I thought I'd give you a list of what I have and see if you can make any brilliant suggestions. The produce includes this week's CSA share, leftovers from previous weeks (spuds & onions keep well), and what's ripe from the garden. Staples such as beans, rice, and wheat are also on hand, as well as a variety of home-canned condiments (example of typical condiments). Remember, we eat strict vegetarian dishes only with no meat, dairy, or eggs. I also do not cook or make food with added oil. Other than those restrictions, give me your best ideas!
1 butternut squash
1 sweet potato
some red potatoes
onions
2 small bell peppers
6 fresh chile peppers
hot peppers (garden)
a few tomatoes, a couple still green (CSA & garden)
huge Armenian cucumber (FYI: not a fan of cooked cucumber...)
1 bitter melon
yellow watermelon
1 pear - 2nd one mixed in with homemade applesauce
salvaged bananas
Here's the meal I put together last night. The faux cheesy sauce incorporated half of a cooked sweet potato and was tossed with plain ol' elbow macaroni. I toasted the last bread crumbs in a small pan for a crunchy topping.The side dish was delicious. I started out by sauteing an onion, a fresh chile, and a purple cayenne from the garden. Then I added the one long bean from the garden. After it was tender, I put in the other half of the cooked sweet potato and a diced tomato. Stirred this for a minute or two and then turned off the heat. Some Malabar spinach from the garden was added last just to wilt it a bit. Salt and pepper was the only seasoning.
Hit me with your best menu suggestions! So that you can see what I actually do with the food, I promise to post all my meals on my food blog this week. Feel free to check over there to see what I'm eating.
Edited to Add: One more restriction is that I can't go shopping for ingredients I don't have on hand due to my ridiculous challenge. Obviously you don't know everything I have on hand, but figure everything has to be made from scratch. As a friend told me this morning, "If you would practice a little more moderation, you wouldn't get yourself into these kinds of binds."
Sunday's meals
Monday's meals
Tuesday & Wednesday's meals
Thursday's meals
15 comments:
What about roasting some of the veggies (potato, onion, eggplant, tomato) and stuffing a pita with them? You could drizzle with a vinegar-basil dressing ... or you could make a cucumber dressing to drizzle over it all.
I'm making applesauce bread right now, because ... because I wanted pumpkin bread, but I didn't feel like cleaning and cooking the pumpkins and so I took the easy way out ;). You could make applesauce with the old apples, and I don't know how you feel about potato pancakes, but I think Latkes and applesauce are just divine ;).
I have to say that I completely admire your dietary choice. You're keeping it local AND vegan, and I think that's quite a feat. It's very interesting following your progress in this area, because I convinced myself that it was not possible to be "vegan" in my climate on an "all" local diet, but you're challenging that belief ....
And I love a good challenge ;).
You know me - the lazy cook. I'm going with stir fry and a fruit salad :)
Chile, Is the list of things you have there all from your CSA for one week or two weeks? seems like a lot of food!
I don't really have any suggestions except I just love reaosted veggies with some olive oil that was drizzled over them before they were roasted.
Peace to all,
shamba
Wendy - I like the latke and applesauce idea. I've gathered a couple of vegan potato latke recipes to try. I don't have any pitas, so that would mean baking some. Not sure I'll have time this week, but I do like roasted veggies all by themselves.
Glad I am inspiring you!
Heather - I figured somebody would suggest fruit salad. Should have known I could count on you for a stirfry, too. :)
I was thinking maybe a curry with the eggplant, bell pepper, and sweet potato (or maybe the squash).
Shamba - I went back and clarified in the post that the produce includes this week's CSA share, leftovers from previous weeks, and the garden.
We typically get 8 items in the CSA share. (This week was a butternut squash, 4 red potaotes, 6 chiles, 2 small bell peppers, 1 Armenian cucumber, fresh pistachio nuts, 2 pears, and a melon.)
Roasted veggies are good, too. Baba ganouj sounds good with the eggplant. Ack! How will I ever decide?!
What about butternut squash ravioli using wanton wrappers? (Not sure what's in the wrappers, but it's worth considering.) Very easy to make!
Robbie - I don't have any wonton wrappers, but I just got a great idea. One of the dishes our CSA chef made at this week's cooking demo was butternut squash with adobo sauce. Since the squash paired with with a spicy sauce, I'm thinking it would also be really good with Lizano sauce! And I do have the ingredients to make Tico rice and some black beans.
I see ratatouille. I know I've seen a recipe for it on fat free vegan before, so an oil free version must be possible.
You could do a hash with some of the starchy vegetables, assuming that can be done without oil.
SOUP!!!!!
Yummy, especially with sweet potatoes and suchlike.
I just shove anything in with a good veggie stock. Seems to work every time, and I'm no brilliant cook.
Serve with some homemade or locally-made crusty bread, and you're on a winner.
It looks like you already have a meal for your butternut but if you get one next week you might think about butternut squash soup. The one I make calls for a butternut, onion, veg broth, bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Cook till veggies are fork tender and blend. My recipe calls for some milk at the end but I bet you could come up with a substitute. Have also added an apple to this but didn't like it as much, to sweet.
Mr. Beany has been making diner style homefries with potatoes, peppers and onions. So incredibly yummy and so much better than the diner variety.
I second Heather..stirfries. Add some asian style hotsauce and mmmmmmm...Heaven.
The okra makes me think of Jambalaya and you could make a meatless version with a rice base and a rich mix of tomatoes, onions, peppers sauted together and spiced with cumin, red pepper and file' powder, add okra cut into small pieces near the end.
Uhm... Okay, I'm not entirely sure how you define "no added oil," so just take what I say w/ a grain of salt.
For the bananas, I'm becoming a huge fan of banana nut muffins. I'm thinking you could look for a recipe that uses apple sauce in place of oil, thereby using up some of the apple sauce AND not having added oil.
For the sweet potatoes and/or the squash, I would say to cube and roast it (with oil, or you could braise it in veggie broth) and toss it with a tiny bit of sage, pasta and uhm... is there a vegan butter replacement? I usually toss it all w/ butter and a little cheese, but I don't know how you'd veganise that.
Potato salad! You could do it French style, w/ uh... oil and freshly chopped herbs. Or a vegan version of mayo for a more American style potato salad (which, btw, uses up some bell pepper as well, and you could make it spicy w/ a chile).
Cucumber, tomato, onion and bell pepper tossed together in a light vinaigrette, which I usually make w/ lemon juice, oil (god, I am so embarrassed to see how much oil I really use, though admittedly it's primarily olive oil), marjoram or regular oregano, salt, pepper and if you have it, some sumac. You also could toss a minced chile in that.
Alternately, you can make pico de gallo.
Eggplant, I recommend baba ganoush. Or eggplant cubed sauteed and added to beans and rice. Also would be lovely w/ chile added. Er, I guess you're using that for gumbo, but if not, it's a thought.
Also, if you don't use the okra for gumbo, I would just like to tell you how wonderful okra is stewed in tomatoes.
The bitter melon I know nothing about, so can't really help you there.
The watermelon could be used just plain and delicious, or you could puree it for a chilled soup, or toss it with some lemon juice and mint which is always lovely. I'm assuming you've got some friends growing citrus currently, so perhaps you can score an orange to add to it? Add the pear to that too and you'll have a nice fruit salad (sometimes I put cucumber in fruit salad too).
Oh, and make apple butter w/ the remaining apple sauce. That'll be nice for any bread or scones you might bake.
Sorry I'm late to the party on this one, but I figure even if it doesn't help for this CSA share, your stuff will likely be similar over the next little while so maybe it'll help for later.
Thanks for all the help, everyone. Want to do it again?
You bet! Bring it on!
Most certainly! Sometimes these things are a lot easier w/ fresh eyes, huh?
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