Vegetarian Meals Part 2 (Photo Heavy)

A couple more pics! One is healthy and the other is umm... well, it's delicious

A reduced calorie lasagna (324 cals for 1/4 of the pan) at the request of my boyfriend. I alternated thinly sliced grilled squash with lasagna noodles so I needed less pasta. Made a vegetarian "meat" sauce for it. Turned out awesome.



My best friend's 30th birthday was yesterday and when I asked him what kind of cake he wanted he made a somewhat sarcastic response of "a chocolate cake covered in ganache with a creme brulee embedded in the middle". I decided to run with the idea and came up with these bad boys. It's a chocolate cupcake filled with dark chocolate ganache topped with a vanilla custard and salted caramel frosting, then garnished with caramelized sugar shards and spun sugar spirals. I haven't input the recipe into MFP yet but I estimate them to be around 45,268 calories a piece.

Unfortunately the place where I normally take my food pics was taken over by my boyfriend, so I've had to shoot several photos outside. Here are my last two dinners:

Baked portobello mushrooms stuffed with leftover vegetarian chicken enchilada filling on a farro salad:



Tofu and vegetable stir fry in a spicy peanut sauce:

It was great and easy to make

Orange cherry polenta breakfast cake for a Sunday morning:



Bean and chipotle cheddar enchiladas with avocado (terrible pic - boo)

Thanks, everyone! Seeing all of this positive feedback really inspires me to update my blog again. I tend to fall behind on it because I feel like nobody cares about my silly food, haha. Whenever I hear someone propose the idea of me releasing a cookbook it makes me feel like maybe I'm wrong, and that people really are interested.

Dinner a couple of nights ago - asparagus and green pea risotto - turned out amazing. Could be made vegan by swapping in olive oil for the butter and either omitting the parmesan or submitting a bit of nutritional yeast. Risotto doesn't get it's creaminess from the cheese and there is only 1/4 cup in the recipe - so leaving it out shouldn't have a big impact. I used 3 tablespoons of butter in this recipe, which is a little on the high side, but I think you could easily reduce it to one. Just cook the onions and rice in the butter and then steam or roast the veggies, and skip adding the extra tablespoon of butter at the end.

1/5 of the recipe was 395 calories. We ate it along side the caprese salad, but if you're not eating anything else a more filling dinner portion would probably be 1/4 of the recipe (494) calories.





Process: I cooked about 1/2 a small onion and 3 cloves of minced garlic in a tablespoon of butter then stirred in 1 1/2 cups of arborio rice. After a couple of minutes I added 1/4 cup of white wine and stirred until absorbed. This is the beginning of the process that most people hate about making risotto, but it's really not so bad. Add in 1/4 cup of warm, prepared vegetable stock every time the previous batch is absorbed into the rice. I would say I ended up using 4 cups of stock, but I had 6 cups on hand just in case. Stir often for ultra starchy goodness. In another pan I cooked about 2 cups of chopped asparagus in a little butter - not too soft, leaving it green with a little bit of crunch. I turned off the heat and added in 1 cup of frozen green peas - the residual warmth of the asparagus will thaw them and the chill of the peas will stop the asparagus from overcooking. It works out nicely. When the risotto is finished (taste for doneness, it will be creamy but still al dente) stir in a tablespoon of butter, 1/4 cup of grated parmesan, the cooked veggies, 1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley, 1/2 cup of toasted walnuts, a generous crackling of fresh black pepper, possibly some salt depending on the sodium level of your stock, and if you like (i do!) a bit of fresh grated nutmeg. Traditional risotto is usually a bit "soupier" than this, in which case you could always add a little more stock than I did - but the guys preferred eating it in this style.