chopped salad, parmesan rosemary biscotti, chai-spiced chocolate ice cream

This week, we made a hefty chopped salad for dinner. I know, a salad for a vegetarian and a mostly vegetarian, right? Lame. But this is a really good salad. The recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen, and instead of salami, we used Italian veggie sausage. The only other changed I'd make in the future is to use half the salt called for in the recipe. 

To go with the salad, I made parmesan rosemary biscotti, from My Name is Yeh. I made these when Drew wasn't home and they were so good that I shamelessly ate two right away.

I also made chai-spiced chocolate ice cream, from Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones, whose authors opened up the Bi-Rite Creamery in San Francisco. Drew and I stopped there on our road trip from California to Wisconsin and loved the place. 

paella

Don't laugh, but the first time I had paella was in Shanghai. Drew's friend got a promotion and he wanted to celebrate at this fancy tapas restaurant. So we gorged on paella (well, me and Drew's friend since Drew's a vegetarian) and tapas and it was one of the best meals ever.

The second time I ate paella was at La Tasca in Washington, D.C. a couple months ago. I don't remember how it compared to the paella I ate in Shanghai, but it was really good and I loved the sangria.

Drew had never eaten paella, so we made it the other day. The recipe is from the Candle 79 cookbook, which  is a legendary vegan restaurant in New York City. Drew and I ate there a couple years ago, and while it was very good and we'd eat there again, all I remember is that we ate this amazing smoked paprika hummus. 

I cannot articulate how much we enjoyed this paella. This is a meal that you could make for special occasions or for guests, but it's so easy to make that you could easily make it on a weeknight. 

pasta alla norma

I'm trying to eat more purples.

So I made pasta alla norma.

vegan chipotle mac and cheese

Having grown up in Minnesota, I used to have what my friend, DG, affectionately called "Scandinavian tastebuds" (or was it Midwestern tastebuds? This was over 10 years ago, so I forget). Anyway, I used to hate spicy food. I would break out in a sweat at the sight of a jalapeno pepper. Everything had to be mild, which often overlapped with bland. 

DG didn't give up on me. In the two years that we lived together, in addition to introducing me to fresh herbs and garlic, she worked on improving my tolerance for spicy food. For instance, despite my half-hearted protests, she made her enchiladas with the hot or medium sauce instead of the mild. She might have even tossed in a jalapeno pepper for good measure.   

But it worked. Between DG and Drew (whose tolerance is higher than mine), my tolerance for spicy food has increased exponentially. Sometimes I don't even recognize myself. A few years ago, we were at an Asian restaurant in Milwaukee and when I ordered the stir fried noodles, with a spiciness level of 3 chili peppers, Drew turned to me and asked "You sure you want to do that?" It's a valid question; the old me would have balked, but I responded "It's okay because 3 chili peppers in the midwest are probably like no chili peppers in California" (and I was right).  

After years of living in California, I've also become somewhat of a hot sauce fiend. Between my refrigerator at home and in my office, there are 6 bottles of hot sauce. Last weekend, I read that putting hot sauce on your food is a very California thing to do, and I laughed out loud as I recalled dousing my breakfast burrito in Cholula earlier that day. For the most part, I've resisted turning Californian, but I guess I'm not immune to some of its influences. It's a good thing I'm leaving; otherwise, the next thing you know, I'll be getting botox, plastic surgery, and a diamond so big that a village in Africa surely died for it. 

So last week, I made this vegan chipotle macaroni and cheese from the Post Punk Kitchen.

It was really simple. You soak some cashews, drain them, and then process them in the food processor with veggie broth, garlic, nutritional yeast, and chipotle peppers. The recipe calls for 4 peppers, but I was feeling adventurous (or stupid, depending on how you look at it), so I added 6. I surprised myself by doing this, as the old me probably would have added only one or maybe two. This dish turned out really well and just manageably spicy. As you can see, I added corn and black beans because I love veggies. 

A while ago, in an effort to inject lots of veggies into one meal, I made the Chubby Vegetarian's taco salad. The filling is a mushroom and eggplant "meat."

And scrolling through my phone, I found this picture of the granola bars I made a couple months ago. The recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen. 

And so is the recipe for the mushroom lasagna I made a few weeks ago. Sadly, I was so ravenous that I forgot to take a picture.

kimchi and a korean seafood pancake

When Drew and I moved in together a few years ago, we made a peculiar discovery. This discovery, however, was not about one another, but rather, about our former roommates. Both moved out of our respective apartments before us, and both left behind a box of rubber gloves (to be fair, both left behind things that were not so odd and of immediate use to us, like a table and chairs). We had no idea what they did with rubber gloves, and we concluded that for whatever reason, hard science students must have to have them, as this was the only commonality between the two (my roommate was in chemistry, and Drew's was in biology). But that explanation didn't really make much sense because it's not as though my roommate was conducting science experiments in our apartment, at least to my knowledge. Anyway, we didn't really know what we'd do with the rubber gloves, but after one too many incidents involving jalapeno peppers and contact lenses, I figured they'd come in handy. 

Fast forward.

I began making sauerkraut a year or two ago, inspired by The Homemade Pantry. This naturally led to making kimchi and finally having a use for the rubber gloves. Making sauerkraut and kimchi are more or less the same process, except that when you make kimchi, you add things like shredded carrots, scallions, ginger, garlic, and gochujang to the cabbage. Gochujang (don't ask me how to pronounce it) is a Korean red pepper. It's hot and spicy, and when you're mixing everything together, you certainly don't want to handle the mixture with your bare hands (fortunately, I didn't learn this lesson the hard way--the internet warned me). So every time I make kimchi, I put on the rubber gloves and silently thank our former roommates and apologize for ever questioning why they ever had them.   

(I have no picture of the kimchi. As I was mixing it, it occurred to me to take one, but my hands were messy and I wasn't going to deglove, get my phone, and reglove. And now that the kimchi has fermented, it's a big mess and not very photogenic. My apologies.)

I do have this picture of a Korean seafood pancake for you:

I have had Korean seafood pancakes twice in my life. The first time was at this restaurant in this Korean spa in Irvine and the second time was in Seoul. I had a craving last weekend, and instead of hunting down a restaurant and paying Orange County prices, I decided that it would be much cheaper and probably just as tasty if I made them at home. I don't regret my decision. 

in january

In January, I made a blue cheese and caramelized onion gallette from A Year of Pies. 

And a pot pie stew and sweet potato biscuits from Appetite for Reduction.

I also discovered some new blogs. The first is A Sweet Spoonful, which I heard about from Eating From the Ground Up and Orangette. The blogger, Megan Gordon, from A Sweet Spoonful recently released a cookbook called Whole Grain Mornings. I haven't flipped through the cookbook, but I've been perusing Gordon's blog. I like her writing style and her stories, and I like her emphasis on whole grains. I made steel cut oats with a blueberry compote (her recipe calls for cranberries, but I didn't have any one hand).

. 

I also stumbled upon The Chubby Vegetarian. I made a veggie meatloaf

and veggie meatballs

and a barbeque eggplant sandwich with caesar cole slaw.

I've also been reading The Kitchn and Food52 and my name is yeh.

at long last

It's been a while, I know, but I have a good excuse. I was on the academic job market last fall, and it was crazy busy. But don't worry, I made time to eat. My goal was to cook simple meals and not rely on pre-packaged garbage or take out, and I was mostly successful. Last night, I scrolled through the pictures on my phone and found these highlights:

Apparently, I made fried egg sandwiches one day. I believe that the biscuit recipe is from the Smitten Kitchen, but I'm not very good at biscuit making so I didn't do them justice. 

I also made a red lentil and broccoli curry, from Veganomican. The original recipe calls for cauliflower, but I'm not a fan, hence the broccoli.

I also made fettuccine and meatballs. The sauce is a butter-roasted tomato sauce from Bon Appetit, and so is the meatball recipe. I made the fettuccine (my reward after returning from a campus interview--fresh pasta is the best!) from Food 52's feature on Mario Batali. 

Let's see, what else? I was on a veggie burger kick and made these beet burgers, from the Post Punk Kitchen. They were super good, but messy to make. I shredded the beets in the food processor and I got beet juice everywhere--the counters and floor--and the kitchen looked like a crime scene.

I also made a butternut squash and cheddar galette, from A Year of Pies.

I was able to make some time for baking, beginning with pumpkin whoopie pies, from either Baked: New Frontiers in Baking or Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Revisited. 

For Christmas, I made Funfetti cookies.

And chocolate peppermint cookies from Baked Elements: The Importance of Being Baked in 10 Favorite Ingredients. 

 And rugelach from Baking Out Loud: Fun Desserts with Big Flavors.

I know I cooked other stuff last fall, and the lack of photographic evidence doesn't mean it didn't taste good enough to share. It just means that I was too hungry and impatient to take a few seconds and document it. 

olive lentil burgers

I'm moving in a couple of weeks, and I'm trying to use up the food in the kitchen. Even though I'm not moving very far (it's only about a 5 minute walk from my current place), I'll be sharing kitchen space with a roommate now (a friend from my program), and I don't want to take it all up. 

So, these olive lentil burgers were a great opportunity to use up the kalamata olives, lentils, and panko that were hanging around. The recipe was from Post Punk Kitchen, a vegan website, but as these were baking up, all I could think was "oooh, these would be so good with swiss cheese." I don't think that's what they had in mind, but I was right.

My garden has been steadily producing tomatoes lately, so I made tomato jam over the weekend. On it's own, it's a bit too sweet for me (I think Drew would think it's perfect though), but fortunately you're not supposed to eat it on its own, and it was perfect on this burger. Tomato jam tasted like ketchup, except infinitely better. 

cheddar onion rolls

My mom used to say that I bake (or cook) for compliments. I'd be lying if I said she was wrong. Growing up, whenever I made something, I'd subtly fish for compliments, asking everyone if they enjoyed whatever it was that I made. 

I don't really do this anymore.

Not really.

Because sometimes, you just know if it's good. 

As I've mentioned before, I run most Sunday mornings with a running group, and we follow up our run with breakfast. Most of the time, we eat out, but sometimes, we stay in and cook. Last weekend, we did just that, and for the occasion, I made cheddar onion rolls, from the Smitten Kitchen's cookbook. 

And they were really good.

But, I had the feeling they would be. As I was grating the onion, I thought to myself "these are going to be so good. Everyone's going to love these." 

And they did. 

stir fried tomatoes and eggs

Drew and I were introduced to stir fried tomatoes and eggs when we were in Beijing together, 3 years ago. I believe it was our first meal there. Since then, I've tried my best to replicate this dish, but nothing I've made compares to what we ate in Beijing.

Drew has been in Beijing for 2 weeks now, and he's eaten this dish many times, sometimes with rice and sometimes with noodles. So in his honor, and because my tomatoes suddenly began ripening all at once, I made this a couple times last week. It's a very simple dish- just tomatoes, eggs, scallions, salt, pepper, and sugar. It doesn't really require a recipe, but I used this one, from Appetite for China. It was good, but definitely not as good as the versions I ate in Beijing. 

a week of smitten kitchen

After eating this pasta every day for a week, it didn't take me long to realize that I need to cut recipes in half. 

That strategy worked. 

Sort of. 

It just meant that I ate ratatouille 3 days in a row. 

And after that, corn risotto-stuffed poblanos for another 3 days. I'll get the hang of this someday.

The recipes this week are all from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite cooking blogs. Deb Perelman writes the best stories to go with each recipe, takes great pictures, and I think she's funny and down to earth. Both of these recipes are from her new cookbook, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. 

To accompany my poblanos, I made black beans. I winged it here and simmered black beans in veggie broth, sauteed onions, garlic, and cumin. Drew would be so proud of me for forgoing a recipe (though doing so was admittedly difficult). I also added a couple chopped tomatoes, fresh picked from the garden.

In addition to the ratatouille and poblanos, I also made vinegar slaw, breakfast apricot crisp, and a spring salad with potatoes. As you can see, I'm a big fan of the Smitten Kitchen. The recipes are fairly low maintenance, but Perelman doesn't resort to shortcut cooking or baking. Some of the recipes are pretty standard, but she also has ones with interesting twists. I will always have a soft spot for Smitten Kitchen. After all, it was after consulting Perelman's tutorial that I finally mastered pie crust. 

fettuccine with creamy tomato italian sausage

I tried to be a vegetarian twice. The first time was when I was 17 and my vegetarian streak lasted 2 years. I'm not really sure what compelled me to be a vegetarian. I think it was because I thought I cared about animal rights, and I did, to a degree. But the problem was, I didn't know where to draw the line, and this weighed on me. I mean, if I eschewed meat because I cared about animals, then what about eggs? Dairy? Leather? Animal testing? It was overwhelming, and because I didn't know where the line was, I gave up altogether. 

The second time I tried vegetarianism was about 3 years ago, and I think that streak lasted almost a year. I had given it quite a bit of thought, and besides, Drew was a vegetarian. Though he never cared if I ate meat, I thought it made sense. So I did it. But it lasted only until he went to Beijing two summers ago. 

Again, like the time before, the "line" weighed on me. If I was a vegetarian because it was good for my health, animals, and the environment, well then, why did I have to give it up altogether? I asked myself why I couldn't eat it on occasion. What was wrong with eating a mostly vegetarian diet? When I didn't know the answer, I knew my heart wasn't into it and that I had to give it up. 

When I gave up vegetarianism both times, it was pork that broke my streak. The first time, it was sausage pizza. The second time, it was ham. The thing is, and this is only anecdotal evidence, it appears that when vegetarians return to meat-eating, the streak isn't broken by what is considered to be "good" meat, like a steak. It's broken by what's deemed to be inferior meat, like pepperoni or lunch meat or bologna. 

I'm not surprised that pork products were my gateway meat. I've never been one to eat steak, and I never really ate chicken or turkey. Mock meats have come a long way these days, and I actually enjoy them. Though you can find fake chicken, ground beef, and hot dogs, fake Italian sausage and fake ham are difficult to come by. 

I'm confident that I've finally found the "line." Drew and I keep a vegetarian household (my choice, not his), and I try to be as responsible as I can when I eat meat. This means that I don't eat it at, say, a fast food restaurant. As I said to Drew early on, I don't eat meat so I can eat it at Del Taco. I also eat meat about twice a week. For me, the line is to reduce my meat consumption, something that everyone should do. Too often, I think people have an all-or-nothing attitude (I certainly did!), but people don't have to be either a vegetarian or a meat-eater. 

Last Friday night, Drew left for Beijing. I intend to continue eating a mostly vegetarian diet while he's away, but now I can cook with meat if I want to. Tonight, I made Fettuccine with Creamy Tomato Italian Sausage. from Simply Recipes.   

I was ambitious, and somewhat bored, so I decided to make my own pasta. It was totally worth it. I even did it the proper way, without the stand mixer. Using Chef Anne Burrell's recipe (I love her!), I made a volcano with the flour, and poured the olive oil and eggs in the well. You have to be careful not to break the volcano or else the liquid spreads across the counter, which is what happened to me. It really wasn't an issue, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Chef Anne would be disappointed in me. When the dough came together, I kneaded it until it was smooth and pliable, which was supposed to take 10 to 15 minutes for an inexperienced kneader and 8 to 10 for an experienced one. I wasn't sure which one I was, so I kneaded my dough for approximately 3 Taylor Swift songs.  

Even prior to dating Drew, I didn't eat a lot of meat. Aside from this meal, I can't think of anything else I'd like to cook while Drew is gone. I'm a vegetarian at home, and I'm not sure that will be a habit that I'll break.        

thanksgiving in june

Tomorrow night, Drew is headed to China to spend a year doing his dissertation research. Though we'll miss each other (I plan to visit in September and December), it is an exciting time for the both of us. This is a great opportunity for Drew- I mean, how many people can say they've spent a significant time in another country? And as for me, it will be a busy time as I finish my dissertation, do my own dissertation fieldwork, and apply for jobs. 

Living in China for a year means that Drew is missing out on some important holidays...like my birthday. 

Wait, what's that you say? That's not a national holiday? 

Okay, but aside from my birthday, Drew is missing out on some other holidays. For the most part, I don't think he's bothered by this, but it bothers me that he'll be missing out on Thanksgiving. I recognize that Thanksgiving is not without controversy. I actually attempted to read an academic book on its history, but it was boring and I stopped after 10 pages. Plus, in the introduction, the author basically said that we don't know what the first Thanksgiving was like, so, satisfied that I was not inadvertently celebrating the murder of American Indians, it made it easier to stop reading (um, to be clear, I know that happened, but if an academic can't find evidence that Thanksgiving is rooted in this, then it may not exist).

Anyhow, what really matters to me is the Thanksgiving food. I'm not much of a turkey girl, but I can practically eat my weight in stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. So last night, Drew and I had our own Thanksgiving. We made a seitan roast, stuffed with leeks and shitakes. 

It was easy to make (we made it up a few days beforehand) and I think this will become our new Thanksgiving staple. We also made stuffing:

And green bean casserole, but I had to fight for this one. You see, green bean casserole is usually made with canned green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and french fried onions. I'm a big fan, though I make it with fresh green beans and not canned, but Drew is not. But I assured him that he'd like a homemade green bean casserole, and I was right. I used Alton Brown's recipe, which I watched him make on an episode of his show Good Eats years ago. At first, this dish seems high maintenance, but it's really not. You mix up sliced onions with panko and flour and bake them until crispy for about a half an hour. While that's baking, you blanch green beans and make the mushroom soup. It will all take longer than opening up a bunch of cans and mixing up their contents, but it's completely worth it.   

Of course, we had to have mashed potatoes. These are really simple, just butter and sour cream.

Here's what the full plate looks like:

Even though I don't think it's really Thanksgiving unless I eat pumpkin pie, I conceded and made a chocolate cream pie instead. Drew does not share my enthusiasm for pumpkins, and this was his request. I was happy to comply; after all, I did get green bean casserole on the menu, and I'll get to bake with pumpkins all I want this fall.   

The recipe is from Ashley English's A Year of Pies. I like this cookbook, and I suspect I'll use it more often this fall, which I consider to be pie season (despite it being called A Year of Pies).

Our Thanksgiving was successful, and we were satisfied. We decided that if we ever host Thanksgiving, we're totally going to rock at it. We also realized that there is a reason people grill for summer holidays-it gets too hot in the kitchen! 

veggie burgers

We made veggie burgers the other day, using this recipe from the LA Times. The base is pureed black beans, which is then mixed with a homemade pico de gallo, sauteed mushrooms and onions, and panko. 

We usually don't make homemade veggie burgers because 1) they turn out to be too dry, or 2) the mixture is too crumbly and is therefore difficult to shape into burgers. But on occasion, for some reason, we decide to give homemade veggie burgers a go, and I'm glad we did this time. These burgers did not suffer from the above 2 problems.

I am compelled to point out that I grew the arugula we used to top our veggie burgers.

nachos

I love nachos, but before meeting Drew, making them myself didn't occur to me. Drew sauteed veggie crumbles, onion, garlic, and black beans with a variety of spices, but as usual, I wasn't paying attention. He poured the mixture over a pile of tortilla chips, topped it with grated cheddar cheese, and baked it in the oven just long enough to melt the cheese. 

I usually turn my nachos into a salad, adding lots of lettuce, salsa, avocado, and sour cream. It feels more virtuous this way.

parsley pesto

When I was a kid, I used to fill out comment cards at stores, telling anyone who would listen that I was mad because I couldn't reach products on the top shelves. That I couldn't do so because I was a child never crossed my mind. Having been short my entire life,  even as a child, somehow I just knew this would be a lifelong issue.

And I was right; as an adult, I can't reach most things on the top shelves of any store. Before I dated Drew, sometimes I just wouldn't buy what I couldn't reach (which he found a bit baffling) and sometimes I would ask for help- it depended upon my mood or if a taller person was easily accessible. These days, Drew and I usually shop together, so my being vertically challenged is a non-issue.  

We made fusilli with parsley pesto the other day. The recipe is from Bon Appetit, which calls for spaghetti. But I wanted fusilli, but at Whole Foods the other day (Drew was busy grading final exams), it was on the top shelf, out of my reach. In the past, I've simply opted for penne instead, but this time, I sucked it up and asked someone to get me the fusilli.

 

It is a misconception that pesto is made with basil. In fact, pesto means "to crush" or "to grind." It can be made with pretty much anything. I'm normally not a huge fan of parsley, but I was intrigued by this recipe, and it was pretty good. Plus, pesto is so easy to make.

We ate this pasta with sautéed carrots, which I grew in our garden. Drew added butter and sage, which I also grew (no, I didn't churn the butter, but we have done that once in case you're wondering).

PS: Drew just told me that the parsley pesto was good, but it needed something. Apparently, my addition of sun dried tomatoes was insufficient.

tofu and pickled beet sandwiches

A few years ago, I spent a summer in Ann Arbor, on the University of Michigan campus. It was there that I discovered my love of sandwiches. I, uh, also learned a lot of statistics, but that's just not as tasty. Or interesting to blog about. Anyway, I had no idea that I harbored such a love of sandwiches, but when I was in Ann Arbor, it occurred to me that in contrast to the Univ of MI and Univ of MN campus (where I went to college), there really aren't good sandwich places on or near the UCI campus. 

But, there is Gogi, so I guess that might make up for the lack of good sandwiches.

Anyway, sandwiches are awesome, and I usually make them myself these days. Last week, we made tofu and pickled beet sandwiches. 

The recipe is from Bon Appetit and was supposed to be made with eggplant, but ours went bad in the fridge, so we baked up some tofu instead. I've been getting into pickled veggies lately, and they add some nice tang and crunch to sandwiches, and also, well, anything. 

seitan tikka masala

At the end of June, Drew is headed off to China for a year. He's going to do a language program and his dissertation research. I'm not looking forward to this, so I've been trying to find the silver lining(s). There are very few (no snoring and no sitting through action movies comes to mind), but one of them is meat. 

To be clear, Drew does not care if I eat meat. I never ate a lot of it anyway, and I've gone veg twice- once about 15 years ago and the second was just a few years ago. I prefer eating a mostly vegetarian diet, and most of the time, I don't miss meat.  

I began making a mental list of restaurants to visit and meals to cook when Drew leaves. It's not that he refuses to go to some of these restaurants, it's that these sorts of places have no veg options and I'm not going to relegate him to a meal of french fries or a side salad so that I can eat, say, seafood. On occasion, I do play what I call the "meat" card, in which we go to a restaurant where he must eat a meal of sides, but I try not to abuse it. Fortunately, this isn't an issue in Southern California; we've been able to find good restaurants where we can both be satisfied. 

I came across this recipe for chicken tikka masala in Bon Appetit a few weeks ago, and I immediately thought to myself "I'll make this when Drew leaves." But then I realized that, like so many recipes, this one could easily be made vegetarian. We could have used fake chicken, but we decided to make up a batch of seitan instead. Seitan is made with vital wheat gluten, and it has a firm, chewy texture. Drew and I used to buy it, but it's way cheaper to make and very easy to do. We use this recipe from Post Punk Kitchen.  

This tikka masala was very easy to make. It requires some advanced planning, but there's a lot of downtime, what with the marinating the seitan and simmering the sauce. We served this with sauteed red chard, which is difficult to see in the background of the picture. The chard is from the garden, and I sacrificed it to make room for a volunteer tomato plant. 

un-chinese food, or Drew's super-secret surprise

Super-secret surprises are, well, super secret surprises that Drew and I plan for each other when we accomplish a milestone. There are few rules governing super-secret surprises. Obviously, it must be a secret. Beyond that, there is a lot of latitude. It doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive or complicated. It just has to be a surprise. The second rule is that they are reserved for milestones only- qualifying exams, prospectus defenses, marathons. Super-secret surprises aren't for just any occasion, so no birthdays, anniversaries, or holidays. The idea is that no matter the outcome of these (usually stressful and nerve-wracking) events, there will always be a super-secret surprise to look forward to. We don't remember exactly when we began referring to these as super-secret surprises, though I suspect that it was when I ran my marathon.  

My super-secret surprises for Drew tend to involve food; his involve either food or crafts. Here are some examples: When Drew took his qualifying exams, I made him pastries and gyoza like the ones we ate in Beijing. When I defended my dissertation prospectus, Drew transformed our garden into a pumpkin patch and surprised me with dinner. When I ran my first (and only) marathon, Drew made me a special trophy, and when I ran my 1000th mile, he made me 3 types of bagels each representing a city 1000 miles away. And when I recently interviewed for a job, Drew made me a giant gold star.   

Last week, Drew defended his dissertation proposal. The easy thing to do would have been to make him Chinese food, but that's cruel and unusual punishment for someone about to spend a year in China. And so I thought I'd be clever and make un-Chinese food. I bought egg roll wrappers and wanton wrappers, and stuffed them with Italian, Mexican, and Indian food.

First up: ravioli with a pesto and four cheese filling (maybe five). The recipe is inspired by Giada's Four Cheese Ravioli with Herb Pesto.

Next, I made egg rolls stuffed with taco filling and samosa filling. The taco filling is the Post Punk Kitchen's recipe for ancho lentil tacos (I used veggie crumbles instead), and the samosa filling is from Veganomicon (of Post Punk Kitchen).

The meal was a big hit, and Drew was impressed (and very relieved that it wasn't really Chinese food). I boiled the ravioli as one usually would, and I baked the egg rolls (though we did decide that frying is superior to baking, which we did with the leftovers).

spinach artichoke pasta

We wrapped up last week with this spinach artichoke pasta from the Pioneer Woman.

Like most of the Pioneer Woman's recipes, this one was easy and quick. It also made a ton, but fortunately, we had a friend over for dinner to help us eat it all.