We're back! Now with 100% more salad.

Oh my gosh ya'll - we're no longer living in an internet black hole and once again have high speed internet! So after a 2+ year hiatus Moore Food Please is back.  We're easing back into food blogging (as to not sprain anything), so tonight's recipe is a simple one that mostly consists of chopping and mixing. No hardcore cooking required.  

Chickpea Salad with Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette

Chickpea Salad:
15 oz can of chickpeas, rinsed & drained
1 cup corn
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 organic cucumber, peeled & diced
1 organic green bell pepper, diced
1/2 small red onion, finely diced 

Dressing:
3 T organic lime juice
zest of 2 organic limes
2 T extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp honey
1/8 tsp ground coriander
2 T fresh cilantro
Dressing recipe adapted from:  http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cilantro-Lime-Vinaigrette-103849


Instructions:

Wash and chop your veggies.  Put them in a big mixing bowl, like so.

Gather your dressing ingredients and put them in the blender.  Blend for about a minute or until the cilantro is minced.

Pour the dressing over the salad and mix.

Serve and enjoy!

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

Night two for Vegan With a Vengeance, with my first attempt at a curry. We made a few alterations to the recipe. First was using ground ginger since the fresh ginger we had wasn't so fresh any more. Second was using ground cardamom in place of cardamom pods, which our usual grocery store didn't seem to have. Upon spice testing toward the end of the cooking process, we added a little more curry powder as well as salt.

The dish was good, but a little more bland then the copious amounts of spice would suggest. My coworker of Indian heritage, told me today that she lives off of curry, so I'm hoping she can give me some good tips on uping the heat of the dish. In the future, we will definitely make sure we have some fresh ginger also more tomato and tomato juice. We give this one 3 out of 5 stars with high hopes of a better dish on the next attempt.

mustard seed and onion

 spices and tomato added

 cooking down the spinach

 simmer with the chickpeas

 we went with a bed of rice

more pictures here

Chickpea Cutlets with Mustard Sauce & Sesame Asparagus

Tonight was a triple Isa night!  We made Chickpea Cutlets in Mustard Sauce from Veganomicon and Sesame Asparagus from Vegan With a Vengeance.  I own and luuuuuuuv both of these cookbooks and I'm seriously coveting her cupcake and brunch book too.  Despite Zack's attempt to burn down the house, dinner turned out yummy and mostly flame free.

The cutlets were easy to make.  Zack had a lot of fun smooshing the chickpeas with our muddler.  I kneaded the mash into the wheat gluten and seasoning and smooshed them into 4 thin patties (the thinner they are, the crispier they turn out).  I thought that the mustard sauce was a nice tangy complement.  Zack could have lived without the capers in the sauce.  As always, there were a few substitution.  I used bottled lemon juice in place of lemon zest and subbed leftover Panko bread crumbs instead of the standard variety.  I think the Panko caused the cutlets to fall apart a bit.

After initially smoking up the house, Zack made the asparagus.  He cooked it perfectly so that it was still slightly crunchy.  This recipe was delicious but hot as all hell!  It called for 1 tsp of red pepper flake.  We're both fans of spicy food, but this was toooo much!  Next time we're sticking with 1/2 tsp.

Overall, we give this dinner four stars.  We'll definitely make it again in the future.

vampire inoculation

the smooshing part was fun

 forming the cutlets

more smooshing

cast iron skillets are awesome

 spicy asparagus

the yummy results

more here