Crispy Cauliflower Tacos

Hey, hey, hey! We survived the Monday after a long weekend. It is always hard to get back to the grind after a nice long weekend, but we did it!  

I am working on a new morning routine and getting up a little earlier to ride my Peloton before I even come downstairs. I was worried I would not be as energetic in the morning, but I had a new PR this morning so I think it is going to be fine. After my workout, I run through a quick shower, do my hair, throw on some makeup and get dressed. All done before setting one foot downstairs. I then have a cup of coffee while cooking breakfast and am at my computer well before 8:00 a.m. Hopefully, getting exercise done first thing will take the pressure off the busy evenings when I am trying to wrap up work, take the dog for a walk and get dinner on the table. I will keep you posted on how the routine shakes out.

I am also happy to report that I squeaked by Thanksgiving week with 41 plant varieties on my list. With all the eating festivities of last week, it seems like I should have set a new plant variety record, but I was barely meeting the minimum.  I need to work on that. 

I started out this week strong with a great lawnmower breakfast taco with eight plant varieties. Not sure what happened to this picture, but it looks like it is from the 70s. Anyway, I am a big fan of lawnmower tacos, but from 2020, not 1970. 

You know what else I am a big fan of? Crispy Cauliflower Tacos by A Couple Cooks!  I have made these a couple of other times, but I don't think I have shared them with you.  They are so dang good and the cauliflower is really, really crispy.  

The ingredient list is a little weird - but just go with it!  Don't question that the marinade for the cauliflower has soy sauce, coconut oil, maple syrup and peanut butter!  Just do it.  Then toss the marinaded cauliflower with the panko, cornmeal, spiced up dry mixture and be happy you followed the recipe! 

Pop these little nuggets  a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. 

While they were cooking, I whipped up some garlic, cabbage, bok choy goodness to go with them. 

I sautéed the veggies in a little olive oil.  Splashed in some soy sauce and red pepper flakes. Cooked it for maybe 90 seconds until it got good and wilted. Once that was done, I made a quick little vegan yum yum sauce to drizzle on top of my creation. 

I still had time to empty the dishwasher! 

When the cauliflower was almost ready to come out of the oven, I grabbed my corn tortillas and threw them straight on top of my gas burner.  Flipped the tortillas a couple times and got them hot and charred. 

I split the cabbage mixture between the two tacos, piled them high with cauliflower, drizzled them with sauce and sprinkled on a few green onions. 

The combination was fantastic.  Reminded me so much of a Chuy's fish taco!  That is good eating right there. Try it! 

I added cauliflower, purple cabbage, bok choy and garlic to my list for dinner. I could probably also add corn for the tortillas and the corn meal in the coating, but it just doesn't feel like a plant so I am not adding it. Regardless, it sure was a tasty dinner.   

I have to leave you with this story.  Remember last week when I made veggie spring rolls with all the colorful veggies wrapped in rice paper?  Bob called me and told me it looked like I had wrapped up a little man inside the rice paper.  I had no idea what he was talking about until he showed me this picture.  Do you see the little man in the spring roll on the left?  Zoom in.  It looks like a Lego figurine with his face trapped against the rice paper! So funny. I won't be able to eat a spring roll again without looking for a little fellow! 

I hope your Monday was great and you started your week with a blank plant list!  This is week 12 for me of eating 40+ different plants a week. Feels great! 

Locking Up Christmas

With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, it is time to look forward to Christmas. We won't be traveling for Christmas, so I have to get gifts purchased, wrapped and mailed to our family in Bama. 

I think I mentioned that I was going to torture my nieces and nephews with the gift of cash. I am just not a fan of giving them cash in an envelope, so I have to make it challenging for them. The youngest is 16, so they are old enough to figure it out. 

I had a friend ask if I could give a little bit more information about my plan so maybe they could torture someone in their life. I am more than happy to oblige. 

I started off with the basic supplies shown below + some cold hard cash.  

You need:

• Plastic box with lid - IRIS USA Medium Modular Supply Case on Amazon. If you can't find this one, you can get something similar.  The dimensions are 5.24 x 8.4 x 1.98 inches.
• 4 ft 3mm luggage security wire with loops at both ends
• Luggage lock with a four number combination
• Small Box to put the cash in and wrap - I got 3.5 X 3.5 X 1 size boxes but anything smaller than the plastic box would work. 

Then the fun begins! The only way I could think of that the kids would not be able to wiggle the cable off the end of the plastic box to get it opened, was to drill a hole through the box. Judy helped me think through the best way to do it. She has an engineering brain that works great at figuring things out. 

I used my biggest drill bit! Look at that thing! Made me feel like a boss! I opened each plastic box and braced the end I was going to drill against a 2 X 4 to support the plastic so it would crack under the pressure of the drill. Then I just pressed down gently with the drill and let it rip! On some boxes, the drill made a nice clean hole - on others it was kind of a raggedy mess with pieces of plastic that had to be cut off with scissors. Never quite figured out what I was doing different that was causing some to go great and some not so great.  But in the end, they all had holes big enough to run the wire through. 

I put the cash in the smaller box and wrapped it with a ribbon.  Then I ran the wire through the holes on the end of the box and over the box and then shut the lid. 

Next up is the only tricky part...figuring out how to wrap the wire all around the box and make it tight enough to just barely meet for the lock to go through both loops of the cable.  I ended up twisting the wire over and over and over on the top of the box to tighten up the cable so it would just barely meet.  I wanted it to be snug. 

I picked four random numbers out of thin air and followed the directions on the lock to set the combination for each lock. I made a list of all the combinations with each person's name, just in case they can't figure it out. 

For the final step I used a black and red sharpie to write the four numbers of their lock in random order all over the outside of the box. I am not sending any clues or instructions.  The four numbers on the box entered on the lock in the correct order will open the lock and let them access their gift. 

Two down....eight to go! 

Doesn't this make you happy that I am not your Aunt? 

Hopefully, this will be memorable - and not too hard!  I will keep you posted on the response I get from the kids! 
 

The Happiest of Thanksgivings

We had the most relaxing, wonderful, Thanksgiving ever.  In all of my life, I have never been responsible for the entire meal for Thanksgiving. My boys are not very hard to please, so our menu wasn't anything too elaborate. I tried to focus on what they really liked. 

They both got up bright and early and we were in the kitchen together all morning. I was the head chef, making sure we were organized, so that we prepped and cooked in a logical order and everything was ready to go for lunch. I gave them recipes and pulled out all the ingredients for them and they did the rest! They sliced, diced, chopped, shredded, boiled, measured, whisked, whipped, sautéed...the whole nine yards. We had a couple of uh-ohs, but nothing we couldn't recover from.  

There was laughing, yelling, a little cussing, people going on and off break, a few spills and dirty dishes out the wazoo! But y'all we made a fabulous meal!  Here is what was on our menu! 

Honey Baked Ham...Crunchy Romaine Salad...Asparagus Wrapped with Bacon...Macaroni and Cheese (hit of the day!)...Mashed Potatoes and Gravy...Vegan Sweet Potato Casserole...Rolls....Cheesecake from Junior's in New York....Brownie Trifle.

This is my carb heavy plate! I stayed away from the meat. No honey baked ham or bacon on my roasted asparagus....but I did eat some of that delicious sugar crisp from the honey baked ham! And I did indulge in plenty of dairy. 

This picture of them eating cracks me up!  They were into it!  I think all three of us were impressed with our efforts and the results! We did it! 

After we had our fill, we rolled over to the couch and took a nap! The boys went to their Dad's later in the afternoon and I took my time cleaning up the kitchen. 

I had a smile on my face all day and into the night. I loved spending the day in the kitchen with my boys. They are hilarious and make me laugh more than any other humans on earth. I think they had fun too! 

I hope you had a lovely day with your people! Bring on the holidays! 

Feeding Frenzy

Hello all!  I hope your Monday was lovely.  Mine was busy sun up to sun down and the day flew by!  We had a little cold front come through and it cooled things down quite a bit outside. Inside, my body must have gotten some hibernate, bulk up, message from the universe because I have been eating all the live long day long!  

I sent my sister and brother a text at 11:30 this morning that said something along the lines of...

URGENT ALERT...SEND HELP....eating like I am preparing for a three month hibernation. First breakfast at 7:30 a.m. was a breakfast taco...second breakfast was a piece of sourdough toast with strawberry jam...early lunch was a left over bowl of soup.  It is only 11:30 and I am already thinking about  dinner! 

So, whatever was in the atmosphere or the good ol' menopause hormone tank was a real zinger today. Appetite was in rare form and would not be denied. I did manage to get my plant list for the week off to a great start! 

To start things off, the aforementioned breakfast taco was a thing of beauty!  It had sweet potato, onion, red bell pepper, jalapeño, mushrooms, spinach and cilantro.  A seven plant breakfast. Yum! 

I think part of my feeding frenzy today was because I was looking forward to having the leftover soup I made last night for lunch today. Could not wait to get to lunch!  I should have just had the soup for breakfast and called it a day! 

I think I have posted about this soup before, but if not, it was called Coconut Curry Noodles from the Healthy Haff website.  I modified the recipe just a little to add some garlic chili sauce because I like things spicy.  This soup is so delicious and I was in heaven last night eating it!  In fact, I was so enjoying it that I slurped up a single noodle off my spoon and some of the soup broth flew into my eye!  My eye was on fire!  How does that even happen?  It wasn't like I was slurping like a six year old boy!  It just did something weird between the spoon and my mouth and my eye being on fire.  

Here is a picture of the ingredients for the soup and the finished product.  I added coconut, garlic, green onion, lime to the plant list.

If you like warm, flavorful, delicious soups, please make this one. You might want to consider wearing safety goggles when you eat. But so worth it. So good! 

I also ate a few walnuts and a clementine.  Could not stop!

Look at this beautiful array of veggies prepped for my dinner. I made spring rolls and they were exceptional. I could eat these every day.  I just winged the recipe, but here is the basic idea. I drained, pressed and sliced some extra firm tofu. Did a real quick marinade for the tofu of soy sauce, sirracha and red pepper flakes. Baked it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25ish minutes. Then I sliced up cucumber, red bell pepper, spinach, carrots, purple cabbage, cilantro and green onion.  To assemble, I soaked the rice paper wrapper in warm water for about 30 seconds, blotted it gently with a paper towel.  I layered the tofu and all the veggies on top of the rice paper, sprinkled it with sesame seeds and rolled it up like an egg roll. The dipping sauce was spicy chili sauce with some vinegar, honey and a little squeeze of lime. It was spicy! 

Thoroughly enjoyed this dinner....but could have eaten five easy!  Crazy!  Let's hope today was just a one off and I will be back to normal tomorrow - or seriously - send help, or bigger pants. 

Hope you have a terrific week and cram in tons of plants! 

Let's Catch Up!

Y'all!  It has been a week!  Work has been intense and busy.  So much so, that at the end of the day I don't want to look at a computer or think about writing a blog post. And also, I have been less and less creative in food selections as the week has moved on! Lawnmower eggs have been on repeat along with a ton of peanut butter and crackers. Not great choices, but WE CAN'T DO EVERYTHING!  

Nevertheless, I will manage to get in my 40 plants this week and I did make a couple of new things that I think are worth sharing with you. That is enough.

Before we get to the food, I have to recount this story from yesterday because I am still cracking up this morning just thinking about it.  

Yesterday, I got up early and walked with Martha. It is one of my favorite things and as a BONUS, our walk wasn't kicked off with a dog vs opossum standoff! We had a great walk and I came home and got straight to work. So, no shower and I am knocking around the house in my leggings and a t-shirt. I am wearing my "Do More of What you Love" t-shirt that many of you are familiar with because I wear it all the time.  Now, I wouldn't normally share my terrible hygiene practices, but it is important for this story.  

Friday morning was busy - I had four zoom calls and deadlines and emails to answer and oh my. Chip was also participating in the Texas Tech Red Raider Orientation online that started at 8:00 a.m. sharp. I was popping back and forth from my office to the kitchen where Chip was watching videos and listening in on zoom calls of his own. About a half hour into the orientation session, Chip realizes he has some holds on his account that will have to be cleared in order for him to register for classes at 11:00.  

We leapt into action. A call was made to the doctor's office for a copy of his shot record. Thank goodness the doctor's office is less than a minute from our house and he was able to retrieve the records in less than five minutes. I was scanning the files to be able to send them in an email. Chip was emailing his high school counselor for a final high school transcript to be sent to Tech as soon as humanely possible. Now mind you, I feel certain both of these particular documents were already provided to Tech when Chip was registering to go over the summer. However, no time to figure that out. We will resend all the documents.  Chip was emailing housing and advisors and tempers were just barely being contained as he tried his best to get it all done in time.  

I was back in my office on another call, just hoping that things were progressing in the kitchen. About 10:15, Chip comes into my office beating his chest and high stepping like Lebron James himself after hitting a game winning shot. He was pumped! All four holds were cleared! Hallelujah!  

Anyway, it was a high stress morning and we were both running a little high strung. I came into the kitchen after my call and Chip put a big celebratory hug on me. He holds me out at arms length, looks down at me and says "Aww mama, are you at the age now where you always look like you are ready to paint?"

Bahahahahahaha!  I fell out. I snort laughed. It cracked me up!  

A quick glance at my reflection in the microwave, I looked like a mad scientist, my hair was CRAZY from the sweating and humidity of the walk! I had spilled coffee on my shirt and looked a mess!  It did look exactly like I was wearing painting clothes.  

Funny kid! 

Let's move on to the few plant things I made this week that were new. The first is a little vegan empanada hot pocket situation I have had in my freezer for a long time. I think it came from HEB, but maybe Sprouts. Not sure. I popped it in the oven for a quick, no effort lunch and it was good! I will be buying more of these if I can figure out where to buy them! 

I also made a little ambrosia yogurt parfait that was pretty yummy. Sliced up a fresh orange and put in some unsweetened coconut and pecans and layered it with plain coconut yogurt. Topped it with some crunchy granola from Trader Joes. It was refreshing. I was a fan.

I whipped up a quick batch of my favorite vegan pancakes from Tasty. I sliced up a banana and put some in the batter when the pancakes were cooking in the skillet and the pancakes got a little caramelized on the bottom. Topped them with more sliced bananas and some toasted walnuts, cinnamon and maple syrup. Tasted like banana bread. 

I woke up this morning and needed one more plant to hit 40 for the week. I reviewed my list to see what I had already eaten, then scanned the fridge and pantry to see what I had that could be #40.  I landed on a can of Chick Peas that I could roast for a football watching snack. I drained them, rinsed them, spread them out on a towel to dry. Put them on a parchment lined cookie sheet, sprayed them with a little olive oil and sprinkled on garlic salt, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper and salt. Roasted them at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. They are crunchy and spicy and I will gobble these up with no problem. 

So that is the catch up from the week for me! Are you guys making anything new? What are you eating for Thanksgiving. I am planning a pretty simple Thanksgiving meal for me and the boys. All their favorites and a couple good veggie sides. 

I have a very short list of chores to do this weekend and I may or may not do them. Ha! Weekends are for relaxing. We can't work hard all week and work hard all weekend. Need some down time. Hope you find some peace this weekend to regroup for the holiday week ahead!

Record Setting Monday

Every single time I go back and read one of my own posts, I find a mistake or an error or a misspelling. UGH! There is probably one in the sentence I am typing right now! I promise you that I review what I read before posting it, but it is hard to find your own mistakes. I try, but it happens! I hope that all six of my sweet friends that read this blog know that I do understand the difference between through and threw! I need an editor! All these words. Why don't they come out of my fingers the way they are swirling around in my head? If it drives you nuts to see errors in things that I write, feel free to send me your corrections and edits and I will fix them. 

Anyways, let's move on from grammar and charge right in to celebrating all the plants I ate on Monday! It may have been a record setting Monday, but we have no way to know because there are really no official records! It felt like a lot of plants!

I started off Monday morning with the fantastic 10 plant lawnmower breakfast I bragged about in yesterday's post.  I was swamped at work all day yesterday and only stopped long enough to grab a small bowl of oatmeal for lunch. I loaded it up with all the goodies....rolled oats, moringa powder, chia seeds, flax seed, hemp hearts, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, walnuts, coconut...a healthy dash of cinnamon and a smidge of brown sugar!  A 10 plant lunch! 

I pause this plant celebration to tell you that I only yesterday actually read the directions on the Rolled Oats container. Apparently you are supposed to cook these oats. Not this girl. I treat rolled oats exactly like instant oats. Whoops. I microwave some water for about 2 minutes until it is piping hot, pour it on the oats and let it sit for maybe a minute before I am eating. Am I eating raw oats? Does that count as extra fiber? Maybe I will try following the directions next time and see if I can tell a difference. 

I grabbed a handful of pecans for a snack between calls in the afternoon, getting my plant total to 21.  

For dinner, I thawed out the chili from the freezer that I made a few weeks ago. I threw a couple potatoes in the oven to bake for about an hour. When the timer went off, I turned the oven off and left the potatoes in the oven to keep warm while I went for a walk with Judy and the pups. We are trying to leave by 5:30 these days since it is getting dark so early. The potatoes were perfect by the time I got home.

This bean heavy chili mash up had red kidney beans, white kidney beans, kobucha squash, green chilis, edamame, garlic and obviously tomatoes. I was able to add six new plants to the list, bringing me to 27 plants in one day!  Woo Hoo! It was good eating and I was full as a bull!  

Me and Chip spent the evening hours watching Ocean's 13, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. It was great. Then we tried to plan how we would operate a bank heist and decided we would be the worst bank robbers in the entire world. My kid said he would wear a sock over his face. A sock! Would that even fit over your head? Would you be able to see through a sock? We had some great laughs and if you see us headed into a bank with socks in our hands, you better head the other direction! 

Hope you had a great Monday and ate lots of plants! Your colon will thank you! 

Monday - Let's Start Again

I don't know where the weekends go or why they go by so fast, but they do.  Monday morning is here so, let's tally up week nine of doing the 40 Plants in a Week challenge. I ended with a total of 45 different plants on my list. Not bad! I will start over with a new list today, shooting for my tenth week of getting in 40 plant varieties. Join me! It is fun!   

Here are a few things I made over the weekend. First, remember how I was raving about the Trader Joe's Chicken-less Orange Chicken?  This is the Gardein brand Mandarin Orange Crispy Chick'n which some folks think is better than the TJ's brand. I am conflicted. The TJ's brand was a little more orange flavored, which I liked. The Gardein brand was a little more crispy, which I also liked. I need them to get married and have a baby to make the perfect vegan orange chicken.  Honestly, I would eat either of these any time.  I jazzed up the Gardein version with some red pepper flakes, poppy seeds and toasted almonds and served it on a pile of romaine lettuce to get in more good plant points. 

Saturday morning, I made a small lawnmower casserole with a ton of veggies and Just Eggs. Trying to make enough to last me a few days. I call them lawnmower eggs because Bob said it looked like I just grabbed grass clippings out of the yard and threw them into some eggs. In fact, this particular lawnmower casserole has potato, mushroom, red bell pepper, red onion, jalapeño, spinach, cilantro and covered it all with Just Egg, a vegan egg substitute. For a new twist, I gave it a couple of big shakes of Everything But the Bagel seasoning. It gave it a good garlic flavor that I thought was terrific.

I plated it up with a piece of sourdough toast and there are leftovers for at least two more meals in the fridge for breakfast! Win! 

I also made garlic confit for the first time. Just dump a ton of peeled garlic cloves in an oven safe pan, cover with oil and cook on 200 degrees for three hours. My house smelled AMAZING! The garlic got all roasted and golden. We did a taste test when it came out the oven, spreading a super soft garlic clove on a piece of toasted sourdough bread.  We sprinkled it with a little salt, which really made it scrumptious.  There are lots of uses for the garlic cloves and the oil and I am going to try to incorporate those into my cooking in the next several weeks! 

I also made Minimalist Baker's Vegan Eggplant Parmesan AGAIN on Sunday afternoon. Olive Garden has nothing on me! This time, instead of serving it with pasta, me and Chip just ate it like an appetizer. Dipped the eggplant into some marinara sauce and it was crunchy and delicious! 

I ordered a new batch of groceries over the weekend and am restocked for the week.  New list is on the kitchen counter. 

I started my morning with lawnmower eggs and a side of spinach and tomatoes giving me nine plant points to start the week.  Just noticed that I did not put Sesame Seeds on my list...need to fix that!  Make it a ten point plant breakfast! 

I am going to finish this post with some pictures from our kayaking trip Saturday, which is the last one of the year.  Nancy is having surgery on her hip and will be out of commission for a few weeks so the kayaks have been cleaned and stored for the season. I will miss it so, but we are already talking about finding a beautiful winter day in January to jump in the kayaks to see what our little creek looks like in the winter. It will be cold getting in the boats, but so worth it to spend a few hours exploring. 

The leaves on the water and in the trees were just so pretty.  They were falling constantly while we were on the water. Magical.

Well, let's wrap this up and get on with our Monday!  May yours be awesome!