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!
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