Rachel's Birthday Bash

Yesterday was Rachel's birthday, and man did I cook up a storm! Here are some pictures and descriptions:




The starters: The Salad (from The Passionate Vegetarian) and Tomatoes Provencales. The tomatoes are basically just broiled tomatoes and herbs. I used garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, and basil. I've made these before using pressed garlic, and I think it's better with the pressed garlic. (But it was still yummy!)



I decided to set up the main course buffet-style, so here is a view of all the food. Starting on the left, there's:
Oven-Roasted Carrot Fries tossed with Dragon Salt (see the note below).

In front of the Carrot Fries is some steamed rutabaga.

Then there's the burgers: Lentil Burgers from How It All Vegan, with pickle relish, ketchup, mustard, red onion, and some baby arugula on Ezekial English Muffins spread with Gee Whiz Spread.

In the green dish, there's steam-sauteed mushrooms topped with scallions (see the note below).

Last but not least (if you don't count more steamed rutabaga), there's Italianish Green Beans and Tomatoes (originally I was just going to serve steamed green beans, but Susan kept nagging me to do something special with them.) It consists of steamed green beans and cherry and grape tomatoes put in a skillet and tossed with olive oil spray, black pepper, minced fresh basil, and Tasty Topping.


Here is a picture of Rachel's plate. Notice the absence of 'shrooms on her plate. (She doesn't particularly like them.) What you see in the glass is a yummy Vanilla "Milkshake". All it is is some vanilla almond milk and Rice Dream.



Rachel didn't want something overly sweet for dessert because her boss and coworkers were having a little party and got her a cake. So I made Chocolate Chip-Coconut Oatmeal Cookies, and applesauce. The cookies were taken from Cooking on the Right Side of the Brain (which I looove) and were originally supposed to have raisins in them. Imagine my suprise went I went to the pantry and discovered that we were out of raisins! I had to think quick, what should I do? Naturally use chocolate chips and coconut! These cookies call for barley malt syrup (it was my first time using it, and I must admit it's quite sticky to work with), so the're free from refined sugar (as well as refined flour). (See my note below.)


Note:
*Dragon Salt is a salt-spice mixture that can be found in Crescent Dragonwagon's The Passionate Vegetarian.
*I'm going to get a new blog just for my recipes, so I'll put this on it once it's set up
*I'm going to post my recipe for the cookies on my recipe blog once I get it, so you'll just have to wait. :)


Most of the ingredients were brought home by Rachel, so I'm not even going to bother listing them. Which brings my to...........

The Daily Roundup of Food Rachel Brought Home. Yesterday she brought home:
kale, swiss chard, collard greens, lettuce (cute little butterhead lettuce, among other things), parsley, cilantro, leeks, and scallions. Yesterday morning before she left for work she told me she had reduced some Lightlife tempeh baconthe day before, so I told her to get me them all. At .80 a pack, how can you go wrong? She brought home 8, so expect to see some in the near future. If anybody uses them, do they freeze them? It doesn't say you can on it, but I don't see why you couldn't. I guess that's all for now.

Oh, wait. Tonight we're going to see L'enfant at Upstate Films. We're just having leftovers, so there won't be any pics.

Au Revoir! (Is that how you spell it?)