Food Update!

Alright! So I embraced my kitchen today since I had the day off with the BF. We made a fabulous brunch and presently I am making baked jalapeno poppers...mmm! (Edit: they burned my face off. Not really. But they were really, really hot.)

Earlier in the week I did indeed tackle the seitan project and snapped some photos to share.
The seitan has to be boiled for half an hour or so and during that time it expands a fair bit. I didn't know what to expect, never having had seitan before so it seemed a bit weird looking to be honest.I sliced up one of the four "chunks" of seitan once it was done and kept the rest in tupperware along with the cooking liquid. Sort of looks like a chicken breast.The final product! Seitan and nooch stirfry. I forgot to take a photo before we started eating, sorry about the mess there. Contains seitan, flat rice noodles, broccoli, nutritional yeast gravy (based on the Veganomicon's Cheezy Sauce, but not as good as usual because I was out of boullion and was in a hurry) and a side of mixed greens.

Since it is Sunday, I decided Bri and I should make an epic brunch to enjoy together. Since he doesn't have much of an appetite in the mornings we pushed the meal back to about noon and nursed coffee through a morning which included a trip to the post office and flea market.Frying up some tomatoes in olive oil with dried Italian herbs in one pan, and heating up our first ever tofu scramble (season with turmeric, sea salt, black pepper and sun dried tomatoes) and a pair of veggie sausages.
Ahhh yes! Clockwise from top: French's Dijon mustard, PC organic ketchup, buttermilk crumpet with butter, fried tomatos with sprinkle of swiss cheese, white potato hashbrowns (middle), poppyseed pancakes (courtesy my mum), caramelized yellow onion with fried cremini mushrooms, tofu scramble with sundried tomatoes.

Last night we had delightful appies at my mum's place: diced tomatoes, black olive tapenade, artichoke-asiago dip and 3-year old parmesan on dark rye crisps. And ice cold Corona bottles! I'm not even usually a big Corona fan, but I couldn't resist and it was just great.

After that, we sampled a little takeout from the new sushi place that just opened across the street. At first when ordering we were disheartened a bit because all the sushi on their menu had fish (totally legit, but neither of us eat fishies or other seafood). We spotted their single-order "basic" sushi menu on the way out though and ordered from there. They were out of inari so we missed out there, but we got tamago, cucumber-cream cheese roll, avocado roll and a futomaki salad roll. The rice was super fresh and the salad was crunchy and delicious. Very nice! Mum says they were happy to make rolls to order for her so perhaps next time we eat in there we'll ask about a tempura yam roll (Midori makes a fabulous one).

And I made my own sushi this week. Combinations of inari, creminis simmered with soy sauce & mirin, carrot & cucumber and avocado. They looked more lovely than usual thanks to black sesame seeds as garnish.

I guess the bottom line is that I'm hooked on sushi!