Cookbook-love!

So, apart from zucchini noodles, what does a vegan-in-training eat every day?
I had quite a love/hate relationship with my kitchen lately. My brother-in-law had been staying with us for over a week and with two adult men in the house, this meant: MEAT. Mostly lamb, maybe some chicken. For me, it meant that I made some vegan sides....so boooring! Now it's back to normal here, and that means: Cook mostly vegan meals but don't tell them!
Pasta with vegetables, rice dishes, curries with chickpea and potatoes, stir-fries, pizza (with vegan cheese). Sometimes I served some additional fish or chicken, so Hubby and Son don't get suspicious.

A great help has been my latest cookbook-love, "Isa does it" by the ever-so-wonderful
Isa Chandra Moskowitz. I just love her sense of humour, her writing and -most of all- her recipes.

After trying a few of her recipes, my son decided he would go vegan. I mean, imagine a thirteen-year-old boy who could live on burges and doener going vegan... that is one of the greatest compliments I can imagine for a vegan cookbook! He made it for two weeks, but, alas, he tried. Great work, Isa!
Recipes we have tried so far include:
-Quinoa caesar salad
-Dragon noodle salad
-Creamy sun dried tomatoe penne
-Eggplant & breadcrumb fettucine
-Meaty beany chili (eaten by Hubby and BIL without complaining, I added some TVP)
-and her pancakes
Oh those pancakes...I could make the every day for breakfast, my son would not get enough of them. he loves them.

I highly recommend  this cookbook, if you are following a vegan diet or not. It is full of tasty recipes, always with a weeknight cook in mind, some take a little longer, but you can always prepare something like the sauce for the enchilada casserole, for example.And maybe you'll get inspired to make your own seitan!
I'm in love with all of Isa's books, but this one is by far the best! Also make sure to check out her videos on Youtube, such a funny girl!

Now I'm off to the kitchen, cleaning up the mess from making... pancakes!

Zucchini-Noodles!

I cannot believe that I finally gave in to that hype about spiral-cut vegetables and bought a spiral cutter. Doesn't it look cute? A lovely shade of green...

The Slicer, picture taken by my son

Then I "cut" (do you say "sliced"?) two medium zucchinis... this was kind of fun, the noodles look so  funny!

The raw noodles, so pretty!

Next, I sauteed some garlic in hot olive oil, then tossed the noodles in the oil. Unfortunately, I wanted the dish to be more "saucy", so I added some broth with lemon juice. The noodles kinda shrunk and got all soft, but the taste was still great. Without the broth and juice this will be a great summer side dish!

The final dish, not very pretty, but yummy!

Keeping up with Flylady

So I am trying to FLY again this year. One of my New Years Resolutions has been to do the Zone Missions and the Habit of the Month. In January I tried to keep my sink shiny and clean. I think I did quite well. With some exceptions, the sink has been greating me with a smile every morning. As I am the first one to get up in the morning, this has been so nice! Definitely will keep the sink this way.

The breakfast table , clean and decluttered

This months habit is decluttering, 15 minutes a day. Does not sound that much, but today, after getting home from work, doing the zone mission, which took me longer than expected, putting away the lunchboxes and doing a quick kitchen tidy-up, I ended up with one hour spent in the kitchen! And I haven't even started to cook dinner. Or prepare lunches for tomorrow. Sometimes it feels like I am spending hours and hours in the kitchen, so annoying! If only it would stay clean for a few days in a row!  Maybe we should eat only sandwiches for a few days. But I can mess up the kitchen even when I am only preparing sandwiches...

Decluttered lunchboxes

Do you know ways to keep the kitchen clean or speed up dinner/lunchbox preparation time? Any ideas welcome!!