Vegan Eggplant Parmigiana

So, first off, this isn't actually vegan, although it should've been. I was lazy and used an egg to batter the eggplant - that's just common sense. If you have an egg, use the egg. But more importantly (and disgustingly) I used these leftover bread crumbs I had in the cupboard and after I made it I regretted using them, and am glad they're not in my house anymore. According to the label... they're yuck. But whatever, I used them. It is fine. Not vegan.
So basically what I'm saying is that I made cheese-free eggplant parmigiana. It was good, cheese isn't necessary when you have deliciously fried eggplant.
Second piece of honesty... The only reason I didn't put cheese on the eggplant was because I only have cheddar, and I had too much of it with crackers as a pre-dinner snack. So I wasn't interested in more cheese, and it is just fried eggplant with red lentil pasta sauce.

Eggplant:
1 egg
1/2 eggplant
breadcrumbs
olive oil
Baking pan

Get your breadcrumbs ready in a shallow bowl, in another shallow bowl whisk your egg a bit with a fork. Spray the bottom of your baking pan with copious amounts of olive oil, and preheat the oven to 400. Dip the eggplant into egg then breadcrumbs, place on baking sheet. Spray with more olive oil before putting it into the oven - bake until the tops start to look brown and flip (the bottoms are likely darker) and bake a few more minutes

Eat with fresh cooked pasta and fresh pasta sauce - I can't find any posts about puttanesca, so I guess I'll have to make it again and post the recipe.

Red Curry Tempeh

I finally remembered to use the cilantro I bought as a garnish. A lot of it, since I have so much. The open bottle of red curry paste that I had in my fridge was pretty old - I ended up using all of it, and it still wasn't spicy enough - you can see the heavy dose of sriracha I added to pump it up. I think if you're using a fresher jar of curry, it'll be deliciously spicy.


1/3 block of tempeh
2 oz onion
1 red pepper
1/2 eggplant
3 oz cooked rice
1/2 c coconut milk (up to a half can)
Red curry paste to taste (2 t to start)
cilantro to garnish


Fry the tempeh and onions and add the red peppers, stir for just a few seconds, then add the eggplant and coconut milk. If you are using pre-cooked rice (as I did - I cooked extra rice earlier in the week knowing I'd need it for this and one other recipe) then add it towards the end, and a bit of water so that the rice rehydrates and reaches a suitable temperature with the coconut curry sauce. If you're making rice for this dish specifically, spoon the sauce and vegetables over it.
Delicious.

Pad See Ew

I overcooked the rice noodles. There are a couple of brands of noodles and they all need to be treated differently and I hadn't used these in awhile. So, read the instructions on your rice noodles! And follow them! Well... kind of follow them. When stir-frying noodles, you want to make sure that they've still got bite to them when you throw them in your stir-fry, otherwise they turn into a soggy mess and break apart. If they're perfect, they'll cook the sauce in perfectly and maybe even get brown on the outsides. My favorite noodles are the fresh wide noodles you can find in Asian markets, I just don't go to the Asian market often enough, and have settled for the dried Pad Thai noodles they sell at my local co-op.

I made this for 2. I made it exactly how I make Drunkard's Noodles, only no tomatoes, and I threw in rice vinegar to taste instead. I used red onion, red pepper, one cherry bomb pepper, and frozen broccoli.

Thai Carrot Soup

Most carrot soups are pureed - including the recipe for this one - but I don't like pureed soups so much. My nephew love coconut and peanut butter so he should like it, but probably would rather just eat his carrots separate from his coconut cream separate from his peanut butter. I intentionally undercooked it, so the carrots would have more bite, but I think I should've left it for another couple minutes. It is pretty rich, I could've reduced either the amount of coconut milk or peanut butter and it would've been just fine. Or, leave out the peanut butter and instead garnish with peanuts. I like that it doesn't remind me of my favorite peanut soup - it is something different.

2 t coconut oil
1.5 oz chopped onion
4 oz frozen shredded carrots
1/2 c water
1/2 c coconut milk
1 T peanut butter
Sriracha to taste
salt to taste

heat the onion in the oil, add the carrots and cook until defrosted, pour in the water and milk, bring to a boil, reduce and simmer for a few minutes until carrots are a little done, add peanut butter, and sriracha to taste.

Yellow Broth

The main ingredient is steel cut oats. I love steel cut oats. Apparently it is a traditional Irish soup. It was actually more yellow than I thought it would be. I'm still torn on whether I even liked this? Or, if I would make it again? And if I do, what will I do differently? But I ate it. Quickly. And enjoyed it thoroughly. It is thicker than most soups I make because of the oatmeal. I put in too much salt, but that might've made it even more delicious.

2 t butter
2 oz each - onion, celery, carrots
2 t flour
1 c water + veg broth powder to make veg broth (I used too much)
1 T steel cut oats
1/2 c spinach, chopped.

Heath the vegetables (except spinach) in butter until soft, add flour, cook for a minute, add broth and oats, bring to boil then lower heat and cook on low for about 15 or 20 minutes, add spinach and cook until spinach is desired texture.

Blueberry Pie

I mentioned I made a blueberry pie, so thought I'd share a picture. I don't really use a recipe for fruit pies, just guidelines. Blueberries need lemon or they just taste too bland - it is just sweetness, they don't have their own tartness (like cherries - cherries are my favorite, I don't add anything.)

Always my pie crust recipe:
1 3/4 c flour
1 t salt
1/2 c olive oil
3 T ice water

What actually went into my Blueberry Pie Filling:
Enough blueberries to fit into the pie crust (I had too many, as you can see it in the finished photo of pie - it ran all over! But I went for it, no regrets.)
1 lemon, juice and zest
Maple Syrup or Honey to taste (I literally just squeezed sweetener in, stirred, and thought it was probably OK, but then worried about it so made a caramel sauce.)
Sprinkle in some tapioca (my go-to pie thickener)

I like tapioca as a thickener, but I'm out now, so I'll probably use arrowroot until I run out of that.

Fig Jam

Making sweet things to put on toast without refined sugar:
Figs, dates, and lemon. My second batch had a slightly higher date-to-fig ratio, but I love the crunchy fig seeds, so I prefer this one:

4 oz dates
8 oz figs
2 T lemon juice
1/2 t lemon zest
1 c water

Boil figs for 10 minutes, replace figs in water with dates and let them soak for ten minutes, blend everything together with an immersion blender.
Alternatively, just slow cook into jam.
Jar and process in pressure cooker canning cycle for 10 minutes, check to make sure they sealed.
I made a quadruple batch and will have fig jam forever.