Gravy Train

On my way home yesterday I picked up some mushrooms that were on manager’s special (along with 5 pounds of apples.. hey they were 89 cents a pound). Tonight I made dinner. After work – a feat in itself. I am usually way too hungry when I get home to actually cook and end up living on leftovers from my weekend cooking.

My new obsession, Appetite for Reduction, boasted a falafel recipe that was pretty simple to whip up. Unfortunately I forgot to add salt so they were only so-so. Next time I will remember the salt and they will be fantastic!

The real star of the meal was the mushroom gravy. Kyle’s parents bought me The Miso Book for Christmas and I finally got to make a recipe from it tonight.

Who knew gravy could be so delicious? Perfect served over some hot brown rice and falafel!

Kyle almost licked his bowl clean.

Happy Tuesday – and check out AFR and TMB! You won’t regret it!

Happy (week after your) Birthday, Dad!

I promised you pictures of Dad’s birthday dinner and I’m delivering!

Dad loved the enchiladas! I made my homemade enchilada sauce again to accompany the best vegan enchilada recipe I’ve known to date! I always use red sauce instead of the green sauce and sometimes switch up the type of veggies I add to the lentils, but that base recipe is fantastic!

Just ask my mom!

I also tried a new cheeze recipe to go on top of my masterpiece. The recipe was just recently posted on Post Punk Kitchen and can be found here. I had no carrots so I swapped in some frozen corn and a pinch of mustard powder.. let me just tell you that I can eat that stuff with a spoon and nothing else.

Top all that yumminess with avocado slices and some cilantro..

and chow down!

Un-awesome with a Side of Stardom!

You know what’s not so awesome?

When you burn your sweet potato fries.

*sob*

Don’t worry, I ate them anyway. No sweet potato goes to waste in THIS house.

See after watching Rachael Ray make oven fries during my lunch hour on Thursday, I got the brilliant idea to do the same thing for dinner! And to eat them with a nice, cold green/blue smoothie!

Well Rachael said to turn the heat up to 500 degrees and let those suckers go for about 25 minutes.

I probably should have kept a closer eye on them.

And added dates to my smoothie.

What was the star of the meal? The peanuty-lime dipping sauce.

Ooooooh yeeeeeeah..

Peanut-Lime Sauce
1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
1 tablespoon apple juice
juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon peanut flour

Whisk all ingredients together and dip away! If you don’t have peanut flour, you could probably just substitute peanut butter. I didn’t have any peanut butter so I used my peanut flour!

V-8′s Replacement

For years I have wanted my mom to teach me to make enchilada sauce. Unfortunately on the days we’ve planned to make enchiladas, I always seem to get there after the sauce is made! Darn cross-communications!

I took matters into my own hands last week.

I dug out the recipe my mom gave me, swung by the hispanic grocer down the street for the dried chilies I needed and got to work in the kitchen!

Following the recipe and verbal instructions I had committed to memory, I turned out my first batch of enchilada sauce. It was not nearly as difficult as I had always thought. Time consuming, but TOTALLY worth it.

I called my mom to brag about my new skill, practically hopping up and down with excitement!

Is it wrong to want to drink it? Because I do.

You’ll never go canned again.

Enchilada Sauce
7 dried guajillo chilies
1 dried ancho chili
Water
1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 tablespoon chickpea flour
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Wash chilies thoroughly. Place in a large saucepan and cover generously with water (I used about 5 or so cups). Cover and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand 45 minutes or until softened.

Drain chilies, reserving soaking liquid. Pull off stems, slit chilies open and rinse off seeds. Place chilies and 1-2 cups soaking liquid into a blender and puree. Turn into a sieve and rub through sieve into a bowl to eliminate bits of peel. Rinse blender with an additional 1 cup of soaking liquid and pour over remaining pulp in sieve.

Heat oil and garlic in a medium saucepan over low heat. When the oil is fragrant with garlic, remove the garlic clove. Stir in the flour until the mixture is smooth. Cook about 1 minute. Add pureed chile mixture and remaining ingredients, including the reserved garlic clove. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook until slightly thickened. Before storing, remove garlic clove (I ate mine..)

I used the sauce to make enchiladas filled with black bean, baby portabellas, onion and cumin topped with savory almond butter.

My tortillas disintegrated a bit from moisture so I’m still working on getting that right. Hopefully there will be an enchilada post once I figure that out. Meanwhile, I sure don’t think Kyle’s minding eating the “mistakes”.

I don’t mind either.