Potato Carrot "Cheese." Meh.

The rage right now seems to be potato carrot cheese, at least among the online groups I frequent. Everyone exclaiming left, right, and centre how amazing this stuff is. Being quite familiar with the ingredients, I was cautious, but assumed the carrot had some magic up it's sleeve.

Two cups potato, one cup carrot, olive oil, a half cup of water, some lemon juice, cayenne, nooch and onion powder. Boiled the carrot and tater until soft, threw it in the blender with everything else. I should've known right now this was a bland waste of time, except that carrot man. I never put a carrot in my sauce like that before. I expected more.

It tastes like runny potato soup with nutritional yeast. I ended up boiling some pasta and used it as a sauce for that (with lots of hot sauce for kick).

Spicy Avocado Cheese Dip

Crappy last couple of weeks, weekend is here, time to unwind. A lovely gal at work brought me a block of Daiya cheddar, so of course I melted it in a pot, threw in half an avocado, a Serrano pepper, some Frank's® and a healthy dash of el Yucateco. 

Ingredients!

Adding the Serrano to the Daiya.

A lil bit o avocado. Only a few minutes on LOW heat + stirring until ...

The money shot.

Once the picture was taken, I flooded the plate with Sriracha, though it really didn't need it. Hot damn.

Homemade Pierogi

A cup of warm water, 3 cups of flour (all-purpose, and some whole-wheat for sprinkling/rolling), a dab of oil, and you've got dough.

Mash them taters with Earth Balance, Daiya, a raw onion,
and black pepper, and you've got filling, son!

Drink a beer to relax - here comes the fun! I don't have either a rolling pin or a proper cutting tool, but use a drinking glass for both.

I halfed the dough and stuck some in the fridge to keep.
Filling and pinching takes me some time. 

Too little filling ... too much ... the one in-between was just right ...

You MUST PINCH! Keep that filling IN!
Boil for about 5 minutes each, however, I prefer pierogi fried. A few minutes on each side. I threw in some Tofurkey kielbasa while that was going on.

By the time the dough was almost out, I was tired of making little ones,
so I finished off with a giant one, half the size of the frying pan.

Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up...

Serve with mustard, pickles, and hot peppers for sexiest results.

Cauliflower + Chickpeas with Turmeric

There are so many recipes for this obviously-delicious meal online, and I can't resist the included suggestion of quinoa. 

Quinoa (I make about a half a cup at once), 4 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp turmeric, exactly 100 chilli flakes, 1 tbsp garlic powder, 1 tbsp cayenne, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 a head cauliflower, bit of water to thin out the herd.

Spread all this fine ess aych eye tee single layer style on a baking sheet. Chickpeas were canned but drained, and cauliflower floretted. All the liquids and spices were mixed together and coated on the veggies as the quinoa cooked.

Drool. Oven set to 400 for one length of an episode of TMNT from the 90s.

The next day, the leftovers paired nicely with a mushroom and pepper salad.

Animal-free Ginger Snaps

I made cookies, enough for five people. I tried one. It was very good. Hubby had one. Dad took the rest when he was leaving. So ... Good sign?

Heaven on a Tortilla Chip, Roasted Eggplant Dip

Eggplant. I love it. On pizza, eggplant parm (back in the Olde Times of Vegetarianism), grilled, deep-fried (Merci, Montreal!). The other night, I turned it into a dip. If I could pick an emoticon right now, it would be a happy yet tearful face.

Weapons of tasty destruction.

Destemmed the tomato and pierced the eggplant so it wouldn't explode. Put them both in the oven for about 40 minutes (first 10 minutes uncovered).

Still looks good ... after taking the skins off both, and chopping them, I added olive oil, lemon juice, 3 gloves of minced garlic, salt and rosemary. 

 This all went into the food processor. I left it overnight to meld the flavors, so lunch the next day was delicious dip with black bean tortilla chips. 10/10 would bang again.

Sexy, Salty Olive Tapenade

The only thing better than succulent olives is garlic-stuffed olives. With a little oil, lemon juice, pickled garlic and a food processor to chaperone.

Lovely rainbow. Don't even need a filter! 

It appears a hot pepper and some jalapeño found their way into this hot mess. 

Olives, post-coital.

Nine(ty) seconds later, a beautiful baby jar of tapenade. Highly recommended atop a salad or toasted bread.