which makes runs of Georgia peaches during peach season. I looked at them and daydreamed about them, but finally figured I really needed to DO something with them.

The first thing I did was dehydrate six of them. I blanched them (like you do with tomatoes), so that I could remove the skins easily, and then sliced them for the dehydrator. Approximately 6 hours later, we had these chewy, candy-sweet peaches. What is in that tiny bowl is all that remains. Next time, I'll do double the amount.

After that, I needed to figure out what to do with the remaining blanched/peeled peaches. I knew we were having some friends for a late dinner to break their Ramadan fast, so I starting thinking about some kind of dessert. After double-checking that they like peaches and were willing to try a brand new recipe (both of which got enthusiastic positive responses), I starting digging around. One of our friends is completely gluten-free, so that was a constraint. I also didn't want to simply make a peach cobbler or pie. I stumbled upon a recipe that seemed like a good place to start. What emerged was a delicious dessert, perfect for a summer sweet tooth.

Maggie's Stir Fry Sauce

The first day of fall has come and gone, but it sure doesn't feel like it's fall in Indiana. We've had temperatures in the mid to upper 80s all this past week. So while I've been staring longingly at all of the soups and stews I cook in the fall, it's just not happening for a while. Instead, we have been cooking like it's summer, using all sorts of fresh veggies and flavors.

Since I've been so ready for fall, I couldn't keep making the same summer dishes. Instead, building on Shana's love of Asian flavors, we had an excellent stir fry tonight! With a ton of veggies and light and flavorful sauce, we enjoyed it immensely tonight. This is something we'll be sure to eat again, plus the recipe is a great base for all sorts of experimentation.

Summer Tortilla Pinwheels

A few months ago, some friends moved from our town and threw a big going away party. They are always very conscious of the myriad eating habits of all of their friends, so they made sure that some vegan-friendly food was available. One of those dishes were tortilla pinwheels that some vegan potluck friends brought and I've been dreaming about since. They were so simple, but so delicious!

I finally decided I needed to stop dreaming, so I contacted the friend who made them for the recipe. Her response sounded pretty much like what I say when Shana asks how I made something new and delicious: "Well, I added some of this, some of that, a little bit of that, and some of something else." To Shana, that response is infuriating, but to me, it leaves the door open to experimentation. My friend said she used my sun-dried tomato spread recipe, a "hummus" made with cannellini beans and cashews, and arugula, but wasn't sure exactly what proportions she used or what other ingredients were in the hummus. That was enough of a start for me, so I set to work to figure out my own version.

My own version in hand, Shana and I made our way to a Fourth of July party. I cut into the rolls, hoping they'd stay together (they did) and made sure to express to our hosts and other friends that the recipe was new and that I'd love feedback and wouldn't be offended if people didn't like them. As the wraps disappeared, the only feedback I heard was "mmmmmmmmmmm" and "these are delicious, Maggie!" We took just a few of them home with us, but Shana ate them the next day and has been asking for them since. Recipe success!

Roasted Veggie Sandwich with Balsamic Reduction

We had a leftover eggplant from making Eggplant Asian Stir Fry and Shana was insistent that we figure out a way to use it. As we made our meal plan for this week, we were looking through cookbooks of all sorts when the following exchange took place:

Shana: Oooo - this looks good! I want this!
Me: Okay, what is it? Read me the recipe?
Shana: Well, it's a roasted veggie sandwich, but I want to add things and take some of this away and maybe we could do something like a balsamic reduction.
Me: [dumbfounded] ...
Shana: I don't know who I am right now.

Shana is not a cook. However, it's very clear that she's becoming more comfortable (but never excited about) thinking about how flavors and textures work together. After I made peace with this new world, we brainstormed together. The result was this amazing - and deliciously messy to eat - sandwich of roasted veggies, hummus, and a balsamic reduction, all on crusty bread.

Roasted veggie sandwiches are also infinitely customize-able! For example, the recipe that inspired this has only one thing in common with what we ended up with - the roasted eggplant. To make this sandwich your own, add or subtract cooked veggies (how about a couple of caramelized onions or strips of portobello mushrooms), slather on some pesto in place of (or in addition to!) the balsamic reduction, add some greens (oooo, arugula), change up your protein source by adding some strips of grilled tofu, or put it on slices of an Italian loaf or focaccia or in a wrap. Served hot or cold,* you'll be satisfied.

Eggplant Asian Stir Fry

School has been out for both of us for a few weeks. Most people assume that for teachers like us, summer time means days filled with lounging around and cocktails. That's hardly the case. Shana's picked up two summer-only part time jobs, I've been doing committee work and catching up, and we've both been busy with projects at our house. For example, I've been gardening, Shana's been clearing our old patio, and we've been discussing which projects come next. Shana's also been coaching a 3rd & 4th grade softball team, which has meant about 3 evening games per week.

All this activity has meant that we haven't actually seen each other as much as we would like. To remedy that, we decided to have a date day in Indianapolis. We had a great time! We met a friend for drinks, had a great dinner, and went to a game. We also did errands. I know what you're thinking: "Errands?! On a date??!!" Yes. Errands. But the errands totally worked out in Shana's favor, as I purchased an awesome magazine full of recipes. We've tried two recipes to great success already.

This particular recipe has Shana's name written all over it. It's full of Asian flavors and contains eggplant. Shana loves eggplant. I'm only...meh... about eggplant. Luckily, this recipe also includes green beans, which are my absolute favorite vegetable. Because both Shana and I were predisposed to like this recipe, I'm happy to say that we also had friends over who enjoyed it. This is a winner of a recipe all around!

Dilly-Ranch Pasta Salad

The summer temperatures have arrived in Indiana! As I said last summer, summer temps and humidity make me not want to eat anything. Since not eating for an entire season is not a healthy option, it helps to have a collection of cold foods to eat that won't heat up the house. This is especially important when hosting a large gathering of people, as all those extra bodies create enough excess heat.

This semester's minions

I had just this situation occur a few weeks ago. I hosted my semi-annual Minion Dinner, but had an especially large group with 11 minions this semester. I was worried about unpredictable May weather and how to feed 13 people delicious vegan food with one gluten-free minion and one who doesn't like onions. The final decision was a soup/salad/bread buffet (with cake & cookies for dessert). I had all sorts of ideas for soups (I mean, have you seen this blog?!), but while I had a few good ideas for salads, I wanted something new. I mean, what's not to like about making a brand new recipe with 12 taste-testers ready and willing to offer commentary? 

To complement the other dishes already on the menu, I opted for a pasta salad. Pasta salads are great for parties because they are best when made ahead of time, as the resting gives the flavors a change to meld together. This particular pasta salad is also great because it has the creaminess of heavier mayo-based versions but uses silken tofu for a protein-packed punch. Above all, my minions were complimentary of it and I've been dreaming about it since. 

Maggie's Wild Rice Salad

A new semester of classes starts next week for me. I've met my incoming first-year advisees. Shana's new job has started. We have had the windows open more regularly because the weather has been cooler and less humid. My dad was talking about the ripening acorn squash in his garden. All of this indicates that summer is winding down. However, if you're not quite ready to let go of summer, with its hot days and more relaxed schedule, have I got a recipe for you.

I've been meaning to make this wild rice salad all summer (what can I say, Minnesotans love wild rice), but never got around to it for one reason or another. But yesterday we went to a pot-luck for a colleague's birthday and I needed something I didn't have to prepare immediately ahead of time. This was just occasion for wild rice salad, as it can chill for a few hours before you serve it.

We arrived to the pot luck, salad in hand, and it was gobbled up in short order. I did get a serving of it for myself, but I also wondered why I didn't make more of it. It made me realize why my mom often doubled the recipe when she brought it places. In any event, this salad is a wonderful warm-weather food and an excellent vegan option for a pot luck!

Maggie's Grilled Tofu

It's summer. I love summer for a number of reasons: Shana loves summer, the world is full of beautiful colors, and the foods planted in the spring are ripening like magic. Our CSA is in full swing, so we are reaping the bounty of summer foods. This week, we got green beans, a head of lettuce, two cucumbers, a zucchini, fingerling potatoes, onions, garlic, and two kinds of tomatoes.

Here's the problem. I hate humidity paired with any temp much above 70, which pretty much captures midwestern summers perfectly. For me, what ends up happening is that I don't want to eat or cook anything. Combining this tendency with our travels, we haven't eaten anything new or noteworthy in weeks. Feeling ready for something new, tonight's dinner on our weekly meal plan simply said "new." Such dinners work well when I plan what I'd like to cook early in the week, but I neglected to do that this week. Luckily, my lack of planning led to a thrown-together dinner highlighting summer's bounty. We had a simple green salad (CSA lettuce, carrots, celery, and cucumber, with peppers and toasted almonds) with vegan ranch dressing, CSA green beans, sweet corn from another local farm (which we grilled to perfection), and grilled tofu (which is simple enough that I feel silly calling it a recipe). Altogether, this dinner was amazing and the quintessential vegan summer meal.

Maggie's Vegan Cream of Chard Soup

Oh readers, I struggle. It's been over a month since last I posted! I'd like to be able to say that I've been doing amazing things that have kept me away, but the reality is that I've just been living life and cooking the same recipes we already know and love. Even with the CSA, I just  haven't been that creative with foods - with one major exception. This soup.

We got chard in our CSA shares for a couple of weeks and I remembered a soup we'd had years ago. I tried to recreate it after asking about ingredients, but then decided I didn't like the smell of one of the ingredients. Instead, I switched things up a bit and ended up with something delicious. Seriously, this soup is amazing. The richness of it makes it ideal for any season, but using fresh spring/summer chard is a great idea.