Low Bowl #11

 

Sometimes when I'm cooking, I feel I've crossed over into uber vegan territory. This is one of those times. But what I made was amazing! First, I have a salad inspired by one I found online, but for which I didn't have all the ingredients and therefore just plunged ahead on my own theories (see more on this below); a little cup of avocado mashed with lime juice, salt, pepper, and parsley; some millet/seed/oat/veggie patties (recipe from Bianca Zapatka), and a couple of vegan kebabs I found in a local grocery store's frozen section.

Of all the things here, the kebabs were the least interesting. I will try pan frying them next time rather than giving them the toaster oven treatment and see if that helps matters, because they were a bit dry and tough this way. The instructions didn't specify oven temperature, just "medium," so maybe I had it too hot? I don't know.

The patties were what had me giggling over how vegan I am now, because they involve so many different things I rarely or never kept on hand before I was vegan--millet, plain rolled oats, sunflower seeds, nutritional yeast, pine nuts, flax seeds... Who am I? But they were yummy, especially with that avocado on top. I love millet, but I am trying to use what I have up as part of my seemingly endless using-stuff-up quest. (Okay, it's slowed down a bit, but I am really trying not to just have stuff around and not use it. And I am at least learning what are staples and what need to be used and not replaced unless purchased for a specific purpose. Millet is not a staple, as much as I love it.)

The salad may be one of my favorite improvisations ever! I blanched some broccoli and had that in a salad of mango, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and scallions in a creamy poppy seed dressing. Sound weird? Maybe, but it was delicious. Plus, mango is in season, so the mango was absolutely heavenly.

On the using it up front, I am out of pine nuts and nearly out of sunflower seeds. I do not know whether I feel I can be without either in the long term, but I may try to just not have them around for a few months to see.