Tag: Dinner

Moosewood

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Since the lovely fella is leaving tomorrow 😦 we decided to go on a “hot date.”  So in a foodie’s life that means go out to a great restaurant.  We decided on Moosewood because I’ve been obsessing over it heard it’s delicious.  You may have heard of Moosewood because of their cookbooks.  Moosewood is a collectively-owned, vegetarian restaurant and pretty much an Ithaca landmark.  Their menu changes daily and most items have the option of being vegan as well (i.e. omitting cheese)

Dinner was pretty delicious.

I started with a glass of wine, the lovely fella got an Ithaca Pale Ale while perusing the menu.  Both were delicious

Then came the house salads.  Oh my goodness.  This salad was probably the best part of the entire meal!  I got the Lemon-Tahini dressing.  It was fantastic!  I’m going to try to recreate it ASAP!  The lovely fella got the house dressing, which was a creamy spinach-basil dressing.  It was equally delicious.  I can’t decide which one I liked better.

As my entree, I got the Savannah Stew (Sweet potatoes, kale, green beans, celery, bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes simmered with Old Bay seasoning, lemon and thyme, topped with cheddar cheese (opt.) and  served with freshly baked scallion cornbread (v))  That is the menu description.  The (v) means vegan.  I got the cheese on top so it was not completely vegan.

Oh man!  This was one of the best stews I’ve ever had!  It was so flavorful and hearty!

The lovely fella got the Roasted Vegetable Lasagna (Layers of lasagna noodles, roasted portabello and white mushrooms, eggplant and zucchini, whipped (local organic Ithaca Soy) tofu “ricotta”, baked in a savory tomato-basil wine sauce;
topped with mozzarella cheese (opt.)).  He liked his, but I wasn’t a fan.  The tofu was really bland (as tofu generally is) and slightly bitter.  Sure glad he liked it!  The lasagna minus the tofu was great!  Here he is with his dinner 🙂

Then of course came dessert.  The menu said there was carrot cake, so we ordered that.  However, the waiter let us know this is was actually banana cake!  I was instantly sold, as I am a banana fiend.

Honestly, it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had (on that note, the best Banana Cake I’ve ever had was in the Azores, Portuguese Islands, I studied abroad in Portugal and seriously I still dream about that cake).  The frosting was a little too sweet and the cake was kind of dense.

That being said it was still tasty and greatly appreciated!

Overall, Moosewood was pretty good and I recommend it to anyone in the Ithaca area.

Also, tonight was the first time I felt like a food blogger haha.  I took pictures of everything.  I lugged the big camera.  It was less nerve wracking than I thought it would be and now I’m glad to have the pictures.  So if you hesitate at all to take pictures in public, don’t!

Now I’m stuffed and off to either work on a project or watch a movie.  I can’t decide… I have a feeling it’ll be the movie since the lovely fella is leaving tomorrow 😦

Goodnight!

Portabella Stuffed with Quinoa, Apples and Cranberries

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Since as earlier mentioned, lunch was ridiculously boring.  I tried to get a little creative with dinner.

First, I cooked some Portabella Mushrooms in a pan with some salt, pepper and olive oil.  To prevent them from sticking and burning I added a little bit of brine from my artichokes since I was out of vegetable broth.

Then I put those aside, sauteed some apples, added some cooked quinoa and dried cranberries.  I cooked those together for a few minutes with some apple cider for moisture (you could probably use juice or water too).

Then I piled the mixture onto the Portabella and enjoyed!

The lovely fella decided to add some shredded mozzarella to his.

Quick and Easy!  Pretty Tasty too!

December Recipe Challenge: Vegetarian Borscht

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Today is day 1 of the December Recipe Challenge.

Since it was snowing when I went to class this morning, I decided upon something hot, delicious and FULL OF VEGETABLES!

I came across this recipe a few days ago and was instantly inspired!

Vegetarian Borscht

Inspired by Mostly Soup
1 Small Onion
1 tsp minced garlic (2 cloves)
1 Pound Beets (peeled and shredded)
1/2 lb carrots (shredded)
1 medium potato
1/2 cabbage (thinly sliced)
2 tbsp Olive Oil
4 cups of vegetable broth
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Lemon
Sour Cream (optional)

Gather all your ingredients:

Wash your veggies, peel your beets…

Use a handy dandy food processor to easily shred everything

Then heat the oil, add the onions and garlic with some salt and pepper.  Sautee them for about 2 minutes.

Add the beets, carrots, and potato.  Cook for about 5 minutes.  In the mean time, heat up your vegetable broth.  When you slice your cabbage, don’t use a crappy knife… it sucks.

Add the vegetable broth and cabbage.  Simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Then add the juice of 1 lemon.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream and enjoy!  I had it with a slice of pumpernickel toast!  Mmm!

That was super fun to make!  It also helped that the lovely fella was there to take pictures and do the dishes!  I can’t wait to make another fun/healthy recipe!

What do you like to have on a cold day?

Anyone else make an exciting new recipe?

Vegan for a Day Continued…

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Today was ridiculously busy so I really didn’t even have time to think of food.  I had class from 9am until 3pm then I stayed in the computer lab and worked on my statistics stuff (I probably ran 67892038666 regressions today! Ahh!)  Luckily my lunch and snacks held me over pretty well and it was all vegan!

Then I came home and raided the fridge for something to have for dinner.  In my desperation, I didn’t get too creative tonight 😦  I had left over Coconut Curry from a few nights ago (didn’t realize then that it was in fact vegan) with some quinoa and broccolli.

As I was waiting for the quinoa to cook (only 15 minutes!  Woo!), I had a little bit of an appetizer: some artichoke hearts

I love artichokes!  Whenever I walk past the artichoke/pickle/olive section of any super market, I instantly start to salivate!  Weird, right?  Does that happen to anyone else?

The quinoa really was the star of my meal this evening.

It really is delicious and nutritious.    The only thing I hate is having to rinse it.  I have an itty bitty strainer so I can only do about 2 tbsp at a time.  It’s a pain in the butt… I guess I could invest in a larger strainer right?…

Dinner was pretty darn delicious. I’m thinking maybe I’ll have a baked apple for dessert 🙂

Overall, I think my one day vegan experience has been good.  However, I think a lot of this was that I had an extremely busy day.  Things could have potentially gone the other way had I been sitting home all day (since I usually get the munchies when I’m home for too long trying to get work done).  I definitely think I’d like to try this again.  I’m not saying I’m ready to become a vegan but it’s definitely something I could consider transitioning in to.

Did anyone else try the Vegan for a Day Challenge?  Or are you vegan?  Your thoughts?

Anyway, I’m off to finish my self evaluation, start a paper, work on stats project and formulate my next post about food security!  If there’s anything you’d like to know about in particular, please let me know!  Have a great night everyone!