What I Ate Last Week

So I'm a little behind posting a few dishes. I don't like to include too many meals in one post, so I saved a few of last week's eats to post tonight. I worked on my BBQ Black-Eyed Pea Burger recipe for the cookbook last Tuesday:

That's Tofutti cheeze atop my burger and a homemade pickle on the side. The burger still needs work though. This is the second time I've experimented with a black-eyed pea burger, but I think I'm using too much gluten flour. I like to add a little gluten to help the burger stay together, but the gluten flavor actually overwhelms this burger. I mean, don't get me wrong, it tastes good. But I feel like it needs to be just a tad tastier to be included in my cookbook.

Instead of my usual chips or fries with burgers, I made Boiled Squash and Onions to eat on the side:

My mom used to make this all the time when I was a kid, and though boiling often zaps the flavor of veggies, it does something magical to squash. I simply boiled 3 or 4 sliced summer squash in water with minced onion, salt, pepper, and a generous pat of Earth Balance. Then I seasoned the squash with Cavendar's Greek Seasoning and green hot sauce on my plate.

I also made a deeeeelicious recipe from The Vegan Table last week — the Penne Pasta with Fresh Veggies:

The recipe calls for quite a few veggies — broccoli, red bell peppers, spinach, squash, olives, and fire-roasted tomatoes — tossed with whole wheat penne pasta. And it also calls for vegetarian sausage. The recipe recommends using Tofurkey sausages, but I opted for Trader Joe's Soy Chorizo. Though the chorizo sausage was crumbly and not sliced, it really added a tasty element to this fresh summer dish.

Also, if ya'll saw my last post about MixMyGranola, you should know that the French vanilla granola base I chose is apparently not vegan. Boo hiss! Tanuki.gao commented on that post that I should check the ingredients on the company's website, and sure enough, it contains honey and whey. But all the other granola bases they offer are vegan! I should have checked that out first. Oh well, I'll finish what I have because I don't like to waste. But next time, I'm gonna pick a different granola base.